“The people trusted me with an important position. I didn’t live up to expectations. If only I had kept my promise to go after the thugs who attacked us on 9/11, because now I’ve made Osama and Al Qaeda stronger. I know my false claim about Al Qaeda’s ties with Iraq led to Iraq’s being tied down by Al Qaeda. I see now that my bungled war on terror has created more terror, empowered Iran and made America less secure. Oh, yeah, and I’m sorry I broke the military.” — an imagined letter of apology from George W. Bush, inspired by a confession written by Beijing’s former FDA-type regulator Zheng Xiaoyu before his execution last Tuesday, and written by N.Y. Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

“If there’s a specter that’s haunting Indiewood and Hollywood alike, it’s the shambling figure of [a] semi-shaved, post-collegiate 22-year-old watching movies on his cellphone,” Salon‘s Andrew O’Hehir wrote a couple of days ago.

Why do people keep bringing this up as the next big shift in viewing habits? Cell-phone moving images are strictly about fast and short and move on to the next distraction. If I’m stuck or locked down somewhere I might be persuaded to watch a news show on a iPhone for 20 or 30 minutes, but sustained viewing of anything on a screen that size makes your eyeballs throb. Seriously — does anyone know any 12 or 14 year-olds who prefer iPhone-sized screens to watch movies on? (As opposed to music videos, YouTube clips, amateur porn, movie trailers, etc.)

There’s a certain coolness that comes with watching movies on iPhones if you’re in the mood to do that, but step back and consider the obvious — the size of an iPhone screen makes watching whole movies on them time and again (week in and week out, a regular viewing habit) fairly ridiculous.

“Now, I don’t know anybody who has actually watched a feature film on a telephone,” O’Hehir goes on, “and I’m not even sure it’s feasible. But three different people in the film industry have mentioned the idea to me within the last week, and the question of its present-tense plausibility is clearly not relevant.

“What people are really saying is that a big, weird change is coming. They don’t quite understand it and they can’t do anything to stop it, but they’re worried that the whole business of selling $10 tickets to go sit in a dark room with some strangers and a movie projector is suddenly going to seem like Thomas Edison‘s windup gramophone and its wax cylinders.”

Obviously the theatrical experience doesn’t rule like it used to. It’s still a preferred option, but “option” is the governing term. Movie-watching can happen anywhere these days, in any kind of environment that allows for semi-darkness or at least shade. I just can’t imagine anyone actually preferring to watch full-length movies on screens that are less than 15″ inches wide. I don’t even like that very much. I’m okay with watching a film every so often on my 17″ Gateway, but not as any kind of habit. I’m not even particularly comfortable with 27″ flat screens. I mean, they’re tolerable but in no way preferred.

My own viewing tastes and preferences from (b) on down probably synch up with those of any movie-lover with a semblance of taste (and I’m including 12 year-olds in this equation): (a) Private screening rooms in Los Angeles or New York or any big-league city, (b) Recently constructed ace-level theatres (Arclight, Landmark, Bridge, Egyptian, Aero, etc.) with stadium seating and all the other high-standard trimmings, (c) high-def 16 x 9 flat panel viewing off Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, (d) my own Sony 36″ flat screen, and (e) my 17″ Gateway laptop.

Cell phone viewings aren’t taken seriously in this corner. They’re not even in the “hey, maybe” category. And forget small-screen TVs. I’ll consider the notion of seeing a film in some schlubby run-of-the-mill theatre like the New Beverly or the Regency Fairfax or the Monica plex on 2nd Street, but only if backed into a corner. On the other hand, the Vista in Silver Lake is pretty cool.

“We’re all on the web, weighing various kinds of data we get — eBay listings, blog posts, Craigslist solicitations — and trying to read between some pixels, and connect others,” writes N.Y. Times reporter Virginia Heffernan. Her topic is a strange mass compulsion to indulge in dispassionate visual dissection of celebrities, which even sophisticated journalists are prey to. Not something akin to fan behavior, but obsession with a white lab coat — a kind of coldly analytical scientific curiosity.

“I don’t expect we’ll break any big news reading PerezHilton.com,” she explains. “But maybe we’re not entirely wasting our time; we’re practicing interpreting images from the new close-range, high-def magazines and websites.
“In any case the danse macabre that stars now do with the paparazzi, who appear to lurk everywhere, must be logistically maddening and emotionally draining. Every trip to the grocery store is a performance piece; every day at the beach is a soft-porn movie.
What’s more the consumers of the resulting plays, movies, video projects and photographs — that’s us — are not primarily looking to be entertained or transported. We’re just looking for data, more and more data, the more raw the better.
“Someday we may need nothing but zeros and ones to give our prognostications. And then we really won’t need the star herself. But for now a young star is in a strange place. To become a specimen, a lab slide, a piece of data: surely this is not what people dream of when they quit high school, take singing lessons and move to Hollywood.”
Of all the sites she mentions, I like idontlikeyouinthatway the best. All the celeb gossip-and-photo sites are cruel and catty, but this one’s a little more so. The way it dismisses Cameron Diaz is beyond savage; it’s kind of sociopathic.

Liam Neeson recently spoke to London Times profiler Tom Charity, and there’s not a single…wait, there is a glancing mention of what may be Neeson’s finest unplayed role, which would be Abraham Lincoln during his White House years. But it’s not enough to suit me. Neeson is obviously the right height (6’4″), the right age (55) and the right everything else (acting chops, an aura of solemn rectitude, wiry frame, similar bone structure) in order to fill Lincoln’s shoes and reanimate him every which way.

Abraham Lincoln; how Neeson might look in the role

A year and a half ago Neeson told me about forthcoming plans for Steven Spielberg to direct an adaptation of Doris Kearns Goodwin‘s “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” which at the time was being adapted into screenplay form by Paul Webb.
This movie really, really has to be made. If Spielberg can’t or won’t do it (i.e., if it scares him), he should have the good grace to step away and let somebody else carry the ball.

Gawker posted this 1981 magazine ad (“…around the time that asbestos manufacturers were starting to take serious heat for their cancer-causing product”) four or five days ago; I didn’t happen upon it until earlier today.

“After 16 years on the national stage, Hillary Clinton is still a bafflement — a formidable building that appears, no matter how many times you circle it, to have no door” — from Jennifer Senior‘s 7.15 N.Y. Times review of two new Hilary books — Carl Bernstein‘s Woman in Charge and Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr.’s Her Way.

“This impenetrability doubtless accounts for the wide range of feelings she generates (absent knowing what’s inside, voters can ascribe motivations both good and evil). And it’s this impenetrability that doubtless explains why so many journalists can’t stop writing about her, even though she’s a biographical subject who appears, at both first and 50th blush, to offer few rewards.”

I dropped by the American Cinematheque last night for the kickoff of Martin Lewis‘s “Mods and Rockers” festival, which runs between now and August 1st. The outdoor courtyard (where I took some snaps) was a lively scene, and the auditorium was packed. I saw some friendly familiar faces milling around — Sidney Kimmel exec Bingham Ray, director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, In Her Shoes) and Bourne Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass.

“Mods and Rockers” festival director Martin Lewis in the Egyptian-styled courtyard of the American Cinematheque — Friday, 7.13.07, 7:15 pm; Sunset Blvd. adjacent to Cinerama Dome — Friday, 7.13.07, 9:25 pm.

The festival opener was Alfred and David Maysles‘ What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A., an underwhelming 81-minute assemblage that follows the British group during their first tour in February 1964. A version of the doc has been issued on DVD in an Apple-produced compilation called “The Beatles First U.S. Visit”; there’s another DVD that intercuts portions of the doc with clips from the group’s three Ed Sullivan Show appearances.
The Maysles doc minus the Sullivan material (i.e., the version shown last night) is too often flat, muddy-looking and borderline boring. The shooting and editing choices were putting me to sleep. Why didn’ t the Maysles shoot the famous first press conference at JFK? Did they run out of film? The doc has some interesting material — fooling around on a southward-bound train, dancing in a Manhattan club — but I wanted to leave after a half hour or so.
Lewis is writing daily blog entries about the festival on The Huffington Post. Other guests and friends are filing also.
Jett and I will attend tonight’s 6 pm showing of Rob Scheinfeld‘s sad-sack Harry Nilsson doc — a great portrait of a gifted and brilliant singer-songwriter who couldn’t contain an asshole-ian self-destructive streak. There’s a “Mods and Rockers” drinking room in the rear of the Pig ‘n’ Whistle that’s right next to the theatre; carefully selected ’60s and ’70s music will be playing before and after shows.

Michael Moore‘s Sicko is looking at a push to $20 million by the end of its run. Okay, it may crest $20 million but not by much. Agreed — health care isn’t as dynamic a subject as the Iraq War or American’s firearm fetish, but it’s a much closer-to-home subject that everyone can relate to on some level.
And yet millions of potential moviegoers haven’t gotten past the impression I had before seeing the film in Cannes, which is that health care isn’t very sexy and do I really care? I felt very differently after seeing it — Sicko is funny (well, somewhat), moving, arousing, touching. And it’s been on the news and debated over and over in recent weeks (that Moore vs. Wolf Blitzer tempest was a blast). No matter — there’s obviously a big chunk of vegged-out moviegoers (the under 25s, I suspect) who are determined to ignore it no matter what.

Peter Jackson has produced an eight-minute video celebrating the marriage of Harry Knowles and Patricia Jones? I’m chummy with various directors, producers and screenwriters and I enjoy the access this gives me, but boundaries need to be observed and this obviously crosses it. Well…doesn’t it?
Best wishes to the couple (the nuptials are apparently happening in Austin this weekend), but does the Jackson element cement impressions of AICN being grossly cozy with this and that heavyweight filmmaker or what? Is it fair to call Jackson an oozy glad-hander looking to keep his toast buttered? You tell me. These guys need to jump into a hot tub together during the post-wedding reception and massage each other’s neck muscles.
Here’s an excessively naive and mean-spirited video sature piece that was created last March. All marriages are based upon perceptions of opportunistic mutual benefit and financial upgrading, and impassioned fat guys are entitled to as much happiness as anyone else (if they can get it).

The element that makes this iPhone smoothie-blender clip so hilarious is that guttural groaning sound that someone overdubbed. I don’t often laugh out loud at stuff. I’m more of a heh-heh type, and sometimes I just smile and don’t laugh at all (which is what I was doing all though I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.) But I laughed at this longer and louder and from a deeper place in the diaphragm than anything in Superbad, and that’s the funniest film I’ve seen in years. (Thanks to Anne Thompson for the link.)

Women’s Wear Daily‘s subscriber-based website has one of the dumbest web-search engines currently operating, so there’s no finding Jacob Bernstein‘s profile of Deadline Hollywood Daily‘s Nikki Finke, which apparently went up within the last day or two. (Media Bistro‘s Kate Coe sent me the text, but there’s no link on her site to the original piece.)

Bernstein’s article seems throughly researched and reported, although I’m sure Finke will have a beef with it one way or the other. She comes off as smart, headstrong, dogged, hot-and-cold, obsessive — a tough cookie in a tough town.

Significant Finke quote #1: “It’s not my fault these people do what they do to each other. It’s not my fault they make stinky movies. I just report it.” Quote #2: “Would I like to cure Hollywood? Yes.” Quote #3: “My problem, it’s a tragedy actually, is that I’m a Cassandra. I’m a canary in a fucking coal mine.” Quote #4: “I’m not good with bosses. And I love what I do now. I love this website. It’s the most fantastic and freeing thing in the world. I make my deadlines. I decide what I write. I have total control.”

Left coasters may be unaware that Bernstein, a WWD columnist (it’s hard to be rock-sure with WWD’s idiotic site refusing to spit out information), is the son of Nora Ephron and Carl Bernstein.

Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the caretaker producers of the 007 films who are regarded industry-wide as stooges and “stoppers”, are apparently back to their tricks by trying to take the brutish edge off of Daniel Craig‘s James Bond character in Bond #22, which Marc Forster will direct. Take a moment to slap yourself hard on the side of the head. Craig’s rough brutish edge is precisely the thing that made Casino Royale feel fresh and revitalized.

“They just want more gags,” Craig says in the 7.13 edition of the Daily Express, referring to Broccoli-Wilson “The next one’s going to be a lot funnier…Octopussy and Pussy Galore-style style gags. They’re all great names, but that’s the thing — the Bond jokes will be flipped on their heads.”
Wilson-Broccoli’s dislike of a non-Roger Mooreish, blunt-weapon Bond was indicated when director Roger Michell decided against directing Casino Royale due to “creative differences.” This translated into Michell wanting “an element of cruelty [in the Bond character]…certain things he does should be questionable…I think you should go, ‘Fuck, that’s not nice”, and Wilson-Broccoli being against this, as I reported in this ’06 story.
In my review of Casino Royale last November I noted that “the whole shaken-not- stirred, sexual-smoothie-in-a-tuxedo, Walther PPK stud-with-a-quip thing has been thrown out the window, finally and praise God. The influence of producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli is finally dead, dead…and ding-dong to that! Wilson-Broccoli have naturally been trying to sell the notion they were four-square behind this new incarnation, but don’t buy it. They’ve been the invisible-car bad guys — stooge caretakers — since they grabbed the reins in the mid ’90s. The startling coolness of this new film happened in spite of Wilson- Broccoli, not because of them.
Broccoli-Wilson own (or co-own) the franchise and can’t be fired. So, as I’ve suggested in the past, the best thing to happen to the Bond films would be a compassionate kidnapping. Wilson and Broccoli wouldn’t be killed or harmed, but would be gently seized and flown to, let’s say, a remote location in Southeast Asia and made to live in a huge guarded villa. They would be given every last comfort of home — high-def flat panels, private gyms, gourmet meals thrice daily, wifi up the wazoo, sexual slaves at the snap of their fingers — but they wouldn’t be allowed to leave the compound for the rest of their natural lives or exert the slightest influence upon the Bond series ever again.