Friday, 13 August 1999

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. Whoring: Sometimes, one has to contemplate the appropriate thickness of his skin. This was one of those weeks. In a week of a lot of very good news for me and for this column, I got wind that Variety's Timothy Gray had plopped me into his quarterly quote whore column. That got me pretty riled up and I came up with some pretty tough retorts. That is, until I read the column thoroughly. If I'm sitting there with Janet Maslin and Roger Ebert, I can take the heat. (Oddly enough, I begrudge The Boston Globe's Jay Carr for one reason. The Farrellys are angry at him for, they feel, ripping all of their movies out of personal animus. In fact, they shot a Jay Carr joke for There's Something About Mary which they cut in post as extraneous. If you don't see any value in The Farrellys, you probably have extremely myopic vision about all film. That's not to say you can't dislike a movie, but as I keep whining, a critic's job is more than regurgitating a "regular guy's" opinion. But I digress...)

But if I were to edit Daily Variety News Editor Timothy Gray's column, I would point out a few things. For instance, Roger Ebert has a rule that anything he writes or says is fair game, in or out of context. The Star Wars quote was not out of context, but the fact that other quotes were is a better story than any in his column. Maria Salas, who Gray both classifies as a "new kid" and also acknowledges as a QW from more than a year ago, actually lost her job at Telenoticias and was still being quoted and junketed even while unemployed. Steve Oldfield, likewise, has been at this game for a long, long time. John Anderson gives one of the funniest, naturally self-effacing quotes of the year ("South Park is so gleefully vulgar, it's tough not to get down on all fours and beg for more."), but T.G. should be aware that Anderson really works for New York's Newsday and was picked up by the L.A. Times for South Park (as was a commentary on the film) because, apparently, they couldn't take a chance of getting their hands dirty. Anyway, thanks for the welcome, Tim. As someone who points out QWs every week and offers context for the calls, I'm glad to be associated with a quote that isn't taken out of context and in one sentence defines the movie pretty clearly...even for you. (The column is here.)

9. Saturday Night For Life: Great story in The New York Observer by Jim Rutenberg and Peter Bogdanovich offering up the details of the "Saturday Night Live" contracts that got Hollywood agencies and management houses buzzing last week. How did these guys manage to get the full story when everyone in L.A. got it wrong, wrong, wrong? (A rhetorical question.) So, the story that Lorne Michaels and NBC wanted a piece of the superstar pies they were creating in the SNL oven, a position I defended in the column last week, turns out to be a gross understatement. As it turns out, the new SNL contract sets a price for an SNL player's first three movies after hitting SNL at $75,000 for the first, $150,000 for the second and $300,000 for the third. On top of that, the indentured servitude contract also gives NBC the right to remove an actor from Saturday Night and stick him or her into an NBC sitcom for six more years. (The actor has the right to say "no" to the first two proposed series, but has to take at least one of the first three offered.) Lorne Michaels claims that he doesn't hold his players to their contracts, so it's no big deal. But you don't write a contract like this unless you are playing a pretty hard core leverage game. The whole story is here.

8. The Festival Circuit: The line-up for the New York Film Festival seems to be the most interesting in years. Dogma, the new Harmony Korine, the Cannes-troversial Pola X, Almodovar's All About My Mother, Atom Egoyen's new flick, video director Spike Jonze's first feature (finally!), Being John Malkovich, the new Mike Leigh and a classic Michael Powell film, The Edge of the World. If I wasn't so busy going to film festivals in September, I would even be tempted to go to this one for the first time in many years. Where am I heading? September is T-n-T month, which starts with wall-to-wall coverage of Telluride and then shifts to Toronto for all the fun up there. It will be a long September for me, but I am looking forward to every day. I hope you all will join me.

7. They're Baaaaack?: What could be easier to sell than Jennifer Love Hewitt in a bikini? Jennifer Love Hewitt in a rubber suit. And I expect plenty of both from Girl In The Curl, a Columbia Picture that assures us all that Sony High isn't dead, it was just taking a nap. It has been about six months between photo ops focusing primarily on Ms. Hewitt's bosom. Welcome back, ladies. I've never seen a push-up wetsuit, but by God, if anyone can do it, it's the good folks over at Sony.

6. Y? Because We're Losing!: The Walt Disney Company seems to be heading for a selling spree. In other words, if you aren't a profitable division, you had better watch your butt. L.A. is all abuzz with rumors about Disney dumping the Anaheim Angels, less than five years a Disney property. Now word is that Fairchild Communications, magazine publisher of Jane, Woman's Wear Daily and Los Angeles Magazine among others is on the selling block. The culprit behind the decision, as is so often the culprit at multi-nationals, is the corporate earnings report, which is dragging down the stock price.

5. Wells-ing Up: Speaking of Disney properties losing out, let us all say a farewell to Jeff Wells' tenure at Mr. Showbiz' Showbiz Confidential column. While it's nice to know that Jeff will be returning to the columnist's chair at Reel.com in a few weeks, one has to ask the immortal question: "Would you buy a used video from this man?" In the meantime, the folks at Mr. Showbiz seem to have some candidates to fill the Showbiz Confidential slot (remember, Jeff took over for Gregg Kilday) that even I will enjoy reading. Choose wisely.

4. Just For Variety: And speaking of movie media exits, Daily Variety's Andrew Hindes is about to leave that august outlet to join us as a 'Netizen at iFilm.com. He joins former Hollywood Reporter editor Alex Ben Block, who does his thing for Bridge News as major trades players turned Web players. What's the big difference for those of us who write on the Web, even as employees of major companies? Well, for me, it is the freedom to tell the truth. There are certainly already major sites that bend to the corporate line, but the tendency is not as strong here on the Web because the corporations just don't seem to care as much about us. Tick, tick, tick.

3. Ill Witchy Wind: What was the most overblown story of this week? Easily the overpumped Newsweek cover story proclaiming "The Blair Witch Project brew of 'Net buzz and low-budget thrills has Tinseltown spooked." Please! Not only isn't Hollywood shaking in its boots, but writers David Ansen and Corie Brown completely misstate the other Hollywood phenomena they hope to bounce Blair off of, Titanic. "Hollywood can understand which lessons to draw from a phenomenon like Titanic, the most expensive movie ever made. Spend more money!" Uh...no. The lesson Fox and every other studio learned from Titanic was that it was a fluke and that if you don't spend less money, you could damage yourself mortally with a $280 million movie. Not only has Hollywood tightened its purse strings every month since Titanic, but the exit of Semel and Daly from Warner Bros. crosses the industry-wide "t" in "tight."

As for The Blair Witch Project, there isn't a movie that these two mention that has anything to do with the success of Blair Witch. The Breakfast Club and American Graffiti were traditional studio films and the fact that The Breakfast Club found an audience was no surprise at all. It was the fifth major John Hughes hit in three years. The Full Monty had proven itself overseas and was supported for that reason by a major Hollywood studio in its American release. Clerks and sex, lies & videotape were both Sundance phenoms before Sundance was so commercial and grossed respectively, $3.2 million and $24.7 million. They also marked the emergence of two major filmmakers (Kevin Smith is still in the proving stages in my book), where Blair Witch is a great idea shot and ostensibly written by the actors. Sanchez and Myrick may turn out to be great directors, but there is no indication of this there. And Easy Rider, the closest film to Blair Witch in trajectory was made in the Hollywood system by well known actors and marked the beginning of an era beautifully. Blair Witch was well timed in hitting the start of the most recent "horror-without-irony" cycle, but it is hardly the mark of the start of an era of filmmaking or society. "At the big studios, the lesson to be learned is not that the public wants originality -- that's too scary a notion," barks the Newsweek team. Wrong! The problem for studios is that originality is as big, if not bigger, a gamble than the same-old, same-old. Out of Sight wasn't even that original, but it was special and no one went. Even Artisan expected that the biggest possible windfall for Blair Witch was $50 million.

Disney's Chris Pula has it dead on (and yet, Disney is still a big Hollywood studio, isn't it?) when he tells the writers, "It's a mistake to think this can happen again," warns Pula. "The next one will need a sexy reason to be there. And you will be able to bring a movie down with the Internet as fast as you can build one. Do one of these sites wrong, you might not recover." And Artisan (a small studio that released Blair), represented by Amir Malin said: "I'm not a big believer in the idea that Blair Witch portends anything. It's a lesson Hollywood relearns all the time -- you don't need megabudgets and megastars and $25 million advertising budgets to get a huge hit." I agree completely. But it makes for a good cover, doesn't it? (The whole story is here - at least it was as of the writing of this column. My apologies if Newsweek changes the link.

2. Leo Moves!: What does the move of Leo DiCaprio's The Beach to February really mean? It means that Fox is smart enough and has balls enough to risk embarrassing whispers about how they feel about the film in order to find the release date most likely to suck the most dollars out of the pockets of young Americans. It means that Fox has given up all hope of Academy Award nominations for Leo, director Danny Boyle or anyone else associated with this drama. It means that the rumors about minor re-shoots for the film are probably true. And what it means most of all, is that you'll have a chance to see the movie in February instead of December. And the beat goes on.

1. Bul-Run: I wish I could take Warren Beatty's floating threat of running for president seriously. But alas, how does one see a presidential run coming from a man who can't answer a simple question in less than 23 stammers and 17 gestures? The man is obviously quite intelligent, sincere in his political beliefs and able to seduce entire city blocks with a squint and a pointed finger. And I have no problem with there being a Jesse Jackson/Ross Perot/Steve Forbes non-candidate candidate in this election, pushing the issues in new and direct ways. I didn't watch Leno this week, but I would imagine that the first jokes about Clinton and Beatty out looking for "chicks" hit the air within 12 hours of Arianna Huffington's speculative column on Monday. Do you think it is a coincidence that this float came three days after Dennis Miller taped his last show of the season? Probably not.

READER OF THE DAY: From D.K.: "The sad truth is we are a society of robots who are programmed what to think by "Giant Media Machines". And yes, we are guilty of creating this situation ourselves because we have allowed the desire of thought and independence to be taken from us. The majority of people in America gladly let advertisements, fads, and the latest thing decide what they should wear and eat, where they should go or be, how they should act or think and what morals they should live by in life. That is why these bad movies are fed to the public, and the public just eats them up. Only "Freaks" like you and me would understand why movies like Rushmore and Election are so good. The mass movie going audience no longer knows what a good movie truly is, so stop to trying to tell them, it's useless!!

The MPAA, in my opinion, gets off on regulating and censoring instead of doing their real jobs of just rating films. They want to be the guardians of the people and tell us what we should or should not see in a movie theater. I am sorry, it is the parents' job to tell their children what movies they can or can't go see. And when kids choose to see these movies despite what their parents tell them, then the parents have a much larger problem on their hands that they should be addressing. And if you are an adult you can decide what to see in the movie theater on your own, you don't need the MPAA to do it for you."

E ME: So, what do you think? Machines or Bulworth? Blare glare or a Web run? Love's breasts and sell the rest? You tell me. And what did you think of the new releases this weekend?