Jeffrey Wells

Paolo Barzman‘s Emotional Arithmetic, a drama about three Holocaust survivors reuniting at a Canadian dinner party after 40 years apart, sounds moderately intriguing, especially with actors like Gabriel Byrne, Susan Sarandon, Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer costarring. All the better that Emotional Arithmetic will be the closing night film at the Toronto Film Festival.
But talk about a title that will grab each and every low-thread-counter in each and every city across the globe and say to them, “Don’t see this movie unless you know exactly what ’emotional arithmetic’ might specifically mean. Clearly, the use of this title indicates that we ourselves don’t know what it means, which is a way of saying the movie may be an art-house circle jerk. Lord knows, there is emotional arithmetic to be calculated when you order 99 cent cheesebugers at your local McDonalds — it’s a totally meaningless term.”

MCN’s David Poland has written a calm, intelligent, maturely reasoned assessment of the 20th Century Fox vs. online critics hoo-hah going on right now. It’s so calm, intelligent and maturely- reasoned that the sound and smell of the emotional elephant in the room is made even more palpable than if Poland had acknowledged its presence.
I heard a few minutes ago from a reputable online critic and commentator, and while I’m sure he would strive to put his thoughts together in a mature Poland-like manner if he were to address this issue in print, he has no problems with acknowledging the elephant in private. The piece I posted an hour or two ago is “on the right track,” he said. “Fox has declared war. We’ve been on the receiving end of this for a few years, and no one gave a shit because it was just us. Now that Fox is widening their attitude to everyone, people are now paying attention. Fox hates critics. Fox hates the press. Fox hates their audience. That is the truth.”
I don’t know if that’s altogether true, but I know that things have gotten emotional lately. Unduly and needlessly, I would add. I don’t wanna pickle. I just wanna ride on my motorsickle.

Rope of Silicon has posted photos of Tom Cruise‘s in-costume appearance as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, the German officer who led a failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944, in Bryan Singer‘s Valkyrie. And it was announced yesterday that the World War II drama has a release date — August 8, 2008.

I don’t know that it means anything one way or the other for the Cruise- Wagner United Artists to release a high-profile thriller in the beginning of the August dump season, but I’m sure this story will further the Paul Dergarabedian idea that old paradigms are changing and August is starting to become “the new June.”

My deep regrets over Sherman Torgan, owner and manager of the New Beverly Cinema, having unexpectedly passed yesterday — Wednesday, 7.19 — while bicycling in Santa Monica.

I was sent a letter this morning written by old Torgan friend and colleague Jeffrey Rosen, stating that “this is quite a shock being so unexpected. Plans are not yet finalized as to a funeral or a tribute. Any ideas or suggestions as to the latter would be greatly appreciated. I’m sure there are many who will miss Sherman.”
Rosen added that Sherman’s wife, Mary, and his son, Michael “do not yet know what will happen with the theater.” He wrote that he has “worked with Sherman at the theater since he opened it nearly 30 years ago. I worked as a projectionist there and helped program the theater over the decades. Michael has been helping his dad keep the theater going the past 10 years.”

20th Century Fox’s decision to withdraw a high-profile panel presentation out of Comic-Con (Wednesday, 7.25 to Sunday, 7.29) only a week before the San Diego convention begins seems more than just “sudden.” Suddenness always smacks of sturn und drang, and given recent Fox decisions concerning the online journo community it’s hard not to at least consider the implications.
Coming on the heels of (a) that Radar report about the Fox vs. CFCA confrontation, (b) the decision to keep onliners and other media types from seeing The Simpsons Movie until 7.26 (i.e., a day before the nationwide opening), and (c) a certain Fox publicist deciding to blast me off the Fox screening list yesterday for that mild little piece I wrote two days ago, Fox pulling out of Comic Con seems like another indication of a guarded, bordering-on-frosty attitude by Fox towards online journos and the film-geek community.
A major distributor with almost nothing but supermall popcorn geek movies to promote (Hitman with Timothy Olyphant, Doug Liman‘s forthcoming Jumper, an Aliens vs. Predator followup, a Vin Diesel actioner called Babylon A.D.) yanks a personal-appearance panel out of the biggest movie-geek convention on the planet seven days before it opens? This is business as usual? Do the math.
L.A. Times reporter Sheigh Crabtree wrote yesterday that Fox had “previously announced plans to promote its movies with a star-and filmmaker-studded panel next Friday in the main hall.” This is what has been cancelled — that much is clear. Comic-Con p./r. guy David Glanzer told me this morning that he was informed of the pull-out yesterday morning around 11 am.
There’s some confusion, though. Glanzer also told me that he expects Fox to still deliver a product reel presentation, and yet Fox national publicity vp Sean Dudas told Crabtree that the studio’s “material wasn’t ready and we only want to go out when we can put our best foot forward.” When Dudas says “material” I presume he’s not referring to talent but audio-visual elements…no? Crabtree reported that “the studio was reconsidering its position” and that execs are “still hoping to have some kind of ‘surprise’ for fans at the convention.”
She also wrote that given that “Paramount and DreamWorks, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., New Line, Lionsgate and others have announced star-filled panels, screenings, sneak peeks and major promotional events,” Fox’s “last-minute cancellation is something of an upset. An estimated 123,000 will be attending the convention.”
If Fox publicity was open to communicating and keeping the doors open, I would have naturally gotten in touch with them in order to include a possible comment. But they’re not picking up so I just ran it as is. If they want to add anything, it’s their call.

The plot thickens regarding that Alexander Payne-Jim Taylor script of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, which I reviewed yesterday. Payne had nothing to do with handing me the script, but wrote in to say thanks anyway. He added that “I think you didn’t read the actual version we turned in, which we called Flamers. The son Eric was an ice-skater in our version, not a dancer. Also did you not notice that one of them — either Chuck or Larry, I can’t remember — was scripted clearly as African-American? Other details too suggest that you were sent a rewrite of our rewrite…sigh. Anyway, thanks. We were also proud of our original script for Jurassic Park III as well.”

Australian director Richard Franklin, a very skilled and exacting craftsman who was best known for thrillers such as Roadgames (an excellent genre piece; reportedly a favorite of Quentin Tarantino‘s), Cloak and Dagger, Link, Psycho 2 and F/X2, died of prostate cancer in Melbourne on July 11th. The poor guy was only 58.

I got to know Franklin a bit when I was working at Cannon Films in ’87 and writing the press notes for Link, which I rather liked. (Before the press screenings at Cannon we used to play The Kinks’ “Ape Man”as a sort of overture.) I remember telling him once that I really admired the very careful photography and perfectly- timed editing that went into Link. He was very grateful to hear this, but added that making a film turn out just so was very hard work.
Terrence Stamp, who starred in Link, told me during a Limey interview seven or or eight years ago that Franklin was very tough on film crews.
Director Phillip Noyce called from Australia to say he didn’t really know Franklin, having met him only once. Filmmakers from Melbourne (where Franklin resided) and Sydney don’t travel in the same circles. He said that Franklin was the first Australian director to demand his own on-set director’s chair, which, before this happened sometime in the late ’70s, had been an unknown thing in Australia.
Franklin was a lifelong Alfred Hitchcock devotee, and you could sense this in the style and language of many of his films. This “Senses of Cinema” piece by Aaron Graham is a good appreciation.

Link

For films that are not…franchises or did not quite work the way they were intended to, the summer’s crowded movie schedule has created a cruel, cruel world,” writes N.Y. Times reporter David Halbfinger. “If you come up with a movie that doesn’t hit, the consequences are as dire, if not more dire, than they’ve ever been,” said Adam Fogelson, president of marketing at Universal Pictures, which experienced those dire results with Evan Almighty after succeeding with the modestly budgeted Knocked Up.”

J.K. Rowling‘s monumental, spell-binding Harry Potter epic “is deeply rooted in traditional literature and Hollywood sagas — from the Greek myths to Dickens and Tolkien to Star Wars — and true to its roots, it ends not with modernist, Soprano-esque equivocation, but with good old-fashioned closure: a big screen, heart-racing, bone-chilling confrontation and an epilogue that clearly lays out people’s fates,” writes N.Y. Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani.
“Getting to the finish line is not seamless — the last portion of the final book has some lumpy passages of exposition and a couple of clunky detours — but the overall conclusion of the series and its determination of the main characters’ storylines possess a convincing inevitability that make some of the pre-publication speculation seem curiously blinkered in retrospect.
“With each installment, the Potter series has grown increasingly dark, and this volume — a copy of which was purchased at a New York City retail outlet today, although the book is embargoed for release until 12:01 a.m. this Saturday — is no exception. While Rowling’s astonishingly limber voice still moves effortlessly between Ron’s adolescent sarcasm and Harry’s growing solemnity, from youthful exuberance to more philosophical gravity, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is, for the most part, a somber book that marks Harry’s final initiation into the complexities and sadnesses of adulthood.”
Here’s a Baltimore Sun review, also posted today.

Here’s a phone interview I did last week with No End in Sight director Charles Ferguson. You might want to read the various reviews on the NEIS site, and maybe my post about it earlier this month before listening.

No End in Sight director Charles Ferguson (l.), former Iraq Ambassador Barbara Bodine (middle) and U.S. Marine Seth Moulton (r.) at a press conference in Park City last January.

Believe it or not, 20th Century Fox suits have decided that a reaction story I ran yesterday — i.e., the one about Radar‘s Alan K. Raymond seemingly being wrong about a threatened Chicago Film Critics Association editorial boycott of Fox films (except for reviews) because I’d been told that the matter had been put to bed — crossed some kind of line, resulting in their telling me a couple of hours ago that they’re out of business with Hollywood Elsewhere.
I wasn’t even going to mention the CFCA situation until Raymond’s piece came along. I spoke to Fox publicity about this matter last week and exchanged a series of friendly, no-big-deal e-mails. There really wasn’t much of a story, but I felt I’d throw my two cents in when Raymond filed. My little piece was fair, honest, factual (as far as I knew) and reasoned. It was written calmly, which is more than you can say about Fox’s response to it. Emotions are clearly running high over there.
I simply sought to clarify and update an article that I understood to be at least somewhat inaccurate. To try and clear the air….you know? I even included a suggestion that Fox should “isolate those online journalists who have behaved fairly and honorably” should be given the courtesy of earlier screenings. Constructive, no? I then added a final truthful statement, which is that “my understanding is that this approach is being looked at with a degree of receptivity.”
Fox’s irate reaction apparently came from my including a belief (one backed up by a rudimentary understanding of how Fox marketing and publicity is structurally run) that Fox’s exec vp publicity Breena Camden had passed along and/or instituted Fox’s “tough” and restrictive screening policies regarding online reviewers and feature writers (i.e., the source of the CFCA’s frustration), and my calling these changes “very sweeping and bludgeon-y.”
By being “tough” about this issue, which is driven by concern about early reviews, “no one in upper management can say [Camden] is not taking strong action,” I wrote. Forgive me, but my understanding of corporate culture is that employees are occasionally obliged to demonstrate to those above them that they are doing their job in some sort of assertive, take-charge way (as opposed to being a jellyfish and just going with the corporate flow). Saying no or “wait until later” to certain online reviewers and feature writers — whether Camden decided this policy herself or passed along a high-up order — and restricting L.A. onliners and other media people to a night-before screening of The Simpsons Movie is clearly a demon- stration of willfulness.
I’ve pushed things in the past. I’ve been nervy and provocative and thown grenades. But yesterday’s piece was nothing. It was a waltz, a cup of tea…a 2.5 on a scale of 10 in terms of controversy. Sometimes it’s a good idea to take a couple of steps back and chill down, which is what I’m going to do. I’m not going to suggest this policy to others. They can make their own moves.

Everyone knows that Sideways screenwriters Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor worked on a rewrite of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry before it was “Sandlerized.” Well, I finally got my hands on a copy of Payne and Taylor’s version — a 136-page revision [dated 8.24.05] of a script originally written by Barry Fanaro based on a treatment by Lew Gallo, and what I read wasn’t at all surprising. Theirs is a much better piece. [Warning: Chuck and Larry spoilers ahead.]

Jim Taylor, Alexander Payne

As anyone who’s seen Sideways and Election might expect, the Payne-Taylor is way more invested in realism — recognizable human behavior, logical bits and plot turns, real-seeming textures. It’s obviously a “comedy” but the tone is less slap- sticky, more naturalistic. Several scenes in the film are in the Payne-Taylor also, but there’s no question that I would have liked their version, had it been shot, a lot more.
For one thing it’s much less of a Sandler-esque ego trip (i.e., his Chuck character hasn’t nailed his girlfriend’s sister and he doesn’t enjoy group-sex with a private harem). The girlfriend who chews out Sandler’s Chuck in that early scene [see review below] is merely angry at his aloof and uninvolved manner — his lack of emotional sincerity. And Payne-and- Taylor’s Chuck doesn’t seduce a female hospital doctor but a sexy TV reporter who’s been covering one of the fires he’s helped put out. (Sandler obviously felt that making Chuck into a kind of flamboyant Brooklyn cocksman was funny, but in so doing he damaged the credibility…weird.)
A lot of the scenes that made it into the final film are leaner and tighter in the Payne-Taylor version. Where the Sandler-produced, Dennis Dugan-directed movie often feels goofy and fuck-all (like that idiotic scene when the middle-aged house- cleaning woman wakes up between Sandler and David James in their bed), the Payne-Taylor feels disciplined.
There are “refrains” (like Larry saying “going in alive” and Chuck adding “and coming out the same way”) that I don’t remember from the film. Okay, maybe they’re in there and I need to take more Gingko.
I know for sure that the Payne-Taylor is more particular in this and that quirky or interesting way. In the screen version there’s a scene in which Jesica Biel’s Alex invites Sandler/Chuck, whom she believes to be gay, to feel her breasts, and just before he does she says they’re 100% real. In the Payne-Taylor script she says to Chuck that they’re fake — saline-solution implants — and that they were given to her by a “jerk” plastic surgeon.

A little later in the film there’s a Chuck and Alex foot-massaging scene, but for some reason Sander and Dugan didn’t use a fascinating bit in which Alex asks Chuck why he’s a fireman, and how this affects the way he behaves and sees things. Chuck goes into a riff about how he always notices fire-safety violations and susceptibilities in restaurants and other commercial establishments, and then he ticks off seven danger signals that he’s noticed in Alex’s apartment. It convinces you that Chuck is a very alert, very serious fireman. (I called a Universal publicist to make sure my memory wasn’t remiss, and she agreed that this dialogue isn’t in the film.)
There’s a scene in which Larry’ seven-year-old daughter asks Sandler, who’s been put on a different shift than her dad, if she can sleep with him in Chuck and Larry’s conjugal bed. He hesitates and says okay. The little girl says she loves him, and he says “me too.” Is this scene in the movie? I don’t think so. Not in the bed, at least.
In the movie there’s a big courtroom finale in which Steve Buscemi‘s character dares Chuck and Larry to kiss in order to prove they have a passionate relation- ship. They don’t. But in the Payne-Taylor script, they do. Unconvincingly. The fact that they don’t have a passionate sexual relationship has been made obvious. But the next morning, when Larry admits they’re not gay, Payne-Taylor has him give a short speech that I don’t remember from the film. Roughly, perhaps, but not word-for-word.
“We’re not gay,” he begins. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not married. We have friendship and loyalty and genuine affection. Hell, we even love each other. The only thing we don’t have is sex. Well, if you want to invalidate every sexless marriage in this state, I hate to tell you but you ain’t gonna have very many married people left.”
The sum-up slam-dunk speech given by the fire-station chef (played by Dan Aykroyd in the film) is tougher and more eloquent in the Payne-Taylor. And a Mayor character (the script is set in Philadelphia) gets involved with settling the insurance-benefits situation, partly out of fear of political blowback.
And in the Payne-Taylor, Larry’s 11 year-old son Eric, whom the film tells us is almost certainly gay because he’s always singing and tap-dancing to Broadway show tunes, is revealed to be happily straight with a new girlfriend called Toni.
It’s not just me. I’ve thought and thought about this, and I know a Payne-Taylor version would have gone over better than the one opening on Friday. I know it. Certainly with the critics and the genuinely serious comedy fans (i.e., the ones who own DVDs of Some Like It Hot and Tootsie and Flirting With Disaster) and high-thread-counters everywhere.