reel.com: hollywood confidential - september 19, 2001

reel.com: hollywood confidential - september 19, 2001   title actor director advanced search movie matches site map help interviews awards advertisement     upcoming blasts   conventional industry wisdom says that upcoming films that have anything to do with terrorists or new york city are in trouble, and that they need to postpone their release dates. hence the delays of disney's big trouble, which uses terrorism in its story, and warner bros.' collateral damage, the arnold schwarzenegger revenge flick that focuses on a terrorist bombing of an l.a. office building. then again, hollywood's caution about such films seems to argue with findings in a story that ran in monday's los angeles times. it said that blockbuster has reported a surge in rentals last weekend of movies with terrorist plots. (surprised? not me.) a blockbuster manager told the times that renters were probably looking for "anything where terrorists got the stuffing kicked out of them." still, hollywood's knee-jerk impulse to flinch and duck has obviously taken hold. so much so that even a faint-pulse relationship drama like ed burns' sidewalks of new york, which had been set for release next week by paramount classics, has had its opening delayed. in such an environment, one can easily imagine the anxiety that's probably being felt right now about two upcoming, heavily budgeted, big-studio films — disney's bad company and paramount's the sum of all fears — that contain elements very closely reflecting what happened eight days ago in lower manhattan. the plots of both deal with terrorist-supplied nuclear bombs brought to this country with the intention of exploding them on the eastern seaboard and killing hundreds of citizens. if you buy the notion that audiences are currently averse to thrillers of this sort (which i'm skeptical of, frankly), the film in the tougher spot is bad company, since it's slated to open only about three months from now, or right around christmas. at a cost of somewhere between $80 and $90 million, company is being produced by action maestro jerry bruckheimer. it co-stars chris rock and anthony hopkins as a green cia recruit and a seasoned agent, respectively. sony's similarly budgeted the sum of all fears is the latest high-powered jack ryan thriller from producer mace neufeld, with ben affleck as a gen-x version of ryan and morgan freeman as a seasoned, older-cop type. it's slated to open next summer, possibly in july. given the reactions to other terrorist-themed films so far, it's inconceivable that these movies aren't giving their producers and distributors serious pause. that is, in fact, true as far as disney and bad company are concerned. i learned late wednesday afternoon that disney has issued a statement declaring that out of consideration for the survivors of last week's tragedy, they have decided not to release the bruckheimer "action comedy" in december. a paramount spokesperson told me, however, that there aren't, as of now, any plans for re-shoots or release delays regarding the sum of all fears.   in the sum of all fears, a terrorist-supplied nuclear device explodes next to a stadium containing thousands watching a super bowl game in baltimore, resulting in a scene of death and devastation many times worse than the one volunteers are sorting through now at ground zero. arriving at the end of act two, the blast will obviously be the film's money sequence — the one big element audiences will be buzzing about as they leave the theater, which, depending upon audience sentiment at the time, will make or break it at the box office. when i first started thinking about this monday morning, as i wrote to a friend in an e-mail, my gut feeling was that the sum of all fears "has to be regarded as ground zero among movies with a big 'uh-oh' tattooed across their foreheads in the wake of last tuesday's devastation." i've since come to realize it'll probably score big despite this. this may sound insensitive in the midst of our current anguish and talk about how values are suddenly changing in the wake of last week's disaster, but seven or eight months from now there won't be a guy under the age of 40 who won't want to see this thing. it also reads like a good thriller. the sum script i reviewed last february, co-authored by daniel pyne and director phil alden robinson, is well crafted and rife with well-tuned suspense. a paramount spokesperson said plans are still in place to open the sum of all fears next summer, and that last week's events haven't resulted in a meeting of any kind between paramount distribution executives and the film's producers. neufeld told his secretary to say "no comment" when i called him on monday. but at least one highly regarded hollywood public relations veteran feels they should delay sum's release until sometime next fall. "i'd take a breath," he said monday. "one, the political subject matter feels more to me like a fall movie. second, it would give people that much more time for their memories to heal. and by the way, since we don't know what the government has planned [regarding its plans to bring the perpetrators to justice], we don't know if a year will be enough." the resemblances to last tuesday's tragedy are even closer in a january 2001 draft of black sheep, which is what bad company was called until the title was changed a couple of months ago. over two thirds of jason richman's script takes place in prague, but the final action occurs in new york city. on page 112, chris rock's jake character — the twin brother of a murdered cia agent — is sitting in a room with a nuclear device while being interrogated by a hell-bent, middle-eastern terrorist named omid, who may or may not be played by peter stormare. "you know what that is?" omid says as he grabs jake's head and forces him to look at a digital time-counter built into the bomb. "the beginning of the end. your country has been poisoning the world for two hundred years [and] all in the name of money. the american way. anything for a buck. we'll see how far your dollar goes after i turn wall street into a piece of charcoal." this last line obviously indicates a plan to explode the bomb downtown. "it would make me uncomfortable to release that movie anytime soon," another veteran publicist said. "christmas sounds a little too close to me. emotions are still going to be very raw with a lot of families who've lost loved ones." i was told monday by two sources that the currently in-the-can version of bad company includes footage of the world trade center's twin towers, and that the action may even involve the structures in some way, shape, or form. a disney spokesperson claimed not to know definitively about whether this was true or not. i reported in an earlier version of this story that i'd been told that bruckheimer had ordered a screening of black sheep not long after last week's tragedy and "made his editors stay all night" and so on. bruckheimer called today and said this never happened. i naturally would have incorporated this into my reporting had i been contacted prior to deadline. for what it's worth, i don't think a producer being demanding with his editors or anyone else on his team is any great sin.   i've been told that plans to re-shoot the ending of bad company may materialize. michael browning shares screen credit on the imdb with richman, the original writer. lowell ganz and babaloo mandel have re-written and/or punched up several scenes also. i was told through a screenwriter source that disney marketing executive oren aviv had confided to a colleague that changes or modifications to bad company would probably happen, but i wasn't able to confirm this. the disney spokesperson said, "nothing has been decided." the fact is that high-concept plots involving this or that brand of terrorist coming to u.s. shores to wreak havoc are totally common in development circles these days, and it's been this way for years. l.a. times columnist patrick goldstein wrote yesterday that last week's tragedy may effect a sea-change in terms of what workaday hollywood will henceforth consider acceptable or marketable subject matter. i doubt this. most producers aren't bright or creative enough to do anything but regurgitate and scrape the bottom of the barrel. one highly seasoned, well-connected hollywood screenwriter says that over the last year or so he's been asked to rewrite "nine feature films involving state-sponsored terrorism, neo-nazis, druglords … here to kill citizens, blow up wall street, demand cash ransoms, and on and on." this screenwriter, hands down one of the frankest and funniest guys i know in this town, says his residence "is a brokerage house for all this high-concept action horse-s**t" and that he's forever being asked to "cannibalize and frankenstein-ize all these s**t-head action pictures." his assistant, he says, has been "rolling his eyes and saying, 'i never knew it all came down like this.' i've just been telling him, 'listen and learn.'" forget high-powered action movies about terrorists. as far as i'm concerned, the mere mention of the word "terrorist" in the synopsis of a film is a tip-off that it's probably second-rate. you know what i found myself watching on dvd last weekend? fight club. i'm sorry, but those final 10 or 12 seconds have an even greater fascination for me now.   a festival stopped cold   it was half a festival, really. five really amazing days, followed by five days of shell shock. five days of partaking in what felt like one of the coolest and most vital happenings on the planet, and five days of sorting through the rubble of a televised catastrophe so massive that the watching of hip movies could scarcely have mattered less. nonetheless, a final sum-up of the toronto film festival seems appropriate. i'm sure i've overlooked something i shouldn't have. keep in mind that this list is restricted only to films i saw myself: most heartening, and possibly fated to be the most popular of all toronto entries: jean-pierre jeunet's amelie, which miramax will be releasing on november 2. saddest, most quietly unsettling drama: todd field's in the bedroom. most audacious, trippiest, most strikingly out-there: david lynch's mulholland drive. not just the best documentary shown, but one of the best films, period: vikram jayanti's james ellroy's feast of death.   best big-star performances: denzel washington in training day; mick jagger in the man from elysian fields. most promising directorial debuts in terms of future hollywood employability: fabián bielinsky, nine queens; danis tanovic, no man's land; gabrielle muccino, last kiss. best party-givers: falco ink, who invited me to the three coolest soirees of the festival: the safety of objects party at babaloo, the good machine party at left bank (too hot!), and the premiere party at the four seasons (which i didn't get to because i decided instead to suffer through from hell). most over-praised muddle: rose troche's the safety of objects. ripe, lurid, punchy: john dahl's joy ride, gregor jordan's buffalo soldiers. best heist films of the festival: fabián bielinsky's nine queens, david mamet's heist. biggest dogs & letdowns: scott hicks' hearts in atlantis; catherine breillat's fat girl; don boyd's my kingdom; arliss howard's big bad love; erik skjoldbjaerg's prozac nation; bart fruendlich's world traveler; albert and allen hughes' from hell; fred schepisi's last orders. m.i.a.s: leon ichaso's piñero; josée dayan's cet amour lá ; benoit jacquot's tosca; andre téchiné's loin; claire peploe's the triumph of love. okays, pretty goods: richard linklater's tape, mira nair's monsoon wedding, george hickenlooper's the man from elysian fields, nicole holofcener's lovely and amazing.   skin deep   the movieline magazine i used to know — a sometimes smirky, bitchy rag that could always be counted upon to take some well-aimed shots at hollywood phoniness and pretentiousness — is turning into a shallow girlie thing about jewelry and clothes and glam posturing. i'm not saying this because the current drew barrymore cover seems especially puerile in the wake of recent events. i'm saying this because movieline used to have a certain snap and erudition that is clearly ebbing away. i worked for movieline when it was just starting up, sometime in '86 or thereabouts. one of my lasting contributions is the column called "hollywood ink," which was no great inspiration, particularly, but i did think up the title. after a while, the magazine's publicist, ed margulies, switched over to editorial, and, being a child of hollywood, gradually brought a very knowing, deliciously effete sensibility to movieline. ed never liked my stuff (he only ran one of my pieces, which was about 10 classic celebrity interviews that riled hollywood), but he brought a flinty, tangible attitude to the publication that, for me, always made it worth buying. i don't have an exact timeline in my head, but the very bright virginia campbell co-edited movieline with margulies for several years until he left the magazine two or three years ago. (those of you who remember my "showbiz confidential" column on mr. showbiz will recall that margulies took it over after i moved to reel.com, only to die of a heart attack a few short months later.) anyway, margulies and campbell plus stephen rebello, critic stephen farber, former editor josh mooney, interviewer martha frankel and especially the wonderfully subversive essayist joe queenan came to comprise the movieline i knew and loved. now only farber, frankel, and queenan remain, except queenan's been absent lately plugging his book. (i forget the title, but it's about how boomers are all spoiled, shallow hypocrites.) the okay stuff in the current issue includes a frankel interview with robert sean leonard, a pair of interviews (with barrymore and directors allen and albert hughes) by variety columnist michael fleming, and a perceptive "oscar bait" piece. but the rest of it … jeez. hype, clothes, merchandise, fashion accessories, and more clothes — a compendium of everything about this town that is spiritually lacking or bankrupt or fake. movieline was never the new york review of books. there was always a mix of glitz and tonality along with the bitchy attitude and snappy prose, but lately the emptiness has been spreading through its pages like cancer. i had assumed that campbell's recent resignation was at least partially prompted by this apparent tendency. the new editor is juan morales, who's always seemed like a good guy with sufficient smarts, but neither juan nor virginia would return my calls. instead, i got a call from movieline's exacting and headstrong publisher, anne volokh, who launched movieline some 15 or 16 years ago. volokh's basic line is that yes, things are changing and that lifestyle elements have been becoming part of the magazine more and more "over the last two and half years," but that with "every issue we have tried to balance the elements carefully" and "keep our tone exactly as it always was." she adds, "don't judge us too harshly until you see the november issue." it will include a new queenan piece, she says, and feature elizabeth hurley on the cover. campbell's departure, she says, "is a mystery. i would not have left. but show me any magazine that has had the editor in chief for 10 and a half years. i would have preferred for her not to leave. there was no determining event [causing] virginia to leave." publishing is suffering through a major recession, of course, and whenever revenues are down, changes are always being contemplated. volokh says movieline's circulation has been about 300,000 for the last two years, which is roughly half that of premiere's. "it's been a very tough year [but] the magazine is healthy," she says. "ad pages are up over last year, and so is advertising revenue. and that's a very positive thing."   post-apocalypse   "at least hollywood isn't trying to figure out how to release a film based on the next tom clancy novel, debt of honor. talk about eerie: the us markets are targeted for collapse and a japanese pilot crashes a plane into the capitol building in dc, wiping out the president and nearly the entire congress. "it might be difficult for a period of time to get movies like this off the ground, but after a while hollywood will get back to churning out those big-budget, cgi-laden movies that audiences have been fascinated with for the last 15 years. i don't think they'll have as much of a problem with that as they might have with wanting to see, say, blazing saddles or heathers, in today's suddenly changed world." — matthew key "shocked as i am by what happened at the wtc, i think hollywood's cover-up reactions are completely ridiculous. deleting the twin towers from spider-man is one of the dumbest things i've ever heard. it would be like denying it ever existed, denying people worked there, and denying people died there in the most horrible way. all this happened and you just can't delete it with a computer. i think it would be much more respectful and intelligent to put a black screen at the beginning of the movie in remembrance of the terrible events and let the movie be what it was supposed to be. hollywood can't delete what happened. nobody saved the world this time." — newton brown "i usually agree with you, but i'm 30 years old, and i won't be going to see the sum of all fears, even if ben affleck suddenly becomes a compelling lead actor. i enjoyed the jack ryan flicks of the past that carried subtle criticisms of our own covert tactics overseas. but this — this turns my stomach now. just the thought of paying to see footage like this seems like offering people money to further desensitize me to such things. the more often we see stuff like this, the easier it is to put a real tragedy behind us. i already find myself wishing the news about new york would go away like a bad movie, and i am ashamed of myself for that. i'm afraid you'll be right, in general — americans have too big an appetite for the thrill of watching fictional mass murders, and there will be long lines for the sum of all fears. but count me as one under-40 who is trying to protect what's left of my ability to respond in horror. "studios should be thinking of preston sturges' insights in sullivan's travels. what the world needs in a time of battered spirits is not further evidence of the world's evils. nor do we need a fantasy hero who only fools us into false securities and sends us looking for help in the wrong places. right now what people need from entertainment is a good, healthy, hearty, non-cynical laugh. we need some strong comedies, fast. to lift our spirits and give ourselves a break from the relentless newscasts." — jeffrey overstreet, seattle   role playing   todays' cast: richard chamberlain, jennifer jones, susan blakely, o.j. simpson, robert wagner, faye dunaway, william holden, and two studly male leads who will go unnamed. this film was directed by a guy who had a reputation for saying out loud to his cast and crew at the conclusion of every take, "is everyone okay?"   what's that line?   a young man and slightly older woman are having a conversation in a library. woman: can i ask you something? young man: sure. woman: has it ever crossed your mind that you're far too young for me? young man: it crossed my mind that you might consider that a possibility. yeah. woman: quite apart from the fact that you're [omitted]. young man: i'm not trying to pressure you into anything, [name]. i'm surprised you brought it up so bluntly. woman: i just want to make sure … [electric pencil sharpener whirring loudly.] young man: we've become friends, haven't we? woman: yes. young man: and, um … the truth is, neither one of us has the slightest idea where this relationship is going. woman: we don't have a relationship, [name]. we're friends, and that's all we're going to be. young man: that's all i meant by "relationship." you want me to grab a dictionary? woman: no, i just want to make sure that we understand each other. young man: i understand. you're not attracted to me. c'est la vie. woman: [name], you're [cites his age]. attraction doesn't enter into it. young man: if you say so. look, all i'm getting at is that … i've never met anyone like you. you can take that for whatever it's worth. woman: i think i can safely say i've never met anyone like you either. young man: you haven't, have you? name the film, the director, the screenwriter(s), and the two actors in the scene. email jeffrey got a comment or tip? send it in! archive want more hollywood confidential? check out our archive. a memorial service for the legendary sam arkoff, who died last weekend, will take place at mount sinai chapel (next to forest lawn) at 12 noon, thursday. i spoke to arkoff — whose aip pictures became legendary for exploiting youth culture appetites with a series of cheesy exploitation flicks in the '50s, '60s, and '70s — just a few weeks ago regarding rob cohen's the fast and the furious, which was partly an homage to arkoff's work. arkoff's son lou reminded me monday that his dad's legacy has been rejuvenated by the forthcoming cinemax/hbo series called creature features, which were inspired by five arkoff flicks. it'll begin airing on october 4. check out the details here. i'm hearing that a well-known hollywood producer has been telling friends and colleagues he's afraid to fly, given recent events, and is determined to avoid doing so if he can. it's a typical attitude, stemming from the overall sense of shock and withdrawal that many of us are feeling these days. nobody wants to do anything now. new york hotels are empty; ditto broadway theaters and air terminals everywhere. on the other hand, our friends in israel, ireland, london, and many other cities and countries have had to live with this kind of terrible menace for a long time. many columnists and politicians have used the word "cowardly" to describe the perpetrators of last week's horror. i can think of many adjectives to describe them — fanatical, dastardly, monstrous — but between a rich, pampered producer who's afraid to fly and several deranged fiends who willingly destroyed themselves for a cause, which of these two would you say conveys a stronger impression of intestinal fortitude? i'm still hearing that dreamworks' the road to perdition, the nice-gangster period drama with tom hanks, will open in december to qualify for possible oscar nominations. dreamworks is continuing to say there are no current plans for this. exhibitor relations has the sam mendes drama coming coming out in spring '02. i've nonetheless been told the sam mendes film is being planned as a possible opener on december 21. which is ironic considering that dreamworks' longtime oscar rival, miramax, is opening its own period gangster pic, martin scorsese's gangs of new york, on december 21 also. i ran a story a while back about miramax's academy rivalry with dreamworks, which began with the former's shakespeare in love taking the best picture oscar away from the latter's saving private ryan in 1999. exhibitors have been advised to expect harry potter and the sorcerer's stone (warner bros., nov.16) to run 142 minutes, not counting beginning or end credits. (figure another eight to ten minutes with.) this information has come straight from wb distribution. a studio spokesperson says the length hasn't been finally determined when was the last time there was a family film of this length? there are at least two ways to process this. one, the story may have demanded this length so it could be told fully and clearly. or two, director chris columbus' ambitions have become grandiose. the exhibitor friend who told me the news says that a longer, fatter potter "could well be fantastic." length has never been an issue with me, but i'm willing to make an exception in this instance. less columbus is preferable to more. steven spielberg is going to direct leonardo dicaprio in catch me if you can? this isn't processing. the script (reviewed in this column several months back) doesn't indicate a need for a strong visual helmer. it's one of those pieces in which the director should ideally be invisible, or at least unassertive. the story (about con artist-impersonator frank abnagale, jr.) needs to play on its own, stealth-like terms. soderbergh could ace this sucker with one hand tied behind his back. de palma would be an interesting choice. but spielberg? i guess all that complaining about the full-screen willy wonka dvd did some good. wb family entertainment has announced that a widescreen dvd (and vhs) edition will hit stores on 11/30, with all the extras that the currently available full-screen version has. warner video vp ewa martinoff says the company is "thrilled" to be offering this widescreen version. so why didn't they offer it in the first place? trust me, some bigwig at wb family entertainment argued passionately against initially issuing a widescreen version. it was a very unusual call, and probably motivated by the lure of wb being able to save some money. ewa is fooling no one. entertainment weekly's jeff jensen's reports that kevin smith "figures he has about nine years left in the movie business; he has long planned to retire at age 40." say what? forty is when things start to come into focus. life may not begin here, but it sure gets a lot riper and fuller. banish the word retirement from your vocabulary, kevin. what if luis buñuel had retired at 40? john ford? robert bresson? preston sturges? forget it, chief. you're on the treadmill until you drop. be glad about that. big surprise! rat race, the paramount comedy from director jerry zucker that's been seen in some quarters as a rehash of stanley kramer's it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world … is funnier than kramer's film, hands-down, with a comic attitude that's much more anarchic and absurd. it's completely silly and stupid in a shrewd, skillful way — not so much a screwball comedy as a lunatic one. and it's a hit, trust me. the all-media audience at the bruin theatre tuesday night was laughing uproariously. the humor plays in a coarse, slapstick vein similar to that of a typical three stooges short. best performances are from rowan atkinson (mr. bean), jon lovitz, cuba gooding, jr., john cleese, whoopi goldberg, seth green … hell, they all dive into it and go wild. i couldn't tell how funny it would be from reading andy breckman's screenplay, so much of the credit probably belongs to zucker. privacy policy terms of use | legal notice | copyright © 2007 movie gallery us, llc and hollywood entertainment corporation content | help me | about reel.com

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