Brevity is the…

I SAY POTATO, YOU SAY POTATO 2:  28 Days Later is the new Danny Boyle movie and it looks like it could be great.  But here’s the problem… that title.  Fox Searchlight will release the movie in America, but how are they going to get past the public’s natural reaction that this must be the sequel to Sandra Bullock’s rehab comedy, 28 Days.   The story actually takes place after a virus destroys most of humanity in just 28 days… much the same effect as the Bullock film.  Nonetheless… time to change that title.  Please.

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY:  A potential problem that I didn’t expect has shown the top of its ugly head for Sony/Revolution’s XXX.  Variety’s Don Groves reports that XXX won the week in Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia and Hong Kong.  Yet, the Hong Kong number was still seen as a disappointment.  It turns out that The Fast & The Furious was considered an Asian underperformer as well.  Groves’ source says that an exhibitor in Hong Kong said that Vin is not the right kind of good looking for the Asian market.  Interesting.  I hope he can win them over.

In other international box office news, About A Boy has already outgrossed its domestic run by about $7 million and it still has many territories to open.  And The Guru, which Universal has pushed into 2003, and for which I am keeping an eye out as a result of seeing the international trailer, won the weekend in London with $2.3 million in its premiere.  (Groves story is here)

LOOKING IN:  I was reading a Variety story by Pamela McClintock about the glass ceiling for women in Hollywood, curious because I don’t really believe in the glass ceiling.  I do believe in the old boys club and that newly secret-handshook women entering it have tended, like most minorities breaking into a new group, not to bring their own along as much as you might expect.  (That’s not been true of some execs, like Amy Pascal, but you take my point…) 

Then I got to paragraph three… “(The study didn't survey Sony Pictures Entertainment, Vivendi Universal or Viacom/Paramount:…”

That’s where I stopped to get my breath.  What kind of idiot does an analysis of the glass ceiling in Hollywood without including the three studios with women at the top of the production machine?  Well, no idiot at all.  Just someone who wants certain answers and can’t get them if they include the whole truth.  I’m certainly willing to entertain a discussion of a glass ceiling, but not with someone who is playing Hide The Queen(s).

Ms. McClintock did her part, continuing her in-parens list of exceptions: “(The study didn't survey Sony Pictures Entertainment, Vivendi Universal or Viacom/Paramount: at each of those studios, women hold key management positions. Nor does it reflect strides at the tops of divisions or lower levels; for example, women now fill the top programming and development jobs at all the major television networks, and four of the six networks now have women entertainment presidents.)”

Good Lord (male or female)!   They included USA Networks, but not Vivendi Universal, for Barry’s sake!. 

I’m not saying that there isn’t a story worth exploring here.  But don’t cook the books.  It makes you a whole different problem unto yourself.  The story is here

FORCE DAMN IT!!!:  According to the BBC, more than 70,000 Aussies are using The Force as their church of choice.  The story adds: “An e-mail was sent around the world in 2001 saying that if 10,000 people declared they were Jedi, it would be recognized as an official religion.”  Goofy, huh?  Read it here.

TAKETH/GIVETH:  On the same day that Ludacris’ Pepsi commercials were removed from the airwaves, he was announced as one of the co-stars of The Fast & The Furious 2.   Funny, if not a P.R. coincidence.  America complained and Pepsi listened – “We want more of Britney falating a bottle of Pepsi and being ogled by horny, aging white men and less of that uppity nigger!” 

Did I use the N-Word?  Damned right I did.  Hypocrisy cannot be challenged with more hypocrisy. 

It’s not that I defend Ludacris.  I don’t know the man.  I don’t know his music.  Hell, I couldn’t pick him out of a line-up.  But if we are going to rage against a company choosing a spokesman whose artistic endeavors are not of our liking, we had better get ready for some pretty advertising pictures drawn by classes of 6-year-olds. 

When a company like Pepsi crumbles on Bill O’Reilly’s say so, they get us all ready to be censored.  Madonna and the burning cross was a little different.  I don’t really think that religious icons belong in a soft drink ad.  Of course, the idiocy there was that they didn’t see that before the ad aired the first time.  They only responded to the brickbats.

Maybe O’Reilly could focus on other real hypocrisy… like that Kid Rock beer commercial suggesting that you stay out all night drinking… but it’s okay… because your girlfriend is not as hot as the girls at the club and you have a limo, so you don’t have to drive.  Or how about CitiBank suggesting that people live beyond their means in an aggressive billboard campaign?

Here’s my response… I won’t be buying a Ludacris record anytime soon and I sure as hell won’t be any more excited about TF&TF2.  But I won’t be buying any Pepsi products either.  I don’t like people who are disrespectful to their customers.  And Pepsi is showing their customers, who they were trying to reach with Ludacris, nothing less than contempt… not by taking a moral position, but by taking it only when it was pointed out to them.  The lack of sincerity is deafening.

DOCKING THE BAY:  The wire services got hold of the story that Miami and Miami Beach residences were none too happy about the cities allowing Bruckheimer/Bay & Co. to shut down one of only three arteries from the beach to the city in the lower 10 miles of Miami Beach for four days in a row.  Of the other two causeways, one is four miles north of the shut-down MacArthur Causeway and the other has a 75 cent toll and only one small lane going through a dense residential area. 

The next explosion came when local union officials realized that the complaints were giving a bad name to Miami/Miami Beach production, which is already suffering a severe downturn.  The next wave came when they had to find someone to blame.  The victim of the week was James Quinlan, the head of the Miami Beach film office.  His title might make him seem like a major player, but the truth is, he was the player with the least political juice in this saga. 

Sometimes, not being in Miami seems like a really good thing.   They all scream and yell and want more and then, when they get it, they whine and complain like a bunch of spoiled children.  So familiar…

READER OF THE DAY:  UNDERMANHOLECOVER BROTHER writes:  “I will never forget the impression it made on me when, at 16 years old, I sat in the audience for "Ladyhawke", and I saw a woman in a black robe walking through the woods at night. She turned. Under her hood, her face caught moonlight and lit up. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, and to this day I have not seen a more beautiful face on the big screen. Ever since then, I have seen evidence of her greatness as an actress, as well as consistent reminders of her ageless beauty.

But it has been an ongoing, painful failure of somebody somewhere to fail to find Pfeiffer the roles she deserves. I can only hope I agree with your summation of her performance in "White Oleander", and that the Academy... if they MUST play politics... gives some sentimental value to her memorable career.”

And JOHN ENGLISH adds his two cents on two stories: “LUDICRIS - Bill O'Reilly got to where he is by having his opinion and making it strong.  But this is one area where the outrage feels manufactured.  It's not the first time.  His job seems to be as our official Angry American, and I don't know why he chose Ludicris to pick on, but it's funny how quickly Pepsi folded.  Why wasn't O'Reilly protesting Snoop Dogg being in Nike commercials?  Perhaps it's Bill's elaborate plan to get himself a job as spokesman for Dr. Pepper.

STAR WARS - I've got a problem with people who want to make it a religion.  If they want it as their life philosophy, fine, but to make it their religion is an abuse of the term.  Religion should take over where science leaves off.  Religion should be what you believe to be the truth, the universal truth.  A Catholic should be a Catholic because he honestly believes in the Trinity and the Virgin Mary and a Muslim should be a Muslim because he honestly believes in Allah and Mohammed, and people who want to make a religion out of Jedi Knighthood need to wake up and realize George Lucas made it up.  If they want something similar, they can study Eastern philosophy and tae chi, but don't abuse the word "religion" by making the Jedi Order one.”

E ME:  It’s almost the weekend…