Tuesday, 9 January 2001

REALLY BAD AD WATCH: Well, I probably wouldn’t have noticed were it not for the e-mails from a few entertainment writers of national import. But Chocolat is now a unanimous choice from not only critics, not only audiences, but from "Esteemed Civic Leaders" as well. Huh? In Monday’s print ads, replacing pull-quotes from the traditional crowd, we have AMFAR’s Mathilde Krim, the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman, and Jesse "I Had a Quote" Jackson, rallying us behind this very important picture. There are so many things wrong with this choice by Miramax that I can hardly name them all. But on the top of the list is that Cider House last year, which centered on a specific, undeniable subject -- abortion rights -- it never stooped to this tactic. Chocolat is a lovely, gentle film about love and, coincidentally, small-c censorship. It’s about intemperance. It is not a serious political movie. It is not legitimately a Best Picture candidate, even though the good folks at Miramax will make it so by selling it harder than anyone except DreamWorks with their Gladiator push. Nonetheless, this is absurd. But there is another problem, which is that Jesse Jackson is not exactly a pillar of love and warmth for everyone. His "Hymietown" may be 17 years old, but "never forget" is a favorite (and important) phrase for Jews everywhere. Jesse might have made it over the hump with coastal Jews had he actually gotten the Gore turnaround turned around. But outside of the fact that L.A. is the land of fame whores, you’re not likely to hear a lot of Oscar voters sitting around their coffee nooks saying, "Jesse Jackson says Chocolat must be seen by everyone... let’s go!" The irony of all of this is that one has to figure that this is a completely sincere move by Miramax, driven by the very political and newly revived Harvey Weinstein. And yet, I think that it will be seen as cheap and completely cynical by the media... well, Liz Smith will love it! What do you think?

THE PLEDGE JUNKET: I’ve pretty much stopped doing junkets, but how could I resist the rare opportunity to sit down at a table with Jack Nicholson and Sean Penn, who were junketing Penn’s new movie, The Pledge? I couldn’t. Nicholson couldn’t be more charming. The subject of the mid-January, post-Oscar contending release date came up and was discounted somewhat by producer Michael Fitzgerald and Sean Penn, who essentially said that they bowed to the decision of Warner Bros. and Franchise Pictures, both of whom would have to deal with the costs. Though Penn did say that he would have bet heavily on a Nicholson nomination had the film been eligible. Nicholson was more to the point, saying, "I’m furious." Nicholson is a fan of Oscar, extolling its virtue as the last bastion of "the thing I miss most about old Hollywood, the glamour." He also defended the idea behind awards, saying, "It stimulates interest and that’s all an artist is supposed to do."

Neither Penn really seems to be a fan of awards shows or competition between actors. As Robin Wright Penn said, "Let all five actresses play (the same character). Then decide who did the best job!" R.W. P. has also, apparently, given up on ever being nominated, something Mr. Nicholson put in perspective when he mentioned how terrible it was that she was left out of the boatload of nominations for Forrest Gump. One interesting nonperformance performance note: She plays a character who has a half-broken front tooth. Turns out that they CGed the tooth out in post, which is another great example of somewhat banal uses of CG that are now becoming cheap enough and easy enough to use even on a low-budget art film.

Sean Penn did hit a home run answering a question that shouldn’t have been asked about the wedding of his ex-wife, Madonna. He said, "You know her as well as I do now... people who don’t know people shouldn’t be answering questions like that." Penn also opined on his own career and the careers of others that he doesn’t believe in "buying opportunities," as with playing in a big movie to make a splash and some cash and then doing an art film. "They always lose something when they come back. Always." The table had the good taste not to bring up the rumor-mill stuff about he and Nic Cage or to force him to say something unkind about Robert Duvall, who has made two take-the-money-and-run movies this year and one out of love.

The quote king of the day was, however, producer Michael Fitzgerald. We blamed movie stars for runaway production, suggesting that stars like Tom Hanks (who I don’t think has ever made a film in Canada, by the way) give back $5 million of their salaries to the other actors. That doesn’t speak to production costs, does it? Oh well. He went on to say, "By the time you pay the top people their money, there’s no money for anyone else." Once again, self-restraint kept me from asking whether Jack Nicholson should have taken a pay cut on The Pledge (though he surely worked relatively cheaply on this one, anyway). It was, after all, Mr. Nicholson who got the first $70 million payday ever for Batman. As regards the release date, Fitzgerald offered, "Jack has plenty of Oscars. I’m not worried about bolstering his career." And he took a shot or ten at Traffic, saying that The Pledge is "better than Traffic," insisting that The Pledge was more substantive than Traffic, and claiming that, in the end, Traffic is nothing more than another cheap Hollywood cop-out movie. And by the way, of Benicio Del Toro, who also appears in The Pledge... he was "good, but not great" in Traffic. And so it goes.

CASTING WITH ROD: Okay, so the trades got to run Redford, Ruffalo, and Gandolfini first. Now, I get the info that Clifton Collins Jr. is going to be joining the cast of Rod Lurie’s next directorial outing, The Castle. Now, you are probably scratching your head. But if you saw Traffic, Collins is sure etched forever on your brain. He plays the assassin, Frankie Flowers. You probably recognize him from other stuff, too. He’s been around. But Frankie Flowers... great work. With some directors, you wait for a misstep that comes from over-reaching or whatever. With Lurie, we’ll know he’s in trouble with a picture the first time he makes a casting mistake. (Which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a lot to learn as a director... but his casts have been remarkable each time out, considering each script and each budget.)

PAGE TWO: Glenn, Gouging, Guilds & ROTD