The Hot Blog Archive for August, 2007

Telluride Hum

So, the word up here is that people are a bit disappointed with the list of films up here this year. And all I can say is….
Get Used To It!
We are entering the fall season of films and there will be plenty of quality… but not so much excitement in terms of celebrity or “big” movies. This “problem” is equally evident at Toronto. And it will be an ongoing issue through the entire season.
Here in Telluride, at least before the TBAs start landing, the only films that are high profile enough to get attention from the more casual film lovers are The Diving Bell & The Butterfly, I’m Not There, Into The Wild, and Margot At The Wedding.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that it won’t be a great festival, only that it isn’t a high profile year for indie film. There are also a bunch of films that just aren’t going to show themselves yet, even though they are ready, like Things We Lost In The Fire, American Gangster, and the Venice and NY Film Fest bound The Darjeeling Limited.
Myself, I am looking forward to docs from Barbet Schroeder, Kevin MacDonald, and Werner Herzog, a new film from Anand Tucker, who some people think is a genius, and a wide array of little seen Indian films.
If there is a signature on this year’s fest from the reconfigured/new team, it is a number of Friends Of Telluride films, including Todd McCarthy’s doc on Pierre Rissient, a Norman Lloyd doc, a doc on Peter Sellars, and a worthy, but local guest director in Edith Kramer from Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive.
Things kick off tonight… and away we go…

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Telluride's Content Press Release

Telluride, CO (August 30, 2007) – The Telluride Film Festival (August 31-September 3), presented by the National Film Preserve and Apple, announces its program for the 34th Telluride Film Festival. Celebrating the best in film, past, present and future, from all around the globe, the Festival kicks off another exciting weekend packed with tributes, features, documentaries, shorts, conversations and panel discussions. The Festival opens Friday, August 31 and runs through Monday, September 3.
The Festival will pay tribute to three film luminaries including Daniel Day-Lewis, who captivated filmgoers with his performances in ROOM WITH A VIEW, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING and GANGS OF NEW YORK, and will be seen next in his much-anticipated role in Paul Thomas Anderson

Into The Telluride

A confluence of events has led to no prior posting today, but I am now in Telluride… it’s beautiful… and the list of films has been posted by the festival. (This year, no one got to jump the gun. The festival released the list and all coverage followed.)
I will start running it all down later tonight. In the meantime, I leave you with this…
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Noah Catch-Up

Who Will Be… The Next Scorsese?
About seven and a half years ago, Esquire Magazine asked five film critics to nominate a young director to answer the question, “Who is the next Scorsese?” The man himself even offered up his own nomination.
Let us take a look at the filmmakers nominated by Esquire seven years ago, what they did to earn their nominations, and what they have done in the years since.

Ten Movies To Keep An Eye On This Fall
What follows is my list of the ten films that I think will be worth seeing, for one reason or another (in order of release):
I

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Sorry…

It’s a travel prep day… been getting ready for a few weeks away in Telluride & Toronto…
Make yourself at home… pick some well spiritied fights… new entries soon…

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Cheney's Next Gig

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More from Worth1000

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A Monster Musical

Some of the remake shows, including the jukebox musicals, reach well beyond their roots. The Lion King does. So does Jersey Boys. And of course, The Producers. For me, Spamalot is the example of where the line is clearest. The show is at its best when it uses the Python movie as a starting point for its wonderful musical hall style humor, way off the narrative. The show is at its worst when pandering to the audience that is expecting to see

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Owen Wilson

I am not really interestes in covering the Owen Wilson story… sad if it’s truly what’s been reported.
However, I am fascinated by the dance between The National Enquirer, where the news apparently broke, The Star, which followed, Perez Hilton, who some credited with the story, even though he was quoting the editor of The National Enquirer, and TMZ.com, who seems to have added nothing but (and I have no idea if they were first to get it) a non-comment comment from the police.
At the moment 47 stories come up on Google on the subject and looking through a few, each outlet covering the covering is bending into all different directions when sourcing the info.
Defamer even posted the extremely rare weekend post, in its case, crediting The Star and not the others at all.
Nice to have a competition in which I hope everyone loses.

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More Sweeney Teasing

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Sea Attle

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Sunday Estimates by Klady – Aug 26

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Greetings From Seattle

Seattle’s weather finally turned into “Seattle weather” after a couple of beautiful, sunny days here in the Emerald City. This is the first time I have visited the city (as an adult) apart from the Seattle International Film Festival and thus, the first time with a rental car and thus, a very different and more beautiful experience.
Still, Salumi is easily within walking distance from the hotel and the smoked meat and mozzarella (and more) dive owned and operated by Mario Battali’s dad is one of the great lunch experiences you could ever ask for. Truly spectacular… even worth standing on line for… and the line was still 15 deep at 2:30 in the afternoon. (Unfortunately, they are only open Tues-Fri, so no repeat visit this trip.)
The purpose of the journey was to see Young Frankenstein, which happened last night. Going back for another look on Sunday, so details on Monday. But one of the most interesting highlights of the evening, for me, was noticing Bob & Harvey Weinstein sitting at the other end of my row, on their own (meaning it was a business trip), a day after the official Seattle opening

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Friday Estimates by Klady – 8/25

Not a very exciting weekend at the box office.
Superbad is holding ok, considering the First-Friday-to-Second phenomenon. Sony can be as precious as they like with this weekend

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End Of An Era?

When I got a note from a friend who noticed that Ebert & Roeper had changed their internet address, plugged at the end of each show, from ebertandroeper.com (or whatever more detailed URL it was) to atthemoviestv.com, a variation on an old incarnation of the Siskel & Ebert show, I decided to shut up and see what happened before opining on what it might mean. After all, I have been accused in some quarters in having a vested interest in the show, I have a longstanding respectful friendship with Roger, and I know that comments I have made about the future of the show in the past were met with discomfort by some of those involved.
But it has been my position, since the hire of Richard Roeper six years ago, that Disney was making bad decisions along the road that diminished the show and its value as a warm center to Roger

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The Brave One… For Them

Watching Fracture, for the first time in my experience of watching Ryan Gosling work, I wonder whether he is, indeed, lacking the skills to be the biggest movie star in the world. Or maybe he has to decide, as Madonna never did, to let it go on screen when it is not a hard ass indie. I mean, he was painfully lacking charm in this film while he leaked it all over Half Nelson in what looked like absolute effortlessness

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The Hot Blog

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon