Jean-Luc Godard and the academy's honorary Oscar: A true comedy of errors

I guess we can all breathe a deep sigh of relief. More than a week after the motion picture academy announced it would give an honorary lifetime achievement award to Jean-Luc Godard, the aging enfant terrible of French cinema managed to respond with a handwritten note, in French of course, saying that--his schedule permitting--he might actually show up later this year to accept the award. To those of us who have followed Godard over the years, it seems the odds of this prickly, often maddeningly iconoclastic Marxist filmmaker actually going anywhere near the tuxedoed pomp and circumstance of an Oscar ceremony--even one that isn't being televised--are about as good as the odds of the academy making Mickey Rourke its master of ceremonies next February.

The best part of the whole Godard affair wasn't the academy's initial inability to get any sort of reaction from the filmmaker, who failed to respond to a flurry of official letters, faxes and e-mails. It was the way the showbiz flap was covered. In America, it was a brief, one-day story. But in England, home of mad-dog tabloid journalism, the Godard non-response inspired a number of sarcastic commentaries as well as a delightful, sleuth-style stakeout piece. The latter story appeared in Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times, which put two crack reporters on the case, standing watch outside Godard's home in the bucolic Swiss village of Rolle, not far from Geneva. (A host of blog posts erroneously described the reporters as being from an Australian paper, perhaps because Murdoch's Sunday Times is now behind a pay wall, so a Google search only turns up the version of the piece that ran in Australia.) 

When Godard finally showed up at his home, he gave the Times reporters the brushoff, only saying, "I got the letter." When asked if he would accept the award, he responded: "Thank you." The enterprising Timesmen didn't give up so easily. They managed to get Godard's longtime companion, Anne-Marie Mieville, to talk a little, as well as his neighbors, one of whom offered up the juicy nugget that Godard borrows vegetables from his landlord to use as props in his films. Another neighbor, a retired geology professor, said that Godard "is on a different level from the rest of us, somewhere between genius and completely round the bend."

It sounds like a perfectly accurate description of a filmmaker who after failing to turn up for another lifetime achievement award, this one from the European Film Academy, sent a message saying: "I don't have the impression I have made a career." Of course, Godard has had an amazing career, but I wouldn't place much hope on seeing him here in L.A. anytime soon, boasting about his latest exploits. When it comes to his honorary Oscar, I'm betting the show will go on without him.

Photo: Jean-Luc Godard at a lecture on film in 2002 in Zurich, Switzerland. Credit: Christof Schuerpf / European Pressphoto Agency 

Who was the most partisan media baron before Rupert Murdoch invented Fox News?

One of the great things about getting a chance to read history is that you quickly learn that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Liberals spend an inordinate amount of time brooding over the formidable media firepower of Rupert Murdoch, who influences events via Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, to name but a few of his media properties, which are, in turn, dwarfed by the reach of his sprawling TV and film entertainment divisions.

But during my end-of-summer vacation I had a chance to read historian Alan Brinkley's new book, "The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century," which served as a bracing reminder that Murdoch was hardly the first media overlord to pursue a partisan political agenda. Luce was the co-founder of Time Inc., which from the 1930s through the 1960s was an immensely powerful media conglomerate, thanks to the popularity of Luce's Time, Life and Fortune magazines, which along with his "March of Time" newsreels were arguably even more influential in their time than Murdoch's present-day TV and print news outlets.

Luce was not shy about using his clout to attempt to sway events. He tirelessly touted a variety of Republican presidential candidates, from Wendell Willkie and Thomas Dewey to Dwight Eisenhower, though only Eisenhower was a winning choice. One of Luce's Fortune writers left the magazine to become a Willkie campaign manager, where he was deluged by memos and phone calls full of campaign advice from Luce, who even wrote some speeches for Willkie. When Eisenhower launched his presidential bid, Time and Life ran effusive cover stories, while two of Luce's top writers took leaves to become Eisenhower speech writers.

In fact, you could argue that Luce had his own in-house Glenn Beck in the form of Whittaker Chambers, an oddball, often agitated book reviewer who became an influential and controversial editor of Time's foreign news section. With Luce's blessing, Chambers used the magazine as a platform to loudly denounce the Soviet Union and various communist sympathizers, culminating in Chambers' role in one of the biggest paroxysms of the Cold War, the revelation that Alger Hiss was a communist spy.

There's oh-so-much more in Brinkley's book, which also makes the intriguing case that Life magazine was in many ways like a mid-20th century Hollywood film studio, relentlessly producing the same kind of sanitized, optimistic and middle-class oriented stories that people would see in MGM, Disney and Paramount studio pictures of the time.

But for me, the most reassuring element of the Luce saga is that for all his media might, Luce found that it was often difficult to truly influence center-stage political events. Luce spent years attacking Franklin Roosevelt, whom he truly despised, but all for naught. Voters elected FDR over and over, no matter what Luce had to say about him. In fact, Luce was often known to fume that his editors routinely ignored his most outlandish political enthusiasms (something that I suspect happens less at Fox News with Roger Ailes in charge). "The Publisher" not only offers a wonderful feel for what it was like to be an old-school media tycoon (tycoon being one of the many words Time invented) but it's made it so much easier to watch Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, knowing that their considerable ratings success doesn't necessarily translate into lasting political influence.

Photo: Henry Luce in 1948, posing in front of covers of his Life and Fortune magazines. Credit: Associated Press/Time magazine

 

Were moviegoers bamboozled into seeing George Clooney in 'The American'?

If you haven't heard already, the George Clooney film "The American" has the dubious distinction of being the No. 1 movie at the box office this weekend despite having received an abysmal grade of D minus from CinemaScore, which tracks the reaction of rank-and-file moviegoers to the latest films. Even worse, as my colleague Ben Fritz noted in his box-office report, the film's target audience -- adults older than 25, who made up 88% of the audience, gave it an F.

I can't say I was surprised by the moviegoer reaction, since the agonizingly slow-moving film was made by Anton Corbijn, the Dutch filmmaker who was best known for directing such upbeat fare as Metallica videos and "Control," a dark portrait of Joy Division's lead singer Ian Curtis, who committed suicide at age 23. Of course, the average moviegoer didn't do an IMDB search before heading off to see "The American." They were propelled into theaters by Clooney's cool-guy image and the film's slick TV spots, which sold the picture as a taut, "Michael Clayton"-style thriller.

Of course, there's more action in the film's trailer than in virtually the entire movie. But when you're a Hollywood marketer, if you have a lemon, you make lemonade. Focus Features could have taken a more conventional approach, debuting the picture at a film festival and giving it a platform release, hoping that Clooney's star power and a few good reviews (after all, the film did get a decent 61 score from Rotten Tomatoes) might scare up some business.

But Focus must have realized from its early screenings that "The American" had little crowd-pleasing appeal. It was an art-house movie all the way. So they cooked up a batch of TV spots that made the film look like a snazzy thriller, played them incessantly on programs with older-guy appeal (like baseball games, which is where I witnessed the advertising bombardment) and gave the film a wide release, figuring they'd get as many moviegoers as possible before word spread that, in terms of Clooney films, this one had a lot more in common with "The Good German" than "Ocean's Eleven." 

Does that make Focus bad guys? Not really. They did what they had to do to get the biggest possible audience for a not especially commercial film. If anyone gets hurt, it will be Clooney, who now has another movie under his belt (joining "The Good German," "Leatherheads" and "The Men Who Stare at Goats") that severely underwhelmed his audience. They would prefer to see him be a modern-day Cary Grant, not an older version of Ryan Gosling. I don't think that makes Clooney a bad guy either. He's an actor who likes to take risks. And plenty of them have paid off, including "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Syriana" and "Up in the Air." After all, moviegoers may have thought "The American" was a total snooze, but nothing could be a bigger snooze than playing Danny Ocean your entire life.

Photo: George Clooney in the new film "The American." Credit: Giles Keyte / Focus Features/Associated Press.

The Big Vacation: Or how can you miss me when I won't go away?

This is the time of year when nearly everyone in the entertainment biz closes up shop and heads off on vacation. So it seemed like a prudent time to do the same thing myself. I'm already up in the mountains just outside of Aspen, Colo., where they have everything: hiking, whitewater rafting, skeet shooting, tennis, golf, lots of great music and, of course, a film festival. I mean, is there any town that's too small to have a film festival these days?

So when we're not doing all of that great outdoors stuff (and watching some Little League World Series games) I figured I could catch up on a little moviegoing. Aspen has something called Mountain Summit, which celebrates top documentaries, unusual outdoor adventures and thought-provoking social activism. So while I'm gone, don't think I'm going to be loafing. No way, not with even more movies to see up here at 8,000 feet.

I'm just not going to do very much writing for ye olde blog for a while, so why don't you say that we plan to meet up after Labor Day. When I return, I'll have a sneak peek of Werner Herzog's new 3-D documentary, some early buzz about the Toronto Film Festival and some intriguing media gossip. And for all you unhappy Jennifer Aniston fans-- I promise that I won't write another word about your favorite actress, at least not until she makes another bad movie. So stay out of trouble until I get back. 

Is Hollywood settling into a prolonged recession of its own?

No one needs any introduction to America's prolonged recession, which has put millions of people out of work and set the country on edge, creating an unprecedented level of angst, anger and political unrest. But even though this year's box office grosses are up a little over a year ago -- due mainly to higher ticket prices and 3-D --  Hollywood remains in the grip of a serious recession of its own.

Being Hollywood, it's a different kind of recession, since to the outside world, things seem to be humming along smoothly, with scrums of new films invading the multiplexes each weekend, stars touting their latest wares on TV everywhere and Oscar campaigning already beginning to gear up nearly six months before the awards unfold. But ask anyone inside the business, from agents and managers to writers and producers, and they'll give you an earful of unhappy news. "The Expendables" may have given Sly Stallone and his aging posse of action stars a new lease on life, but jobs are just as scarce in show business as everywhere else.

To hear people talk, this summer the industry may have hit the bottom of the market. That is, unless things get even worse. First off, there are fewer buyers than ever before. Most of the specialty divisions have been shuttered, New Line has been absorbed into Warners, MGM is in suspended animation and of the six remaining major studios, at least two -- Universal and Sony -- have spent all of their development money for the year, putting a big crimp in the marketplace. (The studios in question say they are still developing projects if the right one comes along, but according to every agent and manager I spoke to, the packages are awfully few and far between.)

Disney, whose new management seems determined to turn it into Procter & Gamble, is making fewer movies than ever before.  The studio has zero interest in the kind of edgy or compelling material than would attract the David Finchers or Brad Pitts of the world. In fact, the studio recently told agencies that it had three types of "buckets" (Disney-ese for movie genres) that it wanted to focus on: tentpoles, comedies with heart and inspirational movies. How exactly that differs from the kind of movies that Disney has been making from time immemorial is beyond me, but it certainly speaks to how narrow the studio's aspirations are these days.

Warners and 20th Century Fox continue to make a lot of movies, as does Paramount, although Paramount seems more interested in distributing films than financing them, leading many insiders to believe that the studio is angling to make a deal to distribute MGM product when and if the studio comes back to life. But there is far less big Wall Street money coming into the business to bolster the studio's film slates, which has translated into far fewer movies being made this year than in years past. The result? Far fewer people are working than ever and the ones who are getting jobs are making considerably less than they were in the past.

Wherever you look, there is consolidation and financial stress as people have been forced to adjust to a Darwinian thinning of the herd. "You'd have to say that this summer we probably hit bottom, certainly creatively, with so many studios relying on so much pre-sold branded product," said one top agent. "It's really hard, because so much money has left the business, there are fewer distributors than ever before and many of the ones that are left have cash problems, so it's just agonizingly difficult to get a movie up and running right now."

Even worse, the kind of movie a studio will finance right now has narrowed considerably. Studios will spend fortunes on their big tentpole or franchise movies, because those are the movies that move the needle, both in terms of making the best use of studio marketing dollars and attracting audiences around the globe, which is where the biggest profits are these days. When it comes to the kind of films that talent want to make -- ones with slightly loftier aspirations -- the studios will only play ball on their terms and on their schedule, forcing everyone involved to work for what in Hollywood passes for peanuts.  

On the other hand, Hollywood is full of salesman and hustlers, who are, by nature,  born optimists. So it isn't hard to find a few people who offer some glimmers of hope. After all, Spyglass is coming in to run MGM, so it seems likely that it will have to put money into the marketplace to rebuild the ruined old lion of a studio. DreamWorks is finally starting to make movies again. Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity is looking more and more like a full-scale studio operation. And maybe when Comcast starts to clean house, Universal's woes will be over.

You could actually make the case that it's an especially good time to invest in the movie business. With studio releases down perhaps as much as 25%, films can play longer with less competition for the moviegoing dollar. (And with fewer studios to advertise, ad rates could dip as well.) Physical distribution costs are going down as well, thanks to the arrival of digital distribution. And best of all, at least to an investor, talent costs are way down, with only a precious few stars getting first-dollar gross, so a new investor could get to profit faster than ever, even if they are making a star vehicle.

But for now, the legions of outside investors who used to show up in Hollywood, magnetized by the glamor of the business, have slowed to a trickle. The big spenders have been scared away by all of the financial carnage that has shuttered the smaller distributors and sent investors fleeing. So it's easy to find a lot more bears than bulls in the Hollywood marketplace. For the people who make showbiz hum, from the carpenters and the craftsfolk to the screenwriters and the stars, times are tough. Turns out the movie industry isn't a recession-proof business after all.  

Photo: Sylvester Stallone and Terry Crews from "The Expendables" ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Credit: Seth Wenig / Associated Press

 

Jennifer Aniston: Exactly why is she a movie star?

Let's face it. When it comes to enduring mysteries, it's hard to come up with something more mystifying than how Jennifer Aniston became a movie star. After all, she's made an almost-unbroken string of forgettable movies that have rarely made a lot of money, a streak that looks like it will remain intact with the release of "The Switch" this weekend. So how did it happen? As it turns out, my favorite sports columnist, ESPN's Bill Simmons, has a provocative--and hugely entertaining--theory about how Aniston has managed to remain an A-list star, despite appearing in such hapless sludge as "Derailed," "Rumor Has It," "Management," "Love Happens,"  "He's Just Not That Into You" and "The Bounty Hunter." 

Aniston's biggest hit was "Marley & Me," though it's something of a stretch to say that she was the driving force for the film's box-office triumph. Or as Simmons puts it: "They could have made this movie with Betty White playing Owen Wilson's wife and it still would have made $100 million." So why hasn't Aniston faded into obscurity, ya know, like Matt LeBlanc and some of the other "Friends" lesser lights? Here's a condensed version of Simmons' theory:

"Because of the Angelina/Brad/Jennifer love triangle, which is like Brett Favre's comeback/retirement/comeback routine multiplied by 10, but has been cruising along for twice as long. The saga evolved in various forms: the betrayal itself; the aftermath, when Aniston licked her wounds as "Brangelina" took off; her futile search for a bounce-back boyfriend; the Brangelina clan expanding; everyone feeling worse and worse for Aniston, with her finally admitting that she was still bummed out; the Brangelina clan expanding again; Aniston's weird dalliance with the much younger John Mayer, which ended when he talked out of school about her; the Brangelina clan expanding again; Aniston approaching her 40th birthday and wanting a baby; the Brangelina clan producing twins; Aniston hitting 40 with no baby or husband; Aniston passing 40 with no baby or husband. People can't get enough of this stuff. Aniston resonates with women like no other celebrity. No matter how wealthy or famous or good-looking she is, the nuts and bolts of Aniston's "tragic" story could have happened to anyone: She lost her scummy husband to a seductive co-worker. Maybe it was the worst thing that ever happened to her personally, but professionally? Godsend."

Being The Sports Guy, Simmons compares Aniston to an aging athlete (think Karl Malone or Steve Nash) who, having never won a championship ring, is desperate to finally get into the winner's circle. In fact, he theorizes that if Aniston had remarried in 2006 to a rich Rande Gerber type and had a couple of kids,  by 2010, "would anyone care about Jennifer Aniston? NO!!!!!!" Only if she made good movies, something that has so far largely eluded her. Simmons suspects that Aniston doesn't much want to make great movies, saying "she's happy being a likable celebrity with decent comic timing who plays herself in every movie (with only her hairstyle and co-star changing)."

I suspect this strain of career success/personal unhappiness runs deep in the Hollywood DNA. After all, there are loads of old-school showbiz starlets, dating back to the days of Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth, who had all sorts of similar man trouble, the only difference being that in those days, you married all the louses and had to endure a quickie Mexican divorce before you could regain your freedom. Who knows? Maybe Aniston will find Mr. Right tomorrow and enjoy a burst of later-in-life happiness. If having a successful marriage freed her from the shackles of being on the cover of US every other month, I bet marital bliss couldn't come a minute too soon.   

Photo: Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman in "The Switch." Credit: Miramax Films

 

Mel Gibson: The Twitter comedy gift that keeps on giving

I know that millions of fans relish following Justin Bieber on Twitter, hearing all about his bromance with Kanye West, but for me, the real Twitter art form is comedy. With only 140 characters to work with, your jokes have to be sharp, short and salty. It's like writing comic haikus. For a gag writer, it's like crafting jokes for David Letterman, except for the fact that the material has to be tight as a drum--and of course the gig doesn't pay as well.

I don't know who the comic geniuses are behind Real_Mel Gibson, but when it comes to Twitter humor, it's the form at its best. First you have a wonderful subject: the bigger-than-life Hollywood star who has self-destructed before our very eyes, thanks to the tapes of his chest-heaving rants and threats against his ex-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva. But when it comes to humor, Twitter is the Web's own version of a sitcom, allowing us to follow a character as it takes on new and different comic dimensions. The humor is all in hearing what Mel Gibson would've said or thought about a particular topic, but in his own voice, or at least the voice that we imagine hearing from a sadly self-destructive star in eclipse. And yet it's simple: All you need to know about Gibson is that he's had problems with booze, women and his self image--and all the jokes make perfect sense.

One tweet, for example, simply said, "Do we really have to call it that?" It was followed by a link to an IMDB post about Edward Furlong's estranged wife obtaining a temporary restraining order against the actor for leaving threatening voice messages on her phone. The article's headline: "Terminator Star Restrained for Pulling a Mel Gibson." Another recent tweet provided a link to the Twitter topic: "#wordsthatleadtotrouble," adding what Mel would've surely thought were the words that applied to him: "Honey, do I hear a tape recorder in the background?"

Here's a few recent Real_MelGibson tweets that best capture its barbed comic sensibility. All you have to do is imagine hearing Gibson saying them:

-- I regret saying the Jews are responsible for all history's wars, OK? But they ARE responsible for Vampires Suck. And that's worse.

-- Whoever said "Money can't buy everything" didn't have enough of it to accurately make that statement. Trust me. I own a Kangaroo.

-- They say you learn something new everyday. Today I learned that you CAN overdose on Flintstones Vitamins...It takes 6 bottles.

-- You know why we can never have a woman President? Well, let's just say, it wasn't men that made Eat, Pray, Love #2 at the Box Office.

-- Either I just took too many mushrooms or Gollum from Lord of the Rings is actually sitting on my couch watching reruns of the sitcom Coach.

-- Just got some blood drawn. Doc said he'd never seen such a high alcohol to blood concentration. I was like, You should see me on a weekend.  

Photo: Mel Gibson at an Oscar nominees' function at the Getty House last March in Los Angeles. Credit: Angela Weiss / Getty Images

The Summer Movie Posse: How did their predictions pan out?

At this time of year, people always ask me--so how did your teenagers' movie picks turn out? If you're new to this blog, at the beginning of each summer I recruit a bunch of kids who see a lot of movies, show them the trailers for a dozen or so upcoming films and let them grade the movies based on whether the trailers made them want to see them or not.

It's a highly unscientific procedure, but the kids--whom I call the Summer Movie Posse--are always filled with strong opinions, interesting likes and dislikes (one Posse was very clear about liking Morgan Freeman way more than Megan Fox) and contrarian ideas (another Posse was so ticked off about hearing Green Day music in practically every summer movie trailer that they pronounced the band total sellouts).

So how did the picks pan out from this year's Posse, which was made up of a group of smart teenagers from Orange County? If you go just by box-office results, you could argue that the kids aren't exactly swamis. Their two favorite films this year, "Inception" and "Iron Man 2," were both huge hits, but they also really liked "Get Him to the Greek" and "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," two comedies that haven't exactly set the world on fire. They get credit for loathing "Knight and Day," which tanked at the box office, but they also hated "Twilight Saga: Eclipse," which has made a zillion dollars around the world.

So maybe their prognostication abilities aren't so much better than the average Internet box-office geek. But I've discovered something more surprising. The Posse's picks are actually a very reliable barometer, not so much of how much dough movies will make, as--gasp!--what their reviews will be like.

The Posse graded 14 movies this year. Five of them had Rotten Tomatoes reviews of 70 or higher. The Posse had four of those five films in their Top 5. The only film that got remotely good reviews that finished near the bottom of the Posse's picks was "The Karate Kid," which they slagged off for the main reason they slag off most movies--because it looked like a movie that their little brothers or sisters would like. The two films that the Posse gave high grades to that haven't done well commercially--"Get Him to the Greek" and "Scott Pilgrim"--were both films that got good Rotten Tomatoes scores from critics.

Still, this is something of a head scratcher. How is it possible that a bunch of 16-year-olds from Orange County have essentially the same sensibility as a bunch of middle-aged movie critics? If you have a theory, I'd like to hear it. But my guess is that even though they are kids, they share a common bond with their critical elders--they are people who love movies. (It's why my survey is unscientific, since I obviously want kids who see a lot of movies as my test subjects.) So people who love movies turn out to have a lot in common when it comes to judging their strengths and weaknesses.

The Posse may bond in a far more generational way with someone like Michael Cera than I would, but they know hapless dreck when they see it, so there was just as much eye-rolling when they watched the trailer for "The A-Team" as there would've been if we'd had a scrum of highbrow critics in the room. It's nice to know that whether you're 16 or 60, if you really have a jones for movies, cool is still cool and schlock is still schlock.

RECENT AND RELATED: THIS YEAR'S POSSE GRADES THE SUMMER FLICKS

Photo: Michael Cera at the London premiere of "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." Credit: Suzanne Plunkett / Reuters

 

Liz Taylor and Richard Burton fought over everything: Even who was more Jewish!

Having seen all the sultry, sabra-like photos of her as a young actress, I always assumed that Elizabeth Taylor was just another Jewish star who'd changed her name so she could more easily cross over into Middle America, sort of like John Garfield, whose real name was Jacob Garfinkle. But as noted in this fun post from the Jewish Journal's Danielle Berrin, Taylor was raised a Christian Scientist, only converting to Judaism at age 27.

Judging from my own family's firm embrace of all the women who've married into our clan and adopted the religion, Jews sometimes value converts more than the original article, which might explain all the excitement over Chelsea Clinton marrying into the faith, not to mention the undying media fascination over the news that Madonna had been regularly studying with a Kabbalah Centre rabbi. According to "Furious Love," the new book about Taylor and Richard Burton's stormy marriage, the famous couple even quarreled over who was more Jewish, a neat trick since Burton was Welsh, not exactly a place where you can find a temple on every block.

According to a passage that Berrin quotes from from the book: "Burton had referred to the Welsh as 'the Jews of Britain', a comment on their self-identity as the outsiders of the United Kingdom. 'You’re not Jewish at all,' he told Elizabeth in one of their very public fights, 'If there’s any Jew in this family, it’s me!' 'I am Jewish,' she answered, 'and you can [buzz] off!' " 

Showbiz folk have always assumed that Taylor's conversion to Judaism was motivated by her marriage to showman Mike Todd, the grandson of a Polish rabbi who'd also changed his name, from Avrom Goldbogen. But in a book she wrote, Taylor insisted her conversion -- in 1959 -- had nothing to do with either her past marriage to Todd or her upcoming marriage to Eddie Fisher, who was also Jewish. She said: "It was something I had wanted to do for a long time." The conversion was such a big deal that even Time magazine ran a story on the event, with detailed play-by-play of the conversion ritual at Temple Israel in Hollywood.Time reported that Taylor prepared for the conversion by faithfully reading a curriculum of Jewish texts, including such weighty fare as "A History of the Jews" by Abram Leon Sachar.

I come from a family of Southern Jews, who are Jews in sort of the same way that Richard Burton was -- as cultural outsiders. But Taylor has been so feisty over the years, and generous with her friendships, that I have to put her in the Jewish Hall of Fame, right up there with the deity that all Jewish men worship, whether they are religious or not: Sandy Koufax.

Photo: Elizabeth Taylor watching her fiance, Eddie Fisher, on stage at the Tropicana in Las Vegas in 1959. Credit: John Bryson / Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images

 

Will Google TV do to Hollywood what Napster did to the music biz?

My colleagues Dawn Chmielewski and Jessica Guynn have a fascinating Page 1 story in our paper today about the upcoming arrival of Google TV, which would allow viewers to watch movies and TV shows "unshackled" from the networks and cable channels that currently send them to our homes. It's the unshackled part that has Hollywood in a tizzy. As my colleagues dryly put it: "Entertainment industry executives fear Google TV will encourage consumers to ditch their $70 monthly cable and satellite subscriptions in favor of watching video free via the Internet."

In other words, Google TV could do to Hollywood what Napster did to the music business by upending the industry's entire carefully calibrated business model. If you can watch nearly everything you want to watch without dealing with a middleman, it could be a liberating experience for consumers but a disaster for the old media giants who've been raking in giant profits from their programming. Guynn wrote a separate piece for our business section that actually shows a young San Francisco couple, sitting in their living room, watching everything from AMC's "Mad Men" to Facebook updates and Flickr photos, all on the same TV screen. As it turns out, one member of the couple is running the marketing campaign for Google TV, so they're simply testing out the new venture.

But in Hollywood, everyone is wigged out about the dire possibilities of Google essentially inserting itself between the studios and their customers, since it remains unclear just how Google plans to compensate studios for their content or manage the advertising revenues from the shows it airs. In fact, the story makes it clear that Google's much-touted video search capacity isn't all that accurate, especially when it comes to identifying what networks envision as the most obvious place to find a show--their own websites. When Google had demonstrations with network execs, its TV confused one network's show for a rival's program and, even worse, "it listed the several ways a popular prime-time show could be watched online and on TV--except on the network's own website."

Ouch!

As I wrote in a post the other day, whenever new technology emerges that allows consumers more choices, it is inevitably a destructive experience for the companies making money off the old model, since they are the ones who find it most difficult to embrace and take advantage of the sweeping changes. Nearly all of the wealth that has been generated by new media technology in recent years has gone to entrepreneurial companies from outside of the old business--Apple, EBay, Amazon, Netflix and Google, even before its ambitious attempt to move into TV.  I suspect the networks will fight tooth and nail to stop Google from invading their lucrative territory, but when it's an old media company battling a new media company, the winner comes from the new media camp nearly every time.

RECENT AND RELATED: CAN HOLLYWOOD HANG ON TO ITS AGING BUSINESS MODEL?

Photo: Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. Credit: Laurent Gillieron / European Pressphoto Agency

Sly Stallone's 'The Expendables': Why has the movie split the conservative movement?

I guess if conservatives can't agree on really important things in life, like whether Israel should bomb Iran or not, then it should come as no surprise that they can't agree on whether "The Expendables" is a good movie, much less whether it's actually devoutly patriotic or anti-American. Film critics, for example, have pretty much all decided that the Sly Stallone over-the-hill gang action picture was a lousy movie with a great marketing campaign. But in the conservative blogosphere, a heated debate has arisen over the film's relative merits. As a liberal, I think this is a good thing, since liberals can never agree on anything, so it's reassuring to see our conservative brethren in a similar situation. 

New York Post blogger-critic Kyle Smith, who is unusually pragmatic about most ideological matters, is in the lousy movie camp, writing that while "The Expendables" is clearly a hit, "let’s not fool ourselves into thinking it’s a good movie, shall we? I wanted it to be good too. I have no problem with manly derring-do.  And no, it’s not 'so bad it’s good.' It’s just bad."

But Big Hollywood's John Nolte, who sees pretty much everything in strictly black and white terms, seems to think "The Expendables" might be the most stirring, patriotic film to come out of Hollywood since John Wayne's "The Green Berets." Nolte went to great lengths to bash my colleague Steven Zeitchik, whom he called a "cultural enforcer" for gently making fun of the film's old-school take-no-prisoners patriotism. For Nolte, the film "is a much more impressive achievement than the likes of the flood of 'Syrianas' that have bombing one after another at the box office over the past few years."

But over at Libertas Film Magazine, my pal Jason Apuzzo has a completely different point of view, finding "The Expendables" entirely wanting, especially when compared with Angelina Jolie's "Salt." As he put it, "The Expendables" features "a nasty, anti-CIA plotline featuring Eric Roberts as an ex-CIA drugrunner who waterboards women; Jolie's film paints a much more flattering picture of the CIA and our intelligence services in general, besides being completely pro-American." 

I guess the tie-breaker here would be knowing what Bill O'Reilly thought of the film, but so far I can't find any evidence of him weighing in on the subject. Until Papa Bear makes his views known, let's just say that it's reassuring to know that when it comes to Sly Stallone movies, conservatives are displaying a healthy diversity of opinion,

Photo: Sylvester Stallone at a screening of "The Expendables" last week in Las Vegas. Credit: Ethan Miller / Getty Images

 

Obama to Hollywood: Could you just put that $1 million in the mail next time?

If you live in Los Angeles, like I do, you already know that things went to hell in a handbasket Monday night thanks to President Obama, whose arrival in town for a fundraiser at "West Wing" producer John Wells' Hancock Park house caused utter chaos, snarling traffic all across the city's Westside. It was ugly. It was also one of those events that may represent a tipping point when it comes to people's attitudes about an out-of-touch politician and his wealthy supporters. I know the president raised $1 million from a host of Hollywood bigwigs, including Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, J.J. Abrams and Jeffrey Katzenberg. But how many millions' worth of goodwill did the president lose by ruining everyone else's evening and making it seem, once again, that he has little understanding of the problems of regular folks.

My wife and I were driving to our monthly book club meeting at a friend's home south of Pico near Robertson when we quickly became trapped in hideous traffic. Wherever we turned, no matter what shortcut we took, we were stymied. Finally, after an hour, we headed in the opposite direction and took what is normally the least desirable option -- the 405, which was the one artery that wasn't being blocked off by LAPD officers. My pal, TV publicist Amy Grey, who was on her way to the book club from the Valley, made it as far as Doheny, just south of Olympic, when traffic ground to a halt. When nothing moved for 20 minutes or so, she ditched her car and tried to walk the last mile to our friend's house. It was 7:10 pm when she made it to the corner of Olympic and Doheny, where she -- and everyone else on foot -- was stopped by a phalanx of policemen.

"They told us to wait till the motorcade came through," she explained this morning. "There were all sorts of angry people there, including kids in baby carriages, screaming, trying to get home. But they wouldn't let anyone cross till the motorcade came through. I stood there, in heels, until 8:20 p.m. when the motorcade with all the SUVs and ambulances roared by -- and still they wouldn't let us cross the street. When I complained to a cop, he said that the Secret Service asked the LAPD to keep the road closed till 9:30 p.m., which seemed crazy since Obama was already at John Wells' house."

When we were stuck in traffic, people would randomly lean out their car windows to shout out insults about Obama. I asked Grey what the people trapped at her intersection thought. "I'll tell you this -- nobody was waving at the president when the motorcade went by. We were all too [ticked] off. It certainly didn't make you feel warm and fuzzy toward your government."

So is there a lesson here? What I found most striking about the president's PR disaster was that his wealthy Hollywood supporters seem to be just as out of touch with reality as the president's own staff. Even though there were dozens upon dozens of showbiz insiders involved in helping plan the fundraiser, apparently not one of them had the brains or foresight to remind their Washington counterparts that having a presidential visit to the heart of Los Angeles would wreak havoc with regular folks' lives, you know, the regular folks who are either out of jobs or worried about their jobs and least likely to cut the president any slack for ruining their Monday night so he could schmooze with some Hollywood divas.

I suspect that the people who live in New Jersey or Nebraska who might be reading this are probably rolling their eyes and mocking us Angelenos for being such wimps about one bad night of mind-blowing traffic congestion. People are dying in Afghanistan and teachers are losing their jobs all across the country and we lose our cool over a few hours of astronomical gridlock? Fair enough. But I wish that one of Obama's Hollywood pals would remind him that it's the little things -- like a $200 haircut or a dumb joke told when no one knows a microphone's still on -- that can tarnish a politician's luster a lot faster than his position on offshore drilling or military aid to Pakistan.

If Obama is worried enough about his image to prevent photographers from snapping pictures of him swimming in the Gulf with his daughter, for fear that magazines will run another picture of him shirtless, then he surely ought to be worried enough about his image as a man of the people to figure out a way to visit a busy city without disrupting half of the population's lives. Some people are asking for an apology. Others are saying the damage is done. When I talked to crack Hollywood publicist Howard Bragman, he suggested that the president take responsibility, but in a lighthearted way, giving a self-deprecating answer to a planted question in the White House press room.

But I think the president must do more penance. When Obama returns to L.A., he should hop on a bus downtown and ride it all the way to the ocean. It would be a great way to meet some regular folks, not to mention putting in a helpful plug for public transportation. And, oh yes, he should invite Streisand, Spielberg and some of their limousine liberal Hollywood pals to join him on the ride, so they could get a taste of what real life's like in Los Angeles. Maybe taking a nice bus ride across the city would help them understand why so many people take umbrage when we have to twiddle our thumbs while the prez gets a free ride everywhere he goes.   

Photo: Barack Obama at a meeting of small-business owners in New Jersey last month. Credit: Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images

Can Hollywood keep hanging on to its aging business model?

Everywhere you look in the entertainment world these days, you see more and more people crossing the digital divide, using a staggering array of new devices to read books, watch TV shows, listen to music and,  yes, even read the newspaper. Amazon recently announced that it now sells more e-books than it does hardcover editions. No one seems to watch regular TV shows when they actually air, either saving them on TiVo, as I do, or watching them on Hulu, as my son does.

When Arcade Fire's new album, "The Suburbs," debuted last week at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, 62% of the album's sales were as digital downloads, more than twice as many as the band's last album had in its first week of release in 2007. The same thing is happening with newspaper readers, as Web traffic keeps increasing as print circulation continues to drop. 

The one business that seems largely immune to all this dramatic change is the movie business. In Hollywood, the maxim seems to be: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Even though DVD revenues are in decline, movie theater revenue is up again this year (though actual attendance is down slightly) as people continue to flock to see films the way the industry wants them to--in theaters with big screens and popcorn at the concession stand. While nearly everything is different about the way we now consume much of our music, TV and news, the moviegoing experience is largely unchanged from the way our grandparents saw films 75 years ago,

Of course, you can watch movies on your computer or iPad. But if you want to do it legally, you have to wait until the studios and theater owners say you can see them, which in most cases means four to six months after the films' theatrical release. So why is it, that when entertainment consumption has changed so radically in other areas, that it has largely stayed the same in Hollywood? Is this a good thing? Or is it a disaster waiting to happen, as it was for the music business, which clung to its old model until it was too late?

As it turns out, Hollywood has something special going for it: Moviegoing is an irresistible social experience. People love communal events, where they can experience something together, bound together by a similar passion or commitment. It's why the key forms of entertainment that still reliably make lots of money are all examples of social experiences--live concerts, sporting events and moviegoing.

In fact, the strategy studios use to lure millions of moviegoers to theaters is strikingly similar to the strategy baseball team owners have used in recent years to stimulate attendance at their ballparks. It's what you might call creating scarcity to drive demand. When Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore was a young studio executive at Disney in the 1990s, he witnessed this principle being practiced by Disney, which was then the owner of the California Angels. At the time, Angels Stadium seated 65,000, since it was also the home of a football team, the Los Angeles Rams.

But once the Rams left town and the stadium was only needed for baseball, Disney adopted a new kind of math for driving ticket sales  "Disney realized that if they had 65,000 seats, they actually sold less season tickets, because people figured that there would always be tickets available if they wanted them," Moore recalls. "So Disney reconfigured the stadium, taking out 20,000 seats and making it smaller. And guess what? It increased demand, because it created more of a sense of urgency. People went, 'Uh-oh, if I don't buy tickets right away, they might not be there.' "

A similar scarcity logic applies to the movie business. "If a movie were always available, outside of the few must-see films like 'Inception' or 'Transformers,' you'd have an awful lot of people going, 'Oh well, if I don't see it this weekend, I can always see it some other time,' " says Moore. "You need a window of time where it's not available to get people out of the house to see it. People are more motivated if they know after a month or so the opportunity to see something will disappear."

Baseball does its best job of selling season tickets at the beginning of the season, when fans are most optimistic--or deluded, as the case may be--about their team's chances of being winners. The same logic applies to movie marketing, since films are never more enticing than right before opening day, before the reviews come in and the bad buzz hits Twitter. Having spent $40 million or $50 million to inflate the film's image, it's in the studio marketers interest to get people to consume the product as quickly as possible.

But what will happen when the studio's scarcity model inevitably undergoes a seismic change?

Is 'Scott Pilgrim's' Michael Cera still a long way from being a movie star?

Michael Cera's new movie is called "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," but it was really "Scott Pilgrim" vs. two much more worldly films at the box office this weekend. And "Scott Pilgrim" got pummeled, barely doing $10.5 million, which is a pretty woeful opening, especially considering that the movie cost an astronomical $85 million to make. (My colleague, Ben Fritz, has more box-office details here.) It's even more frustrating for Universal, since the studio delivered a movie that did well with both critics -- who gave it an 80% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes -- and with audiences, who gave it an A-minus at CinemaScore, which measures the reactions of rank-and-file moviegoers on opening night.

So the people who saw it liked it. But with "Eat Pray Love" drawing lots of women and "The Expendables" getting nearly all the guys, young and old, not nearly enough people saw "Scott Pilgrim." What does this tell us? In essence, it means that neither the movie's quirky, video game-based humor nor its star, Michael Cera, was able to help propel the film beyond its hard-core teen fan base. My 12-year-old son went to see it with a bunch of his friends, who came back unimpressed. "It was OK," one of them said. "The jokes were only good if you play a lot of video games." (Their older brothers, who apparently play a lot more video games, liked it better.)

The movie's wan box-office reception is bad news for Universal, who will probably end up with another money-loser on its books. But it's also bad news for Cera, who is now starting to look more like a young Andy Samberg (the one-time "Saturday Night Live" star who hasn't cut it as a movie comic) than a young Adam Sandler. After emerging as a critic's darling in supporting roles in "Juno" and "Superbad," Cera has now starred in four straight films that haven't connected with bigger audiences: "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist," "Year One," "Youth in Revolt" and "Scott Pilgrim."

Give Cera credit. It's not like he's Adrien Brody. He hasn't made really dreadful choices. In fact, they've all been interesting movies (OK, maybe it would be a stretch to call "Year One" interesting). But that makes it even worse, since if you're looking around to cast blame, and the movies aren't so bad, you have to point the finger at the star, who's supposed to be the drawing card that pulls fans into the theaters. As of now, Cera looks like a really gifted supporting actor who needs to stand at the side of a more conventional star so he can build up a solid body of work instead of having all of the opening-weekend weight on his shoulders.

Cera is only 22, so I'm certainly not going to start writing his career obituary. He's like a young baseball phenom who tears up the minor leagues only to bat .185 when he reaches the majors (in fact, sorta like the Angels' Brandon Wood, who has been riding the pines lately, mired in a horrible slump). Like a good young hitter who's lost his mojo, Cera needs to make some adjustments -- like working with a different kind of director or looking for a different style of material. But the reception for "Scott Pilgrim" is a definite sign that it's time to try something new.  

Photo: Michael Cera in a scene from the new film "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." Credit: Universal Pictures /Associated Press

What does this say about U.S. manhood: Male critics actually like 'Eat Pray Love'

Maybe I was exaggerating a little just to make a point, but based on my informal survey of my male friends, I thought it was absolutely within the bounds of probability to write a post earlier this week saying "Who Will Be the First Guy in America to Admit He Likes 'Eat Pray Love;?" As it turns out, if film critics are any judge of this, men like a good self-discovery travelogue almost as much as women.

While critics in general are giving "Eat Pray Love" a thumbs down--it currently has a 38 Fresh Rating at Rotten Tomatoes--the male vs, female breakdown with critics isn't as extreme as you'd think. It's important to remember that there are far more male critics than female ones, but here's a snapshot of how 110 film critics (including Willie Waffle, who has my favorite critic moniker of all time) cast their votes:

Men who liked the movie: 27.

Men who hated the movie: 44.

Women who liked the movie: 15

Women who hated the movie: 24.

In short, once you factor in that the guys outnumber the women in the critical trade, the women who liked the movie (including my colleague, Betsy Sharkey, who gave it a favorable review) only made up a slightly higher percentage than the men who liked the movie. What does this mean? You be the judge? Maybe Julia Roberts gave the film credibility with a sizable percentage of men? Maybe guys like chick flicks more than they let on? Or maybe male movie critics are simply more sensitive souls than the average U.S. male?

Who knows: Maybe men aren't from Mars after all!

RECENT AND RELATED

Who Will Be the First Guy In America to Admit He Likes 'Eat Pray Love'?

Photo: Julia Roberts at the world premiere of "Eat Pray Love" in New York. Credit: Evan Agostini / Associated Press

JetBlue's Steven Slater: What's the right pitch for his TV movie?

How do you pitch a TV movie about Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who's become a folk hero after he cussed out a rude passenger, grabbed some beer and jumped down an emergency slide at JFK on Sunday? His crazed misadventures seem to have captured the imagination of put-upon Americans everywhere. But is he really made-for-TV material? 

I went to an an expert, calling up David Permut, the peripatetic producer who is Hollywood's longtime king of pitch artists, having sold Universal on the idea of making a big-screen version of "Dragnet" simply by walking into studio chief Frank Price's office and humming the TV show's theme music. "I guess it helped that Dan Aykroyd was standing next to me," Permut modestly adds.

With a host of projects based on real-life people already in development, running the gamut from a biopic about car whiz John DeLorean to a film about civil rights activist Bayard Ruskin, Permut had clearly already given some thought to the idea of a movie about Slater, since he'd not only seen his morning-show TV appearances, but already searched out a variety of tribute songs written by Slater fans that have popped up YouTube. So what does Permut think? Could this be a go project?

"If Paddy Chayefsky were still with us, I'd be on the phone with him right now," Permut told me. "I mean, who doesn't identify with a guy who's been through what Slater went through. It's the ultimate example of the famous line from 'Network' -- 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore.' Audiences would definitely relate to this guy. We've all had jobs where we got fed up and went a little crazy. Everyone feels his pain."

Unfortunately, mad-as-hell movies have been few and far between in recent years. It's been a long time since Michael Douglas starred in "Falling Down," where he played a jobless defense worker who lashed out at all the dolts who were making his life miserable. The movie was a box-office disappointment, perhaps because audiences prefer feel-good uplift to stories about struggling against the system. "Hollywood just doesn't make those kind of movies anymore," says Permut. "Jimmy Stewart made a career out of playing those kind of characters,  but I think those films have been lost in the dust."

If Permut were going to pitch Slater's story, he'd add a meta dimension to it. "One of the most interesting angles is what happens when someone becomes an overnight celebrity, so you'd want that to be a part of the story too, to show how Slater's character is handling being a media sensation." Permut also thinks Slater's back-story has potential. "I saw his ex-wife being interviewed on the "Today" Show and she paid him every accolade possible, which certainly looked good, coming from his ex-wife. And then two channels away I saw Slater being interviewed with his boyfriend, so you know there's definitely a complicated back story to tell."

The biggest problem, Permut says, is that it's hard to sell a pitch when we don't know the whole story arc yet. He worries that the public's initial fascination with Slater could quickly melt away. If Slater has too many skeletons in his closet, he could go from folk hero to a tabloid sleazeball in a New York minute. Still, Permut finds the whole affair ripe with possibilities. "I especially like the whole beer angle," he said with a laugh. "That opens up a lot of product placement potential, which is always a good thing when you're looking to get something like this off the ground." 

In fact, I'm betting that Slater has a much better shot at getting a Bud ad than a TV movie deal. At least it's a start. If he can deliver the goods, the sky is the limit. If Sly Stallone makes a sequel to "The Expendables," I can easily see Slater being one of the gang, growling at the bad guys and hitting someone over the head with a big suitcase. As Arnold Schwarzenegger can attest, once you're in showbiz, anything can happen. 

Meanwhile, if someone actually gets a Slater TV movie off the ground, I think we have the perfect actor to play the part. Click on Keep Reading and see what you think:

Hollywood political donors are spreading the wealth in surprising ways

I love it that these days everyone gets to know which bigwigs are giving the most money to which political candidates. It's a great way to see who puts their money where their mouth is and who is, ahem, adroitly hedging their bets. The Hollywood Reporter has posted a fascinating chart that shows the top showbiz contributors in the Meg Whitman vs. Jerry Brown California governor's race -- and there are definitely some intriguing examples of money going where you'd least expect it.

It's no surprise to see that Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and David Geffen are big Brown givers, along with J.J. Abrams, Magic Johnson and Hugh Hefner. Ditto for Whitman givers, who include such GOP stalwarts as Harry Sloan, Terry Semel and Mike Ovitz.

But then it gets interesting. First off, Whitman is getting big-time money from sports owners like the Dodgers' Frank McCourt, as well as out-of-towners like the New England Patriots' Robert Kraft and the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones. Is that just because sport tycoons tend to be conservatives? Or is it because NFL owners like Jones and Kraft somehow think that Whitman might be of help in bringing an NFL franchise back to L.A., which could be a big boost for the league?

And then there are the genuine surprises, like ultra-conservative media tycoon Phil Anschutz giving $45,400 to Brown and apparently nothing to Whitman. And ultra-liberal Sony chief Michael Lynton giving $25,900 to Whitman, but apparently zip to Brown. I've heard from Sony insiders that Lynton and Whitman are old pals, but still -- that shouldn't leave Brown, a longtime supporter of entertainment industry causes, entirely out in the cold, should it?

And when it comes to double dipping, no one tops Haim Saban, who even though he has been a huge FOB (friend of Bill Clinton) and one of the most lavish supporters of Democratic Party causes, gave $25,900 to Whitman while also giving $50,800 to Brown. You'd have to assume that Saban is protecting his interests by giving generously to both sides of the battle, something you rarely see from such a devoted Democratic stalwart.

And oh yes, my favorite fast-food joint, In-N-Out Burger, gave $2,000 to Whitman. Does that mean that if she wins, there could be a Whitman double cheeseburger on the menu? As always, when it comes to showbiz political contributions, there's always some ulterior motive, even if it's not always readily apparent. 

Photo: Haim Saban, listening to Bill Clinton's closing address at the  Clinton Global Initiative summit in 2006.

Credit: Stephen Hilger / Bloomberg News

Today's showbiz puzzler: Why are so many old folks still so cool?

Showbiz is supposed to be a young person's game, even though the shelf-life for every new Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga grows shorter and shorter every year. But if you look around, you start to notice that our favorite geezers aren't giving up center stage so easily. Jack Nicholson is 73 and still totally studly, judging from how many hipsters want to hang out with him courtside at Lakers games. And, of course, Betty White, who's 88, hosted "Saturday Night Live" a while back and got the show's best ratings of the year.

I had my own personal oldster fest this week. On Tuesday, I caught an early screening of Clint Eastwood's upcoming film, "Hereafter," and though it's too early for a mini-review, let's just say that Eastwood, who turned 80 this year, is still The Man when it comes to making movies, showing off a range and depth that puts him right up there with John Huston, Robert Altman and the other great old masters from past ages. Last night, I took my 12-year-old boy, who's learning to play boogie-woogie piano, to the Hollywood Bowl to see B.B. King and Buddy Guy, a pair of blues giants who are pretty much the last major living links to the golden era of the blues.

B.B., who is 84, is finally showing his age, sitting down through his whole set and largely doing shtick with his band. But Guy, who is 74, is still as full of swagger and sex appeal as any rapper a third of his age, showing off the guitar pyrotechnics that made him an enormous influence on such guitarists as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jonny Lang. It was Clapton who once said that "Buddy Guy was to me what Elvis was to others--he's without a doubt the best guitar player alive."  

Guy was in rare form, playing his guitar with his teeth, behind his head and, in the middle of a steamy rendition of Albert King's "Drowning on Dry Land," taking it out into the crowd, strutting his stuff through the first 50 rows of the Bowl. One thing about having played gigs for 50 years is that you really soak up every great trick in the book, so what stood out about Guy was his showmanship. As my kid put it: "He's a great guitar player, but what surprised me was that he's really funny."

Whenever Guy would sing some especially R-rated lyrics, he'd smile and say, "Hey, it wasn't me who wrote that!" He is so good that he even got away with doing a montage of tunes from his favorite guitar slingers, doing note-perfect imitations of Hendrix, Clapton and others. Unlike a lot of oldsters, Guy doesn't look down at his nose at hip-hop, simply reminding his audience that if they are offended by rap trash-talking, bluesmen were doing the same thing long before Too Short and Young Jeezy came along. (Guy's daughter is the rapper Shawnna, who worked a lot with Ludacris in the early 2000s.)

Anyway, it was a kick seeing a 74-year-old dude still at the top of his game. So what makes Buddy and Jack and Clint so cool? I think they earn their street cred for doing something well for so long that we realize that their gifts come from the inside, not just from being in fashion or having a sexy body. The next time anyone in Hollywood wants Nicholson for one of those "Bucket List"-style crazy old coots comedies, they should give Buddy Guy a call. He's got great comic chops, tons of charisma and energy to burn. Seeing him effortlessly work the crowd last night was a heady reminder that age really is just a state of mind. I have to admit--people like Guy and Eastwood make growing old look awfully enticing.  

Photo: Buddy Guy performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival last month. Credit: Jean-Christophe Bott

Who will be the first guy in America to admit he likes 'Eat Pray Love'?

I may watch a lot of "SportsCenter," but that doesn't mean I don't like a wonderfully warm 'n' fuzzy women's picture, whether it's a great Lubitsch film like "The Shop Around the Corner" or one of Nora Ephron's cinematic souffles, like last year's "Julie & Julia." But there are chick flicks and then there chick flicks like Ryan Murphy's "Eat Pray Love," the sudsy Julia Roberts big-screen romance that opens on Friday opposite the testosterone-filled, throwback action picture  "The Expendables." Judging from the buzz I'm hearing, Sony might need to engage in some sort of mass hypnosis to lure any red-blooded American guy away from the Sly Stallone movie and into a theater showing "Eat Pray Love." As one female film executive I know put it: "I think I'd have better luck getting my husband to spend an afternoon at Bed, Bath and Beyond than seeing that movie."

Chick flicks (even good ones, like Richard Curtis' "Love, Actually") rarely get any traction with male film critics, especially squishy travelogues that take us around the world and back, as "Eat Pray Love" does. So I thought I'd keep track of how many male critics--if any--succumb to the film's pleasures. The early reviews don't bode well for "Love" having any serious male critic crossover potential.

At Rotten Tomatoes, "Love" has a lowly 25 Fresh Ratings so far, with six of the eight reviews currently posted giving it the old thumbs down. The one guy who gave it a good review is Steve Persall of the St. Petersburg Times, who offered the faint praise that it was, ahem, better than "Sex and the City 2." It sounds like Persall was awfully hungry when he saw the film, which might explain why he was so enthusiastic. As he writes: "At the very least it's a terrific travelogue starring someone we'd follow to the ends of the Earth. 'Eat Pray Love' is like one of those rich dishes [Julia Roberts] consumes in Italy: robustly flavored and guiltily pleasurable."

The other guys on the critic beat were less kind. Noting that the film clocks in at a "bloated" 140 minutes, Variety's Justin Chang says "director Ryan Murphy's superficial take on Elizabeth Gilbert's phenomenally successful memoir is an exotic junk-foot buffet that offers few lasting pleasures or surprises, let alone epiphanies. Sony's release should do well with a sizable and underserved audience of older femmes, though Gilbert's more discriminating readers may find themselves reaching for pillows and Pepto-Bismol by the end of this overlong voyage."

If any of my male readers see the film this weekend, please share your thoughts--and whether you needed to pop any Pepto-Bismol after the experience. I'll be watching to see if the movie passes muster with a lot more male film critics, but right now, I'm not holding my breath. 

Photo: Julia Roberts at the world premiere of "Eat Pray Love" in New York this week. Credit: Evan Agostino / Associated Press

Is Jennifer Lopez too much of a diva for 'American Idol'?

People magazine's website is reporting that Jennifer Lopez won't be a judge on "American Idol" because (gasp!) she's too much of a diva. The magazine quotes a source saying the deal to bring her on board the show fell apart when "her demands got out of hand. Fox just had enough." The network is apparently still mulling over bringing in Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, but it's looking at other potential candidates as well.

If true, this is hardly a shocker, since J Lo is notorious for having extravagant demands for her backstage comfort and luxury. News surfaced, for example, that when she did a video shoot for a charity benefit, producers had to agree to provide her with a 40-foot trailer with two doors, a "hair" sink, TV and DVD, as well as an additional dressing room painted white with white curtains, white furniture, white flowers, white candles, and, of course, a pile of white linen sheets.

Of course, if Fox goes with Tyler, the network could run up against similarly excessive needs. Rock stars have put all sorts of oddball demands into their contract riders, most famously when Van Halen insisted that promoters provide the band with a bowl of M&Ms, with the brown ones removed. Aerosmith wasn't so much better. The band's 1997 contract rider called for a pair of communal dressing rooms that could be "secluded" from each other, which would be carpeted and outfitted "in such a fashion as to conceal the industrial locker room nature of the environment."

The band also insisted on no Wonder Bread at its snack bar. Tyler had such a reputation for bad-boy behavior backstage that when the Dixie Chicks were asked why they brought in their own dressing room furniture (at their expense, it should be noted) for their concerts, Natalie Maines explained, "You don't know what Steven Tyler's done on that couch, so you want your own."

So I'm guessing Fox may be dealing with diva demands no matter who it ends up hiring as an "American Idol" judge. Personally, I'd love it if they brought in Betty White, but who knows what she might demand--a bevy of scantily clad young men to bring her Snickers bars?  

Photo: Jennifer Lopez doing publicity for her latest film, "The Back-up Plan," in Spain earlier this year. Credit: Victor R. Caivano / Associated Press