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Original Bad Lieutenant director Abel Ferrara feels angry and slighted for not being asked to direct the new Bad Lieutenant, which Werner Herzog has hired to helm instead with with Nic Cage in the title role. The newbie isn’t a remake but some kind of continuation of a theme, or so I’ve read. Ferrara’s best line is that producer Ed Pressman “sucks cocks in hell.” (Very Catholic sentiment, that — cribbed from William Friedkin‘s The Exorcist.) Here’s a portion of the Filmmaker magazine q &a in which Ferrara lays it all out:
Filmmaker: “What are your feelings about Werner Herzog doing his version of Bad Lieutenant?”
Ferrara: “He can die in hell. I hate these people – they suck. A, he don’t know me, couldn’t pick me out of a line-up. B, I’m chasing windmills. Well, I’d rather chase windmills than steal other people’s ideas. It’s lame. I can’t believe Nic Cage is trying to play that part. I mean, if the kid needed the money… It’s like Harvey Keitel said, ‘If the guy needed the money, if he came to us and said, ‘My career’s on the rocks,’ I’d cut him a break.’ But to take $2 million – I mean, our film didn’t cost half of $2 million. That film was made on blood and guts, man. So I really wish it didn’t upset me as much as it does.”
Filmmaker: “You’re going to be doing the prequel to King of New York soon.”
Ferrara: “So I’m ripping off Abel just like that too. [laughs] If I did King of New York, I’m not doing the prequel to Aguirre: the Wrath of God, okay? Let me put it that way.”
Filmmaker: “So they’re making the film against your will?”
Ferrara: “Absolutely. Nobody asked us to do it. Nobody approached us and said, ‘Would you do it?’ Give us $8 million, we’ll come up with something. They give me twenty grand and say, ‘Go fuck yourself.’ Gimme a break! They aren’t paying Harvey anything, they aren’t paying him two cents. Ed Pressman sucks cock in hell, period. You can print that.”

Frost/Nixon director Ron Howard, posting today in the Times Online, says he hopes “the film does [for audiences] what Peter’s play did for me — reminds us that accountability matters.
“When the system allows our leaders to hide behind verbal gymnastics, or to have their sins blithely rationalized by the complexity of the office they hold, it is up to the people to demand a reckoning. And while the media is an industry vying for customers, it must somehow also be that instrument of enlightenment for us, the public who so desperately rely upon it.” (Which is precisely what Dan Rather said a day or so ago in Manhattan.)
“I hope that our film reminds us all that truth, in the end, is not merely a good idea, but is worth struggling for. And, last but not least, I hope that it reminds us of the pleasure and excitement of a good human drama well played. I experienced that in London a couple of years ago, and I hope those who see Frost/Nixon on the screen feel that same sensation.”
Howard wrote the piece as a tip of the hat to Frost/Nixon’s showing tonight at the 52nd Times BFI London Film Festival, which will run until 10.30.

Lawrence O’Donnell is predicting that former Secretary of State Colin Powell will soon endorse Barack Obama and thereby hammer “the final nail” into the McCain candidacy. Powell has been reportedly leaning toward this since last summer. Mulling, sorting it all through, weighing pros and cons. Powell needed to see all three debates before making a decision? Will he wait another week? Two? I don’t respect the dilly-dally.

Post-rehab Colin Farrell has become a kind of born-again actor, as I’ve been saying over the past year or so. His confession about his substance-abuse period, starting around the five-minute mark, is eloquent. Farrell has had practice at meetings, of course, but it’s good stuff all the same. The interviewer is BBC One’s Jonathan Ross. (This video was first posted a shocking five days ago….five!)

Another yahoo yelled out “kill him!” today, and he/she wasn’t referring to David Letterman. It happened this time at a Sarah Palin rally near Scranton, while she was being introduced by Republican Congressional candidate Chris Hackett. Palin said nothing, of course, when she got to the mike about this kind of talk being unacceptable. A few minutes ago MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann opened up on John McCain with both barrels for not repeating clearly and emphatically to the faithful that hate epithets are out of bounds.

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Sony Pictures Classics has two and arguably three of the top Best Actress contenders under its roof right now — Kristin Scott Thomas in I’ve Loved You So Long, Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married and Melissa Leo in Frozen River. They have, it can be argued, a special heat in that their performances are urgent and hurting — each telling the story of a hard-luck underdog coming from a place of desperation — and are not highly toned, massively-funded Oscar turns with expensive key-light halos around their heads.
And with this comes a very delicate political dance in which SPC can’t be seen as pushing one actress over another, even slightly. Which Sony Classics co-president Michael Barker says is absolutely not an issue. “There’s no such thing as divided loyalties in a situation like this,” he says. “It s incumbent upon us to pursue anyone whom we feel has a shot, and these three do, and we’re very proud of each one.”
Barker is also cranked about potential Best Supporting Actress nominations for Rachel Getting Married‘s Rosemarie DeWitt and I’ve Loved You So Long‘s Elsa Zylberstein. Other contenders in this category are Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler).
A week ago The Envelope‘s Pete Hammond called the ’08 Best Actress race the hottest in years. In addition to the SPC contenders Hammond has added Meryl Streep‘s performance in Doubt (likely), Kate Winslet‘s in Revolutionary Road (yet to be determined) and The Reader, Angelina Jolie‘s in Changeling (possibly), and Cate Blanchett‘s in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.

“If the elections were held today, Barack Obama would receive support from 53 percent of voters, against John McCain‘s 39 percent, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found.”

A. O. Scott takes a look back at the 1987 Oliver Stone film “through the prism of today’s financial crisis,” as the copy says. But the line that stands out is Scott acknowledging that while Wall Street was intended as a cautionary tale, it has since turned into — i.e., become regarded as — “one of the most enjoyable and effective advertisements for capitalism ever made.”

I didn’t sense the least amount of coolness from Kristin Scott Thomas during our interview yesterday afternoon at the Four Seasons hotel. She has a bit of that chilly rep with some journalists, in part, I suppose, because of her having played a few bright and particular women in films, but I felt mostly openness and vulnerability. Really.

Along with some excitement and fatigue, of course, as she’d flown out from Manhattan (where she’s currently starring in a hot-ticket stage version of The Seagull) to be here only one day. She didn’t throw any pre-recorded or pre-thought out conversation. (Or none that I detected.) She’s obviously very quick, alert and attuned to whatever ‘s happening or coming. Here‘s the mp3.
It seems obvious to me — certainly apparent — that Thomas is in the throes of a second career surge right now. It’s one of those special coagulations that comes from two very hot, deeply admired performances happening at the same time — her Oscar-calibre work in Phillipe Claudel‘s I’ve Loved You So Long (Sony Classics, 10.24) and her highly-praised performance as Arkadina in the Broadway presentation of Anton Chekhov‘s play, which opened on 10.2.
On top of which she’s easily the most admired Best Actress contender among the handicapper crowd at this moment. (Am I wrong? Explain why.) She seems a notch or two ahead of Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married and Melissa Leo‘s widely-praised performance in Frozen River. Nobody’s seen Meryl Streep in Doubt or Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road, but no matter what happens Scott is in, trust me.

Kristin Scott Thomas — Monday, 10.13.08, 4:25 pm

Playing a haunted middle-aged woman just out of prison and struggling to live with the crime that put her there, her ILYSL performance is quiet and subtle and enormously powerful for that. Her work, in fact, reminds me of two of my all-time favorite quiet performances — Steve McQueen‘s in The Sand Pebbles (easily his career best) and Al Pacino in The Godfather, Part II. The kind of performance that draws you in for its lack of flamboyance and modest brushstrokes and delicate indications.
KST’s surge comes seven years after the end of her first streak (’94 to ’01) which began with Four Weddings and a Funeral and eventually included Richard III, The English Patient (her absolute romantic mainstream peak), The Horse Whisperer, Mission Impossible, Random Hearts (an unfortunate momentum stopper for everyone involved) and finally Robert Altman‘s Gosford Park.
Here, again, is the mp3. And here’s a fairly blunt interview-profile (dated June 2007) from the Daily Mail‘s Mark Anstead, and another from the Observer‘s Louise France.

Is there a bigger Hollywood pretzel-contortionist than Dennis Hopper? He starts out in the ’50s as the moody, intense young actor who’s influenced by James Dean and that whole alienated, tortured, wandering-in-pain thing. Then he becomes lysergic Dennis of the ’60s and ’70s — the visionary director of Easy Rider and The Last Movie, brazen and wild-maned, a “lesbian chick” rollicking in Taos, beset by increasing drug use.
And then he shifts into sobriety and the older, cleaned-up, more clear-headed version that emerged in the mid ’80s. And then into being a Bush-supporting Republican over the last 20 years (having voted for Bush ’41 and Bush ’43 twice). Ad recently having played a supporting role (for reasons that were at least partly ideological, one presumes) in David Zucker ‘s An American Tale. And then suddenly lurching into being an Obama supporter at the last minute.
How exactly do you do that? How does that work? I’m cool with Obamacans but how do you go from being on the Zucker team to saying “I pray to God Barack Obama [will be] elected” and making mention of the Bush administration’s “lies,” etc.?