o “Tales of the Gimli Hospital”, a story spawned by his reading of the “Gimli Saga”, a community history published by the local women’s guild in the 1970s.
“While I have a Scottish name, I am IcelandMaddin looking for ideas to top ‘My Winnipeg’
By Roger Newman
Friday August 01, 2008

Guy Maddin chats with a fan.
ROGER NEWMAN

Guy Maddin is napping and reading at his Gimli cottage while he ponders the next step in his illustrious movie career
That is what he told his admirers last Saturday when he was interviewed by editor-critic Robert Enright at a public session of the Gimli Film Festival.
Maddin deserves a rest after travelling the world for the past few months to receive plaudits for his latest film “My Winnipeg” in such mega-cities as Toronto, Berlin, London and Sydney. Everywhere he has been barraged with questions about his quirky take on his home town which he sometimes describes as a documentary-fantasy.
“People ask me how much of it is true and I respond that all of it is emotionally true,” he told a full house at Lady of the Lake Theatre at the Waterfront Centre. “But really I suppose it is a third true, a third legends and a third my opinions, laments and wishful thinking.”
The director-writer is pleased with the success of the film which reveals the little known fact that Winnipeg has more sleep-walkers per capita than anywhere on the globe.
“It ended up in general release after starting out as a commission I accepted from hunger from the Documentary Channel,” he said. “This is more than I had hoped.”
While “My Winnipeg” has been acclaimed, Maddin still faces the question of what to do next. He said he is hoping for suggestions while he rests in Gimli, an opening that was immediately seized by a member of his Saturday audience.
“Now that you are established as a cult, are you interested in making a mainstream movie?” asked the questioner.

“Yes, I might if the script is right,” replied the film-maker.
“Are you looking for a property?” the questioner persisted.
“Is your next question ... will I look at your script?” Maddin shot back.
Light-hearted banter and self-deprecating humour have been trademarks of the 51-year-old director whose first feature “Tales of the Gimli Hospital” launched his career two decades ago. Since then, his surreal tales -- such as “The Saddest Music in the World”, “Twighlight of the Ice Nymphs” and “Careful” -- have made him a favourite in movie art houses stretching from San Francisco to New York’s Greenwich Village.
“When I started filming at age 30, I didn’t know anything about it,” he told the Gimli audience.” If I had known it was so much work, I wouldn’t have done it.”
Still, it was better than working as a bank administration manager where he spent his days “mostly crying in the vault”. That led him to “Tales of the Gimli Hospital”, a story spawned by his reading of the “Gimli Saga”, a community history published by the local women’s guild in the 1970s.
“While I have a Scottish name, I am Icelandic on my mother’s side of the family,” he said, noting there was a lot of Icelandic family influence through his grandmother, mother and aunt.
Maddin said that he couldn’t film nude scenes early in his career because his mother could see. But that changed later when “glaucoma led to nudity”.
He also confessed that he shot a deleted scene from “Gimli Hospital” 11 years after he made the movie. “I needed a deleted scene for the DVD,” he told an audience that was in laughing mode for much of the time.
As well, Maddin shot down the theory that his movies pay homage to early silent film-makers. “I don’t do homage, I steal from them,” he joked, adding that he discovered his grainy black and white technique by accidentally over-exposing some film.
Maddin’s “My Winnipeg” shared screen time at the Gimli festival with “No Network”, an award-winning Icelandic children’s movie that brought director-writer Ari Kristinsson to town.
Kristinsson is familiar with Toronto because his film -- about a teenager lost in the wilds -- won the Golden Sprocket Audience Prize at this year’s Toronto Children’s Film Festival. But he was surprised by what he saw last week on his first trip to Gimli.
“I had expected there would be a few houses on a flat land,” said Kristinsson whose film has won three awards and is being shown at eight European festivals. “But Gimli was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed myself and would like to stay longer, but I have a commitment for a TV project in Iceland at the beginning of August.”
During the festival, Manitoba Education Minister Peter Bjornson announced that a film course will become part of the province’s approved Grade 12 history studies in September. The Gimli MLA and festival board member also said at a reception that Gimli is starting to create lots of excitement in the film world.
“It has been an amazing weekend,” he said. “We are on our way to becoming the Sundance of the North.”

OUT: Brad Pitt just dropped out of New Line's attempt at a western, Custer Marching to Valhalla, from Dances With Wolves scribe Michael Blake. It marks the end of his longest personal relationship, having been attached to the project since 1995. "The National Perspirer" says that Brad's split left New Line pregnant and heartbroken with a $3 million price tag for the story rights. "The Scar" tabloid says it was New Line that wanted out, returning to their original pre-Ted Turner love of lower-budget filmmaking. "The Weekly World Screws" re-printed the nude photos of Brad.

IN & OUT: Robert Downey Jr., Heather Graham and Natasha Wagner have teamed up to earn the dreaded NC-17 rating for "a scene of explicit sexuality." The film, Two Guys and a Guy, is written and directed by infamously sexist pig James Toback, who also teamed with Downey (and producer Warren Beatty) for 1987's The Pick Up Artist. Graham, also who stars as porn actress Rollergirl in Boogie Nights, is becoming a regular on the hotbod highway, paying off on her claim that she "wants to do out there things." No word on whether Downey will be paroled for the premiere.

Think you have a clearer view of the future? E-mail me.

The numbers amongst the holdovers should make them look a bit like leftovers. With 30 percent drops, look for I Know What You Did Last Summer to pass the $50 million mark with $6.6 million, Red Corner to take fourth with $5.2 million, and The Devil's Advocate to hit fifth, also with about $5.2 million.

Boogie Nights should drop modestly (gambling on you guys again), about 20 percent to $3.7 million for sixth place. Seven Years In Tibet finally hits the seventh slot with a 30 percent drop to $2.3 million. Fairy Tale: A Running Gag should drop about 25 percent to $2.2 million for eighth spot. Kiss The Girls may finally get slashed with a 40 percent drop to $2.1 million for ninth. And Gattaca may actually pass the magical $10 million mark adding another $1.6 million to it's take for tenth.

Think you have a clearer view of the future? E-mail me.

Hugh Grant's set for Mickey Blue Eyes, a romantic comedy about a high-flying Manhattan art dealer whose nuptials are threatened by his fiancŽe's father's day job as a Mafioso. Grant is co-producing the film with his permanent fiancŽe, Elizabeth Hurley, who would likely agree that for a relationship to be so endangered, something would have to really suck.

What can you say about a project that people have been trying to finance for four years, but whose massive budget left Paul Verhoeven making Showgirls and Arnold Schwarzenneger in a Mr. Freeze costume? Verhoeven is saying, "Let's try again." With Starship Troopers about to hit theaters with some major thunder, the RoboCop/Basic Instinct director is anxious to get his Arnold-attached Crusades back in the pipeline. One little problem, Verhoeven told Variety, "It can't be made for less than Titanic." That's before you get ready for the protests from the religious right. If you think they were upset when the current "Greatest Filmmaker Alive," Martin Scorcese, made The Last Temptation of Christ, just wait until they see this trailer: "From The Director Of Showgirls and That Bug Movie, Arnold wants the Grail and he's killing Jews by the thousands to get it! (image of Arnold's rippled, sword-carrying torso, ready to hack someone to death) "Cwucafy you? It's naught dat kind a Cwusade!" (Arnold swings the blade, cut to black on the sound of the decapitation and then a card, reading, "Coming for The Cup, Christmas 1999").

E-mail me. I won't tell anybody, except maybe all our readers.

Another test of the media's honor is the Roman Polanski story. He's coming back and is getting away with child molestation. Has he paid his price by way of exile? Perhaps. But the tendency in the Hollywood culture is to forgive the "indiscretions" of its own. Indiscretions are anything that doesn't cost me money. I don't know whether it's better, or even more disgusting, that the precocious object of Polanski's lust has sold her story to "Inside Edition." Samantha Geimer will appear in a two-parter just in time for November sweeps. Makes you want to take a shower just reading it, huh?

The inalterably pleasant Yasmine Bleeth is set for her first feature film, It Came From the Sky. She plays a mysterious stranger who is either a con woman or a real-life angel, Non-Charlie Division. She starts the film after completing her latest TV movie, The Lake, a science-fiction thriller about a small town that does a reverse Stepford as locals turn evil after being sucked into the water. Get it? Shawn Weatherly turns into Erika Elaniak who turns into Nicole Eggert who turns into Pam Anderson who turns into Yasmine Bleeth who turns into Gena Lee Nolin who turns into Donna D'Errico. They all play the same character, don't they?

Have some of your own indiscretions? Well, I'm not a priest, but I'll listen to your confessions. Email me.

Meanwhile, Carr, also in re-release, has finally recovered from the 1989 Academy Awards he produced. (Remember Rob Lowe and Snow White? Disney did. They sued the Academy for copyright infringement, eventually settling.) You've got to respect the guy. Carr was a Hollywood Queen when Queens weren't cool and has since survived years of dialysis, multiple hip surgeries and back injuries, not to mention the '70s themselves. And as Sondheim says, he's still here.

Speaking of large men, has Willard Scott finally found the right movie vehicle? I hope not. Twentieth Century Fox has paid low-to-mid-six figures for Five Day Forecast, a movie pitch about an experiment that brings evil weather systems normally found only on other planets to earth. I guess they ran out of earthbound weather disasters. "Hail Storm: The Movie," "Smog Alert" and "Seasonal Showers of Death" were all rejected by the studio. Al Roker will pull on the tights and cape to fight the interplanetary storms. Just kidding. But now that image is in your head. Mmwwwahhh-ha-ha-ha!

What, you think I'm a natural disaster? Email's the word...

Meanwhile, the unstoppable slasher films continue to do big box office. I Know What You Did Last Summer camped out at number one for the third week, dropping just 20 percent to $10 million. Devil's Advocate, where Al Pacino slashes the scenery with his tongue before chewing it up real good, dropped a modest 25 percent to summon another $7.6 million for third place. And Kiss The Girls slashed-n-smooched its way to fifth place with another $3.6 million, dropping just 30 percent in week five.

Another surprise, though not as unpleasant, was the success of Red Corner. I guess the China visit worked for the film -- which got roundly panned by the critics -- rather than against it. Pretty Man Richard Gere got a liberal $8.3 million to take second place. Also, Switchback, Paramount's quiet entry into the All Hallows Eve thriller market, stayed quieter than I thought it might, pulling in just $3 million for seventh place.

The rest of the Top Ten is made up of holdovers, all of which I came pretty close to predicting. Big deal! I'm already bleeding. Anyway, Brad was glad that Seven Years in Tibet took in another $3.4 million in its fourth week for sixth place. Fairy Tale: A Forgotten Release, grabbed another $2.9 million while the grabbing was good for eighth. Gattaca ran out of puns -- $2.7 million for ninth. And In & Out took tenth with $1.8 million.

Check out what my predictions were on Friday. Email is your way of showing me you feel my pain. Or maybe you just want to rub it in.

Never slowed by lawsuits, Imagine is gearing up behind director/co-owner Ron Howard to make Ed TV, a movie that may finally offer a character stupid enough for Matthew McConaughey to bring to life realistically. The story is about a kind of MTV's "The Real World" spin-off (another lawsuit to come) in which a video store employee named Ed agrees to have his life filmed 24/7 by a cable network. (also sounds like the premise of The Truman Show -- another lawsuit!) Wackiness ensues.

If you're depressed because your lawsuit fails, try calling Dial-A-Wife. It's not only a real business (no, I don't have the number), but it's soon to be a major motion picture. Twentieth Century Fox purchased the rights to a New Yorker article about the business which sends women to perform wifely duties without any emotional connection (in show business, that's just called marriage). They also bought "life rights" to Beth Berg, the proprietor of the business. Fox left her payment on the bedside table and Ms. Berg took it without emotion.

Ever had an idea for a movie that was stolen by a big, bad studio? Let me know via email.

The rest of the line-up should be pretty familiar by now, despite two other wide openings. IKWYDLS (I'm tired of all those words!), the summer slasher, should pass the $40 million mark with another $8.75 million this weekend. Al & Keanu look to scare up another $7.66 million in The Devil's Advocate. Last week, there was a $5 million gap between Devil's second place showing and Kiss The Girls's third place finish. This week, it should be about $4.3 million, with Morgan Freeman kissing $3.34 million for fifth, leaving a gaping hole for Paramount's grossly undersold Switchback to take fourth place with around $5 million.

All the talk about China may hurt Seven Years in Tibet by way of saturation, but look for a sixth place finish with a 30 percent drop-off to about $3.3 million. Richard Gere should be back-to-back with Brad with Red Corner, which is good for copy and bad for business. It's an oppressive seventh place open with about $3 million. Gattaca stays flat-aca with a 35 percent drop to about $2.8 million for eighth. Fairy Tale tails off 30 percent to $2.5 million for ninth . And In & Out is in one last time with $2.1 million, pushing the $60 million mark overall.

Send me something scary via email.

Boogie Nights burnt up the box office charts in limited release last weekend, but from every second week, a pattern emerges. In Los Angeles, the film was dropping quickly in the big multi-plexes, while still growing in the smaller venues. Of course, even while dropping, the numbers were pretty damned good. In New York, there wasn't much change on the Westside and downtown, but there was a drop on the Eastside. This is the first indication that Boogie Nights may have a hard time with the mainstream in the long run. But in the short run, it still looks solid as a... well, just solid.

Boogie Nights doesn't have the exclusive on bare bodies. The Full Monty passed Four Weddings and a Funeral this weekend as the most popular British film ever in the U.K. It took Monty just eight weeks to pass the $45 million that Weddings took 22 weeks to acquire. The Pantless Ones have taken just over $25 million here in the US. But England's dance with flesh is far from over. The Spice Girls movie, Spice World, is due on U.K. screens before the end of the year. It's enough to make you drink warm beer.

Tomorrow, Boogie Nights leads the weekend preview . Meanwhile, check out the disco dancing on Rough Cut weekly.

Email is fun. And this week I tell you why I love L.A. Let me count the ways on The Whole Pictures in one!

Boogie Nights star Mark Wahlberg's price is going up. Way up. Sources say Wahlberg will pull down almost $2 million to team up with Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-Fat (star of The Killer and the upcoming The Replacement Killers) in The Corrupter, for Boogie studio New Line Cinema. In the thriller, Walberg plays the good-guy partner to Chow's rogue cop. Then the two have sex on screen with a family of ... Oops. Wrong movie.

Boogie Nights' home studio, New Line, also has the next Mike Figgis movie, One Night Stand, coming to screens soon. At the recent junket for the film, Stand star Wesley Snipes edged around some inside info without giving too much away. First, he made funny noises while talking about his upcoming Blade, which he produced and stars in, which those of us in the room assumed were sounds of excitement. Little did we know that the night before, Snipes had suffered through a disastrous screening of the film, as related by a screening attendee who wrote into the Ain't It Cool Web site. Then, he said that the film he'd really like to do is the Miles Davis story. Two days later, producer Marvin Worth (Malcolm X, Lenny) announces that he's acquired the rights to make Davis' life story for Sony. I wonder who'll be playing Miles. Hmmm.

Tomorrow, Boogie Nights TV. Talk about your prime time!

Connect with email, read The Whole Picture, or carve a pumpkin. It's up to you!

Knowles and one of his test screening sneakers offer a fuller view of Wild Things, which got a thumbs down. "First off, let me put to rest the question which most of you male types will be dying to know: NEVE IS NOT NAKED IN THIS FILM." Pretty much my priority in every film. My new book, "Who's NOT Naked!" will soon be available in bookstores everywhere. Knowles' mole continues, "Words fail me for what we see next. Through the steam, we see a naked body from behind. Yes folks, that's right, it's Bacon doing his token, Hollywood, 'bare-ass' shot. But does it end there? No, I'm sorry to say, not when you are Kevin Bacon, executive producer of Wild Things. Kevin has seen Boogie Nights and he knows how to create a 'buzz' about his film. He turns toward the camera a la Dirk Diggler revealing, to a shocked audience, his manhood. Unlike Dirk, this shot was all Kevin. The horror, the horror..."

This is not why the studios test screen movies. But according to Boogie Nights director, Paul Thomas Anderson, they shouldn't be testing at all. "Test screenings are the most asinine, ridiculous thing that ever happened to movies. That's a grand, sweeping comment, but it's true. It's fucking ridiculous. On Boogie Nights, I went, but I didn't get anything out of it. Test screenings are a fucking waste of time and massive amounts of money. They cost a lot of money. And it's not a test because it doesn't hold up to any scientific standards. People don't get to see movies for free. They pay $7.50 to see a movie. People know what they are going to see when they go see a movie, so the process of recruiting is totally biased from the get go. People will easily walk out if they don't pay $7.50 for something. If people think they are coming to see a sort of raucous exposé of the porn industry, they are probably gong to be disappointed. If they don't know that it's two hours and 37 minutes long, they are going to fucking be bored. They are going to say, 'I have dinner plans.'"

Tommorrow, Is It Real? Or Is It Boogie Nights?

Connect with the hot button button, read The Whole Picture or check out Hasbro's new Hot Button Dave doll. Ten percent of every doll sold goes to the U.N.

Both I Know What You Did Last Summer (first with $13.1 million) and The Devil's Advocate (second with $10.3 million) dropped less that 18% in their second weeks, just as killer thriller Kiss The Girls (third with $5.2 million) did in it's second outing two weeks ago. Very, very impressive. All three films are heading over the $50 million mark, though Sony will probably continue to be it's own worst enemy, with the November 7th opening of Starship Troopers looking to be the main roadblock on IKWYDLS's highway of cash.

Seven Years In Tibet continues a forgettable journey, adding $4.8 million for fourth. The aforementioned Gattaca could arrange only $4.4 million for fifth. Guess Uma isn't as perfect as we thought. Fairytale: A Weak Opening took in $3.4 million for sixth, though this film may be 1997's A Little Princess - much loved/little seen. In & Out stays in the money with $2.86 million for seventh and Soul Food adds to it's hidden fortune with another $2.2 million for eighth.

My personal horror show, I Know You Had A Hit Last Summer, featuring actors who can't quite step up to the hype, features A Life Less Ordinary this week, which despite Obi-Wan McGregor, My Best Mask's Cameron Diaz and the makers of Heroinspotting couldn't muster more than $2.1 million for ninth. L.A. Confidential stays on the QT with a hush-hush $2 million. Quietly lurking over next weekend's box office chart is Boogie Nights, which expanded out to 124 screens for $1.9 million and a truly exploitive per screen average of over $15,000. Next week, the film goes wide in an otherwise soft weekend and should take the top spot.

The Hot Button gets you ready to Boogie every day this week. Push the E-mail button.

Gattaca should open on top of the box office crowd with around $12 million. Sony is marketing as fast as they can, but the weird title and soft reviews are keeping the buzz from exploding. Seems like Sony sated a chunk of Gattaca's audience last weekend with its other genre movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer, which should take the standard 35 percent drop to $10.3 million for second place. The Devil's Advocate should retain its "Number One Devil As Lawyer Movie In America" title with a 30 perecent drop to $8.5 million. Then, there's a huge holdover drop, down to a likely third week showdown between Kiss the Girls and Seven Years In Tibet for fifth and sixth at around $4.2 million. Sneaking into that gap, A Life Less Ordinary should fall in love with fourth spot with around $6 million.

Fairy Tale: A True Story is a hard sell in a weak kids market, seamlessly opening in the now-gone Rocketman's seventh slot with $3 million. In & Out is heading toward the latter with about $2.6 million for eighth place. Over the lips and through the gums, look out cable, here comes Soul Food -- ninth with $2 million. And rounding out the top 10, one must acknowledge Bean, the Rowan Atkinson comedy that's already broken the $100 million mark in foreign release and domestically has only opened in Canada -- yes, Canada is part of the domestic box office -- to the tune of more than $2 million.

Finally, Boogie Nights expands to 50 screens and should pull in a little over $1.25 million before opening wide on Halloween. That's quite a costume, Marky Mark!

What are you planning to wear for Halloween? Actually, I don't care, but if you have something to say, email me.