Author: Jason Apuzzo

By Jason Apuzzo. The new Angelina Jolie anti-communist thriller Salt, which we loved here at LFM, took in $36 million at the domestic box office over the weekend.  That was a strong opening for the film – strong enough that producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is already dropping hints in Hollywood Reporter today about the potential of a sequel.

This is why LFM readers need to go see this film, and continue to spread the word about it – because if we get a franchise out if this, what we’re going to get is … SPOILER ALERT … Angelina Jolie stalking the land, eradicating communists from our midst.  And we want that, right?  … END OF SPOILERS.

Salt finished second at the box office this past weekend to Inception, as Christopher Nolan’s fanboy-zombie army continues to show up in droves to that film, eager to have their brains scrambled.  It’s worth mentioning, however, that Salt is on fewer screens, and – depending on whom you believe – its budget may only have been half of Inception‘s.  And, of course, we know how the critics have been (for the most part) carrying Nolan’s water for him.

Meanwhile, the big news is that Jolie premiered the film in Moscow on Sunday, and the Russians went wild.  Here’s Reuters:

Clad in a floor-length Versace gown she described as “Russian Red”, Jolie blew kisses to thousands of fans who came to watch her play a suspected Russian double agent in the blockbuster, which opened at No. 2 in the U.S. at $36.5 million. “I think this film is positive for modern Russia,” a broadly smiling Jolie told Reuters television at her first ever premiere in Moscow. Earlier, she took four of her six children to see the gold onion domes and iconic red walls of the Kremlin.

“As much as there are bad guys that are Russian, there are also heroes that are Russian in this film,” she said as her diamond stud earrings sparkled in the sunshine of Moscow’s record-setting heatwave … “It really makes me happy that we have returned to the theme of Russian spies in Hollywood films,” 23-year-old architect Alexander said after watching the film.

Good stuff.   “It really makes me happy that we have returned to the theme of Russian spies in Hollywood films.” Don’t you love how eager these guys are to re-start the Cold War?  To all my Russian friends (and I do have them, including someone who worked in The Kremlin): we miss you guys too!  The Cold War was such fun, especially compared to today.  Hugs and kisses.

Watch Jolie work the crowd below at the Moscow premiere.  They obviously ate it up.

If you haven’t seen the film, it should be pointed out that Salt makes a strong and obvious differentiation between the retro-communist bad guys who are the villains of the film, and those forces within modern Russia who are trying to achieve a reconciliation with the West.  That’s why the Russians are undoubtedly so eager to embrace this film – because it sort of allows everyone to have their cake and eat it, too.  The Russians get to look cool and villainous and relevant again, while at the same time the genuine changes in Russian society that have taken place since the communist collapse are fully acknowledged.

Here’s more about the Moscow premiere, from today’s New York Daily News:

“Angelina, Angelina” chants and clapping filled the air as Jolie, who plays a CIA officer accused of being a Russian sleeper-spook, signed autographs, posed for the cameras and kissed one little girl on the cheek at the Oktyabrskiy theater … Jolie had the Russians cheering at “Spasibo,” charming the audience with her Russian during the film’s introduction.  Her “Dobriy Vecher!” – Russian for Good Evening – greeting was met with screams and whistles.

“This is my first premier in Moscow and I’m so excited to be here,” she said switching into English. “I hope you enjoy the film. I tried to speak a bit of Russian. I hope I did okay.”  Once the projectors started rolling, the audience cheered and clapped for any references to Russia and with particular zest for a scene where a fur hat clad Jolie rides the Staten Island Ferry.

Yes, Jolie wearing the fur hat was a great scene in the film, as I mentioned in my review.  And actually, I would’ve like a lot more of that sort of thing from the film.  One of the few problems I had with the film is that you never see her in a great outfit like the one below.  Why couldn’t they put her in a red dress?  The film cries out for it.

Meanwhile, rumor has it that Jolie tried to arrange for Russian spy Anna Chapman to be at the Moscow premiere (Sony claims to know nothing about it).  I don’t know whether I believe this rumor – but it’s fun to think about, isn’t it?  In any case, Chapman didn’t show.  [Or did she … perhaps in disguise?]

Jolie’s considerable publicity efforts for Salt, by the way – which have already included trips to Comic-Con and Moscow (within a few days of each other) – are leading industry wags to say that she’s definitely earning her $20 million paycheck for this film.  Is this good for women – as we’ve been asking a lot here at LFM?  Yes, I tend to think it is.  Jolie is launching a major international film in multiple markets, and proving that women can do that if given half the chance.  And she’s probably creating more good will for us in Russia right now than Obama is, although that probably isn’t hard.

Word also comes in The New York Times today that a new, unauthorized biography of Jolie by Andrew Morton will be out soon,  featuring details of her complex, strained relationship with her father Jon Voight – a relationship which Morton considers to be the source of her curious, ambivalent behavior toward men.

I’ll leave that subject to the psychoanalysts and/or the female readers of our site; all I’ll say is that Salt‘s a colorful, refreshing (for being so politically incorrect) film – powered by an engaging star performance – and we’ll be keeping an eye on it here at LFM.  Make sure you see it so we can ensure that more films like it are made in the future.

Posted on July 26th, 2010 at 1:23pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. • Angelina Jolie showed up at Comic-Con yesterday, in black leather – and the audience nearly blew the roof off in approval.  She talked about her character in Salt. Money quote: “She’s an interesting, damaged type of person … She’s not just heroic, or even brave. There’s something a little off about her … and maybe there’s something a little off about me. Maybe it’s a good match.”  Um, right.  I’ll be talking more about this film tomorrow.  In the meantime, director Phillip Noyce does an interview about Salt with the Wall Street Journal today.  Plus check out related Cold War-themed buzz about the new Jack Ryan reboot, Moscow.

• Jolie hubby Brad Pitt will apparently be both producing and starring in World War Z, the adaptation of the blockbuster all-out-zombie-war novel.  I skimmed through this novel when it came out – it read fairly well, although it’s certainly nothing special.  My sense is that it will adapt well to the screen – unless the zombie genre is already dead, so to speak, by the time Pitt gets to it.

• There’s a deluge of news coming out of Comic-Con right now (see here).  Tron: Legacy has a big new trailer out, for example, and frankly I’m disappointed with it.  It looks incredibly trite – with the hackneyed, Baby-boomer inflected ‘search for the father’ theme dominating throughout.  Isn’t there any other story these guys can tell?  My enthusiasm for this film just dropped about 3 floors, although it’s not quite in the basement just yet.

• The rumor mill currently has The Riddler as the new villain for Batman 3, with the potential of Inception‘s Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing the role.  How much do I care about this?  Actually very little because The Dark Knight bored me to tears.

• We’re now learning more about Captain America … and apparently the redoubtable Captain is no longer going to be a “flag waiver,” or “jingoistic” (thereby defeating the point?) … and now probably I’m “not going to see this film” and its creators have “just lost my business.”  And you can quote me on that.  Making a quick visit to Comic-Con, Captain America director Joe Johnston had this to say about his film, which is currently shooting in London: “[T]his is not about America so much as it is about the spirit of doing the right thing … It’s an international cast and an international story. It’s about what makes America great and what make the rest of the world great too.”  Does that include the Nazis, by the way, whom Captain America fights in Johnston’s film?  Are they ‘great’ too?

• In other Comic-Con news: Alien invasion flick Battle: Los Angeles is making a big splash (see here and here); Zack Snyder is moving forward on the script for Frank Miller’s Xerxes (we covered this project previously here); Karl Urban (Bones McCoy in Star Trek) may be tapped to play Judge Dredd in the long-developing Judge Dredd 3D reboot; Jennifer Lawrence talks about ‘prepping’ to play the sexy Mystique in X-Men: First Class; the Wonder Woman character will soon have her own Mac cosmetics line;  and Pixar is being consulted on Disney’s forthcoming reboot of the Muppets movie franchise.

• Natalie Portman and director Darren Aronofsky are set to open the Venice Film Festival with their new ballet thriller, The Black Swan, featuring Portman as a ballerina who has a steamy erotic relationship with a rival ballerina played by Book of Eli’s Mila Kunis.  And we certainly are a long way from Queen Amidala now, aren’t we?  [Side note: setting The Wrestler aside, has Aronofsky really done sufficient penance for The Fountain?]

• In the new wave of film projects being launched in the wake of the Twilight craze, we now have a post-apocalyptic teen girl novel, The Hunger Games, being adapted by the same screenwriter who’s writing the new 24 movie (which takes place Bourne-style in Europe, by the way).  Get ready to see a lot of this.  Teenage girls are the new teenage boys in Hollywood.

• The Islamist punk who was threatening the South Park guys has been arrested in an anti-terror sting, thank goodness.  What they should now do is lock the guy up and force him to watch South Park, which would actually be worse than waterboarding.

• Apparently inspired by Sex and the City, a British woman claims to have spent the past 10 years bedding a thousand different men. She’s now making her way through Law and Order DVDs, and plans to sue the men for harassment.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Katherine Heigl’s career rolls on, implacably, without a hit in sight. The sturdy blonde is now set to star in Adaline, billed as an “epic romance”; and she’ll also be playing a bounty hunter (?) in the forthcoming One for the Money. Adeline is described as being about “a beautiful woman who hasn’t aged in 100 years but hasn’t found love, either,” which sounds like about half the women in West LA.  Ph.D. dissertations will someday be written on how Heigl has blown her career, but in the meantime we wish her well on these increasingly Sisyphean projects.

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

Posted on July 22nd, 2010 at 11:45pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. • It’s been a great week for Russian spies.  Yesterday here in LA we had the Salt premiere (see here and here).  A lot of big names showed up to this premiere – including the estimable patriarch of the Jolie/Voight family, Jon Voight; I wasn’t aware, incidentally, that Russian model Olya Zueva had snuck her way onto the cast of Salt – an added attraction, clearly.  But word also comes today that in her ongoing rush to cash-in on her notoriety, Russian (not so super-)spy Anna Chapman may have some exciting new opportunities opening up for herself in the entertainment world.  Ahem.

Without giving anything away, let’s just say this new job opportunity of hers gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘sleeper agent.’

• Is über-Producer Jerry Bruckheimer losing his mojo?  Wags are wondering whether 4 straight flops in a row may be jeopardizing Bruckheimer’s relationship to Disney. My guess?  Jerry’s fine, because this is still coming out next year.

• Do we finally have a universal digital video platform? The creators of UltraViolet certainly hope so as that format finally debuts in public today.  I’m still skeptical about this, and have about a million technical questions regarding how transitioning to this new platform/codec is going to play out.  The basic problem here, as far as whether this platform will actually take hold, is that people are always going to want to innovate and come up with something better – and no industry consortium (no matter how powerful) can shut that process down.

• The Star Trek sequel should be shooting by next summer, although there’s still no script.  The next film will apparently be bigger and more thematically ambitious than the first.  I’ve been a little concerned about noises from the screenwriters that the next film may be more ‘socially relevant’ than the first one, which I enjoyed very much.  We all know what ‘socially relevant’ usually means these days (“Get out of Iraq!!!”) … here’s hoping they don’t go there.

• According to imdb’s estimable readers, Christopher Nolan’s Inception is the 3rd greatest movie of all time! [Citizen Kane, by comparison, weighs in at only #36.]  And you’re wondering why some of us don’t like Mr. Nolan’s fanboys dumbing down standards of excellence?  Still, the adults continue to weigh-in negatively on Inception.  The latest today comes from Nolan’s own backyard in the UK Guardian.  The title of their article on Nolan says it all: “The Emperor Has No Clothes.” Money quote: “Christopher Nolan’s films are full of big ideas hinting at deep profundities. But are we investing meaning where it isn’t?”  Answer: yes.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … with Russian spies and Russian mistresses all over the media, we thought we’d take a quick look at Olya Zueva, the Russian model appearing in the new spy thriller, Salt.  We try to stay on theme, here.

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

Posted on July 20th, 2010 at 7:08pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. • In his review today, Todd McCarthy (formerly of Variety, and author of a very fine biography of Howard Hawks) confirms that re-born Russian communists – in the form of a long-dormant Soviet sleeper cell – are indeed the villains of the new film Salt. The goal of these Reds? To kill the current Russian president on American soil, and – I’m guessing here – take advantage of the resultant chaos to seize control back of Russia? The suspense in Salt apparently consists in the question of whether CIA agent Angelina Jolie, who was apparently captured and brainwashed in North Korea (shades of The Manchurian Candidate here), is part of the sleeper cell or not.  I’m guessing not.

All of this may also suggest why, as we’ve reported here previously, Salt has already been banned in China.

I’m loving the sound of this, frankly, although I assume in penance for this neo-Cold War scenario the filmmakers will feel the need to take gratuitous pot shots at the CIA, and make them the ‘enemy lite’ of the piece. Still, you take what you can get, right?

We’ll be keeping an eye on all this.  Here at LFM we’ve been documenting the return of Cold War fever (see here, here, here, here and even here), and I’m certainly looking forward to this latest outbreak. Jolie does an interesting interview on the film today, as does director Phillip Noyce (who did the early Jack Ryan films).

It’s hard not to have mixed feelings about Jolie at this point.  What is undeniable, however, is that Jolie’s baroque, decadent personality in public is something that can work to her advantage on-screen in over-the-top-roles like this one.  So few ‘stars’ nowadays actually have personalities; that’s obviously not a problem here.  The question is whether middle America is really interested in following her any more.  [By contrast, I expect this film to go gangbusters overseas.]  We’ll find out, starting Friday.

The funny thing is how universally acknowledged it is (including by me) that Jolie is probably better at this stuff than 90% of the male action stars.  That’s both a credit to her, and to some extent a rebuke of what passes for male action stars these days.  I mean, I’ve been kidding a lot here lately about Adrien Brody being in Predators (he was also in King Kong, of course) – but this is the whole problem, isn’t it?  Adrien Brody should not be battling aliens, unless you’re eager to have the aliens win. I’d feel more confident about Jolie under such circumstances.  Wouldn’t you?

Oh, and one other juicy tidbit about the film from today: apparently Salt was originally intended for Tom Cruise … who opted instead for Knight and Day. Ouch.

Posted on July 19th, 2010 at 5:20pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. • No surprises here: due to the initial hype, Inception finished first at the weekend box office – but I suspect the drop-off on this one will be significant over the next few weeks. Opinions on the film continue to be sharply divided, of course.  The New Yorker’s David Denby is the latest influential critic to pan the film, calling it “an engineering feat, and, finally, a folly.”

Momentarily setting aside my own highly sarcastic, upside down review of the film, I can tell you that I otherwise found Inception to be a perfect example of the soulless, technocratic filmmaking that we’ve  all become accustomed to from Hollywood – although Christopher Nolan is very clever at disguising his film as being something else (i.e., upscale art house fare). Besides also being a deeply nihilistic and (as is so often the case with Nolan’s films) creepily misogynistic film, the film offers a dull, rationalist’s take on the fundamentally irrational dream state – and thereby misses the point of what dreams are actually like.  The film is pedantic when it should be uncanny, too swift to get to the next explosion rather than actually explore a character.  Basically the film’s a bore, put together with a slide-rule instead of inspiration.  And I suspect audiences will grow cold on it over time.

I’d like to thank our wonderful readers for putting up with my upside down review, so to speak, and for keeping the debate on this film civil – something that (unfortunately) doesn’t always happen when Nolan’s films are being discussed.  LFM’s readers are the finest out there.

• Will 50% of Hollywood’s box office take be coming from 3D films within the next 3 years? One major theater chain thinks so, and is putting its money behind that technology.  And probably they’re right.  The pressure to release in 3D is immense right now, and is already changing how movies are being conceptualized, even at the script stage.

• And speaking of which, Tim Burton is apparently developing the board game “Monsterpocalypse” into a summer 3D tentpole project. And if it were still legal to trade movie futures, that would be the one to put your money on …

• Did you know Breck Eisner is developing a Flash Gordon project? What a shame.  He hasn’t done enough penance yet for Sahara to get such an important franchise.  What happened to Stephen Sommers?

• It looks like the new Maggie Thatcher movie might be a hit job.  The family is apparently “appalled” at the project.  Here’s the money quote from the UK’s Guardian:

“… the screenplay of The Iron Lady depicts Baroness Thatcher as an elderly dementia-sufferer looking back on her career with sadness. She is shown talking to herself and unaware that her husband, Sir Denis Thatcher, has died.

“Sir Mark and Carol are appalled at what they have learnt about the film,” says a friend of the family. “They think it sounds like some Left-wing fantasy. They feel strongly about it, but will not speak publicly for fear of giving it more publicity.”

What a shame … but completely predictable, since Streep is involved.  Thatcher deserves so much better than this shabby treatment.

• … and speaking of dementia, the UK’s Guardian also does a long interview today with Oliver Stone, who is now apparently working on a new project called Oliver Stone’s Secret History of America.  Stone is becoming something like the left-wing answer to Howard Hughes back in the day – except that before going insane, and producing some very bad films, Hughes actually had some serious accomplishments to his name.

• Avatar is apparently very big in the Amazon. Do they have 3D down there?

• Here’s Peter Jackson showing a childhood film of his that was inspired by Ray Harryhausen’s work … with Ray Harryhausen in the audience watching along. Great stuff.  Ray is such an inspiration to everybody.

• Did you hear?  Aaron Sorkin will be making a film about John Edwards, and casting has already begun.  Given what a dud Edwards’ campaign was, does this pic have an audience?

• MUBI has some nice things to say today about Disco & Atomic War and 1428, two recent films from the LA Film Festival that we loved here at LFM (see our reviews here and here).  Thanks to them for that.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … there’s a new billboard out today featuring Tron: Legacy‘s Olivia Wilde as ‘Quorra.’  We’re looking forward to this film come December.

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

Posted on July 19th, 2010 at 4:36pm.