Day: August 18, 2010

Hollywood Round-up, 8/19

Scott Caan of "Hawaii Five-0."

By Jason Apuzzo. • Our friend Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times ran an interesting piece yesterday on the matter of The Expendables splitting opinion among conservatives, mentioning how both I and my colleague Kyle Smith reacted negatively to the film.  As always, I appreciate Patrick’s readership of Libertas.

I’m as surprised as anyone right now to be denigrating one of Stallone’s films and talking up a (semi-)competing picture by Angelina Jolie.  This isn’t exactly what I expected at the outset of the summer, to say the least.  But we try to stick to the content of films here at Libertas, and to what messages films convey, rather than to individual star personalities.  I think it’s very dangerous to get caught up in the personalities of stars, unless those stars remain disciplined and consistent in terms of what projects they choose.  Since the decline of the old studio system, such stars are actually rather few and far between.

Stallone, to me, chose a distasteful storyline (at least with respect to the villain) around which to launch his career comeback – whereas I was very pleasantly surprised by what Jolie did with Salt.  And for me it really ends there: with the films, and what they convey about our country and the spirit of freedom which it still embodies.  As a side note, I think the business of equating masculine male action stars with patriotism is fine, so long as those stars happen to be fighting on our side.

• We like Frank Miller here at Libertas, and Frank is apparently collaborating with Evan Rachel Wood and Chris Evans on a big new ad campaign for Gucci products.  Check out the teaser for the ad campaign below.  It looks fun.

• California has apparently run out of film tax credits. Don’t you just love this?  The California Film Commission has already allocated the entirety of its $100 million in tax credits available this year to 30 projects, and now has a waiting list of 45 projects.  According to the LA Times:

“The demand is far exceeding the supply,” said California Film Commission Executive Director Amy Lemisch. “We ran out on the first day of funding.”

The program, enacted last year to stem the flight of production from California, provides a 20% to 25% tax credit on qualified production expenses that can be applied to offset state income or sales tax liabilities. Although limited in scope compared with what other states offer — the incentive doesn’t cover talent costs and excludes commercials, for example — it has been popular, especially among independent filmmakers.

As an indie filmmaker myself, I can tell you that the production situation here in this state is lousy.  Basically nobody wants to film around here unless they have to, and unfortunately most indie productions have to.  Having a Governor in office who was once a motion picture star himself was supposed to help this, but as we know … [Sigh.]

The great Ernest Borgnine.

• Hawaii Five-O star Scott Caan (son of James) was apparently injured on-set performing a stunt the other day – he blew out his knee (torn ACL) – and had to be flown back to LA for surgery.  Caan plays “Danno” Williams in the series reboot.  Our best to him with his recovery.  Hopefully he heals faster than Andrew Bynum.

This is actually a good sign.  You know why?  Because if dudes are blowing out their knees on-set, that means they’re filming some serious action on this show.  Things are looking up.

• Some internal memos apparently just got leaked out of Paramount, and we now know what projects are currently in that studio’s pipeline.  Among the projects leaked were: A Baywatch movie (hooray! what took so long? lack of blondes in LA?); a Nevada Smith remake (how do you top Steve McQueen? or Karl Malden, for that matter?), and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Dictator, in which he supposedly plays a deposed foreign dictator who gets lost in the United States.  That last project could be hilarious if it’s done properly.

January Jones of "Mad Men."

True story about Nevada Smith: apparently Indiana Jones was originally supposed to be named ‘Indiana Smith,’ but Spielberg changed the name to ‘Jones’ because he was afraid audiences would confuse Indy with the McQueen character.

[Are you reading a word I’m saying here, or are you just looking at the picture to the left?  Just checking.]

• Hollywood is apparently very afraid of the new Google TV initiative, as Google expands the reach of its media empire-in-the-making.  The new Google TV technology is the latest effort, following on the heels of Apple TV, to combine TV with the internet.  Personally I think the entertainment industry is far too worried about this.  I see no evidence suggesting that there’s a public demand for this fusion of TV and internet right now, until such a fusion becomes much more fluid than it currently is.  Also on the tech front today: apparently James Cameron has been assisting NASA as they plan to put a 3D camera on Mars.

• Ernest Borgnine will be receiving a lifetime achievement award from SAG. Congratulations, Borgie!  It was a pleasure for Govindini and I to meet him a few years back.  He had such a powerful handshake (at age 90!) that my hand is still recovering.  Borgie’s just as vital and colorful as ever, and has undoubtedly enjoyed one of the great cinema careers of all time.  Not bad for an Italian kid from North Haven. 🙂

• And while on the subject of fellow Italian Americans, Lady Gaga’s producer claims that her next album will be “shocking, shocking, shocking!” Note that he doesn’t say, “good, good, good!”  By the way, Gaga might want to read this new article over at MacLeans, entitled, “Outraged Moms, Trashy Daughters.”

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Mad Men’s January Jones has apparently been signed to play Emma Frost in X-Men: First Class, a character described as a “gorgeous mutant with telepathic powers.”  I think that was my impression of Vanna White when I was a teenager.

And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood.

Posted on August 18th, 2010 at 4:12pm.

Review: Mao’s Last Dancer & Artistic Freedom

By Joe Bendel. For fifty-plus years, Mainland China’s Communist government has experienced bitter factional rivalries and instituted enormously destructive campaigns for ideological purity.  While the pendulum has swung back and forth from relative stability to institutionalized insanity, it has remained an authoritarian state where artistic freedom is simply impossible.  That is why twenty year-old ballet dancer Li Cunxin defected to America in the early 1980’s.  It was a bold decision that would define Li’s bestselling memoir and Oscar-nominated director Bruce Beresford’s subsequent big-screen adaptation, Mao’s Last Dancer, which opens this Friday (8/20) in select theaters nationwide.

As a young boy, Li was slight but flexible as enough to be accepted at Madame Mao’s ballet academy.  Diligently training to build his strength, his natural talent blossomed -even in the didactic productions foisted on the academy by their ideologue patron.

Eventually Li was entrusted to study with the Houston Ballet as part of a cultural exchange program.  Primed to expect unspeakable misery, Li slowly discovers America is not as he was led to believe.  Acclimating to the new environment, he actually finds he dances better in the land of class enemies because he “feels freer.”  He also falls in love with Elizabeth Mackey, an aspiring dancer.  Then his life really starts to change.

Li indeed decides to defect, news the Chinese government does not happily receive when he ill-advisedly delivers it in-person.  In fact, they forcibly detain him in the Consulate, with the intention of whisking him out of the country against his will.  However, Li’s friends refuse to leave quietly (fortunately Texans can be an unruly lot), precipitating an international incident.

Dancer is a truly inspiring crowd-pleaser of a film, but it is not an overly-sanitized or conveniently simplistic reduction of a complex, real life story.  In fact, the guilt-wracked Li, fearing dreadful repercussions for his family, frequently quarrels with Mackey, eventually even divorcing her.  Yet, as a result, Li emerges as a flesh-and-blood human being.  We can also forgive the film for indulging in its manipulative coda, having more or less earned its triumphant freeze frame.

As wildly improbable as it might sound, much of Dancer was shot on-location in China.  Reportedly, once shooting was underway, the authorities began demanding changes to the script, but to his credit, Beresford rebuffed them.  As a result, there are indeed scenes of Madame Mao (who remains an official non-person in China), played by a truly eerie dead-ringer for the Gang of Four leader.  We also watch as Li’s mentor at the academy is purged for perceived ideological offenses, such as teaching the techniques of counter-revolutionary defectors like Nureyev and Baryshnikov.  (Granted, the film also seems to imply contemporary China may be loosening up, at least to an extent.)

Amanda Schull & Chi Cao.

Perhaps Dancer’s greatest challenge was casting credible dancers for its key leads roles.  Again, fortune smiled with the discovery of the considerable acting chops of Chi Cao (currently Principal Dancer with the Birmingham Royal Ballet) and Chengwu Guo (a member of the Australian Ballet) as the adult and teen-aged Li, respectively.  Both prove to be charismatic performers, with Chengwu making a surprisingly strong impression, even with his limited screen time.  (Hopefully, they will both be allowed to return home, despite their participation in the film.)

Dancer also boasts two Twin Peaks alumns – including Kyle MacLachlan, making the most of a small supporting role as crafty immigration attorney Charles Foster.  It is Joan Chen who really delivers the film’s emotional punch though, as Li’s spirited mother Niang.  Even thoroughly glammed down for the role, she still remains a radiant beauty.

Dancer is a well-rounded, fully satisfying bio-picture.  The product of Australian filmmakers, it refreshingly refrains from kneejerk political cheap shots, even implying then Vice President Bush played an important role securing Li’s freedom.  It also vividly captures Li’s passion for dance, which is the fundamental cause of nearly every event that unfolds in the film.  Emotionally engaging and politically astute, Dancer opens this Friday (8/20) in select theaters nationwide.

Posted on August 18th, 2010 at 11:58am.

Mad Men Season Four, Episode 4: “The Rejected”

By Jennifer Baldwin. Who are the rejected? The Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce secretaries, crying in their focus group because they can’t find husbands? Peggy, who feels irrevocably rejected by Pete after finding out that he and Trudy are going to have a child? Pete’s father-in-law, whose Clearasil account is rejected for the more lucrative Ponds Cold Cream account? Allison, Don’s secretary, who has been rejected by Don after their one night stand a couple of episodes ago?

Perhaps “the rejected” is something else, something a little less concrete but nonetheless essential. According to Dr. Faye Miller: “It turns out the hypothesis was rejected.”

And what is that hypothesis? Basically, Don’s hypothesis is that women will use Ponds cold cream on their faces in order to pamper themselves and satisfy their own desires as part of a beauty ritual. But unfortunately for Don, that’s just not how the women in the focus group responded.

“I’d recommend a strategy that links Ponds cold cream to matrimony,” Dr. Faye continues. Turns out Freddy Rumsen was right after all:  most women just want to get married and a cold cream campaign based around that will work.

The conversation between Don and Faye that follows may be the best summation of the culture wars to ever appear in a basic cable one-hour drama:

Don: “Hello 1925. I’m not going to do that. So, what are we going to tell the client?”

Faye: “I can’t change the truth.”

Don: “How do you know that’s the truth? A new idea is something they don’t know yet so of course it’s not going to come up as an option. Put my campaign on TV for a year then hold your group again and maybe it’ll show up.”

Faye: “I tried everything. I said ‘routine.’ I tried ‘ritual.’ All they care about is a husband. You were there, I’ll show you the transcripts.”

Don: “You can’t tell how people are going to behave based on how they have behaved.”

Don’s anger in this scene, of course, stems from his underlying guilt about what he has done to Allison.

But look closely at the conversation going on here: Faye is arguing that the truth is immutable, that these women want the traditional thing, but Don is arguing that people can change — if they are sold such change through advertising, media, and TV. And that, in a nutshell, is the culture war: The struggle to change human patterns of behavior through media and other channels. But the question remains: who is right, Don or Faye?

Joyce & Peggy.

Other things of note this episode:

I loved that last look of angsty goodness between Peggy and Pete as she goes off with her new bohemian artist friends and Pete shakes hands with all the suits in the office. With news that Trudy is going to have a baby, it seems the Peggy/Pete relationship hopes are at last dashed. I loved that bittersweet look of regret between them at the end of the episode, but I can’t say I’m too broken up. I’ve always been Team Trudy.

Peggy continues her transformation into Don Jr. This time she’s hanging out with a bunch of hipster artists, just as Don did with girlfriend Midge and her friends in Season One, and just like Don, she doesn’t hesitate to deflate their bohemian posturing:

Hipster Artist: “Why would I ever do that [work in advertising]?”

Peggy: “So you could get paid [duh]. To practice your art.”

Peggy likes the hipsters, but she’s not about to throw off her professional ambitions any time soon.

Second episode in a row with no Betty. Can’t say I mind. Betty’s character was destroyed for me in Season Three.

And finally, I have to confess, I have no idea what that little scene with the elderly couple and the peaches was supposed to be about. Don certainly observed them with studied intensity, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out the point of it.

And even though she wasn’t the focus of the episode, here’s a picture of Joan. Because Christina Hendricks rocks:

Posted on August 18th, 2010 at 9:36am.