Weekend, 29 May 1999

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. E-Me Again: My e-mail server was cut off for about 15 hours from Thursday night to Friday morning due to moving problems. My apologies for the problem. If you didn't send e-mail during that period, what's your problem? The Hot Button is incomplete without your input.

Also, another piece of roughcut.com business. We're going to be sending out Friday grosses on Saturday now. So, if you aren't signed up for the roughcut rag, you won't get them. And by the way, roughcut.com's next update will be Tuesday because of the Memorial Day holiday.

9. SW - Incident One: This is the first Star Wars: Episode One -- The Phantom Menace story of the day. Sorry if some of you are getting sick of this movie. Just remember, the Titanic saturation lasted five months. Star Wars will become "just another story" in a couple of weeks. Bear with me. I don't get to decide what's news. (One reader wrote me that he was de-bookmarking roughcut.com for excessive Star Wars coverage. See ROTD.) This story, however, is not very surprising at all. Star Wars merchandising is flying out faster than a pod race. Apparently, folks are buying two of everything (one to play with and one to store away) in numbers even greater than projected. Pepsi's ad campaign featuring the ILM-created Marfalump is structured to run all the way through September. The most popular items everywhere are clearly Darth Maul-related. Though still to come: the Furby Yoda and a build-it-yourself R2D2 kit from Lego. (Thanks to Variety for the factual insights.)

8. Can't We All Just Amicus Our Briefs?: There's a big hubbub in L.A. over the Disney/Katzenberg case (which is becoming more and more like one of those "Superman vs. Muhammed Ali" comic book specials). Attorney Pierce O'Donnell filed an amicus curiae brief with the court, using the news outlets as a weapon against Disney. This did not sit well with the powers that be at the news outlets, who quickly filed to withdraw their participation in any such brief. Ironically, neither Variety or The L.A. Times covered the incident in their Friday editions. But what was most amusing to me about the whole thing was O'Donnell's contention that a brief from Disney lawyer Henry Ben-Zvi was "an obvious attempt" to expose embarrassing information about DreamWorks with no other purpose that harassing Jeffrey Katzenberg. Uh, Pierce, that was what the entirety of Bert Fields' case was in the most recent hearings. Embarrass Eisner. There was never any real evidence that Disney was trying to avoid paying Katzenberg out of personal animus. Not that there wasn't some good old-fashioned hate going on there. But the manipulation of the media from behind the scenes to achieve untoward goals, well, both sides are guilty and have been guilty of that game for many years.

7. DVDuh: I've gotten loads of letters over the years about when Fox was going to bite the bullet and join the DVD revolution. The time is now. After the Die Hard Trilogy kicked DVD butt, now the Alien Quad-Pack is coming. Alas, Star Wars is not controlled by Fox or you will certainly see that series on DVD A.S.A.P., B.Y.B.D. (Bet Your Bottom Dollar). That will be coming on DVD a long, long time from now on a timetable far, far away.

6. Old Movies Never Die: Early this week, someone found some treasure at the very bottom of the rainbow. Someone had thrown away 200 prints of 1960s Hong Kong flicks. Wow. It goes to show you how devalued the actual prints of some films have become, since I'm sure there is a video of each and every one of these films. Reminds me of a call I got a few years ago. A friend in the liquidation business had 100 35mm porn films and no one wanted them since the entire industry has gone to video, even in theaters. He was going to throw them out if he couldn't find a buyer. I couldn't have that. So a buddy of mine and I picked them all up and stuck them in his garage for about three years. Our first instinct was to make porn bookmarks from the footage. But when we put together the numbers, even if the enterprise was successful, it was more effort than it was worth. After the Northridge earthquake, his garage was beat up and the films hit the trash bin. There was always something bizarre and distancing as I would go through the footage, trying to find the "right" five frames to make a bookmark. To buy some for yourself, go to my website www.dirtydave.porn. Just kidding. (If only ebay had existed back then. We could have been samollianaires!)

5. SW - Incident Two: You can't get any Star Wars movies on DVD, but you can get The Phantom Menace and the original trilogy on VCD if you live in Macau. Massachusetts film pirates have nothing on the Far East. Not only are these films being sold illegally, but they are going cheap. Less than 2 bucks to own your very own copy on the film. Meanwhile, there are reports that videos of The Phantom Menace are already turning up at 3-Card Monte/Fake Watch/Video Retailers in major cities around the U.S.

4. Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Jack Valenti held his private summit on violence and Hollywood this week, apparently giving the studios who make up the MPAA his real reading on just how hot the water is going to get for the industry in Washington. Clearly, his thoughts were never intended for publication, as truth is stranger than the fiction. But the fiction in my mind has the Violence Summit opening with Disney's Michael Eisner punching Jeffrey Katzenberg in the top of the head after Katzenberg called him, "fat baldy," Universal's Edgar Bronfman Jr. pretending his cell phone wasn't working and leaving early (he couldn't attend in person because he had to hang with this homies down at the new "Hood Room" at The Peninsula), Warner Bros.' Bob Daly and Terry Semel blaming Billy Gerber and Chris Pula for all media violence, Paramount's Sherry Lansing explaining how half the violence means half the exposure and Sony's John Calley sitting back and amusing himself by casting the teen version of the meeting with Freddie Prinze Jr. as Eisner, Ryan Phillippe as Katzenberg and Jennifer Love Hewitt as Sherry Lansing.

3. SW - Incident Three: The saga of the two poor schmucks who stole the print of The Phantom Menace seems destined for recreation as a prequel to the Coen Brothers' Raising Arizona, bringing John Goodman and William Forsythe back for another caper. The 20something boneheads turned themselves and the film in, short a 5 foot strip of the movie left lying in a muddy field near the theater they stole it from. The witless whacks from Wisconsin remind me of desperate people stealing cars to sell them to the black market but then not being able to find the black market. I know a dozen guys who would have had the print on its way to the Ukraine before anyone who got a copy of the print had a chance to drop a glove. Forget it, guys. There is no Chinatown in Wisconsin.

2. Speaking Of Raising Arizona: A California Court this week upheld the Son of Sam law (another theme of the week), which prevents criminals from profiting from their crimes, against a unique challenge. Barry Keenan who, with two other men, kidnapped Nathan Ari -- uh, Frank Sinatra Jr. in 1963 has been out of jail for 31 years after serving five years for his crime. (If you consider stopping Frank Jr. from singing a crime.) Interestingly, this crime was both committed and the criminal served his time long before the law was enacted. Still, he can't profit form the story. Surprising even to me, although I don't have a firm opinion on this issue. As a writer, I use my experience to write every day. I'm not a crime writer, but there is little doubt that most crime writers have been privy to the dark side of the street in developing their expertise. Would I criminalize that? Or does the basic tenet that crime doesn't - and should never - pay win the day? I'm probably leaning towards the absolutist position here but I'd love to know what you think.

1. Bang, You're Controversial: Spike Lee shot off his mouth at Cannes this week and, as he so often does, took one right in his own gut. Of course, politicians immediately tried to make hay out of horse s**t, but Spike asked for it, supporting his anti-gun position by suggesting that NRA President Charlton Heston be shot with a .44-caliber Bulldog pistol. Funny how violent being anti-violence makes people. I'm pretty sure that Spike was just promoting his movie Summer of Sam, whose title character, The Son of Sam, was first known as the .44-Caliber Killer. The media just doesn't dig into the subtext of insane hyperbole the way we once did. I guess that we've been too busy rationalizing how oral sex isn't sex and how all the recommendations in a report on Chinese spying can be good, but the report itself is wrong. Real life and movie coverage are getting harder and harder to distinguish. And the fact that this is the top story of the week tells you what a weak week this was.

READER OF THE DAY: From Bil Hart: "I've stopped paying any attention to you or roughcut, with your obsession with the Star Wars craze. For God's sake, it's just a movie and not a very good one at that. As a sometime screenwriter you ought to know that special effects do not make movies, characterization and story line do. Most of your reviewers seem to be hooked on violence and special effects. I know that if they like a movie, I won't, and vice-versa. Nor do I understand your obsession with box-office grosses. They are no more a sign of a good movie than a critic's review. So long and goodbye to rough cut. I have removed you from my bookmarks."

E ME: Bye, Bill. The Son of Sam law, The Director of Summer of Sam comments, your weekend moviegoing experiences and that little flick called Star something. Plenty to e-me about this weekend. See you Tuesday.