The Hot Blog Archive for August, 2008
Harry Says…
STATEMENT FROM HARRY E. SLOAN, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER STUDIOS INC.
LOS ANGELES, CA August 14, 2008 — After reading erroneous reports about Tom Cruise and United Artists, I would like to clarify that we are honored that he will continue as our full partner in control of UA. He is in the middle of one of the greatest careers our industry has ever seen and one that will continue at the top of United Artists Entertainment.
Body Of Lies Trailer
For the HD… which is worth looking at…
BYOB – 8138
I have the urge to weigh in on Paula Wagner, trying to balance out Crazy Nikki’s Wag-Wag Attack and Anne Thompson’s generous appraisal of all things Paula. The most interesting unturned rock to me is why Paula and Rick both got the boot/took the exit in the same few weeks. Odd.
But the truth is, this story is still all spin and little substance. And I don’t feel like speculating.
You have to wonder, however, who talked Team MaGMa into releasing Valkyrie in the most expensive release month of the year, a week after Will freakin’ Smith and Brad bearded Pitt, not to mention a perhaps-funny-for-a-change Jim Carrey arrive in the marketplace to rape and pillage.
Oh yes… it’s also head-to-head with Oscar hopeful Revolutionary Road and The Spirit, which may not seem to be the same demo, but will draw anyone interested in a little adult action.
Are they out of their bloody minds?
Perhaps they know they are dead and this is the most aggressive, really-we-love-it way of putting it out there and letting it die at the altar of bigger movies.
Even with that, they should at least open the thing on December 12 so that it has a week to breath.
God, I would love this movie to be good.
ADD, 6:42p – MGM’s press release on the date change just landed… the headline…
MGM ANNOUNCES CHRISTMAS RELEASE DATE FOR VALKYRIE
All I want for Christmas is a Nazi film… a Nazi film… a Nazi film…
All I want for Christmas is a Nazi film… so I can wish you Merry Heil Mass
(Oddly, the “christmas release” is on dec 26)
Dane Cook: Dumb Around The Edges
What lesson did Dane Cook learn from Katherine Heigl’s ongoing implosion?
Go and do likewise, gent.
Here is a mediocrity whose entire career in the movies has been created by Lionsgate. So what does he do? He does what all BRILLIANT people do. He attacks the people who control his image!
From his blahg –
1. Graphics:
Whoever photoshopped our poster must have done so at taser point with 3 minutes to fulfill their hostage takers deranged obligations. They should have called Donnie Hoyle and had him give a tutorial using “You Suck at Photoshop” templates. This is so glossy it makes Entertainment Weekly look wooden.
Later…
10. Final thoughts:
I set out to make a movie like the contemporary men and women, that you and I respect, are making. My generation of comedians, actors, directors and producers that I wish to collaborate with as I build a solid body of work.
Let’s not even do the grammar check here… your’re in a Howie Deutch movie, you cretan! Get it? It’s the man who made Grumpy Old Men TWO… The Odd Couple TWO… The Whole TEN Yards… he hasn’t made a decent film in over 20 years! Nice guy… terrible director. You were done long before a crap one-sheet… done by your own choice to doa movie with a nice guy hack.
Is this your break from Lionsgate forever? Do you expect their marketing department to do you any favors in the future? Do you want to see new TV spots that make Jason Biggs the funny one… because of the two of you, he IS the funny one?
Will morons never cease?
New Spam Scam
Imagine my surprise this morning when MSNBC sent me an alert that California had outlawed abortion.
But they hadn’t. And MSNBC hadn’t sent me an e-mail.
It turned out to be the third such fake News Alert this morning. And being that I get news alerts from a number of media outlets every day… well, thank goodness for my internet security system, which blocked the click-thru even though it did get past the spam filter.
But be careful what you open out there…
Waiting for Jewface
Manohla Dargis has given us a new word, not just for the critics’ lexicon, but for the world.
Jewface.
And here, a rare image from the reshoots of Valkyrie. DreamWorks has come in with Red Hour Films to reconceive the project. Lee Frost replaced Bryan Singer as director and Wes Bishop was there to re-write. The new title… The Man With Jew Heads or The Nazi Wore Jewface .
The tender comedy about the Nazi and the Jew Movie Producer he has sown to his body in order to keep him alive stars Tom Cruise as The Nazi, Tom Cruise as Jewface, and in a new hillarious side character, Ben Stiller as Dr. Hank Mengele, the slippery fingered, 1/16th-Jewish surgeon who is endlessly mistaken for his more famous, more talented brother.
Tag Line – “Is He Or Isn’t He? Only His Experimenting Nazi Surgeon Knows!”
Let the heeeeeeb-larity begin!
The Olympic Tape Delay Is RUINING The Phelps Story
I am spending more time watching the Olympics this year than I have in many years. I love the multiple channels and HD of it all.
But with the central story for America this year happening in prime time on the East Coast, the West Coast/Mountain Time Zone are getting SCREWED!
There is not a single general news outlet on the web that is not leading with each race each day. If you open a new alert from the NYT or WSJ or others without thinking… you know what is going to happen in 3 hours.
It is truly horrible. And given the weight of the story, it is time for NBC to get its head out of its ass and to do something about it. Yeah… if you want to be a turtle all afternoon and then watch in Prime Time only, you still can. Great. But if there is a 10p swim, as there was tonight, either put it on one of the 7 other channels running and then, hey, don’t put it all over the place. But we on the West Coast deserve to see this live.
This is the Oscars… everything else, including the basketball hype show, is The Golden Globes. Of course, NBC is idiotic about that too… they should be live in Los Angeles, then repeated… and they can be tape delayed everywhere else. But a company town will watch the damned show early and many will watch again to see the highlights of the first live show.
But I digress…
Please… please… please… stop doing this. I know it’s only a medal and a sporting event, etc. And it’s not unpleasant to see it, even knowing the outcome. But it’s not the same. And it is unneccessary. And stupid. And if I had a Neilsen box or a diary, I’d be watching some other TV to avoid giving credit to NBC for hold out on half the country in a way that goes 100% against their entire effort to expand and open up the games this year.
It's Not Stealing… It's McCain!
Posted at 3:08 PM on 8/12/2008 by Michael Goldfarb
Celebrities Fight Back
Obama’s celebrity friends are bringing their considerable resources to bear in this election, hosting fundraisers at their estates in Geneva, offering advice on Middle East policy, and now threatening this campaign with legal action over our latest ad, “Fan Club.”
The ad features kids talking about how “dreamy” Senator Obama is, how he brought a crowd to Taco Bell despite inclement weather, and how he is no less of an international superstar than U2 frontman Bono. Unfortunately, the final clip of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey doing their ‘we’re not worthy’ bit from Wayne’s World has spurred a celebrity backlash. Myers had his people call the campaign to demand that the video be removed from YouTube for copyright violation. Apparently, we are not, in fact, worthy.
Or it could be that a presidential candidate who approves an ad that overtly infringes on copyright and includes a celebrity in an endorsement without prior approval shows you exactly the kind of man who you are dealing with.
And do you get the stinging feeling that Sumner Redstone, seen as many as a neo-con, instructed his super-litigious company as regards copyright infringement, to look the other way when the McCain campaign infringed on the Ten Commandments copyright? And now, another Paramount-owned movie, Wayne’s World.
I think it would be a very good time for the Obama campaign and others to look into the support of Viacom – owner fo a major network as well as a studio – for one specific political candidate. after all, the McCain effort has not been to Swift Boat Obama – since there appears to be no such availability, even though the campaign runs their tax lie endlessly, without shame – but to Tom Cruise him… running the “I fired him because he jumped on Oprah’s couch” bullshit.
It’s fascinating to see how the current McCain push is actually angering people. Why? Because McCain and his peopel are intentionally lying and spinning and acting like desperate scum on a level that makes even Bill O’Reilly blush.
It’s one of life’s ironies… McCain was a renegade and supportable before Bush screwed him in North Carolina eight years ago… and he was interesting enough to be truly dangerous to the Democrats when he got nominated… and now, fearing a blowout loss, he has turned into someone who I would be embarrassed to have as the head of my country because he is doing what he sees as neccessary to possibly become head of my country.
Sad.
On The Trail…
A bunch of eye catching stuff out there…
Happy Go Lucky – Mike Leigh’s latest… hot new Oscar prospect for Best Actress… headed to more fests…
The Spirit: Trailer 2 – Lionsgate has been running wild postings of the women, pretty much as they are featured in this trailer. It really has felt like an internet campaign hitting the streets. Lionsgate has long liked to tease, but these images, out of context, six months out was rather unusual… but provocative. And now, more so with the trailer. “What’s with you and the women?” Good question… good looking answer, albeit a bit dehunanizing for the parade of very hot celebrity babes Miller got to be the focus of his visual obsession..
Punisher: War Zone – To me, this looks a lot more like what I was hoping for in a Punisher movie than the last one. Instead of going for the “it’s real” thing, hyperreal makes more sense to me. Excellent.
Full Battle Rattle – A doc on a modern Iraq war training facility. Looks like a fun, smart ride.
8 Miles High – Another groupie movie… but this one looks like it knows better what it is supposed to be… sex, drugs, attitude… cue the mysterious German brunette who no one will tout for Oscar, but will actually get more boy excitement than a flirty Sienna Miller.
A Girl Cut In Two – For the Ludivine fans… she’s all growns up…
Whose Movie Is It Anyway?
Maybe I am just showing the hypersensitivity of a child whose parents are getting a divorce but who are still living under the same roof. But I keep getting the feeling that there is a weird internal battle going on over the last child the
4 Comments »Oh, That Is Soooooo Retarded!
You know, I find politically correct protesting to be foolish.
On the other hand, if I had a relationship with someone with “intellectual disabilities,” I would want to smack Ben Stiller upside the head after seeing Tropic Thunder too. (I wouldn’t mind punching him in the arm really hard as it is.)
Stiller’s sense of humor is mean spirited. He tries to hide behind intellectualizing it. but inevitably you end up realizing that he just thinks that retards, and fat people, and various ethnic groups are just plain funny. Hee hee.
Downey playing an actor obsessive enough to put on permanent black face for a role is an interesting idea
BYOB – Sloooooow
Did I mention that it’s a slow time of the year….
Whaddya got?
Hot Button – Taking A Knife To A Gun Fight With Fox
Goldstein uses the most petty journalist trick in the book, selective box office information. He writes;
24 Comments »Does It Really Matter?
Harry Knowles broke embargo on Clone Wars, then pulled it down. Defamer escalated it into a “cease and desist” directly from George Lucas himself.
Drew/Moriarty wrote in an AICN talkback:
Harry took his CLONE WARS review down at the request of Lucasfilm, who have chosen to enforce an embargo on reviews on our site. There may, in fact, be other outlets who have reviews up currently. That is not something we can control. Harry will repost his same review when he is able to. I hope that explains it, but if you have further questions, I’ll try answer them.
I’m not really shocked that Knowles (or others) are enraged by further infantalizing of the franchise. I’m not really sure how embargoes are handled on that site these days, though Drew insists frequently that the site’s rule is that they respect embargoes… and these days, I believe him. There is enough stuff being screened for Knowles and others that doesn’t turn up early that it makes sense.
I’m going to wait for more actual information before speculating… or not speculating… because…
Does It Matter?
ADD, 2p – It turns out that, according to the studio, it was WB requesting that the review be pulled until the release date and not Lucasfilm. Moreover, there was never anything close to a threat of a “cease & desist” and there is no indication that George Lucas was aware that the review had even gone up.
Perhaps Drew will dispute this in Comments. We’ll see.
I an waiting for further input from some of the other players in this “news story,” as I think that it will be more reflective of the circle jerk of stories expanding like a game of telephone than any great drama about the film itself. But we’ll see where it goes.
Update, 3:53p — As you can see in Comments, where Drew/Moriarty has kindly responded in as much detail as he has, he wrote based on what he was told in passing.
I have also had an exchange indicating that the Defamer piece was a riff on the whole situation and a genral dislike of Lucas in recent years, not a factual piece of reporting.
The problem I have with all of this is not that Drew wrote what he was told, not really obsessing on the distinction that Lucasfilm made the request, which it appears not to have made. I don’t have a problem with Defamer riffing on the whole thing with comic intent. The problem is that other media will read this stuff and take it as fact… when it is not. Neither Drew or Stu is really responsible for that.
But as someone who deals with stuff over years and not minutes, I see stuff like this get absorbed into the ideas people – including some very smart and well-read industry people – have about the world we work in. In 2 of the first 6 comments on this blog entry, there is a specific reference to Lucas making the call and that mattering. It is, after all, in the Defamer opening graph – “…rouse George Lucas from his afternoon cash-bath with a cease-and-desist order straight from the top.” But it’s not true.
We will see how many other places it turns up on… and whether the detail shows up accurately, reported, distorted, or ever corrected. And should Lucas or WB be in the position where they have to chase people around the web to correct what seems like a minor detail to some and a major issue to others? Doesn’t it make them look guilty of something they of which they are not guilty?
Small issue… but it resonates in so many bigger stories…
