The Screengrab : jimmy carter

Screengrab Review: "An Unlikely Weapon"

Nick Schager — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Susan Morgan’s An Unlikely Weapon: The Eddie Adams Story has an aesthetic blandness that would likely have turned off its subject, the famed photojournalist behind the iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning 1968 snapshot of Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Vietcong soldier. Many, including Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings, contend that picture helped end the Vietnam War by bringing home the brutal, horrific awfulness of the conflict. And though Morgan’s non-fiction techniques are only serviceably straightforward, the director engagingly makes clear that Adams’ most renowned image haunted him but did not, ultimately, define his work, which eventually included photos from thirteen wars, of six United States presidents, and of virtually every notable culture figure from the past fifty years. A cantankerous “pain in the ass” who started with the AP and ended as an independent entrepreneur, he was an individual who lived life on his own terms, and whose career embodied the notion that greatness isn’t found in the attainment of perfection, but in the striving for it.

Forgoing background on Adams’ upbringing, Morgan begins her biographical story (narrated by Keifer Sutherland) in ‘Nam, where his brash, gung-ho, coach-like attitude endeared him to the troops and resulted in a series of stunning photographs culminating with the shot of the murder perpetrated by Loan, a picture he derided as not very good and whose impact he later claimed to not fully understand. As confirmed by the comments of friends, colleagues and admirers, others most certainly did comprehend the power and significance of Adams’ signature work, and also the abundant talent the man possessed. An Unlikely Weapon employs its talking heads, archival film clips, and both photos taken by, and interviews with, Adams (who died in 2004 of ALS) to paint a reasonably evocative portrait of the artist as a take-no-shit iconoclast. A contradictory personality drew him to both victims of combat and larger-than-life despots – in one amusing anecdote, he refuses to take guff from Fidel Castro and winds up going duck-hunting with the Cuban dictator – and, once he tired of covering wars, he segued smoothly into a more laid-back celeb-focused second career as a hired gun for, among other publications, Penthouse and Parade magazines.

An Unlikely Weapon’s reverence for Adams is complemented by a refusal to shy away from his often-difficult, combative personality and his habitual self-criticisms, the latter of which suggest the constant determination to be better that typically distinguishes the preeminent from the merely good. Though clips find Adams both discussing the Loan photo as well as describing his reunion with the officer years later in the man’s Virginia pizza parlor, Morgan never quite fully expresses the complicated central role that the photo played in Adams’ life, a shortcoming due in part to the fact that she’s forced to rely mostly on archival interviews for his first-hand thoughts. Still, touching upon the subsequent 1977 pictures that helped convince President Carter to grant Vietnamese refugees entry into the country, as well as the human rights book “Speak Truth to Power” he made with Kerry Kennedy, the film conveys the deep humanism of his work, an abiding compassion and respect that, ultimately, can be felt in everything from his close-up of a somber Vietnamese child to the back-turned photo of Clint Eastwood that graces the poster for Unforgiven.

"Other Voices, Other Rooms": Warhol at the Wex

Paul Clark — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

In my time writing for the Screengrab, I’ve written primarily about subjects with universal interest- films that are (or will be) in national release or are widely available on video. However, I occasionally take the forum that has been granted to me to spotlight events in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, that might be appealing to those who live elsewhere. In particular, I like to keep readers abreast of the notable goings-on at Columbus’ indispensible artistic resource, The Wexner Center for the Arts, especially those with a cinematic bent. I’d say that the Wex’s latest exhibition, Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms, definitely fits the bill.

Its title taken from the debut novel of longtime Warhol friend Truman Capote, the Wex will be the only U.S. showing of this internationally-touring exhibition, curated by Eva Meyer-Herrmann. A survey of the life and art of Warhol making its U.S. debut shortly after what would have been his 80th birthday, Other Voices represents perhaps the most ambitious project the Wexner Center has undertaken to date. Knowing full well that a single gallery couldn’t possibly do justice to the breadth of Warhol’s varied career, the Wexner Center has overhauled its entire exhibition space and devoted it to the program, which encompasses his visual art, his film and TV work, and footage from his life.

As a cinephile, I was naturally most interested in the exhibition’s film offerings, and I wasn’t disappointed. With more than two dozen projectors and screens mounted throughout the galleries, Other Voices shows a surprising number of Warhol’s films playing on constant loop, from obvious inclusions like Chelsea Girls (1966) to notorious titles like Blow Job (1964), to outright curiosities such as Outer and Inner Space, starring Edie Sedgwick and… Edie Sedgwick. Likewise, there are forty of Warhol’s “Screen Tests” interspersed throughout the galleries, featuring subjects ranging from Hollywood stars like Dennis Hopper to art world icons like Salvador Dali to Warhol-anointed superstars like Taylor Mead. Purists may sniff that the exhibition is using projected video rather than the original 16mm film, but given the wealth of material on display, it seems churlish to complain. I for one intend to return to view movies like Chelsea Girls, Lonesome Cowboys, and The Velvet Underground and Nico in their entirety, although I don’t think it’ll be necessary to watch Empire (8 hours, 5 minutes) or Sleep (5 hours, 21 minutes) from beginning to end.

But there’s plenty of extra-cinematic material on display as well. The “TV-Scape” gallery features 42 separate television programs conceived by Warhol, including all 27 episodes of the two incarnations of Andy Warhol’s TV. And the visual art selections, while hardly comprehensive (how could they be?), offer a primer of the broad spectrum of Warhol’s artistic interests. There are paintings, drawings, prints, silkscreens, “objects” such as the Campbell’s soup cans, even the infamous “Oxidation Paintings” created using acrylic and urine (!) on linen. Likewise, there are photographs with photo booths and Polaroid cameras, including snapshots of icons ranging from Jimmy Carter to Debbie Harry to Sean Lennon, plus photographs of Warhol himself, occasionally in drag. All this plus album covers (Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, the soundtrack to Fassbinder’s Querelle, and others), books, wallpaper, back issues of Warhol’s Interview magazine, the “Silver Clouds” installation, and a shoe of Warhol’s design.

And while Warhol was such an enigmatic figure that we’ll probably never really be able to get a read on his personal life, Other Voices, Other Rooms contains enough documentary and archival material to satisfy all but the most die-hard Warhol fanatics. There are a number of home movies made throughout Warhol’s life, from early footage of young Andy with his mother to “Factory Diary” films made between 1970 and 1982. There are also audio tapes documenting Warhol’s interactions with various Factory figures, which allow visitors to gain some insight into the inner workings of Warhol’s Factory. Combine the documentary nuggets with the wide variety of artistic and cinematic offerings on display, and Other Voices, Other Rooms is an essential view for anyone with even a passing interest in Warhol. Once again, the Wexner Center has proven itself to be essential to the furthering of culture in Ohio.

Not That Anyone Cares Now, but Rudy Giuliani Was the Tazmanian Devil

Phil Nugent — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Jeff Greenfield at Slate offers a timely new unified theory of American presidential politics based on the work of Chuck Jones. In a nutshell: American politicians are divided between those who remind voters of Bugs Bunny and those who remind them of Daffy Duck. "As shaped by genius animator Chuck Jones — he didn't create the Warner Bros. icons, but he gave them their later looks and personalities — Bugs and Daffy represent polar opposites in how to deal with the world. Bugs is at ease, laid back, secure, confident. His lidded eyes and sly smile suggest a sense that he knows the way things work. He's onto the cons of his adversaries... Bugs never raises his voice, never flails at his opponents or at the world. He is rarely an aggressor." JFK was a Bugs, Nixon a Daffy; Ronald Reagan, a Bugs, Jimmy Carter a Daffy (who, as if in some Biblical prophecy, prepared for the 1980 contest by being attacked by a rabbit.) Some partisans may detect cracks in the argument. Greenfield identifies the current incumbent as a "Bugs Bunny", but do either Al Gore or John Kerry match up with Daffy Duck, as described by Greenfield: "He fumes, he clenches his fists, his eyes bulge, and his entire body tenses with fury," responding to every setback with "a sibilant sneer"? (Personally, I always associated Kerry with Bullwinkle. But maybe dragging in characters from Jay Ward Productions would demand a whole other set of rules.) And while there may be something to the idea that George W. Bush seems more "at ease, laid back, secure, confident" than his adversaries, it will come as some news to the United Nations that "he never flails at his opponents or at the world" — and perhaps a bit of a belated shocker to everyone else that "he knows the way things work." (Me, I'd say that Bush was more like that manic little dog who used to follow Spike the bullddog around, looking like he was about to piss himself, babbling non-stop about how they were gonna find some cats and put the smackdown on them. Spike, of course, was Dick Cheney.)

In Greenfield's analysis — and he must be right, he does this for a living — Hillary Clinton is a Daffy, Barack Obama a Bugs. "When Clinton insisted that Obama not simply 'denounce' Louis Farrakhan but 'reject him,' Obama shrugged. Well, he said, I don't really see any difference, but if you think there is, I reject and denounce. Indeed, throughout the debate, Obama leaned back and asked for time with the flick of a finger, as if summoning a waiter for another bottle of wine. Clinton, meanwhile, leaned forward, pushing her points with grim determination." So that should give Obama an edge in the general election when he faces John McCain, who is as Daffy as they come. But if Clinton should prevail, then come November, we will have the awesome, perhaps scary spectacle of two Daffys locked in a winner-take-all battle for supremacy. Worlds will collide in a way that Chuck Jones never dared to imagine.

American Gangster vs. Mr. Untouchable

Peter Smith — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:00:00 GMT

A few weeks ago, we reported here on the ongoing rivalry between Nicky Barnes and Frank Lucas, who were both drug dealers in the New York of the 1970s. Both men were eventually arrested and imprisoned, after which both turned snitch, ratted out their former associates, and are both now "retired" and back out in the world. This is of interest to us mainly because both men are also the subjects of movies — the high-profile Ridley Scott epic American Gangster and the documentary Mr. Untouchable — that opened within a week of each other. As part of the publicity for each movie, both men have been granting interviews in which they've talked about the bad old days and also jockeyed for position as the real ultimate big-city badass of their era. But of course, given the Screen Grab's recognized and unquestioned authority on movies and everything else fly, they have both secretly been sitting on the edge of their seats, nervously waiting to hear what we think. First, just to state the obvious and get it out of the way: both men are sociopathic predators and dishonored tattletales, who should in no way be mistaken for glamorous figures or role models. But a job's a job. There can be only one.

THE MOVIE: American Gangster, directed by Ridley Scott; written by Steve Zaillian

OUR HERO: Frank Lucas, as played by Denzel Washington, is a smooth, well-dressed powder keg of an urban entrepreneur, more Fortune 500 than Detroit 9000. The only time he casts off his smart suits is to attend the Ali-Frazier fight in a white Super Fly ensemble that sits on him about as comfortably as tight jeans and a wifebeater might have on Cary Grant. (The movie stresses that this was his wife's idea; after the clown clothes earn Frank some unwanted attention, he goes right home and literally throws them in the fireplace.) Though Washington gets to have a few violent tantrums — and, in a moment of purely calculated coldness, lays claim to supremacy on his turf by casually shooting a rival in the head in front of about a hundred witnesses — the performance has none of the scary volatility of his bad cop in Training Day. The movie seems to want you to like him, and to make sure the mainstream audience likes him, it defines his ambitions in terms of upper-middle class acquisition: a beautiful wife and home, a nice place for his momma (Ruby Dee), a low profile.

HIS BETE NOIRE: Nicky Barnes is played here by Cuba Gooding, Jr., which is kind of a slap in the face right there. Actually, as is often the case, Gooding's acting is much better than his track record at selecting his roles. He's brooding and charismatic, albeit in a ridiculous, coked-up way. He goes in for the Super Fly flashiness that Frank rejects. At one point, he's seen at a party proudly handing out copies of The New York Times Magazine with his picture on the cover — a nod to an actual incident that insiders will recognize as having marked the beginning of the end for Barnes. It was after seeing Barnes's posed picture on the cover, alongside the legend "Mr. Untouchable", that President Carter got on the phone to the Justice Department and ordered them to make Barnes priority number one.

THE MILIEU: Production-designed to death but with little sense of breathable air, American Gangster recalls the Elvis Mitchell line about applying grit with an aerosol can. The most disappointing thing about it is that the fine supporting cast is largely wasted; there's really nobody in the movie but Washington as Lucas and Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts, the New Jersey police detective on his trail. Scott inflates their starry icons until they blot out the sun, as well as the supporting actors.

THE END: No spoiler warning here; the fact that Lucas (like Barnes) was busted and turned state's witness has been widely reported in the publicity surrounding the movie. What counts is how the moviemakers treat this less-than-heroic aspect of their story. It must be said that they wimp out. In real life, not only did Lucas sing for a reduced sentence, but the actual Richie Roberts retired from the force to become a defense attorney and accepted a fat fee from Lucas to represent him at trial. The way the movie presents it, the drug dealer and the good cop join forces because they recognize a common enemy: the bad cops who have been making Roberts's life miserable while shaking down Lucas. The movie comes dangerously close to presenting Lucas as just a successful businessman who made himself rich the only way white society would allow him to do it, and whose testimony against others wipes the slate clean.

THE MOVIE: Mr. Untouchable, directed by Marc Levin

OUR HERO: Nicky Barnes, who details his life while protectively photographed in shadows. Much of the time, we only see his bony, expressive hands working as he tells his tale and offers his justifications for what he's done. He lived big, and now it's over, but no matter what he says, he leaves you with the feeling that he thinks it was worth it. He offers a compelling picture of a megalomaniacal sociopath who's outlived the good times.

HIS BETE NOIRE: Whereas American Gangster treats Nicky Barnes as a fact of life in Frank Lucas's world, someone who may be treated dismissively but cannot be ignored, Lucas is only mentioned glancingly in Mr. Untouchable, Barnes speaks of him with the contempt one usually reserves for something unpleasant that's gotten stuck to one's shoe, and mocks the idea that Frank would ever have done anything so disrespectful as to have put out a contract on him, as Lucas has claimed. Also, a single photograph of Lucas is briefly shown. He's wearing the same stupid-looking coat and hat that Denzel wears on fight night, and to say that he at least looks at home in that getup is to acknowledge that he doesn't look very Denzelesque.

THE MILIEU: Since Mr. Untouchable is a documentary about people who weren't often recording their illegal activities with camcorders, much of the period atmosphere must be laid in with old news footage and photos and such, but it does have what American Gangster sorely needs, and what every good crime picture thrives on: a teeming and colorful supporting cast. That includes not just Barnes's former colleagues (one of whom is named Frank James) and his ex-wife, Thelma Grant, whose picture ought to be in the dictionary next to the entry on "gangsta love", but such characters as Bob Geronimo, who walked into the offices of the DEA to volunteer his services as an undercover informant and bring Barnes's and his whole organization down after one of Barnes's lieutenants, seriously underestimating the man's ability to hold a grudge, stole his car. (Geronimo's code name on the operation was "Barbarino", as in John Travolta's character on Welcome Back, Kotter. This information is supplied by a fed who adds that he was never clear on why somebody whose real name was "Geronimo" needed a code name.) Incidentally, Geronimo and others who worked to bring Barnes down agreed to be filmed in full light, which makes or a sly, unspoken comment on Barnes's preferring to linger in shadows. The filmmakers also interviewed Barnes' lawyer, David Breitbart, who supplies his version of the New York Times Magazine cover picture story: he had advised Barnes not to co-operate with the paper and told the photographers to stay the hell away from his client until A. M. Rosenthal himself called up and informed him that unless Barnes agreed to come in to pose, they'd use the mug shot he had taken after he was arrested for murder, a photo that was taken after he was roused from bed in the middle of the night "and it looks like he ate the victim's eyeballs."

THE END: The movie doesn't try to sell Barnes's decision to testify against others as a heroic crime-busting operation, but it makes it seem something other than cowardly by stressing that it was, in fact, an act of revenge: rightly or wrongly, Barnes felt that those still on the outside (including his wife) were screwing him over and wanted payback. He broke his whole operation himself just to show how bad he was. The movie also differs from American Gangster by balancing his say with the testimony of those he turned on.

THE VERDICT: It seems clear that of the two gentlemen in question, Nicky Barnes is the more deserving of the title Mr. Ultimate Seventies Badass Heroin Dealer Turned Squealer. His mother must be so proud.

— Phil Nugent

Top Thirteen Greatest Fictional Movie Presidents, Part 1

Peter Smith — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:00:00 GMT

Jonathan Demme's documentary Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains opens this week, and while it isn't really about Carter the President so much as about Carter the Ex-President, it got us thinking about the Oval Office and the movies. Depicting Presidents is always a dicey proposition on film. In contemporary films, there are fewer ways to take your audience out of a movie than to show the President of the United States and have it not be the actual current President of the United States (another reason why Crimson Tide, with its CNN-generated Bill Clinton cameo, is so awesome). In films set in the future, it's hard to show the President and have it not feel like a ham-handed attempt at instant dystopianism. (Funny how those silly people in the future rarely elect somebody halfway decent to the office.) Our list this week focuses on Great Fictional Movie Presidents. But you'll notice that we've included two sorta-not-fictional Honorable Mentions. You may also notice that we've avoided some movie Presidents (coughMichaelDouglascough) who irritate the hell out of us.

Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley, DR. STRANGELOVE, OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964)

Of all the roles played by Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick's brilliant black comedy, none leaves an impression quite like President Merkin Muffley. (The dual vagina references in the name are as sure a sign as any that anarchic comic author Terry Southern was behind the screenplay.) Allegedly based on fussy Democrat Adlai Stevenson, Muffley's role as the sole voice of reason and practicality in a film full of powerful madmen anchors the entire movie — and, on occasion, such as in the legendary and hilarious telephone conversation with the Soviet premier (much of which, like a good deal of Sellers' dialogue, was originally improvised by the actor himself), provides some of Dr. Strangelove's funniest moments. Muffley wasn't always meant to be the film's unflappable straight man; Southern originally wrote him as an extremely loopy collection of tics and affectations, including a severe head cold and an obvious and stereotypical homosexual demeanor; the former was so effective that it basically prevented anyone from playing off of him, and the latter, in rehearsal, was felt by both actor and director, to be too broad. Instead, Sellers played Muffley as almost preternaturally bland, which made his occasional forays into hysteria all the more effective.

Walter Huston as President Judson C. "Judd" Hammond, GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE (1933)

This 1933 picture, which opened during Franklin Roosevelt's first term as president, was directed by Gregory La Cava, but the real driving force behind the production was William Randolph Hearst, who intended it as a primer designed to show FDR how he ought to go about solving the country's problems. President Hammond is a compromise candidate, a cynical party hack who couldn't care less about his country's citizens or its future. But then he's injured in a car accident and slips into a coma, and when he comes out of it, he's a changed man, and he rolls up his sleeves and begins to do whatever it takes to make things right. His methods include firing his whole cabinet, threatening to declare martial law until Congress lets him do whatever he wants, and having all the gangsters in the country rounded up and summarily executed. His reign of righteous terror climaxes with a scene where he gathers all the ambassadors of the world's nations onto a yacht and treats them to a show of American military power that convinces them that they have no choice but to disarm and quickly fork over the money they owe the U.S. from the first World War. Having rendered the United States prosperous, crime-free and dominant, President Hammond contentedly drops dead; the movie leaves open the possibility that he's been dead since the car crash and that his body has been serving as an earthly conduit for the Lord. FDR wound up being a disappointment to Hearst, not taking much from the Hammond playbook, but some historians think that the movie may have actually prophesied the administration of a much later American president.

Donald Pleasance as The President of the United States, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981)

You know, sometimes you really feel sorry for Donald Pleasance. The poor guy survived the Blitz, fought in the Second World War, and went on to become President of the United States despite the constitutional hindrance of having been born in England. And what does it get him after forty years of struggle? Some mouthy stewardess blows up Air Force One and leaves him stranded in New York (which just happens to be a maximum security penitentiary, peopled with murderers, drug lords, and assorted human scum — nothing like it is in real life, of course), where he is continually menaced by the guy who sang "Grazing in the Grass." U.S. presidents in action movies tend to break down pretty cleanly into one of two categories — the Fightin' President, who punches people and shoots down alien warships, and the Frightened President, who cowers in a corner and waits for a real tough-guy he-man to come rescue him. For most of Escape from New York's run time, Pleasance's unnamed President is decidedly the latter, and we're clearly meant to feel some degree of sympathy towards him as he awaits rescue (like Nixon, he apparently has a secret plan to end the war). Still, it's hard not to come away feeling a bit of sympathy for the terrorists — after all, the guy did turn Manhattan into a prison. Won't somebody think of the restaurants?

Terry Crews as President Camacho, IDIOCRACY (2006)

Postponed for over a year before getting a blink-and-you-missed-it release last fall, Mike Judge's cult-classic-in-the-making imagined a future in which the morons have inherited the Earth. In a world where Starbucks sells both lattes and handjobs and crops are watered with Brawndo™ Energy Drinks, it only makes sense that the President of the United States would be a trash-talking, hard-partying ex-porn star and five-time Ultimate Smackdown Champion. President Camacho, played with great comic relish by ex-NFL defensive lineman Terry Crews, is the kind of fearless leader who sports a tank top and American-flag warmup pants at Presidential functions, brandishes a machine gun during his State of the Union address, and rides a four-wheeler everywhere he goes, national security be damned. But his actual leadership skills are limited to making the country's smartest man his new Secretary of the Interior and tasking him to solve the nation's famine problem in one week, or else he'll get thrown into the ring during a nationally-televised monster truck rally. A few decades ago, it might have been tempting to read Judge's vision of the presidency 500 years from now as a dystopian satire conceived by a former high-school outcast sick of seeing the dumb jocks get all the glory. But nowadays, when having a significant speaking role in Predator is as accurate an indicator of electability as any previous public office, one can't help but wonder whether it'll even take five centuries to place us squarely in the political climate imagined by Idiocracy.

Charles During as President David Stevens, TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING (1977)

Charles Durning's President Stevens is a squat, foul-mouthed sign of the post-Nixonian times. On the one hand, it's doubtful a pre-Nixon president would have been allowed to drink and curse this much on-screen: Stevens has a "fuck" for every occasion. But he's also made directly responsible for the U.S.'s post-Vietnam fallout, blackmailed by Burt Lancaster into promising to reveal — on national TV! — our cynical, soldier-killing true reasons for entering the war. Impressively naive, Stevens is forced to condemn the administrations preceding him: he retains Nixon's profanity but none of his attitude.

— Paul Clark, Bilge Ebiri, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce, Vadim Rizov

American Gangsters' Reunion

Peter Smith — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:00:00 GMT

Movie screens are about to be awash in black crime lords from the 1970s, what with the imminent release of Ridley Scott's American Gangster, starring Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas, and Mark Levin's documentary Mr. Untouchable, about Leroy "Nicky" Barnes. Lucas and Barnes were high-rollers and business competitors thirty years ago; now both are retired and living in the witness protection program, having turned for the government when their backs were against the wall. In Barnes's case, he can boast of having been broken under direct orders from the president of the United States; Jimmy Carter reportedly turned the dogs on him after reading a 1977 New York Times Magazine article on the drug kingpin's "untouchable" status and deciding, that ain't right.

This week in the Los Angeles Times, Robert W. Welkos catches up with with the seventy-four-year-old Barnes and finds that he's interested in maintaining his legacy; he's upset about the high-profile movie starring Denzel Washington as his old rival. "Hollywood is so full of baloney," he told Mark Levin. "They got it all upside down. [Lucas] and his 'countryboys,' they didn't run New York, I did." Levin was able to use that to convince Barnes to cooperate and be interviewed for his movie. But Levin says that when Barnes and Levin hooked up recently to discuss the good old days, "Their conversation, if I could characterize it a little, was like a reunion of fraternity brothers." (They also bonded over presidential politics. Rudy Giuliani will be delighted to hear that both men are ready to give him their endorsement.) Less eager to let bygones be bygones and shoot the shit are the old cronies whom Barnes ratted out as part of his deal with the Feds. Many of these guys had already filmed interviews with Levin before he managed to rack down Barnes; how did they react to the news that he would be sharing the screen with them? "There were some heated discussions," is how Levin describes it. — Phil Nugent