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.]
• 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.
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.
The seismic shift in media consumption is definitely on its way, but I agree with you that Google TV probably isn’t going to change the playing field all that much. I don’t see myself buying that thing, because I’ve gotten settled into watching some stuff on TV, other stuff on my portable device.
I’ve actually gotten tired of keeping up with this stuff. I’m beginning to think Ray Bradbury was right when he said recently that we have “too many devices.”
I’ve always been a huge fan of Gucci and Frank Miller — so that’s really cool.
It is cool, isn’t it? Looking forward to the other ads.
Love the Gucci ad … but couldn’t they find a better looking guy? You need really glamorous looking people in a Gucci ad, and the problem is, these second-tier Hollywood people just don’t cut it. They should have used real models instead.
I’ll let the ladies decide on that one … but yes, you’re probably right. 🙂
California needs to do a lot more to keep productions in-state. $100 million total in tax credits, and they’re all given out in one day? That’s not going to help the average indie production very much. There are tens of thousands of film people out of work right now in the state, and the state govt’ couldn’t care less. It’s insane that all these film and TV people keep voting these Democrats in year after year, even though the Dems are bankrupting the state and driving them all into the unemployment line.
The problem is, the Republicans in this state are so far behind they can never get their act together and retake the legislature (the ridiculous gerrymandering of all the districts by the Dems hasn’t helped here either), and our movie-star Republican governor, as you pointed out, has done absolutely nothing to help. Has that guy been a big zero, or what? Schwarzennegger could have really helped the state and the film industry, but he’s treated his position as if it is just one more movie role, and not a serious job that affects millions of lives.
Yes, it’s a crime.