Thursday, 14 October 1999

TIMING: Well, minutes before my deadline for today's column, I got another call from Anita Busch. She was less cordial this time. Her anger continued to bubble over my reporting about her seeing Fight Club. Because I apparently continued to misunderstand her viewing timeline, I am now a hypocrite for calling her report on Friday a failure "at the most basic level of journalism." She continues to insist that her time of arrival for the premiere screening was Fox spinning me, though in yesterday's column, I corrected that error based on her word alone. Now, I am misrepresenting when she saw the movie. After saying to me repeatedly that she "saw the movie twice before the piece ran," which I assumed meant the Friday piece, given that that's all I had written or spoken about on KABC before, it turns out that she meant that she saw the movie twice before the Tuesday piece ran. I feel bad that I got that fact wrong, but that still has nothing to do with why I attacked her Friday item.

Not explaining why these unnamed sources were so upset about the movie was bad journalism. Period. Whether Anita saw the movie once, saw the movie twice, saw the movie a million times. Running a bunch of inflammatory quotes against the film from unnamed sources without offering any context about what got these people so upset left any reader who hadn't seen the film with a myopic perception. "Why" is always a critical part of a story. The story left us with the idea that "why" was so obvious that it didn't need an explanation. I consider that reckless.

But ya know, it is not the end of the world. Anita and The Hollywood Reporter are far less likely to spin based on the personal taste of their writers than most magazines or for that matter, Web-based writers. But this time, I think they did it. They crossed the line. Anita re-set the situation by writing a clearly marked editorial in Tuesday's edition. Great. But that column, whether I agree with it or not, does not make what ran on Friday okay. Sorry. Given that it espoused the same point of view, it actually threw a bit of gasoline on the fire since it confirmed that the view of the Friday news/column piece was, in fact, the editor's personal view as well.

Now, I consider getting facts right critical. So I have to offer up the factual reasons why my integrity as a journalist is being questioned by the editor of one of the trades. I made two factual mistakes, the truth of which I will clarify here on the basis of Anita Busch's word: 1. Anita Busch was not actually late for the premiere of Fight Club and 2. Anita Busch saw Fight Club at the premiere and then again on Monday at the all-media screening, not twice before the Friday piece ran. Assuming that these mistakes were completely of my own creation, do they have anything to do with the body of my writing on this issue over the last week? I admit that I did suggest on KABC and in passing in Monday's column that Anita was late to the premiere and thus, her opinion was less than completely solid. I corrected that false impression yesterday. And given that I did not accuse her of misrepresenting when she saw the movie in any forum, I donŐt know how the issue of when she saw the movie is a big deal. But you tell me...am I a hypocrite? Has my strong, tough, somewhat violent disagreement with Anita over the film itself and her reaction to it been reduced in value by these two factual errors? Did Fox compromise my journalistic integrity by telling me that Anita was late to the premiere, which added to my concerns about how The Reporter had handled the story on Friday, which I wrote about long before ever talking to anyone at Fox?

You tell me.

I say, my hands are dirty, but not so dirty that they can't be washed clean. And on these two facts, I don't even think I need a lot of soap.

I regret making an enemy whenever I do. And I suspect I now have one in Anita Busch. That is a shame. I don't count my success in this business by how many people I have enraged. I count my success in my own measure of how I do my job. I try to be truthful. I try to offer more perspectives than just my own. And I do, I must admit, sometimes get carried away in the intensity of the battle. Anita Busch edits her magazine more than 250 times a year. This is, as best I can remember, my first attack aimed directly at her. And I stand by my position. I just wish that she could get some perspective on the 250 times I didnŐt feel the need to fight this year. As I will maintain a distance from her personal attacks she made against me on the phone this morning. I understand rage and I am more than willing to let it pass.

The Reader Of The Day section today included three letters about this, all against the editorial that ran in The Reporter on Tuesday. I'm pulling them since in light of this button, I don't want to risk the appearance that I'm stacking the deck. But I will leave one which speaks exclusively to a factual error in Anita's editorial. Something I hadn't even picked up on.

THE FIGHT IN WASHINGTON: After the last days of hassle about Fight Club and The Hollywood Reporter, it struck me as ironic that in Wednesday's New York Times, there was a big fat article entitled, "Politicians Speak Out But Are Wary Of Restricting Film Violence." Where was the "Until Fight Club Wreaks Havoc On Hollywood?" There was none. The article by David E. Rosenbaum does a good job of outlining much of the history of this debate, but concludes early in the piece, "Despite...a belief among politicians from both parties and much of the public that violence in the media contributes to some degree to violence in society, it is a safe bet that no law will be passed or regulatory action taken that puts meaningful restraints on movies, television and other forms of entertainment." But, but, but, but, but, but... time to ratchet down the hysteria, kids. Read the article here, if the link still works today. The Times makes it tough to link.

JUST WONDERING: I think I have wondered this aloud before, but will Fight Club be the movie that exposes a generation gap unlike any movie before? There are some very smart critics out there who are going to be gunning for the movie without restraint. Frankly, I feel closer in age and experience to many of them than I do to (God, I hate these titles) Gen-Xers in no small part because my parents are and were about the same age as their parents. (My dad would have been 82 this year.) We are in a great artistic wave right now, with David Fincher and Spike Jonze and the Wachowskis and Wes Anderson and other young filmmakers pushing the boundaries. Yet it only seems to appeal to the (here I go again) Boomers when it is easier to swallow. When the art smacks us in the face, it seems to put the Boomers off.

MORE MORAL REPULSIVENESS: This time, its on Broadway! But it reflects the current Speed Culture that the media is in these days. Ever since Newsweek (or was it Time?) jumped the gun on Saving Private Ryan two summers ago, eschewing the studio's wishes to do a cover story on their own, there has been a war against the rulebook of entertainment journalism being waged at the highest levels. For those of you who are rooting for such anarchy, keep in mind that the gun-jumpers are simply exploiting the movies in the same way they hoped to through "the system," but simply with different copy. It's not as though the early Private Ryan piece or this summer's remarkably spiteful early Star Wars piece, written by the magazine's film critic without benefit of having seen the movie, is some form of guerilla journalism striking out against the restraints of the publicists. It's business, baby.

Anyway, the point was that Broadway is abuzz over Newsweek's premature review of the new Dame Edna show...even though the review is positive. You see, the etiquette of theater are even more defined than in the film business. Early reviews are not part of the program. On top of which, Jack Kroll had reviewed the show based on a pre-press preview, much like a film critic reviewing a film based on a test screening. (That's why you haven't read my thoughts on The Messenger, which was significantly longer when screened for selected media last month than it will be when it hits theaters next month.) In fact, it seems that Newsweek senior editor Sara Petit purposefully assigned Kroll to review prematurely, telling the show's publicist, "If Time can beat us on book reviews, why not?Ő " Apparently, the magazine was also sensitive to the issue of matching Time's review schedule after Time ran a full-page rave about a show Newsweek passed on. Of course, that was a failure to assign, not some misdeed by Time. The point is, the only difference between news and journalism has always been that journalism had rules. And those rules continue to slip every single day.

SPEAKING OF SLIPPING: Do you really want to protest? When Annie Hall hit network TV back in 1979, it was controversial because it would be the first use of the word asshole on TV ever. Woody Allen insisted that the film be uncut, so the word stayed in. Twenty years later, it seems like every show other than "Rugrats" uses that phrase on a regular basis. And worse. Do I object personally? No. But it is true that once the door opens on TV, it tends to stay open. I saw some network show the other night and they were pushing the "NYPD Blue" nudity boundaries to the point of showing a woman on top of a man in sexual congress with her breasts naked in silhouette. I'm sure network censors watched the tape a few dozen times to be sure that any variation in color between the mass of the breast and the areola could not be made out. But still...

Anyway, "s**t" is coming to "Chicago Hope" tonight and given that the word is all over your cable dial, I don't think the world is coming to an end. But it is changing. The line is getting blurrier. Given that the network approved this for a series, I expect that the "four dirty words" will become TV standard before 2010. Does it matter? You tell me.

CREATIVE FINANCING: You have to give it to Nikki Finke (THB 10/7), she may be an attack dog, but after her Salon piece ran, the mud around the feet of Artists Management Group seems to have loosened and both deals she spun to the negative have been made to happen within a week. The first was the Gangs of New York deal, which I wrote about here on Monday (THB 10/11) and was written about in great detail by Variety, likely with a lot of input from AMG, hoping to "set the record straight." (My applause for Variety's Chris Petrikin that day spoke to the choice and effort to print so detailed a history.) Now, after a lot of foot-dragging in search of a $10 million payout, AMG created a deal for Michael Crichton's Timeline in which he will take the risk with the studio. Mind you, these are the kind of deals that made Mike Ovitz a king of Hollywood in the CAA days. No one's bitten yet, but if they pass on this deal, it won't be for economic reasons, but really will reflect the inability to see a way to make this book work as a film. (Which I'm sure that Nikki Finke will find a way to blame on Ovitz.)

The deal, as outlined by Michael Fleming, attaches Richard Donner to the movie as director and co-producer, keeps Crichton in as a producer even if his first-draft screenplay goes unused. AMG is also a producer. For all this, while supplies last, the studio will pay $3 million, apparently on a pay-or-play basis. On top of that, if the film moves forward, Donner gets his normal $10 million payday, plus Donner gets 10 percent of the gross against his $10 million and Crichton get 15 percent of first dollar gross up to $15 million. In other words, if you assume a $60 million below-the-line budget and don't even account for any big chunks of money and gross points that stars may eat up, a $150 million domestic gross puts the cost of the film at $93 million. Add in one major star ($15 million against 10 percent) and one minor one ($5 million) and you are looking at a movie that needs to generate $350 million worldwide at a minimum to turn a profit before homemedia (copyright pending). While that feat is getting easier these days, there are still only 46 movies that have ever hit that mark. Only five last year and only three this year so far, which will not include, for instance, such big domestic hits as Austin Powers 2. We'll see if anyone bites.

WRITERS ALWAYS CRY: Boys Don't Cry is certainly one of the best films of the year, but it also may be the most litigious. While still battling with Lana Tisdell over the portrayal of Lana in the film, which Lana hasn't seen, a lawsuit has broken out from a playwright formerly associated with the picture demanding a piece of the soon-to-be very valuable screenwriting credit. Who is telling the truth here? I don't know. Clearly Weeks, who gets an "Additional dialogue by" credit, which I assume is a non Writer's Guild credit (the Guild seems to be uninvolved in all of this), clearly was part of the process. Who wrote what is always a truth left in a small room with a typewriter and too much coffee. The bitter so often meets the sweet in this business, but let's hope that the bitter doesn't affect the future of this wonderful little movie.

READERS OF THE DAY: A sensitively edited letter from The Big M: "(In her editorial,) Anita Busch misquotes one of the key lines of the film. She says that after the car accident, Tyler says to Norton, "You just had a new life experience." Um...nope.

Tyler says, "You just had a near-life experience," which is the opposite of what most people would call it. This suggests that Tyler believes we are all already walking around dead, and this waking up that the film illustrates is a way to fumble towards something like life."

E ME: Use it or lose it.