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Live From Hollywood...
Sept1
Piranha 3D producer bites back at James Cameron over slur
Ving Rhames in Piranha 3D (courtesy Allstar)
by Ben Child
As spats go, it could be seen as a little uneven. On one side, James Cameron, director of box-office behemoth Avatar, one of the most expensive films of all time. On the other, Mark Canton, producer of the rather less well-known Piranha 3D, which had a budget of just $24m (£16m).
Last week, in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine, Cameron singled out the 3D work in the recently released comedy-horror film, calling it: "An example of what we should not be doing in 3D."
He continued: "It just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3D horror films from the 1970s and 80s, like Friday the 13th 3D. When movies got to the bottom of the barrel of their creativity and at the last gasp of their financial lifespan, they did a 3D version to get the last few drops of blood out of the turnip."
Having cut his teeth working on Piranha 2 (from which he was subsequently fired) and developed his own motion capture camera system to create the stunning CGI work on Avatar, Cameron might have thought he had the right to have his say on Piranha 3D. Canton, however, has hit back with an extended essay in which he labels Avatar's 3D work "inconsistent" and suggests the film's storytelling "might have been more original".
In an email sent to reporters, Canton added: "Mr Cameron, who singles himself out to be a visionary of movie-making, seems to have a small vision regarding any motion pictures that are not his own. It is amazing that in the movie-making process – which is certainly a team sport – that Cameron consistently celebrates himself as though he is a team of one. His comments are ridiculous, self-serving and insulting to those of us who are not caught up in serving his ego and his rhetoric."
Mel Gibson still a potential box office draw, according to new poll
(courtesy WireImage)
by Mandi Bierly
Seventy-six percent of Americans have no problem separating Mel Gibson the actor from Mel Gibson the scandal magnet, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll conducted earlier this month by randomly phoning 847 adults. Only 20 percent of participants said they were less likely to see a Mel Gibson movie as a result of the recent accusations by Oksana Grigorieva. Breaking the results down by gender: 80 percent of men and 72 percent of women said they were undeterred by the ongoing scandal. An online poll accompanying the results shows slightly different numbers: 62 percent of responders say the scandal has no effect on the likelihood of them seeing a Mel Gibson movie.
Summer movie report card: Most pass after a rocky start
Iron Man 2: He flew off the screen to a total take of $312 million. (courtesy ILM/Marvel)
No one is sorrier to see summer draw to a close than Hollywood. After stumbling out of the gates early on, the film industry righted itself with a string of unexpected hits like Inception, The Last Airbender and The Expendables. Ticket sales heading into the Labor Day weekend are 4% ahead of last year's pace, reports Hollywood.com. Sure, attendance is down 2% from 2009. But in this economy, movie executives are beggars, not choosers. Still, there were a few hiccups in what was otherwise a healthy summer, including flops from Tom Cruise and young superheroes. USA TODAY offers its annual summer report card for the film industry.
Click the Continue Reading at link to see USA Today's full report card with marks ranging from A to D+
Google's YouTube video service is in talks with Hollywood studios to launch a streaming pay-per-view movie service by year's end.
The Financial Times reported that the service is expected to launch in the U.S. and then get rolled out globally. The move would put YouTube into more direct competition with Apple and others, such as Hulu and Netflix, as players try to become the preferred destination for distribution of content in the digital age.
Hollywood seems intrigued by the idea of YouTube's big reach, according to the FT report.
It said newer film titles would cost about $5 on the planned on-demand streaming service.
Clooney isn't experienced in lovemaking scenes, says co-star
He has long been considered a heartthrob but George Clooney's Italian co-star Violente Placido in The American doesn't seem to be all that intimidated by him. Placido and Clooney had to film some very graphic sex scenes together and she said her 49-year-old co-star confessed he was lacking experience, People magazine online reported.
"He confessed... that he didn't do lots of sex scenes. I felt like this was in a way something new to him, he wasn't that experienced," Placido said.
ClooneyPlacido, who plays prostitute Clara and Clooney's love interest in the film, explained that Clooney had trouble relaxing during the intimate scenes.
But once she convinced Clooney to trust her, it was much easier.
"We had to find a way to make it natural and let your body speak somehow,' Placido said.
"We were very open to one another to try and make it work. We just said 'let's trust each other' and we did. I felt like we had to let ourselves go," she added.
And she insists that the sex scene was a pivotal part of the film hence the need to get it done perfectly.
"It had to look real; it is the turning point for the two characters. I can tell you that watching it, I don't feel as calm as I did when I was on set filming it. Just watching it is a little like... wow," she added.
Of all film genres, the horror movie is the one that suffers least from lack of a budget. With decent acting, a modicum of special effects, and an imaginative script, film history shows you don't need an expensive movie star or a big budget to elicit thrills and win audiences.
The Last Exorcism benefits from that fact. It knowingly utilizes the gimmick of an as-it-happens documentary (see also: The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity) to save money on production values and give its premise an underlay of creepy credibility.
Then it blows it.
The subject of the doc is Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a second-generation preacher who, he confesses, is losing his faith. In fact, he only agrees to having a documentary crew follow him on one of his exorcism gigs as a means of kissing the con act goodbye while revealing the secrets of the scam.
His last assignment takes him to the Sweetzer farm in a desolate Louisiana backwater, where a desperate fundamentalist father Louis (Louis Hertham) worries that his virginal 16-year-old daughter Nell (Ashley Bell) has been making nightly forays into the barn to slaughter cattle while possessed.
Overcoming the hostility of Nell's bristling brother Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones), Cotton goes through the motions of an exorcism using practised fakery, including a crucifix that emits a puff of smoke at just the right moment, all captured by a two-person film crew.
...
And it all works well enough at first. But their efforts to keep the film grounded in documentary realism grows tiresome and the film's hard-won credibility starts to fall apart as it the plot gets more bizarre.
Screen legends Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and Robert De Niro will join hundreds of luminaries, including billionaire Bill Gates and musician Bruce Springsteen, at next month's Toronto International Film Festival.
Yesterday, the festival released its much-anticipated guest list of actors and filmmakers expected to visit the city during the 11-day celebration of cinema Sept. 9 to 19.
Eastwood, 80, is returning to TIFF for the first time in 20 years to premiere his supernatural thriller, Hereafter, starring Matt Damon, who is also expected to attend.
Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Uma Thurman, Kevin Spacey, Keanu Reeves, Hilary Swank, Bill Murray and Woody Harrelson are also among the many anticipated guests.
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