If anyone’s stuck for Sundance lodgings, I think I’ve got some- thing that sounds good. Semi-spacious, not too expensive. Write me and we’ll talk it over. Available for the entire span of the fes- tival…near Prospector Square. Respond hastily.
If anyone’s stuck for Sundance lodgings, I think I’ve got some- thing that sounds good. Semi-spacious, not too expensive. Write me and we’ll talk it over. Available for the entire span of the fes- tival…near Prospector Square. Respond hastily.
As I understand it (i.e., as the newspaper ads proclaim), the initial 149-minute version of Terrence Malick’s The New World is going to “close” late tonight — Tuesday, January 3rd — and a new shorter version is going to re-open on Friday, 1.20.06. So today is the last chance for anyone to see the longer, more meditative version of this half-awesome, half-not-so-awesome film. For all we know the 149-minute version will never again see the light of day. You never know…will the eccentric Malick forbid New World Home Video from releasing it? It’s looking to me like more and more of a big do-or-die day…and just hours to go! The shorter New World will run about 132 minutes (a New Line spokesperson says it’s been cut by “about 16 or 17 minutes”). It will be press-screened a week or so before the 1.20 re-opening.
So why was Ridley Scott’s “extended cut” of Kingdom of Heaven not sent out on DVD to Academy members or selected press? It’s only showing at the Laemmle Fairfax…which isn’t a very good theatre, by the way. It should have been booked into a better house in Westwood somewhere. If you’re going to promote a big-budgeted film for year-end Academy Awards consideration (which is what showing the “extended cut” is apparently about), why do it in such a half-assed way?
Here’s an L.A. Times public-opinion piece piece by John Horn and Scott Collins (“Moviegoers Speak Up”) about what average folks feel about the moviegoing experience. It feel lazy, this thing. It adds nothing to what everyone’s been hearing and repeating for a long time. Oh, and I have no respect for anyone who says they’re “not bothered” by theatrical TV commercials. I’m speaking of one Frank Delgado, 41, who spoke for his wife Patty, 42, and children Emily, 7, and Ryan, 11. Delgado was interviewed at the Edwards Westpark 8 in Irvine…baaahh.
I always thought once you get a bit older and know who and what you are, watching a sensitively-made movie about a non-hetero romance is no big deal. So what’s with Larry David‘s New York Times piece about how he can’t quite roll with the idea of seeing Brokeback Mountain? I think it’s supposed to be a satire about homophobia (right…?) but it also strikes me as a somewhat honest confessional. Larry David never inhabits another persona — he’s always himself. “I just know if I saw [Brokeback Mountain], the voice inside my head that delights in torturing me would have a field day,” he write. “‘You like those cowboys, don’t you? They’re kind of cute. Go ahead, admit it, they’re cute. You can’t fool me, gay man. Go ahead, stop fighting it. You’re gay! You’re gay!”
The Carpetbagger, the New York Times Oscar blogger, says “negotiations are still under way with Whoopi Goldberg and Steve Martin to host the Oscars”….beehhrrrnnnng!! Whoopi’s done well but nobody really wants her to host again, and Steve Martin has passed, apparently over a sense of general career lethargy and “Pantherphobia” in particular. And no one’s talking about hiring Jon Stewart either, although he’d be pretty damn good. I say again that getting Wedding Crashers stars Owen Wilson and Vaughn to co-host would be brilliant. I was the first one to say it so I want a commission if Gil Cates makes it happen! The rumble right now is that a tag-team “tandem-host” format is being widely floated as a way to go.
We are suddenly in the January Dog Days…the doldrums…the dead times. Not in terms of the various guild awards this week and planning for the Sundance Film Festival, etc. I mean because the new films screening are mostly bilge. Those scintillating days of year-end excitement are over. Hostel! Grandma’s Boy!
An arrangement was made in late November or thereabouts by an Oakland school teacher to have me come up for a discussion lecture thing in one of her classes during the first or second week in January. She left a message a week or two ago but I lost the number and I’ve forgotten her name…so now what?
Ever since hearing about Paul Greengrass’s Flight 93 (Universal), which is either wrapped or close-to-wrapping with an opening date set for 4.28.06, I’ve become more and more convinced that this is the 9/11 movie that will pack the strongest punch and be the best of all of them (including Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center and those TV-movie projects). Pic is based on the hijacking of United Airlines flight #93 on 9.11.01, which led to some kind of confrontation between terrorists and passengers (as imagined in Neil Young’s “Let’s Roll”). This resulted in the plane crashing into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Every passenger on the plane became instant hamburger, but the terrorists were prevented from crashing the plane into God knows what Wash- ington, D.C. landmark and killing who knows how many others. I really love that it’s being shot in real time (i.e., the actual length of the flight from the time of initial boarding to the crash). If you’ve seen Greengrass’s Bloody Sunday, you know what I’m saying. This New York Times piece by Heather Timmons in England lays it all down.
Here’s another Oscar-hosting idea. What offbeat comic team has performed the most consistently funny and inventive bits on previous Oscar telecasts and generally been the most out-there and in-front-of-the-crowd? Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Now let’s go one better…make the Oscars into a three-way gig between Stiller, Wilson and Wilson’s Wedding Crashers partner Vince Vaughn. Are you kidding me? These guys would kill, and again they’d get the younger viewers. Think of it…The Wedding Crashers crash the Oscars! Think of the level of the writing! Think of the nerve element!
So who’s gonna host the Oscars? No Chris, no Billy…Steve Martin has passed. (Hosting the Oscars would be a great way for Martin to recover from the debacle of The Pink Panther and Shopgirl and people thinking there must something wrong with him for having done those Cheaper by the Dozen movies.) Nathan Lane would be great, but he has a scheduling problem since he’s in the completely-sold-out The Odd Couple on Broadway until April, and to do the Oscars he’d have to bag a lot of performances (at least a week’s worth) because he’d want to come out to L.A. to rehearse, so…ready for my suggestions?
Someone who’d be great hosting the Oscars? Seriously great? In all serious-ity? Look to The Aristocrats. Or rather, look to the Zeus of The Aristocrats…the Big Man…the 4’11” Killer in the Baby-Blue Tuxedo…the potty-mouthed tornado…The Man They Could Not Hang…look to none other than the great Gilbert Gottfried. That would be such an insane choice…the world would be totally on its ass over the Oscars hiring a truly criminal mind…totally side- ways….or, as a fallback, book three Aristocrats as a triple-threat tag team — Gottfried, Sarah Silverman and George Carlin. Or how about a George-and-Gracie thing…a smart-funny man and a smart-funny woman who go out together in real life and would draw the same under-30s Chris Rock did. And I mean, of course, Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman.
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall‘s Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year’s Telluride...
More »7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when...
More »It took me a full month to see Wes Ball and Josh Friedman‘s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes...
More »The Kamala surge is, I believe, mainly about two things — (a) people feeling lit up or joyful about being...
More »Unless Part Two of Kevin Costner‘s Horizon (Warner Bros., 8.16) somehow improves upon the sluggish initial installment and delivers something...
More »For me, A Dangerous Method (2011) is David Cronenberg‘s tastiest and wickedest film — intense, sexually upfront and occasionally arousing...
More »