And: (a) Lying duo Molly Hassell and M. Blash aboard the Big Eagle cocktail party for their film — Tuesday, 5.23, 5:55 pm; (b) Shortbus guys Paul Dawson and PJ DeBoy (or is it the other way around?…sorry) at Tuesday’s Lying party; given my sentiments about the film, I didn’t feel quite right about attending Wednesday night’s Marie-Antoinette party…something of a spot decision; (c) Just before a tour bus nearly ran me down — Wednesday, 5.24.06, 7:55 am; (d) Hotel Splendid.
wired
“I understand why some might not like Marie-Antoinette, but the idea of people actually booing it is the most hilariously hypocritical thing I’ve heard at Cannes this year. At least half the competition films that I’ve seen, many of them French, have been dull, turgid and labored. Obviously
Marie-Antoinette doesn’t invite emotional responses as strongly as Lost In Translation did, but Coppola seems to be being criticized for what she hasn’t made, as opposed to recognizing what she has. I think it’s a mistake, if not grossly unfair, of you to somehow paint the film as a failure just because of the overblown reactions of a few pompous Euro crits. The only reaction I heard at my screening was a couple of middle-aged women, one of whom remarked to the other ‘Tres, tres bon’, reflecting my response as well.” — Distribution pal who always asks for anonymity. Wells response: It’s fair to report the boos. They were loud and prolonged, and they expressed my own feelings as well as many, many other press people I spoke to afterwards. As I said yesterday, the theme, craft and tonal consistency in Marie-Antoinette qualify it as a well-made film, but the bland thoughtlessness that lies at the center of it — the complete shucking of the elements that give her story resonance — is rancid. And boooo! to that.
“I don’t know if you’d heard reports of this, but prior to last night’s preview screening for X-Men 3 there was a trailer for Snakes on a Plane and the audience went BALLISTIC! You could tell they were hip to it cause the cheering started as soon as the single word “Snakes” went up, and just thundered all throughout the fairly short teaser, which featured a few fleeting glimpses of snakes, passengers in jeopardy, and Sammy J. I think the idea that SOAP fever is dying down is bollocks. This thing is just getting warmed up.” — Max Evry, Washington, D.C.
I have this idea that Sharon Waxman‘s N.Y. Times story about 20th Century Fox execs pulling the plug on Used Guys, the Jim Carrey-Ben Stiller-Jay Roach comedy, isn’t just well reported. It’s also, I suspect, a sign of the times, a turn in the road…a shot heard round the Hollywood world. The $112 million budget meant that Used Guys would “be one of the most expensive original comedies ever made,” Waxman writes. “And in an industry with crushing marketing costs and top-shelf stars taking a huge chunk of every ticket sale, the studio decided the math didn’t add up.” Bottom-line indicator: Carrey, Stiller, Roach (the director) and other top-dollar players are going to have to start adapting to a world in which they’ll have to settle for being very well paid for their talent and name value, instead of being paid fantabulously-orgasmically. Get used to it, hombres.
Enjoyed a nourishing talk Tuesday night at the Babel party with Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro. I’m seeing GDT’s film tomorrow (Thursday afternoon), chatting formally with him on Friday afternoon. Guillermo said he’s honored that a film such as his (i.e., fantasy, wild imagination, special effects ) is playing at Cannes, but he also believes the festival prize winners have pretty much been decided at this point. (Volver, Babel, et. al.) Naturally he’s rooting for Babel, being a close Innaritu friend and ally from way back.
An Inconvenient Truth opens in Los Angeles and New York today. (I think.) Eli Pariser’s www.moveon.org says “how it does on opening weekend will determine how the movie is received in the press and even how many other cities get to see it.” He’s right, and if you want to help pledge to see the film and urge your friends, etc.
Maybe it’s my fault due to an overly complex paragraph, but that Hollywood Wiretap story that quotes my Marie-Antoinette review got it slightly wrong. I didn’t say that “the scene that seemed to most rile the crowd was one ‘in which French agitators shout angry epithets outside the bedroom of the reviled French queen.'” I made an analogy between French malcontents shouting epithets at Kirsten Dunst’s character in the film and the angry booers at this morning’s screening “as Sofia Coppola’s film ended.”
Steps of the Palais prior to Tuesday morning’s Babel screening — 5.23.06, 8:05 am.
And some others: (a) American traffic cops will ride mountain bikes, but I doubt if they’d ever putter around on cute scooters like these — Tuesday, 5.23, 3:25 pm; (b) Emerging Arists Film Festival honchos Max Ryerson and Thomas Ethan Harris, whose launch party happened a week ago last Tuesday (5.16) in Monte Carlo; (c) The Lying trio on a Big Eagle yacht late Tuesday afternoon: Jena Malone, writer/director M. Blash, Chloe Sevigny — Tuesday, 5.23.06, 5:40 pm; (d) I admit it — I’m vaguely embarassed to be running this photo.
Sony Pictures Classics has partnered up on Persepolis, an in-production animated feature based on Marjane Satrapi ‘s comic-book autobiography (which was written in two parts). SPC announced their distribution deal with the producers at a Tuesday lunch at the Carlton Beach restaurant.
Kathy Kennedy (far left in this group photo and the one above) is the project’s executive producer. Marc-Antoine Robert and Xavier Rigault of 2.4.7 are the hands-on producers. The plan is for the film to be completed by the spring of ’07 and not just be submitted to next year’s Cannes Film Festival but given its debut there. That’s SPC Tom Bernard on the far right; SPC’s Michael Barker is two bodies in from Bernard.
The N.Y. Post‘s “Page Six” column has quoted that downbeat- tracking item I wrote last Saturday about The Breakup, along with a Universal spokesperson saying that “Wells doesn’t understand tracking” [and that] “for a romantic comedy, the numbers are very encouraging.” I quoted NRG figures that put “definite interest” levels at 30, and “first choice” at 5, and concluded, perhaps a bit rashly, that the game is “pretty much over.” The numbers were accurate and I conveyed an interpretation that seemed right to me, but I’m allowing for an error of emphasis on my part because I’ve since been told by others that this conclusion was simplistic and lacked perspective. The numbers I ran only tell part of the story, as they were only a reading of the pulse of the potential audience two and a half weeks away from the opening. The first choice and definite interest figures were misleading, I’ve been told, because biggies like The DaVinci Code and X-Men 3 were ruling at the time the survey was taken, and that scores for The Break-Up and The Omen will markedly improve with tomorrow’s (i.e., Thursday, 5.25) numbers. I’ve since been told, in fact, the The Breakup may pull in a more-than-substantial opening weekend sum. I’m not saying what I said earlier will prove to be incorrect — the Vince Vaughn-Jennifer Aniston comedy was not looking like a strong contender when I ran that item. Aniston’s name-marquee value doesn’t appear to mean much to audiences so far, and NRG respondents have reported a fairly pronounced disinterest in seeing Vaughn inhabit a romantic-boyfriend part. And there’s also that re-shot ending, which advance-screening witnesses have said is a cop-out. But sometimes the wind shifts and sometimes audiences are slow on the pickup, so let’s see what happens.
Alejando Gonzalez Innaritu‘s Babel, which press-screened this morning, is, I believe, a lock to win the Palmes D’Or. It’s an incredibly shrewd and brilliant film about all of us…about frailty, interconnectedness, aloneness and particularly parents and children. It exudes compassion and acute precision with every frame, shot, edit and line of dialogue. I fucking loved it.
It’s one of those “small” portraits of humanity writ large…and like I mentioned in my Inarritu interview a week and a half ago, it becomes larger and richer and more poignant the more you think about it.
Some in the post-screening press conference were asking Innaritu, “So…what’s it all about, really?” That plus the hearty applause and whoo-whoos from the press at the end of the screening tells me it’s one of those film that resonates in a way that’s fuller and deeper than any concisely worded “meaning” or “explanation.”
The teeming energy before the packed press conference began, and the respectful applause given to each player when they were announced at the press conference got underway…you can just feel that this film has connected in a big way.
X-Men 3 is a Brett Ratner coarsening of a action franchise that had more than a touch of class — wit, smarts, well-sculpted characters — when Bryan Singer was directing. But of course, everyone knew this was in the cards when Rattner was hired, and if you accept the downgrade as the way of the corrupted world it’s not that bad to sit through. One of the beefs I have with the Ratner is the same I had with Singer’s first installment, which is Hugh Jackman‘s Wolverine getting clobbered so hard that he flies backwards and slams into walls (and usually though them). This happens so much in that Wolverine’s fight scenes become almost humorous after a while. He acts tough and talks tough, but as soon as he gets into a fight, no matter who his opponent may be…there he goes! A scowling, mutton-chopped backwards-soaring missile…wham! Then he’s on the ground…grimacing, grunting…wow, that hurt…but I guess I’m okay. Fifteen mintues later and another fight happens, and there goes Hugh again! He suffers through a good five or six flying back-slams before the damn thing’s over. If they do a Wolverine movie, please…no more of this.