Thursday, 07 October 1999

MORIARTY & ME: I'm not sure what to say about Moriarty's appearance on the KABC-790 radio show I co-host with George Pennacchio. I am kinder and gentler on air (TV or radio) than I am in this column. I'd like to think I am as direct and to the point, but time restraints and the inability to research as one speaks makes it hard. I thought Moriarty was thoughtful and much less aggressive on air than in his on-line work. And I didn't exactly bulldog him about every problem I have with AICN. Though one caller gently did. When someone is willing to come visit my show, it seems that being rude, however good for ratings it might be, is just plain being rude. So am I a wimp? Is Moriarty an evil genius? I don't know. You decide for yourself.

GETTING IT RIGHT: As part of writing this column, it is my job to suck up all the information I can every day. A part of that is reading the gossips. Now, some consider this a high-end gossip column. I do not. I consider gossip a re-telling of stories one has been told without benefit of confirmation or, in most cases, any analysis regarding truth, lest the story be diminished. No one plants stories in this column unless I tell you that it has been planted. If something a studio sends me tickles my fancy, I tell you, "here is something the studio sent that tickled my fancy." (Tickling of other parts paid for by studios tend to be reserved for producers and some stars ... but that's another column.)

So, why am I writing this when most of you probably already have me separated from "the gossips?" Because the manure truck has been dumping as heavily as ever and I've been reading the same stories recycled everywhere lately. And when a bunch of gossips need more attention, you get little battles popping up all over the place, loaded with lies on every side. There are things that are just plain stupid (Thelma Adams of the New York Post calling a new distributor-free film called The Woman Chaser, "this year's Rushmore.) But then you have the classic methodology of attack and contain. No one ever denies anything anymore. I guess that makes you look guilty. So after one side in any given skirmish attacks, the other plants a story that somehow refutes the original in another august publication.

So, in Page Six on Wednesday, CBS and/or publicists for "60 Minutes" and/or publicists for Mike Wallace and/or publicists for Don Hewitt plant a story that Disney is keeping the "60 Minutes" team from seeing The Insider, the new Michael Mann film about the Jeffrey Wigand tobacco whistleblower case that centers on the fight by former "60 Minutes" producer Lowell Bergman to get Wigand's groundbreaking and personally costly appearance on the air. The story opens with a lie, suggesting by leading with it, that the film is focused on attacking Wallace and Hewitt and that Disney has decided not to let them see the movie early. The film does question the ethics of both men, but that is hardly the center of the movie. And more to the point, Mann has really given Wallace a remarkable amount of grace in the picture. Hewitt, perhaps because of Wallace's protests and Bergman's connection to a longtime colleague, gets almost all the inside-"60 Minutes" wrath in what I consider the one truly weak piece of writing in the film. Corporate CBS is the villain in that part of the story and Hewitt caves way too easily for this viewer to believe. But Wallace couldn't ask for a kinder nod of the cap to a long, powerful career nor could he ask for a better performance than that of Christopher Plummer.

But that's just the opening sentence.

Next, the story suggests that Wallace and Hewitt buckle under pressure from "Big Tobacco." Not so. They buckle, initially, to pressure inside CBS. There is no suggestion that Brown and Williamson even had any communication with the duo. Then, the Page Six piece decides to defame Wigand, the co-hero of The Insider, by calling him "a traitor" and suggesting that he "broke the confidentiality clause in his contract to collect thousands of dollars from CBS as 'consultant fees.'" Ironic, considering that people telling tales out of school is what Page Six is built on every single day.

Then we get to the "they won't let us see the movie" complaint. According to, of course, unnamed sources at "60 Minutes," those involved at CBS have tried to acquire an advance copy of the film repeatedly. Page Six's unnamed sources seem to admit that it was Mann who wouldn't let them see the movie, not "The House of Mickey," as they blissfully spin Disney to the negative, theorizing that Mann was "worried that Hewitt and Wallace would launch a campaign to discredit the picture." They then add, via the first named source in the story, "Nobody here has seen the movie," "60 Minutes" spokesman Kevin Tedesco told Page Six. "There have been screenings but they were not invited." True enough. But Mann, who has been in attendance at the very few screenings that have taken place, doesn't seem to be much concerned about perceptions. His movie is being beat to a pulp by the early review from Variety's Todd McCarthy, whose job, people seem to forget, is to review the movie with an eye towards box office more than anything else. And indeed, the film is slow by Armageddon standards. It is also the work of a great artist nearing the peak of his skills. But let's not let that get in the way when there's slamming to do.

I always seem to forget that The Post is a Rupert Murdoch paper and that even though Fox is above this as a studio, his papers always seem to enjoy dragging down other studios. Here's the simple reality. The movie is excellent. "60 Minutes" and CBS News is left with a Lowell Bergman epitaph, saying that he can't work there anymore because he can't be sure that his word will be kept by a news organization that bows, even once, to corporate pressure. Wallace is golden. And Hewitt gets crapped on to the point of unreality. Hewitt may or may not be a good guy, but his descent to weasel in the movie would suggest he's not a bright guy and that can't be true. Otherwise, though Bergman may be a bit too deified, this movie seems to be dead-on accurate. Of course, no one but me seems to hold Page Six to that standard.

HIGH NOOWS: One of the great spinners of excrement into gold in the business these days is Nikki Finke, who apparently keeps losing jobs to internal pressures, but keeps the fastballs humming past the ears of lead-off batters nonetheless. I don't know Ms. Finke, but I am always amazed at how she can write up a story so well and then spin one bit of false info into a media opportunity to boost her profile. Clearly it works for her and her clients, uh, I mean, sources. One of her best sources seems to love whipping Michael Ovitz. And isn't it fun for everyone to whip Ovitz. There aren't too many easier targets. He was once the most powerful man in Hollywood. Now he's but a 9-figure millionaire who has made CAA mess their pants in public. But hey, I still love telling the story of Ovitz vs. Eszterhas in which Joe claims that Mike threatened to have his brains blown out by his foot soldiers who roam up and down Wilshire Blvd. A classic.

But like Disney, even a big mean dog deserves no less than an honest amount of truthful light from people who call themselves journalists. The failure of the new Michael Crichton book to be sold in record time at a record price is now "a disaster for all involved." You see, Crichton recently left his agency, CAA, for the management firm that Ovitz started, AMG. But Crichton and his book aren't the real focus of Finke and her "informed sources'" ire. Ovitz is. (Bait and Switch.) The next target is Gangs of New York, Martin Scorsese's $90 million period crime movie to which Leonardo DiCaprio is attached. The thunder starts coming as Finke writes, " Who is to blame for these debacles? Crichton for writing a dud? Scorsese for coming up with yet another dark and violent plot? DiCaprio for squandering some of that post-Titanic star power? Or Ovitz, once the most feared man in Hollywood, for sowing so much ill will among studio executives for his past abuses of power that they're taking revenge on his AMG clients?"

What's the answer? Simple. None of the above! Sorry suckers! No sale. First, the attachment of the word "debacle" to these projects is about as premature as Finke's attempt to marginalize Thomas Harris' "Hannibal" at the start of the summer by making the entire book into a brain-eating orgy. Next, here is the reality of what is happening. Martin Scorsese, perhaps the most talented film director alive, has never had a $100 million domestic movie. He's never had a movie hit $200 million worldwide. The closest he came to either was with Cape Fear, which made just under $80 million domestic and just over $180 million worldwide. So why would anyone consider bankrolling a $90 million Martin Scorsese movie, especially in a time where everyone is being forced to cut back? Answer: they wouldn't. You say, "Well Leo is in it!" Well, Leo hasn't been a lead in a single movie since Titanic left first-run. How much is he worth? And knowing that Scorsese's film, however brilliant, don't draw big crowds, would Leo, even if he provided, say, a $50 million boost worldwide, be worth the $20 million he'd get, plus gross points? No. And we have no guarantee that Leo can even provide the $50 million. Until he proves otherwise, he's a one-hit wonder. Just ask Miramax, which spent money on selling Leo in Celebrity and ended up with $5 million at the box office.

Let's move to Crichton. Jurassic Park was six years ago. "ER" is on TV. Why would a studio -- again, remember that we are in a period of cost adjustment that just brought down the longest reigning studio chiefs in town and is pushing everyone towards "indie" film units -- spend over $10 million on a book that is reportedly a period piece? A $10 million book buy pretty much guarantees a budget of over $80 million for a film before marketing or gross points off the top for talent. There isn't a studio in town that is anxious to be in that business right now. Is the book a dud? I don't know. I haven't read it. But you have to know that Disney isn't happy that it owns Airframe about now. And Eaters of The Dead/The 13th Warrior is going to be a write-off almost as big as Ovitz' payoff for leaving the company a couple of years ago. Sphere lost money at Warner Bros. Congo, Disclosure and Rising Sun were all low in profits and the only one whose package would probably sell today would be Rising Sun, with Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes still selling tickets at a price, though the story is outdated.

But, since Finke was writing a slam piece on Ovitz to begin with, her answer is "It's Ovitz' fault!" Of course. See, Ovitz is responsible for the economic turn of the industry. It's all him. CAA is making $10 million book sales every week now. They are packaging movies with three $10 million-plus leads, an $8 million director and a $2 million screenwriter based on a $10 million book all the time! Yeah. Scarily enough, Jeff Wells of Reel.com may have the right idea when he suggests that maybe Ovitz is pushing for deals that just can't be made right now. Maybe Leo and Marty should work for a price to get Gangs of New York made for $60 million instead of $90 million. Maybe Crichton is the Joe Eszterhas of his time, hitting a wall after years of outrageous paydays that didn't turn into hit movies.

Of course, attacking Ovitz is more fun than telling the truth. Was CAA right to feel that sharing agency clients with Ovitz's management firm was like letting the fox back into the hen house? Probably. But proclaiming that their clients would not be allowed to take on Ovitz' company for management (at a cost to their individual incomes, I remind you) cost CAA a number of clients, some of whom wanted to be near Ovitz and some of whom were enraged by being told by people who worked for them that they didn't ultimately get to make career decisions for themselves. Finke has the cajones to try to spin the reality of how the AMG ban came into place at CAA, reversing the real timeline (ironically, the name of Crichton's book) to suggest that the ban was retaliation for stolen clients. At least one of the clients she claims CAA was retaliating over left CAA (which by the way, was not a requirement of joining AMG) because of the ban.

This story is an absolute hatchet job of the lowest order. I don't expect Salon to know any better. It's not their beat. But shame on you, Ms. Finke. (You can read the piece here.)

TURNABOUT'S UNFAIR PLAY: Of course, the Ovitz camp had to respond with hype of their own. Thank you, Variety, for headlining Wednesday's edition with Ovitz spin control. We are told that AMG is a hard-driving production company. Wow! What a load! Check out this gluteus gripping prose by Christian Moerk: "Artists Production Group, the pic production arm of AMG, is quietly emerging as a major producer in its own right. Among top creative elements involved in projects rapidly coming together are Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meg Ryan and Richard Donner. APG is housed on the mahogany-lined sixth floor of the same Wilshire Boulevard building that is home to sister management unit AMG, which was founded earlier this year by Michael Ovitz, Rick Yorn and Julie Silverman-Yorn." Blow your nose, Chris. It must be full up with something other than mucous after that!

The piece then explains how Timeline is about to sell and how Gangs of New York has secured Disney for international and is about to sign for domestic. More prose: "Timeline has drawn recent criticism because it didn't sell to a major studio after more than a week on the street. AMG, however, is said to have offers on the project from three studios." Said by AMG, obviously. How about this? "While many managers profess to have free-standing production outfits, AMG seems to have made a clear distinction between its management and production activities." Gag! Choke! And Ovitz can orchestrate this puppet show while in Houston not winning the rights for an NFL franchise for L.A. Amazing! The story then assaults us with 15 "ready-to-go titles" that prove that quantity is king. (I'm sure that many of them are great projects, but as with all development projects, more will "go" down the toilet than "go" on screen.)

But this is a press release story if there has ever been one. Remarkable. The truth is the truth though it is always fuzzy. I'm sure that Ovitz & Co. (and I'm sure Rick and Julie Silverman-Yorn are quite sick of being "& Co.") are unhappy that they formed their agency/production company just as the business went into big-buck recession. The last couple of years have proven that huge grosses do not necessarily equal huge or even any profits. We are an industry in stasis. Coincidentally, AMG's big calling card, Leo D., is also in stasis, apparently as unable to make his next move as Jim Cameron is after Titanic. (Only Kate Winslet's breasts have had steady work since that tidal wave hit.) But that will change and you can be sure that Ovitz will capitalize. And you can be sure that Nikki Finke will be there to explain why his success isn't real. And someone else will explain why it is real and even bigger than you could imagine. No wonder I love this business.

ONE MORE TURN: Chris Tucker, whose inability to make a single movie since co-starring in the surprise smash Rush Hour reaches beyond explanation, is leaving Ovitz' AMG after just six months. He's going back to his lawyer. If there is a mystery in Hollywood regarding AMG, it is why they couldn't get Tucker a greenlight on a cheap comedy in 30 seconds flat. I just don't get it. Only three possible answers spring to mind. One, Tucker became an instant prima donna and pissed people off so intensely that even money wasn't worth the trouble, or two, he wanted too much money to perform, or three, he wanted to make movies that were too expensive. I honestly have no idea which is true. But unlike DiCaprio or Scorsese, Tucker seems like a walking money machine in the making. Comedies are cheap, even when you are paying a whole lot to the star. And somehow, AMG blew that one. Now, THAT is an embarrassment. Watch for a Finke addendum!

READER OF THE DAY: Three shades of blame in response to yesterday's column : First, from Mr. IHOP: "There's a lot of blame to go around on why great movies go unnoticed, why crappy films open huge, how potentially good films go horribly wrong, etc.

I used to think test screenings were an awful part of the moviemaking process, but I've wavered in recent years. If you've made a comedy, do you really want to wait until the opening weekend to find out all those "great" one-liners you wrote are getting stony silence (or those half-hearted "snorts" that pass as laughs)?

The trick to testing seems to be knowing what to use and what to discard. Testing can point up "fixable flaws" like a need for tighter editing. And testing can lead to dropping or changing scenes that seemed okay on the set but don't play well in the finished print. (Would The Big Chill have become a yuppie classic if everyone had left the theater talking about the bad wigs in the flashback scene?)

But no film should be a slave to the preview cards. Everybody likes a happy ending, but would Casablanca have been a better movie if Ilsa had stayed with Rick? (No, I didn't use a spoiler; this is a movie fan website run by a Turner company -- if you're here, you should've seen Casablanca by now.) And as much as people will grouse about three-hour films, some movies simply can't be told in less time (Lawrence of Arabia and Schindler's List, to name two.)

But I still think the biggest blame for the state of modern movies is the modern moviegoer. I think most of them ... most of us ... are going to the multiplex for a "feel-good," which usually means cars are blowing up or pants are coming down. We're so determined to leave the theater with a smile on our face that we'll deliberately ignore downbeat material, even if the reviews and the "buzz" are spectacular. We'll whine about the sameness in mainstream cinema, but whenever a big studio puts out a Lorenzo's Oil, or a Quiz Show, or a Shawshank Redemption, or an Out of Sight, or an Iron Giant, we wait for the video.

And somehow, we started equating the Top Ten Grossers with quality films. "Double Jeopardy outdid Three Kings, so DJ must be the better movie. I guess I'll see that one." I don't know how this mentality developed, and I don't know how to stop it, but it's gotta be stopped. If you want to use weekend grosses as a measure of effective marketing, or star power, or even as a pop-culture pulse-taker, fine. But stop assuming that a movie's quality is directly proportional to its grosses.

And while you're at it, turn off the cell phone." And on a similar note, Dominoes Dude: " I can't blame publicists. They put butts in seats. That's their job.

I can't blame test screenings, really, though I do wish studios wouldn't rely so heavily on them. And then again, many in the "golden age" of Hollywood depended on them and we got classics, not just crap.

I blame us. We (as a general public, not necessarily anyone I know personally) get the movies we deserve, because we accept less time and time again. Last winter my niece raved to me about Patch Adams and was shocked that I hadn't seen it. I told her that I'd seen Robin Williams play variations of that character in enough movies already, and as I named a couple, she admitted she hadn't seen them. Her father seemed stunned when I mentioned once that I didn't like Batman and Robin. He asked me why; I explained that it was just one-liner after one-liner and the plot made no sense. He laughed and said, "Wow, I guess you expect more out of movies than I do. I thought it was really fun for two hours." (His wife has a checklist when renting him videos: boobs, guns, and explosions -- that's all he needs.)

So there it is. Some of us expect more out of movies, but I think we're the minority. We know who we are because we cruise websites about film and we write in to such sites. Every now and then quality and the public zeitgeist dovetail nicely, and we're pleased. But not nearly often enough. Sometimes the force is too strong and I give in to the crap -- I saw The 13th Warrior last week, for example, and was just pleased that it wasn't nearly as stupid as I thought it would be. Sometimes I have to settle for that -- fun for two hours."

Finally, Serpe Diem boils it down: " Blame Canada! Blame Canada. With their beady little eyes, their flappin' heads all full o' lies ...

Sorry, I'm still in love with South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Which is odd because I never watch the TV series. SP: B, L & U and Iron Giant are the best animated films to come along in YEARS and YEARS!"

E ME: Enough rage for you today? Sometimes the media feels like "our Germans vs. their Germans" in the race for the nuclear bomb. Obviously, this is not nearly as important, but we writers hone our tools so carefully and then we forget what race we're running. It's not about us. It's not about them. It's supposed to be about the truth. And while truth is bent by perception, there are lies that we know we are telling as we write them. And that makes me sick to my stomach. Makes quote whoring seem like less than a misdemeanor. Is there no honor left among us?