I wish I’d seen and snapped this prior to the election.
Hard plastic bleacher steps built over the TKTS booth in Times Square — Thursday, 11.13.08, 6:45 pm
I’ve been listing Kate Beckinsale as one of the Best Actress contenders in the Oscar Balloon for her Nothing But The Truth for a long while now. Not just because she’s delivered the best work of her life in this film, but because her performance as a Judith Miller-ish, Washington, D.C.-based journalist who goes to jail for refusing to give up a source is full of serious investment and quiet, toned-down believability.
At last night’s Peggy Siegal party for Nothing But The Truth at the Plaza Athenee, screenwriter Stephen Schiff and NBTT star Kate Beckinsale — Thursday, 11.13.08, 10:25 pm
And because I can’t think of another female lead performance this year that comes so fully from the eyes. Watch her in NBBT and tell me this isn’t so. They glisten with feeling in every frame.
Just as certain long-of-tooth actors have been nominated because they’ve been doing good work for three or four decades and it’s time for their gold-watch tribute, younger actors like Beckinsale deserve kudos also for suddenly going deeper and stronger, not just in their choice of roles but by nailing them cold.
Beckinsale starred in a string of commercial good-enoughers and in more than her share of vampire films starting in the mid ’90s, but then she turned a corner with her performances in Snow Angels (which almost no one saw) and Nothing But The Truth. And that warrants respect.
I was moved to write this, yes, because it came back to me after speaking with Beckinsale at last night’s Peggy Siegal party for Nothing But The Truth at the Plaza Athenee. But I feel this anyway so what the hell. I believe what I believe and say what I say when I damn well choose to say it.
The only thing going a little bit against Beckinsale is that Nothing But The Truth is a “tweener” — a gripping, efficient, first-rate political drama that is seen as not “indie” enough and at the same time not a high-concept, big-studio powerhouse presentation, which is what we’ve all been trained to give nominations to out of an ingrained instinct to show obeisance before power.
Nothing But The Truth director-writer Rod Lurie attended the event also, as did costar Vera Farmiga, with whom I spoke for ten or fifteen minutes. I spoke also with producer Jean Doumanian, who’s will bring forth the film version of August: Osage County sometime in ’11.
Screenwriter Stephen Schiff (Money Never Sleeps) and Ben Gazzara were there also, along with former N.Y. Times reporter Judith Miller (the half-model for Beckinsale’s character), Rush & Molloy’s George Rush and Indiewire’s Eugene Hernandez.
I arrived at the Plaza Athenee a bit early, and guess who I saw arriving at the hotel, all alone and carrying his own suitcases? Rudy Giuliani.
I missed yesterday’s Variety announcement about the sad passing of Falco Ink founder Gary Hill, 53, who died a week ago in New York of undisclosed causes. Gary was a man of great charm and perception and nerve, and a first-rate publicist by any standard. He was always extremely friendly and supportive of me and my stuff, and I will miss him enormously.
I always loved that Hill named his company Falco Ink, which is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the infamous Sidney Falco character in Sweet Smell of Success (1957), who was played by Tony Curtis. I arranged for Curtis himself to pay a visit to the Falco staffers in ’99 or ’00 (I forget which) at a Los Angeles party they threw a few months after starting business.
Hill began his career as assistant to Brian DePalma. He got into publicity in the mid ’80s, and worked for Clein + White for a long period. He helped found Falco Ink. in 1999, where he served as partner until 2005.
After moving to Lenox, Massachusetts in 2006, he became a founding board member for the annual Berkshire Film Festival in Great Barrington, Mass.
The Rich Raddon/Proposition 8 situation that MCN’s David Poland revealed yesterday afternoon is a bugger, no question. I don’t know what to finally think or say — I’m truly torn and feeling badly for the guy, but at the same time amazed that someone in the liberal Hollywood tent would declare himself to be in opposition of gay-marriage rights. It’s one of those “what?” situations.
L.A. Film Festival director Rich Raddon, producer Effie Brown.
Poland uncovered the fact that Raddon, director of FIND’s LA Film Festival, came up on a “Yes On 8” donation list to the tune of $1500.
“Rich is a well-liked guy,” he wrote. “He is not secretive about being a Mormon. And he could end up losing his job over this. FIND’s position is that no one can be fired from a job over their religious beliefs, so Rich is still employed.
“And I must say, positions amongst FIND insiders are widely varied. The phrase ‘witch hunt’ has been used…as has ‘I can’t see ever sitting down at a meeting table with him again.'”
Raddon is well liked and well respected. I’ve known and admired him for years. He cares about independent film, is very smart and politically adept (except for this mind-bending dip in the road), and has performed energetically and enthusiastically as the director of the L.A. Film Festival. But the fundamental political rule in every land and culture is “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” so what the hell? On a political-smarts basis alone, what Raddon did was extremely unwise.
Is there anyone who disputes that the now-voted-upon-and-passed Proposition 8, which denies the right of gay people in California to marry, is an expression of bigotry? I’m not aware of there being any basis for ambiguity about where Prop Hate is coming from. Ugly-spirited Mormons, Orange County righties and bigots of all stripes supported it. There are, I suppose, political causes more repugnant than supporting Proposition 8, but what would they be exactly?
(l. to r.) Raddon, Film Independent’s Dawn Hudson, actor Don Cheadle, Film Independent’s Rachel Rosen
There’s a way to make this all go away. Raddon, and I say this as a friend, needs to put out a statement clarifying his views on gay marriage — why exactly does he support the Mormon view on this measure? — and fully explain the basis of his (presumably) religious objections to same. Nobody wants to see him gone, but his financial support of Proposition 8 has put his neck in the wringer.
Am I saying that everyone in the Hollywood community has to be pro-gay marriage? No — I’m saying that because many strongly disagree with and are appalled at Raddon’s support for Prop Hate, he’s created a problem for himself and needs to do what he can do fix it.
Others in the liberal entertainment community have criticized Proposition 8, including, believe it or not, Elton John. A recent USA Today story quotes John as having said in 2005 that he and partner David Furnish are “not married. Let’s get that right. We have a civil partnership. What is wrong with Proposition 8 is that they went for marriage. Marriage is going to put a lot of people off, the word marriage. I don’t want to be married. I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership. The word ‘marriage,’ I think, puts a lot of people off.”
A connected industry friend was outraged this morning when told about Poland’s statement that Raddon “could end up losing his job over this.” He said, “This is McCarthyism. .I could not be more opposed to Yes on 8, but I am totally opposed to any sort of witch hunt. It’s pure and simple McCarthyism. I am not anti-gay. I am liberal enough and open enough to accept all sorts of views, to agree to disagree. This is a free country the last time I checked.
“The people who are behind Prop 8 probably are bigots. I find most of their views reprehensible. I find the whole Mormon business…the fact that Mormon culture condones multiple marriages and then turns around and condemns gay marriage. Look in your own house first. I think Rich is like Sherri Shepherd who said on The View that she had serious religious-based reservations about Proposition 8.
“If Raddon has said I support the American Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan, I would say get out of my life. Because we have to have standards that respect human life and basic morality. Peronsally I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with them. But that’s not this . It’s ridiculous to associate these hate groups with Proposition 8. People who do so need to get a life.”
With a “Democratic official” having “confirmed to the Huffington Post that Sen. Hillary Clinton met with President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday to discuss her role in the new administration,” and with Clinton having concocted a cover story about being there on “private business,” it seems a fairly safe bet that she’ll be the next Secretary of State, as various news orgs are speculating.
The dominant reason for Obama offering the post to Clinton? In a nutshell, because it’s better to have the Clinton camel inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
“The best reason for Obama to be looking for a place in his cabinet for Clinton is simple,” MSNBC’s First Read newsletter said this morning. “To get her out of the Senate. Just ask George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter what it was like to have a once or future presidential rival in the Senate serving as a one-person Roman tribunal. Remember how easily the press gravitated to John McCain in ’01 or Bob Kerrey in ’93 or Ted Kennedy in ’77 to allow them to be one-senator judge/juries on Administration proposals?
“The upside for Obama putting Clinton at State (or even the Pentagon) is that it gets her out of the Senate and gets her out of the domestic policy debates. Also, one other thing to keep in mind if Clinton does end up at State, she’ll be off the political circuit; it’s considered unseemly to practice politics while serving in one of the big cabinet posts, especially at State or Defense. So this would mean no more Hillary on the stump for candidates, no more Hillary raising money, no more Hillary collecting chits.”
A newish, action-themed one-sheet for The Day The Earth Stood Still (20th Century Fox, 12.12). Also a newish, action-themed trailer in Windows and Quicktime.
For what it’s worth, New York‘s “Vulture” guys have summed up a bit more of the early Button rumble.
A week ago Variety‘s Todd McCarthy‘s got into the whole Bourne-y Bond syndrome in his “Deep Focus” column — my apologies for not catching it sooner.
The main point is the little-discussed fact that all along the Bond films have exclusively used British directors, or at least Commonwealth, given that New Zealander Lee Tamahori did one. But never an American or Euro until now with Marc Forster, which McCarthy feels might have been a genetic mistake of one kind or another, the Bond thing being in British blood
McCarthy states at the end that Danny Boyle would have been the most enticing candidate to direct Bond. (Boyle told McCarthy last week he was a huge Bond fan as a teenager, reading every Fleming book at least twice.) Chris Nolan, among other Brits, would obviously be good, but he might be too much of an auteur for the notorious “stopper” producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli to deal with.
The word around the campfire, I’m told, is that the film was originally longer than the final-cut length but that none of the quieter scenes were working and Olga Kurylenko‘s scenes with Craig didn’t rise to the occasion, so they just decided to cut them all out. Has anyone heard anything more along these lines?
“Beautifully shot with great sensitivity to color by the cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantel, in both film and digital video, Slumdog Millionaire makes for a better viewing experience than it does for a reflective one,” says N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis.
“It’s an undeniably attractive package, a seamless mixture of thrills and tears, armchair tourism and crackerjack professionalism. Both the reliably great Irrfan Khan (A Mighty Heart), as a sadistic detective, and the Bollywood star Anil Kapoor, as the preening game-show host, run circles around the young Mr. Patel, an agreeable enough if vague centerpiece to all this coordinated, insistently happy chaos.
“In the end, what gives me reluctant pause about this bright, cheery, hard-to-resist movie is that its joyfulness feels more like a filmmaker’s calculation than an honest cry from the heart about the human spirit (or, better yet, a moral tale).
“In the past Mr. Boyle has managed to wring giggles out of murder (Shallow Grave) and addiction (Trainspotting), and invest even the apocalypse with a certain joie de vivre (the excellent zombie flick 28 Days Later). He’s a blithely glib entertainer who can dazzle you with technique and, on occasion, blindside you with emotion, as he does in his underrated children’s movie, Millions.
“He plucked my heartstrings in Slumdog Millionaire with well-practiced dexterity, coaxing laughter and sobs out of each sweet, sour and false note.”
Fandango’s Harry Medved is reporting that “hundreds” of Twilight shows “are continuing to sell out one week before the movie opens,” and that these sales have outpaced those of High School Musical 3 at the same point in that film’s sales cycle.
Some Fandango stats based on an 11.13.08 survey of nearly 4,000 Twilight moviegoers: (a) 83% of respondents plan to see the film on opening day; (b) 65% indicated they generally do not see movies on opening weekend; (c) 54% are going with a group of friends; (d) 74% of respondents say they’re online at least several hours each day; (e) 87% say they viewed Twilight trailers and clips online, rather than on TV, in the movie theater or elsewhere.
On top of which the Twilight soundtrack is already the #1 selling album.
Take this with a grain, but an English HE reader named Patrick O’Brien told me today that he’s just caught an early London screening of Revolutionary Road. O’Brien writes well and thoughtfully and seems sincere as far as an e-mail allows, so here’s his generally positive reaction:
“I’ve never been much of a fan of Sam Mendes but I was very pleasantly surprised here. Revolutionary Road (DreamWorks, 12.26) is a tremendously impressive emotional drama, cleverly put together, beautifully composed, and nicely edited by Tariq Anwar.
“Only the ending felt a little unsure; otherwise, I feel Mendes has made serious progress as a director. A daring scene at the breakfast table is pulled off with virtuosity towards the end. I’ll say no more than this.
“Much is demanded of the leads. A lot of what is communicated — the charged, confused feelings dangling just below the surface — is done without words. We’re dealing with a lot of heightened emotion bordering on melodrama. But the actors cope well, although Kate Winslet, I feel, is more convincing than Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Revolutionary Road isn’t saying anything particularly revolutionary. I’ve seen people trapped in the suburbs, their dreams wilting, in cinema before — but it is portrayed this time with great eloquence and intelligence.”
<div style="background:#fff;padding:7px;"><a href="https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/category/reviews/"><img src=
"https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/reviews.jpg"></a></div>
- Really Nice Ride
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall‘s Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year’s Telluride...
More » - Live-Blogging “Bad Boys: Ride or Die”
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when...
More » - One of the Better Apes Franchise Flicks
It took me a full month to see Wes Ball and Josh Friedman‘s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes...
More »
<div style="background:#fff;padding:7px;"><a href="https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/category/classic/"><img src="https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/heclassic-1-e1492633312403.jpg"></div>
- The Pull of Exceptional History
The Kamala surge is, I believe, mainly about two things — (a) people feeling lit up or joyful about being...
More » - If I Was Costner, I’d Probably Throw In The Towel
Unless Part Two of Kevin Costner‘s Horizon (Warner Bros., 8.16) somehow improves upon the sluggish initial installment and delivers something...
More » - Delicious, Demonic Otto Gross
For me, A Dangerous Method (2011) is David Cronenberg‘s tastiest and wickedest film — intense, sexually upfront and occasionally arousing...
More »