It’s one of those days…

I don’t feel like writing about anything… there’s fuck-all worth writing about (too many Brit films lately)… and “sleeping on it” didn’t much change my perspective.

Thanks for all of your input on The THB Book Club.  I want to give your e-mails proper focus and I’ll probably run a page of your comments and suggestions tomorrow… if not, on Monday. 

Just for the record, I kind of caught my webmistress unawares on the Roger Moore License to Kill thing.  I wasn’t referring to the movie.  I was referring to the license that all Bonds have.  Yes, I know that Timothy Dalton was in License to Kill. 

I don’t know Elmore Leonard’s The Big Bounce, but I do know that the combination of George Armitage and Owen Wilson is exciting.  Armitage has a unique ability to be moderately commercial and still make complete whack job movies at the same time, which makes him a perfect fit with Owen.

I’m not sure why Liz Smith is floating a Colin Farrell/Winona Ryder version of Wuthering Heights, but I can’t actually think of worse casting… and I like both actors.  Farrell will never make it as a moody guy.  He needs to take action in order to shine.  And Ryder doesn’t really suffer well on screen.  Christian Bale would make a great Heathcliff.  Tobey Maguire might make a spectacular Heathcliff, if he could get up the energy for the rages.  Daniel Day Lewis might have made the greatest Heathcliff ever, surpassing Olivier.  And as Cathy… I know this will seem odd… but Angelina Jolie… imagine all that passion kept inside, seeping through her pores…

Like I said… nothing to write about…

But I do think that the Jolie/Thornton break-up, now official in US Magazine, may be the most expected story of all time.  I’m guessing that editors had it written up the day they announced they were getting married, like an obit waiting for Bob Hope to realize that he’s already dead.

Nikki Finke’s latest L.A. Weekly column is up, looking at the exhibition game.

Jeff Wells is busy bashing a movie he didn’t watch, Eight Legged Freaks.  His column bashing the film surely took him ten times longer to write than the eight minutes he spent watching the movie.  I am disgusted.  I don’t really care whether Jeff liked the movie.  But to spend the time he spends gleefully attacking the film because it is, beginning to end, not his cup of tea… it’s stupid.  The New York Times used to have a classy way of handling movies they simply didn’t feel were worthy.  They wrote them up in a graph or two.  Whatever they wrote, the size of the review was all the message one needed.  I would suggest that if you walk into the theater knowing you are going to hate something, just let us know and don’t try to construct a 700-word excuse for the fact that you choose not to get the joke. 

You know, I really like many of the folks at Fox… but why do they keep insisting on hiring really mediocre directors for really big projects?  Paul Anderson showed some early promise as a visualist, but has proven time after time that his storytelling skills are better suited for videogames.  And now, they are giving him Alien vs. Predator.  Warner Bros. may be boring, giving family member Wolfgang Petersen the Batman and Superman franchises to take to the next level before letting the kids (Darren Aronofsky) make their own, but at least Petersen can deliver.  (I am, actually, a Petersen fan.)  Event Horizon is one of the great ideas that was turned into one of the lousiest movies of all time.  Soldier is a stunningly bad film.  And now, this.  What about a wild choice, like Guillermo del Toro or Alejandro González Iñárritu?  (Yes, I know Iñárritu just got a deal for 21 grams).  Or what about Alex de la Ingelsia?  Or what about one of the great noon-Hong-Kong Asian action directors of the moment?  Oh well…

Nothing to write about!!!!

Why is MoviePoopShoot.com headlining an effort to make great old movie palaces commercially viable by way of adding digital projection, “PUTTING DIGITAL LIPSTICK ON SOME HISTORIC PIGS”?   They don’t seem to have a point of view on the issue and I just don’t get why they would be suggesting… what?… that the few movie palaces left should be closed?  I seem to recall that the people over there like movies.  What’s up with the attack?

DreamWorks deserves props for picking up the rights to give a wide release to just the second real Japanese anime to hit America (we don’t count Pokemon, do we?), Satoshi Kon's Millenium Actress.  The world is a circle without a beginning and nobody knows where the circle ends.

Okay… enough of me beating both of our heads against the wall… there will be news tomorrow… with God as my witness, I’ll never go newsless again… until the next time…

READER OF THE DAY:  I THE BERRY writes: “As far as forgiving celebrities, it's pretty simple for me.  The celebrity in question has to do some good work following the incident in question.  Depending on the transgression, it might be more difficult to embrace someone, but if he or she produces good work, it's easy for me to separate the public persona from the screen one.  Examples?  Hmm.  Maybe Tom Cruise.  While I didn't really have a feeling either way about his divorce from Nicole Kidman (other than, "Dude, what are you doing?  She's hot!"), many of my female friends held a grudge and shaded my opinions with that.  But when the guy does a film like "Minority Report," it's hard for me to hold any kind of grudge.  It'll be interesting to read what others might say on the matter.“

And Plan of the Dove adds about Ms. Ryder: “I forgive her (if she did it). She shouldn't be given credit for the Mr. Deeds opening, but BOTH stars were coming off of flops and she had a substantial role in the film. I thought she was engaging --- I've seen a screening of Simone and she is hysterically on target with her small role. After this passess.. I see her making a comeback because she's one of the most talented actressess of her generation, and now she has a hit underbelt. She's a lot more interesting than Gwyneth and J-Lo.

Finally, Eggs a la Stephen takes control:

WARNING TO READERS ... WORST POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD!

"Dear Mr. Poland,

After having read your reader of the debating about the legitimacy of the ending to Minority Report; the entire last act is a bluff.

Once Anderton is captured, "hallowed" and lowered in to the pit, we hear Gideon (Tim Blake Nelson) say, to the effect that once in that state, you are able to dream out any wish your heart desires.

The last act then is Anderton's fantasy; Lara Anderton (Kathryn Morris) doesn't go to see Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow), Burgess doesn't utter his Freudian slip ... Lara does not retrieve the gun ... she does not penetrate the prison ... she does not secure her husband's release and she most certainly does not call up the team at Pre-Crime and say "John needs a favour" ...

That whole sequence is wish fulfilment, Anderton's fantasising about a world that operates judiciously, that the wicked are punished and the virtuous are rewarded.

In this manner, the ending is not unlike the escape as dreamed by Sam Lowry in Brazil. Only there, Gilliam let's us in on that fact by having the illusion shattered and we know that Lowry was never rescued at all. But Minority Report's ending is so out of kilter with the rest of the film it is precisely because it is Anderton's dream. The plausibility of the piece is preposterous (enough with alliteration!).

Critics have complained about the ending, saying that it is totally out of tune with everything that has gone before it. However, Spielberg has finally be able to have his cake and eat it by giving an ending that would be in keeping with his traditional up beat finales (and thus satisfying the audience who demands such scenarios), while in actual fact going for something much darker because THE AUDIENCE THINKS IT IS HAPPY while in actual fact it isn't.

The most delicious thing about the double ending is that it offers another point of view regarding the argument of free will and pre-destination. John Anderton can not avoid his destiny when he shoots Leo Crowe (Mike Binder), but when Burgess turns the gun on himself, he avoids his destiny as the killer of Anderton ... thus creating his own destiny which ironically is death.

Since it took the critics a few years to realise that Blade Runner's Deckard is a replicant, I just wonder how long it will take for them to admit that Spielberg could have pulled off such a sinister, cynical, inventive, brilliant and ambiguous ending.

Your readers read it here first!"

E ME:  Is “I don’t like these kind of movies” the hardest phrase?