Month: April 2021

We Want You Out

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Variety‘s Matt Donnelly and Brent Lang are reporting that Searchlight co-chairpersons Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula are “retiring” — i.e., have been shown the door by Disney management.

Another way to put it is that Gilula and Utley have been whacked like Joe Pesci‘s “Tommy” in Goodfellas. Disney management comment: “And that’s that. We had a problem, and there wasn’t nothin’ we could do about it.”

Gilula-Utley will be replaced by David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield, who are now co-presidents. They will report to Disney Studios Content chairman Alan Bergman and chief creative officer Alan Horn. Disney purchased Searchlight as part of its 2019 deal for the Murdoch family’s entertainment assets.

Excerpt from 1.14.20 interview with Gilula by Box Office Plus‘s Kevin Lally:

Intro: Much of the credit for Fox Searchlight’s remarkable performance must go to Gilula and Utley, co-chairmen of the studio since July 2018. Twenty-year veterans of the company, they were named presidents in 2009, succeeding Peter Rice, who took the helm in 2000. Now they’ve entered a new era with Disney’s acquisition of Fox this past March. Gilula, a former exhibitor who co-founded Landmark Theatres, recently took time out of his busy schedule to talk about Searchlight’s latest chapter and its highly successful run.

Lally: Here we are, nine months into the merger with Disney. Can you give me a status report on how things are going and what has changed?

Gilula: Well, the status report is all signs are really positive. It’s been really quite good. At a top-line level, as far as the kinds of movies we’re making and acquiring and how we’re releasing them, there’s a hundred percent unequivocal support. What was represented to us in the year-plus before the deal closed has all come true—everything that Disney indicated that they liked about Searchlight they want us to continue.”

HE comment: Either things suddenly changed or Gilula, not surprisingly, was wearing a “political” hat when he spoke to Lally.

Gilula: On the practical side, the logistical and organizational side, as with any merger we’re working through all the bureaucratic and administrative things in terms of policies that we operate under. But the core business of the kinds of movies we make, how we release them, and what our campaigns are, we have full support and we continue to have the same independence that we had under Fox. So that’s been fantastic.”

HE comment: I think it’s fantastic that things were so “fantastic” 14 months ago.

Bergman and Horn statement to Variety about the booting of Gillula and Utley: “Thanks to the stewardship and pitch-perfect creative instincts of Steve Gilula and Nancy Utley, Searchlight has cemented itself as one of the finest film studios in history, and we commend and thank them for their incredible leadership, especially throughout the integration of Searchlight at Disney. They are leaving the studio in the talented hands of Matthew Greenfield and David Greenbaum, who have been a critical part of Searchlight’s success over many years and we’re confident they will continue to set a course that keeps Searchlight on the industry’s leading edge.”

HE comment: Whatever prompted Disney to eject Giulula and Utley, Bergman and Horn aren’t inclined to share at this point in time. They felt a certain rapport with Greenfield and Greenbaum that was lacking with Gilula-Utley?

Respected, Thoughtful, Mild-Mannered

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Walter Mondale, the moderately liberal Minnesota Senator (’64 to ’76) who served as Jimmy Carter‘s vp (’77 to ’81) and who was severely trounced by Ronald Reagan in the ’84 presidential election, has passed at age 93.

Soundbite-wise, Mondale is probably best known for undermining Gary Hart‘s 1984 presidential primary campaign with that famous “where’s the beef?” line.

Mondale also made history that year by selecting Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate — the first woman to run for the vice presidency.

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Green and Peachy Beige

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The Bluray of Warner Archives’ 4K restoration of Michael Curtiz‘s Doctor X (’32), which will arrive on 4.20, has both the two-color and the black-and-white versions, which were filmed separately. It stars Lionel Atwill in the title role (actual name: Xavier), pre-King Kong Fay Wray and Lee Tracy as a snappy news reporter.

WhySoBlu review, 4.8.21: “The amount of work they have gone [through] to give this film new life is fairly astounding. Check out the featurette on restoring it for all the nifty details and examples. It has a painterly quality. Details are strong as can be given the age and type of film process.

“The monochrome version also features an impressive restoration with good details and crisp image.”

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Ohh, Them Gold Derby Instincts

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There are 26 Gold Derby Oscar “experts”…experts, I should add, who know absolutely nothing except for the intriguing bouquet of their own anal cavities and the wing-flapping sound of flying pigs when they try to divine which nominees might prevail.

Okay, they’re almost certainly correct in predicting that the late Chadwick Boseman will win the Best Actor Oscar…fine.

As you might expect, their Best Picture predictions are all over the map. (Which may reflect Academy sentiments also.) 14 are predicting the triumph of Nomadland, 8 are predicting victory for The Trial of the Chicago 7, 3 are predicting Minari (not a chance in hell!) and one (Chris Rosen) is predicting that Promising Young Woman will take the prize.

For what it’s worth, Carey Mulligan reigns supreme when it comes Gold Derby predictions about the Best Actress race. 12 experts are siding with the star of Promising Young Woman, 7 are standing behind Ma Rainey‘s Viola Davis, 5 are predicting victory for The United States vs, Billie Holiday‘s Andra Day, and 2 are predicting a Best Actress trophy for Nomadland‘s Frances McDormand (her third if she wins).

In the Best Supporting Actress category all but three are predicting victory for Minari‘s Yuh-Jung Youn. In the Best Supporting Actor realm it’s Judas and the Black Messiah‘s Daniel Kaluuya, Daniel Kaluuya, Daniel Kaluuya, Daniel Kaluuya, Daniel Kaluuya, etc.

Remember Disco “Homophobia”?

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When the anti-disco revolt began in the spring of ’79, advocates were derided as both homophobic and racist. If you wore a “Death to Disco” T-shirt…if you liked The Who‘s “Sister Disco” or Bob Seger‘s “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll,” you were behind the curve and maybe a chip off the old asshole block**.

I explicitly recall my friend Stuart Byron, an “out” Village Voice columnist who later worked for producer Ray Stark, telling me to my face that I’d be wise to keep my loathing of disco under wraps lest I sound like a homophobe.

40-plus years later the disco haters have been totally vindicated by history and the tradition of good musical taste, and nobody even alludes to homophobia as any kind of lingering undercurrent.

This hasn’t stopped today’s reverse-racist wokesters from using the same bullshit against anyone who doesn’t fall into line in the movie realm. If you dare to apply seasoned judgment in the assessing of this or that film that happens to be POC-focused…if, say, you’re a devout admirer of Lakeith Stanfield‘s performance in Judas and the Black Messiah or Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave, Widows and Mangrove (as I am) but you have reservations about the late Chadwick Boseman winning the Best Actor Oscar for his “okay but no great shakes” Ma Rainey performance or Viola Davis‘s blustery, obviously supporting lip-synch fatsuit performance (as I do), you might have an attitude problem.

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Caviezel QAnon Fruitcake

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I first met and chatted with Jim Caviezel 22 and 1/2 years ago, during the press junket for Terrence Malick‘s The Thin Red Line (’98). (He played Witt, the lead character.) I sensed he was a conservative traditionalist, but also a decent, polite fellow. I liked him.

Lately, it seems, Caviezel has gone around the bend. Three nights ago (4.16) the 52 year-old actor, who played Yeshua in Mel Gibson‘s The Passion of the Christ (’04) was pushing child blood-harvesting adrenochrome QAnon bullshit at a lunatic COVID-19 conspiracy “health and freedom” conference in Oklahoma.

The first time I heard of adrenochrome was when Hunter S. Thompson wrote about dropping some on his tongue during his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

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In Memory of Bygone Screams

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Women scream when King Kong breaks free on a New York City stage. Joan Davis screams a lot in Hold That Ghost! Doris Day screams just before the Albert Hall assassination attempt in The Man Who Knew Too Much. At the end of Vertigo James Stewart asks Kim Novak “why did you scream?” during that fateful moment at the top of the San Juan Batista bell tower. A nameless woman in Some Like It Hot screams when Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon run across the lobby of the Seminole Ritz. Janet Leigh screams, of course, when the shower curtain is ripped aside in Psycho. One of the witches screams when a knife-wielding Mia Farrow enters the Castevet’s living room at the end of Rosemary’s Baby.

No doubt about it — there was a lot of female screaming going on in 20th Century movies. Which suggests there was some actual real-life, rip-roaring screaming going on from time to time. But you know what? For the most part female screaming was an invented dramatic device that had no abundant basis in fact, and perhaps not even an incidental basis.

In my entire life I heard a woman “scream” exactly once, and that was when I was two or three years old and my mother had opened the driver’s side door on a busy street and a passing car slammed into it and ripped the door off the hinges. And even that wasn’t really a scream — it was more like a frightened “oooggghhh!”

There was another moment on a LAX-to-JFK flight in ’02 or thereabouts that half-qualified. Our 757 jet hit a sizable air pocket and the plane plunged a couple of hundred feet in a twinkling, and a woman sitting next to me went “aawwwhhh!” — another gulpy moan.

When’s the last time a woman screamed in a movie? I can’t actually recall. 20 or 30 years ago? Longer?

I know that women “screaming” has definitely disappeared from the landscape. And that guys, oddly enough, have rushed in and taken their place. The last I heard anyone let go with a falsetto scream was when Lady Gaga‘s dog-walker, Ryan Fischer, was shot during that recent dognapping incident on Sierra Bonita Ave. The last time before that was when that Vietnamese doctor was dragged off that United flight in 2017.

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Swirling Rudin Clouds

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It’s no longer a matter of censure and condemnation — over the weekend an impression began to take hold that the goal of the burgeoning theatre-community movement against producer Scott Rudin is nothing less than career termination. They don’t want him chastised and repentant — they want him lashed, defrocked and gone.

Fairly or unfairly, this sentiment will probably be exacerbated by a video posted yesterday by David Graham-Caso that claims Rudin’s abuse of his late twin brother, Kevin Blake Graham-Caso, in late 2008 and ’09 while working for the producer was a significant factor in Kevin’s suicide last fall.**

DG-C: “You berated and demeaned, bullied and intimidated and harassed [Kevin] for eight solid months. It was so intense that he developed anxiety and depression and post-traumatic stress, and like many survivors of traumatic abuse, he soon found himself in another abusive relationship later on in his life. It was so intense that last October, he took his own life.”

From Greg Evans’ 4.18 Deadline story about the gathering punitive storm chasing producer Scott Rudin: “Actors’ Equity Association is calling on producer Scott Rudin, who ‘stepped back’ from his Broadway productions today in response to allegations of workplace abuse, to release employees from nondisclosure agreements.

“Earlier this week Equity, along with SAG-AFTRA and American Federation of Musicians Local 802, issued a joint statement condemning harassment, bullying and toxic environments and pledging ‘to hold accountable those who violate human and legal norms of fair, respectful and dignified conduct in the workplace.’ The statement did not specifically name Rudin.

“Some members of Equity have been calling upon the union to place Rudin on the ‘Do Not Work’ list, and have spread word on Instagram of a March on Broadway this Wednesday to protest Rudin as well as social justice issues related to the Broadway industry.”

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Not Hardcore Enough?

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From Dallas Morning News reporters Robert T. Garrett and Gromer Jeffers Jr.: Bolstered by favoring polls, Matthew McConaughey, who’s described himself as a mellow centrist, is apparently half-interested in replacing Greg Abbott as Texas’ next governor.

Excerpt: “If MM were to take the plunge and run for governor, the poll found, 45% of Texas registered voters would vote for McConaughey, 33% would vote for Abbott and 22% would vote for someone else.

“McConaughey’s double-digit lead over the two-term Republican incumbent is significant. The poll, conducted April 6-13, surveyed 1,126 registered voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.92 percentage points.

“56% of Republican voters said they’d vote for Abbott, compared with only 30% for McConaughey.

“While Democrats broke 66% to 8% for McConaughey, and independents 44% to 28%, more than twice as many Democratic primary voters — 51% — said they wanted a progressive candidate for governor than wanted a centrist — 25%.

“That could pose a problem. McConaughey, who has criticized both major parties, has suggested he’s more of a moderate.

“Some of the Trump supporters warm to celebrities, and that sentiment, along with the wishes of one-fifth of the primary electorate for a more moderate nominee, might open a lane in the GOP primary for McConaughey, said UT-Tyler political scientist Mark Owens, who directed the poll.

“McConaughey gets a huge boost from tremendous name recognition and recognition for what he does to help Texans and add to the celebration of the state’s successes,” Owens said. “Most of our survey respondents know his story, but many are waiting to see how he opens his next chapter.”

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Impersonation, I Presume

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This six-and-one-third-year-old TMZ post purportedly contains audio snippets of phone chats between Scott Rudin and former Sony honcho Amy Pascal. I only just heard it yesterday for the first time.

The post announces that the clips were captured as part of the November 2014 Sony Hack, but until somebody proves otherwise I’m assuming it’s actors reading scripted dialogue. It’s too SNL to be real.

It’s also very funny. Because it’s mostly about food (“Godawful sushi”, tacos, “a triple caramel Macchiato”, Butterfingers) and perspiration, bawling out an Uber driver, hating Splenda, etc.