Apparently Harvey Weinstein hasn't quite figured out that we live in a new media age where every behind-the-scenes feud, threat and back-stabbing knife twist will quickly surface on the Web. Weinstein apparently became enraged by a Nikki Finke blog post yesterday that, in classic Finke-ese, derisively called him "The Big Loser" and accused him of "disgusting behavior" in his efforts to bulldoze Stephen Daldry into releasing "The Reader" in time for a 2008 Oscar campaign. Noting that two of the film's original producers, Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, had both died before the film was completed, Finke quoted from an e-mail she said was from "Reader" producer Scott Rudin, which accused Weinstein of going "to Minghella's widow and tried to insist the film be released this year [and] harassed Pollack on his deathbed until the family asked him to stop."
Having been covering the infighting between Weinstein and Rudin myself, it seemed believable to me that the Rudin e-mail was genuine, since he is a skilled media tactician and perfectly capable of making his case with reporters by offering incriminating evidence against his rivals. The Finke item was especially embarrassing because, fearing that they were harming "The Reader" by engaging in such a public spat, Rudin and Weinstein had kissed and made up on Sunday, saying they had agreed on a Dec. 12 release date for the film and insisting they'd put all the bad blood behind them.
Instead of ignoring the Finke post, Weinstein went to the New York Post's Page Six column, trying to undermine her charges. The Post ran an item today where Weinstein disputed Finke's reporting and Rudin denied sending the incriminating e-mail. Weinstein then added this coup de grace: "If Nikki Finke can produce that e-mail, I'll give $1 million to charity."
Finke wasn't cowed. She not only posted the e-mail, but said that Rudin had admitted to her that he'd sent it. Finke says Rudin told her that Weinstein's people had pestered him to "protect Harvey and deny the e-mail and lie to Page Six," which he did in hopes of protecting "The Reader" from being tarnished by further controversy. Just to rub Weinstein's nose in it, when Page Six called her, Finke told the reporter to "tell Harvey I'm the charity--he can give the million to me."
That's not gonna happen. But Weinstein has only made things worse for himself. I tried contacting both Weinstein and Rudin, to hear if they have a different side to the story, but haven't heard back. If I do, I'll be happy to give them equal time. But I haven't heard anyone disputing Finke's reporting. The mistake Weinstein made was going public with a grandstanding "million dollar" charity scheme without an absolute assurance that Rudin, in the heat of battle, hadn't leaked incriminating evidence to a well-read industry blogger. Weinstein's charity offer didn't deter Finke; in fact, it only encouraged her to post her evidence.
Is there a moral here? Barely. This whole mess once again proves that feuding in public is ultimately self-defeating. That goes double for trying to manipulate the press. The next time Harvey decides to bait an indefatigable blogger, he should remember the old adage: "Never wrestle with a pig. You'll get dirty and they'll enjoy it."
Photo of Harvey Weinstein by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News.
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I'm a die-hard Cubs fan. And almost anyone within reach of the sports section must have noticed that the Chicago Cubs, the team with the best record in the National League, have made the playoffs for the second consecutive season, the first time our lowly but beloved team has accomplished that, well, since we last won the World Series in 1908. Since Lou Piniella took over as manager last year, Cubs fans have sensed that something special is in the air --we've been winning, winning a lot. And whenever we win, since sometime early last season, the fans at Wrigley Field celebrate by singing a joyous anthem, "Go Cubs Go!"
As with so many things involving the Cubs, the song has a bittersweet history. It was written in 1984 by singer-songwriter Steve Goodman, just months before the Cubs clinched their first postseason berth in nearly 40 years. Sadly, Goodman never got to see a playoff game -- he died in September of that year of leukemia. Goodman was a songwriter of many talents, having written an Arlo Guthrie hit ("The City of New Orleans"), a batch of wonderfully wistful ballads ("My Old Man" and "The Dutchman") and some wonderfully comic tales, including a country music spoof (co-written with John Prine) called "You Never Even Call Me by My Name."
A lifelong Cubs fan (he also wrote the wry "A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request"), Goodman would've loved this year's team, which has overachieved, triumphed over every adversity and has a colorful pitcher named Carlos Zambrano who not only throws 95 mph fastballs but is a switch-hitter with a .337 batting average. (If one of this week's Cubs-Dodgers games goes into extra innings, expect to see him as a pinch hitter.) There's a great story behind the recording of "Go Cubs Go!," which turns out to have background vocals performed by some of the Cubs who played on that first great 1984 playoff team.
The song was produced by Goodman and Hank Neuberger, one of my old friends who worked as an engineer for everybody from Goodman and Prine to Cheap Trick, Ramsey Lewis and the Ohio Players. With the first Cubs playoff game scheduled for this week, I asked Hank to recount the back story to the song that we fans hope will be sung over and over after some stirring Cubs victories during the next few weeks. Here's Hank's fond memories about how the song came to be:
When it comes to movies with a radical political bent, all the talk for months has focused on Steven Soderbergh's "Che," which has been getting a rocky reception on the festival circuit for its somewhat gauzy-eyed portrayal of Che Guevera and his role in the origins of the Cuban revolution. Now it's time for the German version of "Che," which arrived in L.A. on Friday night with the premiere of "The Baader-Meinhof Complex," a new Uli Edel-directed film about the infamous West German terrorist group that emerged out of the student protest movement in the late 1960s. The film has sparked passionate debate in Germany, where it just opened last week.
Although it doesn't have a U.S. distributor, "Baader Meinhof" will surely be getting more attention here in the coming months as Germany's submission for this year's Academy Awards. My colleague Mark Olsen, who was at the film's first American screening Friday night at the Aero Theatre, says the film pulls no punches. But is it a cold-eyed portrait of urban guerillas? Or just another example of Hollywood radical chic? Here's his report:
The feud is over. After days of unseemly squabbling between Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin over the release date of "The Reader," the two titans of the film industry have finally buried the hatchet. They sent out a joint communique Sunday afternoon saying they had settled their differences and agreed to give the Stephen Daldry directed film a Dec. 12th release date. Not long afterward, the two men got on the phone with me to explain what happened.
"This is exactly the way it should've been solved," said Rudin. "Doing what's right for the movie always comes first." Weinstein added: "Scott and I may have fought a few rounds, but we always fight over great films. We may go to Washington tomorrow and sit down with Hank Paulson and see if we can help negotiate the bailout package next."
To recap: Rudin, "The Reader's" producer, had insisted that Daldry, who's in the middle of opening a play on Broadway, couldn't possibly have the film ready until 2009. Weinstein, who is releasing the picture through his Weinstein Co., insisted the film needed the media boost of an end-of-year awards-season release to have any hope of finding a large enough audience to be successful. In the end, Weinstein agreed to put up some extra money to fund various round-the-clock-style editing and mixing sessions that would allow Daldry to finish the film without any artistic compromises.
Rudin acknowledged that the public spitting match wasn't doing the film any good, saying "It seemed like we were headed for a car crash." He had several long conversations with Daldry, advising the filmmaker (who made "The Hours" with Rudin in 2002) that they were headed down a dark path. "I asked Stephen if it would be OK for me to approach Harvey and discuss how we could figure out a way to release the film this year in a way that everyone could proudly stand behind," Rudin told me. "In turn, Harvey was willing to adjust his schedule and make sure Stephen could finish the movie in the right way."
Weinstein says he doesn't mind putting more money into the film. "I've lavished all sorts of additional money on this film, because it's the right thing to do for the movie," he says. "I've spent 13 years on this project ever since I read the book, loved it and sent someone to buy it." Weinstein had initially been insisting that Daldry deliver his cut of the film October 3rd. He's now given Daldry until Nov. 5th to deliver the film. Weinstein says even with an extra investment of funds, "this is way more economical. It'll cost more in the short run, but less in the long run by having it out this year."
Rudin is hopeful of persuading "Reader" co-star Kate Winslet to support the film's Oscar campaign. The actress has seriously divided loyalties, being the co-star of both "The Reader" and "Revolutionary Road," a film directed by her husband, Sam Mendes, that is also expected to be a big awards season contender. "There are personal complications," Rudin says. "But I spoke to her today about what's going on. She's knows this is complicated, but I think she intends to support the film."
Just a few days ago, Rudin predicted that it might take [legendary UN Secretary General] Dag Hammarskjold to broker a peace between the two men. For now, everything is lovey-dovey. But Rudin and Weinstein have had such a contentious relationship over the years that everyone will be watching closely to see how long the good vibes last. I guess if Bill Clinton can make peace with Barack Obama, maybe anything can happen. Stay tuned.
Dan McDermott has actually admitted the ugly truth, the secret that screenwriters everywhere have always firmly suspected--executives are envious of writers! He's one of the writers who penned "Eagle Eye," the Shia LaBeouf futuristic thriller that is playing in practically every multiplex this weekend. The reviews for the film have been pretty lukewarm, with a number of critics blasting the D.J. Caruso-directed picture for ripping off various Hitchcock and Kubrick films. But what caught my eye about McDermott was that he's the Hollywood equivalent of a double agent.
He understands the well-hidden thoughts that rattle around in executive's brains when they're taking phone calls in the middle of pitches and passing on great material because the characters aren't sympathetic enough. They're actually all jealous! McDermott knows firsthand. Before he turned to full-time screenwriting, he was a successful TV executive, first as a VP of current programming at Fox, then as head of DreamWorks Television. Everything was going swimmingly....
And then he almost died. Actually, the way he tells it, he was clinically dead for several minutes, suffering heart failure as a result of nitrogen poisoning from a scuba diving excursion. He was in the middle of nowhere, on a small island off Bali. His girlfriend at the time--Maria Bello, if you must know-- helped get him back to Bali and then to Singapore, where he recuperated in a cardiac clinic, spending a night hooked up to an EKG machine. It might be too corny and on the nose to write as a scene in a biopic, but the near-death experience completely turned him around.
"After I spent 2 1/2 hours laying on a stretcher, not being able to breathe, I thought to myself--what a waste," he told me today. "I've got a ton of money in the bank, I've got this hotshot job at DreamWorks and it's all meaningless. I've just been living through my ego. From that minute, I promised myself that if I managed to survive, I'd live the life I wanted to live, not the way I thought other people wanted me to live. And however well I end up doing as a writer, whether I just eke out a living or win a bunch of awards someday, I'll be happy because, to use the sports analogy, I'd feel like I left it on the field."
How did McDermott end up as an executive in the first place? And how did being an executive give him a different approach to writing? Here's what he had to say:
As we noted earlier this week, Roger Ebert has been weighing in on politics lately, having written several critical pieces about Sarah Palin, as well as a deadpan description of creationism that ended up with a joke about Palin's favorite hunting target--a moose. Ebert has now put up a fascinating new post lamenting the fact that his piece on creationism, which inspired thousands of comments on various science blogs and seemed quite clearly aimed at pointing out some of the many inherent contradictions of believing the Earth was created within the past 6,000 years, was widely and often hilariously misinterpreted by a host of bloggers and readers.
As he writes: "Many of the comments I've seen believe I have converted to Creationism. Others conclude I have lost my mind because of age and illness. There is a widespread conviction that the site was hacked. Lane Brown's blog for New York magazine flatly states I gave 'two thumbs down to evolution.' " Ebert adds that the purpose for writing the piece wasn't to debate creationism vs. the theory of evolution but simply "to discuss the gradual decay of our sense of irony and instinct for satire, and our growing credulity."
Boy, did he hit it on the head. It's impossible to spend a day on the Web without reading a post or story or fusillade of comments that either wildly misconstrue the meaning of simple news events or invent crazily crackpot justifications for simple occurrences. If you think I'm exaggerating, just visit my colleague David Sarno's Web Scout blog, where he could easily spend all his waking hours chronicling the carnival of slippery half-truths, charades and conspiracy theories that endlessly bounce around the Web. I guess I've grown immune to being taken aback, but Ebert sees this as a new, disturbing downturn in our culture. As he puts it: "We may be leaving an age of irony and entering an age of credulity. In a time of shortened attention spans and instant gratification, trained by web surfing and movies with an average shot-length of seconds, we absorb rather than contemplate.... We accept rather than select."
Sometimes it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Ebert nabs a New York Post TV critic who snarkily lambasted "Heroes," saying the show is so full of itself that its characters have taken to spouting all sorts of crazy nonsense, citing a patch of Malcolm McDowell dialogue that goes: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." Whoops! As Ebert notes, that nonsense McDowell's character was spouting was a famous speech from "Hamlet."
The scary thing is that we're all guilty of similar whoppers, missing the subtext as well as the text because we're too busy to stop and pay attention. Overwhelmed with information overload, we now find ourselves reading--if that is still the right word--all sorts of stories and messages on our computers or cellphones while we're also talking on the phone, watching TV or driving a car. In one ear, out the other, the figures and facts blurred and confused by our own embarrassing inattention. I'm constantly getting calls or e-mails from people who've totally missed the point of something I've written because they've, at best, only half-read it. Since I started this blog, any number of Hollywood agents or managers or studio executives have sent me instant responses, having just read one of my posts on their BlackBerries. One agent, clearly aiming to flatter, said how much of my writing he'd managed to consume waiting for the valet to bring his car.
If it was meant as a compliment, I can't say I took it that way. But I get the feeling that this same half-brain attentiveness is also given over to reading movie and TV show scripts--how else to explain how so much dreck gets greenlighted, unless the script was largely read while the decision-maker was on the phone, in a meeting or half-watching their kid's soccer match. The sad thing is that it's just a small leap between half-reading a script or a blog post to half-watching a political ad, coming away convinced that Barack Obama is a Muslim or in favor of sex education for kindergartners. It's not that we've lost our minds. All too often, it feels like we're barely using them.
Photo of Roger Ebert by Chris Pizzello / Associated Press
Everyone in Hollywood is at heart something of a gambler. So it shouldn't come as a surprise to discover that the real source of the nasty feud between Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin over the release date of "The Reader" involves a high-stakes test screening of the film that was held not long ago in New York. To recap: Weinstein, who is releasing the film, wants it out this December for an Oscar run. The filmmaker, Stephen Daldry, and the film's producer, Scott Rudin, are adamantly in opposition, saying the picture isn't in shape to be released until next year.
But here's what was missing from all the coverage of the dispute earlier this week. (None of the principals is talking about it, so I've pieced this together from a number of other sources intimately involved with the dispute.) Believing that he had gone more than the extra mile in supporting the film, Weinstein persuaded Daldry to have a test screening of the film at the Lincoln Square theater in Manhattan in return for giving the filmmaker eight extra days to shoot additional scenes. If the film scored more than 70 (in what is known as the top-two boxes of audience recommendations), Weinstein could put the film out later this year. If the film didn't score a 70, everyone would agree that it needed more work and the release would be put off.
The Weinstein camp won its bet (although the Daldry camp argues that Daldry simply agreed to do everything possible to complete the film, not let Weinstein release it no matter what). The film, which screened in late August, scored a 77, which is considered a good but not exactly break-out-the-champagne score for a highbrow drama with an A-list cast (Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet play the leads). Still, it was high enough to make Weinstein a winner. He contends that Rudin has now persuaded Daldry to back out of the agreement, with the filmmaker telling Weinstein he felt the film still needed more work.
This has prompted a real donnybrook, which is complicated by all sorts of past feuds (Weinstein and Rudin had a number of verbal brawls during the making of "The Hours") and present conflicts. Daldry, for example, is about to open a big musical on Broadway, "Billy Elliot," which goes into previews next week. It doesn't leave him much time to work on the film. The Daldry camp contends that Daldry has a contract with Working Title, which made the original "Billy Elliot" film, that predates his involvement with "The Reader" and binds him to an exclusive commitment to work solely on the musical until its opening in November.
It's a sign of how bad the blood is between Rudin and Weinstein that charges have been flying that Weinstein somehow rigged the screening, holding it at a Manhattan theater where he believed it would receive a higher score. (Rudin, some say, pushed for the screening to be held in White Plains, N.Y., the rough equivalent of having a screening in Sherman Oaks instead of Beverly Hills.)
I'm certainly not taking sides in this crazy fight. It sounds as if Weinstein and Rudin need a divorce lawyer or perhaps a Middle East mediator to help settle their differences. Here's what seems clear: Weinstein, who originally bought the book, feels the film needs an Oscar push to help it find an audience. Its subject matter is hardly crowd-pleasing, being the morally complex tale of a young man's passionate affair with an older woman who turns out to have a disturbing past involving the Holocaust. Even with a top filmmaker and cast, the film needs all the Oscar momentum it can get to nudge cautious moviegoers into the theater.
But the Oscar game complicates everything. Is Rudin's sole motive to protect his filmmaker? Or is he protecting his other Oscar-friendly films, "Revolutionary Road" and "Doubt," which are both due out later this year as well? And even if Weinstein forces the film's release, can he run a credible Oscar campaign if his filmmaker and cast members refuse to make the media rounds in support of the film? Winslet, for example, isn't just a costar of Rudin's rival film, "Revolutionary Road"; she's married to its director, Sam Mendes. So is she really going to want to campaign for "The Reader" if it's going head-to-head with her own family project?
The whole story just keeps getting messier and messier. "The Reader" was originally going to be produced by Sydney Pollack and directed by Anthony Minghella through their production company. Pollack fell ill and Minghella had another film he wanted to direct first. It was Minghella who suggested bringing in Rudin to produce and agreed to move aside and let Daldry come on board as director. Now both Minghella and Pollack are dead, hovering like ghosts over the film. Who would they have sided with? That's not a question I know the answer to. But I can't imagine that, as filmmakers, they would want this movie to be in the theaters without the enthusiastic blessing of its director.
Weinstein may have a great case, having poured a lot of his heart and money into the project. He may have even won his screening wager hands down. But if he doesn't find a way to get Daldry on board, he'll have won the battle but lost the war.
Photo of Harvey Weinstein, left, from AFP; Scott Rudin from Getty Images
Nearly every day I hear someone new singing the praises of 3-D. Yesterday, it was Disney chief Dick Cook, who, during the studio's big PR showcase for its upcoming releases, said that Disney, which is releasing the animated film "Bolt" in 3-D this November, would also be rolling out five 3-D films next year, with 16 more in development, including Tim Burton's ambitious Johnny Depp-starring "Alice in Wonderland," that is due in 2010. Having already enjoyed a big 3-D success with a Hannah Montana concert film earlier this year, Cook took a dig at Jeffrey Katzenberg, who until now been the industry's biggest pom-pom waving 3-D cheerleader, saying, "I heard that Jeffrey may finally his first 3-D movie next year."
The reason for the industry's 3-D love affair is obvious. Theater attendance has been flat for years, so Hollywood is looking for a new way to get people out of the house, and get more money from them in the process, since theaters can charge a premium for 3-D films. What really got the bandwagon going was the success of this summer's "Journey to the Center of the Earth." The film was only shown in 3-D on roughly 850 screens, but in terms of per screen average, the 3-D theaters outgrossed the 2-D theaters by a three-to-one margin. That kind of performance got everyone's attention.
For anyone who studies film history and recalls the 3-D mania of the mid-1950s, when movie attendance had taken a dive after the mass introduction of TV, this is deja vu all over again. Jack Warner was so dazzled by the surprise success of the 3-D version of "House of Wax" in 1953 that he announced that his studio was greenlighting 22 films -- half of the entire Warners slate -- in 3D, including such prestige films as "A Star is Born," "East of Eden" and "Mr. Roberts." Of course, the boom went bust so quickly that only a handful of the movies ever got a 3D release.
As I explained yesterday, I've been out watching various kind of films and TV events in 3-D to get a better idea of what works and what doesn't. While I'm not saying the current fascination with 3-D is simply a passing fad -- times have obviously changed -- I do think that 3-D is not an added value experience for every movie. Still, filmmakers are fascinated by the possibilities of the medium. Michael Lewis, who heads RealD, the leading company installing 3-D screens and software into theaters, says Baz Luhrmann, Michael Mann and the Farrelly Brothers have all been in recently to see his company's 3-D reel.
He also had some very smart things to say about how 3-D works and the future of the medium. So keep reading:
"Dreamgirls" wasn't exactly a hit at the Academy Awards in 2007, only scraping together two lesser Oscars. But could two members of the film's creative team--producer Larry Mark and writer-director Bill Condon--help save the Oscar telecast, which has been in a steep decline in recent years, both in terms of network ratings and, even more important, in terms of creative malaise?
Academy chief Sid Ganis announced Wednesday afternoon that the "Dreamgirls" duo got the nod to oversee the 81st Oscars, which air on ABC in February. For me, the real fun was seeing how the Hollywood media handled the announcement. Variety's coverage was cautious and respectful, as befits its deferential approach to a lofty institution like the Academy. Tim Gray called the decision a big step in a new direction, writing: "Casting [Mark and Condon] as overseers of the show is a signal that the Acad did not want to go the 'safe' and familiar route." Gray interviewed Ganis, who said his lunch with the two men "turned into a mini-think tank," with Ganis adding: "I walked away from that lunch saying, 'Wouldn't it be great if the two of them were willing to actually produce the show?' "
Of course, Deadline's Hollywood's Nikki Finke, who is as vitriolic and hysterical as Variety is timid, reacted as if Ganis had picked Sarah Palin to host the telecast. Calling the move cronyism, she wrote: "This is precisely why the Academy Awards telecast sucks. Because the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences doesn't seek out the best people, just its closest pals." Just how Mark or Condon are Ganis' "closest pals" she never says. Instead, she says the academy should pick a true outsider, suggesting, among others, Mark Burnett, the MTV Movie Awards people, James Carville, Roger Ailes or the Chinese government.
OK, I'm guessing Nikki was kidding about every name she had on the list, since someone like Burnett or Ailes would quickly turn the event into a People's Choice Awards. And if she was serious about "the MTV Movie Awards people," then surely she hasn't actually watched the show, which in recent years has been unbelievably craven and wretched beyond belief. But that's Nikki, always killing a mosquito with an AK-47.
That's not to say that I think Mark and Condon are exactly a radical, game-changing choice. Far from it. But I do think it's a small step in the right direction. If the academy insists on having musical numbers clutter up the show, it needs people who actually know how to stage them well. And if Rob Marshall wasn't available, I can't think of a better pick than Mark and Condon. The academy demands class and they have it in spades.
As I've said before, the show needs a major face-lift that would drag it into the 21st century, starting with launching a second, cable-TV based show that could host the majority of the technical awards and serve as a springboard for attracting a younger audience by being free from conservative academy meddling. But if you can't have a revolution, at least you can savor the idea of a thoughtful evolution, which is something Mark and Condon might just be able to pull off.
Photo of the little gold guys by Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times
I spent most of today driving around town with Jim Miller, who's a partner in Stereo Pictures, a tech company specializing in 2-D to 3-D conversion of film and animation. Since I can't get Jeffrey Katzenberg to ever return my phone calls, Jim has volunteered his services as my own personal 3-D trainer and guru. He has a vested interest in converting people like me from skeptics to believers, since his company's whole business plan is based on mass 3-D consumption in both theaters and eventually at home on your flat-screen TV. But he also knows that I'm not an easy convert.
We spent today with two 3-D heavyweights: Michael Lewis, who's the chairman of RealD, the top company involved with installing 3-D theater screens, lenses and software, and Steve Schklair, founder and chief executive of 3Ality Digital, a leading developer of 3-D HD camera technology that was a driving force behind the filming of U2's "U2 3D," a concert film shot during the band's 2006 "Vertigo" tour designed to showcase 3Ality's new film technology. In addition to some of the U2 footage, I got to see 3-D test sequences from "Titanic," "Star Wars," "The Matrix" and "Beowolf," lengthy 3-D sequences from "Kung Fu Panda" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth," as well 3-D snippets of everything from a Gwen Stefani concert to the 2005 Super Bowl to NBA games and motocross races.
The verdict? 3-D is still very much a work in progress, a new format that is filled with potential but remains in its infancy. I felt like I'd been tossed into a time machine and turned up in an early reel of "You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story," the absorbing Richard Schickel documentary that's running this week on PBS. In the doc, you get to see young Warners directors fooling around with new sound technology. The films from the early days of sound were often imaginative and liberating, but just as often awkward and stilted. So it is with 3-D. It is a form still best suited for animation and action films, not comedy or drama, where 3-D really offers little added value.
3-D needs action, good lighting and depth of field to show its strength. A classic example is the U2 concert film, which felt underwhelming most of the time, not in terms of the music, mind you, but the utilization of the new technology. Simply watching the band's rhythm section on stage was a visual snooze--3-D had little to add. The concert only really came alive during its most theatrical--and most important, its visually expansive--moments, when Bono surfaced on a mini-platform in the middle of the giant crowd, surrounded by a sea of fans. The best shots were not close-ups of him singing but long shots, with fans in the foreground and background, Bono silhouetted in between.
Depth of field is clearly crucial. The footage of the Super Bowl was a visual kick, because football is a true depth-of-field sport--you love seeing the quarterback in the foreground, surrounded by charging linemen, but still able to look past him at his receivers invading the secondary far off down field. It's hard to imagine baseball working as well, since the traditional baseball camera angle--from center field, peering in past the pitcher at the batter at home plate--is essentially a zoom lens shot, with little depth to it. To shoot baseball in 3-D, you'd need an entirely new set of camera angles to do it right. Football works fine just the way it is.
Steve Schklair told me that 3Ality filmed the U2 concert using the exact same lighting as a normal show, except for more spotlights on the audience. "You don't really need to change any production values at all," he says. I disagree. The images often felt flat and washed out to me, with the backlighting and smoke effects that are so much a staple of concert extravaganzas diluting the impact of 3-D's depth of field. I'd like to hear from a lighting expert, but I suspect you need warmer, more potent lighting to really enhance the 3-D effect, not to mention a different kind of staging, where the band members are placed front and back instead of the typical side-by-side configuration.
So who really knows where they're doing? I'll have another post up soon.
Photo of U2's the Edge (left) and Bono on the band's "Vertigo" tour by Sandra Mu / Getty Images
Patrick Goldstein
has been a film writer for The Times’ Calendar section since 1998 and a contributing writer to the paper since 1979.
His column, “The Big Picture,” offers news and insight on the currents and underpinnings of the film industry.
He also has been a contributing writer to major publications such as Rolling Stone, Esquire, Playboy, Vogue, the Chicago Sun-Times, New York Times Sunday Magazine, and British GQ.
He received a master’s degree in English literature in 1976 and a bachelor’s degree in film studies in 1975, both from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
Apparently Harvey Weinstein hasn't quite figured out that we live in a new media age where every behind-the-scenes feud, threat and back-stabbing knife twist will quickly surface on the Web. Weinstein apparently became enraged by a Nikki Finke blog post yesterday that, in classic Finke-ese, derisively called him "The Big Loser" and accused him of "disgusting behavior" in his efforts to bulldoze Stephen Daldry into releasing "The Reader" in time for a 2008 Oscar campaign. Noting that two of the film's original producers, Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, had both died before the film was completed, Finke quoted from an e-mail she said was from "Reader" producer Scott Rudin, which accused Weinstein of going "to Minghella's widow and tried to insist the film be released this year [and] harassed Pollack on his deathbed until the family asked him to stop." 
Dan McDermott has actually admitted the ugly truth, the secret that screenwriters everywhere have always firmly suspected--executives are envious of writers! He's one of the writers who penned "Eagle Eye," the Shia LaBeouf futuristic thriller that is playing in practically every multiplex this weekend. The reviews for the film have been pretty 
