This is hilarious: Defamer has a comment from a reader who says he just attended a screening on the Universal lot of the new, happy-ending version of The Break-up (Universal, 6.2), which came out of a recent re-shoot that came about, according to that “Page Six” item, because of negative reactions to the original finale of the film in which costars Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn don’t get back together. Anyway, the reader says he “saw a test screening of [the version with the happier ending] last night at Universal (yeah, I was recruited at AMC in Burbank), and at the panel afterwards, pretty much everyone HATED the new ending they tacked on to make it seem like they got back together…and I mean hated it.” For what it’s worth, a well-connected source of my own just told me this test screening did indeed happen, and that the reactions to the new ending WERE pretty bad. He also told me what the original ending was: Vaughn and Aniston meet up some time after they’ve split and they’re both in new relationships, and yet Aniston’s new boyfriend looks exactly a lot Vaughn and Vaughn’s new squeeze looks an awful lot like Aniston. This sounds pretty funny to me…funny idea and a potentially very funny scene. My source told me that “endings almost always test badly…people almost never like the endings they see….especially if someone dies at the end.” I think on some level it’s the Some like It Hot curse. That’s a pretty well-known classic film, and anyone who’s seen it knows it has one of the greatest endings (and greatest final lines) ever, and it’s really tough to come up with something as good as that and yet people want something in that realm, and…well, life’s a bitch.

Some folks at Cinematical have responded to my United 93 review, and I responded to some of what they said, etc. Sorry for my misspelling and dyslexia, but I was in a rush. Anyway, I’ve been able to correct the boo-boos since. A woman named Martha Fischer who doesn’t want to see United 93 took exception to being called a coward, which is what I more or less said earlier, and I responded thusly: “Sorry to be the bearer but yeah…you kind of are that, Martha. No offense and all but yes, I feel that you are definitely a run-and-hider. I respect the fact that there are thousands of like-minded souls in your boat (or do I mean ‘arc’?), and it’s okay if you want to turn your head and push those memories away and ‘move on,’ as it were. I sound like I’m being facetious but I’m trying not to be …seriously, to each his own. I just happen to think you and your brethren are basically being babies about this. I’m saying this because I feel that I know whereof I speak. I used to be terrified of looking at an illustration of a certain big beaver in a kid’s book when I was four or five years old, and my mother never threw that book out — she kept it in a bottom bureau drawer and it always unnerved me, knowing it was sitting there. I knew I NEVER wanted to look at that Godawful scary beaver again…never! Now, who knows? Maybe if all the courageous, strong-in-their- heart Americans like yourself join hands and resolve that while 9/11 happened, they can also resolve not to think about it, and if they keep doing that then maybe the residue of 9/11 will eventually go away altogether and then…well, I guess if the residue is permanently erased then 9/11 never really happened, right? I mean, it ‘happened’ but if enough babies join hands and resolve that they don’t want to think about it or reconsider it or remind themselves what it was like or, God forbid (please…no!…NO!) consider the historical-geopolitical reasons why it might have happened in the first place (you know…like those pesky nabobs Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal have?), then it’s kind of like saying that if we all really believe in fairies then maybe Tinkerbell can be brought back to life. I don’t mean to upset you, seriously…go ahead, ignore United 93, it’s fine…..but it really is a totally pro-level, respectful and respectable film about what definitely happened, and what might have happened, and perhaps what should have happened.”

People have written this morning about CNN.com’s “quick vote” question of the day, asking how many readers intend to see United 93 when it opens on 4.28. (CNN’s idiot search engine won’t take you to it, but the “quick vote” thing is on the lower right portion of the page.) One reader told me 80% of the respondents have said they would not see the film. Another reported that as of 10:15 this morning that of the 42,555 who’ve answered the poll so far, only 8474 respondents — a bit less than 20% — said they’d be seeing the film. Maybe if Universal and exhibitors made a special offer to pass out little pink and blue baby blankets to first-weekend patrons, so they could have something to hug and cover themselves with as they watch it…?

Jurors at the trial of accused 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui yesterday “heard the first public playing of the cockpit voice recorder of United Airlines Flight 93, the hijacked jetliner on 9/11 that missed its target thanks to a passenger uprising,” says this CNN story. The ending of this story (aknowledging this can’t be avoided) conflicts with the ending of Paul Greengrass‘s United 93, but certainly not in spirit. And that’s all I’ll say.

If you look down on the lower-left search engine you’ll notice you can now conduct two separate site searches — one for the Hollywood Elsewhere column archives and one for the WIRED column. The WIRED search engine works just beautifully, and I think the page is pretty nicely designed also. A big thanks much to the great Jim Stanley, a very creative and diligent guy, for throwing this together.

“I’m not one of those ‘too soon!’ types, and I work in the Pentagon. I luckily managed to be out of town on 9/11, but I had many coworkers and friends in the building that day, and my brother lived in Manhattan at the time, so I’m about as close as one can get to that day without actually being there. And I have no problem seeing United 93. It’s history, and as long as it’s done as history — i.e. no JFK-like inventions of fantasy — it’s worth our time. Anyway, I had one tiny beef with your piece: whereas I may personally think that you are ‘very, very much mistaken’ when you assert that Iraq War has nothing to do with the War on Terror, we can agree to disagree. But my reaction to reading Paul Greengrass‘s ending card, ‘America’s war on terror had begun,’ is that such an observation ignores that we’d been fighting this war on terror for over twenty years before 9/11. I will sadly count the victims of Islamic terror in Tehran 1979, Beirut 1983, the Achille Lauro 1985, the European airport attacks 1985, the Berlin discotheque 1986, the Lockerbie 1988, World Trade Center 1993, Africa 1998, the U.S.S. Cole 2000…countless hijackings, assassinations and suicide bombings as all part of the War on Terror, all fought long before September 11th. The War on Terror didn’t begin on 9/11, but that’s the day America finally chose to fight back.” — Dave at Garfield Ridge.

As rock-music documentary quizzes go, this one’s easy. A little too easy. Here’s a question of my own: In Michael Wadleigh‘s Woodstock (1970), Hugh Romney (i.e. Wavy Gravy) offers many sage remarks from the stage of the Woodstock Music Festival. In response to stage manager Chip Munk‘s concerns about the “brown” acid, Romney says (a) “That one’s easy…we all know what brown is the color of!” (b) “Hey, man…I did one of those brown tabs…I think, sometime in the last 12 hours or so…and I’m okay so whatever, man…God loves you, okay?” or (c) “Hey, man, I happen to be one of those who feels there’s no such thing as a bad trip!”

Now I’m hearing from a Univeral spokesperson that this morning’s “Page Six” item about a newly-shot happy ending patched onto the finale of The Break-up (Universal, 6.2) that has costars Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn staying together at the end, isn’t…uhm, well, I’m not sure. But the re-shoot wasn’t, I’ve been told, about adding a simple-ass, about-face, switcheroo happy ending just to make it “happy.” I guess that means it’s been finessed or something.

Davis Guggenheim and Al Gore‘s global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, 5.26), which I saw for the second time last night, is, I strongly suspect, going to win the Best Feature Documentary Oscar in March ’07. It may or may not emerge as the year’s finest doc (nobody has a clue about anything at this stage), but what it says is so damned important and vital for the survival of the planet, and it makes its case so persuasively, that any Academy member with a smidgen of concern about the perils of global warming is going to want to give it the Oscar so that more people browsing in video stores will be inclined to rent or buy it. (Let’s face it — Truth is too much of a straight education piece to become a huge theatrical success.) Two people (an actress and an attorney) told me last weekend they didn’t want to see this film when I mentioned Monday night’s screening…”not my thing,” “naah, don’t think so.” That’s a problem…average Joe’s going from denial (“the science isn’t in yet”) to despair in a single lunge. But there’s a road beyond despair, and Gore’s film is a constructive attempt to show the way. On top of which Gore’s pitch — his “performance” — is very captivating and persuasive in this thing (much more than it was during the 2000 campaign), and he’s famous for having been a techno-geek type from way back…he’s pro-business and wants everyone to be flush (his non-Mahatma Gandhi physique tells you he’s not that radically into self-denial). Like I said last January, I’m starting to think that Gore’s entire political career, which culiminated with his run for the White House six years ago, has been about getting people to see and fully consider this slide- show lecture movie about global warming. An Inconvenient Truth is his crowning achievement…the summation of his life…the reason he was put on this earth to become a politican and a stirrer-upper and influencer of public opinion. Because if people see Truth in sufficient numbers, Gore will have done more to save this planet from ruination than anyone in his realm has ever managed. Oh, and as far as linking together the movie’s website with that Climate Crisis website that is mentioned at the end of the film, I’m told that everything will be harmonized within a couple of weeks, along with a big re-design of the Paramount Classics site.

A straight-talking, lay-it-on-the-line Paramount publicist (there are always exceptions to any rule) says Mission: Impossible: 3 is crafty and crackerjack and totally delivers…despite Paramount’s policy of deciding not to invite print or online journalists to the L.A. junket later this month, and to not let critics see it until the all-media screening on Tuesday, May 2nd — three days before the May 5th opening. Tom Cruise always conrol-freaks his way through press junkets (he’s only talking to TV interviewers) but I’m being told that even a run-of-the-mill phoner with director- writer J.J. Abrams is something less than a slam-dunk. This would normally indicate a certain “hmmm” or even an “uh-oh” factor, but the big studios are elbowing the press out of the picture every which way these days, even, apparently, when the movie ain’t half bad. Welcome to 2006! For what it’s worth, a journalist pal is also hearing M:I:3 is “really good.” (I know, I know…stuff like this means nothing.) I guess the thing to do is to search for slightly earlier reviews from Europe and Asia since M:I:3 is opening on 5.3 in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as in Hong Kong, Sinagpore and the Phillipines.

“Page Six” has stumbled upon an item that may (for a minute or two) take everyone’s attention away from the Jared Paul Stern magillah: a re-shot happy ending for The Break-up (Universal, 6.2) with costars Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn deciding to stay together at the end. The original script by Jeremy Garelick and Jay Lavender (Vaughn worked with them on the original story) had them going separate ways at the finish and “it was shot that way but test audiences hated it. It tested really…and I mean really badly,” a “source” tells “Page Six.” So Aniston, Vaughn, director Peyton Reed (Down with Love, Bring It On), and a crew went back to Vaughn’s home town of Chicago, where the film takes place, to shoot the new finale. “Page Six” quotes an e-mail from a Universal rep that apparently confirms this: “Every film can benefit from a few extra days of shooting, and The Break-up was able to return to Chicago for some quick additions that we believe will add to what we know is already an enormously satisfying movie.” (And by the way, it’s not The Break Up, as the IMDB has it, but The Break-up.) One concern: you can’t just paste a happy ending on a story. Happy endings have to be organically developed and earned. The seeds have to germinate early in the plot — they have to be hinted at, and be gradually developed. I haven’t seen or read The Break-up so I don’t know a damn thing, but I know you can’t build a comedy in a certain way and construct a plot with a certain tonal inclinations, and then turn around at the last minute and go “changed our minds…we’re taking things in a happy direction!” (A guy who’s read the script is calling this news “terrible…the script had a very good and different ending from most romantic comedies…there’s no way you can buy [Vaughn and Aniston] getting back together after pissing each other off for 90 minutes. Vaughn had dubbed it ‘the anti-romantic comedy’…not anymore, Vince…Universal has no balls.”)

Things imploded at Hollywood Elsewhere on Monday. Several dribs and drabs and strands of this and that (including my second exposure to David Guggenheim and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth , in the early evening), and I didn’t feel like writing a single damn thing. Stuff happened, things emerged, but you need more than just material. You need the will . Without that…nothing. I think that’s a universal metaphor all around.