When a Stranger Calls

Not much time these last few days, so much I wanted to mention. To begin with, I have seen When A Stranger Calls. Complete review is coming later today. For now let me say I recommend it and this movie is exactly what is says it is; it's a taut, suspensful thriller and well worth the ride.

Awesome Article

Here is a terrific article from a publication called the Graphic with an interesting persepctive on the politics of movie making.

Hailed films cater to left

BRIAN CHATWIN
Staff Writer

After seeing George Clooney’s new sophist film “Good Night, and Good Luck,” I decided to take a page out of the Hollywood playbook and use my own media forum to describe the problems with the Hollywood left. Clooney repeatedly hit me over the head with his pro-liberal media – anti conservative government mallet, so now I’m irritated.

It doesn’t bother me that Hollywood, for the most part, is uber-liberal. This country is made better by having two sides to the political argument. What grates on my nerves is that Hollywood chooses to use its monopolistic industry to bombard me with their political views. I resent it. Not because they have different views, but because the movies are so bad.

Some say that I can always abstain from going to the movies if I don’t want to see a ridiculous film such as “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Well, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. Just recently, Hollywood bemoaned that the quarterly box office receipts hit another all time low. This is having serious implications. In the upcoming film “The Di Vinci Code,” Tom Hanks reportedly took a 40 percent pay cut. Because the terribly made leftist films cater to the Blue States, the economics of the industry are changing.

The public is responding with their political feet, and Hollywood is paying the price. “Brokeback Mountain” is an excellent example of this problem. “Brokeback Mountain,” with all its media accolades, has just cracked the $50 million mark. While this is indeed a lot of money to you and me, by Hollywood standards, it is a failure.

This leads me to wonder why this box-office flop would receive such glowing endorsements from supposedly reputable news sources. The New York Times, calls the film “landmark,” the New York Post calls it “one of the best serious films …” I call these reviews pandering. Clearly, the propaganda behind the alleged success of this movie is a product of the Hollywood machine.

Predictably, “Brokeback Mountain” won the Golden Globe for Best Picture and was nominated for eight Acedemy Awards. That seemed odd to me. There were several good films this year, “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “Cinderella Man,” and “Munich.” Interestingly enough, none of these films was even nominated for the award.

Michael Medved, film critic and radio talk show host, recently gave a speech at an event I attended. In his speech, Medved claimed that in a recent survey, the four main studio heads chose not too see Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” Apparently they decided that it was not important to see a movie that made $370 million. It didn’t interest them. It didn’t conform to their moral views. I guess they know how I feel.

The problem these studio execs have on their hands is that the public is more interested in conservative, morally uplifting films that have religious undertones. The Chronicles of Narnia’s $277 million dollar box office receipts, and references to “Sons of Adam, and Daughters of Eve,” should tell them that. But they don’t understand that about the public, and I don’t think they will.

In the meantime, we all have to endure the endless commercials for liberally polemic films like Syriana, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night And Good Luck, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Jarhead, etc. The list is endless and none of them are good.

Help is on the horizon. As the old guard of Hollywood grays, and we begin to think of Clooney as “washed up,” the economics of the entertainment industry will drive Hollywood to produce films that conform to the public, not pander to the left.

News From Lionsgate

What follows is a press release from Lionsgate studios. The studio, famous of late for making big money from low-budget horror flicks like Saw and for backing Eli Roth's Hostel, is announcing a new slate of action flicks that seem to be a bit underwhelming. Though I will say that Right At Your Door could be intriguing as it is a first effort at both writing and directing for Chris Gorak. First efforts can be exciting, you never know when one of these guys will turn out to be a major talent. Gorak's film was screened at Sundance though I have yet to hear a critical opinion of it. The Jet LI offering might be decent, I thought Unleashed was one of the most underrated movies of last year.

Here is the Lionsgate press release:

LIONSGATE BACKS
LUCY LIU HEIST “DEVIL TO PAY,”
STRENGTHENING MUSCULAR BERLIN SLATE

SANTA MONICA, CA, and VANCOUVER, BC, January 30, 2006 – Lionsgate (NYSE and TSX:LGF) has acquired worldwide rights, excluding North America, to the gripping heist thriller DEVIL TO PAY, starring female action superstar Lucy Liu, it was announced today by Nick Meyer, President of Lionsgate International. This acquisition represents the latest in Lionsgate’s rapidly expanding slate of high-octane action thrillers that will kick off at the European Film Market in Berlin.
The acquisition originated from and will be produced by Echo Lake Productions’ Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding, as well as Intellectual Properties Worldwide’s (IPW) J. Todd Harris and Marc Toberoff, who is set to executive produce. The thriller, penned by Michael Gilvary, begins principal photography in May.
“We are delighted to be working with Lucy Liu on this original, action-packed thriller. Lucy’s charisma dazzled audiences in her CHARLIE’S ANGELS films and we feel confident that, with our friends at Echo Lake Productions and IPW producing, DEVIL TO PAY will showcase her at her most irresistible,” said Meyer.
Lionsgate Films International will also introduce Berlin buyers to its other recent acquisitions: the Sundance Film Festival dirty bomb thriller RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR; the highly anticipated pairing of internationally acclaimed action star Jet Li and Jason Statham in ROGUE; and the adrenaline-fueled action thriller CRANK, also starring Statham and currently in post-production. The company’s Berlin slate also includes the WWI action drama FLYBOYS starring Jean Reno and James Franco, and the acclaimed music documentary LEONARD COHEN I'M YOUR MAN, which debuts internationally in the Panorama section at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The deal was negotiated on behalf of Lionsgate by Meyer, Stephanie Denton, President of International Film Sales, and Wendy Jaffe, Senior Vice President Business and Legal Affairs, Acquisitions, and by Echo Lake’s Andrew Spaulding and attorney Howard Frumes of Alexander, Nau, Lawrence, Frumes and Labowitz.
DEVIL TO PAY features Jill Krause (Liu) as a mild-mannered divorcee who works hard to juggle her role as a single parent and loyal bank employee. Her routine world is suddenly shattered when a mysterious man forces her to rob the bank in which she works, and Jill must transform herself from demure bank clerk to resourceful bank robber.
Liu’s upcoming projects include starring in LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN opposite Josh Hartnett and Morgan Freeman for The Weinstein Company, and New Line’s THE CLEANER with Cedric the Entertainer.
Echo Lake Productions’ current slate also includes: the 2005 Toronto Film Festival opening film WATER (to be released in April by Fox Searchlight); TWELVE AND HOLDING (to be released in June by IFC), and DREAMLAND which recently debuted at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. In addition, Mankoff served as executive producer on TSOTSI, the 2006 Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film (to be released in March by Miramax).
IPW recently produced Brendan Gleeson starrer BLACK IRISH and THE LEGEND OF LUCY KEYES starring Julie Delpy. The company is currently preparing a remake of PIRANHA with Chuck Russell directing for The Weinstein Company and Wild Bunch, and developing SKYPORT at Warner Bros. and MY BODYGUARD at Disney.
Gilvary, who also serves as a co-producer on the film, just finished work on Intermedia’s SLEEPERWALKER for producer Mark Johnson, penned GRETA with Whitewater Films, slated for a summer production, and is currently writing a project for Morgan Freeman’s Revelations Entertainment.
Lionsgate is the premier independent producer and distributor of motion pictures, television programming, home entertainment, family entertainment and video-on-demand content. Its prestigious and prolific library is a valuable source of recurring revenue and a foundation for the growth of the Company’s core businesses. The Lionsgate brand is synonymous with original, daring, quality entertainment in markets around the globe.
www.lionsgate.com
* * * * *
For further information, contact:
Alyson Dewar
PR WORKS
323 936 8394

Brokeback Snack Bar

Brokeback Snack Bar

The scene in the movie theater lobby resembled something from Platoon. The soft moans of exhausted and often injured theater employees echoed through the room. It was a heart wrenching scene and each of these employees had their own horrific story to tell.

I stood next to the theater owner here in downtown Chicago, having come from the East Coast to cover this story. We stood in somber silence for a few minutes taking in the view, neither of us able to find words fitting for this tragedy. I knew it was going to be bad but this was worse than anything I could have imagined.

Earl Newton, the theater owner, began to speak but stopped abruptly, caught in the middle of a coughing jag. My eyes were watering and I had a coughing fit of my own. The source of the irritation was a nearby popcorn machine spewing black smoke through the building.

“See that girl over there?” he said, pointing to a blond haired girl of about eighteen. She was sitting in a wheelchair with her face buried in her hands, sobbing softly. “The docs say she may never walk again. That kid over there, he’s a college freshman and lost an eye just last week.”

“It’s all my fault,” he said, looking at his feet and closing his eyes. I was supposed to be objective, supposed to just report the story, but I found it impossible in the face of this human suffering. I put my arm around him and told him not to blame himself.

A noise behind me caused me to jump and as I turned I saw a kid, no more than 17, crumble to the ground.

“It was me that started this,” Newton told me. “The kids are calling it Brokeback Snack Bar, their angry and making accusations, but I know the truth. They might as well call it Earl’s Snack Bar Fiasco. I hate that I hurt these kids.”

I left Earl there and wandered amid the rubble, walked around the smoking popcorn machine and sputtering, badly damaged soda dispenser. I made up my mind to interview all of these kids that I could, to tell their side of the story before it was too late. I wanted to confirm the accusations they’ve made and hoped to God I could convince Earl Newton he couldn’t have caused all of this devastation.

I approached the girl in wheelchair, knelt down beside her and swept some of the debris from her shoulder. She looked up at me then, Mascara running down her cheeks, and said,”It’s Earls fault!”

She wiped her eyes and continued, “He’s the idiot that told Ebert about the free refills on gigantic sized snacks and beverages….” Her voice trailed off and her eyes glazed over. Looking blankly into the distance she began to ramble. “I wasn’t on popcorn duty that night. I thought I had it easy. But the soda…my God the soda. I changed the Diet Pepsi canister 5 times and he kept coming. I carried 10 gallons of soda into the theater for him, that lazy Ropert just watched. But he kept coming. I was changing the canister again, Ebert came out of the theater screaming he was thirsty, popcorn was flying out of his mouth. He reached into his pocket and threw a stale doughnut at me. I tried to hurry, I grabbed 4 more buckets of soda and tried to carry them for him. Then I heard my spine snap…”

The stories were all similar and just as tragic. The trouble started the day Mr. Newton told uber-liberal movie critic Roger Ebert that he was entitled to free refills on gigantic sizes.

“We were setting up our tenth popcorn machine, they kept overheating, they just can’t keep up,” said Fred Miller, a high school senior with a bloody bandage on his leg and black eye. “So Ebert comes running out of the theater with this empty bucket, it’s been filled up so many times the bottom is worn out. Anyway, some of his popcorn leaked out and he’s furious. I’m trying desperately to get the new popcorn machine running and I see him coming….I just couldn’t get it done. He rammed the machine like a linebacker and, as he was falling, he was swinging his fists at me. The popcorn machine fell on top of me and Ebert, thank God, fell to the side. I’m lucky all I got was a broken leg, I could’ve been killed.”

Another young woman recounted the time she asked if Ebert thought he had enough food. He called her a fataphobe and hurled juju bees at her face. As a result she lost her left eye.

“I guess I’m one of the lucky ones. Some of my co-workers are worse off than me. I heard that even Ropert lost his index finger when he forget where he was and reached for the popcorn,” she said. “Ropert isn’t even his real name, “she whispered. “It’s Ebert little inside joke that Ropert is French for Whopper. Ebert wanted the show to be called Ebert and Whopper.”

This is just one of the accusations being tossed out by veteran theater employees, many of them shouted in anger from rehab clinics and hospital beds. Other Brokeback Snack Bar veterans claim Ebert couldn’t possibly watch every minute of a movie before he reviews it since he’s back at the snack bar every ten minutes. There are also rumors that it’s not possible for him to even see the screen over the mound of blown-out popcorn buckets and empty diet soda jugs.

“I mean, come on,” one worker who remained anonymous told me, “Last week he gave four stars to a foreign movie about the societal bias against gay Tibetan field mice. I’ve seen the man eat field mice.”

Aside from the injuries and emotional scarring, there’s been some economic fall out. “We had to close one whole theater whenever he comes in,” Newton said. “People were running out of there, covered in popcorn debris, tripping over vats of soda. Everytime he emptied the popcorn bucket he roared like a dinosaur, nobody could hear the movie. He was flinging his empty buckets and vats all over the place, hitting people. We have rats, mice, cats and birds in the theater now! We never had that problem before. They gather around his feet to eat what falls off of him. Lucky for those animals he can’t see his feet…God if someone ever told him there was food around his feet…”he said, shaking and turning pale.

In response the city of Chicago has done everything in its power to meet the demands of this crisis. Chicago Memorial Hospital has setup a triage unit to care for wounded employees and a local psychologist has been on hand to counsel those employees suffering from post-traumatic stress. This reporter tried, to no avail, to get a statement from the triage nurse who treated Roper (Whopper) for the injuries he sustained when Ebert bit off his finger.

For now it’s time for me to put down the pen and help. There’s only so much suffering one man can witness while sitting idly by and reporting on it. It’s time for me to roll up my sleeves, wade through the puddle of soda oozing from the over burdened Diet Pepsi machine, carefully make my way around the many worn out popcorn machines, and see if I can help these brave doctors and nurses tend to the wounded. I can barely see through the smoke of the latest popcorn machine, now fully engulfed in flames, but I must help. Luckily Ebert is currently watching a special screening of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory so there’s time to evacuate the wounded and dead.

“We play that movie to sooth him, “ Newton said. “When we can’t take anymore or we run out of healthy people at the snack bar we start it. He just sits there and drools at it for 2 hours while we treat the injured.”

Someone pray for these people. And pray the Chocolate Factory reel never snaps while these poor kids are in-country.

Dear Lord Why?????

Aside from reminding me that there once was an "actor" named Hugh Grant, who skilfully plays the same person in every film, this little bit of news also made me want to vomit. Oh yeah, it also sounds a whole lot like the 1982 movie "Best Friends" starring Goldie Hawn and Burt Reynolds. In that romantic comedy Hawn and Reynolds were screenwriters and not songwriters, the rest is the same.

Actress Drew Barrymore is set to play Hugh Grant's latest love interest in a romantic comedy from Two Weeks Notice writer and director Marc Lawrence. In the film, titled Music And Lyrics By, the duo will play songwriters who fall in love while collaborating on a music project. Shooting starts at the end of March in New York City. Barrymore's company, Flower Films, will also executive produce the romantic comedy. Lawrence made his feature directing debut with Grant and Sandra Bullock on Two Weeks Notice.

Directors and Arrogance

Here, in part, is why Steven Spielberg wins the Pompous Ass of the Week Award. What follows is a partial transcript taken from the Directors Roundtable I wrote about the other day.

It's nice to get a capsule like this, it's sort of like 1/2 the words of regular Spielberg, but all the idiocy. And again, until reviewers start taking into account a film makers political agendas, they aren't giving full or truthful reviews. Here's why:


Steven Spielberg believes politically charged movies have become Increasingly popular during George W. Bush's presidency, because film-makers are keen to distance themselves from his policies. The director is currently courting controversy with his Oscar-nominated film Munich - which focuses on the aftermath of terrorist action at the 1972 Olympic Games - and feels the Republican administration is not representing his interests. He says, "Maybe I shouldn't get into this. I just feel that filmmakers are much more proactive since the second Bush administration. I think that everybody is trying to declare their independence and state their case for the things that we believe in. No one is really representing us, so we're now representing our own feelings, and we're trying to strike back.

Worst and Perhaps Dumbest Career Move

After much thought and debate, I have decided that the actor who made most ridiculous and dumbest career move in my lifetime was.....Timothy Dalton.

After the successful License to Kill movie in 1989, Dalton walked away from the franchise telling producers and the press that he was afraid of getting typecast. Typecast as what? One of the most recognizable and lucrative names in movie history? Typecast as James Bond? Yeah, being portrayed as a suave, handsome action star is a real career killer. And what cinematic masterpiece did the empty-headed Dalton choose as a vehicle for his new and versatile career?

Beautician and the Beast with Fran Drescher. You just can't make this stuff up. Hmmm, make a third movie in the most sequeled franchise ever, or make a cheezy comedy with the screechy and perpetually annoying Fran Drescher. Tough call.

And who, exactly, has had their careers derailed by playing JAmes Bond for too long? Sean Connery? Nope. Roger Moore? Nope. You could make the case that Moore was never really seen again, but in fairness he was pretty old when he left the franchise and had a decent career before it. He was of an age where new films were going to be hard to come by anyway. How about Pierce Brosnan? Well, he made 3 films while he was James Bond and IMDB lists him as having 5 in various stages of production.

So Mr. Dalton gave up his Bond career in favor of....pretty much nothing. The man had charisma and undeniable presence, he could have been something, but no. Of course his achilees heel with Bond fans of the time was his sort of over-dramatic approach to the character. The usual dry wit that made Bond what he was for many fans was sorely lacking while Dalton portrayed him. Bond becamse something a little darker as in the new Batman mold. I found it refreshing and am in the minority when I say I liked Dalton as Bond. He certainly could have continued on in other roles.

Hats off Mr. Dalton, for winning the first annual MovieMojo "I killed my career" award.