Weekend, 26 June 1999

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. OHH GOD! OOHH GOD!: This week, Godfather IV was on, then off, then left somewhere in the mist. The consensus seems clear. DON'T DO IT!!!! Don't try to make Leo a tough guy. Don't try to mine the shaft again. It would be more silly, but almost less of a threat to the film's legacy, to make The Godfather: The Animated Musical Series ("I won't killÉ don't ask me!").

9. HOW WIDE IS WIDE?: Are you obsessed with DVD technology? Well, the penetration of about 2 million machines is a good start, but will it reach a critical mass before the internet-based movie home delivery universe becomes a reality? A report from VideoScan this week shows that 24 percent of DVD players are whirring away in the top three cities in America, 18 percent of them in L.A. and N.Y. alone. It will be an interesting race. And Keith wrote in with another tidbit. Fox finally started to release DVD titles this year, but Keith reports that "according to dvdfile.com, Fox will not be making anymore DVDs with anamophoric widescreen," one of the formats considered to be a benefit of the format. On the other hand, Fox just signed with MGM to distribute their DVD releases. Baby steps ... baby steps.

8. WHAT'S NEXT, PT. 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger has become a true industry cypher. Some have gone as far as to say that his day has passed. I don't think so. Unlike Sylvester Stallone, he hasn't made a wide variety of clunkers trying to get back on top. He just hasn't worked much. The rumor, which has come from source after source, is that the man just isn't completely healthy. And though I know he has a habit of suing people who report on this issue, I mostly feel bad for him. No matter how much you have, your health and your family's health is, in the end, everything. If it is true, I wish he would go public. When someone like Michael J. Fox gets terrible news, it is sad. But for an ubermensch like Schwarzenegger to admit physical frailty would bring humanity to him, and some serious attention to his illness, whatever its cause or effects. And that's without becoming a weekly "whoa is me" segment on 20/20. In any case, he seems to be ready to get back to work again, following up End of Days with The Sixth Day. (Maybe he should play Nikita Kruschev in Thirteen Days to make the circle complete.) If he actually does sign, the film would team him up with Roger Spottiswoode, yet another mid-range, studio-safe director who can occasionally step it up (following Nicholas Meyer, Joel Schumacher, Chuck Russell and Brian Levant). It also brings into question just when he could start a project with Jim Cameron. But if there is a break on T3 or a quick script for True Lies 2, watch how quickly The Sixth Day becomes the seventh. One overlooked thing in Hollywood is that the biggest stars tend to stay that way when they stick to great directors. Even failure looks good in that light.

7. THE HORROR: Stephen King is living one of his books this week or, at least, a book to come. A kind of Misery with professionals, King got mangled by a mini-van while walking on the side of a country road near his home. After many hours of surgery, he seems destined to make a full recovery. Over about a year. The most curious thing to me is, will the actual experience of this kind of personal horror enhance the work, or will reality take the place of the imagination too much for King's own good? The resulting work will probably be the most anticipated King book (and inevitable movie) ever.

6. WHAT'S NEXT, PT. 2: The Incredible Mr. Limpet has become an incredible problem for Warner Bros. One of the three producers, Barry Levinson, is holding onto the project tightly -- so tightly that the studio can't seem to get it away from him to put it into the arms of their favorite comedy director of 1999, Harold Ramis. The word now is, via The Hollywood Reporter, that Jim Carrey, who very vocally signaled his commitment to the project even after his buddy Steve Oedekerk walked over budget issues, may exit. Mike Myers and Robin Williams are being floated as replacements, but neither one is the perfect fit that Carrey seemed to be. For Myers, it's a step up in the world, being offered a big movie that isn't of his own creation. For Williams, it's more sweetness and light, when this brilliant performer needs to do some more edgy stuff. The Reporter also indicates that Carrey has some interest in a Rob Reiner directed, big-screen version of Get Smart. You mean Ace Ventura: Secret Agent? Another bad, bad idea. Carrey as a Bond-type character would be great fun, especially if he also played his own mentally deficient brother who really, really, really wanted to be a spy and maybe was pretending to be Carrey, Jim Carrey. (You know, I really like that idea, and I'm giving it away for nothing! Idiot!)

5. WHEN JUDGES ATTACK: A judge ordered filmmaker John Singleton to make a short film about domestic violence as part of his sentence for hitting the 28-year-old mother of his daughter. It seems to me that Mike Tyson and Gary Busey could use some "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards in this area, as well. However, I advise the trio to avoid the title "How To Beat Your Bitch." I think the judge will be looking for something a little less instructional.

4. WHAT'S NEXT, PT. 3: Michael Bay has been pining away for the right "next project," nuzzled in the bosom of his favorite Playmate of the Month. And now, he may have found what he was looking for. The word I get is that The Planet of The Apes was just not something he had a passion for (too big) and that the $10 million Will Smith project lost its arousal level when Smith couldn't get excited enough to forgo a big payday to do it (too small), so now Bay is hooking back up with Jerry Bruckheimer and Randall Wallace, a writer who brings intimacy to huge epic stories, to develop the Pearl Harbor saga, Tennessee (just right). Bay and David Fincher have kind of become the Scott Bros. for the millennium, and though both make beautiful images, they are about as different in their approaches as Tony and Ridley. Fincher, for all his on-set demands, is just grinding out tough, personal stuff like Fight Club, and Bay is having psychic trauma, trying to find something that will amuse him for more than 15 minutes. Both guys will be around for a while, so strap yourselves in.

3. HOW HIGH THE MATRIX: Have you read about lawsuits in the TV business because Disney sold a show to ABC and the people who had equity stakes in the show thought the price was too low because the deal was all in-house? Well, I'm not accusing Warner Bros. of dirty dealing, but whoever has points in The Matrix should be feeling quite abused these days. First, my feeling that the film would have done $100 million more at the domestic box office if released in the summer is stronger than ever. Just think of the rush audiences got seeing that film, and the rush we haven't seen like that this summer. Now, the word comes down that The Matrix will not be sold as a sell-thru at the video stores because Warner Bros. doesn't want to push this year's Washington hot button: trenchcoats. Variety got the story even though Warner Bros. has a strict "no comment" on the release. Variety estimates that the title could be as much as $50 million short by not doing sell-thru. That's over $100 million in net revenues in my book. Ouch.

2. NOT IN MY BACKYARD: Twenty-eight years after it was pulled out of British release by Stanley Kubrick himself, A Clockwork Orange is still a matter of controversy in the U.K. Kubrick withdrew the film in all formats after the media accused the film of inspiring rapes that aped the brutally violent anti-violence classic. Warner Bros. is doing a Kubrick retrospective in July in conjunction with the release of Eyes Wide Shut and word got out that the film would screen. Warner Bros. officially claims otherwise. (It's a big week for WB denials, isn't it?) Personally, I don't think the film has ever been more relevant. Though, oddly enough, in a kind of inverted way. Just what is the illness and what is the cure?

1. DO I MAKE YOU ENGAGE IN MATURE STIMULATION?: This story may not be at all important, but it's been the hottest story about the movies in America. The Hot Button is written every day in Los Angeles, not in TNT's home town of Atlanta and I was reminded this week why that is a good idea. Tamatha Brannon is leading a protest against Austin Powers dolls at her local Toys-R-Us, worried about the phrase the doll emits: "Do I make you horny?' McFarland Toys, which makes the very coolly designed dolls, explained that the dolls for Toys-R-Us , WalMart and K-Mart were supposed to say, "Do you fancy a shag?" rather than using the dreaded "H-word." Ahhhh! So, Ms. Brannon's 11-year-old would be better off with a doll asking if someone would like to engage in enthusiastic intercourse than one questioning arousal with a word that Ms. Brannon is more familiar with. I get it. I suppose that not knowing that "schmuck" is literally Yiddish for "penis" makes it less offensive. I have only two pieces of advice for Ms. Brannon. One, if your boy is 11, he's about to find the joystick, if he hasn't already. Wake up. And two, stay far, far, far away from the South Park movie. You will recognize a lot of words that you will really dislike. (Fortunately for you, you will have left long before the really raunchy stuff starts. Me, I enjoyed it.)

READER OF THE DAY: From DD: "I read 'Hot Button' almost every day. Please more film history and comments on what makes a good film. Many critics don't say much about what they think is good cinema or a good trend. Enough already about Harry Knowles et al. Sounds too much like bitching and moaning about your competition in Internet-based film journalism. You praise Ebert so try to imitate him more. More serious film commentary and less industry gossip and catty comments about other Internet-based writers."

And from Rachel: "Here's what I want. More: what's in production, who's looking at which scripts, why a film slipped, behind-the-scenes info on a film or its participants. Your actual movie reviews and previews. I always love the Sundance columns because you talk about so many movies and scripts and directors and actors, that you don't seem to have enough space (or energy, I would guess) to rant about the stuff I mention below.

Less: ranting about studio politics, that probably don't matter to much of anyone outside of Hollywood. And guess what, I bet most of your readers aren't in Hollywood. The occasional tidbit is interesting, but I'm to the point where I just end up scrolling past most of it. Less posturing about your personal place in the digital world in relation to the studios and to other reviewers/critics, it often seems like you're wearing your ambition on your sleeve. Also less blah about whose box office guess was closer, who cares. Get back to talking about movies, please. Just my $0.02...since you asked."

E ME: I'm hearing you. Not that these two letters cover everyone who has written so far, but there are certainly those of you who share these sentiments. Let's hear more on what you want, more on whether DVD really matters to you all and more on censorship. Can we really keep the kids safe?