Category: News/Opinion

Michael Moore Voted to Academy Board of Governors

By Jason Apuzzo. As reported at Deadline Hollywood, Michael Moore (along with Kathryn Bigelow, and Lawrence of Arabia editor Anne Coates) has been elected to the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors.

Forgive me, but the election of this Riefenstahl-in-a-fat-suit is repulsive.  Utterly contemptible, divisive – and richly evocative of the climate of fear that currently pervades an industry in which dissent from the left-liberal line is not tolerated.  I could not be more disgusted by this.

What most people don’t know is that at least one of the Motion Picture Academy’s Board of Governors is a conservative.  But I can’t say who it is – because of course, I don’t want this person getting in trouble.  That’s the way this town really works.

I don’t even know where to begin on this one, folks.  The ongoing ruination of what was once a special institution continues unabated, apparently with no adults around to stop it.

[Update: The LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein links to this post today (7/7) in his own piece on Moore’s election.  I’d like to respond to one point in Patrick’s article:

Inside the industry, reaction was more muted, with one screenwriter musing: “If the academy has any brains at all, they’d better frisk Moore before every meeting to make sure he doesn’t try to bring a hidden camera. If you thought Wall Street and General Motors were fat targets for muckraking, that’s nothing compared to the academy.”

This is actually the first thing I thought of when I heard about Moore’s election – not so much that he would bring a camera into board meetings (a droll idea, by the way), but that he would grandstand in public over matters that might otherwise be kept in-house.  The basic métier of people like Moore is to turn everything into a public, political controversy – essentially a circus spectacle, with him as ring master.  It’s all too easy to imagine this sort of thing happening in the case of, say, the awarding of honorary Oscars.  An acquaintance of mine on the Board, for example, was involved some years back in the controversial decision to give Elia Kazan an honorary Oscar.  What would Moore have made of that?  Would he really have kept his mouth shut?]

Posted on July 7th, 2010 at 12:55pm.

Hollywood Round-up, 7/6

The lovely Gloria Stuart turns 100.

By Jason Apuzzo. • Twilight: Eclipse has taken in $175 mil domestically so far, and $280 mil worldwide – and it’s not even through its first week.  So it’s a hit, and a big one, and now I’m going to stop talking about Twilight for a while because I’ve hit the saturation point.

• DC Comics is already doing a second print run after more than 60,000 copies of the Wonder Woman issue #600 (the re-boot we’ve been discussing here at LFM) got gobbled up. A DC source tells Nikki Finke that downloads of the free issue preview have been “phenomenal.”  No surprises here – she’s a popular character, despite what some may say.  And is the new costume really ‘anti-American’?  I still think that’s debatable, unless you’re looking to be offended by everything.

• You get the sense James Cameron’s been let out of a cage, or something. Now he’s going to be directing Black Eyed Peas videos in 3D. This must be driving the studio brass at Fox nuts as they tap their fingers waiting for the Avatar 2 launch date.

• Kevin Smith begins shooting his ‘political horror movie,’ Red State, this August with a cast of no-names. Or since it’s a Kevin Smith film, is it a cast of no-brains?

• The fix is in.  You’re going to like Christopher Nolan’s Inception (see here and here) … or else!  Wake me when someone writes a review of this film that doesn’t look like it came out of the Warner Brothers press packet …

The French poster for "Piranha 3D."

• … and in any case the summer’s most anticipated film (by me) is not Inception, but Piranha 3D.  The French poster for the film has been released … and frankly it looks better than the American one.  Why?  The French one focuses on the sex.  The American one focuses on the fish.  [The French really understand these things.]  And otherwise here are some great screen grabs from the film’s fantastic trailer.

• News comes today that George Miller’s Mad Max reboot will actually involve two films that will be released back-to-back: Mad Max: Fury Road and Mad Max: Furiosa. Miller is an uber-lefty, but this is a great franchise – and I love the new titles.  Hopefully this will work, and not be like the limp reboot of Death Race 2000.

• The Wrap has just figured out that Hollywood isn’t producing any new stars these days. Um, yeah!  We want to congratulate them on this striking new insight.

• With a Russian spy ring being caught recently, a lot of people are drawing comparisons to Angelina Jolie’s new film, Salt. It’s true – the timing couldn’t be better for the release of that film … provided you’re going to Salt to see a realistic depiction of contemporary Russian spycraft, and not Jolie’s legs.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … somehow I missed that actress Gloria Stuart turned 100 on the Fourth of July! Happy Birthday!  Govindini and I met Gloria a few years ago at an Academy event, and I actually ran into her at a Beverly Hills post office a few years ago, as well.  What a charmer.  She looks phenomenal, and has that old-school Hollywood graciousness in person that is so rare nowadays.  We wish her the very best.

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

Posted on July 6th, 2010 at 3:03pm.

The Conversion of David Mamet

David Mamet.

By David Ross. David Mamet is our leading playwright as well as an incisive, cerebral film director. He made a splashy conversion to conservatism in 2008, publishing a hoot of an essay called “Why I am No Longer a Brain Dead Liberal” in The Village Voice.

I was pleased but not surprised.  All artists of real aspiration must eventually come to terms with conservatism, great art being rooted in the same values and perspectives that conservatism is rooted in – rooted in the assumption, for example, that human beings are more than automata of history, accidents of chemistry, points on a graph, sheep in need of a governmental shepherd.

In the latest issue of Commentary, Terry Teachout, the dean of conservative cultural critics, ponders the impetus and meaning of Mamet’s conversion (for subscribers only, unfortunately).

He traces the crux of the matter to a passage in “Why I Am No Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal”:

I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

Teachout comments: Continue reading The Conversion of David Mamet

George Lucas & Steven Spielberg Present New Norman Rockwell Exhibit

An early draft of Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech" is in Steven Spielberg's collection.

By Jason Apuzzo. I thought it would be appropriate on this day, the Fourth of July, to mention a new exhibit that just opened of Norman Rockwell’s paintings being put on in Washington D.C. at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, entitled “Telling Stories.”  The exhibition features 57 major Rockwell works held by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, who are among the most significant collectors of Rockwell’s work.  The exhibit explores Rockwell’s connections to the movies, and also his thematic legacy by way of Lucas and Spielberg’s films.  You can read Ted Johnson’s nice article on this exhibit in Variety.

Something that we talk about a great deal here at Libertas is the portrayal of America and what is perhaps its defining attribute – the freedom of its citizens – in film and popular media.  Occasionally this is something that is expressed in film in a literal way, in terms of a film’s overt political agenda.  More often, however, it’s something that is communicated in a general feeling one gets about whether a filmmaker harbors affectionate feelings toward America and its people.

I happen to think this basic sort of affection or warmth toward America and its people is something that radiates from Lucas and Spielberg’s work when they’re at their best.  One thinks here in particular of Lucas’ American Graffiti, with its Capra-esque portrayal of small town California – or of Luke Skywalker, the paradigmatic American farm boy-hero from the original Star Wars.  And has there ever been a more stirring invocation of small-town American entrepreneurialism and innovation than Lucas’ film, Tucker: The Man and His Dream?  I doubt it.  The film, which Lucas made with his friend and fellow innovator Francis Coppola, is a personal favorite of mine.

In Spielberg’s case, almost his entire career has been an exercise in portraying the American Everyman (for which Spielberg endured an enormous amount of criticism early in his career) – from Duel through to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Saving Private Ryan and beyond.  Even in their most recent collaboration, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, you feel this same sort of affection for America and Americana … particularly in Crystal Skull‘s fun, romanticized approach toward the 1950s, rock-and-roll, Marlon Brando-style motorcycle culture, and Cold War anti-communism. Continue reading George Lucas & Steven Spielberg Present New Norman Rockwell Exhibit

Hollywood Round-up, 7/2

"Ya gotta light?" Meet the new Spider-Man.

By Jason Apuzzo. • Brit actor Andrew Garfield has been chosen as Spider-Man, in what’s regarded by many as a surprise. I’m not even going to pretend I know who this guy is.  Bigger question: does the Spider-Man series have any gas left in the tank, with new superhero franchises sprouting every day like weeds?

• Twilight: Eclipse cast members will apparently be mingling with theatergoers around the country. This is a great idea … and also a security nightmare, which is why star Kristen Stewart has been worrying about her safety of late.  Actually, if they really want to thank fans they should just pay for their popcorn.  [$7 a bag?]

• IMAX is expanding into Russia. It’s amazing how IMAX has become a viable distribution option, especially given that nobody shoots in that format anymore.  I once was on a balloon ride in Africa with some guys shooting in IMAX and the camera package alone nearly sank the balloon.

Is it live, or is it Memorex: which ones are fake?

• Restrepo‘s Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger talk to The Wrap today about their non-political approach toward their documentary on the Afghan war.  There was a time when this was the normal approach taken by documentarians.  I actually wish more filmmakers on both the left and right took that approach today …

• … unlike Oliver Stone.  And so Maria Conchita Alonso, who seemed to appear in every film made during the 1980s, will be leading a protest outside a screening of Oliver Stone’s South of the Border tonight in Santa Monica.  I have mixed feelings about things like protests and boycotts, because they basically just deliver free publicity to the people you’re protesting – and does anybody really care about Stone anymore?  So I imagine he’s thrilled by this.  But it doesn’t change the fact that what he’s doing in this documentary glorifying Hugo Chavez is repulsive and dishonest.

• Mel Gibson’s life and career have now officially imploded. Don’t believe anyone who tells you he can recover from this.  He’s done.  And while we’re at it, Kelsey Grammar has got some major p.r. headaches coming his way, as well.  Very sorry to read all this.

• In separate incidents, Kim Kardashian recently posed next to a wax figure of herself, and Megan Fox posed with a mannequin of herself.  Our challenge to LFM readers: pick out the fakes!

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Dolly Parton is defending Miley Cyrus’ new ‘sexy’ persona, saying “we need to let her spread her wings.”  Dolly would know. 🙂

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

Posted on July 2nd, 2010 at 12:20pm.

Muslim Harry Potter Actress Assaulted by Father, Brother

Afshan Azad, of "Harry Potter" fame.

By Jason Apuzzo. Afshan Azad, the British actress best known for her role as Padma Patil in the “Harry Potter” films, has accused her Islamic father and brother of trying to kill her.  Azad is claiming she was attacked because her father and brother apparently didn’t like her boyfriend, whom she refused to stop seeing. She claims she was left beaten and bruised.  According to CNN the family is Muslim, and of Bengali descent.

Her father Abdul Azad, 54, and brother Ashraf Azad, 28, have been arrested and charged with threatening to kill her.  Ashraf Azad is also accused of assaulting his sister causing her actual bodily harm.

As part of their bail conditions, the two men are required to abide by a curfew, and not travel to London or contact an unnamed man.  You can read more about this on the Fox News website.

This is incredibly disgusting behavior, and there should be an immediate condemnation from the Hollywood filmmaking community.  As of right now, though, I’m not seeing this story mentioned anywhere in the trades.  Why do I think I know why?

LFM readers have probably noticed that we spend a lot of time here covering what might be termed ‘women’s issues,’ or otherwise spotlighting women in film and the media.  One of the reasons we do this is because the battle lines in our current War on Terror are different from where they were, for example, during the Cold War.  The War on Terror is as much a war over the freedoms of women as anything else, and these freedoms need to be asserted over and over again.  These freedoms include, but are obviously not limited to, the right of women to make choices about their romantic and sexual lives.

We will continue to follow this story as it unfolds.  By the way: we’d love to hear from all you readers right now who thought Sex and the City 2 was ‘unfair’ in its portrayal of women in Islamic society.  In the comments section of her review of Sex and the City 2, Govindini debated several readers (one a Muslim female, another a Western feminist) on this point … and we’d love to hear back from these gals now about how tolerant and open Islamic society is toward women and their ambitions.

Posted on July 2nd, 2010 at 10:32am.