March 15, 2002 Continued...

MIAMI:  There is a lot to be said about what happened with the Miami Film Festival and why I resigned less than a week after the festival ended last month.  But I’m not really feeling the urge to discuss it right now.  So I will hold my peace..

That said, one of the problems with the festival was the coverage by the Miami Herald’s Rene Rodriguez.  Again, I will hold my piece.  However, after a lot of back and forth on the Herald’s Op-Ed page, I decided to write a letter to the editor.  The Herald published it almost two weeks later.  But mysteriously, the letter was edited to remove any criticism of the Herald’s coverage of the event.  Hmm… seems like the media censoring opinion to me. 

The two major passages that were cut were -

Regarding polling that suggested a positive audience reaction to the films at the festival, the Herald edited out:

"This and many other positive facts went unreported by The Miami Herald, while mathematical impossibilities, like the supposed 48,000 tickets sold in 2001, continue to be repeated as fact.  Why?  Let's just say, `Baggage.'"

The Herald printed a figure of 48,000 in attendance for the 2001 festival, when the maximum possible was 45,900... and the real number was significantly smaller.  They printed the 48,000 number - and have printed it three times since the mathematical impossibility was pointed out - after a publicist gave it to them.  There was, obviously, no documentation.  This year, they demanded, using the Sunshine Law, a screening-by-screening count of ticket sales before the festival was even over and have used the false disparity between the 2002 and 2001 numbers to publicly bludgeon the 2002 event.

Regarding the tone of coverage, The Herald included: "The Gusman experience was terrible, with the exception of a few very well-attended shows..."

But they excluded: "... and some great Q&As. That said, IndieWire still suggested that this year's festival offered hope that "Sundance East might just be around the corner."  What freed IndieWire and virtually every other journalist in attendance free to look beyond the logistical problems that plagued the first weekend of the festival and to see the foundation that was being built for the future while this paper went on the attack?  They weren't loaded down with baggage."

Is The Miami Herald above criticism?  In its own paper, apparently.

For the complete text of the letter I sent in and what was printed, please click here.

THE ANTI-SEMITISM THING:  Uh… can you say, “overblown?” 

Dirty tricks have been a part of Oscar campaigns for a long, long time.  And I would suggest that they never have worked.  Had The Hurricane been a better movie, I don’t think that all the buzz about the veracity of the tale would have meant much… maybe 20 votes.  But instead, it became a good excuse not to get behind a film that felt more important than it was.

I’ll tell you, I had a long conversation with “The Fight Doctor,” Ferdie Pacheco, about Ali.  Had that film become a serious Oscar contender, you can be sure that he’d be all over the place explaining how they got it wrong. 

The hottest anti-Semitism story in town right now should be The Believer, which is premiering on Showtime after The Simon Wiesenthal Center pretty much killed it by pronouncing the self-hating-Jew story to be dangerous.   Why was it kicked to the side, even after winning at Sundance?  Because it the good folks at the Wiesenthal Center – who I do think are very well intended – felt that the film didn’t make the evil of the neo-Nazi at the story’s center clear enough.  That’s the kind of sensitivity that’s out there. 

My take on all of this is that people were motivated to read the book A Beautiful Mind as the film became hot.  I don’t know if Universal sent out copies of the book, but it wouldn’t surprise me.  All it takes is one hypersensitive person to say, “They’re making this guy out to be a hero and he’s an anti-Semite!”  and the “smear” is rolling.  He tells two friends and so on and so on and suddenly, there is an e-mail in Drudge’s inbox, which he is more than happy to make into an issue. 

Universal told Sharon Waxman of the Washington Post (read her story here) that they don’t think that Miramax was out there spreading the Nash-is-an-anti-Semite story.  And I refuse to believe that the people I know at New Line or Fox would stoop to such tactics.  That leaves USA Films… uh, no… don’t think so.  What do they have to gain?

Nah… I think this one is just a story that got out of control and that we in the media, with one of the most boring Oscar seasons ever, have kept it alive for only one reason… we need stories to fill column inches. 

TOM KING LIVES:  There are two “important” film writers in this country that readers of this column know I find insufferable.  One is Peter Travers, who constantly diminishes his role as a major critic by bending over for more movies, earlier, than any daily or weekly critic in America.  The other is Tom King.  And it’s good to know that some things never change.  

King’s Weekend Journal column desperately tries to make a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the Supporting Actress category.  I guess Tom heard that Jennifer Connelly, who is obviously the lead actress in A Beautiful Mind, was nominated for said category by mistake for the SAG Awards.  Yawn!

He then tries to quantify the difference between a supporting and lead performance by timing screen minutes.  OY!!!

This is another one of those non-issue issues.  Marcia Gay Harden and Benecio Del Toro both won last year in roles that could be called “leading” roles in their films.  Amy Madigan and Jennifer Connelly gave great supporting performances in Pollock.  Harden was a lead.  Del Toro’s character opened and closed Traffic and the film was framed around events that involved him.  Was anyone a “lead” actor in Traffic?  If so, Del Toro was it. 

What about Kate Hudson in Almost Famous?  Who was she “supporting?”  Frances McDormand… absolutely supporting.  Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley?  Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted?  Billy Bob Thornton in A Simple Plan?  Rachel Griffiths as Jackie in Hillary and Jackie?  Julianne Moore in Boogie Nights?  Juliette Binoche in The English Patient? 

None of this is new.  We write about it every single year.

THE TIME MACHINE:  Sucks. 

E ME: Okay… what do we need to be discussing that I’ve been silent on for months?