[Today’s entry at Premium Hollywood had some FtY suitable material, so here it is again.]

Filthy lucre is today’s theme in movieland. Really, it’s every day’s theme, but it’s on my mind today.

* Nikki Finke, who actually makes money blogging, notes a pay cut for William Morris assistants, who already work ridiculously hard for the hope of decent money some day, and are expected to work a minimum of fifty hours a week. Presumably they get some overtime (though one wonders if they’re not working actually quite a bit more — Hollywood and Walmart have been known to have a few things in common in the past). They’d better because their boss’s brother is the White House chief of staff. Could get messy, otherwise.

Finke also has an interesting — inasmuch as I can follow it — look at some silver linings amidst the major studio’s fiscals clouds.

* A noted casting change in the third “Twilight” will probably not affect grosses perceptibly, but there’s no stopping those wagging tongues.

* And with all the fuss at Comic-Con, the appearance of anime genius Hiyao Miyazaki got all but ignored by the media, as far as I can tell. “Princess Mononoke” beat “Titanic” in Japan. If it had done so here, it’s fair to say he wouldn’t have been a relative afterthought.

* What of “District 9″? Given one of a few strong early reviews by Justin Chang, will politically trenchant, if thoughtfully violent/icky, Sci-Fi set in South Africa find a big enough American audience? (H/t Jeffrey Wells.)

* For those of you who live outside of California, it might be interesting to note that while mass chaos seems far away here, the state’s fiscal crisis really is effecting everything and everyone to varying degrees. People I know who work in the public sector out are personally experiencing furloughs and pay cuts to go with them, classroom sizes are ballooning absurdly and on it goes to some pretty scary and sad places.

It may not be directly related, but the Los Angeles Times report that the L.A. County Museum of Art is ending its weekend programming hits me where I live. As Anne Thompson points out, some of that may be due to some very canny competition from the terrific Los Angeles Cinematheque, a relatively very young organization that has actually come to the fore during the DVD era with two theaters at opposite ends of town offering some pretty great programming.

The Times‘ John Horn strikes a perhaps overly drastic or even borderline intellectually snobbish note on that point, though it’s true that this is not a golden age for art movies. LACMA was more prone than any other venue to offer works by such cinephile-only filmmakers as Bela Tarr, whose best known movie is the 7.5 hour “Satantango,” and will be closing out with the far-from-Frank Capra Alain Resnais.

Nevertheless, the museum’s Bing Theater was certainly not above offering crowd-pleasing fare from time to time and, indeed, not doing so would be to ignore a huge part of film history. Still, a cannier mix might not have hurt so much. Since they are talking of tie-ins with museum shows, programs similar to (or identical to) New York’s MOMA collaboration with Tim Burton might be in order. If regular film programming ever does return to MOCA, a little more Charlie Chaplin and a little less Maoist-period Godard might not be the end of the world, either.

There’s no point in ignoring the posthumous Michael Jackson mania sweeping Movietown today. So, here’s a creepily sentimental movie moment with a lot of poignant subtext which also happens to feature the late singer’s first solo hit. “Ben” was a sequel to the earlier “Willard” which was remade in 2003. I’ve seen neither film, but they were horror flicks featuring nasty but (I guess) lovable killer rats. It looks like the first film tried to combine “Psycho” and “The Birds,” but “Ben” appears to be going for something more like “Rattie Come Home.”

The song, by Walter Scharf and Don Black, was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe, and there’s no denying the awe-inspiring vocal abilities of the eleven or twelve-year old Jackson. He sells the song with delicacy and emotion, and it saves the final scene below. However, it probably helped with the Top 40 success of the song that most listeners had no idea it was about a rat.

Embedding has been disabled, but YouTube also has a powerful video of Jackson performing the song on the Oscars in 1973.

(Also posted at Premium Hollywood.)

Given that many of his films reflect what you might call the broad sweep of black history, a way-too-clever writer might try to compare Denzel Washington – exemplary family man, matinee idol with a conscience, two-time Academy Award winner and the first African-American to win a Best Actor Oscar – to our current president. A smarter writer, however, might compare him to other actors, perhaps including those of other ethnicities.

Washington is, among other things, an old-fashioned movie star. Trained on the stage, he confesses to being influenced by “the method,” yet his acting has none of the emotional fetishism that is so common in the post-Marlon Brando movie world. Indeed, his complete ease before the camera and his low-key joy of performance is probably most similar to Spencer Tracy. The stocky, un-pretty Tracy was nearly the physical opposite of Washington. Still, the relaxed charisma, the ability to generate a laugh or a shiver with a simple expression, and Washington’s awe-inspiring commitment and confidence mirrors the ability of the classic era great, whose only advice to young thespians was to learn their lines and avoid bumping into the furniture.

Indeed, as the meticulously handsome Washington steps into the shoes of slob par excellance Walter Matthau in director Tony Scott’s remake of “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3“, it’s an opportune time to take a look at some of the lesser-known films from the actor’s back catalog. They’re quite an assortment, sometimes messy and imperfect, but always worthy of your attention. Denzel Washington rarely makes a boring choice.

CLICK HERE FOR TEN FROM WASHINGTON’S BACK CATALOGUE.

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Special FtY Not Really Exclusive Bonus: Denzel Sings!!!!!

Character actress Lorna Raver starred in the year’s best reviewed horror film, and all she got was this lousy button.

Being in the same general ethnic/religious cohort doesn’t give me the right to speak for writer-director Sam Raimi and his co-writer brother Ivan, but this Jewish kid was just a little bit traumatized when he first learned about the traditional Christian concept of hell. Judaism has no hell other than guilt and death, so learning about the fire, the pitchforks, and the eternal torment – and that millions believed that, by virtue of my non-Christianity, I was going to suffer all of it – was a little traumatic. I hadn’t even done anything bad enough yet to be grounded.

In “Drag Me to Hell,” Raimi and company fashion what is in some respects an only slightly less unjust universe, in which the failure to perform a single mitvah (usually translated from Hebrew as a good deed, but in reality it means the act of obeying a commandment) is transubstantiated from Jewish recrimination into Catholic punishment of the pre-Vatican II variety. In this case, a single selfish choice lands loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) in serious danger of eternal damnation after being cursed, Gypsy style, by Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), easily the least attractive woman of any age in Los Angeles. It gets worse; the woman has very sharp and very ugly dentures, and she’s not afraid to use them, right alongside the supernatural abilities available to all Romani movie females over age 60. Naturally, poor Christine’s relationship with her understanding psychologist boyfriend (Justin “I’m a Mac” Long, playing straight man for a change) will be somewhat strained as she is subjected to one bizarre supernatural attack after another – including surprise visits in her car, a projectile nosebleed (at least a pint’s worth), and the old eyeball-in-the-“Harvest Cake” trick.

READ THE REST AT BULLZ-EYE.COM

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Huffpo has the very sad and strange news of the late David Carradine’s apparent suicide. All I can say is that the world lost more than a terrific actor with a dry sense of humor, and a member of one of the nation’s premier acting families, it lost something else too — a real onscreen badass mofo. That means more than being to pull off some martial arts moves, it means presence and Mr. Carradine certainly made those Carradine genetics work for him. He’s even memorable as a soon-to-be-dead drunk in Scorsese’s Mean Streets.

My Premium Hollywood/Bullz-Eye colleague/sometime boss Will Harris, who interviewed Carradine, has a personal remembrance and a whole lot more, and Glenn Kenny briefly recalls a few of Carradine’s more interesting mid-career performances, including his work as Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby’s Bound for Glory, all of which I’ve seen…but not for a very long time. (Well, Ingmar Bergman’s The Serpent’s Egg was more recent, but I’ve kind of struck from my memory on purpose…not my, or anyone else’s, favorite Bergman film…but still, isn’t it cool that Carradine worked with Ingmar-f*cking-Bergman?). The invaluable David Hudson also has much more info.

And finally we have a great deleted scene from Kill Bill, Volume II that shows that, even in his late sixties, Carradine still had the badass mofo mojo down and knew how to impress a killer lady, versus no less an opponent than Michael Jai White (Spawn, Black Dynamite). I don’t want to get spiritual here, but Carradine had long ago achieved B-movie nirvana, at least.

* First, I’d like to start by officially introducing the latest addition to the blogroll. More a Legend Than a Blog is emitted by the fertile mind of my good friend, film lover and music-maven CZR, who is actually the only other person to have ever blogged here other than yours truly (under a different name). His site is a treat and he deserves a heartily warm welcome to the cinephile (and music) blogosphere.

CZR’s latest takes on the “Ten Characters” meme, which I’m still tardy on myself. (Brian Doan tagged me some time ago, but I only noticed he had done so about a month after the fact!)

* Over the weekend, a couple of posts by me appeared over at Premium Hollywood regarding weekend box-office, etc. There will be more of this to come in the near future, and that may cut into my blogging here to some degree. I’m definitely planning to preserve this spot as a place for more personal and/or esoteric musings and I’ll look into a way to connect my work at both places somehow, but posts here may become even more sporadic. We shall see.

* And, in other, other news, A veritable geek storm has erupted over an item at the Hollywood Reporter reporting a Star Trek and Twilight inspired reboot, or something, of the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer franchise, only without Buffy creator Joss Whedon, sans Buffy’s erstwhile “scooby” friends (no Willow!!!! Aaaagh!!!!!!), and, if I read it right, without Buffy.

A bit of backstory: Fran Rubel Kuzui, director of the original, pleasantly mediocre, movie version of the franchise once upon a time fashioned a perfectly respectable, pleasantly lightweight autobiographical indie romantic comedy, Tokyo Pop (or that’s how I remember it…I haven’t seen it since it’s 1988 release, when I was but a highly precocious toddler). In typical Hollywood fashion, on her second (and, so far, final) feature as a director, most accounts hold that Rubel and company seriously refashioned Whedon’s original screenplay from a serio-comic actioner to an out and out teen comedy with random changes made to the screenplay from a number of sources, including, according to Whedon, co-star Donald Sutherland (who you will never see in any other Whedon project, it’s safe to say).

Since then, Rubel Kazui has held on to some of the rights, and fans of the Buffy TV show saw her name at the front of every episode…and almost nothing else about her existence that I know of. It’s safe to assume that she had zero input on the television show and received the credit as part of her compensation for the rights. Now, as most of you probably know, a major plot thread of the TV show was Buffy’s trouble-plagued romance with a (mostly) good guy vampire named Angel, setting the hearts of fans of Sarah Michelle Geller and David Boreanaz seriously aflutter. Hence, the Twilight connection — though lips that touched blood never touched those belonging to movie-Buffy Kristy Swanson.

So, with those Trek and Twilight grosses pointing the way, Kuzui and Vertigo Entertainment, which usually specializes in remaking Asian films for the American market, is trying to restart the franchise, apparently using a loophole from the original concept of there being a new slayer in every generation. As a fan of the show, trust me when I say this is nowhere near as clever as the loophole J.J. Abrams and company came up with to stay on (most) Trekkies’ good sides. Overall, this idea strikes me as if the Coca-Cola company had put out New Coke as a non-carbonated non-cola. Buffy without Buffy Summers, and the Whedonverse, without Whedon = box office gold?!? Nah.

Assuming it ever happens, of course. Whedon is an extremely savvy third-generation show biz writer who has already pulled off the unheard of feats of retrieving a lost screenplay concept and remaking it as his own TV show, and then turning another quickly-canceled television show into a major, if not immediately profitable, Hollywood film (Serenity). He is usually protective of his properties, to the extent that he has any control. I’m guessing that this one is almost certain to generate very interesting behind-the-scenes maneuvers.

As always, on Whedon-related matters Whedonesque is very much on top of the story.

UPDATE: Michael Ausiello has managed to elicit a four word response from Joss Whedon, whose currently working on his horror film collaboration with Drew Goddard, “The Cabin in the Woods.” Those four words are:

I hope it’s cool.

H/t Whedonesque.

UPDATE, the second: The aforementioned Brian and CZR each have some worthwhile thoughts on Buffy-less Buffy, or whatever it is.

I have to admit up-front that this is something of a pet movie – the kind you love all the more because not that many people have seen it. Why? Let’s start by saying it’s a superbly well-crafted, mid-‘80s blend of Brit gangster flick, suspense, heavy-duty irony, and Zen/existentialist philosophy. It’s also a remarkable agglomeration of talent on both sides of the camera, and stars three of the greatest leading men/character actors that England produced in the latter half of 20th century — two at the peak of their powers and one at the very beginning of his long film and television career. It’s also notable as the film that established the feature film career of a personal favorite, Stephen Frears, the too-versatile-for-his-own-good director behind “Sammy and Rosie Get Laid,” “The Grifters,” “Dirty Pretty Things,” “High Fidelity,” “The Queen” and many others. But forget all that, what’s really striking about “The Hit” is its subject matter. This isn’t just another thriller about criminals threatened with death; it’s an entirely entertaining parable that’s actually about death and how we humans face our own end.

Written by Frears’ then-frequent TV collaborator, novelist Peter Prince, “The Hit” opens at the Old Bailey, circa the early ‘70s. Low-rent crook Willie Parker (Terrence Stamp) turns state’s evidence on several of his criminal pals, who respond by serenading him with the sentimental World War II-era anthem, “We’ll Meet Again.” The meaning is clear enough. Ten years later, Willie, now a suave 40-something bohemian with a picture of John Lennon over his bed, is hiding out in high style on Spain’s Costa del Sol. In the course of an afternoon bike ride he metaphorically meets his old mates again through the person of the extremely deadly Mr. Braddock (John Hurt) and Myron (Tim Roth, in his first theatrical film), a glorified soccer hooligan being given his big break in the murder biz.

Saying that the assignment calls for Willie to meet with the crime boss he betrayed, Braddock chooses not to execute his victim on the spot, but to take him on a proverbial ride through Spain’s countryside with France as the ultimate destination. Allowing himself to be in a “road picture” is Braddock’s first mistake. One problem he encounters along the way is Maggie (Laura del Sol), a beautiful young ex-street urchin with a terrifying will to live. The other is the intended victim, who, after some initial resistance, seems not to be all that put out by the near-certainty of his immanent murder. Is Willie Parker merely a blissed-out intellectual, or is the Zen-like calm some kind of outrageous gambit to save his own skin? Regardless, it throws Braddock and thuggish Myron seriously off their games.

READ THE REST AT BULLZ-EYE.COM

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Tom Hanks has an image problem. It’s that he’s – you know – polite, decent, pleasant. No matter how darkly interestingly some of his roles have been since relatively early in his career, we still think of the hilariously likable guy and gifted comic actor who turns up on award shows and “SNL,” not the sometimes tortured, more complex characters he insists on occasionally playing – and playing increasingly well.

Jimmy Stewart, the star to whom Tom Hanks will forever be compared, had a similar deepening and darkening of his persona during his middle years, but his experiences in the World War II Army Air Corps provided the kind of simplistic explanation we writers like to hang onto. So, how do we account for the power of his shattering performance in “Saving Private Ryan” since, as far as we know, the closest Tom Hanks has been to the insanity of random violence is being in the same room with Mel Gibson?

Could if be that acting is a craft – the kind you get better at with practice? Could it be that we all have a certain amount of darkness and fear in our lives and that good actors are just extremely skilled at figuring out how to access that darkness? Looking through this assortment of lesser-known performances from Hollywood’s best-liked, double Oscar-winner, multi-hyphenate actor-producer-director-writer and all-around power player, one can see real development and, more intriguingly, proof that you don’t need to be half-insane to be a good actor.

Read my look at ten less well known Hanks opuses at Bullz-Eye.com

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And, with thanks to Hanks-fan extraordinaire RJR (who also consulted with me on which films to watch).

When “This is Spinal Tap” premiered twenty-five years ago, the now classic mock-documentary about lightly-brained, heavily sedated British metal stars on the skids received good reviews but unexciting box office. Considering that most people who saw it – and understood that it wasn’t a real documentary — thought it was one of the funniest movies they’d ever seen, it wasn’t too big a surprise that it soon became a very significant cult hit via home video. What was a bit harder to predict was that a film featuring three only moderately well known comedian/satirists and directed by then first-timer Rob Reiner would become one of the most influential comedies of its era. It certainly wasn’t clear that lines such as “this goes to eleven” or “it’s such a fine line between stupid and clever” would enter the general musical and cultural lexicon, and that, decades on, “mock docs” would remain among the most popular of low-budget movie subgenres — and not only for comedy.

Still the biggest surprise of all was that, as musicians, improv geniuses Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, turned out to be better at music as a sideline than most of those who do it fulltime. Not only could the trio play rockers like “Big Bottom” and “Sex Farm” live with brio and dexterity, “unplugged” versions of such vintage Tap classics as “Listen to the Flower People” and “Give Me Some Money” were among the highlights of their early live shows. Of course, the shows were funny, but the big surprise was how well played the music actually was, wowing both metalheads and metal-haters (that would be me) alike.

Read more about the Unwigged press conference (with actual FtY questions) at Premium Hollywood.com

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Wigged and Plugged….

Up to now, I’ve been a no-show at the several cinephile exams that have been hosted over the last couple of years at Dennis Cozzalio’s legendarily brainy film geek blog, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. Well, before splitting for a hard-earned vacation, Dennis has posted a new exam on film-related matters, up in honor of the cartoon dog genius, Prof. Peabody, which you’re all encouraged to take.

I’ve posted my responses in the comment thread over there already, but now that I’m a SLIFR slacker no more, I thought I’d make ‘em do double duty here because we know that my opinions matter, or something.

Here goes….

1) Favorite Biopic

“Lawrence of Arabia” – an obviously great film and a rather pedestrian choice given that I really like biopics, sometimes the cheesier and and more ridiculously fabricated the better. Therefore, quasi-demi-honorable mention is alluded this triumvirate of absurdly wrong biopics – “The Jolson Story” (it’s amazing how much Al Jolson’s life was just like the plot of “The Jazz Singer”!), “They Died With Their Boots On” (the love affair between Custer and the Indians your socialist history teacher doesn’t want you to see!) and “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” (he didn’t just appear in action movies…he lived them!).

2) Dyan Cannon or Tuesday Weld?

It’s close, but I give it to Dyan Cannon for being hilarious onscreen and genuinely wacky offscreen.

3) Best example of science fiction futurism rendered silly by the event of time catching up to the prediction

The Jetson’s treadmill? I’m drawing a blank here.

4) Annette Funicello & Frankie Avalon or Troy Donahue & Sandra Dee?

Frankie & Annette – I grew up watching those movies on channels 5 & 9 (I think) out here up to age 10 or so. Not that those movies are in any sense “good” (I wonder if I could sit through any of them now?), but F&A at least have a certain amount of charm and sense of humor, which I really can’t say about Troy Donahue, at least.

5) Favorite Raoul Walsh movie?

Not really “White Heat,” and no, definitely not “They Died with Their Boots On”… The winner is “The Roaring Twenties” – by far. Just a magnificent entertainment. I need to see that one again some time soon.

6) Sophomore film which represents greatest improvement over the director’s debut

This is tough, but I guess I’m going to say Polanski’s “Repulsion” as it’s brilliant and “Knife in the Water” left me feeling merely 90 minutes older after it was done. Though, that was in college and I might have a very different reaction now. (Another possibility is “Rushmore” – though I loved “Bottle Rocket” quite a bit, so it’s dicey.)

7) Ice Cube or Mos Def?

Mos Def – because he convinced me he was actually English in “Hithchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Favorite movie about the music industry.

Many, many fun movies in this category, but I guess I’m going to have to go with “Nashville.”

(more…)