August
17Bart Blog Moved
Pardon the lack of updates here, Peter is now blogging with Michael Fleming on the Bart, Fleming Deal Memo Blog.
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August
May
21Newsweek’s Uphill Battle
The other impressive premiere this week was that of a magazine, not a movie. The “new Newsweek” represents a completely re-invented news magazine, except it has no news. Jon Meacham, the editor, in his introduction, tells readers, “We know you already know what the news is.” Hence the new Newsweek wants to focus on comment and analysis.What emerges is a cross between the Atlantic and the Economist. The stories run much longer than those of the Economist but they don’t attempt the depth of the Atlantic. Most are staff written, but there also are pieces by folks like Tina Brown and Mayor Michael Bloomberg and even a “roundtable” involving past winners of “American Idol.”
“I did a tour in Southeast Asia and they were tripping out,” observes Taylor Hicks. OK, that advances my understanding of pop culture.
The cover story is an “exclusive interview” with President Obama, but this interview subject is so cautious with his words that the piece offers no new insights.
There’s no mystery as to why Newsweek wants to reinvent itself. As the astute James Rainey points out in the Los Angeles Times, the 76-year-old magazine suffered a decline in ad revenues of 19% in the first quarter alone and lost 400,000 readers over the past year.
All this reflects the overall freefall in the magazine business. Portfolio recently went under and Kit Rachlis is out as editor of Los Angeles Magazine, which he managed to dumb down for a decade.
Will the “new Newsweek” succeed? Jon Meacham wants to target a smaller upscale audience and charge more for his product. His initial issue is intelligent but it’s hard to get comfortable with, like most magazine re-designs.
I hope he wins.
May
20Ben Stiller’s Art Movie
Cinephiles complain there aren’t any good art movies around. They’re ignoring the most expensive art movie ever made, “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.”Sure, the title may sound klutzy, but consider the following: Here’s a movie in which great paintings come to life. Historic figures utter wise epigrams. And the whole movie takes place in a museum.
Most important, this is a film that displays a truly surreal sensibility in that it has no tenable plot. Not even a basic hook, like the first “Night at the Museum.” Which is all the more surreal, because the sequel must have cost $150 million or thereabouts (I didn’t ask the studio, Twentieth Century-Fox, because, like all studios, it slavishly protects and distorts its numbers).
So while all those critics are in Cannes searching for art, I managed to find it at a screening on the Fox lot this week.
But here’s the important part: There are strokes of magic in the second “Night at the Museum.” Shawn Levy is a fabulously talented director and Ben Stiller has abandoned some of the forced mannerisms of his earlier work. He seems totally at ease in this film and so does Amy Adams who, as Amelia Earhart, does a superb turn as a Katherine Hepburn type.
Also performing excellent bits are Hank Azaria, Robin Williams, Christopher Guest and Ricky Gervais.
I’m not going to ask whether it makes sense to shoot a sequel that has no plot. Let’s just say I admire the Fox production mavens for investing so much in a thoroughly surreal work of art.
Besides, the first go-around grossed $574 million around the world. So chances are the sequel will be the most successful art movie of all time.
OK, maybe not really an art movie.
May
18Who Were the Madoff Victims?
Since the Bernie Madoff scandal gave Hollywood a jolt, we’re grateful to the Wall Street Journal for raising some major questions: Namely, who were the “victims” and who were the perpetrators?
It turns out that some of the so-called money managers who funneled money into Madoff’s funds were richly rewarded for their loyalty. According to the Journal, their returns reached 300% to 950% a year.
What federal prosecutors suspect, therefore, is that while charities and philanthropic groups may have lost billions, the guys who helped manage this money were not “victims” at all. They were apparently complicit in the scheme, even though they say they may not have known it.
That means that a money manager who was “accidentally” doubling his money every year never bothered to make a few phone calls to find out why he was getting so lucky.
Sure, I buy that.
May
17Rich Writers, Poor Material
When critiquing a film, it’s customary to single out the director for praise or blame, but I’d like to spotlight the two screen writers responsible for “Angels & Demons,” this weekends big prequel. David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman are the two highest paid screen writers in the history of the movie business, and their over-priced script of the new Tom Hanks film is a complete mess.“Angels & Demons,” doubtless will do substantial business around the world, but may not come close to the $750 million worldwide gross of its predecessor, “The Da Vinci Code.” In tackling their script, Koepp and Goldsman were again handicapped by what Todd McCarthy rightly calls the “laborious, connect-the-dots” plotting of novelist Dan Brown. Both films were also directed by Ron Howard and produced by Brian Grazer and John Calley, who clearly have a fealty to the Dan Brown goldmine.
Still, give the audience a break, guys. The actors in “Angels & Demons” spout a steady stream of on-the-nose expository dialogue. “Oh, good, the symbologist has arrived,” says the commander of the Swiss Guards, and that’s actually a witty line by comparison. As Joe Morgenstern observes in the Wall Street Journal, the audience is “Benumbed by info overload.”
And it’s dopey info – all about the “illuminati” (they’re bad) and the “Preferiti” (they’re good), with Tom Hanks racing around looking agitated as he tries to prevent antimatter from blowing up the world.
There was concern from the studio (Sony) that Catholics might be offended by the Vatican intrigues, but, as A.O. Scott declares in the New York Times, “The only people to be offended by “Angels & Demons” are those who persist in their adherence to the fading dogma that popular entertainment should earn its acclaim through excellence and originality.”
Again, Koepp and Goldsman were stuck with the basic material, but they were also handed a few million bucks to give it some “excellence and originality.” Goldsman earned his paycheck by writing the scripts for “A Beautiful Mind” and “I am Legend.” Koepp was responsible for projects like “War of the Worlds” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (he also struck out with “Ghost Town,” an oddly leaden film he both wrote and directed).
Between them, their films have surely grossed billions and their paychecks have far surpassed a hundred million. It’s great to see writers benefit richly from the system, but it also would be gratifying to see their skills on display.
They could start by writing a role for Tom Hanks; he doesn’t have one in “Angels & Demons.”
May
15Woodstock’s Time Warp
Will the summer of angst show any appreciation for the summer of love?Joel Rosenman and Michael Lang were two klutzy young men who stumbled into the “summer of love” in Woodstock, New York in 1969. Woodstock seemed at the time like a non-event, but for the more than 450,000 folks attending the four-day drugged-out, mud-splattered festival it was a life-changing experience. The New York press didn’t even report on Woodstock until a couple of days later, when word began seeping into the mainstream. Ultimately, Woodstock became a movie, an album and a mini-legend.
The 40th anniversary this year will also be marked by a movie, “Taking Woodstock,” directed by Ang Lee and making its bow in, of all places, Cannes. Several books also will mark the anniversary, but what will not take place will be an anniversary concert produced by the two klutzy founders, Rosenman and Lang. It seems they couldn’t come up with sponsors. Also, they kept bickering.
Besides, in summer ’09 the summer of angst, folks are too worried about their jobs to party in the mud.
According to the New York Times, the name “summer of love” has been conscripted by Target, which is coming out with a beach towel featuring a symbolic white dove perched on a guitar.
Far out, man.
May
14Tom: Still on Cruise Control
Tom Cruise has gone quiet lately in terms of the media, but that doesn’t mean he’s lost any of his fire. Indeed, Cruise knows he’s at a turning point: He’s determined to lock in his next two movies in the next two weeks and to reassert himself as the chief of United Artists.Yet I found him in a relaxed and garrulous mood last week and eager to compare war stories about the filmmaking business. Cruise shot a one-hour TV special called “Storymakers” (to be broadcast Friday night at 10PM on AMC) with Peter Guber and myself where he made it very clear that, while many possibilities have beckoned, by no means was he putting the business of being a movie star on the back burner.
Along the way Cruise acknowledged that someday he would like to find a movie to direct but understands that it would represent a considerable sacrifice both in terms of family time and movie-star time. He also said that Broadway held a lure now that he had shared his wife Katie’s experience making her bow in “All My Sons.” “The camaraderie among actors in the theater is enticing,” he said, as is the sheer energy of the Great White Way.
Yet Cruise acknowledged that he was still a committed movie nut and has been since childhood. He cheerfully recalled sneaking into “The Godfather” as a little boy in Canada (his parents had barred him from seeing it because of its violence). “I would always go to movies alone as a kid,” he said. “I knew what I wanted to see and I planned my weekends and odd jobs around movie schedules.”
Cruise realizes that he must have been a pain in the ass as a young actor and says he remains eternally grateful for those directors who endured his relentless questions and challenges. Harold Becker on “Taps” let him see dailies, the editor invited him to spend hours in the cutting room, the cinematographer explained lenses and camera angles. “I had to know it all,” Cruise reflects. “I had to understand the process.”
Cruise’s almost manic dedication to “the process” is still evident, but he seems more relaxed about it. After committing to play the crazed studio chief in “Tropic Thunder” for Ben Stiller, Cruise spent three months prepping his lines and practicing movements in his fat suit. “I knew there was a good chance it wouldn’t work, but I needed to push the envelope,” he said. “The same for ‘Valkyrie.’ It was a risk. I’m passionate about my movies and that means taking risks.”
Now 46, few stars have ranged as far and wide in their roles, from “Born on the Fourth of July” to “Rain Man,” or worked with such a wide range of major filmmakers, from Spielberg to Coppola to Kubrick. When Cruise commits to a project, his commitment has been stalwart – on “Rain Man,” he hung on through four directors before the movie started shooting.
“I wanted to do that piece with Dustin (Hoffman),” Cruise explains. “He’s an actor’s actor. Just like Jack Nicholson. On ‘A Few Good Men,’ Jack and I worked on our scenes over and over. I couldn’t get enough of those moments – I wanted to keep doing them.”
Cruise has been battered by the media in times past, but now seems at peace with it all. “I just want to keep moving forward,” he says. “My passion is my work. I’m always learning from what I do. That’s what matters."
May
12Spock Turns Back the Clock
The $100 million B.O. results and fawning reviews for the new “Star Trek” will surely provide even further reinforcement for that new genre, the prequel. All those studio execs who wasted their time devising sequels about “what comes after” must feel stupid for not focusing on “what went before?”
The sequels from the old studio system were finally abandoned because they ran out of plot. Clearly the Andy Hardy series, for example, should have taken Mickey Rooney back to infancy.
The prequel formula thumbs its nose at certain basic cinematic precepts. The audience doesn’t need to worry whether Spock will survive his mission because we see multiple generations of Spocks in the movie. The time-traveling Spock the Elder even advises his younger self, “Put aside logic. Do what feels right.” He might have added, “Put aside suspense. It all ends right.”
The recurrent speeches about “feelings” and the emotional repression among Vulcans makes the “Star Trek” opus occasionally seem like a sci-fi version of the HBO show “In Treatment.” But with a $106 million worldwide opening weekend, J.J. Abrams and his crew doubtless will feel no inhibitions about launching yet another sequel. Or prequel.
Meanwhile, there will be a lot of second-guessing about the opening numbers. The first weekend is usually the territory of the kids, but 65% of the “Star Trek” audience was 25 or older. “Wolverine” rolled up an $85 million opening weekend in the U.S. – vs. $79.5 million for “Star Trek.” And “Star Trek’s” foreign total of $35.5 million fell far short of “Wolverine’s” $73 million, not to mention “Iron Man’s” $90 million last year.
So even though the folks at Paramount are exchanging high fives, there’ll still be some marketing anxiety before we get to see Spock’s baby pictures.
May
5Bad Boys From the “Golden Years”
Mike Dann, the fabled programming guru at CBS, is now 87 years old, newly married and the author of a colorful memoir titled “As I Saw It: The Inside Story of the Golden Years of Television.” Dann’s reign at Black Rock covered the period 1958 – 1970 and encompassed shows from the Smothers Brothers, Danny Kaye, Jackie Gleason, Lucille Ball and other luminaries.Himself a forceful character, Dann venerated his legendary performers but also vividly recalled their foibles.
Gleason, of course, was a hardcore boozer who would simply disappear on occasion. To placate him, CBS built a “fancy circular mansion,” as Dann described it, overlooking a serene wooded landscape in suburban New York. Gleason still regularly disappeared on them.
Danny Kaye always complained about the size of his dressing room, so the network built him a penthouse suite. He still complained. Judy Garland was an even tougher star to manage: A hopeless pill junkie, Garland’s performances suffered so badly that the network helped her write a letter resigning from the show.
Dann’s sourest memories were of the “smiling cobra,” CBS president Jim Aubrey. A tall and polished Princeton man, Aubrey nonetheless exhibited violent mood swings, Dann writes: “He could be charming and warm but the next minute he could be a killer.” Apart from his personality disorder, Aubrey also had terrible taste in programming, writes Dann. He fought to kill “The Defenders,” one of the great shows of the early ‘60s, and relented only when the ratings rolled in.
Dann admits he loved TV and feasted on its competitive battles, but regrets that he didn’t foster more quality shows. “I won the ratings by serving the masses,” he writes. “That is what I am known for. There is no such thing as mass with class.”
Having said all this, Mike Dann was nonetheless a classy guy and his memoir will be grist for TV fans and for those insiders who recall his glory days.
May
5Shakey Summer
The “Summer Movies” sections of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times pose challenges these days on both the advertising and editorial fronts. The ad pages are thinner – Warner Bros. took no space in the sections for its two would-be summer blockbusters, the newest “Harry Potter” iteration or “Terminator Salvation.” Warners’ parent, Time Warner, has the biggest stake in print of any of the congloms, so its apparent boycott would seem surprising.Given staff cuts, the New York Times seemed troubled about filling its editorial hole, so it turned to a flurry of random “memos” from its two principal surviving movie critics, A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis. The so-called “memos” were somewhat random in content.
Scott wrote a curmudgeonly open memo to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science urging it to “kill the Oscars.” Dargis then dispatched a curious screed to Lionsgate stating: “Yuck! Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s only a movie. But if films don’t have any wider meaning in the culture, don’t have real impact on minds and bodies, why do so many of us dedicate our lives to obsessing over them?” Her memo, she said, was aimed at “extreme horror filmmakers and fanatics.”
Scott chipped in with a memo to Steven Spielberg urging him to “think small again” like his “buddy,” Francis Coppola. Scott feels Spielberg should make films “on a shoestring” (Coppola’s last effort bombed and his new “shoestring” movie opens at Cannes). Dargis followed with a complaint to “straight filmmakers” for inserting what she describes as “gay slurs” into their work. She did not provide examples.
Perusing their memos, I will probably compose a memo to the Times’ critics urging them to confine themselves to a format with which they have a greater familiarity: Reviews.
April
21Master of the Talent Universe
Say it ain’t so Simon.Buried in a story in the Daily Mirror of London last week was a hint from Simon Cowell that he’s thinking of leaving his gig on “American Idol.” When he signed his last extension, running through next season, he felt his "Idol" idyll may have run its course, said the irascible Brit.
Is this a negotiating ploy? Or has Simon actually decided he wants to get a life?
In any case, Simon’s pondering sent a chill through the corridors of Fox. “American Idol,” of course, is the network’s tentpole – if not the entire tent. And Cowell’s caustic critiques arguably are the lynch pin of the show. Only last week, however, even Cowell was ecstatic in his praise of Susan Boyle, the staid matron from Scotland who lit up Cowell’s other show, “Britain’s Got Talent.”
It’s clearly Cowell who’s got the talent and whose label controls the artists on both of his shows as well as their tours. I’ve wondered how Cowell can ricochet between Los Angeles and London, moving from one zone of unreality to the next. Fox alone pays him a mere $36 million per annum and his other earnings are unimaginable. Got Talent alone is on in over 40 countries. Cowell also owns another Brit talent show, “X Factor” which is bouncing around another 20 countries.
So the question remains: Since Simon Cowell owns the world, why does he need to spend his life rattling around it in an airplane?
Maybe he’s decided to ask himself that very question.
April
20Broadway’s Kings and Queens
Show business memoirs tend to be stuffy and self-protective. That’s why I admire that old pro, Arthur Laurents, for writing a book that is downright, well, bitchy.It’s called “Mainly on Directing,” and its stories weave in and out of Laurents’ various hit shows – “Gypsy,” “West Side Story,” La Cage aux Folles,” and the like.
On Cage, Laurents relates how Allen Carr, who was the total Hollywood producer, not a creature of Broadway, insisted on Laurents to direct the show, over-ruling the Shubert Organization’s insistence on Michael Bennett.
Why was Carr so insistent? “Maybe to give the (manicured) finger to a Broadway establishment that regarded him as a silly Hollywood queen,” opines Laurents. Now 90, concludes: “The god that loves loyalty among gays was pleased. Cage ran for four years and had several national companies.”
Laurents can be caustic about the work of fellow directors, especially Hollywood directors. Robert Wise’s movie version of “West Side Story” was downright “embarrassing,” Laurents writes. “The overacting of the peroxided, Max Factored Jets,” he wrote, was exceeded only by “their Day-Gloed, Carmen Miranded girl friends.” Advises Laurents: “Don’t rely on memory, view it again, just the first ten minutes, and you will be aghast.
Fortunately no movie re-make is being planned, and the newly re-imagined “West Side Story” on Broadway, of course, is this season’s runaway hit.
April
16Bad News, Bad Judgment
Troubled times often trigger troubled behavior. That’s been especially true in the journalistic community of late.It’s hard to explain why the august New York Times would run an op-ed piece that provided a curious rationale for the behavior of Bernard Madoff. Investors weren’t compelled to give money to this Wall Street crook, the piece argued; people actually wanted him — even courted him — to take their money.
The article was written, however, by a Times writer named Daphne Merkin, who would not exactly be expected to have an objective view of this debacle. Merkin’s brother is J. Ezra Merkin, who fed more than $2 billion of clients’ money into the Madoff machine, while collecting some $470 million in fees.
Buried in the fifth paragraph of her op-ed piece, Daphne Merkin blandly acknowledges she has “a sibling who did business with Madoff.” That’s like saying, “I’m a member of the Ponzi family, but that doesn’t influence my views about the family’s business plan.”
The press does not deserve high marks for its coverage of the collapse of the economy, and the Times isn’t helping the cause by running op-ed pieces like Merkin’s.
April
15Mel’s Billion-Dollar Battle
The celebrity subculture embraces many conflicted, contorted individuals, but I’ve never encountered a more tortured soul than Mel Gibson. So it isn’t surprising that he is now caught up in what may be Hollywood’s priciest divorce suit.Few in this town would empathize with Gibson – he is mind-bendingly wealthy, his personal views are erratic and he has never exactly courted favor in the community. Still, there is something downright poignant about anyone as messed up – and as talented – as Gibson. My own personal encounters with him have run the gamut from fun to frosty.
What brings all this to mind is the fact that Gibson and his wife are suing each other for divorce after almost 30 years. Mel and Robyn just want out and at stake is almost a billion dollars. Paradoxically, it’s one of the greatest fortunes ever to come from, well, religion. Bear in mind that Gibson is a conservative Catholic, that much of his wealth comes from a movie called “The Passion of the Christ” and that he is a family man with seven kids.
Gibson owns an island in Fiji, has ranches in both Costa Rica and Australia and also has built a $30 million church in Malibu called the Holy Family Catholic Church. In recent years, he has sold ranches in Montana and an estate in Connecticut.
I have been in the company of Mel Gibson when he has been out-of-his-mind drunk, shouting denunciations of Vatican teachings. I’ve also been with him when he was subdued and sober, and full of remorse for his anti-Semitic blatherings. I have never really known anyone whose extremes of opinion and behavior have been more explosive.Or, for that matter, who possessed so much raw talent. His last directorial effort, “Apocalypto,” was, in my opinion, one of the most underrated films of its epoch. It displayed brilliant filmmaking technique, yet also that Gibsonian perversity. Its over-the-top violence kept many away and Gibson’s reputation negated any opportunity for awards.
Now Gibson is exactly where he least wants to be – center stage amid a personal ordeal. Again, most of us would instinctively express empathy for the man for whom no one wants to express empathy.
All things considered, I do.
March
24Lean Times for Eateries
A recession forces folks to make tough choices. Travel is down 22% – that was easy to predict. The cosmetic surgery business needs a facelift. The long lines to buy corporate jets have all but vanished.The business lunch also seems a casualty of the downturn, as a visit to any expensive eatery will confirm. The corporate players seem eager to demonstrate their dedication to “the new austerity.” Talent agencies are warning employees to avoid the pricey eateries – they’re even distributing lists of bargain restaurants.
Toward the end of my lunch at Mr. Chow’s in Beverly Hills the other day, I studied the room as the tabs were distributed. The ensuing ritual was an apt metaphor for the recession: No one was grabbing for the check. At two tables it just sat there, orphaned and ignored, as three diners held to their stall.
Of course, Mr. Chow’s isn’t among the “bargain” eateries and it seems relatively undaunted by the recession; however that in itself is indicative. The restaurants that seem to be surviving the best are those that are “comfy,” not those nurturing haute cuisine. No one is more adept at “managing” his high-ego clientele than Chris Denton, who’s been running the room for 20 years and who knows how to safely seat Sean Penn several tables away from whomever he’s having his latest quarrel with.
Similarly, Piccolino is not feeling the recession because of the “cool” of Eddie Kerkhofs, who presided over the old Le Dome for many years. The same for La Dolce Vita, where Ruben Castro has been shepherding his followers since 1974!
The restaurants that seem to be hurting are those more-formal emporiums where the waiters don’t ask you what you think of a dish but say something like, “It’s great, isn’t it.” Any place in New York with the name Daniel reflects this haughty attitude.
To be sure, I’ve never boasted about my sophisticated palate. In my home growing up, my parents seemed more interested in what we drank than what we ate, and I was grateful for that. My lunch-time sandwich from home consisted of soggy lettuce and tomato on Wonder bread and that worked fine at the time.
Hence, I’m comfortable with the recessionary attitude of favoring “comfy” restaurants. I admire Wolfgang Puck’s professionalism, but I’d just as soon eat at the Melrose Bar and Grill because it reminds me of the old PJ Clarke’s in New York. In Palm Springs, I hang out at a place called Wangs because Alford Harrison and Joel Herzer serve up the best fried catfish this side of Baton Rouge. Plus, the place is comfy.
I took a friend to the restaurant at the new Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills the other day and I felt apologetic about ordering – there were no other diners and I didn’t want sole responsibility for activating the kitchen. That wasn’t comfy.
But it definitely reflected the time we live in. Out of pity, I even picked up the check. (I was dining with an agent.)
Peter Bart's Column
Predicting Hollywood's fortunes? Don't bet on it
Even showbiz insiders often miss the mark
I'm going to play -- and I'm sure I'm going to lose.
• read more
Even showbiz insiders often miss the mark
I'm going to play -- and I'm sure I'm going to lose.
• read more
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Peter Bart is the editor in chief of Variety and the co-host of long-running AMC talk show Shootout. PeterBart.com is his take on the world of entertainment, culture, politics and more.
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