'Oldboy' revisited: Are Hollywood remakes always a bad thing?

When I wrote a post recently about the collapse of negotiations between Mandate and DreamWorks over a deal that could have led to a Steven Spielberg-directed remake of the Korean cult thriller "Oldboy," I expected to get feedback from Spielberg detractors and "Oldboy" partisans. But what really surprised me was the huge outpouring of vitriol toward American remakes in general. It was nearly unanimous: If you let Hollywood remake a movie, they'll only mess it up.

Jack Meoph (btw, nice user name -- who do you think I am ... Bill O'Reilly?) seemed to sum up Hollywood loathing the best when he wrote: "Please keep away from this film Hollywood, you will only ruin it with your homogenized group think."

STWSR chimed in: "Why would you take a seemingly brilliant almost perfect film and RUIN IT!"

And Mike added: "Name one Hollywood remake that was even marginally better than the original?"

Well, actually, I could name a few. Let's start with Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's Eleven," which is light years better than the hapless '60s original. I'd defy anyone to say that James Cameron's "True Lies" wasn't far more involving than Claude Zidi's original "La Totale!" And while the original Norwegian version of "Insomnia" is a well-made film, it would be hard to argue that it's any better than Chris Nolan's 2002 remake. The original "Infernal Affairs" is a really good movie, but Martin Scorsese's remake, "The Departed," completely stands on its own as a terrific thriller.

In fact, I'd argue that John Carpenter's 1982 version of "The Thing" is a classic, clearly far more ambitious and fully realized than the Christian Nyby original from 1951. So I'm wondering -- isn't this something of an unfair knee-jerk reaction against the obvious Hollywood stinkers that have often poisoned the well for remakes?

If anyone wants to make a more in-depth case against remakes, I'd happy to hear about it. But does Hollywood really have to keep its mitts off all films from other cultures, especially if a talented filmmaker wants to take a shot at reimagining the film in a new setting? I mean, not every remake has to turn out like "Vanilla Sky," does it?  

Exclusive: Fox Searchlight's new 'Crazy Heart' poster

Fox Searchlight has just given us a sneak peak at the studio's new poster for "Crazy Heart," which opens in mid-December and has already earned a host of rave reviews, especially for Jeff Bridges' soulful performance as a down-on-his-luck country singer.

As is pretty obvious from the poster, Bridges will be Fox's big selling point for the film, with the hopes that the well-liked actor will be a leading contender in the Oscar best-actor race. The tag line -- "The Harder the Life, the Sweeter the Song" -- perfectly captures the tone of the film.

But tell me what you think of the poster image. I have to say that I like it. Seeing Bridges in brooding profile reminds me of an old Willie Nelson album cover, except that Willie just has regular old grey in his hair, not all those nice blonde highlights that Bridges gets to show off.

An embarrassment for Universal: Fabricated news stories

This is the time of year when movie studios do their part to support America's economically challenged journalistic institutions -- at least publications like the L.A. Times, Variety and the New York Times -- by buying big chunks of Oscar ads to promote the season's leading awards contenders. But Universal Pictures has outdone all its rivals. The studio just paid $20,000 to the Alaska Press Club as part of a settlement with several Alaska newspapers after the studio, in the course of promoting its current release, "The Fourth Kind," created an elaborate series of online news stories that professed to be from real Alaska news publications.

The film claims to be a true story about an outbreak of alien abduction occurring a decade ago in Nome, Alaska. As Fairbanks' Daily News-Miner reports:

"To bolster that claim, articles were posted that professed to be from real Alaska publications, but were actually created to bolster the movie's storyline. The articles included an obituary and news story about the death of a character in the movie, Dr. William Tyler, that supposedly were from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Neither the story nor the obituary ever appeared in the newspaper. Fake articles were listed from other newspapers in Alaska, including the Nome Nugget, alongside authentic news stories. Part of the settlement requires Universal to remove the fake 'news articles' promoting the movie from the Internet."

An attorney representing the Alaskan newspapers said the fake stories undermine newspaper credibility, since "if people can't rely on the fact that when they look at a news article on the Web that it's from the newspaper it appears to be ... it erodes confidence in the world of journalism." The good news is that Universal's $20,000 immediately doubled the Alaska Press Club's annual revenues (I'm not joking).

Although the scam is something of a black eye for Universal, I'd be hard pressed to call it a threat against the future of journalism. If the movie had simply used fictional newspapers instead of real ones, no one would have ever raised a fuss. But in today's Hollywood, where people often float preposterous claims about movie budgets or test screenings, no one seems to notice the difference between reality and make believe. Studios also routinely use all sorts of questionable stealth Web marketing tactics to create viral buzz for their movies. It was just this July that the Wall Street Journal exposed 20th Century Fox for paying a high school valedictorian to plug the studio's "I Love You, Beth Cooper" in her valedictory address, which the studio promptly put up on YouTube, attempting to pass it off as an authentic homemade video.

Still, it's always embarrassing to be caught, even if the stunt seems more clumsy than conspiratorial. Clearly chagrined, a Universal spokesperson e-mailed me the following statement, which if nothing else  makes it clear that the studio should hire a good reporter so its apologies wouldn't sound so stilted and awkward. Here's what Universal has to say:

 "An early element of the online promotional campaign for 'The Fourth Kind' used stories published by some news outlets without permission and inaccurately attributed other stories to papers that were not their origin. When Universal Pictures came to recognize this tactic as overzealous, it immediately removed these stories from the Internet well before the film's release and entered into a mutually satisfactory resolution with the outlets. The film itself challenges conventional beliefs by presenting cases of alien abduction and asking viewers to make up their own minds about its content. Universal regrets that this isolated element of the marketing for the film took this speculation a step too far."

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FOX NABBED BY ITS OWN NEWSPAPER IN LAME 'BETH COOPER' VIRAL SCAM:

Oscar watch: Going crazy over 'Crazy Heart'

I'd be lying if I didn't admit to having a serious bout of trepidation when I headed off the other night to see "Crazy Heart," the new Fox Searchlight film that stars Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake, a hard-drinking, faded country star relegated to one-night gigs at bowling alleys and dingy saloons. After all, if there's ever a subject that been mined deeply in movies, it's the saga of the self-destructive country music singer. With so many real-life role models, from Hank Williams to George Jones to Waylon Jennings to Steve Earle (and about 100 others), it's a trajectory that's hard to avoid.

And after you've seen Robert Duvall as the broken-down Mac Sledge in "Tender Mercies," you know that it's a hard act to follow. But I'm here to say that "Crazy Heart" is the real deal. It's a beautifully told story (by first-time writer-director Scott Cooper) made even better by a terrific performance by Bridges, who does a wonderful job of showing us a good man who's hit bottom, having run through five or so wives and boozed away all the money he made when he was riding high. If Cooper was worried about any comparisons with "Tender Mercies," he doesn't show it, especially since he cast Duvall in a nice small role as a bar owner who doubles as Bridges' fishing buddy. Maggie Gyllenhaal costars as a vivacious small-town reporter who wheedles the skittish Blake into giving her a series of interviews, which turn into a surprisingly affecting relationship.

I'll leave the serious reviews to the critics, but as a country music fan, I was especially impressed by the film's attention to musical detail. It's pretty obvious that Bridges' performance will catapult him into the best actor Oscar race, but it's also the kind of performance that will impress musicians with the way it captures the idleness of life on the road as well as the angst of a performer who sees how his core audience has blithely deserted him, opting for a new kind of air-brushed, "American Idol" style of country over the rough-edged grit of Bad Blake's era.

Bridges' Blake is full of echoes of a host of old country icons. When I was a young rock writer, I spent a lot of time in smoky clubs, interviewing some of the unadorned original C&W luminaries. Once, preparing to interview Jerry Lee Lewis at a club in Memphis in the 1980s, I put my tape recorder on the table. Glistening with sweat from the pills and alcohol in his system, Jerry Lee said, "Son, a tape recorder is a dangerous weapon," reached around behind his back and pulled out a pistol, which he set lightly on the table, explaining "Now we're even." 

Bridges has a little bit of that edge in his performance too. In fact, there were times when he seemed to be channeling a big chunk of the outlaw country vibe from the 1970s and '80s. To see him on stage singing, sweat dripping off his beard and seeping through his open-neck shirt, is to see someone who's a dead ringer for the ghost of Waylon Jennings, whose own personal life -- booze, cocaine and lots of wives -- isn't that far from the character Bridges plays in the film.

The music in the film is killer old-school country, written by T Bone Burnett and Stephen Bruton, a Texas musician who died earlier this year after spending nearly 40 years playing with Kris Kristofferson (who many will say Bridges resembles at times in the film as well). And as if acknowledging its debt to Jennings, the film has a scene scored to Jennings' own "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way."

The film opens in New York and L.A. in mid-December for an Oscar-qualifying run before going wider after the first of the year. The highest praise I can offer is that "Crazy Heart's" music wonderfully embodies the spirit of the film and the film itself captures the bittersweet, soulful life force of country music.

Photo of Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal in "Crazy Heart" from Fox Searchlight

Rudy Ray Moore: The original king of blaxploitation movies

When I was in high school, one of my pals was considered the coolest kid in our circle, largely because he had a cache of Redd Foxx and Rudy Ray Moore party records. If you've never heard these comedy records -- recorded "live," usually in front of a group of friends at someone's house -- by two of the most influential black comics of their time, they're a revelation. And not just because they're deliriously dirty, full of all sorts of inspired slurs, insults and cuss words so foul that they could peel the paint off a car.

As teenagers, we were transfixed by the sheer raunchiness of it all, as if we'd been allowed to imagine what it might be like to sit next to a great piano player in a whorehouse. In his later years, Foxx ended up crossing over to polite white society with his own TV show, "Sanford and Son." Moore remained a cult figure, always on the fringes, though hugely influential in the African American artistic community, until his death last year at 81. 

Moore made a few movies along the way, two of which are playing tonight at 7:30 pm, presented by the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theater. The tribute was put together by Larry Karaszewski, the screenwriter (with Scott Alexander) behind such oddball originals as "Ed Wood," "The People vs. Larry Flynt" and "Man on the Moon," a biopic about the late Andy Kaufman.

Karaszewski and Alexander are preparing to write and direct "Big Eyes," which would star Kate Hudson as painter Margaret Keane, the creator of the garish drawings of wide-eyed women and children, who allowed her husband, Walter, to take all the credit for the paintings until the couple had a messy divorce.

I asked Larry to explain why he fell in love with Moore's work, as well as why Moore was such a distinctive figure for so many rappers and filmmakers. He also has assembled a great group of Moore collaborators and admirers for tonight's screening. Here's what Larry had to say:

How'd you like to see Harvey Weinstein on 'Dancing With the Stars'?

Leaving no stone unturned in his efforts to make "Nine" into a huge end-of-the-year, must-see movie, Harvey Weinstein is essentially renting out the entire Disney/ABC media empire in the hopes of inducing millions of couch potatoes to scamper out to the multiplex next month to see his lavish Rob Marshall-directed musical. It's hard not to appreciate the delicious irony of the partnership in light of Weinstein's acrimonious split with the studio years ago. As Variety reports in this eye-popping story -- especially eye-popping in the way it makes it abundantly clear that virtually everything on TV these days is up for sale -- it will be difficult to turn on your TV without being subjected to a blatant plug for "Nine."

ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" won't actually have the twinkle-toed movie mogul appearing in person. But its Nov. 17 show will feature a dance number set to "Be Italian," one of the featured songs in "Nine," with dancers donning outfits from the movie. Even better, a host of ABC soap operas, including "All My Children" and "General Hospital," will have episodes in December with plugs for "Nine" written into the storyline. The movie's trailer is slated to run Nov. 22 on every Disney-owned network (Lifetime, ABC Family, SoapNet and A&E) as well as during the "American Music Awards" which airs that night.

The Variety story is filled with endless bragging from marketing executives about the benefits of all this plugola-style stealth advertising ("Look at the breadth of who we reach -- we can reach any demo multiple times through any given day," boasted Disney/ABC Unlimited senior VP Dan Longest). If you ask me, using bare-knuckled product integration to promote a movie billed as an Oscar contender is unbelievably tacky, since it transforms a supposedly classy film into just another cheesy household product.

On the other hand, I'm betting that envious rival studios will be eagerly trying to get their Oscar hopefuls in on the scam. After all, Oprah has already been the head cheerleader for "Precious," which is supposedly a top contender in the Oscar race. So let's see ... if "Nine" can pay for plugs on "Dancing With the Stars," then maybe "Avatar" can pay for a plug in "Family Guy," "An Education" could slip a plug into an episode of "Desperate Housewives," "The Hurt Locker" would seamlessly drop into "CSI" while "The Lovely Bones" would be a perfect fit for "Cold Case" or "The Ghost Whisperer." And hey, if the price was right, I'm sure Jeff Zucker could talk Jay Leno into working some "Inglourious Basterds" jokes into his monologue.

Imagine the possibilities. If you read my blog one morning and see me writing repeatedly about some Hollywood movie project whose future is still "Up in the Air," you'll know that I'm on the take, happily shilling for some award-season movie along with everyone else. (I'm being sarcastic, of course. I'll leave the plugola to ABC and the other networks.)

Photo of Penelope Cruz in "Nine" from the Weinstein Co.

Will Hollywood's 'Oldboy' remake ever take off?

When it comes to cult classics, few movies can hold a candle to "Oldboy," the deliriously strange and unsettling 2003 Korean thriller directed by Chan-wook Park that is beloved by critics and fanboys alike, having won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. The second installment in Park's "Vengeance Trilogy," the film chronicles the saga of a man who, after being imprisoned for 15 years, sets out on a methodical search hoping to explain the secret of his captivity.

It's a violent, oddly soulful film that essentially defies description (Roger Ebert takes a crack at it here). Being captivated myself, I can understand why it has so many passionate fans. Martin Scorsese, who knows a good movie when he sees one, was so impressed by the film that he immediately set up a meeting in New York with Park. 

Hollywood has been attempting to mount an English-language remake of the film for some years, an effort that has just hit another speed bump, with news surfacing that prolonged negotiations between DreamWorks and Mandate Pictures to produce the film together have fallen apart. DreamWorks was interested in acquiring the film for Steven Spielberg to direct, a deal that could have involved Will Smith stepping up to star in the remake. But the proposed deal has collapsed, just days after "I Am Legend" screenwriter Mark Protosevich turned in a 25-page outline with a proposed story line for the new film.

As always in these kinds of matters, no one agrees on exactly what happened. The DreamWorks camp says it walked away from the deal, frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations. But other sources say that Mandate, which optioned the remake rights last year, pulled the plug after DreamWorks insisted on having sole ownership of the remake even if Spielberg didn't end up directing the project. Mandate wanted to retain ownership if someone other than Spielberg ended up directing the film.

The "Oldboy" remake has something of a tortured history. In January 2004, even before Park's film debuted at Cannes, Roy Lee's Vertigo Entertainment, a company that specializes in packaging Hollywood remakes of Asian films, having been involved with remakes of  "The Ring" and "Infernal Affairs," brought the remake rights for "Oldboy" to Universal Pictures. The studio brass loved the film, especially Chairman Stacey Snider and Vice Chairman Mary Parent. But its development progress was slow, especially after Parent took a producing gig and Snider left to run DreamWorks.

With the new studio administration having other priorities, Universal put the project in turnaround. Mandate, which has been involved with a number of adventuresome projects, including "Juno" and "The Grudge," optioned "Oldboy's" remake rights last year, eager to produce the picture with Vertigo. When DreamWorks heard that Universal was no longer involved, the studio approached Mandate about teaming up on the project. Snider, a longtime fan, encouraged Spielberg to see the film. Impressed, Spielberg was soon talking about "Oldboy" as a potential directorial project, which led to interest from Smith as a potential star.

However, Spielberg often has a large constellation of film projects on hand as candidates for him to direct. And DreamWorks' desire to have ownership of the project, even if Spielberg didn't end up directing it, seems to have been a sticking point in the protracted negotiations. So now "Oldboy" is back in Mandate's court. Will the remake ever happen? Mandate is looking to move ahead with the project. But many fanboys in the blogosphere have been expressing delight that the project has hit a roadblock, the general consensus being that Spielberg's taste was far too tame and conventional for a project as daring as "Oldboy." 

I'm still hoping that someone will take a crack at the film, since it feels far more challenging than most of the projects making the studio rounds these days. I could think of plenty of filmmakers, starting with David Fincher (if I were a producer, my wish list would always start with David Fincher), "Wanted's" Timur Bekmambetov, "District 9's" Neil Blomkamp, Guillermo del Toro and Tarsem Singh, to name a few.

If anyone has any other suggestions, feel free to share. Until Mandate makes the next move, we'll just have to content ourselves by watching Park's mesmerizing original one more time. 

Photo: (top) Choi Min-sik in "Oldboy." Credit: Tartan Films; photo: Steven Spielberg by Francois Mori / Associated Press.

'The Box': The movie audiences truly love to hate

It's no secret that "The Box" is a flop. The Cameron Diaz-starring horror thriller, released by Warner Bros. last weekend, barely eked out $7.5 million at the box office, which alone ensures that it only has one way to go (down) in terms of its box-office future.

But the real shocker is the grade it received from CinemaScore, the Las Vegas-based market research company that compiles Friday-night audience reaction to all of Hollywood's big new movie releases. The CinemaScore grade matters, since it's culled not from a bunch of snooty critics but from real paying moviegoers. Even more importantly, there's a very strong correlation between the grade a film gets and its future commercial prospects. An A signals a long happy life while even a C is pretty much of a death sentence.

Even though "The Box" got a not entirely embarrassing 48 from Rotten Tomatoes, the film has gone where few movies have ever gone before -- it earned a big fat F from CinemaScore. In fact, of the 33 demographic categories measured by the service, "The Box" got an F in 29 of the 33 -- and earned a D-minus in three of the four others. Males and females under 18 gave it an F as did 25-and-up males and 35-and-up females and virtually everyone in between. Its only demographic "sweet spot" was with 25-34 and 35-49 men, who gave it a D-minus.  

I called up Ed Mintz, who runs CinemaScore, to ask if he's ever seen a movie get such bad grades. "Not in a while," he says. "People really thought this was a stinker." The only three movies he could recall that scored as many Fs were all basically horror thrillers: "The Bug," a 2006 Ashley Judd horror film; "Wolf Creek," a 2005 backpackers-in-peril thriller; and "Darkness," a 2002 haunted house scarefest.

Since Mintz actually saw the film, I asked him why audiences hated it so much. Simple, he said. They hated the ending. It turns out that the film's ostensible storyline -- a married couple are given a box containing a button that, if pushed, will bring you a million dollars but simultaneously take a stranger's life -- was just the beginning when it came to the film's assortment of horrible moral choices. Since thousands of unhappy people have already Twittered about the movie's bizarre finale, I don't think I'm giving away any state secrets to say that Diaz -- who should begin a serious reappraisal of her career choices right now -- doesn't make it to the end of the film.

"It's like a horror movie version of 'Sophie's Choice,' " Mintz says. "I have to admit that I was sitting there, going 'That's the choice? They're going to kill off a movie star? Who'd want to pay $10 to see that?' I'd love to hear how they thought they were going to get good word-of-mouth from that ending. But that's the reason why the movie got an F. The public acted in vengeance. They got angry about where the story went and the grade definitely reflects that anger."

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CinemaScore's box-office swami

Photo of James Marsden and Cameron Diaz in "The Box" by Dale Robinette / Warner Bros.

'The Blind Side's' Hancock picks winners

Last Friday I asked "The Blind Side" writer-director John Lee Hancock to put on his prognosticator's cap and pick the outcome of some of the weekend's top college football games. After all, Hancock comes from Texas, the cradle of college football, where his brothers and dad all played ball. So if anyone's an expert, it should be him.

So how did he do? I was going to joke that he shouldn't give up his day job, but to be fair Hancock did about as well as any professional handicapper, picking five winners against four losses. For my money, his best pick was to go with lowly Vanderbilt against the top-ranked Florida Gators. Even though Vandy was a 32.5-point underdog, it hardly seemed like enough points to make up for Florida's powerhouse offense. But Vanderbilt managed to hold Florida to 27 points and beat the spread. Hancock also picked his alma mater, Baylor, to beat the spread against heavily favored Missouri. In fact, they won the game, making Hancock a winner too.

In the loss column, Hancock took USC but gave 11.5 points, which made him a loser, since USC beat Arizona State by only five points. And worst of all, he picked Texas A&M to cover the spread against Colorado, even though as a Baylor alumnus he has little love for the Farmers. It turned out that Colorado beat Texas A&M, 35-34, thanks to a one-handed catch by wide receiver Patrick Devenny in the waning moments of the fourth quarter, giving Colorado the victory and making Hancock a loser.

Overall, I'd still say it was a pretty solid performance. Hancock's film opens this weekend Nov. 20th, so I suspect he's hoping for even better numbers for "The Blind Side" at the box office, Hollywood's equivalent of football's weekly betting game. 

Photo: John Lee Hancock. Credit: Al Seib/Los Angeles Times.

Variety on '2012': A preposterous joke

OK, I can't say that I'm shocked -- or for that matter, even a little surprised -- that the first big review that has surfaced on "2012" says that Roland Emmerich's kitschy disaster movie is, well, a kitschy disaster movie. According to Variety's Todd McCarthy, the best thing that can be said of the movie is that John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who play two of the leading roles, "convey above-the-norm intelligence for characters in this sort of fare," which I guess means that the rest of the big-name cast (i.e. Danny Glover, Oliver Platt and Amanda Peet) register pretty low on the IQ scale.

McCarthy even finds a sneaky way to work a reference to "Casablanca" into his review. Here's how he describes what goes wrong with the movie as it lumbers into its third act:

"Let it be said that '2012' plummets from reasonably distracting spectacle to sheerest silliness when, in the pointlessly protracted final reels, it tries to maintain interest in the (confusingly staged) jeopardy of a handful of characters when much of the world's population has already been wiped out or is about to be. Never has Rick's observation in 'Casablanca' been more true, that the problems of a few little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."  

McCarthy ends up calling the film a joke "for the simple reason that it has no point of view; the film offers no philosophical, metaphysical, intellectual and certainly no religious perspective on the cataclysm, just the physical frenzy of it all." I bet that last line gets a hearty laugh from Emmerich, who can only be wagging his head, wondering: "These crazy critics -- after all these years, they still can't tell the difference between me and Lars Von Trier!" 

Photo of John Cusack and Morgan Lily in "2012" by Joe Lederer/Columbia Pictures.

Apocalypse now: 'Collapse' and the end of the world as we know it

America has a bad case of the doomsday jitters. You don't have to be a Glenn Beck follower to know that whenever things go wrong in this country, you can always find all the anger, bitterness and fear-mongering bubbling up and over into our popular culture. As Shakespeare's witches exulted in "Macbeth," when things go wrong, it's time to stir the pot: "double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble."

With Wall Street fat cats still cashing in while the rest of the country still suffers from double-digit unemployment, with partisan bickering at an all-time high and a war in Afghanistan threatening to suck up another 40,000 more troops, the country is in a sour mood, full of nasty, dark suspicions about the future. It's as good an explanation as any for why Beck is the hottest guy on TV right now, trumpeting his fears of one-world government, assailing corrupt politicians and worrying that Barack Obama, with "his deep-seated hatred for white people," could be angling to subvert our constitutional government.

Peril is around every corner -- even Beck's Fox News colleague, Shepard Smith, jokingly dubbed Beck's studio "the fear chamber." It's telling that Hollywood also has a batch of scary, post-apocalyptic films coming our way, filled with even more doomsday imagery. Roland Emmerich's "2012" takes off this weekend, promising a vivid, special-effects-filled look at the Earth's possible demise. There are more bad vibes in the air. John Hillcoat's brooding adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" opens later this month, offering a bleak view of a father and son attempting to survive in an ash-covered America where nothing grows. Denzel Washington returns, "Road Warrior" style, in January, starring in "The Book of Eli," another stark, days-end vision of the future. Pessimists can also rush out in January to see "Legion," a Dennis Quaid-starring horror thriller about how God, having lost faith in humanity, sends a legion of angels to wipe out the human race.

But what is surely the strangest film about our doomsday fantasies arrives this Friday. Called "Collapse," it features a spellbindingly weird one-man monologue by Michael Ruppert, a former LAPD officer and investigative journalist who believes that we are about to run out of oil, an event sure to plunge the world into a state of collapse since Ruppert is convinced that our entire world economy is built on an unsustainable addiction to petrol. If you ever thought it was impossible to top Beck's over-the-top fantasies, listen to Ruppert, who says that "what I see now is the end of a paradigm that is as cataclysmic as the asteroid event that killed almost all the life on Earth, and certainly the dinosaurs."

The film is directed by Chris Smith, who has made a number of documentaries about oddball characters pursuing impossible dreams -- his 1999 film "American Movie" chronicled the story of a hapless slacker trying to make a $3,000 homemade horror film. But what makes "Collapse" so sneakily compelling is that we have no inkling of what Smith thinks of his subject. Filmed with one camera over the course of two days in the basement of an abandoned meatpacking plant in downtown L.A., "Collapse" is a hermetically sealed package, open to whatever interpretation we might bring to it. It allows us the same freedom we have in watching Beck's show -- we can take it as gospel, be appalled by its wild, undocumented claims or simply watch bemused, appreciating Ruppert's gifts as a performer.

"I think there is something quintessentially American about Michael," says Smith, who financed the film himself, using the money he's made as a successful commercial director. "He comes out of the culture of the moment, in the same way that we foster all these high-flying entrepreneurs and self-help gurus. When you look at his upbringing, to have gone from being a police officer to someone who questions authority, it fits into a storyline that could only happen in this country."

"Collapse" opens Friday in theaters in New York and L.A. while also debuting this weekend on the Film Buff video-on-demand channel. Smith admits that he has "very conflicted feelings" about Ruppert. "A lot of what he says is incredibly thought-provoking, with lots of historical support, but there are things that you'd probably get a lot of criticism for believing," he says. "So I wanted to give the audience the experience of living inside his world for 85 minutes. Even if you can't prove all of his ideas, his passion and belief is definitely concrete."

I got hooked on "Collapse" for much the same reason that millions of viewers have fallen for Beck. Every time I'd start to think that Ruppert was a deluded crackpot, he'd reel me back in, grabbing me by the throat with a burst of seemingly persuasive analysis. He poses his oil-collapse scenario in simple, hard-to-refute logic. "Saudi Arabia has 25% of the oil reserves on the planet," he explains in a soothing, almost hypnotic voice. "Why, if Saudi Arabia has all these untapped reserves on shore, are they moving heavily into offshore drilling? If it's 5, 10 or 15 times more expensive to drill offshore than land, doesn't that tell you that Saudi Arabia knows that they've no more oil to find?"

Why are we so fascinated by doomsday theorists like Ruppert and Beck? Keep reading:

Jim Cameron's 'Avatar' price tag: How about a cool $500 million?

You'd have to say that the New York Times' Michael Cieply is a pretty crafty reporter. He knew that the best way to get us to read a sober, intricately detailed financial analysis of 20th Century Fox's economic involvement in "Avatar" was to stick something in the lede that would grab our attention -- like the news that the movie's price tag was approaching $500 million.

How did he get that number, you may wonder. According to his story, the Jim Cameron-masterminded film (due out next month and still under lock and key) has a reported production budget of $230 million, but Cieply says that the price tag "would be higher if the financial contribution of Mr. Cameron and others were included." He says that when you toss in the cost of global marketing for the film -- he says Fox itself is planning to spend $150 million around the world -- the film would cost its various backers $500 million.

Cieply's story makes a compelling point about modern-day studio economics. When it comes to a mega-blockbuster like "Avatar," studios like Fox don't just hedge their bets. They involve a wide variety of partners who provide financial and marketing support for the studio's behemoth. According to the piece, a pair of private equity partners -- Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Media -- are picking up 60% of the film's budget. But Fox also has built-in protections from Cameron himself. If the film's final production costs topped $300 million, for example, Cameron would "effectively defer much of his payout until the studio and others were compensated."

Cieply says the film also qualified for tax rebates in New Zealand, since much of its digital work was done there. It also benefits from $25 million worth of technological and marketing aid from Panasonic, which pitched in to help the film in return for assistance from Cameron on Panasonic's upcoming 3-D home video systems.

It just goes to show that when you're in the blockbuster business these days, you can always count on a little help from your friends, who are all hoping to make a little money -- or enjoy some reflected benefits -- from a mega-event that casts a giant shadow over the entire Hollywood landscape.

Nic Cage's big-money problems: too many mansions, jets, cars and ... dinosaur skulls?

No one is going to throw a pity party for Nic Cage, the $20-million movie star who not only has made more bad movies than Nicole Kidman ("National Treasure: Book of Secrets," "Bangkok Dangerous," "Knowing," "Next" and "Ghost Rider," just to name a few recent ones), but who has spent the last dozen or so years living like a Saudi potentate. The actor is now suing his former money manager, Samuel Levin, for $20 million in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming Levin enriched himself while "sending Cage down a path toward financial ruin."

But according to a wonderfully detailed story by Jacob Bernstein in the Daily Beast, Cage seems to have done a pretty good job of achieving financial ruin all of his own, engaging in the kind of profligate spending habits that gives ample ammunition to critics who say Hollywood is teeming with self-absorbed narcissists. To hear Bernstein tell it: "Cage's appetite was extreme even for Hollywood, with a decade-plus shopping spree that saw him snapping up houses, motorcycles, a jet, yachts, vintage and new cars, expensive watches, meteorites, dinosaur skulls, an enormous pet collection, massive amounts of jewelry for the women in his life, group vacations for his entourage and on and on and on."

Did he say ... meteorites?

Cage's lawyer, Marty Singer, told Bernstein: "Half the stuff you say is false. I'm not going to get into detail." But the reporter offers richly detailed evidence to support his case, which shows Cage having to sell off his 1940 Beverly Hills mansion (former owners: Dean Martin and Tom Jones) for less than half of its original $30-million asking price. Cage has two more mansions in New Orleans that have been foreclosed on and will be auctioned off later this month. Bernstein says they are among "more than a dozen" homes Cage has bought in the past decade, including a castle near Bath, England; an 11th century estate in Etzelwang, Germany; and (count 'em) two Bahamian islands.

In June 2004, Cage owned 18 motorcycles and 30 cars, having spent nearly $500,000 on a Lamborghini Miura SVJ that had been owned by the shah of Iran. He also had a 1955 Jaguar D-Type on exhibit in the billiard room at his Bel-Air home, where it was "lit from above, like something out of a car dealership."

Cage also had a menagerie of animals including rare birds, pure-bred dogs, lizards and snakes, including two king cobras (as well as antidote serum in case they bit someone). He bought his dinosaur skull at auction in 2007 for $276,000 after a heated bidding war with Leonardo DiCaprio. There's so, so much more in the piece, which ends on a bittersweet note, saying that Cage, now in much reduced circumstances, has been forced to ditch his personal chef and decorator, along with a personal trainer, who is now no longer on permanent call.

I guess this can mean only one thing -- watch for a third installment in the "National Treasure" series, since Cage seems like a guy who, even after the riches he's raked in, still needs to star in one more bad movie to make some quick money.

Photo of Nicolas Cage (right) and Lucius Baston in "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" by Lena Herzog / First Look Studios

Oscar whopper of the week: Clint Eastwood not arrow straight?

I hope none of my editors will take this personally, but there's nothing scarier than seeing a newspaper editor write his own story without some kindly soul hovering nearby, making sure the editor, left to his own devices, doesn't fire off a few zany lightning bolts that should never make the page. I fear that's what happened to Variety editor Timothy Gray today, who offers up an otherwise perfectly serviceable preview of the oncoming Oscar season, reminding us of all the changes afoot -- top studio executive hirings and firings, the disappearance of first-dollar gross deals, and the expansion of the Oscar best picture nominees.

But in his quest to portray this season as marvelously different from all other seasons, he arrived at this whopper: "There are so many films from female, gay, minority and foreign-language helmers that seem to be worthy of consideration this year that it's possible the best-director noms might not include a single English-speaking, Caucasian, straight male."

Say what?

If you look at any one of the multitude of Oscar prognostication lists in the blogosphere, you'll find that among the obvious best picture favorites are movies directed by the likes of Clint Eastwood ("Invictus"), Quentin Tarantino ("Inglourious Basterds"), Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air"), Pete Docter ("Up"), the Coen brothers ("A Serious Man") and James Cameron ("Avatar"). All of the aforementioned are straight, white guys -- and frankly, from everything I know about the many-times-married Cameron, when it comes to being straight, you'd have to count him twice.

Mark Twain had a term for Gray's kind of wacky prediction -- he called it a "stretcher," as in a preposterous exaggeration. It would be wonderful to have a more diverse lineup of filmmakers in the best director race, since so few studios make an effort to hire minorities or women. But the revolution is still off on the horizon. You can bet that, as always, there will plenty of straight white guys at the Kodak Theatre this year, anxiously wondering if their name will be called oh-so-late in the evening when the best director nod comes around.

Photo of Oscar statuettes by Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Make a football wager with 'The Blind Side's' John Lee Hancock

If anyone knows football, it's John Lee Hancock, writer-director of "The Blind Side," a wonderfully uplifting new film (based on the Michael Lewis book of the same name) that stars Sandra Bullock as a feisty Memphis belle who finds a home -- right in her own home -- for a hulking homeless teenager who ends up going to college where he emerges as such a terrific offensive tackle that he became a first-round NFL draft pick. The film hits theaters Nov. 20 and is even getting early Oscar buzz for Bullock, who gives a knock-your-socks-off performance.

There's plenty of great football in the film, which features a host of cameos by such top college coaches as former South Carolina and Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz, Alabama's Nick Saban and Ole Miss' Houston Nutt. A native Texan, where football is like a religion, Hancock has college football in his blood. His brother Joe played at Vanderbilt, his brother Kevin played at Baylor and his dad, John, who coached high school football for years, played at Baylor before enjoying a brief career in the early NFL with the Chicago Cardinals.

So I asked Hancock to put on his prognosticator's cap and make some picks for this week's big college football games. Here's the betting line, along with Hancock's picks and commentary (the team in parenthesis is the favorite, followed by how many points they're giving):

LSU at Alabama (Alabama -- 7.5):  My "new best friend" Nick Saban (he's in "The Blind Side") has Alabama's defense playing lights out. But their offense is sputtering. Take LSU and the 7.5 points (though I still think Bama wins).

Ohio State at Penn State (Penn State -- 3.5): I'm just not that impressed with Ohio State. I say take Joe Pa's boys and give the points

Oklahoma at Nebraska (Oklahoma -- 6): The wheels seem to be coming off a bit for the Huskers, take the Sooners giving 6.

Baylor at Missouri (Missouri -- 16):  Hard to bet against my alma mater but since it's not a straight-up pick I can take Baylor and the 16 points. They have to have one great game in them, right?

USC at Arizona State (USC -- 11.5): USC was ripped apart at Autzen last week. I look for them to rebound big. Take the Trojans and give up the 11.5.

Kansas at Kansas State (Kansas -- 2.5): Kansas State has improved greatly this year and Kansas seems lethargic. Take Kansas State and the points.

Vanderbilt at Florida (Florida -- 32.5): Spikes is out but Florida still rolls. Vandy played pretty well last week so perhaps they can score a couple of touchdowns. Take Vandy and the points.

Purdue at Michigan (Michigan -- 6):  I'll say take Purdue and the points as, of late, Purdue's been more impressive and the Big House isn't quite as daunting as it once was.

Texas A&M at Colorado (Texas A&M -- 3): On principle, I never, ever root for A&M, therefore I hope I'm wrong about this pick. Take the Farmers and give the points.

(We'll check in on Monday and see how John Lee's predictions held up.)

Is it time to close down the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

I was a rock critic in a past life, so every year around this time, I still get a ballot allowing me to vote for my favorite nominees in the annual election at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Actually, I don't get to choose my favorite bands at all. The Hall of Fame is a notoriously top-down institution, with an elite group of insiders making up a nominating committee that pre-selects their own idiosyncratic idea of the worthy candidates. So all of us lowly peons are only allowed to vote for 5 out of 12 possible candidates, which judging from this year's nominees makes for slim pickings.

The list (read it and weep): ABBA, the Chantels, Jimmy Cliff, Genesis, the Hollies, KISS, LL Cool J, Darlene Love, Laura Nyro, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Stooges and Donna Summer.

It's pretty pathetic when you consider that you can vote for the Chantels and Darlene Love, but not for Linda Ronstadt, Steve Miller, Chicago, Rush, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Journey, Dire Straits or Stevie Ray Vaughan, just to name a few of the ineligible worthies. It's no wonder that Joel Selvin, the veteran San Francisco critic (and former member of the hall's nominating committee), has blasted the hall for its insular decision-making. He heaps most of the blame on Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, the hall's co-founder and dominant force, who is believed to be behind the mysterious last-minute selection of Grandmaster Flash over the Dave Clark 5, with Wenner apparently pushing aside the DC5 (finally inducted in 2008) so the hall could have a hip-hop group in the fold. 

"This thing has sunk to a shameless level of manipulation and behind-the-scenes chicanery," Selvin told the Detroit News in 2007. "If it were a public institution--which it is--it would be held up for public ridicule."

Despite my own shared concerns--I think it would a perfectly appropriate idea to close down the hall for repairs for a few years, until a few more deserving bands become eligible--I still feel obligated to vote. But I'd like some help. Take a second look at the names of the 2010 nominees above and let me know who you'd vote for--and why. Those of us who are actual voters are asked to choose a maximum of five nominees, using numbers (1-2-3-4-5) to signify our preferences. You can do the same. Here's how I'd make my choices as of now, but I'm open to being swayed by any especially passionate or persuasive arguments:

1) The Stooges. (They were short-lived, but had an indelible impact on my teen psyche. Any band that had the one-and-only Iggy Pop on board makes the cut for me.)

2) The Red Hot Chili Peppers. (Local L.A. boys made good, they capture the tumultuous spirit of rock and have made some terrific records along the way.) 

3) Laura Nyro. (Nearly forgotten today, she was a seminal influence on Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash and untold other singer-songwriters.)

4) LL Cool J. (Probably not a major artist, but in his day, he was the epitome of cool.)

5) KISS. (I'm not a member of the Army and I think Gene Simmons is pretty obnoxious, but they were the voice of a generation--no one can forget their first KISS concert.)

Photo: The Rock and Roll Hall Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Credit: Reuters

'Precious' gets the bum's rush from Armond White

"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," Lee Daniels' searing film about a sexually abused teenage girl that opens Friday, has been racking up film festival awards, Oscar buzz and critical plaudits for months -- it already has a sky-high 87 Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. But the movie, which has the heavyweight endorsement of both Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, two icons of the African American creative community, just received a nasty thrashing from another black icon, the New York Press' wildly politically incorrect Armond White, one of the few remaining high-profile African American film critics (he's currently head of the prestigious New York Critics Circle).

White is famously contrarian in his tastes, so I'm not saying that he's going to be leading a momentous critical backlash against the film. But it is rare to see an African American commentator not only take apart a gifted black filmmaker like Daniels, but trash Oprah and Perry in the process. White doesn't mince words, calling the film "a con job" that "naively treats Precious' exhibition of ghetto tragedy and female disempowerment as if it were raw truth." Then he really unloads on everyone:

"Winfrey, Perry and Daniels make an unholy triumvirate. They come together at some intersection of race exploitation and opportunism. These two media titans -- plus one shrewd pathology pimp -- use 'Precious' to rework Booker T. Washington's early 20th century manifesto 'Up From Slavery' into extreme drama for the new millennium: Up From Incest, Child Abuse, Teenage Pregnancy, Poverty and AIDS. Regardless of its narrative details about class and gender, 'Precious is an orgy of prurience.... Not since 'Birth of a Nation' has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as 'Precious.' Fully of brazenly racist cliches (Precious steals and eats an entire bucket of fried chicken) it is a sociological horror show. Offering racist hysteria masquerading as social sensitivity, it's been acclaimed on the international film festival circuit that usually disdains movies about black Americans as somehow inartistic and unworthy."  

White is especially disturbed by the involvement of Winfrey and Perry, who have been very open about their own experiences with childhood abuse. He views their much-discussed triumph over their own personal travails as exploitation, arguing that the movie's "self-pity and recrimination" is seen as an endorsement of Winfrey and Perry's own backstories, saying: "Promoting this movie isn't just a way for Perry and Winfrey to aggrandize themselves, it helps convert their private agendas into heavily hyped social preoccupation."

I think White goes a little overboard, since it's hardly the first time Oprah in particular has promoted a film or a book about family abuse and dysfunction -- she's made a career out of it. But it will fascinating to see how black audiences react to Daniels' stark drama. As my colleague John Horn pointed out today, Lionsgate, which is releasing the film, is going after both middle-class black audiences and art-house cineastes, opening the film here at both the Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15-theater complex as well as the highbrow Landmark and ArcLight theaters, hoping to score with two very disparate audiences.

It's a tough needle to thread. In fact, Lionsgate tried a similar strategy with its recent LeBron James basketball film, "More Than a Game," and came up short, never connecting with either young urban sport fans or art-house documentary lovers. After a month in theaters, the film has only made $829,000, a poor showing for a movie that James promoted with wall-to-wall appearances on every major TV talk show imaginable. The themes in "Precious" certainly have the potential to speak a huge disparate audience, but I suspect that, even with its A-list endorsers, it may do better with Oscar voters than rank and file African American moviegoers.

Armond White is clearly a non-believer. He ends his review by saying that some of the film's most emotional scenes "might have been met howls of skeptical laughter at Harlem's Magic Johnson theater. Black audiences would surely have seen the comedy in this ludicrous, overloaded situation, whereas too many white film habitues casually enjoy it for the sense of superiority -- and relief -- it allows them to feel. Some people like being conned."  

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Backstage with 'Fantastic Mr. Fox's' Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman

Last night, as part of an awards season film series sponsored by my newspaper, I hosted a screening of "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" with its filmmaker, Wes Anderson, and Jason Schwartzman, who voices Ash, Mr. Fox's ungainly, often not entirely beloved son. After the film's credits rolled, we took the stage and I basically played the straight man, lobbing up some (hopefully) not entirely dumb questions that gave the two guys an opportunity to tell funny stories about their childhood and the making of the film.

Yes, it is true, for example, that Bill Murray, who voices Badger in the movie, tried to cajole Anderson into letting him do the character in a Wisconsin accent, since the University of Wisconsin's football team's nickname is--ahem--the Badgers. Anderson said no dice, although he did allow Murray to assume additionally the tiny, but pivotal role of the film's lone wolf, a mystical creature who is held in awe by all the foxes in the film. 

Before we took the stage, we hung out in the Landmark Theater's bar, where Anderson and Schwarztman dissected the Coen brothers' "A Serious Man," which they both had recently seen. We agreed that it was easily their most--perhaps only--personal film, with Anderson, who is clearly a fan of the Brothers Coen, admiring how sneaky smart their work is. He acknowledged that it was easy to underestimate a Coen film immediately after having seen it. "I remember being pretty unswayed by 'The Big Lebowski' when I first saw it," he recalled. "But after a few days, it started to sink in and then I went back to see it again and realized that it was pretty amazing, having found myself quoting dialogue from it ever since."

For me, the nicest moment of the evening was provided by Schwartzman, who is also a talented songwriter and musician, having played drums for years in the band Phantom Planet. He now has his own solo project, called Coconut Records. At some point in our discussion, I asked him about his youthful enthusiasms. As it turned out, even though he was surrounded by movie royalty--his mom is Talia Shire, Francis Coppola's sister, which makes him cousins with Nic Cage, Sofia Coppola and (regular Anderson collaborator) Roman Coppola--his true love was always music. As a typically awkward, alienated teenager, rock music spoke much more directly to his psyche than films.

"When I was kid, I only went to see comedies, so while I enjoyed them, I always thought it was music that spoke most deeply to me," he explained. But at some point in his teenage years, he found himself preparing for an acting audition without really understanding what movies could have to say. When he confided his concerns to his mother, she told him to stay put while she hurried off to a video store. She returned with three movies: "The Graduate," "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Harold and Maude," which Schwarztman watched all in one sitting that night.

"It totally changed my life," he said, realizing for the first time that film could be just as powerful and soulful as the best rock and roll music. From that day on, he was committed to pursuing acting and filmmaking, leading him to his first great role, as Max Fischer in Anderson's "Rushmore." For some reason, I found Schwartzman's story especially inspiring, in the sense that even someone who grew up in a hall-of-fame movie family still needed a jolt of great movie-watching to understand the special glory of the medium. 

I've had a similar experience--for me, it was the first time I saw Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch." But I'd love to hear if any of you had similar "gotcha" moments when a movie rocked your world. If you can still remember the visceral thrill of the moment, please share!

Photo of Jason Schwartzman by Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

Oscar co-hosts will be co-conspirators of comedy

What's not to like about the idea of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin serving as co-hosts of the Oscars, as the academy just announced this afternoon. They're two funny guys who are still at the top of their game, always armed with a gag in their quiver, as Martin proved in the academy press release, when he quipped: "I am happy to co-host the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin."

Baldwin does have quite a few enemies, mostly conservatives who can't stand his politics, so the academy can only hope that they'll do something really lame, like organize an Oscar boycott, which would only give the creaky awards show a whiff of hip appeal.

I hope Oscar producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman take the guys out to lunch, pat them on the back and say "See ya at the show." In other words, leave them alone and let them figure out how much material they want to do solo or together. Baldwin has a reputation of being something of a loose cannon, which frankly is just what the academy needs these days. It would be wonderful to see him wade into the audience a few times and mix it up, Jack Donaghy-style, with all the stuffed-shirt celebs that always get all the good front-row seats. 

After the schmaltzy Hugh Jackman affair last year, this is a giant step in the right direction for the academy.

Photo of Steve Martin at the 2003 Oscars by Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times; Alec Baldwin by Stuart Ramson / Associated Press

Fox Searchlight jumps 'Crazy Heart' into Oscar season

We knew Fox Searchlight was in love with "Crazy Heart," the low-budget country music drama that stars Jeff Bridges as a faded, booze-fueled singer named Bad Blake who's trying to get his career back on track. Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Scott Cooper, the film costars Maggie Gyllenhaal (playing a small-town reporter), Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell.

Searchlight acquired the film in July, taking it off the market with a low seven-figure bid, enamored by the film's acting and nuanced storytelling. Its original plan was to release the movie in the spring of 2010. But the studio must be smelling award-season gold, because my sources say the movie is moving into Oscar territory, with Searchlight now planning a limited Dec. 11 release in Los Angeles and New York before taking the film wider early next year.

Since Searchlight's only serious Oscar contender, as of now, is its well-reviewed summer release,  "(500) Days of Summer," the studio must be betting that Bridges -- always a favorite with the academy, especially as he's aged into Nick Nolte-style gray-bearded grizzly guy -- could land some best actor nominations. Searchlight suddenly sent out screening notices today, another tipoff that the movie is looking for some early word-of-mouth enthusiasm from the blogosphere.

My favorite movie-music magician, T Bone Burnett, supervised the film's soundtrack, so I'm betting it will have some real C&W authenticity. As soon as I get a chance to see it, I'll report in on whether we've got another serious Oscar candidate or not.

Photo of Jeff Bridges by Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times.