Summer-movie screenwriting: 'I'm the only hope you have'

Dozens upon dozens of highly paid Hollywood screenwriters have all been cashing big checks for their marvelous work on this summer's upcoming studio extravaganzas (the joke of course being that some of those dozens of writers all probably worked rewriting the same film).

But what is the sum total of all that writerly craftsmanship and storytelling acumen? Each year at this time, I corral a bunch of teenagers -- known as the Summer Movie Posse -- and have them watch trailers from 10 or 15 of the most anticipated summer movies.

I'm meeting with the kids tomorrow to hear their take on how well the trailers work. Will they make them want to see "Angels & Demons" or "Star Trek" or "The Hangover"? Or will they view them as absolute musts to avoid. As I've been watching the trailers myself, I've noticed that there is a certain kind of brisk, staccato dialogue that always makes it into the summer-movie trailers. (Although some trailers, like the one for Michael Bay's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," are so crammed with explosions and special effects shots that they are virtually dialogue-free.) 

But usually someone offers a brief, declarative remark that captures the tone of the film. Sometimes it's a quip or a joke, for the comedies; sometimes it's a menacing threat or a terse, breathless warning, for the supernatural thrillers and horror films. But it's almost always short and to the point -- screenwriting as Hollywood haiku.

Here are some of the juicy snatches of dialogue from this year's summer movie trailers that I have a feeling will be sadly overlooked at Oscar time:

"Angels & Demons": "They've come for their revenge."

"Star Trek": "Buckle up!"

"Public Enemies": "I'm John Dillinger. I rob banks."

"Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince": "These girls, they're gonna kill me, Harry."

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen": "We're all going together!"

"Land of the Lost" (with a shot of a huge dinosaur): "It's OK, he's not what you'd call an athlete."

"I Love You Beth Cooper": "Don't be so nervous -- he can smell fear."

"Bruno": "I gave him a traditional African name -- O.J."

"Funny People": "There is always the one girl out there that got away. Guys have that ... and serial killers have that."

"The Taking of Pelham 123": "What is the price for New York City hostages this morning?" 

"Drag Me to Hell": "Soon it will be you who comes begging to me."

"Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian": "This is the United States of 'Don't Touch That Thing Right in Front of You.' "

"Terminator: Salvation": "I'm the only hope you have."

"The Year One": "I'd like to see how big you are without that whip.... Ugh, same basic size."

"Inglourious Basterds": "Each and every man under my command owes me 100 Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps."

"The Ugly Truth": "For men, self-improvement ends at toilet training."

Photo of Zachary Quinto in "Star Trek" from ILM/Paramount Pictures

When will Viacom pull the plug on Sumner Redstone?

Our sharp new Company Town columnist Joe Flint was too polite to say it out loud, but judging from Flint's reportage on Sumner Redstone's latest buffoonish public performance -- during an interview with famed softball questioner Larry King at the Milken Institute Global Conference -- you'd have to wonder how much longer Viacom insiders can put off a stockholders' revolt. I know that if I'd been a stockholder on hand, watching Redstone once again embarrass himself, I'd be putting in a sell call as fast as I could.

Most of the media treated Redstone's performance as fodder for jokes -- Flint described Redstone's interaction with King as being like a rehearsal "for a summer tour of the Catskills." But Flint also gently skewered Redstone for having the chutzpah to claim that at Viacom, he treats "everyone like a member of my family," with Flint noting that Redstone's family values are somewhat in question, considering that he's just ended another marriage, doesn't speak to his son, Brent, and seems to treat his daughter, Shari, more like a feared business rival than a beloved offspring. 

Redstone, as always, repeated his deluded claim that he doesn't plan to die -- which for stockholders of the troubled company must seem more like a threat than a promise. But surely the most embarrassing moment of the whole affair came when, during a Q&A session with the audience, Redstone asked several female questioners if they were married or not, as if he thought he might actually be on "The Dating Game."

It's a lucky thing that in Hollywood most media companies are run like private fiefdoms instead of actual businesses. If Viacom were a troubled bank, car company or newspaper, Redstone would be long gone. At 85, Redstone is so out of touch that he still doesn't use e-mail or understand how to navigate Facebook or MySpace, saying, "I have people that do that stuff for me." Of course, that's what the chieftains of the record industry used to say about surfing the Internet, even after Napster and illegal downloading sent their business tumbling into the Dumpster.  

I worry that Hollywood is perhaps a little overwhelmed by its preoccupation with new technology, especially judging from the legions of screenwriters who've complained about studio executives being unable to follow the simplest storyline in pitch meetings because they were so intently focused on toggling their Crackberries. Of course, if the pitch meeting was at Paramount, the execs would have a good excuse -- maybe they're the people reading Redstone's e-mail for him.  

But in a showbiz world that is always focused on the future, Viacom no longer has the luxury of having a czar who lives in the past, acting like an aging member of the Rat Pack, ogling showgirls at a Vegas casino. With Redstone still in charge, it's no wonder Viacom seems to taking two steps back every time it tries to put its best foot forward.

Photo of Sumner Redstone by Chris Pizzello / Associated Press

'Sweet Smell of Success': The scent of showbiz ambition is still strong

Howard Bragman is one of Hollywood's most witty and quotable publicists. He's been around town lately  promoting his new book, "Where's My Fifteen Minutes?," which offers his wry take on the modern-day PR trade. And where better to do a book signing than tonight at the American Cinematheque, which is having a 7:30 p.m. showing at the Egyptian Theatre of "Sweet Smell of Success." Bragman will be signing books at 6 p.m., then will stick around to introduce the movie.

If you haven't experienced the luxuriant pleasures of "Sweet Smell of Success," I can only suggest that if you can't make it to the Cinematheque tonight, then make sure you put the DVD on your birthday list. Made in 1957 from a script by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets, the film stars Burt Lancaster as J.J. Hunsecker, a Walter Winchell-like newspaper columnist, and Tony Curtis as Sidney Falco, a clever, conniving young press agent. No movie has better captured the acrid scent of two ambitious men  effortlessly manipulating each other as they jockey for position and power. Though director Alexander Mackendrick provides the film with its gorgeously brooding film noir sheen, the movie is especially beloved by critics far and wide for its sparkling dialogue.

Always looming above everyone on screen, Lancaster has never appeared more menacing, especially as he barks out dismissive remarks to anyone who gets in his way. When he reaches for a cigarette, he says to Curtis: "Match me, Sidney." When Curtis has betrayed his trust, he tells him: "You're dead, son, get yourself buried." When he sees a respected politician with a young tootsie and her manager, he bluntly spells out the situation, first pointing at the manager, then at the tootsie, as he tells him: "And here you are, out in the open, where any hep person knows that this one is toting that one around for you."  

The film hasn't lost a step in 50 years. One of the best N.Y.-based film publicity firms is called Falco Ink in tribute to the film. And whenever my pal, the publicist Larry Solters, calls to chat, the first words out of his mouth are: "J.J., this is Sidney." I asked Bragman why we love the two leads in the film even though they behave so badly. "I think we're attracted to them because they're completely honest and real," he explains. "There's never been a movie that was so much about naked power and how to use it. The moral dilemmas are all there -- the whole story is about how low you can go."

So how have things changed in the ensuing half-century since the film was made? Can columnists still make or break careers? Do celebrities behave more badly but with fewer consequences? "I was thinking about comparing J.J. Hunsecker to Perez Hilton." Bragman said. "But no one has the power Hunsecker had back then, or uses it in the way he did. If you go on TMZ, you can see some celebrity being trashed every five minutes. But it doesn't stick. We're so inured to the attacks that they don't do any lasting damage. When Walter Winchell was king, half the country read him every morning. But today, an attack on a blog is just like nibbling M&Ms between the main course. No one has the gravitas the columnists had back then."

I guess you could say the novelty of bad behavior has finally worn off. "Exactly," says Bragman. "If Paris Hilton had done all her antics 50 years ago, she would've been ruined. The difference is that 50 years ago, a celebrity built their brand or figured out their personality - -and then they got famous. Today, you get famous first and then figure out how to turn it into a real career." When celebs have troubles today, it's a lot easier to wriggle free, make apologies and seek redemption. In the days of "Sweet Smell of Success," sterner measures were required. As Sidney Falco so memorably puts it in the film: "The cat's in a bag and the bag's in a river."

Here's a taste of Falco and Hunsecker in action:

Variety on 'Wolverine': A Hollywood 'work for hire'

Not that this is exactly a shocker, but Variety just posted its review of Fox's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," which opens Friday, with a host of 12:01 a.m. theater showings. And according to the trade's Justin Chang, the much-anticipated summer tentpole is ... a snooze.

Arguing that the "dull-witted" film falls considerably short of the first two Bryan Singer-directed installments in the series (but better than the third Brett Ratner film), Chang explains: "This brawny but none-too-brainy prequel sustains interest mainly -- if only fitfully -- as a nonstop slice-and-dice vehicle for Hugh Jackman."

Chang is toughest on the script, which he views as having aimed low -- and still missed. Here's an excerpt:

"Though its as thick with exposition as any cinematic adaptation of a complex and beloved superhero mythology, the script, by David Benioff and Skip Woods, relies, to a lazy and excessive degree, on both Jackman's considerable charisma and fan awareness of Wolverine's preternatural abilities. There's little emotional modulation or sense of discovery as Logan morphs from hardened soldier to angry but principled rebel, seeking revenge on the mad scientist who engineered him.... Script also traffics in the kind of flat, shopworn comic relief that's become de rigeur for superhero fare.... Noisy and impersonal, 'Wolverine' bears all the marks of a work for hire, conceived and executed with a big budget, but little imagination."

Photo: Hugh Jackman in "Wolverine." Credit: Michael Muller / Associated Press

Elizabeth Banks on '17 Again': Did she, like, skip all her journalism classes?

Having seen her in everything from "40-Year-Old Virgin" to "Role Models" to "W," we all agree that Elizabeth Banks is a terrific comedienne, so terrific that we forgive her for being in "Meet Dave."

But judging from her new post on the Huffington Post, I'm guessing she wasn't a J-school major at the University of Pennsylvania. She's written an ardent essay arguing against the unfortunate message of the Zac Efron-starring "17 Again" -- i.e. that knocking up your high school sweetheart is A-OK. I actually think that I completely agree with her point, but her prose is so, well, over-caffeinated that as I continued reading I got so jittery that I somehow lost the thread of what she was talking about.

Here's an excerpt from the piece just to get you going. After explaining that the film does strike a cautionary note in a scene where Margaret Cho promotes the use of condoms, Banks writes:

Unfortunately, this scene would have had a lot more impact if Zac Efron's character not only acknowledged that sex can lead to babies but also that having a kid when you're 18 is hard, hard, hard. (Spoiler alert: he should know, see, 'cuz that's what got him into this crazy mess!) Also, he doesn't want his daughter (again, born when he was 18) to have sex with her high-school sweetheart yet his most powerful argument against it -- HAVING A KID WHEN YOU ARE JUST GRADUATING HIGH SCHOOL IS HARD -- I KNOW, I'M REALLY YOUR DAD! -- never comes up. He's just like, "fingers crossed!" Now, of course, the daughter does not have sex (totally unrealistically) and ends up lusting after Mr. Efron (totally realistically, who wouldn't) and it's creepy and weird. My point here (sorry, I was looking up "image Hunter Parrish" on Google and got off-track) is that this movie pretty much glamorizes teenage parenting. It basically says: Go for it! Have a kid when you're 18. Throw another one in for good measure right after and you'll get a nice house, deck and hammock included, your baby mama apparently won't need to work, your kids will eventually have iPods and get into Georgetown and the person you picked (when you were 17) is actually your soulmate! Don't worry if the condom breaks -- it's cool! It's totally worked out for Bristol, ya'll! (Is it me or is Levi cute?)

 If anyone can provide a Banks-to-English translation for these musings, please feel free to share.

Photo: Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times

Fox on 'Wolverine' whopper: No fibbing involved

When we last revisited the "X Men Origins: Wolverine" Internet piracy boondoggle, Fox was trying to explain -- not especially successfully -- why studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman had claimed earlier this month that 10 minutes were missing from the unfinished copy of the film that surfaced on the Internet when, in fact the finished version of the film appears to be exactly the same length as the pirated copy.

Bloggers were especially hard on the studio. Aint It Cool News scoffed at the studio's "10 minutes of the film are missing" claim, saying Fox was simply trying to get people who'd seen the pirated version to pay to see the print that arrives in theaters all across the U.S. this Friday. ("Wolverine" was also due to open in Mexico this weekend, but its premiere has been postponed due to swine flu-related Mexican theater closings.)

Businessinsider.com's Hilary Lewis was even harder on the studio, saying it had been caught in a "lie" that "weakens the trust audiences have in the studio and might lead to more people watching the pirated versions of Fox's films."

As I said in a previous post, I'm not sure the situation is that dire, since history has shown that most fans still want to see a movie with an audience of fellow devotees on the big screen.

But until now, Fox has never adequately explained how Rothman could say 10 minutes of footage were missing when the running times for the pirated version and the theatrical version were the same. At first, I got a bland non-denial. The studio simply said that the pirated workprint was "substantially different than the release version ... and is not remotely representative of the experience that moviegoers will have when the film is finally released theatrically."

But this afternoon the studio was more forthcoming. Fox's senior vice president of corporate communications, Chris Petrikin, who was out of the country on vacation -- in Mexico, of all places -- when bloggers started bashing Rothman last week, explains that he was probably the person who told Rothman that 10 minutes were missing from the pirated version of the film. He stressed that the studio was under enormous pressure after the piracy as it attempted to sift through a host of often wildly speculative Internet reports about the theft.  

"There was no 'fibbing' involved -- that would imply that we were so on top of things that we anticipated having one of our biggest films of the year stolen and had time to concoct a plan to purposefully 'spin' wrong information," Petrikin told me. "Remember, Tom gave this [Entertainment Weekly] interview a day after we learned of the theft. A lot of information and misinformation was flying back and forth then, and there was no way to sort it out quickly or definitively. In fact, I think I told Tom that there might be 10  minutes missing from the stolen version, based -- obviously -- on misinformation I was given or misinterpreted. The real issue is the scale of this crime and that the film was not finished when it was stolen."

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DID FOX TELL A WHOPPER ABOUT 'WOLVERINE' THEFT?

Move over Seth Rogen: Sir Charles is the new funny man in town

With the NBA playoffs in full swing and the Lakers moving into the next round after winning a mercifully brief five-game series with the Utah Jazz, the sportswriters have all gone on to other topics -- notably, if Andrew Bynum has recovered enough from this season's knee injury to be a factor in the next round of the playoffs. But I have a more show biz-oriented question: Why can't Charles Barkley get a gig in a Hollywood comedy?

Forget about Seth Rogen, Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell, no one has better comic timing than Barkley, a former NBA star who now provides brilliant comedy relief as TNT's studio analyst during the network's NBA broadcasts. Barkley is like a modern-day W.C. Fields, a natural-born rabble-rouser who's deeply suspicious of authority, contemptuous of political correctness and always willing to say exactly what's on his mind.

As anyone who watches basketball on TV can attest, Barkley is especially at home in the series of T-Mobile cellphone ads he does with Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade, who plays his comic foil, always eager for his basketball elder's approval. The ads are 30-second comedy masterpieces, always plugging the product via a cellphone conversation, but never missing a comedy beat.

In the latest ad, Barkley is making a video game with NBA Hall of Famers Magic Johnson and Dr. J -- all three stars looking like pudgy bumblebees in the traditional black tight-style garb worn for shooting video game effects. When Barkley phones Wade, the young star asks what kind of video game he's in. Its called "Old School," Dr. J explains. "You get to play the old-school legends when they're old." This cracks up Wade. Barkley warns him: "Hey, man, quit laughing. You're getting old too." But just when he thinks he's salvaged a shred of dignity, a doddering old octogenarian totters by, propelled by a walker, who gives a raspy bellow: "Hang up the phone, Barkley. I'm taking you to the hole."

In another T-Mobile ad, Barkley and Wade are at a Chinese restaurant, sampling Houston Rockets star Yao Ming's favorite soup, which has live shrimp wriggling out of the bowl. When Yao calls, he says:"Hey, Charles, how do you like the shrimp?" Barkley grumbles: "It's moving and it got eyes on it."

Barkley is so irrepressible -- he even did a "Wolverine" impression on a recent TNT broadcast -- that he deserves to have his moment in the big-screen spotlight. Paging Judd Apatow or John Hamburg: Can't you write a good role for this fabulously funny guy? He's ready for his close-up.

Here's Barkley's best T-Mobile work, first with Magic Johnson and Dr. J, then with Yao Ming:

Photo: Charles Barkley. Credit: Chris Pizzello / Associated Press

Fox revives 'Wall Street' sequel: Oliver Stone back on board

It looked like 20th Century Fox's "Money Never Sleeps," the sequel to Oliver Stone's riveting 1987 drama "Wall Street," was dead in the water, especially after the director told MTV News earlier this year that he'd abandoned the project, saying "I dropped out....We couldn't come up with the right way to go about it."

But Fox is now saying the movie has a green light again. Stone is back aboard as director, Michael Douglas will reprise his role as Gordon Gekko and the studio is in negotiations with Shia LaBeouf to play a young Wall Street trader under Gekko's spell -- a somewhat updated version of the character Charlie Sheen played in the original film. The sequel's original writer was Stephen Schiff, who has now moved on, with Allan Loeb ("Things We Lost in the Fire") having done a rewrite of the script. Fox hopes to have the film in production as early as sometime this summer.

The film is now simply going under the title of "Wall Street 2," having shed its original "Money Never Sleeps" moniker. No one is offering a lot of specifics about the storyline, except to say that the focus remains on the Gekko character, whose exploits will closely reflect much of the greed and chicanery seen in the past year on Wall Street.

Photo of Michael Douglas in "Wall Street" by Andy Schwartz.

'$5 Cover': MTV's new media and music franchise

If there is one thing that every studio, network and cable channel has in common these days, it's that they are all frantically obsessed with finding the Next Hot New Thing -- i.e. a compelling pop culture concept or phenomenon that will spawn a new hit franchise. (You know, to line up on the runway as the cobwebby old franchises start to wear thin.) Though there are obvious exceptions -- like Universal's "Bourne" series -- most franchises end up feeling like they are far more about commerce than art, whether it's the slimy horror series ("Saw"), the heist series ("Ocean's Eleven" and its sequels) or the comic-book visual effects series ("Fantastic Four"), not to mention all of TV's endless "CSI" and "Law &  Order" permutations.

But what would happen if you put the franchise reins in the hands of an indie filmmaker, gave him creative control over its content and launch, anchored it in a city's vibrant underground music scene and turned it into a new media series that would play on multiple platforms, on screens small, smaller and hand-held tiny?

What you'd have would look a lot like "$5 Cover," a new MTV series that captures the funky groove of the local Memphis music scene but with real musicians in virtually all the acting roles, all orchestrated by filmmaker Craig Brewer, writer-director of "Hustle & Flow," the 2005 indie hit set in the colorful gumbo-like environs of Memphis.

The show, which launches Friday night at midnight on MTV's cable channel and on its website, fivedollarcover.com, is a fascinating experiment in new media storytelling, combining the unabashed narcissism of reality TV with the raw, rough edges of indie cinema. Until now, Web series have largely been drawn to comedy and thriller storytelling genres.

"$5 Cover" isn't typed so easily, perhaps because it has so many separate but complementary components. The main Web component of the series offers 15 digital episodes, each six or seven minutes long, only loosely chronological, that follow the romantic entanglements and career ups and downs of a group of Memphis musicians as they haunt bars, clubs and cafes. MTV will air a half-hour packaged version of three episodes each week during a five-week run on the network.

The series is accompanied by music videos from the songs performed by the local artists featured in the series' digital episodes. And in what might be the most unusual twist of all, Brewer teamed up with Memphis Commercial Appeal photographer Alan Spearman to put together an assortment of mini-documentaries about each of the major artists in the series.

The show is so steeped in Memphis people and places that the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau helped create an accompanying series, called "The Flipside of Memphis." It captures the offbeat characters who make up the eclectic city, including, for example, a local roller derby team, a dance academy and Tad Pierson, a self-style road ethnographer who gives guided tours in his coffee-colored 1955 Caddy of obscure Memphis music historical sites.

From MTV's point of view, Memphis will simply be the first stop on a continuing musical and cultural odyssey of different cities, first in America, but eventually in Europe and Latin America as well. It's a franchise but, as you can tell, it has very little in common with the top-down "X Men" and "Harry Potter" and "CSI" studio franchise model. So what is it really?

Keep reading: 

Twitter after Ashton Kutcher: Did it just jump the shark?

I don't know if "Dodger Talk" host -- and Emmy-winning TV comedy writer -- Ken Levine is really having a colonoscopy today, but he sure milks the idea for all its worth with this great new post spoofing the overkill of inane musings that seems to dominate the world of tweet-dom these days.

If you've begun to worry that perhaps we're all OD-ing on mindless Ashton-Kutcher-style Twit Chat, this could be the coup de grace. A brief sample of Levine's faux-twittering: 

Okay. Starting to take the stuff.

Ugggghhh! It tastes terrible. Mood: Irritable.

Thinking of a Staycation this year. Any suggestions where I could stay?

It's been a half hour. When is this stuff supposed to work?

45 minutes. Still nothing.

An hour. What's the deal???

Just filled out my All-Star ballot.

[EXPLETIVE DELETED} !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kill me NOW!!!!!!!!!!

YEOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's working.

Oh, Christ! I forgot. Today's the day we scheduled an OPEN HOUSE here.

No, you can't see the bathroom. It's currently occupied. 

Hey my legs have gone to sleep. Has that ever happened to you?

TWITTER JUMPS THE SHARK, PART TWO: LARRY KING WEIGHS IN:

Photo: Ashton Kutcher. Credit: Hermann J. Knippertz / Associated Press