With the exception of Heath Ledger‘s performance, which they love, Lorenzo Semple, Jr., and Marcia Nasatir, a.k.a. the “Real Geezers,” have come down pretty hard on Chris Nolan‘s mega-hit. “There seems to be an attempt to say we’re living in some kind of fascist state,” says Nasatir. “The Joker seems to rule supreme the same way Osama bin Laden does…I think the director intended it to remind us of what happened to the twin towers…[but] the reason I think it’s such a success, tragically, is because of the death of Heath Ledger.”

“So I got back to my apartment and I had an epiphany,” Steve Guttenberg says to the N.Y. Observer‘s Spencer Morgan in his second hangin’-with-the-Goot column.
Morgan explains that Guttenberg had been reading Roman history about “how Mark Antony had accidentally led a ship carrying 150 soldiers to an island where they found, to their surprise, 500 enemy soldiers. But instead of allowing his men to flee, Antony burned the ship. And then they won because they had to.
“So I sat on my bed, and across from me was my pile of meaningless phone numbers of women that I’ve met,” he said. “This is 4 in the morning, Wayne Dyer and everybody says 4 in the morning is the time when the world is quietest and it’s super-spiritual — and I said, `The only way I’m going to meet terrific women [is] I have to burn the ship.’ So I took this pile of numbers and I went to the incinerator and I blessed all the women and asked them for my soul back. And I blessed it and kissed it, and I threw it down the incinerator.”
That’s a pretty good epiphany — seriously. I can count on less than five fingers the times that I’ve willingly burned the ship in order to free myself from the past and move forward unencumbered. Say what you will about Guttenberg, but these are words of wisdom.
Wait…Guttenberg also says this to Morgan: “A poet said, `Men are dumb, women are evil.’ And I think that’s partially true. I’m not a commitment-phobe — I’ve had girlfriends — but I am weary of the power of women.”
Wells to Guttenberg: What you really mean is, you can’t handle the mentality of smart, shrewd, powerful women who are A-plusses, As and A-minuses. If beautiful women who have power and pizazz make you weary and/or bring you down, then you’re going to have to accept the idea of partnering with a B or a B-minus. The best women in the world come from that group. That or you’re doomed to end up with a hot bimbo, which always leads to thoughts of suicide sooner or later.

Update: I stilll say that the new John McCain ad suggests that Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, who represent two-thirds of the dumbest, emptiest and most repulsive celebrity trifecta in the history of western civilization, are endorsing the trashing of Barack Obama. Others are saying the ad equates their shallow celebrity status with Obama’s, but that is not what this ad implies. At the very least the ad is ambiguous enough to suggest that Spears and Hilton (both of whom are known or believed to be conservative-minded) are in cahoots with the McCain campaign. Here’s the link to the official website.

I don’t know if Spears is narrating or not (doesn’t sound like her) but it’s definitely not Hilton. Anyway, the visuals are all of Obama and the narration goes like this: “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead? With gas prices soaring, Barack Obama says no offshore drilling? And says he’ll raise taxes on [something]-tricity? Higher taxes, more foreign oil — that‘s the real Obama.”
A friend just called to suggest that the ad equates Obama’s celebrity with the legendary shallowness of Hilton and Spears. In other words, it’s trashing these two along with Obama. That wasn’t my impression at all, but to each his own. Throwing in clips of Spears and Hilton and then having a young-sounding female read the narration clearly implies they’re endorsing the ad’s negative Obama assessment

Prostitute intrigues are fairly popular these days among younger cable viewers, to judge by the existence of Showtime’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl, HBO and Darren Star‘s forthcoming Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, Rod Lurie‘s Hillary Jones (a Showtime drama “about a woman who works as a vice cop in Los Angeles during the week and as a legal prostitute in Nevada during the weekend”) and the recent talk about Ashley Dupre (the service-provider of former New York governor Eliot Spitzer) getting some kind of a reality TV deal.
And so The Frisky‘s “Amelia” has taken this recent flurry of activity to remind that playing a prostitute almost always works out in terms of Oscars, Oscar nominations and/or glowing reviews.

Two days ago — 48 hours! — the Patrick Goldstein-Peter Bart jousting came to a temporary end with this posting from Goldstein, which I think is well said: “If Bart had read my piece more carefully, he might have noted that I praised Paramount Pictures production chief John Lesher for the quality of his films [while he was running Vantage]. The problem was that Vantage lost money on most of those movies. Because of its lack of fiscal responsibility, Vantage won’t have a chance to make many more of them.

L.A. Times blogger/columnist Patrick Goldstein; Variety editor Peter Bart

“That’s the real issue here,” Goldstein concluded. “You can make the greatest movies in the world, but if you can’t find a way to pay for them, the bean counters are going to show up some day and padlock your doors.”

“Barack Obama has enjoyed leads in the vast majority of national tracking polls, which is, of course, terrible news for the Obama campaign. Now, I’m all in favor of far less attention being paid to tracking polls, but if they must remain a fixture, no one should have to tolerate the media assigning artificial constructs to these metrics that set out to prove that leading in a poll is a disadvantage. If someone in the press knows precisely where Obama’s numbers should be at this very moment, they need to reveal their sources, or quit pretending to be so damned sure about it.” — HuffPost’s Jason Linkins in a 7.29 posting titled “Resisting The Conventional Wisdom On Polls: It’s Possible!”

“What I am thinking about is, I am not thinking. I am tremendously focused. I have reduced the universe to the state of non-existence. Only me and the wire. Except my concentration carries no horse blinders. I have to feel, see, taste, hear, touch, and smell everything to the utmost, so I can catch any sign of threat before any threat appears.” — Man on Wire star Phillipe Petit speaking to Roger Ebert about wire-walking between the World Trade Center towers eight times in 1974.

I’m sorry, but I have a problem with these plastic shoes. Just like I had a problem with clogs, Birkenstocks, etc. The fact that outdoor wagon vendors sell them at the Grove (along with their cheap cell-phone covers and cheap-ass watches) says it all. They seems to be favored by women. I haven’t seen any real men wearing them, but there’s always the first time.

Variety says it’s being negotiated and Nikki Finke says it’s a done deal. The bottom line is that Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglorious Bastards, his Cinema Paradiso-flavored, moderately wackazoid World War II movie, will almost certainly be a Universal release.

Some people live in perpetual ecstasy over box-office numbers, to the extent that they sometimes get so fired up about the rightness of their readings that they summon the wrath of the God of Abraham to punish those they disagree with. I read their stuff with some interest, but not all that much. At root, it’s a dweeb thing.

Five days ago Washington Times reporter Amy Fagan posted a piece about Friends of Abe, a group of “politically conservative and centrist Hollywood figures organized by actor Gary Sinise and others who’ve been meeting quietly in restaurants and private homes, forming a loose-knit network of entertainers who share common beliefs like supporting U.S. troops and traditional American values.”

Gary Sinise, eh? Other members include Jon Voight, Pat Boone, Lionel Chetwynd and producer Craig Haffner, Fagan reports. Friends of Abe is “not a political action group,” Haffner tells her. “People are gravitating to it because they love their country.” And Barack Obama doesn’t love this country? What a bunch of prissy, sanctimonious pricks these guys must be. They love an idea of this country that lives in their heads, I think they mean.

“Some of those involved are taking…public steps to counter the entertainment industry’s tilt toward liberalism and Democratic politics,” Fagan reports, “such as campaigning for Republican Sen. John McCain or crafting projects to portray America in a more positive light.

I wrote a similar (if much longer) piece for Los Angeles magazine in 1994 called “Right Face.” The basic thrust was that Hollywood conservatives felt obliged to play their philosophical cards close to their chests, knowing full well they were a small minority in an overwhelmingly liberal town.

Here’s page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6, page 7, page 8, page 9 and page 10.