Like all people of any standards, I too was disgusted by the sleazy gotcha questions thrown last night at Barack Obama by ABC’s Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous. They asked the kind of questions that might be of interest to regular readers of the Globe or the Enquirer, or people who don’t even do that and watch only television. Gibson and Stuffin’ Envelopes were wallowing, lowballing, dragging things down.

Last night’s debate “was another step downward for network news,” wrote Washington Post columnist Tom Shales. “In particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.
“For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.
“The fact is, cable networks CNN and MSNBC both did better jobs with earlier candidate debates. Also, neither of those cable networks, if memory serves, rushed to a commercial break just five minutes into the proceedings, after giving each candidate a tiny, token moment to make an opening statement. Cable news is indeed taking over from network news, and merely by being competent.”
Clinton was scummy also, continuing to say over and over, “I’m only raising issues that the scumbag Republicans are going to raise, and if Senator Obama can’t cope with these questions any better than he has tonight, you would probably be better off with me as the Democratic candidate.” What a loathsome rationale.
I also emphatically agree with this Will Bunch column from this morning’s Philadelphia Daily News.
That said, I agree that Obama has to spunk up and stop deflecting so much and show a little hellfire and brimstone. His cautious manner is starting to get on my nerves a bit. His genteel refusals to mix it up with Clinton and give her a taste of her own medicine are not what I want to see him do. Michelle, his wife, has lately shown more spit and gusto when she answers questions.

Yesterday a 20th Century Fox publicist told Newark Star Ledger critic Stephen Whitty there would be no screenings of Deception before its 4.25 opening. Then I heard this morning that there would be two screenings next Tuesday on the Fox lot on Pico Blvd. Then Whitty was told by the N.Y.-based Fox publicists they they’ve changed their minds and will screen it after all. So the item I wrote yesterday was correct when I wrote it.

If you want to get into shape for Vadim Perlman‘s The Life Before Her Eyes (Magnolia, 4.18 limited), you might want to read Kim Voynar‘s spoiler-free review on Cinematical.

Kim is quite the admirer, especially the way it’s all put together just so and pays off in a surprising way. I’m more of a fan of the way Perlman’s film looks and feels and, despite the foreboding subject matter, soothes. Perlman has an immaculate eye; he’s very much the visual composer. It’s what I liked also about House of Sand and Fog
Everyone knows The Life Before Her Eyes is a flashback thing with two versions of the main character, whose name is Diana — the high-school-age version played by Evan Rachel Wood and the thirtysomething version played by Uma Thurman. It’s basically about their characters grappling with a Colombine-like shooting and particularly how Wood’s response to this threat affects the fate of her friend Maureen (Eva Amurri).
Two things in The Life Before Her Eyes irked me during the first 20 minutes. The first happens when Woods and Amurri hear gunshots and screaming coming from the hallways as they stand side by side in the girls’ bathroom. Obviously sounds of panic and horror, and obviously something to hide or escape from. Do they sense danger and hide in the bathroom closet, or maybe open the window and duck out? No — they stand there like bowling pins, waiting for whatever to walk through the door. This struck me as ridiculous. Every living thing can sense heavy trauma if it’s near them (steers can feel it as they approach the slaughterhouse), and not even dumb beasts would just stand there.

The second thing (and this is barely worth mentioning) happens when Thurman is driving by her old high school, noticing some yellow banners that have been draped over the main entranceway…and like too many people who drive cars in movies, she keeps staring to her left and not looking at where she’s driving. This kind of thing drives me insane. Movies in which actors don’t look at the road while driving deserve to die, in my view.
Perlman and I spoke late last week. He’s bright and friendly and engaging to talk to. At one point we discussed his plans to make a film of Ayn Rand‘s Atlas Shrugged in the late fall with Lionsgate and (he expects or believes) Angelina Jolie. We also talked about Russian producer Leonid Rozhetskin (Hamlet 2) and whether he’s been whacked by the Russian mob. It’s a good conversation, lasting about 24 or 25 minutes.

It’s time to set things straight about Gavin O’Connor‘s Pride and Glory. I saw it last night, and as far as I’m concerned it’s the absolute opposite of a “problem movie” despite last fall’s diseased, head-scratching decision by New Line’s Bob Shaye not to release it in 2008. That may change.

Edward Norton in Pride and Glory

The issue was aired last February when O’Connor complained to Variety‘s Michael Fleming that New Line’s honcho Robert Shaye had done obvious harm to his film by pulling the plug on a 3.14.08 release date and bumping it into 2009.
Costar Colin Farrell elaborated during an In Bruges junket interview when he said “there’s this rumor going around that [Pride and Glory has been bumped] because it’s a mess or it’s a really bad film. I feel the need to kind of speak up, not from my own end but genuinely for Gavin O’Connor because he wrote and directed it. It’s just a really really strong piece, but I think New Line lost the bollocks on The Golden Compass…and they literally don’t have enough money to market things.”
Having finally seen O’Connor’s film, I can say with authority that Shaye’s decision was cowardly and pathetic. In this context, he was just as much of a criminal as the murdering, drug-dealing cops in the movie. Pride and Glory isn’t letter perfect from top to bottom, but it’s much, much better than I thought it would be, and the truth is that I drove home last night feeling close to delighted. If you’re a distributor, you don’t yank movies like this. You need to show some moxie and push them as best you can because quality wills out, damn it, and demands a day in the sun.

This thing, I swear, has a carefully parsed intensity that woke me out of my usual Wednesday-night blahs. Most of it seems to happen in Brooklyn or Queens with a little Manhattan thrown in. It’s wild and manic and surging with energy and sometimes mad as a loon (but rightly so, given the dirty-borough-cops storyline), and it really left me open-mouthed at times. I get that way when confronted by fierce but subtle acting, and especially when it’s all beautifully shot and swirled together in a big fat energy milkshake.
About halfway into the screening it hit me that the performances reach and even surpass, at times, the level of delivery in Michael Mann‘s Heat. Seriously. Power and Glory is an exceptional high-throttle thing that absolutely needs to see the light of day this year. Word around the campfire is that with New Line now reduced to a small production company status, Picturehouse or Warner Independent or perhaps Warner Bros. itself may acquire it and do just that.
The plot and the milieu are familiar, but it’s the singer, not the song. Emotionally complex and yet clear-headed with a carefully worked-out story, it’s basically about working-class ethics and morality under pressure and under fire. Like with James Gray‘s We Own The Night, Pride and Glory is about a big blue-collar family of cops, this time called the Tierneys. It’s primarily about having to struggle with crime and corruption within their own ranks.

It’s also similar to (though much better than) David Ayer‘s Street Kings, which dealt with a gang of rogue cops involved in drug dealing and all the attendant sins.
The conflict comes when Ray Tierney (Edward Norton) investigates a case that involving the murder of four policemen, and eventually leads to a dirty-cop scandal involving his brother-in-law Jimmy (Colin Farrell). The third brother, a go-alonger named Francis Jr., is played by Noah Emmerich. Their father, Francis Sr., a king of rationalization no matter the crime or the level of stink, is played by Jon Voight.
The script apparently began with an original by Robert Hopes, and then a rewrite collaboration between O’Connor and his brother Greg, and then another rewrite by Joe Carnahan. I just wish it wasn’t titled Pride and Glory, which unfortunately suggests an emotionally simplistic sports saga.
The gifted O’Connor (Miracle, Tumbleweeds) has put together something very vulnerable, soulful and alive-in-the-moment. Pride and Glory is a cup-runneth- over drama in that intensity rules and emotions are often (but not always) fully cranked. All I know is that I was driven half-mad with exasperation as I sat through similar stuff in We Own The Night, but I felt aroused and lifted during last night’s showing. This is not just another crazy-sick-cops movie. Melodrama is melodrama and the form is the form, but special things happen when exceptional craft and restraint are brought to bear.

Noah Emmmerich, Norton in Pride and Glory

I don’t know when I started to realize that P&G was a few cuts above, but it was early on. It started with the combination of Declan Quinn‘s darting hand-held photography, the knockout editing by Lisa Zeno Chrugin and John Gilroy, and the acting…my God! We’re not talking just two or three standouts but several brave, refined, super-intimate performances.
Norton is as good here as he was in The 25th Hour, and by my standards that’s as good as it gets. Farrell has now hit three homers in a row playing tragic, troubled losers — in O’Connor’s film, Martin McDonagh‘s In Bruges and Woody Allen‘s Cassandra’s Dream. Emmerich is as good here as I’ve ever seen him. John Ortiz (who played Russell Crowe‘s corrupt detective partner in American Gangster) is also special, and so are Frank Grillo, Manny Perez, Jennifer Ehle (whose head is shaved in this thing — what’s that about?), Wayne Duvall, Ramon Rodriguez, Carmen Ejogo, Shea Wigham.
Some IMDB guy wrote a few months ago that Pride and Glory “is the kind of American movie you don’t see anymore, a throwback to the big themes and dramatic tone of the 1950s, when Elia Kazan was making movies like East of Eden and On the Waterfront and Arthur Miller was writing plays like Death of a Salesman and All My Sons.
“Family, honor, corruption, right and wrong, fathers and sons–these are the kinds of issues that director/co-writer Gavin O’Connor is taking on, and in doing so he’s made a timeless film. Sincere without being sentimental (much like Miracle, O’Connor’s last effort) and familiar and original at the same time, this is a muscular, old-school American film, with big themes splashed on a big canvas. In the Age of Irony, these are the kinds of movies you rarely see anymore.”

Do Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania or Indiana care about the political endorsements of celebrities — even working-class icons like Bruce Springsteen? I wonder. Springsteen will probably stage a bunch of concerts- slash-Obama rallies in the fall. He did this for Kerry in ’04, of course, and look what happened. Maybe he has a certain influence. Not with the serious Pennsylvania dumbasses (i.e., the racist flannel-shirt rubes in the “Alabama” sections of the state) but maybe with the 50-something middle-classers who bought his records and cassettes in the ’70s and ’80s.

“At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships,” Springsteen said on his website. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man’s life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams From My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment.”

I was planning to catch the Pennsylvania Clinton-Obama debate at 5 pm before going to an 8 pm screening. Until I realized, that is, that the jerks running ABC are delaying the broadcast until 8 pm Pacific, and not allowing any replays until tomorrow morning. “We have an obligation to our West Coast affiliates,” an ABC spokesperson said, “to not make chunks of the debate available until their viewers have had a chance to see them.” Asshole!
The ABC exec who made this decision, whom I’ll wager is in his mid to late 50s (if not older), needs to be reminded that this is not 1997. The news-and-information cycle waits for no one. Everything is immediate and now and no older than five or ten minutes ago. It obviously doesn’t get it at all to have to wait to see something these days because of something as meaningless as a time zone. Am I understanding correctly that there won’t even be a late-night re-airing on ABC?

What’s happened to Ewan McGregor over the last five or six years? It’s almost as his soul was poisoned by playing Obi Wan Kenobi three times for George Lucas (The Phantom Menace in ’99, Attack of the Clones in ’02, Revenge of the Sith in ’05). He’s become Mr. Paycheck — a young Robert De Niro who will make any questionable or lackluster film as long as the money’s right or it fits his schedule. Or maybe he just has terrible taste.

Michelle Williams, Ewan McGregor in Deception

I only know that he used to be this authentic street guy with a kind of glow around his head, and now he’s lost it because he’s made too many slick or inconsequential films.
The down cycle seemed to begin in ’02 with Down With Love, Young Adam and Big Fish — three problem movies in a row. Then came the final Star Wars film followed by Michael Bay‘s The Island (a tank), Stay (a stiff), Stormbreaker (didn’t see it), Scenes of a Sexual Nature (ditto) and Miss Potter (minor film, quick burnout). Granted, his performance in Woody Allen‘s Cassandra’s Dream was strong and affecting but then he did Incendiary (fizzled at Sundance, no distrib deal) and now Deception.
MacGregor was in a near-flawless groove from Trainspotting (’96 — the scene where he dove into that disgusting toilet was probably his career peak) to Moulin Rouge and Black Hawk Down (both ’01). Then the Gods began to turn against him. I remember reading a remark after Young Adam came out that “an indie movie isn’t a full-boat indie movie unless it has Ewan dropping trou.” I said to myself right then and there, “People are starting to think less of him. His Trainspotting aura is dissipating.”

How barnyard dumb do you have to be to want to see Deception (20th Century Fox, 4.25)? The trailer tells you it’s almost certainly a cynical, mechanical, one-note thriller. Hugh Jackman plays the Michael Douglas/Gordon Gekko figure — the well-dressed, impeccably mannered skunk from hell. Ewan McGregor plays the innocent but randy dork and Michelle Williams plays… I can’t tell exactly, but if her role amounts to anything more than just “the girl” I’ll be surprised. Hold your nose, make the movie, deposit the check and move on.

If the trailer doesn’t convince you it’s a must-to-avoid, 20th Century Fox’s decision to open Deception without any critics screenings should seal the deal. Except the under-30 idiot target demo never reads reviews anyway so it doesn’t matter.
Which group of moviegoers are more clueless — those definitely planning to see Deception no matter what, or those determined to see Jon Avnet and Al Pacino‘s 88 Minutes this Friday? Or are they the same demo?
The Deception trailer also tells you the film’s been very well shot, which is no surprise given that it’s the work of the renowned dp Dante Spinotti (Public Enemies, Wonder Boys, The Insider, L.A. Confidential, Heat).

Forgetting Sarah Marshall‘s Jason Segel “is a big guy, handsome in a slightly sappy way,” New Yorker critic David Denby observes. In a bygone age, a major New York critic calling an actor “slightly sappy” might have condemned him to supporting actor status or even obscurity, but in today’s movie-comedy world, aesthetically reconfigured by producer Judd Apatow, this may not be the case.

(l. to .r.) Mila Kunis, Jason Segel, Russell Brand and Kristen Bell (illustration: Hope Gangloff)

“He’s naked at the beginning of the movie, when Sarah arrives home to dump him, and naked at the very end of it. Peter is incapable of concealing anything; he has no vanity, but he’s a bit of a lazy boy, potatoing on the couch in Los Angeles when he’s not working. Segel is extremely gentle, and his puzzlement has comic possibilities, but he’s not quite an actor yet. He loses focus; his jaw goes slack, and his eyes register bewilderment.
“In Hawaii, Peter is humiliated a lot: he falls off a cliff, he can’t stand up on a surfboard, and so on. All this ineptitude is supposed to be endearing, but moviegoers want a romantic hero with some sex appeal and some strength, and Segel’s harmless routine wears us out.
“Part of the problem is that his director, Nicholas Stoller, doesn’t shape the scenes decisively. He abandons Segel and doesn’t get a clearly defined performance out of Kristen Bell (from TV’s Veronica Mars and Heroes). She’s short and blond, with a very bright smile, and she comes off as hard-edged and self-centered in some scenes and truthful in others, and we never get a bead on her. It’s not hard, it turns out, to forget Sarah Marshall. The problem is remembering her.”

If anyone doubts yesterday’s item about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull being 140 minutes plus, here’s a video clip (posted Sunday, 4.13) of composer John Williams saying the film is “seven reels long, and each reel is 20 minutes.”

After being told by Marilyn Monroe authority Mark Bellinghaus to expect an article that debunks the 1950s stag film story that ran in Monday’s (4.14) New York Post, the piece has turned up on Defamer.

Whatever. The gist is that the film is a fake. The story says that claims about the alleged Monroe sex film by Keya Morgan, the Manhattan-based memorabilia collector who claims to have brokered the sale of the 15-minute blowjob reel, are “outrageous.” The piece reports that Morgan “has thus far refused to disclose either the names of either the seller or buyer of the tape; additionally, he has not been able to provide evidence that this alleged sale even occurred.”
Defamer‘s Mark Graham worked with Bellinghaus, Ernest W. Cunningham (author of “The Ultimate Marilyn”) and freelance journalist Jennifer J. Dickinson to put together the debunk piece. Nobody claims to have seen the disputed stag film (the buyer being anonymous and apparently unreachable) but whoever the performer is, it’s not and never was Marilyn Monroe, according to assertions.

Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount, 5.21) is locked and runs around two hours and twenty-something minutes. Screened for the first time only recently (and apparently due to be shown “internally” once more early next week), the final elements will be sent to the printer next week, in part so the subtitled Cannes version can be prepared in time.