No question that Phil Morrison’s Junebug (Sony Classics, 8.3) is a gentle, exceptionally well-made and highly perceptive film about family relationships and the differences between urban and rural. The Stephen Holden blurb in David Halbfinger’s story in today’s New York Times (“Playing to Both Sides of the Aisle (North and South)”) is an accurate sum-up. “Without condescending to its characters or becoming overtly political,” Holden wrote, “[this] beautifully acted film distills antagonistic red-state, blue-state attitudes with a sad understanding that no amount of polite walking on eggshells can dispel the tension between them.” I must say again that despite the quality of it, Junebug was not an entirely comfortable sit because of the icky red-state vibes I got from it, and particularly from Celia Weston’s mother character, Peg, who is extremely suspicious of her new daughter-in law (Embeth Davidtz) because she’s not house-wifey or “country” enough, and because she has a certain cultivation. Because of this, Peg calls her “strange.” As soon as Peg started up with her bullshit, I wanted to walk out. Because I despised her, I started to half-dislike the film…which wasn’t fair because Junebug is a balanced and compassionate thing.

New Line has changed the release date so many times on Tony Scott’s Domino that they’re ticking people off. Me, for example. The latest shift was decided about two weeks ago, and now Domino will open nationwide on October 14th. This requires an explanation from yours truly because in late June, right after Domino Harvey’s death, I spoke to a New Line rep who told me the film’s release was going back to the original August date of 8.19, and a few hours later I published a story about this decision. New Line had originally slotted Domino to open in mid-August, only to bump it forward to 11.23. The reason they decided to return to the mid-August release date, I was told, was because the other Keira Knightley film, Pride and Prejudice (Focus Features), was moving its opening date to November 11 from a previous opening date of September 23, and such a conflict would only hurt both films. Anyway, this is really nuts and I’m sorry for not realizing sooner than New Line had changed its mind for a fourth time. I guess they could still change it again if they want to.

A new conspiracy theory posits that Penn Jillette himself invented the Aristocrats joke, and convinced the world that it “has been with comics [for a long time]. [It] is a joke that is never told in public, a private joke for comedians, so you’ve never heard it before.” I’ve searched high and low for any reference to it, but everything seems to be related to the movie. Wikipedia says that in England the joke is called “The Debonaires,” but I can’t find proof of that, either. Andy Baio of Waxy.com says the earliest he can find is in a book by Jackie Martling in 1998 – far short of actually proving a pre-Penn existence. It seems to me that even an in-joke would have appeared in some form, somewhere before this. Are these guys faking a joke on the entire world? Maybe that is the real joke. Anyone know differently?

Those of you who may read the WIRED items in the RSS feed may not know that occasionally I (Jon Rahoi) drop one in here. If you see something that sounds radically unlike Jeff, come to the site and make sure it doesn’t have my name by it before e-mailing him.

I’ve completely updated the Oscar Balloon, and I pledge to not let it fall behind ever again. Sometime today (Monday, 8.1), Oscar Balloon will be moving to the right-hand side of the column and out of the bottom of the column space. On top of this portions of it (i.e, one category at a time) will be excerpted in the news ticker. There will also be a tiny link under the HE logo that’ll take you right there.

Which is the more intriguing Grizzly Man one-sheet? This version is sitting on the IMDB page for the film, and this one, if you ask me, is the slightly cooler concept.

Let’s face it, let’s be really honest — there’s a lot of us out there who want to hear the audio track of that videotape that was recording when that grizzly bear killed and ate Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, in October 2003 up in the wilds of Alaska. This ghastly event isn’t heard in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man (Lions Gate, 8.12), a doc about Treadwell’s devotion to communing with grizzlies, but we do see Herzog listening to it and grimacing and then telling a woman from Treadwell’s family that the tape should be burned. I respect Herzog’s decision not to include it (he said “I didn’t want to make a snuff film”) but c’mon…this is a movie about a guy who loved hanging with grizzlies in their natural habitat, but was paradoxically killed by a bear because the bear got ornery and decided, “Hey, why not?” Herzog wasn’t wrong but I don’t believe in shielding people’s eyes and ears from the realities of life. If you’re making a film about Richard Nixon’s impeachment, you show the House Judiciary Committee voting to impeach. If you’re going to make a film about a weird guy who got eaten by a bear, make a film about a weird guy who got eaten by a bear. A guy has written in a discussion group that “it would be terribly insensitive to tack an audio recording of a human being getting eaten alive at the end of the film just for shock value,” but it wouldn’t be for shock value. It would be what happened — the reality is the reality. Here’s an IMDB discussion
of the incident and some of the particulars on the tape.

Wait a minute…Hustle & Flow dropped 50% in its second weekend for a $4 million haul? The big hit of Sundance…one of the very best films of the year so far with a vibe that leaves you in a very spiritual place went down 50%? Don’t misunderstand — Craig Brewer’s film will turn out to be one of Paramount Classics’ biggest hits (figure $25 million domestic when all is said and done) but Hustle should have dropped 25% or 30% this weekend, at most. A 50% drop means people out there are telling their friends, “Yeah, sorta…but not altogether.” And they’re dead wrong…they’re lazy and short-sighted. I’m not an ivory-tower elitist, I spent my childhood in Union County, New Jersey, and I’m now staying in a non-affluent middle-class area of Brooklyn. So I understand the regular-guy thing and am speaking with a certain authority when I say that the people failed this weekend — they let Hustle & Flow down, let themselves down, let the specialness-of-movies down. I haven’t felt this upset and dismayed since the November ’04 Presidential election when it was clear that younger voters had stayed away from the polls in sufficient numbers to allow Goerge W. Bush a second term.

Downfall‘s Oliver Hirschbiegel doing Body Snatchers (or Invasion of…), a remake of a ’70s Phil Kaufman film that was a remake of a landmark ’50s Don Siegel film that was also reworked by Abel Ferrara in ’93….really terrible idea! Even with (or do I mean particularly with?) Nicole Kidman in whatever the lead role will amount to this time. Shooting is apparently set to begin in October.

I had this horrible idea for a movie this evening…horrible but oddly unshakable. Nobody would ever have the courage to push this with anyone else, but it’s basically Oliver Stone’s 9/11 movie meets Wedding Crashers. Remember Will Ferrell’s character telling Owen Wilson’s character that funerals are better than weddings for scoring? Okay…now remember that brief phenomenon that happened in New York City right after 9/11 called “terror-fucking,” which was about a lot of guys (fireman in particular) going home with a lot of women because everyone wanted to obliterate the horror of what had happened with sex…almost any kind of available sex they could get their hands on? This movie would start with a couple of horndogs (good-time guys like Wilson and Vince Vaughn’s characters) who start to realize two or three days after 9/11 there are some phenomenal opportunities out there, etc. Clearly, the idea of guys trying to exploit the heartbreak of 9/11 by trying to get laid is a ghastly reaction to human suffering, but as long as we’re going to see at least a couple of 9/11 movies in ’06, why not go all the way and try for a twisted 9/11 sex comedy? You know…really push the envelope? I think we’re ready for it.

Lynn Hirschberg’s Jim Jarmusch profile in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine is awfully well-written…it gets Jarmusch like an arrow through the heart. His latest film, Broken Flowers (Focus Features, 8.5), “moves beyond hipster cool to something more like maturity, but the film still maintains Jarmusch’s outsider stance: it is stripped down, closely observed, with an almost dreamlike aura,” Hirschberg remarks early on. “”It’s all so…independent,” Jarmusch comments. ‘I’m so sick of that word. I reach for my revolver when I hear the word ‘quirky.’ Or ‘edgy.’ Those words are now becoming labels that are slapped on products to sell them. Anyone who makes a film that is the film they want to make, and it is not defined by marketing analysis or a commercial enterprise, is independent. My movies are kind of made by hand. They’re not polished — they’re sort of built in the garage. It’s more like being an artisan in some way.'”

Everyone knew Rob Cohen’s Stealth would crap out on opening weekend, and now it’s more or less done that with a $5 million take on Friday. Wedding Crashers topped the $100 million mark while finally beating out Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, $6 million to $5.2 million. And exhibitors saw John Singleton’s Four Brothers (Paramount, 8.12) a few days ago and are said to be high on it because “it’s commercial.” That’s a code term for “it’s not going to win any Oscars but it’ll probably sell tickets.”