Harrison Ford has long shown a kind of avoidance mentality (some would say a chickenshit attitude) when it came to starring in realistic docu-dramas. He famously declined to star in Steven Soderbergh‘s Traffic (a movie about drugs), and then bowed out of a starring role in Stephen Gaghan‘s Syriana, which was about the geopolitics of big oil. (“I didn’t feel strongly enough about the truth of the material ,and I think I made a mistake,” Ford allegedly said). He also sidestepped a shot at starring in A History of Violence.

Now, weeks before he starts work on the fourth Indiana Jones film, Ford has had a change of heart. Starting on Wednesday he’ll be playing some kind of lead role in a Mexican immigration film for the Weinstein Co. called Crossing Over. Costarring Sean Penn and Ray Liotta, it reportedly “focuses on the gut-wrenching drama of people caught up in the nation’s immigration morass,” blah, blah.

The consensus seems to be that it’s going to be Crash-like. This would normally be a concern, but the fact that Wayne Kramer (Running Scared, The Cooler) has written the script and is also directing is reason for hope. The film is tentatively set for a fall ’07 release. What is that, three or four months in post?

The only people I know in real life who smoke are (a) young and courting a kind of contrarian identity, (b) older with vaguely self-destructive attitudes, and in some cases beset by addiction problems, (c) serious “party” people with unmistakable self-destructive compulsions and tendencies, and (d) life’s chronic losers — riffraff, low-lifes, bums, scuzzballs. Cigarette smoking used to be extremely cool but no longer, and that goes for actors in movies too.

All the above associations seem to kick in every time sometime lights up in a film, and it’s gotten so that I don’t want to watch characters in movies smoke at all. Unless it’s a period film or unless they look extremely cool doing it (a la Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past or Jean Paul Belmondo in Breathless), but very few actors have that ability.

I smoked for years and years but I don’t any more, and I don’t like the way cigar- ettes smell unless I’m in Europe. (It’s different over there). Smoking isn’t exactly outright suicide but it’s the next thing to it, and every time someone lights up in a movie it half-pisses me off and makes me think negatively about the film in general, especially if this or that actor smokes all through the movie and looks and acts like a lowlife. Criminals in movies are always smoking because of (b), (c) and (d), but I think it’s way too easy for an actor to use smoking as a piece of business. It’s tedious and repellent. It makes me want to see the actor get shot or at least beaten up.

I think the sun has really set on the sexiness of smoking in movies, and I’m starting to think that actors who light up all the time in front of the camera are second-raters.

Slate‘s Kim Masters wrote on Friday that “powerful anti-smoking groups have been pushing the MPAA to slap any movie that shows smoking with an automatic R rating, unless that movie deals with a historical figure who actually smoked (as in Good Night and Good Luck) or shows people suffering hideous consequences as a result of their folly.” That sounds a bit harsh, but I’m getting so sick of watching people light up I almost don’t care how it stops as long as it does.

People should be free to do anything they want of a self-destructive nature — cigarettes, booze, compulsive eating, coke, heroin — as long as they don’t hurt anyone else doing it. And actors should be free to do anything they want that will make a performance connect. But smoking has lost its coolness, and actors who lean on it repeatedly or compulsively are boring, and I’m starting to say “the hell with them” when they pull one out and strike a match.

Deep down I guess I’m acknowledging that I wouldn’t be surprised if I live a slightly shorter life because of my smoking in the ’70s and ’80s, and I’m kind of angry about that possibility.

Here’s the difference between a highly judgmental British film columnist like the Guardian‘s John Patterson and a streetcorner mess-around-and-fess-upper like myself. Patterson thinks actors who’ve won Oscars should be subjected to a three-strikes-and-you’re-out law — i.e., appear in three turkeys after winning your Oscar and you have to give it back.

Halle Berry ought to return hers, he feels, because she made Catwoman, Gothika and now Perfect Stranger (which Patterson hears is “Color of Night bad”). And Hilary Swank has to almost give her Oscar back as punishment for making The Black Dahlia and The Reaping. (One more and she’s done.) Whereas my attitude about Swank’s post-Million Dollar Baby transgressions is that she has to live in the world and take what comes, and she’s therefore not really “calling the shots” and that her critics should try to cut her a break….for the time being. Berry, however, may be a different story — she’s almost the female Cuba Gooding these days.

Good heavens…has anyone looked at the “Road to Box-Office Hell” Grindhouse projections on the front page of Movie City News? Poland didn’t jump in, but Coming Soon projected $25.8 million, Box-Office Guru said $25 million, Box-Office Prophet said $24.3 million, and the more cautious Entertainment Weekly analyst said $19 million. Coming Soon’s Ed Douglas informs that Box-Office Guru predicted a $29 million haul….hah! (My estimate, posted yesterday, was that it would do around $20 million.) Apologies for my earlier dyslexic posting — Douglas predicted $25.8 million, not $28.5 million.

It’s a blue and cloudy Saturday morning for poor Harvey Weinstein with those weekend Grindhouse projections of $20 million or thereabouts falling way short. A studio-based estimate has Grindhouse coming in fourth with $11,992,000 for the weekend. (It made about $4,894,000 yesterday.) The just-shy-of-$12-millon estimate is probably about a million short — I see it doing around $13 million when the final data is in. (Figures for the top ten plus The Hoax are in the next item.)

Once again, a tasty hip-popcorn movie that a lot of big-city critics and urban types are having a great old time with proved a little too hip for the room when it came to suburban slow-boaters. “A double feature is like an anthology film,” a marketing analyst told me this morning. “And people generally like to see one picture telling one story. It’s very tough to sell a double feature or an anthology. Plus Tarantino has always had more of a cult following than a mass following. Rodriguez makes kids pictures that did business, but neither one is a star.”

I’m especially appalled by one posting from a guy who saw it yesterday that the audience was into the gloppy-gross Rodriguez zombie movie (i.e., Planet Terror) more than the obviously superior Tarantino car-chase film by way of The Iceman Cometh (i.e., Death Proof). Plus an HE poster said he’s noticing that about half seem to prefer Rodriguez and half the Tarantino. If people prefer the old-shoe comfort of a single movie telling a single story…fine. Death Proof doesn’t really tell a story at all, when you get right down to it. But to say the Rodriguez is better than the Tarantino…my God!

We’re really and truly living in the United States of Hong Kong — a sprinkling of sophisticated urban havens surrounded on all sides by a massive Gorilla Nation. Two different planets, two different worlds…the high and the low…hip urbanity vs. the mentality of the mall.

The Weinstein Co. hasn’t had any hits since the last Scary Movie, Grindhouse allegedly cost closer to $70 million than the low 50s, and the word on the street is that the Weinstein creditors are looking to get out. And now Grindhouse is looking like Snakes on a Plane. Is the beginning of the end of Little Rico?

“Harvey has been running scared recently — he’s not the guy he was a year or two years ago,” the analyst said. “Tarantino and Rodriguez pushed hard for the anthology idea which meant a three-hour length, and he caved. The idea was too hip for the room, and Grindhouse, in the end, was basically an expensive art film.

“It’s starting to look like it might be over for the Weinstein’s now. It’s almost time for the fire sale and the funeral. You can’t keep putting out movies that don’t make money, although The Nanny Diaries might do some business. But the creditors, I’m hearing, are looking to get out, and there isn’t going to be any more money from them. The Weinsteins have fucked a lot of people and are hated. They have to go to festivals to get films. Too many people are allied against them.

“There was no good commercial reason to release Grindhouse as a double feature. If they had put the Rodriguez or the Russell car-chase movie out as a longer stand-alone (as they’re going to do in Europe), each might have done decent business or maybe better than that.

“People want to see a simple film…they want to see a trailer that tells them a story. It’s not the length, you need a handle on one film, and anthologies are always a tough sell. The Grindhouse matinee business [yesterday] was more than respectable in New York and the other big cities, but it did worse elsewhere.”

A big studio’s estimate for the weekend box-office vs. Fantasy Moguls.com estimates…ready? FM has Blades of Glory, the weekend’s #1 film, at $20.8 million while the studio projects $24,467,000. (It’s off 26% for the weekend, off 20% yesterday, and on its way to over $100 million.) Meet the Robinsons is being projected by FM at $17 million for the weekend — the studio is eyeballing $16,852,000 for weekend with a 33% drop, which isn’t bad. The thoroughly detestable Are We Done Yet? will do $16 million by FM and $16,237,000 weekend by the studio. (It did only $5,387,000 last night which tells me it’ll end up closer to $14 or 15 milion by Sunday night.)

The fourth-place Grindhouse, as mentioned, will most likely end up with $13 million. It did about 4,894,000 yesterday and is nwo being projected by the studio as finishing with $11,992,000 but that’s probably low.

The Reaping — FM says $9.1 million [$11 million for four days] while the studio says $3,852,000 for Friday witgh a projection of $9,631,000 for the weekend. The sixth-place 300 will do $7.5 million by FM and $8,356,000 by the studio. (The cume is now at $193 million — it’ll definitely finish up at over $200 million.) FM has Wild Hogs taking in $6.3 million for the weekend and a $144.9 million cume — the studio has it at $7,133,000 for the weekend.

The eighth-place TMNT will earn $5.4 million by FM — the studio says $4,531,000. Shooter will earn $5.2 million by FM and $5,800,000 by the studio. And Firehouse Dog, a disaster, will end up with $4 million by FM and $3,951,000 by the studio.

The Hoax, the Richard Gere-Clifford Irving-Howard Hughes movie, is out limited in 235 theatres and will do $1,211,000 for the weekend for a little over 5000 a print — not great, but good but decent.

“Quite frankly, his bad studio pictures really hurt him. He squandered all the good will from Porky’s and A Christmas Story. But he just loved the process. It was in his blood. He loved storytelling …he wasn’t subtle. It’s going to be a sadder place without him.” — The late Bob Clark‘s former producing partner Len Carmody speaking to the Toronto Star‘s Peter Howell.

Can you believe this friggin’ Carmody guy? 36 hours after the death of a former partner — a guy he knew and liked! — and he’s calling him “unsubtle” and a maker of “bad studio pictures.” HE hot-heads, start your engines! Slap him around, tear him a new one, etc.

“It’s natural to want to hide behind someone else’s decision to make [a hit movie] and the fact it made money a year ago. With a sequel they can’t be blamed. They cannot take the bullet if it fails.” — a Hollywood know-it-all talking to the Toronto Star‘s Geoff Pevere about the forthcoming sequel-heavy summer.

This is a very old and creaky thing to say, but one thing you’ll never hear an actor or actress say is, “I did this film because I was offered a lot of money and I never had a shot at any hefty straight-paycheck roles until I won the Oscar, and my agent said to me, as I’m sure all agents say to all Oscar- winning actor clients, ‘Now’s the time to cash in.

“‘Popularity is promised to no actor,’ he said. ‘Memories are short and windows of opportunity are small, so get it while you can.’ So I got it. Took it, I mean.

“We all know what kind of film this is. It’s a slick piece of pandering pseudo- religious crap. But there’s a way to talk positively and enthusiastically about it — have you heard the b.s. I’ve been slinging with interviewers? And don’t get all judgmental. Not everything you do in life can be Boys Don’t Cry or Milliion Dollar Baby. Sometimes you take the paycheck because the script’s not too bad and the dialogue is decently written and the price is right.

“So you just hold your nose and jump in and do your best while developing your own stuff as best you can, and you hope that it won’t be too long before you get lucky again. But if you want to live well you had to be well paid, and we all know what that occasionally entails.”

Does that sound weird or grasping? Not to me, it doesn’t. Sometimes you take a job because it seems like a good way to go at the time, given what you;re looking to achieve.

The problem with Easter weekend is that people in the red-state hinterlands tend to stay away from movies on Easter Sunday (i.e., being into chocolate Easter bunnies, Christian tradition and trying to fortify Ozzie and Harriet family-community values), and that’s why Are We Done Yet?, Black Book and Firehouse Dog opened on Wednesday and The Reaping opened on Thursday.

Some people feel Harvey Weinstein made a mistake not putting Grindhouse into theatres on Wednesday also. (He’s cheap on advertising; a phrase I heard about Harvey is that “money goes through his hands like concrete.”) Grindhouse is tracking decently — the expectation is that it’ll take in roughly $20 million in 2,624 theaters).

“I have never believed there’s such a thing as a movie that is ‘so bad, it’s good,'” writes Oregon Live‘s Shawn Levy. “It’s a core tenet for me that photography, editing, screenwriting and acting are forms of art, and I get no more pleasure out of seeing them done badly than a restaurant reviewer does from a meal that leads to food poisoning. It’s why I don’t watch daytime TV. Or Joel Schumacher films.

“I remain in the camp of Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington or whoever it was who first said, ‘There’s only two kinds of music — good and bad. I like good.’ And for the time being, I’m satisfied to let other folks dig through the detritus to find the good. Happy hunting, and write if you find worth.”

Grindhouse opens today so I’m rehashing four basic points I covered in my 3.24 review: (a) a sleazy double-feature in the style of late-’60s exploitation flicks, it samples and comments upon a long-dead genre without really “being” anything itself except for a slick showcase of hip-guy-filmmaker attitudes; (b) still, for a film that runs just over three hours (i.e., 184 minutes) it’s a live-wire, better-than-okay ride and well worth the $10 bucks plus parking.

The problem (c) is that it starts with a semi-dud (Robert Rodriguez‘s Planet Terror, a tired, gloppy and mostly groan-worthy zombie movie except for Rose McGowan‘s pistol-hot action scenes with her prosthetic machine-gun leg) that you have to sit through in order to get to the really good one, which is Quentin Tarantino‘s Death Proof; and (d) amped with a great Kurt Russell performance (half Hickey in The Iceman Cometh, half hot-rod death demon), Death Proof is a sexy, sassy hot-chick flick boasting one of the most exciting, non-CG car-chase sequences in cinema history.