The Screengrab : state of play

Fat Actor Watch at New York Times: Paper of Record Alleges That When Russell Crowe Sits Around the House, He Really Sits Around the House

Phil Nugent — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Always looking for a fresh angle on the really important movie news of the day, Michael Cieply uses his perch at Thew New York Times to ask" what's with all the male movie stars who are porkers? Who does he have in mind, exactly? Russell Crowe and Jeff Daniels, sharing a screen in State of Play ("Two men. One notebook. Four chins."); Denzel Washington, going "cheek-to-jowl with the bulky John Travolta" in the trailer for the remake of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three; Hugh Grant; and "Even Leonardo DiCaprio, the young heartthrob from Titanic"--Photos from the set of Shutter Island, a thriller on tap from Paramount Pictures and the director Martin Scorsese in October, show a little bit more to love." Oh, snap! Are they handing out chocolate bunnies to whoever can be the biggest bitch at the Times these days?

Cieply briefly notes that there's a gender-based double standard regarding the weight and age rules in Hollywood so far as leading players are concerned, but after dropping Kathleen Turner's name, he seems to feel that he's discharged his duty, as if the subject bored even him. He seems more taken with the idea that this is an utterly new phenomenon, but despite the historical examples he digs up, that may be a non-starter. "Photos of midcentury stars — Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, Clark Gable and others — show them to have remained rather gaunt at an age when many of the current crop are anything but." Good thing those photos are handy, since it's not as if movie actors left behind filmed records of their performances so we'd be able to remind themselves what they looked like. That said, it seems a little callous to drag Bogart, one of the best-known victims of cancer sticks ever to go down coughing, into a discussion of how movie stars used to keep themselves svelte. (One well-circulated story has it that, when illness had left Bogie too weak to handle the stairs in his own home, he used to navigate from one floor to another by stuffing himself in the dumb waiter.) It's also worth remembering that Gable, who died of a massive heart attack after completing his last film, The Misfits, had lost 35 pounds on a crash diet to get his weight below 200 before shooting began. If there's any less of that sort of thing going on nowadays because more stars feel comfortable about appearing in public looking something other than whisper-thin, surely it's for the better.

It's also true that, as Cieply would have known if he'd put down the "photographs" and spent a couple of days watching Turner Classic Movies, there have always been counter-examples one could offer to his role call of manly waifs. Wallace Beery never looked as if he'd had trouble locating the desert cart, Spencer Tracey rolled into his onscreen middle age looking as if he'd swallowed a tether ball, James Cagney was getting pretty squared-off by the time of Yankee Doodle Dandy, Robert Mitchum often had an amorphous mass surrounding his midsection that he used to abruptly suck up into his chesticological region whenever he was required to take his shirt off, Gene Hackman's weight always flunctuated, sometimes wildly, depending on just how regular his latest "regular guy" character was supposed to be, and as for Jack Nicholson, in his mid-forties when he more or less officially entered his "middle-aged" period with Terms of Endearment--please. Of course, with movies as with everything else, memory can be a great deceiver. Lawrence Turman, "a veteran film producer who is chairman of the Peter Stark producing program at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts", told Cieply that "“John Wayne always looked a bit portly." I find it disturbing that the Peter Stark producing program at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts can do no better for its chairman than a guy who's never seen Stagecoach. It may be a tribute to the lingering effect of the image that Wayne cast from around the mid-1950s until his death in 1979 that even some professionals think he always looked like that, but I would propose that, unlikely though it may seem, that if Wayne had looked in his youth like a guy who was fated to someday look the way he did in True Grit, he never would have gotten the chance to grow into that later incarnation--at least, not on movie screens.

This still leaves the question of whether some of these stars, heavier though they may undeniably be, are as hideous to behold as Cieply seems to be implying they are. I will confess that when I saw Travolta, say, in the trailer for Pelham, I did not catch myself thinking, "Here comes Wide Load." (I did catch myself thinking, "Get a load of Weird Hairline with his Fu Manchu mustache. Each of us has his issues.) One possibility worth considering is that such stars as Travolta, Washington, and Hanks, who came up in the 1980s, when a perfect storm of society-embraced body issues and new technology in the gym led to a new species of Americans who seemed to be armor-plated in their own skin and muscle, some of whom hastened to show off their new packaging on the covers of magazines, such as that infamous shot of Travolta on the cover of Rolling Stone to promote Stayin' Alive, looking as if his abs were about to jump out of his torso and his brains had already leaked out of his ears. Maybe, having fallen for that when you had the energy and free schedule to pursue it all the way, you have to let yourself go a little later on or else you'll explode. But then, in the interests of full disclosure, I should concede that I am from The South, where we deep fry our veggie plates and the lost causes that we love to get misty-eyed about include our own arteries in their pre-clotted state. Because of my own cultural conditioning, if I had my way, every other movie made since 1984 would have starred Joe Don Baker, and the others would have been divided between Randy Quaid and the late Dub Taylor, with the result that Michael Cieply would be even more confused.

Morning Deal Report: Reese Witherspoon to Get Naughty in “Nice”?

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

The tween demographic was once again in control of the weekend box office, as Zac Efron in 17 Again topped the charts with $24.1 million. Apparently they’ve already had their fill of Hannah Montana, which slipped to fourth place with $12.7. Enough adults turned up at the multiplex to secure a second place finish for State of Play with $14.1 million. Monsters vs. Aliens and Fast & Furious rounded out the top five.

Is Reese Witherspoon finally sick of the rom-com carousel? Witherspoon may get back to her black comedy roots with Nice, about “a magazine writer who accidentally kills her boyfriend. She finds a way to get rid of the body and discovers that killing boyfriends is easier than breaking up with them,” Variety reports. Witherspoon is not yet signed, but those of us who miss the spitfire of Freeway and Election are hoping it happens.

Felicity Jones has been cast as the female lead in The Men at the Pru, the “1970s insurance-world dramedy” from Ricky Gervais. “Jones will play Julie, who is led to believe by the men around her that a woman should focus on raising a family but who wants to break out and pursue a career in photography,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Related:
Giamatti and Witherspoon Are Downsizing
Truth or Date with Ricky Gervais

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: April 11-17, 2009

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

It’s not funny, you know. Sure, Woody Harrelson Launches Method Assault on Undead Photographer makes for a cute headline. But if you knew anything about the craft, you’d know that this sort of thing goes on all time when we actors get so deeply involved with our characters. Do you know how many natives Brando beheaded with a machete on the set of Apocalypse Now? Sure, Paramount covered it all up, but when you’re in Hollywood’s circle of trust, you hear about these things.

It’s been a bad week for Woodies all around, as you know if you read Woody Allen, Larry David and the Blackness of Eternity and How Much Is Woody Allen’s Good Name Worth? Let me ask you this: When is Woody Allen gonna make a zombie movie? About time, I’d say.

Anyway, that paparazzo is thinking of suing me, so I’m gonna go consult The Best & Worst Get Rich Quick Schemes in Cinema History (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six). And then maybe I’ll get around to the rest of these:

Reviews: Lemon Tree, Sleep Dealer, State of Play, Grey Gardens, The Hemingway Night

The Screengrab Holiday Special , Parts One, Two, Intermission & Three

The Legend of "Him", the Lost Dirty Jesus Movie

Transported: The Jason Statham Think Piece

Yesterday's Hits: There's Something About Mary (1998, Peter and Bobby Farrelly)

Unwatchable #37: Bad Girls from Valley High

The Authenticity Police on the Set of "State of Play"

Phil Nugent — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Washington Post writer R. B. Brenner describes his thrilling adventures serving as a technical consultant on State of Play. The movie which stars Russell Crowe as bearish investigative reporter employed by "the Washington Globe, a down-on-its-luck 'second buy' in town, recently taken over by a media conglomerate," where he has Helen Mirren for a boss and Rachel McAdams as a blog-savvy novice to goggle with admiration over his death-defying journaistic feats and to tsk-tsk over his ethical lapses. Once upon a time, this was a 2003 British miniseries of the same title, which "portrays a Fleet Street world of newspapering that, though rollicking fun, is an ethical nightmare by American standards. Its ace reporter pays sources for information (an absolute no-no in the United States), surreptitiously videotapes a source in a hotel room (a firing offense, and a felony in several states) and generally behaves like a walking conflict of interest (and in a bedroom scene with the politician's wife, he does more than walk)." Brenner saw it as his job to guide the filmmaking team, which included Scottish director Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland), in adapting the specifics to the American journalism milieu without costing the story any juice.

Towards this end, Brenner set about trying to make sure that Crowe's character was a respectable beacon of his profession, even though part of the character's scruffy charm is clearly meant to be that he's one of those rule-bending, amoral dudes whose first responsibility is to the story and who, compared to the people Brenner probably views as being at the height of the profession--i.e., the ones who get invited to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows and, well, get hired as technical consultants on major Hollywood productions--aren't completely respectable. Brenner objected to the fact that Crowe's character repeatedly pays informants for information, which Brenner says could never happen here, by which he presumably means that if a real reporter got caught doing it, there would be howls of outrage and affronted op-ed pieces for a week and then the reporter would either be suspended or get fired and go to work for Fox News. "Twice, the director agreed to work-arounds. The third time? The good news is, Crowe's reporter never pays a dime, which Macdonald sees as accommodating me. The bad news is, one brief scene could lead the audience to think otherwise."

This was not the only occasion when "my crusade for authenticity bumped into unyielding walls at times. When I repeatedly objected to the illicit-videotaping scene, Macdonald politely made clear that in the end, plot rules. He was trying to tell a dramatic story, a political whodunit, and didn't want the audience bogged down in a journalism ethics lesson. I kept arguing that if he aspired to elevate the film above mere thriller, then accurately portraying my profession's code of conduct should matter more." On the other hand, he describes a scene during filming when Mirren's editor asked Crowe if he could be "objective" about a story in which he had a personal stake and Crowe ad-libbed, "Absolutely not." "Those words," writes Brenner, "didn't make it into the film, much to my relief." Too bad; it's not only a funny line, but it reveals the reporter as an honest man.

Reviewing a 1974 film version of The Front Page, Pauline Kael captured the enduring appeal of the play's view of Chicago journalism circa the early twentieth century by quoting a reporter named Sherman Reilly Duffy: "Socially a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender, but spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round." By his own account, Brennan is a representative of the current state of big-time journalism, which is willing to consider the possibility that the world is round if that's what the experts say, but mostly knows where its next meal is coming from. The Hollywood State of Play is itself a throwback to the 1970s, when movies like All the President's Men and The Parallax View (and TV shows like Lou Grant and The Night Stalker, in which Darren McGavin got to the bottom of this whole zombie problem plaguing Chicago) portrayed investigative reporters as the new hard-boiled detective heroes and our last defense against some all-enveloping conspiracy whose jaws where always just about to snap shut. It's a romantic idea that may still have some fantasy appeal, but it doesn't seem very timely, considering that most of the journalistic scandals of the last twenty years have been the result not of overreaching by unshaven, hard-drinking reporters fighting to get to the truth but by well-manicured establishment reporters meekly taking dictation from whatever powerful figure deigned to use them as a P.R. service. (When The New York Times's Judith Miller was criticized for shoveling anything she was told by Ahmad Chalabi into the paper, she indignantly replied that her critics clearly didn't understand what her job was, the implication being that if Chalabi had passed his press kit along to some reporter who'd bothered to check to see whether any of what he'd been told was true or even remotely plausible, that reporter would not have been doing his job right.)

The idea that what's really killing American journalism is the closeness between journalists, who aspire to becoming TV bloviators and beltway celebrities, with the celebrities they cover, is not one that Brennan was likely to push the State of Play crew towards; by his own telling, he was too star-struck from being around real celebrities that he had to summon up all his courage to tell the movie star Crowe that if his character had real reason to believe that somebody was likely to get killed, he would probably go to the cops. The movie may do a little better by the other thing that is killing the newspaper business, which is new technology and the threat of obsolescence. Crowe's old-school ink-stained wretch vents his resentment of McAdams's flavor of the month by sneering, "I've been here 15 years, I've got a 16-year-old computer. She's been here 15 minutes and she's got enough gear to launch a fucking satellite." Another good line. Turns out that it, too, was ad-libbed, on-camera, by Crowe. Maybe, instead of bothering to write scripts, they should just hand Crowe a character and have him live in full costume for a few months, following him around and recording his movements until he gets off enough zingers to add up to a movie.

Screengrab Review: "State of Play"

Nick Schager — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

A 2003 BBC miniseries condensed from six hours to two for its big-screen Hollywood adaptation, State of Play is so bursting with characters, plots, and hot-button subject matter that some unavoidably receive short shrift. Though its English TV heritage and multifaceted current events-laden narrative both recall Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, Kevin Macdonald’s (The Last King of Scotland) film nonetheless largely eschews Big Statement grandstanding in favor of murder-mystery tension. It’s a tack that can occasionally be vexing, as some of the issues this tale nominally addresses would surely benefit from further investigation, whether it’s the increasingly edgy relationship between traditional and new media, the role of corporate interests on news reporting, and – in an echo of this season’s 24 storyline – the rise of profit-first private military contractors in international affairs and homeland security. Yet Macdonald’s decision to use these topics primarily as flavoring for a tale of nothing-is-what-it-seems espionage and investigative journalism is, ultimately, a shrewd (if disappointing) one that keeps the focus on suspense and prevents the taut, knotty proceedings from overreaching.

In the nation’s capital, a thief and pizza delivery man are shot dead by a skilled killer, while at the same time, the aide (Maria Thayer) to married congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), whom she was both screwing and working for as the lead investigator of a Senate committee hearing into Blackwater-esque private military contractor PointCorp, is mysteriously killed by a subway train. Washington Globe reporter Cal McAffrey (a scruffy, long-haired Russell Crowe) is assigned to cover the first deaths but – given that Collins is his former college roommate, as well as married to a woman (Robin Wright Penn) whom he once slept with – inevitably begins looking into the latter case. What he unearths is a tangled web of duplicity, corruption and murder fit for a Raymond Chandler yarn, and one he’s tasked with figuring out while contending with an editor-in-chief (Helen Mirren) under pressure from the paper’s bottom line-driven new owners and a staff blogger named Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) eager to work the story alongside her renowned peer. Double crosses, assassinations, and treachery soon engulf the plucky reporters, and as they breathlessly sift through facts, rumors and revelations, Macdonald’s film achieves suitably swift momentum, the twists and turns coming fast enough to keep one distracted from the obvious, telegraphed denouement lying in wait.

Jeff Daniels, Viola Davis and Jason Bateman round out a sturdy all-star cast that’s asked mainly to embody familiar archetypes, and if Crowe’s hero is less compromised than the script would like us to believe – his severe conflicts of interest never truly putting his noble motivations in serious doubt – the actor’s driven performance nonetheless anchors the vigorous action. That, underneath its flurry of characters and incidents, State of Play adheres to a familiar All the President's Men-style whodunit template is for its first two-thirds inconsequential, since Macdonald keeps the shadowy proceedings brisk and thorny enough to mildly intrigue. Unfortunately, all the commotion is primarily in service of a seen-from-miles-away bombshell that renders the plot – and its half-baked but unpretentious portrait of the insidious influence of private entities in what should be public services (government and media) – far more shallow than it initially appeared. Although, even if the film proves nothing more than a clever, diverting bit of smoke and mirrors, its end-credits depiction of the start-to-finish process of newspapers’ daily creation serves as a poignant coda for the vital yet dying art of old-school, courageous, truth-telling reportage.

Morning Deal Report: Star Trek’s Continuing Voyage

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:30:00 GMT

The Star Trek reboot won’t be in theaters until May 8, but Paramount is already going forward with a sequel. The studio “has hired Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof to pen the screenplay. J.J. Abrams, who directed and produced the latest chapter, is onboard to produce the follow-up alongside his Bad Robot partner Bryan Burk. No decision has been made yet on whether Abrams will return behind the camera for the sequel,” Variety reports.

Drew Barrymore and Justin Long are Going the Distance. That’s right, Drew Barrymore is making a romantic comedy. You can only get this sort of shocking news right here at the Morning Deal Report. “The story by first-time scribe Geoff LaTulippe follows a couple trying to maintain a long-distance relationship,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

State of Play director Kevin Macdonald will direct the Roman military drama The Eagle of the Ninth. “The story revolves around a wounded Roman soldier and his loyal Celtic slave who try to solve the mystery of the Ninth Legion, a brigade of Roman soldiers that vanished after heading into the untamed Highlands of Scotland 15 years earlier.” Jamie Bell is set to star.

Related:
Star Trek Showdown IV: Shatner's Last Nerve
State of Play in Hollywood

Screengrab 2009 Preview: Scott Von Doviak’s Picks

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Again using the ever-popular 3 Up, 3 Down format, I will pick up the gauntlet thrown down by my colleague Andrew Osborne. (Hey, nice gauntlet, Osborne! You get a hat with that?) I must say, a cursory scan of the upcoming release schedule doesn’t exactly have me all a-quiver with anticipation, but hey, it’s early yet. Herewith, my picks to click and tips to slip. Or something like that.

3 UP

A SERIOUS MAN

I could really get used to this annual Coen Brothers movie routine. This year’s edition isn’t due until October, but it should be worth the wait. It’s “the story of an ordinary man’s search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV.” Unlike Burn After Reading, the film doesn’t boast an all-star cast, unless Michael Stuhlbarg, Sari Lennick, Fred Melamed and Richard Kind are at the top of your A-list. But who cares, as long as we get that Coen Brothers feeling.

THE LIMITS OF CONTROL

The long-awaited (by me anyway) return of Jim Jarmusch is “the story of a mysterious loner (Isaach. De Bankolé), a stranger, whose activities remain meticulously outside the law. He is in the process of completing a job, yet he trusts no one, and his objectives are not initially divulged. The film is set in the striking and varied landscapes of contemporary Spain (both urban and otherwise).” Okay, that’s a little vague, but it’s enough to intrigue me. The cast also includes Gael García Bernal, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and, of course, Bill Murray.

THE ROAD

Left over from last year, which isn’t necessarily a great sign. Then again, there are indications the editing was being rushed to meet the end-of-2008 deadline, and that probably wouldn’t have been a good thing either. Quoting myself from last year’s fall preview, the Cormac McCarthy adaptation is a “grim post-apocalyptic tale brought to the screen by John Hillcoat, director of The Proposition, a western that certainly counts McCarthy’s Blood Meridian among its influences. Viggo Mortenson has the lead, and the supporting cast includes Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, Garrett Dillahunt and The Wire’s Omar himself, Michael K. Williams.”

3 DOWN

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3

Oh good, a completely unnecessary remake of a perfectly fine ‘70s movie, over-directed by Tony Scott and featuring John Travolta in an unconvincing villainous mustache. But at least it has Denzel Washington looking dumpy. Maybe that’s his homage to Walter Matthau.

LAND OF THE LOST

''You're not going to see the zipper up the back of the Sleestaks' costumes,” says Will Ferrell, star of this preposterous remake of the beloved Saturday morning show of yesteryear. Is that supposed to make me want to see this?

STATE OF PLAY

The original British miniseries is an intricate work of intrigue about a newspaper with seemingly unlimited resources investigating political scandal. (Eat your heart out, David Simon.) The trailer for the American remake promises a generic, forgettable thriller.

WILD CARD: Watchmen, of course. Will it suck? Will it somehow blow our minds? Heck, will it even be released?

Trailer Review: State of Play

Paul Clark — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:00:00 GMT

I’ve heard plenty of good things about the BBC mini-series upon which this movie was based. However, judging by the trailer, most of what made the original so compelling was lost in translation, because what I see here looks like a standard-issue journalism/conspiracy thriller. Lots of shadowy figures, bodies turning up, old friendships gone sour, and so on. But then, perhaps it’s just emblematic of Hollywood’s need to fit long-form stories into a neat two-hour framework, which requires removing the nuances and everything that makes them really work in the interest of keeping the story movie. But if nothing else, I’m glad to see Russell Crowe playing the lead again, after a handful of high-profile second banana roles in Ridley Scott movies. All of the bad press that has circled around him in recent years (following the phone incident) had the unfortunate effect of causing people to forget what a fine actor he is, and I’m holding out hope that State of Play will remind them.

Russell Crowe Will Not Wear Tights

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:00:00 GMT

As Body of Lies opens in Britain, The Independent interviews the always genial Russell Crowe, who opens up about his deeply introspective acting process. “ ‘Preparation? I picked up a bag, I put a pair of underwear in it and I got on a plane. There you go – preparation done,’ he says, slapping his hands together. ‘How many times have you seen me do it in the last 20 years? A lot. Whatever the character needs, I'll get to that point. It's no big deal. I was at 88 kilos when Ridley called and asked if I'd mind putting on a load of weight. I was at 117 kilos when the movie started, and I've been coming down slowly. I'm at about 95 kilos at the moment, maybe a little less.’”

Crowe remained bulky for his role in the upcoming State of Play, a big screen remake of the BBC miniseries. Crowe signed up when Brad Pitt abandoned the project. (Pitt does that a lot, doesn’t he?) He’ll shed the pounds for his dual role as the Sheriff and Robin Hood in Ridley Scott’s upcoming Nottingham. “The world doesn't need a mundane version of Robin Hood. If we're gonna do it, we've got to kick some serious butt. I've loved Robin Hood since I was a kid, but when the idea came up and they gave me this script, I said, 'Look, I don't like this. This doesn't work. It's not good enough.' But the idea of Robin Hood? For sure. I spent 10 months just reading Robin Hood books – the history, the mythology, the original ballads, the legend – and then you've got 100 years of cinematic history as well. So this has got to be the best one ever done, otherwise I should be doing something else."

Crowe adds: "I will not wear tights because according to our research they weren't invented for another 300 years. I apologise to you all – and to Sienna Miller."

If the whole “dual role” thing strikes you as a little odd, you aren’t alone. Writing in The Guardian, James Anthony express some concern: “I'm all for actors playing dual roles. It has worked in several films where it has thematic relevance. But Crowe's ego precedes him, and it's tempting to believe he just wants to share screen time with himself.”

Related:
Sienna Miller in the Hood
When Good Directors Go Bad: 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992, Ridley Scott)

Morning Deal Report: Bollocks.

Peter Smith — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Oh, the good ol', progressive ol' MPAA: they've rejected the poster (visible at right) for Alex Gibney's documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, about the U.S. military's torture of foreign detainees. No blood, no gore, what's the problem? Well, it might upset children. And remember, all American political discourse must be pitched (gently, underhand) to the comfort level of an eight-year-old.

After the Fight-Club-reunion hype around State of Play, with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton sharing a screen once more, Pitt fled the coop. Now Norton has done the same, and Ben Affleck will replace him.

Jerry Bruckheimer gets into video games. This probably won't be a very difficult transition.

Morning Deal Report: Beware of Otyugh

Peter Smith — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:00:00 GMT

John C. Reilly fans, rejoice: Reilly will be going on tour with his band, in character, to promote his Judd Apatow-produced starring vehicle, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Apparently the dude's actually got a decent set of pipes.

Confirmed: Russell Crowe replaces Brad Pitt in State of Play. Kind of an upgrade, really.

The Belgian hit Ben X gets a U.S. remake. It's about a "mildly autistic teen" who gets bullied at school and then gets confused between reality and his beloved online role-playing games, presumably then going koo-koo and bludgeoning his oppressors with a +12 War-Ax of Retribution. For some reason I'm reminded of this.

— Peter Smith

State of Play in Hollywood

Peter Smith — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:00:00 GMT

David M. Halbfinger reports that the uncertain state of the political thriller State of Play may offer some insight into how the game is being played this minute in a movie industry driven half-nuts by labor difficulties. Brad Pitt, who was locked in to star in the movie, pulled his Hamlet act and waltzed away from the project last week, just as it was about to go into production. Like many high-level productions, State of Play was all set to go so as to complete shooting by next June, when Hollywood may face an actors' strike. Now Universal, if it decides to proceed on schedule, will have to re-cast the lead quickly before other fully-booked-up actors in the cast start dropping out to make their other pre-June committments. On the plus side, they can consider any number of leading men, such as Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp, who are suddenly available because the projects they were about to start work on have been put on hold until after the writers' strike ends, because it's been decided that the scripts still need work.

Don't feel too bad for the studio bosses, though; in a business where sincerity is regarded as a first sign of the onset of dementia, the various strikes are in some ways a gold mine for the people in charge of spin. United Artists is currently backing out of Pinkville, Oliver Stone's planned movie on the My Lai massacre, and the official story is that it's because of, yes, script problems that can't be dealt with due to the strike. But anonymous sources claim, not implausibly, that UA was looking for a way to get out because, after the commercial failure of all the Iraq War movies this fall (including UA's own megaflop Lions for Lambs), the last thing anybody wants to do is fund another big-budget expedition back to Vietnam. — Phil Nugent

Morning Deal Report: Pitt Splits Would-Be Hit

Peter Smith — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Forget that Ed-Norton-Brad-Pitt-reunion buzz around State of Play; Pitt has flown the coop, and Russell Crowe is rumored to be replacing him.

Speaking of fantasy movies about Jesus, here comes The 13th Disciple, about (wait for it) Jesus's evil twin brother.

The director of The U.S. vs. John Lennon is at work on a documentary about Michael Hutchence of INXS.

— Peter Smith