Daily

The chief differences between Tom Tykwer‘s The International (Sony/Columbia, 2.13) and Tony Gilroy‘s Duplicity (Universal, 3.20), the two early ’09 urban thrillers that star Clive Owen, seem to be (a) Gilroy’s is a bit lighter and more caper-ish, (b) Tykwer’s is a bit heavier, darker, apparently toying with a Parallax View vibe, and (c) Owen looks a tiny bit heavier in the Tykwer than in the Gilroy, in which he needed to look hot and buff for his romantic scenes with Julia Roberts.

They both look to be 70s’-styled escapist programmers, which is fine. And they both seem visually and tonally similar — i.e., the same kind of upscale urban backdrops. Okay, the Tykwer seems a bit bluer and grayer. It will also hit theatres five weeks before the Gilroy.

The International features a shoot-out scene in Manhattan’s Guggenheim museum. And of course, a guy falls from one of the upper tiers of the circular walkaround and goes splat on the stone-floor rotunda below.

It’s interesting to compare the British International trailer with the U.S. version. I was a bit more attracted to the British one, but that’s me.

The International is the out-of-competition opener for the Berlin Film Festival, which launches on 2.5.09.

We all know about the disappearance of Sean Penn from Wayne Kramer‘s much-delayed Crossing Over (Weinstein Co., 2.9.09). Penn shot a couple of scenes as immigration cop Chris Farrell in the Weinstein Co. drama, but he’s not in the trailer and his name is missing from the credit block. What gives? Why the hell would Kramer cut Penn, a major name actor, out of this Traffic-like drama about the problems of immigrants seeking U.S. citizenship? Because his acting sucked?

(l. to r.) Crossing Over director Wayne Kramer, Harvey Weinstein, Harrison Ford, producer Frank Marshall, Bryan Lourd

I don’t know for a stone fact why Penn is MIA, but an explanation came to me today from a credible, well-placed source. Penn asked to be removed from the film, the guy says, because he had a serious beef with a Kramer subplot in the film involving an Iranian character murdering his sister in an act of “honor killing.” I’m aware of reports that this scene was cut from the film (or diluted) after the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and other voices claimed it was defamatory, but Penn, I’m told, still had a problem with it. Maybe this was just part of the reason.

In any event, Crossing Over is said to have been a “horrific experience” for Kramer, who didn’t get back to me when I wrote him earlier today. I got this story only a few hours ago and didn’t have time to do the usual calling around and cross-checking. Everyone’s on Thanksgving holiday anyway. This is just one well-placed guy’s perspective.

Kramer, I’m told, had a contractual final cut but that doesn’t cut much ice with Harvey Weinstein if there are creative differences afoot — Harvey can just say sure, okay, you insist on final cut and I’ll send your movie straight to DVD. The bottom line, my source claims, is that Harvey pretty much ignored Kramer’s final-cut contract by letting Crossing Over costars Harrison Ford and Sean Penn fiddle with it in editing.

Crossing Over shot sometime during the spring and early summer of ’07, and when Kramer’s cut was test-screened it tested “just okay, nothing great,” I’m told. Crossing Over is a tough, hard-knocks drama with a somewhat downbeat tone, and such films tend to test modestly or so-so. If it’s a sad or glum movie in any way, people go “ewww…I liked that Adam Sandler movie we saw last week better.”

Sean Penn

In any case, after Kramer’s version screened Harvey said okay, you’ve done your cut, now me and Frank” — Frank Marshall, Crossing Over‘s producer — “are going to cut our own version. Kramer flipped out over this at first, but Frank and Harvey’s version wound up testing a little better than his so he swallowed his pride and more or less agreed to let this version be the final one.

But then Harvey showed the film to Ford, who didn’t like this and that aspect so he took the film and did his own cut, but “it was so bad that Harvey decided to not even test it.” So Kramer was relieved that Harrison’s cut was awful and the pendulum had swung back to the Harvey-Marshall cut. But then Harvey said, ‘Oh, I’d better show it to Sean Penn’ and Penn has issues with it also, principally the way the Iranian honor-killing character was portrayed.

There was some back and forth bickering on Penn’s complaints with no resolution. The episode came to a crescendo, my guy says, when Penn’s agent, CAA’s Byran Lourd, called Harvey and said the best way to deal with this is to cut Sean out of the movie. To which Kramer responded, “What…?”

Harvey called Lourd and said, “I’m not going to cut Sean out, I have a contract, this movie cost $20 million, fuck you, we’re not rolling over for you guys,” etc. Two days later Harvey calls and tells Kramer, “We’re cutting Sean out of the movie.” I’m sorry but I think this is hilarious.

“I think it’s important that people know about what is happening to Wayne,” my source says. “My own view is that Penn should be shamed into giving Kramer the movie he wants and deserves. It is very easy to demonize Harvey in all of this, but Harvey, Frank and Wayne all had a cut of the picture they were satisfied with. Harvey’s weak link is giving stars too much influence. In this case it is Penn, who touts himself as being an artist of integrity, but in this case is completely screwing over a reputable filmmaker simply because he doesn’t agree with his political views. It’s really shameful.

“Another big question is where is Frank Marshall in all of this? How come he isn’t standing up to Sean for Wayne? Do these stars have so much power that producers are going to cave in to their political whims and destroy a fllmmaker’s work just so they can maintain a relationship with that star down the line? It should really give filmmakers pause.”

Crossing Over costars Ford, Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Summer Bishil, Lee Horsley, Cliff Curtis, Jaysha Patel, Alice Eve and Alice Braga.

MGM marketing vp Mike Vollman has replied to the Newark Star Ledger‘s Stephen J. Whitty about the latter’s 11.26 piece called “Valkyrie Surrenders,” in which Whitty posted what seemed like a logical interpretation of MGM’s decision not to show the Bryan Singer-Tom Cruise World War II thriller in time for possible critics awards contention (or for consideration by National Board of Review) by not screening it for junket journalists until December 12th, or to regular critics until December 15th.

“We have a great, strong, commercial movie and are quite proud of it,” says Vollman. “It is also the type of movie that will be deserved of intelligent critical analysis.

“What it does not deserve is to be slammed into the devastatingly cramped and arbitrary year-end critical-awards battles. When did a December release date mean that a film exists first and foremost for award consideration? And when did film criticism become a competitive sport, with deadlines, rankings, winners and losers.?

“We want Valkyrie to be judged on it’s own, not as one of a cramped herd of dissimilar artistic endeavours lumped together unfairly due to the vagaries of the calendar and the marketplace. Valkyrie is eligible for every guild honor, from ampas to ves, and will be on every single nomination ballot. If members of the entertainment community wish to honor it, they will be able to do so. We hope they do as the work is excellent and deserves recognition.”

Whatever happened to He’s Just Not Into You (New Line/Warner, 2.6.09)? If you’d asked me over Thanksgiving Day dinner, I would have said “uhmm, I think it came out last spring and died…right?” It actually won’t see the light of a digital projector lamp for nearly two and a half months.

He’s Just Not That Into You trailer

“Our customers have an enormous interest in our newspaper on Sunday; have almost no interest on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday and Friday, they’re more interested; and Saturday might as well be in the desert.” — swashbuckling Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell speaking to Conde Nast Portfolio‘s editor-in-chief Joanne Lipman in a q & a that went up on 11.24.

“I haven’t figured out how to cash in a Pulitzer Prize. There was a day when a newspaper put ‘Winner of Pulitzer Prize’ on the front page, and people flocked to read the Pulitzer Prize story. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that that’s the case today. But I also think that there are scale issues. In other words, I think that if the goal is a Pulitzer, it’s in the wrong place. In other words, we’re not in the business of, in effect, underwriting writers for the future. We’re a business that, in effect, has a bottom line.

“So as far as we’re concerned, I think Pulitzers are terrific, but Pulitzers should be the cream on the top of the coffee. They shouldn’t be the grounds. And I think there are a lot of scenarios in the newspaper industry where the entire focus is on Pulitzers.

“If you want to play futuristic — and I don’t know how big an f on the word futuristic — you can make a case that the world in the future is all Kindles, and you’ll send out an email to everybody to their Kindle, and that’s how they’re going to get their newspaper every morning. That’s a real possibility at sometime in the future.”

The first locale in this recently posted trailer for Tony Gilroy‘s Duplicity (Universal, 3.20.09) is the Pantheon in Rome, rendered in that familiar bleachy-hazy late afternoon light. A good place to be, sit, hang, reflect, etc. I was too lazy to read the script but now, queer as I am for this tourist haven, I really like this movie. Even if most of it takes place stateside. What am I saying? Nothing. Post-Thanksgiving Day crazies.

There’s just one problem with this opening scene — Julia Roberts wearing shades. A major character wearing shades in a corporate espionage movie…I don’t know. And I don’t like that smug “I’ve got a secret but I’m not sure you can figure it out” cat-that-ate-the-canary look that she wears. But I can get past this. It’s okay. Especially with Paul GIamatti, Tom Wilkinson and Tom McCarthy on board.

If this is a corporate The Hot Rock, cool. But God protect us if it’s any kind of Robert Ludlum-with-a-smirk type deal. It can’t be. Gilroy is too sly and aware of cliche potholes to let this happen. Right?

I wrote down the weekend projections on a yellow pad as they were told to me over the phone, but then the banshees of the Fifth Dimension flew in and took the pad away. But I remember one thing clearly. Twilight is the #1 ass-kicker of the Thanksgiving holiday with about $37.5 million expected for the upcoming 3-day weekend and $55 million projected for the entire five days.

The Newark Star Ledger‘s Stephen J. Whitty has concluded the obvious regarding the MGM team’s decision to keep Bryan Singer‘s Valkyrie out of possible critics awards contention (or for consideration by National Board of Review) by not screening it for junket journalists until December 12th, or to regular critics until December 15th.

Why does MGM continue to send out these distress signals? This is a movie made by the formidable Bryan Singer, Tom Cruise and Chris McQuarrie, for heaven’s sake. I’ve read an early draft of the script — it’s servicable, gripping, efficient as far as it goes. And yet MGM keeps telling everyone that something must be wrong.

The screening dates “seem timely, you might think, considering the film doesn’t open until Dec. 26th,” Whitty writes. “Except those screening dates actually send a subtle, but very clear message of defeat.

“The problem is that even the earliest of those shows come too late for the New York Film Critics Circle — of which I’m a member, and votes on Dec. 10 — to consider the film for awards. Unless special arrangements are made, a number of other awards groups — from the New York Film Critics Online to the National Board of Review — probably will be shut out as well.

“Now, first off, let me make clear — I’m not feeling snubbed, vexed or even slightly miffed. With dozens of serious movies jockeying for prizes, there’s a mad rush to see everything by Dec. 9. Having one film drop out of the schedule actually makes my life a little easier.

“And, quite frankly, courting awards with fresh-from-the-lab previews is a simple waste of time for some films. As of right now, for example, Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories hasn’t set any early screenings either. And that makes sense — Bedtime Stories is not expecting to be a major prize winner among reviewers, or Academy voters.

“But Valkyrie was supposed to be a return to serious drama for star Tom Cruise and director Bryan Singer, as well as a big, back-to-business triumph for the re-vamped but still reeling MGM. It needed to be a big prestigious hit, with lots of enthusiastic notices and at least the chance of an Oscar or two down the line.

“But then the release was delayed. Certain scenes were reshot. Rumors started circulating. A peculiar advertising campaign was launched, selling what had once been pushed as a serious study of the German opposition to Hitler as practically a buddy-boy caper film — Ocean’s S.S.

“And now, when the film’s strategy seems to be to deliberately avoid Oscar predictors like the NYFCC and other critics groups? Even when a schedule change of a few days could make it eligible? What does that suggest?

“Well, that they’ve become quite convinced they’d never have a chance anyway. And that the once invulnerable Cruise Machine seems about to take another, quite sizable hit.”

Clint Eastwood has been composing and performing music — melodies simple and clean, always with a catchy hook — for the soundtracks of his films for a long time. But now he’s apparently composed and sung a song for Grand Torino. The computer I’m on right now was made by slave-wage Koreans in 1997 so I can’t listen and check, but there’s said to be an mp3 of Eastwood’s performance on this filmdrunk page.

“What are your thoughts on Twilight having a Titanic-type hold on the hearts and minds of the 2008 American teen girl?,” a Manhattan friend wrote this morning. “Look at its numbers — it made $6 million on Tuesday, obviously not falling off the cliff. I realize this is an extended holiday weekend and all that, but still the similarities are kind of striking — doomed romance (in that death has consumed the boy and may eventually consume the girl), relative unknowns in the leads, just enough action for the guys to remain happy. I can see substantial business (and repeat business) through Christmas. What could it earn by the end of the run?”

As shallow and Hollywood-centric as this may sound, I’m wondering (as others have since yesterday) if the Mumbai terrorist attacks will have any effect on Academy voter thinking regarding Best Picture contender Slumdog Millionaire, which is set in Mumbai and does an excellent (and at times almost too persistent) job of capturing the chaotic sociological and temperamental stew of Mumbai (particuarly the social caste system) over the last 20-plus years.

I suspect the attacks will have either no effect or perhaps (cynical as this sounds) help the film a little bit because the horrible news pushes all kinds of how, why and what-the-hell? questions into everyone’s head, and Slumdog Millionaire is now a kind of touchstone — a movie at the center of the hurricane, although not one that touches even slightly on the subject of Muslim militancy.

Slumdog is a Dickensian fable that portrays, yes, hard times and much cruelty but also projects an optimistic fantasy that couldn’t contrast more strongly with the mindset and tactics of the Muslim wackjobs who yesterday shot and bombed that town all to hell.