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January 31, 2008

Good... But Has The Lesson Taken At All?

Entertainment Tonight/The Insider decided NOT to run the Heath Ledger tape. I was traveling, so I haven't heard the on-air excuse. But I read this AP story and while I think the choice was right, that's still about the only thing that was.

From The Story:
Executives at "Entertainment Tonight" refused to talk publicly about the retreat. There was some bewilderment and anger at the company about why its show was singled out when many other publications and TV outlets were talking about the same thing. The party video is likely to be seen soon in England, and is already available over the Internet.

Well, the reason ET/Insider was singled out is, a) they are the biggest, b) they are truly MAINSTREAM Media, meaning they have not turned completely into trash gossip rags and no one wants to see them become one, and c) is answered in the next pull...

Ledger is seen standing in the doorway of a room where the party was taking place, swigging from a beer bottle. The actor is heard saying that he was "going to get serious (word bleeped) from my girlfriend" for being at the party.

The show made clear that there was nothing on the video showing Ledger taking any drug. At one point, however, the then-26-year-old said he "used to smoke five joints a day."

But a person who has seen the entire video, who asked not to be identified because of its sensitive nature, said Ledger then points to his tattoo of "M" (for his daughter, Matilda Rose) and says, "this is to remind me never to smoke weed again." That part of the quote was not used in Wednesday's preview.

Later, with Ledger in the background, an unidentified man, his face blurred, seems to snort cocaine from a table.

So... not only is the tape NOT shocking... and NOT heartbreaking... it doesn't even contain an image of the man doing a drug of any kind aside from alcohol in the form of BEER!

Will the off-the-record complainers at ET wake up and get it? This is the WORST form of gossip mongering... it tarnishes without actually delivering the goods.

It would be sad and disgusting for them to run a video of Mr Ledger snorting 3 or 4 lines of cocaine... and in Hollywood, not remotely shocking. But this is so much worse... he isn't even doing drugs and they have Dr. Drew Pinsky – who is starring a cable show for ET-parent Paramount’s VH-1- deconstructing how he is “convinced that if this heart-wrenching video had aired, it would have gotten through and had a positive effect on young people in America. Perhaps it could have even saved some lives." Really? Lives would have been saved by Heath Ledger drinking a beer while some schmuck did coke 5 feet away from him.

Kelly Bush makes a good point when she says, "I hope it represents a turning point," she said. "I think we have all heard from members of the media and members of the public that it's too much. Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are the top news stories when Darfur should be."

But I have to say… personal publicists are NOT without responsibility in the current media culture. I don’t point specifically at Kelly Bush or ID/PR. And for the sake of full disclosure, I have had an excellent working relationship with that organization overall, where they seem interested in getting their clients more than soundbites.

The intensity of the wall put around individual stars has, no doubt, intensified the way that these same stars are now hunted. Nature abhors a vacuum. And if personal publicists seek to sanitize talent beyond what is reasonable, there is always going to be blowback of the media seeking to knock down that wall.

And then, the frenzy feeds on itself. Every small story becomes overhyped and overdramatized. And then when real ugliness occurs and our better instincts as humans and journalists should kick in, we are too close to see the forest for the trees. Britney Spears stopped being funny a long time ago. The tabs knew about Amy Winehouse’s quite serious problems before her first hit single landed in the U.S. And if entertainment journalists were serious about making an impact on lives, we would all find a way to tell the stories of which stars are getting into serious trouble when we all know… before the fall.

The irony is that the studios do know. They are not hiring heroin addicts or serious alcoholics who don’t show up for work without knowing what they are getting into. So would we in the media be killing careers? Not really. Not unless we were wrong.

This is an endless internal battle as a journalist. We know things we don’t print. We have the ability to turn things upside down. But we and our editors make choices. We make them every single day.

We must all ask ourselves, “What business are we in?” Are we in the upskirt business or the news business? Does our lust for attention, whether in ratings or links from other sites, make anything game? How much of our ass are we willing to show in order to “win?”

The biggest story in this tale of Ledger and woe is of the incremental death of dignity in Traditional Media and the question of whether New Media can be more than just an endless parade of “look at me!”

Is it really fair to expect Entertainment Tonight to act like a real journalistic outlet when they never really have been one… though they put together a well produced and enormously successful TV show?

We all have our line… and for me, it was pretty much underwear-free celebrities, now followed by this video debacle and events like it.

My position on Nikki Finke, for instance, has been unpopular lately. So be it. Anyone who wants to think about how she rolls can see everything I see. But people don’t want to. They prefer to keep feeding on the back-channel source-serving gossip mongering even though most know that when a story they actually know something about comes up, it is either dead wrong or at least, quite one-sided. But as long as it's not in their backyard, it's fun, fun, fun to spread the fertilizer.

Is a gun to ET’s head keeping them from continuing the witch hunt on Mr Ledger really a victory? Only if we all learn from it… behind the camera, in front of it, and watching the output on TV, the web, and in print.

The real hope for the future is, sadly, not about doing the right thing. It’s about the public getting bored with this form of discourse, which will lead to the tabs being marginalized again and other forms of discourse coming back to the front. And in time, the wave will return again… bigger, uglier, more intimate. Our grandchildren will see US2.1k comparing pap smears instead of duplicated designer wear. And Hot Blog 5.0 will still be whining about it.

And so it goes…

Posted by poland at 07:46 PM | Comments (8)

BYOB - Jan 31

It's yet another travel day... here is some room to roam...

Posted by poland at 01:53 AM | Comments (39)

Lunch With... Jacqueline Bisset

One of Hollywood's storied beauties, she continues to fight for more challenging work... and found it as a Holocaust surviving shrew of a mother in the Sundance title, Death In Love.

We chatted.

Posted by poland at 01:49 AM | Comments (2)

You Know...

I didn't think I was actually going to get angrier after watching Entertainment Tonight promote their ongoing rape of Heath Ledger's dead body.

But I did.

Because they were doing something even worse that I saw coming.

They are trying to position this shite as not only a healthy choice on their part, but one that can help others.

First, they blame the video being shown on Australia’s Channel 9... while they negotiated for the exclusive and as noted in an earlier entry, were already threatening people to prevent infringement on the "news."

Is pretending that you are covering a breaking news story when you are busy buying rights to old, exploitative, private video a lie or just spin?

Then they trotted out Jess Cagle, now at People, selling their coverage of Ledger’s drug use.

Then they bring out Dr. Drew Pinsky, speculating that this tape could offer insight into how and why Ledger died… even though at his time, there is no indication that illegal drug use had anything to do with Ledger’s death. And I assume he was lying by omission when he talks about having seen the Ledger drug tape "floating around Hollywood." Please! He didn't see it in the ET office before spouting hs crap about the tape "scaring someone straight" and "maybe saving a life?"

And unless it is the rarest of tapes of people doing drugs, is it really more "tragic" than an average Saturday night on Mullholland? Are we at the point where celebrities doing coke at a party is actually shocking? Are we really comparing cocaine use at parties, however dubious a choice, and the major addictions that so many have struggled with in this town? Has anyone ever met a 26-year-old actor that was a brooder without being a major drug addict? Or is it just hypocritical posing? If it turns out that Ledger's death had zero to do with illegal meds, will Dr Drew be spending time apologizing for embarrassing a dead man over his use of recreational drugs?

And what if it turns out that he was an addict? Shouldn't the media be waiting until it clears some sort of journalistic hurdles before we start spreading it all over? Can't we wait to learn our lesson (and sell more ads)?

I will allow myself the belief that Pinsky is sincere and is being used, not throwing out his Hippocratic oath. But he should be busy thinking about the ongoing loss of those in Ledger's life and trying harder to make sure he isn't being used as a rationaization for what cannot be rationalized as anything but the raising of blood money.

The show used 2 of the first 3 minutes of a 23 minute show to sell their blood wares, sticking a camera into Farrah Fawcett’s cancer in between. Then they did another disgusting 3 minutes in which Cagle talked about how the family is trying to keep things private and how there is a rush to judgment on the drug issue... after having participated in ET's rush to judgment in the opening segment.

Do unto others, muthaf-ers…do unto others…

Posted by poland at 12:25 AM | Comments (7)

January 30, 2008

Why Is The Best Feature About Iraq Still Without US Distribution?

Posted by poland at 06:21 PM | Comments (14)

How Ugly Will It Get?

Sadly, I seem to be spending more and more time gagging on the tabloidization of the entertainment media. We've always been a whorehouse, but every hour wasn't spent trying broadcast the tv-safe version of the Dirty Sanchez.

Now this, in defense of the memory of Heath Ledger, who the publicists have no financial benefit in protecting, only the opportunity to stop vomiting for a moment as the media becomes even more abusive that the most abusive personal publicist ever considered being...

Tonight Entertainment Tonight/The Insider are previewing an extremely distasteful segment regarding Heath Ledger. The segment centers around a two-year old video ET purchased for a large sum of money in the hopes of stirring up a salacious and exploitive story about Heath, which would win them big ratings on the first day of sweeps. The two outlets did not even have the courtesy to wait until after Heath’s burial to broadcast this segment. They intend to air the full segment tomorrow.

For the sake of his grieving family and friends, his child, and common decency, we hope to pressure Entertainment Tonight and The Insider to do the right thing and pull the spot. This is not journalism, it is sensationalism. It is a shameful exploitation of the lowest kind, to a talented and gentle soul, undeserving of such treatment.

We are asking the Hollywood community to pressure Entertainment Tonight to pull the segment. Please take action so that Heath’s family can grieve in peace. Please forward this message to everyone you know and ask them to personally call Linda Bell Blue at Entertainment Tonight and Brad Bessey at Paramount to express their outrage and request Entertainment Tonight to pull the distasteful spot. Their information is listed below. Thank you.

Linda Blue
323.956.1937
linda_bell@paramount.com

Brad Bessey
323.956.4857
brad_bessey@paramount.com

ADDED...

And it gets even more disgusting.

This from the grotesque Perez Hilton, who received a pre-air cease & desist from Paramount...

"NOTICE OF ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT AND THE INSIDER’S EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS REGARDING PROPRIETARY MATERIALS OF HEATH LEDGER AT THE CHATEAU MARMONT ON APPROXIMATELY JANUARY 29, 2006

**************************

THIS IS TO ADVISE YOU THAT ET AND THE INSIDER HAVE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS IN AND TO PROPRIETARY MATERIALS OF HEATH LEDGER AT THE CHATEAU MARMONT ON APPROXIMATELY JANUARY 29, 2006

ANY BROADCAST OR USAGE OF THIS MATERIAL IN ANY MANNER NOT AUTHORIZED SHALL CONSTITUTE AN INFRINGEMENT AND VIOLATION OF ET AND THE INSIDER’S VALUABLE EXCLUSIVE AND PROPRIETARY RIGHTS AND WILL CONSTITUTE INFRINGEMENT AND TORTIOUS INTERFERENCE BY THE INFRINGER, EXPOSING THE INFRINGER TO SUBSTANTIAL MONETARY DAMAGES.

THIS RESTRICTION APPLIES TO ANY AND/OR ALL UNAUTHORIZED USES OF THE EXCLUSIVE MATERIAL.

PLEASE IMMEDIATELY ADVISE YOUR AFFILIATES, LICENSEES AND SUBSCRIBERS OF OUR EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS AND THESE RESTRICTIONS."

So... I guess this officially means that ET and The Insider KNOW that this is not use - which would put it into the fair use category - but exactly the same detritus as tabloid shots of Lindsay Lohan's vagina.

What a proud moment for all involved! The pimp warning the prostitute at the start of the evening that she will be beat if she doesn't being back ALL the cash.

Fuck TMZ. Fuck Nikki Finke. Fuck Mainstream Media for lowering their bar under the pressure of these unrepentant gossipmongers. And fuck us all for smirking as we slow down at the car accident to see the severed body parts that the show business highway patrol now leaves in the wreck for a few hours, convincing themselves over lunch at Mozza that they are just being good journalists or that if they weren't doing it, someone else would.

Hitler had the trains running on schedule... let's not bother ourselves with the smoke from the chimneys.

Posted by poland at 05:05 PM | Comments (15)

Hannah Montana Stampede

I normally consider Fandango's releases about their ticket sales nothing but self-hype that should be allowed to linger, unpublished, in the inbox. Like 98% of internet stat-making, they are invariably irrelevant. But the details on the Hannah Montana concert movie are interesting.

From their press release:

If you are reporting on the HANNAH MONTANA concert movie phenomenon, here are some facts that might interest you:

*HANNAH currently accounts for 91% of all ticket sales on Fandango, the nation’s largest movie ticketing service.
*Although plenty of tickets are still available for midweek shows, over 1,000 showtimes are already sold out (representing the most popular showtimes in many cities across the country).
* It’s the best-selling concert movie in Fandango’s seven-year history.
* Exhibitors are regularly adding additional show times at their theaters, including Thursday midnight shows and Friday morning shows (as early as 8:00 a.m.)!
* HANNAH has been a top-selling title on Fandango since tickets went on sale on Dec. 1.

Posted by poland at 01:09 PM | Comments (18)

THR Dives Into The Toilet With The Rest...

"Now we all deserve to die
Even you Mrs. Lovett...even I
Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief
For the rest of us death will be a relief
We all deserve to die."

The Top Story Online...

Posted by poland at 01:03 PM | Comments (15)

January 29, 2008

BYOB - Jan 29

Before I leave it to you, a couple quickies...

1. All this talk about the WGA talks being tied to Oscar is ticking me off. Does anyone really think that The Oscars are more important to The Writers than that little thing called, "going back to work?" I have said repeatedly that "Hollywood" will not stand for Oscar being shuttered. But it feels almost as though this is yet another effort by Gil Cates to make the negotiation appear to be bigger than the Negotiating Committee. It is not. Had the AMPTP put this deal on the table in October, this strike would likely have never happened. And this leads to the real question... how much did AMPTP really want the strike to happen so they could force majeur the decks clear?

2. I happened to chat with Anjelica Huston the day of the Oscar nods. There was no coyness about who Daniel Day-Lewis is channeling in his performance. See her here.

3. Juno, which just crossed $100 million, will be amongst the 10 most profitable films of 2007, along with 300, Knocked Up, Superbad, The Simpsons, and Ratatouille.

Now, your turn...

Posted by poland at 04:28 PM | Comments (53)

Lunch With... Amy Ryan

The Oscar nominee sits down to talk about the work in Gone Baby Gone, her next film (for Paul Greengrass and with Matt Damon), and life as a working actor turned media phenom almost overnight.

Posted by poland at 02:51 PM | Comments (13)

The Hi-Def Price Wars Begin

The battle between Blu-Ray and HD seems to have, once again, been won by Blu-Ray after Warners made a decisive move. (You might remember that we were at this point right before Paramount/DreamWorks were bought on board as HD-only for a year or 18 months.)

I look for signs off the press release schedule on these things and found it when I signed onto Amazon.com and found that a HD player I had wishlished had dropped its price in half since I "wished" it. The next sign was a 53% Off Sale on HD DVD titles... though I quickly realized that these were specifically WB titles.

Today on Amazon, I find that there is now a drop on disc prices, for both formats, across the board. WB has the deepest discounting. But every disc on the site seems to be at least 30% off. The last season of Lost, which went on sale about 2 months ago, is on sale for 59% off.

It would appear that the unpress-released story is that all the studios have come to decide that the only way to make a future for hi-def DVD is to make a legitimate price argument. The difference between "regular DVD" and Blu-Ray or HD seemes to be about $7 on most new titles. On Ratatouille, it's just $5... on Transformers, in both formats a 2-disc set, it's just $2, as is Zodiac (another Paramount title).

Of course, nice as this is for hi-def hardware owners, the problem ahead is still price resistance to the Blu-Ray players, where the low price for a solid, web-accessible-for-upgrade player is still over $350. HD has players $100 lower... but the format is, for all intents and purposes, dead until proven living. With upscaling DVD players in the low-100s, I can see a 4200 - $250 player getting traction. But $350 is just too much for people to take a flyer on. If Sony wants to seal the deal, they need to build the low-frill $200 Blu-ray player with wi-fi for updates. And then, they'd have a real shot at gettting to 3 or 4 million units by the end of next X-mas.

And one more suggestion... Sony Home Ent should make a deal with Criterion to invest in converting that entire catalog ASAP. It may be a niche market, but it is one of the few markets where buying a $400 player is a no brainer if you can get those classic art films in the highest possible form of home delivery.

Posted by poland at 01:44 PM | Comments (6)

My Favorite DVD News In A While

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF “MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL” COMES…

THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN
On DVD and Blu-Ray™ High-Def April 8th

Special 20th Anniversary Edition of Oscar®-Nominated Fantasy Adventure
Stars John Neville, Sarah Polley and Uma Thurman

Culver City, Calif (January 28, 2008) – This spring, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will unveil the 20th Anniversary Edition DVD and Blu-ray™ High-Def release of the whimsical fantasy adventure, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, on April 8, 2008. Nominated for four Academy Awards®, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a humorous tale of a baron’s adventures to save his town. Starring veteran actor John Neville (“The X Files”), a young Sarah Polley (My Life Without Me), Uma Thurman (Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2, The Producers), Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End) and Eric Idle (Life of Brian, Shrek the Third), and including a cameo by Sting, the film was directed by Terry Gilliam (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Brothers Grimm). Timed with the twentieth anniversary of the theatrical release of the film, the two-disc DVD set includes an all-new documentary on the making of the film, audio commentary, deleted scenes and storyboarded scenes explained by Terry Gilliam and screenwriter Charles McKeown. The Blu-ray Disc™ also includes the “Marvelous World of Munchausen,” an enhanced graphics and trivia track. The title will be available at an SRP of $19.94 (DVD) and $28.95 (Blu-ray Disc™).

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a fanciful tale of a 17th century aristocrat (John Neville), his talented henchmen, and a little girl (Sarah Polley) in their efforts to save a town from defeat by the Turks. A trip to the moon, a dance with Venus (Uma Thurman) and an escape from the Grim Reaper are only some of their amazing adventures. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was nominated for four Academy Awards® including Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Makeup and Best Art Direction – Set Decoration.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen has a run time of 125 minutes. All discs are rated PG. Artwork is available at www.SPHEPublicity.com. Visit Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on the Web at www.SonyPictures.com.

DVD & Blu-rayTM Disc Special Features
Commentary with Director Terry Gilliam and Co-Writer/Actor Charles McKeown
The Madness and Misadventures of Munchausen: An all-new three-part documentary on the making of the film
Storyboard Sequences with all-new vocal performances by Terry Gilliam and Chris McKeown
Deleted Scenes
Blu-rayTM Exclusive – Marvelous World of Munchausen Enhanced Graphics and Trivia Track

Posted by poland at 01:23 PM | Comments (5)

January 28, 2008

Direct-To-Bad-Journalism

I don’t know Brooks Barnes… but someone at the New York Times needs to get him to start doing a little research on his stories.

The latest embarrassment was his love letter to Universal’s Direct-to-DVD success with the American Pie series. Fair enough. But by trying to stretch his smooch to one narrow event into an industry story, he leaves a story thinner than the cast of a Sally Struthers “feed them” ad.

The most obvious error – not an oversight, an error – is no mention of Disney. (One of our DVD experts, Doug Pratt, pointed this out to me.) Disney is the Father of Direct-to-DVD that wasn’t forced upon them by failure. Not only that, the issue of these films was a major point of conflict with Pixar in the Eisner era. And as soon as Pixar sold to Disney and was given control of animation, their first act was to shut down the Classics-Sequel-On-DVD program. (Interestingly, they also agreed to make a theatrical Toy Story 3, which they were always fearful of seeing as Direct-to-DVD title.)

Then there is Brooks trying to be funny… and not only failing to get the laugh, but getting the facts wrong. Why was Police Academy 6 made and put into theaters? Because Police Academy 5 was a success. Of course, Barnes was probably not aware of box office issues when PA5 made just under $20 million in 1988. But that made the film #52 for that year, which correlates to it being a $50 million film in 2007. You know what happens to inexpensive films that gross $50 million at the box office in 2007? They make the next one, which is why there will be another Resident Evil, why Ice Cube will be in another family film, why Underdog could sequel (though maybe it will be direct-to-DVD), and why 3:10 to Yuma, Sweeney Todd, and yes, No Country For Old Men are chasing Oscar.

Heck, a similar gross for Friday The 13th, Part VII in 1988 spawned Part VIII just a year later… just as Halloween 5 followed 1988’s Halloween 4.

Even if you forget about 1988 and go to 2006, you have Lionsgate building franchise slots for actors like Larry, The Cable Guy and Dane Cook, even when their films are delivering well under $30 million.

Barnes’ story is basic. Yes, there is a seriously profitable direct-to-DVD market out there now. If you have an established franchise, whether a film series or a name actor/character, you can play that market. And yes, studios have to balance the value of a release versus the cost of a release. But it’s neither a new phenomenon nor an precise one.

What he doesn’t know is that Sony was fine with a $13 million gross for Daddy Day Camp, based on the deal they had. The original idea was to do a major theatrical... but Murphy dropped out. But the idea of releasing this very inexpensive sequel into theaters was a profitable choice because they cut the ad budget to almost nothing and increased the value of the international, the DVD sales, and pay-tv by releasing it.

And it’s no surprise that he has no glimmer of memory about The Weinsteins getting sued by Blockbuster when they were Miramax for shoving crap titles down the rental company’s throat via Disney’s deal that called for a minimum buy for any and every film in the library.

But the final reality is that studios are sucking up yet another segment of the industry for themselves that others made a living on before. They did it in indie and now in junk – and it IS junk – Direct-to-DVD, by bringing all of the power of their massive apparatus to the table. Just as Fox Searchlight markets as aggressively as Big Fox, albeit with somewhat smaller budgets and more emphasis on publicity and longer runs, Disney and Universal and the others are now plowing under the indie home-entertainment-driven companies that used to thrive because their gravity is just more powerful than anyone else’s.

And for a company like Lionsgate, if they can turn Crash into a moderate hit tv series, even on free cable, like TNT, they can make a fortune many times the size of what they made on the Oscar-winning film.

The rich get richer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that….

Posted by poland at 11:49 PM | Comments (19)

Lunch With... Stacy, Skipp, and Kumasi

I took director Stacy Peralta and "subjects" Skipp Townsend (center) and Kumasi (left) of Made in America for a ride around Park City as we had a rather serious discussion about race, gangs, oppression, and the future. It's not our typical fare, but one of the best conversations we have ever had.

"Let's take this utopian Sundance Village right here. To me, this is America. We are visitors. We don't belong here. We need to leave in the next 24 hours. All the things we do to express ourselves is a result of an American creation. We are a community held hostage by America. I have never been called an American to my face... not in this country. I am a resident non-member of America."

Watch it here.

Posted by poland at 09:23 PM | Comments (1)

Did You Hear The One About...

... the Hollywood union that screwed the foreign journalists?

By the time the AMPTP/WGA negotiations go official later this week or early next week, the deal will be very close to done. Only some form of insanity on one side or the other will keep that from happening.

Today, the WGA waiver for The Grammys was made official... though the decision not to picket last week made this a fate accompli.

I am happy the strike will soon be over and that the WGA's deal will not be embarrassing. But someone should probably be willing, against political logic, to point out how grotesque some of the attitude that still comes from the WGA in deigning to allow the recording industry its awards show.

To wit, " 'Professional musicians face many of the same issues that we do concerning fair compensation for the use of their work in new media,' WGA West president Patric Verrone said Monday. 'In the interest of advancing our goal of achieving a fair contract, the WGAW board felt that this decision should be made on behalf our brothers and sisters in the American Federation of Musicians and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.' "

Yeah. Bull.

The AMPTP deal is around the corner and pissing off more people is not in WGA's interest... period. The WGA is most aggressively trying to make sure that TV and film writers don't get their guts ripped out in the new media era the way that songwriters have.

But more importantly, there is something so arrogant and petty about lording it over a bunch of frickin' awards shows. How many millions of dollars did WGA take out of the pockets of union members by shutting down The Golden Globes? And not just union members, but union members - like hotel staff and tv production personnel - who aren't the ones on camera... aka the ones who actually need the money.

Let me say it again... I support the WGA's goals in this labor action. 100% But when this is all over, we ALL need to consider what happened. It's all too easy to say, "Fuck HFPA," which now appears to be the only awards show that will actually pay a price - a steep one - in this strike. Isn't the basic idea of democracy and the core of morality the embrace of the freedom and respect of the least popular?

(And by the way... John Ridley isn't any hero. I agree with some of his concerns, but cutting and running is not any better than a group of thoughtful people having their daily discourse devolve into a fascist disinterest in a wider range of ideas. A thinking adult fights the fight until the fighting is done. And then you fight for a better future so the next fight is less bloody.)

The awards season can be an endless bore. And for most people in the media and industry, this kink at The Golden Globes was more invigorating than the show going on as usual. Plenty of people would be just as happy to see all the awards shows go away. (Others are con artists who scream about how inconsequential awards shows are, but then announce their awards intentions months early in search of ads and then return from their alleged sick beds to "cover" nominations. But I digress...) But if we start basing our moral notions on what we like then most of the WGA members shouldn't bother to go back to work after the strike ends. (And yes, that applies for all artists across the industry in all arenas.)

Let's take the lessons that have been learned in this strike - especially the ability to mobilize the independent media - and work a lot harder next time to avoid having a strike at all. Let's start discussing the real issues months before the deadlines and not weeks. Let's see the kind of effort made by the creative community to make its points - like Speechless - before the money clock starts running on everyone who lives off of this industry.

Maybe shutting down The Globes and striking in November were key to the settlement to come. Maybe 100%. Maybe 70%. Maybe 40%. Maybe not at all. What we do know is that the men and women of the negotiating committee moved forward with the most honorable intentions and belief that action was absolutely needed in order to get a decent contract. What we also know is that AMPTP didn't flinch, doing almost exactly what was expected from early on.

The water under the bridge should wash away much of the angst... and hopefully, create a reservoir of thoughtfulness about how to do it better next time. And I hope that when push comes to shove again that the first idea is not, "First, let's kill all the awards shows."

Posted by poland at 06:09 PM | Comments (8)

Holbrook Before & After

Hal had booked this gig for his 2008 tour as Twain before he realized that he might be nominated. In fact, we talked about it when I went to Houston to "Lunch" with him in November.

And now, he is a sell out machine for regional theaters.

Posted by poland at 10:53 AM | Comments (2)

January 27, 2008

Lunch With Sam Rockwell & Anjelica Huston

Talking Choke, Daniel Day-Lewis giving a parental performance, and more...

Posted by poland at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)

Durnnnn SAG IT!

DId you laugh? Did you cry? Did it matter?

I have to say, even though SAG winners mean little to Academy Voters, the consistency with which Day-Lewis, Christie, Bardem, and No Country For Old Men are winning suggests that they will go on to win on Oscar night. You can't fight city hall.

SAG is usually 3 of 4 for actors and the "ensemble" award is really a toss-up... this year more than ever, with only one Best Picture nominee nominated for the award by the group. (That's a first in the history of this award, though missing a number of BP noms is not.)

I listened to the reports on KNX radio as I drove into LA from Sundance. Surreal. They covered it endlessly as "perhaps the only show this year when actors will get to dress up and party." Uh-huh. And the shredding of Anna Paquin (Pa-queen) Viggo Mortensen's names (Vee-jo) would have been funny... but they weren't.

I will be watching the show later, keeping an eye out for DDL's tribute to Heath Ledger. I'm sure it will be perfectly pleasant and aside from Ruby Dee winning, nothing close to a surprise.

Onward.

Posted by poland at 07:54 PM | Comments (19)

January 26, 2008

Coens Win DGA

Good for them.

Posted by poland at 10:33 PM | Comments (29)

Friday Estimates by Klady - 1/26

Well... the biggest drop in history for a movie opening over $10 million was Star Trek: Nemesis, falling 76.2% in its second weekend from $18.5m to $4.4m in its second weekend.

Cloverfield is on target to had a $10m - $11m weekend (if things go well) and no better than a 70% drop... epic, really.

The worst multiples after an opening in the $40m range belong to the Scary Movie franchise and Batman & Robin, whose opening weekend represented just about 40% of their domestic total.

The good news for Paramount is that the international market tends to fall for this kind of sucker bet even harder than America. So expect massive openings in markets like Japan and significant profits for this monstrous movie. And expect more of the same from JJ Abrams and Paramount until that opening dwindles into the teens.

And before you write off Rambo as #2, note that it will open to more than Rocky Balboa and will also be a cash cow overseas, much more so than RB. At worst, you're looking at over $100 million worldwide, probably no less than $125 million. And that will keep Sly in HGH for a few more years.

The There Will Be Blood expansion is good... and keeps them pretty much on target to do about half the business of No Country For Old Men domestically. When The Coen Bros' movie expanded in to 860 screens in November, they had a $7.8 million weekend. TWBB is looking at $3.5m this weekend on 885. Country will pass $50m this weekend.

Posted by poland at 11:37 AM | Comments (36)

BYOB - Weekender

The return to LA is about to begin. I am looking forward to sitting down, without the mania around me, and considering the fullness of this last 10 days. There are movies to discuss (Hamlet 2, Man On Wire, In Prison All My Life, Choke, Momma's Man, and others), business to consider, and the future of indie to think about.

Meanwhile, discussions about strike discussions are fruitless. The deal will soon be done, barring insanity on either side. The deal will be, as it always was going to be, what the studio side was willing to do. The difficult question of whether the strike was necessary will forever be conjecture. (There are pressures brought to bear that go beyond deal points. "How profitable was the strike to the AMPTP side?" is a story that will be hard to write.) But we all need perspective, not inflamatory gossip, right now.

In any case, I have miles and miles to go before I stop drivng. Box office stuff should be up on MCN soon. Have at it all...

Posted by poland at 08:53 AM | Comments (17)

January 25, 2008

Sundance - In The Cool, Cool, Cool Of Thurs Evening

This evening offered two of the buzz films of the festival, Anvil: The Story Of Anvil and Sunshine Cleaning.

Anvil is this year's American Movie, albeit less wildly funny and more poignant, as it tells the story of two Canadian heavy metalargy.

Anvil is this year's American Movie (from the great Chris Smith), albeit less wildly funny and more poignant, as it tells the story of two Canadian heavy metallurgists who are still aspiring to career greatness in their 50s. Aspiring is a lot funnier when the aspirant is young. But these guys are resilient and unshakable… a different kind of power.

The movie, directed by former Anvil roadie (and established Hollywood screenwriter) Sacha Gervasi, picks up on the group, which is really fronted by two men – Lips & Robbo (who is Robb Reiner with two “b”s) – who have been like brothers from the beginning, back at the start of the U.S. heavy metal craze. They are revered by some, looked up to by many, and still nearly invisible to most.

Curious about what the face of three decades of aspiring – and the families of the aspiring - looks like? This is the movie for you. And it has the advantage of engaging the rare event of a certain success in failure. The result is a pleasure to watch and engage with, even if you, like I, would flip off the radio the second any metal came over the airwaves.

Sunshine Cleaning, on the other hand, seemed like a slam dunk. The producers of Little Miss Sunshine team rising stars Amy Adams and Emily Blunt as sisters – the first mistake, as it turns out – with Alan Arkin as dad, a cute oddball kid, the great Clifton Collins, Jr as The One Armed Man and even throw in Steve Zahn as further bait.

But the idea of the film is very complex, really. As such, Christine Jeffs was a great choice. But what the screenplay needed was simplifying, really. The idea of two sisters, kinda broken, in need of clarity decades after their mother’s suicide ending up cleaning crime scenes is more than a little interesting. And the idea that they will find clarity in the process is the thing of indie dreams. But somehow, that notion, which does lead to a few excellent speeches, doesn’t quite work out.

As I say, the first problem is that you never really believe the sisters as sisters, no matter how good and charming these two actresses are. (Mary Lynn Rajskub has a small role opposite Blunt and they seem more like sisters from the second we see them together.) And Alan Arkin as their dad is odd.

And who the hell allowed the movie to be shot in the dark? Gordon F-ing Willis would be looking for an additional light source in some of these scenes!

But mostly, it’s the screenplay, which has the great ideas, but not the connective tissue. Amy Adams has a great speech about why the work fulfills her… but that is the only real evidence of it in the film. As a result, you get an entertaining, well made, well acted film… but the big heart never takes hold the way you want it to… the way the film keeps threatening to.

One major sequence that illustrated actively how the job has gotten under their skin (emotional, not physical) could well have transformed this into a truly great little film.

So you win some, you lose some. And so goes The Dance…

Posted by poland at 01:04 AM | Comments (8)

January 24, 2008

BYOB - January 24

I know... many of you are bored with Sundance coverage... or frustrated that I haven't had enough time to write in more depth.

Either way, roll your own here...

Posted by poland at 08:27 PM | Comments (52)

Sundance - Well Over The Hump

The beat has continued on for almost 2 days already since things started screeching to a halt. Sanity has returned to Main Street (except for a short while today, as people lined up for a free Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young concert in a small room). And this ski town started acting like a ski town again, as snow reigned supreme all day.

The good part, of course, is more movies. Today, it was Baghead (a very special mumblecore episode of Scooby-Doo), Death In Love (a very edgy film with Jacqueline Bissett as a Jewish Holocaust survivor whose experience continues to scar her adult children in extreme and often sexual ways), and Donkey Punch (a thriller in the style of 70s horror films like Halloween with a touch of Agatha Christie and about 30 minutes of classic soft core).

My Sugar review is here.

And Anvil is about to start at the 9:30 screening.

Two more days...

Posted by poland at 08:12 PM | Comments (2)

Lunch With Sundance

Jack Black/Michel Gondry and Guest Star Mos Def - Be Kind, Rewind
Stacy Peralta - Made In America
George Romero - DIary Of The Dead
Tour Of The HQ
Tour Of Main Street

Posted by poland at 06:28 PM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2008

Sundance Wednesday - Slow Down

It is actually more fun than watching Main Street get built up in the days before Sundance begins... it's watching them dismantle today, yesterday, and tomorrow. It's almost like being on a studio backlot, as they transform streets dressed for one film into a whole new world. The Bon Appetit Supper Club is back to being The Riverhorse. Stores that you never would know are on Main Street suddenly appear as they no longer host multinational corporate huksters. You can eat at the restaurants, whether the pizza joint that just reopened or Zoom, Redford's high end Americana spot.

Beautiful.

I've been seeing a lot of movies that I need to catch up on writing about. The best work at the festival, full stop, is in Sugar... but then there are problems. The review will be up on MCN shortly. Momma's Man is what the NY Smartniks thought it was, for better or worse. And there is a parade of others. I will write ASAP. Wi-fi has been a problem and they are kicking me out of the press lounge right.... NOW!

Posted by poland at 04:53 PM | Comments (1)

January 22, 2008

Your Oscar Nominee!!!

Javier Bardem in Perdita Durango

Posted by poland at 08:25 PM | Comments (8)

Ledger

What can one say?

He will be the new Kurt Cobain. The weirdness around The Dark Knight will be unpleasant and relentless. The loss of anyone that young, especially with so much going for him, is tragic, though perhaps less tragic than many of the soldiers lost in Iraq. The New York Times hit a nasty place after rushing the news that he died in Mary Kate Olsen's apartment... and then retracting it within an hour.

May he rest in peace.

Posted by poland at 08:02 PM | Comments (60)

Oscar Morning Coming Down

We're 7 minutes from nominations...

==========================

Oscar.com is streaming the nominations... and they seem to be committed to having an announcing team even younger, less knowledgeable, and more vacuous than the E! team. Impressive...

==========================

So... Jason Reitman for directing Juno, Tommy Lee Jones for In The Valley of Elah, the horrible choice of a great actress in Cate for Elizabeth 2: The Mess, and Sarah Polley for writing Away From Here seem to be the surprises.

=========================

Just wrote a quick 20 Weeks that will land on MCN's front page in a while. Running to a morning screening. Please fight amongst yourselves... nicely.

Posted by poland at 05:21 AM | Comments (138)

January 21, 2008

Self Torture Porn

It took a few days, but there is finally a movie to truly loathe at Sundance.

Downloading Nancy is one of those films that goes beyond in its pretentious efforts to top some of the worst Sundance bad habits. The "Watch The Well-Known Actress Suffer And Fuck" film (most recently embodied by Sherrybaby) combined with the "If Chris Doyle Shot It, It Must Be Art" film, with a mighty tip of the hat to Hostel 2, this is the very worst kind of festival shit. It desperately wants to tell you that it's important and meaningful and supportive of people who truly suffer in the real world... but what it really wants to do is to force you to watch Maria Bello get abused and abused and abused - all by choice - while you wait for the inevitable violent murder of the woman at the end of the film. The closest thing to restraint that the film, which chooses to pretend to be restrained in style, shows is that they don't have her cut up into small pieces by the murderer and dumped in the Chesapeake Bay. Thanks for that!

At first, I just thought it was going to be the Actress Over The Top Where's My Indie Spirit Award film. But that is actually insulting to those films, which generally fail in their goals, but at least make a game effort.

Mostly, I feel bad for the very strong cast. Bello really can bring it... and she brings it here to a degree that made me feel - as I did with Hostel 2 - that I was watching a real form of rape. There are other films that are as graphic and more graphic that don't make me feel that way. But a movie that takes so much pleasure in the pain of its lead character can't get away with claiming artistic distance with me. There is a point at which it is not about what the character feels and it is simply like a nasty trick, trying to make the audience as anguished as what they are watching. It is hateful filmmaking and every director who does it seems to be beloved by his female cast. Why? Because he makes/allows them to put it all out there. But that isn't art. That is abuse. If this filmmaker was remotely serious about exploring the depths of self-abuse that people who have been raped in their childhoods, then the movie would have seriously explored those issues. Instead we get realistic, well acted, surface all around.

Jason Patric and Rufus Sewell are also very good in their roles and the passive abuser (though can anyone really buy a guy who has been married to a woman for 17 years who doesn't notice that she is a cutter who cuts every part of her body?) and the found abuser who Bello's character wants to kill her. Amy Brenneman is fine but underused in a small part as the therapist who gets it, but can't seem to get anywhere.

There is such a world of difference between a film like this and a very difficult film like Irreversible , which aspires to something and really demands thought by the audience. This is like being force fed rancid veggies.

The festival should be embarrassed to give this one a place.

Posted by poland at 12:37 PM | Comments (7)

Sundance On Ice

Snow, really.

The first real snow hit this morning. This year, things are unusually busy on Monday and Tuesday, so the reaction to the muck will be interesting.

Last night, one of the many celebrations-before-screenings took place for Terry Kinney's Diminished Capacity. The film is expected to, as so much of Kinney's work as an actor has, speak to the full range of human emotion, making it one of the titles that offers hope for a mid-fest love affair.

The event was attended by pretty much the entire cast... A tribute to Kinney.

Ok... running to the next movie... more later... happy MLK...

More soon...

(corrected... dumb iphone posting error)

================

Another aggravatingly 10 minute entry...

Short Takes -
American Teen is a terrific little movie... but not very commercial.

Smart People is one of those Sundance classics... it's almost a Michael London lifetime achievement award reel as a film, but this time, he made the mistake (along with a half dozen or more other producers) of picking a director who could not deliver. Sensational cast... decent idea for a little movie... doesn't come together at all. Also, anyone who has a guitary score on a heartfelt movie about people, needs to be shot. Dan In Real Life was the film that should make clear that the Sundance score cliche is dead, dead, dead. Move along.

Gonzo is quite good, though about 15 minutes too long. Some complained about its score being too "greatest hits of the 60s," but I was okay with that. And the doc offers a lot of footage from other films, which was a disturbing thing at first, but which settled in with me in time, as it is done so honestly and clearly. What I hated, however, were the recreations... cheesey and unnecessary. But all in all, a movie that is more about the era than the man... which is really quite the point.

Posted by poland at 07:25 AM | Comments (1)

January 20, 2008

Sundance Sunday 1

Park City is warming up a little... more the weather than the films.

The Hot Title du Jour is American Teen, Nanette Burstein's apparently triumphant return to Sundance. We're 30 minutes away from it's grossly overloaded 80-seat press and industry screening. We're also getting the experience of this fest when there is blood in the water... assholes saving 3 and 4 seats in a "sold out" show where the people they are saving seats for are unlikely to get in. Charming.

Burstein was previously teamed with Brett Morgan, making two real classics, On The Ropes and The Kid Stays In The Picture. Soon after, Brett was Evansed and the team split. Morgan returned to Sundance last year with the highly anticipated and mostly disappointing Chicago 10. If A-Teen is the big doc buy this fest, it will be an interesting story... one surely not wanted discussed by either ex-partner.

Working together isn't easy. I ran into a half of another superstar Sundance team that hasnt spokenin a while... sad, really.

Meanwhile... The Polanski doc got the right slot for American distribution... television. An HBO doc is what it is. So an HBO buy is a perfect fit. An the Weinsteins buying therest of the world, where Polanski should draw, was smart too.

The hot intellectual film of the fest is Mama's Man, a semi- autobiographical piece about a 30something coming back home, living off the fat of the home, the doting Jewish mom, the successful disconnected father, etc, as he searches for his own place at life's table. The New York Smartniks are all over this one. I hope to see it before the fest ends.

And so, this 90% distributor's screening is about to start. More later...

Posted by poland at 09:50 AM | Comments (11)

January 19, 2008

SD3 - The Overrated

I don't have a lot of time to do this fully - more to come - but the hottest film of the moment at Sundance is also the most overrated... The Polanski doc. Very few new insights and a dubious amount of insight.

1:26p update - The press room is loaded to the gills for The Wackness... just showing again that The Press loves pot. Some are still sniffing around Sunshine Cleaning after a lot of the people who came up to buy it decided not to. Not a single pan, but "We liked Amy," is about the most positivity anyone I spoke to could come up with.

5p update - So... my take on the Polanski doc... basically, it takes a 100% pro-Polanski position from the very start, to the point of pretty much discounting the idea that sex with a 13 year old, however precocious, is a problem. There is also a very clear anti-judge stance from the start... which ultimately is the right stance. But f9/11-esque mocking of the judge before his first mention in context is kinda cheap.

Ultimately, besides the goodwill this filmmaker made for herself by ego-stroking critics and festivalers in her last film, the reason some people are so enamored of the film is that, in the end, there is an easy, obvious villain in the judge... and we can all see that Polanski was screwed by the system after he screwed a 13 year old that he never seems to have apologized for for having screwed.

For me, the only reason this story could be an interesting doc would be some informational revelation - there are none - some insight into Polanski - not much beyond the obvious - some connection to his work - lame at best here - or some connection of all the moral strings leading to some insight. Nope.

It's not badly made (though no less than 20 minutes too indulgent) and if someone never heard the story, it would be entertaining. But when you think about an entire film coming down to, "bad judge with an eye on the media" and you think of how many stories of judicial misconduct have led to much more significant personal downfalls, the film not only disappoints, but it is kind of infuriating. Onanism of the highest order.

The Wackness is classic Sundance. Good performances... funny ideas... nicely shot... and impossible to sell. The film is not great... but it is good. But in the end, what is it? A coming of age story that doesn't find itself until the third act, still leaving the first two acts a bit of a shambles... a funny, charming shambles.

I would never tell anyone (under 35) to stay away from The Wackness. It's a good adult starter reel for Josh Peck. Olivia Thirlby is sexy and intriguing... and underage. But she will be the marketing focus for anyone who buys this thing. Ben Kingsley is quite good as a drugged out therapist who buys his drugs with sessions.

It's one of those movies whose lovefest I hate to piss on. Well done. But not very special. And in this universe of specialty product, just good ain't good enough... unless you are being marketed by Nancy Utley.

Posted by poland at 10:35 AM | Comments (6)

Sundance 3 - Pre-Show

It's too early to be up after a midnight movie, but The Polanski Doc, which started getting acquisitions interest at last night's premiere, was a critics' must-see from the day the program was announced, is required viewing. The room is as full as expected.

Last night at near-midnight, it was George A Romero's Diary of the Dead, his most societally specific film, amongt his best, and ironically by my first viewing date, the much superior version of Cloverfield. What would you do as the world seems to be coming to an end? In 20 days of shooting.

More after the screening....

(via iPhone)

Posted by poland at 07:22 AM | Comments (4)

January 18, 2008

Sundance Day One - Pt 2 - Alone In Four Walls

I was blown away, with some restraint appropriate to the material, by Alone In Four Walls, Alexandra Westheimer's shockingly beautiful and shockingly apolitical documentary about a juvenile hall in Russia.

The film really feels like a Kubrick documentary. The images are so stark, and well framed, and powerful that it is almost hard to believe at times that this isn't staged... though I don't think it is. The steady hand behind the camera is Westheimer's husband and co-producer, Inigo. And he proves once again the power of a human face and a simple steady frame.

The film doesn't really explore the juvie system itself, so much as a handful of boys who are in it. And even then, with a 100% absent narrator and a visual style that never feels like Q&A, you feel a bit like you are in the confessional with these boys.

It has to be 20 minutes before you actually see an adult anywhere in the film. The boys go through various aspects of their day like machines, perfectly tuned to the actions they are doing. They confess crimes to us as we see them going through the paces, no one watching too closely, no guards screaming and cursing. Of course, we will eventually see some supervision. But there is an almost creepy sense that these boys completely get that they have done wrong and that they like the discipline, once they get used to it.

But will they actually make it in the world?

As we ultimately meet some parents, spend time with the camp dentist, and watch one kid get his pillow just right on his perfectly made bed, just what we ARE seeing is not 100% clear. We are, I think, being invited to really let it seep in... to wonder... to hope... to fear.

The film doesn't have the dramatic flourish of Born Into Brothels or Deliver Us From Evil, but it is complex documentation. And the images... my God... some of those images are the kinds that feature film makers dream of creating. Two boys washing a floor... it could have been The Shining.

It is one of the true oddities of the last few years that Ms. Westheimer did this film and another Alexandra, Alix Lambert, made The Mark of Cain, a fascinating look at prison tattoos in the Russian culture that was used by David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen as a guide to that world for Eastern Promises. For female filmmakers to put themselves in the situation of being so close to dangerous men is not to be discounted. And to get these results... to be applauded loudly. It's like they can see past the machismo... even if we are being a little manipulated... amazing.

As for the rest, there are still two more films on today's schedule for me... and a 1:30am Lunch With David interview with a living legend. Yippee Kay Yo!

Posted by poland at 05:19 PM | Comments (3)

BYOB - January 18

I know... some of you are already bored with Sundance coverage and want to discuss how badly 27 Dresses will cannibalize Cloverfield and why both these powerfully marketed niche films are opening on the same day, forcing the teens and 20s to decide whether she is going to be dutiful or if he is going to get laid on Saturday night.

Cloverfield will win the weekend, but I think 27 Dresses, which I hadn't taken into account in my previous guess that the monster mess will crack the January record, will cost it at least $10 million this weekend. And the lizard lump will have legs much like the movie monster's... short in comparison to the overall body.

And it will be interesting to see how the expansion of There Will Be Blood, smartly held until after Oscar noms closed, will do.

But hey... discuss whatever you like. It doesn't have to be box office. I am on the run and will try to check in... but until then, the floor is yours...

Posted by poland at 08:48 AM | Comments (106)

Back to Sundance - Day 1

I'm very happy about the DGA deal and the WGA that is now 90% sure to follow. I'm not very happy about the coverage in many quarters, which seems to have been pulled directly out of the DGA Ego and AMPTP playbook. Does the New York Times really need to be throwing around negotiation figures intended to make WGA look greedy and irrational? Does Variety need to keep beating the drum for the meeting of "high-powered writers" who want to go back to work?

How about sticking to the deal points? No one has seriously broken down how this settlement matches and doesn't match the WGA demands. No one has really looked at how it lays out compared to network payments.

Nikki Finke is in hiding and it's still The Nikki Finke Strike.

Anyway...

The first press screening on Friday morning... the first sell-out. Stranded is the most recent look at the plane crash in the Andes that had soccer players going cannibal to survive. 33 years later, we're all still talking about it.

Word on In Bruges, which opening the fest last night, was mixed to mixed positive... in other words, a typical Sundance opener. Imagine a year in which they program the best movie in the festival that no one's seen as opening night. Ahhhhhhh...

The tundra is a little less frozen than the weatherpeople suggested. Still, it's frickin' cold.

The price-gouging continues. The Yarrow is up to $20 a day for parking. The City of Park City is $30 a day for their Main Street parking pass. The local lots with credit card timers for up to 3 hours are up to $16 for the three hours. The better restaurants were all sold out of reservations last night. And the one respite from fest hype, The Main Street Noodle Whatever, a pizza and pasta joint, was rented out by some marketing group. All that is left of sanity on Main Street is The Morning Ray, one of the true stalwarts of this annual event... always good, always amusingly obnoxious about the influx of big city idiots, always happy you went.

I watched my first car wreck of a movie from the fest on DVD last night. But my instinct is to just shut up. The thing ain't going anywhere but your Blockbuster with a "starring TV personality X" on the box. Why pile on?

But in broad strokes, it was an oddly Cloverfield experience. Shaky-cam, self-indulgent, hot people headed for destruction. The cliche of shaky, self-indulgent, hot people trying to manipulate "the kids" even though they have NOTHING to say is a cliche for a reason.

The dance has begun and I am pretty happy... if for no other reason than that indulging in the love of movies for another 9 days is less an indulgence and more a natural pleasure without the real pain of an industry unsure of when it would emerge from the dark hanging over the experience like Death.

Posted by poland at 08:18 AM | Comments (3)

January 17, 2008

The Whole Nikki.

Here.

Last Graph.

A day early.

Embarrassed to barf this up... but am so happy it's all about to be settled that I can't help but be giddy. I was wrong about many other things.

Posted by poland at 04:00 PM | Comments (17)

Now There Are DGA Details...

The deal points are here...

No DVD... but the details on internet delivery are going to make it very hard for WGA to stay on strike after they have made it an internet focused strike. And really, I don't expect that they will want to. This is the deal they were, kinda, waiting for.

It seems to me that WGA is getting the fuzzy lollypop from AMPTP, which has been privately willing to make this deal since WGA put it on the table a month ago, but waited for DGA in order to, 1) embarrass WGA, 2) squeeze in that 17 day window, which is probably where they make the most money currently, and 3) give more time for force majeurs, and 4) embarrass WGA.

This strike will not be remembered fondly. But the fact is, WGA (via DGA) got more than a lot of people thought they would - even though they haven't done their deal yet. The only question is how SAG will feel about it. And you know... they will probably bend to it too.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a WGA deal before Sundance ends.

==============

Key Details

Ad-Supported Streaming:

- 17-day window (24-day window for series in their first season).

- Pays 3% of the residual base, approximately $600 (for network prime time 1-hour dramas), for each 26-week period following 17-day window, within first year after initial broadcast.

-Pays 2% of distributor’s gross for streaming that occurs more than one year after initial broadcast.

=========================

Electronic Sell-Through (Paid Downloads)

* More than doubles the rate currently paid by the employers on television programming to .70% above 100,000 units downloaded.

o Below 100,000 breakpoint: rate will be paid at the current rates of .30% until worldwide gross receipts reach $1 million and .36% thereafter.

* Increases rate paid on feature films by 80% to .65% above 50,000 units downloaded

o Below 50,000 breakpoint: rate will be paid at the current rates of .30% until worldwide gross receipts reach $1 million and .36% thereafter.

========================

Distributor’s Gross

* Payments for EST will be based on distributor’s gross instead of producer’s gross, a key point in our negotiations. Distributor’s gross is the amount received by the entity responsible for distributing the film or television program on the Internet. We would not have entered the agreement on any other basis.

* Companies will be contractually obligated to give us access to their deals and data, enabling us to monitor this provision and prepare for our next negotiation. This access is new and unprecedented.

* If the exhibitor or retailer is part of the producer’s corporate family, we have improved provisions for challenging any suspect transactions.

Posted by poland at 03:24 PM | Comments (5)

Dancing On Ice - Pre-Game Show 2

So it's big prayers for Little Miss Sunshine Cleaning... maybe Morgan Spurlock... is the Levinson actually good?... The return of Team Half Nelson... U-fucking-2 in 3-fucking-D... and a lot of films that we are all hoping will be more special than we ever imagined.

And that is the magic of a festival of firsts, ain't it?

There is a lot of talk about everyone who isn't coming up this year. Lean days at newspapers have meant cutbacks for the smaller papers and not-as-large-as-usual for some of the bigger ones. But studios and agencies are also cutting back.

But in my perverse soul, this is encouraging. And probably for some at Sundance too, where many of the team really do believe in the festival mission statement over Sundance-as-market.

I just had a chat with a college professor who has had a class up here for four years now... they teach, they see movies, they breathe it all in. And oh, what a breath it can be. Great! So utterly lacking in cynicism.

Personally, I am getting more and more comfortable with this festival as it will happen. Maybe it's the WGA strike putting it in context. Maybe it is a wider set of ways in which I cover the festival. Maybe it's just thrilling to not be chasing The Golden Ten and realizing that anything could be in that group for a change.

And so we roll...

Posted by poland at 03:12 PM | Comments (1)

IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS!!!

The Dow Jones took a 300 point plunge!

Oh... wrong universe.

Back to show business...

Britany Spears is having a labial...

Oh.

That's not really news, is it?

The DGA deal got done today, pretty much as expected. What we are ALL waiting for is detail. That is where the angels and/or the devils live.

Right now, none of us know whether this is the beginning of the end of the WGA strike or the beginning of a nastier fight. It's all about what the DGA agreed to.

Even though there are internal murmurs that an Oscars deal is done with WGA, this DGA could even rip that apart, as Gil Cates is a master of both domains. We'll see.

I hope for the best. As I've written, a quarter point on DVD, 1.2% on paid downloads, and $1000 a year for free streaming could end up making the sun shine again.

Let's hope.

Posted by poland at 03:03 PM | Comments (1)

BYOB - Sundance

A space for your stuff.

Posted by poland at 11:30 AM | Comments (7)

Lunch With... Ellen Page

She's all the rage in Juno and is a serious contender to dark horse an Oscar win just a few days after her 21st birthday. She may be more serious than you expect, but she has a lot to say about the work.

Meet Ellen Page

Posted by poland at 11:10 AM | Comments (7)

Pre-Dance... Via iPhone

It was a beautiful drive to Park City, but if you are still packing, be advised... it is really, really cold here this year and not scheduled to get any better. The last time I remember it being this cold was a few years ago, late in the festival, walking the stairs behind Main Street to get to our rental, with no gloves. Bitter. This year, this is the weather.

I continue to field e-mails from companies seeking to bail out of their rentals this year. It's as though all the acquisition pregame reports came back on the same day with a big "Don't bother" marked on them.

The nice thing is, when expectations get lowered, it often means a positive surprise.

And we started with the first Main Street celebrity sighting... Michelle Williams, without make-up, looking sensational. Albertson's was still prepping for the onslaught. And the marketers already are dotting Main Street, including the Microsoft HD DVD Lounge, the notion of which I find genuinely fascinating.

We're off!!!

Posted by poland at 12:24 AM | Comments (6)

January 16, 2008

BYOB - Travelling

I'm on the road to Park City all day, so be nice to each other and I'll see you on the other side.

Posted by poland at 12:33 AM | Comments (33)

January 15, 2008

MacBook Air

There was no coincidence that Apple announced both the MacBook Air and a deal to start making rentals via iTunes available in addition to movie sales.

What the analysts seemed to miss is that the MacBook Air, a very cool small body laptop, also has a built-in step towards changing the entire technology... there is no DVD or CD-Rom drive on the machine. None. Why? Because the hardware is suggesting, quite clearly, how you should interact with the software. Rent or buy movies online... no need for a pesky disc.

And if you do have a disc? You can get an accessory drive (a pain in the ass) or you can wirelessly network to another computer - preferably a Mac - and treat media that uses the hardware of the other computer exactly the same as if it were loaded onto your computer.

This conceit is extremely cutting edge... but not as problematic as it might seem on the face of it. We are all used to having drives in our computers and got all excited when DVD drives came in and recently, the offer of Blu-ray or HD drives on some computers. But Apple continues to push us all to cut the wires and to access everything in a paperless, discless universe. And while the limitations of Apple's deals with studios limits the comfort zone that everything is accessible - on DVD or CD - the push is compelling.

If, as a critic, I get DVD screeners from companies that want me to watch their films in whatever format I can - screenings being best - why not give me unlimited access to download, so long as they feel the encryption is safe? Obviously, Apple wouldn't make money on that. But imagine a company like Magnolia or IFC First Look or even Sony Classics simply being able to give me access to the films that they are working on at any time, over an inexpensive private network on the web. Imagine, as I head to Sundance, that the 80 or so films that allow you to screen them on DVD on a TV in the press office could allow me to start the festival at home on Monday and see a dozen movies before I land in Park City... particularly ones I might not have time to see in the hustle and bustle of the festival.

And that brings us back to the WGA Strike - as all things must.

This suggests a universe in which rentals can be done on a larger basis - not free downloads and not purchased films - without a disc. I believe the guilds are currently paid, in the case of Blockbuster and Netflix, by the prices of the DVDs sold to the rental companies... one residual payment based on the gross revenue from the sale. Apparently, there is already an agreement for 1.2% for electronic rentals... currently a tiny revenue stream. WGA seeks 2.5%.

With a price point at about a third (or less) of the cost of buying a movie via iTunes, combined with ease of delivery, this could be a major hit with kids and the travelling class... depending on the boundaries of a rental.

Don't be shocked if AMPTP "offers" WGA what it already theoretically has... the 1.2% residual on electronic rentals. There has been so much screaming about the guild getting "nothing" from the web that the 1.2% might seem like a generous offer to the unaware.

I find the announcement by Apple a bit of curious timing. The studios needed to sign off on the announcement. So one must wonder, is it part of an overall strategy? "Offer" WGA significantly better numbers on "the future" aka iTunes electronic rental at the same time a deal with DGA gets set with, perhaps, a slight DVD increase and some minor improvement on the $250 annual offer on free streaming and BOOM... does the WGA jump? And if AMPTP has DGA and WGA, how hard a fight can SAG fight after already losing a month or two of work in the WGA strike?

I don't know... interesting...

Maybe I am a sucker, but I have this odd sense that progress is being made, even as AMPTP continues to put WGA off. One thing I do know for sure... if AMPTP is happy with whatever these moves are, then they are not good enough for any guild to feel comfortable about. It's not about "Evil AMPTP," it's Negotiation 101. Both sides should hurt a little at the end of a truly reasonable negotiation.

And celebrate by buying a really cool laptop.

Posted by poland at 01:09 PM | Comments (22)

The Weirdest Noms Yet

The handling of docs and foreign language films continue to be an embarrassment to The Academy. With due respect to the excellent films on the foreign language short-list, released today, you have to wonder how these things come to pass.

Not on the list is the most acclaimed and qualified foreign language film of the year, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and the second most acclaimed qualified foreign language film of the year, Persepolis. I count myself as a fan of a number of these films, but really... puh-leeeeze!

The oddball process continues with 30 Academy members sitting down to watch all 9 of the short-listers next weekend... to eliminate 4.

The four of nine who have taken home Oscars before are: Denys Arcand, Nikita Mikhalkov, Giuseppe Tornatore, and Andrzej Wajda. Sergei Bodrov has been twice nominated, once for a film as writer/director and once as co-writer. None of the other four - Joseph Cedar, Srdan Golubovic, Cao Hamburger, Stefan Ruzowitzky - have gotten nominated in the past, though some have been nominated by their countries.

The great irony of all of this is that the two films left behind were "arty intense" (4 Months) and animated (Persepolis), which is pretty much what The Academy doesn't go for in their main nominations either. So maybe we shouldn't be surprised in the least.

(Corrected for awards error - Tues, 2:03p)

Posted by poland at 12:24 PM | Comments (41)

January 14, 2008

Major Force

So the axe fell at CBS/Paramount today, following last week's ABC/Disney bludgeoning. Expect the others to follow, as a deal with DGA gets closer.

Meanwhile, WGA is cutting more deals with The Minors, adding a web-based production company, MRC, and major producer/funder, Spyglass. Soon to join United Artists and The Weinstein Company appear to be Overture (another company with not an inch of skin in the game) and Lionsgate, which will probably hold off signing until after next Tuesday, when Saw IV comes out on DVD.

Meanwhile, the DGA deal remains a potentially big moment in breaking the WGA deadlock, but not so much the way people seem to think. If DGA makes a bad deal overall, by WGA’s reckoning, they will resist conforming. But there is a real chance that DGA will make a small inroad on the DVD deal that was taken off the table by WGA six weeks ago, this could lead to WGA getting the same, devaluing the internet obsession, and break the logjam. (Yes, the AMPTP has not been at the table. But it is clear that DGA is meant to be leverage and positive concessions by DGA mean something, just as negative ones. Negotiations of subtext have been going on the entire time that AMPTP has stayed home… as the HFPA learned so painfully last night.)

Even if DGA signs a weak deal, at least it is a distinct starting point for the others… as opposed to the ongoing “nothing is on the table” argument.

Hope for the best… expect the worst.

Posted by poland at 06:52 PM | Comments (6)

PGA Awards

Same as it ever ("ever" being the last few weeks) was...

PRODUCER OF THE YEAR AWARD IN THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax)
"Juno" (Fox Searchlight)
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax/Paramount Vantage)
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage/Miramax)

PGA is a pretty damned good 4 of 5 marker... like DGA... and unlike DGA, a pretty horrible 5 for 5 marker. Not once in the last decade, even when expanding to six nominees, have they hit all five Oscar nominees.

Of course, everyone will assume that Diving Bell is the one that should be nervous. But someone should. We'll see who drinks whose milkshake in just 8 days.

Posted by poland at 11:45 AM | Comments (11)

January 13, 2008

Roger Avary

UPDATE - Mon, 11:55 - Don Murphy comments below..."We spoke this morning. Gretchen and he will be fine. I would be surprised if he is prosecuted. That road is a winding, unlit dirt road (yes I have been on it)."

===============================

I know more than a few of you who hang around here - posting and not - know Roger Avary. And no doubt, none of us will be filled with anything less than sympathy for a person whose life changed forever in a car accident, in which someone was killed and his wife was thrown from the car.

None of us know the details of what happened... was he over the blood alcohol limit... had he drunk a couple of glasses of wine at dinner 30 minutes earlier... whatever. There is no excuse for taking the lives of others into your hands when inebriated.

But Roger is, by all appearances, a decent and kind man. And being responsible for the death of someone else is no small thing. Our sympathies must first go to the family and friends of Andreas Zini, the person who passed away. And then, we can hope for the best for Roger and his wife, Gretchen.

Posted by poland at 11:11 PM | Comments (23)

Globes...

It was a very odd evening at the Beverly Hilton , The awards were pretty unsurprising… with the primary exception of Atonement taking Best Picture/Drama from No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and Michael Clayton… all three of which are currently expected to be nominated for Oscar’s Best Picture. (The only person in Hollywood not surprised by this, it seems, was Sasha Stone. One HFPA member just kept saying, after it was announced, “I know how that happened… but I can’t tell you.”)

But it wasn’t really an evening of movies. It was an evening of weird.

It was a Beverly Hilton empty enough to park in the small self-park lot connected to the building with no delay, coming or going, when normally, you can’t even get close enough to the building to park. It was the empty bar, where about 20 of us watched the end of the Giants game. It was a room full of publicists who were unable to even consider getting an eventual winner of a Globe on the phone to comment afterwards. It was a print press room with fewer than 20 print reporters typing along. It was cameras from 50 different outlets gently taking up the space where Daniel Day Lewis or Johnny Depp would have been sitting (or Julie Christie and Cate Blanchett not sitting).

The room was made of up press, security, and HFPA members, and publicists, pretty much in that order of quantity. There was an odd mixture, all very low key, of amusement, excitement, and sadness at how things had come to this… this quirky bit of Hollywood history.

And the winners?

Atonement & Sweeney Todd. Depp & Day-Lewis. Cotillard & Christie. Ratatouille & The Diving Bell & The Butterfly. Bardem & Blanchett. Coens for Screenplay. And minor surprise (since he was unlikely to lose to Wright or Scott, but could have lost to Burton or The Coens), Julian Schnabel.

The Globes, had these been the picks in a normal year, did the job it usually does… would inspire the conversations with these picks it normally inspires. And as usual, these picks will be fortunate to match 50% of the ultimate Academy winners. But amazingly, the only possibly winners that could fail to even be nominated for Oscar, by this week’s likely overstated trend watching, would be both Best Picture winners.

The numbers suggest that Atonement should get Oscar nominated, as see only one Best Picture/Drama Globes winner that didn’t get an Oscar nod… back in 1964… the year of my birth. (Many failed to go on to win Oscar.) On the other hand, 4 times in the last ten years, the Best Comedy/Musical winner didn’t make it.

It is not an influencer of Oscar nominations, as the Oscar nomination voting is closed. But a stat is a stat and Focus should be a lot happier tonight, after suffering a week of gloom and doom talk in the media.

Of course, if Atonement is in – and it really would be less of a shock than some made it out to be last week – then two of the following titles that have been seen as being ahead of Atonement recently will be out:

No Country for Old Men
Michael Clayton
There Will Be Blood
Juno
Diving Bell and Butterfly
Into the Wild

There are a lot of voices out there whispering that deals have already been struck – or are at least well advanced in negotiation – for both DGA to deal with AMPTP and for AMPAS to get waivered by WGA. Of course, as we have learned during this period, even deals that seem done tend to get undone in a flash.

Let’s just hope that this show of muscle by the unions tonight was the beginning of the end, satisfying the taste for destruction. In the end, as important as settling the strike is – and it is the real point of all these actions – the goal is to settle and to move on, both sides united. And honoring people with awards that have a historic asterisk kinda sucks for the filmmakers who deserve better.

Tonight, we experienced about the right amount of attention for HFPA’s awards. But there wasn’t a moment of fun in it, except for some laughs from the TV comedies. Not liking these things at all is fine. But for those who do enjoy them, it was unfortunate. And as I walked down empty hallways where I am used to walking past ballgowned beauties and tuxedoed men, though the photos of the past still line the halls, I decided… I don’t really like ghosts as much as I enjoy the living, even when I mock them.

=================================

You can comment, if you like, as I wirte this up. Sorry there was no BYOB before the event. Duh!

Posted by poland at 07:52 PM | Comments (22)

Reminder

This blog does not remove or choose comments. (Very, very rarely - maybe 10 times in over 70,000 comments - I will add a spoiler warning or the like, that being the only editing of any kind ever.) No one has ever been banned or been disallowed from commenting. There is no monitoring of comments.

I consider the choice to do that counterintuitive to the idea of having an open forum. If you want to control the comments (aside from spam, for which there are filters), don't allow them and run e-mails to your blog.

In any case, all of this is because I noticed that there was a comment that didn't post to one of the entries today and when I looked for "unpublished comments," I found about a dozen from over recent months. I published all of them immediately.

Please let me know if your comment seems to be caught in a spam filter. It is usually because of what the spam filter thinks is too many internal links, which it reads as potential spam. I very rarely checked for unpublished comments because they are so rare. But if you think you have had one, let me know and I will check ASAP and make sure you're published, no matter what you have written.

Posted by poland at 01:47 PM | Comments (3)

LAFCA Photos

DDL and the couldn't-be-nicer Daniel Lupi

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud

Team Savage: Kirk Honeycutt, Tamara Jenkins, Jim Taylor, Alexander Payne, editor Brian Kates

(photos: Ray Greene/Courtesy of LAFCA)

Posted by poland at 12:39 PM | Comments (1)

LAFCA Quote of the Night

Paul Thomas Anderson didn't win for screenwriting last night - Tamara Jenkins' script for The Savages did - but he got off the line of the night, "If another fucking film critic criticizes one of my movies for being too long, I'm going to remind them of this ceremony."

Still, a good time, if a lot of a good time, was had by all, including the significantly slimmed down Scott Rudin, the contingent from Romania, chiefs from Vantage, Miramax, Searchlight, Sony Classics, and Strand, and a host of others.

Posted by poland at 12:17 PM | Comments (2)

Sunday Estimates by Klady

Not only is this Rob Reiner's biggest opening ever, topping A Few Good Men by almost $4 million, but it's Jack Nicholson't fourth biggest career opening, after Anger Management, Batman, and The Departed. Critics hate it... audiences love it.

Likewise, this is Ice Cube's biggest opening aside from the Barbershop franchise. (And nice to see a distributor not leaning on Martin Lurther King, Jr Day weekend to release an "urban" movie.)

Juno is the gift that keeps on giving, as it cracks $70 million or more than $10 million past Little Miss Sunshine's box office mark. It is one of those phenoms of awards season that had this movie opened in summer and done $100 million or close, it would almost surely be out of the Oscar race like all other successful/not-indie-claiming comedies, aside from Ellen Page and screenplay... and instead is likely to be the biggest grosser nominated for Oscar's Best Picture trophy this year.

Note P.S. I Love You's quiet $50 million... and Charlie Wilson's War's quiet $60 million, which will become Mike Nichols' second highest grossing film in his career.

Posted by poland at 11:17 AM | Comments (12)

January 12, 2008

Hot Blog Mystery Pop Quiz!

Okay, kids... it's that time again!

I'm never going to waste the time to review this magical marketing scam because it isn't even worthy of the blog-umn inches. Besides, I will be in Sundance when this one drops... into the toilet bowl of movie history. That said, it will open to over $40 million, breaking the record for January openings.

But here's a little quiz and I'll leave it at that...

What movie:
A) Has a credit sequence that runs more than 15% of the overall length of the film?
B) Has no character development deeper than a D cup?
C) Uses Mumblecore conceits to do nothing but scam the audience? (Welcome to Mumble-Hor.)
D) Makes Poseidon look accomplished with many of the same gags
E) Has a monster that could have been bought at a Star Trek TV auction.
F) Doesn't have a single moment as compelling as the girl crying into the lens in Blair Witch.
G) Is desperate to be The Host, but forgets to establish any characters that you care about.
H) Has the greatest scoring of the credits sequence in history
I) Is so completely vacuous that a few smart people will mistake it for meaningful.
J) All Of The Above

Good luck to you all! Winner gets to not see the film!

Posted by poland at 03:45 PM | Comments (53)

Friday Estimates by Klady - 1/12

So... after a lot of people wrote off The Bucket List, it looks to be Rob Reiner's biggest opening ever, challenging A Few Good Men's $15.5 million start. For Nicholson, it is one par with his "smaller film" openers, like Something's Gotta Give ($16m), As Good As It Gets ($12.6m), and About Schmidt (which opened in limited, but did $8.5 million on 852 screens going wider). And with an older crowd, you can expect more than 3x Friday as the weekend number... and long legs, unless they really hate it.

I have to say, I have been surprised by the extreme dislike by some older critics for this film. I don't have an answer for it, except to say that while I see it as a pure programmer with a heart, and completely see the ugliness of blue-screening the Taj Mahal and all other world venues... I really did enjoy the film much more than I could have imagined I might. ( I wouldn't have "Lunch With David"ed with Reiner if I had nothing nice to say about the movie.)

First Sunday is right in line with Ice Cube's "urban" movie openings.

Posted by poland at 09:14 AM | Comments (30)

January 11, 2008

Dusty Cohl: In Memory

Dusty Cohl: In Memory
By Roger Ebert

Nobody ever seemed to know what Dusty Cohl did for a living. He was a lawyer, and it was said he was "in real estate," but in over 30 years I never heard him say one word about business. His full-time occupation was being a friend, and he was one of the best I've ever made.

Yes, he was "co-founder of the Toronto Film Festival." That's how he was always identified in the Toronto newspapers. And he founded and ran the Floating Film Festival, one of the great boondoggles, on which Dusty and 250 friends cruised for 10 days while premiering films and paying tributes to actors and directors. There was no reason for the floater except that if you were Dusty's friend, you floated.

The rest...

And from Jim Emerson...

Posted by poland at 07:15 PM | Comments (1)

A Great Guy Has Passed

Most of you won't know the name Dusty Cohl.

But he was my friend and someone who was unendingly generous of spirit and effort towards me.

He started the Toronto Film Festival with a few partners 33 years ago and was instrumental to building it, especially with his friends in the media who supported the fest earlier and more enthusiastically than it might otherwise have been supported. Amongst the closest in the circle are The Eberts & The Corlisses.

Toronto started with the idea of being a "festival of festivals," inspired by trips to Cannes and the awareness, back in 1975 that Toronto would not get the chance to see many of the films showing to great acclaim across the globe. Dusty stepped away from TIFF years ago and hasn't been to Cannes in even longer. But if you were his friend, he would come to anyplace where you needed him. We first spent time together at Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, along with his amazing wife, Joan, out in the middle of nowhere (due respect), aka Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. He was there for Roger and he hosted us all like the family we would become for those few days each April.

Dusty was brusque and funny and not slow to anger. A couple of Crown Royals and a cigar were never far off when you spent time with him. He'd offer his thoughts, always starting with a, "Kid...," and he was, pretty much, always right. But sometimes it took time for the recipient to understand that.

Dusty almost always wore his cowboy hat and in time, started handing out small cowboy hat pins to people whom he wanted to include in his extended family. The rule was, you have to wear the pin at any film festival. If he caught you without it, hell was raised. But at festival after festival, people would ask, "What's with the cowboy hat?,"and the story was told.

He could be an ornery old cuss... but his heart was as big as any. A truly gentle soul covered in charming sharp edges.

Right after The Oscars this year, The 10th Floating Film Festival will depart from Long Beach. It will be my second. The last time I spoke to Dusty, he said, "I just hope to see you on The Floater." Now it will have to be from a distance, as we celebrate this man over a lot of Crown Royals.

I will miss him dearly.

Posted by poland at 03:52 PM | Comments (2)

Film Critic Makes Times With Carmen Electra

Click here to see who

Posted by poland at 03:46 PM | Comments (3)

(Almost) A Year Of Lunch With David

The links

Posted by poland at 03:23 PM | Comments (5)

Lunch With... Saoirse Ronan

Likely to be this year's youngest Oscar nominee, 13-year-old Saoirse Ronan has already worked with Peter Jackson, Amy Heckerling, Gillian Armstrong, animator-turned-feature-director Gil Kenan and, of course, Joe Wright, for whom she gave her mesmerizing performance in Atonement.

The chat...

Posted by poland at 02:18 PM | Comments (4)

Why Films Don't Get Nominated

Analogies of this year's higher profile films that seem set to miss Oscar BP noms to Dreamgirls are pretty off the mark and lazy, really. The media creates these waves and then attacks the movies for them, as though Atonement or Sweeney Todd or Dreamgirls actually did something terribly different in hyping than anyone else.

Dreamgirls (old song) did exactly three events that no one else did last year. None of these films did the blanket buying of ads that Universal traditionally does. None of these films showed their ass as generously as Searchlight has for its push films... which we all choose to perceive as underdogs. None of these films came and went in September and October, as so many do.

The fact remains that getting the "last film in" into the race has been the rarest trick of all in the years since the season was shortened by The Academy. This year, the late entries were Charlie Wilson's War and Sweeney, with a delayed launch of Atonement after releasing it at the September fests. I wrote about it back in November, but whether fair or right, these films were fighting uphill because The First Season is really between Dec 2 and Dec 15... when every group but The Academy commits itself, whether by awards or by nominations.

If you are Steven Spielberg, Marty Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, the strategy works. If not, you are likely shit out of luck (with some very specific exceptions).

Why?

Because voters pay attention to these films regardless of any external forces. Critics groups and guilds didn’t really reward Munich or Letters From Iwo Jima or even Million Dollar Baby… but still, Oscar voters watched them and voted for them. Aside from these films, only Brokeback, made it as a December entry. That film used the September release, then withhold until December strategy, but the film was so high profile that it overcame. This was not a normal event.

If you start showing your film after Thanksgiving, you are dealing with a universe of people who have already started making up their minds and you not only have to impress them, you have to be seen as better than what they already like. If There Will Be Blood and Juno get in this year - one with almost no box office and the other with a lot -it will be The Critics' Hard On and The Public's Hard On (easily the highest grosser in the group), breaking through the muck.

You need to be able to crush the ice somehow. And that is not the same as getting comfortable with voters from an September/October berth.

(And let's not forget... the Oscar nominations are not out yet and almost always have surprises. Then again, notice how quietly the awards media has locked in Michael Clayton after writing it off for a month already... convenient amnesia.)

Mike Nichols hasn’t been a guarantee of an Oscar nod in some time. And Burton, one of the most successful filmmakers of his generation, has never scored a nod for anything but animation. Pride & Prejudice missed, in spite of a lot of support from the media.

All I am saying is, let’s not create these myths about “overhyped” films. You want to make the argument on Dreamgirls, go on. It’s absurd, but there is some evidence that can be reasonably cited in the argument. But Sweeney, which didn’t show footage at Cannes or have Johnny Depp shake hands in September or have a national screening in mid-November or have a week of exclusive shows in LA and NY, seems to be headed in the same direction – except, without the nearly unanimous support from guilds and groups that Dreamgirls had… perhaps without a Golden Globe win… etc.

We in the media tend to define these films based on our perception, not “reality.” And remember, the race is a reduction of the whole thing down to 5 films. There are dozens of films chasing. But we in the media love to tear down the golden calves we built. And we should probably take a little more responsibility for it.

Posted by poland at 09:03 AM | Comments (22)

ACE Nods

Nominees in all categories, as announced by the ACE Board of Directors, are as follows:

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (DRAMATIC):
The Bourne Ultimatum – Universal
Christopher Rouse, A.C.E.

Into the Wild – Paramount Vantage
Jay Cassidy, A.C.E.

Michael Clayton – Warner Bros. Pictures
John Gilroy, A.C.E.

No Country for Old Men – Paramount Vantage/Miramax
Roderick Jaynes

There Will Be Blood - Paramount Vantage/Miramax
Dylan Tichenor, A.C.E.

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (COMEDY OR MUSICAL):
Hairspray – New Line Cinema
Michael Tronick, A.C.E.

Juno – Fox Searchlight Pictures
Dana E. Glauberman

Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End – Disney
Craig Wood & Stephen Rivkin, A.C.E.

Ratatouille – Disney
Darren Holmes, A.C.E.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – DreamWorks/Paramount
Chris Lebenzon, A.C.E.

It is very rare for a Best Picture to get an Oscar win without an editing nod. They folks at ACE occasionally miss an Oscar nominee... but almost never the winner.

So... that would suggest that one of the following six films will win Best Picture...
Into the Wild, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood

Make of that what you will... if it seems to narrow the field in the least.

Posted by poland at 01:45 AM | Comments (11)

January 10, 2008

WGA Nods In Order, Screened, Resurected & Honest

Four things...

First, WGA website gods seem to have developed a bad habit. This is the second year that the Guild has listed nominees in order of vote total. Last year, they fixed it when it was pointed out... and here we are again.

I have adjusted the names in the previous WGA nod entry to match the WGA website... votes came in that order. Congrats to the likely winners.

Next, what did non-WGA-nominees Atonement, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Charlie Wilson's War and Sweeney Todd have in common? No screeners for WGA members. (Sweeney did show up, but only one day before voting closed for many voters... same for many members of BFCA.)

Almost more shocking, statistically, is that there were only fourteen non-doc features sent to WGA members... and nine of the ten nominees came from that group.

The only film nominated by WGA that didn't send a screener was Michael Clayton.

And the five screeners that didn't draw nominations? Away From Her, Dan in Real Life, The Kite Runner, and Margot at the Wedding and 3:10 to Yuma. (In other words, Vantage sent everything, Lionsgate got nothing, and Disney's comedy wasn't up to Knocked Up standards - or in my mind, the Superbad screener that Sony didn't send either.)

Third, has anyone outside of the WGA seen the top doc vote-getter, The Camden 28? The film was release by First Look in July on 1 screen and earned under $10,000. How in God's name did this movie end up being the biggest vote getter at the Guild?

Here is the synopsis at imdb: The Camden 28 explores how and why 28 individuals intentionally placed themselves at risk of arrest and imprisonment while protesting the war in Vietnam. Featuring a treasure of archival materials and current interviews with former FBI agents involved in the case and scholars such as Howard Zinn, The Camden 28 is a story about a potent form of dissent that has special relevance to our current political climate.

And a special relevance to a guild in the midst of a strike, it seems to me.

Finally, it is nice to see Elizabeth Bentley getting her due in the nom for Nanking. As I reported almost a year ago, there was an effort to squeeze Bentley out of her credit for the film by the writer/director/producer and in most press materials, she has been a phantom. She gets her recognition here. (I only wish the movie really deserved a nod at all.)

Posted by poland at 02:30 PM | Comments (12)

WGA Nods

The two "surprises" were Apatow for Knocked Up and Vanderbilt for Zodiac.

"Left out" were Christopher Hampton, Aaron Sorkin, and Kelly Masterson. Plus, you might have expected a Paul Haggis strike vote on top of fans of his film. Nope.

But really, nothing to write home about and way too late to effect Oscar nods. Last year WGA missed on four of ten. The year before, three of ten. This doesn't make a WGA nomination any less valued... just not much of a predictor.

======================

ORIGINAL
Diablo Cody - Juno
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
Tamara Jenkins - The Savages
Judd Apatow - Knocked Up
Nancy Oliver - Lars and the Real Girl

ADAPTED
The Coens - No Country For Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood
Ronald Harwood - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Sean Penn - Into The Wild
James Vanderbilt - Zodiac

DOC
Anthony Giacchino - The Camden 28
Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman and Elisabeth Bentley - Nanking
Charles Ferguson - No End in Sight
Richard Berge - The Rape of Europa
Michael Moore - Sicko
Alex Gibney - Taxi To The Darkside

The WGA gives out their awards on February 9. Expect pickets by the AMPTP and the support of FoxNews asking talent not to attend.

Posted by poland at 12:45 PM | Comments (33)

20 Weeks - 7 Weeks to Go

The Golden Globes are dead… long die The Golden Globes.

The Wheel O’ Strategy is spinning hard at the studios these days. A film like Hairspray, which ended up joining now-presumptive Best Picture nominees There Will Be Blood and Juno as the only multiple Critics’ Choice Award winners, is suddenly thrilled about being a nominee at the other on-air awards show this month, The SAGs.

But both the Globes Press Conference (Best Musical/Comedy/Travolta/Blonsky) and SAG arrive after Oscar nominations close. No sale!

DGA, as usual, acts as a powerfully consistent precursor as of late, but not much of an influencer. But you know that Team Atonement and Team Sweeney Todd are not feeling good about being left on the side of the road by the Guild.

The rest of the column...

And The Lists...

Posted by poland at 12:16 PM | Comments (14)

January 09, 2008

BYOB - Jan 9

Can you smell the quiet?

Posted by poland at 12:42 PM | Comments (45)

January 08, 2008

Lunch With... Tim Burton

It was a great pleasu