The Hot Button by David Poland

Friday, 29 August 1997

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS
10. FRANK IS DEAD: Did you know that if you play Marilyn Manson's album backwards, you realize that he just recorded "Wee Small Hours of The Morning" backwards? I'm still laughing about Sinatra's last words, "I'm losing it." How can you die any cooler?
9. WHERE'S THE CAST OF WHERE'S WALDO?: It's becoming trendy to reconstruct groups of actors and then hide them in your movies. Currently, "The Simpsons" trio of Nancy Cartwright (Bart), Harry Shearer (tons of people), Hank Azaria (even more people) appear in Godzilla. It was Dean Devlin's idea. All three work for the same news station. Devlin wanted to configure a shot where all three would be seen together, but director Roland Emmerich finally had to tell him it was a Godzilla movie and not a "The Simpsons" tribute. Now, news from DreamWorks is that the Spinal Tap trio of Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean will provide voices for the Gorgonites, the other side in the war the Small Soldiers feel compelled to fight. Maybe the trend is Shearer, who appears in Godzilla, Small Soldiers and The Truman Show, a trifecta that should make him the highest-grossing featured actor of this summer.
8. BLUE DALKON SHIELD: The trade association for pornography workers, The Free Speech Coalition, has signed on with Maxicare for group health insurance for about 500 industry actors and technicians. A spokesman for Maxicare said the agreement to insure the group was "not an endorsement." He then was imagined to say, "And pass the tequila and condoms! I'm doing a pelvic on Jenna Jameson!"
7. PROBLEMS WITH BOOKINGS: Congress held a testimony party this week, and former movie star Michael J. Fox was the best they could do. The hearings were yet another celebrity meet-and-greet, this time on the horrors of paparazzi stalking. Fox and Paul Reiser were the stars, which brings this to mind. "Who the hell is stalking those two?!?!?!" Well, in truth, both had significant attention by the tabs due to their newborns. Neither did a Baldwin on photographers, but it's hard to make a really good case when the ultimate camera magnet, Madonna, is selling her baby's photos to magazines for six-figures a pop. As the ubiquitous Jennifer Love Hewitt recently told me (and I paraphrase), "We ask everyone to watch us and to love us every week on TV, and then turn them away when they give us love that seems wrong."
6. BONDING: The fight over Bond continues. This week, MGM/UA tried to get a judge to stop Sony from developing a James Bond screenplay. Seems a bit over the edge to me, First Amendment and all. But the war at home isn't going so well for MGM/UA either. Tomorrow Never Dies took the top spot in the video rental charts last week, but spent $5 million to do it, including a "Seinfeld" finalé spot. No. 1 may be No. 1, but the $4.06 million in rentals for the week is the weakest No. 1 showing in months.
5. IT'S AN UNNATURALLY SMALL WORLD: Disney is probably doing the best job of synergizing their movie studio/theme park/broadcast TV network/cable nets/brainwashing/recording company/book publishing businesses of any of the mega-media groups. (Did I write brainwashing? Must be my Time-Warner traning.) However, ABC is starting to drag them down. Wall Street analysts frowned in the general direction of the company last week based on the continued poor ratings for the alphabet web. No surprise then that M-I-C, H-A-E-L Eisner announced he has determined that ABC was a likely second-place finisher in the 1998-99 ratings race. After all, "Fantasy Island" is back on Saturdays! In this version, Tattoo is played by Tommy Lee and he screams, "The stock! The stock!"
4. O.D. OF THE WEEK: You know, with Sinatra dying and everything, young Hollywood stars seemed to be monitoring their drug intake a little more carefully. I mean, it's been weeks since a good drug-related jail sentencing. (Oops! Tommy Lee is heading to the pokie for smacking Pam and the kids. Don't know if drugs were involved, but the odds seem pretty good, no?) So, Charlie Sheen is found in his Malibu home suffering, they thought, a stroke. That sounded a lot like a heroin situation without the foaming at the mouth. But, the description of his complaint on admittance was "tingling in his hands and trouble walking" and later, Martin Sheen called it an O.D. that was made worse by liquor. Dr. Dave's final guess: speed or crack. Good to know that Charlie's staying off the hard stuff. (That would be a joke. Remember kids: Don't Do Dumb.) Sheen is now stable. Medically.
3. I'M THE PSYCHO OF THE WORLD!: Leo (do I even need to identify him as DiCaprio?) has chosen to make the feature film version of American Psycho, ballooning the $5 million budget of the film to more than $40 million. It is a daring choice, and it will certainly be controversial. My problem with the book, personally, was that it wasn't clever enough to be worthy of the horrifying conceit of having an anti-hero who is so culturally obsessed that murder, rape and torture seem like just another part of living in the big city. If you saw David Croenenberg's Crash, think of a story equally perverse, but without the redeeming feature of the characters acting because they are so damaged themselves. Which brings up a thought. The only two directors who would make me believe that this movie can be done right are Croenenberg and, much as I hate to admit it, Atom Egoyan. Something about Canadians and death. Odd.
2. THE EDGAR WATCH: The saga of our favorite Canadian continues as E. Bronfman Jr. grabbed 75 percent of PolyGram for $10.5 billion. In order to pay the juice on the purchase, Seagrams will sell their juice -- the Tropicana fruit juice subsidiary. So much for the screwdrivers. Meanwhile, the sharks are lining up to buy PolyGram's movie assets. Unfortunately, the segments of the company that other companies value are their European distribution arm and their library. European distributor UIP (United International Pictures), of which Universal is a partner, is already the subject of anti-monopolistic break-up talk, so adding PolyGram's distribution arm to the U is unlikely. But with the value of film libraries continuing to grow, why would Universal sell PolyGram's library? Money. Estimates range just over $1 billion for selling off the full PolyGram film division. Add a juice sale and Universal parent Seagrams' overall cash picture is significantly better. But still the question, is Edgar serious about movies or is Barry Diller or Brain Grazer taking over?
1. HE WALKS AMONGST US: The Big Lizard is here, and his footprint is large. Reviews are mixed, both from critics and from viewers, but most of the people who seem to hate it seem to be predestined to hate it. The most popular complaints are about the redesign of Godzilla. There is another popular area of complaint, but to tell it to you would be to reveal too much, so I'll wait until next week to discuss any of those. All I can tell you is that I've seen the film with an audience twice and both time there were cheers and applause throughout the movie. I'm writing this on Friday and so far, Godzilla roared to a very strong (better than Lost World or Mission: Impossible) $4.1 million Tuesday preview. Wednesday's $8.4 million take has been called record-breaking, but frankly, I don't know which record it won. (Probably a May weekday record. Seems like there would have to be better mid-summer Wednesdays.) Thursday's number dropped to "just" $6 million, bringing the total going into the 4-day weekend to $18.5 million. But the $100 million mark is still well within sight and $120 million is not out of the question.
SCHEDULING NOTE: The next The Hot Button will appear on Tuesday. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend. And remember, even though the weekly is doing a double issue next week, the Daily will be here for you all week.
READER OF THE DAY: The Hot Button regular Krillian sent in his list of 63 problems with Godzilla. Click here to read the list. (WARNING: spoilers.) And e-mail me to add on. The truth is that most of the mail this week has been pretty much pro-Godzilla. I'll post some of it in Dave's Green Room. But Krillian's list is lots 'o fun. Take a look.

E ME: Still looking for Godzilla reviews. And for anyone who was due a Box Office Challenge prize but hasn't received it. And adds to Krillian's list. And any suggestions for directors who could make Leo's American Psycho work. Or anything else. E-mail is fun!