There are probably thousands who aren’t getting what that 8.4.06 EW cover with Samuel L. Jackson [three or four items below] is about. It’s a little obscure if you’re not a Frank Sinatra fan as well as a bit of a vinyl freak, but it’s a riff on the cover art for Sinatra’s 1957 Capitol album “Come Fly With Me.”

MSNBC’s Dave White explains the appeal of star Colin Farrell: “[He] has a sex tape that is the only commonly seen denominator among the friends I talked to [about him for this article]. And a party-hard rep. And subsequently a stint in rehab under his belt at 30. And his own shrine on the gossip websites. And tabloid stories of him bedding more famous women than just about anyone of his generation.

“But whether those stories are true or not isn’t the point. There’s not a shred of soft ambiguity about him. No Rob-Lowe-in-the-’80s androgyny. He doesn’t have occasional gay rumors popping up. He could get you pregnant. Or give you an STD. His fingernails could be dirty. The gritty sensuality he displays onscreen whenever the camera lets him also spills over into reality. And that would be okay with us if he weren’t so pretty. But he is. So we’re terrified.”

Execs at Warner Bros, egged on the Entourage word-of-mouth factor and Endeavor agent Ari Emanuel (i.e., the real-life model for Jeremy Piven‘s Entourage agent “Ari Gold”), have had “conversations about the film rights” for Aquaman, according to L.A. Times industry-beat hotshot John Horn. (The rights are owned by DC Comics, which is owned by Time Warner Inc.) ”
Horn adds that “one top filmmaker’s name also has surfaced as a potential Aquaman director — Charlie’s Angels alumnus McG.”
That’s fine (I guess) but also kinda weird. I don;t mean to sound unhip, but I’m still under the impression that McG is the industry’s leading anti-Christ figure (followed by Michael Bay, Stephen Sommers and Roger Kumble) whose work on the two Angels was a harbinger of death, polio and Down’s Syndrome in the realm of narrative cinema…rather than, you know, a “top filmmaker.” (He’s also the candy-ass who wouldn’t fly to Australia to start work on his version of a Superman movie for WB because he’s afraid of flying…thank God.) Has McG done something lately to change this rep? Help me out here.
Otherwise, there is reason to question the sanity of anyone giving serious thought to an Aquaman feature. Reason #1: an underwater superhero is mildly cool but not that sexy. There’s just something about the glub-glub slow-mo otherness of the aquatic realm that refuses to quicken the pulse. (Unless, of course, you’re talking about that mock Entourage scene when Adrien Grenier’s Aquaman dives off the Santa Monica pier in order to somehow stop a mile-high tidal wave from destroying Los Angeles). Reason #2: Shoots on and below the water’s surface are humungously expensive…financial disasters waiting to happen.

“I will put a round precisely through your medulla ablongata which is located at the base of your brain straight through a point mid-distance between your upper lip and the bottom of your nose and you will be dead from the neck down. Your finger won’t even twitch. Do you believe that?” — catchy-immortal Miami Vice dialogue spoken by Detective Gina Callabrese (Elizabeth Rodriguez), as highlighted and celebrated by Better Than Fudge pundit Josh Horowitz.

Quote #1: ”What’s unique about Snakes is that the idea of the movie has excited people…but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the movie we made. I’m hoping it does. But I just don’t know what people are expecting.” — New Line Cinema president Toby Emmerich tells Entertainment Weekly‘s Jeff Jensen in the 8.4 issue.

Quote #2: “The hepcats loved the title and had fun with it, but they never realized (or wanted to realize) what kind of film Snakes on a Plane actually was all along. And I include myself in that equation.” — from last Sunday’s (7.23) post-Comic-Con HE feature called “The Fun’s Over.”
Quote #3: “If the movie doesn’t deliver the goods, word-of-mouth will devastate the movie quicker than any bad review could” — Houston critic Joe Leydon to BCC News’ Peter Bowes in 7.28 piece.
Quote #4: “The impression I got from the short reel on Friday [at Comic-Con] is that Snakes on a Plane is maybe one-tenth as hip as the Snakes riffs we’ve all enjoyed the last three or four months on www.snakesonablog.com….if that.” — also from HE’s 7.23 article.
Quote #5: ”Honestly, I think we were worried about the same things other people were worried about. Could you take a movie called Snakes on a Plane seriously?’ It took us some time to catch up with it.” — New Line domestic marketing chief Russell Schwartz to Jensen in EW piece.
Quote #6: “The best part of Snakes on a Plane happened online in March and April. The movie couldn’t possibly live up to the hip hype, and now we’re all starting to get the idea that it indeed hasn’t. Reality has set in, o my brothers. The Snakes team and the New Line ‘creatives’ have been playing catch-up and ‘hey, can we get in on this thing?’ all along. Welcome to the world of 116 No. Robertson Blvd.” — HE 7.23 piece.

The brilliantly honed, way-above-average trailer for Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu‘s Babel (Paramount Vantage, 10.27). If only other trailers were two-thirds or even half as good. Who cut this? I’d like to know. (The link has been off and on all day, but it’s okay now.)

Attendees at Tom Luddy‘s Telluride Film Festival will be among the first to sample a possible Oscar-shot performance by Forrest Whitaker when he plays the flamboyant, psychopathic Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in Kevin McDonald‘s The Last King of Scotland, which Fox Searchlight is opening limited on 9.26, per the IMDB.

Telluride pass-holders are never told in advance what will be shown during the four-day film festival, which will run from 9.1 to 9.4, but info on this one slipped out, I’m afraid. (Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu‘s Babel is also set to play there.) McDonald, director of the widely acclaimed half-doc, half-drama Touching the Void , shot Scotland from Jeremy Brock‘s script, which was based on Giles Foden‘s novel of the same name. Scotland also stars Gillian Anderson, James McAvoy, Nicholas Garrigan and Kerry Washington.

Former literary agent Victoria Wisdom has her first production deal — a psychological thriller starring Hilary Swank called Labyrinth — on the front page of Variety via Michael Fleming. A story of a mental patient “with multiple personalities who holds clues to the whereabouts of a serial killer”, Labryinth is an American remake of director-writer Rene Manzor‘s Dedales , a French- produced flick that the IMDB says came out in 2003.

Dedales played at Roger Durling‘s Santa Barbara Film Festival two or three years ago, during which Wisdom met and signed Manzor and yaddah-yaddah. Russell Gewirtz (Inside Man) will write the Labyrinth script. Maverick Films’ Swank, Wisdom and Rachel Rothman are producing along with Summit Entertainment’s Erik Feig and Patrick Wachsberger.

The only thing wrong with the deal to finally make a film of F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” — Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett costarring under directed David Fincher, from an adaptation by Eric Roth — is that totally twee title. It makes the film sound like a pain-in-the-ass 1953 Danny Kaye movie that’s overly taken with its own whimsy. Just forget about paying proper homage to Fitzgerald’s short story, change the title and Benjamin Button name and they’ll be fine. If they don’t do this, guys like me are probably going to start looking around for reasons to dislike it. Because nobody wants to hang for two hours with a guy Benjamin friggin’ Button. Or Tweedle or Muffindale or Merkin or any other dorky-sounding name of that type. In Fitzgerald’s story Button is a guy who begins aging backwards when he hits 50, and then complications ensue when he falls in love with a woman of 30. What’s there to complicate? You’re older and you start getting younger and you fall in love with a 30 year-old…big deal. The pic will start shooting toward the end of the year.

“For [chairman Brad] Grey, anxious to put his own stamp on Paramount and to deliver on his promise to quickly redefine the once-cautious studio as a bold, filmmaker-driven place, World Trade Center was the perfect fast-track project. It came prepackaged with a script, director, star and budget, and gave Paramount a prestige movie for the summer of 2006.” — Claudia Eller on how World Trade Center came together, largely due to the tenacity of producer Debra Hill, who died last year from cancer at age 54. (A sad break. I first met Hill during a Manhattan press gathering for Escape From New York in 1979, and the last time was three or four years ago at one of Jonathan Kaufer‘s DVD parties. A tough pro and a good person. Too bad she didn’t make it this far.)

We’re shocked, shocked, that Paramount hired a rightward-leaning p.r. agency called Creative Response Concepts to promote World Trade Center to various right-wing lobbyists, think tanks and patriot groups. Expediency sure makes curious bedfellows, doesn’t it? If World Trade Center is warming the hearts of righties and Bushies and Iraq War supporters, fine. It’s a good film (okay, a little weak during the second act but it rebounds) without any big abrasion points for liberals, so why not? In a way, the absence of political content in World Trade Center makes for a kind of political content…which is probably what the righties are picking up on. But it’s fine. I mean, unless I’m missing something.

“For the record, the crew of Miami Vice worked during a hurricane warning. And that’s no bullshit.” — Kim Masters in her second Slate piece about Vice and Michael Mann. Okay, okay…maybe Kim’s got it right here. But “safety”, of course, is an overvalued thing. And relative lack of safety has its upsides. It keys you up, makes you pay closer attention, accelerates your pulse and cleans the blood. And if you’re working in rough weather…well, wear a raincoat and galoshes and something to protect your head with. Life is short, amigo, and very few people on this planet have known true commitment, true work-joy….the joy of performing well under great stress as the waters turn choppy and palm fronds are being tossed about by stiff winds. What is “safety” compared to that? If you need to debate this, you don’t get it. You’ll never get it.