Variety on '2012': A preposterous joke

OK, I can't say that I'm shocked -- or for that matter, even a little surprised -- that the first big review that has surfaced on "2012" says that Roland Emmerich's kitschy disaster movie is, well, a kitschy disaster movie. According to Variety's Todd McCarthy, the best thing that can be said of the movie is that John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who play two of the leading roles, "convey above-the-norm intelligence for characters in this sort of fare," which I guess means that the rest of the big-name cast (i.e. Danny Glover, Oliver Platt and Amanda Peet) register pretty low on the IQ scale.

McCarthy even finds a sneaky way to work a reference to "Casablanca" into his review. Here's how he describes what goes wrong with the movie as it lumbers into its third act:

"Let it be said that '2012' plummets from reasonably distracting spectacle to sheerest silliness when, in the pointlessly protracted final reels, it tries to maintain interest in the (confusingly staged) jeopardy of a handful of characters when much of the world's population has already been wiped out or is about to be. Never has Rick's observation in 'Casablanca' been more true, that the problems of a few little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."  

McCarthy ends up calling the film a joke "for the simple reason that it has no point of view; the film offers no philosophical, metaphysical, intellectual and certainly no religious perspective on the cataclysm, just the physical frenzy of it all." I bet that last line gets a hearty laugh from Emmerich, who can only be wagging his head, wondering: "These crazy critics -- after all these years, they still can't tell the difference between me and Lars Von Trier!" 

Photo of John Cusack and Morgan Lily in "2012" by Joe Lederer/Columbia Pictures.

Jim Cameron's 'Avatar' price tag: How about a cool $500 million?

You'd have to say that the New York Times' Michael Cieply is a pretty crafty reporter. He knew that the best way to get us to read a sober, intricately detailed financial analysis of 20th Century Fox's economic involvement in "Avatar" was to stick something in the lede that would grab our attention -- like the news that the movie's price tag was approaching $500 million.

How did he get that number, you may wonder. According to his story, the Jim Cameron-masterminded film (due out next month and still under lock and key) has a reported production budget of $230 million, but Cieply says that the price tag "would be higher if the financial contribution of Mr. Cameron and others were included." He says that when you toss in the cost of global marketing for the film -- he says Fox itself is planning to spend $150 million around the world -- the film would cost its various backers $500 million.

Cieply's story makes a compelling point about modern-day studio economics. When it comes to a mega-blockbuster like "Avatar," studios like Fox don't just hedge their bets. They involve a wide variety of partners who provide financial and marketing support for the studio's behemoth. According to the piece, a pair of private equity partners -- Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Media -- are picking up 60% of the film's budget. But Fox also has built-in protections from Cameron himself. If the film's final production costs topped $300 million, for example, Cameron would "effectively defer much of his payout until the studio and others were compensated."

Cieply says the film also qualified for tax rebates in New Zealand, since much of its digital work was done there. It also benefits from $25 million worth of technological and marketing aid from Panasonic, which pitched in to help the film in return for assistance from Cameron on Panasonic's upcoming 3-D home video systems.

It just goes to show that when you're in the blockbuster business these days, you can always count on a little help from your friends, who are all hoping to make a little money -- or enjoy some reflected benefits -- from a mega-event that casts a giant shadow over the entire Hollywood landscape.

Nic Cage's big-money problems: too many mansions, jets, cars and ... dinosaur skulls?

No one is going to throw a pity party for Nic Cage, the $20-million movie star who not only has made more bad movies than Nicole Kidman ("National Treasure: Book of Secrets," "Bangkok Dangerous," "Knowing," "Next" and "Ghost Rider," just to name a few recent ones), but who has spent the last dozen or so years living like a Saudi potentate. The actor is now suing his former money manager, Samuel Levin, for $20 million in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming Levin enriched himself while "sending Cage down a path toward financial ruin."

But according to a wonderfully detailed story by Jacob Bernstein in the Daily Beast, Cage seems to have done a pretty good job of achieving financial ruin all of his own, engaging in the kind of profligate spending habits that gives ample ammunition to critics who say Hollywood is teeming with self-absorbed narcissists. To hear Bernstein tell it: "Cage's appetite was extreme even for Hollywood, with a decade-plus shopping spree that saw him snapping up houses, motorcycles, a jet, yachts, vintage and new cars, expensive watches, meteorites, dinosaur skulls, an enormous pet collection, massive amounts of jewelry for the women in his life, group vacations for his entourage and on and on and on."

Did he say ... meteorites?

Cage's lawyer, Marty Singer, told Bernstein: "Half the stuff you say is false. I'm not going to get into detail." But the reporter offers richly detailed evidence to support his case, which shows Cage having to sell off his 1940 Beverly Hills mansion (former owners: Dean Martin and Tom Jones) for less than half of its original $30-million asking price. Cage has two more mansions in New Orleans that have been foreclosed on and will be auctioned off later this month. Bernstein says they are among "more than a dozen" homes Cage has bought in the past decade, including a castle near Bath, England; an 11th century estate in Etzelwang, Germany; and (count 'em) two Bahamian islands.

In June 2004, Cage owned 18 motorcycles and 30 cars, having spent nearly $500,000 on a Lamborghini Miura SVJ that had been owned by the shah of Iran. He also had a 1955 Jaguar D-Type on exhibit in the billiard room at his Bel-Air home, where it was "lit from above, like something out of a car dealership."

Cage also had a menagerie of animals including rare birds, pure-bred dogs, lizards and snakes, including two king cobras (as well as antidote serum in case they bit someone). He bought his dinosaur skull at auction in 2007 for $276,000 after a heated bidding war with Leonardo DiCaprio. There's so, so much more in the piece, which ends on a bittersweet note, saying that Cage, now in much reduced circumstances, has been forced to ditch his personal chef and decorator, along with a personal trainer, who is now no longer on permanent call.

I guess this can mean only one thing -- watch for a third installment in the "National Treasure" series, since Cage seems like a guy who, even after the riches he's raked in, still needs to star in one more bad movie to make some quick money.

Photo of Nicolas Cage (right) and Lucius Baston in "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" by Lena Herzog / First Look Studios

Make a football wager with 'The Blind Side's' John Lee Hancock

If anyone knows football, it's John Lee Hancock, writer-director of "The Blind Side," a wonderfully uplifting new film (based on the Michael Lewis book of the same name) that stars Sandra Bullock as a feisty Memphis belle who finds a home -- right in her own home -- for a hulking homeless teenager who ends up going to college where he emerges as such a terrific offensive tackle that he became a first-round NFL draft pick. The film hits theaters Nov. 20 and is even getting early Oscar buzz for Bullock, who gives a knock-your-socks-off performance.

There's plenty of great football in the film, which features a host of cameos by such top college coaches as former South Carolina and Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz, Alabama's Nick Saban and Ole Miss' Houston Nutt. A native Texan, where football is like a religion, Hancock has college football in his blood. His brother Joe played at Vanderbilt, his brother Kevin played at Baylor and his dad, John, who coached high school football for years, played at Baylor before enjoying a brief career in the early NFL with the Chicago Cardinals.

So I asked Hancock to put on his prognosticator's cap and make some picks for this week's big college football games. Here's the betting line, along with Hancock's picks and commentary (the team in parenthesis is the favorite, followed by how many points they're giving):

LSU at Alabama (Alabama -- 7.5):  My "new best friend" Nick Saban (he's in "The Blind Side") has Alabama's defense playing lights out. But their offense is sputtering. Take LSU and the 7.5 points (though I still think Bama wins).

Ohio State at Penn State (Penn State -- 3.5): I'm just not that impressed with Ohio State. I say take Joe Pa's boys and give the points

Oklahoma at Nebraska (Oklahoma -- 6): The wheels seem to be coming off a bit for the Huskers, take the Sooners giving 6.

Baylor at Missouri (Missouri -- 16):  Hard to bet against my alma mater but since it's not a straight-up pick I can take Baylor and the 16 points. They have to have one great game in them, right?

USC at Arizona State (USC -- 11.5): USC was ripped apart at Autzen last week. I look for them to rebound big. Take the Trojans and give up the 11.5.

Kansas at Kansas State (Kansas -- 2.5): Kansas State has improved greatly this year and Kansas seems lethargic. Take Kansas State and the points.

Vanderbilt at Florida (Florida -- 32.5): Spikes is out but Florida still rolls. Vandy played pretty well last week so perhaps they can score a couple of touchdowns. Take Vandy and the points.

Purdue at Michigan (Michigan -- 6):  I'll say take Purdue and the points as, of late, Purdue's been more impressive and the Big House isn't quite as daunting as it once was.

Texas A&M at Colorado (Texas A&M -- 3): On principle, I never, ever root for A&M, therefore I hope I'm wrong about this pick. Take the Farmers and give the points.

(We'll check in on Monday and see how John Lee's predictions held up.)

'Precious' gets the bum's rush from Armond White

"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," Lee Daniels' searing film about a sexually abused teenage girl that opens Friday, has been racking up film festival awards, Oscar buzz and critical plaudits for months -- it already has a sky-high 87 Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. But the movie, which has the heavyweight endorsement of both Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, two icons of the African American creative community, just received a nasty thrashing from another black icon, the New York Press' wildly politically incorrect Armond White, one of the few remaining high-profile African American film critics (he's currently head of the prestigious New York Critics Circle).

White is famously contrarian in his tastes, so I'm not saying that he's going to be leading a momentous critical backlash against the film. But it is rare to see an African American commentator not only take apart a gifted black filmmaker like Daniels, but trash Oprah and Perry in the process. White doesn't mince words, calling the film "a con job" that "naively treats Precious' exhibition of ghetto tragedy and female disempowerment as if it were raw truth." Then he really unloads on everyone:

"Winfrey, Perry and Daniels make an unholy triumvirate. They come together at some intersection of race exploitation and opportunism. These two media titans -- plus one shrewd pathology pimp -- use 'Precious' to rework Booker T. Washington's early 20th century manifesto 'Up From Slavery' into extreme drama for the new millennium: Up From Incest, Child Abuse, Teenage Pregnancy, Poverty and AIDS. Regardless of its narrative details about class and gender, 'Precious is an orgy of prurience.... Not since 'Birth of a Nation' has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as 'Precious.' Fully of brazenly racist cliches (Precious steals and eats an entire bucket of fried chicken) it is a sociological horror show. Offering racist hysteria masquerading as social sensitivity, it's been acclaimed on the international film festival circuit that usually disdains movies about black Americans as somehow inartistic and unworthy."  

White is especially disturbed by the involvement of Winfrey and Perry, who have been very open about their own experiences with childhood abuse. He views their much-discussed triumph over their own personal travails as exploitation, arguing that the movie's "self-pity and recrimination" is seen as an endorsement of Winfrey and Perry's own backstories, saying: "Promoting this movie isn't just a way for Perry and Winfrey to aggrandize themselves, it helps convert their private agendas into heavily hyped social preoccupation."

I think White goes a little overboard, since it's hardly the first time Oprah in particular has promoted a film or a book about family abuse and dysfunction -- she's made a career out of it. But it will fascinating to see how black audiences react to Daniels' stark drama. As my colleague John Horn pointed out today, Lionsgate, which is releasing the film, is going after both middle-class black audiences and art-house cineastes, opening the film here at both the Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15-theater complex as well as the highbrow Landmark and ArcLight theaters, hoping to score with two very disparate audiences.

It's a tough needle to thread. In fact, Lionsgate tried a similar strategy with its recent LeBron James basketball film, "More Than a Game," and came up short, never connecting with either young urban sport fans or art-house documentary lovers. After a month in theaters, the film has only made $829,000, a poor showing for a movie that James promoted with wall-to-wall appearances on every major TV talk show imaginable. The themes in "Precious" certainly have the potential to speak a huge disparate audience, but I suspect that, even with its A-list endorsers, it may do better with Oscar voters than rank and file African American moviegoers.

Armond White is clearly a non-believer. He ends his review by saying that some of the film's most emotional scenes "might have been met howls of skeptical laughter at Harlem's Magic Johnson theater. Black audiences would surely have seen the comedy in this ludicrous, overloaded situation, whereas too many white film habitues casually enjoy it for the sense of superiority -- and relief -- it allows them to feel. Some people like being conned."  

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Backstage with 'Fantastic Mr. Fox's' Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman

Last night, as part of an awards season film series sponsored by my newspaper, I hosted a screening of "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" with its filmmaker, Wes Anderson, and Jason Schwartzman, who voices Ash, Mr. Fox's ungainly, often not entirely beloved son. After the film's credits rolled, we took the stage and I basically played the straight man, lobbing up some (hopefully) not entirely dumb questions that gave the two guys an opportunity to tell funny stories about their childhood and the making of the film.

Yes, it is true, for example, that Bill Murray, who voices Badger in the movie, tried to cajole Anderson into letting him do the character in a Wisconsin accent, since the University of Wisconsin's football team's nickname is--ahem--the Badgers. Anderson said no dice, although he did allow Murray to assume additionally the tiny, but pivotal role of the film's lone wolf, a mystical creature who is held in awe by all the foxes in the film. 

Before we took the stage, we hung out in the Landmark Theater's bar, where Anderson and Schwarztman dissected the Coen brothers' "A Serious Man," which they both had recently seen. We agreed that it was easily their most--perhaps only--personal film, with Anderson, who is clearly a fan of the Brothers Coen, admiring how sneaky smart their work is. He acknowledged that it was easy to underestimate a Coen film immediately after having seen it. "I remember being pretty unswayed by 'The Big Lebowski' when I first saw it," he recalled. "But after a few days, it started to sink in and then I went back to see it again and realized that it was pretty amazing, having found myself quoting dialogue from it ever since."

For me, the nicest moment of the evening was provided by Schwartzman, who is also a talented songwriter and musician, having played drums for years in the band Phantom Planet. He now has his own solo project, called Coconut Records. At some point in our discussion, I asked him about his youthful enthusiasms. As it turned out, even though he was surrounded by movie royalty--his mom is Talia Shire, Francis Coppola's sister, which makes him cousins with Nic Cage, Sofia Coppola and (regular Anderson collaborator) Roman Coppola--his true love was always music. As a typically awkward, alienated teenager, rock music spoke much more directly to his psyche than films.

"When I was kid, I only went to see comedies, so while I enjoyed them, I always thought it was music that spoke most deeply to me," he explained. But at some point in his teenage years, he found himself preparing for an acting audition without really understanding what movies could have to say. When he confided his concerns to his mother, she told him to stay put while she hurried off to a video store. She returned with three movies: "The Graduate," "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Harold and Maude," which Schwarztman watched all in one sitting that night.

"It totally changed my life," he said, realizing for the first time that film could be just as powerful and soulful as the best rock and roll music. From that day on, he was committed to pursuing acting and filmmaking, leading him to his first great role, as Max Fischer in Anderson's "Rushmore." For some reason, I found Schwartzman's story especially inspiring, in the sense that even someone who grew up in a hall-of-fame movie family still needed a jolt of great movie-watching to understand the special glory of the medium. 

I've had a similar experience--for me, it was the first time I saw Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch." But I'd love to hear if any of you had similar "gotcha" moments when a movie rocked your world. If you can still remember the visceral thrill of the moment, please share!

Photo of Jason Schwartzman by Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

Oscar co-hosts will be co-conspirators of comedy

What's not to like about the idea of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin serving as co-hosts of the Oscars, as the academy just announced this afternoon. They're two funny guys who are still at the top of their game, always armed with a gag in their quiver, as Martin proved in the academy press release, when he quipped: "I am happy to co-host the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin."

Baldwin does have quite a few enemies, mostly conservatives who can't stand his politics, so the academy can only hope that they'll do something really lame, like organize an Oscar boycott, which would only give the creaky awards show a whiff of hip appeal.

I hope Oscar producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman take the guys out to lunch, pat them on the back and say "See ya at the show." In other words, leave them alone and let them figure out how much material they want to do solo or together. Baldwin has a reputation of being something of a loose cannon, which frankly is just what the academy needs these days. It would be wonderful to see him wade into the audience a few times and mix it up, Jack Donaghy-style, with all the stuffed-shirt celebs that always get all the good front-row seats. 

After the schmaltzy Hugh Jackman affair last year, this is a giant step in the right direction for the academy.

Photo of Steve Martin at the 2003 Oscars by Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times; Alec Baldwin by Stuart Ramson / Associated Press

Fox Searchlight jumps 'Crazy Heart' into Oscar season

We knew Fox Searchlight was in love with "Crazy Heart," the low-budget country music drama that stars Jeff Bridges as a faded, booze-fueled singer named Bad Blake who's trying to get his career back on track. Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Scott Cooper, the film costars Maggie Gyllenhaal (playing a small-town reporter), Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell.

Searchlight acquired the film in July, taking it off the market with a low seven-figure bid, enamored by the film's acting and nuanced storytelling. Its original plan was to release the movie in the spring of 2010. But the studio must be smelling award-season gold, because my sources say the movie is moving into Oscar territory, with Searchlight now planning a limited Dec. 11 release in Los Angeles and New York before taking the film wider early next year.

Since Searchlight's only serious Oscar contender, as of now, is its well-reviewed summer release,  "(500) Days of Summer," the studio must be betting that Bridges -- always a favorite with the academy, especially as he's aged into Nick Nolte-style gray-bearded grizzly guy -- could land some best actor nominations. Searchlight suddenly sent out screening notices today, another tipoff that the movie is looking for some early word-of-mouth enthusiasm from the blogosphere.

My favorite movie-music magician, T Bone Burnett, supervised the film's soundtrack, so I'm betting it will have some real C&W authenticity. As soon as I get a chance to see it, I'll report in on whether we've got another serious Oscar candidate or not.

Photo of Jeff Bridges by Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times.

Is Hollywood always in panic mode? Ari Emanuel's history lesson

If you've been reading the gloom and doom stories in the press lately, you know that Hollywood is going through its fair share of belt tightening. Unsure about future profits, studios have been cutting back on everything including movie production budgets, A-list stars' first-dollar gross deals and perk packages, as well as movie premieres, screenwriter salaries and -- oh, yes -- newspaper advertising.

It's all been a big bummer, especially for the town's talent agents, who have had to weather a thousand-and-one grumpy phone calls from top actors and filmmakers unhappy about seeing their once-reliable salary quotes being tossed out the window.

It's nervous time for talent, especially with the studios crowing that most of their biggest hits this year ("The Hangover," "Star Trek," "Transformers") have come without the presence of any big-name above-the-line talent.

But guess what? This ain't the first time that Hollywood has tried to get tough and dump all that expensive talent baggage. That's the message that WME boss Ari Emanuel delivered to his troops recently, sending out to all his agents a copy of a 1970 Life magazine that detailed Paramount Pictures' efforts to revamp its business by jettisoning most of its costly star talent.

Even though 1969 was a banner year for movies, seeing the release of such groundbreaking films as "Midnight Cowboy," "Easy Rider," "The Wild Bunch" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," to name just a few, it was a lousy year for the studio bottom line. In the fall of 1969, Paramount had laid off 150 employees. As Life pointed out in its story, at the same time as Paramount was cutting overhead and writing down its production losses, Warner Bros. had $59 million in losses, MGM had $53 million in losses and Fox had $67 million in losses, all in an era where a million really meant a million.

Paramount's parent company, Gulf + Western, which had acquired the studio in 1966, was run by the mercurial Charles Bluhdorn, a brilliant financier with big, square Chiclet-like teeth who had such large holdings in the Dominican Republic that he had his own private landing strip for his Gulfstream jet. Always willing to push the limits in search of a killer deal -- he was under investigation by the SEC for much of the 1970s -- Bluhdorn had little patience for the vagaries of the movie business. When films would lose money, he'd pound the table, bellowing in a guttural Austrian accent: "While we've been sitting here, I made more [expletive] money on sugar than Paramount made all year!"

You can imagine any number of top GE executives saying the same thing about Universal Pictures this year, if you simply replaced sugar with light bulbs or jet engines. Forty years ago, people were just as frustrated by the excess and unpredictability of the movie business as they are today. Emanuel wouldn't get on the phone with me to explain exactly why he focused on this Life story, but one of his agents, who sent it along to me, said that Ari's point was simple enough: Don't overreact to the current studio cost-cutting frenzy. As this story makes all too clear, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Studios always think they can make the movie business into a more rational enterprise, but that's a bean-counter fantasy. Making movies will always require a leap of faith.

It's almost comical reading Bluhdorn grouse about his economic woes, knowing that he was voicing the exact same complaints echoed by the overlords of News Corp., Viacom, GE and Time Warner today. All you have to do is add a zero and his beefs are in perfect sync with today's studio's economic grumbling. "This paying stars $1 million against 10% of the gross -- paying directors $500,000 -- that's nothing less than insanity," he told Life. "You see, to recoup you must take in $3 million at the box office for every million up front. And for these expensive movies, the odds against recouping are enormous."

Just as today's studio chiefs think that they can now make "Transformers" and "Hangover"-style hits without movie stars, Bluhdorn was convinced that high-priced talent was superfluous. "You get from these big stars a document of conditions of how many hours they'll work, what they'll do and won't do.... Well, who needs them? With today's young audiences, names won't sell a picture anymore. A great script and a devoted director -- that's what makes things happen."

Substitute "special effects" for "script" and you could easily slip those words into any of today's studio bosses' mouths. So why didn't cost-cutting formulas take hold? Why did Bluhdorn's resolve weaken? Will the same thing happen today? Keep reading:

Get out the boxing gloves: Richard Schickel vs. Robert Altman

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I usually try to avoid getting into dust-ups with critics writing in my own newspaper, but I can't avoid coming to the late Robert Altman's defense after reading Richard Schickel's nasty, dismissive review of "Robert Altman: The Oral Biography" by Mitchell Zuckoff, a new book about the man who brought us "MASH," "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," "Nashville," "The Player," "Short Cuts," "Gosford Park" and any number of other smart, funny and challenging films.

My primary problem with the review is that if Schickel has no respect for Altman as a filmmaker, how would he possibly be in a position to give a fair review to an exhaustive biography of the man? And it's certainly obvious that Schickel loathes Altman's work, since he starts out by ridiculing "MASH" as "a basically witless film," then moves on to trash the rest of Altman's oeuvre, saying that "misanthropy -- with a strong admixture of misogyny -- essentially substitutes for ideas in his movies and his characters are, in effect, characterless."

Schickel seems especially aggrieved that Altman was a boozer and a pothead who -- as Schickel puts it in the first sentence of his review --  "never passed an entirely sober day in his life." In fact, Schickel seems obsessed with Altman's licentiousness, admonishing Altman over and over for his freewheeling ways, as if he were the first filmmaker ever to use and abuse a variety of intoxicants. He comes off like a schoolmarm, rapping Altman on the knuckles for having a good time, calling him "permissive," "addled by his addictions" and claiming that even in "MASH," everyone in the movie "appeared to be perpetually, mumblingly stoned."

Largely because Zuckoff writes admiringly of Altman's work, as have so many other critics, Schickel throws the filmmaker's biographer under the bus, claiming that Zuckoff "basically knows nothing about filmmaking and film history." I could go on, but you get the point. It would be an understatement to say that Altman admirers were outraged by Schickel's dismissive attitude to one of the great filmmakers of the late 20th century. Speaking to this point, I received a letter from Alan Rudolph, who linked up with Altman as an assistant director on "The Long Goodbye" before carving out an important career as a filmmaker himself, making such movies as "Welcome to L.A.," "Choose Me" and "Afterglow."

Rudolph's entire letter is attached at the bottom of this post, but here is his artful description of Altman's special gifts as a filmmaker. As Rudolph writes:

"Altman was an innovator. His films might seem casual, but intentionally so. They were behavioral in appearance, but carefully crafted with ideas, and strong on consequence. Having served as a screenwriter for Bob, I can personally attest to his rigorous attention to writing. He just didn't want the result to seem written.... Bob knew that continuously working in the rough was the best way to find his jewel. His biting humor never spared reality nor himself. The painful absurdity of it all. There was nobody like him during his professional peak, and there isn't now."

Well said, Mr. Rudolph. As for me, all I would ask of anyone who might be on the fence about Altman is to seek out one of his many adventurous films and watch for yourself.

You'll never be bored and you'll almost always be amazed by what an original, unsentimental approach Altman had to the art of cinematic storytelling. The UCLA Film & Television Archive has a salute to Altman coming up soon, starting with a Nov. 13 screening of "The Long Goodbye," his 1973 comedy that is a personal favorite of mine.

I'll keep you posted on future events as they unfold. Now, here's Rudolph's letter in defense of Altman: