By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Last Word on Harry Knowles
Plenty of ink on this issue. One reader smacked me hard in a letter which was memorable for a subject line of “Go cry to momma” and a threat to dump my bookmark. After we exchanged less aggressive mail, I think his last letter summed up Harry (and me) almost perfectly. Sam S. gets the last word: “I think you are a little combative and defensive. Your points are well taken, but I disagree with the kernel of your problem with Harry. I read Harry for fun, not for the truth. I also read Variety and The Hollywood Reporter for the facts on the biz. If an insider does not supplement the trades with a daily dose of fan sites, they’ll never get the pulse of their audience. Harry, Corona, Dark Horizons, etc. are required reading, but complementary reading. You underestimate your readers if you think they go to fan sites for the definitive truth on the film world. They go for the excitement of a good rumor, or a humorous take on an insider event. They DO take it with a grain of salt. It’s insulting when you tell them how to read journalism. Give your readers some credit! And I’ll be reading again now, for a little while, at least ;-)”
HELL OF A LOT OF MONEY: Adam Sandler continues to focus on nontraditional families. After signing on at Sony to play a single father in Guy Gets Kid, New Line coughed up a mammoth $12.5 million contract for Adam to play the rebellious son of Satan in an untitled comedy. Turns out that Adam just doesn’t want to take over the family business. Obviously, the film is not set in L.A., where satanic lifestyles are a dime a dozen.
TAKE MY LIFE, PLEASE : Henny Youngman, king of the one liners, died at 91.
A STRONG VOICE: This week’s Village Voice offers up a couple of really interesting items. Check out The Return of the World’s Hardest Movie Quiz. It’s too hard for me, I’ll tell you that. And their review of Dark City is pretty much in agreement with my take. I may have liked the film a little bit better than the Voice, but their take on the unusual style of the film is dead on.
GLOVE AND MONEY: With the Muhammed Ali biopic in development hell waiting for a free moment in Will Smith‘s schedule, Denzel Washington is eyeing a two hour round in the ring for director Norman Jewison’s real-life story of middleweight Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. This project, if it comes together, will emerge from its own developmental troubles after more than five years of waiting around. Carter himself waited around for a long while after his fighting days, serving a long stretch in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Meanwhile, the women’s boxing biz is getting the big-screen treatment in Knockout, the story of Latina boxer Isabelle Alvarado. It’s in production already, so she will beat the boys easily. To the screen.
READER OF THE DAY: Trish The Dish wrote: “Wag the Dog is a great movie? Please. Hoffman should have confined his Evans impression to a 10-minute sketch on ‘SNL,’ and we all would have been happy. I’m sick of media-obsessed films about media-obsessed types made for media-obsessed types congratulating themselves about their omniscient Vision. NOTHING HAPPENED in this movie, and it wasn’t funny, except for Hoffman. Anne Heche is as big a zero as Woody Harrelson.”