7-8 October 2000

3. Gonna Hurl-ey: Didn't anyone tell Alec Baldwin that Bedazzled is beginning to look like it won't be the hit that people expected it to be? Baldwin is taking on the directing chores on a remake of The Devil and Daniel Webster and has cast Jennifer Love Hewitt as The Devil. That would have been a great choice...the first time around. But the idea of putting Hewitt in that role if it reflects Bedazzled's casting of Elizabeth Hurley and if Bedazzled isn't box office smash...oy! (On a side note: Could Fox have any worse luck or have made a worse choice than to pull Bedazzled out of a lame August/September market and right into the oncoming path of Meet The Parents, which I expect to be the first -- and one of the few -- $100 million movies this fall?)

2. Placing The Rouge: Okay...so Moulin Rouge is out of the Christmas season and out of the Oscar race. Fox has been dragging its feet for a while on this one, but now a producer of the film, Martin Brown, says that the film still has pick-ups to do with Nicole Kidman and that it won't actually be ready until March. Fox says they are now positioning the film for a summer release, but the question of a new release date now requires some begging. Let's start with the assumption that Moulin Rouge will be worth watching. We must, because if it's not, it doesn't matter when it gets released, it will die quickly. So, do you release a complex musical drama in the middle of the insanity of summer, where it can get smashed like a pretty bug on a windshield for no other reason than the sheer velocity of the moment? Or do you shoot for a late March/early April Matrix shot? Or do you hold it off until the fall. OR, in the boldest move possible, do you hold the film until next November (Romeo + Juliet may be remembered as summer-like entertainment, but it opened on November 1 in the U.S.) and make it into an Oscar-run movie all over again? Presumably, the film would be competing with the studio's Minority Report, but still, it's kind of interesting, huh? A lot of this will depend on the film.

1. Still WAH!ing On The Hill: For those of you who keep saying, "Don't worry...it's all hot air," the House of Representatives scheduled a vote for last Tuesday on legislation giving an anti-trust exemption to the entertainment industry with no other purpose than to allow the business to conspire with itself on a single code of conduct regarding child-unfriendly artistic materials. Valenti & Co. got them to push the vote back for a little while. But, this is exactly where the threat is..the government is using its power to pressure the industry into the only legalized form of censorship: self-censorship.

In the meanwhile, we have the first major absurdist spectacle of the WAH! (War Against Hollywood!) as Artisan and exhibitors UA and Loews Cineplex are joining together to pay for extra security at the door of the first screenings of Darren Aronofsky's Requiem For A Dream, a movie that will draw almost as many teenagers trying to sneak in as a lecture on abstinence. My bet is that the brains at Artisan are fully aware of the absurdity of this move, but realize that the attendant free publicity will probably draw at least a few customers from outside the art-world fray, offsetting the costs of the stunt.

Meanwhile, back in Kansas (Kentucky, actually), you have a vice-presidential debate in which the issue of censorship comes up and about which the only controversy is that one side is taking money from Hollywood's left while sniping...neither side has any interest in stopping the WAH! Great. And of course, another opportunity for Joe Lieberman to encapsulate his position and exactly why his position is so scary in one sentence: "Al Gore and I have felt for a long time, first as parents and only second as public officials, that we cannot let America's parents stand alone in this competition that they feel they're in with Hollywood to raise their own kids and give their kids the faith and the values they want to give them." I'm almost speechless. The competition with Hollywood to raise America's children...ain't that a kick in the head. A man of God, running to succeed a man who was once a pothead running to succeed a man who can't keep his zipper closed when confronted with fat-lipped strangers versus the Republican who grew up to be a cocaine user even with a mother who's been canonized and a father who would become president. Yeah, it must have been R-rated movies that corrupted them. Must have been that media, competing with George and Barbara. Bill Clinton must have seen Shampoo one too many times.

And where is Hollywood on this...silent. We should be so proud.

READER OF THE DAY: A very different Dave with a very different opinion than mine. I think he's referring to Andy Klein's savvy review of Bamboozled here: "One wonders what our society would be like if we didn't have people like Spike Lee, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and other race baiters to tear open the scabs of racial tension that have been healing for over 30 years now. Spike Lee has done nothing but put out less than average entertainment, and yet you critics feel like in order to not be labeled racist, you have to give that schlock a good review. And on top of that, in the midst of your review have to actually apologize for being white!

If you truly want equality, treat him like other critics, colorblindly, and review his movies objectively, not through race-tinted glasses. I think you'll see that his work is just plain formulaic, race-baiting, sophomoric garbage. If you keep giving this guy good reviews, the more he's going to rip open the freshly healed scabs of racism. The man is a millionaire, yet he continues to play the race card instead of doing something constructive for blacks with his work. Why not focus on the successes of blacks, instead of race? Other black films in the past few years have done this and become quite successful.

And once again, don't apologize for being white. Is this what we've come to in our country? I hope not."

DAVID RESPONDS: Just for the record, I would never apologize for being white, being Jewish, being male, being hairy, being a million tiny things that I am. I am, as Popeye once stated for the record, what I am. But I also think that there is nothing wrong with reflecting on the past and the present and what ideas are in our lives without even a thought. My neighborhood is a safe place to walk...but it's a lot safer as a 6-foot-tall, 200 pound man. I don't need to apologize for being scary to potential muggers. But I do need to be aware that a 5' 5" woman has a different set of values in deciding which street is safe for her to walk at night, without me assuming right off that she's just paranoid. I think that Spike Lee can go off the deep end. But a movie like Bamboozled...it may go to far, but it will make you think. And I value that. Even if it makes me uncomfortable. No, America should never be a place where anyone has to apologize for who they are -- physically or politically or spiritually. But it has been such a place for a lot of people for a long time. And if we don't acknowledge that, we are condemned to keep making that mistake.

E ME: If I have to tell you what to write, it's not going to be any good anyway...bring it on!