You know, you meet a lot of people, good and bad, when you do what I do.  And I have to say, there is no one that I like better or have greater respect for than John Pierson.  You may know him through his legendary indie book, Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes or through his sensational, but now dead IFC program, Split Screen or as a movie pusher extraordinaire for such movies as Clerks, The Blair Witch Project, She’s Gotta Have It or How’s Your News? 

I knew of Pierson’s place in the indie world for a long time, but had my first exchanges with him a few years back when I fell in love with Split Screen, one of the few movie shows that I have ever felt an intimate kinship with.  I had an exchange of e-mails with John and his wife Janet about the show and found two really good people.  No exchange since, in person or by e-mail, has left me with anything less than good will and admiration. 

And now, another reason to love this guy… Pierson has taken his family and moved to Fiji, at least for a while, to run a free-admission movie theater on an island without a single newsstand.  He explains it better than I could in a story he wrote for the L.A. Times, which you can find here.

The story is not linked to on Kevin Smith’s new movie site, FilmAnus.com… uh, sorry, that isn’t the right name… MoviePoopShoot.com is the real name.  And I suspect that the reason for that is Kevin’s modesty, as he is one of the people who wrote a check to help Pierson buy this island movie theater and to live a rather bizarre dream.  Huzzah to Kevin and the others who are supporting Pierson as he once supported them.  And a smackdown to Michael Moore, who said “no.”  (More on both can be found in Pierson’s piece.) 

And if you feel about Pierson as I do after reading about his journey, you can keep up with his adventures on the isle at his website, www.grainypictures.com, as time moves along.  In the meanwhile, you will find lots of interesting stories and links.  Just make sure you buy his book from my website and not his.  (I’m such a whore!)

GREAT!:  Peter Bart, in a rare workout doing a news story, delivers the goods on the battle to bring Alexander The Great to the big screen first.  You can read the whole story here but I’m mostly interested in the current presumed winners - Baz Luhrmann, Fox and Universal. 

Though Luhrmann has called Alexander “the world's first rock star,” he also sees the film as the start of a new direction in his work, after exploring music to the Nth degree from Strictly Ballroom to Moulin Rouge and from hit singles to live opera in between.  There are those who wrote off Moulin Rouge as the emperor’s new clothes… but they were wrong.  No matter what your feelings about Luhrmann’s film work, you have to admit that he is at the top of his game and that he brings all the tools that any filmmaker could ask for to the table.  It will be fascinating to see where Lurhmann goes as he enters the realm of current filmmakers Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg and Julie Taymor as well as classic filmmakers like David Lean and John Ford.  If there is any one tangible quality to Lurmann’s work, it is his interest and skill in morphing a vast array of artistic styles into a singular vision.  (The only other major directors successfully working with this kind of palette right now are the two brother teams, Coen and Wachowski.)

THE JOURNAL:  The Wall Street Journal was a glorious read on Tuesday for the movie industry interested.  The broader reaching story was Betsy McKay’s take on the obesity scales that America is living with that tell us that Gibson, Stallone and Schwarzenegger are all obese and that Roberts, Kidman and Paltrow are all dangerously underweight. 

Well… 

The Journal’s coverage of Disney’s move into China is the best out there.  On Monday, Orwall, Leggett and Coleman delivered the factual look at Disney’s deal to built two theme parks in Chinese territory, opening the first in Hong Kong by 2006 and another in Shanghai just in time for the 2008 Olympic Games.   The facts are followed on Tuesday by cranky TV and culture critic Tunku Vardarajan, whose story smartly questions not only the ethics of the Chinese government and Disney’s disinterest in the stench, but also the cultural differences between China and America and how those differences might manifest in the park.  (For instance, in a culture that has a legally enforced disrespect for women – one-child-per-family laws have led to regular abortions of female embryos – how will boys look at Cinderella or Mulan?) 

Of course, all of this WSJ stuff requires a subscription, which kind of sucks.  But they do the best job covering the industry, with news and spot-on analysis, of any major daily news outlet.  As irritating as Tom King is, no one is doing it better than Orwall, Lippman and the rest.

AMERICAN MONEY CINEMAS:  Bruce Orwall delivers again with his coverage of the worst news to hit American Multi-Cinemas in all of the exhibitor nightmares of recent years.  (But since WSJ costs money, I’ll send you to a quality look at the same story c/o Reuters.   Basically, the deal is that AMC managed to get through the last years as the only major exhibitor not to file for bankruptcy protection.  As a “thank you” to Chairman/President/CEO Peter Brown and COO Phil Singleton, the board of the publicly traded company forgave two four-year-old personal loans to the execs to the tune of just over $8.5 million.  The company also ate almost $2 million in interest on the money and $8.7 million in taxes that the execs would otherwise have to cover after the loans had been excuses, therefore converting those dollars into personal income. 

The stock fell 21 percent on the announcement. 

Personally, I think that if I was a stockholder, I could forgive the loan forgiving… but paying their f-ing taxes?!?!?  That’s a bit outrageous.  I guarantee you that a $20 million bonus for the duo wouldn’t have raised eyebrows nearly as high.  But in a losing quarter, gifts upon gifts… no good.

MG-OUCH:  MGM lost over $120 million this quarter.  They lost over $60 million in this quarter last year.  Do you feel a trend?  Stock market players do.  They dropped the stock price on the company by almost 10 percent when they got the news, down to its lowest price in four years.

My advice would be to buy the stock now.  It can’t get much lower and the company, thanks to its library, will eventually be sold at a premium.

But make no mistake, we are watching a slow, torturous death of a beloved company with its only hope of survival coming in the form of a new Prince Charming.  Kirk Kerkorian has been here before – repeatedly.  The difference is, there has always been someone out there with deep pockets, ready to jump into the fray.  With Universal in play, DreamWorks still in need of some capital and Sony ripe for the picking, MGM is a second tier purchase whose position as an asset is unfortunately stable.   

Reuters’ Bob Tourtellotte – who has also become a master at reviewing movies without reviewing movies – fills in the details here.

JUST WONDERING:  Why does Rob Lowe think it’s smart to walk away from a $75,000 a week job?  When the West Wing started, he was the only name.  Now, it’s a hit and he’s equal – some would say behind – the rest of the supporting cast.  Yes, everyone else got raises and he didn’t.  But he’s still making more than everyone except Martin Sheen and his is absolutely replaceable.  You know, Friends was built around Courtney Cox and Matt LeBlanc, but they figured out that they were part of an ensemble.  Others started as the star, turned out to be one of the stars, and ruined the whole experience for everyone else.  Rob… you have stepped up your respect level in the industry with this gig.  Don’t be a Suzanne Caruso!

ALSO WONDERING:  What is with the ongoing pissing matches between exhibitors and distributors in markets as big as New York City and as small as Bryan, TX. over  deals to put movies in certain theaters?   It boggles the mind.  The latest story is here.

AND STILL WONDERING:  Can you guess which upcoming film has the most heinous and offensive product placement – as in, it’s not even trying to be funny or clever or part of the plot – in the history of film????

READER OF THE DAY:  ROver writes:  “I'm sorry, but I've just got to get this off my chest.

I've run across this error so many times lately, especially in reviews for the film "Reign of Fire". Doesn't anybody know the difference between "reigns" and "reins"???

You steer a horse with the REINS. A king REIGNS.

Here's the latest goof: ‘Alfonso Cuaron Takes on HARRY Reigns’”

MYSTERIOUS HAIRBALL writes:  “I just would like to disagree with one of the readers of the day who said that XXX would do a "mediocre" 75 million.  To say this, is truly to miss the cross demographical appeal Diesel has.  He seems to appeal to just about everybody Hollywood craves as an audience.  He also appeals to those 18-34 year old males who have money to spend and who are almost GUARANTEED to see this movie.  So aiming low with XXX I think is selling Diesel short.  People might have gone to see Fast and the Furious for the cars, but they left liking the new action star.  XXX will do alot of money.  How much, that is not my job to estimate.  However, this is one of the few movies I believe that preparing for the sequel now is a WISE move.  Just prepare to be shocked by the opening weekend this movie has.”

E ME:   Toronto is coming… anyone north of the border who thinks I’ll be in touch because I have your info via e-mail… assume not… hard drive crash and all.  Send me another e-mail, por favor. 

And if you had $500 million and you had to spend it in one Hollywood investment, where would you put your cash?