Steve responds in a letter to the editor

this post is possible only through the efforts of others who dug out the information i couldn't find.

WALL STREET JOURNAL ABSTRACTS
April 1, 2003, Tuesday
Section A; Page 15, Column 1
FROM HOLLYWOOD TO THE TROOPS OVERSEAS
BY ALASTAIR PAULIN and STEVE MARTIN

Two letters respond to Michael Medved's March 26 (2003) Leisure-page article on Academy Awards presentations and war in Iraq, 'Oscar Night--Thanking Everyone But the Troops'

Regarding Michael Medved's commentary in your paper on the recent Oscar telecast, how perceptive of him to understand that I was not speaking to our troops when I mentioned" our young men and women overseas." He was, however, slightly off when he figured I was speakingto my show biz reps in Paris; I was of course, addressing adolescent surfers in Hawaii.

As a performer himself, I am sure Mr. Medved understands that not all sentiments expressed on live shows are crafted as by Socrates, but I'm sure that any member of our armed forces who viewed the show from Iraq, Kuwait or wherever else he or she might be stationed, did not doubt that I was speaking directly to them.

Steve Martin
Los Angeles

and....

Did Michael Medved watch the same Oscars I did to reach his conclusion that Hollywood ignored the U.S. military in it\'s speeches ? ( In the Fray" Oscar Niight - Thanking Everyone But The Troops," Leisure and Arts, March 26. ) He did concede that Adrian Brody made "oblique references to our forces in the Gulf " while citing Mr. Brody's wish for "a peaceful and swift resolution," but dismissed his comments as "nothing that could contradict the most stubbornly anti-American sentiments in the Oscar auditorium."
What Mr. Brody went on to say was this: "I have a friend from Queens who\'s a soldier in Kuwait right now, Tommy Zarabinski, and I hope you and your boys make it back real soon. God bless you guys."
I guess Mr. Medved turned off his TV before Mr. Brody got to that part.

Alastair Paulin

Oakland, California

-------- and the article they responded to

http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110003249
The Little People
On Oscar night, Hollywood thanks everyone but the troops.
BY MICHAEL MEDVED
Wednesday, March 26, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST

The most prominent personalities in the antiwar movement resist all efforts to classify their angry activism as anti-American. But Sunday night\'s Oscar extravaganza obliterated such defensive distinctions. For 3 1/2 hours, the entertainment elite indulged in the usual orgy of self-congratulation with only hostile or dismissive reference to epic Iraqi battles involving thousands of U.S. troops. They offered no hint of gratitude, affection, loyalty or connection to the superpower that sustains them.

The ceremony featured little patriotic imagery and among presenters and award winners, not one chose to wear the American flag lapel pins now ubiquitous elsewhere in American life. Instead, dozens of the biggest stars sported silver "Dove of Peace" pins to signal their opposition to the war.

Meanwhile, Bill Conti and the Oscar Orchestra avoided any remotely nationalistic music during the evening. Perhaps the experience of the Miramax Oscar Eve bash persuaded the responsible parties to shun such tunes. At that glittering occasion, entertainer Michael Feinstein tried to lead the assembled stars and swells in "God Bless America," only to find many members of the crowd ostentatiously refusing to participate.

Of course, the absence of themes and symbols celebrating the U.S. didn't mean that Oscar winners excluded tributes to other nations. In his tirade against George W. Bush and his "fictitious" election, presidency and war policy, documentary film maker Michael Moore pointed with pride to his "Bowling for Columbine" producer's Canadian citizenship. After receiving the Academy Award for his score to the movie "Frida," Elliot Goldenthal declared his passionate commitment to noble Mexican traditions of "political art" and, hoisting his gold statuette, solemnly said "this is for Mexico."
The only specific references to American identity came in relation to "Gangs of New York," introduced in scripted remarks as "about the conflicts that helped define what it means to be an American"--as if vicious street fights between nativist and Irish gangs in the 1850s somehow represent our national character.

At least British thespian Peter O\'Toole thought to express appreciation for America when he accepted his honorary Oscar. "I think of the United States and of the loves and friendships I've known here for more than half a century," he said, "of how much the nation has given to me both personally, privately and professionally. I am deeply thankful."

The surprise winner for best actor, Adrien Brody of "The Pianist," also displayed some emotional connection to the general public in his well-received acceptance speech, and even made oblique reference to our forces in the gulf. "Whether you believe in God or Allah," he said, "may he watch over you and let's pray for a peaceful and swift resolution." Of course, the desire for a "peaceful resolution" suggests some miraculous settlement that falls well short of victory, so Mr. Brody said nothing that could contradict the most stubbornly anti-American sentiments in the Oscar auditorium.

Similarly, Academy President Frank Pierson never wished our troops victory in their war, but merely hoped for their speedy return. He also sent a message to "the Iraqi people," saying, "let's have peace soon, and let you live without war," but never embracing the idea that they deserved to live in freedom.

Finally, host Steve Martin concluded the broadcast with an apparent message to our armed services: "And to our young men and women who are watching overseas, we are thinking of you, we hope you enjoy the show. It's for you. Good night." Even here, Hollywood shunned any explicit mention of the U.S. military, since "young men and women . . . overseas" could be movie company reps watching in Paris.

In the midst of war, even Democratic front-runner (and Bush critic) John Kerry observed that "for America now, the only exit strategy is victory. This is our common mission and the world's cause." If Barbra Streisand (who emphasized the importance of protest) and Susan Sarandon (who flashed a peace sign) had expressed similar sentiments, it hardly would have compromised their liberal credentials.

Their failure to do so underlines the gap between ordinary citizens and the entertainment establishment. The ratings for this year\'s show were appallingly low (with the weakest audience share in Academy history), and the mounting backlash to celebrity leftists raises the possibility of permanent damage to Hollywood\'s standing. Impassioned demonstrators outside the Oscar ceremony waved American flags and carried signs declaring "Support Our Troops" and "Impeach Sheen."

Beyond threats of boycotts and petitions (which scare no one), there is a pervasive sense of disillusionment and anger that ought to alarm the industry. For years, Hollywood has promoted messages that neither reflect nor respect the values of everyday Americans. On Oscar night, the contrast between our struggling troops in Iraq and the stars who wouldn't support their efforts proved too glaring to ignore--or forget.

Mr. Medved, author of "Hollywood vs. America," hosts a nationally syndicated radio show on politics and pop culture.

- posted by sookeyjane 4/03/2003 11:32:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



You can see Steve's Underpants in L.A. in March, 2004

Daily Variety
March 31, 2003, Monday
NEWS; Pg. 13
Geffen dons Martin's 'Underpants' in '04
By PHIL GALLO

The West Coast premieres of Steve Martin's "The Underpants" and Stephen Jeffreys' "I Just Stopped by to See the Man" highlight the 2003-04 season at the Geffen Playhouse.

Jeffreys' play, about an aged blues singer and his daughter, opens the Geffen season Sept. 9 and will be directed by Geffen artistic director Randall Arney.

Up second is the Los Angeles premiere of Sandra Tsing Loh's one-woman comedy "Sugar Plum Fairy," running Nov. 11-Dec. 21. David Schweizer ("He Hunts") will direct. The third production (Jan. 13-Feb. 22) is Bryan Davidson's "War Music," based on dramatic events in the lives of composers Frank Bridge, Anton Webern and Olivier Messiaen, Jessica Kubzansky directs.

"Underpants," Martin's comic adaptation of Carl Sternheim's 1910 German farce "Die Hose," debuts March 9. A new play, directed by producing director Gil Cates, will be announced later.
- posted by sookeyjane 4/01/2003 11:55:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Monday, March 31, Steve starts shooting Cheaper by the Dozen

what a busy bee

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/bpihw/20030327/en_bpihw/perabo_joining__dozen__brood_for_helmer_levy
Perabo joining 'Dozen' brood for helmer Levy
Thu Mar 27, 3:01 AM ET Hollywood Reporter to My Yahoo!
By Zorianna Kit

LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- "Coyote Ugly" star Piper Perabo will star opposite Steve Martin in 20th Century Fox's "Cheaper by the Dozen" for director Shawn Levy and producer Robert Simonds. The project begins shooting Monday.

"Dozen" is a contemporary redo of the 1950 feature comedy about the Gilbreth family (led by Martin and Bonnie Hunt) and its often amusing struggle to keep it all together with a brood of 12 children. Perabo will play the oldest daughter, whose other siblings are played by Tom Welling and Hilary Duff, among others.

The original "Cheaper" is based on a book by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey; Sam Harper has penned the update. In addition to Simonds, Michael Barnathan and the project's original rights holder, Ben Myron, are producing. Fox vp production Vanessa Morrison is overseeing for division topper Hutch Parker.

Perabo, repped by UTA and manager Tina Thor, recently wrapped shooting Dimension Films' "The I Inside" opposite Ryan Phillippe.


- posted by sookeyjane 4/01/2003 03:17:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



I may have posted this before, but if so, it's worth posting again


http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/ae/movies/jump/1817106
Houston Chronicle
March 24, 2003, 2:31PM
Martin remains Hollywood's leading man of letters
By ANDREW MARTON

In the market for all that is both cerebral and zany about Steve Martin? Look no further than his latest movie.

Bringing Down the House, which opened last weekend, acts as a two-hour showcase for -- and much needed reminder of -- Martin's flair for carefully choreographed word-play and off-the-cuff lunacy. But, of course, that's nothing new.

For more than 30 years now, Martin has toggled back and forth between playing the uptight, put-upon, suburban white guy, and some seriously "wild and crazy" guys, either spewing absurdist plays on words or engaging in some of the most inspired physical comedy this side of Buster Keaton.

Steve Martin's white-collar life is turned upside when an escaped convict moves in with him in Bringing Down the House.
But even as Martin has carved a niche as one of Hollywood's most idiosyncratic and innovative clown-savants, he has suffered a kind of pop-culture identity crisis. On the strength of Martin's meteoric rise in the 1970s, thanks to an act that offered a little bit of winking social commentary and a lot of loony performance art, his audience just always assumed he would remain in that guise forever.

But he hasn't. He's gotten better by varying his act. Ironically, the reward for Martin's constant versatility as a performer has been a healthy dose of underappreciation.

Pop-culture icons -- and the late '70s Steve Martin was as close to a comic deity as one could be -- are indulged many things by their audience, except change. Trouble is, the 57-year-old Martin (who has finally aged into his prematurely white hair) has spent the past 20 years doing nothing "but" changing, altering the outlets for his creativity. He is, perhaps, the lengthiest hyphenate in Hollywood, with a resume that reads stand-up comedian-producer-stage and screen actor-musician-playwright-screenwriter-New Yorker essayist-connoisseur-art collector.

This is the curriculum vitae of the entertainment world's most unsung Renaissance man. In the next six months, Martin will be available on the big screen (Bringing Down the House), the small screen (as the cheeky host of the 75th annual Academy Awards on March 23) and in bookstores (thanks to the publication of his second novella, The Pleasure of My Company).

"Steve is doing many things at once. ... The range is enormous," says David Remnick, The New Yorker's editor. "There is no guarantee that a verbal magician like Robin Williams can transfer his talent to paper. Steve can. ... I hate to throw the word 'genius' around too often, but why not? He really is one."

Martin's genius first took flight on Saturday Night Live, for which he often served as guest host during its early years. Martin's road-map to the funny bone on SNL has been described as "Dadaesque." And that's pretty accurate. He cemented his surreal credentials by playing the banjo with an arrow through his cranium, or performing a happy-feet dance after juggling several cats, and wearing rabbit ears with a double-breasted white suit while twisting balloon animals.

Martin's wacky SNL shtick earned him iconic status, and the performance of his hit single, King Tut, with Martin in an Egyptian headdress backed up by the "Toot Uncommons," became the stuff of television legend.

Martin's comedy even managed to launch two expressions -- "Well, excuuuuuuuuuse me!" and "I am a wild and crazy guy!" -- into the cultural lexicon. Not bad for a Waco, Texas, native who went from selling guide books at Disneyland to majoring in philosophy at Long Beach State College.

Steve Martin's most taken-for-granted talent is probably his physical comedy. But not since Martin's own early idols -- Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and Jerry Lewis -- has the cinema witnessed a comedian more in command of his body.

Martin can be so loose-limbed that he becomes almost invertebrate. In 1984's All of Me, Martin's walk is reduced to a spasm of flailing arms and knock-knees, as he rebels against the half of his body being occupied by Lily Tomlin.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) may have captured Martin's physical versatility at its best. His slouch sums up the smarminess of his $5 dollar con man before he becomes a spastic virtuoso as "monkey boy" Ruprecht.

But Martin is a thinking-man's comic, too, and it's this persona that has found a harder time cementing itself into the public's consciousness. When Martin is in his more irreverent, witty mode, his comedy caroms drollery from unlikely angles. In the now-immortal bar scene from 1987's Roxanne, he substitutes deliciously barbed wordplay for the parrying of swords from Edmond Rostand's classic Cyrano de Bergerac. And in Martin's screenplay for 1999's Bowfinger, he harpoons Hollywood's big-star worship by having hapless, Hollywood wannabes hire the movie world's biggest star (Eddie Murphy) without him knowing it. The movie also features "chubby rain," one of Martin's most sublime verbal inventions.

"I don't know how he does his comedy, and quite honestly I don't want to know," says Frank Oz, Martin's director on four movies, including Bowfinger. "He comes at comedy from an angle we mortals don't come from."

During a recent surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live, the show that launched his acting career, Martin announced that he was just making a cameo appearance -- no jokes, no bits, just a silent cameo. It was a brilliant mini-Martin commentary on stars posturing for any available airtime.

Indeed, much of Martin's comedy, especially as seen in his 1991 film, L.A. Story, has centered on lampooning the entertainment industry's fascination with the superficial and its self-important, preening celebrities. Martin, personally, enjoys continuing the spoof by giving autograph-seekers a card that states, according to several accounts, "This certifies that you have had a personal encounter with me and that you found me warm, polite, intelligent and funny."

On closer examination, of course, it's no surprise that Martin has drifted in and out of mass appeal in recent years. He has, after all, become (no oxymoron intended) a Hollywood man of letters.

More than 20 years ago, Martin published Cruel Shoes, a collection of wry musings and improvisational word games. Since then, he has churned out a best-selling novella, 2000's Shopgirl, and a widely attended play (Picasso at the Lapin Agile) and has become an essayist for the The New Yorker.

What Shopgirl revealed was Martin's almost curatorial eye for character detail. The story revolves around Mirabelle, a pretty -- though thoroughly unremarkable -- glove saleswoman in Beverly Hills whose life begins to blossom through her meeting a well-groomed, middle-aged store customer.

A whole other aspect to Martin's worldview emerges from Shopgirl, as he fills it with his ardent belief in romance in addition to a darker, more desolate sense of humor.

"If people have fully embraced Steve as a writer, it's because he strikes a pose between humor and loneliness as he paints a very romantic view of the world," says Leigh Haber, Martin's longtime editor at Hyperion Books. "He really does tap into the intrinsic loneliness of people and the way they, hopefully, look to connect."

The calibrated eccentricity of Martin's humor can also be found in his periodic essays for The New Yorker. He opens one, titled The Ethicist, by having the wave performed at a prison execution. And in Side Effects, Martin writes: "Dosage: Take two tablets every six hours for joint pain. Side effects: This drug may cause joint pain. ..."

Susan Morrison, Martin's editor at The New Yorker, sees an inimitable correlation between his writer's persona and his stage self: "As meticulously contrived as Steve's physical contortions," she says, "so too is the crazy reasoning of his stories."

"The thing people notice in Steve is how modern he is," says Gil Cates, the producer of this year's Academy Awards broadcast. "There is this brevity to him which I find exhilarating. He doesn't suck the air out of a room. He is very elegant, streamlined and, finally, thoughtful."

And Cates might have added, restlessly creative. To those who know Martin well, he is often deemed the Paul Simon of comedy. He simply refuses to repeat himself.

Martin often seems to be staging his own private "can I top this?" competition.

In so many ways, one of Martin's upcoming projects, like the current Bringing Down the House, sums up his multifaceted expressive abilities. His next scheduled film is Shopgirl. Naturally, Martin has written the adaptation.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/30/2003 11:23:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



An oldie, but interesting

http://www.bookmagazine.com/issue15/martin.shtml
from the March/April 2001 issue of Book Magazine
Steve Martin: Lonely Guy
by Kristin Kloberdanz

When the emcee of the Seventy-third Academy Awards takes the stage in March, the audience will see something they've never seen before: a literary novelist playing host to Hollywood's navel-baring navel gazers. Will Steve Martin be out of place? Not really. While we're used to seeing him among the bejeweled in the audience, playing odd man out puts Martin in his comfort zone.

In a career of many paths—actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, essayist and, now, novelist—he has always played that character. From the "wild and crazy guy" of early Saturday Night Live to his 1979 Hollywood breakthrough, The Jerk, to all three main characters in his current hit novella, Shopgirl, Martin has earned a reputation as one of America's smarter entertainers by portraying the individual who doesn't fit in.

In the past few years, Martin has been trying harder to fit himself into the role of a writer. He says it hasn't been easy. "Believe it or not, people still come up to me and say, 'I love The Jerk,' " he joked to the crowd at the National Book Awards last November (an event he has emceed for the past two years). "And I say, 'But did you read my latest book?' And they say, 'That's what I'm talking about.' "

Martin, whose ability to entertain relies more on an ironic distance from audiences than his ability to warmly connect with them, is well suited to the solitary craft of writing. "That's where he finds more comfort and happiness than any of the other things he does," says Morris Walker, Martin's childhood friend and the author of the "authorized" biography Steve Martin: The Magic Years. "More than making movies, more than television, writing is the thing he loves most."

Martin has been writing for decades, but until recently, it was behind the scenes. He began his showbiz career crafting routines for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Later, after SNL's glory days made him a star, Martin co-wrote The Jerk (with Carl Gottlieb and Michael Elias), a comedy about an oddball—Martin's Navin Johnson, who fervently believes he was "born a poor black child"—trying to find his place in the world. In 1987, he wrote the screenplay for Roxanne, basing the film on one of his favorite stories: Edmund Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac.

Martin actually published his first bestseller in 1977. Along with his hit albums, that era's Martin juggernaut included Cruel Shoes, a collection of mini stories in the spirit of his comedy routines: the Sein Language of its day. It was in the mid-'90s, after starring in several box-office and critical bombs, that Martin distanced himself from Hollywood to regroup, focusing on writing for a different kind of audience.

He began by writing a play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which premiered in 1994, about the artist meeting Albert Einstein. Then he started writing short humorous essays for The New Yorker, and in 1998, he collected them in Pure Drivel. These short, deadpan takes on the oddities and inconsistencies of contemporary culture displayed the authorial distance that is Martin's trademark.

Shopgirl, Martin's first longer work of fiction, is more ambitious, if minimalist in form. It's tied to nearly all of his earlier works by the theme of isolation. Mirabelle, the title character, is a loner who works at the glove counter at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills and whose two closest friends are her cats, one of which never comes out from under the sofa when she's around. She has tentative relationships with two men: Jeremy, a comically poor communicator who believes a chance encounter at a Laundromat actually qualifies as a date, and Ray, a businessman nearly twice Mirabelle's age who courts her as a lover while maintaining an absolute determination not to fall in love. Mirabelle takes anti-depressants and drinks alone in local bars, waiting, Martin writes, for "some omniscient voice to illuminate and spotlight her, and to inform everyone that this one has value..."

Clearly, Martin wants the reader to see that Mirabelle does have value, and that Ray and Jeremy do, too. Martin has always been at his best when he evokes empathy for his characters. There was the garish Czechoslovakian outcast who wasn't really that wild or crazy but acted that way in hopes of becoming the life of the party. And the lead in The Lonely Guy, a shy man who comes home one day to find his girlfriend in bed with her lover; he writes a book on his experiences and becomes rich and famous, but that doesn't deliver the love he craves. In the screenplay Martin wrote adapting George Eliot's Silas Marner into 1994's A Simple Twist of Fate, he played an embittered man, betrayed by his wife, who isolates himself in a small town until a child comes into his life. Over and over, Martin has created characters whom we laugh at—not with—and then finds ways for them to be embraced and accepted.

Martin's comedy can be cold, distant, sometimes mean-spirited. Even in a feel-good movie like Parenthood (1989), he doesn't generate the kind of warmth that many other stars do—that's what makes him so good in David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner (1997), which calls for icy deliberation. His empathy is under the surface: What we see is the isolation, in bold relief.

As an actor playing an isolated character, Martin's distance from the audience is hard, perhaps impossible, for him to overcome. As a writer, he has the freedom both to portray his characters and reveal his own voice.

"I am so excited now that I am becoming known as a writer," Martin quipped to the literati at last fall's book awards, "for, not only has my income dropped, I am hanging out with an entirely different group of people. Unlike Billy Crystal, who hosts the Oscars, I host the National Book Awards, which means that when I go to a fancy restaurant, I am whisked by Billy's table in the center of the room and taken to a small table in the back called the writers' table, where sit people named Rokowski and Brinski and Bosnorfski, people who not only write great literature but who also have not picked up a check in twelve years."

Martin appears genuinely happier to be at that back table. But on March 25, he'll be at the very front: He is hosting the Academy Awards this year, taking over for Crystal. The match may prove ideal, with Martin attempting to deliver the perfect melange of jokes to amuse a disparate audience for four hours. This annual flirtation can be witty; it can also be mean-spirited. It's what characters do in bars when they're trying to be noticed, and to fit in.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/30/2003 11:18:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Still wowing them at the box office


http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030330-034445-2689r
Box office victory for 'Head of State'
From the Life & Mind Desk
Published 3/30/2003 4:25 PM

HOLLYWOOD, March 30 (UPI) -- The opening of Chris Rock's political comedy "Head of State" topped the nation's box office with an estimated $14 million at 2,151 theaters during the Friday-Sunday period, studio sources said Sunday.

****
Another comedy, "Bringing Down the House," finished a close second with $12.5 million at 2,910 theaters as the Steve Martin-Queen Latifah vehicle hit the $100 million mark on Sunday, its 24th day of release by Disney. The weekend represented a decline of only 23 percent from its third weekend.

"The success of 'Bringing Down the House' underlines how well a comedy can do when it's perceived by audiences as delivering on its promise," Rockwell noted.

****

"Head of State" and "Bringing Down the House" will see competition next weekend from a trio of openers -- Warner's teen comedy "What a Girl Wants," starring Amanda Bynes; New Line's drug-agent drama "A Man Apart," starring Vin Diesel; and 20th Century Fox's "Phone Booth," centered on a sniper attacking a man in a phone booth.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/30/2003 07:14:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



What Steve will be doing on April 20th

United Press International
March 28, 2003 Friday 14:21 PM Eastern Time
Hollywood Digest
By PAT NASON

****
NBC SETS 100TH BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE FOR BOB HOPE

An all-star cast has been assemble for "100 Years of Hope & Humor," an NBC TV special set for April 20 to honor legendary entertainer Bob Hope's 100th birthday.

Jane Pauley will host the show, which will feature appearances by Alan Alda, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Phyllis Diller, Kelsey Grammer, Jay Leno, Steve Martin, Arnold Palmer, Don Rickles, Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey and Tiger Woods. The show will also feature a special tribute from President George W. Bush.

The special will include footage of Hope with 11 U.S. presidents, his association with golf and other sports, his work with the USO, and vaudeville, film and television performances.

The guest list also includes Drew Carey, Bob Costas, Alan King, Bernie Mac, Eric McCormack, Jack Nicklaus, LeAnn Rimes, Joan Rivers, Ray Romano, Jane Russell, Brooke Shields and Raquel Welch.

Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope on May 29, 1903 in Eltham, England, and was raised in Cleveland.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/28/2003 10:27:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



A tidbit on writing the Oscars

Las Vegas Review-Journal (Nevada)
March 26, 2003 Wednesday FINAL EDITION
Section A; Pg. 3A
Stars come out on opening night for look at 'A New Day ...'
By Norm Clarke

****
Team Humor

Rita Rudner, a member of host Steve Martin's joke-writing team for the Academy Awards, said the team worked on material all night in the event Michael Moore won for his antigun documentary, 'Bowling for Columbine.'

Sure enough, Moore won, and Martin was prepared. 'So sweet backstage seeing the Teamsters helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo,' he said.

Martin came backstage and told the writers, 'It only took eight of us to come up with that line.'


- posted by sookeyjane 3/28/2003 10:22:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Why Steve doesn't read scripts that are sent to him

The Associated Press.
March 28, 2003, Friday, BC cycle
2:38 PM Eastern Time
Writer claims she had original idea for smash movie
By ERIN McCLAM, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK: A New York lawyer who claims she had the original idea for the box-office smash "Bringing Down the House" filed a $15 million copyright lawsuit Friday against star Queen Latifah and the movie's producers.

Marie Flaherty claims the movie is a ripoff of "Amoral Dilemma," a screenplay she wrote several years ago about a lawyer who meets a prisoner online, only to have the prisoner wreak havoc in his life.

"Bringing Down the House," a comedy starring Latifah and Steve Martin, is about a prisoner who meets a lawyer in a chat room, then weasels her way into his life in hopes he can exonerate her.

The movie has been atop the box-office charts since it was released earlier this month, raking in $83.3 million through last weekend.

Flaherty claims Boston attorney George N. Tobia Jr. agreed to represent her in 1999 as she tried to sell "Amoral Dilemma."

Just a few months later, she says, Tobia called her to say he and a family friend, screenwriter Jason Filardi, had sold a script - "Jailbabe.com," the screenplay that eventually became "Bringing Down the House."

Flaherty confronted Tobia about the similarities, and he told her repeatedly that Filardi's script was a comedy, while hers was a drama, she argues in the lawsuit.

Tobia did not immediately return a call for comment.

The copyright-infringement suit, filed in Manhattan federal court, seeks a minimum of $15 million - but Flaherty also points out the court could award her more considering the movie's hefty gross.

The suit names as defendants Tobia, Filardi and the movie's producers - including Latifah, whose real name is Dana Owens. Latifah spokeswoman Amanda Silverman did not immediately have a comment on the suit.

Martin, who did not co-produce the movie, is not named as a defendant.

Hyde Park Entertainment, which produced the film, and Walt Disney Co., which distributed it, are also listed as co-defendants.

Flaherty, an attorney who plans to represent herself, did not immediately return a call for comment.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/28/2003 10:17:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Chiding Mr. Martin

Chicago Sun-Times
March 23, 2003 Sunday
SHOW; SUNDAY; Pg. 2
Bringing down the standards of Steve Martin's career
By Lloyd Sachs

This year's Academy Awards will probably lumber toward midnight like they do every year, but with Steve Martin hosting them again, we're guaranteed of some bright moments--even if he reins himself in in deference to the goings-on in Iraq.

Call him Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside. As one of the more stylish members of the Hollywood establishment, he brings a sanguine sparkle to the proceedings. As an irreverent outsider, one who has endeared himself to the New York literati with his books and plays and New Yorker pieces, he can take the starch out of the proceedings, without simmering in his own naughtiness the way Whoopi Goldberg did.

For a long time now, Martin has been one of the most consistently funny fellows on television, whether shmoozing with Letterman or guest hosting "Saturday Night Live" or even turning up on "Charlie Rose." Unfortunately, the TV Steve is shadowed by the movie Steve, who for all his smarts and comic sophistication and zany originality can't seem to avoid films that are beneath him. Films like the new hit "Bringing Down the House," in which his potentially rich teaming with Queen Latifah is doused in tired and timid conceits.

Like his brother in outlandishness, Robin Williams, though without his taste for mawkishness or his raving iconoclasm, Martin compromises and contradicts his upstart status with each crummy commercial movie he makes. It's like hitching your sensibility to Eminem and having him turn into Vanilla Ice. You can almost hear his bones creak while stooping to enter these middlebrow affairs. The more he makes calculating movies like "House," the more you wish he'd return to the lowbrow yuks of "The Jerk" (1979). At least it came by its stupidity honestly.

It would be one thing if plucked cinematic chickens like this were exceptions or accidents. But Martin, like Williams, has demonstrated mediocre taste from the start of his film career. No director, it would seem, was uninspired enough for him to cast his lot with--not Carl Reiner, with whom he has made a string of poor to semi-decent comedies like "The Man With Two Brains" (1983) (the name of Martin's character, Michael Hfuhruhurr, was the funniest thing in it), not Herbert Ross (the ambitious but deadly "Pennies From Heaven," 1981), not Arthur Hiller ("The Lonely Guy, 1984"), not John Hughes ("Planes, Trains and Automobiles," 1987).

And as you can tell from more recent, universally disregarded efforts like "Mixed Nuts" (1994) and "The Out-of-Towners" (1999), his taste in filmmakers hasn't gotten any better.

There was a time when Martin seemed poised to become one of the great comic leading men. At least I thought so after his wondrous mid-'80s performances as the principled lawyer in Reiner's "All of Me" (1984) who becomes half-possessed by the spirit of the snootily rich Lily Tomlin, and the smitten small-town fire chief in Fred Schepisi's "Roxanne" (1987), a sweet-tempered take on "Cyrano de Bergerac" that Martin wrote with himself in mind.

"What makes Martin's success so interesting and impressive is that he is one of the few comic actors of his generation who draws from a reservoir of humane values--hopefulness, compassion, grace," I wrote in an overly optimistic 1987 appreciation of him. These were not only hilarious, inventive performances, they were physical tours de force--the first a convulsive sidesplitter in conveying the absurdity of two sensibilities warring inside one body, the second a display of agility and balletic assurance that Fred Astaire would have admired.

So went the golden age of Steve Martin. Since then, there has been an occasional standout picture like "Housesitter" (1992), in which he co-starred Goldie Hawn, and there was David Mamet's offbeat "The Spanish Prisoner" (1997), in which he played an enigmatic baddie. There also was Herbert Ross' "Leap of Faith" (1992), which was terrible, but let Martin stretch a bit as a hustler, a character close to his heart. But there has been nothing to push him back to the heights of "Roxanne" and rescue him from his recurring role as victimized shirt-and-tie guy. Though he is a master of sang-froid, even he is beginning to seem embarrassed by the embarrassing movies in which he appears.

You certainly can sympathize with him. American moviegoers, as you may have noticed, have not had much of a taste for comic actors who are obviously smarter than they are. In the age of "Dumb and Dumber," Martin may, indeed, have been remiss in not making "The Jerk II." The only actor out there getting by with graceful physical comedy, meanwhile, is Jackie Chan, an action figure Gene Kelly would have loved.

A guy's gotta work: If nothing better is being offered than "Bringing Down the House," I guess Martin's gotta take it. Though as a writer, Martin has initiated several movies, including "L.A. Story" (1991)--an intermittently amusing West Coast take on Woody Allen's Manhattan stories--he doesn't have the filmic vision of an Allen, or an Albert Brooks, or even a Mel Brooks.

That said, aren't there any more skilled directors out there who can coax Martin's genius back out? If we had a Hollywood rotisserie league, I would draft Wes Anderson (who elicited Gene Hackman's funniest all-time performance in "The Royal Tenenbaums") and sit back and watch the fun he and Martin would have. I would call on Warren Beatty (whose "Bulworth" presents a much more riotous clash of uptight whiteness and house-raising blackness than "Bringing Down the House"). Or what about putting Martin together with those newsprung master adapters of New Yorker style, Spike Jonz and Charlie Kaufman--and Nicolas Cage?

Well, maybe not. But someone needs to inject some life in Martin's film career. Playing it safe is killing him. And if he plans on any kind of extended run as a pot-shot-taking Oscars host, he can't keep making movies that draw pot shots so readily. Unless he himself wants to cleanse his soul and take pot shots at himself. Maybe an arrow through the head would set him straight.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/28/2003 10:12:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



An unused Oscar joke from Dave Barry

davebarry.blogspot.com

ONE FINAL OSCARS NOTE

Jon Macks wrote a joke during the show that, because of time, Steve Martin didn't get to use. It was right after the Oscar was handed out for best original song, and the joke was: "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't want to alarm anybody, but the Bible says that one of the signs of the Apocalypse is when Barbra Streisand gives an Oscar to Eminem."
posted by Dave 12:16 PM 25 March 2003


- posted by sookeyjane 3/26/2003 05:22:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



All in one place -- a huge hunk of articles on Steve and the Oscars

Edmonton Sun (Canada)
March 24, 2003 Monday, Final Edition
Entertainment; Pg. ES4
MARTIN'S TOP 5
STEVE TILLEY

STEVE MARTIN'S TOP FIVE JABS AND JOKES:

- TO SCREEN LEGEND MICKEY ROONEY, SEATED DEEP IN THE NOSEBLEEDS: "I'm sorry we couldn't get you a better seat, but Vin Diesel is here!"

- IN DESCRIBING WHAT A MOVIE STAR IS: "THEY ARE SHORT AND TALL, THIN ... AND SKINNY. They are young (the screen shows a picture of Haley Joel Osment), middle-aged (Natalie Portman) and old (Reese Witherspoon)."

- FOLLOWING MICHAEL MOORE'S FIERY ANTI-BUSH ACCEPTANCE SPEECH: "The teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo."

- AFTER MOCK-ACCUSING MERYL STREEP OF SELLING HER SCREENER DVDS ON EBAY: "Don't you have enough already?"

- FOLLOWING THE MEMORIAL TO ACTORS AND FILMMAKERS WHO PASSED AWAY IN 2002: "Later we're doing a montage of people you think are dead, but aren't."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

USA TODAY
March 24, 2003, Monday, FINAL EDITION
LIFE; Pg. 1D
A jolly good show -- for a host of reasons
BYRobert Bianco

It was an Oscars to remember -- and not for the reason you might think.

Though the war in Iraq was not forgotten, the focus at Sunday's Academy Awards remained firmly on the Oscars and on their marvelous host, Steve Martin. Making an obviously welcome return, Martin was greeted by a standing ovation, and he went on to earn it.

The first and perhaps prime task of an Oscar host is to give a funny monologue, and Martin delivered the goods. But then, most hosts do.

What sets Martin apart is his good-natured mastery of mock sincerity. And what better place for that than the Oscars?

Luckily for viewers, Martin has two other qualities that are essential to a good Academy Awards host: wit and insider status. He used both to his and our advantage, winning the crowd's confidence and then gleefully mocking them all night. Not every joke worked, but an impressive percentage of them did -- from accusing Meryl Streep of selling academy screening tapes online to joking about the annual salute to the deceased. ("Next we're doing a montage of people you think are dead but aren't.")

Though Martin and the movies were the show's stars, the war in Iraq did make some cameo appearances. There were a few pleas for peace, some touching, some pompous, some just odd. Still, with the major exception of Michael Moore (and really, who thought he could resist?) most of the attendees seemed to realize that the occasion was not designed to provide them with a platform for protest.

In a strange way, the seldom-realized threat of excess commentary acted in Oscar's favor, adding a touch of tension to what is so often a dull evening.

Admit it: Weren't you on the edge of your seat when Susan Sarandon and Barbra Streisand came out, waiting to see whether they would say something controversial? For the record, neither did, unless you consider Streisand's mild comments about free speech controversial.

Though the show ran a fairly standard 3 1/2 hours, it seemed to move more quickly than usual. Which is odd, really, because it took an inordinately long time for the winners to make their way to the stage, a trek we then had to relive in instant replay.

It also had more surprises and emotional highs than is often the case, from Chris Cooper's sweetly gracious acceptance speech, to Adrien Brody's upset win, to the on-stage reunion of 59 former Oscar winners, to Kirk and Michael Douglas' father-son act. There was even a nice clips package, for once, as former Oscar winners reflected on what winning was like.

Of course, the evening didn't go by without a few thuds. You'd think in a year dominated by a musical that the show's producers would be able to get the musical numbers right.

Alas, no.

Catherine Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah would have more than filled the small screen; those dancers just got in the way. And really, if you're going to do a montage salute to Oscar production numbers, the least you can do is include that legendary dancing team, Rob Lowe and Snow White.

We remember, even if Oscar wants to forget.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
March 24, 2003 Monday
LIVING; Television; Pg. 1
Martin was Academy's Mr. Right; The perfect host for an awards show in trying times
BY Dave Walker

Hollywood's prom to honor the half-dozen films made annually for grown-ups rose to a stiff challenge Sunday night.

It had been a grim day, with war news of American casualties and prisoners of war.

As the sobering foreign reportage continued on cable -- a roll call of the missing on one network, a story about a captured chemical weapons facility on another -- the Oscars rolled on ABC.

Even though the war was still young, a deliverance from anxiety, the kind a good movie provides, was called for.

For a change, the Academy Awards delivered.

Typically an industrial air-kiss, the Oscars managed to find the perfect tone for an awards show during trying times.

Host Steve Martin, who by end of the evening perhaps wrested from Billy Crystal the title of reigning Oscar superhost, set the mood early, with a rollicking opening monologue that name-dropped practically every nominee, presenter and past winner in the house.

Introducing Hollywood Golden Ager Mickey Rooney, seated in a distant row, Martin said, "Not a lot of people know this, but Mickey Rooney is the same age as the Earth. At one point, Mickey Rooney was the biggest box office star in all the 38 states. Mickey, I'm sorry we couldn't get you a better seat, but Vin Diesel is here."

Martin's opening-segment kicker was a mock-serious essay accompanied by a soaring orchestral arrangement. Its title: "What is a Movie Star?"

The segment concluded with a laugh-out-loud series of sight gags zeroing in on Harrison Ford, Jack Nicholson and then the many attendees with whom Martin has allegedly been intimate.

It began, "A movie star is many things. Tall or short, thin or skinny.

"They can be Democrats . . .

"Or skinny.

"We worship them, idolize them and, yes, sometimes we're annoyed with them, like when they shoot their wives."

Brilliant. Bravo.Big-picture, the Oscars' move last year to the new Kodak Theatre continued to pay off.

This was a gorgeous production start to finish. With perfect lighting onstage and in the audience, attendees were made to look more beautiful than even movie stars are supposed to look.

One odd production touch: Winner-reaction replays, coming right after the acceptance speech and just before a commercial.

Winners, for the most part, kept their speeches within the suggested time limit, though the Oscar orchestra seemed more strict in playing exit cues than the pit crew of any awards broadcast in recent memory.

When winners got to extend their thank-yous, the payoff was generally worth it. Cooper's heartfelt acceptance speech comes to mind. Same for Adrien Brody, winner of an acting award for "The Pianist," who shouted down his exit music to address the Iraq war and say hello to a friend from Queens now serving in Kuwait.

The most dramatic, but predictable, moment came at midshow, when Michael Moore, a winner for "Bowling For Columbine," called up his fellow nominees in the Documentary Feature category to collectively protest the war. Moore shouted, "We are against this war, Mr. Bush!" as his get-the-hook music played.

Presenting the next award, Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America and a veteran political insider, oddly opted to let Moore's speech stand without comment.

So it was up to host Steve Martin to offer the audience closure.

"It was so sweet backstage, you should've seen it," Martin said. "Some Teamsters were helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo."Earlier in the evening, before the start of the main event, security concerns and the dimmed tenor of the evening shoved Joan Rivers up the block and across the street from red-carpet arrivals -- beyond shouting distance, even for her.

Nonetheless, the E! cable network's pre-show remained the usual carnival of vulgar shtick and insultingly poor preparation.

Holed up in a makeshift perch in the Roosevelt Hotel (where studio lighting proved most cruel to serial cosmetic-surgery patients), Rivers was reduced to misidentifying arriving stars as their images were displayed on a TV monitor.

A few poorly advised attendees -- tango maniac Robert Duvall, for one -- made their way to her microphone, anyway.

Rivers started the evening with a giggling fit, recovering in time to deliver such comic gems as, "They warned me not to make a political speech, but I'm all about the First Amendment: Hooray for Grover Cleveland!"

Removing Rivers from the sidewalk in front of the Kodak Theatre was the first victory in this war of liberation.

For the Academy's consideration: Next year, Long Beach.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fresno Bee (California)
March 24, 2003, Monday FINAL EDITION

LIFE; Pg. D1; COMMENTARY
Martin deftly handles a sticky situation
Rick Bentley THE FRESNO BEE

The selection of Steve Martin proved to be a masterful decision by nervous Oscar organizers.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences did not want Sunday's telecast of the "75th Anniversary Academy Awards" to be turned into a platform for anti-war commentary. The potential was there. The annual salute to films reaches an estimated audience of one billion people around the globe.

The splashy red carpet arrivals at the Kodak Theatre were canceled out of fear of setting an inappropriate tone because of the war in Iraq. Celebrities quietly made their way into the theater stopping only for a few photographs.

Martin broke the tension. He joked at the beginning of his opening monologue that the only objections to his returning as host came from France and Germany.

Then Martin shifted to poking fun at the movie industry.

"Jack Nicholson got in a hot tub with Kathy Bates this year. But who hasn't? Nicole Kidman has worn a fake nose in every film she has made except 'The Hours,' " Martin said.

Martin's ability to be classy and comic made him the perfect host for such a potentially political telecast. He cleverly guided the program as it settled into a respectful celebration of movies.

The first 13 awards were presented without incident.

The closet any comments came to being controversial were from Chris Cooper. After picking up the Oscar as best supporting actor, Cooper said, "In light of all the trouble in the world, I wish us all peace."

Then outspoken filmmaker Michael Moore picked up the Oscar for best documentary feature for "Bowling for Columbine."

Appearing on stage surrounded by his fellow documentary filmmakers, Moore said, "We do nonfiction. We live in fictitious times.

"We are against this war. Shame on you, Mr. Bush," Moore said over the music cue to end his acceptance speech. "Anybody's got both the pope and the Dixie Chicks against them isn't long for the White House."

Moore's comments were greeted by surprised looks from the celebrity-filled audience and a smattering of booing.

Martin showed his mastery of the job when he returned to the stage. He joked, "It was so sweet backstage. The teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the back of his limo."

Moore's comments were the one major political incident in what was a low-key celebration of Hollywood's best. Even noted activist Susan Sarandon introduced without comment a tribute to Hollywood greats who had died in the past year.

Oscar winners in the best actor and actress category made pleas for peace as part of emotional thanks. Adrien Brody, the winner for his work in "The Pianist," only was able to make his comments after begging for more acceptance speech time.

"It fills me with great joy but I'm also filled with a lot of sadness tonight because I'm accepting an award at such a strange time and my experiences in making this film made me very aware of the sadness and the dehumanization of people at times of war and the repercussions of war and whether you believe in God or Allah, may he watch over you and let's pray for a peaceful and swift resolution," Brody said.

Nicole Kidman explained she decided to attend the awards ceremony despite the war because, "Art is important and because you believe in what you do. You want to honor that. At the same time you say there are a lot of problems in the war."

Overall the telecast was a classy salute to the present with little political commentary.

The show also paid honor to Oscar's past. One of the most emotional moments in the diamond jubilee anniversary featured a collection of 59 past Oscar winners appearing together on stage. Those included in the tribute included Mickey Rooney, Martin Landau, Julie Andrews, Red Buttons, Kirk Douglas, Sean Connery and Denzel Washington.

There were no anti-war comments during the official Oscar pre-show. The 30-minute pre-show hosted by Jann Carl, Chris Connelly, Jim Moret and Shaun Robinson was a bland collection of easy questions for a few celebrities and several film tributes. The film tributes seemed a waste considering only 30 minutes was allotted for the official pre-show.

The quiet grace of the Oscar telecast followed the disastrous pre-Oscar show on E! Entertainment. The cable channel proceeded with its planned two-hour pre-Oscar show despite the cancelation of the red carpet interviews. The show is the cable channel's highest rated program of the year.

Joan Rivers reached a new peak in embarrassing television work when she began the lackluster pre-Oscar show program with a profanity-laced comedy routine.

Then things got worse.

Instead of being mavens of the red carpet, Joan and Melissa Rivers were forced to host the program from blocks away at the Roosevelt Hotel. Although the show originated down the block from the Kodak Theatre, the program was still called "Live from the Red Carpet."

Without the steady stream of celebrities, the pair found themselves talking about: what each other was wearing, the rumors of a sexual encounter between Melissa Rivers and Chris Judd during ABC's flop reality show "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here," and celebrity gossip.

While the cable channel's pre-Oscar coverage has been superficial at best in the past, this year's program showed how painfully annoying the Rivers can be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Post
March 24, 2003, Monday
Late City Final; Pg. 041
AS GLITZY AS IT GETS
BY Adam Buckman

THE Oscars didn't seem any more somber or subdued than they did any other year.

As in previous years, last night's telecast on ABC was dull, overlong and also mildly entertaining.

Or, in other words: Business as usual.

This was to be, of course, the somber, wartime Academy Awards.

In the days leading up to last night's show, I took that to mean that the celebrities would be doing their darndest to refrain from smiling or having fun of any kind, lest someone accuse them of wanton frivolousness at a time of international distress.

But there were smiles aplenty, especially when celebrity firebrands such as Susan Sarandon and Barbra Streisand refrained - surprisingly - from using their time on stage to lash out at President Bush and his handling of the crisis in Iraq.

The telecast's light-hearted tone was set smartly from the outset by host Steve Martin, who delivered one of the funniest opening Oscar monologues in recent memory.

He didn't star in the usual elaborate, pre-produced bit lampooning the year's top nominees, but - in the parlance of comedy - Martin killed anyway.

Noting that the audience seemed no less dressed up than they've been at previous Oscars, he said sarcastically, "Well, I'm glad they cut back on all the glitz!"

Then he said, "You probably noticed there was no fancy red carpet tonight - that'll send 'em a message!"

He even managed to make light-hearted fun of the diplomatic efforts that had transpired at the U.N. over the past several months.

"Everybody has been so supportive of my hosting this year," he said, "except, of course, France and Germany!"

Literally speaking, he was wrong about the red carpet. There was a carpet outside the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. And it was red too.

He was really referring to the fact that the stars weren't granting silly interviews on their way inside, although most stopped long enough to pose for pictures.

While some outspoken stars kept their mouths shut on the subject of the war, some couldn't resist acknowledging the strife overseas.

Classy, elegant Nicole Kidman, winner for best actress for "The Hours," graciously explained why the Oscar show had to go on, despite the war.

"Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil?" she asked. "Because art is important and because you believe in what you do and . . . it is a tradition that needs to be upheld."

Best Actor-winner Adrien Brody ("The Pianist") made a tearful wish for "a peaceful and swift resolution" to the war. And Martin ended the telecast with a greeting for American service men and women overseas.

The mood was shattered briefly by the obnoxious presence of outspoken documentarian Michael Moore, whose diatribe against President Bush was not unexpected.

Some cheers greeted Moore's anti-war speech after he won the Oscar for Best Documentary for "Bowling for Columbine." But the cheers were quickly intermingled with nervous boos from those in the audience who may not have disagreed with him, but who were uncomfortable that he raised the issues during a telecast that was supposed to be apolitical.

Nimble Martin saved the day again when he appeared a few minutes later. "It was so sweet backstage, you should see it," he said. "The teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo!"

Besides that, about the only mention of the war in Iraq came when Peter Jennings broke in twice to report that Iraqi resistance was intensifying as U.S. forces drew within 100 miles of Baghdad.

In the Kodak Theatre, however, the war seemed far, far away.

GRAPHIC: -Steve Martin presented one of the funniest opening monologues in years. "Everybody has been so supportive of my hosting this year," he said, "except, of course, France and Germany!" AP

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Vancouver Province
March 24, 2003 Monday Final Edition
e entertainment today; The Oscar Timeline; Pg. B4
Martin makes it a party: Hysterical start to show with plenty of plugs for peace
The Province
By Dana Gee

5:26 p.m.: Anyone who thought the 75th annual Academy Awards was going to be a solemn affair this year, thankfully, was proven wrong!

Host Steve Martin killed, as he effortlessly stretched his former standup legs and got the show off to a hysterical running start.

"There was no fancy red carpet this year. That'll show 'em," said Martin, making the first reference to the war in Iraq.

Martin, who returned to the hosting job after missing last year, thanked everyone involved with the show.

"Everybody has been really supportive, except France and Germany," he said.

A favourite mark on Martin's hit list was the idea of highly paid celebrity.

He pointed out Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney, who was so far back in the balcony that the tiny Rooney looked the size of Oscar himself.

"Mickey, I'm sorry we couldn't get you a better seat, but Vin Diesel is here," said Martin, indicating the front rows.

In a routine that slowed only once, huge laughs were had when Martin moved effortlessly though a speech entitled "What Is a Movie Star."

In this segment no star was left untouched or left unlaughing, especially the women and Ernest Borgnine, who had their images flashed on the screen after Martin thanked those in Hollywood who had slept with him for their tight-lipped discretion.

5:50 p.m.: The stunning Jennifer Connelly -- last year's best supporting actress for A Beautiful Mind -- was on hand to give out the best supporting actor honours. Connelly announced the Oscar would go to closely shorn and soon-teary Chris Cooper for Adaptation.

Cooper thanked the usual suspects, then earned the honours of first quasi-political statement of the evening by calling for peace.

5:55 p.m.: Jennifer Lopez swooped out on stage in a rather tame pistachio-coloured one-shoulder kaftan dress. Actually it was kind of disappointing. We count on Jen for a huge injection of va va voom!

5:59 p.m.: Could it be true? Could Renee Zellweger's singing in Chicago have come compliments of Pro Tools -- a Mac program that can make even my cat-in-pain singing voice not so offensive? Seriously, why else didn't the red-hot Texan star join her very pregnant co-star Catherine Zeta-Jones on stage for the performance of the nominated best song "I Move On?"

Instead, Zellweger stayed safe in her Kodak Theatre seat while Queen Latifah sang her part.

6:09 p.m.: Please give the mouse a rest. Mickey the cartoon character joined Jennifer Garner on stage for what was supposed to be witty little banter between a person and a computer image. Instead it was a painful three minutes complete with the usual nod to front-row veteran Jack Nicholson.

6:15 p.m.: Poor Mira Sorvino. She stumbled horribly during her presentation of achievement in costume design. But give the former Oscar winner credit: She laughed, then thanked the audience for laughing too!

6:22 p.m.: The camera panned what had to be the official old-star section of the audience -- a section that was magnificently dressed and groomed better than a champion poodle.

Paul Simon -- on stage to sing his nominated song "Father and Daughter," opted out of the whole black tie thing and wore a plain black long-sleeved T-shirt.

Mind you, after witnessing Martin's razor sharp wit, Simon was probably smart to avoid the tuxedo and therefore saving himself from the obvious penguin jokes.

6:27 p.m.: My Big Fat Greek Wedding star and writer, Winnipeg's own Nia Vardalos -- still beating that whole kooky Greek family thing to death -- introduced the award for best makeup by, of course, saying makeup was a word her dad said the Greeks invented. The folks from the beautifully lush Frida won the honour.

6:31 p.m.: The votes are in. OK, my vote is in. Sean Connery still looks magnificent. Mr. Bond took the stage in his fancy Scottish dress shirt gave out the best supporting actress award to Zeta-Jones.

He must have been thinking, "Boy, she's come a long way since that stinky Entrapment" -- you know, the one she spent the whole time on all fours with her bum in the air that the pair made together a few years back.

"My hormones are so way out of control to be dealing with this," said the stunning actress, who is slated to deliver child No. 2 in a few weeks.

6:39 p.m.: The award for the most innocuous peace reference of the night went to Matthew McConaughey's "a healthy evening to all of you."

7:13 p.m.: Way to go, Michael Moore. Onstage to accept his award for best documentary for Bowling for Columbine, the outspoken filmmaker surprised no one by condemning -- to mixed applause and boos -- George Bush and his war machine.

Moore -- flanked by his film's producers, including Canada's own Salter Street guy Michael Donovan and the other doc category nominees, said he and the others love non-fiction and oppose the "fictious" actions of the U.S. war on Iraq.

Martin, not one to let a good moment pass, returned to the stage and said: "The teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo."



- posted by sookeyjane 3/24/2003 11:06:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Backstage at the Oscars

along with this article, there is a really good pic of steve and his writers backstage working on jokes. right click on the pic, choose open in new window, and you'll get a bigger version. get while it's there.

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/oscars/cl-et-horn24mar24,0,6611039.story?coll=cl%2Doscst

Los Angeles Times
March 24, 2003 Monday Home Edition
Calendar; Part 5; Page 2; Calendar Desk
BEHIND THE SCENES
The Oscar show, and how it went on
Steve Martin thinks on his feet, helping to pull together a cohesive ceremony in a dicey world.
By John Horn, Times Staff Writer

Whether or not this year's Academy Awards would go forward was a minute-by-minute dilemma. And once the show began, the frantic decision-making didn't let up.

As it turned out, handling the threat and progress of war was hardly the main hurdle to pulling off the show, as was revealed by a night backstage at the Kodak Theatre. After the house lights dimmed to open the show, producer Gil Cates and director Louis Horvitz had to adapt to a superstar actress' last-second demands for rewrite, a divisive political speech by a documentary filmmaker and even a walkie-talkie that plummeted to the stage.

One of the biggest challenges show organizers faced was how they would incorporate the war into the global telecast. They mostly didn't.

Host Steve Martin and the show's writers had contemplated -- then jettisoned -- a direct joke about Saddam Hussein. Martin was going to address the Iraqi leader and say: "I hope your connection goes out just before we announce best picture."

The 75th Academy Awards started off with a breakdown in a key piece of scenery -- an enormous rotating globe that hung over the front of the stage. A worker ascended into the theater's rafters to try to fix the problem, but in the middle of a Martin monologue, the worker's walkie-talkie fell off his belt and crashed to the stage, startling Martin and stagehands in the wings. Martin quickly ad-libbed to say the incident was planned.

Throughout the night, the show's writers scrambled. Much of the week had been spent fielding calls from presenter Barbra Streisand about specific word changes in her remarks. On Sunday night, mere minutes before she was to go on to present the cinematography Oscar, Julia Roberts let it be known that she didn't want to recite her presentation speech, and would rather just announce the nominees. Cates dashed out of the production truck backstage at the Kodak Theatre -- where presenters Meryl Streep and Colin Farrell were catching a quick smoke -- into the wings of the auditorium to hurriedly confer with Buz Kohan to discuss options. Kohan, a member of the team writing presenters' comments, marched into the greenroom to meet with Roberts and see if he could work out a compromise.

Later in the broadcast, documentary feature winner Michael Moore began an attack on President Bush after winning the trophy for "Bowling for Columbine." He was promptly greeted by boos not only from the audience but also from many of the stagehands. As Moore's speech reached its crescendo, Cates and Horvitz decided in the production truck to cut him off.

"Music! Music!" Horvitz yelled. The orchestra quickly drowned out the rest of Moore's speech. As he walked backstage with his trophy in his hands, Moore heard even more criticism from the stagehands, one of whom came up to the filmmaker and told him in colorful language that he had a different opinion of the president.

The ever-shifting tension between escapist entertainment and violent global conflict made this year's Oscar show the most logistically complicated since the ceremony was postponed by one day after President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. In the hours leading up to this year's broadcast, that friction was evident in nearly every corner backstage at the Kodak.

In one dressing room, where Oscar guests changed into their tuxedos, there were two distinctly different groups -- those who had firearms strapped across their chests and those who did not. The weapon-carrying people in black tie were undercover police officers, strapping young men with ear pieces.

For Horvitz, much of the earlier part of the day was spent in the control truck, staring at 21 monitors representing every television camera inside the Kodak Theatre. Behind him, a single monitor showed the bombings in Baghdad.

"Ready three. Go three. Ready nine. Go nine," Horvitz said, cuing each shot. U2 had just finished performing the nominated song "The Hands That Built America" from "Gangs of New York." But that wasn't the only part of the ceremony Horvitz and Cates had to work on in the final rehearsal before Sunday's show.

ABC called to inform award organizers that it wanted an additional 30 seconds and possibly more for a news update that would run in the middle of the broadcast, as well as a two-minute segment to deliver the latest war information to Oscar viewers. "Guys, it looks like we're going to add another ABC news break," Cates told the nine people squeezed into the broadcast control truck.

Inside the truck, the mood was intense -- focused but light-hearted. The show's staff quickly figured out where to place both updates, and looked for spots to trim the show so that it didn't run past its promised 3 1/2-hour length. (It exceed that mark only by about five minutes.)

Nevertheless, the preoccupation of nearly everybody backstage shifted from air strikes to air kisses. Televisions that on Sunday morning had been tuned to CNN later were tuned to NCAA basketball games. In the greenroom, a small holding tank for presenters and winners, caterers set out Fiji water, red corn tortilla chips and chocolate torte.

Mindful that there could very well be last-minute changes to both the Oscar broadcast and the news updates, Cates had in front of him the seat assignment inside the theater for Alex Wallau, president of ABC Networks, and his mobile phone number.

But for these 3 1/2 hours, he didn't need them.


- posted by sookeyjane 3/24/2003 05:12:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Monday, March 24, 2003

BDtH top of the box office for third week

http://www.pagesix.com/celebritynews/56003.htm

'BRINGING' IT CLOSER TO $100M

'BRINGING Down the House" led the box office for the third straight weekend, but the overall numbers dropped significantly during the first weekend of the war in Iraq.
The top 12 films grossed $83.9 million - a 29 percent drop from a year ago.

"I think the war has impacted people's desire to go out to the movies. I think people were at home with their families, they were watching the news and not a lot of movies did a lot of business," said Rick Sands, chief operating officer of Miramax, which released "View from the Top," a slapstick airline comedy starring Gwyneth Paltrow that debuted at No. 4.

But Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations, said the weekend's drop-off from a year ago may have more to do with the films that were out than with the war. A year ago, "Blade 2" had a $32.5 million debut and "Ice Age" was in its second weekend.

"We can only guess, but I just think that this weekend turned out pretty much like we expected and any impact the war had is negligible," Dergarabedian said.

Benefiting from strong word of mouth, "Bringing Down the House," a comedy starring Steve Martin as an uptight lawyer and Queen Latifah as an escaped convict, became the first film this year to stay No. 1 three weekends in a row and is on track to cross $100 million within weeks. It presented tough competition for the weekend's new films, Dergarabedian said.

"It's doing incredibly well," he said. "The two newcomers that were comedies really got hurt."

The film also likely pulled audiences from the Stephen King adaptation "Dreamcatcher," which tells the story of four longtime friends (Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Timothy Olyphant and Damian Lewis) who communicate telepathically.

Last night's Oscars should boost sales for the winning films, and three big new openings could mean strong box office next weekend. The comedy "Head of State," starring Chris Rock and Bernie Mac, opens against the sci-fi thriller "The Core" and "Basic," John Travolta's military thriller.- AP

- posted by sookeyjane 3/24/2003 12:58:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



A recap of Steve's performance at the Oscars

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030324/people_nm/oscars_martin_dc_2
Sunday, March 23, 2003
Yahoo News
Steve Martin Opens Oscars on an Ironic Note
2 hours, 47 minutes ago

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian Steve Martin kicked off the 75th anniversary edition of the Academy Awards (news - web sites) on Sunday, poking fun at many of the stars in attendance and jokingly confessing that he had "licked all the Oscars (news - web sites)," but for the most part avoiding the topic of the war in Iraq (news - web sites).

Making his second appearance as host of the Oscars, the white-haired comedian opened the show with only an oblique reference to the war that has overshadowed pre-Oscar events in Hollywood and prompted organizers to tone down the usual razzle-dazzle of the awards show.

Walking on to the gilded stage at the top of the telecast, Martin looked around and said, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, "Well, I'm glad they cut back on all the glitz. You probably noticed there was no fancy red carpet tonight. That'll send 'em a message."

Proceeding in a monologue studded with jabs at showbiz pomp and celebrity, he added, "By the way, the proceeds from tonight's Oscar telecast, and I think this is great, will be divvied up among huge corporations."

Martin turned his trademark sardonic wit on a number of the Oscar nominees, joking at one point, "Tonight, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep made Oscar history backstage, and it wasn't pretty."

He added: "It was a big year for Jack, He also got in a hot tub with Kathy Bates. But hey, who hasn't?"

Both Nicholson, nominated as best actor for "About Schmidt," and Bates, as best supporting actress in the same film, looked shocked and then laughed at the ribbing.

Of Nicole Kidman, who famously wore a prosthetic nose in her Oscar-nominated portrayal of British writer Virginia Woolf in "The Hours, Martin delivered the obviously bogus revelation that she "has worn a fake nose in every movie she's ever made, except 'The Hours.' Looking good, Nicole."

Turning to last year's best actress winner, Halle Berry, sitting in the front row, Martin said, "Halle Berry is here, and notice I'm standing exactly 22 feet from her, in compliance with the court order."

Then, poking at himself, Martin, who first hosted the Academy Awards in 2001, said, "I've just realized that hosting the Oscars for the second time is like making love to a woman for the second time -- I guess."

And in a reference to the aggressive pre-Oscar campaigning by Miramax Films and its hit musical "Chicago," which earned 13 Oscar nominations, Martin said, "Now here's what they did, and you tell me if its fair. They made a really good movie that everybody likes."

Paying tribute to veteran star Mickey Rooney, who was in the audience, Martin said: "At one point Mickey Rooney was the biggest box office star in all the 38 states."
As Rooney stood up at his seat in the balcony and blew kisses to the audience, Martin shouted to him, "I'm sorry we couldn't get you a better seat, but Vin Diesel is here."

Martin rounded out his monologue with a faux tribute to movie stars, set to stirring music: "Movie stars are many things, they can be tall, short, thin or skinny. They can be Democrats or ... skinny. ... We worship them, we idolize them, sometimes we're annoyed with them, like when they shoot their wives.

"Movie stars crave publicity but have the decency not to publicize that they have slept with me," he continued, as shots of a number of stars flashed on the screen -- Kidman, Berry, Julianne Moore, Renee Zellweger, Diane Lane, Julie Andrews, Ted Danson, the cartoon character Stitch and Ernest Borgnine."

Wrapping up, Martin said, "there are no losers tonight, but we're about to change all that."

- posted by sookeyjane 3/24/2003 12:18:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Dave Barry on working with Steve in writing the Oscar monologue and jokes

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/5454934.htm
Posted on Sun, Mar. 23, 2003

Joking around with Oscar and Steve
BY DAVE BARRY

About six months ago, I got an e-mail. Here's what it said:

Hi Dave, it's Steve Martin.

I'm hosting the Oscars this year and am trying to put together a team of geniuses to help me write it. Here's my question: do you know any? HA! I'm wondering if the idea appeals to you at all. You, me, Rita Rudner and a few others. Best Oscar monologue ever. California. Tickets to the show. Fame.

I know you won't do it, so go (bad word) yourself.

Steve

Needless to say, I was excited. I've been a big Steve Martin fan since he had an arrow through his head. To have him ask me to work with him was an honor.

On the other hand, I worried that I'd embarrass myself. I've never tried to write jokes for somebody else, and I knew the other writers on Martin's team would be show-biz pros. So I showed the e-mail to my wife, and told her about my concerns. She told me to think about it carefully, and make whatever decision I truly thought I would be comfortable with, as long as that decision was yes, because if I turned down a chance for us to go to the Academy Awards, she would kill me with a machete.

That was all the encouragement I needed. I e-mailed Martin that I'd do it. My exact words were: ``The Oscars? (Bad word) YES.''

Even though the first meeting of the writers was two months away, I immediately started trying to think up Academy Awards jokes that would be good enough for Martin to deliver to an audience of extremely famous movie stars, plus something like one billion TV viewers. It was intimidating, but within a few weeks, I had: no jokes. I didn't even have any funny-sounding words that might eventually be assembled into jokes. I had zero.

My wife, meanwhile, was making substantial progress. Within a few days, she had a new dress and a matching purse, and was actively pursuing earrings. She also had ordered a pair of shoes that cost roughly the same as a year in medical school. There was to be no turning back.

In November, I went to California for the first meeting of the writers, in a Beverly Hills hotel. We sat at a round table in a conference room. Martin was to my immediate left, taking notes on his laptop computer as the other writers tossed out idea after idea. This group process was unfamiliar and intimidating to me; I've always written alone. I tried to have an idea, but my brain had frozen into a cold, hard mass of lifeless tissue. For about an hour, the only coherent thought it could form was: I'm sitting right next to Steve Martin!

SHARING LAUGHS

But gradually my brain began to thaw, as I realized a surprising thing: These people were all remarkably generous. I'd assumed that they'd be competitive -- lobbying for their own jokes, maybe even criticizing other people's. But it wasn't like that at all. In fact, it was the opposite: If somebody came up with something good, the laughter around the table was instant and genuine; if somebody came up with a joke that needed help, everyone tried to think of ways to improve it.

Many jokes mutated through a number of forms, with various people coming up with various elements, until eventually there was no way to tell whose joke it was. This is the way it works in Hollywood; almost everything is collaborative. All of these people had spent many hours sitting in writer-filled rooms just like this, dreaming up stuff.

As I became comfortable with the process, I also got to know, and become friends with, the other writers, my collaborators. In alphabetical order, they were:

• Beth Armogida, an awards-show veteran who writes jokes for Jay Leno and for two seasons wrote for Drew Carey on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

• Dave Boone, the head writer for Hollywood Squares and a collaborator on four previous Academy Award shows, creating material for Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg.

• Andy Breckman, who has worked for Dave Letterman and Saturday Night Live; wrote a bunch of movies (including Rat Race and Sgt. Bilko); created the TV show Monk; and is insane (I mean this in a good way).

• Jon Macks, an Academy Awards veteran and a staff writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and who is nicknamed the ''Machine'' because he is so prolific. This is a guy who, as far as I can tell, thinks entirely in jokes. If Jon were sentenced to die on the guillotine, he'd fire off three jokes while the blade was coming down and at least two of them would be really good.

• Rita Rudner, the very funny standup comic lady and TV host, who also turns out to be a sweet person.

• Robert Shapiro, our dryly amusing liaison to the Academy Awards, who kept us updated on which stars were coming, which stars were not coming and which stars were actually deceased.

• Bruce Vilanch, actor, comedian, Hollywood Squares fixture, big hairy funny guy and award-winning writer who has worked on every Academy Awards show since 1989 and knows all the dirt on everybody who has ever been anybody in Hollywood (we are talking about a lot of dirt).

By the second meeting, we were comfortable with each other and with the way Martin liked to work. There was a clear pattern to the way he reacted to ideas. When somebody tossed out a joke, Martin would, most of the time, nod and say, ''Ya, ya, ya.'' This meant: ''no.'' He almost never actually said no, because he's a genuinely nice guy, and he wanted to let the joke-tosser know he appreciated the effort. But ''ya'' definitely meant no.

When Martin liked an idea enough to at least consider using it, you could tell because he typed it into his computer. The taptaptap of his keyboard was kind of like applause. If he really liked the joke, he'd perform it, trying different wordings and deliveries; sometimes he'd even stand up to do this, giving it the full standup-comedian treatment. And if it was your idea, you'd think -- at least I did -- Steve Martin is performing MY joke.

The most interesting part for me was listening to the group work on a joke that wasn't quite right, trying to figure out why, using a kind of shorthand developed from countless hours of making humor for a living. Like, Macks would toss out a joke (he does this every 30 seconds, awake or asleep) and Martin would go, ''Ya, ya, ya,'' meaning ''no.'' And Macks would go, ''Too roast-y?'' And Martin would go, ''Yeah, too ba-dump-BUMP.'' With that cleared up, it was on to the next joke.

AIR OF THE DOG

We met eight times over the course of three months. Most of the meetings were in the living room of Martin's home, a fine place to sit and laugh. In addition to the writers, these meetings were attended by Martin's Labrador retriever, Roger, whose contribution to the process was to periodically emit eye-watering blasts of flatulence. We'd be sitting around, tossing out jokes, and suddenly, WHOA, the air would turn green. When this happened, Martin would give Roger a stern lecture.

''Roger,'' he'd say, ``do you want me to do to you what I did to the cat?''

Roger would cower and look guilty, to indicate that he was sorry and would never do it again. But he always forgot.

Some of our jokes stunk, too. But I thought a lot of them were pretty funny. Of course some of these couldn't be used in the show, because they were too insider-y, or too vicious, or too obscene (defined as ``very funny''). We also had to steer clear of certain topics, the most obvious one being the looming war. Since we had no way to know what the news would be on the night of the show, Martin decided early on -- correctly, I think -- that although he'd probably have to acknowledge breaking news, he'd focus his monologue on the movie industry, which is, at least theoretically, the subject of the Academy Awards.

In the end, Martin took the mass of jokes, winnowed it down to the ones he liked and thought would work well together, and shaped these into his monologue. In the process, a lot of jokes got cut, including a few I'd grown attached to. My personal favorite -- I lobbied for it at every meeting -- was one Breckman came up with one day while we were going over a list of the movies that came out last year.

''Halloween 8 came out,'' Breckman said. ``I thought it was the best Halloween ever. It made Halloween 7 look like Halloween 5.''

For some reason, I love that joke. But you won't hear it on the show tonight. In fact, I don't know exactly what you will hear: Martin continued working on his monologue right up to the end.

But whatever you hear, I hope you'll be entertained. I don't presume to speak for the Academy Awards, but I believe the general feeling of the people involved in putting on the show is this: We know you have more important things -- MUCH more important things -- on your mind right now. We know that, in the context of world events, it makes absolutely no difference who wins these weird little statuettes. We just hope that -- if you feel up to it -- you'll enjoy this brief and harmless diversion from real life.

OK, maybe not ''brief.'' But however long it runs, we hope you like it. We especially hope you like the jokes.

And if you hear any jokes you don't like, those were Roger's.


- posted by sookeyjane 3/23/2003 11:49:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Alas. BDtH loses best trailer award.

how awful. About Schmidt won. i bet they were bribed.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/22/2003 05:54:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Hey, Academy! Take some new pics

although this is the 75th anniversary of the oscars, the academy has not seen fit to make any new publicity shots of steve as host. fortunately for them, he looked really good in 2001 and can be recycled. for those of you who maybe missed the old ones, here's a goody

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030322/170/3lcpu.html

personally, i think he should be on that pedestal naked except for a loincloth and a sword. but i only think that because it would be the true oscar pose. no other reason. really.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/22/2003 05:41:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve's New Yorker article

provided by R.L. who likes to remain initialled

Iraq: An Actor’s View

My intelligence has told me that if Iraq violates the 180th parallel or intrudes even weaponically across the Kuwaiti border north of the mountain city of Kundalini, the Kurdish opposition could smash any transgression south of the floodplains, or at least the area above the floodplains, or, in case there are no floods, that sort of grassy area in the hills. Well, really it’s not so grassy, according to my intelligence.

However, I have inferred from my travel brochures that a few well-armed men could sneak in from northern Turkey and capture the city of, uh, one of the smaller cities, or possibly go through Islamatown (I know the actual name of the city is Islamabad, but I don’t like the implication). We could then negotiate with the Tanjekestan footmen and bring about a peaceful settlement, if and only if North Korea decides to switch completely from direct current to alternating current.

See, if we could just get Saddam and the President in a room together and have them watch, say, “Singing’ in the Rain,” I don’t think we’d have much of a problem. Because the nature of the movie is to celebrate joy and fun and silliness. So how could two men, even those who have vast ideological differences, such as when and how much to bomb the living daylights out of each other, hate one another after seeing “Singin’ in the Rain”? Since “Singin’ in the Rain” is an American movie, I think that, for the sake of balance, it should be followed by a live performance of Saddam’s romantic play, “Your Eyes Don’t Make Me Want to Spit in No Camel’s Face.” I have seen “Your Eyes Don’t Make Me Want to Spit in No Camel’s Face,” though, and I have to say it did not induce heavy mitting from the audience. It’s also nine hours long’ President Bush would just have to tolerate this.

Another plan I’ve been thinking about is to kidnap Saddam and a few other Al Qaeda higher-ups and bring them to Los Angeles. Here they could be given a rental car and set free in the residential areas of the city. They would soon experience the friendly “you go first” traffic wave, and would be so seduced by it that they would want to live here. Or at least they would begin to understand that we Americans are really a bunch of friendly people who just want to let the other guy go first, and then, a minute later, pass him by flooring it in the right-turn lane while flipping him the bird. If Saddam decided to relocate here, we could give him a suburban block in the Valley to control as a sop.

My intelligence sources have also told me that Saddam is sitting on a big pile of Botox. Fine.

Obviously, Saddam is in hiding. If you were living underground with very little access to the outside, wouldn’t it be great to meet the cast of “Everybody Loves Raymond”? Of course it would. Saddam would welcome the cast of “Everybody Loves Raymond” with open arms. Then—blewie! The cast of “Everybody Loves Raymond” would forever live in our memory as great American heroes.

I am of the opinion, based on the above, that we should not invade Iraq at this time. I believe we should get Iraq to invest in a movie. Saddam would then be distracted by obsessing over why the critics just didn’t get it, while losing his oil fields to creative accounting.

Note to Saddam’s makeup man: swarthy is out. I suggest a lighter base with a hint of blush. Dot on some lip gloss for a sunny tint.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/22/2003 02:31:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve in the New Yorker again

a little bird told me that Steve has a piece in the new New Yorker about Iraq. it's true and i'm going to find it. then i'll share.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 09:19:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Newsday (New York, NY)
March 20, 2003 Thursday
NEWS, Pg. A14
Walters Is Off, Rivers Is On

Barbara Walters is stepping away from the Oscars, but Joan Rivers is not.

ABC yesterday postponed Walters' annual Oscars interview special - which was set to feature nominees Nicolas Cage, Renee Zellweger and Julianne Moore - because of the confrontation with Iraq. There was a chance Walters' special would be pre-empted for news coverage anyway.

The same possibility still exists for the Academy Awards ceremony on ABC. Organizers have promised the show will go on, but have canceled the splashy red carpet arrivals at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood for fear that would set an inappropriate tone.

That would seem disastrous for the E! entertainment network, whose eight hours of pre-Oscar coverage is centered on comments about stars' wardrobes by Rivers and her daughter, Melissa.

Rivers' show this year may focus less on fashion and interviews and more on Oscar predictions, but E! isn't abandoning it, said Mark Sonnenberg, the cable channel's entertainment chief.

"For a lot of people, there's a comfort there - if Joan is on the red carpet, it's OK," he said yesterday.

Rivers will display an appropriate tone, Sonnenberg said. "She's a professional," he said.

The Oscar preshow coverage traditionally helps E! score its highest ratings of the year.

The ceremony, from host Steve Martin's monologue to the celebrity presentations and film clip montages, is also changed to reflect the nation's mood. Telecast producer Gil Cates refused to cite specifics on how the ceremony would address the impending conflict.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 09:09:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



There's a compliment for Steve buried in here

The New York Times
March 21, 2003, Friday, Late Edition - Final
Section E; Part 1; Page 1; Column 1; Movies, Performing Arts/Weekend Desk
With Eye on the War, Oscar Plans Proceed
By RICK LYMAN
LOS ANGELES, March 20

The beginning of the war against Iraq has left officials at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences quietly nervous but publicly optimistic about whether the 75th Annual Academy Awards will proceed as planned on Sunday night.

The official word from academy headquarters today was that Sunday's show would go on as scheduled at 8:30 p.m., Eastern time, in the Kodak Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. But time still remains for it to be postponed should wider attacks involving American soldiers occur.

"Everything we say is set on sand at this moment," said Kevin Brockman, senior vice president for entertainment communications at ABC, the network that is to broadcast the ceremonies. "We are really attempting to remain fluid."

Like many others, ABC and the academy were caught by surprise by the pace of the war's opening salvos. "All of our intelligence was wrong," Mr. Brockman said. "Everything we thought we knew, we don't know."

Academy officials said they could comfortably make a decision as late as Friday evening to postpone the event, which is expected to draw more than 3,500 people from around the world. And Mr. Brockman said that in an emergency the decision to postpone could be made as late as the day of the show, just as it was for the 2001 Emmy Awards after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

While it is theoretically possible for the Oscars to proceed without being broadcast on ABC, that is not likely to happen, Mr. Brockman said. "I think a decision will be made one way or the other," he said.

In the end, that decision may hinge on the reaction of some of the telecast's biggest sponsors, including General Motors, J. C. Penney and Pepsi. Because of the popularity of the Oscar show, ABC was able to fill up its advertising slots very quickly and with a contract that guarantees the advertisers no minimum audience. So theoretically, the advertisers are locked in.

"Here you have this sort of remarkable moment where you have big advertisers who are very key supporters of the network," said Seth Siegel, chairman of the licensing division of the Beanstalk Group, a global trademark licensing agency. "If they say they're furious and they want out, who is going to tell them they can't get out at a moment like this?"

Eastman Kodak, a longtime Oscar advertiser, said that the company had reviewed its advertisements for this year and believed they were still appropriate. Glenn Mathison, a spokesman for the Charles Schwab investment agency, said that the company had a standing order to pull all of its television advertising for seven days after the war's start but that it would proceed with its Oscar commercials.

MasterCard says it is staying in, too, as are American Express, AOL Time Warner and Washington Mutual. Yahoo hopes to introduce a new Internet personals-ad service during the Academy Awards. "It's sweet, it's charming, you'll smile, maybe you'll laugh," said Terry Semel, the company's chief executive.

Pepsi-Cola, however, "is developing plans for what would be appropriate" during the Oscars, and its ultimate decision will depend on what is happening in Iraq on Sunday, said Bart Casabona, a company spokesman.

As of today, though, none of the major advertisers had pulled out, network officials said. If they do, a new calculus may be needed.

"At that point, I predict ABC would say it's inappropriate for us to be on the air at this moment, so we're going to delay the show in respect both to our advertisers and to the desire to be united as a nation," Mr. Siegel said.

Toning Things Down


Already the academy's decision to tone down the celebrity hoopla surrounding the awards, including canceling the red-carpet arrival of the stars, has reverberated through many of the Oscar-related events that are scheduled around Hollywood during the movie industry's most important weekend of the year.

Miramax Films, whose 40 Oscar nominations, including 13 for the front-runner, "Chicago," make it the dominant player this weekend, has always had a night-before party at which stars from its nominated films appear in satirical skits, and then a second party on the night of the ceremonies. As of this morning, the parties were to go on as scheduled, but without the skits.

"At the moment, the plan is for everything to go on but be more subdued," said Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Miramax.

The annual Oscar night party given by Vanity Fair magazine at Morton's Restaurant in West Hollywood, traditionally the weekend's biggest celebrity magnet, is also to continue as planned, but without a red-carpet arrival area or access for cameras and interviewers. Paramount Pictures, whose film "The Hours" has nine nominations, will have its after-Oscars party as planned at the Pacific Design Center, a block east of Morton's.

The weekend's other major awards event is Saturday afternoon's Independent Spirit Awards, given to achievement in smaller, less mainstream films by the Independent Film Project/West. Many of the major Oscar nominees, like Julianne Moore and John C. Reilly, are also up for Spirit Awards. The event, under a sprawling tent at the beach in Santa Monica, will proceed and include a red-carpet arrival area -- perhaps the only red carpet in Hollywood this weekend.

"The Spirit Awards have always been a place where artists come together and speak their minds," said Dawn Hudson, the group's executive director. "It is our hope that Saturday's ceremonies will provide both this type of forum as well as focus on independent film."

The producers of the Oscar telecast said they had been heartened by the assurances from almost all of the nominees and celebrity presenters that they will attend Sunday night's event.

These include, they said, some of the movie industry's most outspoken opponents of the war, like Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore and Ben Affleck. Many of them are expected to register their disapproval by wearing antiwar pins, in the shape of a dove or a peace symbol, or swatches of duct tape.

At least one nominee, Aki Kaurismaki, a Finnish director whose "Man Without a Past" is up for best foreign-language film, has said that he will stay away from the ceremonies in protest against the war.

And Will Smith, who was to be a presenter this year, has pulled out of the show.

"He felt uncomfortable in attending and respectfully asked to be excused," said his publicist, Stan Rosenfield. "There's no agenda, there's no speeches. He just felt uncomfortable in attending."

Suspense Over Speeches


Oscar producers were reporting no other major defections from the show as of this morning. Of more concern to them was whether any of the celebrities would take advantage of the global television audience on Sunday night to make a political statement about the war.

Gil Cates, the show's producer, said that the presenters had been given scripts and would be expected to stick to them but that the winners would be free to say anything. "It's their 45 seconds," Mr. Cates said.

The uncertainty about who will speak out, and how strongly, could well add to the pleasure of watching the show, said Peter Bart, editor of Variety.

"It will add another element of suspense, in a way," he said. "And they really lucked out in having Steve Martin as the host this year. He's shown himself to be brilliant at coming up with the right tone and the right note of wit for the right moment, and that's really going to be needed this year."Bruce Vilanch, the show's longtime chief writer, said he hoped the winners would keep their political views to themselves. But, he added, he understands that the temptation may prove too great for some. "We'll have to play it by the seat of our pants, since we don't know what's going to happen," he said.

Stephen Daldry, a nominee for his direction of "The Hours," has said that he will most certainly make an antiwar statement if he wins, although he is widely considered a long shot in that category.

Security Concerns


When Oscar organizers announced on Wednesday that they would dismantle the red-carpet arrival area outside the Kodak Theater, a frenzy of logistical reorganization began that was continuing today. The 500 fans who had earmarked seats in the now-dismantled bleachers will be given another place to watch the evening's events.

But without celebrities pirouetting down the red carpet, there will be nothing to chronicle for the 500 television and print journalists who had received credentials for spaces along the arrival line. Under the new plan, the celebrities will leave their limousines at the curb and go directly into the theater, although there were hopes that some sort of pool arrangement could be set up to get shots of the arrivals. Questions, however, will not be allowed.

Cameras will also be excluded from the Governor's Ball, the academy's own post-awards event in a ballroom adjacent to the Kodak Theater. But the backstage photo and interview areas at the ceremonies will be available as usual.

Security, meanwhile, will be even tighter than it was last year, when all of those attending had to submit to searches and pass through metal detectors while hundreds of police officers monitored a security perimeter of several blocks around the site. The biggest difference this year will be a new network of closed-circuit cameras covering all of the streets around the Kodak Theater and every entrance point. No one will be able to get into the building without being seen, the police said.

Propriety -- not security -- was the reason that academy officials gave for closing down the red carpet. Too many celebrities, Mr. Cates said, had called to ask if they could enter the building through the back door, saying that they felt it was inappropriate to stress the event's glamour or party aspects during a time of war.

This is not the first time that the academy has responded to a national crisis in this way. In its first decades, the Academy Awards were held at a formal banquet in Hollywood. But in 1942, as the United States moved into World War II and rationing became a fact of life for ordinary citizens, many stars and studio executives felt it would be unseemly for bejeweled Hollywood royalty to be seen stuffing themselves and drinking Champagne. So the ceremonies were moved into an auditorium, where they have remained ever since.

This same sense of propriety will extend to the content of this year's show, with writers working up until showtime composing new material for Mr. Martin and some fresh introductions for the presenters. Since this is the academy's 75th anniversary, much of the show had already been reserved to vintage film clips and sequences from past Oscar shows.

For the 75th Time


- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 09:07:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Who won?

Daily News, Los Angeles, Calif.
March 14, 2003, Friday
Film Industry to Honor Best Movie Trailers
By Greg Hernandez

A sleepy and disheveled Queen Latifah gives Steve Martin a strategic kick in the theatrical trailer for the smash comedy "Bringing Down the House." That is one of several hilarious bits that whetted the appetites of moviegoers who turned out in droves to see the nation's current No. 1 film.

"The trailer was great," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracker Exhibitor Relations Co. "People were quoting lines from that trailer right off the bat. The trailer just really captured the audience and got the buzz going."

"House" features the unlikely pairing of Martin as a straight-laced lawyer who meets a woman (Latifah) on the Internet who happens to be in prison and gets out to wreak havoc in his life. The film's trailer was among the nominees for Thursday night's fourth annual Golden Trailer Awards, a program devoted to these feature film previews -- each about two minutes -- that experts say can either jump-start a film's box office run or contribute to it being DOA.

"The best trailers don't tell you every plot twist, but you get to the end and you know whether you will laugh or cry and if you want to have that experience," said Steve Stockman, president of Santa Monica-based Custom Productions. "In truth, the stories in movies aren't all that different, but consumers purchase the experience of how the story is told. The idea of putting two completely opposite people together and having them become friends ... is a story that has been in movies for 80 years."

"House," released by Disney's Touchstone Pictures, enjoyed the third-largest March opening in history with a gross of $ 31.1 million, a figure far beyond even the most optimistic studio and industry expectations.

Chuck Viane, president of Disney's Buena Vista Distribution, said the trailer for "House" is among the handful of standout trailers each year that connect on every level with a widespread audience.

"Trailers are probably the key to all movies," Viane said. "This one creatively allowed our marketing people to show the connection that (director) Adam Shankman made with the actors. Nothing was forced, and everything was this wonderful ebb and flow of comedy."

Evelyn Brady, executive producer of the Golden Trailer Awards, said the past 10 years have seen an evolution in movie trailers from a random batch of movie scenes to a more creatively told minifeature.

"People talk about movie trailers. They are part of our culture now," Brady said. "They are now more of an artfully told story that is weaved together, leaving out the third act."

The "Bringing Down the House" trailer was among the best comedy nominees Thursday, competing against the previews for "About Schmidt," "Adaptation," "Daddy Day Care" and "Undercover Brother."

High-profile nominees in other categories include trailers from such blockbusters as "Daredevil," "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." In the best dramatic category, trailers are competing from Academy Award-nominated films "The Hours," "Gangs of New York" and "The Pianist."

The trailer for Universal Films' "8 Mile" is up for awards in the categories of most original trailer and best music trailer. The trailer for rapper Eminem's film debut connected with audiences as the movie grossed $ 51.2 million during its opening weekend on its way to a domestic gross of $ 116.7 million.

The "8 Mile" trailer was produced by mOcean, a Venice-based company.

Producer Brian Hamryck and creative director Nichael McIntyre had to weigh how to show Eminem's humanity with the rougher edges of the film.

"Universal came in knowing they had the core audience of Eminem pretty much locked in," said McIntyre. "The concern they had was attracting a broader range of people. The movie definitely had the goods, but it was a question of how do you show a movie about Eminem to appeal to his base audience and not make it threatening to the rest of the population."

Industry experts said one universal rule of trailers is that, to generate the positive word of mouth that can create an unexpected hit, they must reflect the goods the film will deliver.

"They have to match the movie because if you go to the movie and find that it's nothing like the experience sold in the trailer, you are going to be angry," Stockman said. "That's how you get bad word of mouth for a film."

- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 09:03:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve's place in Oscar history

The Daily News of Los Angeles
March 16, 2003 Sunday, Valley Edition
Section U; Pg. U5
OSCAR HOSTS
BY Valerie Kuklenski

Will Rogers, 1934: Not the first host, but the first to see the potential for humor in the formal affair. "This looks a lot like the last roundup of the ermine," he said.

George Jessel, 1937: He made the mistake of bypassing presenter Bette Davis and handed Luise Rainer her best actress award himself.

Bob Hope, 1940-43, 1945, 1953, 1955, 1958-62, 1965-68, 1970 (as one of the "friends of Oscar" gang), 1975, 1978: The NBC radio star hosted the 1940 ceremonies, when "Gone With the Wind" was the big winner, as expected. "What a wonderful thing, this benefit for David Selznick," Hope said. In 1967, he sized up the show as "this farcical charade of vulgar egotism and pomposity."

Jack Benny, 1944, 1947: "It seems to me that to get a nomination a picture must have no laughs," Benny deadpanned. "And they tell me I've come pretty close to that a few times already."

Fred Astaire, 1951: The song-and-dance man beseeched winners to be brief, recalling the year "a girl took the Beverly Hills phone book up with her."

Danny Kaye, 1952: Continuing on that theme, Kaye told guests: "The academy asks that your speech be no longer than the movie itself."

Donald O'Connor, 1954: The comic sidekick seemed to be out of his element in the lead position, so he got down to business: "On with the reading of the will."

Jerry Lewis, 1956-57, 1959: He told the audience he was tapped to emcee when the academy was unable to locate Hope. "He was at home."

Frank Sinatra, 1963, 1975: "The greatest pizza maker in the world - Miss Sophia Loren." You can take the boy out of Hoboken, but ...

Jack Lemmon, 1964, 1972, 1985: A past co-host, he raised a couple of brows in 1964 by introducing Julie Andrews as "My Fair Lady," even though Audrey Hepburn had already finished filming the movie version.

Clint Eastwood, 1973: Tapped last minute to co-host in place of Charlton Heston, he won big laughs for sticking to the script, including Moses jokes.

David Niven, 1974: He did his duty and was rewarded with a streaker.

Richard Pryor, 1977, 1983: "I'm here to explain why black people will never be nominated for anything," he said.

Johnny Carson, 1979-82, 1984: The first nonmovie star to host, he called the ceremony "two hours of sparkling entertainment spread over a four-hour show."

Robin Williams, 1986: In a co-hosting stint, Jane Fonda and Alan Alda gave greetings to viewers around the world while Williams "translated."

Chevy Chase, 1987-88: In 1988, he told viewers that Cher "has decided against the wardrobe of just the dress shields and odor eaters and is going for the full body covering."

Billy Crystal, 1990-93, 1997-98, 2000: A year after the no-hosted 1989 show opened with a disastrous Snow White-Rob Lowe duet, Crystal redeemed the ceremony's image with his first best-picture medley and his quick responses to turns of events in the show.

Whoopi Goldberg, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2002: "So they went and gave me a live microphone for three hours...," she said, hinting that the audience and the academy should expect the unexpected from her.

David Letterman, 1995: "Oprah ... Uma. Uma ... Oprah." He hasn't been invited back.

Steve Martin, 2001, 2003: In his first outing, he brought a subdued wit (and, unfortunately, lower-than-usual ratings) to the ceremony while trying to keep things moving. "Please hold your applause," he said, "until it's for me."
- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 08:58:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve was always concerned about getting a table

really. steve has mentioned several times that he is concerned with getting a table as a sign of success, status, whatever. this rather long article mentions him. i include it because of the insight into show biz and Steve.

Los Angeles Times
March 19, 2003 Wednesday Home Edition
Food; Part 6; Page 1; Features Desk
The Hollywood lunch; Nobody really eats. It's all about power, and never more so than right now.
BY Corie Brown, Times Staff Writer

Everyone goes to the Grill on the Alley for a reason. And it isn't to eat.

Last Wednesday, Michael Caine arrived precisely at 1 p.m. He made his way to a choice side booth, silently nodding to a few of the dozens of talent agents, managers and lawyers who hold court at the Beverly Hills restaurant (no one at the Grill interrupts anyone -- they're all too important). He slid into the green vinyl booth, ordered a quick two-course meal and exited as silently as he came in.

It was a subtle performance, on par with the one that earned him an Oscar nomination for best actor in "The Quiet American." And its message was clear: Remember me when you vote.

On any given weekday, the Hollywood lunch is a fraught affair, where the industry's most powerful scramble for the right seat in the right place, and, once they get it, adhere to a specific code of behavior. And never is it more intense than in these final days before the Academy Awards. Nominees like Caine are in town, eager to see and be seen. The regular battery of money men -- and they are almost all men -- are even more eager to flaunt their clients and their power to get things done. At this moment, every nominee is a winner, and they all want to exploit that little bit of extra wattage.

"Everyone pushes hard," says talent manager Bernie Brillstein, noting that lunch now is a business meeting, never social. "Everyone is scared" they will fall behind, he adds.

Finding the town's power players at lunchtime is easy. They are all crowded together at a handful of restaurants where the midday meal has become a cutthroat game of musical chairs. Corporate consolidation and the tightening economy have left more entertainment industry power in fewer hands. "Fewer people have the big expense accounts. Fewer people can get away with 20% tips," says entertainment attorney Ken Ziffren. Fewer restaurants, and fewer power tables, remain in the game.

Where once there were a dozen hot spots, now there are only two places at the top of everyone's list: the Grill on the Alley and Barney Greengrass, the restaurant on top of Barneys New York in Beverly Hills. Both are within walking distance of the home offices of most of the major talent agencies.

"Lunch may be a cultural institution here but people want to get it over with fast," says Bert Fields, another veteran Hollywood attorney.

*

The strut

After "Bringing Down the House" opened as the top grossing film a couple of weekends ago, Steve Martin ate lunch at the Grill the following Monday. "After a big opening, you go to the Grill to be congratulated," says producer Tom Pollock, who had done the same thing with his producing partner, Ivan Reitman, when their comedy, "Old School," opened well the week before. "If your movie doesn't open, you eat a Big Mac in the office," he says.The Barney Greengrass crowd is younger and hipper than the Grill's, with more women and celebrities such as Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman. The dining room is jammed with regulars who want the back corner tables with an easy sightline to the front desk so they can note arrivals, where they sit and decide whether they should make a point of stopping by on the way out. The small, tightly packed square room makes table-hopping difficult, which suits Hollywood players, who have perfected the silent nod of recognition.

Celebrities typically want a table outside on the patio and rarely care which one, says Sharyn Kervyn, the restaurant's general manager. But the behind-the-scenes types are intense about who sits where. Senior agents have demanded that junior agents switch tables with them, even after the junior's lunch has been served.

When Michael Ovitz, co-founder of Creative Artists Agency, was gearing up to launch his second coming as a talent manager with the now defunct Artists Management Group, he held court at the "chef's table" near the Barney Greengrass kitchen. Ovitz courted staff, wooed clients and met with friends there in an orchestrated effort to redefine himself as a player on the rise, instead of a mogul on the mend after his notorious 1996 flameout as president of Walt Disney Co. It was at that table, Kervyn says, where he met with Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese, pulling together the pieces for "Gangs of New York." (Once Ovitz's former underlings at CAA got wind of the powwows, Kervyn says, they started reserving the "chef's table" to annoy him, later canceling their reservations.)

At the Grill, manager Michael Goddard also conducts an elaborate game of musical chairs every day at 1 p.m., hustling to sit regulars at their favorite tables, while reservation calls come in as late as noon. Even as industry titans jockey for the home-booth advantage. Before he became Vivendi Universal Entertainment chief, Barry Diller was considering a deal with billionaire Ronald O. Perelman. Assistants to both men called Goddard half a dozen times the day of the lunch to make certain that their bosses each got his regular table.

Goddard reserved both tables, and waited.

Diller arrived early and was ushered to his preferred spot. Perelman arrived five minutes late, and he was reluctantly ushered into Diller's domain.

*

The B list

Still, these are tough days for the Hollywood lunch. The Palm, Mr. Chow and Spago, with decades of history as Hollywood hangs, look comparatively wan during the daylight hours. Morton's, Maple Drive, Orsini Osteria and the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel are downright slow. The Ivy on Robertson Boulevard is full of Hollywood wives and only a sprinkling of the once omnipresent celebrities.

Ago, with its Hollywood owners including Robert De Niro and Miramax's Weinstein brothers, Harvey and Bob, is never more than half full at lunch, although the clutch of eaters often includes heavyweights like ICM Chairman Jeff Berg, Viacom Entertainment Group Chairman Jonathan Dolgen and DreamWorks partner Jeffrey Katzenberg.

These days, Diller more often eats on the studio lot, a practice that dates back to MCA Chairman Lew Wasserman, who held court at a rear table in Universal's commissary every day for decades. Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Eisner never eats lunch anywhere but at the Rotunda, Disney's executive commissary. News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch can be found at his Malibu home on Carbon Beach when he's not eating in the Fox commissary, say people who know him.

It's not a question of the cuisine. These are protein and roughage eaters who like their food served naked. No surprises. No dribbles of sauce around the plate edge. If they can order their plain fare prepared just for them, all the better.

Lunch is, first and foremost, a business meeting, says Agostino Sciandri, executive chef and part owner of Ago. "Lunch is a very fast meal. They always want the same things."

Out of 100 lunches at the Palm, 30 will be steak orders, says Scott Fickling, general manager. The rest are salads with a few fish specials.

Says Michael Jackson, chairman of Universal Television, "Everyone is so concerned about their weight, they choose the blandest food imaginable. If there were no food, would anyone notice?

"They should have 'The Restaurant of the Empty Plate.' Hold the food and increase the prices for sitting at a table with fine bone china and mineral water. Everyone would pay, have their meeting and go," he says.

Says Marty Bowen, a literary agent at United Talent Agency, "It's macho to show self-control. I am strong. I don't eat bread. No one eats dessert."

And no one orders so much as a glass of wine, says Jackson, a native of London, who notices that the table always "goes quiet" when he orders his usual gin and tonic. "It's jealousy and also fear, fear that in some small way you are slightly insane," says Jackson. "What is all of this denial about? It tells you that they fear the chaos that would ensue with a drink at lunch."

But even in the heyday of the three-martini lunch, the Hollywood crowd was never much for drinking: A single glass was the usual limit. Still, it was more fun then, recalls Brillstein, the talent manager. Everyone ate at Scandia on Sunset Boulevard or in Beverly Hills at the Brown Derby, Jimmy's or the Polo Lounge. Celebrities were a regular part of the scene even as recently as 10 years ago.

"No more," Brillstein says. "And no one laughs anymore. I can't remember the last time someone called and said, 'Let's go to lunch and have a few laughs.' "

"At Ma Maison, David Janssen and Orson Welles came in and would have a drink with lunch," says Wolfgang Puck, remembering his days as a chef at the La Cienega Boulevard restaurant. "Lunch is much faster-paced now. A salad and iced tea. No drinking. The business climate has changed. Celebrities are not out there as in the old times, that's for sure."

The Hollywood lunch may have transcended food and drink, but it remains fixated on the one thing that truly sustains it: power. And, at least in the restaurants, Hollywood power is defined by the men in the business willing to work the scene on a daily basis.

"Lunch is how we all got to know each other," says Fields. "It's the hustle."

*

Where are the women?

While women have climbed to the heights of the industry, they typically have done so through the studios. Sony Pictures Entertainment Vice Chairman Amy Pascal, Universal Pictures Chairman Stacey Snider and Paramount Pictures Chairman Sherry Lansing take most of their meals in the studio commissary. Agents and producers travel to where they hold court, not the other way around.

In the restaurants where agents and lawyers rule, most of the women have opted out of the game. Melanie Cook, an attorney who represents producer Scott Rudin, eats nearly every lunch in a restaurant with an agent or producer -- but rarely at the Grill or Barney Greengrass. A few years ago, she started frequenting a Beverly Hills Japanese restaurant, Sai. Within months, it became a hot spot for young agents.

"I went twice a week to Sai. Had my own table. I took everyone there," Cook says.

It takes a considerable commitment of time and money to be a player at a regular industry spot. For starters, only people who eat out every weekday, limiting themselves to one or, at most, two restaurants would be considered regulars. After months of such devotion, perhaps that person would be seated at one of the better booths at the Palm, says Scott Fickling, its general manager.

"Jim Wiatt [president and co-chief executive of the William Morris Agency] gets the first booth, unless [producer] Dick Zanuck is here. Then Jim gets bumped. There is a pecking order," says Fickling. "It's based on how often people come."

Each restaurant has its power tables, invariably situated to allow both audio privacy and an easy view of the rest of the room. At the Grill and the Palm, those are the front booths. At Barney Greengrass, it's a back corner table. Being seated at a table for two in the middle of any room is an insult -- and can undo years of image-building.

Young agents, fearful of being embarrassed in front of Hollywood's old guard, won't make a reservation at the Grill until they are sure Goddard knows their names and won't make them wait in the breezeway until the VIPs are seated, according to several agents.

"The purpose of the Grill is the perception that you are in The Club. It can elevate your status," says UTA's Bowen.

*

Son of Hollywood

If Goddard seems particularly adept at the dance, there's a reason: He's the rare Hollywood insider manning a restaurant door. Even before joining the Grill's staff 11 years ago, he was on a first-name basis with most of the town through his grandfather, Henry Rogers, founder of one of the industry's first public relations firms; his father, Mark Goddard, star of "Lost in Space"; or one of his stepfathers, film producer Mike Medavoy.

"I couldn't do what I do if I hadn't learned it from Mike," he says, adding that he considers himself "the host of a party."

To preserve the appearance of power and prestige in Hollywood, it's important to have the front of the house man on your side. Goddard keeps up with what's happening in the lives of his regulars. "Congratulate people," says Goddard. "It makes them feel good."

"Everyone takes care of us at Christmas," the Palm's Fickling says, pulling a $500 Barneys gift certificate out of his wallet, a gift from a regular customer. "There is door money every night, an extra $20 in the hand. And they are all good tippers, 20% to 25%."

Talent agencies send "a couple of grand" a year to the door managers at the key restaurants "in addition to the daily tips," says one agent who asked not to be identified.

The etiquette for the Hollywood lunch is not always what the rest of the world considers fine manners. It's acceptable for agents and lawyers to take cell phone calls during lunch and diddle with their BlackBerry e-mail devices (as long as they're kept off the table).

However, "you don't see people getting up during lunch to talk to each other. It's just on the way in and on the way out," says Fickling, who counts George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey among his regulars.

Tardiness is unacceptable. Five minutes is considered rude, longer is lethal.

If the lunch plans go awry or the reservation isn't right, no one blames the restaurant, fearing they may fall out of favor with the influential door manager and fall behind in the pecking order. But this is Hollywood, after all, and someone has to be blamed.

Most people whip out a cell phone and scream at their assistant.

*



Here's how it's done

If you're going to be part of the Hollywood scene, you need to know the rules:

Reservations: Usually made the same day, often after 11 a.m. Regulars never show up without one.

Greetings: Say hello to other diners on your way in or out, never in the middle of the meal. The nod is preferred.

The Nod: May be embellished with a "hello."

The Fly-By: Walk to the restroom down one side of the restaurant and back the other to see and be seen. Do not talk; the Nod OK if eye contact made.

The Exit: If doing business with someone who also happens to be at the restaurant, stop, exchange pleasantries as leaving and introduce guests.

Cell phones: Never make calls, only receive -- and on silent ring.

BlackBerries: E-mail allowed if done discreetly under the table.

Two courses: Fine, but must be eaten in less than an hour.

Tardiness: Regulars are never late.

Tipping: 20% to 25%

The door tip: Fold a $20 bill three times in the palm; quickly shake door manager's hand on the way out. (Never offer money to get a better table.)

The tab: Lawyers reach for check last; agents are expected to first. Some folks always pay to stay one favor ahead.

Ignoring the negative: Never mention someone's latest lawsuit or indictment.

*



Where the industry grazes

When you don't have time to drive to Beverly Hills for the Grill or Barney Greengrass, these local spots will suffice for a quick power bite:

Ca' del Sole (North Hollywood): A stone's throw from Universal for producers who want privacy. Also a DreamWorks hang.

Campanile (Los Angeles) and Pinot Bistro (Studio City): Two halfway points where Burbank-based studio folks meet Westside agents and lawyers.

Chaya Brasserie (West Hollywood): Everyone with business at New Line Cinema.

Delmonico's (Los Angeles): Lower-level Fox executives with modest expense accounts go here.

La Cachette (Century City): The top Fox brass frequent this more exclusive spot.

L.A. Farm (Santa Monica): Producers and directors with offices in Santa Monica's loft district come to chow here.

Orso (Los Angeles): Outdoor patio preferred by publicists and businesswomen who would be lost at the Grill.

Sushi restaurants on Ventura Boulevard: Everyone working in Burbank has a favorite.

Toscana (Brentwood): First choice for a cross-section of power players when they are on the west side of the 405.


- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 08:52:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve gets mentioned twice in this piece about service people's views of the Oscar stars

Los Angeles Times
March 20, 2003 Thursday Home Edition
Calendar Weekend; Part 5; Page 36; Calendar Desk
Catering to big spenders and small
BY Leslee Komaiko, Special to the Times

Not only have I never been nominated, but I haven't seen any of the movies nominated for best picture this year. Not one. I've been meaning to, just as I've been meaning to get my car serviced and meaning to re-grout the kitchen counter. I just haven't gotten 'round to it.

No matter. Sunday, I plan to be glued to the television watching the Academy Awards (unless world events intervene). So important is my uninterrupted, unobstructed viewing that I declined two Oscar party invitations this year. Too many people talking. Too much distraction. This year, nothing will come between me and my Sony Plasma TV. (Actually it's a 27-year-old Emerson set. But, hey, a girl can dream.)

The funny thing is, during the six or seven years I lived in Illinois in the late '80s and early '90s, I don't think I watched the Oscars once. The awards, you see, while viewed around the world by, yes, millions, are really about Los Angeles. Sure there are those who consider the whole thing a solipsistic love letter from Hollywood to Hollywood. But I say bring on the love.

And so do a lot of local businesses, especially those involved in primping and pampering the industry aristocracy. After all, the Oscars mean dollars. (There's a reason that guy is gold.) Of course, not everyone enjoys the Oscar trickle-down. We checked in with the owners or managers of half a dozen local businesses earlier in the week to find out exactly what the Oscars mean for them.

Finding the right wheels

ED LITMAN, Manager, Hollywood Car Rental, Hollywood

What's business like on Oscar weekend?

It's no different than any other weekend. We do get actors through the course of the year because we rent to [drivers] under 25. We get a lot of actors' kids. Our hook is we rent cars on a cash basis. Most places don't do that.

If Martin Scorsese calls last minute for a car, what can you offer?

We don't have any high-end cars. How about a Daewoo.

How much does that go for?

About $25 a day.

Does he get a discount?

No.

If his credit card is declined, do you let him have the car?

No.

How many aspiring actors on your staff?

Everybody. We have a guy who used to work for us who's on TV in commercials now. We have guys who do stand-up comedy, singers. Everybody wants to be an actor.

What about you?

I came because of the weather. The closest I came to becoming an actor was dating Jerry Lewis' agent's daughter. But I never met him. All I met was the dog.

Last actor you rented to?

The current James Bond's son rented a car from us four or five years ago. Princess Lea came in once. You know, Debbie Reynolds' daughter.

Are actors good customers?

The more famous they are, the nicer they are. And they don't care what they drive. Like Steve McQueen, when he was alive he used to rent from Rent A Wreck.

Are you going to watch the awards?

Yes. I am a movie fan.

CHARLIE HORKY, Owner, CLS Limousine of Los Angeles

What's business like on Oscar weekend?

It's crazy. It's an intense week because all the people that are nominated are coming into town. There's lots of interviewing, getting their hair done, shopping and getting ready for the big event. It's one of our single busiest weeks of the year.

Most popular car requested?

The stretch limousine is the most-asked-for car mainly because it's Hollywood celebrities with their families or press people. Next biggest is our chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benzes and Lincoln Town Cars.

What does a limo go for?

A stretch limo is $75 an hour plus gratuity and anything else they might want in the car. And there's a 10-hour minimum that night. Probably all in all, that night is around $1,500. All the cars do come with stocked bars, and we'll put complimentary champagne that night. But some people only want Evian water. Some people only want Diet Coke. Some people want a certain type of champagne.

If Nicolas Cage calls last minute for a car, what can you offer?

Anything he wants.

Do Oscar nominees get a price break?

No.

Do nominees ever carpool?

No.

Are there any hybrid limos for stars like Leonardo DiCaprio?

Yes, upon request.

Do celebrities ever hang out the moon roof?

Sure. Once in a while. It's been known to happen.

Do Oscar winners tip better than losers?

I tell you one thing. They keep the cars longer that night.

How many aspiring actors on your staff?

I'd have to say that we really don't have any.

Anybody ever left their Oscar statuette in one of your cars?

Oh, sure. Absolutely. Many times. I can't remember who did that. But it was returned moments after they got in their front door, probably before they realized it was gone.

Can you name anyone you'll be driving on Sunday?

The first guy you asked a question about.

*

A taste of Oscar night

BARRY FOGEL, Owner, Jacopo's Pizzeria, Beverly Hills

What's business like on Oscar night?

Well, it used to be the busiest day of the year. Now it's the second busiest. [The only day that's busier is Halloween.] It was much busier for us when it was on Monday. On Monday people would rush home from work to see it at 5:30 and they wouldn't have time to stop or make anything.

Do you want it to go back to Monday?

Without a doubt. Absolutely.

Do you hire extra drivers?

Everybody is working. No one has the night off. The dining room is dead but the waiters help answer the phone.

How does it compare to Super Bowl Sunday?

It's much bigger for us. There's a lot of football on TV but there's only one Academy Awards.

Do you get more orders during those long musical numbers?

I don't know. We're too busy. We're not watching the show. We're just trying to stay above water and make everyone's food.

How long would it take to get a large pepperoni if I called Sunday at 7 p.m.?

At least an hour. We have a lot of long-term customers that order early. In the old days when there were a lot less pizza delivery restaurants, it used to take two to three hours. If you call a pizza place in Minnesota, I'm sure they're not busy. It's really a Los Angeles phenomenon.

Is there a Screen Actors Guild discount?

No. But actually we catered the SAG awards at the Shrine. We were one of three caterers.

Have any Oscar-winning customers?

Oh, I'm sure we do.

Ever delivered to the Kodak Theatre?

Uh, I don't think so. I think they have a deal with Wolfgang Puck.

Who tips best, writers, directors or actors?

I would say I don't know. Steve Martin used to be a huge tipper. That's like 30 years ago when I was delivering. In 1974 he would tip $20 on like a $6 pizza. That sort of thing. He was a really nice guy. Johnny Carson was nice. Bob Newhart was super nice. These are people I used to deliver to. We deliver to everyone now. Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt, Spielberg, Schwarzenegger.

If "Chicago" wins big, do you think people will order more deep dish?

I don't think it will make a difference.

TRACEY SPILLANE, General manager, Spago, Beverly Hills

What's business like on Oscar weekend?

Really busy. There are a lot of people in town just for the awards. That lands on top of people that have a natural excitement about the weekend anyway. It really is a mixture.

The night before the Oscars, are a lot of people ordering salads in preparation for their big moment?

I think with the excitement, some people certainly do curb their eating a little bit. I'm not sure if it's the skimpy dresses or general nerves. People will lighten up what they drink because of general nerves.

If you have competing actors in the house, do you try to keep them away from each other?

No, not at all. It's very social. If anything it's the opposite. People will say hello and congratulations.

What if Renee and Salma request the same table?

Um, that would probably be taken on who booked the table first. We have six phone lines but it's very unlikely they would be on simultaneous lines requesting the same things.

Is the night of the awards the slowest night of the year?

It's a bit of a mix. The talent that's involved in it is either at the event or they're at a pre-party. At the restaurant, certainly it's not like a huge Saturday night. It's still nothing to be ashamed of. Some years I put TVs in the restaurant. What I find is some people want to be near the TVs and some people want nothing to do with it.

So the chances of getting a reservation Sunday night, at say 8, are good?

Yeah, as much as they are ever. So long as someone is prepared to be flexible within 15 to 45 minutes.

And the chance of spotting a big-name actor in the restaurant Sunday night?

You're probably not going to spot a nominee. But it's very possible on any given night. It's Los Angeles. You look over your left shoulder, you look over your right shoulder, you'll probably spot someone.

But Wolfgang will be cooking for the Oscars, right?

We do all the cooking for the Governors Ball. It's kind of the same thing. [At the restaurant] you're probably eating something, some semblance, of what Renee Zellweger will be eating in two hours.

How many Oscar winners would you say have dined at Spago over the years?

Oh golly, one would imagine hundreds. One of the coolest things last year, after Sidney Poitier won an award for lifetime achievement, he came in for lunch the next day and the whole restaurant gave him a standing ovation.

What's post-Oscar week like at Spago?

The following day, depending whether they're nominees or winners, they could be nursing a hangover or nursing their statues, just enjoying the glow of it. I think that kind of glow goes on for a few weeks.

What are you doing Sunday night?

I'm at the restaurant holding the fort down.

*

The hair's the thing

JULIE MENESHIAN, Manager, Hair People, Hollywood

How busy will your salon be Oscar weekend?

Saturday business will go as usual. Sunday we are closed. Women that day they're not going to go shopping. They're not going out. They want to sit down and watch the TV. Women, we do care. Men, they don't care.

How much is a haircut?

Men $9. Women about 15. It depends.

What's the look for women this year?

I guess some hair will be straight. Some will be curly or up, elegant or messy. Younger girls will be messy; mature ladies, elegant up-do.

Any celeb's head you'd like to get ahold of?

At this moment I can't remember, but when I see her on TV, I think maybe it would be better if she wears this style.

What would you suggest for host Steve Martin?

Right now what's fashionable is the short clean cut. He'd be more neat and sexy. Long hair is gone. Women, they don't like it. It looks sloppy for men.

If there were an award for best hair on a celebrity, who would win?

Oprah, her hair always looks perfect. The way they do it, it looks perfect.

LAURENT DUFOURG, Owner, Prive, Los Angeles

How busy will your salon be Oscar weekend?

It's not busy, it's crazy. Like I need to bring in outside makeup artists. I don't have enough staff to service all the clients. We have InStyle Magazine. Like every year, they bring all their most important customers.

They treat them at the salon for everything they want. On top of that we have all the celebrities, all the executives and directors. We're really, really busy.

What time will you start on Sunday and how many heads will you do?

It's not too early. No one wants to get ready too early. We open at 10 o'clock. Me, I do house calls. Usually I can only do one or two clients. I usually take two maximum.

What's the price for a haircut from you?

I charge by the hour. So it depends if I go to their house or their hotel. I charge $300 an hour.

What's the look for women this year?

I think, believe it or not, we'll see a lot of ponytails. Not like the boring ponytail, something more dressy or funky. I think the ponytail but still very glamorous. Soft curls are maybe going to be big too.

Why is there so much talk about the clothing and so little about the hair?

They talk about the clothing, most of the people get their dress for free so they have to talk about it. I don't think they should mention everybody. It's not a hair show. I don't care they don't talk about the hair. I did Uma Thurman and Sharon Stone, and it was enough for me to see how gorgeous they look.

Anyone's head you'd like to get ahold of?

That's a tough question. I would love to do something different with Goldie Hawn. She always looks the same. But there's nothing wrong. She looks amazing.

If there were an award for best hair in a motion picture, who would win?

I tell you who should win for best hair: Nicole Kidman. She always looks amazing for hair. She always changes her look and she always looks amazing to me. But I would love to do her hair. If she wins I would love to do her hair.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 08:47:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve's art dealer gets in trouble

Los Angeles Times
March 20, 2003 Thursday Home Edition
California Metro; Part 2; Page 3; Metro Desk
Noted Art Dealer Cited in Tax Fraud; Federal prosecutors say gallery owner Larry Gagosian and three associates schemed to save $26.5 million.
BY Thomas S. Mulligan, Times Staff Writer

NEW YORK: Federal prosecutors Wednesday sued prominent art dealer Larry Gagosian and three of his associates, accusing them of evading $26.5 million in taxes, interest and penalties on a 1990 sale of contemporary art.

Though based in Manhattan, Gagosian is well-known in L.A. art circles. His gallery locations include Beverly Hills and his list of clients includes comic Steve Martin, Southland business tycoon Eli Broad and record mogul David Geffen.

The art dealer denies any wrongdoing, his lawyer said Wednesday.

James B. Comey, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Gagosian and his co-defendants engaged in "a complicated scheme with a simple goal -- to prevent the United States from collecting millions of dollars in taxes owed."

The government's civil suit contends that Gagosian and New York magazine publisher Peter M. Brant, assisted by tax attorney Jay I. Gordon, formed a shell company called Contemporary Art Holding Corp. in 1990 in order to purchase 62 paintings from prominent Los Angeles collector Richard L. Weisman.

CAHC almost immediately resold 58 of the paintings for a $17-million profit, on which the company should have paid taxes, according to the suit. But to avoid the taxes, the complaint states, Gagosian and Brant engaged in a complex transaction with Geoffrey J.W. Kent, a British socialite and owner of the luxury travel company Abercrombie & Kent. Under the deal, Kent acquired CAHC but gave its four remaining paintings back to Gagosian and Brant, leaving the shell company without any assets to pay its tax bill.

The IRS filed liens to try to enforce payment. Gagosian's lawyer, Steven Storch, said the Justice Department's lawsuit appears to be a direct response to Gagosian's own suit, filed Tuesday, which sought to have the IRS liens dissolved.

After Gagosian sued to dissolve the liens, the government filed its suit, naming Gagosian, Brant, Gordon, Kent and three related companies.

Storch said the dealer "absolutely denies" any tax fraud or cheating.

Gagosian also reportedly is under criminal investigation for his role in art sales to ImClone Systems Inc. founder Samuel D. Waksal, who pleaded guilty March 3 to dodging $1.2 million in sales taxes.

Wednesday's civil suit is not related to the Waksal matter.

Storch declined to comment on the criminal probe related to Waksal, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Neither Brant nor Gordon could be reached for comment Wednesday. Kent, based in London, did not return a call left with his firm's U.S. office in Illinois.

Gagosian got his start in Los Angeles 30 years ago selling $2 posters in Westwood Village. Now perhaps the nation's leading contemporary art dealer, he runs the tony Gagosian Gallery on New York's Madison Avenue, with branches in Beverly Hills, London and Manhattan's Chelsea district.

At his West Hollywood gallery in the 1970s and 1980s, Gagosian's stable of young painters included David Salle, Eric Fischl and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Later, after moving to New York, he presented the work of such major artists as Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Frank Stella, Richard Serra and Ed Ruscha.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 08:43:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Oscar prediction zingers

Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
March 21, 2003, Friday, Metro Edition
VARIETY / FREETIME; Pg. 21E
Golden moments;
How the Oscars can truly be award-winning
BY Neal Justin; Staff Writer

There are two nights in March that should keep reasonable people at home. The first is St. Patrick's Day or, as I call it, Amateur Night.

The other is Academy Awards night. Never mind that it lasts approximately 14 hours and is chock full of time-honored events such as honoring Hollywood's Best Technician Who Operates a Machine We Can't Pronounce or rolling out old-time legends who were defrosted and strapped into a tuxedo for the occasion.

The reasons to hang in there were apparent last year, which was one of the best Oscar telecasts in recent years, despite the presence of Whoopi Goldberg. Randy Newman finally won. Halle Berry had a memorable breakdown. Surprise guest Woody Allen killed. Sidney Poitier charmed.

This year also looks promising _ especially if producers follow our suggested script:

6:01 p.m.: Nominee Nicolas Cage announces his marriage to Britney Spears.

6:15: Melissa Rivers asks Daniel Day-Lewis if he thought she got robbed on "I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here."

6:50: Nicolas Cage announces his divorce.

7:01: The show opens with an appearance by David Letterman, who reveals he hasn't been sick the past few weeks, but instead was working on his tap-dancing skills. Performs the opening number, "All That Jazz," with Renee Zellweger.

7:13: Host Steve Martin announces his engagement to Britney Spears.

7:20: Chris Cooper is named best supporting actor. Security insists he show ID before approaching the podium.

7:32: Roman Polanski, disguised in one of Queen Latifah's outfits, is discovered in the audience and chased out of the building by police. The Oscar telecast is preempted in Los Angeles so local TV can broadcast the ensuing car chase.

7:45: Britney Spears announces she's gay.

8:00: Eminem, who's not on hand to sing his nominated song, "Lose Yourself," is replaced by the only other white man with enough street cred: Tom Jones.

8:05: Will Ferrell streaks across stage.

8:20: Peter O'Toole refuses special award, confident that he'll win a legitimate one for his next project: "Caligula II: The AIDS Years."

8:42: Presenter Salma Hayek admits that even she hasn't seen "Frida."

8:50: Catherine Zeta-Jones goes into labor. Jack Nicholson delivers the baby.

9:05: Screenplay winner Nia Vardalos announces her next sitcom, "My Big Fat Greek Acceptance Speech."

9:20: Meryl Streep accepts best-supporting-actress award in a Russian accent.

9:34: "Chicago" director Rob Marshall wins. Announces his next project: "Trenton."

9:50: Halle Berry, on hand to present the best-actor award, apologizes for forgetting to cite sassy "Jeffersons" maid Marla Gibbs during her acceptance speech last year.

9:53: Jack Nicholson wins.

10:16: Nicholson's Oscar is taken away when officials discover he's starring in an Adam Sandler movie.

10:25: After winning for best actress, Nicole Kidman announces that she's donating her prosthetic nose to Michael Jackson.

10:50: Harvey Weinstein proposes changing the name from "The Oscar" to "The Harv."

11:05: Show ends. Someone wakes Paul Newman from his nap.


- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 08:37:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



A 15 year old reviews BDtH

St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
March 17, 2003 Monday 0 South Pinellas Edition
FLORIDIAN; Pg. 10D
Go ahead and laugh
BY BILLY NORRIS

Movie: Bringing Down the House
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) is a successful and wealthy lawyer who has two kids but is divorced from a wife he still loves. He makes a date via the Internet with a woman he believes to be a well-educated, accomplished, white (based on a digital photo) attorney. When she shows up at his home for the date, though, she's not at all what he expected. Charlene (Queen Latifah) is an African-American prison escapee who refuses to leave once she enters Sanderson's house. She has been posing as a lawyer over the Internet to feel out his legal knowledge and reliability. Now she is trying desperately to persuade him to take on her case. Although she's been convicted of armed robbery and there is a bank surveillance tape to prove it, she claims she was framed. She just doesn't know by whom. She somehow persuades Sanderson to take the case, but he ends up getting himself into a much bigger mess than he bargained for. Full of good intentions, she's convinced she can help him get back with his wife by teaching him how to loosen up and be a soulful, fun guy. But she must stay undercover and out of the watchful eye of a vigilant (and overtly prejudiced) neighbor and the police.

My View: Steve Martin and Queen Latifah - now there's a combination you don't see every day, and it's that "odd couple" factor that makes this film work. The key to enjoying this movie is to enjoy their performances and the laughs without getting analytical about it. Perhaps with a different cast, the humor could be perceived as racially offensive - on both sides of the coin. With these two sharing the spotlight, though, the offensiveness is taken out of the picture, and the stuff becomes just plain funny. It's really on the edge, and you get those qualms of "should I really be laughing at this?" Well, yes you should laugh at it, because it's funny! Take those two stellar performances, and throw in hilarious efforts from Eugene Levy and Joan Plowright, and in spite of sometimes questionable humor, the bottom line is you will laugh out loud.

Recommendations: Be forewarned, the humor is crude. There's an abundance of racially questionable jokes and sexually suggestive scenes, so heed the rating. This will have a wide appeal to anyone over 13. This is one of the funniest films to grace the theaters this year.

Grade: B

Billy Norris, 15, is in the ninth grade at Seminole High School and is a former member of the Times' X-Team.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 08:30:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Canada likes Steve

Edmonton Sun (Canada)
March 21, 2003 Friday, Final Edition
Entertainment; Pg. WE11
MARTIN'S STAR IS ON THE RISE AGAIN
BY LOUIS B. HOBSON, CALGARY SUN

HOLLYWOOD: Steve Martin's career is suddenly very healthy again.

Until his inspired pairing with Queen Latifah in Bringing Down the House, Martin hadn't had a box-office hit since his Father of the Bride movies a decade ago. Suddenly the wild and crazy guy is a hot property again - House earned $61 million US during its first two weeks of release. Martin, who hosts Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony, will join Bonnie Hunt in 20th Century Fox's remake of its 1950 hit comedy Cheaper by the Dozen. Hilary Duff, the 15-year-old star of TV's Lizzie McGuire and Agent Cody Banks, and Tom Welling, who plays young Clark Kent on Smallville, have been cast as two of the family's dozen children.

Disney has announced it is developing a remake of the 1937 Cary Grant comedy Topper for Martin. In this one, Martin will play a man whose home is haunted by a pair of mischievous ghosts who were once a married couple.

Both comedies could be ready for next year.
- - -
****
- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 08:29:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Underpants Down Under

The Daily Telegraph(Sydney, Australia)
March 21, 2003 Friday
FEATURES-TYPE- REVIEW-COLUMN- SYDNEY LIVE; Pg. 105
Undies romp leaves you panting for more
BY KATRINA MACPHILLAMY

The Underpants

Written by Carl Sternheim, adapted by Steve Martin, directed by Neil Armfield. Starring Arky Michael and Lucy Taylor. At Belvoir Street Theatre until April 20.

Review

Company B's production of The Underpants is full of outrageous make-up, colourful characters, clever word play, and laugh-out-loud one-liners that transport us to comic heaven.

Written by Carl Sternheim in 1911 as a satire of the German bourgeoisie, the play has been overhauled and modernised by Hollywood comedian Steve Martin who has transformed it into a delightful sex comedy which touches on age-old themes -- the fickleness of desire, spirited lust of men, unromantic husbands and frustrated housewives.

The play centres on a married couple -- bullish Theo (Arky Michael) and Louise (Lucy Taylor).

Theo is mortified when his wife's underpants fall down during a public parade for the Kaiser, and is terrified that he will now become the laughing stock of Dusseldorf.

The simple incident arouses the interest of two suitors -- Versati (Russell Dykstra) and Cohen (Paul Blackwell), who rent the couple's spare room.

Spurred on by her voyeuristic and mischievous neighbour, Gertrude (Rebecca Massey), Louise decides to embark on a sexual escapade with the romantic poet Versati.

Amid the slapstick, the play makes a gesture towards social comment by touching on anti-Semitism with some ingenious one-liners.

According to director Neil Armfield's program notes, the cast is made up of "some of the best clowns in the country".

Indeed, the capable troupe of actors bring this play to life with three out of the five having performed other plays written by Steve Martin and directed by Neil Armfield.

But it is Rebecca Massey's performance as Gertrude which is a standout, touched by comic genius.

* Tickets $27.50-$42, bookings 96993444.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 08:27:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



This is an outfit I can't wait to see Steve wear

thanks to r.l. who first pointed this out

The San Francisco Chronicle
MARCH 21, 2003, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION
DAILY DATEBOOK; Pg. D1; MOVIE INSIDER
Talking with the Oscars' real star
BY Ruthe Stein

Forget Nicole Kidman and Jack Nicholson. The most critiqued performance on Oscar night is sure to be Steve Martin's. Bob Hope and Billy Crystal made hosting the telecast look easy, but David Letterman proved that failure is always a possibility.

We asked Martin if he felt added pressure given that it's Oscar's 75th anniversary. "Seventy-fifth, 80th, 74th . . . nah. It just gives you more to work with, that's all," he said. Sniffing around to see if he planned any "Chicago" jokes, we asked if its 13 nominations signaled the resurrection of the movie musical. "Resurrection? I didn't know it had been crucified." If Martin uses that line again Sunday, you'll know it surfaced here first.

Martin is unlikely to shy away from controversy if, say, one of the winners uses the podium to make an anti-war (or pro-war) statement. Remember his comment as a rookie host two years ago, right after the Taliban had destroyed ancient statues of the Buddha? Eyeing the giant gold Oscar onstage, he said, "If this statue were in Afghanistan, it would have been destroyed by now." Martin will be hard pressed to come up with a better opening line than last time, when he observed that 800 million people around the world were watching "and every one of them is thinking exactly the same thought -- that we're all gay."

When it comes to grooming, Martin probably will get his hair cut well in advance of the big night. After his last Oscar gig, his hairdresser revealed that she had given him a trim a few days before the show "because his hair goes into shock the day it is cut." We wouldn't want that mane of white hair standing on end Sunday night, and anyway, Christopher Walken already owns that look. When we asked Martin what he planned to wear, he replied, "Socks."

Martin, in fact, is a sharp dresser, and judging from his best-selling novel, "Shopgirl," he knows a lot about women's fashion, too. He's adapting his book for the screen, but denies reports that he ever had notorious shopper Winona Ryder in mind for role of the salesgirl who becomes attached to a sophisticated older man. Claire Danes is set to co-star with Martin if the project comes together.

****
- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 08:24:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



<b>Steve speaks out on the Iraq war

http://www.wtev.com/entertainment/story.aspx?content_id=AC3E152B-BE79-4718-AD15-A7CA27E822CA

Steve Martin Prescribes Film to End War

Hollywood funnyman Steve Martin has come up with a solution to the American-led war with Iraq - making Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush watch "Singin' in the Rain."

Martin, who is set to host Sunday's Academy Awards in Hollywood, believes the two leaders have a lot to learn about the more pleasant way of looking at life from the classic movie.

He says, "If we could just get together and have them watch, say, 'Singin' in the Rain,' I don't think we'd have much of a problem because the nature of that movie is to celebrate joy and fun and silliness.

"So how could two men, even those who have vast ideological differences such as when and how much to bomb the living daylights out of each other, hate one another after seeing Singin' in the Rain."

Martin believes the Iraqi dictator could, if all else fails, get his nation to make a film as a distraction from battle.

He explains, "We should get Iraq to invest in a movie. Saddam would then be distracted by obsessing over why the critics just didn't get it, while losing his oil fields to creative accounting."

- posted by sookeyjane 3/21/2003 03:37:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



The Patty Marx connection

http://www.inhollywood.com/IH/News/Weekly/TWID/TWID_011400.htm
This Week in Development
Week Ending January 14, 2000

MARTIN GOES MUSICAL IN "LONG LOST"
Steve Martin will star for helmer Griffin Dunne in LONG LOST from scribes Patty Marx and Sarah Paley at Miramax. Martin’s role is a washed-up crooner who meets a manipulative woman and their lives become intertwined. HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.scriptsales.com/ArchivesJan00.html

Done Deal -- The Archives
Jan 2000
by J. Roskin

Title: Long Lost
Log line: A Barry Manilow-ish type 70's icon, whose stardom has come to a screeching halt, meets an Eve Harrington type woman. The two begin manipulating each other for their own gains.
Writer: Patty Marx and Sarah Paley
Agent: n/a
Buyer: Miramax
Price: Mid-six figures against high-six figures
Genre: Comedy
Logged: 1/13/00
More: Pitch that Steve Martin is attached to star in with Griffin
Dunne to direct and Lawrence Bender and Laura Bickford to produce.


- posted by sookeyjane 3/20/2003 02:42:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Oh to be in L.A. when spring is here

Dave Barry, the humor writer, is a friend and colleague of Steve's. he's one of the writers for the oscars, as well. he and Stephen King and a number of other best selling authors have a rock band called the Rock Bottom Remainders. they play gigs all over the country.

now it seems Steve is going to join them for one performance in l.a.. now THIS would be worth going to see.

http://www.rockbottomremainders.com/martin.htm


The Rock Bottom Remainders with Steve Martin, a repartee*
*repartee: French for to party again

BESIDES THE MUSIC

The Rock Bottom Remainders with Steve Martin UNPLUGGED, BEHIND and BESIDES their music and whatever else comes up...

Friday, April 25, 2003, at Royce Hall, UCLA, at 8pm Tickets $20

VIP Reception with the band and special guests, West Lobby, Royce Hall, 6:30-8:00 pm Tickets $200

Reception catered by Ciudad/Border Grill restaurants.

An exhibit of original signed Hirschfeld lithographs will be on display, and available for sale, at the reception. Proceeds will benefit LA SCORES.

For tickets, call the Royce Hall ticket office at
(310) 825-2101, Monday-Friday, 9am - 5pm

Please note: Due to scheduling Stephen King will not be performing on this tour.



- posted by sookeyjane 3/18/2003 06:27:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



New article in People, with hints about his dating

thank you, annie.
i recommend you go there because there are some nice pics, including one of the superbowl which i hadn't seen this way before.

http://people.aol.com/people/magazine/magazinefeature/0,11369,431438-1,00.html

A Perfect Punchline

Steve Martin's got a new girl, a hit movie and a second date with Oscar.

Steve Martin is a careful man. He keeps his collection of modern art meticulously catalogued in his laptop computer, and when playing craps with his longtime pal and gambling buddy Tony Andress, a Houston oilman, he arranged his money, says Andress, "in little stacks of ones and fives and tens and twenties." He is mindful to remember the birthdays of friends, to answer their e-mails promptly — and to keep his word. "If I call him on a bad day he'll just say, 'Let's talk Friday at noon,'" says Leigh Haber, editor on two of his three bestselling books (Cruel Shoes, Pure Drivel and Shopgirl). "And that's what happens. You talk Friday at noon."
Though comedian pal Rita Rudner calls him "by nature a disciplined, organized man," now and then he's compelled to take a break — as he did for a scene in the comedy Bringing Down the House, when he put on gold chains and busted moves at a hip-hop club. But once director Adam Shankman called "Cut!" Martin, 57, was back to his New York Times crossword puzzle and a world where Eminem is just a chocolate candy. The culture he got a taste of in House, he says with a laugh, is "foreign to me, and it shows."

But it also pays. The movie, featuring Martin as an uptight attorney whose life is upended by a foulmouthed, bighearted convict played by Queen Latifah, topped the box office with a $31.1 million opening weekend. Collecting Picassos and Seurats, writing for The New Yorker and hosting the Oscars (he'll do his second gig March 23) may make Martin happy, but so does falling funny into a pool. House gives him a chance to do the kind of physical comedy he enjoys as much as he did some 30 years ago, when he first wowed a Tonight Show audience by playing his banjo with a gag arrow stuck through his head. Says Shankman: "The first day of shooting he came up to me and said, 'I forgot how much fun this is.' He was like a kid; he was giddy."

A rare state for the native of Waco, Texas, who grew up in a house where, he's said, "there was not a lot of hugging and kissing. We were not vocal or loud." A lifetime later, ensconced in his Manhattan apartment or in what Shankman calls his "warm, homey" house in L.A., Martin is far more content — but hardly more vocal. Friends like Frank Oz, who directed him in Bowfinger, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Housesitter and Little Shop of Horrors, know better than to inquire about, say, the details of his dating life. In December he was stepping out with New Yorker staffer Anne Stringfield, 30; now he is seeing Manhattan humor writer Patty Marx, 49. A Pennsylvania native who was one of the first female writers for Saturday Night Live as well as for the Harvard Lampoon, Marx uses Martin's books to teach comedy writing at New York University. She will confirm that they have a more personal connection only with a "Yeah, sorta." As for Oz: "I don't ask him about personal stuff." But as his House daughter Kimberly J. Brown, 18, discovered, Martin himself knows no such bounds. "He asked a lot about how young people go on dates now, like 'Who pays? Do you meet the parents?' It was odd," she says, "but sweet."
Maybe it was just research. After all, the comic has been getting joke material from just about everyone else he knows. According to friend and former Monty Python member Eric Idle, Martin has been in a "panic" for the past few months, preparing to make 50 million or so viewers at the Academy Awards laugh. Whether over dinner with friends or in his frequent e-mail chats, "he'll try out material on us," says Idle. "We're like his test audience. It's a nightmare for Steve, a terrifying experience. The fact that he's done it before doesn't stop the angst."

What might? A night at home with his yellow Lab Roger and the new banjo Queen Latifah gave him. Says Shankman: "He gets this really relaxed look on his face when he plays." And in truth, not even a gold statue can compare with that.

— KAREN S. SCHNEIDER
— JULIE JORDAN, KWALA MANDEL and RUTH ANDREW ELLENSON in Los Angeles, SHERMAKAYE BASS in Austin and RACHEL FELDER and LIZA HAMM in New York City
- posted by sookeyjane 3/17/2003 07:38:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



BDtH is still number 1 at the box office

Associated Press State & Local Wire
March 16, 2003, Sunday, BC cycle
1:18 PM Eastern Time
'Bringing Down the House' renews lease on top box-office spot
By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer

LOS ANGELES: A rush of new movies could not evict "Bringing Down the House" from the top spot at theaters.

The Steve Martin-Queen Latifah comedy remained No. 1 for the second straight weekend, taking in $22.4 million and pushing its 10-day total to $61.6 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Frankie Muniz teen-spy flick "Agent Cody Banks" opened in second place with $15 million. Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro's "The Hunted," a thriller about a tracker chasing a military hitman gone berserk, debuted at No. 3 with $13.5 million.

The weekend's other new wide release - "Willard," starring Crispin Glover in a remake of the 1970s horror tale about a social misfit and his ravenous pet rats - debuted a distant No. 8 with $4 million.

Business fell overall, with the top 12 movies grossing $93.3 million, down 23 percent from the same weekend a year ago, when "Ice Age" had a huge $46.3 million debut.

"Bringing Down the House," about an uptight white lawyer whose online "girlfriend" turns out to be a black escaped convict seeking help to clear her name, is on track to become a $100 million hit.

"I think this is one of those classic situations where the public is actually moving the needle for us. Voluntary word of mouth, people walking up to friends and saying, 'I saw this really funny movie you've got to see,"' said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Disney, whose Touchstone Pictures banner released "Bringing Down the House."

With the United States preparing for war in Iraq, audiences may be in the mood for lighter movies such as "Bringing Down the House" and "Agent Cody Banks" over military-themed stories like "The Hunted" and "Tears of the Sun."

"'Bringing Down the House' is a perfect antidote for what's going on in the world. You go in for an hour and a half and escape from the world situation," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

About 70 percent of the audience for "Agent Cody Banks" was 12 and younger, and the start of spring break at many schools gave the movie a boost, said Erik Lomis, head of distribution for MGM, which released the flick.

Ticket sales for "The Hunted" came in on the "low side of what we were looking for," said Wayne Lewellen, head of distribution for Paramount, which released it. The audience was mostly younger males, he said.

Playing in 2,801 theaters, "Bringing Down the House" averaged a healthy $7,997 a cinema. "Agent Cody Banks" averaged $4,452 in 3,369 theaters, "The Hunted" averaged $5,366 in 2,516 cinemas and "Willard" did $2,286 in 1,761 moviehouses.

In limited release, the British soccer flick "Bend It Like Beckham" opened with $151,717 in six theaters for a strong $25,286 average. A hit in England last year, "Bend It Like Beckham" gradually expands to nationwide release by mid-April, said Steve Gilula, head of distribution for Fox Searchlight, which released the film.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Bringing Down the House," $22.4 million.
2. "Agent Cody Banks," $15 million.
3. "The Hunted," $13.5 million.
4. "Tears of the Sun," $8.8 million.
5. "Chicago," $7.7 million.
6. "Old School," $6.8 million.
7. "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," $4.8 million.
8. "Willard," $4 million.
9. "Daredevil," $3.04 million.
10. "Cradle 2 the Grave," $3 million.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/16/2003 04:34:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve was the inspiration for Hooters restaurants

The Associated Press State & Local Wire
March 12, 2003, Wednesday, BC cycle
Business News
Hooters, now global, airborne and 20 years old, has been sizzling
By ADRIENNE P. SAMUELS, St. Petersburg Times

CLEARWATER, Fla.: It's in Taipei, Nottingham and Buenos Aires.

Singapore, Vienna and Sao Paulo, too.

And all over the United States.

Twenty years ago, few would have bet a dollar on the worldwide success of Hooters, the Clearwater-born chicken wing and beer joint known for its busty servers clad in teeny, weeny outfits.

The growing restaurant chain is in almost every state and in 10 countries. It's launched an airline (motto: "Easy to Buy, Fun to Fly"), a minor-league golf tour, a magazine, powerboat and motorcycle events, a civil rights entry in a high school textbook, a possible Las Vegas hotel and casino and plans for Hooters: The Movie.

Among Hooters alumni are a national radio talk-show host, a handful of Playboy bunnies - and a certain Super Bowl-winning football coach.

But before going into all that, let's get the breast thing out of the way.

The restaurant says feminine wiles are part of its marketing mystique. But its founders have overcome a federal investigation and several highly publicized lawsuits to turn their "delightfully tacky" baby into a mother lode whose brood includes calendars, conventions, contests - and profits.

"A lot of people think Hooters is just the girls," said Edward Droste, one of the restaurant's six founders. "We sell the sizzle, but we deliver the steak."

The idea was as basic as Adam and Eve.

Six men connected by various development projects and family relationships thought: What if we combined our favorite things? Good food served by good-looking women. Then toss in Midwest decor and friendliness, sprinkled with Florida's beach atmosphere.

The menu takes bits and pieces from various regions. South Carolina's oyster roasts and Tarpon Springs' shrimp were inspirations. Everybody, they figured, loves chicken wings. All they'll say about the sauce is that there is Wisconsin butter in it.

The name is a double entendre inspired by a Steve Martin skit. One of the founder's wives sketched the big-eyed owl.The cheerleading waiter image came from a softball game. Droste saw a young woman cheering and wearing jogging shorts and a T-shirt.

Still, he said, "We didn't design it to be controversial."

The first Hooters sprang up at 2800 Gulf-to-Bay Blvd. on Oct. 4, 1983. Now called the "Original Hooters," it's a mecca for Hooters fans.

But after opening, the place stayed empty for weeks, forcing Droste to don a chicken costume and dance near the street for attention.

Original Hooters Girl-turned-Playboy bunny Lynne Austin didn't wait on tables, but spent her shift cleaning kitchen equipment.

Then the billboard went up, with Austin wearing the trademark orange Dolphin brand shorts and the white Hooters half top (now a full tank top). Men started lining up at the doors, and the "Hooters 6" made their $140,000 investment back in six months.

"A lot of girls walked out at first because there weren't any customers," said Austin, 41, on maternity leave from the 1010 AM "Sport Chix" radio show. "Next thing I know there's a line out the door and there's not a big enough pouch to hold all the tips we were making."

Two of the founders sold their stock, but the Clearwater portion of Hooters remains owned by four of the originals and some of their wives. The original owners maintain the Tampa Bay, Chicago and New York City stores, plus the movie, the casino, the calendar and the right to sell Hooters items in grocery stores.

Atlanta's Hooters of America owns the trademark and franchise licensing rights, and that group oversees the worldwide expansions, franchises and the airline.

Some people think Hooters is a bad idea that exploits women.

"I'm not sure I can say happy anniversary," said Sandy Oestreich, a former president of the Pinellas chapter of the National Organization for Women. "I give those women credit for exploiting the pathetic male market. Hooters exploits them, and the women who work there know it. They're there for more than chicken wings."

Others, like Austin, thank goodness for Hooters. Austin parlayed her restaurant experience into Playboy bunnyland in 1986 and staunchly defends her "Hootering."

"You see more on the beach and in some nightclubs than you'd ever see in Hooters," Austin said. "I've never understood the whole jaw drop thing. I'm someone that has done Playboy, and I've never felt exploited by anything because it was of my own volition."

At the original Hooters, regulars take over during lunch. Eighties music blares from the radio, and ESPN is on the tube. Jaguars and tow trucks clog the parking lot as the mostly male clientele steps in for salads or sandwiches topped with friendly hugs from the wait staff, many who grace Hooters' swimsuit calendar.

"I don't see anything wrong with it," said Barbara Martinez, 28, of Tampa, who often brings out-of-state friends and her three children to the landmark.

Classic Rock 103.5 FM afternoon drive announcer Scott Legere usually comes with his golf buddies. Legere, 41, met his girlfriend, Tonya Phillips, 24, more than a year ago at a Hooters in Tampa. Now a fitness instructor, Phillips at the time was a Hooters Girl.

"It's like your local watering hole," Legere said while sharing a plate with Phillips. "The women aren't flirting, they're friendly. There's a difference."

Jon Gruden, Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach, spent two months working at the Hooters on West Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa.

"Lo and behold it was the greatest job of all time," said Gruden, who then was a junior in college at the University of Dayton in Ohio. His dad helped him get the job.

"Everybody talked about that Hooters," Gruden said. "It had a reputation of real good food, good music and cute waitresses. I said, 'That sounds right up my alley."'

Gruden worked with the food.

"I was good at shaking the wings and shucking the oysters. If you're good, you can shuck two or three dozen in an hour ... You want to make sure the batter is evenly distributed. You don't want to bruise the bird."

Hooters was around for nearly 10 years when the federal government took it to task for not hiring men as Hooters Girls.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1992 launched a four-year investigation. Hooters led a retaliatory "March on Washington" in November 1995. The EEOC dropped the case in 1996, saying it had better things to do, but recommended Hooters hire men for the wait staff.

Hooters responded with a mock advertising campaign. In it, a burly, mustachioed man wears a blond wig, a stuffed T-shirt and short shorts while offering hot buffalo wings on a plate. The slogan read: "Come on, Washington. Get a grip."

In 1997, Hooters settled a separate class action lawsuit with seven men from Chicago and Maryland who were denied jobs as waiters at Hooters. The men and their attorneys split the $3.75 million, and Hooters agreed to create gender neutral "support" positions in their restaurants.

An Illinois court decided that being a Hooters Girl was a "bona fide occupational qualification." Hooters management declared the chain is "in the business of providing vicarious sexual recreation."

"(The girls are) part of our concept," said William Ranieri, one of the Hooters 6.

In January, Hooters of America filed a lawsuit in federal district court against Winghouse of Florida, alleging the Largo chain is replicating the Hooters concept.

"There is flattery, and then there is cheating," said Neil Kiefer, president of the company that owns the original Hooters.

Through it all, management knows some think the restaurant is tasteless.

"Everyone's entitled to their opinion," Kiefer said. "There certainly are other things feminists could be mad about."

The private company won't divulge its earnings. But Nation's Restaurant News ranks Hooters 66th out of 100 top restaurants. Last year, NRN reports, Hooters had $560 million in food sales.

"Most companies their age with far less units and far less market penetration have gone public, so we really don't know how profitable they've been," said Milford Prewitt, senior editor with NRN. "But from a top- line standpoint it certainly seems as if they're growing their business."

Hooters' success, says the company's president, speaks for itself.

"Florida was waiting for Hooters," Kiefer said. "I knew that at the very beginning."

- posted by sookeyjane 3/15/2003 02:31:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Another BDtH thing

The Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL)
March 13, 2003, Thursday
Entertainment; Pg. D2
Bringing back Steve Martin, above all
BY DAN CRAFT

Rating * * *

BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE

Directed by Adam Shankman. Written by Jason Filardi. Stars Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, Eugene Levy. Joan Plowright, Jean Smart, Michael Rosenbaum, Betty White, Angus T. Jones. Rated PG-13 for very crude and demonstrative sexual humor; this is not a family affair. (1 hr. 45 min.)

The consumer rating accompanying this review of a, let's face it, not-very-great movie is to be taken literally: three stars for the three stars.

One for Steve Martin, whose esoteric "Novocain" period has come screeching to a laxative-induced, hip-hopping halt.

One for Queen Latifah, whose astonishing force-of-nature presence in any given scene can be equated with opening the door to a Texas cyclone at an English tea.

One for Joan Plowright, the former Lady Laurence Olivier, who has surely left Lord Larry levitating in his grave through her turn as a racist dowager who winds up getting stoned at a hip hop club and dancing on a bar top.

The occasion for this confluence of the above three stars, and their rating, is "Bringing Down the House," from Touchstone Pictures, the Disney-begat studio that has honed the art of the formula mass audience comedy into the highest level of science over the past 15 years.

I can think of no less than two non-Touchstone comedies released in less than six months that have virtually the same premise as "House," all with their dots connected together in the scientific Touchstone manner: "The Banger Sisters," in which Goldie Hawn plays an aging rock groupie who liberates the staid white family of an old friend: and "National Security," in which Martin Lawrence plays a precocious ex-police cadet who liberates the uptight persona of a white ex-cop.

Lest we forget, Steve Martin himself earlier entertained "Banger Sister" Hawn as his uninvited "House Sitter" 10 years ago.

It never ends.

In "Bringing Down the House," Latifah is, unsurprisingly, the liberator - a brash prison escapee named Charlene trying to prove her innocence - and Martin, unsurprisingly, the liberated - an uptight divorced lawyer named Peter Sanderson who mistakes her in an Internet chat room for a sexy fellow legal thing.

Charlene winds up moving into his household and exorcising every last demon that bedevils Peter: his failed relationship with his ex-wife (Jean Smart), his inability to handle his young son (Angus T. Jones) and teen daughter (Kimberly J. Brown) and his inability to find true happiness on the job (where his best friend, played by Eugene Levy, becomes a subsidiary beneficiary).

In something as baldly prefabricated as this, the only salvation is going to be found on whatever level the material is played. Luckily for those immune to the charms of prefabrication, the playing is high enough above the water mark than nobody sinks.

Latifah, in an unplanned but masterful bit of timing, encores her Oscar-nominated supporting turn in "Chicago" with a full-sail star performance that seems destined to ensure her box office solvency for years to come.

Her Charlene functions no differently than Hawn's ex-groupie in "The Banger Sisters," Lawrence's ex-cadet in "National Security" or any of the other formula interlopers of Touchstone yore: she's there to rock the boat for 105 minutes, creating havoc one minute, curing a crisis the next.

With Joan Plowright as that aforementioned racist dowager being courted by Peter's law firm, Betty White as his racist neighbor, and Missi Pyle as his racist ex-sister-in-law, there is no end of confrontational possibilities - and each one does, indeed, get a confrontation, from a washroom smack-down with Pyle (hilarious in her own way skanky way) to a trip to a South Central L.A. hip hop club for Plowright (who, as mentioned, seizes this most unlikely and un-Lady-like day).

Best of all is the spectacle of Martin, blithely reverting to his happy-feet mode of a quarter-century past after his recent upscale spell as an urbane author and dabbler in offbeat film fare like "The Spanish Prisoner" and last fall's disastrous "Novocain."

Though asked to do things like react to a laxative-tainted meal, feign intercourse with Latifah and masquerade as an Eminem wannabe, nobody could possibly do it better or with more - as these Touchstone things go - class.

The years, if not always the comedy vehicles, have been very kind to this wild and crazy guy.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/15/2003 02:17:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve on radio -- hear it anywhere in the world

last winter, Steve appeared in a discussion on math at San Francisco's Herbst Theater. Robin Williams crashed the show and they ended up having a wild time from all reports. now KQED in SF is broadcasting the show on the internet or on radio for those of you who live within their range. it won't be as good as seeing it, but hey, you get to hear it.

The dates of broadcast are:
Sun, March 16, 2003 -- 1:00pm Pacific time
Tue, March 18, 2003 -- 8:00pm
Wed, March 19, 2003 -- 2:00am

you can access it at kqed.com. there's a button there for listening to the live broadcast.

for those of you overseas, try http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ it will tell you what time it is in different places. it will help you figure out when to listen.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/15/2003 02:06:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



At last -- a pic from the Aspen Comedy Festival

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030301/168/3e0b4.html
- posted by sookeyjane 3/14/2003 05:57:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Something else on Topper... at least I think it's something else. I get lost.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030310/ap_wo_en_ge/na_a_e_mov_us_people_steve_martin_3

Movies - Reuters
Disney Rings Up Steve Martin's 'Shopgirl'
Fri Mar 14, 3:53 AM ET Add Movies - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Michael Fleming and Cathy Dunkley

NEW YORK (Variety) - The Walt Disney Co. is going shopping at Neiman Marcus with Steve Martin (news).

Disney has picked up "Shopgirl," based on Martin's novella, in turnaround from Lakeshore Entertainment and will fully finance the film.

No director has been set for the project as yet, though Disney is expected to approach Anand Tucker ("Hilary and Jackie"), who was attached to direct when film was set up at Lakeshore.

"Shopgirl" will be Martin's next pairing with the studio after his current comedy "Bringing Down the House," which grossed more than $31 million in its opening weekend.

The actor is expected to take on "Shopgirl" as his followup to 20th Century Fox's "Cheaper by the Dozen" remake, which starts shooting at the end of this month -- after Martin hosts the March 23 Academy Awards (news - web sites) telecast.

He likely will complete "Shopgirl" prior to reteaming with "Bringing Down the House" director Adam Shankman in "Topper," also at the Mouse House.

Martin penned the script for "Shopgirl," which centers around a girl who sells gloves and other accessories at upscale department store Neiman Marcus. Feeling useless in her job and unfulfilled by a romantic relationship, she is bowled over when a rich, divorced older man named Ray Porter (Martin) enters her life.


- posted by sookeyjane 3/14/2003 05:56:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Intellectual life in L.A. -- with a Steve connection

Los Angeles Times
March 13, 2003 Thursday Home Edition
Calendar Weekend; Part 5; Page 36; Calendar Desk
Brainstorms brew in L.A.; The Thinker can join like company and revel in intellectual stimuli at an array of events.
By Scott Timberg, Times Staff Writer

It was a balmy night at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Hundreds of Angelenos were gathered on the roof deck of LACMA West after a debate about the changing role of art museums. Comedian Steve Martin was there, too: no arrow through his head, no dancing like King Tut, just one of the crowd. Now he was waiting, and waiting, to talk to his friend Adam Gopnik, an intense, erudite New Yorker writer who'd been one of the night's featured speakers. Gopnik was surrounded by fans, some there to praise his book "Paris to the Moon." He was talking, waving, shaking hands as if he were running for office.
His tweed-jacketed debate partner, Kirk Varnedoe, a former New York Museum of Modern Art curator whose manner is as country club cool as Gopnik's is jumpy, was mobbed as well. No one, on the other hand, was bothering Martin, who stood by patiently and silently, eventually pumping Gopnik's hand, politely apologizing for not having more time and taking off.

The evening, an installment of LACMA's more-or-less monthly Institute for Arts and Cultures, captured a kind of counter-L.A., a subculture in which professors, curators and out-of-town writers are the celebrities. Along with Writers Bloc, a Westside author-interview series, and the literary events at the Richard J. Riordan Central Library, these evenings can become a kind of intellectual Beatlemania, with restless lines of fans, tickets selling out early and speakers sneaking in and out through adoring crowds.

While these events might seem populated by a coterie -- LACMA's tend to be packed with the sort of high-minded crowd that devours the New York Review of Books -- they're open to whoever calls or shows up first. Intellectual life, after all, is too important to be left to professional intellectuals.

There's a niche for almost everyone. Writers Bloc tends to draw a younger audience, one more attuned to Hollywood, detective fiction and the series' heavily British roster of writers, while Beyond Baroque, the storied Venice literary hall, often draws the graying members of the Beat and punk generations to its poetry-heavy program. This is, after all, where the nucleus of the band X met. (Bookstore readings, private salons and writing workshops are well represented in town, but that we'll leave for another story.)

The Southland's venues for public debate are as wide-ranging and fragmented as the region itself. Over the next week, there will be several high-profile discussions and lectures, including one led by Gore Vidal, exploring issues related to the situation in Iraq. Or consider the Hustler Hollywood monthly series at which topics such as censorship and politics, how to be -- or how to surrender to -- a dominatrix and readings by erotic novelists attract a diverse crowd leaning toward women and club-goers. These would probably not be the same people who go to Irvine to hear libertarian and heartily pro-capitalist lectures on "Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial" at the Ayn Rand Institute. Or those who went to Caltech recently for a speech on "The Physics of Star Trek." But they might be.

Los Angeles has no shortage of ideas. But there's a special excitement, in a city defined by its private life, when they bump into one another in a public venue.

On a cool day last month, about 60 people crowded into a small gallery dominated by Jeff Wall's enormous illuminated photograph, "After 'Invisible Man' by Ralph Ellison, the Preface." The photograph, which re-creates a scene from the novel, showed a black man in a cluttered apartment, his ceiling wired with hundreds of lightbulbs.

Surely the briefest, and among the most accessible, events around the city are these Lunchtime Art Talks at the UCLA Hammer Museum, breezy 15-minute lectures on a single work of art. Besides the usual museum-goers, on this day three men in business suits were taking part of their lunch break from Smith Barney brokerage firm to listen to chief curator Russell Ferguson describe Wall's piece. In a thick Scottish burr, Ferguson located the piece in history -- both photography's and the artist's career.

"It's a gas," Roger Hall, a young financial planner in tortoise-shell glasses, said of the series. "I would never look at that photograph if it had not been for a talk like this." After the lecture, they introduced themselves to the curator, praised his speech and headed back to the office.

"It really surprised us," says museum director Ann Philbin, who has increased the public offerings at the Hammer since arriving from New York in 1999. "We didn't think of the people in these surrounding towers as our audience. But boy, did they catch on." The Hammer offers several series, including a Conversations series, which pairs thinkers or artists from different worlds.

"I've found people here enjoy openings more than they enjoy being in quiet rooms with art," says Philbin. "People in Los Angeles really need the opportunity to be around people interested in the same things they are. Constantly in New York you're in a pedestrian situation, or on a subway. Here, you're alone in a car. So here people go looking for activities where they can be with other people."

Lunchtime Art Talks aren't the only ones linked to an exhibit or a cultural offering. The Los Angeles Philharmonic, which typically offers free pre-concert lectures, has been working on a series of events around Latin American themes. The Museum of Contemporary Art, like most museums, regularly schedules art talks, at which art historians and curators lecture on current shows. Similarly, the Skirball Cultural Center -- which also hosts non-Jewish writers and thinkers -- recently completed a batch of lectures and films related to its exhibit on Jewish life in the American South. And the Getty has something, exhibit related or otherwise, going on almost every day.

Other series exist to right political wrongs. Yaron Brook, director of Irvine's Ayn Rand Institute, recently launched a lecture series that draws as many as 600 people and differs from the usual left-liberal tone of Southland intellectual life. "The idea is to bring our perspective to current events -- a perspective that is not being heard in the culture," Brook says. "On multiculturalism and environmentalism, the mainstream party line is usually very politically correct, even the Republicans. But we're very anti-multiculturalism and very anti-environmentalist."

A recent lecture looked at the crisis of corporations like Enron, arguing that the nation needs less, not more, corporate regulation; upcoming speeches will consider the dangers of postmodernism in academia and how contemporary art has lost its way. The Atheneum series at Claremont McKenna College also offers an important forum for conservative thought, with speakers ranging from journalist David Brooks to left-leaning theorist bell hooks.

Author Jonathan Franzen ("Corrections") was in town not long ago reading from his new book of essays. Louis Menand spent an evening describing how American pragmatism was forged on Civil War battlefields. James Carroll dropped by to discuss the strained relationship between the Catholic Church and European Jews. They were all part of perhaps the city's most well-rounded venue -- the Central Library's author series in which writers come to town, on the publisher's ticket, to promote and sign a book on a weeknight. There is also a moderated series on Sunday afternoons, "Words in the World," at which writers and thinkers discuss larger issues than their latest book.

The audience often factors in strongly. Nancy Milford went to the Central Library to discuss her acclaimed biography of libertine poet Edna St. Vincent Millay in late 2001. But the biographer was caught in traffic and reached downtown L.A. an hour late. While waiting, members of the audience went onstage to recite Millay's poetry, many from memory, and two offered a short reading of one of her plays.

At another Central Library event, Patti Smith appeared to read from a book of song lyrics. Besides reading from the book, she brought a friend armed with an acoustic guitar and performed some of the songs that made her the Rimbaud of punk rock. Louise Steinman, cultural programs director at the Central Library, laments that as the city's offerings have gotten better, traffic has gotten worse. "Transportation is such a factor," she says. "There are wonderful things on the Westside that I would love to go to, but I can't figure out how. A lot of the places people hear intellectuals and writers have their own [neighborhood] following because people get it into the rhythm of their lives."

The intellectual version of "Oprah" but with more explicit sex can be found at Hustler Hollywood. It's the answer for those who prize a spontaneous side of intellectual gatherings, who argue that Los Angeles needs events that cut through the formality of academia.

"The real stars are the audience members who show up," says Stan Kent, an English-born aerospace engineer and erotic novelist who runs the Hustler series. "They enjoy the fact that they can sit in an uncensored environment and say anything they like. Audience participation is highly encouraged; it really livens things up."

On this particular night, leopard-skin-clad sex therapist Dr. Susan Block appears before a crowd that could've crawled out of the Viper Room. Kent, in a Carnaby Street waistcoat, serves as combination moderator and lion-tamer, leading Block and the audience into discussing whether to invade Iraq, whether prostitution should be legalized and their own definitions of monogamy. (No, yes and pretty flexible, it turns out.)

The spiky-haired Kent has brought in scholars to speak about censorship and the history of sex, among them Berkeley professor Mel Gordon, who discussed his book on the sex life of Weimar Berlin, "Voluptuous Panic." "But we've had trouble getting the academics to come to Hustler," Kent says. Similarly, when he asked the Democratic and Republican parties to send representatives to discuss censorship around the 2000 election, both balked.

While it's not an issue for the Hustler series, some events reek of academic mustiness: Lectures at the universities and museums can be positively deadly to those outside the field of specialty.

"I love intellectual life," says Frances Anderton, a KCRW-FM (89.9) producer and host who moved to town from London in 1991. "But I prefer it in a spontaneous, organic way, like debating ideas over drinks." Some formal events in Los Angeles, she says, "can feel a bit earnest, like medicine. They're 'good for you.' "

Spoken Interludes, a monthly series at the Tempest Supper Club in West Hollywood that's built around dinner, cocktails and authors reading briefly from works-in-progress, aims to be intellectually serious but without the ponderous feel of a lecture. A recent Sunday found novelist Yxta Maya Murray, Hollywood mail-room chronicler David Rensin and three others sharing a stage. "The difference with these salons," says author Carolyn See, "is that you can drink. You dress up, you eat and you flirt like it's a party. The authors have like seven minutes: It's snappy and beautifully put together."

Perhaps the most unpredictable series in town is LACMA's Institute for Art and Cultures. Paul Holdengraber, the institute's impresario, dropped out of academic life after working as a young comparative literature professor at the University of Miami and tiny, elite Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.

These days, he favors less cozy gatherings. Some take on the tone of intellectual duals, as when conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and opera director Peter Sellars sparred over the merits of Stravinsky. He's also offered forums to painters R.B. Kitaj and David Hockney, author Susan Sontag and Museum of Jurassic Technology founder David Wilson. He keeps the debate heated and the room on the small side because he thinks intimacy is important.

Holdengraber is an excitable guy, incapable of getting through an evening without quoting Oscar Wilde or playing a Weimar cabaret song if it relates to the night's topic. Detractors call him glib and trendy. But when the evenings work, they're like early "Saturday Night Live," messy even when they're brilliant.

ANDREA Grossman and a corps of friends and family run the Writers Bloc series. Her taste is less rarefied than Holdengraber's. While intellectuals and high-art types in town often talk about making peace with pop culture, she's been able to thrive at the intersection of Hollywood and the literary world.

Grossman has hosted English novelist Martin Amis interviewing detective writer Elmore Leonard and brings Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen through repeatedly. Some of her evenings, which are held at the Writers Guild, the Museum of Tolerance and other Westside venues, draw "black-leather-jacket Hollywood types," as she puts it, as do her occasional screenings.

But Writers Bloc hardly avoids serious topics: One event collected literary and film people including Wim Wenders together to discuss Kafka and read from his work. Earlier this year, she paired "Guns, Germs, and Steel" author Jared Diamond with radio commentator Warren Olney. The science writer began by wondering what might have happened if Native Americans had sailed across the water and stomped Renaissance Europe: "Why aren't the last remaining Europeans living in the Alps and the Pyrenees?"

See calls Writers Bloc her favorite local series. "Already people are playing poker with $15 stakes," she says of the ticket price. "So you get people who are devotees; they know more about the author than the author does."

There's an art to all of this, of course. To Jack Miles, a Getty advisor and writer who has been on both sides of the long table, radio veteran Olney is the model host for intellectual events. "He's like a man on the street, but a smart man on the street," says Miles, recently part of an Olney-hosted panel whose title, "God: Problem or Solution?" has the interviewer's characteristic crispness. "And he invites, by his manner, answers that are not sound bites but not too wandering. I find I'm more likely to be coherent and not so verbose."

Los ANGELES has been a witty and intellectually serious place for decades, at least back to the days when Albert Einstein was living in Pasadena, emigre filmmakers like Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder were newly arrived and much of the city's intellectual discussion was in German. Michael Silverblatt, host of the syndicated radio show "Bookworm," points out that many of the screwball comedies of the 1930s -- an early peak for the city's life of the mind -- were as dexterous as London's salons. "The verbal pyrotechnics were fascinating," he says, arguing that the films reflected L.A.'s private life. "Movies became a public version of a private Hollywood party."

Silverblatt laments the fact that the city, these days, is overrun with intellectual gawkers -- "people who show up because they want to see what J.T. LeRoy or Bret Easton Ellis look like" -- but says the offerings run thick and deep.

The myth of the Southland's shallowness, of course, persists.

"The only thing wrong with intellectual life in L.A. is that people keep asking if there's intellectual life in L.A.," New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger said before speaking at a recent LACMA debate. "The last remnant of provinciality is asking that question."
- posted by sookeyjane 3/13/2003 03:31:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Even more Topper

also from umm...

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=filmNews&storyID=2358233

'Topper' Lives Again at Disney
Tue March 11, 2003 02:07 AM ET
By Cathy Dunkley
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - The ghost of "Topper" returns.

Disney has bought remake rights to the 1937 film as a vehicle for "Bringing Down the House" director Adam Shankman and star Steve Martin.

The original picture, starring Cary Grant, was based on the novel by Thorne Smith about a man haunted by a married pair of madcap ghosts.

Shankman, who acquired the film through his Offspring label under an overall deal at the studio, will share producer credits on the project. But it has not been decided whether it will be his next film to direct.

As yet there is no start date on the film.

Martin next will star in 20th Century Fox's remake of "Cheaper by the Dozen" for director Shawn Levy; Bonnie Hunt co-stars. Production on that film starts March 31.



- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 02:50:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve in Topper some more

also stolen from umm...

http://www.empireonline.co.uk/news/news.asp?4596

The New Cary Grant?
11/03/2003

Steve Martin is having a very good year. Not only has his current flick Bringing Down the House just cruised into the top spot at the US box office, but now the host of this year's Oscars is set to fill a role played by the legendary Cary Grant himself.

Skilfully riding the wave of this rather unexpected success, Martin has been lined up to star in a remake of Grant's 1937 film Topper about a man haunted by a married pair of madcap ghosts. Securely under the thumb of a forbidding wife for years, he is transformed by the efforts of the do-gooder spectres who thrust him into one adventure after another.

So impressed was Disney by the box office success of Martin's current odd couple comedy that despite the movie's critical savaging, they have also retained Bringing Down the House helmer Adam Shankman to direct the spooky proceedings.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 02:40:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve to be in Topper

i stole this from umm... thanks umm...

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-film.html?2003-03/11/10.00.film

9:00am ET, 11-March-03
Disney Revives Topper

Disney has bought remake rights to the 1937 ghost movie Topper for director Adam Shankman (Bringing Down the House) and star Steve Martin, Variety reported. The original movie, starring Cary Grant, was based on the novel by Thorne Smith, about a man haunted by a married pair of madcap ghosts.

The remake will be produced by Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot and David Hoberman of Mandeville Films. There is no start date, and it has not been decided whether it will be Shankman's next, the trade paper reported.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 02:34:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Oscar prep

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20030304/en_usatoday/4914032

Entertainment - USA TODAY
Martin preps for Oscar laughs
Tue Mar 4, 9:41 AM ET Add Entertainment - USA TODAY to My Yahoo!

''He's just funny naturally,'' says Kimberly J. Brown (news), who plays Martin's daughter in the comedy, which opens Friday. ''He's one of those people who is born with the funny gene.''

When Martin made his debut as host of the Academy Awards (news - web sites) two years ago, he poked fun at celebrities and their world of plastic surgery and short-lived marriages. He's already practicing for the show's 75th anniversary, but won't say more.

''I'm not ready to talk about that yet,'' he says. ''I don't want to blow any surprises.''

Make that publicly. He's been running jokes by some people.

''He gave up a couple of them,'' Latifah says. ''I think he may try to work in Bringing Down the House a couple of times in some crazy way, but don't ask me how. I know he's going to do it.''

If he gets half as many laughs on stage as the premiere did, he'll be doing quite well.

Moviegoers roared watching Martin, playing a strait-laced, uptight attorney, get his world turned upside down after a convict (Latifah) he meets on the Internet shows up at his home for a date.

The Practice's Steve Harris (news), who plays Latifah's boyfriend in House, admits he has never watched an Oscars (news - web sites) telecast but may do so for the first time. He knows someone will call him if Latifah wins best supporting actress for Chicago so he'll quickly flip on the television.

''I might watch Steve's opening to see if he's funny,'' Harris said. ''I'm assuming, because the cat is funny, he's going to do a great job.''

Says Garry Marshall (news): ''He's been making me laugh since The Jerk.''


- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 02:27:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Cheaper by the Dozen continues to build

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/bpihw/20030310/en_bpihw/welling__duff_join__dozen__clan

Entertainment - Hollywood Reporter
Welling, Duff join 'Dozen' clan
Mon Mar 10, 1:35 AM ET Add Entertainment - Hollywood Reporter to My Yahoo!
By Chris Gardner

LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- "Smallville" star Tom Welling (news) and "Agent Cody Banks" topliner Hilary Duff (news) are joining Steve Martin (news) and Bonnie Hunt (news)'s family in the Shawn Levy-directed "Cheaper by the Dozen" for 20th Century Fox and producer Robert Simonds.

Welling, making his feature film acting debut, is in negotiations to play the family's oldest son, and Duff has closed a deal to play one of the daughters in a role written specifically for her. Shooting on the film begins March 31.

"Dozen" is a contemporary redo of the 1950 feature comedy about the Gilbreth family and its often-amusing struggle to keep it all together with a brood of 12 children. Welling will shoot the film while on hiatus from his duties as Superman on the WB series, one of that network's top-rated shows. Duff will begin work in late April before segueing to the recently set up "Cinderella Story" for Warner Bros. Pictures.

The original "Cheaper" is based on a book by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey; Sam Harper has penned the update. In addition to Simonds, Michael Barnathan and the project's original rights-holder, Ben Myron, are producing. Fox vp production Vanessa Morrison is overseeing for division topper Hutch Parker.

Welling is repped by CAA, Mosaic Media Group's Paul Nelson and the law firm Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca, Fischer, Gilbert-Lurie & Stiffelman. Before "Smallville," Welling had a recurring role on CBS' "Judging Amy (news - Y! TV)." Duff is repped by Curtis Talent Management and attorney Michael Fuller. She next appears in MGM's "Banks" opposite Frankie Muniz (news).

- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 02:24:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Black cheers and jeers

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030310/143/3h2ww.html

Entertainment - LAUNCH Music
Queen Latifah's 'Bringing Down The House' Sparks Debate
Mon Mar 10,10:57 AM ET

(3/10/03, 7 a.m. ET) -- Oscar nominee Queen Latifah's new movie, Bringing Down The House, is raising questions about whether poking fun at racial stereotypes in films is acceptable. The comedy co-starring Steve Martin is an example of movies that actually "bring down the black community," according to a North Carolina minister.

Reverend Paul Scott, who's previously criticized the influence of rapper Eminem (news - web sites) and Black Entertainment Television (BET), said the movie promotes the idea that to be successful and intelligent is to act white, and to be black means to be ignorant. Scott also took issue with Latifah donning a maid's uniform in the film, saying, "Queen Latifah playing a mammy for the black community is like John Wayne playing Ozzy Osbourne's grandfather."

Film critic Tim Gordon also criticized the scene in which Latifah pretends to be a maid. "One scene in the film has Queen Latifah dressed up as a maid serving Steve Martin because she's supposed to be the nanny, and they have a houseguest there who is telling Steve Martin the experience that she had as a child growing up where they had a butler in the house and the butler would sing Negro spirituals," said the publisher of reelimagesmagazine.com. "Now, the Negro spirituals she sings to act this out is, 'Is Massy gonna sell me tonight? Am I going to be sold?' Now, to me, that's not funny. To me, as an African-American, that's offensive."

Gordon also said it's not cool to have the film's characters uttering racist lines just because it's a comedy, but African-American filmmaker Courtney O. Bennett argued that the film is good therapy for a nation still struggling with race relations, and that he wasn't offended by seeing Latifah wearing a maid's outfit. The founder of island-vision.com was one of the first to catch the movie when it opened on Friday (March 7). And, Bennett, who directed the equally outrageous Bar-Talk film, provided an account of the positive reaction of the many moviegoers who lined up to see the movie.

Bennett said black and whites in the audience seemed to love the film, on which Latifah served as an executive producer. "It's a comedy--you can't help but laugh," Bennett said. "Everyone was having a great laugh--black people, white people--and, I mean, I actually heard people say, 'It's a great movie.'"

-- Ana Maria Gibson, New York
- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 02:22:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Levy and Steve jam on the set

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030310/ap_en_mo/eugene_levy_1

Entertainment -- AP Movies
Actors Levy, Martin Jam on Set of 'House'
Mon Mar 10, 9:08 AM ET

LOS ANGELES - Eugene Levy (news) and Steve Martin (news) relied on more than just their comedic chops to "bring down the house."

Levy said the actors used their down time on the set to jam on their instruments. "I'd bring a guitar and Steve would bring his banjo. I'd go into his trailer and (ask) him to play something — that was a kick for me," the actor told AP Radio. "He's an amazing virtuoso on the banjo."

While playing music may come naturally to Levy, the same thing can't be said for his use of lingo. When asked if he tried to use any off the set, he responded with a laugh.

"I don't think that would be a wise thing," he said. "It seemed to work on camera — I let it go at that."

According to Levy, that's not the only difference between himself and his character, Howie. "He likes (his women) a little kinkier. I'd say I'm a bit more conservative in my tastes."
- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 02:20:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



A reviewer who explains why BDtH is a hit with real people

Morning Star (Wilmington, NC)
March 8, 2003, Saturday
Lifestyle; Pg. 1D, 4D
'House' gives it all it s got; Moviegoers will love this likable, sitcom-ish comedy
By Ben Steelman, Staff Writer

Bringing Down the House is one of those low-brain comedies that leave critics sputtering like Frasier Crane over a bad latte and ordinary moviegoers laughing themselves silly.

The script is pure sitcom, and the direction uninspired. Fortunately, the filmmakers get out of the way often enough and let some gifted comics do their thing.

The comics, in this case, are Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, with some able assistance from Eugene Levy.

Basically, the plot recycles Mr. Martin's 1992 comedy House Sitter. Once again, he plays a fussy, up-tight white guy - in this case, Peter, a divorced tax lawyer.

Over the Internet, he flirts with someone named Charlene, who seems to know a lot about the law. When they finally arrange a blind date, however, he discovers that Charlene is a large black lady who's just out of prison.

Like Goldie Hawn's character in House Sitter, Charlene invites herself into Peter's house, scandalizing his fussy uptight friends and neighbors. With some judicious blackmail, she recruits Peter into helping her overturn her armed robbery conviction. (She was framed.)

Touchstone Pictures apparently decided that Middle America wasn't ready for miscegenation, at least between a white leading man and a black woman who doesn't resemble Halle Berry or Whitney Houston.

Thus, Charlene repays Peter by helping him reconcile with his ex-wife (ex-Designing Woman Jean Smart), convincing him to loosen up and put down his cell phone once in a while.

She also helps Peter with his kids, rescuing his teenage daughter from a cad and hooking his young son on phonics (with the help of some girlie magazines she found in Dad's drawer).

As I said, the plot offers few surprises. This is one of those assembly-line comedies that fills out slow spots by relying heavily on a cute animal, in this case a bulldog named William Shakespeare.

Fortunately, it finds excuses for Steve Martin to do his "Wild and Crazy Guy" dance again, for the first time in years. It also dresses him up like a homey and sends him in to do the best impersonation of Eminem this side of Saturday Night Live.

For a 57-year-old guy, he remains astoundingly limber, and he gets more mileage out of a single joke (i.e., white people have no natural rhythm and can't understand hip-hop rap) than just about anybody else.

Queen Latifah has nearly as much fun, including a sassy rendition of Butterfly McQueen and a kung fu-fight with a nasty debutante in a country club ladies' room. It's not as much of a stretch for her as her Oscar-nominated performance in Chicago, but it gives her a chance to establish a warm, humorous, don't-mess-with-me persona.

Queen Latifah served as an executive producer for Bringing Down the House, and I guess the object of the exercise was to turn her into the next Whoopi Goldberg - i.e., an unfiltered black woman whom white fans will nonetheless embrace. This movie just might pull it off for her.

Mr. Levy, an SCTV veteran who's graduated to character roles in Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show, co-stars as one of Peter's colleagues who falls for Charlene at first sight. He's a great voice comic, and his thoroughly white pronunciation of "You got me straight trippin', Boo" rivals Barbara Billingsley (Beaver's mom) talking jive on Airplane!

No, Bringing Down the House is no Airplane! or Blazing Saddles. On the other hand, it's not the sort of comedy with just six gags, all of which find their way into the "Coming Attractions" reel.

While pretending to be outrageous, it's actually fairly demure and politically correct. Peter's family is reunited, and the movie's snobby racists (played mainly by Betty White and Joan Plowright) are given gentle comeuppances.

Bringing Down the House is rated "PG-13" for some profanity and sexual innuendo, as well as one incident of marijuana smoking.
- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 02:05:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



More on the success of BDtH

Daily News, Los Angeles, Calif.
March 11, 2003, Tuesday
Movie Comedies Make Killing at Box Office in Times of Bad News
By Greg Hernandez

When "Bringing Down the House" stars Steve Martin and Eugene Levy ducked into the Crest Theater in Westwood on Saturday night to check out their movie, the theater was so full there was no place for the actors to sit.

"House" was not only the biggest opener of Martin's 25-year film career but also had the fourth-largest March opening in history, according to final figures released Monday.

The remarkable $ 31.1 million earned by "House" took the movie industry by surprise and made the film, which also stars current Academy Award nominee Queen Latifah, the latest on a growing list of comedies to hit box office pay dirt in 2003.

"It blew past everyone's expectations," said Robert Bucksbaum, owner of the Crest Theater and president of Reel Source, Inc., a box office analysis firm. "It says a lot about today's climate that people would prefer comedies and lighthearted fare."

The drawing power of Disney's "House" is yet another case of comedies outdrawing more serious fare in the marketplace. The week's war-theme second-place finisher "Tears of the Sun," for example, had a solid $ 17 million bow but even the star power of Bruce Willis was no match for the antics of Martin, Latifah and Levy.

"It is an outrageous comedy, and you have stars with tremendous comedic timing," said Chuck Viane, president of Disney's Buena Vista Distribution. "The public knows they are in for something very funny."

So far this year, the comedies "Kangaroo Jack," "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," "Just Married" and "House" have all opened at No. 1 during their debut weekends, with "Old School," "Shanghai Knights" and "National Security" bowing in strong second-place positions.

In addition, the romantic comedies "Two Weeks Notice" and "Maid in Manhattan" bowed in late 2002 but displayed box office muscle throughout the first few months of this year, with both films passing the $ 90 million mark domestically.

"It's easy to say the world situation is instilling in moviegoers the desire to escape at the movies, but it still comes down to the movies themselves and the marketing," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co.

Dergarabedian said an effective trailer for "House," as well as successful sneak preview showings during previous weekends, helped to build buzz over the comedy, which opened in 2,801 locations, grossing a stunning average of $ 11,104 per theater.

The comedic trend could continue with two more high-profile titles in coming weeks: "Head of State" (March 28), which features Chris Rock as the president of the United States, and "A View From the Top," an airline comedy starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mike Myers that will bow March 21.

Comic fare is dominating at the box office at the expense of such Oscar-nominated films as "Gangs of New York" and "The Hours," which have underperformed at the box office.

"It is rare that a comedy is even nominated, much less wins an Oscar," Bucksbaum said. "We are seeing these films cleaning up at the box office and yet they don't get Academy (Award) attention."




- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 01:56:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve's opinion on why BDtH is doing well at the box office

Newsday (New York, NY)
March 12, 2003 Wednesday ALL EDITIONS
NEWS, Pg. A13
Dancing Her Hart Out
By Liz Smith

****
WHY IS "Bringing Down the House," the new film starring Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, bringing down the house at the box office? Is it the Oscar association? (Martin will host the Oscars, and the Queen herself is nominated for best supporting actress in - what else? - "Chicago"!)

Martin seems to feel that by using urban culture, they pushed the envelope, and audiences like that. "Anytime you break a taboo, it presents a lot of laughs. There has been too much political correctness, and people are just tired of it!"
- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 01:54:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



A short bit of an interview

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
March 11, 2003 Tuesday Five Star Late Lift Edition
People Column; Pg. A2
PEOPLE
Compiled By Ray Jordan Of The Post-Dispatch

STILL WILD AND CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS: Limber-limbed Steve Martin, 57, hasn't lost his taste - or touch - for physical comedy, as he proves in "Bringing Down the House," last weekend's top-draw at the box office.

"It's fun. You use every part of your body," Martin told AP Radio. "It's something I've done a lot and something (that) comes natural. And you feel funny when you're doing it, so it's a nice feeling."

Martin says two of his favorite parts of the movie are wearing hip-hop clothes at a dance club - "I like that they're loose and they've got big pockets" - and getting thrown into a swimming pool.

"I'm the king of being thrown into the pool. I did it in 'Father of the Bride,' I did it in this movie. I think it's going to be very big for me."

- posted by sookeyjane 3/12/2003 01:49:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Not recent, but worth reading -- it's about Steve's New Yorker article about the death of his father

http://www.nypress.com/15/26/news&columns/mugger2.cfm
MUGGER
Russ Smith
New York Press
Volume 15, Issue 26 - 6/26/2002
General Raines

David Remnick is the best editor The New Yorker’s employed in decades.

The weekly’s June 17 & June 24 "double" issue dedicated to fiction and "family histories" was an achievement unparalleled by any other magazine this year–Vanity Fair, for example, is in nosedive mode–with the lone exception of every month’s Atlantic. Jonathan Lethem’s heartbreaking "Alone at the Movies," Donald Antrim’s beautifully-written if depressing "I Bought a Bed" and Jeanette Winterson’s "Mother from Heaven" would all lift the quality of lesser publications such as New York, Esquire or GQ. But the standout in this New Yorker was actor/writer Steve Martin’s "The Death of My Father."

I’ve never been a fan of Martin’s: His introduction of the grating phrase "wild and crazy guy" was criminal enough, and his films (with the exception of Parenthood) have left me cold. But just the beginning and conclusion of Martin’s memoir gives the reader an entirely new perspective on the man. (In addition, as reported in the Daily News, Martin made a pretty funny quip in a recent tribute to Tom Hanks: "When you look at [Hanks], you wouldn’t think this is one of the greatest actors of our generation. You’d think more, ‘Excuse me, what are today’s specials?’")

He begins: "In his death, my father, Glenn Vernon Martin, did something he could not do in life. He brought our family together. After he died, at the age of eighty-three, many of his friends told me how much they loved him–how generous he was, how outgoing, how funny, how caring. I was surprised at these descriptions. I remember him as angry. There was little said to me, that I recall, that was not criticism. During my teen-age years, we hardly spoke except in one-way arguments–from him to me."

Glenn Martin’s "honesty" with Steve is detailed throughout the piece, including a bad review of his son’s first appearance on Saturday Night Live in a local newsletter and the comment, at a dinner party after the younger Martin’s first movie The Jerk was released, that Steve was "no Charlie Chaplin."

In 1997, as his father was dying, Martin recalls: "I stood at the end of the bed, and we looked into each other’s eyes for a long, unbroken time. At last he said, ‘You did everything I wanted to do.’ I said, ‘I did it because of you.’ It was the truth. Looking back, I’m sure that we both had different interpretations of what I meant. I sat on the edge of the bed. Another silence fell over us. Then he said ‘I wish I could cry, I wish I could cry.’

"At first, I took this as a comment on his plight but am forever thankful that I pushed on. ‘What do you want to cry about?’ I finally said. ‘For all the love I received and couldn’t return.’ He had kept this secret, his desire to love his family, from me and from my mother his whole life. It was as though an early misstep had kept us forever out of stride. Now, two days from his death, our pace was aligning, and we were able to speak."

"The Death of My Father" is a dazzling article and a credit to Remnick’s editorial acumen.

****

- posted by sookeyjane 3/10/2003 07:20:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



More money stuff -- money talks, very interesting

looks like they've made the money back already that they spent on production. this is good.

Los Angeles Times
March 10, 2003 Monday Home Edition
Calendar; Part 5; Page 2; Calendar Desk
'Bringing Down the House' brings in viewers;
The Steve Martin- Queen Latifah comedy debuts with over $31 million despite mixed reviews. 'Tears of the Sun' is at No. 2.
By Lorenza Munoz, Times Staff Writer

Exhibiting broad demographic appeal, Disney's Steve Martin/Queen Latifah comedy "Bringing Down the House" rang up an estimated $31.7 million over the weekend to debut at No. 1. Weathering mixed reviews that generally praised its stars but challenged the propriety of some of its racially themed humor, the film attracted a large cross-section of moviegoers, with 90% of its audience ranging from ages 12 to 50. In addition, nearly 20% of its audience on Friday and Saturday nights were teenagers, said Chuck Viane, head of Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. The film, rated PG-13 for adult language and jokes, skewed slightly higher female, with 53% of the audience female and 47% male.

It was the highest opening weekend for both stars, with Martin's last big film, "Bowfinger," opening at $18.9 million in 1999. "Bringing Down the House's" box office performance represented more good news for Queen Latifah, a former rap star who has transitioned successfully into movies, particularly with her Oscar-nominated performance as Mama in "Chicago." Latifah has been able to transform her public persona from that of an aggressive rap star to a likable movie actor with a strong sense of humor.

Despite racial humor that some critics found demeaning to African Americans, Viane said the movie did well in predominantly African American theaters such as the Magic Johnson Theaters and other movie houses in urban centers like Philadelphia and Detroit. The film, directed by Adam Shankman, cost in the low- to mid-30s to produce.

Coming in at second was the Revolution/Sony Pictures war movie "Tears of the Sun." The Bruce Willis movie, which cost about $75 million to make, opened with an estimated $17.2 million on 2,973 screens nationwide. The audience for the movie, which chronicles a harrowing rescue by Navy Seals in Africa, may have been limited by its R rating, but its opening was consistent with other R movies that have opened in the high teens. It remains to be seen if "Tears" has the holding power to make up the nearly $100 million it took to make and market the movie.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/10/2003 02:34:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



The Hollywood Reporter
March 10, 2003, Monday
$31.7 mil tab for BV 'House' party
By Brian Fuson

Comedy was the clear choice of moviegoers during the weekend in North America as Buena Vista's "Bringing Down the House" brought down an estimated $31.7 million on its debut to grab the top spot at the box office.

The opening for the Steve Martin-Queen Latifah starrer, helmed by Adam Shankman, was the third best ever in March, behind 20th Century Fox's "Ice Age" and New Line's "Blade 2," which brought in $46.3 million and $32.5 million, respectively. The debut for "House" also proved a career best for Martin, topping the $18 million debut of Universal's "Bowfinger."

The weekend's only other wide release was Sony's "Tears of the Sun," which shone in the second spot. The Bruce Willis starrer from Revolution Studios took in an estimated $17.2 million. Antoine Fuqua directed the R-rated action-thriller, which follows a fictitious military action in Nigeria. DreamWorks' "Old School" was still in session as the broad comedy seated itself in the third slot with an estimated $9.2 million, down a moderate 34% in its third frame. It took the biggest hit from "House" this weekend. The film, which stars Will Ferrell, Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn, has scored an estimated $50.8 million in 17 days.

Miramax's "Chicago" moved up a notch into the fourth spot as the multiple-Oscar-nominated film tuned in to an estimated $6.9 million, off a scant 12% from a week ago. The distributor added 153 more theaters this weekend, bringing the count to 2,600, and the picture has now toddled through an estimated $114.5 million.

A romantic comedy held the fifth slot. Paramount's "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" found an estimated $6.75 million. So far, the Matthew McConaughey-Kate Hudson starrer has generated an estimated $86.9 million.

Last weekend's lone wide release and boxoffice champ, Warner Bros. Pictures' "Cradle 2 the Grave," slipped into the sixth spot on its sophomore outing with an estimated $6.6 million _ down a bleak 60% from its opening. The actioner has garnered an estimated $27 million in 10 days.

Overall, it was a solid weekend at the boxoffice. The estimated total for the top 12 films was up a sterling 16% from the comparable frame last year. Worthy of mention was the abundance of comedies in theaters: Five pictures in the top 12 could be placed in that genre. The aggregate gross for those five films comprised nearly 60% of the total for the top 12.

Executives at the Mouse house were very pleased with the performance of "House." "We knew we had a hit because the sneaks went so well, but this is beyond our wildest expectations," Buena Vista Pictures Distribution president Chuck Viane said. "It's the exact right movie at the exact right time, and the chemistry between Steve Martin, Queen Latifah and director Adam Shankman was wonderful."

Viane said that he was expecting an opening in the mid-$20 million area, but he noted that positive word of mouth from the sneaks helped boost the weekend's gross. The split between males and females was fairly even, tilting slightly toward the latter. Viane said the age demographics for the PG-13 rated film were evenly distributed across the board. He cited a high percentage of teens on Friday (30%), and a drop of only 3% among that group on Saturday, which he said was mostly likely because of Queen Latifah's influence. Executives at Sony were similarly upbeat about the gross for "Tears." "It's a very good opening for us, and audiences liked the picture. And it was terrific to see that women liked it as much as men," Sony Pictures Releasing president Rory Bruer said. Bruer noted that the opening was in the area expected.

"We're very happy with the opening; it's a good number and a really good place for us to start," Revolution partner Tom Sherak said. The audience for "Tears" was largely male, with 61%, and the film received marks of higher than 70% in the definite recommend category. Patrons were on the older side as 64% were more than 25 years of age.

In the world of limited releases, Sony Classics' "Laurel Canyon," had a promising start as the ensemble drama grossed an estimated $161,341 from 10 locations on its debut, averaging a stellar $16,134 per theater. Lisa Cholondenko helmed the picture, which features Christian Bale, Kate Beckinsale and Frances McDormand. The distributor's "Talk to Her" crossed the $7 million mark in total gross as the Pedro Almod var-directed picture took in an estimated $356,746 in its 16th weekend in theaters, taking its total to about $7.3 million.

Lions Gate's "Irreversible" had a strong opening weekend, taking in an estimated $63,000 from seven locales in New York and Los Angeles. The controversial drama from director Gaspar Noe averaged a solid $9,000 per theater.

Artisan added four locales to "Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony," bringing the count to seven, and collected an estimated $35,000. The per-theater average for the documentary was $5,000 as the cume climbed to an estimated $100,000.

Other films that warranted placement in the top rankings this weekend included Fox's "Daredevil" in the seventh spot with an estimated $5.15 million, taking its total to roughly $91.5 million; Buena Vista's animated family film "The Jungle Book 2" was eighth with an estimated $4.2 million, moving the cume to approximately $39.5 million; the distributor's "Shanghai Knights" ranked ninth with an estimated $2.7 million, escalating its cume to about $54.7 million; and Universal's "The Life of David Gale" rounded out the tenth slot with an estimated $2.1 million. The Kevin Spacey starrer has generated an estimated $17.1 million to date.

The estimated total for the top 12 films this weekend was $95.4 million. The Hollywood Reporter projects the total for all films to be in the low to mid-$110 million area, an improvement over last year's $103.5 million for the comparable session.



- posted by sookeyjane 3/10/2003 02:25:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Latifah talks about race and class in BDtH

Copley News Service
March 10, 2003 Monday
ENTERTAINMENT; FILM CLOSE-UP
Queen Latifah
By Joey Berlin

Queen Latifah, born Dana Owens of Newark, N.J., has masterfully navigated the tricky transition from music star to movie star. The rapper-actress recently crowned her accomplishment with a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for her scene-stealing portrayal of Matron "Mama" Morton in the smash hit musical "Chicago."

And Latifah begins another section of her resume with "Bringing down the House." Besides co-starring with Steve Martin, she executive-produced the broad and brash comedy. Latifah, who turns 33 on March 18, plays a brassy escaped convict inflicting herself on Martin's vanilla-flavored life. He's a straight-laced tax attorney and she's the flashy felon who blackmails him into helping clear her record. Following her more dramatic big-screen work in such films as "Bringing out the Dead," "Sphere" and "The Bone Collector," "Bringing down the House" marks another upsurge in Latifah's career, which always seems to be moving upward.

Q: What is it like to get the call that you just received an Oscar nomination?

A: It's a pretty intense high. It's like you just take off. I wasn't expecting that call and I'm glad I wasn't because I got to just feel it. I wasn't sitting in front of the TV waiting for the announcements or anything like that. I was coming off of a big weekend at the NBA All-Star Game, so I was recovering on the way back from all the parties and everything. I was up all night watching the first season of "Good Times" on the tour bus, driving back home. It was drafty on the bus, so I couldn't sleep, and it wasn't our normal bus, so I just felt weird.

Q: You got the call on your tour bus?

A: No, at home. I fell asleep about an hour before I got home, so I was drowsy as heck when I came in the house. I had just gotten under the covers when the phone rang. It was my partner Sha-Kim saying, "Yo, we got the nomination!" I said, "What nomination?" He says, "The Oscar nomination!" And I say, "No way! No way!" I just went jumping and running around the house, woke up my best friend who was on the other side of the house. My assistant was downstairs sleeping and I dived on top of her, woke her up. I said, "Yo, we got it." So it was pretty exhilarating. I was shocked. Pleasantly shocked.

Q: Do movies like "Bringing down the House" help society break down racial barriers?

A: I think so. I think they show how ridiculous classism and racism are, and how we can all wind up being pawns to that mentality and attitude.

Q: Would you say Steve Martin's character is a victim of some of that classism, as well?

A: Yeah. Steve's character has to tolerate a bunch of crap from his neighbor across the street, the sister of his boss. He's got a young, up-and-coming lawyer clipping at his heels, taking his parking space. He has to tolerate a woman whose thinking is just archaic, to keep a big account that means a lot to his firm and his job security. I think this is realistic, and a lot of people are in that position.
Q: Why is there such a lack of women behind the scenes in hip-hop?

A: It's a good, strong boys club out there. Anybody who doesn't know that is really naive. But it's not a boys club that you can't be a part of. It's really a hustle. You have to be strong, you have to be credible. You can still go out there and do your thing, it's just a question of wanting to do it, and what you're willing to do and not do. We do have some strong women out there, you know, people who have been putting in work for years and making a name for themselves.

Q: In the past, you had been critical of the Motion Picture Academy. Have you re-evaluated your thinking about the Oscar voters now?

A: They're getting hip in their old age. At 75, they're getting kind of sharp, ha ha. No, I haven't re-evaluated my thinking. I still think we live in a country that judges people by the color of their skin, unfortunately. That's always going to play a part in various elements of life in America. But I felt "Chicago" was great. I thought Richard Gere should have been nominated too, because I really think he gave an Oscar-worthy performance. I'm just glad that the movie was recognized in the way that it was, everybody from wardrobe to editing to sound editing, to screen writing. You know, it's not just about the actors all the time.


- posted by sookeyjane 3/10/2003 02:22:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



BDtH is big box office

Calgary Sun (Canada)
March 10, 2003 Monday, Final Edition
Entertainment; Pg. 44
HOUSE RULES

Bringing Down the House brought down big box office numbers.

The comedy starring Queen Latifah and Steve Martin took in $31.7 million US to debut as the weekend's No. 1 film, according to studio estimates yesterday. It was the third-biggest March opening ever, behind the 2002 releases Ice Age and Blade 2, and the strongest opening ever for a Martin film.

The Bruce Willis war movie Tears of the Sun opened at No. 2.

Bringing Down the House follows Latifah as an escaped convict who worms her way into the affluent suburban home of an uptight lawyer played by Martin.

The film was panned by critics but drew huge audiences, thanks in part to strong marketing by Disney.

The grim Tears of the Sun stars Willis as a U.S. navy SEAL who takes his squad to rescue a doctor (Monica Bellucci) from a war zone in Nigeria. It played to audiences that were 61% male, said Tom Sherak, a partner at Revolution Studios, which produced the movie.

Overall, the weekend's top 12 films grossed $95.4 million, up almost 15% from the same weekend last year and up more than 10% from last weekend.
This week's estimated ticket sales:
1. Bringing Down the House, $31.7 million.
2. Tears of the Sun, $17.2 million.
3. Old School, $9.2 million.
4. Chicago, $6.9 million.
5. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, $6.8 million.
6. Cradle 2 the Grave, $6.6 million.
7. Daredevil, $5.2 million.
8. The Jungle Book 2, $4.2 million.
9. Shanghai Knights, $2.7 million.
10. The Life of David Gale, $2.1 million


- posted by sookeyjane 3/10/2003 02:16:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



On Steve's career -- thanks to umm...

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/living/5338073.htm

Star-Telegram (Ft. Worth, TX)
Life & Arts
Posted on Fri, Mar. 07, 2003
Classy Clown: He's been a Jerk. An author. An Oscar host. Steve Martin can do it all. So why doesn't he get the credit he deserves?
By Andrew Marton
Star-Telegram Senior Arts Writer

In the market for all that is both cerebral and zany about Steve Martin? Look no further than his latest movie.

Bringing Down the House, which opens today, acts as a two- hour showcase for -- and much needed reminder of -- Martin's flair for carefully choreographed word-play and off-the-cuff lunacy. But, of course, that's nothing new.

For more than 30 years now, Martin has toggled back and forth between playing the uptight, put-upon, suburban white guy, and some seriously "wild and crazy" guys, either spewing absurdist plays on words or engaging in some of the most inspired physical comedy this side of Buster Keaton.

But even as Martin has carved a niche as one of Hollywood's most idiosyncratic and innovative clown-savants, he has suffered a kind of pop-culture identity crisis. On the strength of Martin's meteoric rise in the 1970s, thanks to an act that offered a little bit of winking social commentary and a lot of loony performance art, his audience just always assumed he would remain in that guise forever.

But he hasn't. He's gotten better by varying his act. Ironically, the reward for Martin's constant versatility as a performer has been a healthy dose of underappreciation.

Pop-culture icons -- and the late '70s Steve Martin was as close to a comic deity as one could be -- are indulged many things by their audience, except change. Trouble is, the 57-year-old Martin has spent the past 20 years doing nothing but changing, altering the outlets for his creativity. He is, perhaps, the lengthiest hyphenate in Hollywood, with a résumé that reads stand-up comedian-producer-stage and screen actor-banjo picker-playwright-screenwriter-New Yorker essayist-connoisseur-art collector.

This is the curriculum vitae of the entertainment world's most unsung Renaissance man. In the next six months, Martin will be available on the big screen (Bringing Down the House), the small screen (as the cheeky host of the 75th annual Academy Awards on March 23) and in bookstores (thanks to the publication of his second novella, The Pleasure of My Company).

"Steve is doing many things at once. … The range is enormous," says David Remnick, The New Yorker's editor. "There is no guarantee that a verbal magician like Robin Williams can transfer his talent to paper. Steve can. … I hate to throw the word 'genius' around too often, but why not? He really is one."

Martin's genius first took flight on Saturday Night Live, for which he often served as guest host during its early years. Martin's road-map to the funny bone has been described as "Dadaesque." And that's pretty accurate. He cemented his surreal credentials by playing the banjo with an arrow through his cranium, or performing a happy-feet dance after juggling several cats, and wearing rabbit ears with a double-breasted white suit while twisting balloon animals.

Martin's wacky SNL shtick earned him iconic status, and the performance of his hit single, King Tut, with Martin in an Egyptian headdress backed up by the "Toot Uncommons," became the stuff of television legend.

Martin's comedy even managed to launch two expressions -- "Well, excuuuuuuuuuse me!" and "I am a wild and crazy guy!" -- into the cultural lexicon. Not bad for a Waco native who went from selling guide books at Disneyland to majoring in philosophy at Long Beach State College.

Steve Martin's most taken-for-granted talent is probably his physical comedy. But not since Martin's own early idols -- Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and Jerry Lewis -- has the cinema witnessed a comedian more in command of his body.

Martin can be so loose-limbed that he becomes almost invertebrate. In 1984's All of Me, Martin's walk is reduced to a spasm of flailing arms and knock-knees, as he rebels against the half of his body being occupied by Lily Tomlin.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) may have captured Martin's physical versatility at its best. His slouch sums up the smarminess of his $5 dollar con man before he becomes a spastic virtuoso as "monkey boy" Ruprecht.

But Martin is a thinking-man's comic, too, and it's this persona that has found a harder time cementing itself into the public's consciousness. When Martin is in his more irreverent, witty mode, his comedy caroms drollery from unlikely angles. In the now-immortal bar scene from 1987's Roxanne, he substitutes deliciously barbed wordplay for the parrying of swords from Edmond Rostand's classic Cyrano de Bergerac. And in Martin's screenplay for 1999's Bowfinger, he harpoons Hollywood's big-star worship by having a hapless, Hollywood wannabe cast hire the movie world's biggest star (Eddie Murphy) without him knowing it.

"I don't know how he does his comedy, and quite honestly I don't want to know," says Frank Oz, Martin's director on four movies, including Bowfinger. "He comes at comedy from an angle we mortals don't come from."

During a recent surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live, the show that launched his acting career, Martin announced that he was just making a cameo appearance -- no jokes, no bits, just a silent cameo. It was a brilliant mini-Martin commentary on stars posturing for any available air time.

Indeed, much of Martin's comedy, especially as seen in his 1991 film, L.A. Story, has centered on lampooning the entertainment industry's fascination with the superficial and its self-important, preening celebrities. Martin, personally, enjoys continuing the spoof by giving autograph-seekers a card that states, according to several accounts, "This certifies that you have had a personal encounter with me and that you found me warm, polite, intelligent and funny."

On closer examination, of course, it's no surprise that Martin has drifted in and out of mass appeal in recent years. He has, after all, become (no oxymoron intended) a Hollywood man of letters.

More than 20 years ago, Martin published Cruel Shoes, a collection of wry musings and improvisational word games. Since then, he has churned out a best-selling novella, 2000's Shopgirl, and a widely attended play (Picasso at the Lapin Agile) and has become an essayist for the The New Yorker.

What Shopgirl revealed was Martin's almost curatorial eye for character detail. The story revolves around Mirabelle, a pretty -- though thoroughly unremarkable -- glove saleswoman in Beverly Hills whose life begins to blossom through her meeting of a well-groomed, middle-aged store customer.

A whole other aspect to Martin's world view emerges from Shopgirl, as he fills it with his ardent belief in romance in addition to a darker, more desolate sense of humor.

"If people have fully embraced Steve as a writer, it's because he strikes a pose between humor and loneliness as he paints a very romantic view of the world," says Leigh Haber, Martin's longtime editor at Hyperion Books. "He really does tap into the intrinsic loneliness of people and the way they, hopefully, look to connect."

The calibrated eccentricity of Martin's humor can also be found in his periodic essays for The New Yorker. He opens one, titled The Ethicist, by having the wave performed at a prison execution. And in Side Effects, Martin writes: "Dosage: Take two tablets every six hours for joint pain. Side effects: This drug may cause joint pain. …"

Susan Morrison, Martin's editor at The New Yorker, sees an inimitable correlation between his writer's persona and his stage self: "As meticulously contrived as Steve's physical contortions," she says, "so too is the crazy reasoning of his stories."

"The thing people notice in Steve is how modern he is," says Gil Cates, the producer of this year's Academy Awards broadcast. "There is this brevity to him which I find exhilarating. He doesn't suck the air out of a room. He is very elegant, streamlined and, finally, thoughtful."

And Cates might have added, restlessly creative.

Martin often seems to be staging his own private "can I top this?" competition.

Hollywood's reigning clown-of-all-trades wouldn't have it any other way.



- posted by sookeyjane 3/10/2003 12:45:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve junket interview on BDtH

thanks to umm... on the board for finding this. she's a pip.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/living/5338227.htm

Star Telegram
Life & Arts
Posted on Fri, Mar. 07, 2003
Steve Martin explains it all (and brings down the house)
By Miki Turner
Star-Telegram Pop Culture Critic

LOS ANGELES - Dressed in a conservative but nicely tailored blue suit, Steve Martin, waits outside a hotel banquet room. In a few minutes, Disney expects him to do his usual antics at a half-hour press briefing about his latest movie.

But he's got that blank look of boredom on his face. Was this the look of things to come for this year's Academy Awards host?

Not even. Once Martin warmed up his pitch for Bringing Down the House, the barbs came flying out faster than a Kenyan marathoner at the start line.

Q: How familiar were you with the world of hip-hop before doing this movie?

A: Well, I lived it (laughter). Very little, very little and that actually kind of works for me because I look a little awkward in doing it, which is what I wanted.

Q: How do you choose your projects?

A: Poorly. I choose it obviously on the script, but also on the people I'm working with. If they're funny, it could be funny, could be fun, then that starts to feel really good to me even if the script might be lacking -- even if, in this case, it wasn't.

Q: You haven't done this kind of physical comedy in a while. Were you really itching to get back to it?

A: It was just fun to do. I didn't even know it was going to be this physical. It just sort of worked out that way.

Q: How did you like the hip-hop clothing?

A: I liked wearing my pants real low. It pays to advertise, I guess.

Q: Did you have a favorite scene?

A: Yes, it's in Gangs of New York.

Q: How many takes did it take on the scene where you squeeze Latifah's breasts?

A: (sighs) A lot, a lot. I wanted to get it right.

Q: Was it strictly professional?

A: Strictly professional. Although at one point I did say, "Now you do me."

Q: What happened in between scenes on the set?

A: Intercourse.

Q: How are you preparing for Oscar night?

A: I'm -- when is that? I'm just working with writers I like. We sit around and pitch ideas back and forth.

Q: Can you give us an idea of what's going to happen on Oscar night?

A: No, no I can't. You know why? Because Disney told me if I talk about anything else other than Bringing Down the House I have to pay for the entire junket.

- posted by sookeyjane 3/09/2003 04:34:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS