On Second Thought: A rave! But, er, wrong

Everyone has had the experience of disagreeing with a critic, but do critics ever second-guess themselves? We asked Calendar’s critics whether there were any reviews they regretted. One in a series of occasional articles.

I’ve been a book critic for 20 years, which means I’ve written a lot of reviews — more than 500, by my own unscientific count.

In that time, I’ve shanked my share: Dale Peck’s 1998 novel “Now It’s Time to Say Goodbye,” for instance, which I read in the midst of a fever and recall as if it were a hallucination, a book whose surreal charms, as I then saw them, were almost certainly a creation of my overheated mind. (One of the main characters is named Justin Time. Just in time. Need I say more?) Or Philip Roth’s “The Human Stain,” which, I now think, I overpraised when I reviewed it in 2000.

But my biggest regret as a critic has to do with a book I didn’t so much mis-review as entirely misread. In the fall of 1993, when I was book editor of the late, lamented Los Angeles Reader, I reviewed Annie Ernaux’s splendid little memoir “Simple Passion,” the story of an obsessive love and its effect on the author/narrator — and I flat out got it wrong.
When I say I got “Simple Passion” wrong, I’m not talking about how much I did or did not like the book; as it happens, my review was a rave. But it was a rave for the wrong reasons, for reasons that had more to do with me than with what Ernaux set down on the page.

It is inevitable that we read — that we do anything, frankly — through the filter of our experiences, our biases, our preconceptions of the world. And yet, it’s also essential that, as reviewers, we remain aware of these external influences, that we test their boundaries, that we try, to the extent that it is possible, to reckon with a book on its own terms.

-- David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Review Editor

'Dark Knight' brightens Warner Bros.' day

It’s a happy Friday in Burbank.

Warner Bros.’ Batman sequel “The Dark Knight” took in a record $18 million-plus at this morning’s 12:01 shows, according to an executive at the studio, jump-starting what could one of the summer’s top hits. Warner produced the movie for an estimated $180 million with partner Legendary Pictures.

Dan Fellman, the studio’s president of domestic distribution, said his staff was still crunching the numbers and expected the final gross from some 3,000 theaters in the U.S. and Canada that ran midnight shows to be in the $18-million-to-$19-million range.

“A lot of exhibitors called up desperately asking us, ‘Can you send more prints, and quickly?,' " said an especially chipper Fellman.

Twentieth Century Fox’s “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” had owned the midnight bragging rights after it snagged $16.9 million from eager geeks in May 2005.

Adjusted for ticket price inflation, that’s about $18.7 million — although in Hollywood, where records are made to be broken, broken, and broken again, the number-crunchers never get around to that.

All 18 screens at an AMC theater in Barrington, Ill., sold out their 12:01 shows for the PG-13-rated “The Dark Knight.” adventure. One exhibitor called Warner this morning to report his full weekend grosses for the movie.

“He said, ‘I don’t want you to think I’m manipulating the numbers but I’ve sold out every seat at my theater through Sunday night,’ ” Fellman said.

-- Josh Friedman

Photo: Heath Ledger starring as the Joker, in a scene with Christian Bale, starring as Batman in "The Dark Knight."

Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

Excited yet? 'Terminator 4' trailer hits Web

There's no Common or Helena Bonham Carter, but there's plenty of Christian Bale, at least via voice-over.

The trailer for the latest installment in the "Terminator" franchise, "Terminator Salvation," was unleashed to the Web sometime Wednesday afternoon, ahead of its bow on the big screen in front of "The Dark Knight."

There's the familiar banging-on-the-walls theme, and a brief snippet of Bale's Connor. The trailer goes for a radio-static effect, and we get a human skull being smashed. But before you think you've seen that before, it's a human foot that's turning bone to dust this time around.

"This is not the future my mother warned me about," says Bale as Connor, and we get a handful of apocalyptic shots of the Earth and a brief, PG-13-friendly explosion. McG ("Charlie's Angels") will direct the upcoming "Terminator," which is set in postwar 2018 and follows Connor as he leads the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators.

The clip is after the jump.

-- Todd Martens

Placing a 3-D T. rex in 'Journey to the Center of the Earth'

As 3-D consultant and visual effects editor for the T. rex chase in "Journey to the Center of the Earth," Ed Marsh helped the filmmakers deal with a worry that most never consider: the physical health of the audience.

The two images visible on screen to viewers when not wearing 3-D glasses -- think of them as right eye and left eye -- had to be adjusted properly so that once the glasses were put on, the dino chasing Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) wouldn't appear to be closer to the audience than to the man it was chasing.

"Small adjustments in 3-D can lead to big changes in perception," Marsh says. "With bad 3-D, [the audience's] eyes are sent through calisthenics. If things aren't perfect, it'll lead to eye strain and headaches." The dual T. rex images were slightly split to keep the carnivore back where it belonged. But moving the two T. rex images even a smidge closer together would cause the creature to appear on the same level as Fraser.

And if filmmakers attempted some kind of impossible-to-perceive M.C. Escher-style 3-D image? "You'd rip the eyes out of the audience," says Marsh. He was kidding. We think.

-- Patrick Kevin Day

Writers Guild kicks off 'American Idol Truth Tour'

In its longstanding goal to extend union benefits to writers who work in the burgeoning reality TV sector, the Writers Guild of America, West, has had no shortage of tactics.

The union backed high-profile lawsuits against producers (which are pending), led a strike against the producers of "America's Next Top Model" (which failed) and later helped workers file complaints with the state alleging various wage and hour violations (many of which have been settled).

Guild leaders made securing union benefits for reality TV writers –- yes, "reality" TV has writers –- a central issue in their recent contract negotiations. Studios balked at the idea of including reality writers in the main contract, and the guild even faced pressure from some its own members to focus on other issues, notably how much they would be paid when their work is distributed over the Internet.

Now, the guild is pursuing a different tactic by focusing its attention on one of the biggest players in the reality TV business: Fremantle Media, producer of the mega-hit Fox show "American Idol."

On Wednesday, the union kicked off what it's calling the "American Idol Truth Tour," a targeted publicity campaign against Fremantle Media North America, a subsidiary of the London-based production company. About 50 reality TV writers and their supporters will travel to various cities where "American Idol" holds auditions to highlight the allegedly adverse conditions of writers and others who work in reality TV.

Nine workers from Fremantle filed complaints with a state agency this spring alleging that the company denied them meal breaks and overtime pay as required by state law. 

While Fremantle profits from "Idol" and other shows it produces, "the writers and other workers who make these shows successful do not," the WGA said in a statement.

A Fremantle spokesman declined to comment.

Clearly, the guild is singling out Fremantle because it is one of the largest and most successful reality TV producers in the business. Whether the latest effort yields fruit for the guild remains to be seen.

But don't count on the bad PR, however, to damp the show's popularity.

-- Richard Verrier

Michael Vollman to exit Paramount Pictures

In a long expected shake-up in the marketing divisions of struggling Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists studios, Michael Vollman is leaving his job at Paramount Pictures to head marketing at the sister movie companies.

As the new executive vice president of worldwide marketing at MGM, Vollman replaces Perry Stahman. At UA, he succceds Dennis Rice as president of worldwide marketing. Vollman will consult with UA chief executive Paula Wagner but will report directly to Mary Parent, the recently installed chairwoman of MGM’s Worldwide Motion Picture Group.

Vollman has his work cut out for him given MGM’s poor box office track record and UA’s first release, “Lions For Lambs,” starring Tom Cruise (who heads UA with Wagner), which was a disappointment. One of his first tasks will be to figure out a marketing strategy for UA’s troubled World War II drama “Valkyrie,” starring Tom Cruise, which was supposed to be released this summer but was pushed back to next February.

Despite the challenges, Vollman, who will remain at Paramount through the Aug. 15 release of “Tropic Thunder,” said he’s looking forward to joining Parent’s team. “Mary has been there three months and has completely revitalized the place,” said Vollman. He previously worked at DreamWorks for 10 years and moved over to Paramount last year when DreamWorks was downsized.

-- Claudia Eller                                                               

On Second Thought: Rubins' sculpture more memorable than he said it would be

Everyone has had the experience of disagreeing with a critic, but do critics ever second-guess themselves? We asked Calendar's critics whether there are any reviews they regret. One in a series of occasional articles.

When "Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s" opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art shortly after New Year's in 1992, the show marked a cultural turning point. An unprecedented boom in the art market had hit the skids, and suddenly the conflation of vital new artists and a strong institutional base, both of which had been building in the city throughout the 1980s, galvanized attention around art's value, rather than its price. Something crystallized in the zeitgeist. Los Angeles, long a second city, moved squarely into the international top tier for contemporary art.

I was enthusiastic in print. "Perhaps the greatest achievement of this large and ambitious show is simply the vigor with which it acknowledges important art being made here," I wrote. That feeling was widespread -- not least among the more than 5,000 people who jammed the opening night party at Little Tokyo's Geffen Contemporary but also among the generally favorable reviews the show garnered. Word traveled fast that something big was up.

The glaring exception was the New York Times. The Manhattan art world had been coming to terms with the 1980s' return to prominence of European contemporary art, headquartered in Germany, a full generation after the ruination brought by World War II. For nearly half a century, New York pretty much had the territory to itself. Perhaps sensing that its postwar rank as America's sole major center for new art was also at an end, the New York Times huffed, "The disappointment of the exhibition is less its attention-grabbing sensationalism than the pretense that this sensationalism amounts to something substantial and challenging." "Helter Skelter" got slammed.

Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times Art Critic

'Twilight' behind-the-scenes clip

We stumbled on the following "Twilight" promotional clip on Trailer Addict:

Who wants to jump on Robert Pattinson's back right now?

'Watchmen' trailer will roll with 'The Dark Knight'

"The Dark Knight" is getting some pretty intense ramp-up, and the fan excitement for the Christopher Nolan Batman film is intense. But wait, there’s more: I’m told that the first trailer for Zach Snyder’s "Watchmen," due in theaters next March, will be greeting comics fans who are already arriving in the theaters geeked-up. How is this for fitting confluence: Nolan’s film borrows its name and good deal of its grim spirit from "The Dark Knight Returns," Frank Miller’s 1986 graphic novel masterpiece, which changed the ambition and tone of comics. And of course, 1986 was also the year that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons brought the world "Watchmen," the most ambitious epic ever told in comics. Nice to see that it only took Hollywood a little more than two decades to put two classics together again.

-- Geoff Boucher

Image: Dave Gibbons / DC Comics

EW's 'Twilight' cover backlash

What's the fastest way to rile up a whole community of fan girls? Depict their favorite vampire heartthrob in a less-than-flattering light.

The cover of the new issue of Entertainment Weekly features the leads of the upcoming "Twilight" movie, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, in full-on glam mode, and it's generating plenty of negative reaction from devoted readers of Stephenie Meyer’s ultra-successful young adult franchise who are less than thrilled with the shot.

The English actor plays Edward, a 90-something vamp who struggles to control his thirst for human blood. Stewart stars as Bella Swan, the quirky, independent-minded high school student who captures his heart. Catherine Hardwicke is directing the film, which is due out Dec. 12.

Though the online community has gone wild for almost anything having to do with the film, the new image is being criticized for a whole host of reasons -- but mostly for its depiction of Pattinson, whose unbuttoned shirt/chest-hair look doesn't exactly jibe with the descriptions of Edward that appear in the books.

Over at MTV.com, which features updates on the film every Tuesday as part of its "Twilight Tuesdays" series, comments such as the following were typical: "Edward looks like a ZOMBIE," a poster identified as "Horrified" said. "The stylists and photographer obviously had no idea who the characters are. Horrible! I thought the photo was a fake at first.  And wow, he looks like a hairy, powdered donut."

"Blake" agreed. "This cover is horrible. I mean Bella is supposed to be timid and ‘girl next door,’ and this photo does not convey any of that. And as for Edward, his lips are too red, and he is too white. I think that this is a crappy cover for such an amazing series, and it does not do the actors or the movie justice.”

In the "Twilight" forums on Amazon.com, "Alice" posted: "I agree. I mean, come on. If Steve Carell can wax his chest, why cant Rob?!?"

Not every response has been quite so vitriolic, of course. On Fanpop.com, kittykatkate wrote: "Honestly, it's a good picture, but it kinda reminds me of the covers of those romance novels you see at a grocery store or something."

The next book in the series, "Breaking Dawn," is set for release Aug. 2.

-- Gina McIntyre