Thursday, 11 January 2001

JAZZ!!!!: A reader pointed out to me that I haven’t pointed out to you since September the glory that is Ken Burns’s Jazz, and that it started on PBS stations nationally on Monday. If you love the music, you need to catch every minute of this remarkable documentary. They can scream all they want that Burns gives modern jazz artists the short shrift... this is a documentary that feels like one long concert by the greatest musicians ever. And you get some real insight about race in America to boot.

CHICKEN OR EGG: Coming out of the Video Software Dealers Association is the latest idea on how to get your rental dollars... rental DVDs. Blockbuster wants DVDs in its Video on Demand (VoD) program, which gives rental stores large numbers of units for rent before the films go on the sales market. Problematic for the industry is that the VoD plan, which works similarly for co-giant Hollywood Video, ends up killing the sell-through market. Not only does it satiate the need for purchases, but with video as well, it adds a glut of "pre-viewed" titles available at hugely discounted prices. Blockbuster contends that films would average $1.1 million more in revenue in their stores by going to DVD on Demand. But with DVDs, the inevitable reality is that rental would kill off purchase forever. A videotape may have a six-month lifespan at a rental store, but a DVD will last at least four or five years on average... probably longer. And then, of course, real video on demand, broadband/cable-based video on demand... it’s coming. If, in five years, DVD is the only viable ownership option, with better-than-video-level movies available on demand via your satellite or cable outlet, turning DVD into a rental business seems like a mistake, since without it, there will be no reason to buy anything... even if any ownership is impulsive instead of well thought out. Of course, Blockbuster wants to stay in business. And this explains the recent group of Blockbuster billboards that extol the virtues of renting over buying, particularly focusing on lower-end movies like Road Trip. But who are they playing to with these billboards, the industry or the consumer? I think my 10-year-old niece and 11-year-old nephew have it figured out. They rent a movie. They love a movie. They buy it after a couple of months for $5 or less and then they watch it over and over and over. There aren’t a lot of must-have titles in a video store.

24/7/4EVER: Joining the Series 7 team is a Spanish movie called The Big Martian. It’s a digitally shot spoof of Big Brother, in which a bunch of people stuck in a house are visited by aliens. The film’s producers claim that they shot the film without telling the participants that it was all a gag. I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t judge that, but the filmic reflection of the reality boom is already here. Think that the craze is passing? In Spain, there is now a pay-cable channel called Big Brother Universe that runs this stuff 24 hours a day. Really!

NOT EXACTLY BLAIR WITCH 2: Artisan has a deal with Marvel, so in the pre-strike rush, they have put Iron Fist.... not exactly the best-known character... into active development. It stars Ray Park.... not exactly the best-known actor... who says lines. One little thing. They have no director. And there is no screenplay yet. Quite the announcement... not exactly worth even thinking about yet.

GAMBLING GAL: When Tamra Davis made Guncrazy, with a still pre-relaunch Drew Barrymore, she was a high flier. Then there was trouble on CB4. Then, she got fired off her next picture, Bad Girls, after the studio saw the dailies. Billy Madison was her only hit... yet, given Team Sandler’s proclivity for keeping the family together, the fact that she didn’t stay on board doesn’t say a lot for her. So what does young singing tartlet Britney Spears do? She signs on for her first movie project with Ms. Davis at the helm. Look, maybe the project isn’t a disaster in the making. But you would think that someone who was going to be judged -- if the film isn’t good -- FOREVER, based on one movie, would look for the steadiest shipbuilders in the business to take her out of dock that first time. Me? I think she should have pitched herself to the Farrelly Bros. Now, THAT... whatever it would have become... might have been a great movie.

READ BETWEEN THE LINES: It’s hysterically funny to me that the trades are now following up items in Liz Smith’s column about Basic Instinct II. The trades are clearly getting their info from the studios and the producers, while Liz is clearly a Sharon Stone mouthpiece. The funniest thing about Liz’s pieces is trying to figure out what is being said between the lines. The latest "what does it mean?" insights came from her piece breaking the Kurt Russell news (claiming he’s been offered $5 million, which would be his lowest salary -- except for the tightly budgeted Vanilla Sky, which he is shooting now -- since his comeback in Stargate six years ago). Now there are rumblings that maybe Sharon doesn’t want to do all that nudity. Maybe she’d just walk away rather than exploi... hack, hack, blech.... Sorry. ... rather than expl... ha... exploi... howl!... damn, I can’t even suggest that Sharon Stone is seriously thinking that this is the time to restrain herself. Or that she isn’t one of Hollywood’s greatest self-exploiters of all time!

JUST WONDERING: Does anyone who is not just trying to fill column inches really care about Mr. Blackwell’s list anymore? To me, the most interesting thing was that he was too sick actually to give out the awards. Seems that we need a young man to step up and take over the mantle. Hmmm... Robert Ell of Entertainment Asylum maybe?

READER OF THE DAY: Not The Dolphins Wide Receiver writes -- "You keep referring to an upcoming film with Robert Redford called The Castle. Wasn’t there a Miramax release called The Castle just two years ago? I know it wasn’t a massive hit, but that low-budget Australian comedy is quite superb -- and featured in Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival last year. Hollywood used to wait at least a decade before recycling a title. Now it seems all bets are off -- witness Mel Gibson’s The Patriot just one year after Steven Seagal’s The Patriot. Ouch -- sorry to bring that one up."

E ME: HEY! That’s right. If I had a minute, I’d call DreamWorks for the answer to that pressing question, but I don’t, so with any luck someone over there will call me. And don’t expect the guys from The Castle to be overlooked anymore. They are coming to Sundance with The Dish, a comedy about the televising of the first moon walk. Great stuff. And roughcut will be feting them at the second dinner of the First Annual Roughcut Dinners on Saturday night. Of course, web readers will be there for all the fun. Oh yeah... a reason for you to write... What celebrity would you put in charge of Blackwell’s List?