I don’t know how long this Starz bunny parody of Brokekack Mountain has been kicking around, but the words “who cares?” are inadequate to the task of expressing my interest levels. Why am I posting it then? Good question.
I don’t know how long this Starz bunny parody of Brokekack Mountain has been kicking around, but the words “who cares?” are inadequate to the task of expressing my interest levels. Why am I posting it then? Good question.
Ron Grover‘s 3.6 Business Week scoop about the recently- cemented deal between the Weinstein Co. and the Sony-based MGM Studios came out yesterday, and the official announcement may be announced at a press conference on Wednesday, 3.8. The MGM-Weinstein Co. deal “will mean a new, high-profile home for Harvey and his brother, Bob, who had a nasty 2005 divorce from Disney, which had bought Miramax in 1993,” Grover writes. The pact will also signal legendary studio MGM’s return to making and distributing films. “Sources” say Harry Sloan, MGM’s new CEO, will proclaim MGM’s resurgence as a full-fledged studio at the 3.8 press conference.
“My life is about finding time to dream. That’s why my card is American Express.” This speaker is famed director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs), and it’s the only line of narration heard in his fascinating, self-directed two-minute American Express ad, which is definitely Night-flavored and Night-creepy, and two or three cuts above the usual-usual. (And I don’t care how long it’s been viewable…I just saw it now.
Okay, so the Oscar-viewing TV audience was down 8% from last year, but — but! — viewership among 18 to 34 year-old males was up 5%, which is probably due to Jon Stewart’s popularity with this demo. Nielsen’s estimated total count came in at 38.8 million viewers, compared to last year’s 42.1 million. And Sunday night;s show was ahead of the 2003 audience of only 33 million. And the 38.8 million figure is larger than the audience for the recent Emmy and Golden Globes shows combined, and was also larger than the Academy Award telecasts in 1986 and 1987. But they should still get rid of Gil Cates.
“The key to the success of Crash,” writes James Bates in today’s L.A. Times, “was that the film itself — and the carefully orchestrated promotional campaign undertaken by its distributor, Lionsgate √¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢√É‚Äû√É¬Æ appealed to actors, the academy’s largest voting bloc. With 22% of the voting members, the acting contingent is nearly three times as big as the next-largest group, producers. It was actors — specifically, those in Los Angeles — who were targeted to deliver votes. And judging by the upset, deliver they did. Crash likely…scored points with some actors because it was shot in Los Angeles at a time when runaway film production is a sore point. Crash was also set in Los Angeles, which probably gave it an additional home-field advantage. 78% of the academy’s voting members live in California — the vast majority of them in the L.A. area.” All of which is true, but downplaying or waving away the reported attitude-posture of who-knows-how-many-but-probably- more-than-a-few oldsters and old-liners toward Brokeback Mountain (couldn’t hack the pup-tent scene, wouldn’t see the film, resented the macho cowboy tradition being messed with) is a form of denial. All Bates will say on this aspect is that “much of the morning-after punditry and blog logic has centered on whether members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had trouble giving Brokeback Mountain a Best Picture nod because of its gay love theme.” As if it was some theory of celestial mechanics being floated in a scientific journal.
It was linkable yesterday, but David Halbfinger‘s N.Y. Times piece about Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck‘s sharply critical doc about former House majority leader and right-wing ideologue Tom DeLay is in today’s issue. The Big Buy: How Tom DeLay Stole Congress, which is about the trouble DeLay got into over campaign fund-raising as well as Texas redistricting, has been produced and will be distributed by “liberal provocateur” Robert Greenwald. Staunch leftie orgs like People for the American Way and Democracy for America “are expected to sponsor the film’s release,” which will start with openings in a few cities before being made widely available on DVD. “An important aspect of the release plan is to organize hundreds, if not thousands, of house parties in May and June at which the movie will be shown,” the story says. “The distribution strategy is to be detailed on Tuesday — primary day in Texas — as a ‘welcoming gift’ to Mr. DeLay.”
“My friend Jim is more interested in the Academy than anyone I know who isn’t involved in the industry. (He’s a chauffeur in Seattle.) By early summer he’s already talking up possible nominees. The discussion reaches a fever pitch in November and December when the prestige pictures are rolled out and critics make their ‘best of’ announcements. He goes to see these films. He talks about them. He actually cares. Not anymore. Crash‘s win did him in. The Academy, he said afterwards, ‘is not a serious body of voters who vote rationally. If they’re influenced by a DVD sales pitch, they’re not worth my time.’ Are they worth anyone√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢√É‚Äû√ɬ¥s time? Once again, they showed themselves susceptible to something other than a legitimate search for ‘the best.’ Once again, marketing appears to have won. The Academy is 78 years old and acting every bit of it, and last night they took another doddering step towards irrelevancy.” — MSNBC’s Eric Lundegaard on last night’s Best Picture Oscar winner.
Jon Stewart sure as shit didn’t hit it out of the park last night. The general consensus is that his material was a little too dry, and that he was mostly hit-and-missy. Did he do better than Chris Rock? Somewhat, but not that much. A few of his ad-libs were slightly funnier than the prepared material, but they weren’t golden either. The filmed bits were the funniest of all. If Oscar show producer Gil Cates was a hipper, nervier guy, he would have followed my suggestion and tried to get Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan to co-host. C’mon…those guys would have killed. And Sarah Silverman‘s performance at last Saturday’s Spirit Awards showed she would have been great also. But Cates doesn’t watch her on TV so she probably wasn’t even considered.
It was Gil Cates‘ idea to have that soft prompt music play under the Oscar winners’ acceptance speeches, right? And what was that film noir reel about? And that pitch about movies being better served in a big theatre on a big screen? And that chit-chat between Leonard Maltin, Joel Siegel and Anne Thompson was smooth and smart but felt overly rehearsed, and this, I gather, was mandated by the Cates team. It was an irksome, not-terribly-enjoyed show, and I think it’s pretty clear that the 71 year-old Cates needs to be sacked and somebody younger (somebody in their 50s, maybe?….sopmeone who wasn’t old enough to vote in the 1956 Presidential election?) and more-on-the-ball needs to be brought in. Really. Just because Cates has produced the show all these years and knows everyone doesn’t mean he’s doing the show any big favors. I think it’s obvious to one and all that he isn’t.
“Just in case you hadn’t heard — 10 years from now people will say ‘Oh right….I forgot that Crash won for Best Picture. That was the ‘little’ year.” — message from broadcast news guy.
“Crash was far more representative of the our industry, of where we work and live,” said “player” David Cohen to the New York Times guy David Carr in another what-happened-last-night? story. “Brokeback took on a fairly sacred Hollywood icon, the cowboy, and I don’t think the older members of the academy wanted to see the image of the American cowboy diminished.”
Just to reiterate: It’s pretty clear to me that an undetermined but not-miniscule percentage of Academy voters went for Crash the Tony Curtis way — because it wasn’t Brokeback Mountain, because they flat-out didn’t see Brokeback, or just didn’t feel good about supporting a film that meesed with the iconic image of macho cowboys. Curtis said he wouldn’t see it, an Academy-member uncle of a friend said the same thing, and I’ve heard or read about this same mindset among older Academy members from others aroudn town. There were many Crash supporters who undboutedly voted for it because they admired it the most…fine. (Let’s presume that the majority of its supporters felt this way without homophobia clouding the issue.) But it’s widely believed that others voted for it because it wasn’t Brokeback Mountain. I don’t know what percentage, but with Ang Lee winning for Best Director I presume the overall margin was close.
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