Six years and three months ago, I begged Paramount Home Video to please think about issuing a DVD of Peter Yates‘ The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Beloved by serious crime fans, one of greatest hard-boiled noirs of the ’70s, a classic of its kind and still absent from the shelves and the Netflix rent list in early ’08.

There is something more than negligent about this. The term I have in mind is “vaguely felonious.” It’s really and truly wrong to bury a film this good, at least in the eyes of the Movie Gods. The above-mentioned piece ran in October ’01 on my Reel.com column, and I’ve written at least three or four follow-ups since, and Paramount Home Video persists in not giving a damn. No word, no nothing, Eddie who?, leave us alone.
Hello, Brad Grey! I know you read HE from time to time, and so I’m asking that you please, please take up the cause and urge PHE president Meagan Burrows to do the right thing here. You need to stand up for the great classic tasties every now and then, regardless of projected monetary streams. Nobody ‘s going to get rich off of DVD rentals of Eddie Coyle, but you’re required as man of conscience and a friend of movie art to make this puppy available to the fans. The saints will smile if you push this along, and maybe the karma will kick back down the road.
Other ’70s MIAs: John Flynn‘s The Outfit (1974), William Friedkin‘s The Brinks Job (1978), and Don Siegel‘s The Black Windmill (1974).
Based on the George V. Higgins novel, Peter Yates‘ 1973 film is about Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum), an aging, bone-weary weapons dealer who’s looking at a long prison stretch unless he rats out his underworld friends, but who’s still going through the routine of selling guns to make ends meet. One of the guys he’s selling to (Alex Rocco) is the head of a gang that’s pulling off a series of bank robberies on the North Shore.
In Act Three, the underworld gets wise to Eddie’s game, so they hire one of his best friends, Dillon (Peter Boyle), to do the job. I’ll never forget this “hit” scene as long as I live. Mitchum drunk, dozing off in the back seat of a car on the way back from a hockey game….thunk.
Coyle also stars Richard Jordan (who has three or four great scenes himself), Steven Keats (as a low-level gun dealer who gets pinched by the fuzz), and Joe Santos. Higgins’ novel was originally adapted on spec by Paul Monash, who also produced. Dave Grusin wrote the original music. Yates, who had himself a great run in the ’70s and early ’80s, directed with his usual punch and pizzazz.
I can’t believe I’m actually considering hauling my ass up to San Francisco for a showing of Eddie Coyle at the Castro on March 18th. But I am.

Newsweek‘s Richard Wolffe on the “Obamacans” — Republicans who are ready to cross party lines to vote for Barack Obama. Unless, of course, those many millions of older, less-well-educated, Hillary-supporting women and skeptical-reluctant Hispanics don’t stop the train in its tracks over the next several weeks. Never underestimate the ability of the slow-to-come- arounders to poison the pond and drag things down to their level. Remember the “security moms” of ’04?

A blast from Syracuse University journalism major Jett Wells arrived this morning about a special presentation last weekend of Sam Raimi‘s The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II with live goth-rock accompaniment. Has anyone heard of other midnight cult films being shown in concert with live band sounds? Just wondering how prevalent this kind of thing may be. Anyway, here’s the piece:

“Sam Raimi‘s Evil Dead, commonly savored on the midnight-movie circuit for a couple of decades, took on a goth-rock guise last Saturday night at Syracuse’s Redhouse, a combination cinema, theatre and arts center. Zadoc and the Nightmare, a heavily mascara’ed local band, tore through their material during a screening of the 1981 zombie classic (along with the 1987 sequel) as an experiment designed by B-movie enthusiast Ron Bonk.
“The event was produced by the 38-year-old Bonk’s event-planning organization Alternative Movies & Events, which has been organizing small B-movie events like this since 1999. Bonk considers AM&E an umbrella organization to his full-time company, the B-Movie Festival held in October at the Palace Theatre.
“Lead vocalist-guitarist Nathan Zadoc praised Bonk’s mission to fight for small cult flicks like The Evil Dead. “I respect him and think he’s putting a lot of headway for independent artists,” said Zadoc. “I like stuff more true to the heart, and not just the box-office.”

“Zadoc bassist Azriel Mordecai, a 27-year-old B-movie fanatic, said he didn’t know what to expect. “It surprised us all how well it meshed,” he said. “It changed our perspectives on movies and music, and really gave us a new aspect to our own songs.”
“Mordecai and the band took the time after the show to meet the small audience and get their perspective on a show never tried before, and they were surprised by the outcome as much as the band. “We got a very impressive response from the crowd,” said Mordecai. “However, we were concerned at first we were overplaying the material.”
Zadoc and the Nightmare also performed Saturday night to promote their upcoming album “Tragically Ever After.”
Redhouse production manager Thomas Tarbox knew nothing about The Evil Dead before this event and wasn’t thrilled with the low turnout (i.e, the house was only about 25% filled), but has a high tolerance for risky events. “The audience loved it, and the band was a totally new aspect to the movie,” said Tarbox. “We have to take chances.”

The Hannah Montana concert film made $8.6 million yesterday so the weekend projection is for $22.9 million, but this may be a tad conservative. Kids were in school yesterday, some theatres began playing shows at 8 am this morning, and the film only lasts 80-something minutes. In any event, a $22.9 million haul in only 650 theatres is phenomenal.
The Eye is projecting $12.3 million for a second-place finish, 27 Dresses will be third with $8.3 million, and Juno will be fourth with $6.9 million for nearly a $110 million cume. Meet the Spartans will come in fifth with $6.8 million, The Bucket List will take in $6.6 million and kickass, take-no-prisoners Rambo will grab $6.5 million. I’m losing interest rapidly, but…okay, man up, let’s see… Untracable will earn $4.9 million, Over Her Dead Boy will take in $3.8 million and Strange Wilderness will earn $3.3 million…zzzzzzz.

“There are moments in time when you see a slow-motion disaster unfolding before you, and you can only yell out and hope those around you notice in time,” John Pearce and Kathy Cramer have written today on the Huffington Post.
“Now is such a moment for Democrats, and ‘in time’ means before the Super Duper primaries this Tuesday across the nation. Hillary Clinton may be a good U.S. Senator, and has deep symbolic importance as our first viable female presidential candidate, but three factors represent crippling structural flaws for the Democratic ticket this November if she becomes our candidate.”

Sarah Silverman, Matt Damon, carnal knowledge, etc. I should have run this earlier. Hilarious. “Hey, Kimmel, how do you like them apples? Get it? Like I’m talking about her breasts?”

A Cate Blanchett/I’m Not There highlight reel DVD arrived today. Weinstein Co. reps say the footage will be up sometime tonight on YouTube. Updated links: PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4, and PART 5

“Who needs the Oscars, anyway, other than the chosen few nominees and the hangers-on who love them?,” writes Newsweek‘s Marc Peyser in a 1.31 posting. Not to mention the Hollywood websites who depend on Oscar-season advertising…right, Marc?

“The fact is, the Oscar telecast (scheduled for 2.24, assuming some sort of miracle) is the worst three hours and 27 minutes on television, and it has held that distinction for years and years and years,” Peyser writes.
Not fully true. There have been exceptions. and more than a few. The moment, for instance, when The Pianist teammates Ronald Harwood and Roman Polanski won the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director Oscar delivered as much emotional voltage as any legendary sports moment. And what about when Dreamgirls‘ Eddie Murphy lost out to Little Miss Sunshine‘s Alan Arkin last year for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar? There were cries and shrieks coast-to-coast when that happened. I could mention other highlights. You just need the right perverse attitude to enjoy them.
“Go ahead, try to think of something, anything, memorable from a telecast in the last, say, five years.” (Read the last paragraph, Marc!) “The witty host’s monologue? The moving acceptance speeches? The outfits? Sure, you can remember that such staples existed, along with a cute joke or moving moment or two. But considering the length of the show, those tidbits don’t convert to a very high on-base percentage. And considering the anticipation and hype that precede the show every year, this is one pretty awful excuse for A-list entertainment.”

A trusted source has told Collider‘s Matt Goldberg that John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Schlock, Mr. Warmth) had a meeting or two at Universal today to talk about directing The Wolf Man, in the wake of helmer Mark Romanek bailing last week because he couldn’t work within a confining $100 million budget. (And also possibly because the script hasn’t been full developed to is maximum potential.)

John Landis, Benicio del Toro

The Hollywood Reporter has run a list of some other candidates — Brett Ratner, Bill Condon, Frank Darabont, James Mangold, Joe Johnston, etc.

Josh Friedman‘s 2.1.09 L.A. Times piece about the Hannah Montana concert pic opening this weekend explains something I’d missed until today. In accord with the film being marketed as a “special event,” tickets for the 3-D film will “run as high as $24 at the El Capitan in Hollywood and $20 at the Bridge Cinema de Lux in Los Angeles, and many theaters have scrapped their kiddie and matinee discounts.”

Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour is opening today for a one-week run at 683 specially equipped theaters,” Friedman writes, although it might extend for a second week. Why just one week? A marketing guy suggest that the Disney distributors “didn’t know what they had…this could all turn on a dime if this weekend’s grosses are big.” The concert film is only 80 minutes long, which will obviously allow for more showings per day.

A beautifully written L.A. Times endorsement of Barack Obama ends with the following: “An Obama presidency would present, as a distinctly American face, a man of African descent, born in the nation’s youngest state, with a childhood spent partly in Asia, among Muslims. No public relations campaign could do more than Obama’s mere presence in the White House to defuse anti-American passion around the world, nor could any political experience surpass Obama’s life story in preparing a president to understand the American character.
“His candidacy offers Democrats the best hope of leading America into the future, and gives Californians the opportunity to cast their most exciting and consequential ballot in a generation.
“In the language of metaphor, Clinton is an essay, solid and reasoned; Obama is a poem, lyric and filled with possibility. Clinton would be a valuable and competent executive, but Obama matches her in substance and adds something that the nation has been missing far too long — a sense of aspiration.”
Screenwriter Larry Karaszewski, a Clinton supporter, put it another way last night at last night’s post-debate party. Obama’s rhetoric is “the kind of material — and it’s very good — that we all try to write for third acts. You’ve been to test screenings and you know that the dialogue that makes them cry always scores well. And Obama’s stuff is always uplifting…it touches the heart.”