Movie titles with a secondary subtitle — titles like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo — usually indicate mediocrity or at least uncertainty on the part of the distributor. But the practice suggests an interesting riddle game. The idea is to come up with a tight and expressive subtitle that indicates what the movie delivers (or seems to promise) on a primal popcorn level.
Example: In discussing Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood some 35 years ago, Tom Wolfe claimed that a key line came when Dick Hickock said to Perry Smith prior to their fateful visit to the Clutter home, “Honey, we’re gonna blast hair all over them walls.” Wolfe concluded that “hair on the walls” was the invisible subtitle of In Cold Blood — the book as well as the film. So the the title in the poster would naturally read as follows:

The game is a lot tougher than it seems. The subtitle has to say it just right in a kind of haiku way. Simpleton example: The Wizard of Oz: No Place Like Home. The campiest and most emotional movies are the easiest to figure. Gone With The Wind: Waitin’ There Like A Spider. (Alternate: Gone With The Wind: Never Be Hungry Again.) Or Mommie Dearest: No Wire Hangers!
But what, for example, would the subtitle of Mamma Mia be? Twilight? Laurence Olivier‘s Hamlet (’48)? Lina Wertmueller‘s Seven Beauties? Au Hasard, Balthazar? Spartacus? All About Eve? All The President’s Men? It’s hard. Choose any movie title in the world but make it good. Nothing stupid or coarse. Nothing along the lines of Reservoir Dogs: Ear-Slice With Me.
True confession: Years ago in a West Hollywood bar I ran into the famous Scott Wilson, who played Hickock in the 1967 film version of In Cold Blood. I’ve always regretted not going up to his table and asking him sign a napkin with the words “Scott Wilson — hair on the walls.” I wimped out, of course, thinking he’d probably be offended. That was probably the right thing to do, but I’ve felt badly for years that I didn’t do this. Why is that? I’ve made mistakes in life, but who hasn’t? The thing that won’t leave you alone are the things you chickened out on — the things that might have been.

An insider on the new Bad Lieutenant team, responding to the Abel Ferrara item posted earlier this morning, explains it all: “The whole reason the film was made was because [executive producer] Avi Lerner got hold of the rights, which he bought from Ed Pressman for an undisclosed sum. And he went out and pre-sold the film in ten countries for $30 million, or an average of $3 million per country.

“Lerner funded the film for $20 million, and pocketed $10 million for himself. Nic Cage, who likes New Orleans and owns a home there, took a substantial pay cut — only about $2 million — because he wanted to work with [director] Werner Herzog, who probably got his first decent payday check out of this deal. William Finklestein‘s script wasn’t good but Herzog upgraded it considerably. Lerner didn’t even look at the script.”

“Oddly bloodless,” “coldly unilluminating,” protagonists who “rarely emerge as living, breathing people,” and a “doggedly linear approach to storytelling [that] only gets Ron Howard so far”? In Contention‘s Guy Lodge has delivered a fairly stiff slapdown to Frost/Nixon following a showing today at the BFI London Film Festival. I know how satisfying Peter Morgan‘s play and Frank Langella‘s Nixon performance are (or were on stage) so on one level it’s puzzling. But it’s not as if restrained or muted reactions haven’t cropped up before.

Original Bad Lieutenant director Abel Ferrara feels angry and slighted for not being asked to direct the new Bad Lieutenant, which Werner Herzog has hired to helm instead with with Nic Cage in the title role. The newbie isn’t a remake but some kind of continuation of a theme, or so I’ve read. Ferrara’s best line is that producer Ed Pressman “sucks cocks in hell.” (Very Catholic sentiment, that — cribbed from William Friedkin‘s The Exorcist.) Here’s a portion of the Filmmaker magazine q &a in which Ferrara lays it all out:
Filmmaker: “What are your feelings about Werner Herzog doing his version of Bad Lieutenant?”
Ferrara: “He can die in hell. I hate these people – they suck. A, he don’t know me, couldn’t pick me out of a line-up. B, I’m chasing windmills. Well, I’d rather chase windmills than steal other people’s ideas. It’s lame. I can’t believe Nic Cage is trying to play that part. I mean, if the kid needed the money… It’s like Harvey Keitel said, ‘If the guy needed the money, if he came to us and said, ‘My career’s on the rocks,’ I’d cut him a break.’ But to take $2 million – I mean, our film didn’t cost half of $2 million. That film was made on blood and guts, man. So I really wish it didn’t upset me as much as it does.”
Filmmaker: “You’re going to be doing the prequel to King of New York soon.”
Ferrara: “So I’m ripping off Abel just like that too. [laughs] If I did King of New York, I’m not doing the prequel to Aguirre: the Wrath of God, okay? Let me put it that way.”
Filmmaker: “So they’re making the film against your will?”
Ferrara: “Absolutely. Nobody asked us to do it. Nobody approached us and said, ‘Would you do it?’ Give us $8 million, we’ll come up with something. They give me twenty grand and say, ‘Go fuck yourself.’ Gimme a break! They aren’t paying Harvey anything, they aren’t paying him two cents. Ed Pressman sucks cock in hell, period. You can print that.”

Frost/Nixon director Ron Howard, posting today in the Times Online, says he hopes “the film does [for audiences] what Peter’s play did for me — reminds us that accountability matters.
“When the system allows our leaders to hide behind verbal gymnastics, or to have their sins blithely rationalized by the complexity of the office they hold, it is up to the people to demand a reckoning. And while the media is an industry vying for customers, it must somehow also be that instrument of enlightenment for us, the public who so desperately rely upon it.” (Which is precisely what Dan Rather said a day or so ago in Manhattan.)
“I hope that our film reminds us all that truth, in the end, is not merely a good idea, but is worth struggling for. And, last but not least, I hope that it reminds us of the pleasure and excitement of a good human drama well played. I experienced that in London a couple of years ago, and I hope those who see Frost/Nixon on the screen feel that same sensation.”
Howard wrote the piece as a tip of the hat to Frost/Nixon’s showing tonight at the 52nd Times BFI London Film Festival, which will run until 10.30.

Lawrence O’Donnell is predicting that former Secretary of State Colin Powell will soon endorse Barack Obama and thereby hammer “the final nail” into the McCain candidacy. Powell has been reportedly leaning toward this since last summer. Mulling, sorting it all through, weighing pros and cons. Powell needed to see all three debates before making a decision? Will he wait another week? Two? I don’t respect the dilly-dally.

Post-rehab Colin Farrell has become a kind of born-again actor, as I’ve been saying over the past year or so. His confession about his substance-abuse period, starting around the five-minute mark, is eloquent. Farrell has had practice at meetings, of course, but it’s good stuff all the same. The interviewer is BBC One’s Jonathan Ross. (This video was first posted a shocking five days ago….five!)

Another yahoo yelled out “kill him!” today, and he/she wasn’t referring to David Letterman. It happened this time at a Sarah Palin rally near Scranton, while she was being introduced by Republican Congressional candidate Chris Hackett. Palin said nothing, of course, when she got to the mike about this kind of talk being unacceptable. A few minutes ago MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann opened up on John McCain with both barrels for not repeating clearly and emphatically to the faithful that hate epithets are out of bounds.

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Sony Pictures Classics has two and arguably three of the top Best Actress contenders under its roof right now — Kristin Scott Thomas in I’ve Loved You So Long, Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married and Melissa Leo in Frozen River. They have, it can be argued, a special heat in that their performances are urgent and hurting — each telling the story of a hard-luck underdog coming from a place of desperation — and are not highly toned, massively-funded Oscar turns with expensive key-light halos around their heads.
And with this comes a very delicate political dance in which SPC can’t be seen as pushing one actress over another, even slightly. Which Sony Classics co-president Michael Barker says is absolutely not an issue. “There’s no such thing as divided loyalties in a situation like this,” he says. “It s incumbent upon us to pursue anyone whom we feel has a shot, and these three do, and we’re very proud of each one.”
Barker is also cranked about potential Best Supporting Actress nominations for Rachel Getting Married‘s Rosemarie DeWitt and I’ve Loved You So Long‘s Elsa Zylberstein. Other contenders in this category are Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler).
A week ago The Envelope‘s Pete Hammond called the ’08 Best Actress race the hottest in years. In addition to the SPC contenders Hammond has added Meryl Streep‘s performance in Doubt (likely), Kate Winslet‘s in Revolutionary Road (yet to be determined) and The Reader, Angelina Jolie‘s in Changeling (possibly), and Cate Blanchett‘s in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.

“If the elections were held today, Barack Obama would receive support from 53 percent of voters, against John McCain‘s 39 percent, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found.”