Words of wisdom from John Cassavetes: “You know, in this business, it's all jealousy.”

Jeffrey Wells posted an interesting commentary today over at Hollywood Elsewhere, postulating that Hollywood major players are far less supportive of their fellow filmmakers than their counterparts, past and present, in other countries. And got me to thinking about something the late, great John Cassavetes told me way during an interview way back in 1985. You can read the entire article I gleaned from our conversation in Gabriella Oldhman’s exceptional anthology John Cassavetes: Interviews, recently published by the University Press of Mississippi. (Mind you, I’m not saying it’s exceptional simply because she included something written by me — but, hey, that didn’t hurt.) This particular segment, however, I feel is especially relevant in light of Wells’ observation:

So, at 55, John Cassavetes is still a maverick, eh?

The question elicits a melancholy smile. Cassavetes stares at his soft drink for a moment as he calmly considers his answer. “People used to love to call me a maverick, because I had a big mouth, and I’d say, ‘That bum!’ or something like that when I was young. Mainly, because I believed it, and I didn’t know there was anybody’s pain connected to the business. I was so young, I didn't feel any pain. I just thought, ‘Why don’t they do some exciting, venturesome things? Why are they just sitting there, doing these dull pictures that have already been done many, many times, and calling them exciting? That's a lie — they're not exciting. Exciting is an experiment.’

“Now, from the point of view of a guy in his 20s, that was true. But when I look back on it, I think, yes, that man was a maverick. But...”

His words trail off into weak laughter.

“That reputation keeps with you, through the years. Once the press calls you a maverick, it stays in their files. I’ll be dead five years, and they'll still be saying, ‘That maverick son-of-a-bitch, he's off in Colorado, making a movie. As if they really cared.

“You know, in this business, it's all jealousy. I mean, this is the dumbest business I’ve ever seen in my life. If somebody gets married, they say, ‘It’ll never work.’ If somebody gets divorced, they say, ‘Good. I'll give you my lawyer.’ If somebody loses a job, everyone will call him -- to gloat. They’ll discuss it, they’ll be happy, they’ll have parties. I don't understand how people that can see each other all the time, and be friends, can be so happy about each other’s demise.

“I think people, studio executives and filmmakers, should hate each other openly, and save a lot of trouble. It’s like me and actors. I never get along with actors, not on the level of friendship, because I don't believe in it. Only on a creative level. Now, through a period of years, Peter Falk and I have become very good friends, as have Ben Gazzara and I. But only after a period of years. That friendship came out of working on Husbands together, and the success that came out of that. And a lot of other films, too. Sometimes, we’ve been successful, and sometimes we've been unsuccessful. I mean, the creative part of it has always been successful. That’s been the bargain of it, our relationship.

“But I’m sure that, the moment I was no longer interested in anything artistic, Peter would not be my friend anymore. And that would be fair game. I probably wouldn’t be his friend, either, if I weren’t interested in art.” 

Jeffrey Wells: The gift that keeps on giving

This is kinda-sorta hilarious. Once again, Jeffrey Wells has gotten mad at me, and banished me from his site -- this time, because I dared to suggest he might be, ahem, racially insensitive. But here's the funny part: He also decided to delete all my comments from today's thread. Except: He neglected to delete a comment he made in response to one of my comments. So now he appears to be talking to someone who isn't there -- like Clint Eastwood conversing with an empty chair. You know, you'd think someone as terrified of aging as Jeffrey would not want anything out there that might indicate dementia on his part...

BEFORE:

AFTER:

'Rite of the Sitting Dead' -- or, Dead but enjoying it

Over at Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells posted a link to this New York Times article about funerals in my hometown of New Orleans and elsewhere that... that... well, as writers Campbell Robertson and Frances Robles note, "put the 'fun' in funeral."

The NYT piece begins by focusing on a wake at the Charbonnet-Labat Funeral Home for Miriam Burbank (pictured above), "who died at 53 and spent her service sitting at a table amid miniature New Orleans Saints helmets, with a can of Busch beer at one hand and a menthol cigarette between her fingers, just as she had spent a good number of her living days." (Must admit: The strategically placed bottle of Jack Daniels in the background is the perfect touch.)

Not surprisingly, the chronically uptight Mr. Wells disapproved of such activity. Me? If I had any choice in the matter, I'd be displayed at my wake propped up in a movie theater-style seat, pen in one hand and a notepad in the other, while a DVD player ran continuous loops of The 400 Blows and In the Heat of the Night on a nearby big-screen TV. Laissez les bons temps rouler, dah-lins!

Your choice?

Compliments to the Chef

First, I give Jon Favreau's Chef a thumb's-up review at SXSW. Then, said review is blurbed in a widely disseminated trailer for the movie. Yesterday, David Carr of The New York Times gets on the bandwagon. Today, Jeff Wells complains that, so far, the meanies at Open Road haven't yet screened Chef for him. And now, tonight at the Tribeca Film Festival, Chef is announced as winner of the Heineken Audience Award. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Jeff Wells: The sequel Or: The days of whine and poses

Obviously, I have hurt Jeff Wells to the quick by quoting some of his whack-job emails. So he's done what any bully does when someone stands up to him: He's threatened to tell my mommy on me. Unfortunately, since my mother is five decades dead, he has done what I assume he views as the next best thing: He has started complaining to my past and current editors in a huffy email.

But wait, there's more: When I thanked him for this new mother lode of comedy gold, he re-emailed the same people, claiming I was somehow violating a sacred trust by revealing a "personal correspondence." So personal, in fact, that he sent me a copy. The money quote:

It's flat-out slanderous of Joe to publish this. It's foul and icky and depraved of him to expose this information. It will harm my rep as I've never crossed the line by publishing this kind of personal material. I've begged him to please take it down and let bygones be bygones and he hasn't responded. Does Joe still review regional stuff for Variety? I need to appeal to his editor to appeal to him on this matter. Do you know who I can write? Who I can call? He's really gone off the deep end here.

I'm naturally calling Variety on my own and asking [name redacted] if she knows anyone, etc. Please help me on this. This is awful. Do you know Joe? Can you cal him and try to get him to chill out? I've written him seven or eight times over the past hour and he hasn't responded.

Jeff, if you're reading: This post is my response.

Jeff Wells: Threat or menace? Or: Is half a stiffie better than none?

A while back, Jeff Wells felt compelled to tell me that he "keeps bottles of Cialis in the bathroom," and maintains intimate relations with "three girlfriends in LA, another in NYC and another in Berlin." This information was imparted in an email he sent to dispute any suggestion that he might be, well, aging less than gracefully. Today, while answering another of his furious missives, I queried: Are you still taking the Cialis, or have you moved up to hard stuff: Viagra? His response, reprinted here in its entirely, suggests I may have hit a tender spot:

Cialis, asshole. And it feels great to be walking around with half a stiffie, let me tell you. I swear to God, I'd love to take a poke at you. Stay out of my fucking sight at the next film festival we both attend. Look at me cross-eyed just once and I'm going to come over and get within 18 inches and spit right in your face. If you want to take it to the next level after I do that, fine. That'll be your call. But I will give you a slight saliva shower if you so much as look in my direction.

All fine and good, but I have to ask: If he's only getting "half a stiffie" with Cialis, is he really getting his money's worth?

Also: Can one hang an emotionally vivid cowboy hat on half a stiffie?

Finally: When he says he would "love to take a poke" at me, you don't think he meant... well, I mean, I can't picture Jeff as being much of a Lonesome Dove fan, but you never know.

LexG: Battered but unbowed

He may have been banned by David Poland and Jeffrey Wells, but Internet bad boy LexG marches on.

Why did Dogs die?

Hollywood Elsewhere blogger Jeff Wells asks: Why did Rod Lurie's remake of Straw Dogs tank at the North American box-office this weekend? Well, as I have noted elsewhere: Maybe the title meant absolutely nothing to its presumptive target audience of young male moviegoers.

Yes, I know, we're talking about an updated version of a Sam Peckinpah classic. But based on my admittedly unscientific research -- i.e., asking students in my film studies classes at University of Houston and Houston Community College -- I would argue that it's not unreasonable to suspect most people under the age of 30 have never heard of that 1971 film, much less watched it. And, perhaps more important, there's the title itself: What the hell does it mean? Seriously. I'm old enough to remember that, as early as the original film’s second week of release, the distributor felt compelled to buy newspaper ads and print lobby posters that actually featured a ceremonial straw dog set ablaze, to kinda-sorta explain the symbolic meaning of the title. Obviously, that helped. Just as obviously, though, it was a necessary marketing move.

I haven't seen Lurie's Straw Dogs yet, and for all I know, it's every bit as terrific as my friend Roger Ebert says. But as far as doing a post-mortem on its failure to find an opening weekend audience? With all due respect, James Marsden, Kate Bosworth and Alexander Skarsgard have yet to prove themselves as consistent box-office draws. And then, of course, there's the title. Maybe Lurie would have done better to use the title of the book -- The Siege of Trencher's Farm -- that inspired Peckinpah's original film in the first place?

Movies I want to see: London Boulevard

Take a look at this and tell me: Isn't Colin Farrell playing exactly the sort of character you might have expected Michael Caine to essay in the aftermath of 1971's Get Carter? (Hat-tip to Jeffrey Wells for showcasing the trailer.) Of course, I don't know if Farrell would be able to come across as badass as Caine does in what is, for my money, the most cold-blooded murder scene in movie history. Keep in mind that Jack Carter (Caine), a veteran hit man, has been searching for the folks responsible for killing his brother, a relatively straight-laced fellow, back in their home town. When he finally catches up with someone from the old neighborhood who had an indirect role in the slaying... Well, as Carter says: "You knew what I'd do, didn't you, Albert?"

She won't dance, don't ask her

Certain movie bloggers -- cough, cough, Jeff Wells, cough! -- have been critical of  actress/stand-up comic/TV host Mo'Nique and her... well, let's say low-key approach to campaigning for an Oscar nomination (which, I would hasten to say, she certainly deserves for her memorable performance in Precious). Indeed, to paraphrase Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde -- Mo'Nique's peculiar idea about campaigning is no campaigning at all. But here's the thing: As she explains today to David Carr of The New York Times, Mon'Nique also has the peculiar idea that, hey, the freakin' work should speak for itself. So there.  

Jeffrey Wells will have a cow when he sees this

According to Richard Corliss of Time Magazine, the best film performance of 2009 was given by the Sweetheart of Hollywood Elsewhere.

Who says the Hollywood junket press never ask any tough questions?

Next up on Battle of the Bloggers: Patrick Goldstein gives Jeff Wells the smackdown. You know, I shouldn't take so much delight in this, but, hey, I do.

Rush Hour is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

As I indicated in what Jeff Wells has puckishly dubbed my “video-clip thingie,” sitting through Rush Hour 3 is a lot like watching a great right-fielder during the final season of a long career, or attending an oldies concert showcasing well-known bands that haven’t charted in decades: You can’t help noting that the smooth moves are slower these days, and you don’t get many surprising deviations from a playlist of crowd-pleasing riffs. But if you had a great time with the first Rush Hour, and at least a mildly enjoyable experience with Rush Hour 2, chances are good that this genially slapdash threepeat will float your boat. As Roger Ebert aptly notes in his review: “Once you realize it's only going to be so good, you settle back and enjoy that modest degree of goodness, which is at least not badness, and besides, if you're watching Rush Hour 3, you obviously didn't have anything better to do, anyway.”

Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker are back as an odd couple of crimebusters who bridge their cultural gap – one’s an earnest Hong Kong lawman; the other, a motor-mouth L.A. cop – in order to combine their respective talents for ass-kicking and trash-talking. This time, they’re in Paris, seeking a list of names of Chinese Triad crime lords. But, really, that’s just an excuse for Chan to speak softly and carry a big kick while Tucker speaks loudly and does comic shtick. If that's the sort of thing you like, you probably will like Rush Hour 3.

To be sure, it’s mildly distressing to see Chan leaping and lunging a bit less gracefully (and a lot less frequently) than he used to. And it’s slightly unsettling to see a magnificently ravaged Max Von Sydow (cast here as a character whose true colors are too obvious by half) so soon after the recent death of Ingmar Bergman. But director Brett Ratner, following the same formula he used for the two previous films, laces the largely irrelevant action-adventure plot with bits and pieces of genuinely amusing nonsense. (Note Tucker’s very funny frustration during a cheeky variation of “Who’s on First?”) And the two leads continue to find ways of wringing big laughs from the running gag of their mismatched partnership, even when they're gleefully defanging racial stereotypes through shameless, self-aware exaggeration. (When the two buddies briefly split after a quarrel, Tucker comforts himself by ordering Chinese take-out while Chan dines on fried chicken and soul food.) Indeed, the laughter they elicit is just enough to almost completely drown the tell-tale sound made by franchise participants as they they scrape the bottom of the barrel after returning to the well one last time.

BTW: At one point in Rush Hour 3, there’s a scene in which a comically surly French cabdriver indulges in anti-American mockery of Tucker’s character. “You lost in Vietnam!” he rants. “And you lost in Iraq!” I realize, of course, that it’s always a risky task to parse a popcorn movie for explicit or implicit political commentary. But maybe it says something about the zeitgeist that neither Ratner nor Tucker saw the need for Tucker’s character to dispute the cabdriver’s taunt.

The Top 10 Reasons Why 'Hostel 2' (Reportedly) 'Under-Performed' On Opening Weekend

10. Too many potential ticket buyers glued to their TV sets for MSNBC updates on Paris Hilton.

9. Half the people who saw the first Hostel thought it blew chunks, and were damned if they’d pay good money to see a sequel.

8. Bloodthirsty geeks who groove on simulated violence are still traumatized by simulated childbirth in Knocked Up.

7. Two words: Surf’s Up.

6. “Wait a minute! You mean that skank from Welcome to the Dollhouse is the one who’s naked? No way, dude.” (View expressed is not necessarily that of this blog’s host.)

5. Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Michael “Mad Dog” Medved didn’t receive word in time that they were supposed to trash it on the air.

4. Under-age horror fans actually bought tickets to Ocean’s 13, then sneaked into auditoriums where Hostel 2 was playing.

3. David Poland and Jeffrey Wells whacked it. What possible chance could it have after that?

2. Pirate-copied DVDs were available weeks ago at truck stops, convenience stores, porn video shops and other places known to be frequented by hard-core gore fans.

AND THE NO. 1 REASON WHY HOSTEL 2 “UNDER-PERFORMED” ON OPENING WEEKEND:

1. Too many guys figured they’d never get laid if they brought a date to it.

Jeffrey Wells: Impudent upstart

Jeffrey Wells, the aging Hipster King who hosts Hollywood Elsewhere, dares to take issue with my rave review of Knocked Up. (I've been told, by the way, that said review already has been blurbed on lobby displays in megaplexes throughout this great land of ours. Uh-oh. Looks like I'm rejoining the ranks of quote whores.) You can humor Wells by reading his comments here.

I just got back from SXSW and, boy, are my eyes tired

My apologies for not posting more -- well, actually, for not posting at all -- during my recent sojourn in Austin to cover the SXSW Film Festival. I wanted to provide daily commentary about the movies, good and bad, that I viewed there. Trouble is, as we say in Texas, you got to dance with the one that brung you. And since Variety picked up my tab for this trip, my first priority was viewing and reviewing major films (for the paper and its website) quickly enough to scoop The Hollywood Reporter.

I'm back at home base now, and likely will be posting a great deal about the festival offerings in the days and weeks ahead. In the meantime, I invite you to check out my reviews of these SXSW world premieres: Scott Frank's The Lookout, a stealthy neo-noir drama that isn't afraid to take its time developing characters on the way to the payoff of a neatly designed caper scenario; Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, which is, scene for scene, minute to minute, one of the most explosively funny movies in recent memory; Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine's Manufacturing Dissent, an uneven yet even-handed critique of Michael Moore by two self-described "progressive liberal" filmmakers; and Mike Binder's Reign Over Me, which Jeffrey Wells has been raving about since last July, and rightly so.

And while you're at it, please also take a look at my review of Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's The Prisoner, or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair -- a documentary I strongly suspect will spark debates that will spill out of the arts and entertainment sections, and into the op-ed pages.

Gore for President? Fat chance!

From Nikki Finke: Don't expect Al Gore to announce the start of another Presidential campaign at the Oscars, even if An Inconvenient Truth brings home the gold. Money quote: "As one news report said, 'Gore's weight, which has ballooned since he left office, is widely seen as a barometer of his ambitions, and the Clinton, Obama and Edwards campaigns have been studying his girth closely.'"

As Jeffrey Wells notes, this ties in with a theory about Gore's fighting trim offered last November by Mick La Salle. Does the mean that -- gasp! -- density is destiny?

The state of cinema, Part II

Commenting on a New York Times analysis of box-office trends, Jeffrey Wells opines: "The age-old old theory is that mainstream moviegoers are emotional alcoholics in normal times, but if the headlines seem more disturbing than usual their choices tend be more reactionary. Give them a film that promises some kind of agreeable emotional beer-buzz and they'll probably give it a shot. Give them a movie that smacks of herbal tea, strong coffee, mineral water or some other non-alcoholic ingredient, and chances are they'll either steer clear or adopt a wait-and-see approach."