Weekend, 28 August 1999

WEEKEND PREVIEW

Not much news this week...again. But next Friday starts the Telluride-N-Toronto three weeks of insanity. And I'll be updating every day from September 3 through September 19, including weekends and holidays. Unfortunately for some of you who find that the late Monday start upsets your schedules, they will all be noon e.d.t. updates. But you can just read each morning and pretend it's fresh. In any case, I'm going wall-to-wall. It should be an exciting September.

10. Enough About Me...What Do YOU Think About Me?: All the buzz last week about Warren's Beatty's run for the presidency has died down. But now there is an anonymous, speculative Website for you to go to. It's www.Beatty2000.com and the site is loaded with about as much information about this candidacy as exists.

9. Celebrity Deja Vu: Living in L.A. can be surreal sometimes. At dinner Tuesday night, the raucous table conversation included some discussion about a great party at Adam Arkin's house and some in-depth conversation about the glories of Reese Witherspoon. (Also part of that conversation was the sense that the industry, for whatever reasons, feels as coldly toward the father of Reese's child, Ryan Phillippe, as they feel warm about Reese. But that's another story for another day.) So on Wednesday afternoon, I'm at Urth Cafˇ'. For those of you looking for celebs or just fabulously leggy babes and six-packed hunks in L.A., this is a good starting point. But on this day, as I'm wishing my sister Happy Birthday wishes on the cell phone (I hate being a clichˇ), there is this beautiful, little blonde girl with a bowling ball in her shirt. Reese Witherspoon. But it gets weirder. About 10 minutes later, Adam Arkin walks in. Now, had Sam Elliot, star of TNT's "You Know My Name", walked in, I would have had to check my scalp for a "666" marking. In any case, Reese Witherspoon is the second most beautiful pregnant woman I think I have ever seen. The top is still Andie McDowell, who has never been more beautiful than she was in the days she was padding around NY's Upper West Side carrying her pregnancy like some sort of Grecian goddess. R.W. is an adorable looking person, but there was a glow on this day that was special. Of course, maybe I'm just susceptible to pregnant women. I think it may the inner peace that comes from being party to something as unstoppable as nature. Only the belly really matters. Everything else is just a distraction. I'm such a focus addict.

8. Just Wondering: Doesn't the title "You Know My Name" remind you of the biggest laugh line from American Pie?

7. Queerer Than A Two Dollar Bill: Sorry, but a TV story made me laugh and the news is still as slow as molasses around here, so Janeane Garofalo and Sandra Bernhard will be making the beast with no bone on an episode of the next seasons of HBO's "The Sopranos". (In English, they are playing a lesbian couple.) Anyway, the thing that struck me funny was TV Guide Online's note: "Bernhard previously played a lesbian on "Roseanne." Firstly, a goofy note, especially without an additional "This is Ms. Garofalo's first performance as a lesbian, though rumors caused by her casual dressing style have been denied by the penis-loving actress." And more importantly, Bernhard is a lesbian. She doesn't just occasionally play one on TV. Does TV Guide think they are tipping us of by way of cumulative effect. "Eddie Murphy previously played a black man in a series of successful pictures."

6. The Chicken Or The 'Net: Seems to me that we're going to spend the next few years having "firsts" announced for the Internet every 23 minutes or so. This week, we got Adam Sandler's animated bit from his new comedy album, premiering exclusively on the 'Net over Labor Day weekend. Then we got Sightsound.com's plan to do a $3 million film specifically for the Web, due sometime next year with Oscar cache provided by CG effects house Metafilmics, which did parts of What Dream May Come. I look forward to something happening that doesn't break new ground on the 'Net for a change.

5. Your New York Observer Connection: Andrew McCarthy is a bitter, bitter brat packer. And he still has no lips. Read all about it here. And read your Sarris here.

4. Off With Their Heads: This is another TV generated story, but I spent much of the week of Jamie Tarses denial asking friends why ABC was having such a hard time making a break they so clearly wanted to make. This whole game of annually diminishing Tarses' role at the network has been more of an embarrassment to both sides than any firing could ever be. In Hollywood, people get fired "up." I guess the acceptable buy-out package for Disney finally met the acceptable buy-out/humiliation boundary for Tarses. We went through the same melodrama at Universal, as they started defoliating an unsuccessful film team and also at Warner Bros., where we all watched the two-year water torture that led to Daley & Semel's "resignation." I feel a bit like Jeff Wells as I wrote this, but wouldn't clean decapitations be better for everyone? Including the folks watching at the stock exchange? Disney's decision to pay Mike Ovitz to leave is looking more and more smart in that they didn't allow a bad situation to become a cancer. There are those who would suggest that the analogy is more "the fetus and the baby" and that Michael Eisner will never allow an heir to get past the first trimester, but I disagree. I'm much more in favor of the guillotine than the slow roast these days. And at least two studios are still quietly in slow roast mode in their executive suites.

3. Woe Is He: You know the old cartoon gag where the rain cloud stays directly over the guy's head no matter where he moves? Welcome to Martin Lawrence's life. I mean, geez! The guy can't go jogging without nearly killing himself. And now he has another soon-to-be-forever-whispered mark on his bio, as people will always add "there had to be something more than what they said" when it comes to his near-death experience jogging in layers of clothes on one of the hottest days of the year here in L.A. I'm beginning to feel sorry for the guy. Scratch that. I feel terrible for the guy. He almost died jogging. But I almost feel sorry for the public image of the man. Whatever really happened with Tisha Campbell and his hi-jinks with the gun on Ventura Boulevard fairly mark Martin Lawrence as a bit of a whack job. But he seemed to be slowly emerging into some normalcy. Until he baked himself in a cotton crock pot and almost fried his brain forever. I hope you feel better, Martin. And I hope you can put yet another incident behind you.

2. Light-Headed: I'm a bit confused by the recall demand of Lars von Trier over "artificial light" placed in the movie The Idiots without his knowledge. How did the producers place "artificial light" in the film after production? You can do tricks in processing to make the print from the negative lighter or darker. You can even change the negative itself in developing. But how is that "artificial light?" I'm pretty sure they couldn't have added "artificial light" on the set without the director's knowledge. So, what's the story? If you have some insight, please write in. If there is no insight to be had, do we think this is a publicity stunt?

1. Death Becomes You: The California State Senate negotiated a bill this week to make it acceptable to both the industry and to dead people. Well, dead people's relatives. The issue is the use of the images of dead celebrities in the land of CG. Essentially, the compromise was, if the celebrity image is used in advertising, the family has a right to control the situation and even deny the use. If the dead celeb is used in a movie, only the owner of the footage the celebrity was in controls the celebrity along with the copyright. The whole issue of animating the dead was dropped. The great irony of all of this to me is still that it is being spearheaded by Robyn Astaire, widow of Fred and the person who sold Fred to the Dirt Devil people. Don't set that bar so high, Robyn. Maybe we can make a deal with the dance instruction video company and condom makers that you so objected to. Horny Little Devil and Dirt Devil aren't so far apart. I feel sorry for the victim here: Fred Astaire's memory. But I can't quite tell the rapist from the raped in the fight amongst the living.

READER OF THE DAY: There is a reader named John who is powerfully focused on the runaway production issue. One might even say obsessed. But I admire that. And so, here is one of his missives from this week: "This was forwarded to me tonight:

Re: Cheapest Place to make movies

To whom it may concern,

Nova Scotia, Canada is the ultimate place to produce a movie. Why? 1. Canadian Government Tax Incentives 2. Canadian dollar value is only 67% of the U.S. dollar meaning large savings on ALL work done here. 3. Nova Scotia has a full support system, including incredible sound stages, cheap actors and extras, film processing and experienced management. 4. Our landscape and rural areas can be shot as if they are any Eastern U.S. or any number of European locations.

If you are considering locations for a movie project and would like to have our company:
1. Find locations
2. Arrange lodgings
3. Arrange personnel
4. Coordinate operations

Please give us a call, email or fax and we will happy to assist. Contact: Mr. Nevin Harrington - PTI, Inc.

And here's my sample letter of interest to Mr. Harrington. While I doubt I'll send it, I encourage you to create one of your own. Have your friends join in! It's fun for the entire family!:

Mr. Harrington,

I'm a rich American film executive, with lots of stockholders on my back. Having no life (even though I could afford to quit tomorrow and live very comfortably for the rest of my non-life), I prefer to spend my time upsetting other people's lives, pitting them against their neighbors across the border while taking advantage of the fact that the corporation I co-control has no borders. The better the deal I make, the more money I save, the more I make, ergo ego's engorged. It's a game, a challenge...a pastime, if you will. While I wait to die--leaving behind untold wealth to my spoiled-yet-estranged, undeserving offspring and ex-spouses--I want to make sure as many people as possible are as miserable as I am. As I see it, the only difference between me and them is that I can pay my bills.

Since I don't know how to take a real vacation, I was thinking I could kill two endangered species with one stone: the American film worker and the Executive family. I don't want to be bothered with their complaints and demands--those of the workers OR those of my family.

So, I'd like to make my next motion picture in your neck of the woods. Now, some might say I'm cutting the neck of Holly's Woods, but since I don't spend much time there anyway, it doesn't really faze me. In fact, nothing fazes me. After all, I represent a "fazeless" corporation. When you're a borderless entity with virtual immortality, why bother with ethics, morals, or even democracy?

Since you're so accommodating, for now, anyway, I'd like to take advantage of you[r] offer as much as possible, and then some, if possible. In fact, I'll ask for the impossible, if possible.

Here's a list of my demands:

*Limo service to and from airports, if helipad is not available.
*"Escort" service on-call, 24 hours a day, with no overtime on weekends.
*Unlimited alcohol, condoms, and maple syrup (Grade A+ only).
*A pet Canadian of my choosing (must be compatible with pet Mexicans, Yugoslavs, and Australians). Pet *Americans bite the hand that feeds them, and resist spaying, neutering, tail- and ear-clipping.
*A really big tube TV w/ DVD player & Surround Sound system.
* Finally, I'd like the fastest, cheapest, and best crew 67 cents on the dollar can buy!

And would you mind adding 1% to the tax incentive? Pretty please??

Sincerely, Joe Mogul

P.S.: Don't give me any attitude, either, or I'll dump you like the cheap whore you are."

E ME: Now, some might call John excessive in his passion. Would you?