Damn, it’s hot!!!

After a very mellow summer of weather, Los Angeles suddenly decided to turn vicious this weekend, just when it should be cooling off.   More than anything else, this should remind us of how tricky nature is. 

Another lovely sign of Labor Day is the Telluride Film Festival, which is also tricky.  Once you are on the mountain, you don’t need these silly computers to keep you up to date… you just need the printed postings around city hall to let you know the changes in the schedule and the TBAs that are always well worth the wait.  As I write this, they are having the closing day picnic… some have already headed out to get to the various nearby airports on time… people have slipped away to grab the 1:11 flight out of Telluride… others will spend another night, as Monday afternoon offers a wide array of recently announced treats. 

I have spent a fair amount of time this weekend organizing my Toronto schedule.  I haven’t had this opportunity in years, in the past I have been in Colorado, my hands and heart filled with the experience of the greatest film festival on the planet.  But organizing my Toronto schedule, which is currently 61 feature screenings long, has made my longing for the mountain even greater. 

Toronto is going to be great and I will surely see at least a dozen films that I will love.  But it’s so much business stuff.  When I think about Toronto, I never think about being sick of seeing the movies.  When I think about the difficulty of those ten days, I think about the urge to do more interviews, parties and schmoozing… and more often than not, choosing yet another movie instead.  I think about trying to stay fed in a healthy way… which is not necessarily the leisurely way.  I think about writing the column, which can be the most brutal part of the experience, trying to knock out a couple thousand words after Midnight, too tired to be sure that I am paying proper homage to some of the films I am seeing, forgetting details that I should have remembered and wanted to offer to y’all. 

I think about how tired I will get of pontificating and how my nature won’t allow me to just shut up.  I think about forgetting to ask, “And how are you doing?” after someone has asked me just that, gotten an answer and been replaced by yet another familiar face that I haven’t seen in a year.  I think about avoiding catching the eyes of friends who are “discussed out” after running into each other more than the two times we have conversation to fill the void.  I think about running into people who don’t like me or whom I don’t respect and just how to handle those moments.  I think about the people I don’t know, but should and the people I do know, but shouldn’t.  I think about the women I should be trying to seduce… together for days in a foreign land… HA!… but going instead to the movies.  I think about those conversations where someone gets trashed and how unsatisfying it is after I walk away and how I still get into those conversations.

All of that is relatively grown up…the high school stuff is also distracting.  What party am I being asked to attend and which one am I not… even if I’d never go.  Which publicists read the column that morning and which ones still need to ask my name when I see them.  Why isn’t this or that person reaching out to me more?  And why am I worrying about anyone else’s judgments of me?

Damn, it’s hot.  And I love it. 

BOX OFFICE:  Nothing much to report here.  My Big Fat Greek Wedding continues to be the biggest jaw dropper since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  The film estimated a $14.6 million gross in its twentieth weekend, assuring that the film will get to $100 million.  CTHD will remain, in my opinion, the bigger story, since it is a long film in a foreign language.  But distributors will take a long, hard look at Greek Wedding before dismissing its methods.  The trick is that this is a mainstream movie and a major studio could do what this film has done.  But they won’t, because it will be written off as an indie thing – it’s not – and no major distributor will show their ass enough to take the kind of chance that Greek Wedding wasn’t really taking… there were no expectations.  Nowadays, it’s seen as risky to open on the coasts for a week before going wide.  And only failure on a large scale will change the thinking.  In the meantime, Greek Wedding’s success should be appreciated and applauded.

On the other hand, Austin Powers in Goldmember reported the best hold of any studio movie in the Top Ten… oy.  The movie will hit its fiscal target, passing The Spy Who Shagged Me next Friday.  Congratulations on the marketing coup. 

The New York Times’ Jamie Malanowski wrote a provocative piece about Goldmember in the Sunday Arts section.   Worth a read. 

Meanwhile, over at DreamWorks, Road to Perdition will cross its target, the $100 million mark, on Thursday.

Expect both films to lose large percentages of screen count next weekend and the weekend after before disappearing completely by October 1.   Then, look forward to dueling video releases around Thanksgiving, Goldmember as a New Line cash cow and Perdition as the kick-off of a major Oscar campaign.

DEFENDERS OF THE REALM:  There were two first-time defenses this weekend.  First, Steven Soderbergh finally spoke up about the irrational critical rage surrounding Full Frontal.  He explained it as well as anyone could:  “"Films come in two categories -- those which tell and those which show. Critics only want the first sort because stories fit into their scheme of things. If things don't fit their scheme, they get mad."  I couldn’t agree more.  And I’m still no fan of Full Frontal.  But it is the anger that always catches me off guard.  And the sad part is that once critics – not the best ones - take these positions, they hold on like rabid pit bulls, because they can’t admit they were wrong, or at least overzealous. 

I had a variation of that experience myself recently, when a major newspaper kept reprinting a statistical lie that they had printed once before without investigation (or thought) and which they knew, after being told, to be false by way of simple math.  They reprinted it at least five times after they knew it was false.  And after a while, it was apparent that they were choosing to reprint it intentionally, almost as a show of power.  Few things have frustrated me more. 

As the criticism in major outlets becomes more and more bent by publicity and marketing, the need for critics to understand what actually goes into the making of a movie grows.  It’s not that there aren’t writers who are as skilled in critical thinking or composing as the Kaels and Farbers and Sarrises.  It’s that quality criticism has become as bent by the industry and hungry editors/publishers in much the same way that the ideals of communism were bent in the USSR and other countries that lost their way. 

(Note: In my opinion, one of the positive qualities of a capitalist society is that it can contain communist societies within its boundaries and even show generosity to those societies without either trying to impose its will on them or destroy them.)

Read the whole story on Soderbergh here.

Add:  The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane recently released a compendium of his critical writing called Nobody’s Perfect and the Times’ Book Review, by Salon’s Laura Miller, encapsulates Lane’s film writing with near perfection.  (Yes, because I agree.)  Miller is kinder to Lane’s other work, which I imagine I would agree with if I knew the work.  Lane is a top-notch writer and not much of a film critic.  But criticism is, by its nature, different in other media.  Read Miller’s review here and if you want a taste of Lane, click here. For me, it says volumes that he chooses, in this, his first film book, to focus on his least-liked movies over his best-liked movies.  It may well be more fun to skewer than praise, but what does that say about someone who makes a living watching film?

NEXT:  The first public statement on the Affair d’Busch at the L.A. Times was made over the weekend by the Times’ David Garcia to Jim Romenesko’s Media News (the one must-read media site on the planet @ http://www.poynter.org/medianews).  The e-mail note read: “I'd like to make one point regarding your posting of the Anita Busch story. Our reporter was threatened. After discussions with law enforcement, we took the measures recommended to ensure the safety of our reporter.”

The posting Garcia was referring to was the story in the New Times Los Angeles last week, which did little more than regurgitate the same exact stuff Jeff Wells printed over a month ago.  That said, the story has remained alive primarily because of the inaction by the L.A. Times.  The idea that a reporter had been pulled off a story and sent into hiding by a paper on American soil because of a mob threat is a major story.  And by refusing to cover it themselves, the L.A. Times has perpetuated the idea that whatever accusations of paranoia made against Ms. Busch must have some validity because otherwise, the paper would be busy chasing a Pulitzer by exposing the whole ugly business.

Even more to the point, if the threat against Anita is real, exposure of that threat on the cover of the L.A. Times would do a lot more to assure her safety than hiding out in a variety of hotels.  People tend not to attack people after they have been publicly accused of threatening those people.  At least, not in this country.

FINALLY:  Nikki Finke requested a correction in regards to my mention that she had accused the Wall Street Journal’s Bruce Orwall of coddling Disney in her LA Weekly column a couple of weeks ago.  She asked that I not print her e-mails, so I will not. 

Her argument was that she had not named Orwall specifically when she wrote, “It only added to suspicions when The Wall Street Journal, increasingly Eisner's official apologist, bent over backward to quote sources claiming Gold didn't view Disney's actions as aimed at him. But others sure did,” in the Weekly issue that hit the street August 14.  She was, she says, only commenting on the Wall Street Journal, not Orwall specifically. 

However, WSJ had run an interview with Eisner on August 9, a clear response by Disney to the various published attacks on Eisner during the days just passed.  On the 12^th, they ran a story about the Disney Board of Directors, which included: “A person familiar with the matters says Mr. Gold views the change as a legitimate effort to meet high corporate-governance practices, and not aimed at him.”  Both stories were bylined by Bruce Orwall and Bruce Orwall alone.

So how does a specific attack on two Bruce Orwall stories not equal an attack on Bruce Orwall?   Is Ms. Finke suggesting that Orwall’s work is specifically influenced in a pro-Disney fashion by his editors and/or publisher and that he holds no responsibility for what he writes?  Or is Ms. Finke just taking the old adage, “You are your outlet,” too much to heart?  I can’t answer for sure… Ms. Finke blocked my e-mail response and further inquiries from reaching her AOL account. 

When I suggest that the editor and publisher of the L.A. Weekly have significantly lowered the prestige of their paper by allowing Nikki to spew poorly reported, admittedly biased bile in their pages, I am speaking to their responsibilities.  I doubt that a reporter in any non-entertainment capacity would be allowed to write about companies with which they are in virulent litigation, much less to spin negative stories with consistently unnamed sources.  (Perhaps this is Finke’s objection to the WSJ… they actually have sources that go on the record sometimes!  Ironically, there is not a single story source quoted in Finke’s anti-Disney attack.  The only quotes – there are 3 - are anecdotally repeated from other sources.)  

On the purely editorial side, it is stunning that Finke has been allowed to choose her victims with such overt bias.  She has attacked Disney, Viacom and Fox, as well as Universal’s former ownership, for alleged fiscal malfeasance.  Yet, I have yet to read a negative word about the two studios with the worst financial performances during her Weekly tenure.   And who was behind the anti-Jack Valenti column?  Could it be someone at the only major that isn’t a MPAA signatory and has also remained mud-free in Finke’s columns?  And who was the source for her recent SAG attack piece, in which she blames the non-working members of the union for its myriad troubles?  Why no mention that it has been the producers who have been unwilling to entertain SAG provisions that are probably the only real way to stop runaway production, or that her agency friends may well be operating without a signed agreement with SAG, but that they still haven’t moved ahead with activities that were formerly disallowed by their contracts and with which they are anxious to proceed but can not until they are sure that it won’t come back to bite them in the ass?  These issues should be addressed by her Weekly bosses, who are obviously not well-versed enough in the entertainment business to challenge their supposedly top-notch reporter.  This is not unusual in the entertainment journalism game.  But rarely has a reporter been given the loose leash on which Finke operates.

Indeed, the responsibility for the bile, particularly in an opinion column, belongs to the writer, not the outlet.  Tom King is a mediocre reporter and lowers the bar at the Wall Street Journal, even if his only work there is part of the lighter-hearted Weekend Journal section.  I get worked up about it out of respect for the Journal.  But in my opinion, Nikki Finke is viral.  She betrays her outlet and her readers who simply don’t care to know anymore about these subjects than what Nikki writes.  How anyone could take her seriously after reading her column on Mike Ovitz and then reading the actual Vanity Fair article is beyond me.  But then again, as a journalist recently said to me as I got worked up about one Finke column, “David, you’re the only one who cares.” 

Sigh…

ELVIS HAS LEFT THE DVD BUILDING:  Elvis Mitchell wrote a tough, but fair, story in the Sunday NY Times about the proliferation of “special features” that aren’t so special on DVDs.  I agree with him wholeheartedly that often times, what is promoted as special is more of a chore than a joy to sit through.  That said, while I would not consider purchasing Van Wilder to get a few more shots of almost-jiggling breast implants, I would buy Vertigo on DVD – not coincidentally, our DVD Pick of the Day -for the quality of the print.  Read El Vez’ story right here.

People often wonder aloud, “Whatever happened to those Blair Witch guys?”  Well, besides closing their studio-based offices in Central Florida and finally getting paid their Blair millions by Artisan, they are apparently becoming more aware of just where their talents lie.  Page Six reports that instead of chasing a narrative feature or another narrative TV show, Sanchez & Myrek have decided to make a documentary about Britney Spears’ Camp For The Performing Arts.  They were given access this summer by the now broken-down and “vacationing” blonde and I can only imagine that the resulting doc will have nearly as any screams as The Blair Witch Project and will cause as many cases of audience vomiting… although not from shaky camera work. 

ONLY IN HOLLYWOOD:  I've had the bizarre pleasure of hanging out with some people who actually care about theater in Los Angeles in the new millennium. And they aren't producing Lion King t-shirts.  Tony Jerris wrote and produced a fun little show called Tell Veronica!, starring the Petit Princess of Dallas, Charlene Tilton and the Farrelly Brothers' favorite fashion victim, Lin Shaye.  The lovely and talented Dave Elliott served as the muse to this project.  (You should see him in Charlene's costume!)  And he also puts together one hell of a barbecue.  It's too late for you to enjoy Tell Veronica! at a theater near you.  So why am I writing about it now?  Because Dave made me.  Look for Tell Veronica!: The Survivor Series on some TV network in the future.

READER OF THE DAY:  THE HIT MAN writes: “Here's a hat tip to the world situation... I picked up my (Toronto) Festival guide yesterday to start mapping out our photo ops and trying to assign who goes where.

The guide contains a full page ad from El Al, who now fly Toronto to LA. "As the most secure airline in the world...we offer peace of mind."

Hmm, maybe I'll fly them to the Oscars next year...of course it was their tix counter that was shot up...what a crazy world.

It's hard enough being a photographer and a writer at TIFF, but the part that boggles me is their scheduling of films just prior to their press conference. If you want to shoot the blab sessions, there's no way you can see the film at the Varsity and get to the Four Seasons in time. But hey, it's still a great way to spend 10 days immersed in film.”

And on a non-movie bent, DAVE WITH A LIIME TWIST writes:  “Dave, I saw the MTV awards last night looking for a catch up course in what's fresh in pop culture and I feel like I've got to vent. I know this ain't a music site but bare with me, man, it was my birthday and I went to bed angry last night.

First off, where's the new music? The 3 hour + night felt like a clip show from the last four years. Sure, new rockers The Vines, The Strokes and The Hives tried to bring some guitars into proceedings but the only thing I came out with was that "Stroking your Vine could give it Hives."

Puff Daddy -- How many producers did this guy threaten at gun point to get on the show again? Try as hard as you'd like, Diddy, but your career ended four years ago on the Godzilla soundtrack. Is peace of mind the one thing money can't buy?

Christina Aguilera -- Two words honey: "Jenna Jameson." Has anyone seen the two of them in the same room together?

NSYNC -- We got one of them blasting off into space any day now. Leave it to the Russians -- "that's right, comrades, now only four more to go."

Guns N Roses --Was I the only one who thought host Jimmy Fallon was doing an impression of Axl Rose in that one? Nice try, maybe in another ten years, Axl.

Eminem's war of words with Moby -- Apparently "Vanilla Ice with tourettes" had it out with the techno wiz for being smarter than him -- oh and Marshall, nice video but Weird Al Yankovic was doing that parody shit better in the 80s.

Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth -- Take a good look children, you will never see these two geezers again on tv. I mean it.

Britney Spears -- Heck, even she looked bored with herself. Nice outfit, girlie. It's Marlon Brando in "The Wild One," right? Next year I wanna see Eli Wallach in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly," sweetie.

No Doubt -- What the fuck is a band that actually plays instruments doing winning awards? Go back to the garage, poindexters!

Mary J. Blige, Linkin Park, White Stripes, Avril Lavigne, Shakira -- Nice to meet you, kids, get your complimentary cell phone jackets and follow the dotted line out the door of irrelevance.

Chris Rock and Triumph The Insult Dog will be needed badly next year if a single one of the above "performers" can make it another 12 months as anything more than pop culture eczema. The video has finally killed the radio star, man.

OK OK OK -- MTV is not all that bad actually, it's quite nice sometimes -- FOR ME TO POOP ON!!! “

E ME:  Did anyone actually pay to see FearDotCom… really?  And what is your take on criticism?  Do you prefer a writer who lays back and take aim with the pithiest comments possible or do you prefer a more intricate read?  And how do you feel about those middle paragraphs outlining the story?  So those help you are a moviegoer or ruin the experience?  (Obviously, you don’t need them after you’ve seen the movie, right?)