FilmStew.com: LatestHeadlines

Loosey-Goosey on "Leno"

05/10/2008

It was a very different kind of Harrison Ford kicking off his promotional TV duties last night in beautiful downtown Burbank.

Dolph Headed in a "Die Hard" Direction

05/09/2008

In Hollywood, Dolph Lundgren probably couldn’t get a callback. But in Sofia, Bulgaria, he’s busy starring in his 35th film and planning to follow it with his fourth directorial effort.

Setting the "Crystal Skull" Stage

05/09/2008

Long before George Lucas and co. came up with the premise for Indiana Jones 4, a lesser known group sourced Mike Mitchell-Hedges' crystal skull artifact for an episode of a beloved Sci-Fi Channel series.

Enduring Some Customs "Savagery"

05/08/2008

Perhaps if Dangerous Minds director John N. Smith had titled his latest feature Passion and Longing, he wouldn’t have had quite so much trouble with Canadian customs.

Compelled Towards a Cosmic Investigation

05/08/2008

A new documentary project being put together by a pair of Ohio medical professionals pick ups the general thread of fictional films like Ghost and Always.

A Couple of Cinematographers

05/08/2008

Nominated for an Oscar in 2007 for The Black Dahlia, cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond is now starring in his own buddy flick alongside Hungarian compatriot László Kovács.

The John Hughes "Club"

05/08/2008

With the one-time king of the teen movie prom happily living a non-cinematic life in Illinois, it’s now up to filmmakers like 34-year-old Aussie Phil Price to try and carry the torch.

One Unhappy Congressman

05/07/2008

Even though the idea of Hollywood Democrats saying no to a Washington Republican is nothing new, Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif) is still disappointed.

From Off-Off-Broadway to the French Riviera

05/07/2008

East coast acting teacher, director and theater actor Stephen Dest is one of the many artists getting a boost from this year’s Short Films Corner program at the Cannes Film Festival.

This Frame Can Be Yours

05/07/2008

By asking people to buy single frames of a future film for $10 a pop, Canadian filmmaker Casey Walker is hoping to raise the money he needs to make a romantic comedy.

It's Twitter, Don't "Juno"

05/07/2008

In just a few weeks, more than 3,000 people have jumped aboard the Diablo Cody news bulletin train.

In the Shadow of a "Legend"

05/06/2008

At age 36, John Wayne’s grandson Brendan has finally found his way to the western genre via a pair of 1870’s tales.

A McCartney Mockumentary

05/06/2008

Can Sir Paul still laugh about matrimonial matters in the wake of his ugly divorce with Heather Mills? The makers of a new comedy documentary hope so.

Connecticut's Golden Couple

05/06/2008

In this, the 50th golden anniversary year of Paul Newman’s marriage to Joanne Woodward, the couple’s last big screen collaboration is being celebrated in their home state by director James Ivory.

Waiting for the "Mindcrime" Movie

05/06/2008

It’s got it all: a junkie hero, a nun who was once a prostitute and a villain named Dr. X. All that’s missing is an opening in Queensrÿche’s busy schedule.

Inspired to "Screw Cupid"

05/05/2008

Filmmaker Sanjeev Sirpal is heading back to the Florida city block where he took his high school finals for a festival screening of his new romantic comedy.

An Ode to Ozploitation

05/05/2008

The new documentary Not Quite Hollywood takes a look back at the wave of low-budget Australian films sparked by the introduction in 1971 of a very liberal Australian R rating.

Retracing the "Balibo" Five

05/05/2008

Without a Trace star Anthony LaPaglia will be returning to his native Australia later this year to shoot the film version of a very famous episode in Down Under journalism.

Beholden to "Bandits"

05/05/2008

Patrick Lavelle is heading to the 2008 Cannes Film Festival for two reasons: to cover the event for his former employer and to peddle a movie project backed by an Oscar winning producer.

Chiranjeevi Closes In on Another Milestone

05/02/2008

Telugu cinema megastar Chiranjeevi is the same age as Mel Gibson (52), but on the movies-starred-in front, he is ahead by about 110 feature films.

Some Pros and Comic-Con's

07/31/2006

In the wake of yet another four-day San Diego smorgasbord celebrating anything that can be turned into an action figure or costume, we take a look at some of the highs (Kapow!) and lows (Kaboom!).

Singer Surveys "Superman"

06/27/2006

In paying homage to the Richard Donner films, filmmaker Bryan Singer managed to include everything except the Krypton kitchen sink.

Beauty and the Regular Guy

06/21/2006

It’s not just the broad theme of Ashton Kutcher’s reality TV series. The onscreen pairing of great-looking young gals with average Joe's is a Hollywood movie trend reoccurring once again.

A Bigger "Bang"

06/05/2006

With next week’s DVD release of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang sure to finally bring this acerbic film the audience it deserves, we sample the rat-tat-tat-tat chemistry of Kilmer Kilmer, Downey Downey.

Blondes Have More Trophy Ware

05/02/2006

Officially, it was called the US Weekly Hot Hollywood Awards. Unofficially, it looked a lot like a bevy of blonde babes and the shorter male B-Listers who love them.

Nickelodeon Knuckle Sandwich

04/05/2006

What’s that thrash metal sound emanating from the upstairs bedroom? Why it’s Green Day, winners of two Blimps and harbingers of a new (awards) world order.

The Electronica of "Eyes"

03/16/2006

The reviews are in, and the participants basking in the most praise for The Hills Have Eyes are the pair known as tomandandy.

Showing Team Spirit

03/06/2006

In the category of Most Courageous Awards Show Performer, the nominees are: Gallagher, Gray, Deschanel, Nivola, Kind and Yoakum.

For Their Consideration

02/01/2006

With this year’s top Oscar categories pretty much locked down, the only real hope for a great show is if the winners finally put away those damn laundry lists.

A Choice Critic's Diary

01/13/2006

Who better to put a final polish on the 11th Annual Critics' Choice Awards than one of its very own members? FilmStew's Anderson Jones has the dish.

A Retarded Ruckus

01/04/2006

The only thing Matt Stone and Trey Parker are guilty of when it comes to The Ringer is taking advantage of the quicker production timeline of rudimentary animation.

Getting Back on "Point"

12/21/2005

For years, filmmaker Woody Allen has been content to play it Love-40 with the press. But lately, he’s raised his PR game in an effort to even the score at Deuce.

A "Big" Bowl of Rehash

12/09/2005

When exactly did VH1 become an endless wink-wink regurgitation of pop culture? It all ties back to that mid-90’s show put together by Tad Low and Woody Thompson.

Helping Johnny Be Good

11/16/2005

Lurking in the background of Joaquin Phoenix’s amazing performance as singer Johnny Cash are vocal coach Roger Love and musician T-Bone Burnett.

Some Overly "Rich" PR

11/08/2005

If we had a nickel for every time Hollywood manufactured a controversy like that of the current 50 Cent movie poster, we’d be able to spring for some serious bling bling.

The Veterans of "Jarhead"

11/01/2005

Look past the shiny Marine line-up of Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx and Peter Sarsgaard, and you’ll find some generals who connect back to earlier Hollywood campaigns.

Trying "Rize" On for Size

10/26/2005

One of this year's contenders for Best Documentary is part of the proud tradition of turning an earlier Sundance short into a later Sundance feature.

The Dialogue Whisperer

10/08/2005

You’ve probably never heard of Chris Neil; but the Coppola clan member has this year touched both Star Wars: Episode III and Thumbsucker.

The Reluctant Sex Goddess

09/28/2005

To most guys, Jessica Alba is synonymous with the battle cry, ‘Gentlemen, start your search engines.’ But it’s not at all the way this Pomona, CA native sees herself.

The "Hot" Zone

09/23/2005

At LAX the nightclub, US Weekly reminds us that the hot zone is for the immediate loading and unloading of PR passengers.

Not Quite Up to "Speed"

05/09/2008

Even though Speed Racer has the crazed look and feel of a Hunter S. Thompson hallucination, it’s ultimately nothing more than a gonzo copout.

Socking It to "Summerland"

05/08/2008

On the cusp of another summer TV season filled with reality, Tori Spelling is not among those who think it has her dad Aaron spinning in his grave.

A Pair of Very Personal Debuts

05/07/2008

For documentary filmmakers Irene Taylor Brodsky and Ben Byer, an intimate personal knowledge of disability and disease has translated into success on the film festival circuit.

Better Romcom Than "Red"

05/02/2008

After several successful attempts at subverting genre with the theme of masculine amorality, playwright-filmmaker David Mamet falls flat on the mat with Redbelt.

"Harold and Kumar" Triple Their Take

04/28/2008

Besting their previous opening weekend mark by $9 million, New Line’s odd couple appear to be on track for a new overall revenue benchmark.

Aboard the USS Nimitz

04/25/2008

Six years after starring in the Vietnam War drama We Were Soldiers, Mel Gibson ushers in perhaps the most powerful look yet at the human side of soldiers currently serving in the new U.S. quagmire.

Defiling the "Auteur" Theory

04/25/2008

Though not quite a video store clerk turned filmmaker on the level of Quentin Tarantino, Portland, Oregon moviemaker James Westby continues to do his best to stock the New Releases section.

"Forgetting" the Macho Man

04/18/2008

At $400 million and counting, the partnership between Universal Pictures and Judd Apatow looks set to easily pass the half-billion mark this spring with yet another comical look at the imperfections of man.

The IFC Experiment

04/16/2008

Three Sundance Film Festivals later, IFC remains committed to the idea of offering independent movie lovers a day-and-date choice.

It Was a Dark and Stormy "Night", Eh

04/11/2008

The story behind the 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis version of Prom Night is far more interesting than the one Screen Gems wouldn’t let us see in advance of today's release.

Film Appreciation "101"

04/10/2008

The trick to enjoying Daniel Waters and Winona Ryder’s reunion flick is to expect a comedy-drama nowhere near as great as their 1989 counterculture classic Heathers.

Brought Together by the "Medium" of Television

04/07/2008

At age 48, Rosanna Arquette finally gets the chance to act opposite her sister Patricia in the form of an older woman preying on much younger men.

The Canon of Clooney

04/04/2008

After stumbling through a predictable Hollywood game plan, George Clooney has repeatedly found the end zone with his own mix of standard and loopy plays.

Kar Wai's Bland Piece of Pie

04/04/2008

Despite strong performances from Norah Jones and Jude Law, Wong Kar Wai’s eighth film just kind of sits there, like a piece of pie that’s been left too long inside a café’s glass case.

From Garfield High to MIT

04/01/2008

Twenty years after the barrio flick Stand and Deliver, this weekend’s box office champ proves that the mathematical competition stakes are greatly raised at the privileged collegiate level.

Unable to "Stop" the Stereotyping

03/31/2008

Though filmmaker Kimberly Peirce delves into admirably complex issues, her tendency to caricature has so far prevented her films from attaining greatness.

The Everyman Show

03/28/2008

Slowly but surely, Adam Carolla has wedged his way into the media space formerly ruled by Roseanne Barr and Tim Allen.

"Fatboy" Fricassee

03/28/2008

A fry-up of American, British and Irish comedy sensibilities that will have no trouble satisfying mainstream movie appetites.

From J.D. Salinger to J.W. Lennon

03/28/2008

John Lennon was only ten-years-old when the novel Catcher in the Rye was first published in 1951. But sadly for him, a fan’s twisted interpretation of that seminal work led to an abrupt end on December 8th, 1980.

Guy Maddin's "Brain" Power

03/19/2008

For a lot of folks in Guy Maddin's home and native land of Canada, tonight will provide the first opportunity to catch the deepest expression yet of the filmmaker’s love of show business and melodrama.

Memo to Tom Cruise

05/09/2008

If, in the space of a few years, Robert Downey Jr. can segue from the laboratory of Dr. Kozak in 2006’s The Shaggy Dog to that of Tony Stark in Iron Man, there’s hope for any free-falling 40’s male Hollywood star. But whereas Downey Jr. had to put behind him years of alcohol and drug abuse, a veritable common currency among today’s stars, you must erase the stigma of something much trickier – a ridiculed religion.

Granted, you don’t have nearly the same kind of insouciance that Downey Jr. does. Watching him for example this week on Jimmy Kimmel Live, during which he endlessly poked fun at the fact that one big weekend has transformed him into a perceived Tinseltown “genius,” makes it apparent that his current Paramount cabaret act is no Method trick. In your case, the million-dollar smile and still stunning good looks are no longer enough. Following a nicely done presenter appearance at this year’s Academy Awards, you’ve now kicked off your full battle plan for A-list recovery, but there’s still lots of work to be done. So here’s a look at the items you’ve already covered, and the ones I think you still need to check off.

#1: Sit down with Oprah and try to wash away the memory of the couch incident as well as apologize to Brooke Shields, explain Matt Lauer and just briefly touch on that leaked 2004 Scientology video. Check.

#2: Get Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone to publicly state that bygones are now bygones, and that if it came to pass, he would be more than happy to sign the checks for M:I:IV. Check.

#3: Revamp the official TomCruise.com website, gussying it up with the latest bells and whistles and, more importantly, begin using its messaging powers as a direct and regenerative connection with your fans. Check.

#4: Make a hilarious cameo in a movie starring Robert Downey Jr., and – to maximize the bulls eye in this post-post-post-modern world - make it a parody of Sumner Redstone, in a movie that the mogul’s own damn studio financed. Check (Tropic Thunder).

#5: Contact fellow Scientologist Paul Haggis and ask, “What have you got for me?”

#6: Track down Jerry Maguire guru Cameron Crowe and beg him to write another romantic comedy vehicle for you.

#7: Contact fellow Scientologists Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley and start working on them for a late years Elvis movie. The right approach and tone to Graceland could lead to a fourth trip to Oscarland.

#8: Pick up the phone and chat with Mel Gibson about a possible buddy cop movie or some sort of wink-wink action flick. A summer 2010 kick-off actioner with this pairing could do for you what the titanium suit did for Downey Jr..

#9: Figure out how to address the next wave of goofy Internet Scientology gossip, which looks to revolve around your – and perhaps Katie’s – extremely stringent diet. You might just want to have your chef pick out the favorite recipe now and book an appearance on Rachael Ray for right around the time when Tropic Thunder hits theaters this August.

#10: Do whatever you have to do to make your upcoming World War II Valkyrie movie palatable. The buzz is already bad, but now that you’ve got fans’ attention, it’s up to you, Bryan and Paula to re-edit, reshoot and market in a way that avoids at all costs a crash and burn at the 2009 box office. Because that will, in one weekend, pretty much undo all the hard work leading up to that point.

The "Daily Show" Deluge

05/07/2008

Over here, Stephen Colbert has been voted the “Internet Person of the Year” by the Webby Awards. Over there, Rob Corrdry - after a solid bit of supporting work in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay - is getting ready to do the same this weekend in What Happens in Vegas… and later this year in the Justin Long Indian casino comedy Patriotville. Then there is of course Get Smart, Steve Carell’s big June 20th summer gambit.

And let’s not forget Lewis Black, whose acerbic commentaries on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart paved the way for his own Comedy Central series Root of All Evil, a six-episode curio that debuted in March. Or Ed Helms, who jumped to NBC’s version of The Office. Wait, there’s more.

When The Rocker world premieres at the upcoming Los Angeles Film Festival, among the onscreen talent will be Demetri Martin, whose work last year on The Daily Show has also led to the upcoming Comedy Central program Important Things with Demetri Martin. Meanwhile, former show producer Ben Karlin, as part of a new overall deal with HBO, has optioned for feature film treatment a New Yorker article about a billionaire who paid $500,000 for a bottle of wine that may or may not have been once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

It all adds up to Stewart’s operation being the most reliable minter of male comedic talent this side of Saturday Night Live. A most ironic development, given the fact that Stewart essentially crashed and burned as a feature film actor (whenever the moment calls for it, he is wont to bring up 2002’s Death to Smoochy).

Whereas the pinnacle of a male stand-up comic’s career was once appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, it is now without a doubt scoring a spot on The Daily Show, a winner of five consecutive Emmy Awards for Best Comedy, Music or Variety Series. And by producing The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and that upcoming Martin sketch comedy through his Busboy Productions, Stewart is along the way following in the very lucrative footsteps of David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants.

We’re not even halfway through 2008, but when you throw in the Oscars gig, Tom Brokaw saying he’s fine with the kids today getting their news from The Daily Show and the indelible imprint the Stewart-Colbert combo are putting on the most important Presidential election in a generation, it all adds up to a career year for someone who glided into the picture as "Rollerblader" in the 1994 Steve Martin comedy Mixed Nuts. And nowhere is Stewart’s eye for talent more obvious than in the form of Colbert, who is much more than just the “Internet Person of the Year.” He is in fact currently the funniest damn person on the planet.

Made in Japan

05/05/2008

Regardless of what you think about Speed Racer, the film’s most notable element is arguably the fact that this is the first time a Japanese TV series has been imported for the American big screen. And if Warner Bros has anything to do with it, its big May 9th release will also help cement anime on the lot as a new, profitable J.K. Rowling-like source of family entertainments.

Whereas the four U.S. TV networks continue to heavily rely on Americanized versions of UK and European game show and reality hits, spreading now to Latin America with Fox’s Moment of Truth, it’s rather odd that the garish TV sensibilities of the Empire of the Sun have failed so far to click with the garish sensibilities of Hollywood execs. Other than Iron Chef, the only other really notable North American Japanese TV import is the Canadian series Dragon’s Den, which hews closely to the kind of panel-pitch thing Donnie Deutsch regularly presides over on his CNBC program The Big Idea.

There are a few other Tokyo boob tube traces here and there – the cancelled Spike TV series Most Extreme Elimination Challenge and the 2006 ABC-TV offering Master of Champions - but Speed Racer, coming on the heels of much horror and the unofficial Godzilla remake Cloverfield, is aiming to push things in a decidedly non-R rated direction. Warner Bros. is certainly a believer in the Japanese animation concept; the studio is already at work on its second anime-driven effort, 2009’s Gatchaman, about a teenage superhero team that battles Galactor. They’re also looking at a movie based on the 1988 anime movie Akira, a project that has been rumored to have been dangled in the Leonardo DiCaprio direction.

For now, it’s all about Speed Racer, a film that I for one – in the recent company of my eight-year-old son – was absolutely bowled over by. Helping implant the franchise into the minds of my and everyone else’s offspring will be the Nicktoons Network companion piece Speed Racer: The Next Generation, along with of course the reams of prominently displayed toy merchandise.

In terms of remade Japanese family fare, Speed Racer’s closest cousin is the 2006 Disney film Eight Below. Just as the Emile Hirsch flick owes its storyline to the 1967-1968 TV series Mahha GoGoGo, the Paul Walker sled dog movie was a remake of the 1983 Japanese film Nakyoku monogatari. (A very lucrative one at that; it grossed $120 million in theaters before becoming a monster on DVD.)

Of course, if Speed Racer really hits it out of the park, it will have a chance of following in the fumes of the two all-time greatest examples of Japanese-American family-friendly cinematic collaboration: The Magnificient Seven (1960) and George Lucas’ Star Wars, which sourced respectively Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai (1954) and The Hidden Fortress (1958).

Then again, this could all be cancelled out if The Weinstein Co. proceeds with its plans for a 2009 remake of The Seven Samurai. To quote the title of the most recent post, at press time, on that film’s IMDB page: ‘NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.’

Tony Stark's Media Empire

04/30/2008

In today’s conglomerate-owned world of print, online, radio and TV outlets, there is no such thing anymore as “conflict of interest.” Instead, it’s all about “confluence of interest.”

On Monday’s edition of The Late Show with David Letterman, the bespectacled host raved with uncharacteristic abandon about Iron Man, the movie that is about to kick off the 2008 summer season. A short time later on the same program, it was on to the business of interviewing the film’s co-star Gwyneth Paltrow, who said she had not yet seen the film because Paramount, perhaps fearful of her video piracy tendencies, had refused to surrender a DVD screener. The next night, Tuesday, it was titular star Robert Downey Jr.’s turn to sit down with Dave.

If Iron Man performs the way it is expected to - both here and overseas - chances are the second and third quarter Viacom stock dividends will benefit handsomely as a result, and, by default, stock option incentivized employees like Letterman. The idea of a Viacom brand name product being hawked all across its media verticals is nothing new, but each year, the machinery seems to get just that much more well-oiled, so much so that it’s easy to forget that William Randolph Hearst has been replaced by the likes of Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch.

In addition to CBS, Viacom avenues being used to drive home the Iron Man media message include cable TV stations MTV, VH1, UPN, BET , Comedy Central and Spike; pay cable channels Showtime, Flix, The Movie Channel and Logo; Internet sites iFilm.com, MTV.com and GameTrailers.com; billboard company Viacom Outdoor; and radio station group Infiniti Broadcasting. About the only thing missing is Redstone himself, walking up and down Melrose Ave. wearing a two-sided ad panel.

Expect the same drill in support of Paramount’s two other big summer releases, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Love Guru. In the case of the latter, for example, MTV.com got an early jump start on things, publishing a flattering interview of star Mike Myers several weeks back. Just ahead of Myers being tapped as the host of this year’s MTV Movie Awards.

Unless you pay particular attention to M&A’s (mergers and acquisitions), it’s easy to forget just how far the Viacom tentacles extend. For example, we all by now pretty much know that ET, Inside Edition and the executive offices of Paramount Pictures are just a few steps from each other on the studio lot. But how many of us realize that Oprah Winfrey is now semi-owned by Viacom, via its acquisition of King World Productions? (All of a sudden, Tom Cruise’s upcoming two-part interview on the show takes on a whole new purposeful meaning. As in, let’s see if you can fix what you broke enough to allow for a M:I:IV.)

There aren’t too many good anagrams that can be gleaned from re-arranging the words Iron Man, but one of them is a text message worthy spelling of harmony. As in, a super hero and his corporate cousins working in perfect “armonni.”

From Malibu with Love

04/29/2008

On comic book paper, Iron Man may play a lot like the Caped Crusader: mega-rich dude who lives in a metropolis secretly doubles as a uniformed superhero. But on celluloid, thanks mainly to the sensibilities of actor Robert Downey Jr., it comes across like an Americanized James Bond flick.

The early Afghanistan scenes tip the May 2nd Paramount release in the direction of From Malibu with Love. But later on, when industrialist billionaire Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) dons the get –up, it’s more along the lines of a Goldfingers or The Man with the Golden Guns re-imagining. And though Stark has a plethora of sporty automobiles, the Iron Man suit is definitely his Aston Martin, the apple of his gadget eye.

Downey Jr. plays Stark with the same blend of insouciance and glibness once owned by seminal Bonds Sean Connery and Roger Moore (though this Yank prefers Scotch on the rocks to a shaken martini). Trading places with Miss Moneypenny is Virginia “Pepper” Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), a similarly faithful secretary whose banter with her boss is also all about the other women in his life.

Befitting the times, Q has gone virtual. He is now J.A.R.V.I.S., an Artificial Intelligence super-computer who resides anywhere and everywhere thatStark needs him. As voiced by actor Paul Bettany, “J” modulates and articulates with a British accent in a way that would do original Bond film co-star Desmond Llewellyn proud.

This is the first Marvel Comics adaptation fully financed by Stan Lee’s company, which saw its modern incarnation take shape in the early 1960’s. As such, it seems only fitting that a large chunk of Iron Man comes across like a modern day flipside version of Dr. No, the 1962 film that kicked off the 007 franchise. Once the cookie cutter, capitalist hero version of Stark gives way to more of a renegade anti-hero – when he essentially says ‘No!’ to the American industrial military complex - he toils deep within the bowels of a ridiculous cliff side Malibu manse that looks very much like the Extreme Makeover version of Dr. No’s lair. (The exterior shots of the home are actually digitally rendered images superimposed on a portion of Point Dume, Malibu park land.)

An equally striking visual cue comes from the shiny bald patina of Obadiah Stane, the conniving villain of Iron Man portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This is the American corporate world’s version of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the Bond baddie essayed in a couple of franchise appearances by Telly Savalas and Donald Pleasance. Though his final showdown with Stark is more Transformers than You Only Live Twice, everything up until that point is delightfully in sync with Downey Jr.’s titanium-is-forever spirit.

Memo to Wesley Snipes

04/25/2008

I’m not buying it for one second, this idea that – to quote your prepared statement delivered Thursday in response to being sentenced to three years in a Florida jail for 1999-2004 income tax evasion – that you are “an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth seeking, spiritually motivated artist, and unschooled in the science of law and finance."

You’re actually a guy who grew up in the South Bronx, someone who saw fit to publicly call out Shaft director John Singleton for casting Samuel L. Jackson rather than you in the lead role of the 2000 action remake. You’re also someone who chose to listen with regards to tax matters to an accountant stripped of his license in 1997 (Douglas Rosile) and another guy who has already served time in prison for tax evasion (Eddie Kahn).

The fact is that your former tax adviser Kenneth Starr (head of Starr and Company), per his testimony, once had a 90-minute conversation with you before quitting in the year 2000, during which he tried to convince you that yes, you did have to pay taxes. But neither that, nor narrowly escaping possible death at your Twin Towers-adjacent apartment on September 11th, were able to put you on the straight and narrow. You chose to hang with the likes of Rosalie, Kahn and eventually Robert Bernhoft, your defense attorney and a champion of the FU-IRS rule.

Once again, an opportunity has been lost. Instead of stepping up to the prepared statement podium and telling America something to the effect of, ‘Folks, I tried to cheat on my taxes and I got caught. Because I am a celebrity, I thought that even if the authorities did catch up with me, that I could wriggle out of it. I was wrong; $38 million over five years is more than most of my fans make in a lifetime. It’s wrong not to file a tax return, and as surely as I will not be starring in Blade 4, I accept my sentence as a belated form of taxation, to be paid in full.’

The only way you could have pulled off your ‘I-thought-I-didn’t-have-to-pay-taxes-I-swear’ defense is if you had had Johnnie Cochran as your lawyer. He is the only attorney on the planet who could have yanked this out of the 1040 hat (“If the advice comes from a nitwit, you must acquit”?). But Cochran is-was not a tax attorney, and he is no longer with us. Like many of your recent movies, you aligned yourself with the wrong co-stars.

There are two ways you can start making it up to your fans. Firstly, do not file an appeal. This was an error-free trial proceeding, and Ocala, Florida U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges showed the Ito’s of the world just what a judicial action hero looks like. An appeal will simply eat up some of the tax dollars you under-contributed to.

Secondly, you’ve got three years minus good behavior to start re-thinking your spiritually motivated career. You could write a great book; you could start putting out the word for a different kind of script, one where the drama does not come from wondering how quickly the end result will go straight to DVD. You could even start mapping out a meaningful directing career. But please, for now, ditch the bogus statement, ditch the thought of an appeal and take it like a martial arts man.

Harrison vs. Heath

04/24/2008

Box office, schmox office. The real time capsule question regarding any predictive look at this summer’s tentpole offerings is which performance will ultimately – and most robustly - stand the test of time: Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Night, or Harrison Ford in what is perhaps his final go-round frowning under a Fedora in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Excepting two-time Academy Award nominee Will Smith, summer is not usually a time for male Oscar nominees to be plying their trade. But this year, we’ve got a veritable plethora: there’s Chaplin (Robert Downey Jr.), trading the bowler hat and tattered suit for a stainless one-piece number; that Philly cop who once hid out in the kingdom of the wooden barn (Ford) is back to big budget retro-gliding; a gay cowboy (Ledger) is now a gay villain; and that crazy white supremacist slash diabolical courtroom trial murder suspect (Ed Norton) is picking up where cowboy wrangler Ang Lee left off. (Amazingly, Christian Bale, fast becoming a summer fixture, has yet to get the Oscar nod.)

In the past week or so, word starting leaking out from the first Paramount employee screenings of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Although this kind of thing is always a little suspect, it seems that Ford has knocked it out of the archeological park, reclaiming under the superlative direction of Spielberg the spirit that he channeled for Raiders of the Lost Ark. All signs point to a Fugitive-like slam dunk, and arguably Ford’s first “movie star” performance in a decade (since 1997’s Air Force One).

But all that pales in comparison to the situation that surrounds Heath Ledger’s posthumous swan song. Though nothing can be today quite as big as what James Dean was a part of in the mid-1950’s with Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, simply because we no longer live in a world where the big screen is king, the intertwined elements of Ledger’s final days and the no-holds-barred approach to a role previously essayed by the King of All Male Oscar Nominations (Jack Nicholson) is epic. Warner Bros. is keeping this one under very tight lock and key, but if the trailer and ShoWest reactions are any indication, this one is the future look-back performance to beat.

Certainly, with a comparatively late silly season release date of July 18th, The Dark Night could have the rest of the summer essentially to itself. In a field littered with a third Mummy, another pair of Traveling Pants and an opening weekend companion by the name of Space Chimps (seriously), Heath could be lined up for the kind of repeat-repeat-repeat viewing that could help brand it into the moviegoing consciousness.

Ledger would have turned 29 this month, which is five years older than the age Dean was when he passed. If Ledger had died in circumstances more akin to Dean’s spectacular demise rather than the somewhat sad way that he did, it would certainly have added to his Hollywood halo. But look out if there is, in The Dark Knight, any kind of intentional-accidental dialogue or eyebrow similarity to Dean. That could cement the super-talented Aussie’s place on the 2008 time capsule scale.

To put it all in proper comparative perspective, if Ford had died at the same age as Ledger did, he would never have starred in American Graffiti, Star Wars or Raiders.

The Pursuit of "Hancock"

04/23/2008

Without a doubt, the viral marketing website HancockWasHere.com - in support of the upcoming Will Smith hybrid superhero movie Hancock (July 2nd) - is not only the strangest such entry for 2008, but also, based on the evidence so far, the least successful.

Back in December, the site "re-kicked off" with the premise that while rescuing 37 hostages on Wilshire Boulevard, our mixed up superhero also accidentally took out his own ISP. The site is moderated not by Hancock but rather his anonymous webmaster. Among the seven comments posted in response to this return item was a link to a “lost video,” one that hilariously shows a beached whale suddenly being catapulted back out into the ocean, presumably by our summer film protagonist.

Since then, Hancock has been sighted at: the restaurant Hop Sing’s Dim Sum; a Beverly Hills revival showing of the movie Frankenstein; helping out the UCLA gals of the Zeta Alpha Zeta Sorority; the La Brea Tarpits; Yummy Burgers; City Hall; the 101 Freeway; an MTA bus stop bench on Hollywood Boulevard; and, this month, flying high above downtown and the Hollywood Hills.

The first problem with the site is its tonal inconsistency, as it can’t seem to make up its mind between tongue-in-cheek and deadpan seriousness. Second is the fact that despite the fact that the comments section for each item is artifically populated, it still looks odd to see only a few repeat posters chiming in. Surely, there is an intern or assistant with free time at Sony who could be tasked with padding the totals a little bit, to a number of comments befitting the earth shaking topics of most entries.

The website is the product of the cryptically named CTMG, which in fact stands for Columbia Tri-Star Marketing Group. Despite their best efforts, you never buy for one second the Internet premise that Hancock is “real.” Maybe it’s been done too many times; maybe it’s the fact that star Will Smith has too recently seared himself into our minds in real fashion (via The Pursuit of Happyness). But all in all, HancockWasHere.com is far from super.

It would be much more interesting to read about real topics such as the reaction to this month’s test screenings of the unfinished film in Texas, Arizona and elsewhere (generally positive) or the possibility of a Smith-Charlize Theron interracial kiss and more. The irony is that over on IMDB, several threads about those test screenings have some accusing posters of being studio plants. If CTMG must stick with the current website format, then how about saucier items like a post with video detailing how the Church of Scientology agressively tried to recruit Hancock? That would definitely start a viral fire.

Smith’s movies are impervious to bad promotion. As we head towards the star’s beloved July 4th weekend frame, this thing is going to open huge, regardless of whether CTMG starts posting hourly on HancockWasHere.com or turns the website off for good. But c’mon marketing people; when you’re working in support of the world’s current bonafide number one box office star, you need to bring your A game.

Missed Marketing Opportunities

04/21/2008

Yesterday, at 4:20 p.m on 4/20, pot smokers all over North America gleefully lit up in time zone after time zone, including a whole bunch of folks at the University of Colorado. And yet, the best the marketing wizards at New Line could do was simply to schedule the New York Comic-Con panel for Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay to overlap with yesterday’s date.

That’s it. No special 4:20 p.m. sneak preview screenings across the country; no 5:20 p.m. munchies promotion at participating 7/11’s; just a tepid day-and-date juxtaposition. It’s what you call a missed marketing opportunity, and in today’s crowded marketplace, that’s unforgivable. In point of fact, the Harold and Kumar sequel should have been released this past Friday, April 18th, not this coming Friday, April 25th, so as to take full advantage of the big Sunday opportunity.

The same goes for the unexploited tie-in potential of tomorrow’s Earth Day celebrations. The reaction was split this weekend at Comic-Con with regards to the new Incredible Hulk trailer that was premiered as part of Saturday’s panel. Some loved it, others hated it. Ed Norton was nowhere to be found at the convention, but think of the high-brand Hulk-Earth Day cross-promotion the actor could have been seen engaging in starting Tuesday. Norton going green in advance of really going green might be just what is required to reverse the negative buzz that has been surrounding the film.*

The funny thing is, Hollywood is usually all over this kind of correlation when it comes to scheduling the press junkets for their films. The one for Speed Racer was held this past weekend in Long Beach, CA, in the shadow of the Long Beach Grand Prix; the interviews for What Happens in Vegas were done in Vegas; the Hawaii break-up flick Forgetting Sarah Marshall gathered up reporters on the Big Island. And so on.

So, as much as I enjoy hearing a guy like Robert Downey Jr. - after having done every variety of drug and sexual partner known to man – counsel against overly wild behavior, what I really yearned to see in advance of Iron Man were TV spots starring baseball’s former Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Ripken Jr.’s remarkable consecutive game streak of 2, 632 games began in May, the same month the Paramount flick opens, but alas, the possibility of a Mac-IBM type square off with Tony Stark will have to wait until at least the sequel.

The reason this kind of atypical Iron Man promotion might be worth considering is that the drumbeats that precede each big summer tentpole are all starting to blur together. An early trailer here, a Comic-Con there, an exclusively arranged interview or two in between... It’s become very homogenous. What we need is a marketing superhero of the ilk of David Ogilvy or Steve Jobs, to swoop down and reconfigure the spring-summer wheel.

*Update - 04/22/08: Norton did show up on The Today Show for Earth Day, but he was there mainly to promote a PBS series he narrates called Strang Days on Planet Earth.

The Greatest Actor Who Ever Lived?

04/17/2008

Playwright David Mamet has watched a lot of great actors tackle his staccato words over the years, so when he chooses to go “big picture” and identify the performer he thinks may be the greatest actor who ever lived, it’s a name obviously well worth considering. Mamet’s choice? Henry Fonda.

Though Fonda was nominated for Best Actor at age 35 for the 1940 classic The Grapes of Wrath, it wasn’t until the 1980’s that he finally snagged an Honorary Academy Award and that same Best Actor trophy the following year in 1981 for On Golden Pond. As we all know, because there are only so many Oscars to go around each year, the number of nominations and-or statuettes claimed by a particular performer rarely tends to correspond with the breadth and depth of their talents.

In the words of Mamet, Fonda “is always telling the truth, always simple and never making anything up.” As it so happens, the actor has cropped up again in recent months on DVD, first via the March 4th release of a 50th anniversary edition of 12 Angry Men and then shortly thereafter via the first-ever DVD version of the love triangle drama Daisy Kenyon. Though the latter is decidedly a minor work, Fonda is his usual solid self alongside co-stars Joan Crawford and Dana Andrews.

Another specter of Fonda can be found in the film Leatherheads. Co-stars George Clooney and Renée Zellweger do their best to banter in the spirit of Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, but it only serves to remind us that the era of classic screwball comedies is long gone. Jack Klugman certainly agrees with Mamet’s assessment; he recently told a reporter that the biggest thrill of his career was appearing with Fonda and Humphrey Bogart in a 1955 Producers Showcase live TV episode staging of The Petrified Forest.

Meanwhile, at the just concluded “Real to Reel”, a three-day conference and exhibit (April 10th - 12th) at New Orleans’ National Museum of World War II, Fonda was among the actors whose presence in newsreels and documentaries was discussed, as part of a broader look at how the movies have helped shape people’s perceptions of the conflict. The recent deaths of Charlton Heston and Richard Widmark also resonated with Fonda fans. In the case of the former, it was because Heston - like Fonda, John Wayne and James Stewart - often played characters who were quintessentially American; in the case of the latter, it came from the fact that Fonda and Widmark were friends, and that Widmark late in life (1999) married Fonda’s ex-wife Susan. (If you want to see a great little Widmark-Fonda film, check out 1968’s Madigan.)

If I had to pick one favorite Fonda film (not an easy thing to do), I think it would have to be The Lady Eve. Blessed with a Preston Sturges working at the peak of his powers, Fonda proved that along with making a great Tom Joad or Abraham Lincoln, he could also deftly manage comedy. Unlike the other two films Fonda made with Stanwyck around that same time, this one is as fresh as the day it first hit theaters.

Translating Tales of Violent Teens

04/16/2008

The movies have a funny way of sometimes thrusting upon us someone previously unknown, with not one but several samples of their perceived expertise. Such is the case with Australian born screenwriter Emil Stern, the writer behind this Friday’s Uma Thurman-Evan Rachel Wood drama The Life Before Her Eyes and the forthcoming Russell Crowe drama Tenderness, slated for release later this year by Lionsgate.

Both films revolve around the notion of violent teens, and on this – the first anniversary of the horrible Virginia Tech campus massacre – there is no more resonant an issue. If you want to imagine how traumatic and long-lasting the effects of a Columbine or Viriginia Tech are on the survivors, look no further than the older version of the Diana character portrayed by Thurman. And then pray that the new watchfulness on the campuses of U.S. high schools and universities can reduce if not eliminate this kind of madness.

Both aforementioned Stern efforts are adaptations of novels by, respectively, Laura Kasischke and the late Robert Cormier. He has done an excellent job of maintaining the to-and-fro rhythms of Michigan writer Kasischke’s Life and thus helped director Vadim Perelman (The House of Sand and Fog) make a film that expects a high level of audience IQ.

Stern is already firmly entrenched in Hollywood as a go-to novel adaptation guy. So much so that along with helping Gwyneth Paltrow and her producing partner Alison Owen get a handle on Megan Marshall’s period piece The Peabody Sisters, he is going to get the chance to direct one of his other adaptations, that of British enfant terrible Martin Amis’ Time’s Arrow. All in all, it’s a meteoric rise for the NYU and Tisch School of Arts graduate.

It’s unlikely too many people are going to check out The Life Before Her Eyes in theaters this weekend, what with Forgetting Sarah Marshall dominating the moviegoer consciousness. But eventually, for the most part on DVD, people are going to catch up to one of the best performances of Uma Thurman’s career.

Never mind that the only other really memorable thing she’s done this decade are the hyper-violent Kill Bill films. Looking past her upcoming Griffin Dunne romantic comedy The Accidental Husband, Thurman’s performance in Life could be the first half of a great mid-career one-two punch, the other being her portrayal of an ex-addict wife in the film version of David Hare’s play The Zinc Bed. Most intriguingly, both she and former husband Ethan Hawke (via last year’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead) have now delivered a new kind of raw, vulnerable performance.

The Evolution of Ben Stein

04/15/2008

If you take a look at the career trajectory of Ben Stein, host of the new documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, all signs point to natural selection rather than intelligent design. In fact, Stein’s gradual evolution from entry-level government employee to high falutin’ academia chronicler would seem perfectly logical if it was graphed in the style of the Darwin ape-to-Neanderthal Man single file. The elements in this procession being:

Bureaucrat
Attorney
Teacher
Speechwriter
Journalist
Screenwriter
Novelist
Actor
Game Show Host
Documentary Filmmaker

The missing link here is arguably theater. The day Stein, now 63, caps his pinball path with a one-man show at the Geffen that colorfully revisits his life, the chart will be complete. Until then, one can only admire the zigzag nature of his career, aberrations such as the fact that Game Show Host pops up late in his arc rather than towards the beginning, and the notion that his Silver Spring, Maryland high school peers constitute about as randomly selected a group as imaginable (Sylvester Stallone, Connie Chung, Goldie Hawn and Carl Bernstein).

The evolution of intelligent public discourse is another matter altogether; it is, in fact, devolving. This downward trend is not only the basic crux of Expelled - as in why can’t other theories be raised as part of a high-level scientific discussion - it’s also the Sturm and Drang that surrounds the documentary ahead of its April 18th theatrical release. Very few people denouncing Expelled have actually seen the film, but thanks to the political polarization of the United States, the self-publishing power of the Internet and the incendiary encompassing topic of Expelled, that has not stopped them from posting all manner of condemnation.

This may have something to do with the breadth of release orchestrated by Stein, Premise Media and Motive Entertainment, the L.A.-based company that previously handled the grassroots marketing campaigns for The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Expelled is going to be opening this Friday on close to 1,000 screens around the country, more than any previous documentary.

As it stands, the battle on the Internet between the makers of Expelled and its Darwin-boosting opponents has become as nasty as the Clinton-Obama campaign. The latest accusation: the latter suggesting that the former stole animation sequences featured in the film rather than created them (a charge denied by the Expelled folks). Say what you will about Stein, but he is the first filmmaker this decade to foment the same kind of non-fiction film frenzy as that which typically accompanies a Michael Moore polemic. But again, not necessarily by any intelligent design.

Memo to Matthew McConaughey

04/11/2008

Say yes. The Magnum, P.I. movie lead role that EW.com earlier this week reported you have been offered is the best fit to come your way since 1996’s A Time to Kill.

You’re a tad older than Tom Selleck was when he jumped into the red Ferrari in 1980. But let’s face it; when the most notable thing about your last five movies is a colorful L.A. lawsuit involving novelist Clive Cussler and some outrageous Phil Anschutz disbursements, it might be time to shake things up a little.

Now I know the jokers out there are going to say that the most obvious Thomas Magnum connection is the opportunity that this franchise will allow for taking your shirt off. This trademark of yours, photographed on a daily basis and lampooned on Letterman by Matt Damon, certainly will work to your advantage. But what I’m most excited about is that your own colorful make-up can be injected into the property just enough to make it fresh again.

Magnum playing the bongos? Check. Magnum without a mustache? Check and double check; you must not grow one, please. Magnum caring for not Dobermans named Zeus and Apollo but rather rare Hawaiian green sea turtles? Check. This Magnum having a slightly more discombobulated personal history than that of being a Navy S.E.A.L. and star quarterback? Let’s hope so.

Along with the importance of the script, which by its very nature can guarantee or put the kibosh on further installments, there is the matter of casting your main foe, Jonathan Higgins. Played to perfection during the eight-season TV series by John Hillerman, who of course should be offered a cameo, this is a role that should in no way be dangled in the direction of, say, a Danny DeVito as part of attempts to turn this into more of a comedy, a la misguided Dallas big screen version. No, you want an Alan Rickman type, or better yet, Alan Rickman. Hillerman’s M.O. was all about the voice mixed with the sneer, and if anyone can carry that load today, it’s Rickman.

Last but not least, there is one other critical choice that you face: whether to update Magnum’s beloved Detroit Tigers baseball cap with one from your native state’s Texas Rangers or Houston Astros. To me, it’s no contest; the Astros are the looser of the Lone Star State MLB teams and have the killer star logo for a killer star role.

Bidding Farewell to the Stew

04/11/2008

This is undeniably the most dreaded blog I’ve ever written. My fingers, poised on the keyboard to bid adieu to FilmStew readers, are moving slowly, awkwardly, reluctantly, and it has nothing to do with the brutal manicure I received yesterday (you pay a high price for Hollywood hands). It has everything to do with saying goodbye to a website that has been keeping its finger on the pulse of the entertainment industry for more than six years now, and I’ve been there almost since the beginning.

Don’t worry - I wasn’t fired. Not that some people wouldn’t have liked to see that happen. The Blu-ray fan boys in particular, who deluged me with hate mail because I dared mention something positive about HD-DVD, would like to see me silenced. And then there are journalists of integrity everywhere who pointed out that I erroneously reported Michelle Williams had flown from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival to New York when she heard of Heath Ledger’s death. Seems she was in Europe, not Park City. (Hey, a good buddy and fellow entertainment reporter who was actually at Sundance told me he’d seen her leave; my mistake was not confirming the information and checking the sources.)

And let’s not forget that creepy Mel Gibson fan who called for my head for suggesting, after the actor’s DUI arrest, that he might want to start checking out the website JewReview.net. For some reason, that confused reader accused me of being either his mother, or one of the “bimbos” who were all over his beloved Mel, getting him drunk before he left Moonshadows on that fateful night. For the record—it wasn’t me!

No, I’m actually leaving because the experience I gained while writing for FilmStew helped qualify me for a more comprehensive gig with Digital Publishing Corp. out of Washington, D.C..
They’ve taken the unique approach of acquiring millions of email addresses, then researching them to find out what sorts of websites the users would like to see. Interestingly enough, a Hollywood film portal was at the top of their list.

A short while before they began searching for an editor for their new site, I’d used the tools and chops I’d gained at FilmStew to launch my own, shamelessly self- promoting website, LisaLiveinHollywood.com. Digital is in the process of buying that site and incorporating the content into a far larger and cooler site called Filmazing.com. It will be another month or two before it launches, but for now my full-time efforts are required to produce content for it.

But it’s with fond sentimentality that I look back on my almost six years with FilmStew, two of which have been spent blogging (in previous incarnations, I wrote daily news items and did syndicated radio reports).That might not sound like much, but remember, blogging is a fairly new phenomenon. So new that my spell check still underlines the word ‘blog’ in red, despite that fact that I update it regularly.

And it’s been via this blog that I’ve shared some of the most amazing, spectacular and important moments of my life. No, not rubbing elbows with Spielberg, Eastwood or Clooney, and not being sent to press junket in Hawaii, Cancun or New Orleans. Not even voting and attending awards ceremonies, although they’ve all been good times. Although I seem to be in the thick of things in a very glamorous world, the events that stand out most to me are the very same ones that stand out to almost everyone across the nation: marriage, buying a home and adopting a puppy.

Oh yes, and getting a new job. So I thank FilmStew and those of you who have taken the time to read my blog, and reluctantly yet eagerly move on to my next venture.

[Editor’s Note: Lisa joins a long list of folks who, after flourishing at FilmStew, have gone on to full-time employment elsewhere. The list includes Todd Gilchrist, now with IGN; Larry Carroll, now with MTV.com; Mark Umbach, who moved over to the PR side with Regent Releasing; and Pete Kavadlo, who jumped over the hill to a lucrative gig with Adult Video News.]

Something Charlie Chaplin Would Star In

04/10/2008

That’s the challenge David Pritchard (The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy) issued to Jordanian born writer-director Amin Matalqa and co-producer-editor Laith Al-Majali with regards to writing an original Arab language feature film. And amazingly, thanks to 32 meticulous script drafts, that’s exactly what Matalqa has managed with his touching debut drama Captain Abu Raed, winner of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Audience Award.

Matalqa cites City Lights as one of his favorites, and to Chaplin there are two predominant connections in his film, which has also screened at festivals in Dubai, Miami and Dallas, and will be the May 1st closing night gala of this year’s Newport Beach Film Festival. One is pathos, that tricky combination of comedy and heart-tugging emotion; the other is the idea of how easily someone’s wardrobe can define them in the eyes of others. A hat once again plays a key role here, but instead of a Little Tramp’s bowler it is that of an airport janitor’s found pilot hat, which Abu Raed (Nadim Sawalha) dons to pass himself off on the home front as a man of professional standing. From there, all sorts of complications ensue.

There are many remarkable things to note about Captain Abu Raed, beginning with the Jordanian locations. From the hustle and bustle of the Amman International Airport to the sweeping vistas of Raed’s terrace sanctuary, this has the kind of authenticity that the Palmdale, CA set for The Terminal completely lacked. Then there’s the casting. Though the London-based Sawalha is one of Jordan’s most well-known actors through his work in films like Syriana, The Spy Who Loved Me and Pascali’s Island, the female lead Rana Sultan was plucked from a leading TV newscast for this, her dramatic debut. Meanwhile, the dozen or so child leads are the result of a months-long talent search.

The top tier production pedigree of a film shot by Maltalqa while still not fully graduated from Los Angeles’ AFI school is also staggering. Besides Pritchard, there is producer Ken Kokin (The Usual Suspects) and post-production supervisor Clark Graff, who has worked on The Matrix series and the final Lord of the Rings film.

The idea for Captain Abu Raed was seeded by the fact that both Matalqa’s father and brother are commercial airline pilots. The rest comes from the unlikeliest of places, Ohio. That’s where the movie-mad Matalqa grew up and carved out a successful career in telecommunications before relocating to L.A., directing more than a dozen shorts and being accepted in AFI’s Directing MFA program.

The Abu Raed press notes open with the lofty claim that the film is the “first Jordanian feature film ever exported for the world’s cinemas.” If that is indeed the case, then Jordan could not have found a better celluloid ambassador than the 32-year-old Matalqa. The movie has also led to the creation of Paper & Pen Films, a production company jump started by Matalqa’s mother Aida Jabaji that is dedicated to fostering a Jordanian independent film industry. As they say in Arabic, “Afaik!” (Bravo!)

Genuine Imitation "Leather"

04/09/2008

A funny thing happened to George Clooney on the way to Hollywood industry adulation. He reached a point where he cannot open a movie unless it has the word “ocean’s” in the title.

There is more than a little irony to the fact that the 46-year-old actor-director’s goofy new comedy Leatherheads was trumped into third place this past opening weekend by the Las Vegas themed 21, in its second week of release. Because if you take away the trio of Ocean’s films and the 2000 drama The Perfect Storm, Clooney’s box office numbers are not exactly in the range that his pal Julia Roberts once used to own.

That’s not to say Clooney should jump into the role of a high-priced Beverly Hills male escort and star in the comedy-drama semi-sequel Very Pretty Man. But the fact that such a film, if well made, would be HUGE underlines the basic dichotomy of Clooney’s appeal. Everyone in the industry loves him; the weekly showbiz magazines adore him; but the younger end of the moviegoing audience is too busy daydreaming about Shia LaBeouf and Natalie Portman to care.

Then there’s the fact that Clooney, when not slumming on The Strip, makes for the most part very adult movies for adults. The plots of films like Michael Clayton and Syriana are virtually teen-proof, while his Coen brothers flicks and Soderbergh collaborations fail to connect unless a portion of the soundtrack is dowloadable via iTunes.

What’s most concerning about the disappointing numbers for Leatherheads is that like 1997’s The Peacemaker, it’s a straightforward mainstream offering that pairs Clooney with a big-time female star (Reneé Zellweger, Nicole Kidman respectively). If even these kinds of films can’t generate movie star numbers, then perhaps Clooney should start thinking about an Ocean’s Eight through Ten prequel trilogy or some other glib franchise.

Though Clooney takes a Hollywood meeting as well as the inestimable Tom Hanks, the latter is still buzzing past him on the Sunday morning spreadsheets with things like The Da Vinci Code, which raked in $758 million worldwide. And while the Kentucky native’s next Coen flick Burn After Reading has Brad Pitt and the heat of the brothers’ No Country for Old Men run, the CIA angle will likely once again leave it MIA with the kids.

All this doesn’t mean Clooney’s reps need to make a trip to the ER. Rather, it simply signifies that for the immediate foreseeable future, they should resign themselves to Friday night throngs of teenagers gazing up at the marquee and collectively wishing their client ‘Good night, and good luck.’

His Own Private Los Angeles

04/08/2008

What’s this? A confession of a man crush from one of TV’s best known curmudgeons? That’s right – straight from the House’s mouth, Hugh Laurie tells FilmStew he’s “more than a little in love” with his Street Kings co-star Keanu Reeves.

“Does Keanu know this?” I ask. “No, he doesn’t,” Laurie responds with perfect deadpan dejection. “I used to leave little notes, but I wouldn’t sign them. One day…”

Along with this made-to-order cute clip, the British-born Laurie had much more to say about this Friday’s Fox Searchlight release, which also stars Forest Whitaker, Cedric the Entertainer, Chris Evans, Jay Mohr and rapper Common. At the beginning of the film, Reeves delivers one of the most multi-racially offensive diatribes in recent memory. It’s truly startling, but it gets the character exactly where he needs to be and ties into Street Kings unflinching depiction of human complexity.

“I suppose that if there’s one theme to the movie, it’s that people are not as they seem,” suggests Laurie. “Whatever shade you think [Reeves’] Detective Tom Ludlow is at the beginning of the movie, he turns out to be not quite that, which is the same with all the principals. My character [L.A. Police Captain James Biggs] is like a Dulux Color Chart. He has many shades.”

Though as Dr. Gregory House the 48-year-old Laurie deals with all manner of squeamish situations, he insists he is far less inured to the kind of action shown in Street Kings. “There’s more violence [in the film] than I can take,” he confides. “[But] the character I play is sort of above all that, above the fray, as it were.”

Laurie’s film career reaches all the way back to 1985 and a small role in the Meryl Streep film Plenty. Other big screen credits include Sense and Sensibility, Spice World and the first two Stuart Little films, all a far cry from the testosterone charged action of this latest James Ellroy inspired intrigue.

Making the Wrong Kind of "Noise"

04/08/2008

At no point during the comedy-drama Noise (ThinkFilm, May 9th) does star Tim Robbins, as a put upon Manhattan husband driven over the edge by the wee hour sounds of malfunctioning car alarms, stand in front of a bathroom mirror to repeat the battle cry, ‘You honkin’ at me?... Are YOU honkin’ at me?’ Which is too bad, because if this film had fully embraced the over the top spirit that only really emerges whenever William Hurt’s preening Mayor Schneer is in the picture, it could have hit its stride as an operatic black comedy.

The fed-up white guy vigilante elements of the plot have led people to summarily lump this one in with respective 1970’s and 1990’s classics Taxi Driver and Falling Down. But really, the end result falls more in line with the 1935 Betty Boop cartoon Stop That Noise and the clunky 1964 John McGiver starring Twilight Zone episode “Sounds and Silences.” Writer-director Henry Bean’s second directorial effort would have fared much better if Robbins’ character of David Owen had been allowed to channel his frustrations into a successful grassroots mayoral campaign rather than a life-or-death takedown of front hood fracases.

Over the years, we’ve watched Robbins espouse all manner of political causes, from Ralph Nader to globalization to the war in Iraq. And though the issue of New York City noise pollution must have struck enough of a chord with the resident actor to make him willing to do this film for a song, it’s still disorienting to see him devoting such fervent effort to an issue that will come across to many non-big city moviegoers as laughable.

Sure enough, it turns out that it isn’t Robbins who has a bug up his steering wheel about car alarms but Bean. At last fall’s Rome International Film Festival, the filmmaker talked openly about how he, in real life, did many of the things Owen does in the film including winding up at one point in the slammer. Too bad then that Bean didn’t pursue the other Option B, that of a documentary revisit of the noise topic framed by his own personal activism.

Turns out the real culprit with regards to these 2 a.m. Big Apple outbursts are the car alarm industry lobbyists who targeted Section 167-d(12) of the New York State Insurance Law. Back in the early 1980’s, the regulation was amended so as to require insurance companies to give discounted rates to any owner of a vehicle equipped with a car alarm. A documentary could have addressed all kinds of fascinating angles of the evolving Manhattan car alarm issue: the fact that insurance company actuaries did not support this law change; the idea that law enforcement authorities and criminologists feel there are far better ways to prevent auto theft; and even the notion that economists suggest the social costs of the resultant noise pollution far outweigh any financial benefits.

In the end, alarm activist Bean ‘s best strategy would have been to give Robbins a microphone, expand the focus to all forms of New York noise pollution and follow the actor around with a camera crew to get to the bottom of another politically bungled situation. At the very least, Honk If You’re Fed Up! would have had more compelling co-stars (citizens organization Silent Majority, anti-car alarm campaigner and former Democratic New York Councilwoman Eva Moskovitz...) and better plot points, like Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision in December of 2005 not to include a full ban of ice cream truck jingles in his new city noise code.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of No Junket

04/04/2008

There’s grumbling among the Hollywood junket press that a) there will be no TV face time with the principals of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and b) that the only screening for critics will be an all-media two days before the film opens Thursday, May 22nd. This may change, but at press time, that’s the word on the street.*

The view of some journalists is that it smacks of a double standard. When the studios need them to promote a little film or for that matter a big film, they’re all over them. But in the case of a bullet proof vehicle like Indiana Jones 4, going beyond Paramount affiliated company media outlets like MTV and ET has been deemed an unnecessary excursion.

If you look at the big picture, the Internet – the very medium that has enabled an army of new critics and buzz wranglers – has separately revealed a whole new tier to the studios with regards to a giant Lucas property like Star Wars or Indiana Jones (as opposed to Howard the Duck; you can bet if a prequel had been made for summer ’08 release, the junket would be on). The trailer for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is said to have been downloaded more than 200 million times in recent weeks. With that kind of exposure, why put Harrison Ford through the dreaded grin-and-bear-it paces?

Along with this Internet wave, Spielberg, Lucas et al have gone the high-end route with select pieces in outlets like Vanity Fair and a decision to world premiere the film at the Cannes Film Festival. So you’ve essentially got the top and the bottom covered, with the middle left willfully vacant because, well, in the case of a film like this it can be left vacant.

Now Paramount will tell you that one of the reasons for this TV media lockdown maneuver is that a film like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is like kindle for the Internet. With a number of online journalists having moved over to the TV junket side, with their respective websites now streaming video interviews instead of Q&A text transcripts, they don’t want to worry about embargo-breaking items leaking out post junket weekend.

Perhaps, instead of railing against the studios, those journalists who are Jones-ing for better treatment should hunt down Tyler Nelson. He’s the loose-lipped extra who blew the whistle on major Crystal Skull plot details and then, in the face of a California Superior Court lawsuit from the movie’s producers, quietly settled. No one involved is allowed to publicly discuss the matter, but if one of those TV journalists did some footwork, I bet it would make for a rousing report about what that extra had to agree to.

*Correction - 04/07/08: Word on the street didn’t have it quite right. A spokesperson for Paramount says that the only currently confirmed Crystal Skull press screening is one scheduled for Sunday, May 18th. Additional screenings, including one on Tuesday, May 20th as referenced by one of the reporters I spoke to, are still being solidified.

Georgia on Clooney's Mind?

04/04/2008

I like to think of myself above gossip… That is until I hear a really juicy one about George Clooney. Then I feel compelled to pass it along, regardless of whether or not it has any basis in truth.

I was actually asked to help confirm the rumor that he is planning a super secret stealth wedding this weekend in Georgia, of all places. I was so flattered I thought it deserved a little airtime. Seems George’s father Nick Clooney was the original anchor on the Fox affiliate in Salt Lake City, where I used to work and where George would come and visit on occasion, way back before he was Mr. Hollywood. That, and the fact that I interview him every now and then and know a lot of publicists, make some people in the hinterlands think that I might have some sort of inside track on George’s comings and goings.

But just to be clear, I have no connection to George Clooney whatsoever. Not that I don’t wish I did. Still, I was amused when someone who knew my history called me with the following story:

Some employee at The Mansion on Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia (pictured below) has reported that George Clooney is desperately trying to contact the couple that is scheduled to be married there this weekend. Seems George wants to use the facilities to wed his current girlfriend, 28-year-old Fear Factor winner and Las Vegas VIP hostess Sarah Larson. He was reported to be attempting to work out some sort of deal with the intended couple, so he and his intimates would have the wedding facilities all to themselves.

Evidently, people were trying to reach father Nick for a confirmation, but he wasn’t returning any calls. Did I know if any of George’s buddies, say Matt Damon or Brad Pitt, had any plans to travel to Georgia this weekend? Maybe George hired a private jet to take them back there – “What about that private jet pilot you used to date, Lisa? Would he know anything?”

For an instant, I was caught up in the inevitable frenzy that would ensue if this wild rumor panned out, and if I were instrumental in breaking it. My friends at TMZ would come begging for crumbs, and next time I interviewed George, he’d say, ‘So YOU’RE the one!” and give me his special, sly little wink.

But then I realized a couple of factors that stopped my ridiculous ruminations cold:

1. The original information came to me on Tuesday, April 1st. That’s a particularly cunning April Fool’s Day joke to play on me and-or the rest of the world. Maybe Pitt, the subject of last weekend’s bogus wedding rumor, had a hand in this one.

2. Leatherheads, the film George wrote, directed and stars in, opens today. While I personally think the film is absolutely tremendous, a number of my critical colleagues were not as impressed. Any publicity is good publicity at a time like this, for anyone even remotely involved - or anyone claiming to be involved. Since George has been beating the publicity drum quite loudly lately, he’s foremost in everyone’s minds.

So... While I’m not going to be sitting by my phone this weekend, eagerly awaiting the news that GEORGE CLOONEY GOT MARRIED!, if he does, just remember that you read it here first.

A Double Dose of Non-Fiction

05/09/2008

Standard Operating Procedure and a new book of photographs taken on the sets of Errol Morris documentaries confirm that the filmmaker will do whatever he feels he needs to so as to get the uncomfortable message across.

The "Kingdom" of Maria Bello

05/06/2008

A decade and a half into her illustrious career, Maria Bello has finally caught up with the spirit of the Steven Spielberg adventure that inspired her to become an actress.

No Fan of the Method

05/02/2008

Dropping in on the San Francisco International Film Festival for a tribute and awards ceremony, British filmmaker Mike Leigh remains committed to the idea of actors referring to their characters in the third person.

Bridging a "Twelve"-Year Gap

04/29/2008

A dozen years after guiding Geoffrey Rush to an Oscar, Scott Hicks has returned to the realm of classical music for a documentary portrait of another musical genius.

For Whom the "Diving Bell" Tolls

04/28/2008

Julian Schnabel’s latest piece of film art runs the filmmaker’s memories of his father’s final days through the notion that a stroke can engender a man’s spiritual rebirth.

Set Phasers on Sequel

04/25/2008

Before Star Trek XI sends John Cho’s career into the stratosphere, he is happy to be earthbound in Harold and Kumar II.

Converging on Vic Thrill

04/23/2008

Thanks to an upcoming documentary, autobiography and possible Hollywood feature film, the world is about to get thoroughly reacquainted with the dynamic duo of Vic Thrill and Curly Oxide.

A Ridiculously Beloved Actor

04/18/2008

As Tom McCarthy makes the rounds in support of his second film, The Visitor, he has come to realize that the Richard Jenkins Fan Club is much larger than he initially presumed.

A Man and a Festival

04/15/2008

Though Claude Lelouch has been a regular visitor to the Cannes Film Festival since the mid-1960’s, it’s safe to say nothing quite compares to his experiences in 2007 and, most likely, 2008.

A "Take"-No-Prisoners Approach

04/11/2008

It takes a lot more than gunfire on the first day of shooting to stop the Colombian born, Queens raised and Hollywood hardened John Leguizamo.

All's Wells That Ends Wells

04/10/2008

As ER producer John Wells looks ahead to his venerable NBC drama’s 15th and final season, he sees a political horizon encompassing Doctors Without Borders and Americans without healthcare.

Cedric the Director

04/04/2008

Cedric the Entertainer is keeping them laughing on the set of his directorial debut, a trend that appears likely to continue when the film hits theaters.

Right Up His "Street"

04/01/2008

Staying at once truthful to the Stephen Sondheim original and his own perverse sensibilities, filmmaker Tim Burton uncorks what may well be his strangest and riskiest film yet.

Anything But Phat

03/31/2008

Though the lure of Ross directing led to box office success in the United Kingdom, Simon Pegg in tight shorts can do no better than 13th place in the U.S.

Sebastian Valmont Gets Serious

03/28/2008

It was less than ten years ago that Ryan Phillipe was pulling the strings in Cruel Intentions, but in light of his recent films, it seems like eons ago.

Tide of "Frankenstein"

03/25/2008

With three standing ovations in San Francisco and a new Broadway production in New York, Gene Wilder should have no doubt about the lasting value of his happiest moviemaking experience.

The Real McAvoy

03/20/2008

He had the misfortune of delivering his performance the same year that saw Daniel Day-Lewis’ latest work, but Atonement – out this week on DVD – has firmly established James McAvoy as a romantic hero.

A Third 3D "Journey" Begins

03/18/2008

A half-century after post-World War II moviegoers first donned those goofy glasses, Brendan Fraser has a message for 21st century moviegoers: “Your mind is about to be blown!”

A Very Active Professional "Life"

03/14/2008

At an age when many Hollywood actresses complain that their careers are over, Patricia Clarkson is about to make time for the dream of any actor: working with Martin Scorsese.

Bogdanovich's Latest "Picture Show"

03/11/2008

Among the many revelations shared by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich this past weekend in San Francisco is that his personal road to Cybill Shepherd was paved with toothpicks.