The real meaning of Thanksgiving: 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles'

I don't know which means of transportation you plan on using to get where you're going for Turkey Day (personally, I plan on skipping any possible use of Amtrak over the holiday). But I'm ducking out a little early for what I hope will be an uncomplicated Thanksgiving weekend. It is an American right rite of passage to go to the multiplex over the holidays, so if you want to report in on your Thanksgiving moviegoing experiences, please share all of your highs and lows with the rest of us here in the comments section.

See you next week!

John Lee Hancock responds to right wing attacks on 'The Blind Side'

It used to be the liberals who loved to play the victim. But now it's conservatives who just can't enough of that warm and cuddly feeling of being an oppressed minority. What else could possibly explain the sudden spurt of right wing attacks on "The Blind Side," John Lee Hancock's wonderful new family drama that stars Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy, a God-fearing Memphis go-getter who becomes a surrogate mother to a homeless African American teenager who ends up being a star football player.

The movie is a big hit, having been immediately embraced by audiences everywhere, especially in red-state America. (The film got an A-plus audience rating from CinemaScore, one of only two films this year to score that high.)

But conservative bloggers who either didn't bother to see the movie or decided to deliberately ignore the fact that the film offers a totally positive portrayal of a white Southern evangelical Christian Republican family, have attacked the movie for one small joke made at the expense of George W. Bush, whose photograph, on the wall of a government office, is played for a laugh (For those who haven't seen the movie, here's the gag: frustrated by the glacial response from a dead-eyed government bureaucrat, Leigh Anne demands to know who is in charge. The civil servant points to a framed photo of a smiling George W.)

Big Hollywood's John Nolte, for example, used the joke as a launching pad for a furious attack on leftist Hollywood, calling it "the single most intolerant industry in America today" and an industry "engaged in an ideological war with traditional conservative America." 

But how could Hollywood be such a snake pit of lefty lock-step America hating if it allowed a filmmaker to make a mainstream studio picture that painted such a warm, affirmative portrait of an evangelical Christian family? Nolte proposes the wildly paranoid theory that even if you are a conservative working in Hollywood, you have to placate the Bush-hating liberals by taking shots at conservatives in your movies. Or as he put it: "You had better inoculate yourself. And that's what the gratuitous, unnecessary, jarring, take-you-out-of-the-movie shot at Bush is: an inoculation. The filmmakers want to work again, they want to be invited to all the right parties....They all knew they were insulting the very audience the film was marketed at for no reason other than to insult them. But there was absolutely no way in hell this thing was going to see the light of day without something for the Hollywood bigots to snicker over."

Is that really what happened? Was it really possible that John Lee Hancock, whose last film was a stirring tribute to the men who fought at the Alamo, is an American-hating lefty or a squishy conservative willing to betray his cause with a Bush-bashing joke? I asked Hancock if he could explain why he put the joke in the film. His response is especially telling, since it reminds us that movies are made by real human beings, not ideological robots, who have the same flaws and sensitivities as the rest of us. Here's what Hancock had to say:

"This wasn't in the book. It was something I witnessed several years ago in a post office. It was not intended to represent Leigh Anne Tuohy's feelings about Bush (she's a conservative Republican) but rather the civil servant's. Given Leigh Anne's dress and demeanor I figured the civil servant would be knocking down Leigh Anne a notch by taking a slap at Bush. I always thought of it as a smile, not a laugh. After completing the movie and playing it for an audience I realized it was, for some, more of a laugh, and a cheap one to boot. I do regret not coming up with something more clever. But it wouldn't be a movie of mine if I didn't somehow figure out a way to piss off both conservatives and liberals."

 

'The Twilight Saga' puts Summit in the mega-frachise business

"The Twilight Saga: New Moon" has been exploding all sorts of box office records -- my colleague, Ben Fritz, says, for example, that it is the least expensive movie ever to open to more than $200 million worldwide. But the most important record that it's on track to break is one that might give a serious new shot in the arm to everyone in the indie film world.

When you factor in the original film's $383.8 million in worldwide grosses with the $700 million or more in worldwide grosses that "New Moon" could eventually roll up, Summit Entertainment will soon find itself having the biggest true independent film franchise in recent history. (By true independent, I'm disqualifying New Line, which made even more money with its "Lord of the Rings" franchise but wasn't a true independent since it was already owned by Time-Warner by the time the "LOTR" series was launched.) 

Summit's runaway success with "Twilight" is a very big deal, since -- like 'em or not -- franchises provide the building blocks for the modern movie business. With them, a studio has the money in the bank (as well as the blockbuster in the can) to help survive a lean year or a couple of costly flops. You never see any of the top execs at Warners crawling out on a high ledge, preparing to jump when the studio is pulverized by a disaster like "Poseidon" or "Speed Racer" or "Body of Lies." That's because Warners always has another "Harry Potter" or "Batman" saga sitting on the pad, preparing to launch into the box-office stratosphere. Ditto for Sony with "Spider-Man," Paramount with "Star Trek" or Disney with "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Indie studios have rarely, if ever, had the cushion of such a cozy franchise piggy bank. So when an indie studio has a bad year, it's really a bad year. The high ledge can look awfully tempting. It's why in the Miramax days, the Weinstein brothers created the genre-based Dimension division, which gave Bob Weinstein the opportunity to develop such cash cows as the "Scary Movie" franchise, the "Scream" series and the "Spy Kids" saga. Ditto for Lionsgate with its long-running "Saw" horror showcase. However, even though the six "Saw" movies have racked up an impressive $711.8 million in worldwide grosses, it's likely that Summit, with just the first two installments in its "Twilight" series, will end up leaving "Saw" in its wake. Likewise with Dimension's "Scary Movie" series, which has made $672 million around the globe.

It doesn't mean that Summit's future is secure. The studio eventually will have to prove that it's more than a one-trick pony. But for now, Summit has some pretty serious bragging rights, proving that being an indie studio no longer means you have to be a second-class power, even when it comes to playing with the big boys in the franchise game.

'The Blind Side's' John Lee Hancock escapes from movie jail

John Lee Hancock thought he was doing a great job of racing through a day of shooting earlier this year on "The Blind Side," the new film that stars Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy, a no-nonsense Memphis supermom who makes room in her life for Michael Oher, a homeless, 350-pound African American teenager who ended up becoming the Baltimore Ravens' first-round pick in this year's NFL draft.

But when the real Leigh Anne showed up to visit the set, she found her patience flagging after a few hours. "If I were in charge," she told Hancock, "we'd get things done a lot faster around here."

I can only imagine what the hyper-energetic Tuohy would do if she were ever forced to sit through a studio development meeting, but I'm guessing that after a little while she'd be tossing people out of windows. She certainly would have been wondering what took Hancock so long to get back behind the camera. After all, Hancock is a supremely talented writer-director who made an impressive directorial debut in 2002 with "The Rookie" after writing a pair of Clint Eastwood-directed films, including "A Perfect World." And as it turns out, "The Blind Side" is a surprise fall hit, making an estimated $34.5 million this weekend, and according to CinemaScore, earning a rare A-plus from moviegoers, a reliable signal that the movie will have a long and profitable life in the multiplexes. 

So why hadn't Hancock made a movie since his second feature, "The Alamo," arrived way back in 2004?

If you ask most people in Hollywood, they'd tell you that Hancock was in movie jail. A costly flop that ended up getting awful reviews and becoming the media's poster film for misguided Hollywood excess, "The Alamo" was an especially painful experience for Hancock. Born and raised in Texas, he was a natural choice to salvage the film after its original director, Ron Howard, bowed out of the production over a variety of budget-related issues. But after a series of dire early screenings, Hancock was forced to make huge cuts in what was originally a nearly three-hour film, sacrificing a lot of depth and rich historical texture along the way.

When we sat down to talk about his new film recently, Hancock still couldn't suppress a cringe when the subject of "The Alamo" came up. When you have a flop in Hollywood, it hurts, even years later. Of course, if you're a superstar filmmaker, whether you're Steven Spielberg or Michael Mann or Michael Bay, you can have a flop -- even a couple of stinkers -- and still get back into the ring, bloodied but unbowed. Even though Mann had belly-flopped with a "Miami Vice" remake, he bounced right back, even getting the same studio -- Universal -- who'd bankrolled his dud to put up the dough for his next film, "Public Enemies," apparently having decided that if a movie star of Johnny Depp's status still wanted to work with Mann that the director must still have the right stuff.

But directors with less invincible reputations have suffered. Greg Mottola, for example, was considered a promising young filmmaker after making the well-reviewed 1996 film "The Daytrippers." But when he finally got another movie going, "Duplex," he ended up taking the fall for a host of nasty creative disputes and was fired off the picture (which ended up being a flop, directed by Danny DeVito). To get back behind the camera, Mottola went to work in TV, directing episodes of "Arrested Development" and other TV series. He re-emerged in 2007, thanks to support from Judd Apatow, when he directed Apatow's comedy hit "Superbad," which made him bankable again.

Of course, if you ask Hancock, he'll tell you that he has some powder burns from "The Alamo" experience. "I'd love the opportunity to do a director's cut of the film, because what people saw in the theaters, even though I'm proud of it, wasn't the fully realized version of the movie. I learned that you should never take on a project where the media has decided that they already have an opinion about it. We were dogged by the same negative press that was directed at the movie before I'd even signed on to write it. The movie had just become a target, even though most of that negativity was directed at [then Disney chief] Michael Eisner." 

But Hancock insists that he never felt like he was languishing in a movie jail cell. "After 'The Alamo' I really wanted to get back to doing regular human being stuff, like being a dad, and the best way to do that was to stay home and write," he told me. "So if I was in movie jail, then you'd have to say that everyone let me design the cell. I got plenty of offers to direct, just ones that weren't right for me."

So how did Hancock finally get "The Blind Side" up and running? And why did the studio that originally acquired the book back out of making the movie? Keep reading:

Larry King nepotism alert: A new king on the TV throne

I find many things in the modern world scary, from Sarah Palin to Taylor Swift to Michael Bay. I actually had a fever-induced nightmare the other night in which I'd gone to the premiere of "Avatar" and instead found myself surrounded by screaming 7-year-olds at a screening of "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel." But here's something really frightening: Larry King's son is going to have his own talk show.

Yikes! As first reported by TMZ, Chance King, the cherubic 10-year-old son of the much-married CNN host, has landed his own TV gig hosting an upcoming sports show on Fox Sports Net. Called "Kid Pitch," the show will feature kids Chance's age yakking about baseball, along with interviews with major league players. Presumably, Chance will be asking Manny Ramirez the same kind of tough, probing questions his dad asks all of the world leaders and third-rate celebrities that show up plugging their new projects on "Larry King Live."

The good news is that Chance, as you can see from the TMZ photo, is a lot cuter than his dad. The bad news? If the show is a hit, I suspect it will only be a matter of time before Chance follows in his dad's footsteps and starts blurbing Hollywood movies. He might even watch them all the way through without taking phone calls in the middle of the screening, as his dad is famous for doing. If we start seeing Chance's name atop movie ads (" 'Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel' is more hysterically funny
than my fifth-grade science teacher!" -- Chance King), we'll know that in the King clan, good movie blurbs run thicker than blood.

Photo: Larry King. Credit: Associated Press

Is anyone unhappy about the Oscars' snub of Michael Moore?

Let's be honest. Is there really anyone who is up in arms over Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" being left off the Academy's 15-title short list for the best feature documentary? In fact, I would argue that when it comes to a snub of a much-ballyhooed film, the Academy has never managed to make more people happier. Let me count the ways: 

Conservatives are positively dancing in the street, with the New York Post's Lou Lumenick leading the way, gloating over the fact that Moore's "paen to socialism" missed the cut. Next to seeing Barack Obama's health care bill fail, it's hard to imagine any other event making everyone's day on the right, which has been hammering away at Moore for years, always looking for a new chink in his armor.

Liberals aren't all that sad either. For many on the left, Moore has been something of a quiet embarassment for years, coming off more like a carny barker than a serious filmmaker as he has made the media rounds, shilling for his latest Big Event documentary. Liberals like filmmakers who fall into the self-effacing category. When it comes to obnoxious self-promotion, Moore is just as shrill as Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck or anyone on the right.

The Academy itself is way too coy to ever take sides on something like this, but I'm betting the vast majority of its membership is pretty delighted by the Moore snub as well. Remember, his breakthrough film, "Roger and Me," wasn't nominated by the Academy either, largely because Academy insiders have always been wary of Moore's overtly personal "the filmmaker as star" style of documentary filmmaking. Lord knows, the Academy has no problem with Moore's politics. But its purists prefer giving the Oscar's seal of approval to more obscure progressive films, as is evidenced by the short-list nods to socially relevant films like "The Cove," "Food, Inc." and "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers."

And last but not least, America's ever-dwindling array of movie critics are positively ecstatic. On Metacritic, "Capitalism" earned a 61 score, which is pretty dreary considering that even a mainstream studio programmer like "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" scored five points higher. If you read the reviews, you'll see that many critics view Moore as being far more talented at marketing than at movie making, especially with "Capitalism," which meandered all over the global landscape in search of a common thread for its story.

So, finally, the Academy has gotten something right. They've found just the right filmmaker to snub without ticking anyone off in the process.

RELATED STORY: FRUSTRATION OVER OSCAR'S DOCUMENTARY SHORT LIST

Photo of Michael Moore by Sean Kilpatrick / Associated Press

Fareed Zakaria on 'Mumbai' style terrorism: It's time to encourage 'religious revulsion'

HBO is airing a really scary movie tonight at 8. It isn't "District 9" or "Paranormal Activity." It's a documentary called "Terror in Mumbai," about the infamous 2008 terrorist attack that killed 170 people, wounded another 300 and, in the eyes of many anti-terrorist experts, may have served as a dress rehearsal for future terrorist actions in other parts of the world -- including here in the good old USA. Having watched the film, I can assure you that it's far more than another dutiful re-creation of a tragic incident of modern-day bloodshed.

In fact, the film (directed by Dan Reed and narrated by Newsweek and CNN's Fareed Zakaria) is truly chilling, often more reminiscent of a creepy sci-fi thriller than a documentary. The reason? In addition to all the usual footage of violence and chaos, we get to eavesdrop on the conversations between the 10 young Pakistani men and their handler as they lay siege to Mumbai, leaving bombs in taxis, using guns and grenades to butcher innocent civilians in train stations, cafes and two of the city's most famous hotels.

Although the Indian police were, as Zakaria told me yesterday, "hapless, cowardly and utterly disorganized," the Indian secret service had managed to infiltrate the Pakistani terrorist group and give them a host of cellphone SIM cards, some of which were in use by the terrorists during the attack. So we get to be voyeurs of a sort, listening in on their conversations as they roam up and down hotel corridors and take over one of the city's Jewish centers, deciding who they will take hostage and when they will kill them. (At one point, you can even hear the gunshots over the phone.)

The terrorists are programmed, you might even say hypnotized, by their controller. He encourages and cajoles them over the phone from Pakistan, then when they have done as much damage as possible, orders them to kill themselves. But one terrorist survives, superficially wounded, and we are allowed to watch a video of his police interrogation as well. For me, the scariest part of the movie was realizing that these were not battle-hardened jihadists. In fact, they are uneducated, largely clueless kids who have such an utterly bleak outlook on life that they see indiscriminate killing as their ticket to heaven.

Zakaria believes that the roots of terrorism lie in poverty and a culture of hate. His prescription for change often sounds like do-goodism, so much so that Robert Lloyd, who reviewed the film in my paper today, gently mocked Zakaria, saying his introduction to the film "reminded me of the kind of prologues once appended to films about juvenile delinquency."

So when I got on the phone with Zakaria, who is a leading expert on global politics, I asked him the obvious question: How do we possibly defend ourselves against a bunch of deluded religious extremists who essentially act like an army of George Romero-style zombies? Here's what he had to say:

The Art of the Swine Flu: The strange aesthetic of being sick as a dog

I've been sick with the swine flu for the past few days, hence the sparse number of postings on the blog. At least I assume it's the swine flu, since I got a regular flu shot and I still came down with something (fever, headache, cough, congestion and a generally awful achiness) that hit like a ton of bricks. But I'm not looking for sympathy, not that you'd ever dream of getting any sympathy from the cranky blogosphere.

My point is this. When you're really down-for-the-count sick, your brain begins to operate differently, I've come to believe. We all feel sluggish and dull when we're sick. But I think that when we're sick, our brain chemistry actually changes, making things that we would otherwise happily avoid -- like saltines and chicken soup, or pajamas decorated with purple elephants, for example -- feel strangely reassuring. I think this also applies to art and entertainment. When I am sick, I put on a thick pair of socks, an old pair of sweats, hop in bed and watch old westerns. (It's someone else in the family who wears the pajamas with purple elephants.)

Watching old westerns is not something I would ever do when I am well -- I'm always looking for the next, new cool thing. But when sick, I am looking for cinematic comfort food. And what comforts me the most is the sight of John Wayne (in pretty much any John Ford western, starting with "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" and "The Searchers," though "Fort Apache" is close behind), Jimmy Stewart (in his great string of westerns directed by Anthony Mann, the best being "Bend of the River" and "The Man From Laramie") or Paul Newman (especially in "Hud," "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" and, of course, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"). They are men on epic journeys and heroic quests, solving problems, back when most problems could be solved on horseback. 

I suspect I am not alone in this pursuit of warmth and reassurance. Everyone in my family has gone through the flu bug in the past 10 days, and I've noticed that each one of us reached for similar succor. For years, when my wife would get sick, all she would want to watch was the 1995 BBC production of "Pride and Prejudice," most important, the one with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. But now she tucks up and watches old episodes of "The Gilmore Girls," which I suspect offers her the same cozy contentment as westerns do for me. My 11-year-son is happiest watching old DVD highlight packages of the World Series. Even though he knows who's going to win, he still likes reliving the drama of the games.

I suspect that when we are sick, we simply crave familiarity, the comfort of old stories being retold, even though we know how they begin and how they are going to end. When cavemen had the flu, they probably asked whoever was hovering nearby, "Tell me the story again about the time we killed that big mastodon with a few tiny little arrowheads." Since the flu has been going around in a big way, if you've been sick, I'd love to hear what you wanted to watch when you were laid up. If nothing else, I'm curious if there's a common thread here -- or if my family is just a bunch of oddballs. Please share your thoughts.

And as a kicker: watch this video of the International Barbershop Chorus Champions. I first saw it when I was perfectly healthy -- and found it only mildly diverting. But I watched it again when I was sick and had a totally different reaction, finding it weirdly and wonderfully hypnotic. I think when you're sick, your brain is in a very different gear. But see for yourself:

Photo: John Wayne. Credit: Warner Bros.

The latest 'Twilight' mystery: Why vampires aren't Jews

With "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" due out Friday, the media have been pretty much frothing at the mouth. Everyone's trying to cash in on every crumb of fascination with the mega-hit franchise based on Stephenie Meyer's phenonemally successful series of novels about a high school girl who falls for a hunky young vampire. Judging from the tsunami of stories, you'd have to say that every utterance from "Twilight" stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson has been recorded for posterity, no matter how dopey or forgettable.

But one "Twilight"-themed story did grab my attention, since it offered up an intriguing meditation, from a religious authority no less, on an angle that I can't imagine ever having been seriously pursued until "Twlight" hit the bigtime: Five Reasons Vampires Aren't Jews. The article, half serious religious analysis, half tongue-in-cheek humor, was penned for the Jewish Journal by L.A.'s Sinai Temple senior rabbi David Wolpe. It opens with what we journalists refer to as a killer lead: "Their day begins at night, they show a certain aversion to the sign of the cross and they dress in black. Of course, I'm talking about Jews."

Wolper explains that some historical sources hint at the existence of Jewish vampires -- apparently there are a number of obscure medieval tales in Jewish literature that chronicle the exploits of Estrie, a bloodsucking demon who can assume different forms. But Wolpe argues that there are many persuasive reasons why vampires can't be Jewish. Here's a few brief excerpts from his essay:

1) Proselytizing: Vampires are made by each other, using what Wolpe calls "fangs over persuasion." But he says that "Jews have for most of their history been content to accept those who convert, but not seek them." Wolpe offers a wry circumcision quip: "When men, in particular, converted to Judaism, if often did involve a small amount of blood, but not from the neck."

2) Blood: Vampires, of course, live on blood. But, Wolpe writes, "Jews abhor eating blood ... and generations of salted meat are our culinary legacy. Jews overcook and oversalt. It is what we do. My mother, God bless her, thought meat undone if it could not double as a club for batting practice. Moistness was the enemy."

3) Nightlife: Vampires avoid daylight, preferring to live in darkness and shadows. Wolpe says that Jews love light. " 'Let there be light' is God's initial declaration in the creation of the world. We light candles on Shabbat, for Havdahlah, on Chanukah. Jews rise for the Shacharit prayer, greeting the shining new day. A Jewish vampire would never be awake to make the minyan."

4) Immortality: Vampires live forever, or as Wolpe puts it: "They don't die. Or at least, not before the end of the movie. Then someone drives a stake into the heart, and they expire amid swelling music." But he explains that "Judaism believes in death. Yes, it believes in immortal life. But death comes first. ... We shovel earth on the grave to remind ourselves of the finality of death."

5) Imaginary Creatures: Vampires are not real. As Wolpe writes: "They have a long and startling history springing from the depths of the human imagination, drawing from our fears and from real-world creatures (bats, mostly), but they live in books and movies as powerful projections of our minds." Jews, on the other hand, know real monsters. As Wolpe puts it: "We have known the kind of monsters that turn day into night and have a thirst for blood that puts Nosferatu to shame. ... These days, the world's demons have a different but terrifying aspect. Once you have encountered true monsters, the imaginary ones seem not quite so vivid or frightening."

While we're on the subject, I was puzzling over which Jewish actors would make the best movie vampires. If anyone has any clever ideas, I'd like to hear them. But I definitely have my own choice: Jeff Goldblum.

Photo: Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in "The Twilight Saga: New Moon". Credit: Summit Entertainment

Universal's new black eye: African American actors disappear from 'Couples Retreat' poster

 It's perfectly normal for a Hollywood studio to revamp its marketing campaign when a film is released overseas. Every culture is a wee bit different, so marketing tweaks happen all the time. But Universal Pictures really goofed in a big way when it released a new poster for the U.K. release of its hit comedy, "Couples Retreat," which stars Vince Vaughn as one half of a couple who join three other couples on a holiday dedicated to improving everyone's marital relationships.

The original U.S. poster was a bit crowded, showing all eight featured actors in the film. So for the film's U.K. release, Universal's marketing wizards decided to simplify the poster by ... cutting out the film's black couple! All six white actors remain in the U.K. poster. But the actors playing the film's African American couple -- Faizon Love and Kali Hawk -- disappeared altogether. The U.K. poster keeps Vince Vaughn front and center -- after all, he's the star -- while moving the supporting white couples up more into the foreground. (You can read London Mail's story about the gaffe here.) 

No one at Universal is talking on the record, at least so far. But it's obvious that the studio wanted to simplify the poster -- the rule of thumb in marketing is the fewer faces on a poster, the better. It's also obvious that the black actors were the least known members of the cast. Still, no one seemed to realize what a PR disaster would unfold if the only actors who were cut were the African American couple. After Universal was swamped by letters of complaint and negative U.K. press coverage, it quickly moved to quell the outrage by agreeing to return to its original poster with the full cast for future international releases. But the damage was done. Vivienne Pattison, director of Media Watch UK, told the Mail: "I think this was an ill-conceived move. We celebrate diversity in Britain and we could have coped with seeing the same poster used in America."

Studios make dumb decisions all the time. But I've talked to enough frustrated black filmmakers over the years to know the real underlying issue behind these kinds of gaffes. The decision-makers at studios are virtually all white, so they don't see potential racial slights in the same light as they would if they had someone -- anyone! -- of color in the executive suite. When I asked a Universal executive who its highest ranking African American marketing executive would be, he gave an honest answer, saying the studio would pull a zero. So, to be fair, would most other Hollywood studios. 

As always, the real solution to this kind of issue would be for Hollywood to find a way to hire a decent sampling of African American executives so its decision-making wouldn't look so clueless and out of touch with the diversity in the rest of our culture. Studio reps always tell me they are involved in all sorts of affirmative action campaigns. So maybe they're trying to do better, but I'm still waiting to see some concrete results.

Images: Top, the U.S. poster; below, the altered version for the U.K. 

'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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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.