Tuesday, 27 February 2001

Sorry about the late column today. (It's also going to be a fairly short column.) A really important thing got right in my way last night… sleep. Haven't had any on the east coast lately. And these two hot babes wore me out last night! Hey! Get your minds out of the gutter. They wore me out intellectually. Anyway, thanks for your patience.

THE DIFFERENCE: Why does Gladiator have all those Oscar nominations? The answer continues to linger in the things that DreamWorks is doing to try to get a win. The latest brilliant stunt is a week of screenings at the AMC 14 in Century City in L.A. which will include live satellite introductions by various players on the Gladiator team. The series kicks off with Ridley Scott and continues with Russell Crowe and Connie Nielsen, producer Douglas Wick, producer-screenwriter David Franzoni, composer Hans Zimmer, cinematographer John Mathieson, editor Pietro Scalia and visual effects supervisor John Nelson. Why doesn't everyone do this? Well, besides wrangling the talent to do it, DreamWorks is likely spending well over $100,000 to make the satellite feeds happen in what may really be a media event more than a direct-to-Oscar-voters event. But if you have the money… spend it. What this indicates most clearly is that DreamWorks, like everyone else, still sees this as a real horserace. Nothing is in the bag yet.

CELL YEAH!: I am having a very hard time reading into the thinking of one-named director, Tarsem, shifting from the success of The Cell to an "Indian version" of Hamlet. Is the idea that this may become a breakthrough for Indian film in America, dragging India's Bollywood film culture into modern day? Is Tarsem finding it hard to find material he likes here? Will this film be in English or in Indian? Too many questions. Too much distance. All I know is that Yorick's skull seems likely to come to life and to bite a chunk out of Hamlet's arm in the middle of the big speech.

THE WAR INSIDE: Inside.com is on a kind of tear this week. Denise Levin filed a story about Simon West's assistant on the Tomb Raider movie and made the first step towards creating a Hollywood legend around producer Bobby Klein. Keep in mind here, these are accusation by the plaintiff in a civil suit, so one has to keep a certain distance from just believing every word. On the other hand, sexual harassment suits in Hollywood are always amusing because the odds are always good that anyone who is actually giving up a career by filing a suit isn't quite deep inside enough to actually have access to the really raunchy story. In this case, the assistant, Ms. Dana Robinson, claims that Klein was prone to say dumb guy stuff often, like relaying the story of a previous employee who had an on-set affair and wondering what Ms. Robinson's position on that was. Or telling her that it was part of her job to "look pretty" at work. Or suggesting that her future in the business would be improved if she was willing to improve his next fifteen minutes. I embellished that last one slightly… but so what? There isn't a waitress on Sunset Plaza who hasn't experienced all of that and more this week from five or six guys. Only in a world of obsessive political correctness would this be an issue for court… especially in the movie business, where Ms. Robinson surely has been aware that her looks are as important as any of her other gifts after working at CAA (which isn't just to point out CAA, but any organization of size in this town, where the brand of your shoes really, really matters).

However, though it seemed a bit buried in the story and in odd order, this bit I found incredibly actionable. "Without invitation, Klein would touch her on her legs, the bare skin of her lower back and tickle her on her breasts and stomach, the suit continues." He tickled her breasts and that's the third thing they mention?!?!?! Maybe there is a more subtle way to tickle someone's breasts than I understand. Seems to me that it involves multiple fingers touching and manipulating a breast. No titty twister perhaps, but way, way, way over the line. And for that matter, touching a woman who isn't inviting your advances on the lower back is fairly intimate.

My favorite part of the story is, of course, the closing line: "The suit was filed by attorneys Della Bahan and Janet Herold of Bahan & Herold and Barbara Enloe Hadsell and Cornelia Dai of Hadsell & Stormer." It's like back credits on a movie. And it is what all publicists, agents and the like try to get on every industry story in the trades. It's not inappropriate here, but it is funny. (The whole story is here.)

INNER TWO-B: Chris Petrikin's old friends at Variety did him a solid by sneaking a long a draft of a press release that the magazine never sent out in which Credit Suisse First Boston backs away from a Variety-created conference at which Bill Clinton is speaking… after CSFB paid Clinton's six-figure fee. As a show business story, there isn't much there. But as a look inside (Get it? "Inside!") the minds of the money men, who have until recent weeks been Clinton supporters through every blow… fascinating.

HEY-BA MAN-BA: When I was in Vegas a couple of weekends ago, I saw a clothing line that featured a Hawaiian-style shirt featuring Fat Albert's face covering the whole front and back of the shirt. I came really close to buying it before I got nervous about anyone making the connection between poor, misunderstood Albert and the ever-expanding David. However, it was amazing to see the shirt and a line of about 6 other items that carried the Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids imagery. And so, when I saw that Fox is working on a Fat Albert live action feature with Bill Cosby, I was thrilled. And then, scared. In the early 70s, when Fat Albert emerged, ghetto life was distant from white America’s minds. These kids… the gang… were just like us, except they were black. (I'm not going to bend too far over to acknowledge the importance of these images for black children and their pride… get it… not what this discussion is about today.) Today, we are inundated with harsh, loud images of ghetto life. There is little to be seen as "cute." But we all know, to his credit, that Bill Cosby is about positive messages. So, what will this movie become? Will it be an anachronistic joke, where the hood is filled with great jazz and no rap? Will Cosby make the gang a little younger, before trouble begins? Will the specter of danger around every corner be played realistically? I mean, it is hard to imagine Cosby making teens even as real as the kids in Finding Forrester… and that movie was really about the kid who got out. If you spent the whole two hours with his buddies and his brother who didn't make it to the NBA, I think the tale would have to be a lot darker. And a lot darker than anything Bill Cosby's ever done. (And what will he do about the orally challenged Mush Mouth.) And so, I am thrilled by the possibility and scared to death by the idea of Fox getting stuck with an in-between movie yet again.

READER OF THE DAY: Al The D writes: "I just caught Chocolat yesterday, hoping that it wasn't just a case of the Miramax publicity machine. But, I didn't even get why everyone even considered it a "good" movie. It was pretty, and the acting was great, but... aside from a moral that hit me pretty accurately at just the right moment, the story was kind of... played.

So, what 2 movies equal Chocolat: 1) Any of the food-based magic Spanish films (Like Water for Chocolate sprang to mind, maybe the chocolate thing..), and this is not worthy of further discussion, because, well, everyone seems to have mentioned that. The 2nd is one that I'd been meaning to see for a few years, and only ended up seeing last October: Marleen Gorris's Antonia's Line. Mother and daughter (no idea of the father) come (return) to a village, and through many quirky coincidences end up with a menagerie of strange friends who gather together for a fabulous meal before the death of the matriarch. Oh yeah, and pointless narration that ends up being the annoying little girl. At least Antonia's Line was slightly original."

And this from Dan The You-Know-What: "As bad as Russell Crowe and the rest of the Hollywood cry-babies are, I hate to say it, but for dumb quotes following dumb quotes, you can't get worse than Major League Baseball these days. Just look at the Gary Sheffield situation (the big prize winner across all media for dumb quotes being responded to by dumb quotes recently). Or the Frank Thomas situation. Or the Sammy Sosa situation. Or the Barry Bonds situation, etc., etc. Well, at least all my Yankees seem to get along, and that's with Boss George no less."

E ME: Be gentle. I'm always relying on the kindness of strangers. And they don't get any stranger than you guys.