Among the more preposterous rumors spread by Harry Knowles, whose Ain’t It Cool News movie-biz-gossip Website garners undue attention from studios too craven to do their own thinking, was one from year’s beginning: Terrence Malick, Knowles “reported,” was working on an adaptation of The Catcher in the Rye for Fox…
We paid import price for this — it was out in the U.K. in January, released here last month — and still, it was a bargain. The onetime Rolling Stones sleeping bag best known for a handful of cult releases and a stint sleeping in the street with a needle…
At this late date — 15 years since its inception, or a century in hip-hop years — Public Enemy’s only competition is its own past. Chuck D knows this too, and it irks him like nothing else since the Jews took over the media and shut down ex-calypso singer Louis…
Robert Evans wrote his autobiography in 1994 as much out of desperation as hubris. It cried out, “Damn it, look at me… please?” He’d produced one film during the past ten years, The Cotton Club, which was such a colossal failure that it rendered Evans a moot point in Hollywood,…
To misappropriate a choice comment from TV journalist turned music-biz impresario Tony Wilson, I’ll just say “Ian Curtis.” If you know what I mean, great; if you don’t, it doesn’t matter, but you should probably read more. That is, one need not be a fan of the late Curtis, epileptic…
Things you will learn from a forthcoming oral history of Saturday Night Live: Dan Aykroyd slept with, among others, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman and writer Rosie Shuster, the latter of whom was, at the time, married to the show’s producer and creator, Lorne Michaels. To this day, Chevy Chase regrets…
Andrew Niccol keeps making the same movie over and over again and dressing it in slightly different clothes: the sleek charcoal Hugo Boss grays of Gattaca, the crisp Crayola hues of The Truman Show and now, the silk-and-satin Hollywood resplendence of Simone. Niccol, writer and director, is obsessed with a…
A press pass, reporter-turned-novelist Gregory McDonald once said, is good for one thing: It allows the journalist to ask very smart people very stupid questions. Certainly, that’s how it feels after this 45-minute drive from downtown Dallas to the Allen home of Stan Liebowitz, professor of economics at the University…
Every teenage male I know swears by Led Zep, which makes a certain kind of sense: Theirs was an immortal bombast, a melodic rumble far more riveting than what passes for nü-rawk these days; even loud, especially loud, it never lost its shape, which is far more than you can…
Like George Clooney says in Ocean’s Eleven, do the math: four Canon XL1 digital cameras, one dual 800 MHz Power Mac G4, a copy of editing software Final Cut Pro 3, 18 shooting days, a 2-million-buck budget, one Oscar-winning Best Director, and nine high-profile actors (among them Julia Roberts, Brad…
This time around, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan puts the surprise at the beginning of his film, and it’s a subtle, shimmering clue — one easily missed and, frankly, one that might not even be there at all. Such are the temptations offered by the maker of The Sixth Sense and…
At this very moment, members of the Television Critics Association are gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena, California, to preview this fall’s new series, interview those responsible for them and, finally, gorge themselves silly and drink themselves stupid on the networks’ dwindling dime. This event, the so-called “press tour,” takes…
It’s too easy to write him off, though the temptation’s there; has been for damned near two decades, since he asked us to dance and promptly strapped on two left feet. Ah, but what the realist calls “murky ambition” the apologist deems “experimental victory.” So, then, what makes Heathen Bowie’s…
Joe Versus the Volcano ran on cable last week. Contained within that misguided, unmemorable film was a small scene that only now resonates. Tom Hanks, who believes he has not long to live, emerges from a doctor’s office wearing a fedora too small for his head and a trench coat…
A pal asked last week, “Who you writing about?” Told him, “Art Linson,” which screwed his face into a big ol’ question mark. “He’s a movie producer. He made Heat, Fight Club, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Untouchables, Car Wash…” Said said friend upon hearing that last one, “Dude…
They stream in and out, all day and all night, one after the other: band members, producers, business associates, friends, family, strangers, hangers-on who stare at the familiar face made infamous long ago. The tour bus, this parked sanctuary where he can roll his joints and drink his bottled Starbucks…
Talk about trading down: Adam Sandler now stands in for Gary Cooper, Winona Ryder for Jean Arthur, screenwriter Tim Herlihy (The Waterboy, Billy Madison) for Robert Riskin (It Happened One Night, Meet John Doe), and director Steven Brill (Little Nicky) for the immortal Frank Capra. The mind reels at the…
Shouldn’t have said yes, couldn’t say no. The deal was simple, and those who chose to accept it had made their own private pact with the showbiz-journalism devil. “You will spend an hour with Tom Cruise and an hour with Steven Spielberg,” said the publicist, a lovely woman from 20th…
Steven Spielberg just might turn into a great director if only he’d stop sabotaging his movies. For the second time in as many films, he demolishes his product with a third act that renders void all that’s come before it. It’s as though Minority Report, set in a near future…
Five years ago, this interview would have been such the big deal–the coup of the year, the elusive great white at last wriggling on the hook. At least, that’s how she was treated back then, when she still took her meals in that velvet closet. She attracted the spotlight (some…
The plot of The Bourne Identity is astonishingly straightforward. It is bereft of twists (instead, we’re offered tangible explanations), free of the gaping plot holes that swallow confused viewers, and absent the cynical machinations of filmmakers who believe that to entertain, it’s necessary also to bamboozle. This adaptation of Robert…
So this is what it’s come to: another week, another terrorist-with-a-suitcase-nuke movie. Last Friday, it was up to Ben Affleck to save the world from nuclear annihilation, an unsavory proposition. He succeeded, but not before the Super Bowl disappeared in a holocaust flash. This Friday, it’s Chris Rock’s turn to…
