The Hot Blog Archive for July, 2008

Bat Haiku

You know, I love it when a commenter has a stroke of genius… or in some cases, just a stroke.
But seriously, folks…
The idea of the BAT HAIKU came up and, heck, why not give it a try?
Nolan up to Bat
So much more than a comic
But a comic still

The Joker is cool
Makes The Batman just a mouse
Dent’s teeth feel the breeze

Your turn…
And yes, there will be a prize. (We’ll figure out what it is in time.)

59 Comments »

More Great News For Paramount

They landed Brett Ratner… WOOO HOOO!
Take a breath….
Ratner has good taste. He can make $100 million look like the most beautiful $75 million you’ve ever seen on screen.
So what is Paramount getting itself into?
Well, the relationship seems mostly about Beverly Hills Cop IV, being written by the geniuses who “wrote” Wanted… I seem to remember a few words somewhere in that crapfest… and soon to be directed by Ratner, who will surely have the very hottest ethnic women in Hollywood in the backround of every scene of Axel Foley walking around Beverly Hills.
The biggest question about the “first look deal” is whether Ratner can deliver his first “tentpole” that’s not a 3rd X-Men or a Rush Hour film to gross over $210 milion worldwide.
Even though the last Beverly Hills Cop was 14 years ago – have you notcied that Par is now acting like MGM and teh Walking TE Corpse Of New Line, desperately trying to revive any former hit? – it is a sequel. So there is no point in comparing it to Ratner’s originals, none of which has grossed as much as $125m worldwide. But Red Dragon, at $209m ww, seems fair to worry about. And the fact that Rush Hour 3 grossed less than either of its predesessors domestically and about the same as the first film worldwide (27% off of RH2) is also a cause of concern.
A decade into his career as a director, there is no indication that Ratner is a better bet on a project than, say, Dennis Dugan or Brian Robbins. Goiod luck all around.
1 – X – Men: The Last Stand – $459.3 – 2006
2 – Rush Hour 2 – $347.3 – 2001
3 – Rush Hour 3 – $255.0 – 2007
4 – Rush Hour – $244.4 – 1998
5 – Red Dragon – $209.2 – 2002
6 – The Family Man – $124.7 – 2000
7 – After the Sunset – $61.3 – 2004
8 – Money Talks – $48.4 – 1997

353 Comments »

Selling A Paramount Turnaround

The Variety headline reads, “Paramount films fuel Viacom – (sub-head) Revenues up 21% to $3.9 billion last quarter
How does one take the trade seriously when they don’t offer the real facts, but the spin as a headline?
The real deal from the Paramount/Viacom press release….
Was Paramount the cause of the increase in overall revenues (not net, which is down)? Philippe Dauman leads with something else – “The advantages of our growing multiple revenue streams were evident in the quarter, as we delivered double-digit growth in both our affiliate and ancillary revenues, led by the top-selling Rock Band music
video game.”
Then, he gets into the movies.
And what are the actual numbers of the movie side?
In terms of box office, the studio had about $863 million in domestic gross box office dollars compared to $536m in the same quarter last year

6 Comments »

Matson Is All Thumbs

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The cartoon…

9 Comments »

Hot Button – Circles Of Lies

Oy… this is what I get for watching The View.
The ladies spent 5 minutes discussing how the Western Wall prayer that was taken out of the wall and published in Israel was, according to the paper that published the presumably private document, Ma’ariv, pre-approved for publication by Obama even before the note was stuck in the wall. The claim from an unnamed Ma’ariv editor was legitimized by publication in The Jerusalem Post as part of a story about a potential legal probe and boycott of Ma’ariv for publishing the note.
The Wall Street Journal pushed the story further by publishing a series of web attacks on Obama without bothering to do what they do best… report news.
“Maariv’s response: “Obama’s note was published in Maariv and other international publications following his authorization to make the content of the note public. Obama submitted a copy of the note to media outlets when he left his hotel in Jerusalem. Moreover, since he is not Jewish, there is no violation of privacy as there would be for a Jewish person who places a note in the wall.”
Problem is… the story was a lie.

The rest…

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The Swing Vote Campaign That You Should Have Seen



13 Comments »

BYOEarthquake

If an earthquake hits Hollywood in late July, does anyone actually feel it?

27 Comments »

Hot Button – Batting Around Titanic Numbers

Is it anything less than a dereliction of duty, whether it be Horn’s choice or his editors’ choice, to not even mention the worldwide box office success of Titanic, which really is what makes the box office landmark the equal of what

80 Comments »

El Mummy Tres Sucks And Sucks Hard

Just when you thought it might be safe to go back to a Rob Cohen movie

104 Comments »

P-n-P Blog Factory

I was planning on holding an update on The Pete-n-Pat Blog Show for a while. After all, we

7 Comments »

BYOB – Manic Monday

42 Comments »

Hot Button Review – Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder strikes me as the ultimate example of Stars Gone Wild. Let

36 Comments »

W


50 Comments »

Sunday Estimates by Klady

sundayest072708.jpg

33 Comments »

Worth 1000's Renaissance Star Wars Contest

jabba.jpg
Jabba the VIII
Other entries…

5 Comments »

The Hot Blog

Quote Unquotesee all »

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