Tuesday, 8 February 2000

IF THE SUIT FITS: A fascinating lawsuit has begun between Sara Karloff, Boris' daughter, and Universal Pictures over the use of the image of her father in make-up as both Frankenstein and Imhotep, the mummy from The Mummy. Besides just deciding what happens between the two parties, I think this may end up being a very significant law-creating case that ends up significantly influencing the issue of how and at what cost studios can use actors' former work, manipulated by computers, to create new works of "art". The specific case does have some unique variations. Universal has forever been in the business of building its image based in large part on their monster movies and, in particular, on Frankenstein and The Mummy. These characters are major players at the Universal theme parks, though recently diminished as major rides have been added. When the early Universal Website went up, the monster section was a high percentage of the content. And last year, as I'm sure you are already mumbling to yourself while reading this, the studio had a big hit remaking The Mummy. The argument between Karloff and the studio started with a negotiation for the ongoing use of Boris' likeness in promotion, a negotiation which ended suddenly when Universal decided that they could create a near likeness and not have to pay anyone off. Where is the line drawn? That is the question. And it could be an answer that effects Chanel and Dirt Devil and all of the studios for decades to come. Is an image of Marilyn Monroe without a mole still an image of Marilyn Monroe?

ANOTHER CHARACTER HEARD FROM: I can't speak to the veracity or the kindness of the weekly comic saga "Mr. Sharon Stone", as published in The San Francisco Independent. All I can promise is that these things can be laugh-out-loud funny. Somehow the mixture of a celebrity like Ms. Stone and the idea of her being as obsessive as she is portrayed to be in the comic...well, it's funny. What can I say? Apparently she's invested in some taco business I never heard about...and that's hysterically funny too. So, with a tip of the hat to the idea that this may be unfair and cruel, I must still point you to Mr. Sharon Stone.

STEPPING UP: Angela Bassett is changing agents. Hallelujah! I don't know her former agent and I don't know what projects were coming in and how choices were being made, but right now, Angela Bassett qualifies as the most misused and underused power actress in Hollywood. The right industry-bending thinker could get her where she deserves to be ... top of the list. My fingers are crossed.

JUST WONDERING: Has anyone else noticed that a lot of ideas of industry trends are showing up at roughcut.com before turning up on the pages of major newspapers, magazines and TV shows? I'm not saying that anyone is stealing. God knows, this is not a breaking news column. I let the news become news and then comment on it. But it's nice to think that this may be a breaking thought column. And of course, if you break it, you buy it.

DO NOT ASK FOR WHO THE MERGER TOLLS: The Hollywood Reporter ran a story on Monday repeating some of the rumors about a Seagrams sell-off of the movie division of Universal. That suggests that they are covering their butts in case a merger happens even before this column runs on Tuesday. I don't know if it will happen that quickly, but it will happen. Young Master Bronfman seems to have gotten over his gunshyness and is ready to become the music mogul he always, simply, wanted to be.

CROSS-SHREDDING: One of my "favorite" tricks of the trade, leaking one piece of gossip into another with the goal of destroying someone who has crossed you, now lands at Page Six in Jennifer Esposito's lap. Lopez did get dumped out of John Singleton's Shaft (make your own dirty joke.) However, that had, according to my sources, absolutely nothing to do with her not getting the role of the third angel in Charlie's Angels, as is now reported. And thus, my friends, the trouble with gossip. One rip is never enough. How many licks does it usually really take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll story? Aaa-one.

JUST WONDERING 2: Will anyone blame me if I don't get on a plane coming to or leaving Los Angeles anytime real soon?

READER OF THE DAY: Greg writes: "Hey, DP, how about a week or so without mentioning Jeff Wells. Ebert was right a while back: it seems that critics are starting to write for each other rather than their audience. I like your column, and I like Wells' for entirely different reasons. Yours, because you're fairly plain-spoken and not afraid to go on a rant. Wells, well, because (in Rex Reed-type voice) he's such a "bitch". The only thing I'd change about Wells' pieces is his penchant for detailing scenes and plot points in movies that most of his audience hasn't seen. That is, unless he's writing strictly with other critics in mind. Note from Scream 3: Cell phones do not have dial tones."

DAVID RESPONDS: Wells? Who is that? Never heard of him...actually, I agree. Wells has been known to disappear from the column for months. Sundance brought him back into my sphere of influence for a while, given that I ended up taking him to and from the Salt Lake City airport. I certainly don't write for him or anyone else, for if I did, I would be a much more popular person at media gatherings. Those who have a thin-skinned grudge certainly outnumber those who approach smiling. Wells, oddly enough, does both at the same time. In any case, point taken. And speaking of other writers...

This ROTD letter is from Leo on Elvis and The Times: "The prob with the Elvis review of Gun Shy was that there was nothing at all supporting that weirdly excessive opinion -- the line just comes out of nowhere, in the middle of the piece, and nothing he says before or after it explains why he thinks the movie is so great. Hence the problem: he likes to be weird, different, idiosyncratic, to pick some nothing movie and say it's the greatest movie, to take contrary opinions just for their own sake -- the sure sign of someone who both has a chip on his shoulder and also thinks very well of himself -- and also part of the corrupted legacy of Pauline Kael, where championing nothing movies becomes an arbitrary end in itself. This makes him fundamentally unsuited to be the NYT critic, which is about having a mainstream opinion (JM was brilliant at this, which was why she lasted so long -- she had her finger smack on the pulse of her readership -- just ask my dad.) His Isn't She Great review was a kick-ass piece of writing, but he probably spent weeks working on it, because nothing he's done since has even been coherent (including the Sundance piece.) Wish him well, though, because he's trying to establish a beachhead for smart, allusive, idiosyncratic movie-writing at the Times, and if he fails, there's no turning back. I know you're sick of this topic, though."

E ME: How about the rest of you? Does it matter to you who is at the controls at the major dailies? Or are you just Roger-centric? Or do you invest in specific writers for very individualized reasons?