Modest title. Might be an interesting movie…I’m lying, it’s an awful trailer. Maudlin and sappy — though I’m always interested what Desmond Tutu, the closest thing I know of to a real saint, has to say. All I can really say is that, if any of you know your “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” this reminds me of what happened when Zaphod Beeblebrox entered the Total Perspective Vortex.

h/t Deadline

* Back in 1939, Hollywood’s best-paid screenwriter, Preston Sturges, sold his screwball political satire, “The Great McGinty,” to Paramount for the grand sum of $10.00 on condition that he also be allowed to direct the movie. (I think he might have gotten a buck for the actual directing gig.) To this day, writers often take a pay cut for the privilege of becoming what Sturges used to call “a prince of the blood.”

Today, Mike Fleming reports that writer Dan Fogelman may be about to be paid in the neighborhood of $3 million to direct his first feature. “Imagine” is set to star Steve Carrell and will pair him with an older actor –presumably an aging superstar — who will be playing his extremely absentee rock musician dad who discovers a letter from John Lennon and decides to actually meet his now-middle-aged son for the first time.

* My colleague Will Harris forwarded me a press release with some exciting news for serious movie fans and fans of serious movies. Screenwriter and director Paul Schrader, still best known as the writer of “Taxi Driver,” but also a fascinating director in his own right with credits ranging from “American Gigolo” and “Cat People,” to “Mishima” and “Auto Focus” is poised to come back with “The Jesuit.” The deal for closed at the ongoing American Film Market, still underway in Santa Monica, and is set to star Willem Dafoe, Michelle Rodriguez, and Paz Vega. It’s a revenge film and, between that title and the Calvinist-raised Schrader’s well known inclinations from past films, you can hope for more than just a bit of spirituality meshing with the blood, guts, and sexuality. The Playlist has more.

* The Playlist also passes along the news that Christopher Doyle, an Australian-born cinematographer who made his name doing absolutely stunning work in Hong Kong for Wong Kai-Wai and others, is going to be making his first film in 3D. That should be interesting.

* From “True Blood” werewolf to Superman? Is it a Great Dane? Is it a lycanthrope? No, it’s Joe Manganiello.

* Hot on the heels of producing “Paranormal Activity 2” and wrapping “Area 51” the very shrewd Oren Peli is going back to the roots of American horror with a film loosely based on a story by Edgar Allen Poe.

* Screenwriter John August responds to a less than intelligent quote attributed to Jessica Alba.

* No, Ahmet Zappa and Michael Wilson aren’t writing “Tiki Room: The Movie” but an Polynesian tale that was inspired by the Tiki Room. I don’t care, as long as the birds sing words and the flowers croon.

* The big story today is that a lot of people have sussed out the the 23rd James Bond movie is, according to the possibly not-so-super reliable UK tabloid “canned.” Obviously, the same fiscal black hole at the once mighty MGM that is screwing things up royally for “The Hobbit” is also at least delaying the latest entry in what has to be the longest-running franchise in movie history.

He may be a bit emotional, but it’s hard to disagree with the passion of Harry Knowles on this, while Kevin Jagernauth provides some necessary background to the story. I agree that it’s a bummer this is happening during the era of Daniel Craig. As far as I’m concerned, Craig is easily the best Bond since Connery.

* There’s been a bit of a debate on Facebook about the appropriateness of some people’s more humorous/snarky reactions to the news that Lindsay Lohan is going back to jail for ninety days for parole violations. I’m of two or three minds on this, but I think the bottom line is that of course these things are tragedy but that, as we all know, comedy is tragedy in longshot. Also, I think some of the derision is based on Lohan’s reputation for not always acting like a particularly gracious person, to put it mildly, and also her getting some unusually open criticism from some highly venerated costars.

Of course, being nice to people isn’t always easy to do when you stoned out of your mind and being a good coworker is all that much harder. On the other hand, there’s never an excuse to be cruel and Hollywood has plenty of schadenfreude already. In fact, I’d like to call a permanent moratorium on it.

I will say that Robert Downey, Jr. — despite being quite well liked in Hollywood and one of the best actors of his generation — took his share of lumps from late night comics and others for his years long drug related problems. Whether or not it’s right to make fun of Lohan for her troubles, practically speaking, she would be well-advised to develop a thicker skin and a sense of humor about all of it the way Downey did, assuming she can stay alive of course.

In any case, her speech to the court was a good one. Aside from staying clean and sober, what she really needs to do when she gets out is to knock everyone’s socks off with some really good performances.

* I can almost feel the cinephile backlash building as it eventually did — to a limited degree — for “The Dark Knight,” but the early — somewhat geek heavy — reviews for “Inception” are looking extremely good. You might expect someone like AICN’s Mr. Beaks to have a cineorgasm over the film from geekdom’s favorite director, but the geek friendly but nevertheless discerning and cinephile-esque Anne Thompson dares to call it a “Kubrickian masterpiece.” I like Nolan’s films overall quite a bit, but he’s lost me before (“The Prestige” did nothing for me) and I don’t really consider him a great even in the making, but we’ll just have to see.

* The pulse-pounding women-in-prison spectacle of all time, “Sugarboxx,” which includes yours truly as a featured extra who meets an unpleasant end at the hand of rampaging female convicts and features exactly one line co-written by me with auteur Cody Jarrett, is available on demand on several cable systems including — though not limited to — Time Warner, Cox Cable, Bright House Networks and Charter Cable for just a couple more weeks — and then, that’s it, at least for now. I’m going to start reminding you about this again, so be prepared.

* Speaking of movies made for budgets that wouldn’t cover the coffee budget on a standard Hollywood film, Anne Thompson has a much needed update on Insurge, the micro-budget division that Paramount set up some time ago, with the idea of giving out $100,000 for edgy projects. There have been some roadblocks because the unions and guilds won’t stand for Paramount trying to get all the perks of being an impoverished indie producer, which I think is only fair. Still, doing a lot more films for vastly smaller budgets is a great idea and I hope they figure this thing out.

* Memo to Nikki Finke: The recent college grad son of a powerful and respected Hollywood player gets a job in the mailroom of a management company and it’s news? On the other hand, I’m glad Sam Grey is a Preston Sturges fan. Way to get on my good side. And, yes, I’m convinced Hollywood would be a better place and make better movies if more people would watch films made before 1980. Or 1960. Or 1940. Or…

* Returning to the topic of “Inception,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt is apparently the film’s action-star in terms of having to do some pretty complicated and apparently quite painful stunts. This Details profile cover story, which got e-mailed to me by someone there, makes him sound like somewhere between a blissed out cartoon character, a pot-appreciative Jimmy Stewart, and an interesting, manic, guy who gleefully subjected himself to all kinds of punishment while working on Nolan’s film. Also, apparently he likes to be called “Joe,” which, as a Bob, and never a Robert, I can appreciate.

]]> https://www.premiumhollywood.com/2009/09/26/movie-moments-for-me-2/ Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:00:56 +0000 https://www.premiumhollywood.com/?p=13350 Another self-indulgent clip. This one is from 1944’s “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. Preston Sturges was arguably the first really well-known writer-director in Hollywood, and he was in the position of writing a film that almost certainly influenced “Juno” — only the self-imposed censorship of the time meant you couldn’t openly discuss sex in any way in an American film, nor could you say the word “pregnant” and the shame attached to premarital pregnancies was exponentially greater than today.

“Miracle” stars Betty Hutton as an irrepressible young woman who takes the matter of raising wartime morale among America’s troops a bit too personally and, with the help of some spiked punch, winds up married to a man who name and face she can’t quite remember. Her ensuing pregnancy makes matters a bit worse, especially for her long-suffering, long-time friend, Norville Jones (Eddie Bracken), whose entirely unrequited love for Trudy Kockenlocker is suddenly assumed to be highly requited by everyone, especially her father, Police Constable Edmund Kockenlocker (the utterly awesome William Demerest).

And here’s our first introduction to Ms. Kockenlocker. No wonder poor Norville’s so in love.

* A new study predicts that the Redbox video kiosks will be taking over 30% of the DVD market before the end of 2010. There’s no stopping this and you can’t really argue with success, but I fear this will only narrow the already narrow marketing of films further, as the kiosks can only rent a very limited of inevitably mostly recent and blockbuster titles. It’s really the opposite of Netflix, which is a godsend for those who want to broaden their movie/TV horizons.

* The healthcare crisis hits film business folks in need of longterm care.

* Speaking of matters of life and death, writer Johnathon Williams finds truth in his love of zombie flicks. (H/t David Hudson)

* Also via The Autuers/Mr. Hudson’s invaluable Twitter feed, comes this interesting comparison of the late John Hughes and the even later master of forties screwball comedy, Preston Sturges.  I personally would never really compare the two but it is slightly spooky that they both died on August 6th and were almost the same age, and there were some similarities to their respective careers, but not to their sensibilities. Of course, that also happens to be the day the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan and my sister’s birthday, draw whatever connections you want. (My sister is, however, way nicer than an atom bomb or a writer-director’s untimely death.) I will say that, to me, Sturges movies are much, much funnier and a lot more interesting.

* Another TV-to-movie adaptation. This one based on Fred Astaire’s favorite show. See why below. And, no, that guy just doesn’t look like Rerun, he is Rerun.

That was too much fun. I’ll have a couple of bonus “Soul Train” videos after the flip.

This line dance may be even better.

And Mr. Stevland Morris, relaxed and at the top of his game.