I don’t know if portions of the Cannes Film Festival slate are being announced on Thursday, 5.17, or if just an official confirmation about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull playing there is being planned, but some kind of Cannes proclamation, apparently, is being readied for that day. Variety‘s Anne Thompson and Tatiana Siegel reported a while back that Skull is not being planned as the Cannes opening-nighter, perhaps as a way of avoiding the aggressive missiles that were directed at the DaVinci Code. The plan may be to show it in Cannes on Sunday, 5.18 or thereabouts.

Paramount is showing Iron Man (opening 5.2) to select press (guys doing long-lead interviews with Robert Downey, Jon Favreau, Jeff Bridges, etc.) but playing things close to the chest when you call about screenings. It will be shown, of course, to journos attending the New York junket, but that’s not until 4.25, or 12 days from now. It will also be shown, I’m told, at an L.A. all-media at the Arclight on Monday, 4.28.

Snapped with iPhone last weekend on La Brea near American Rag

No argument with Media Bistro’s observation that Ross Johnson‘s December 1997 piece for the Hollywood Reporter about client poaching (“Poached! Poached!”) is a catchier, zippier, better reported article than John Horn‘s 4.14 L.A. Times piece about the same topic.

A byline-free Telegraph story posted on 4.11 heralded the arrival of the Geek Action Hero, a Hollywood phenomenon that is probably linked on some level to the Romantic Galumph. Instead of studly musclebound machismo figures who can beat up and outshoot any bad guys who come their way (like the Arnold, Sly, Bruce, Mel and Jean Claude paradigms of the ’80s), “the new breed of action star is more likely to be skinny, awkward and studious-looking,” the story proclaims.

It mentions Shia LaBeouf, Emile Hirsch, James McAvoy and the as-yet unknown Ben Barnes as examples of this mini-trend. It also mentions the sensitive, semi-dweeby Tobey Maguire‘s turns as Spider-Man, and the brainy-flip-sardonic Robert Downey Jr.’s upcoming performance as Iron Man. Has anyone been left out?
LaBeouf (Transformers) plays Harrison Ford‘s son in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Hirsch has the title role in the Wachowski’s Speed Racer. McAvoy stars in the action thriller Wanted. And Barnes (Stardust) plays the lead in action-y Chronicles of Narnia film, Prince Caspian.
“The geek is god in Hollywood,” publicist and Oscar campaigner Tony Angellotti tells the nameless Telegraph writer. “Every generation redefines its heroes and the heroes of today are slight of stature and geeky looking.”

Ben Barnes

“Do these kids even shave?” Angellotti continues. “For decades, we wanted our heroes to be who we could never be, but this generation of filmgoers wants heroes they can relate to, who are similar to them. They see themselves in these somewhat awkward, geeky, hairless-faced guys. They can relate to them.
“Stars like Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis were men; these are boys, and they’re appealing to younger audiences. Who would think of Robert Downey Jr. as a superhero? Where did that come from?”

For the usual motives, Manhattan memorabilia collector Keya Morgan has told New York Post reporter Hasani Gittens that he recently brokered the $1.5 million sale of a 15-minute silent stag film showing Marilyn Monroe doing some guy on her knees. Morgan is a reputable collector so authenticity doesn’t seem to be an issue. Obviously icky information, especially on a Monday morning, but I’m mentioning it because of a bothersome timeline thing.
Gittens’ story says that “the footage appears to have been shot in the 1950s,” although elementary logic would indicate the late 1940s. Why would an up-and-coming actress who’d finally broken into the big time, having been cast (most likely in late 1949) in John Huston‘s The Asphalt Jungle, which came out in May 1950, and then Joseph L. Mankiewicz‘s All About Eve, which opened six months later, want to risk her reputation by performing in a sordid 16mm sex film? Doesn’t add up. Monroe was no dummy.
It’s much more likely that this black-and-white quickie was shot in ’48 or ’49, when Monroe was struggling to make do. That’s all I’m saying. Morgan or Gittens didn’t think it through. If the film seems to have been shot in the mid to late ’50s, which would be confirmed by Monroe’s hair being platinum blonde as opposed to her natural light reddish brown (which is how she wore it in until ’50 or thereabouts), Gittens should have at least reported this aspect. It’s sloppy reporting any way you look at it.

Hillary Clinton “is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsman, how she values the second amendment. She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley. She’s out there like she’s on the duck blind every Sunday. She’s packing a six-shooter.” — Barack Obama riffing earlier today on Hillary’s very recent stump fetish about guns, being taught to shoot by her dad and drilling ducks with buckshot. Play this while reading and reflecting.

Some random responses to John Horn‘s 4.14 L.A. Times piece exploring the why and wherefores of the recent talent-agency shakeups. I’ve read it twice and I still haven’t absorbed the “there” that is presumably there. I’m in the middle of a third read as we speak. I’m down to reading sentences out loud and repeating them until the “oh, now I see!” kicks in.

The intra-agency trades “are related to growing anxiety over the future of the film business,” he writes. How do you quantify “growing” anxiety? The talent representation business runs on anxiety. Agents feed on it. It’s the one constant that has permeated the business since the days of silent pictures. A monkey with claws dug in to every player and every career. John Horn, trust me, is himself haunted by it. I eat anxiety for breakfast. To me it isn’t a monkey but a gorilla, but on some level I’m resigned to that.
Robert DeNiro going from CAA to Endeavor is a big “whoa”? In whose mind? In the eyes of the critics and reading public the man is finished as any kind of heavy talent or formidable player. He’s made too much crap, taken too many paycheck jobs. One look at that godawful Righteous Kill trailer and you go, “Jesus, God… what happened?” Every second or third film the man makes could and should be something smallish, soulful, risk-taking. Whoever you may consider to be the Robert Bresson, Luis Bunuel, Pier Paolo Pasolini or Michelangelo Antonioni of our time, DeNiro should at least be trying to hook up with these talents. Has he? Doesn’t seem like it.
“Instead of gambling on a broad and eclectic slate of movies, the studios are making creative decisions as much on spreadsheet projections as gut reactions to great screenplays,” Horn reports. “Studios not only are making far fewer films but also allowing concepts and marketing hooks to govern greenlight decisions rather than a specific actor’s availability and interest.” Haven’t producers been lamenting “high concept” thinking since the early ’80s? Groaning how difficult it is to get a movie going that isn’t driven by a simple, easy-to-digest marketing hook? This has been a Hollywood malaise issue for a long time now. What’s new here?
Two of the significant talent switches listed by Horn are those by actors Ashton Kutcher (from Endeavor to CAA) and Jennifer Connelly (ICM to CAA). No offense, but who cares what Kutcher is up to? I admired Connelly’s work in House of Sand and Fog and A Beautiful Mind, but are her representational loyalites matters of any real interest to anyone? I’m not trying to be an asshole. I’m just asking.
“The head of production at one studio said that when his movie budgets now grow too expensive, he insists that actors give up one of their prized perks: a percentage of every dollar that comes in.” Ooohh, poor babies!
“Several managers said that many actors who were once guaranteed to open a film at the box office are no longer a sure bet, as was proved by the poor openings for Will Ferrell‘s Semi-Pro and George Clooney‘s Leatherheads.” Ferrell has done fairly well until recently, but when has Clooney (whom everyone loves) ever opened anything?

A Sunday tribute piece by N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott about Roger Ebert, specifically about his return to regular written film criticism despite his retirement from TV punditry, which was announced on April 1st.

Politico‘s Jeff Ressner has posted a roster of ten younger Hollywood heavyweights (i.e., younger than old-guard Hollywood liberals like David Geffen, Mike Ovitz, Stanley Sheinbaum, Norman Lear, etc.) who constitute a “newer army of Hollywood political heavyweights… mostly unknown showbiz executives in Los Angeles [who are] working behind the scenes in left-leaning politics: hosting Democratic Party fundraisers, sponsoring anti-war rallies, organizing abortion rights events, backing environmental legislation or producing message movies that promote peace, love and understanding.”
The “Tinseltown Ten,” he proclaims, are (1) Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Michael Lynton; (2) Wild Brain CEO Charles Rivkin, (3) Star Trek director and Cloverfield producer J.J. Abrams; (4) Rhino Records co-founder Richard Foos; (5) producer Lawrence Bender; (6) producer and “viral video campaign” orchestrator Julie Bergman; (7) Marvel Enterprises COO and Brave New Films co-founder Rick Jacobs; (8) Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll; (9) agent Ari Emanuel; and (10) former actress, philanthropist and networker Heather Thomas.

The Calgary Sun‘s Kevin Williamson posted an article today (both on the Sun‘s website and on Canoe Jam) about the Judd Apatow myth-fantasy of hotties being attracted to and going out with galumphs, and he quoted yours truly as follows:

“This is all Judd reliving the dynamics of his marriage. I think everyone knows down deep that…birds of a feather flock together. It’s very unusual for hotties to be with galumphs. Ask anybody. The only reason it happens, and it’s the same in this town as it is in New York and elsewhere, is that the guys are very witty, which women love and find sexy, but also very loaded and have connections.
“Seth Rogen in real life is a hip, smart guy. But he’s playing slackers who wear Cabo San Lucas T-shirts and smoke doobies, and that doesn’t work to my understanding. The only time you’re going to have a guy who’s a 6 with a girl who’s an 8.5 is when it’s about power.”
An actor friend put it to me thusly a few years ago: “All women the world over lie down for the conqueror.” Which is just another way of phrasing the old Oliver Stone–Tony Montana-ism, to wit: “First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the woman.”

Blabbering Bill Clinton, bless him, has rescued Barack Obama from the “working-class Pennsylvanians are bitter” rap. Or he did 17 years ago, rather. It was revealed today by the Huffington Post‘s Nico Pitney that in September 1991 Clinton said pretty much the same thing that Obama has been taking heat for when he referred to blue-collar bubba voters as “all these economically insecure white people who are scared to death,” in a September 1991 Los Angeles Times article.
Which is more insulting to a typical Pennsylvania blue-collar Reagan Democrat — being called “scared to death” or “bitter”? Isn’t it more manly to be bitter than scared? I would probably feel better about “bitter” if I was a rifle-owning, gay-marriage-hating, churchgoing Pennsylvania union guy.
In November 1991 Joe Klein, writing for the Sunday Times, reported that Clinton made the following remarks: “You know, he [George H. W. Bush] wants to divide us over race. I’m from the South. I understand this. This quota deal they’re gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they’ve been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade.
“When their economic policies fail, when the country’s coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, ‘What happened to everybody’s job? What happened to everybody’s income? What…have…you…done…to…our…country?”

Bruce McDonald‘s The Tracey Fragments (Thinkfilm, 5.9) is apparently the first feature ever to be composed entirely of “Mondrian-like” split screens. The Canadian-produced film is also propelled, to go by festival reviews, by Ellen Page‘s tour de force performance as 15 year-old Tracey Berkowitz, who recaps her recent history as she “sits on the back of a city bus, naked except for the tattered curtain she’s wrapped in, and looking for her missing brother, whom she fears she has hypnotized into believing he’s a dog.”

I’ve avoided seeing this film for a long time (it was first screened at the 2007 Cannes market, and then shown at Toronto last September, then at the AFI Festival in November). Now the release date is less than a month off, the side-stepping is over and I’m going to have to face it like a man. I just don’t want to know about a girl whose brother thinks he may be a dog. I’m done with that stuff in my life. I’m not much for nearly naked teenagers in the backs of buses either. I’ve been in some very strange places in my youth and can relate on some level, but even when I was a somewhat reckless and irresponsible kid I didn’t know anyone who was screwed up enough to think they were a dog, and if I did I would have avoided them like the plague.
I love the fact, however, that The Tracey Fragments was filmed in 14 days but took 9 months to edit. I also love the fact that “as part of the promotion for the Canadian release, the distributor released all of the original footage as downloadable torrent files and encouraged people to re-edit the footage into whatever they saw fit…this is believed to be the first theatrically-released film to make its footage available in such a fashion….entries ranged from music videos to a complete re-edit of the film in linear order, without split screens.”