Steady Diet of Film

Directors Just Don't Understand

This week AMC's industry gabfest Sunday Morning Shootout was live (in front of a very lucky studio audience) at the Palm Springs Film Festival.  With the Golden Globes not being televised big name actors and directors have to show up to hustle for festival awards to keep their films in the hearts and minds of the Academy voters.

The first half of today's show was a roundtable discussion (of sorts) with four directors with films in competition: Joe Wright (Atonement), Adam Shankman (Hairspray), Jason Reitman (Juno) and John Sayles (Honeydripper).

Maybe it's because I've been watching campaign coverage in my every waking hour that I now see scheming and jabs in every public address.  But there was clearly no love lost between these guys.

:01 Sayles gives dignified response to self-distributing his film but wait... I'VE BEEN MAKING FILMS SINCE THESE JACKANAPES WERE IN DIAPERS AND NOW I HAVE TO DRIVE AROUND AMERICA WITH MY FILM IN THE TRUNK OF MY CAR. Fuck!

Shankman: I at least made a fun movie, unlike you sad sacks and OHHAI I've suffered the most! My film came out all the way in summer!

03: Reitman hates going to awards shows because he has to stop dressing like he's homeless.

Shankman: I love to dress up.. BECAUSE I AM GAY! This strike is lame and hitting Diablo Cody the hardest, and she will burn down the building if she wins the Golden Globe.

Reitman *death stare* 

Sayles: In addition to making more films than all of you assholes combined, I'm a member of WGA and you're all a bunch of corporate whores.

:06 Sayles: Just because your movie is a vanity project and your actors worked for scale doesn't make it INDIE... COUGH JUNO COUGH.

Reitman: At least I can follow a budget, old-timer.

Wright: I am artiste and know nothing of your 'budgets', I leave that to the ugly people.  Oh and BTW, I'm British and you Americans are all fat, lazy and dumb.

[ed note: It's going to take double the budget of Atonement to make a "Jamie Foxx homeless musician" movie?]

Peter Guber: Everyone has suffered more than Joe Wright... you lazy British prick.

:10 I think Jason Reitman made a joke but no one knows for sure.

Peter Bart: "Jason's a little smug because his film just passed $50M" (huge audience applause)

Reitman *death stare* (ed note: Why is this guy so angry?!)

Wright: Why are you fat, lazy Americans applauding money? You're all TRASH!

Reitman: Your wife likes my trash!

Sayles: What have I done to deserve this? (He says this more with his face than his words)

Cut to commercial, then a taped interview with Emile Hirsch. Sad! At this rate there would've been "yo mama" and hair pulling by the second commercial break.

Rest of the show:
Emile Hirsch: I lost so much weight! GIVE ME MY OSCAR!!

Top box office movies this weekend: the Bucket List and First Sunday. God help us all.

Peter Bart: Things were so much less depressing during WWII.

Peter Guber: Clearly indie films should be more like Spiderman 3.

And then came the locusts.

Why get poetry involved? Ethan Hawke sucks.

On this week's episode of Sunday Morning Shootout: a whole bunch of random stuff that is killing the studio industry (chiefly: YOU!) and light of this world, Ethan Hawke. 

Did you know when making comic books into movies it's a wise move to promote the films at comic conventions? 

The only person in the world Bart trusts is Zack Snyder.

Guber thinks some executives are talented.

Guber & Bart want you to know that they hate bloggers, critics, downloaders and most audiences as a whole but they love gold medalist douchebag and all-around nob job Ethan Hawke. This was seriously the most oddly edited episodes ever, from the way he speaks I'm guessing it was to remove the loooong pauses Ethan Hawke takes to answer a question. 

Ethan wants you to know he didn't want to star in his directorial debut the Hottest State, but the film's composer demanded it!

Ethan Hawke think he has worked with a lot of a-holes, quelle surprise! 

"Alpha male" Denzel Washington taught Ethan so much, like how to be mean to your co-stars.  Also the NAACP controls everything Denzel does.

How did Robin Williams help you?  "He helped me with his eyes, and then he helped me get an agent."

OH THANK GOD!  Guber's going for the Uma question! 

They got divorced because Uma wouldn't stay home and listen to his poetry, which is the only way he can exorcise the demons of his ego. 

Despite much name-dropping Ethan considers himself an abject failure, what a relief. 

Laura Linney is "a rose in full bloom". 

Guber doesn't even bother with the fake "it was SO GREAT having you!"  Amen, brother.

Next week's guest: Bill Maher!

Reasons you should go see Rush Hour 3: Chris Tucker is black, just like Eddie Murphy!!

Sunday Morning Shootout news bytes:

+YouTube is eating Guber's soul. Bart doesn't know what we're talking about.
+Brett Ratner fresh off the box office non-success of Rush Hour 3 wants you to know shooting in Paris is expensive and appalling to a Christian work ethic. Peter & Peter are stunned.
+BRatner worships Hugh Hefner, get out of the Richter scale and measure my shock.
+BRat is sad he will never win an Oscar, he numbs his pain by not drinking and drugging... whilst hanging out with Lindsay Lohan.
+Vanity Fair diss!
+BRat has done photography for French Vogue?  Suddenly I am 10% less of a hater.
+BRat is pissed that the studio wonks don't see his references to Alphaville in Rush Hour 3.
+Directors having sibling rivalry for the attention of Quincy Jones, hee! 
+BRat thinks that critics are killing the Rush Hour franchise, which is DEEPLY PERSONAL to him!
+Guber: Critics hated Rush Hour 3 because it wasn't Driving Miss Daisy.
+BRatner realizes RH3 was just bad but if he wasn't going to win an Oscar for Red Dragon everyone can eff off. 

You've Got No Future/Superbad!

This week Guber and Bart discuss upheaval in the industry and how deftly the other has moved (horizontally, meow) through different sectors of the studio system.

Mantra for success, from the mouth of Guber:

False
Evidence
Appearing
Real

Eats the soul!

Bart twice refers to Barbara Streisand (Prince of Tides, Yentl, Mirror Has Two Faces) as an "unsuccessful director", despite winning Oscars and making cash money.  Who doesn't believe in facts now, Peter?

Comparing Helen Mirren with Lindsay Lohan... wtf.  Some CEOs are crooked, especially old, white ones! Here's a non-sequitur: After the commercial: the cast of Superbad! Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Jonah Hill. 

Bart: Do you deserve your success?  Have you seen any classic films? PS I knew Hal Ashby. 

A: Whoa! 

How does a 9 year old have a beard?  Superbad has more 'fucks' than Scarface!  Isn't Scarface 10 hours long?  Holy shit, Seth Rogen wrote for Da Ali G show?! I hope he wrote my all-time favorite joke, "why is all giraffes gay?" (asked to a Harvard zoology professor). Rogen reads Ain't It Cool News, his status as both freak and geek is finally confirmed.

The revolution will be lethal.

This week's topic on Sunday Morning Shootout: Scary bloggers and the studio wonks who hate them! 

:02 Bart resents that websites hate facts and are making people forget that newspapers exist. 

:04 Guber resents that the bloggers sunk A Mighty Heart and doesn't seem to know what the phrase "do gooder" means. 

:04 Guber huffs that cable news network heads start their morning meetings by asking "what's on the dot com?"  Oh dear.  I wonder if Ted Stevens sits in on these meetings. 

I'm sure Anne Thompson enjoys being lumped in with the low rungs of celebrity gossip sites. 

:05 Ooh, Anne Thompson schools Bart! Blogs (and chat rooms, blech) are good enough for Bruce Willis.  A Mighty Heart is totes depressing!  Spielberg, Lucas, Indiana Jones, blah blah I don't care. 

:07 Jessica Simpson diss count: 3.

:15 The star and producers of Hairspray!

:16 Guber wants to know... Musicals, wtf?   (It's the gays, stupid.)

:17 Whoa, Guber seduced the theater gays in the 70s to Hollywood.

:19 Nikki Blonsky bosoms give her magic powers. 

:21 Her audition process was some sort of cruel psychological experiment. 

:23 Travolta was courted for A Chorus Line and Chicago! 

:24 Trivia: Prior to Chicago in 2002, what was the last movie musical to win Oscar for Best Picture?  I guessed Cabaret.  It was Oliver. I suck at trivia.

:28 No one cares about broadway "stars".

:29 Holy ess, Guber is wearing loafers and white socks. 

:30 "This was great!"  Guber translation for: "I'm late for a tanning."

The Hot Blog and Awards Daily also weighed in on the Haterade.