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.

“Destined to be better remembered for its grisly billboard imagery than for its relatively tame torture-porn tropes, Captivity is a thoroughly nasty piece of work that nonetheless earns credit for generating modest suspense after a predictable but effective plot twist around the 50-minute mark. Pic likely will be a nonstarter as a theatrical item — given the recent B.O. performance of Hostel: Part II, the subgenre may be in at least temporary decline — but devotees of such disreputable product may pony up for an unrated DVD edition.” — from Joe Leydon‘s 7.13 Variety review.

The hilarious final scene from “Sorry, Harvey,” the Entourage episode (#46) that aired a few days ago. Maury Chaykin‘s “Harvey Weingard” character (based on the old Harvey of the mid to late ’90s) first appeared in an ’05 episode called “The Sundance Kids.” The next Entourage episode (#47) wil focus on the posse’s visit to the Cannes Film Festival.

The story about Dimension’s abandoning of All The Boys Love Mandy Lane was given to me an hour ago. The announcement obviously came a little late, but the film’s been bought for domestic distribution by Marco Weber‘s Senator Entertainment, Inc., a production and finance company based in Berlin and Los Angeles with an established relationship with Bob and Harvey. Dimension will handle the home video distribution. Okay, but what persuaded Dimension to sell Mandy Lane in the first place? Halitosis?
Mandy will be the first film that Senator will release in the U.S. It’s also financing/producing Fireflies in the Garden with Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, Julia Roberts and Emily Watson under director Dennis Lee, and is also on pre-production of The Informers, an adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis‘s book to be directed by Gregor Jordan (Buffalo Solders, Ned Kelly, Two Hands).