Audrey Kovacs, widow of the recently departed dp Laszlo Kovacs, informs that some kind of memorial gathering will happen at the ASC Clubhouse in Hollywood within the next three to four weeks. The details, as they become available, will be posted on www.theasc.com.

“I wouldn’t dare unmask the secrets in the movie A History of Violence out of respect for the artistry of David Cronenberg and the integrity of his booby-trapped plot,” writes Village Voice film cricket Nathan Lee in a 7.21 N.Y. Times piece. “But there isn’t a single frame of The Number 23 I wouldn’t mock in great, guiltless detail for the simple reason that I find it extremely silly.

“A spoiler requires something to spoil and someone to take offense at the spoiling, and I’m confident that my readership does not include humorless scholars of the Joel Schumacher oeuvre.”
What’s the History of Violence spoiler? That Viggo Mortensen is really Joey the gangster? Isn’t that rather obvious from the moment when Mortensen wastes those two cafe robbers, and surely from the moment that Ed Harris and those two goons come into the diner and start with the insinuations? 48 years ago, would a critic have spoiled the just-opened North by Northwest by revealing that Cary Grant‘s Roger Thornhill isn’t really George Kaplan? Gimme a break.
I love those guys who angrily complain when I discuss a plot point about a film that’s opened, say, a month or two ago on the grounds that they’re waiting for the DVD to see it. And the ones who complain about spoilings because they’re waiting for the film to show up on cable before seeing it. I don’t have a hard and set rule, but if a film’s been playing for five or six weeks, I say all bets are off. Except for movies with Really Big Surprises — The Sixth Sense, The Empire Strikes Back, Crying Game, etc.

Note: Thanks to Moving Picture Blog’s Joe Leydon for linking to Lee’s article.

Wow, missed this one, all the way back to 7.18: Kevin Smith talking to MTV.com’s Shawn Adler about two films he’s shooting in tandem — Zack and Miro Make a Porno, a comedy about two Minnesota guys starting an amateur-porn business on the eve of their 15-year high school reunion, and a Shining-type horror flick called Red State. The former will be “done shooting by Christmas,” with Red State expected to begin production “sometime in February or March.”

If you believe in the maxim that fire follows smoke, those recent stories about the DreamWorks guys (Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg) possibly looking to sever ties to Paramount — written by Business Week‘s Ron Grover, Variety‘s Peter Bart, DHD‘s Nikki Finke and Hollywood Wiretap‘s Tom Tapp — suggest something’s probably up.
What’s the rumpus exactly? What does it all boil down to? A small group of super- rich older guys (50ish, 60ish and beyond) rubbing each other the wrong way. One pissed about another’s dismissive manner, one dissing another over an evident pattern of credit-hogging, all of them fuming because their massive egos haven’t been satisfactorily stroked. Truly fascinating. If only Honore de Balzac could somehow be raised from the dead and given close access.

Laszlo Kovacs ‘ death was confirmed to me this morning by Lisa Muldowney of Creative Communication Services, which represents the American Society of Cinematographers. He died Saturday at his home in Beverly Hills.
On 7.18 a Hollywood Reporter story by Carolyn Giardina said that “Martin Scorsese, Dennis Hopper, Mark Rydell, Owen Roizman and Haskell Wexler are slated to be interviewed for inclusion in a new documentary about two of the community’s most influential directors of photography, Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond.
“In production, Laszlo & Vilmos: The Story of Two Refugees Who Changed the Look of American Cinema is being written and helmed by director of photography James Chressanthis.”
Last night I passed along a Hungarian website report about Kovacs’ apparent passing after attempting to translate the first three paragraphs of the Hungarian story on a website called InterTran. The translation was prettty nutso, but the brief career recap alone indicated the worst. Here’s the precise Hungarian-to-English reading:
“She had died Hammersmith Laszlo, the Hungarian bead-roll world camera-man, extended serious illness after first-day at dawn Bung Hills at his home senses kozlemenyeben the Hungarian Cinematographer. His companion HSC. Vagyoczky Tibor cinematographer , the HSC tagja the MTI nek she told me, the heavy-hearted hirt in person the artiste widow of him intimidated with it on the phone. Hammersmith Laszlo ban graduated the Budapest Theater, and Cinematics College cinematographer cook, yet on that year emigrated, ever since in the United States she was alive and panted. Several knew picture cinematographer it had been.”

At yesterday’s launch of “The Mistress and the Muse“, a Manhattan retrospective of Norman Mailer‘s film work, the legendary author spoke about the second worst man he’d ever met, and The Reeler‘s Stu Van Airsdale wrote it all down:

“I sat across the table from him. He had about the stature of a man who’s a publicity director for a Midwest corporation of medium size. There were about 12 of us at the table. I never met his eyes once even though I was sitting this far away from him. [Holds palms three feet apart.] I realized that this was a man who had learned very early in life to never have a conversation with anyone who could do you no good. So our eyes never met, because he sensed that if our eyes met, a good question would pop into my head.
“Anyway, that person — number two — is Ronald Reagan.”
I don’t like to visit much less dwell in this realm, but this led me to wonder who are the two or three worst people in Hollywood I’ve ever run across? And how do you define worst? For me it means a person who, after all is said and done, has shown himself to be profoundly vicious and ungracious in his regard for certain others, and who insists on a certain manic rigidity in his/her estimation of other people, places, views, etc. A person, in other words, who not only has a difficult time cut- ting other people slack, but who seems to revel — who seems to almost derive a form of sensual pleasure — in the caverns of sulfur, in harshness and combative- ness, in bully-boy scheming and finger-pointing and the rendering of damning judgments.
I was about to spit out the name of this rancid human being…until I stepped back and asked myself if I’ve been a little bit guilty of these things from time to time. I’ve been accused of being mean and overly judgmental, and I won’t say I’ve never gone there. But I think I’m pretty good at cutting other people slack, which is to say choosing to focus on their good sides and ignore the bad. So I’m not going to spit that name out. But as God is my co-pilot and Jesus my judge, there are people in this town who in serious need of personality transplants.

Another cartwheel for The Bourne Ultimatum, this one from In Contention‘s Kris Tapley. Went up the same day as my own, too lazy to link to it until now.

MNO, a Budapest-based website, is reporting that the great cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs has passed on. Working backwards and choosing randomly from his credits: My Best Friend’s Wedding, Multiplicity, The Scout, Radio Flyer, Say Anything, Little Nikita, Legal Eagles, Mask, Ghostbusters, Frances, Heart Beat, The Runner Strumbles, New York, New York, Shampoo, Freebie and the Bean, Paper Moon, Slither, Steelyard Blues, The King of Marvin Gardens, What’s Up, Doc?, Pocket Money, The Last Movie, Alex in Wonderland, Five Easy Pieces. One of the very best. A legend. Met him a few years ago at the Newport Film Festival, heard him speak…Excellent human being.

“Speed is not the key to web success. It is the power of writing and tone and analysis and the draw of personality. Same as it ever was. Defamer breaks very little, but it is fun to read. Same with La Finke.” – MCN‘s David Poland in a short piece about this morning’s discussion of growing web power on AMC’s Sunday Morning Shootout between hosts Peter Bart, Peter Guber and Variety columnist Anne Thompson. Of course, you can’t see clips from this morning’s show on the SMS website — that would be too helpful. And if the webmasters have decided to re-broadcast this morning’s show, they’re keeping it a secret.

“We don’t care about cinematography or great acting or anything like that,” says Mr. Skin‘s chief “sexecutive” officer Jim McBride to N.Y. Times guy Andrew Adam Newman. “We’re concerned about the nudity — who’s naked, and what they show.”
Mr. Skin “had revenue of $5.3 million last year, primarily though $29.95-a-month subscriptions,” Newman reports. “With more than 175,000 revealing pictures and video clips of about 15,000 actresses (yes, only actresses), the site drew 2.9 million unique visitors in June, according to comScore, the Web traffic tracker.”
Five or six years ago a Film Threat guy let me use his Mr. Skin password for about a year, and access to that damn site consumed ruined my concentration. Several days of good writing time went right down the drain. Even if I had time to burn I’d never blow $29.95 monthly in order to quietly ponder the ski slope of Charlize Theron‘s breasts. Spending hours on that site don’t get you nowhere, don’t make you a man.

“Homer Simpson, the oafish paterfamilias of America’s favorite dysfunctional family, emerges from his big-screen debut a bona fide Hollywood action hero,” begins a confusingly written London Times review (dated 7.22) by James Bone.
“At the start of The Simpsons Movie, Homer’s dreams of glory are limited to helping his new pet pig to walk upside down on the ceiling while singing ‘Spiderpig, Spiderpig’ to the Spider-Man theme song.”
Why would anyone want to see a movie that’s even briefly interested in a guy who wants to walk his pet pig upside down? Is Bone putting us on? Is he insane?
“But when the adopted swine gets him into bigger trouble than even this celebrated screw-up has ever experienced before, he falls under the influence of a chesty Native American woman he calls ‘Boob Lady’ and undergoes an uncharacteristic epiphany that galvanizes him into action for the good of his by-now estranged clan.”
Does anyone reading this understand what the previous paragraph means apart from the name ‘Boob Lady’ and the reason she’s called that?
“By the time the witty final credits roll,” Bones goes on, “Homer outshines even Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been elected president and ordered great harm done to Homer’s home town.”
How has Schwarzenegger done great harm to Homer’s home town? Isn’t Bone obliged to at least hint at what this “harm” may amount to?
“The Hollywood action theme helps the hit cartoon series, after 18 seasons on television, to land its death-defying leap to the big screen with panache. The result is a postmodern parable about an environmental scare that is at the same time hilarious and horrifyingly poignant. But thanks to an unexpected glimpse of Bart’s genitalia, this is a postmodern parable with a ‘pickle shot’.” Horrifyingly poignant?

No Reservations (Warner Bros., 7.27) had a nationwide sneak last night, so it’s fair game to write about it. Except I don’t know what to say. It’s one of the most puzzling “meh” movies I’ve ever seen. It didn’t do anything to me or for me. I didn’t hate it, love it or like it that much — I just sat there, waiting and watching and hoping for something to happen, checking my watch two or three times as I sat slumped and vaguely sneering. And then it ended. And then the audience clapped for three or four seconds.

It tells a nice-enough love story about a selfish, hard-wired chef (Catherine Zeta Jones) gradually falling for her deceased sister’s daughter (Abigail Breslin) and — we all know the drill — becoming a better, less neurotic, more emotionally giving person. Her growth arc happens with the help of an amorous good-guy chef (Aaron Eckhart) whom she otherwise sees as a threat due to his having been hired at the West Village restaurant where she works, hence making her feel irate and threatened, because he’s warmer and more nurturing with Breslin than she is.
I know this story chapter and verse, having seen the 2002 German film that No Reservations is based upon — Sandra Nettlebeck‘s Mostly Martha — two or three times. It became a favorite among upmarket moviegoers, hip foodies and the like. Here’s my original review.
The problem is that No Reservations is a touchy-feely-foodie movie that won’t let you feel anything. Director Scott Hicks has delivered a pro-level job — well paced, smoothly composed, agreeably acted (except for two performances) — but nothing happens. And absorbing this strange nothingness is a very weird deal. You’re watching a “heart” movie that says all the right things about parenting, love and great food, and it’s all rote and bloodless — a movie going through the paces.

I might as well just say it — Catherine Zeta Jones sinks this movie. She plays a brittle, bitchy, control-freak chef with pronounced anger issues, and there’s just no warming up to her. I didn’t like her from the get-go, although I felt much differently about the same character when she was played by Martina Gedeck in the ’02 version. I don’t want to go out on a limb but this may have something to do with Zeta Jones not having the chops or emotional range to handle a part like this. She’s a costar, not a star. And she always plays selfish avaricious types who have no regrets about their natures. Here she’s trying to sell regret, and it’s a no-go.
The reason I couldn’t get into her performance last night is that I believe that I know who Catherine Zeta Jones is, and her acting did nothing to change this opinion. I think she’s basically an operator who plays selfish bitches in movies (the drug dealer’s wife in Traffic, the gold-digger in Intolerable Cruelty, the floozy in Chicago) and who’s made some profitable deals off-screen — that T-Mobile thing, selling kid photos to the tabs, marrying Michael Douglas. A lawyer friend I know calls her a “capitalist pig.” That’s a little harsh. She’s just one of those women who want what they want and get it.
The other bad performance in this film is from Bob Balaban, who plays CZJ’s therapist. He’s the one who says, “The best recipes are…” No, I can’t say it, can’t repeat it. But it’s absolutely one of the worst lines ever written. It’s so on-the-nose if makes you want to jump in front of a cab.

I wrote this five years ago: “Far from radical or earth-shaking, Mostly Martha won me over partly because it does no more than take a familiar situation — an egotistic single person suddenly saddled with the responsibilities of parenthood — and twist it around some. It’s basically a culinary Kramer vs. Kramer with a European mood, a subplot about romantic love, and a delightful emphasis on the preparing of exquisite food. I’m thinking, in fact, it may be the most succulent, sensually appetizing, food-trip movie since Big Night or even Babette’s Feast.”
This is an accurate description of what No Reservations is, and at the same time is not. It has all this great-looking food, but the aromas and tastes just aren’t there.
Aaron Eckhart is okay as the chef boyfriend, but Sergio Castellitto was far more engaging in the German version. Charm is a hard thing to quantify or manufacture, but when a person has it, you know it.