wired

There’s quite a contrast between Claudia Eller’s reporting in today’s L.A. Times about the firing of PMK/HBH honcho Leslee Dart by Pat Kingsley, and Stuart Elliot’s version of the story in the New York Times. The apparent fact is that Eller got the story and Elliot didn’t. Eller simply states that the 50 year-old Dart “lost an internal power struggle to take control of the agency from the 72 year-old Kingsley.” Elliot pussyfoots around and interprets what happened mainly through quotes from Kingsley and Dart. Kingsley tells Elliot there was “a difference of opinion about the direction of the company and what we wanted to accomplish” and Dart tlles him she and Kingsley “had different ideas about the future of the company.”

Letter from a smart movie-marketing guy in New York City: “You really should add The Incredibles to the Oscar Balloon for Best Picture, Best Director (Brad Bird) and Best Original Screenplay (ditto). It’s a lock for Best Animated Feature, of course, but I think something else is starting to happen. It reminds me of last year when Keisha Castle-Hughes got nominated for Best Actress against all predictions…because everyone who saw Whale Ridervoted for her, even if they thought nobody else would. This year, when I ask Academy members what they like most, only Sideways comes up as often as The Incredibles. Sure, a lot of people still need to see a lot of movies, but I think this one has hit a deep chord…and rightly so.”

Michael Moore’s coming to Los Angeles at the end of the month (i.e., just after Thanksgiving) to make the rounds, beat the bushes and work the town. With one presumed big-studio Oscar contender after another getting shot up or going down in flames, those who are paying attention are facing the likelihood that the five Best Picture finalists are going to be (Phantom of the Opera aside) four un-grandiose movies from the middle-ranks, which means Fahrenheit 9/11 has a shot, especially if Academy members are just into the idea of giving G.W. Bush a symbolic f— you by nominating it, but paying tribute to its place in history for being the first doc to earn north of $100 million.

Speaking of places in history, what about the Academy giving a Best Picture nomination to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ for the $300 million it earned? I don’t see it happening. People are too angry about Bush’s re-election to nominate a film that became a mega-hit largely by appealing to red-state moviegoers. Plus a good percentage of the New York-L.A. crowd thinks it’s a fairly deranged film anyway with all the blood and beatings and whippings..

In America director Jim Sheridan doing Locked and Loaded, a street-crime biopic about 50 Cent? The more I think about it, the cooler it sounds. I see Jim bringing his trademark soulfulness and a veneer of class to the story, being co-written by Sheridan and Sopranos script writer Terrence Winter, about a Queens drug dealer leaving the crime world to pursue his a career as a rapper. And it always seems to work out nicely when English/Irish directors do a take on some uniquely American story-subject, like John Boorman doing Point Blank or Michael Apted doing Coal Miner’s Daughter. The Paramount-MTV venture will roll film early next year. Sheridan’s Ikiru remake with Tom Hanks will happen when it happens, I guess. (I’m told the script isn’t there yet.) Oh, and if anyone wants to slip me a copy of the 50 Cent thing? Mum’s the word.

Longtime journalist and book author to yours truly last night (on my cell phone as I wandered down the aisles of Pavillions on Santa Monica Blvd.): “Jeff, all the big presumptive Best Picture nominees are flaming out!” And I answered, “People are resisting it, they want that ride over the waterfall, but with one exception the most deserving contenders are all in the intimate, thoughtful, mid-sized range.”

I was apparently wrong in presuming that Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator has been shot in 1.85 (standard Academy ratio) rather than 2.35 (widescreen) simply because the new Aviator trailer is in 1.85….although I won’t absolutely know until I see it a little bit later this week.

Save for James L. Brooks’ Brooks’ Spanglish (which was test-screened in near-final form last week in Orange, California) and Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, all the presumed end-of-the-year contenders are now being seen and sized-up in little post-screening huddles outside screening rooms, and there are no emphatic “wow, this is really it” views being pushed by anyone…except, as noted below, in certain quarters, for The Phantom of the Opera. The latest entry to receive mixed grades is Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, allegedly due to problems that manifest during its second half. Mention the superb-ness of Sideways and everyone agrees and nods respectfully, but the only thing I’m hearing definitively about Alexander Payne’s film awards-wise is that is that it’ll most probably take the Best Picture trophy from the New York and L.A. Film Critics. And the more people talk about Bill Condon’s Kinsey, the better-off it’s sounding. It’s the high-toned, mid-sized films that people are warming to more than anything else.

Although I loved Alan Parker’s Evita, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of big splashy operatic musicals. Hence, I had begun to relish the notion of being a counter-advocate of the view held in some quarters that Joel Schumacher’s The Phantom of the Opera (Warner Bros., 12.22) is a certain contender for — and perhaps even a likely winner of — the 2004 Best Picture Oscar. Not because it’s necessarily the “best” film, but because it satisfies the intensely middle-class emotional criteria that Academy members tend to look for and/or respond to in bestowing this award. Having now seen it, and without going into any kind of pro forma review, I must admit there is merit to this opinion. Is Phantom grandiose, orgiastic, at times a bit kischy? Yes…but this serves the emotional pitch of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical, essentially an old-fashoned backstage romantic triangle delivered in a late 1800s grand guignol vein. It’s not my ideal cup of tea — I tend to prefer angular, more writerly films like Sideways –but the material is the material, and I’m not sure that turning down the lavishness and the flamboyance would have been more effective. There’s a certain integrity in being a broadly performed, flamboyantly colored musical that delivers safe and venerated emotions. The Phantom of the Opera is what it is.

Over the last few days I’ve spoken to four cinephile types at different times who’ve seen Alexander, and they’ve all agreed that one undisputed highlight is the appearance of Rosario Dawson’s world-class breasts, as captured by Rodrigo Prieto’s widescreen camera during an acrobatic lovemaking scene with star Colin Farrell. Dawson should get some kind of special award, one suggested. “She should have topless scenes in every film she’s in for the next ten years,” said another. In fact, of all the conversations I’ve recently had about possible Best Picture candidates, no element in any end-of-the-year film has generated quite this much enthusiasm….among guys. Not to sound like too much of a sexist dog, but after winning above-average notices in several fairly good films over the last nine years (The 25th Hour, Love in the Time of Money, Kids, Men in Black II), Dawson is suddenly being spoken of in hushed tones.

A new trailer for Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator (Miramax, 12.17 is up and running online. The main impression is that Leonardo DiCapro’s (and Scorsese’s and John Logan’s) Howard Hughes character isn’t exactly a charmer. Brave and fearless, okay, but a nutter — driven, obsessive, intense. When he asks Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsdale) to marry him, she says, “You’re too crazy for me.” The second thing you notice is that DiCaprio isn’t using his natural voice — he sounds reedy, higher-pitched, a bit hick-y.

At the start of the Aviator trailer, it says that “the film advertised has been rated PG-13.” It says “PARENTS [ARE] STRONGLY CAUTIONED” over “thematic elements, sexual content, nudity, language and a crash sequence.” Thematic elements? In this story of an eccentric, go-for-broke, control-freak aviation pioneer, what thematic element could possibly be considered threatening or upsetting to the jaded mind of a typical 10 year-old? And what kid these days is going to blink an eye at a mere depiction of a plane crashing ito a residential neighborhod in Beverly Hills (which Howard Hughes actually did in 1946) when they spend 80% of their free time on ultra-violent video games?