Gross Behaviour - by Leonard Klady

It’s difficult to equate Valenti to any single figure in the world of politics or film, living or dead. Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind for his “walk softly and carry a big stick” advisory but despite his title of president, Cactus Jack is better viewed as an Ambassador without portfolio or the eminence gris of the court of Hollywood. There’s a story he tells of going to Yugoslavia to cement a trade agreement with Tito. A U.S. foreign service rep advised him that setting up such a meeting would take months and likely ultimately involve a low ranking staff functionary. Valenti had neither the time nor patience for going through official channels and instead had his secretary contact Tito’s office and explain that he would be arriving Thursday with Kirk Douglas and would like to meet with him before departing the following day. Exactly who was bumped from the schedule has been lost in the paperwork of regime change.

June 25, 2003
What's In A Name?

Our entertainers are gods we generally relate to on a first name basis. So, it’s helpful when they have an uncommon name like Beyonce or Harrison. In film circles, there is only one Mel. However, depending on what music circles you orbit, invoking that name might resurrect Tillis or Torme. Still, even those unfortunate enough to have retained birth names such as John, George, Susan or Jennifer can theoretically ascend to stardom even with such an obvious handicap.

A lot of ink has been spilled recently on the subject of piracy as it affects several sectors of the entertainment industry. As the Milius anecdote indicates, it is not a new phenomenon. Various estimates have been made but of late conservatively about $3 billion annually that should be funneling back to the American film industry goes astray. The good news, so to speak, is that it translates to about 8% of revenues generated from U.S. movies globally, a fairly consistent percentage of annual lost revenue for at least 30 years.

So, why the sudden spotlight on a decades old factor that’s historically induced yawns.

Presently L.A. has two events that aspire to be important annual film showcases - the Los Angeles Film Festival that opens Thursday and the AFI Los Angeles Film Festival in November. Both run 10-days and screen roughly 100 features (including mini-retrospectives), plus shorts, panels, workshops and sundry other activities associated with this sort of film smorgasbord.

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About $180 million worth of movie tickets were sold last weekend in what we call the domestic marketplace (U.S. and Canada). Or, to put it in slightly different terms, roughly 10% of the population went to the movies between Friday and Sunday.

The point of all this scrutiny is that business was atypically strong, roughly 50% better than the same period in 2002. It got me thinking about the so-called elasticity of movie going and my own dark suspicion that there’s some artificial ceiling to how many people can be lured into cinemas.

Bests and rests aside, the thread that seemed to run through this year’s reportage was betrayal. Somehow the tacit contract between the Cannes programmers and the press had been broken and the latter group was intent on blowing the whistle on the deal breaker. Of course, such a position is irrational. Now, having attended about 20 editions of Cannes, there are a few things I know to be incontrovertibly true about the festival.

Let’s begin with an industry truism. A film works on its own merits; a film fails because of a bad publicity campaign.

The wonderful thing about Hollywood truisms is that they are almost always wrong. Not that there aren’t instances where a quality film has prevailed in the face of a club footed advertising/marketing campaign, or that a potential blockbuster was quashed by a misconceived strategy.

Last weekend, Larry King interviewed Nick Nolte who repeated the fact that he would do films such as Another 48 Hrs. and I Love Trouble for big fees and develop a heart flutter during production. So, for a decade he’s worked outside the mainstream on the likes of Affliction, Afterglow and Mother Night and one can only assume his flutter evaporated when the producers of The Hulk asked him to play the creature’s father. Whether Nolte has worked for scale, deferrals or less than $1 million is not relevant. He put his art where his mother was and was doubtlessly pliant about the dollar remuneration because of a personal challenge that loomed.

Last week I ran into a noted film craftsman and as we gabbed over coffee the inevitable question of “what are you doing?” came up. Well, what he may or may not be doing next is a thriller financed by Intermedia titled Me Again. The yarn centering on an amnesiac who is either a hitman or a lawman is to be directed by Dean Parisot with Diane Lane and, up until two weeks ago, Bruce Willis attached to the project.

Identifying trends is a tricky business. Just because the majors via osmosis or spontaneous combustion appear to be making a certain type of film does not necessarily translate into that sort of picture’s guaranteed box office success. Traditionally, Hollywood likes to capitalize on “proven formulas.” So, hits spawn sequels and look-alikes (X-Men, Spider-Man, The Hulk). When an anomaly connects with audiences (There’s Something About Mary, American Pie) it will spur studios and producers to reassess what are perceived as similar projects that had been sent into the development deep freeze last season.

The first time I can recall a picture costing so much money it had to be financed by two studios was roughly three decades ago. The film was The Towering Inferno and its budget was something like $40 million when most movies cost about $5 million. Producer Irwin Allen was coming off the incredible success of The Poseidon Adventure but despite Allen’s intention of using the biggest stars in the world - Steve McQueen and Paul Newman - 20^th Century Fox didn’t want to shoulder the expense alone and worked out an arrangement with Warner Bros. to handle the film internationally.

Today, if you’re fortunate to live in one of roughly a dozen major cities in North America, you have the opportunity to take in annual programs of recent movies from, minimally, Spain, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. You might also receive exposure to Asian, Scandinavian or African movies at special festivals or via museum of gallery programs. Los Angeles recently saw the City of Lights series from France and is about to get a week’s worth of historic Russian cinema. The city - with such venues as the L.A. County Museum, UCLA, the American Cinematheque and the American Film Institute at Arclight - has now surpassed New York as a movie lover’s Mecca second only to Paris and London.

April 9, 2003
Never Play Against The House

Imagine for a moment a trip to the supermarket and a shopping list with the word “cereal.” When you arrive at that section and gaze at the sea of 24 different breakfast grains panic could well set in. After all, your choice will affect the lives of a household of five. Your physical proximity to the product gives you a special privilege and your personal contact with the absent quartet is both an asset and detriment to arriving at a compromise solution. However, you will have to bear the praise or scorn of the others for what you ultimately bring home in a bag. That sense of pressure will only intensify as you repeat the process for “laundry detergent,” “pet food” and “potato chips.”

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April 3, 2003
Safety Last … and forever

The movie biz is famous for stories of go-getters who work long hours, abuse their bodies with drugs and alcohol and think nothing of stabbing you in the front. In sharp contrast, one doesn’t hear a lot about the “little people” who work 80-hour weeks for just OK wages (not quite Dickensian conditions), often in unsafe work environments. The first group actually opts for a certain lifestyle; the latter more often cower in silence, frightened that should they speak up, they will be shown the door.

XTC2: The Death of Film. Sometime back in 1989, filmmaker Bernard Rose accepted an invitation to view a demonstration of new digital and high-definition technologies. At the time he was preparing a very expensive film at Universal - The Thief of Always, an effects-laden adventure in the spirit of Harry Potter that had been written by Clive Barker (Rose directed the Barker screenplay Candyman).

The notion that talent will rise above the noise derives rom deep-rooted American traditions including such venerable literary touchstones as the 18^th century Jonathan tales and Horatio Alger pop yarns from the turn-of-the-century. In relation to movies it is the understudy pushed onto the stage when the star literally breaks her leg, the Rocky saga or, as evidenced just last year, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

January 22, 2003
I think it would be fun to run a newspaper...

Sometime back in the dark ages, there were people who gravitated to the city of Los Angeles because they loved the movies. I’m not talking about people with stars in their eyes that believed the myth of being spotted at Schwab’s by a talent agent and skyrocketing to the heavens. No, just ordinary Janes and Joes that wanted to be part of the dream factory and perhaps work in the prop department or write stories. They were the essence of what gave the town its vitality.

And just to procrastinate a second longer, every time I approach this exercise I recall the words of Andrew Sarris who’s been beating himself up for years about excluding Vertigo and Touch of Evil back in 1958. I’m almost positive I did not see 10 films for the ages last year and, rest assured, will not begin to attempt to rank the pictures that moved me. The choices are random based on memory, currency and a refresher list....

Ooops, wrong campaign. Yes, the ballots were counted last week and the results announced. But the contest involved changes to the method(s) in which writing credits are determined in motion picture and television production. The whole issue of credit where credit is due has been an on-going and intense debate within the Writers Guild of America membership. It’s visited and re-visited endlessly and, in this latest round, the drafters of new rules and regs decided to split up issues into separate proposals for ratification or dismissal.

November 13, 2002
A FI Fest 2002

I hate old chestnuts. So, it’s with some trepidation that I’m dipping my toe into that old watering hole known as the film festival.

What got me thinking about the subject was a frenzied weekend at the
2002 AFI Fest in Los Angeles. I bounced around and saw films from the Philippines, France and Germany. Films by the likes of David Cronenberg, Patrice Leconte and lesser known (though not untalented) filmmakers. The selection was better than in its recent past but something rather unusual is occurring this year … people are attending.