You walk by and I fall to A Million Little Pieces

Too much media coverage for my money. Even Jack Abramoff is going, "Thank God for James Frey!" And he's going up the river! Way up the river. But maybe he can go on Oprah, too, and wash his soul clean. Anyway, so Oprah made and broke this guy, but I can't help but feel cynical about the whole thing. This is the era of Questioning Everything! The Dictionary definition of autobiography is "1. the art or practice of writing one's own biography, 2. an indigenous animal or plant.." No, I'm sorry, that's autochthon... "2. the story of one's own life written or dictated by oneself" Memoir is defined as "1. a biography or biographical sketch, usually one written by someone who knew the subject well. 2 [pl.] an autobiography, esp. one that is objective and anecdotal in emphasis rather than inward and subjective 3 [pl.] a report or record of important events based on the writer's personal observation or knowledge 4 a report or record of a scholarly investigation, scientific study, etc. 5 [pl.] the record of the proceedings of a learned society." The word on the street is, a memoir is typically something written by an old dude in an easychair smoking a pipe. This James Frey guy is just a young punk! Where does he get off writing a so-called memoir? What does he know about being a bullfighter or being an old man in the sea trying to catch a fish? And who did he rip off is the main question. But no one reads books anymore so no one knows. We must look to all those Comp. Lit. students in college who go to parties and talk about how they're taking Comp Lit courses. See also: Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and Memoirs of a Geisha.

But whatever happens, the main lesson here is that the truth still matters above all else. Especially if it's a memoir about a sleazebag drug abuser, we expect said sleazebag drug abuser to tell the truth about it. And if it's about being cool, even the Fonz knows that the truth is the coolest thing of all, even when it's not. The only real question here is who's going to play the lead in the movie adaptation? I'm thinking Loren Dean; make it a sequel to Mumford. Maybe James Frey could donate some of the profits from his book to charity, but I don't know. He seems like the "Charity begins at home" type. Besides, he's the hottest thing to happen to books in the last 100 years since the ingrown bookmark. Isn't that charitable enough?

p.s. Gotta love that cover. A guy decorating a cake had a mishap! Who knew?

The New Benchmark

There's a new benchmark for success in the film world, or rather, longevity, cult status, belovedness, what have you. When a movie becomes a musical, The Lion King, The Producers, Hairspray even. Now it's The Wedding Singer's turn, of all things! Somehow I don't think they're going to stay true to the spirit of Sandler, even though it's a bit watered down in that movie. Although rumor has it that Steve Buscemi will reprise his role on stage, and that it'll be a bit meatier than in the movie.
Speaking of all things Sandler, Grandma's Boy doesn't seem to be doing that well! It's already dropped off of the Top 10. Let us speak no more about it, it'll only make Sandler yell louder.
One last word on Allen Covert. He's going to play a character named Fred Wolf in an upcoming movie called Strange Wilderness. Small world! Very small world. Well, he's catching up to Tony Danza in that self-referential regard.

The Coens in "Crimewave"

Well, that's the last of it. All the celluloid cameo appearances of the Coen brothers. For some reason they're very picky about appearing on film; too bad Quentin Tarantino doesn't follow suit. Just kidding.
Anyway, a brief glance at the box office. Speaking of Tarantino, I haven't seen a Weekend Box Office tally that smacks of Payola since The Specialist beat out Pulp Fiction way back when. Anyone seen an ad for Hoodwinked? How does THIS leap to the #1 spot? Meanwhile, Tarantino recomendee Hostel drops to #5, but don't fret: that weekend getaway the film promises is still out there somewhere, even if family entertainment has won the battle this weekend.
In other unfair news, if you don't see James Franco in Tristan and Isolde, you can always see him in Annapolis. But I think we can all agree the real forgotten victim here is T&I director Kevin Reynolds. Oh, why must Kevin Costner be so vindictive? Can't he share the blame for Waterworld for a change?

As for the rest of the box office, it's pretty much all the stuff that's been there already, except for Last Holiday. Oh, Wayne Wang, what happened to you? If this winning track record keeps up, you'll have to remake Chan is Missing! After all, what is Last Holiday if not a remake of Maid in Manhattan? I prefer Maid to Order myself, but what can I say? The 80s was my big decade.

Well, it's time to go again, but before we do, we leave you with the following mantra. This will be more important around November of this year, and in 2008, but it never hurts to prepare early, right? That's what the Repubes are doing! Anyway, it concerns the economy, and it's pretty much all you need to know about it. It was delivered by the great Rob Corddry...

"...Simply put, Jon, supply-side economics is when a president cuts taxes. This makes people happy and him popular. The tax cuts deprive the government of money, and after eight years the deficit balloons to (an) astronomical size. Then, with the economy in tatters, a Democrat is elected. He has to cut the deficit by raising taxes, making people unhappy and him unpopular, perfectly setting up the next election where a Republican uses the Democrat's tax hikes against them to win back the White House, and start the cycle all over again. Four men won Nobel prizes for that, Jon."

Joel Coen in Fight Club?

About 1:12:45 into the DVD, or is it just me? I'm a little goofed up, I think.
Anyway, there was a nice article on Yahoo! about the new trend in horror movies, or of horror movies, rather. A spate of movies like Saw II, Wolf Creek, Hostel, and of course, zombie movies like Big Momma's House 2. Sequels rising from the grave! Long thought dead and unsequelable, and if this one makes any money we'll all be surprised. From the TV trailer it looks like some advances in "Fat Body Suit" technology have been made, some serious upper-body advances, if you know what I mean! I didn't tape the trailer so I can't provide a frame of it, but it's probably all over the world by now. If that doesn't bring in big Box Office crowds, nothing will. For my money, how good could it be if Paul Giamatti didn't return? And are they planning a sequel to Black Knight? Or Blue Streak?
What else? Last Holiday. Just saw the TV trailer for that. Of course, I didn't see Under the Tuscan Sun either. It's like Taxi but with laughs. Badabing!
But I don't mean to pick on black stars exclusively. We've also got on the horizon a little turkey called Grandma's Boy. Seriously, this may put Allen Covert on the A-List of stars, saying goodbye to Adam Sandler forever, but the real star is the production company, Happy Madison, with its hot new Caddyshack-style vanity logo. This may be an apocryphal story, but I think this is how the film came about: the Happy Madison happy family went to see The 40 Year Old Virgin. Halfway into the screening the script was finished. The next day principal photography began and wrapped in two months. The next three months were spent in intense editing to get it out just in time for... well, it was originally planned as a Christmas release, if I can still use that word without getting wire-tapped, but it ended up as a January 6 release instead. They're motivated over there at Happy Madison Productions, you gotta give them that! :)

Auteur Watch: Coen Bros.

Not to get up on my high horse or anything, but you call yourself a Coen brothers fan and you don't know what THIS pitcure is? That's right, it's time for AUTEUR WATCH, and we look at the brothers Coen, Joel and Ethan. They've got quite a bit lined up. Looks like they're trying to do a 3-films in 2 years kinda deal like Spielberg, with Hail Caesar, Suburbicon and No Country for Old Men. Well, this is where all their years of organization pay off, is it not? And with digital film editing things should go a little faster. I still have somewhere, from a special about them on the Bravo! Network, back when it was still a little butch, they showed a bookshelf containing scripts with titles like Cult Cop and Johnny Skidmarks, kinduva L.A. Confidential lite. I'll have to look for that again... Ethan's got Gambit coming up at some point, but even he knows it's not the alpha project. Okay, that's about it, I've razzed them enough. For the only true info on the web about the boys go to the official Mike Zoss Productions website.
Oh yeah, and happy New Year and all that jazz. Gotta break up the continuum of days and weeks somehow, am I right?
p.s. I wonder if one of the stipulations of working on a Peter Jackson picture is you then have to go on the IMDb and vote it a 10, heh heh. Not always, I guess, judging from Kong.