David Thomson, who is usually my favorite film critic-essayist, has written another huge anthology work (somewhat similar to his The New Biographical Dictionary of Film) running 1024 pages called Have You Seen…?: A Personal Introduction to 1000 Films (Knopf). It won’t hit the stores until 10.24, but uncorrected proofs have been sent out, and I’ve been sinking into my copy with pleasure off and on or the last 48 hours or so.

The book is basically about Thomson going back to each and every film and making them seem curiously fresh and vital again. (And therefore necessary to see once more.) Each re-review and re-assessment runs four or five long paragraphs, and are composed with such smooth and clever assurance that you can knock off 25 or 30 in a single sitting and then return the next day, hungry for more. At no point do you have a feeling that he’s recycled past writings (even if he has here and there).
Here’s a two-paragraph taste of his page 17 take on Aliens:
“Generally speaking, the industrial strategy known as franchising — of doing sequels until the end of time — was a disaster in the 1980s and 1990s. But every now and then, something quite wonderful came of the plodding method. If you put Alien and Aliens side by side (and it may be one of the last great double bills in American film), you get not just the thumping and very satisfactory sequence of prolonged combat after great unnerving threat.
“You also get the emergence of the secret love story in these Alien pictures, the way in which no matter what happens in her movie career, Sigourney Weaver is never going to meet a more faithful lover than the creature. Indeed, its only rivals were the gorillas in the mist.
“Ripley comes back from the first film like Sleeping Beauty in her spacecraft. She looks lovely still, but the journey has taken fifty-seven years. She is brought back to Earth’s drab reality, but she has nightmares. And then she hears that the planet that [Alien‘s] Nostromo went to — it is called LV-426 now — has a small community of miners on it, a few families. And now, as Ripley comes home and wakes after fifty-seven years, the regular signal from LV-426 cuts out. Is there a clearer way the Alien has of calling to Ripley?”

The only thing missing is at least a glancing acknowledgment of the eight-year tragedy of Aliens director Jim Cameron — a guy who was good and imaginative and tough enough to make this film, both Terminator movies, The Abyss and Titanic over a brilliant 13 year stretch (’84 to ’97) and then….nothing.
Cameron is back on it now, somewhat, but for at least eight years he retreated into a kind of rich-man’s sandbox retirement that involved a lot of deep diving, a 3-D documentary, more diving and a lot of kicking back. In short, a complete abdication-renunciation of what he had it in him to do — a Napoleonic retreat from the task of creating smart and exciting movies that matter.
The navel-doodling that guided Cameron from ’98 to ’05 (or ’06) was, for me, shattering. Where would the world be if other men and women of strength and vision in other fields followed Cameron’s example? Think about that.

Nikki Finke isn’t assessing the catastrophic Nailed shoot with the right spirit. When a film has been shut down for the fourth time because people aren’t getting paid, it might as well be the fifth or the eighth or the twelfth time. This level of repetition pushes events out of the agony realm and into that of near-farce. Meaning that a Lost in La Mancha-styled doc about the making of Nailed could be an inspired tragi-comedy.
This hasn’t been an “indie film shoot from hell,” as Finke has put it, as much as a gift to whomever has had the moxie and foresight to shoot it all (including interviews with ThinkFilm’s Mark Urman and Capitol Films’ David Bergstein) and cut it into something special. The doc that could result might turn out to be better than Nailed itself.
The main-character role that Terry Gilliam played in Lost in La Mancha could be split in the Nailed doc between Urman (the impassioned, frank-talking realist) and director David O. Russell (the gifted filmmaker fueled by anger, aggression and a comic appreciation of the absurd). One thing I would definitely want to see in this doc would be Urman saying the following (which is taken from Anthony Kaufman‘s 6.19.08 Indiewire piece about the ThinkFilm meltdown) straight to the camera, and with feeling.
“I feel terrible if people are hurt by our financial problems. We’re not moving forward on other people’s blood, I can assure you. We’re not [expletive deleted] people — we’re in trouble. And if people end up getting [expletive deleted], we’re [expletive deleted], too, and we can all be on the unemployment lines together.”

Conservative wingnut Lars Larson gets bitch-slapped by Newsweek‘s Jonathan Alter (“taking things lower and lower…it’s contemptible”) and The Nation‘s Katrina vanden Heuvel over that cheap Michelle Obama “proud of my country” smear.

Let’s hear it for the opening of the Fred MacMurray Museum in the Heritage Village Mall in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. It’s opening partly to commemorate the fact that MacMurray, a Beaver Dam resident in his youth, was born 100 years ago. And because he was famous and well-liked for his quick smile, amiable nature and sure touch with comedies. But MacMurray’s rep would be nothing if he hadn’t played a couple of weak, selfish and gone-astray insurance guys in a pair of first-rate Billy Wilder films.
It was MacMurray’s portrayal of Walter Neff, the insurance salesman who couldn’t keep his mind off Phyllis Dietrichson‘s anklets, in Double Indemnity that rescued him from the amiable good-guy thing. He was saved again when he played Jeff Sheldrake, the selfish and manipulative chief of a New York insurance company in The Apartment. Without these two, news of the MacMurray Museum would be limited to local Wisconsin papers and T stations because people like me wouldn’t care that much.
All MacMurray had on his resume otherwise was…okay, Keefer in The Caine Mutiny, but that film belong to Van Johnson and Jose Ferrer. But otherwise his resume was one light and amiable deal after another — My Three Sons, the ’60s TV series, and Bon Voyage, Follow Me, Boys!, The Absent-Minded Professor, The Egg and I, Trail of the Lonesome Pine, etc. Gimme a break.

My father, James T. Wells, Jr., had 86 years of good living, mostly. He was miserable at the end, lying in a bed and watching TV, reading and sleeping and not much else. I think he wanted to go because his life had been reduced to this. He was a good and decent man with solid values, and he certainly did right by me and my brother and sister as far as providing and protecting us and doing what he could to help us build our own lives.

But he was also, to me, a crab and a gruff, hidden-away soul (his Guam and Iwo Jima traumas as a Marine during World War II mashed him up him pretty badly) and even, it seemed at times, something of a bitter curmudgeon. But not altogether.

I feel very badly for his suffering the indignities of old age and the mostly horrible life he lived over his final year or two. I know that whatever issues I have with my manner, attitude or personality, it is my charge alone to deal with, modify and correct them. But I also know deep down that Jim Wells was the father of it. He lived in a pit so deep and dark you needed a kleig light to see around.

He was a lifelong Democrat who hated John Wayne for his pro-war posturings. He liked Simon and Garfunkle but never got the Beatles,which always flabbergasted me. He actually thought that Michael Herr‘s Dispatches was a waste of time. My brother tried to get him to watch The Limey and he wouldn’t do it. He lived in his own world and could be a real pain to hang with at times. He was foul and nasty and a snappy contrarian about everything during a trip we took to Lake George about 12 years ago. My son Dylan (who was with us) and I did everything we could to escape his company.

I distinctly remember feeling tear-struck in 1986 when I learned of the death of Cary Grant, whom I’d always regarded as a beloved debonair uncle of sorts. I didn’t feel anything close to that when I heard the news about my dad the night before last. The truth is the truth.

The best thing that happened between the two of us is that by living a kind of cautionary life, he taught me not to be like him. Because he was an aloof, non-affectionate prick with a martini glass in his hand during my childhood, I made a point of being constantly loving and physically affectionate with my kids, and it woke me up to the perils of vodka and lemonade in the mid ’90s. My habit these days is to constantly watch my behavior for the sins of Jim Wells-iness, and when I notice myself acting like him, I correct myself.

In the summer of ’05 I raised a glass of respect to a former next-door neighbor named Doc Sharer at his 80th birthday party at his home in Westfield, New Jersey. I told him it was my ambition to have his joie de vivre and spirited attitude when I got be his age. I don’t ever want to be like my father was, save for his steadiness and creativity and devotion to history books. And yet he did give me the writing bug and the wit and the wiseass attitude.

We went to a 20th Century Fox gathering on the lot a few years ago, and I remember saying aloud upon reading the menu that they would be serving “island food.” Without missing a beat, he looked at me with a solemn expression and said, “Staten Island.” I also introduced him to Tony Curtis during that trip. I remember that he gave Curtis a book of writings by Samuel Johnson.

That was my dad. I’m sorry for my mom and what she must be going through (which I can only guess at) but I’m fine with working and posting today because in personal-emotional terms the man was never a pillar of support or strength for me. The bottom line for me is that he was the guy who did what he could given his baggage and whatnot — he supported me financially and helped me out of three or four jams when I was a struggling New York journalist — but emotionally and spiritually he was a lousy dad and knew it. He told me this in so many words in a rare moment of candor in the mid ’70s. He wasn’t cut out for it.

And one result is that he contributed greatly to psychological and emotional factors that prodded me into being a malcontent — an anti-authoritarian rebel — and which almost turned me into an under-achieving suburban loser. Thank God I had the spirit and the moxie — summoned entirely on my own with no help from anyone — to climb out of that hole.

I trust my father is now at peace. He seemed to find little enough of it while he was alive. He may have known an entire spiritual life that was wonderful and serene for all I know, but the art of the man’s life is that whatever good things were going on inside, he kept most of them hidden.

Get Smart‘s first-choice number was 26 compared to 12 for The Love Guru, so it’s no surprise that Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Duane Johnson and Alan Arkin have kicked Mike Myers‘ backside. Smart will end up with $36,627,000 and $9300 a print by Sunday night. The Love Guru opened and closed with a projected $13,976,000 and $4600 a print. Game over.
The Incredible Hulk will make $21,171,000 by Sunday night, which represents a drop from last weekend of about 62%. Not a good hold, especially given that Hulk is not going against another big action film this weekend. It was off 70% last night from previous Friday. On its second Friday Ang Lee‘s Hulk dropped 76.5% with an average weekend fall of 67% or thereabouts, so the new Hulk is doing a little better, but not by much.
Kung Fu Panda will make $20,873,000 — off 36% from last weekend. A decent hold. The Happening will cbe off 67% by Sunday night — a weekend tally of $9,973,000. Indy 4 will make $8070. The total cume is over $290 million, meaning it’s sure to crest $300 million. You Don’t Mess With the Zohan willl make a projected $7,031,000 this weekend, off 57% — it’ll be a push to $100 million.
Sex and the City will hit $6,170,000 — off 37%, $132 million cume. Iron Man has topped $300 million with this weekend’s take of $4,034.000.
Tracking on Disney/Pixar’s WALL*E (opening 5.27) is 84, 41, 10 — a very strong number one week out for an animated feature. Wanted (also 6.27) is tracking at 75, 40 and 5 — fair, not so hot. Will Smith‘s Hancock (7.1) is running at 85,52 and 16 — huge. Guillermo del Toro‘s Hellboy (7.11) is tracking at 69, 33 and 5…okay, decent, not stupendous. Journey to The Center of the Earth (7.11) is running at 59, 17 and 2 — trouble.
Eddie Murphy‘s Meet Dave (also 7.11) is running at 36, 17 and 0 — a bad number no matter how you slice it. I’m guessing that the regular folks started to sour on the guy when the news got out that he bolted out of the Oscar ceremony after he failed to win for Best Supporting Actor. That was the thing that tipped the scales. A Murphy comedy getting a zero first choice three weeks from opening? You tell me what it means, but how many interpretations can there be?

“Akin to being locked with a clergyman and a clown in a flaming car hurtling over a cliff.” — from a review of Mike Myers‘ The Love Guru by the Toronto Star‘s Peter Howell. Proving that there’s sometimes an upside to watching terrible movies. They can get you so worked up that you succumb to a kind of temporary insanity, and out of that fanged-tooth madness come images of deranged clowns, flaming cars and the comfort of an early death, Thelma and Louise-style.

Updated: The thrust of this Anne Thompson Variety piece is that Will Smith is pretty much the only guy right now whose movies can’t seem to fail, no matter how mediocre they may be. The article is written with a sportswriter-like aplomb and a seasoned understanding of the how the marketplace works, etc., but it’s basically a show of obeisance before box-office power.
The best thing that could happen to the guy, of course, would be to fail as this would make him dig deeper and try harder, which would lead to growth and maturity as an artist-performer. Smith has made exactly three “growth” movies since he graduated from Fresh Prince of Bel Air — Six Degrees of Separation (’93), Ali (’01) and The Pursuit of Happyness (’06). Three such efforts in 15 years time obviously indicates an attitude of cruising and contentment. Which, of course, a true artist should never embrace. Although I have to say he really nailed that dog-dying scene in I Am Legend.
Stay anxious, stay hungry. Just ask Bob Rafelson.

My father died last night. I got the news right after last night’s memorial service for former Orion and Magnolia exec Jay Peckos at the Landmark Cinemas. I’m mentioning this because a touching photo montage (one of those computer-driven deals with a music soundtrack) was shown at the Peckos tribute, and I’d like to create the same kind of presentation for my dad’s memorial service, which will be held in Southbury, Connecticut, next month.
Except I want to mix in some video clips with the stills. To edit this together on my laptop I’ll first need to transfer some 8mm videocassettes to disc, but I don’t want to pay the rates charged by pirates who do this sort of thing for a living. If anyone knows of a cheaper backdoor way to go, please advise. Sorry but I hate paying retail. Can’t hurt to ask.

For me, Man on Wire (Magnolia, opening in late July) — the story of Petit’s illegal high-wire walk between the World Trade Center’s towers in August 1974 — is the most stirring and suspenseful film of its kind that I’ve seen since Touching The Void. It’s too electric and gripping to be called a mere documentary; another term has to be found. The L.A. Film festival screening happens tonight at Westwood’s Crest theatre.

Man on Wire director James Marsh (l.) and celebrated wire-walker Phillipe Petit about 75 minutes ago (4:25 pm, give or take) at the Four Seasons hotel.