Film Experience guy Nathaniel R. wrote to say he’s glad I liked his redo of the Blob poster, which I posted last week. Also glad to see I’m still championing Things We Lost in the Fire. But he doesn’t get where I’m coming from at all with Rachel Getting Married, which he feels is the best of the year thus far.
And I wrote back that while I admired and enjoyed much of Rachel Getting Married, I couldn’t accept it as anything other than an expression of director Jonathan Demme ‘s soul and sensibility and world view. Which is fine as far as it goes. It’s just that the wedding doesn’t seem to be actually happening in Stamford, Connecticut, or any other recognizably “real” milieu for that matter. Any more than the characters behave in a way I would consider familiar, at least as far as the under-written (or non-written) African American characters are concerned.
The whole shebang is basically taking place in Demme Land, which to me is no different than Munchkinland or Emerald City. Cool places, engaging people, color and verve…but only tangentially related to the planet Earth.
People in Demme Land are very highly alert and attuned. Their hearts are light and gay, and their eyes are almost always sparkling with joy or full of feeling, and sometimes moist with tears. They laugh and pass along witty lines. They’re spunky but sincere types, and very inquisitive. When they’re in a crowd they have this irrepressible tendency to open their hearts and souls and let it all pour out. They kind of twitch and go “ooh!’ a lot. They drink good wine and serve each other healthy food and drive sensible Priuses and Volvos. I would much rather hang with these people than, say, the family of Sarah Palin but they’re still bothersome in some respects.

There’s nothing much to add to Patrick Goldstein‘s story (posted late yesterday afternoon) about powerhouse producer Scott Rudin walking away from The Reader (Weinstein Co., 12.12), the David Hare-scripted WWII drama with Kate Winslet.

I know that Rudin and Reader director Stephen Daldry are allies and amigos, having worked together on The Hours (which was also written by Hare). And that Daldry is pretty much on his own in the rush to finish The Reader in time for the early December release date that Harvey Weinstein has been pushing for all along. On top of which Daldry has also been directing the Billy Elliot musical on Broadway, which is currently in previews.
Rudin has been “embroiled for weeks in a nasty squabble with Weinstein over the release date of the film,” Goldstein notes, and “has [finally] decided to quit the project and take his name off the film. The two men have had a very contentious public feud over Weinstein’s insistence that the film be released this year for Oscar consideration.
“Rudin and Daldry had insisted they needed more time to finish the picture. After intense negotiations, they eventually agreed late last month that, in return for Weinstein putting up more money for round-the-clock editing, scoring sessions and optical work, Daldry would finish the film in time for a Dec. 12th release.
“In recent days, negotiations had apparently taken a turn for the worse. Upset with Weinstein and worried that many of his long-standing talent relationships would be harmed, Rudin decided to separate himself from the project. Daldry remains contractually obligated to complete the film, though it’s uncertain of how he will complete the film without Rudin, a longtime collaborator with both Daldry and Hare.
“There have been constant rumors that the Weinstein Co., whose hits have been few and far between, has financial problems which may have contributed to Rudin’s departure. It’s also possible that the two men simply can’t put their personal differences aside long enough to get the movie into theaters. Whatever the root cause, this is another body blow to The Reader, which loses a strong producer who is always a major force during awards season. Rudin will continue as producer of two other year-end pictures, Revolutionary Road and Doubt.”
A trusted Manhattan guy tells me the Weinsteins are relying on producer Donna Gigliotti to be their onsite person as far as working with Daldry and his editing crew on the completion of the film. Except Daldry and the entire team “despise her,” “won’t deal with her” and “regard her as a [Weinstein] stooge.”
Movie production people love their conflict dramas, of course. On any shoot or post-production push people always seem to be spreading the word about this or that person being a stooge or a stopper or an enemy figure of some kind, or at least into giving each other dagger looks. So the Daldry-Gigliotti thing is just another variation on a theme.

Newish one-sheets for a pair of major year-end releases came through yesterday — the Australian-market poster for Baz Luhrman‘s Australia (which opens in Oz on Thursday, 11.13, according to the IMDB, preceding its Wednesday,11.26 U.S. release by 13 days) and a fresh image — less communal, emphasis on Daniel Craig’s studliness — for Ed Zwick‘s Defiance (Paramount Vantage , 12.12). The latter was exclusively previewed late yesterday afternoon by Kris Tapley‘s In Contention.

Ed Zwick’s Defiance (Paramount Vantage, 12.12); Baz Luhrman’s Australia (20th Century Fox, 11.26)

There’s something a bit unusual about the Australia poster, or the fact that the eyes of the embracing Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are both shut tight. This indicates something besides just intimacy and bonding — it indicates relief (having recently experienced serious trauma, one gathers) and Kidman-Jackman communing with some inner aspect of themselves as much as with each other. It doesn’t just say “I love and need you” — it says “whew, thank God we got through that one!” and “let me just hold you and imagine that our troubles are no longer waiting around the corner and ready to pounce.”
They look scared or shaken up. Actually, the more I look at the poster the more Jackman looks like he’s sleeping.
It seems, in a word, vaguely unmanly for Jackman, who seems to be taking comfort in Kidman’s embrace the way a 3 year-old boy would take comfort in being held by his mother. Real Men Never Close Their Eyes — they keep their eyes at least half open in case predators are lurking about. As Marlon Brando‘s Don Corleone put it, “Women and children can be careless, but not men.”
Look at any number of passionate-lovers-embracing images from past films and posters, and you’ll find that most (or the vast majority) shows the male with eyes half-open or slitted. The only other love-embrace poster I can think of in which both partners’ eyes are closed is the Warren Beatty-Diane Keaton Moscow train platform poster for Reds. (Come to think, you can’t see Beatty’s eyes in that image, but the implication is there.)
I’m not saying embracers don’t close their eyes in real life — of course they do. All I know or feel is that Jackman looks wussy with his eyes closed. He seems to be going “mommy, mommy.” Or nodding out on something.
Here’s a larger image of the Defiance poster plus a larger Australia. And here’s a recent Defiance trailer.

“Over the past few days I’ve noticed something worth commenting on,” writes Spoutblog‘s Karina Longworth. “A number of writers, including Keith Uhlich, Michael Joshua Rowin, Nick Schager, Leo Goldsmith and Daniel Kasman have written reviews which incorporate the criticism that Steven Soderbergh‘s Che is ‘dispassionate’, that Soderbergh has a ‘disposable, inconsequential attitude’ towards his subject, that the whole thing amounts to a ‘prolonged and wearying exercise in disinterest.’
“I’m sure there are more examples out there, but I think the five of them plus me are enough for a focus group. All six of us not only write for what could be called ‘alternative’ publications, but we’re all in our 20s or early 30s — evidence that the ‘new voices, with new perspectives’ that Some Came Running‘s Glenn Kenny cites are in fact almost completely united in our ‘exasperating” take on Che.
“Che’s key defenders, Longworth writes, “are Kenny, J. Hoberman and Amy Taubin — all veteran critics and our seniors by several years.” What, I don’t count?
“Which is not to say that the old guard is wrong just because they’re the old guard, just as I hope no one is really shaking a fist in the air at ‘these kids these days.’ But I do think there may be something significant to the fact that the divide is breaking down this way. Are younger critics frustrated (or just bored) with Che because for the most part, we don’t bring an emotional, historical or intellectual relationship to its subject to the viewing experience? Or are we just braindead children with the attention spans of infants? Or both?”

Alicia Keys and Jack White‘s “Another Way To Die,” a agreeable-sounding throb cut serving as the official Quantum of Solace theme song and, obviously, official music video.

Hollywood Elsewhere is going to shift operations to Manhattan starting on 11.5 — the day after the election. Six months, maybe longer. Not that this will affect things in any way I can imagine. Same screenings, same folks, same junkets, same action. I just want to be closer to my sons and my mom for a while — that’s all. I’ll be parking it in North Bergen, New Jersey — right across the Hudson, view of Manhattan, a little north of Hoboken, 15 minutes into town by shuttle.

Oliver Stone on W: “The movie’s not a smear job. I wouldn’t want to spend a year of my life making something that is demeaning to somebody, being malicious. That’s the wrong approach to art. It’s not a political film, but a Shakespearean one. It’s a film about George W. rebelling against his father, doing better than his father, believing that he’s stronger than his father, and outdoing his father…and it’s about the colossal mistakes he made and the lies he told. In a way it’s Oedipal. One can say he did kill the father because he did destroy the legacy, the name. It’s a big thing with the Bushes.” — speaking to Maxim’s Charlie LeDuff.

“The truth is that it is the excesses of McCain’s own party from which the country needs to be saved. That McCain is now attempting to seize the mantle of ‘change’ for himself is profoundly absurd. And that he expects the American people to swallow it is profoundly insulting.” — from Esquire‘s endorsement of Barack Obama editorial, the first such declaration in the magazine’s history. Coming at this stage of the game with Obama heavily favored, the impact isn’t what it might have been. If Esquire had run this last June or July, it would have been a different deal.

The Iraq War movie curse will be put to the test this weekend when Ridley Scott‘s Body of Lies opens on Friday. It cost a lot of money (I’ve heard $90 to $100 million) and most handicappers will be surprised if it makes more than $17 or $18 million by Sunday night. Even if God smiles down and it nabs $20 million (which won’t happen) it would probably top out in the vicinity of $60 or $70 million.
Today’s Body of Lies tracking is 78 general, 37 definite interest and 13 first choice, up from last Sunday’s tally of 70, 37 and 9. But it only has a 58% positive on Rotten Tomatoes.
Beverly Hills Chihuahua (Disney) will probably be a close second, maybe $15 million or a bit more. The Express (Universal), a good-enough football saga about Syracuse star and first-ever African-American Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis, is running at 64, 34 and 9, and should come in third with $13. 5 or $14 million. The R-rated Quarantine is running at 57, 29 and 8 and should come in with something close to $12 million, maybe a bit less.
Among next week’s openers, Max Payne is looking a bit stronger than The Secret Life of Bees with Oliver Stone‘s W. and Sex Drive following in that order.

So how does John McCain “pull this one out of the pooper?,” Stephen Colbert asked MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough last night. You have to hand it to Scarborough for not mincing words.

Richard Linklater‘s Slacker (1991) now playing gratis on Hulu.