Audney Hepburn Gap Ad

Even in that new tricked-up Gap ad, Audrey Hepburn is still enchanting. A nice reminder to watch the real thing,
Funny Face. And while you're at it, since Netflix is having a special, take a look at Charade, and then watch it again to hear one of the rare commentary tracks that is worth the time. Director Stanley Donen and screenwriter Peter Stone are witty and their anecdotes are delcious (I especially love the one about Cary Grant's haircut) but my favorite part is when there is a close-up of Hepburn's face and they fall silent for a moment, and then just sigh, "Isn't she lovely?" Yes, she is.

Glamour 2006

Virginia Postrel says in the Atlantic that superheroes in today's movies provide the glamour we used to get from Fred Astaire and Greta Garbo.

Glamour isn’t beauty or luxury; those are only specific manifestations for specific audiences. Glamour is an imaginative process that creates a specific, emotional response: a sharp mixture of projection, longing, admiration, and aspiration. It evokes an audience’s hopes and dreams and makes them seem attainable, all the while maintaining enough distance to sustain the fantasy. The elements that create glamour are not specific styles—bias-cut gowns or lacquered furniture—but more general qualities: grace, mystery, transcendence. To the right audience, Halle Berry is more glamorous commanding the elements as Storm in the X-Men movies than she is walking the red carpet in a designer gown....

Superheroes are masters of their bodies and their physical environment. They often work in teams, providing an ideal of friendship based on competence, shared goals, and complementary talents. They’re special, and they know it. “Their true identities, the men in colorful tights, were so elemental, so universal, so transcendent of the worlds that made them wear masks that they carried with them an unprecedented optimism about the value of one’s inner reality,” writes Gerard Jones in Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book. “We all knew that Clark Kent was just a game played by Superman and that the only guy who mattered was that alien who showed up in Metropolis with no history and no parents.”

Comic-book heroes, like all glamorous icons, cater to “dreams of flight and transformation and escape.”

I am a big fan of superheroes and comics, and I agree with all of the above as an explanation for their appeal, but I am not sure I agree that Storm is the new Garbo. Other-ness evokes glamour, and the strange costumes may do for the Frantastic Four what white tie and peau de soie negligees did for Rita Hayworth and Jean Harlow. But I think that the definition of a movie star is the ability to project glamour in blue jeans, something of a super-power in itself.

For an interesting intellectual property aside about the publication of the article, see the author's blog.

Quote of the Week -- Stephen Hunter

Stephen Hunter reviews "The Guardian:"

The movie begins to overload its frail reed of a structure with giant sloppages of cliches from other movies, some so bad it's almost comical. Costner's wife (Sela Ward) has left him and he misses her, so we get a few scenes of the drunken, embittered guy on the phone, begging her to pick up over voice mail. Then Kutcher picks up a gal at a bar (Washingtonian Melissa Sagemiller) and begins one of those aren't-we-quiptastic flirtations that seem to happen only in movies.

Monster in the Living Room (well, a vast wasteland anyway)

Craig Harris wrote a great column quoting my dad's vast wasteland speech. I like this part very much:

What bothers me most about the television is that it is always on. We get up in the morning, turn it one and watch it until we go to sleep at night, taking breaks only for work or school. We plan our activities around it, using its schedule as our guide. Yes, families may be sitting in the same room, but we can’t talk to each other and the kids better not stand in front of the TV. We only speak during commercials and have to yell over them...


Yes, there are plenty of good things to watch and information can be helpful, but I fear the TV has taken over the family and is calling all of the shots. It is filling our heads with garbage and making us fat and lazy. My solution? Turn it off some. Go outside and enjoy the fall. Talk to each other. Read a book. Choose wisely what to watch and then turn it off. It may just surprise you – you may find you have your own life to live.

Simon Callow's top movie biographies

Amazon has a fascinating list of lists, including Marisha Pessl on Debut Novels (her debut novel Specialty Topics in Calamity Physics is stunningly ambitious and accomplished) and Orson Welles biographer Simon Callow on the best Hollywood biographies.

Jet Li interview

Jet Li talks about his new movie, Fearless.

OK Go competition results

Here is a fabulous compilation taken from the videos submitted for the OK Go competition. Some imitated the original's costumes and one went so far as to replicate the bass player's bald head, but others went their own way -- shirtless! In friar's robes! Bermuda shorts! In the water!

It's the script, stupid

It isn't just that this Cinematical article by Kim Voynar about what makes a movie great is indisputably right; it's that in a nice example of form equalling content it also exemplifies what makes an essay great -- the writing.

I could have written a one-sentence review of "Flyboys" -- "$80 million on the budget and they couldn't spare any of it for the screenplay." How many hundreds of films have I seen in the past 10 years that were puffed-up pitches, filler between clips for the trailer. The problem is that as movies make more of their revenues outside the US than they do at home, the script becomes less important than the stuff that doesn't have to be translated, like explosions, car chases, shoot-outs, and rocket ships. Of course performances matter -- Jamie Foxx elevated "Ray's" by-the-numbers script. But, as Voynar points out, a great script attracts top talent, as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind demonstrates. That was a script that not only attracted a powerhouse cast -- it could not be outshone by them. That's great writing.

Animation Avalanche

In the last 10 minutes I've just seen commercials for Flushed Away (which doesn't look too good) and Happy Feet (which looks positively adorable) and it occurs to me that this year has been a positive cornucopia of animated (well CGI-animated) movies. The technology is so astonishing and accessible -- and the profits from the "Shrek" films and the Pixar movies so compelling -- that everyone wants to get into the act. I think that's a good thing. I love animation. I hope the studios remember that software can do wonderful things with fur, water, feathers, and clouds, but there are no jazzy programs to give texture to stories and characters.

National Talk Like a Pirate Day -- Google

The National Talk Like a Pirate Day folks wanted Google to design one of their holiday-themed logos for NTLAPD, and received this piratical reply:

From: help@google.com
Subject: Re: [#73859603]
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:44:27 -0700
Ahoy mate,

Thank'ee fer th' logo ye be suggestin'. We enjoy celebratin' horlidays at Google.

As ye may imagine, it be terrible difficult fer us t' choose which events t' be celebratin' on our site. We be hav'in a long list o' horlidays that we'd be liken' ter celebrate in th' future. We be hav'in ter balance this rotatin' calendar with th' need te be maintainin' the likeness o' the Google homepage.

Some horlidays that we no' been celebratin' in the past will be rotatin' into our horliday doodles fer future years.

Please remember ye can be visitin' any o' our doodles at http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html

Arrrrrrr,
The Google Team

For the definitive word on NTLAPD, see the classic
Dave Berry column.

Just Duckie (the politics of John Hughes)

Slate has a great
article by Michael Weiss about the political views of writer/director John Hughes, the man behind the definitive portrayals of 1980's teenagers, from Ferris Bueller's Day Off to Pretty in Pink to The Breakfast Club.

Hughes, though, was never quite the antagonist of the status quo he made himself out to be. He was actually a political conservative, and his portrayals of down-and-out youth rebellion had more to do with celebrating the moral victory of the underdog than with championing the underprivileged.

The only thing that's surprising about this is that Weiss is surprised. Those movies were teenage fairy tales. And in fairy tales, Cinderella doesn't marry the guy who drives the pumpkin coach. I'm a Ferris Bueller fan, myself, but I've always found it chilling when Sloane and Cameron are talking, as Ferris is entertaining everyone by performing in the parade:

Sloane: What are you interested in?
Cameron: Nothing.
Sloane: Me neither!

Subversive? Sure. On an individual basis. But the values of the movies are always rock-solid suburban. Oh, and is there anyone over the age of 14 who doesn't think that Andie would have been much better off with Duckie? (Duckie would have, too. Cryer deserves a lot better than being the Felix for Charlie Sheen's louche Oscar.)

Gondry shorts

Writer/director Michel Gondry has an irresistibly effervescent sensibility. Salon's Video Dog has fetched a dazzling collection of his short films.

Quote of the week

Matt Pais of Metromix on "All the King's Men:"

Jude Law must be tired: His accent logs thousands of frequent flier miles going back and forth between Law's native Britain and his character's native South.

Would you share your Netflix queue?

Sam Anderson's article in Slate about the way that being invited to view his friends' Netflix queues -- and their ratings -- made him feel

like an information-age window peeper, like I had dipped my toe into the shallow end of a pool whose deep end was Watergate. This feeling only intensified when many of my real-life friends refused to accept me as their Netflix friend. Though they'd talk to me all day about their DVD-watching habits—their three-month Buffy binges and methodical screenings of the entire Owen Wilson catalog—for some reason they wouldn't let me see an actual list of the actual films they were actually renting. They seemed to fear some kind of Netfloixtation.

Netflix lists and preferences may just be the most personal and revealing information you can share. To mix a metaphor, it's like the DNA of your soul. This is not who you say you are; it's who you are. The always-thoughtful ezine Flow has a worthwhile article in the current issue about "anti-fans," about how define ourselves by what we don't like. My son likes the scene in High Fidelity when Barry (Jack Black) refuses to sell a record he doesn't like to a man who wants it for his daughter's birthday. "Do you even know your daughter? There's no way she likes that song! Oh oh oh wait! Is she in a coma?"

Unlike the fantasy worlds of MySpace and the blogs, it's less a social platform than a practical tool, so the data is exceptionally pure.

Anderson's piece is reminiscient of the classic My TiVo Thinks I'm Gay, about a man who was so rattled when his TiVo kept suggesting programs with gay themes, based on what he had previously recorded that he ended up setting it for macho programs he had no intention of watching, just to reassure it (or himself) that he was, as he insisted, "the straightest guy on earth."

[H]e tried to tame TiVo's gay fixation by recording war movies and other "guy stuff." "The problem was, I overcompensated," he says. "It started giving me documentaries on Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Eichmann. It stopped thinking I was gay and decided I was a crazy guy reminiscing about the Third Reich."

It's one thing to let TiVo or Amazon form some ideas about who you are by reviewing your past selections. But inviting your friends to take a peek at your Netflix queue and the ratings of the movies you've seen is more personal than having Amazon suggest that because you bought The Da Vinci Code you might like Harry Potter. It's even more intimate than giving your friends "family" status so they can see the pictures of your last trip on Flickr. It's deeper than letting the world see your eHarmony questionnaire. Everyone checks "yes" to liking walks on the beach. But how many people are willing to admit that they gave four stars to a Pauly Shore movie? Anderson says that

Some of my friends' queues were like formal French gardens: vast spectacular landscapes organized down to the smallest detail, with different genres and moods so delicately interwoven that the discs arrived at home in perfect complementary patterns. Other lists were pure wilderness: big shaggy patches of documentaries interrupted by massive blocks of anime, with scattered thrillers blooming in the middle of bright wide fields of sappy comedies. One friend seemed to be systematically testing the limits of how many Ken Burns documentaries a human being can withstand. My in-the-moment friends, I discovered—the ones who eat canned sardines for dinner and tend to let leases expire without finding new places to live—were also living hand-to-mouth on their Netflix lists (one had only three titles in her queue), while my more practical friends had lists long enough to keep them entertained for years, and—in the event of untimely deaths—to bestow upon their families generations of orderly, effort-free renting. Some lists were tortured records of cultural duty: Dense classics would march solemnly towards the top, only to be demoted (as soon as watching them became a real possibility) and replaced by season three of Felicity, until finally all the most challenging films of the 20th century were pooled at the bottom of the list like dark sediment beneath a froth of romantic comedies. It's the Netflix version of the divided soul: The end of your list is the person you want to be—Eraserhead, the eight-hour BBC Bleak House, the complete Werner Herzog—while the top is the person you actually are: Wedding Crashers, Scary Movie 4, The Bridges of Madison County.

There's a High Fidelity-style "I am what I like" element to all of this. In my case, I publish reviews that make it pretty clear what I think about the movies I see. But okay, I'll admit it. At the top of my Netflix list at the moment: Disc 2 of "Monterey Pop" (we have Disc 1 here right now). Come to think of it, though, that was my husband's suggestion. There are some other items added by my daughter ("Donnie Darko," "Clerks," "Bottle Rocket"), too. So I suppose what you can tell from my Netflix queue is that I see a lot of movies in my day job and often leave the little red envelopes to the other members of the family.

Time lapse

In these ineffably sad and moving films, Noah photographs himself every day for six years. Noah explains more about his (ongoing) project -- including why he does not smile -- here.

In a similar film, a girl known just as me films herself every day for three years.

Quote of the week

From Desson Thomson's hilarious review of "The Covenant:"

Director Renny Harlin, whose colon-studded credits include "Die Hard 2: Die Harder" and "Exorcist: The Beginning," knows the deal here: Pay homoerotic homage to youth and beauty, crank up the heavy metal on the soundtrack, and spare no effort to backlight the omnipresent rain.

Heavy Pockets

Haevy Pockets is an exquisite mix of animation and live action is about growing up, feeling different, loyal friends, and floating up into the sky.

How it Should Have Ended

The hard part in writing a screenplay isn't coming up with a concept or characters or dialogue -- it's the ending. Too many movies run out of steam sometime in the second act. The wonderful website How it Should Have Ended has hilarious and highly satisfying endings for "The Matrix," "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," "Superman," and more. If you have trouble getting them to play, try viewing them here.

Cruise/Redstone takedown, part 2

Slate says that

Redstone, who recently married a woman half his age, puts great stock in his virility. And in recent years, he has periodically released his excess testosterone by firing good-looking, middle-aged bucks who have gotten too big for their britches. Last month, it was megastar Tom Cruise. Earlier this week, he cashiered Tom Freston, the CEO of Viacom and one of the founders of MTV.

Is Redstone's need to fire younger guys merely rational decision-making by a canny CEO? Or does it reflect some bizarre reverse-Oedipal envy?

My dad on NPR

My dad's wonderful interview on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" covers everything from the conversation with Bobby Kennedy 50 years ago this month that changed his life to what he told President Kennedy about the communications satellite launch to how he feels about having television's most famous sinking ship named after him.

Star Wars Geek Heaven

This website has meticulously researched and documented shot by shot comparisons of the original 1980 and 2004 versions of "The Empire Strikes Back." Some people have way too much time on their hands. And they use it to create something as wonderful as this and share it with everyone just for the pleasure of it. I love the internet.

Hunter doesn't like "Wicker Man"

One challenge for the movie critic is finding yet another way to say something is awful, even when -- especially when -- we're complaining about the same things that were wrong in last week's exhausted genre flick -- un-funny buddy cop adventure/un-cute romantic comedy/gross-out teen comedy/gross-out teen thriller/dumb remake of some long-gone TV show. So I get a big kick out of critics who are entertaining on the subject of how not-entertained they were by the movie. As they say, when movies are good, the best critics are very very good, but when they are bad, they're better. This week, I liked what the Washington Post's Stephen Hunter had to say about The Wicker Man:

[I]t was long rumored (an urban myth, never proved or disproved) that [Rod] Stewart, the rock millionaire, immediately bought up all the prints [of the original version] and had them destroyed and that was why, for so long, "The Wicker Man" was rarely seen....Only Stewart can say whether this is true, and he's not talking. I do believe that in a few years, Nicolas Cage will buy up all the prints to this "Wicker Man" and burn them. I'll be happy to help him.

Movie Mom on NPR's "Morning Edition"

I was interviewed for NPR's story about the failures of MPAA's rating system.

OK GOes to the VMAs

I was very happy to see OK Go performing live at MTV's VMA awards. It just, um, goes to show, however, not just how much better the original video is, but how much more "live" it seems, too. The live broadcast kept switching to different cameras. Oh, boy! An overhead shot, so we can see that "OK GO" is written on the treadmill mats. Oh, boy! A view over the shoulders and around the heads of the audience! I know it's MTV, but choreography is an art of movement and space. And I know it was live, really happening as we watched, but the mosaic quality of all of the different cuts makes us feel as though it was compiled. If you use the camera to break up the dance into fragments and glimpses, it becomes about the camera, not the dance. The original video was filmed like a Fred Astaire dance number -- in one take, the camera standing still at the proscenium level, giving the audience the best seat in the house. Ironically, it feels more "live" than the live broadcast because it is so indisputably done in one take. The video includes a mistake that the live performance did not, and that, too, gives it more of a real-time, flying-without-a-net quality.

The same applies to sports. The tricked-up basketball scenes in this week's release, "Crossover." The flurry of quick cuts, with some shots sped up and others slowed down, obliterates any interest value in the ability of the players to pass and score. It might as well be done in CGI. When we watch basketball, we want the camera to give us the best seat in the house so we can see the player shoot and score. We don't want a kaleidoscope of fractured images. Of course, when we watch a movie, we also want good dialogue, fresh storylines, and interesting characters, none of which appear in "Crossover," but that's another story.

Gilligan's Island boat up for sale

Come sit right back and hear a tale -- the S.S. Minnow is up for sale. One of the four boats used for the television show "Gilligan's Island" is being offered for sale. In a case of life imitating art, the boat capsized on a trip from Alaska to the U.S., but it has been restored. "Gilligan" creator Sherwood Schwartz named the boat after my dad, Newton Minow, then the chairman of the F.C.C. He had called television a "vast wasteland" and urged broadcasters to do better. Schwartz intended it as an insult, but our family has always considered it an honor; if we ever have a family coat of arms, the S.S. Minow will be the centerpiece.

Don't trust the Dove

I have about had it with the Dove Foundation, which bestows its "family-approved" seal on media it considers appropriate. It is beyond me what kind of standards they apply. Material Girls gets not only their okay for 12 and up, they call it "a perfect comedy for moms and daughters" -- a blurb picked up in the movie's ads. Dove does acknowledge in its review that there are some language issues and tsks that a character's "thank you" when told she's too thin "might send the wrong message to young girls about body weight issues."

For some reason, they don't think to mention some other areas of concern, like the main character's decision to copy Erin Brockovich and wear skimy clothes to beguile a young man into letting her look at some files. Or that doing so gets her arrested and thrown into a jail cell with prostitutes who stroke her arm suggestively. They don't think to mention that the behavior of the silly rich girls is as clueless after their big supposed new understanding as it was before. Worst of all, they don't think to mention that it is a bad movie, poorly written, directed, and acted. Even if this film had no objectionable material, its complete worthlessness would make it unsuitable for viewing by kids. One family value has to be that children deserve quality entertainment.

And Barnyard is "suitable for all ages?" I would suggest that under "violence" they might want to mention the death of the main character's father, and how that character could (should) feel responsible. But what they feel is worth mentioning is the sight of a child's tush when his pants are pulled down. They do mention the predatory coyotes but they gloss over the death of the father and don't even bring up the weirdness of the main character's love interest being pregnant (by a bull who was killed) and later (off-screen) giving birth. It's even weirder that they abdicate their responsibility to provide some kind of guidance by deferring to audience members. Their "worldview" report leads off

The Dove Foundation recently hosted a special screening of "Barnyard," and the response was very positive. "It was pretty good," said a lady named Laura who had brought her three-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son to the screening.

The Dove Foundation says that it promotes "family-friendly entertainment. Our standards and criteria are based on Judeo/Christian values, free from the pressure of commercial interests. We believe in a positive approach of commending high-quality, wholesome movies rather than condemning filmmakers for not meeting those standards."

Neither of these movies can be considered "high quality." The one thing people should be able to rely on from Dove or anyone else who provides guidance to families about media is a clear picture of any area of concern. These reviews are inadequate and misleading. If I had a seal, I'd stamp them "not approved."

Duds In The Water

As the old joke goes, "How do you make a million dollars in Hollywood? You come to town with $10 million and start investing in movies." As this Business Week article makes clear, investing in movies is riskier than stock-picking on Wall Street. And, as it makes even more clear, Wall Street knows very little about the movie business.

The finance pros figured they had moviemaking all figured out. But several megaflops have some Hollywood insiders wondering if the private-equity guys are in way over their heads. "It's tough to be an investor when the studio gets to pick the films and you stand behind them in line to get paid," says leading Hollywood banker John W. Miller of JPMorgan Securities. "It's hard to see how you can get more than single-digit returns -- if you're lucky."

Um, duh.

The Wall Streeters arrived in Hollywood armed with sophisticated models that they say will protect them from losses. Essentially they project film profits based on the records of directors, stars, genres, and even distribution dates.

Oh, yeah, that works. Just ask the folks who invested in the recent dud made by the man who had one of the best track records in Hollywood history, M. Night Shyamalan. Fellas, as they say on Wall Street, "past performance is no guarantee of future performance."

Someone had better tell that to Dan Snyder. The guy who owns the Washington Redskins hasn't done too well with Six Flags, but he thinks he has the time and the ability to go where Sumner Redstone fears to tread and make it work with Tom Cruise and his partner Paula Wagner, who, based on her statement last week apparently thinks that anyone with money is a hedge fund. So she knows as little about investors as he does about movies. I won't predict the merits of the films that are likely to emerge from this partnership, but I would by a ticket to a documentary about this new relationship. And I'm accepting suggestions for a cute TomKat style nickname for the partnership.

Update: be sure to see today's post from the always-hilarious Andy Borowitz:

In the latest ominous sign for the film career of actor Tom Cruise, a large video piracy ring based in Beijing said today that they will no longer sell illegal copies of the star's films, calling Mr. Cruise's recent behavior "unacceptable."

Baby Weinstein

Many thanks to my friend Danny Ornstein who sent me this hilarious
item from The Onion:

New 'Baby Weinstein' Tapes Prepare Infants For Career In Entertainment Law
August 24, 2006 | Issue 42•34


LOS ANGELES—Zazz! Entertainment, Inc. announced Monday that sales of their Baby Weinstein series of children's DVDs, CDs, and videotapes designed to inspire children under the age of 3 to pursue careers in entertainment law reached their 3-million mark. "We're proud to be the only multimedia company featuring colorful imagery of kids pre-verbally arguing their own contracts, playing with the building blocks of major franchises, and refusing to be seen on the screen with competing babies," company founder and producer Josh Noah Levy said. "And we're currently going to court to make sure we remain the only people doing that." Despite the success of such titles as Baby Spielberg and Baby Ovitz, production halted in July after several babies made what Levy called unreasonable demands for their mommies.

Positively My Last SoaP post

The Washington Post's Paul Farhi has a perceptive assessment of the lukewarm box office reception for "Snakes on a Plane." Two of the people he spoke to made especially important points:

(1) In the words of a studio spokesman, "you can never be sure that the people who are Googling your movie are going to go out and see it."

(2) "New Line might have erred in marketing the movie, too, by withholding the film from critics before its release, says Douglas Gomery, a film and mass-media scholar. That not only signals that a bomb is afoot but also killed whatever momentum the movie might have built up, says Gomery, who notes: 'They had the ball rolling, and then it came to a dead stop.'"

Most of the critics liked the movie. If reviews had been out before it opened, it might have brought in audiences beyond the hard-core junkies who made a big fuss online. A good thought to keep in mind in a week in which none of the nationwide releases is screening in time for reviews.

Oh, and this just in: there's a new porn film called "Trouser Snakes on a Plane." I'm going to try not to think about that one too hard.

The Invincible Jeannette Catsoulis

My favorite movie review quote of the week, by one of my very favorite critics, my friend Jeannette Catsoulis, from her New York Times review of "Invincible."

Battling inexperience, hostile teammates and an excess of slow-motion photography, Vince is soon being pummeled in summer training and body-slammed in a losing game against the Dallas Cowboys. As Jackson Browne mopes on the soundtrack and the football fans wilt in the stands, Vince’s embittered dad, Frank (Kevin Conway), cautions against optimism. “A man can only take so much failure,” he warns. Recognizing that the same is true of movie audiences, Disney piles on the uplift on and off the field.

If only the movies were as entertaining and smart as her reviews.

Home Film Festivals

Feel overwhelmed with your options on Netflix? Eyes glaze over looking at the New Releases shelf at Blockbuster? An overdose of fungible multiplex fodder? Take a look at Spiritual Cinema and Ironweed Films. Both seek out the arresting, the inspiring, and, most of all, the unusual, and send it to you.

No more Ishmaels

The End is a shivery spoiler of an article about the new trend of no-survivors endings. Abandon all hope ye who enter here, and I mean ALL ye.

Redstone v. Cruise

In this corner, irascible Sumner Redstone, who survived a hotel fire by holding onto a window with one terribly burned hand and came back from surgery no one thought he could survive. And in this corner, couch-jumping, baby-hiding tabloid cover boy Tom Cruise, also known for holding on (except fo his two wives). Redstone says he let Cruise's production company go because of his off-screen behavior. Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner say he can't fire them, they quit, and that they have a better offer including funding from two mysterious unnamed hedge funds.

A plague on both their houses. Unfortunately, it looks like both sides will come out of this better off, financially if not reputationally. Paramount can still bid on any Cruise project that looks good to them, and if they end up paying more for one it will be outweighed by what they save on the deals they don't do. Cruise will probably make more money, with the chance to shop around his projects to the highest bidder, though studios might want to take a look at "Lady in the Water" (the deal, not, goodness knows, the movie). M. Knight Shyamalan's huffy public quit/fire with Disney when they wanted changes in his script turned out to be not a case of the artist standing up for creative integrity against the sterile and callous forces of corporate thuggery but the case of someone who ignored the Talmudic advice about reality checks: "When three people tell you you're sick, lie down." A movie star is a brand, and a production company, even one headed up by a movie star, is still a business. Tom? Feeling a bit feverish?

How to Marry a Millionaire

Cinematical has dubbed How to Marry a Millionaire a guilty pleasure. It's a pleasure that I don't think anyone has to feel guilty about. Three glorious stars, Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, and Marilyn Monroe play models who cook up a plan to find and marry wealthy men, and all three spend some time with Mr. Wrong before finding their Mr. Rights. There are only two things wrong with it. First, the movie made great use of the then brand-new technology of Cinemascope, taking up all of the wide screen, so it really suffers on television unless it's letterboxed. Second, the leading lady marries the wrong guy. SPOILER ALERT: Bacall almost marries wealthy widower William Powell, assuring him that she's crazy about older men: "Look at Roosevelt, look at Churchill, look at old fella what's his name in The African Queen." (That would be Bacall's real-life husband, Humphrey Bogart.) Instead she ends up with Cameron Mitchell. Nope. Don't buy it for a minute.

By the way, this was not the first time this story was filmed. The first version was in pre-Hayes-Code 1932, with the spicy title, "The Greeks Had a Word for Them" and had Joan Blondell as the ringleader of a trio of ladies who were very well taken care of by their beaux. Like the Bacall/Grable/Monroe version, the ladies were very well dressed. The costumes were designed by Chanel. Loretta Young and her two sisters schemed to find rich husbands in 1938's "Three Blind Mice." Grable herself appeared in another earlier version called Moon Over Miami. There's even a Hong Kong version from 1960 and a late 1950's television series with a pre-Jeannie Barbara Eden in the role played by Monroe. It was updated as a made for TV movie in 2000 called "How to Marry a Billionaire," and this time the gold-diggers were...guys: John Stamos, West Wing's Joshua Malina, and Diary of a Mad Black Woman's Shemar Moore.

Movie death (a Snakes Spoiler)

SPOILER ALERT: Stop reading if you don't want to learn some key plot elements of "Snakes on a Plane."

As I was watching "SoaP" last night, I thought about movie deaths. The biggest mistake a movie can make is killing off the wrong person. Audiences will forgive cardboard dialogue and superficial characters. They won't just forgive preposterous plots, repetitive formulas, and logical inconsistencies; they often seem to prefer them. But they won't forgive the death of a character who should have been alive at the end of the movie.

I don't mean that they can't kill off a likeable character. On the contrary, the character whose entire purpose in the movie is to die so the hero or heroine can have a learning experience is an honorable tradition. My personal favorite of the DBTA ("dead by third act") crowd is Anthony Edwards as Goose in "Top Gun." He's pretty obviously gone from the first time we see him but as soon as he sings with his pretty wife (Meg Ryan!) and adorable child, you know he's got to die, not just to move Maverick's story forward but to get out of the way. He has no story arc; he is already perfect; in other words, he's toast.



Some movies that make big mistakes in killing off the wrong people are "The Great Waldo Pepper" and "Diggstown." Enough spoilers -- I won't say any more about them here.

One of Snakes' strengths is its solid understanding of all the different reasons we can feel satisfied with the death of a character. Old-timer/veteran turning the reins over to our leading man/lady with a sentimental Hollywood send-off? Double check. Supercilious Brit? Oh yeah, and in a suitably gross-out manner. Funny looking fat lady with a flask? Yes, some darkly comic relief. People having sex in a bathroom? Yes, with an extra helping of puritanical relish on the side, please (see also Halloween, Friday the 13th and all those other dead teenager movies. Captain of the flight, to get him out of the way to create more (MORE!) of a sense of danger? You betcha! On the other hand, a baby or two adorable children? Don't even think about it!

All of the deaths in "Snakes" make some sort of moral sense. They fit the innate story template I think of as buried even deeper in the lizard brain than food and shelter. There are sad, dignified deaths, comic deaths, gross deaths, but they are all somehow just (as in fair, not as in merely) deaths. Except one (and I'm not referring to the pets). It's that sweet newly married couple. What did they do to deserve that end? That's my point.

Oh, and if you've seen the movie, check out Slate's spoiler report
podcast with one of my very favorite movie critics, Dana Stevens. I love this new Slate feature, reviews for people who have already seen the movie, and I enjoyed her point about the movie as a response to post 9/11 security issues. I raised that issue obliquely in my review, but think her more forthright take is terrific.

Snakes on a Daily Show

No hard feelings even though the "Snakes on a Plane" guys decided not to screen the movie for critics, which means I have to stay up late tomorrow to see the 10:00 premiere (I've already Fandangoed my ticket). You gotta get a personalized voicemail from Samuel L. Jackson or send one to a friend. And take a look at this Washington Post chart showing the dialectic between the studios and the fans in putting this movie together.

I'm guessing this clip from "The Daily Show" with Samuel L. Jackson and John Stewart is more entertaining than the movie. And oh, no, did I hear the word...sequel??? Now that's scary.

Jumpcut -- free your inner Spielberg (or nerd)

I met up with some of these folks at Comic-Con and think their new site is worth a look. You can audition for the remake of "Revenge of the Nerds," "The Power of Few," or "STARZ Stand Up or Shut Up" or look at others' auditions and respond to them. You can also upload your own movies, using some of their stock footage or other goodies, with the best ones being selected for broadcast.

Chick Flicks

My darling husband says that the definition of a chick flick is a movie that includes at least one humiliating public apology, often including a marriage proposal. The Not Coming to a Theater Near You site has a terrific salute to Chick Flicks -- just click on the upper right corner of the picture for some chick flick essentials: the little black dress and "when Meg (Ryan) met Nora (Ephron)" as well as reviews of canon films like "Working Girl," "Walking and Talking," and the indispensible "Say Anything." Holding a boom box overhead blasting "In Your Eyes" is as good as a humiliating public apology anyday, at least in the movies.

Iron Men

Audiences who came out of "World Trade Center" feeling dissatisfied should turn on Spike TV on September 5 at 9:00 PM. They will see "Metal of Honor," a heartwrenching documentary about the ironworkers who arrived as the World Trade Center buildings collapsed and stayed for eight months to make sure the area was cleared safely. The courage and dedication of these men is profoundly moving. Their humility, integrity, and compassion is deeply inspiring. No Hollywood version can do justice to the honesty and connection these men convey.

What is the deal with cow tipping?

There's a strong probability that the whole idea of cow tipping, rural kids sneaking up on sleeping cows to tip them over for fun, is a myth, even impossible as a matter of physics. But for some reason, it is the prevalent movie theme of 2006, at least in movies for kids. We've already seen cow tipping jokes in "The Wild," "Cars," "Barnyard," and this week "Zoom." Hey, it wasn't funny the first time. Or the second, third, or fourth. Let's put that joke out to pasture.

Everything has been said....

...but not everyone has said it. So here is the trailer for the new movie about Truman Capote and In Cold Blood. What is surprising about this trailer is that they make it look more, rather than less, like last year's Oscar-winning "Capote," even though this film is supposed to be a broader portrayal of the writer's life and times.

Free your inner Xtina!

I am a big fan of Christina's new video for "Ain't No Other Man". But even better is this fans only version. Who among us hasn't held up a hairbrush as microphone to pretend that sound was coming out of our mouths?

I love the little glimpses of people's homes. I'm sure the only reason one didn't clean up her bedroom before setting up the camera was that she was too busy working on her moves. Not sure about the breakfront/exercise equipment/fireplace as a background, but the from-the-refrigerator POV is inspired. I get the dancing around a cardboard Christina, but I'd like to know what went into the decision to wear Mickey Mouse ears.

I love the range of participants -- children, teens, possibly some grown-ups, male, female, and possibly all of the above, people who sing into wooden spoons, a remote control, even a microphone. And I love the way the fans get into it without any inhibition or coolness worries. Some of them are really quite creative and some have some great moves. Major props go to the editor. That's the video editor; the copy editor committed the hanging offense of an inappropriate apostrophe. It's not "Fan's Only Video," folks, unless you're trying to say that it is the only video the fan has.

But, as with the "Million Ways" competition, what I really love most is the way the line between content creators and content consumers, once blurred, is now dissolving entirely.

And I hearby promise no more videos on this blog for a few days.

OK Go Dances with You(Tube) Contest

The OK Go Dances With You(Tube) Contest

Here is OK Go's invitation to submit your version of their dance.

Giant Girl Doll

French street performers brought this giant girl to the streets of London. She showers, gets dressed, and goes for a walk. I like the red courtier uniforms of her attendants. Even with those accordian pleated cheeks, she still seems very dear and very touching, very gentle and a little bit regal. And sad, as though she dreams of escaping the strings. I love seeing the children riding on her arm.

OK Go -- "A Million Ways"

A Million Ways

And here's their first video. The story behind it is in this delightful "All Things Considered" interview with Damian Kulash and his sister Trish Sie, a former professional ballroom dancer who choreographed the dance.

There are a million ways to be OK Go, or at least to dance like them. OK Go has invited everyone to create their own versions of the "Million Ways" dance to win the chance to dance with OK Go on stage. As of today, there are 115 entries. "The winning group will be chosen by OK Go, but they're easily swayed by lots of comments and high rankings, so go crazy. Email and post the pants off it."

OK Go - Here It Goes Again

Here's the OK Go video.

Here OK Goes Again

I love OK Go. Their music is great. Their choreography is spectacular. Their latest video, Here It Goes Again is brilliantly inventive and utterly cool. Like the first one, it's all done in one take, the camera, like the viewer, simply stunned into motionless wonder.

Another list....(big time spoiler alert!)

Filmcritic.com has put together a list of the 50 best movie endings (like the very last minute) of all time. Read the list ONLY if you have seen all of the movies. If you haven't -- get out there and fire up that Netflix queue!

Maim That Tune - Detune your head

At last! A solution to the problem of the dreaded earworm. Just go to Maim That Tune to replace the song stuck in your head. Okay, the new one might be equally annoying, but it will be a change.

notstarring.com

Can you imagine James Caan, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, or Steve McQueen as Roy Neary, the part played by Richard Dreyfuss in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind?" Or Will Smith as Neo in "The Matrix?" Take a look at notstarring.com for these and hundreds of other examples of actors who were considered for or even offered memorable movie roles, or submit some of your own.

My other life...

Shareholder rights activist stands up to corporations

Comic-Con, part 4--"Renaissance"

I got a chance to talk with Marc Miance from Attitude Studio, producers of the striking new animated film, Renaissance.

Miance developed the high-contrast look of the film. "Our first idea was to mix a very simple graphic design, very pure, with a very realistic animation. How to achieve? All the scenes exist in CGI and the lighting in the virtual camera provides high contrast, a sort of 'painting with light.'" The style, a sort of "futuristic film noir," was developed, and then they searched for a story that would fit. "We used Paris, not because we are French, but because we have seen other cities -- New York, London -- in movies as futuristic, but not Paris. It is futuristic but not too far away. You can imaine it." I asked him what the toughest technological challenge was in making the film and he said, "the eyes." They developed a patented new technology using special glasses to track the eye movements of the actors (including new James Bond star Daniel Craig, Catherine McCormack, and Jonathan Pryce) as they recorded the voices of the characters and used them in the film.

Comic-Con, part 3

In attendance:
Deepak Chopra,
two Wayans brothers,
the United States Postal Service,
the man who played the Lollypop Kid in "The Wizard of Oz,"
Daniella Alonso of television's "One Tree Hill,"
legendary shlock film-maker Roger Corman,
Samuel L. Jackson,
rapper/film-makers Snoop Dogg and RZA,
former Congressman Slade Gorton,
Kathy Garver, who played Cissy on the 1960's television show, "Family Affair,"
a man selling insurance for comic book collections,

a professor from Ohio State University speaking on "a central aspect of the Superman myth -- fighting through the web constraints placed on American hopes and aspirations by modernity -- [which] grew directly out of Captain John Smith's portrayal of himself in his narrative of his adventures published in 1630,"
Batman and Spongebob Squarepants made from Legos
and many Anakin Skywalkers, Corpse Brides, Hermione Grangers, Captain Jack Sparrows, Empire storm troupers, X-Box characters, and a two-year-old in a Supergirl costume.

Comic-Con, part 2

It was a pleasure -- and an honor -- to get a chance to talk to Neal Adams.

The word "legendary" is tossed around a lot in the world of comics, but Adams is one of the few who has earned it. He was still a teenager when he had his first syndicated comic strip, Ben Casey ("I almost had to bring my mother down to sign the contract, but I had just had my birthday.") He went on to draw nearly all the great superheroes, including Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and X-Men. "There's nobody in comics who's five years my junior or five years my senior. I started right after Dr. Wertham told Congress that comics were driving kids to crime. Everyone just about closed down. All that was left was stuff like 'My Greatest Adventure' and -- this is my favorite -- 'Pat Boone Comics.'" I went to art high school and my teachers, who wanted us to have careers in art, told me comic books were going to be gone. But some people are born pig-headed." And some people just love comics. "Here's the definition of a comic book artist: You put him into a closet with a drawing table, a lamp, a radio, art supplies and you slide paper under the door and he keeps filling it up -- only to get new paper so he can draw more." He spoke about the history of comics, which began when printers ("not publishers, printers") reprinted newspaper comic strips into book form, creating an industry. "Comic books are ahead of everybody -- a comic book artist can do an $80 million movie in one month and then the next week do another one. Who could possibly catch up to us?" No one, as long as you keep sliding Adams more paper under the door.

Adams is working on a documentary about "Dondi" artist Irwin Hasen and a new six-issue Batman series (he said he likes drawing Batman because it's like two characters, Batman and his cape).

Comic-Con, part 1

Comic-Con attendees take their passions very seriously. In this crowd "fan-boy" is a compliment. But they don't take themselves seriously. Young American Comics handed out "Comic-Con Bingo #2," a game-board with squares for convention icons and stereotypes, inviting attendees to cross off five in any direction to win. Targets included "inappropriate spandex" (illustration of a tubby Wonder Woman), "superhero on cell phone," "three of a kind" (illustration of three puzzled Darth Vadars eying each other), "covered in buttons (50+)", "card game in progress," and "costume girl mobbed by fanboys." Let's just say that no one there would have had a problem completing a row. And the program description of a panel discussion on vintage comics ended, "Witty comments and knowing glances will be provided free for all."

The movie I am most looking forward to...

The Science of Sleep, by the director of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Dave Chapelle's Block Party." Can't wait.

On my Way to Comic-Con

I am thrilled to be going to Comic-Con in San Diego for the first time. Watch this space.

"Ant Bully" director John Davis

I had a delightful conversation with writer-director John Davis at a reception before a screening of his new film, "The Ant Bully." Tom Hanks, who had read the book to his son and enjoyed it, sent a copy to Davis, the creator of the "Jimmy Neutron" series to see if he was interested in making the movie. He was, and after eight months writing the script and more than three years producing the film, he was very happy to be showing it, especially to the audience at this screening, a very excited bunch of kids on a field trip.

Davis told me that the movie had many challenges, from the technological (he said everything they ever did for "Jimmy Neutron" was not adequate for this film) to the logistical (his cast of superstars, including Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, and cult favorite Bruce Campbell were each recorded separately), to the conceptual (the drawings are based on real insects but mandibles didn't look "right" on the female characters so they left them off). But the result is worth it -- a terrific film sure to be a huge hit with kids.

Kevin Smith could be reading this right now

Desson Thomson's Washington Post interview about Kevin Smith says that

No other filmmaker has made it his business to nurture, kibitz with, heckle and engage his fans on such an intimate, day-to-day basis.

Smith spends several hours online because he enjoys the "constant validation" of interacting with his fans.

Alerted in 1995 to a Web site dedicated to "Clerks," Smith went to an Internet cafe in Red Bank and checked it out. He was so enchanted, he immediately hired its creator, Ming Chen, to do something similar for him.

When Chen suggested putting up a message board, Smith recalls his reaction: "I was, like, 'So at 2 in the morning, if I wake up and I'm, like, I suck, and I'm alone in the world, I can jump on there and have somebody be, like, I like what you do, and sleep better?' I was so dialed in to that notion."

Guess Who's Coming Over?

Well, I wouldn't want to release a good movie in the backwash of The Black Pearl, either. So it isn't surprising that the week after the biggest opening of all time we have a bit of counter-programming that is half-hearted at best with two crude comedies. What is interesting is that both have the same theme: the lives of an adorable young couple are disrupted and then enriched by the arrival of an obnoxious and out of control character who moves in with them.

In You, Me and Dupree the adorable couple (Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson) returns from their honeymoon to find that the groom's slacker best friend has lost his job and his apartment, so he moves in with them for "a couple of days." In Little Man, a hard-core criminal who is the size of a toddler (Marlon Wayans' head on the body of a small body) pretends to be a baby and is taken in by an adorable couple (Kerry Washington and Shawn Wayans). In neither case does hilarity ensue.

There have been a lot of classic movies about free spirits who turn the lives of straight-laced people upside down -- you know, the ones where the reserved and proper and play-by-the-rules type complains throughout the movie and then says at the end, "You know, this was the best day of my life."

Classics in this genre that have the characters actually living together include "The Odd Couple" and "The Man Who Came to Dinner." A slyly spicy movie about a three-way relationship is Noel Coward's "Design for Living." All are worth renting -- these are movies in which hilarity ensues, big time.

Yahoo's "The 9"

If you bypass the annoyingly chirpy hostess, who reminds me of those awful "what's new in technology" shows they force-feed to airline passengers and some cheesy self-promotion, the new The 9 feature on Yahoo!, each day's 9 coolest sites, has a very promising start. I especially liked Daily Dancer. Remember the old advice, "Dance like no one is watching?" There now seems to be an addendum: "And then post it on the Internet." Even though I get a huge kick out of the new Mac ads (I'm a big Justin Long fan and am looking forward to his new movie, "Accepted," next month), I enjoyed the Vh1 parodies. The Ask a Ninja and cat massages dog clips are old news to anyone who's been on You Tube, it is shameful for them to try to plug their own Yahoo Buzz page, and the doodle like Jackson Pollock site just barely makes it only because they came up with the caption "Never Mind the Pollocks," but the Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers is just the kind of time-waster the Internet was made for.

Thanks for the shout-out, Mr. Vice President!

At yesterday's
International Corporate Governance Network conference, former Vice President Al Gore began his remarks by thanking me for my review of his movie, An Inconvenient Truth!

Trailer Trash (and Treasure)

The Washington Post has a great article about movie trailers as an art form. Some trailers give away the entire movie ("The Lake House") and some fundamentally misrepresent the movie ("Angel Eyes"). Some are miniature works of art themselves. Two of the article's examples, "Birth" and "Gerry," had trailers that were vastly more imaginative and appealing than the movies they were promoting.

The internet has made movie trailers more accessible -- and not just for viewing. First, sites like our own Yahoo! Movies make any trailers available to anyone at the click of a button. You don't have to buy a ticket to a movie and hope that the trailer you are looking for will be one of the two or three they show before the feature. More important, the trailers are accessible for viral mutation. "Brokeback Mountain" inspired faux trailers that became so popular online they were seen by more people than, well, "Birth" and "Gerry." And the already-legendary "Snakes on a Plane" ("SoaP" to those in the know), inspired fans to create fake trailers so popular that the producers brought star Samuel L. Jackson back for reshoots to add a line of dialogue from the fake trailer. I like that. Studios use trailers to tell us what we're going to see; now fans tell studios what we want to see.

The Movie I've Seen the Most -- Slate asks film-makers and critics which films they watch over and over

Slate asked Spike Lee, Peter Farrelly, Paul Schrader, Philp Lopate, its own Dana Stevens, and others which films they've seen the most. Their answers are surprising, provocative ("The Wild Bunch?" "In the Realm of the Senses?" "Ghostbusters?") and a lot of fun. I especially love Peter Farrelly's story about knocking himself out with a 16-hour drive to get to a wedding and just making it...until he saw that "Something Wild" was on television. "I never made it to the church and I was about 20 minutes late to the reception."

Barnyard gender questions...

The trailers for the new Nickeodeon movie "Barnyard" are very cute and the movie looks like a lot of fun. I like the way the cow shouts "MAN-a-bunga" when he jumps into the pond. But I couldn't help wondering -- I know I'm just a city girl, but aren't cows....female? Didn't the not-nearly-as-bad-as-its-reputation "Home on the Range" give its cow characters the voice talents of Roseanne Barr and Dame Judi Dench? But the cows in "Barnyard"have names like Eddie and Otis, with voices by Kevin James and Sam Elliott.

And another question -- a second animated movie in the same summer with cow-tipping humor? (The other one was "Cars.") Is there some kind of cow-tipping zeitgeist to make this a timely subject for kids' movies?