Britney Spears to play lesbian killer in Quentin Tarantino film!!!!!!
The exclamation points are mine, but they’re implied in this Telegraph headline, which is quickly making the rounds of the “publish first, conveniently forget to retract later” gossip blogs. The rumor is that Britney has been hand-picked by Quentin to “play dancer Varla in a remake of the 1965 cult film Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”
The reality check: as far as I can tell––Tarantino has never even confirmed a Liz Smith report from way back in January claiming that he’s making a remake of the Russ Meyer schlock classic. And, since that story mentioned that Britney was in the running, even if there is something to it it’s kind of old news. It might be a strategic PR drop (I don’t know by who––does Britney even have a publicist anymore?) to counteract the Page Six item from last week, which suggested (without comment from the Tarantino camp) that porn star Tera Patrick was getting the role. But I have a hard time believing that this is anything other than a publicity game at this point, considering that Tarantino hasn’t even finished castingthe epic that he plans to screen in seven months at Cannes.
That said: if it’s between Spears and Patrick, we definitely vote for the former. She needs it more.
UPDATE: Access Hollywood has denials from both Tarantino and Spears. And Media Morgue says Quentin’s agent told them way back in March that the remake was just a rumor.
After the de rigeur delay at JFK (during which I learned of Tim Russert’s death via a single muted TV in an airport bar otherwise given over to Holland vs. France madness), I arrived in Vegas around 9:30 and went straight to The Palms, homebase of CineVegas and the hotel at which, as a member of the Shorts jury, I have been graciously sequestered
This is only my second trip to the city, but it seems like The Palms is a bit of an anomaly. Of course, a casino is a casino is a casino––there’s no getting around the frosty air-conditioned air, the sense of time having stopped at permanent midnight, the carefully calibrated spectacle apparently meant to foster the illusion that all spending and gambling losses are imaginary (or, at least, less than earth-shatteringly consequential). But at The Palms there are no grandmother types pumping coins into slots, no middle American families crowded around a buffet, no foreign tourists spending obscene amounts of money on luxury kitsch. A spacious, multi-tower complex set several blocks off The Strip, it attracts an almost uniquely young crowd, more or less demographically synonymous with the Real World season that would seem to inspire their tourism. Here the film festival is hidden in plain site, planted in part of the casino’s multiplex and injected into the hotel’s culture; the average Palms guest, if not oblivious, then certainly at least blinded somewhat by the MTV-approved moral suicide mission for which they took the long weekend.
The idea that such an environment could play host to serious films playing to serious cineastes who take it all very seriously might seem incongruous, but so far––and I write this having not seen a single film other than the shorts I’m jurying, though I plan to hit two screenings tonight––this contradiction just seems really exciting. Last night, at the CineVegas 10th Anniversary party, I had conversations about Carlos Reygadas, the degree of wink to the horror element of Baghead, Los Angeles’ newish Silent Movie Theater, and Ronnie Bronstein. Variety’s Robert Koehler valiantly argued the case that CineVegas is the preeminent discovery festival for “semi-narrative and non-narrative” film in North America. Janet Pierson convinced me that I have to see a SXSW 2008 selection that I missed called The Wild Horse Redemption, which she described as “cowboy porn about these felons who become horse whisperers” (hot, right?)
And all of this took place about five paces away from a heavily-bodyguarded Britney Spears.
“It is a travesty that Mekas’ stark vision of elegiac melancholia has not been rewarded with the coveted Golden Popcorn statue,” Boston University film studies professor Ray Carney said. “His [1997] film Letter From Nowhere—Laiskas Is Niekur No. 1 should have easily walked away with Best On-Screen Duo, or Best Kiss, or at least Best Ass.”
Tee hee and everything, but there actually isn’t a huge gulf between Mekas’ most recent major project and the kind of thing you might see on post-Tila Tequila MTV.
Actor/game show host/former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein published a love letter to the soon-to-close Hollywood eatery Morton’s in Sunday’s New York Times. A splooge sample:
My wife and I and all of our friends are devastated. I guess we’ll eat seaweed at Mr Chow. But as far as I know, there now is no Hollywood-center-of-power cafe. Mr Chow would be the closest, especially for the music business. Yet for television and movies, it’s a sad, sad time. For those of us who considered Morton’s as much of a home as our own kitchens, it’s tragic.
Dana Harris had a markedly different take, writing up the closing on Variety’s The Knife blog in May:
But have you been to Mortons lately? I don’t think we’re going to be missing much. Nothing is wrong with the restaurant, but beyond its storied reputation, there isn’t much right. The booths are comfy and the servers are pro, but the menu is as dull and innocuous as its French-vanilla walls.
The two paragraphs above seem to reveal an evolution in the notion of Hollywood public space.
This is a holdover from the weekend, but it’s worth going back to: Nikki Finke says three people have told her that Warner Brothers is no longer greenlighting pictures build around female stars. This is apparently in reaction to dismal box office returns for The Brave One and The Invasion, but as Finke points out, those weren’t exactly the chickiest of flicks. Ergo, this seems to be less about the female audience and more about the general audience not responding to female stars. Or, it could be about WB looking for scapegoats to cover their own failure to efficiently market genre fare to grown-ups. Regardless: it looks bad, and, if it’s true, celebrity feminist/attorney Gloria Allred (who has been awfully busy lately with Britney Spears’ custody battle) isn’t going to let it slide. She tells Finke:
This is an insult to all moviegoers and particularly women. It is truly unfortunate that women get blamed for decisions which are made by men…If that studio confirms that their policy is to now exclude women as leads, then my policy would be to boycott films made by Warner Bros.
This will probably go nowhere, because if pressed, WB will be like, “Of course we love women!” And it’ll all blow over as soon as Finke finds a tastier string to pull. But at some point, someone is going to have to explain to me how 40 year-old actresses having trouble finding work is anything other than business as usual.
