The Hot Blog Archive for September, 2006
Friday Estimates by Klady
Jackass Number Two will open about 25% ahead of Jackass, which is pretty good, but not sensational. It suggests that the core for this franchise remains about the same, while it probably got some expansion via Home Entertainment and a lack of product in the theaters for audiences that you might not expect to be rushing to Jackass (
27 Comments »Lunch With David – LLV Changes The World
Could this be the rambliest Lunch With David ever?!?!?!
Yes it could.
From Happy Feet to The Departed to The Queen to Lindsay Lohan’s Vagina (finally, the name for my band that I’ve been looking for!!!), this one just keeps going until it ends.
More Flags…
Here is the English language trailer for Flags of Our Fathers & Letters From Iwo Jima… which is subtitled in French AND English, when the Japenese are speaking.
We are the world.
ADDED – The QT Trailer for The Good Shepherd
What Do You Think?
The MPAA red-banded this trailer for Deliver Us From Evil, a film made by my friend, Amy Berg.
There is really no way around the red-band since the MPAA
Oscar Dating
I don’t know why the following mythologies continue to be bandied about, but…
1. The Japanese follow-up to Flags of Our Fathers will not be qualified for this year’s award season according to sources who are actually in business with Clint. Million Dollar Baby was being discussed as a year-end release by this time that year – I know… I broke the news – and didn’t settle until mid-October.
Anything is possible, of course. And one scenario no one seems to bite on, but is possible, is a December release without putting the film into the Oscar race for Picture, but only for Actor and tech awards.
I don’t know where the illusion that Clint talked to Peter Bart last month come from, but there was no indication in the Bart column that they talked about it directly.. other than PB putting his name on the line by printing the story as fact and not speculation.
2. Paramount will NOT release Fincher’s Zodiac for Oscar contention this year. I would bet much on this. They not only have too many awards movies already, but World Trade Center has been given high priority, while Dreamgirls and Flags are expected to make their own gravy, the charge being led by Terry Press.
There is less than 1 percent chance that Paramount would ever risk WTC for the sake of Zodiac. The reason it is not Silence of the Lambs is that it is a boy-driven film and not a Jodie Foster vehicle.
I know it gives bored people something to talk about, but it ain’t happening.
Notes On A Scandal Sneak Peak
Found this clip of Dame Judi… some chicks will do anything to get that Oscar nod…
"Funny, You Don't Look Jewish"
Yes, Virginia, there is a very watchable – albeit foreign language – trailer for Sony’s Classics’ Oscar contender Black Book.
Talk Amongst Yourselves…
Getting back into The Full L.A. has been an epic challenge this week…
So here is some space for your own agendas…
For The Penile Record
Sorry to be all The Departed all the time right now… things will shift shortly… but I thought that the endless inaccurate speculation about Jack Nicholson’s fake penis in the gossip columns, it would be good to note…
The sex scene that Nicholson is talking about does have a clearly improvisational beat to it. But it is definitively not graphic (though it is wonderful) and we do not see any non-human objects being thrown about, except for some cocaine.
However, we do see Mr. Nicholson’s pet strap-on – shades of Leslie Neilsen’s fart machine – in another scene, which is actually the one he is dressed for in that tabloid shot. And if I told you what the scene was, I would be spoiling something else that is great in the film, so I won’t. But in this country, we don’t wear ratty fishing hats to a three-way. In this country, if we’re going to get kinky, we don’t wear clothes under the raincoat. And that’s all I have to say about that!
The World Is A Circle….
Go figure.
The first week of Scriptland in the LA. Times was offensively arrogant, immoral by my standards, and really dangerous.
A week later, it is insipid irrelevance personified.
I feel bad, in a way, if the world came down around Mr. Fernandez’ head last week. Clearly, the paper has been put in its place, most likely by execs and agents.
In the place of hard charging, I-don’t-care-who’s-pissed aggression is safe, boring filler. With due respect to Jim Uhls and his Liv Tyler movie, he’s now gotten more attention than he will probably get on release from the LAT.
Thing is, as pissed off as I was by the LAT reviewing scripts as a weekly feature, I would encourage a serious weekly column about screenwriters. I have no idea of Fernandez can carry the weight. If he can’t get a fulltime job at Premiere, where he and his wife previously wrote, or at EW, where his wife now toils, I can’t imagine he’s a superstar in waiting. But who knows?
Still, the LA Times slotting weekly space for screenwriting stories is a great idea. But obscure does not mean “must read exclusive.” Go for it.
More Love For The Departed
After seeing The Departed twice in NY this weekend, I took a look at Infernal Affairs on DVD last night
49 Comments »Departed Spoiler Entry
WARNING
CLICK THROUGH AND YOU WILL SEE SPOILERS!!!
The only content of this entry is spoiler chat about this movie. And it will all be in the comments section.
DO NOT CLICK INTO COMMENTS UNLESS YOU ARE OPEN TO SPOILERS!!!!
Happy Penguins Put Their Best Foot Forward
Warner Bros. pulled a bit of a Disney at the Pacific Design Center today, throwing four tap dancing teens, four real penguins, a display case filled with soon-to-land merchandise, penguin photo ops, ice sculpture, and many penguin themed cookies into the mix for a 20 minute preview of Happy Feet, their George Miller mega-movie due in November.
The footage played a bit more like Baz Luhrman than George Miller. Nothing exploded and the anthropomorphic animals sang hit songs from the past, not originals. But George Miller knows how to entertain and the footage did just that, as we got a Spanish-language version of My Way (twice), a number sung by Brittney Murphy, a Barry White penguin voiced (also) by Williams, and lots of dancing by the Savion Glover choreographed and motion-captured penguins.
The only shocking thing about the preview was that the movie is still so far from finished with less than 2 months to delivery. But what we saw looked terrific and this movie is a prohibitive favorite to be the high grosser of the fall/holiday movie season.
More Web vs Print…..Zzzzzz…..
Anne Thompson brought up this Rachel Cooke idiocy again and I don
14 Comments »A Hot Blog Response Becomes A Hot Button
I believe in the major papers having an important place at the table. But they are, mostly, throwing their power away, chasing guys like me. And here is the freaking’ newsflash… I am a guy like them working in an alternative medium that I have come to love and have worked very hard for a decade to learn the voice of. But it would be easier for me to do Patrick (Goldstein)‘s job – and produce triple the amount of work every week – than for him to do mine, because I understand what he does and he has no idea what I do. From that intoxicating LAT throne, he has become too arrogant to know. Now that he realizes that the only real power he has is the thrown itself, he doesn’t really want to know.
Stu Van Airsdale (The Reeler) is 24 and can be a 24-year-old jerk at times. But he knows what the medium is and he loves movies and he will develop into one of the best ever if he keeps at it. And as much of a kid as he is… and as inexperienced in “real” journalism as he is… he knows the rules instinctively. He is not a guy who needs to break rules to get attention. They will try to co-opt him, but he will fight for what he knows to be the best work. And I hope he has a decade or two or more of fight in him.
The rest…