I thought I was going to write about Ain’t It Cool and Superman today…

But I’m not.  I had an e-mail exchange with Drew/Moriarty yesterday and I want to think about it some more.  The simple reality is that there is a fundamental difference between how Drew and Harry see their site and how I see not only their site, but also the entire idea of journalistic integrity and responsibility… and for that matter, personal responsibility. 

This is the situation… it doesn’t really matter whether I write about what happened over there today or tomorrow or the day after.   It’s not going to change the playing field in a considerable way.  Anything written on the subject is now a look back at a historical event.  I would rather state a complete vision of the situation than offer fragments of ideas that change each day/hour/minute depending on the latest information.  That is my responsibility as a publisher, as a writer, as a journalist and as a human being. 

ANOTHER ATTACK:  I have to admit… I’m beginning to feel some degree of sympathy for Michael Eisner.  It’s weird.  The guy has dug his own hole and yet, I feel like he is surrounded by a lot of people who are pointing their fingers and almost no one with any solutions.  Try asking someone who they think should replace Eisner… and watch them stutter.

My position on Eisner remains the same.  He must be forced to bring on more heavy-duty lieutenants for each of the divisions and they must have some actual authority.  Otherwise, he must be fired.  If the board isn’t ready to push Eisner, then it is on their head, not his.  The fact that there are people who don’t like Eisner does not make him Hollywood’s worst villain.  The question is whether he has the ability to run this company and whether there is someone more qualified than he to run Disney.  He does not share.  We all know that.  If he does share, he can do the job.  If he can’t, he can’t.

The whole thing is a little ironic.  After all, WB just dumped Lorenzo di Bonaventura… not because his slate was weak but because he and Alan Horn couldn’t play together.  Bill Mechanic was dumped at Fox because he and Peter Chernin were at odds and Tom Sherak subsequently left because he wasn’t given due respect.  Paramount and Columbia have remained stable because of corporate respect for the leadership, with less emphasis on results.  And when Mike DeLuca showed up at DreamWorks, Parkes and MacDonald seemed to tighten their grip rather than loosen up. 

But here is the reason I started writing about this… on Sunday, the Los Angeles Times, in a move that strikes me as extraordinary, ran an editorial essentially calling for Eisner’s exit.  The L.A. Times took the editorial position that the head of a local business should resign on the premise that “What's bad for Walt Disney Co. is bad for Southern California.”  Bizarre.

Even more strange is the paper’s off-handed comparison of Eisner to Vivendi Universal Chairman Jean-Marie Messier or Steve Case at AOL Time Warner.  Both were examples of buyers who bit off more than they could chew and were on the outs after less than 2 years with their combined companies.  Eisner, as the Times states, has been the architect of Disney’s growth for 18 years.  The analogy could not be much less appropriate.

Then we get, “(F)or the sake of Southern California's entertainment and retail sectors, we'd like to see more changes, because the hand-picked board remains too cozy. Eisner also must safeguard Disney's future by producing the succession plan and telling how he'll revive the flagging businesses.”

For the sake of SoCal’s entertainment and retail sectors?!?!?!   Seriously… what exactly do you think has to happen at Disney to secure a future for Southern California’s entertainment and retail sectors?  Do they think that Disney is going to disappear?   I can’t imagine that they do.  So besides submitting his plans to the L.A. Times for their approval, what specifically does the L.A. Times suggest… whether Eisner is there or not?  Let’s get some of the Tribune Company business insight!!!  Or maybe the whole thing can be resolved with a mud-wrestling match between Sam Rubin and George Pennacchio!

There is no magic bullet for Disney, whether shot into Eisner’s head or not.  Every flagging business that Disney is now involved with is a cyclical business.  Is Susan Lyne the answer at ABC?  Not this season.  But if they don’t give somebody at least three seasons to turn it around, they are not being fair.  Is there an answer to the theme park problem?  Nothing but time and a return to pre-September 11 tourism habits.  Is there a way to fix California Adventure?  No.  It seems to have been a mistaken idea from the start.  Orange County is already one big version of Universal’s CityWalk.  Local interest, built into the DCA business plan, is never going to increase.  Movies?  By my analysis, Disney had the second most profitable summer among the top nine studios. 

In my mind’s eye, the current Get Mike attitude has a lot to do with the fact that none of the other potential targets are as vulnerable as Eisner… not because of the great successes out there, but because the other guys in his role are owners.  Should Sumner Redstone or Rupert Murdoch or Kirk Kerkorian be pushed out?  By whom?  Howard Stringer doesn’t have this level of power at Sony.  Time-Warner and Vivendi-Universal are already in play.  DreamWorks is just a movie studio.  So who else do we focus on?  Sorry, Mike… you’re too big and have been there too long and you have too many enemies.  Duck, duck, duck, duck…

The LA Times editorial is here.

MEANWHILE:  In the business section of the same Sunday L.A. Times that was calling for Eisner’s head, James Flanigan was praising Sumner Redstone’s Viacom as the originator of all things good that are left in show business.  A little much, I would say, though Viacom has done very well for itself.  The suck-up job appears here.

ON THE OTHER HAND:  This column’s favorite son, Tom King, is not such a fan of Viacom – or more specifically, Paramount Pictures.  The first sense I had when reading his Friday column was déjà vu.  After all, the “Paramount Has Become Boring” story was written about back in June by the New York Times and Fox News’ Roger Friedman and, of course, yours truly.

But King went to a weird place, using the failure of The Four Feathers to attack a machine that is basically working the way the company wants it to work.  King also conveniently forgot to mention that The Four Feathers was co-produced with Miramax.  I’m sure that he would have attacked Paramount as too cautious if The Four Feathers hit and Paramount didn’t have foreign.  I think it’s safe to assume that King laid off of K:19 because of Paramount’s small stake in the expensive bomb. 

And while the studio’s fall slate was given a box in the story, King didn’t bother to take a close look at those films either.  Star Trek: Nemesis is pretty much a $100 million lock.  The studio feels strongly enough about The Wild Thornberrys that they took the film to Toronto.  Narc is a dark horse for year-end and the studio is exposing it fairly openly in town this very weekend, two-and-a-half months before release.  And Jackass, whether Tom King gets it or not (I sure don’t), is a guaranteed video smash and will make money for Paramount in theatrical if they can get the gross up over the $20 million mark.

The other factor that King doesn’t bother to investigate is The Rudin Factor.  In the last two years, Scott Rudin, Paramount’s on-lot producing god in the Bruckheimer/Grazer/Roth/Silver mold, has been delivering much smaller films.  Between 1995 and 2000, Rudin gave Paramount Clueless, The First Wife’s Club, In & Out, The Truman Show, A Civil Action, South Park: Longer, Bigger & Uncut, Sleepy Hollow, Wonder Boys and Shaft, among others.  Since then, he has made films like Zoolander and Changing Lanes for Paramount, while delivering Oscar contenders like Iris and The Royal Tenenbaums to Miramax.  But his films haven’t had quite the same profile. 

The irony is that this same issue could be brought up to Brian Grazer at Universal, whose Undercover Brother and Blue Crush underperformed this summer, even though I really liked both films a lot.  (Can you feel my impotence?)   Like Rudin, chasing Oscar with The Hours, Grazer will chase Oscar with 8MM. 

Of course, both Rudin and Grazer will make “bigger” movies in the near future.  But if you are looking to kick people…

One industry friend thinks that this article is a signal that change is coming to the studio.  Sherry Lansing will be 60 in 21 months, she already has a load of cash, she can easily start producing again if she wants and why does she need the grief.  But some things never change.

The two-month-too-late headline for the two-month-too-late story was “An Unhappy Birthday at Paramount.”  But by Monday, the headline was revised on the WSJ website.  Now, it’s “Paramount Celebrates Birthday, Churns Out Modest, Safe Films.”  How much yelling do you think Rob Friedman had to do before they agreed to change the headline on this lazy hatchet job to something more accurate and less provocative? 

COMPELLING:  Anita Busch took on a story that is a little more feature-y for her than usual, but interesting nonetheless.  It seems that a member of the Bui family, on-screen and off, is being restrained by the Vietnamese government.   Take a look.

MORE GOOFY STUFF:  Did you enjoy yesterday’s goofiness?  Well, today I’m linking you to a wacky Ray Harryhausen tribute and to something that Scott Rudin really needs… a Samuel L. Jackson soundboard, from which you can click on 38 phrases right from Jackson’s mouth.  Including such favorites as, “This is a tasty burger,” “Well allow me to retort,” and more than one variation on “Mutherf***er.”  Click here for that one.

READER OF THE DAY:  The Great (and unedited) TAIWAN STEVE is back!!!  Have you noticed that his English is getting better every time he writes?:  “Dear David:  I think "Austin Powers in Goldmember" is really good and funny. I saw it four times in cinema. Before I go for fifth time, I decide to save my money to buy the soundtrack. You see, after seeing it 4 times, I can actually sing and dance "Hey, Goldmember" performed by Foxxy Cleopatra. So I think I really should practice it much more often, playing the soundtrack album is a great idea.

And I remember all the dialogues these celebrity talk in the opening sequences. I repeat what they said and did whenever I am alone, It is so funny. I guess Mike Myers has some special "Mojo", to recreate people's sense of humor, that's why all celebrity would like to do silly things in the film.

Tom Hanks was used to be a comedy star, but he quit and became a drama actor. If someday Tom Hanks return to do some comedy again, I think He will beat Mike Myers. Just watch the two "Toy Story" then you will learn the fact  that Tom can be funny if he wants to.

By the way, did you hear the title song from "Die Another Day" by Madonna? That's so cool that nobody would ever image the James Bond theme could be. Madonna got her "Mojo" back, too.”

VC writes: “On Deutschen Cinema.  I don't think of German movies as being romantic or comedies, although they are similar to the French sometimes in the comedic offerings.  I think of German films being very realistic, almost to the point of being too realistic.  When I lived over there, I saw a movie, which shockingly for me, they had at the Blockbuster At Sunset, just east of Fairfax.  This was back in the day when they had a huge laser disc collection for rent also.  Back to the movie which is titled Christiane F. .  It was one of the bleakest movies I have ever seen.  It is about a girl who is fairly young, about 15 I think, who through her boyfriend gets hooked on heroin.  They both sell their bodies to perpetuate their habit Am Banhof Zoo (a train station in Berlin).  It also shows them going cold turkey.  Eventually the boy returned to drugs, but Christiane was able to go on, clean.  It was a brutal movie and very realistic.  I didn't much like it, but it was the film of the moment at that time in 1981 and I wanted to see it. 

It has become more like the states now in terms of movie going in Germany, although they are way ahead of us in some ways.  The new cinemas offer, of course, stadium seating, but that was there when I lived there from 1980 to 1985.  But when I went with my brother to see The Sixth Sense at Christmas 3 years ago, the cinema we went to was state of the art.  Stadium seating, laser show before the movie, and the best, a magnetic shield is activated after the previews and commercials to keep cell phones and pagers from going off.  Wonderful.  Plus you have the choice for (at that time) 1 DM more to book exactly where you are going to sit.  I don't mind paying for that let me tell you.  The prices were cheaper too. 

I saw Das Boot in Germany on television, all 4 hours of the director cut in 1984, which I now own on DVD as well.  Not living there anymore, I don't see the German movies anymore.  Even when I visit my brother, we go an see American movies, in German mind you.  It is funny sometimes hearing a different voice come out of the mouth of say a Bruce Willis (The Sixth Sense) or Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan) both which I saw dubbed in German.  The funniest one I ever saw though was Ghostbusters, just before I moved back to the US. Bill Murray saying "Ich bin geschleimt" (I've been slimed).  I think they mush have made up "geschleimt" for that movie because I can't think of any other word that fits it LOL.”

NOT THE DEFENSIVE END writes:  “As a big fan of Reese Witherspoon, I think that she needs to do a drama, however, I think that the drama will have to be of the thriller type.  she should still take meetings with all those directors you mentioned but, above all, she needs to do the smart thing and not dumb any material down just because American audiences tend to be on the dumb side.  Also, when she does the thriller thing, as long as it isn't some woman-in-peril schtick (i.e. the entire career of Ashley Judd), she'll have my cash on the first weekend.”

Finally, BA FREYed writes:  “I meet a lot of new people through my work, and most find out quickly that I am a movie nut. The one question that in evidently gets asked is, "what is your favorite movie"? Most suspect I'll say Citizen Kane or Casablanca or Star Wars or something like that. But I always get this weird look when I say (without hesitation) Lawrence of Arabia. It was (at least in my opinion) David Lean's masterpiece among the many masterpiece's that he wove over his career. My favorite line in the movie is: General Murray: I can't make out whether you're bloody bad mannered or just half-witted? Lawrence: I have the same problem sir. Seeing the Four Feathers last weekend (which tried to compare itself to LOA) only reiterated the fact that there are a lot of wannabe David Lean's out there!! But the truly wonderful thing about film is the hope that (maybe one day) someone will craft a film that will take its place as my favorite. Still waiting!! In the meantime, No Prisoners! No Prisoners!!”

E ME:  E-mail is your way of saying, “I have e-mail access.”