Sometimes, doing this column is an unusual joy.   Such was my experience yesterday when I got to sit down with John Ridley, the progenitor of Undercover Brother.  It’s not a surprise that he is little seen in many of the stories covering the film.  He is a soft-spoken, incredibly modest guy who not only co-wrote the movie with Austin Powers alum Mike McCullers, but created the whole thing on the web for UrbanEntertainment.com and has a novel coming out in a few weeks (Conversations With The Mann) and spent last season working on NBC’s Third Watch.  After all of that, one still feels compelled to ask, “What’s next?”  Ridley has answers, but as sharp as he is, he laughs first, explaining how is catches him by surprise when with all this stuff happening right now, people are still busy wondering what is next. 

Well, the reason we wonder… the reason I wonder… is because I want a front row seat.  I was fortunate enough to get an early copy of Conversations with The Mann from Ridley’s publicists and read it cover-to-cover in two days.  The novel is the story of Jackie Mann, a stand-up comic whose life we follow from childhood to the end, not of his life, but of his period of stand-up comedy.  He’s a guy who comes up during the early days of television, always dreaming of an Ed Sullivan slot.  Along the way, he runs into the good, the bad and the ugly of racial prejudice and the civil rights movement, the road, the Rat Pack, Motown, success and failure.  Ridley expertly weaves real history with the fictional Mann, telling the story of a nation on the brink of change.  One of the key conflicts in the book is internal, as Jackie fights his own urge to bust out and to tell his deepest truths, comically, on the stage.  He is one step behind Richard Pryor, who did Sullivan slots, but with his “nice” act and evolved into a screenwriter (Oscar nominated for Blazing Saddles), movie star and icon… after he started telling his truth.  A terrific read.

Ironically, Conversations with The Mann butts right up against the era from which Undercover Brother explodes.   Blaxploitation, which I read differently than some seem to – I see the films as classic exploitation films that were made with black stars – gave black stars and filmmakers (though to often these films were made by white Jewish guys) the chance to be as egomaniacal and sexy and angry and hyper-real as white B movie stars had so often been.  Lee Marvin’s great performance in Budd Boetticher’s Seven Men From Now would feel right at home in a blaxploitation film… although none of the directors from that period ever proved to be as accomplished as Boetticher. 

Universal is projecting a $20 million-plus start for Undercover Brother, which causes Ridley to get a little shy, having been burnt by high expectations for his first film as a screenwriter, U-Turn and the sense that Three Kings, which opened well, was still a box office disappointment.  Ridley had girded himself against disappointment and embraced the joys of home entertainment, talking about the ongoing life that DVD has brought to his first two films and how DVD can be an even better than theatrical way to experience a movie.

Fuck that.

Undercover Brother is coming into crowded marketplace.  The Sum of All Fears seems poised to deliver a near-$40 million start.  Spider-man and Yoda are still out there.  And Austin Powers in six weeks away.  But Undercover Brother could be and should be the surprise breakout hit of the summer.  Everyone seems to have overlooked it.  Joe Morgenstern doesn’t even review it in this Friday’s Wall Street Journal.  The L.A. Times doesn’t even bother to have one of their critics review the film, instead picking up a rave from Newsday’s Jan Stuart.  (If the film hits big, look for The Cannes Excuse, which has lead critic Ken Turan in Cannes instead of reviewing current movies.)  Roger Ebert has been laid up after shoulder surgery, though he will be back in the saddle this week… but no review for a movie that screams for an opinion from Roger. 

According to Rotten Tomatoes, 79 percent of their critics liked the film.  But again, the major writers stayed away.  Owen Gleiberman was the only major who panned the film… surprise!!!  HE gave it the same grade as The New Guy… oy!  And the one newspaper whose critic kicked the film leads his review by calling Malcolm Lee a first-time director… oops!  Tough to take a guy seriously when he leads with a mistake. 

It’s a weird thing, seeing an Imagine Entertainment/Universal Studios film as an underdog, but it is.  Of course, it’s not nearly as under as the three indie films hitting the market this weekend. The best of them is Elling, a terrific Norwegian odd couple flick that whose English-language remake rights have recently been bought by Kevin Spacey.  He claims that he’s not going to star in the eventual film, but don’t believe it.  It’s a character role that he fits perfectly and he is, in the end, a character actor.  By the time the film is set up, I imagine that he’ll remember that.   A film that I really dislike, Paul Cox’s The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky, has its admirers.  And they deserve this movie.  The best way I can explain for you is that if you liked the work of Derek Jarman, you might want to try this out.  If Jarman’s work made your skin crawl, stay far away.  And if you don’t know who Jarman is, your odds are 90 percent to the negative for Cox’s Nijinsky.  But don’t get caught up in thinking that Cox has made a film here that will remind you of A Woman’s Tale or Innocence.  Finally, The Next Big Thing opens for all Chris Eigeman obsessives.  I haven’t seen this one… but I have set the Tivo to record it when it hits IFC or Sundance Channel next month.  (Figuratively, not literally… support indie film IN theaters!!!)

THEY’RE BAAA-AAACK!!!:  Looks like I was wrong.  18 months ago, I swore up and down that Columbia would never get back into the Charlie’s Angels business after just barely surviving the last go round.  But image is everything, so Charlie’s Angels 2 is on the way.

Cindy Adams reports that Charlie’s Angels 2 has an August 1 start date.  The funny thing about the story is that producer Leonard Goldberg blames the budget-busted original, over $120 million by the end, before P&A, on… well, let’s pull his quote:  “Charlie's Angels 1 hadn't adequate prep time. There was no locked-in script. Can't set locations until you have the script, so you have to scramble to get them. That means paying more for them because there's no alternative. You have to build sets weekends with three crews on 'goldentime.' It looks just the same as if you'd done it less expensively, but it costs twice as much."

Okay.  So are we supposed to miss what he has to say about the production, set to start on August 1?  “Our story writing is nearing the end and we haven't confirmed Vegas yet. It's expensive to go there.  We have the three girls (Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lisa Ling) back. We haven't yet decided about Bill Murray.”  (Note to Cindy:  Lisa Ling is on The View.  Lucy Liu is the actress.  At least you didn’t call her Charlie Chan, though Ms. Liu is going to make a gender-bending version of said ethnicity slurring series.  But I digress…)  

It’s June 1 and their story writing is near an end.  So, we have a sequel with an unwritten screenplay, and story isn’t set and they are still waiting to see if they can get Bill Murray.  Cameron Diaz is all the buzz with a $20 million payday, which means that in order to make this movie, Barrymore has to be working for almost all gross points and Liu settled for the career boost that she still needs.  They can probably get Murray for 2 gross points and $2 million cash, but maybe not… things were ugly for him on the set.  And then there is McG, who was praised to the heavens when this film came out, but managed to go two years without making another movie… could it be that everyone in town heard about the problems on his one and only feature?

To quickly go over the numbers, the film did almost half as much overseas as it did here in America.  There’s no reason to think that will change this time around.  The film was a video hit and made whatever profit it made – or didn’t - in that arena.  Figure that the gross point players have got to be in for 10 to 20 percent this time around and that above the line cash costs have to be around $30 million.  If the sequel drops 20 percent, about the norm, it grosses about $165 million worldwide, returning $90 million to the studio, but only around $70 million after the gross players play.  P&A has to be at least $30 million.  Somehow, I expect that the film will cost more than $10 million below-the-line.  That means that the film is being made, really, with nothing more than the expectation that it will make a small profit in video… assuming that the production stays in control and doesn’t stray north of $40 million below the line.  And even then…

TRUTH IN NUMBERS: Wonder why the furor around the Robert Blake murder case has died down?  Like so many things, the tail may be wagging the journalistic dog.  When People Magazine put him on the cover, newsstand sales dropped almost 25 percent from the previous year’s numbers.  This guy may be the new O.J. Simpson, but this guy is no O.J. Simpson where it counts… on the rack.

READER OF THE DAY:  Damon Not Wayans writes:  “I had to email "The Hot Button" about the Patrick Goldstein L.A. Times column entitled “Action Heroes for a Changing America” you mentioned in the May 29th edition of The Hot Button.  After you mentioned some items about the article and the two action heroes the story focused on, I took the time to register to the latimes.com and read his entire article.  While I was not as angry as I was before about the article after reading it, I still found much of the article insulting to African Americans. 

The main problem I had with the article was the fact that Goldstein selected two actors who physically have NO African American, or for that matter zero ethnic, qualities or characteristics.  They project nothing on screen in their acting or appearance that would even suggest that they are ethnic, neither actor openly promotes the fact that are racially mixed, and in fact (as stated in his article) Vin Diesel does not even want to talk about it.  If Goldstein wanted to focus on two African American actors then he should have use Wesley Snipes and Bernie Mac, at least with them there would be no question about them being ethnic.

And yes it does matter, just because The Rock and Vin have some black in them does not make them black or representative of Black America and culture.  In America, skin color matters; "If you are light you are alright and if you are black stay back!"  The general audience does not go to their movies because they are mixed race action heroes, because that is not even advertised.  They go to their movies because they have a build in audience stemming from wrestling and the hip-hop/rap scene, respectively. 

And this nonsense about young white kids wanting to be black to be cool is just damn stupid, the could care less about the race aspect, it is the buzz and hype surrounding music, sports and clothing.  And now African Americans "are being told" to consider themselves invited to the dinner table because of a few successful movies that featured a few African Americans.  And of course let's not forget about this year's "Black Oscars" with our two best actor awards, wow we really took over that night!  So, in 75 years and at least 8000 Oscars,  and at least 300 of those for acting, African American have won what, five or seven?  Yea that is real progress, we have finally made it.  The entertainment industry, which includes music, television, movies, sports, clothing and literature, tells African Americans every day that we are non-essential, unimportant and an unwanted participate in their big game.  And I strongly believe that Mr. Goldstein (a non-African American) declaring to African Americans that we now have a presence and place in movies is the worst insult of all.”

And this from The Lovely Julia:  “Your comments on Attack of the Clones surprised me based on what I have read so far.  I wouldn't think you'd be fooled by the visuals enough to believe it was such a good movie.  I found all the CG to be too much CG.  George has way too much technology on available to him and leans heavily on it.  I imagine the actors must have been frustrated by having very little to act or react to, especially when it comes to sets and locations, never mind creatures.  I wish George would have spent money on actual places, interiors, stages, sets, instead of throwing up some flats and have the rest be bluescreen composites with matte paintings.  Boring.  (But then I work in visual effects, so perhaps I'm jaded.  My favorite thing to tell potential clients is: Shoot it for real, avoid FX whenever you can!)

I do love your idea about there being competition for Anakin's pursuit of Amidala, and now when I think about the movie, I wish it were there.  It would have also created another character who's future we aren't sure about.  The challenge that George has/had with these prequels is that we know who will and won't die immediately, so there isn't much tension in any chase or battle scenes.

I am a huge SW fan, always have been, always will.  I just long for a little more swashbuckle from Mr. Lucas again, a little down and dirty action, some character!

Of course, in regard to About a Boy, you are dead on!”

E ME:  The beat goes on… you have a lot to choose from for a change… what’ll it be?