“Whatever else they may be, movies are stories people tell us; and a review is a conversation the critic has with both the filmmaker and the audience about the power and plausibility of the tale. No one has done as much as Roger Ebert to connect the creators of movies with their consumers. He has immense power, and he’s used it for good, as an apostle of cinema. Reading his work, or listening to him parse the shots of some notable film, the movie lover is also engaged with an alert mind constantly discovering things — discovering them to share them.” –from a Time tribute piece by Richard Corliss.

Shortly before Strangers on a Train was released, Farley Granger (i.e., Guy Haines) ran into Robert Walker (i.e., Bruno Antony) at a party in Hollywood. “He said, ‘Farley, we have to get together…I miss you…We should not let the friendship slip away,'” Granger tells L.A. Times staffer Susan Granger. “I took his number and he took mine, and the next thing I knew he died.”
On Wednesday, 6.27, Granger will be signing copies of his co-written autobiography, “Include Me Out: My Life From Goldwyn to Broadway” at the Santa Monica branch of Every Picture Tells a Story (at 1311 Montana) , and will then do a q & a after a screening of Strangers on a Train at the Aero.

At 64, Werner Herzog is our filmmaking god of dark adventure, a willful but adventuresome artist whose characters — both in his features and documentaries — test the boundaries of human madness and quixotic folly.” — from Patrick Goldstein‘s 6.24.07 L.A. Times profile, titled “Werner Herzog’s Night Vision.”

Arnold Jones, brother of the late Anderson Jones, informs that a memorial is being planned for Saturday, 6.30.07 at 1 pm at a small church all the way the fuck down in Long Beach (location yet to be disclosed). Flowers and condolences can be sent to Andy’s parents, Anna and Arnold L. Jones, at 1471 E. Fairifield Ct. Ontario, CA 91761.

The Straight Time gang — Dustin Hoffman, director Ulu Grosbard, Theresa Russell (looking pretty hot for having just turned 50), Harry Dean Stanton, cinematographer Owen Roizman — took the stage last night at the Billy Wilder theatre, following a 6:30 pm screening of the 1978 noir classic.

(l. to. r.) Theresa Russell, Ulu Grosbard, Dustin Hoffman, Harry Dean Stanton and producer Tim Zinneman — Saturday, 6.23.07, 8:55 pm; Grosbard, Hoffman, Stanton; best wide shot

L.A. Weekly critic Scott Foundas asked the questions, but he didn’t have to work very hard at keeping the ball in the air. Hoffman and Grosbard, in particular, just let it roll and roll and roll. Here’s an mp3 of a portion of what was said (i.e., a recording of a videotape that I took that was way too big to upload — 1.6 gigs). You’ll hear Grosbard first, and then Stanton and Russell (or the other way around) and then Hoffman comes in with a longish riff about his research, including an interesting observation about how criminals and actors aren’t all that dissimilar.

As expected, Evan Almighty was flat on Saturday. Sequels don’t usually increase business from Friday to Saturday, and this one’s coping with mixed word-of-mouth so the adjusted projection is now $32,112,000. 1408 was down also (horror peaks on Friday night with the young), but the projection went up — it’s now expected to hit just over $20 million. The John Cusack-er may even overtake Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer for the #2 slot…maybe.

“It’s being run like a war. I mean, we’re in a battle with these corporations who want to maintain their position. They don’t want to give an inch on this, and we’re out to upset the apple cart.” — Michael Moore quoted in Kevin Sack‘s 6.24 N.Y. Times piece about the Sicko director making a big media splash in Washington, D.C. in order to keep the health-care ball in the air.

A YouTube clip of the finale of the final Sopranos episode. I’m suddenly ambivalent about the bullet in the back of the head due to the last shot being a close-up of Tony from the front. If “Members Only” was about to pop him, why didn’t Tony turn his head to the right just a split second before? Wouldn’t he spot aggressive movement out of the corner of his right eye? This National Lampoon Scarface parody clip is pretty funny.

A friend suspects that Evan Almighty‘s numbers may drop today (“word of mouth isn’t good, sequels always drop Friday to Saturday”), meaning it may not even do $33 million for the weekend. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer will end up in second place with almost $21 million, down 54% from last weekend. And 1408 is doing okay with a projected Sunday- night tally of $19,295,000.
Ocean’s 13 will make $11,300,000 or the weekend, down 43%. (It’ll just make $100 million, over and out.) Knocked Up will do $10,532,000 this weekend, off 25%, for a total of $108 million. Pirates 3 is projecting $6,828,000 for the weekend, down 45%…it’s ending up with $300 million, give or take. Surf’s Up will make $6,500,000 by Sunday evening. Shrek the Third will hit $5,535,000 — it’s crossing the $307 million mark. Nancy Drew will end up with $4,596,000.
A Mighty Heart wil make $3,652,000, or just under 2700 a print…a disaster. I guess it’s the subject matter plus a bad call to open it in the summer. Doesn’t make sense; this a very strong film.
Sicko made $24,000 yesterday at the Leows Lincoln Plaza — $79,000 projected for the weekend.
La Vie en Rose expanded very well…from 70 to 116 theatres…654,000…5700 a print….pretty good. Once will make $509,000 in 121 theatres this weekend for a $3.8 million (or is it $3.2 million?) tally. It could end up with $8 to $10 million at the end of the road, especially with the possibility of an awards-season bump. You Kill Me will make $233,000 in 67 theatres, estimating 6300 a print…soft.

Right after this morning’s 10 a.m. Ratatouille screening at the Arclight, I slipped into the theatre across the hall playing Evan Almighty. It’s tanking in relation to expectations, but I wanted to see for myself how many bodies were inside. There were ten people in the seats — a family of five, a couple, and three singles. Holy shit, I said to myself.
I went out and asked a female usher, “If a film is doing pretty well on its opening weekend, how many people usually show up for the first show of the day on Saturday?” The 11 am show, I explained. The first Saturday show draws about 50 or 60 people, she replied. For a first-weekend film that’s doing well, she meant. Of course, a theatre located on Hollywood and Cahuenga isn’t going to draw many Christian red-state types, and the Arclight’s prices are probably going to scare off parents with big families. Still…

Brad Bird‘s Ratatouille (Disney/Pixar, 6.29) is, in all ways but one, a sublime experience. Call it a gifted-underdog-fights- the-odds fable (it’s about a French rat named Remy who manages to become the most admired chef in Paris) and a very entertaining souffle by way of inspired writing, delightful wit, great voice-acting and eyeball-popping digital animation. It’s not a great film, but it satisfies and then some.

The visuals are so good and dazzling that Ratatouille delivers a perpetual throb sensation within your moviegoing heart. See it for any reason that comes to mind — the reviews alone have been highly persuasive — but absolutely don’t miss the drop-dead sumptuousness of each and every shot, cut, backdrop and camera move. Hats off to Pixar supervising animator Mark Walsh, character designer Luis Grane, character developer Andrew Gordon and all the grunt-level animators who did what they were told.
A story about fate, struggle, luck and love, Ratatouille is another brisk and bouncy animated heart comedy with another egalitarian theme — “anybody can cook.” What makes it special for an animated wing-ding is that it has the world-view of a 55 year-old gourmand with a seasoning of old-soul wisdom. The wise and brilliant writing is by Bird, Jim Capobianco, Emily Cook, Kathy Greenberg and Jan Pinkava.
Ratatouiille is such a scrumptious foodie ride that I was thinking halfway through that it’s going to make things a little bit tougher for Scott Hicks‘ No Reservations (a remake of the beloved Mostly Martha) which costars Catherine Zeta Jones and Aaron Eckhart and comes out on 7.27.
Like most commercial-minded animated features, Ratatouille has the frisky, frizzy energy of a gifted 12 year-old and one of those “ohh, man, we are looking to entertain the shit of you!” attitudes. And we all know you can’t get away from that kind of presentation if you’re looking to deliver mass-market orgasms and stay rich while doing so.

I went in expecting a thermonuclear blowout and I came out…uhm, definitely pleased. Not floating on helium, but happy. I’m not sure if it’s the best Brad Bird flick ever made (I’m extremely partial to The Incredibles) but it is not, as a certain bigmouth has proclaimed, “the best American film of 2007 to date.” So far it’s a three-way tie for that title — Zodiac, No Country for Old Men and that early-fall drama I saw four days ago that I still can’t blab about. Ratatouille is a close fourth behind these three. It is obviously a contender for the Best Animated Feature Oscar, but then you knew that.
My reservation is this: I wish Bird and John Lasseter and the Pixar guys had summoned the balls to throw out the expected commercial family-flick shtick and made a deeper, more complex and more “adult” film — something less anxious to please, a little braver and riskier by being a touch more complex.
I realize that laser-sharp digital animation and whirylbird camerawork from guys determined to live flush lifestyles means that the story has to follows certain formulaic guidelines, but somebody has to break the mold some day, and that will mean not automatically siphoning the material through the rubber hose of an “animated kids movie.”