The Sundance plane leaves at 3:40 pm and I, uhm….haven’t finished packing. No more filing until tonight sometime. Up, up and away. (Presumably.)

ThinkFilm honcho Mark Urman resented last night’s post about Zoo and wrote the following: “Zoo, if you really want to know, is extremely artsy, totally un-sensationalistic, and 100% ‘specialty.’ Alas — writers insist upon calling it ‘the horse-fucking movie‘ and talking about it in tabloid terms, and flinging it at a broad-based audience that is not equipped to meet it on its own terms.”

I wrote back straight away and said “the only touchstone I have in the naked male-stimulated-by-horse genre of drama is Equus. Does Zoo touch upon any of the themes and/or musings in Peter Shaffer’s play?
“When people spoke of Equus in shorthand in the ’70s, they said (a) it was about an unstable stable boy who blinds three or four horses, and (b) it has great performances and (c) it has a nude scene in the stable between the boy and a girl. People think and relate in shorthand. You’re far too savvy and perceptive not to have understood from the get-go that this movie would be processed as a thing about horse sex. A guy dying from anal intercourse with a horse is a tabloid subject — it’s a story that’s straight out of Weekly World News.”
To which Urman replied, “Zoo has larger themes, but not quite the same as Shaffer’s. Equus explores the passion of Alan Strang (who was in fact mad) and compares it , somewhat romantically, to the dry, rationalism of the shrink. Zoo is the sad, strange-but-true story of someone who explores his dark side and gets lost in the darkness. But the film does not romanticize the passion in question, nor does it imply that it’s comparable to, superior to, or even related to normal adult male urges.
“And while I fully expect people to refer to this — and any — film in somewhat reductive terms, I think that ‘the horse-fucking’ movie is a phrase that not even the Weekly World News would use!”

Find Me Guilty producer-co-screenwriter T.J Mancini is doggedly sticking with attempts to explain to anyone who’ll listen that the Yari Film Releasing Group (i.e., Bob Yari’s outfit) screwed up badly on the distribution and marketing of this esteemed moral fable/courtrom drama, which is one of Sidney Lumet‘s very best films and easily one of the best of ’06.

It’s old news and water under the bridge, but Mancini sent me a Find Me Guilty road-to-implosion timeline this morning, with commentary. He points out that Find Me Guilty was the first major film released by the new Yari Film Releasing Group (YFRG), and that
YFRG hired outside consultants to execute all marketing and distribution strategy ad basically “did what it wanted to do” — i.e., wore blinders, didn’t listen to anyone.
Mancini says that in the fall 2005, One Race Films (the producers) “asked YFRG to have the poster/one-sheet and trailer into theatres by Holiday/Xmas 2005…which didn√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢t happen until mid-February 2006. Around the same time One Race Films asked YFRG to have multiple-market screenings as word-of-mouth would [most likely] drive the film — but YFRG had only one screening per market.”
He says that because YFRG “did not have anyone specifically working for it (aside from Isabel White, vp publicity), all decisions were made by people who had other jobs — which slowed down the decision-making process. And he says that “as FMG was the YFRG√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s first release and all execution was being done by outside consultants, Yari and all of his executives were unaware of the timeliness of all marketing strategy decisions and how those decisions impacted awareness, interest and first choice for opening weekend.”
He concludes that “the three Iimportant line items above would have made a difference to the entire campaign for Find Me Guilty and ultimately its opening weekend andoverall box office. These things were stressed to YFRG numerous times over numerous months by myself and the entire One Race Films group.” Alas, to little avail.
Perhaps, at the very least, this will inspired some to at least buy or rent the DVD and catch this very fine film.

A hilarious YouTube satire clip from a “Fox & Friends” discussion on Fox News, the subject being how patriotic movies that don’t tear down America make more money than communist/socialist/ homosexual movies. What’s funny is the wedged-in editorial commentary. Cheers to the great Dougie Zero for composing it.

Dreamgirls, a movie musical based on the ’60s and early ’70s career tribulations of the Supremes and Diana Ross (as well as Berry Gordy, Flo Ballard, etc.) has been playing fairly broadly since Christmas, and yet Ross, who went on Late Night with David Letterman Tuesday night with an absolutely massive ’70s ‘fro, says she (a) hasn’t had time to see it, (b) has “heard a lot about it,” (c) plans “to see it with my lawyers” and (d) “I would like to do is to be able to see it.”

Those are lies, no? Ross hasn’t seen Dreamgirls because she’s afraid to, or because she doesn’t want people to think she cares about how Beyonce portrays her because that would somehow mess with the above-the-fray diva image that she feels is important to project…right? Certainly not because she’s been busy. Phony, disingenuous, over.

“I just arrived in Park City tonight. Beware, it is bitter cold. Not snowing though.” — a publicist friend who wrote me at 2:30 ayem this morning.

China’s movie censor has decided not to approve The Departed for domestic release in China “due to the film’s brief mention of a Chinese plan to buy military equipment,” according to Reuters. “There is no chance The Departed will be shown in mainland cinemas because the U.S. side declined to change a plot line describing how Beijing wanted to buy advanced military computer hardware,” a Chinese government source told Reuters. “That part of the plot is definitely unnecessary. The [Chinese] regulators just cannot understand why the movie wanted to involve China. They can talk about Iran or Iraq or whatever, but there’s no reason to get China in.” Idiots.

Behold the poster for ThinkFilm ‘s Zoo, Robinson Devor‘s “horse-fucking movie” that will show at the Sundance Film Festival. One look and right away you’re reminded of Peter Shaffer”s Equus. Where do I get the feeling that Zoo isn’t quite as pregnant with ideas and metaphor? (Maybe it is.) When I think of a horse schtupping some guy and death resulting from ruptured tissue…gimme a break. Feels on some level like the new cinematic “Piss Christ.”

I’m leaving for the 2007 Sundance Film Festival tomorrow afternoon, and I plan on working it for seven full days — Thursday, 1.18 through the evening of Wednesday, 1.25. The usual three to four films per day, which may work out closer to three than four…figure 24, 25 films in all. I’ve just reviewed the party rundown supplied by an agency friend, and there are 77 parties happening over those seven days. If you attend any more than two or three per day max you’ll be baked in no time, so you need to keep it closer to one or two and even that can be a slog…it’s nuts.

Senator Barack Obama took his first solid step into the Democratic presidential race today by opening “an exploratory committee to raise money and begin building a campaign designed to change our politics,” the N.Y. Times reported today. Obama said he would make a formal declaration February 10th in Illinois. I can’t wait for the bubbas to start showing their colors when he does.

“But I did love producer Lloyd Levin‘s United 93 story: apparently the team of editors desperately trying to cut United 93‘s documentary-like coverage into some kind of shape in just 14 weeks of post-production tried to persuade [director Paul] Greengrass to give them more time. Everyone, in fact, told him to take it. [But Greengrass] insisted that they make the movie in the time they had, and that it would be better for the movie not to overthink it.” — Risky Bizblog’s Anne Thompson.