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A Michael Fleming/Deadline story popped yesterday afternoon about Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks nabbing the rights to John Steinbeck‘s The Grapes of Wrath with an interest in basically remaking John Ford‘s classic 1940 adaptation. It was clearly stated that Spielberg won’t direct, just produce.

This struck me as odd as this is the kind of material Spielberg could rock his career with if he were to shoot this 21st Century Wrath in a plain, austere, dust-bowly vein with Dorothea Lange capturings and (a really huge IF) in a way that would simultaneously suppress his sentimental instincts.

Spielberg needs another Schindler’s List on his resume, something for the ages. He needs to direct a film with material that fits him as well as he fits it. He would do well to tap into his compassion for regular Joes and at the same time (a) pay tribute to Ford, a major career influence, and (b) demonstrate that he’s grown past his need to play his usual manipulative games. Spielberg-basher that I am, I believe that a Spielberg-directed The Grapes of Wrath could be (if he doesn’t fuck it up) a possibly phenomenal achievement.

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“I don’t judge comedies by contemporary standards (i.e., you can do or say any finger-up-your-arse, simian-impulse thing that comes to mind and if it sticks to the wall, no matter how coarse or fuck-all flatulent or phlegmy, it’s funny) but by classic Billy Wilder standards, which is that it has to be carefully and honestly and realistically written according to the laws of commonly-perceived human behavior, and it has to hold water in terms of plot and motivation and character in the same way that any dead-straight drama (Death of a Salesman, A Lie of the Mind, A Moon for the Misbegotten) has to hold water.

“You can’t throw out the rule book because you’re making a ‘comedy.’ Comedies aren’t about escapes and time-outs — they’re about looking inward. Comedies aren’t that different from dramas — they’re just pitched differently and sprinkled with a kind of dust — and are much, much tougher to write and perform. Comedies need to be just as much about what people are facing in life — how they’re coping with loneliness and ambition and financial pressure and growing-up issues — as stage plays or dramas. They have to be real. They’re not excuses to light farts and flamboyantly goof off and just…whatever, go anywhere or try anything. — from a two-year-old HE review of Horrible Bosses.

In one of the pettiest and most chickenshit parliamentary challenges in Hollywood history, Warner Bros. has successfully argued that (a) a forgotten 1917 short WB film called The Butler gives them MPAA-mandated ownership of the title, and that (b) the Weinstein Co. therefore has to come up with a new title for the Lee Daniels‘ film formerly known as The Butler.

In response Weinstein attorney David Boies has stated that “the suggestion that there is a danger of confusion between TWC’s 2013 feature movie and a 1917 short that has not been shown in theaters, television, DVDs, or in any other way for almost a century makes no sense. The award has no purpose except to restrict competition and is contrary to public policy.”

So let’s have some suggestions for new titles. The substitute title should convey the idea that an exacting, dutiful, conservative-minded White House butler (i.e., Forrest Whitaker) who has served under six or seven U.S. presidents is more than what he seems — a man of unrecognized importance and immense dignity whose life is historically profound on some level. Or something like that. Bad examples: He Who Polishes Silver. Good Night, Mr. President. Never Miss A Day. The Butler Did it. This is hard.

The responses to Stuart Blumberg‘s Thanks For Sharing at last September’s Toronto Film Festival ranged from approving to mezzo-mezzo, as currently indicated by a 54% Rotten Tomatoes score. I’d be on-board if it was just a matter of the appealing Mark Ruffalo (playing a recovering sex addict) and Gwynneth Paltrow (as a woman he begins a relationship with), but the horrific Josh Gad also cast as a sexaholic kills my interest completely. Gad is excessive to begin with (he was fine in Book of Mormon on-stage but he all but torpedoed Love and Other Drugs). Why would anyone want to even briefly contemplate the idea of Gad having sex, much less watch a film in which he deals with sexual addiction? What kind of demented death wish led Blumberg to cast him?

Ken Scott‘s Starbuck (’11) has seemingly been Hollywood-ized and Vince Vaughn-icized, but with Scott directing. As I recall Patrick Huard‘s “David” picked up a lot of money over several months due to prodigious donation. But in the Vaughn version a sperm-bank “mixup” results in 533 women being fertilized. Even if you’re talking…what, half a syringe or one-third of a shot glass per woman, wouldn’t several pints if not quarts be necessary to impregnate 535? Sorry, but these questions have to be raised. The Delivery Man opens on the 50th anniversary of the assassinaton of President John Kennedy.

Sterling Hayden and I had a few friendly encounters in ’77, ’78 and ’79 — twice on the set of Frank Pierson‘s King of The Gypsies and two or three times at his home in Wilton, Connecticut, where I went to high school for two years. I loved him because he reminded me of my eccentric grandfather on my father’s side, and because he was one the most emotionally vulnerable guys I’ve ever known. Vulnerable and yet brusque when he needed to be. Literally twitching with this or that source of guilt, uncertainty or existential angst. Ignore the beginning and start at 2:40 — and just listen to the man.

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A smattering of quotes from American Hustle director-writer David O. Russell, as to Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn during a Nantucket Film Festival chat: “American Hustle [will be] like visiting another country, where the women and the men dress and behave in certain ways. That in itself is riveting. They sweat life and death through stakes that are terrifying. What they go through is almost like being in a boxing ring. You’re either going to get knocked out or knock the other guy out.

Christian “combover” Bale between takes of American Hustle shoot.

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No film reduces me to mush like The Wizard Of Oz. Every damn time. It’s that vulnerable, open-hearted, lay-it-down Judy Garland performance. (She really meant and felt every line.) Bert Lahr and Jack Haley‘s New York accents have been making me chuckle or decades. And those song lyric rhymings. “For nearly forty years this story has given faithful service to the young in heart, and time has been powerless to put its kindly philosophy out of fashion.” I know that seeing it in IMAX 3-D is going to be at least interesting. The 2D version will always be there.

This film gets better and better the more I think about it. A legendary work always does this. Initial viewing yields high pleasure and satisfaction but you’re not quite levitating. Then it kicks up the next day. Two weeks later you’re telling everyone you meet about it (even cab drivers). Two months later it’s really gotten better, and you’re telling yourself “this is so good that the Academy will probably ignore it.” Wait…am I setting the stage of an Inside Llewyn Davis backlash?

Wells to Disney NYC Publicity Reps: “I brilliantly took the wrong train (south instead of north) and wound up arriving late at tonight’s Lone Ranger all-media at the Regal E-Walk. At 7:18 pm, to be precise. And I was told by theatre management that you and yours had declared the screening closed. May I ask why you would do that? Have you ever heard of people arriving late due to mishaps? Don’t most screenings start about ten minutes late anyway?

“I experienced a lot of stress, sweat and trouble to get to this screening, and I think it’s a teeny bit inconsiderate that Disney would say no to a latecomer. Who cares if I miss Johnny Depp in his Little Big Man makeup at the beginning? You should always wait for stragglers to show up. It’s simply good manners.”

Eight weeks ago I paid a secret visit to the set of George Clooney‘s Monuments Men in Germany’s Harz mountains. It wasn’t on the level of Henry Kissinger‘s secret visit to China to arrange for Richard Nixon‘s 1972 state visit, but when Sony publicity told me to keep mum until after shooting wrapped on 6.26, I gave them my word. Yes, I’d previously told HE readers I was doing it, but then I clammed up and pretended I’d never posted such a thing. My mother called from Connecticut to ask where I was. “I can’t say, mom,” I replied, “but I can tell you this much — I’m definitely not visiting a movie set.”

On the set of Monuments Men in Bad Grund Germany on 5.6.13: Producer & co-writer Grant Heslov, star-director-producer & cowriter George Clooney.

The outdoor mine-shaft set that was Ground Zero on the day I arrived.

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Deadline‘s Nancy Tartaglione has been “told” that Abdellatif Kechiche‘s Blue Is The Warmest Color, the epic-length lesbo love story with the hot sex scenes that won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, will not be submitted as France’s official Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Feature, and is therefore out of the race before it begins.

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