After seeing Alan Ball‘s Towelhead (formerly Nothing Is Private) in Toronto last September, I wrote that “there’s no question about it being smart, thoughtful and high-grade. It’s not 100% flawless (I had two or three speed-bump issues) but it’s certainly a sturdy, complex character drama that’s 100% deserving of respect. It’s obviously one of the most original, daring films about adolescent sexuality ever delivered by a quasi-mainstreamer. It’s also a sharp look at racism (and not just the American-bred kind) and a sobering portrait of the rifts and tensions between American and Middle-Eastern mindsets.”

Somebody help me out here because this is weird. Warner Bros. has two dependent distribution arms, Warner Independent and Picturehouse, under its wing, and Defamer‘s Stu Van Airsdale is reporting that Picturehouse, seen by most veterans of the trench as the more shrewdly guided, successful and geared-up of the two, may soon be shut down? What?
A story posted this evening by Variety‘s Anne Thompson said that Picturehouse chief Bob Berney and Warner Independent prexy Polly Cohen are “likely” to accept a bicoastal power-sharing arrangement that will preside over a merged operation — Warner Indiepicturehouse.
“We have yet to hear where Berney will wind up,” Van Airsdale writes, “though a popular rumor has him sharing power at Warners’ other struggling boutique outpost, Warner Independent Pictures, with current WIP boss Polly Cohen.” I commented last night that this sounds like a post-Ides of March power-sharing deal between Octavian and Marc Antony. I’ve been told all along that Berney has been squeamish about the deal that Warner Bros. has wanted him to go with.
Van Airsdale has also reported another scenario with Berney “starting fresh at a new company underwritten with hedge fund cash, [which] would suit him well with Cannes on the horizon and Warners’ decreasing overall interest in the volatile indie marketplace. Warner Bros. would gladly get out anytime, but we hear they’re willing to move ahead with Berney if he’s interested.”

Nobody can be called a near-lock for a Best Actor nomination at this stage of the game. With the start of awards season being a good four months away, it’s way too early to even speculate. Except, arguably, when it comes to Richard Jenkins‘ work in The Visitor. A quiet, heart-melting lead performance by one of the finest character actors in the business, Jenkins’ Walter Vale is one of those career-lifting roles that SAG members tend to warm to, remember and single out.

The Visitor star Richard Jenkins during today’s interview at West Hollywood’s Le Pain Quotidien — Thursday, 5.1.08, 1:45 pm

Especially when the actor in question has been stand-out superb in a long run of supporting roles over the last 20-plus years. For me Jenkins began to come into his own in the mid ’90s with two lawman parts — a police detective in Mike Nichols‘ Wolf (’94) and a gay FBI agent in David O. Russell‘s Flirting With Disaster (’96). I think Jenkins’ career took off with one scene in particular — when his agent reacts to a dose of LSD that’s been put into his food. It’s the single most hilarious drug-related scene in modern cinema.
That was twelve years ago, and for my money Jenkins has hit long doubles or triples with eight performances since, not counting his work in The Visitor. I’m thinking of the psychiatrist in There’s Something About Mary, the sheriff in Scott Hicks‘ Snow Falling on Cedars, some kind of offical or investigator in Sydney Pollack‘s Random Hearts, an EPA agent in Me, Myself & Irene, an aging racist murderer in am FX feature called Sins of the Father, a divorce attorney in Intolerable Cruelty, an uncredited but hilarious part in I Heart Huckabees, and 10 episodes as Nathaniel Fisher in HBO’s Six Feet Under.
The Visitor‘s Vale is a morose 50ish college professor who goes through a spiritual wake-up by helping out a couple of illegal immigrants, and then falling in love with the Palestinian mother of one of them, a young man who teaches him how to play a native drum.
His next three features are a British horror-thriller called The Broken, Adam McKay‘s comedic Step Brothers(Sony, 7.25) with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, and the Coen brothers‘ Burn After Reading (Focus, 9.12).
Jenkins is doing interviews to plug the recent theatrical expansion of The Visitor, which is now playing in some 300 situations. We met at lunch time at Le Pain Quotidien and spoke for over an hour. Here are two portions of that chat, totalling maybe 15 minutes — selection #1 and selection #2. We’re tallking about Burn After Reading as the first mp3 begins. We get into the Flirtiing LSD scene in the second portion.

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Apple has reportedly cut a deal with several major distributors — Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, etc. — to offer many (but not all) new releases for purchase at its iTunes Stores day-and-date with home video releases. Obviously this will really hurt DVD retail, which will in turn diminish the sense of community we all get from going to DVD stores and poking around the aisles and talking with the checkout guys. A crying shame.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Andrew Wallenstein notes that “the deal comes on the heels of Apple’s announcement [last] January that it had signed all of the studios to movie rentals, with each title costing just $3 to $4 for consumers to access for a 30-day period. Movie purchases, however, could cost as much as $15.
“Apple hasn’t moved as aggressively to date on film as it has in TV, with most download-to-own devoted to older titles in studio libraries. But Apple’s success with those deals, which included MGM, Disney and Paramount, likely encouraged studios to take the next step.”

Reviled ABC news guy Charles Gibson (who, along with George Stephanopoulos, degraded the level of discussion during the Pennsylvania presidential primary debate), interviews author Arianna Huffington about her book, “Right is Wrong,” which explains how the lunatic right has taken over the conversation on values and patriotism.

Youth-pandering summer movies have been a cultural sludge pit for a long time. Not so much over their emphasis on brute sensation and animal hormones leading to a degradation and devaluation of whatever sensitivity and spirituality may be in the air (although that’s always been a problem), as much as the levels of talent and inspiration being too often lacking. There just aren’t enough Superbads or Dark Knights or Indy 4‘s to go around.
As much as this trend has pained me over the years, I was mostly amused when I read L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan complaining about this because the fall-of-the-Roman-empire, mongrel-celebrating aspect of mainstream American movie culture seems to be just hitting him
“The reality is that, except for the ghettoized adult window in the fall, this dumber-is-better attitude is threatening to take over all of the major studios’ output,” he writes. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but the summer is killing American movie culture.
“With corporate owners demanding predictable profits, the studios have understandably narrowed their focus to the kinds of undemanding entertainments favored by the 25-and-younger audience that dominates theatrical attendance. And they are not just doing it during the summer, they’re doing it almost year-round.
“In all likelihood that tendency is even contributing to the nationwide loss of film-critic jobs that’s been so commented on of late. With so many films coming out that don’t really demand serious examination, and an aging readership that is going to fewer and fewer movies, newspaper editors in cities where (unlike Los Angeles, New York and a few other places) films are not an intrinsic part of local culture are probably figuring that it’s not worth the expense of paying anyone to examine them.
“And if critics go, the mechanism for encouraging audiences to go to good small films, for creating a demand for alternatives to what critic Richard Schickel has called Hollywood’s ‘big clanking machines’ goes with them. Is there any way out?”
Answer: Critics aren’t “going.” The power is simply migrating away from old-media critics with cushy salaries and abundant perks who dispense lordly judgments as if from a pulpit. Readers are more and more into conversing and arguing online (like they do on this site) than the practice of receiving wisdom from on-high print poobahs. Simple.

The Clinton team’s hammer-home message of Barack Obama being a :paragon of elitism” vs. Hillary Clinton’s touted rep as a holder of “testicular fortitude” is, of course, absurd. But tell that to your average Indiana or North Carolina Enquirer-reading prole. This is bad. This is less bad. This is good.

Yesterday’s sitdown with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly was the most appealing interview Hillary Clinton had given in some time. O’Reilly’s pugnaciousness somehow makes her ogre-ish essence seem less malevolent. “It’s a personality contest, ” “Ya gotta be tough,” “Teddy Roosevelt was a great president,” etc.

“In Jean Luc Godard‘s ‘return to zero’ film Le Gai Savoir, a pretty woman is shown reading a poem in front of a wall adorned with large images of Batman, the Hulk and Spiderman. Four decades ago none of those mutated heroes were well known outside culture mongers and kids reading comics. Flash forward to the present and those iconic images are what sell current movies. In fact they’re all present this summer if you replace Peter Parker with Bruce Banner. Name a filmmaker working now with a film that has a single frame that identifies the zeitgeist of 2048.” — HE reader Michael Bergeron.

I know one thing about Pat Dollard and his Young Americans footage (i.e., taken during his adventures in Iraq), which is that it’s taken way too long to show up in some format — TV series, feature doc, whatever. And I’m past believing it’s because entertainment-industry liberals aren’t being helpful because he’s an eccentric rightie who’s pro-war. Anything that takes this long to be put before the public has something wrong with it. I tried reaching him once and he couldn’t be bothered…hah!

“Critics of ultra-violent video games will not be the only ones watching carefully as the latest installment of the Grand Theft Auto series is released tomorrow,” writes the Guardian‘s Bobbie Johnson. This because “the suits in Hollywood are anxious that it may dent the profits of their summer blockbusters.

“Grand Theft Auto IV, the latest in the 18-rated crime series, which sees players take on the role of eastern European tough guy Niko Bellic, is expected to break sales records. Millions of fans of the GTA series worldwide are expected to shell out about 40 quid each for the game, making it one of the biggest moneyspinners in the industry.
“The latest instalment is likely to sell 6 million copies in its first week of release, which would make in excess of $1 billion profit for its creators and cement it as one of the biggest entertainment franchises of any kind.
“While the series is known for causing controversy, thanks to its adult content and uncompromising attitude, it has become a favorite of gamers who lust after its realistic graphics and tongue-in-cheek humor. The effect on the games industry has been dramatic, with more than 70 million copies sold in just over a decade.”

Iron Man (Paramount, 5.2) boasts a perfect Robert Downey performance and delivers some moderately satisfying summer-movie highs in a right-down-the- middle sort of way, but it’s been over-praised. It does a lot more clomping around than dancing or shuffling, and we’ve all had enough clomp to last a lifetime. This movie doesn’t deserve a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 94% from the regulars and an 88% from the elites. It’s more a B-plus type of thing. Which is not a put-down.

Iron Man is fine as far as it goes, but too often I felt underwhelmed. I was never twitching in agony, but the advance word had suggested it might lift me out of my chair. Forget it. I sat there with my legs crossed going “uh-huh, yeah, not bad, down with it, okay, pretty good, decent,” etc. All I’m saying is that the praisers need to take it easy. Iron Man is not some instant orgasm device. It’s okay entertainment, but it isn’t the least bit wonderful or groundbreaking or head-turning so…you know, calm down.
The two big gripes are (a) it slavishly follows the superhero-movie origin-story template, and I’m wondering why so many critics are so unbothered by this S.O.S. being trotted out again; and (b) why isn’t anyone saying anything about the jingoistic get-the-dumb-terrorists plot that John McCain or Dick Cheney will be totally delighted by if and when they see it? That’s supposed to be what….cool? We all need to climb into the Bush tank for a couple hours in order to enjoy this thing?
For my money Iron Man is a little too similar to….I was going to say Chris Nolan‘s Batman Begins, but we’ve all sat through the same formulaic superhero crap too many times.
Once again the affluent superhero-to-be has pronounced character flaws. Once more he’s oblivious to the fact that a good girl/good guy who’s been his/her friend all along is an ideal romantic match. Once again the superhero-to-be comes to an awakening, finding his alter ego and new purpose in life, by suffering a terrible trauma. Once again it takes a while for the superhero to perfect his superhero technology. Once more an older, vaguely sinister business colleague is revealed to be a villain at the end of Act Two. The superhero’s modest and self-effacing best friend stand by the superhero through thick and thin, occasionally dispensing sage advice and always coming through at some crucial moment. The superhero is nearly done in at one point — close to death — but he will rally like a champ, getting all of his strength back and then some in order to have a major face-off with the big villain at the end of Act Three. Thrillingly, lots of expensive stuff will get smashed or burned or blown to bits
It’s. The. Same. Old. Shit. Except it’s Downey as the superhero, and that means a cool-edge factor that you don’t usually get with films of this sort. I could go on and on about this but we’d all rather hang with Downey inside one of these big clanky superhero flicks than…I don’t know, a more straightforward actor. But it’s not all Downey. It’s also a bald and bearded Jeff Bridges playing a baddie, and I was bored stiff. I’ve seen and processed everything this guy has ever done and he just doesn’t have any fresh tricks left in his knapsack. Gwynneth Paltrow is more likable in this than in anything she’s been in since Shakespeare in Love. Terrence Howard is as auto-piloty here as he’s been in everything he’s made since Hustle and Flow.
Cheers to Jon Favreau for having developed his chops to the point where he can throw one of these films together and give it (by way of casting Downey or whatever) a little English and extra-ness. And for losing all that weight. But there’s no song begin sung inside this film. It’s just another big fucking lego movie with a cool guy in the lead role.
I love this David Denby description in his New Yorker review; “Downey, muttering to himself, ignores everyone else in the movie for as long as he can. Fixing his eyes, at last, on another character, he seems faintly annoyed that his privacy has been violated. Yet he delivers — to the camera, and to us. He can make offhandedness mesmerizing, even soulful; he passes through the key moments in this cloddish story as if he were ad-libbing his inner life.”
Bottom line: decent movie, great lead performance, and a realization on your way out to the parking lot that sounds like “wait a minute…I’m not sure if that was as good as I thought it was while I was watching it..why are my friends telling me this was so great?….what, are they desperate to like something?”