9 January 2001

YOUNG RISERS: In other character-actor news, I forgot to mention yesterday the odd sense I had about Glenn Fitzgerald while I was watching Series 7. I couldn’t figure out where I knew this actor from, but he has a unique look and I knew I had seen him in something really interesting before. I sat there in the dark, trying to read the press kit... Finding Forrester, Judy Berlin, The Sixth Sense, The Ice Storm... no, no memory of this guy in those movies. And then I came home and looked on Imdb.com and BOOM! This guy was the son of Ben Stiller’s character’s birth parents in Flirting with Disaster. You know, the somewhat psychotic guy who’s not too happy about having a brother. Great performance there. And another terrific turn here.

CASH & CARRY ON: Just in time for an economic downturn, Walt Disney World is raising prices by two bucks, breaking the $50 ticket barrier. Children three to nine years of age are now $40.28 plus tax and adults are $51.18 plus tax. But don’t blame The Mouse House alone. Busch Gardens and Sea World also have taken their Florida prices over the $50 mark. And you thought movies were expensive.

SAG-GING: The Screen Actors Guild is a little union that has not quite grown up. That’s according to a study by the Towers Perrin consulting firm. But the reason this is rearing its head right now is that the report leaked to Variety last week and so, even though it is an eight-month-old report, it’s new news again. Can’t blame Variety for bringing out new details, but it is a curious thing. Is this espionage by the still-simmering supporters of Richard Masur, who have not accepted William Daniels as their new president? (They don’t suggest a recount, but a shrink for anyone who voted against Masur.) And is there any hope of avoiding a strike if the unions can’t even find peace internally, much less with the other unions or the studios and producers?

READERS OF THE DAY: Crouching Nemo writes -- "I live in Indianapolis, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is scheduled to open on February 16. So here’s the ultimate slap to Sony and the whole CTHD nonexpansion: It’s now easier to buy a LEGITIMATE import VCD or Region 3 DVD copy of CTHD for around $25 US than it is for most us to see the film in theaters.

And this comes from Salt Lake City JohnE -- "It’s starting to anger me that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won’t even be coming to my state until the 19th, and even then it’ll probably only be on one screen. Sony Classics has this film that’s had over $20,000 per screen for what, five weeks now? And they still won’t open wide? This could easily match Blair Witch in gross if they’d just go to over 1,000 screens this weekend, despite the crowd. It’s not like they’d lose the box-office war to AntiTrust. They need to be harped on daily. DAILY!!!"

And more from the Midwest, this time from First Time Jeff -- "I live in Detroit and just got to see Traffic this past weekend (I’ll finally get to see Crouching Tiger this weekend, thank god...I’m taking the day off to catch the first show) at a sold-out show at the local AMC 20. Talking with some people in line before the show, and most of them were anticipating seeing those lovable newlyweds, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, in the same movie together. Sigh. Honest to God, most of the people had no idea what the movie was really about or what they were getting into. They were mortified when I told them that I heard the pic was two and a half hours long. Two people sitting behind my fiancée and me couldn’t keep up with it at all, and kept asking each other what the hell was going on and if the whole movie was going to skip around like this. I could only roll my eyes. At the end of the film, people seemed to have that delayed-reaction pause as if to say, what was that I just saw? It was weird. It was almost like the film was too challenging and complex for people to handle, and they just didn’t know what to do with it. Do you think Oscar voters would react to it like this, because of the fact that it’s big and complex and demands your attention to every detail, and doesn’t make you feel all giddy and happy afterwards?

As for me, I loved it. I love a film that provokes discussion. My girl and I talked it out for an hour afterwards over shakes and burgers, because we both had to totally rehash the Benicio Del Toro story. Soderbergh deserves the director nomination for this film. I just loved the photography, especially the washed-out look of the Mexico scenes. The editing, the little jump cuts, the effective music, the hand-held camera stuff (it seemed like at least 75 percent of the film was hand-held) were all great. Only problems I had were [Editor’s note: spoilers in this sentence have been deleted and rewritten to make them nonspecific] with a couple of plot points: one concerning Don Cheadle and the other concerning Catherine Zeta-Jones. I can forgive this, though, because the first cut of the film was probably four hours long and they had to cut out something. I would love to see a director’s cut, even though I’m not a big fan of director’s cuts in general. I like to have the film that I remembered seeing in the theaters. But a longer version of this film would only enhance it."

E ME: I’m pretty sure that Traffic was at exactly the length that Soderbergh wanted it to be. But will the Academy be in on it? That is the Oscar rub, isn’t it? Will the Academy embrace the new or retreat to the formula?