Tuesday, 6 April 1999

NO NEWS IS NO NEWS: As I've been whining for a couple of weeks, there's not too much news in this here city these days. I've been reduced to talking about movies in pre-production. (Good for AICN, but not my thing.) Anyway, I found a good, a bad and an ugly among these flicks today. First, The Good is another movie about an old movie being made. In Shadow of the Vampire, Willem Dafoe will play Max Schreck, who played the title role in 1922's Nosferatu for F.W. Murnau. If anyone was ever born to play a vampire on-screen, it was Dafoe. The Bad is a project that Pulp Fiction producer Lawrence Bender just bought (and maybe his ugly is that he will forever, it seems, be called "the producer of Pulp Fiction" in all media). The project is untitled, but it's about a woman who pretends to be the mother of two kids to impress a man. The reason it's untitled is that it was probably called Big Mama, and therefore it smells like a rip-off of Adam Sandler in Big Daddy even before that film hits screens. The Ugly is a spec sale to a producer (now, that's news!) called 47 Dead Bodies, described in Variety as a dark comedy that tells "the story of how a forgotten anniversary leads to the accidental death of 47 people." I can think of almost nothing less funny. Except maybe a pantomime comedy in a concentration camp. Oh. Maybe these guys will win an Academy Award themselves.

THE PLAYBOY'S ADVOCATE: I think that Charlize Theron is not only beautiful, but she can act. I even thought she made Mighty Joe Young work. But if you take your clothes off for the camera and sign a release, let's not have all the drama when the photos turn up after you've become a star. Besides, it seems like you've been naked at some point or another in every movie that doesn't have a giant monkey in it. I haven't seen the Charlize issue of Playboy and I'm unlikely to little more than thumb through it at the newsstand (the story about Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo's "secret romance" is actually more of a draw for me than old nudes of an actress we've all seen nude before), but it seems like much ado about nothing.

IT MUST BE JELLY BECAUSE LIPS DON'T MOVE LIKE THAT: I saw an "Access Hollywood" story on Alicia Silverstone on the set of the Shakespeare/Ken Branagh (they always share credits) musical, Love's Labour's Lost. The hardest working mouth in show business mouthing both Shakespearean language and a Brit accent? The horror, the horror. You know, I really hope it turns out that she's great. I have to give her some points for having the guts to take chances, but it does get a little goofy watching from the sidelines sometimes.

CAMILLE FILLS THE COLUMN: I've been ticked off at Salon magazine for becoming a biased rag for The White House for over a year. But I have snuck in over there a number of times to check out Camile Paglia, who, I always find fascinatingly surprising. Her column, Ask Camille, gives her a chance to spout off in response to all kinds of questions. Even ones about movies. Here is a snippet from a particularly tough and funny question and answer:

"Dear Camille: I completely agree with your dismay over Gwyneth Paltrow's winning best actress. First Mira (Sorvino), now Gwyneth. Jesus, if all it takes is parents in the biz to win an Oscar®, is Tori Spelling next? As your disgust with Paltrow is well-established, do you have an opinion on Rose McGowan, the busty, black-haired bad girl who stars in Jawbreaker? She was born on an Italian sex commune, so perhaps that's where she got her lethal persona. Her jaw-dropping measurements leave stick-figure Paltrow in the dust. Speaking of whom, what was she thinking on Oscar night with that dress? She looked like a 10-year-old dressing up in Mommy's clothes. Didn't anyone tell her that you need boobs to fill out a low-cut dress?

"I saw McGowan in Devil's Child, an HBO trash-flick where she was a teenage slut who stabbed people. [Editor's note: This is a factual error on the film's title. The correct title is Devil in the Flesh] All hail the Lolita femme fatale! I'm less than enthusiastic about Marilyn Manson, her gender-bending fiancé, but who cares what guy is on the arm of a foxy babe like her? Along with bad girl Christina Ricci, might McGowan's tempestuous Irish-American persona bring in a new generation of voluptuous brunets to kick the flat asses of WASPy first-graders Gwyneth P. and Helen Hunt? I'd love to see Rose do a Liz Taylor on Gwyneth's Debbie Reynolds! Lilli"

And Camille's response:

"Dear Lilli: Thanks for your terrific letter! Yes, showbiz nepotism and clannishness have distorted Academy Awards voting in the acting category twice in recent years. Neither Mira Sorvino nor Gwyneth Paltrow deserved Oscars for their respective performances. The artistic stature of the Academy Awards has certainly been diminished. Last weekend, I had a chance to eyeball Paltrow anew in HBO's broadcast of Great Expectations, last year's disjointed modernization of the Charles Dickens' novel. Once again, I was repelled by Paltrow's shallowness -- the ludicrous obviousness as she concentrates ever so hard on 'being sexy;' the thin lips, clamped teeth, whiny nasality and smirky prep-school mannerisms; the supercilious, manipulative princess airs. I would be curious to know how broad is Paltrow's African-American fan base (I suspect it's zilch).

"But the weekend had its splendors: USA network aired two Sharon Stone films back to back, Basic Instinct (1992) and Intersection (1994), in which the long-tressed Richard Gere drives his posh car off a cliff. Even expurgated for TV, Basic Instinct still sizzles with Stone's blinding charisma, molten sensuality and keen intelligence. My partner Alison and I were in ecstasy as we watched Stone sweep imperiously through those films. What a relief to gaze raptly at a real star -- rather than at that overhyped ingénue, the vapid Paltrow. As a devoted fan of Jane Austen's Emma, I will never forgive Paltrow for her inexpressibly stupid performance in the 1996 film of that name (it should have been called 'Pile of Crap'). The queasy-making, spindly necked Paltrow, who wangled the role of Emma by blackmailing the producers into auditioning no one else, didn't have a rat's ass idea about Austen's novel or the character she played -- who is one of my favorite female personae in literature. Emma has been far better done (as I observed in my analysis of the The Birds) by Tippi Hedren as the deliciously superficial dilettante, Melanie Daniels.

"I'm sure Salon readers will be tantalized by your vivid description of the lip-smacking charms of Rose McGowan -- whom I will eagerly study when Jawbreaker is released on video. It must be McGowan, then, who got up Courtney Love's nose on Hole's short, ill-fated tour with Marilyn Manson. Anyone who can sock it to an ersatz Beverly Hills Dionysian-like Love gets high marks in my book!"

A VOICE OF SANITY: I'll give the last word on all the Oscar controversies to Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer. I don't agree with him on everything here, but Sarris always brings something of value to his comments.

MY READERS OF THE DAY: I'll let this guy introduce himself: "Hi, my name is Gabe and I'm a 15-year-old kid from Oregon. I paid to watch 10 Things last Friday afternoon, and we were the only ones in the theater. However, we stepped outside afterwords, and, viola, a line at least 150 feet long, plus tons more people at the snack counter. But, I will definitely see 10 Things again, being that it is now my favorite movie ever, and it should definitely get good word of mouth (from me alone, at least 15 or so people should be going this weekend). And, who cares about Go? I don't want a teenage Pulp Fiction! The one that I think WILL really be big is Never Been Kissed. They've done a great advertising job here, and Drew Barrymore is a big teen star now. I'd say it should open up with at least $16 million, probably just behind The Matrix, which I'd also like to see. And by the way, me and my big sis totally thought that EDtv sucked beyond suckage. The only good ones were Ellen (DeGeneres) and Martin Landau! It was a Truman Show revamp that tried to be funny. All it really did was permanently inflict in my mind that Elizabeth Hurley is a skanky h-."

From Brendan: "Having gone to the movies just about every weekend this year and only finding one film (the underrated The Corruptor) that was truly worth the $9.50 I paid (damn Manhattan prices), this weekend was a pleasant surprise. I accidentally went into overdrive and saw three films, all of which worth the money. 10 Things I Hate About You is the best of the recent teen flicks, with a great ensemble and sweetly enjoyable love story. The Matrix blew me away, being the best sci-fi flick since Twelve Monkeys. A whole new world in that film. You called that one correctly David. And the last one was EDtv, which turned out to be incredibly funny, have a terrific cast and make a point. It's about time this year gave us something worth watching."

And from Joey: "I saw 10 Things I Hate About You and thought it was cute. Not much else, though. Entertaining fluff that was a nice escape, that's what it was. I'll see Go, but I'm apprehensive about how 'cool' it's gonna try to be. I'm tired of movies that try so hard to be hip by simply showing kids having sex and doing drugs. In some cases, it works as a glaring portrait of America that can be terrifying (like in the movie Kids, and I'm aware that many disagree with me on the quality of that film), but for the most part, it's just sh--. I really hope that Go isn't like that. I liked Swingers a lot, Katie Holmes is always worth a look and I'm curious to see Sarah Polley in an American movie (as long as she continues to be in Atom Egoyan's brilliant works of art). It's unfair that people seem to think that the success of The Matrix has a lot to do with the public's thirst for Star Wars. The fact is that The Matrix has special effects that have never been seen before, or if it has, it's been improved upon drastically. NOTE TO SONY: LET THE WACHOWSKI BROS. DO SPIDER-MAN!!!"

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E ME: The calls for The Wachowskis to take over the world of the Web slinger have become a chorus. In the meantime, Go is really Sarah Polley's movie, if anyone's, regardless of Sony's obsessive push of Katie Holmes, who is also quite good in the film. In fact, it's her best work to date. Plenty of sex and violence in today's column. You want more or less? (Not in the column! In the movies!)