From Norwegian filmmaker Erik Skjoldbjaerg (the original Insomnia), a psychological thriller called Pioneer (Magnolia). The ’80s-set is about professional divers (played by Aksel Hennie, Wes Bentley) hired to explore for big oil companies during the Norwegian Oil Boom,” etc. Costarring Stephen Lang (Avatar), Stephanie Sigman (Miss Bala) and Ane Dahl. If you saw Insomnia, you know Skjoldfbjaerg knows how to do it right.
Daily
“Not An Ounce”?
“Right now I am not going to discuss my Deadline Hollywood contract or my relationship with my boss Jay Penske. Why? Because I don’t have to. If that changes, I’ll tell you. The fact is I’m out of town and about to begin my long-planned summer vacation. And the last thing I want is to be bothered now by a bunch of media and/or moguls asking for comment. As it happens, I was napping in a different time zone when The Wrap crapped on me yet again Sunday night. Nothing new: the desperate Sharon Waxman and her revolving door staff have been writing inaccurately about me for years, and doing it to drive traffic to her failing website, and refusing to correct even the most blatant errors.
“Last night Waxman sent a joint email to my boss and myself at 6:43 PM. She waited two whole minutes. Then she posted her story about us at 6:45 PM. That’s a rotten thing to do, not to mention bad journalism, and she knows it. And it’s yet one more reason I call her website The Crap. That said, I could pick apart her so-called ‘shocker’ line by line, but I won’t. I’d much rather spend my remaining pre-vacation time writing up some great scoops to post this week.” — Nikki Finke‘s Deadline statement, which went up yesterday morning or late yesterday afternoon Paris time, which is my walking around and savoring the aroma time.
Eisenhower Years!
Is there any chance that Joan Collins meant this ironically, as an oblique nod to Randy Newman‘s “I Love L.A.” lyric that goes “everybody very happy ’cause the sun is shinin’ all the time”? Maybe? Naaah, I guess not. In my mind Collins peaked between 1955 and ’60 (Land of the Pharaohs, The Wayward Bus, Sea Wife, The Bravados, Rally ‘Round the Flag, Boys!, Seven Thieves). She’s led some kind of glamorous and fulfilling life since, but…I don’t want to sound dismissive. She’s fine. We’re all fine.
L’ecole Besson
I’ve reached out to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Paris-based critic-correspondent Jordan Mintzer as I’m looking for a little help on screening dates and contacts. Mintzer teaches at Luc Besson‘s film school, a.k.a. La Cite du Cinema (93200 Saint-Denis), which is located north of Paris. I’m thinking I could maybe visit the place and nose around and write a profile of some kind.
Swiftian
Taylor Swift did a duet with Mick Jagger last night during a Rolling Stones “50 & Counting” show at Chicago’s United Center. The song was “As Tears Go By.” The Stones always ask singers who are “hot right now” and doing something distinctive and different than what the Stones have always done to sing duets — it’s a badge of recognition and honor. Swift has strong pipes, of course, but her voice sounds a little tinny, a little Minnie Mousey. If there’s a God that notion about her playing Joni Mitchell in a Girls Like Us biopic has been forgotten and buried.
Smoking Cunnilingus
Michael Douglas realized fairly quickly, of course, that he sounded a little fruit-loopy when he told The Guardian‘s Xan Brooks that his bout with throat cancer was largely due to giving head to his wife, Catherine Zeta Jones. People were chortling and wondering what Douglas’s deal was. It seemed to me like a fairly ridiculous thing to say. And remember that Douglas also said that giving more head cures the cancer you got from giving head in the first place….what?
“That Ain’t The Catch — It’s The Fun”
I’m vaguely depressed or certainly alienated by the decision of Paramount Home Video marketing guy to present John Schlesinger‘s Marathon Man (’76) to potential buyers as if it’s some kind of primitive Charles Bronson flick. It’s anything but that, of course, but any marketer will tell you that if you even slightly indicate that a film contains complexity or texture or anything other than primary color elements you’re hurting sales right off the bat. Keep it stupid and blunt and you can’t go wrong. The region-free Bluray streets today.
Robert Benton’s Stab
With the ghastly wifi situation in Lauterbrunnen last weekend I missed the “Mad Men‘s Megan Draper is about to be killed, possibly in the manner of Sharon Tate” speculation. Even if it’s total bullshit the notion certainly jacks up interest levels in the show. And yet Matthew Weiner has obviously planted the seed by having Jessica Pare wear the same T-shirt that Tate wore, etc. Violently killing a character…I don’t know. Something a little facile about that.
Club Dead
Berne, Switzerland is a very appealing city. I could almost live there. But the train back to Paris put me in Lausanne for a few hours yesterday afternoon. I walked down to the shore of Lake Geneva and took a ferry to Evian-les-Bains. The idea of literally weeping from boredom had never entered my head until I visited this little morgue of a town. Give me those eight spindly trees in front of Rockefeller Center any day. In my mind there is nothing so loathsome and soul-stifling as strolling around picturesque little towns like Evian at the pace of a 75 year-old, snapping photos and lolling around cafes. I would rather be dodging bullets in Syria — seriously.
Breakfast room inside Berne’s Hotel National.
Pre-Toupee Liberace
Three interesting things about this What’s My Line? appearance by Liberace on 6.3.56. One, the huge applause he gets. Two, the drawing of the piano and the candelabra next to his signature, and how quickly and skillfully he draws it. And three, the fact that Lee’s hair was going at the time but not yet to a fatal extent. It didn’t reach emergency levels for another five or ten years, I’m guessing. Steven Soderbergh‘s Behind The Candelabra tells us Liberace’s hair had totally gone south by the time he met Scott Thorson in ’76.
“World War Zzzz”?
In a 6.3 review, Daily Mail critic Christopher Tookey has taken a dump on Marc Forster and Brad Pitt‘s World War Z (Paramount, 6.21). And so has the Telegraph‘s Robbie Collin. In fact they’re both using the “World War Zzzzz” line so U.S. critics need to come up with something else.
“Internal Stuff” = A Flash of Temper? Or Is Finke Going Solo?
I’m persuaded that Sharon Waxman‘s “Nikki Finke has been fired by Jay Penske” story is untrue, or at least misleading. Finke may be leaving Deadline to run a one-woman website again, but that’s within the limits of her contract. The elements (temper, saber-rattlings, internal squabbles) may be true, but you have to take all family arguments with a grain of salt. What appears to be true is not always the truth even if it seems like it is.
Penske knew when he partnered with Finke that volatile Type-A personalities require constant backrubs and reassurance, and that on a certain level he had to be a 24/7 care-giver. Did Penske boil over and maybe convey anger or frustration to this or that person? Apparently, but that’s not the finality. Or so I gather.