The Hot Button by David Poland

Weekend, 9-10 January 1999

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. THE BATTLE FOR BOND: The last pre-game show is over. Sony cannot do anything about developing Bond, that is except to spread rumors about Sean Connery and Liam Neeson, until after they face off in court with MGM/UA. No more fighting for another three or four months when the trial begins. But one can almost hear Sony backing off as the buzz starts to hum more specifically around a Bond that is specifically a Thunderball sequel, the one film that courts have previously allowed a non-MGM/UA company (Warner Bros.) to make on the strength of Thunderball co-writer Kevin McClory's creative rights. That means we will definitely get one more Brosnan Bond before any other and if the Sony project ever does proceed, it is unlikely to hit theaters in this millennium.
9. MORE BONDING: So, who is the arch-villain of what is rounding into the oddest cast Bond movie since On Her Majesty's Secret Service? The Full Monty's Robert Carlyle. Huh? I mean, I like the guy as an actor, but a Bond villain? You know what? I shouldn't make fun of this because the bizarre choice of Michael Apted as director was the first domino here. And maybe this will be THE great Bond film since Connery quit. I kind of wish the action-free version of Star Trek: Insurrection made it out. And that the musical version of I'll Do Anything were here to see. Hollywood will froth at the mouth if the resulting numbers aren't strong and, God knows MGM/UA needs a hit, but let's all start wishing this weird Bond known as The World is Not Enough well. Maybe it will be something truly special.
8. MARCHING TO SUNDANCE: While I was telling you about some of the films that will be showing at Sundance, they added three more. Two of the three already have theatrical distribution lined up. One is Sony Pictures Classics' This is My Father, starring Aidan Quinn. The second is the cannibalism comedy from Fox 2000, Ravenous, starring Guy Pearce and new Bond villain Robert Carlyle. And the unconnected film is The Suburbans, an Amy Brenneman vehicle.
7. IT'S A SMALL WETLANDS AFTER ALL: Two days before the new year began, a judge in Los Angeles dismissed the last two suits designed to keep DreamWorks from building a studio In Playa Vista, Calif. The land in dispute is now known as the Ballona Wetlands, but DreamWorks won't actually be building on that site. They are building about a mile away. That hasn't kept Edward Asner, Joni Mitchell, Kenny Loggins and others from contributing to The Last Stand: The Struggle for Ballona Wetlands, a documentary about the environmental efforts. Ironically, the film debuts next Tuesday at the Museum of Tolerance here in L.A., whose greatest benefactor is, you guessed it, Steven Spielberg.
6. RETURN TO GLORY 1999: Last year, the film re-release to see was Orson Welles' somewhat reconstructed Touch of Evil. This year, it looks to be a Martin Scorsese-backed re-release of Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, a much discussed and rarely seen classic piece of genre filmmaking. Right now, the film is scheduled for art house runs in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. You'll be lucky if it reaches you, too.
5. TURN TV ON, TUNE QVC IN, TURN HOLLYWOOD SIGN OUT: The Hollywood Historic Trust is offering the chance to adopt a letter in the Hollywood sign for a year. The price tag: $100,000. What do you get for 100K? The right to use your letter in advertising! Thrilling. As though you can't do that now. As befits this cheesy promotion, the bidding for letters will be live on QVC, Jan. 22-23. And to think, it only cost Richard Gere $3,000 to get Julia Roberts off Hollywood Boulevard for a week.
4. A DILLER A DAY KEEPS THE BANKER AWAY: The plot thickens at Seagram's/Universal/PolyGram/Gramercy/October. After speculation this week that October Films and its staff was being shown the door at Universal, it turns out that the secret ingredient was who else but Barry Diller. Diller is looking to take October back into the world of real independence while Gramercy gets folded into Universal as their "art" arm. (That also explains why Bingham Ray was not returning calls this week from reporters who he talks to all the time. But someone, maybe Jeffrey Wells of Mr. Showbiz, got close enough for the parties involved to give the spun version of the story to the trades. My guess is that Universal's Chris McGurk coughed up the story, in which he is the only hero.) I'm betting that Diller gets October for one reason -- it is of absolutely no value to Universal. Not that the company isn't an excellent one, but its assets are worth little (U only paid $14 million for their stake in the first place) and with PolyGram being folded into the Big U, something's got to give. So, Universal "gives" October to Diller. In other Universal news, they just dumped a live-action Curious George from their greenlight list, once again avoiding a big-budget project. Disney is expected to pick the project up.
3. INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS, PART 1: Just when you thought you could pretend Velvet Goldmine never happened and you worried that you were the only one who saw A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, here comes the Independent Spirit Awards, where those films and two others (Oscar-nominee contenders Affliction and Gods and Monsters) compete for Best Picture. The race of Best Director is a bit more mainstream, nominating Wes Anderson for Rushmore; Todd Haynes for Velvet Goldmine, Paul Schrader for Affliction and Todd Solondz for Happiness. (Well, at least mainstream for indies.) Best Screenplay is also light on surprises, except for one. See if you can pick it out: Bill Condon for Gods and Monsters, David Mamet for The Spanish Prisoner, Frank Military for Blind Faith, Don Roos for The Opposite of Sex and Schrader for Affliction. Didn't know Frank Military's name, huh? Well, that's probably because Blind Faith is a Showtime-released movie that qualified after showing at various film festivals.
2. INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS, PART 2: I bet you can match these acting nominees with their films without my help: Christina Ricci, Ally Sheedy, Robin Tunney, Alfre Woodard, Dylan Baker, Ian McKellen, Nick Nolte (think small), Sean Penn (also small), Patricia Clarkson, Lisa Kudrow, Lynn Redgrave, James Coburn, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Murray. The surprises are Katrin Cartlidge in Claire Dolan (qualifying at the Toronto Film Festival), Blind Faith actors Courtney B. Vance and Charles S. Dutton, Stockard Channing in The Baby Dance (also for Showtime), Joely Richardson in Under Heaven (premiering at Sundance, apparently) and Gary Farmer for his turn in Miramax's much-overlooked Smoke Signals. One of the most unique elements of the Independent Spirit Awards are the awards for first timers. Best First Feature nominations go to Buffalo '66, High Art, The Opposite of Sex, and Slums of Beverly Hills. Three of those nominees are also nominated for the First Screenplay Award: from Darren Aronofsky, Smoke Signals from Sherman Alexie, High Art from Lisa Cholodenko, Slums of Beverly Hills from Tamara Jenkins and Niagara, Niagara from Matthew Weiss.
1. INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS, PART 3: Left without nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards were American History X, Next Stop, Wonderland, Two Girls and a Guy, Henry Fool, Your Friends and Neighbors and Men With Guns. The only one of these that may have run afoul of the nominating committee for reasons other than quality would be American History X, which not only had the psychotic behavior of Tony Kaye to deal with, but with an original official budget of $12 million, which magically fell to $8 million a few weeks after the junket. That would be when New Line realized that AHX had a much better shot at an Independent Spirit Award than at an Oscar.
READERS OF THE DAY: This one from Ken: "Sixth reason for the Saving Private Ryan backlash? According to SS, no black man ever fought in that war. Perhaps you could tell me if there was a color bar on the army in '40s America. [David note: Nope.] If there was I take it back, but I have never heard of one. Also, as you know, I am going to make movies. If I ever get to be as much of a self-promotional assh--- as Tony Kaye is right now (just how few films does he have under his belt?), please e-mail me quietly and tell me so BEFORE stringing me up in your column." [David note: Will do.]
Andrew sent this thought about the Mormon issue in: "As for Mormonism, racism is indeed an interesting angle -- why don't you ask John why blacks were officially excluded from the Mormon priesthood until the 1970s? Look it up..."
And Destin gets the last word on Star Trek: Insurrection and Movie Horror Stories: "Sometimes theater screw-ups can actually improve a film. My friends and I attended the awful Star Trek: Insurrection a couple of weeks ago, waiting for an extra half hour to go to the showing in the THX theatre. And a darn good thing, too! The aural popping and cracking we heard would've sounded REALLY bad without Surround Sound! Basically, the audio track was out of sync with the [film], and kept trying to compensate to keep up (my friend just graduated from film school, and he explained). As a result, the sound and [film] skipped. A lot. Had the movie been good, this might have been annoying. As it was, it produced unintended comic effects. See, when it skipped, lines would be spliced together. You know that horrible attempted catch-phrase from the commercials? Where Data goes, 'Saddle up. Lock and load.' It became, 'Saddle up. Lockload.' But the best, by far, was a line I can only assume was meant to be, 'We'll shove it down their throats.' In the version we saw, Commander Riker dropped the 'ove' from 'shove.' Fortunately, our group were the only people in the theater. Otherwise someone might have notified the proper people and we wouldn't have enjoyed the flick at all."

E ME: OK, you can offer up more horror stories. Any Independent Spirit worries or thrills? And do you care about the wetlands? At all? You can tell me! I'm David, your Internet buddy!