wired

And yet Hass’s piece also includes a coded journalistic reference to Rudin’s next two adult-themed films, Closer and the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. “Whether Closer, with its searing look at relationships and adultery, or the zany Aquatic, directed by Wes Anderson and starring Bill Murray, will combine emotional depth with box-office magic remains to be seen.” The meaning of the phrase “remains to be seen” is New York Times-ese for “they don’t quite hit the mark.” I’m not saying this is the case (and I hope it’s not), but I know all about namby-pamby Times tippy-toeing.

Four early observations on Oliver Stone’s Alexander (Warner Bros., 11.24), which screened for junket press on Saturday, 11.6: (1) Val Kilmer steals the movie in the role of Phillip of Macedon, Alexander’s warrior father, which is good for Kilmer — this will counter-balance his playing the prophet Moses on stage in that bizarre Ten Commandments musical; (2) There’s a pronounced gay love element in the film — Colin Farrell’s Alexander and Jared Leto’s Hephaestion characters, both “very pretty” and said to be “madly in love with each other,” according to one viewer (one should quickly add that sexual closeness between male warriors in ancient Greece was a different equation than a generic gay relationship today); (3) This aspect may encounter resistance with red-state audiences, especially given the virulent red-state rejections of gay-marriage initiatives, plus the general homophobic current in Bubbaland; and (4) the strongest political echo isn’t in the gay behavior, but, in the view of one major critic, in the notion of “a leader from a priveleged family with a powerful father who goes off and conquers middle-eastern territories.”

There is an acute disconnect between what the Reds are saying about Tuesday’s election and how the Blues and their philosophical cousins in Europe, South America and Mexico have reacted to it (i.e., adversely, with horror). Deal with it, Bubbas — the folks outside our borders and across the seas genuinely feel you’ve unleashed some very dark forces upon the world. Of course, people have always heard what they wanted to hear and have disregarded the rest, etc. But one could truly argue that the Reds — at least in terms of world opinion — are, in a very real sense, living in a walled-off realm. Or, to borrow a phrase from Hannah Arendt√ɬ≠s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” (1950, in “the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world.”

A heartfelt tribute to the 18 to 29 year-olds who stayed home yesterday and didn’t vote, as written by Cake’s John McCrea (and pointed out to me on Tuesday evening by literary agent Victoria Wisdom):
“How do you afford your rock’n’roll lifestyle?
How do you afford your rock’n’roll lifestyle?
How do you afford your rock’n’roll lifestyle?
Excess ain’t rebellion.
You’re drinking what they’re selling.
Your self-destruction doesn’t hurt them.
Your chaos won’t convert them.
They’re so happy to rebuild it.
You’ll never really kill it.
Yeah, excess ain’t rebellion.
You’re drinking what they’re selling.
Excess ain’t rebellion.
You’re drinking,
You’re drinking,
You’re drinking what they’re selling.”

Oh, sorry….it’s not over. Provisional votes in Ohio are going to be fought over for the next few days, apparently. The bad guys haven’t won…yet. They probably will when it’s all said and done. I still feel as if I understand what the more strident types were feeling just before the beginning of the Civil War. It wouldn’t be very smart, but it would sure feel terrific to split this country in two and let the Red’s have their country and let the Blue’s have theirs. There would be a kind of satisfaction in that.

At roughly 7:55 pm Pacific, MSNBC’s Brian Williams announced that exit polls had determined that the 18 to 29 year-olds, who had the power to tip the election for Kerry, haven’t turned out in any stronger numbers than they did in 2000. MSNBC exit poll data says that this group delivered 17% of today’s total vote, which is exactly what the same youth-vote percentage was in 2000. As MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said right after this, young voters “will always leave you at the altar.” Two days ago I wrote that if the 29-and-unders follow previous election patterns and sit on their ass in front of the tube and don’t show up in sufficient numbers, they will be known Wednesday morning as the Generation of Shame. Thanks, scumbags!

And so begins November 2nd, almost certain to be one of the greatest television-watching days in the history of the medium, and certainly among the most dramatic in the history of the country.

A thought recurs whenever I watch a Mike Leigh film, as I did Monday night (11.1) when I sat through Leigh’s latest, the touchingly performed and grimly dutiful Vera Drake. It is a realization that watching a Leigh film is like sitting in a dentist’s chair and having my teeth drilled. But there is some comfort in this, for as I sit and suffer I realize I am watching a thing of quality, and that there is considerable truth being rendered within. But I also thank God my life isn’t as drab or dreary as the ones dramatized in Leigh’s films, and that the colors in my environment aren’t so relentlessly gray and milky and blue-ish, and that the middle-aged faces I say hello to aren’t as homely and doughy and beset with such timidity, uncertainty and scared-church-mouse resignation. I respect Leigh, he’s a first-rate artist, and I would rather be worm food than be trapped in a real-life facsimile of one of his films.

A very good performance in a so-so or mediocre film usually means there’s not much hope of getting Oscar-nominated….right? But this will not be the situation, apparently, when it comes to Annette Bening’s performance in Being Julia. The movie is unquestionably second-tier, but Bening is spirited, funny and occasionally touching as a 40ish grand dame of the British theatre in the late 1930s going through a mid-life crisis of the heart. And for whatever reason(s) she’s likely to become the recipient of this year’s best-liked-local-girl sentiment, and is therefore a near-lock for a Best Actress nomination.

Entertainment Weekly editors can shill for Finding Neverland‘s Johnny Depp all they want, but he’s not going to be among the five nominees for the ’04 Best Actor Oscar….the resistance to his vaguely maddening performance is stronger than they realize. And Jim Carrey won’t make the cut either for his above-average-but-still-peculiar performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And neither will Sean Penn for playing a pathetic wack-jobber in The Assassination of Richard Nixon. Jim Caviezel was fairly riveting as a bloody-pulp Messiah in The Passion of the Christ, but director Mel Gibson didn’t give this talented actor enough to do. The talk supporting Jeff Bridges in The Door in the Floor subsided a long time ago, and a lot of people are going to be flabbergasted if Kevin Spacey gets nominated for Beyond the Sea.

Not too long ago Lions Gate was, I’m told, seriously thinking about releasing the R-rated horror flick Saw, a decent-enough entry that is nonetheless regarded in most circles as not quite the equal of The Ring, straight to video. But then former Revolution Studios marketing exec John Hegeman was hired as Lions Gate’s president of worldwide marketing in mid-August, and one of his first moves was to organize some Saw test screenings that encouraged him tremendously. He managed to convince his Lions Gate brethren that Saw would perform strongly in theatres, and it was saved from the grip of video. Last weekend Saw came in third with an $18.3 million haul, averaging $7,895 in 2,315 theaters. So hooray for Hegeman….right?

And by the way (and this is not a bracingly fresh observation), but does Hegeman’s departure from Revolution Studios two and a half months ago on top of Revolution marketing head Terry Curtin’s recent decision to leave Revolution early next year for a gig at Intralink Film Graphic Design…do these see-ya’s “mean” anything? Couple this with the marginal interest in Revolution topper Joe Roth’s latest stab at directing, Christmas with the Kranks (Columbia, 11.24), and I’m not the only one, trust me, to observe lately that the Revolution engine doesn’t seem to be cranking at full throttle.