This New Globes Mess

Getting past my foundational concerns about a publicist suing and parsing out the details to media like, well, a publicist…

The details and the truth or untruth of the specific claims in this Michael Russell lawsuit – whistleblowing after fired – are a distraction from the real issue.

The details and the truth or untruth of the specific claims by or against Dick Clark Productions are a distraction from the real issue.

The real issue is that 81 voting members (this year) hold Hollywood as a willing hostage, year in and year out, all year long, because they have a network television slot… which, of course, is 100% at the well-paid largess of Dick Clark Productions… but I digress…

I like many HFPA members. I even respect some of them, including Emanuel Levy, who is once again a Guru o’ Gold this year, and Mike Goodrich, who is a legitimate journalist, though he tends to dip his beak into the scummiest puddles. There are a few others.

And of course they won’t expand the membership base, since not only would the pool of benefits be thinned, but the scam, because it is reliant on the industry’s cooperation, might be endangered if the cost of wining/dining/flying/hosting/buying were significantly increased. When a con artist has a mark on the hook like this, getting too greedy about the mark would be a massive tactical error. Sucking in extras from side players is fair game though. And trying to kick the person who set up the con for you, since it is now so well placed that you don’t need to keep paying for the privilege, is standard, although dangerous if the waters get murky for some reason (like Oscar moving into January).

Thing is, like the element of the junket system that is about quote whoring – as there is legitimate business done at junkets that benefits both studios and the mostly TV outlets that attend junkets at studio expense – this is a broken, corrupt mess that is allowed to stand because it is seen to be of more service to the industry than trouble.

So who do we blame? The Whore or The John?

I say, you have to blame both. I am not going to rail on about Phil Berk or anyone else stealing cash out of wallets when the industry is not only soliciting his/HFPA’s favors, but is blithely stupid enough – or is it an intentional way of pretending to not have responsibility? – to leave its wallet on the desk while going into the bathroom to brush its teeth before the act being paid for begins?

Hollywood enables the HFPA and The Golden Globes year after year after year. Journalists go on radio and TV and write in print about how silly it all is… and then write some more about it, because, you know, it might sell a damned paper.

Really, we’re all sicker than HFPA is. They may be in denial about their high-priced whoredom… and I would estimate a slot in HFPA to be worth well over $100,000 a year in goods and services. But they know. They have to know. These are not stupid people. And moreover, they are political people. Political enough to get into and stay in HFPA, which has the best funded social welfare program for (mostly) non-productive journalists in the world.

You cannot talk to ANY of the industry professionals who do business with this organization without getting eyerolls and sighs or even outright rages about how wasteful and unpleasant the HFPA dog & pony show is. No one wants to do it. No one wants to pay for it. No one enjoys their interactions with the group.

YET… they line up to kiss the ring. They take the opportunity to promote. They take the opportunity to give parties that are much bigger than the proceedings themselves. (The invited population of the Beverly Hilton must quadruple within an hour of the end of the show… including me, who comes to the parties that are not HFPA’s, but the studios that I work with and, indeed, do business with.) And they don’t want to be left out… even if being “in” causes them to feel a certain urge to shower, especially when they have to convince talent that this is really important and they really shouldn’t tip the limo driver with the trophy.

See Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job… think about movies… pretty close, though the stakes are so much lower that (almost) everyone can sleep at night, comfortable that no one outside of The Club really knows how humiliating it all really is.

DP/30: Animal Kingdom, actor Jacki Weaver

Friday Estimates By Kato Klady

Sony will open The Green Hornet to a Underworld: Evolution type number. How core is the audience? Today and next weekend will tell.

The Dilemma‘s opening is not gay…. as in happy. Let’s just say, it’s no Bride Wars… but if it’s better than the ads make it look, maybe there are some legs to be stretched… but probably not. The movies that have done a big multiple from this kind of opening and this month tend to be kids films.

True Grit is cruising along, nearing $125m by the end of the weekend. Also, The King’s Speech finally went semi-wide to good effect, passing $40m this weekend. Black Swan, expanded to 2328 screens, will crack $70m this weekend and perhaps become the #3 grosser in Searchlight history (if not tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday). And The Fighter, the only film in this group to lose more than 30% from last Friday, will close in on $65m this weekend.

BYOB Weekend… The Green Hornet Dilemma

DP/30 Sneak Peek: Carla Gugino… Sex Bomb?

I talked to Carla, writer/director Richard Levine, and Helen Hunt about their new movie, Every Day. Here is one spot in which the conversation got goofy.

Ebert’s Life On The Televised Aisle Flashes Before Our Eyes In New Show Titles

DP/30 Sneak Peek: Jacki Weaver’s Next Move

Jacki Weaver is the 63-year-old actress who has been nominated and awarded all over the place for her role in Animal Kingdom. What director would she like to work with and what special skill does she bring to the party?

Favorite New Yorker Cover In A While…

Maybe this is why they released the first movie shot today… maybe not. But it’s funny and just mean enough to the musical without being unfair.

DP/30: Piper Perabo, Golden Globe nominee for Covert Affairs

EXCLUSIVE™: Andrew Garfield Depressed About Being Spider-Man

As you can see in this EXCLUSIVE photo that came EXCLUSIVELY to my inbox from Sony Publicity’s mailing list, Andrew isn’t happy. Turns out, the great guy, couldn’t be nicer, great actor thing is a scam. Things came to a head when he offered co-star Emma Stone a $600,000 Home Depot gift card to go to 2nd base, which she rejected (after her agent took his 10%) and explained angrily that Andrew didn’t understand Easy A and had Thomas Haden Church come to the Spidey set in a sandy sweater to beat Andrew up. Also, Sony is concerned about the tone of the film after Marc Webb started seeking script consultation from Alejandro González Iñárritu and decided to have Spider-Man stuck permanently to Mary Jane’s bedroom ceiling.

More as it breaks! Or we make more up to tellja! Whatever comes first!

(Don’t you hate it when a big movie doesn’t have a single element to root against?)

Precious Life, director Shlomi Eldar

From the Oscar documentary shortlist…

Sundancing

So… the awards season has a hot weekend to come. Friday night is LAFCA and BFCA. Sunday is HFPA’s event. And in between and before and after, parties galore.

Then, next Wed, off to Park City for 10 days of Sundance 2011: The Return. I return from the birth of my son. Kim Voynar returns from her illness, happy, healthy and remarried And Ray Pride continues to be Ray Pride, though in snow… photos and tweets and snark, oh my!

As a result of seeing movies, shooting early DP/30s, and still doing Oscar-centric DP/30s (at least 4 great ones to shoot before leaving town), and the dead air of January, I have been a little lax around here.

And if you don’t care about Sundance, the next few weeks will really suck for you.

There will be some bribes for the meat eaters in the meanwhile… a little Carla Gugino… a little Piper Perabo… a little something from Rough House Pictures…

I keep on thinking I should be doing something utterly cheesy on the Globes party circuit this weekend. Not sure what though… open to ideas…

Blood Libel aka Too Stupid/Too Arrogant/Too Dangerous

From Wikipedia – Blood libel (also blood accusation) refers to a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, in European contexts almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays. Historically, these claims have–alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration–been a major theme in European persecution of Jews.

In Jewish lore, blood libels were the impetus for the creation in the 16th century of the Golem of Prague by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel. Many popes have either directly or indirectly condemned the blood accusation, and no pope has ever sanctioned it.These libels have persisted among some segments of Christians to the present time.

You know, this is the game that is the problem. It’s not arguing over ideas. It’s the willingness to twist any fact to one’s advantage at any time. Now Sarah Palin will be defended for days because the liberal media is too picky, parsing her words. For days now, the liberal media has been guilty of being too worried about the big picture, not focusing enough on the detail. (As in, “There was no picture of Rep Giffords with a gun sight on it!!! How dare they accuse Palin of being guilty of using violent imagery!”

On the local right wing radio station here in LA, they are still running promos for one of their on-air personalities that talks about Obama ruining the country, that we need to fight to take back America, and how it’s almost too late. Serious end of days pitch, politically, not religiously. It’s a direct call to action and sounds exactly like a call for people to picket abortion clinics… the logical result of which has been the murder of doctors who perform the procedure. After all, if you really believe he’s a baby killer, he is a mass murderer, and killing one to save many is a natural outgrowth of the argument.

I understand feeling attacked and the relief that this lunatic in AZ wasn’t a Palin or McCain fanatic, but do they really have to be so busy defending themselves that they can’t see how the behavior means something, even if there is no direct cause and effect.

As for the Palin specifically, this is all like movie advertising… the audience will decide for itself. The media, left and right, is not what will define the ongoing future of this game show host of a politician. Will it be Dukakis in that tank, which turned off even liberals? We’ll see.

But there is a sickness when the argument over the rhetoric turns the rhetoric even uglier. It’s like the kids fighting about the will over their dying parent’s hospital bed, so enthusiastic in their selfishness that they don’t notice as they knock out the IV with one swing of the arm and the oxygen with the next.

DP/30: The Human Resources Manager, director Eran Riklis

The Israeli candidate for the Best Foreign Film Oscar this year.

Spammed

We’re trying to figure out why our normally skillful spam protection has had the crap beaten out of it in the last couple of days.

What really was fascinating, removing the 100 or so posts, was how many were hard to distinguish as spam. Just because someone doesn’t say much doesn’t mean they are a spambot. Moreover, just because they have a weird name doesn’t make them fake either.

Apologize for the clogged arteries as well as my I-want-my-damned-desktop-back limited posting.