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And I'm taking a couple of days off to watch my 10-year-old run the fast break at basketball camp. When I return, we'll have a lively interview with Bill Maher about his controversial new film "Religulous," some late-summer funny business and a few surprises. Stay tuned.
Writers are always taught to write about what they know, so it probably wasn't such a bad idea for producer Art Linson to write "What Just Happened?," a droll comedy about--what else--the life of a frazzled Hollywood producer. Directed by Barry Levinson and starring a bestubbled Robert De Niro as Linson, the film is chock full of real incidents from Linson's producing life, including the time Alec Baldwin, about to star in the David Mamet-written "The Edge," reported to work with a Moses-style beard, prompting a production crisis. (In the movie, the Baldwin character is played by a furry-bearded Bruce Willis.)
"What Just Happened?" debuted in January at the Sundance Film Festival, where it got a very mixed reception. It also went to Cannes, where the reception was a little better--Variety's Todd McCarthy called it "intermittently amusing." But it never sold. So the film's financier, 2929 Productions' Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, are having to release it themselves in October through their Magnolia Pictures distribution arm.
I'm a huge fan of Linson, as past stories will attest. But when I mentioned that the movie had gotten a grim reception at Sundance in the course of a column about De Niro and Al Pacino's career decline, Art reacted badly--meaning I got yelled at. That's OK. The movie is clearly Linson's baby. He's not just the writer-producer, but cast it with old pals like De Niro (Linson produced him in "Heat") and Sean Penn (Linson produced Penn's "Into the Wild"), who plays, well, himself. The film also features Catherine Keener as a tough-as-nails studio chief, John Turturro as a wildly neurotic agent and Stanley Tucci as a duplicitous screenwriter who's sleeping (in the movie) with Linson's ex-wife.
Colorful expletives aside, Linson said my description of the film's Sundance reaction was unfair and I should see it for myself. So now I have. Did I unfairly prejudge it? Or is Art too close to the film to be objective? Here's my take:
It's an old marketing maxim in Hollywood that you can tell that a movie is really a pop culture phenomenon when the buzz migrates to the op-ed pages. This has happened to "The Dark Knight" in spades. We know from today's Times story that the latest installment in Warners' Batman franchise has been racking up box-office milestones at a record pace, but it has also been inspiring an unlikely array of opinion pieces, especially from conservative commentators, who have been on something of a desperate search for new heroes lately.
The most provocative of the pieces, an essay by mystery writer Andrew Klavan that ran in the Wall Street Journal the other day, positions the film as a conservative movie about the war on terror, with Batman as--gasp!--George W. Bush. As Klavan puts it: The film is "at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand...."
The most playful of the pieces, by New York Post film critic Kyle Smith, proposes that Batman is--double gasp!--a dead ringer for the current administration's vice president. Once you relax and stifle your gag reflex--and if you're a liberal, this requires some serious yoga-style gag reflex contortions--you have to admit that Smith is on to something:
"Batman is not charming. He isn't popular, partly because he's a zealot and partly because he doesn't bother to explain himself to the press. He is independently wealthy, having spent years as the head of an industrial company. His methods are disturbing, his operations bathed in darkness. He is misunderstood, mistrusted, endlessly pursued by the attack dogs of the night.... And he lives in an undisclosed location. Isn't it obvious? Batman is Dick Cheney with hair."
Where does it end? Will Larry David soon surface on the op-ed page of the New York Times, claiming that the Dark Knight is really a nice Jewish boy simply in need of some serious psychoanalysis? Or will Arianna Huffington weigh in, arguing that the movie is a metaphor for the limits on American power and influence in the world? Is there anyone out there who is actually making sense? Actually, amazingly, we've stumbled onto someone with a surprisingly sane point of view:
It was just a couple of weeks ago that conservative commentators were all saying that liberals were humorless dolts, offering as Exhibit A the outraged reaction to the New Yorker's hilarious Barack Obama as Muslim terrorist cover cartoon. So I'm betting those same commentators will heartily embrace Lionsgate's first teaser trailer for Oliver Stone's "W," which just posted today on YouTube (with the admonition: "This is not a fake"), focusing on the young Dubya, acting like he's starring in a boozy remake of "Old School."
The reason "W" got turned down at every big studio in town wasn't because anyone was politically nervous about making the movie--Bush is too unpopular today to worry even the most timid Hollywood studio chief. In fact, the studio that came closest to saying yes was the Rupert Murdoch owned 20th Century Fox, which figured that having Fox release a wild-eyed anti-Bush movie would cause so much buzz that it would be a unique marketing ingredient unto itself.
The real worry has always been that the story itself was HBO docudrama material, with too many talky scenes set in White House war rooms. The Lionsgate trailer shrewdly explodes that notion. It opens with Dubya (played by Josh Brolin) being dressed down by his dad ("I remember correctly, you didn't like the sporting goods job...") before careening off into hard-partying, tail-chasing territory, ending up with the infamous drunken-driving incident that prompts another stern lecture from Bush Sr. (played by James Cromwell), who says derisively: "Who do you think you are, a Kennedy? You're a Bush. Act like one." To make sure we get the point, the scenes are accompanied by George Thorogood's version of the roadhouse standard "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer."
The music then shifts to the serene "It's a Wonderful World," which plays as the trailer poses a question that could perhaps make us curious enough to see the movie in a theater. It asks: "What Drove George W. Bush ... From Here ..." (Dubya brawling with his old man) "To Here?" (Dubya in the Oval Office, cowboy boots cockily propped up on his desk). Movie executives always preach, ad nauseam, that a successful film needs a hero who overcomes a series of obstacles, making him a very different person at film's end from what he was at the beginning. "W" sounds like it fits the bill quite nicely, as long as you grade on a curve when it comes to the part about overcoming the obstacles.
Photo of George W. Bush by Evan Vucci / Associated Press
Lorenzo Semple Jr. is not just my favorite 85-year-old film critic, holding forth on YouTube as one of the Real Geezers reviewing team, but he's also one of the great screenwriters of the "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" era of Hollywood, having co-written such gems as "Three Days of the Condor" and "The Parallax View." Lorenzo is also my neighbor, always full of neighborhood gossip. I'm hugely envious of his carefree lifestyle, but never more so than when he said he was flying off earlier this month to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic.
The recently concluded festival was playing the rarely seen "Pretty Poison," an oddball 1968 comedy Lorenzo wrote that stars Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins. Intensely jealous that Lorenzo was jetting off to a swank festival while I was stuck laboring in the Big Picture salt mine, I asked if he'd write us a letter from Karlovy Vary, so I could live vicariously through his experiences. It sounds like he had a blast, getting to see the hot new Czech films, a remarkable documentary about Nick Nolte and such cinematic golden oldies as "Night Moves," Arthur Penn's moody 1975 detective thriller with Gene Hackman and Jennifer Warren.
When Lorenzo says everyone was out boozing and dancing till 4 a.m., you can bet he outlasted them all. Here's his report:
Variety's venerable Peter Bart didn't like my Friday posting about John Lesher running Paramount Vantage into the ground, calling it a shrill "rant," his way of saying that I lack the smooth, world-weary cynicism that colors Bart's own writing. He was also clearly peeved that I had the temerity to point out how Bart's trade paper, never one to ever step on any studio toes, had managed to cover the firing of 60 Vantage staffers in true accept-the-press-release style, failing to note that the staffers were taking the fall for Vantage's inability to make any money (while Lesher whooshed off to become Paramount's head of production).
I admit that I was hoping Bart would write an open letter to me, like he does to everyone else in Hollywood. But he did manage to willfully misrepresent what I wrote, claiming I had criticized Variety for failing to report the dismissal of Amy Israel, a talented Vantage's acquisitions executive. My complaint wasn't that Variety didn't report her firing, but that it didn't report what her firing meant--that Vantage is being transformed from a specialty film division to a genre film division, a la Screen Gems or Rogue Pictures. Bart claims otherwise, saying he has been assured so by Lesher himself. Having been assured by studio execs over the years of the impending success of hundreds of films that turned out to be dogs, I would advise a little more caution.
Bart defends Lesher, asking the question: "Should the press also clobber guys like Lesher who may have been overambitious about some of his art films? The public, at least, got some terrific movies out of the venture." If Bart had read my piece more carefully, he might have noted that I praised Lesher for the quality of his films. The problem was that Vantage lost money on most of those movies. Because of its lack of fiscal responsibility, Vantage won't have a chance to make many more of them. That's the real issue here. You can make the greatest movies in the world, but if you can't find a way to pay for them, the bean counters are going to show up some day and padlock your doors.
Peter Bart photo from AMC
Bill Klem umpired 18 World Series, Chicago Cubs reliever George Washington (Zip) Zabel once pitched 18 innings in relief (eventually winning the game) and now 20th Century Fox has made 18 movies that couldn't even score a mediocre 50 rating on Rotten Tomatoes. To recap:
Everyone knows Fox makes bad movies, but just how bad? We've been keeping a running tab on the lousy reviews for each of their new movies. With the exception of "Horton Hears a Who" last spring, Fox has released 18 movies since last summer's "Simpson's Movie," none of which have earned a 50 rating on the Web's leading aggregator of movie reviews.
This Friday's new film, "The X-Files: I Want to Believe," kept the streak alive, scoring a measly 31 on Rotten Tomatoes. Our reviewer wasn't all that impressed, a reaction shared by most critics. The Charlotte Observer's Lawrence Toppman, hardly a fancy-pants big city snob, put it best: "They've given us a mash-up of a procedural police thriller, a B-grade mad scientist movie of the 1950s and some mumbo-jumbo about God's influence that hasn't a real shock or surprise throughout."
What's the potential No. 19 film in the streak? "Mirrors," a thriller with Kiefer Sutherland and Amy Smart, that's due out Aug. 15. Let's just say, considering Sutherland's big-screen track record, that we've got our fingers double-crossed.
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox/ Diyah Pera
Is anyone doing anything original in Hollywood anymore? Apparently not. What''s even worse, it used to largely be Pat Hobby-style hacks who took jobs doing retreads. Now it's the top talent in town.
Just take a look at the news from today: The trades report that Darren Aronofsky has signed on with MGM to do a remake of "RoboCop," the Paul Verhoeven film that has already spawned two inferior sequels. The film is being written by David Self, who's hot off scripting a remake of "The Wolfman" for Universal.
Meanwhile, New Line has announced that it's doing a second sequel in the "Harold & Kumar" series. Always hilariously respectful, Variety noted that "storyline is being kept under wraps." Translated from Variety-ese, that really means no one has written a word--they're just greenlighting the movie because the sequel made a lot of dough earlier this year.
Down in San Diego at Comic-Con, remake mania was also in full bloom. Robert Rodriguez was at one panel, talking about his upcoming remake of "Red Sonja," which he'll produce with gal-pal Rose McGowan playing the lead role. Another panel was devoted to a new version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still," which stars Keanu Reeves and is due this Christmas from Fox. The original was a landmark sci-fi film directed by Robert Wise, who got his start editing "Citizen Kane." The new version is directed by Scott Derrickson, who got his start directing "Hellraiser: Inferno."
Who says Hollywood movies aren't getting better all the time?
"RoboCop" photo from Orion Pictures
I sure hope all the Hollywood know-it-alls who keep telling me that Harvey Weinstein has nearly blown through all the money he scored to start the Weinstein Co. and is in danger of finally giving up the ghost are, well, sadly mistaken. Lately there's more than the usual amount of gloating concern about his financial health around town, given the fact that his latest enterprise is a custom label for all the movies he's acquired that aren't even good enough for a more than token theatrical release. Everyone else may be rooting for Harvey to fail, but I'm hoping he pulls another rabbit out of his hat. He's one of the few bigger-than-life characters left in show business. For Harvey, life is a carnival, with him in the leading role of carny barker supreme.
The latest example: Even though Harvey has only a rudimentary knowledge of the Internet--whenever I would get a note from him about a story I wrote, it came by fax--he has posted a blog item on Portfolio.com about New York theater. I was expecting a smart take on the new economics of Broadway or perhaps a tribute to a great new theater director, but with the exception of one brief anecdote about the time the young Harvey fled "The Sound of Music" at the first sight of nuns gallivanting on stage, the entire piece was devoted to (gasp) Self Promotion!
The only question about the piece is: How many Weinstein-made movies, Weinstein theater productions and prospective Weinstein Broadway shows could he possibly plug in a 519-word piece? The math is a little tricky, but if you count everything, including the movies that he claims will soon be stage productions as well, the answer is: 23!
Here's a brief plug-crowded sample: "I'm so thrilled that we are involved with Working Title's 'Billy Elliot' that my friend Stephen Daldry is directing, who also just finished shooting a new film for us called 'The Reader' with Kate Winslet. We also worked on 'The Hours' with Stephen, and we're involved with Dolly Parton and '9 to 5.' in addition to 'The Seagull' with the incomparable Kristin Scott Thomas. She's a longtime friend, whom we worked with on 'The English Patient,' and who...." Well, you get the idea.
The real shocker: All those plugs and not even one for the Weinstein movie we're all looking forward to: "Piranha 3-D"!
Here's a bonus attraction. See where the Weinstein story begins:
Photo of Harvey Weinstein by Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images
No one said life was fair, but in the movie business, life often seems especially like a rigged poker game, especially when it comes to who gets the ax and who gets the cushy promotion. Nowhere is this more evident than at Paramount Vantage, which just laid off the majority of its 100-or-so staffers, a tacit admission that its much-ballyhooed specialty division--like most of Hollywood's specialty divisions--had been a big money loser. On the other hand, Vantage founder John Lesher, the one-time Endeavor agent whom Brad Grey hired in late 2005 to reinvent the studio's flagging Paramount Classics art-house wing, got out when the getting was good, Lesher being named president of the Paramount Film Group in January, largely as a reward for putting Grey in the Oscar game and allowing him to rub elbows with such cinematic luminaries as Paul Thomas Anderson, the Coen brothers and Martin Scorsese.
Of course you wouldn't know any of this from reading Variety's Thursday coverage of the layoffs, which bought the Paramount party line hook, line and sinker, failing to mention that Vantage had lost untold millions of dollars, not just by greenlighting art-house films with wildly inflated budgets but also by overspending on marketing the films. Variety also failed to mention the obvious--that Nick Meyer, the smart industry vet who inherited Lesher's Vantage presidency, has gone from prince to pauper, reduced to making a handful of low-budget acquisitions a year. Variety also failed to connect the dots about the news last week that Vantage dumped production and acquisition exec Amy Israel, replacing her with ex-New Line exec Guy Stodel. The man who made New Line millions resurrecting the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" franchise, Stodel is a good hire, but he won't be making any more "Margot at the Wedding"-type critic favorites. He's there to turn Vantage into a Screen Gems-style genre division.
In fact, that's the old/new idea of the month in the movie biz: Transform your woebegone specialty division into a lean, mean macho machine, churning out low-budget comedies, thrillers and horror films. Warners just turned the same trick, axing its money-losing Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse divisions, replacing them with a new, streamlined New Line Cinema, whose mandate is to return to its low-budget horror and youth comedy roots.
Of course this leaves us with a tantalizing question: Why would Brad Grey take John Lesher, who failed to make any money in his two-plus-year stint at Vantage, and make him Paramount's production chief, a job that by definition (as this summer's flood of superhero movies attests) is solely about making money?
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