The Hot Button by David Poland

Weekend, 20 June 1998

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS
10. AFI 100 FIN: Lists are a bitch. Can't please all of the people all of the time. Can't please me most of the time. But, however misguided in its selections, however blatantly commercial, however AFI, the list will, I hope, promote the viewing of films that most people have heard about but weren't motivated to actually rent and see. Movies. Gotta love 'em.
9. TRU SUE: Mark Dunn sued everyone involved with The Truman Show for copyright infringement. He says they stole the idea and substantial specifics from an Off-Off-Broadway play he wrote. He wants $200 million. Besides the many other places where similar ideas have been bred and the singular honor of Peter Weir, Dunn missed one factor. Paramount has a lot better people to screw than him. They could have bought the play for $10,000 and made this guy disappear if they really had paid any attention to his play. The only way he could win this suit is if he were living in The Mark Dunn Show.
8. STUDIOS REPORT: John Krier, the founder of box-office numbers house Exhibitor Relations Co., died last Saturday at the ripe old age of 89. On Sunday, Paramount reported Krier as "having a cold," while Miramax developed an Oscar campaign around his passing. Fox suggested it was actually an alien abduction related somehow to The X-Files opening. Premiere ran a flash edition suggesting that Krier died in a sexual tryst with New Line executives, quoting "an unnamed mortuary worker." And Universal chief Edgar Bronfman Jr. said the coroner's office was "stupid" for suggesting that Krier has actually died and that Krier was not only alive, but he was actually 45-years-old again. Sony's Godzillas sent empathetic condolences, and Warner Bros. executives were overheard mumbling, "There but for the grace of a decent opening by The Avengers go I."
7. FESTIVE FESTIVALS: In Russia, organizers of the the Sochi International Film Festival banned the jury from appearing at the award ceremony. Why? Because they wouldn't give a grand prize, saying no film was worthy. Actual integrity in the arts?! Better re-hang the Iron Curtain before it spreads. Meanwhile the Seattle International Film Festival coughed up awards to God Said Ha!, Gods and Monsters, Wilde, Buffalo 66 and The Opposite of Sex. In other words, a batch of films that will barely find an audience beyond the Coffee Curtain. (I do want to see all five films, though.)
6. I LOVE THE DUQUE: He's not exactly John Wayne, but I'm a Yankees fan (I can just hear thousands of Red Sox fans unbookmarking me), so he's a hero to me. I'm talking about Yankees pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, a man who escaped Cuba on a raft just four months ago, almost dying in the process, and who is now 2-0 with a 1.52 ERA after three big league starts. (For the non-baseball fans, that's pretty incredible.) Sounds like a movie to me! And not just a little movie. CAA has attached Cuba Gooding Jr. to play the pitcher and Antonio Banderas to play his agent. So, as a supporter of Hollywood, I'll have to root for the Yanks to win the World Series with Hernandez pitching a perfect game four. The price of my work. Sigh.
5. THE AGONY OF DA FILM: There was a cyber-conference this week in L.A. and, once again, the scary idea of re-animating dead movie stars for fun and profit reared its ugly head. One loony offered, "The moment of death should not be the end of an actor's career." Oh. That loony just happens to represent the estates of Marlene Dietrich and Humphrey Bogart amongst others. Oh, the humanity!
4. WE PLEAD NOT GUILTY: Recently, Michael Laudor sold the movie rights to his still unwritten autobiography to Imagine Entertainment for a reported $1.5 million. His story was that of a lawyer who had to overcome schizophrenia to do his job, and the story was interesting enough to attract Brad Pitt to the role-to-be. He sold too early. On Thursday, he was arraigned on charges of stabbing his pregnant girlfriend to death. Now, if his lawyer could successfully defend his lunatic murderer personality against the charges, someone would be sure of winning an Academy Award.
3. TAKE THAT DATE AND SHOVE IT!: Harvey Weinstein said last week that MGM had better move their horror film Disturbing Behavior out of the way of the self-predicted H2O (the Halloween sequel) juggernaut. This week, MGM did. Up two weeks to July 22. The move will probably work for both pictures. DB will be counterprogramming against There's Something About Mary, The Mask of Zorro and Saving Private Ryan, expected to be three of the top grossing summer films. (Talk about a car wreck. A reader sent in a stat that there have been only five weekends ever with two $20 million films. The second week of Zorro, a film I think will have great word-of-mouth and strong legs combined with the opening of Saving Private Ryan could be the sixth weekend to turn that double play.) H2O, based on Weinstein's choice to move to August, is meant as a smaller, longer-running release, so being the second major teen horror movie since Scream 2 shouldn't hurt. Weinstein really believes in his film.
2. SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE RACISTS: Bruce Willis decided to stick up for Louis Farrakhan in his Armageddon promo article in July's George magazine. You'd think the Anti-Defamation League thought the world was going to end. Willis said, "A lot of people feel Louis Farrakhan stands for a lot of negative things, but he is raising his voice against inequality. Anybody who stands up against injustice is a hero of mine." And, "I'll tell you something, if I were black, I'd be with Farrakhan, too." The ADL responded that Farrakhan's "attitudes are not simply diversions from an otherwise positive program of standing up against injustices, but they are an integral part of a policy of hate, division and separation which lays at the very heart of Farrakhan's ideology." What do I think? I think Willis was sincere and meant to be supportive of what he thinks about the Farrakhan movement that makes sense. But I also think that Farrakhan, the ADL, whites, blacks, hispanics and every other group that sees themselves as victims (and every group does) looks to create enemies to help their group bond. Resistance = Unity. The Cold War, the tension in the Middle East, Nazi Germany and calling kids in the playground "fat" or "ugly," simplified to the extreme, all come down to that. Why can't we all just get along? Because it would require a lot more work for each of us.
1. TOMORROWLAND TODAY: The vice-like grip of Disney on the 'Net is getting even tighter. Up until now, besides the highly popular and financially successful Disney site, it was "just" ABCnews.com, Mr. Showbiz, E! Online, ESPNet and a few other Starwave sites that were Mouse-owned-and-operated. Their "merger" with Infoseek could be the glue to Disney's New Net Order. Disney gets 43 percent of Infoseek in exchange for Starwave and $70 million, which is estimated to add up to an effective cost of $370 million. As part of the deal, Disney has "agreed" to spend $165 million in promotion, but given that Disney can take a 51 percent stake in Infoseek within three years, that figure may end up being low. Disney will now be able to use the No. 3 search engine (according to traffic numbers this week) to hub the top family site (Disney), the top sports site (ESPNet), what should become the top entertainment site in terms of traffic (E! Online) and a network news site (ABCnews.com). It's a small world after all.
READER OF THE DAY: Krillian writes: "A great date movie is one we both like that makes my wife want to snuggle with me, be it Titanic or Armageddon. If we go to a first-run night show it's $6.50 each, and another $5 or so for the babysitter when we get back. So $18. If we get food or drink (which we usually sneak in) but if we get food or drink there, it's another $5. So, OK, if I'm paying almost $25 when I could rent a video for $2, Movie Studios, your movies had better be dang good."

E ME: I like this one. What's your idea of a great date movie? Write or (be) wrong. (And, also, it is philies or philes?)