HE reader Matthew Dessem has sent along a still taken from that first seven minutes of Speed Racer clip that went up last Thursday. He pointed out the numerous duplications that the Wachowski’s CG guys copied and pasted to make up the crowd. The same five or six people are everywhere, and nobody is sitting in rows — they’re just thrown together in rough collage fashion. It’s no big deal, but I can’t recall seeing a frame capture of digital crowd with this many obvious repeats. (Click on the photo caption for a larger image.)

Yellow shirts, red ties, pork-pie hats

After reading Nikki Finke‘s well-reported story (last updated yesterday morning) about the temporary SAG shutdown of David O. Russell‘s Nailed, a Washington, D.C.-based comedy about relationships, politics and morality, I reviewed the Amazon.com information about “Sammy’s Hill,” the Kristin Gore novel that the script, co-written by she and Russell, is based upon, according to Finke.

There are differences between the book and screenplay synopsis, but the attitude and tone of both suggest that the film is going to be sharp and deranged. It seems right up Russell’s penchant for the dryly absurd. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as hyper or schizy as I Heart Huckabees, and doesn’t seem that removed from the realm of Flirting with Disaster — real neurotic people, a recognizable milieu and situations.
The discrepancies between the book’s story and what Finke says is the movie’s plot are striking, though. The movie literally involves the presence of a nail imbedded in a main character’s head, and there’s nothing like this in the book, for one thing. Russell’s film also seems a bit more sexually attuned. The more I examine the two stories, in fact, the less alike they seem. If anyone has a PDF copy of the script…
Finke writes that Russell’s film is about “a naive small town waitress (Jessica Biel) — the character’s name is Alice Eckle, according to the film’s IMDB page — who gets a nail lodged in her head and discovers a new-found sexual drive. When she travels to Washington to fight for better health care for the ‘bizarrely injured,’ she meets an unscrupulous U.S. congressman (Jake Gyllenhaal) — the IMDB says his name is Howard Ryder — who attempts to take advantage of her. James Brolin plays the U.S. Speaker Of The House.”

Triptych copied from Finke’s page

The book is about Samantha Joyce, “a 26-year-old self-deprecating health-care policy advisor to Robert Gary, a well-respected senator from her home state of Ohio.” There’s no Samantha on the IMDB page, and no Robert Gary character. There is, however, a Congressional Representative named Pam Hendrickson (Catherine Keener). So — help me out here — Alice Eckle is a working-class, less educated version of Samantha? She seems like an entirely different creation.
“Between endless work days, a grueling campaign schedule, and frequent trips to the pet store where she seeks advice on caring for her listless Japanese fighting fish, Sammy finds time to obsess over her new boyfriend, sexy speechwriter Aaron Driver.” This sounds like Gyllenhaal’s guy — same kind of name, same syllables — except he’s not a Congressman.
“As things heat up with Aaron, Sammy’s work schedule takes on a new intensity when Gary becomes the Democratic candidate for vice president. Along the way, scandal clouds both her personal and professional life, and our heroine discovers the often salacious underbelly of life on the hill.”
Update from HE reader Jeff Puim: “You and Finke have the whole Nailed premise all mixed up. Nailed is not an adaptation of ‘Sammy’s Hill,’ although both were penned by Kristen Gore. I think the confusion comes from the fact that in the original script Kristen uses the name ‘Sammy Joyce’ as the lead character, played by Jessica Biel (the character names have since been changed). As you mentioned in your article, she was also the main character in the book. But the stories are entirely different with the exception of the names of the respective heroines. The script is actually very funny. You’re right that it’s twisted. Very Russellesque.”
Nailed is about halfway done, having been shooting in Columbia, South Carolina since April. Finke has reported it was “shut down by the Screen Actors Guild on Friday because of insufficient funds on deposit with the guild.”
The shoot “is also in trouble with both IATSE and Teamsters,” she writes, adding that “some of those union members have left the beleaguered $25 million budgeted production. Rumors also are circulating that the state of South Carolina could withdraw its incentive monies because of the financing problems. Filmmakers hope to resolve the cash crunch and re-start shooting next week since principal photography is only at the halfway point.
“‘I am confident we will finish,’ an insider on the pic has told Finke. ‘The financing on this like most indies is based on bank loans and bridge loans. This is a matter of waiting on the bridge loan. Hopefully, it will all be resolved.'”
Finke is also hearing, though, that David Bergstein‘s Capitol Films, the film’s main producer, is a “troubled” operation. In 2006, Bergstein “acquired a leading UK-based international sales company which over the years had built a good reputation in the movie biz and made a wide range of commercial and critical successes, including Robert Altman‘s Gosford Park. But [a source from within] NYC film financing circles that ‘a shitload of people are owed a lot of money’ by Bergstein. ‘I heard this week that his major financing source, a hedge fund, has shut down and left him in the lurch.'”

In his usual perfunctory way, N.Y. Times reporter Michael Cieply has reported on the bad-internet-buzz-chasing-Indy 4 story (“Indiana Jones Is Battling the Long Knives of the Internet”). He’s ignored, however, what may turn out to be the most interesting aspect of reactions to the film.

This, as I wrote two days ago, refers to a possible generation gap with older viewers liking it (or at least finding a place in their hearts for it) and younger viewers being less enthused, at least in part because the film has allegedly been infused with an older guy’s (i.e., Steven Spielberg‘s or Indiana Jones‘ — take your pick) perspective, which wouldn’t be surprising.
According to a good friend of a southern-region exhibitor who passed along some opinions last Wednesday evening, the only viewers at last Tuesday afternoon’s exhibitor screening who liked it “were the older guys.”
Older vs. younger reactions to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount, 5,.22) is interesting, and also ties in with the subject and theme of the film. Generic “bad buzz,” which Ciepley’s story says is percolating out there, is a flavor-less story…a yawn.

For years I’ve made do at the Cannes Film Festival with a regular pink pass, which at least is better than blue and way above yellow. A couple of days ago I found out that I’ve been slightly upgraded to a pink-with-a-yellow-pastille pass — the first time this has ever happened despite years of persistent pleading. The highest-grade press pass is all white, but that’s a privelege extended mostly (only?) to veteran dead-tree types. Has an online journo ever been granted one? I’m asking.

Am I understanding correctly that Saturday Night Live has just started its political blog? Now they do this? With Amy Poehler‘s HRC front and center just as the Real McCoy is entering her final cycle? Or is it that people are just starting to notice…?
Accurately or not, the general impression has been all along that Poehler and former SNL costar Tina Fey have been Hillary campers. If we lived in a Balkan country or a banana republic, they’d both be going into hiding right about now. Instead, we live contentedly in a society in which political differences are mostly tolerated and every scummy race-card tactic is regarded as politics as usual, sometimes even lightheartedly. I wonder how Fey and Poehler feel about Hillary’s Imperial Wizard strategy?

One of HE’s fundamental attitude foundations was, after all, laid out in an excerpt from The Film Snob’s Dictionary back in the summer of ’05 (even if the book itself wasn’t in stores until February ’06), to wit: “The Film Snob fairly revels, in fact, in the notion that The Public Is Stupid and Ineducable, which is what sets him apart from the more benevolent film buff, the effervescent, Scorsese-style enthusiast who delights in introducing novitiates to The Bicycle Thief and Powell-Pressburger movies.”

The Film Department CEO Mark Gill has told Wall Street Journal reporter Lauren Schuker that “the quality of independent films [this summer] is higher, less bleak and dark, and the studio films are more cartoon stuff and less for a college educated audience. Last summer, everybody in my snobby crowd saw the Bourne movie and loved it, [but] this summer there are fewer of those big blockbusters to go to.” Is The Dark Knight not expected to appeal to film snobs? I know for sure that Tropic Thunder will. Iron Man is clearly a hit among know-it-alls. Others in this vein? If the Snob Site wasn’t so elitist, this would be right up its alley.

Remember the days when vampire movies didn’t need super powers and the ability to fly in order to compete with other CG thrillers? I do. Their peculiarities aside, vampires used to be shlep around and suck blood somewhat normally. No longer. When did they become flying bullets? Was it with Len Wiseman‘s Underworld? Before? If vampires can stop cars from slamming into people, does this mean they can also stop falling jumbo jets from slamming into baseball stadiums? Can they now theoretically lift ocean liners out of the water and hurl them into space orbit?

In its second weekend, Paramount and Marvel’s Iron Man has again taken the #1 position. With my California number-guys currently experiencing REM sleep, Fantasy Moguls‘ Steve Mason is reporting earnings of $14.7 million yesterday with an expected $49 million by Sunday night and 10-day earnings total of roughly or close to $175 million.
Poor Speed Racer, forecast for weeks as a likely disappointment, apparently took in only $6.5 million yesterday and will hit about $23 million by Sunday nigh. This ranks below even Thursday’s downgraded projection (based on tracking figures of 90, 29 and 16) of $25 to $30 million. “Normally” I wrote, “a 16 first choice means $15 to $20 million, depending on the demographic, but the family-trade current will kick this one up.” Not enough!
Mason, clearly affected emotionally, adds that Speed Racer “may be a disappointment domestically, but it will play very well internationally. The movie’s anime origin and the presence of Asian pop star Rain will almost certainly make it among the top grossing films of the year in key markets like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.” And the people who made it are loved by their wives, children, mothers and coworkers.
What Happens in Vegas (Fox) will come in third, having made a little over $6 million yesterday with $17.3 million projected for the weekend. Made of Honor is fourth with an expected $7.83 million for its 2nd weekend, and Baby Mama (Universal) will be fifth with a likely $5.84 million by Sunday night, pushing past a $40 million cume.
David Mamet‘s Redbelt (Sony Classics) will eanr less than $1 million despite being on 1,300 screens.

…but this is a somewhat clever ad, pushing the idea that it’s advisable to see an optometrist now and then. The actor playing the driver/would-be recipient does a very good job. The last shot would, of course, never be permitted on American television. So what else is new?