We thought he was in it! Sean Penn has been nixed from the new Harrison Ford movie “Crossing Over” and there’s a whole fiasco as to why. Directed by Wayne Kramer, it’s a debacle of a story involving Harvey Weinstein and his notoriously oily ways and it’s such a good controversy, we’d normally devote an entire post to it, but god, for the love of us, we can’t get interested in this film in the least. However, if you wan to read another good Hollywood horror story, this is a good one. [HollywoodElsewhere]
A really interesting piece about the relationship between Brad Pitt and David Fincher (they’ve worked together on “Seven” and “Fight Club” and now ‘Benjamin Button’). Pitt signed on to “Seven” with one condition: the studio couldn’t change the ending. Apparently the two click despite, “stark differences in style.” Their relationship is symbiotic, “Fincher provides Pitt gravitas… and Pitt is the first to acknowledge that his dramatic chops are more recognized in Fincher’s [Pitt-starring films]. Pitt, in return, bestows Fincher inordinate clout. For a guy who has never made a blockbuster, Fincher is able to make the movies he wants, glum endings and all, thanks in part to his friendship with the most famous actor on the planet.” It’s a good read. [USA Today]
Did you read the New York Times profile of Mickey Rourke this weekend? Man, they kind of hammer him and essentially suggest he’s been milking his hard-times comeback story. It’s kind of harsh and they call him emotionally insincere.
“So what if he cries at the same moment in the same story in every interview? So what if his candor sometimes sounds like the bad dialogue from one of his many bad movies (“I have no one to go to to fix the broken pieces in myself”) or that his self-deprecation seems culled from the stock stories of so many fading actors (“I was in 7-Eleven, and this guy says, ‘Didn’t you used to be a movie star?'”)? So what if he seems disingenuous, at best, when he says he can’t remember that critics nominated him one of the world’s worst actors in 1991 (“I probably would have voted with them”).” Ouch. To be slightly fair, Rourke sounds like a 12-step recovery guy, not neccesarily from booze, but from emotional issues and everyone knows that 12-steppers repeat their stories over and over again like mantras. [NYTimes]
Bloggers Nikki Finke and Sharon Waxman are engaged in heated beef apparently because the latter is encroaching on the formers territory about the potential Screen Actors Guild strike. Waxman says a “secret SAG meeting” took place. Finke says no meeting ever took place. We kinda like Finke’s chutzpah, but knowing her immature “told you so!” reporting, we think she’s feeling the heat of competition and is pissed that Waxman knew about a meeting she was unaware of and is trying to discredit (Patrick Goldstein feels the same way). Either way, internecine blog feuds are always amsuing. [AnneThompson]
TV spots for Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino” reveal more footage. Hopefully that convey that the movie is (hopefully) more than just grumpy old man on his lawn. [/Film]
Shots of Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” with Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard and Johnny Depp are online. We’re on the fence, “Heat” is one of the most overrated films of the 1990s and “Miami Vice” was dreadful. However “Ali” and “Collateral” we both surprisingly good and the cast is great, so we’re tentatively looking forward to it. [Empire/Film/FirstShowing]
Please tell us this “Che” poster is just a teaser one or a joke cause we’re not feeling it at all. That’s an indelible image and you can’t fuck with it like that. [HollywoodElsewhere]
Debbie Allen, Charles S. Dutton, Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally and Bebe Neuwirth? Sounds like your mom did the casting of the “Fame” remake. [Variety]
Peter Bart lauds the ambition behind “Australia” and “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.” “They are jumbo-sized anomalies. At a moment when belt-tightening is the order of the day, “Australia” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” reflect grandiose creative appetites and lavish visions. And we should be grateful for them.” Hear, hear. [Variety]
Variety notes that “Cadillac Records” blurs the truth of the blues and that the music movie “hypes the myth, not the facts.” That may be true, but what biopic type film doesn’t do that? More importantly, why was ‘Cadillac’ so damn ham-fisted and corny? That’s what people should really be asking. [Variety]
