wired

I don’t know if you’ll be able to hear this audio clip with any clarity, but it’s Syriana director-writer Stephen Gaghan telling an oddly humorous story during an interview a couple of nights ago with Variety editor Peter Bart. It’s about a visit Gaghan made to the home of high-level conservative and Iraq War-supporter Richard Perle in early 2003 just before the invasion of Iraq, and what happened when former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu dropped by, and how Perle’s dog (whose name is “Reagan”) related to Netanyahu, and how Netanyahu responded.

Why is Julia Roberts still “perceived” as the highest-paid actress who pulls down $20 million per film? Back in the days of Notting Hill and Runaway Bride, okay…but now? Isn’t she starting to be over, winding down, etc.? No big movie roles on the horizon, on the mommy track, doing a New York play next March called “Three Days of Rain”, etc.? Roberts’ alleged standing is contained in a special piece by Hollywood Reporter‘s Christy Grosz about the town’s most highly-paid actresses. Nicole Kidman is listed as #2 with a payday in the realm of $16 to $17 million. (Hold up… didn’t I read a few months ago that the triple whammy of Cold Mountain, The Stepford Wives and Bewitched had turned Kidman into a shark jumper?) Reese Witherspoon is said to be the third highest earner with a $15 million fee….okay, deservedly. Next is Drew Barrymore at $15 million (even though her movies almost always stink, because people go to see them anyway…. brilliant). Angelina Jolie and Cameron Diaz are both pulling down $10 to $15 million per project. (Tell that to the Fox execs who met Diaz’s fee for In Her Shoes.) Jodie Foster is earning $10 to $12 mil- lion a pop, Charlize Theron is getting $10 million, and Jennifer Aniston $9 million.

It bears repeating that Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (12.9) is one of the only two December releases that are tracking really strongly now, the other being King Kong. I usually bypass those Saturday daytime all-media screenings because family films are bad for my spiritual health, but I don’t think there’s any choice as far as this weekend’s Narnia showing at the Arclight is concerned. Honestly? If I could clap my hands three times and make this film disappear (which would thereby release me from any obligation to see it), I would clap my hands three times. Especially considering Narnia‘s running time of two hours and 15 minutes without credits. (“It’s nowhere near as long as Return of the King,” a friend said this morning…great!) But this is going to be a huge red-state movie, and duty calls.

Steven Spielberg’s Munich (Universal, 12.23) will run about 2 hours and 40 minutes with credits, according to Universal and DreamWorks sources. (Terrence Malick’s The New World, which opens on 12.25, runs about the same.) Spielberg’s spokesperson says he’ll be vacationing starting around 12.20 or so and isn’t planning on doing any dog-and-pony-show appearances in Los Angeles to promote Munich, but the word for some time has been that “we’re letting the film speak for itself”). Spielberg does have a history, however, of enjoying Time or Newsweek cover stories to promote his important films (which he got from Time for Saving Private Ryan). The word is that one of these two rags (Time, most likely) will have a Munich cover on the stands next Monday…unless some big news event pushes it off.

A certain industry observer was working last week on another story about Oscar bloggers, and then along came Patrick Goldstein’s thing yesterday in the L.A. Times so who knows? Maybe this other piece might get changed around over said journo’s concerns about not being first or following Goldstein or whatever.

“Studio publicists say they cater to [Oscar] bloggers because their top executives react hysterically to every little slight they see on the web,” writes “Big Picture” columnist Patrick Goldstein in his current L.A. Times posting. I can testify about the reverse end of this. I’ve just been disinvited to two events I’ve RSVP’d to — in one instance because I’ve run negative postings about a certain big-studio feature, and in another instance because I used some initiative to get myself into an Academy-members screening of an upcoming film. I think it can be said without any particular prejudice that some people really love sloshing around in their emotional bathwater, even when it doesn’t serve their strategic interests.

There’s concern out there…concern bordering on distress…about what moves L.A. Times‘ Calendar Entertainment editor Betsy Sharkey and senior editor Lennie Maguire are planning to make in order to cover independent films after Kevin Thomas, who’s been reviewing indie releases for the Times for eons, leaves the paper at the end of the year. Sharkey and Maguire didn’t pick up, but the understanding is that the Times won’t be hiring a “new Kevin” and will have to depend on a Dave Kehr-like pinch-hitter (or perhaps a freelancer) to review the releases from Magnolia, IFC, Strand, Cowboy, et. al. Sounds like a fairly simple solution, but I wonder who the contenders are? How about staying with Kevin on a freelance basis? It seems inconceivable that the Times would ignore certain lower-profile indie releases..that they would decide to selectively review most of the smaller films but not all of them…but that’s what some people in the indie-publicist realm are worried about. Daily Calendar editor Alice Short and Deputy Daily Calendar Editor Lee Margulies declined comment.

Attaboy’s to the principal IFP Spirit Awward nominees, i.e., those with three nominations or more. The big winner was Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale with six — Baumbach for Best Director and Best Screenplay, Jeff Daniels for Best Male Lead, Laura Linney for Best Female Lead, and Jesse Eisenberg (one of the more intriguing young actors out there as well as a very cool, sharp and thoughtful dude to shoot the shit with) for Best Supporting Male performance. Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, Bennett Miller’s Capote, George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck and Tommy Lee Jones’ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada got four each. Congrats to Team Capote‘s Dan Futterman for his Best Screenplay nomination. And a hearty “good going” to Paul Haggis, Bobby Moresco, Mark R. Harris, Don Cheadle, et., al. over Crash‘s being nominated for Best First Feature.

The IFP Spirit Award gang has nominated Robin Wright Penn’s brief but pulverizing turn in Rodrigo Garcia’s Nine Lives for a Best Supporting Actress award…all right! Maybe the Academy and the Gurus of Gold prognoticators will listen up and consider this. I went apeshit over her performance in a 10.19 piece.

I don’t want to make too much of this, but it comes as a jolt that the IFP Sprit Awards nominating committee has given a pat on the back to Hans Petter Moland’s The Beautiful Country by nominating Sabina Murray’s script for a Best First Screenplay award. (Veteran screenwriter Larry Gross also worked on it, no?) Country was so roundly ignored by the media and public alike (or so it seemed) that I’m feeling a bit shocked. I fell hook, line and sinker for The Beautiful Country way back on 4.20.05…not that it mattered.

It’s evident why David Poland would be miffed at Patrick Goldstein’s just-up column about Oscar bloggers (“Making Oscars a mule race”), but I’m not going to squawk about Goldstein calling me “the Lewis Black of Oscar bloggers.” Plus he compounded whatever impact my anti-Memoirs of a Geisha views may have on the local populace by imprinting my words on wads of actual lumber-mill paper, which, for some people over the age of 45 or so, carries a certain legitmacy that cyber copy lacks. I have to say that I agree with Poland in his dispute with Goldstein over which acronym applies in the matter of a deminishing media enterprise. Goldstein describes himself and the L.A. Times as representatives of MSM (i.e., mainstream media) while Poland refers to the same as OM (i.e., old media). Either way, the notion that you need to hold finger-smudging newsprint in your hands in order to read something of consequence is totally out the window as far as the under-35s are concerned.

IndieWIRE has put up the complete list of competition titles for Sundance ’06 — Dramatic, World Cinema Dramatic, Feature Documentaries and World Cinema Docs. (Hey, three films from that discredited Film Finders list are included! Dito Montiel’s A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Julian Goldberger’s Hawk Is Dying and Hilary Bourgher’s Stephanie Daley.) Spectrum, Park City at Midnight, and Frontier lineups will be announced Wednesday, 11.30 at 1:00 a.m. eastern (Tuesday, 11.29 at 10pm). The Premiere’s section lineup will be announced on Thursday, 12.1 at 1:00 a.m. eastern (Wednesday, 11.30 at 10 pm). The short film lineup will be released on Monday, 12.5.