The Hot Blog Archive for May, 2008
20 Weeks Of Summer… Wish Fulfillment
A theme for the summer has finally emerged from the back of my brain pan.
It’s not the most original idea, but it’s come together in the reflection of Iron Man‘s massive opening and the rising tide of expectation for Sex & The City, the male and female conduits.
But even more so, It was about figuring out the problem with Speed Racer? There was no character in that film that became the connective tissue to a wider audience. Speed is, pretty much, a kid in a fast toy. The emotional rooting interest was never offered in the advertising and the critics rarely noticed it, as they reached for vomit bags because too much movement tends to upset people over 30.
Of course, as I said from the moment I saw the film, the film is primarily for children, who dream, like Speed, of going fast, winning races, and receiving perfect love from their parents. But they didn’t sell that.
It’s Wish Fulfillment, Stupid.
The rest….
And updated gross projection charts…
BYOB – Friday
Can we please keep the personal blog politics to a dull roar? It’s more than a little boring.
How will Caspian open? Who is interested in seeing it?
Anyone still revving their Cannes engines?
the assassination of speed racer
I wouldn’t normally link to something so in agreement with me, especially when the issue has died down in here. But I found the image amusing enough to link it.
LINK
(Now THAt would be a conversion… Lancelot Link! Or is it Space Monkeys?)
The Media Conspiracy Against Hillary Clinton
Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner on Conversations With Michael Eisner:
“I put (Obama) on the cover because I am just
More Sex, More City… More Than Anyone Needs
We were asked, before the screening, not to give away the surprises in the third act. And I won
14 Comments »Appeasing Me Off
The rhetoric of the Republican game today is so false, that I trust it will ultimately be irrelevant.
But what struck me was that this kind of game being run at Obama is something the Republicans are taking right out of the Hillary Clinton playbook… which she and hers got from Karl Rove.
Here’s the game:
1. Have a surrogate make a statement with obvious defamatory intent with clear links to your target without ever mentioning their name.
2. Watch the target’s supporters get enraged.
3. Claim they are a bunch of hotheads, intentionally misreading the statement.
4. Claim they are only upset because they know it’s true… even though you never actually said it.
5. Watch the media wet its pants discussing the event that has been denounced as a non-event by both sides.
Why would Bush & Co go there today? I can only come up with two reasons.
1. Because turning the already tender Jewish vote against Obama is the only seismic shift left, combined with crazy over coverage of White People Who Won’t Vote For Obama, to try to help Clinton get the nomination.
2. Because Israel is the land of the Jews and where else better to call Obama a Muslim-loving liar?
The reality is, I think the discussion of whether you talk directly to nations you are in a cold conflict with or not is a subject worthy of debate. I happen to land on the Obama side of it and feel that Bush’s “let them concede before we converse” policy has been terrible for the nation. But people of good conscience can disagree vigorously on this.
But backdooring someone is not a discussion. It is scummy politics. Same as it ever was
Pellicano Gets Got
So Pellicano was found GUILTY today… shocker.
Defending himself in court, he basically pleaded guilty, repeatedly crying, “I vant to tap alone!”
The story here remains… they never got the goods.
A one-eyed monkey with a limp could prove that Pellicano tapped phones illegally. The YEARS of this endless whinny saga was not intended to get Pellicano. The government was after the bigger fish, starting with Bert Fields and Brad Grey… and got bupkiss (aka Pellicano).
With 76 charges against him… how much more time will Anthony Pellicano get after living in jail for quite a while now?
And will anyone really care? Did you get the impression that any of the celebrities trotted out to testify and make this look like it was worth all the effort really could give two excremental releases?
Pellicano kept his mouth shut. Fields kept his mouth shut. Case closed.
The only hanging thread is the embarrassing harrassment prosecutions by the US government against small fish in this case like John McTiernan and Robert Pfeifer. The government has acknowledged openly that McTiernan’s bad behavior was lying to someone who told him over the phone that he was an FBI agent. REALLY? Is that what stands as a prosecutable offense in this country? Not telling the truth to someone who tells you that they are a member of law enforcement? No wonder so many little old ladies and gentlemen are giving their pension checks to phone con men. In fact… isn’t that really a Pellicano-esque game?
Okay… next! Thanks for the rancid fish.
Hot Button – The Trouble With Trouble
There are two stories on the web today that may be 100% true
Baaaaaaaad Idea
If you want my best Harvey Keitel imitation, it inevitably starts with a hunch, a lean into an imaginary window of a car with two party girls in it, and the grunting…. arrrrrrrrr….. unnnnnnnn… ahhhhhhh… and of course, the quick motion of the hand moving in sync with a tightening musculature.
I don
Cannes-y
Interesting Cannes kick-off from Tony & The Man at the NY Times
5 Comments »Wither Weinstein?
It just screams, “OUCH!”
How bad is it for The Weinsteins when they can’t get Michael Moore on board for his next film… which is being called a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11, but apparently will not be specifically one, avoiding the entanglement with The Weinsteins?
Like Hillary Clinton, The Weinsteins are like Mike Myers in Halloween… every time you think they’re dead, should be dead, must be dead, they just keep getting up. (Of course, you rarely get to be the good guy when you keep coming back from the dead.)
But this time… aside from remaining muscular by keeping a ton of balls in the air at the same time… alive, but not the same… not nearly the same…
(Edited 8p – for stupid error on slasher film history.)
Tony Noms
The one sore thumb, stand-out, HUGE miss in these nominations? Jackie Hoffman, who should have won the Tony easily for her performance in Xanadu and her sidekick in the show, Mary Testa, in the Featured Actress-Musical category. Maybe they cancelled each other out. But both women kick Andrea Martin’s butt, killing with scalpels while Martin is left overplaying to the big barn of a theater that left Young Frankenstein with just two other nominations.
It is a testament to how YF was disregarded that it missed in lighting, sound, and costume, while grabbing a nod unavoidably for the set. How much did Tony voters rage against Young Frankenstein? They nominated the ultimately mediocre Cry-Baby instead… a show that apparently had no actors in it, as none were nominated. Christopher Fitzgerald would be a serious contender to win Best Featured Actor – Musical… but won’t because the voters are going to roll over for Passing Strange or In The Heights as a vote for the new, though South Pacific is likely to come up from behind Sunday in the Park and win many revival awards… except probably Jenna Russell, who will be coronated with a win for Sunday.
Tony voters also overlooked – though not neccessarily a tragedy here – The Little Mermaid, which has become a consistent top 10 grosser, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Macbeth also got a lot of love, while Laura Linney was left alone while her show nemesis got his due. Rufus Sewell grabbed a Roick-n-Roll nom ahead of Brian Cox. And were Tom Wopat and Faith Prince given nominations as a reward for suffering through the drudgery of A Catered Affair for all these months? (Harvey got zilch, further insult coming when The LIttle Mermaid got an Original score nod mostly for five 20-year-old songs.)
It’s also pretty funny, though charming in its way, to see Arthur Laurents nominated for recreating his direction from the 1974 revival of Gypsy, for which he was Tony nominated and Drama Desk-winning. He will be about one month shy of his 90th birthday at the Tonys… will he get a lifetime nod for his remarkable career in the same year Sondheim gets a lifetime achievement award? As with all, we’ll see…
The complete list of noms after the jump…
