Several film blogs have posted Jamie Stuart’s thoughts on yesterday’s NYFF press conference for Brian DePalma’s Redacted. In a nutshell: DePalma mentioned that the film’s final montage (which consists of real photographs of real victims of real terror and war-associated violence, and which is thought by many to be the most powerful portion of the film) is in danger of being “redacted” by the film’s distributor, Magnolia Pictures, at the request of the Magnolia/HD Net founder Mark Cuban. According to Stuart, DePalma’s comments were discredited yesterday by Magnolia’s president:

As [DePalma] began discussing the film’s use of actual war photographs and their graphic nature, Eamonn Bowles from Magnolia began shouting from the rear of the Walter Reade Theater to refute De Palma’s claims that Mark Cuban was trying to, well, redact them from the picture’s release. Then, just as the press conference was coming to a close, producer Jason Kliot rushed the stage and grabbed moderator Jim Hoberman’s mic to offer the crowd his version of this distribution controversy. I was left wondering how spontaneous this all was or whether they knew it would be immediately blogged upon to stoke media attention.

I was less inclined to see this as a pure stunt. I knew DePalma had been pushing this button at press conferences as far back as Telluride, where his statements were vague enough to be misinterpreted but loud enough to be difficult to miss. If this fighting between filmmaker and distributer started as a ploy for attention, then it doesn’t make sense that Magnolia would wait this long to publicly respond. Still, unsure how to interpret this latest event, I sent an email this morning to Mark Cuban to get the official word. Cuban confirmed to me that Magnolia has, indeed, asked DePalma to remove the images from the film, and will not release Redacted unless the final montage is cut. More details after the jump.

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Apologies for the poor quality video, but above you’ll find evidence of sometime-movie mogul Mark Cuban’s debut on Dancing With the Stars. The Magnolia Pictures chief/simultaneous distribution evangelist/financier and distributor of Brian DePalma’s Redacted performed last night; his fate as a reality TV star will be decided by “America” tonight.

What you don’t see above is the prologue, which you can allegedly watch on ABC.com (I’m still waiting for the video to load). In a segment designed to introduce the audience to Cuban and his partner, Kym, Cuban revealed that he had hip replacement surgery just seven weeks before rehearsals began for Dancing With the Stars. “Most people are still on crutches,” Cuban says, lifting up his practice shorts to reveal a massive scar. Kym’s voiceover commends Cuban for working through the pain while we watch footage of him practicing with a tortured expression on his face. Cut to Cuban, interview style: “I’m not going through all this pain and agony just because. I’m there to win.”

It strikes me that, whether it’s his doing or that of Dancing’s producers, Cuban has managed to hit on a magic combination of about 100 winning reality TV cliches: rich fish out of water, an American Idol’s beginner’s enthusiasm for competitive performance, Extreme Makeover-branded physical struggle, non-household name reifying his stardom by going on a show mostly staffed by declining B-listers united in the deception that they’re so famous they don’t need to be there. On a show like this, it seems like a brilliant strategy: the audience, it seems, unfailingly rewards not those who perform well, but those who perform *surprisingly* well.

More on the dance itself after the jump.

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Okay. I was wrong.
(hangs head in shame)

Mark your calendars for September 24, when I’ll start live blogging the vertically-integrated studio mogul’s debut as a dancing reality TV star, right here on SpoutBlog.

Yesterday, TMZ breathlessly announced that they’d landed the tightly-guarded list of the cast and alternates for the upcoming season of ABC’s reality competition, Dancing With the Stars. Then the page view whores made us click through a maddening gallery to confirm earlier rumors that one of those alleged dancing stars is indeed Mark Cuban, the brash billionaire who owns the Dallas Mavericks and who, as owner of Landmark Theaters and Magnolia Pictures, is also at the forefront of the movement to close the theatrical/DVD distribution window.

I’m willing to bet that Mark Cuban is not on the final list, which is set to be announced on ABC’s Good Morning America tomorrow. My reasoning is three-fold: First, according to an interview that appeared late last week in Portfolio, Cuban is currently recovering from hip replacement surgery. Second, he already did the reality TV thing once, and it didn’t go so well. Third (and probably most compelling), today TMZ published a blurb covering their collective asses if the official cast list fails to match their gallery: “Well placed on-set sources tell us that execs, fearing someone would leak the cast to TMZ, gave the show’s staff and crew names that may or may not be 100% accurate.” Looking at TMZ’s list, Cuban and one of the two former Beverly Hills 90210 babes seem like the easiest names to scratch off.

So here’s the deal: If Mark Cuban is *not* on Dancing With the Stars, I win the satisfaction of being correct in my assumptions. If it turns out that the part-time movie mogul *is* on the show’s official cast list, as punishment for being wrong about this I promise to live-blog Cuban’s Dancing performance for as long as he manages to stay on the show. I’ve convinced myself that either way, I win on this — I mean, if Louis B. Mayer had entered a dance marathon, we would have wanted a document of it, right?

It seems pretty clear that the current movie theater model doesn’t quite work for anyone. Well, maybe it’s nearly perfect for a 15-year-old in Normal, Illinois, but that’s precisely why I hardly ever see a movie in a multiplex.

A long time ago (at least on the Spout calendar), Paul wrote a post essentially brainstorming about his dream movie theater. In his post, Paul actually wrote “I secretly hope Landmark Theaters will consider this a quick and dirty business plan to elaborate on.”

Well, it looks like Mark Cuban is actually jumping on Paul’s bandwagon, or at least something close. An article today on Cinematical, “Mark Cuban Wants To Make Us Scoop Our Own Popcorn,” says Cuban and Todd Wagner are unveiling their new movie theater concepts in three of their Landmark theaters–in Baltimore, Denver, and Los Angeles.

“Landmark’s goal is to be the ultimate night out for grownups. Today’s customer has different expectations than the customer of 10 and 20 years ago, and we need to recognize that and respond to it,” says Cuban in the article.

But what does that actually mean? Amenities, retail sales, and a “lounge-like atmosphere” for food and drinks before and after the movie. Next to Paul’s dream theater, Cuban’s model sounds a bit like it’s trying too hard, although of course I’d have to see and experience it before I could say anything conclusive. Paul’s plan includes ideas like converting old neighborhood theaters back into theaters, starting clubs and other opportunities for like-minded people to come together around films they love, and offering opening acts as a way to expose people to shorts and other emerging cinema. The plan is practical in many ways (brief intermission, anyone?) yet also focuses on actually enriching the movie-going experience, not just lengthening it and providing more opportunities for spending too much.

I guess what I’m thinking is that Cuban’s plan sounds perfect for a first-date, or for any date meant to be somewhat novel–but minus the work. Paul’s plan sounds sustainable for real people who love movies and want better movie-watching experiences on a regular basis. Of course, Cuban has the money, not Paul, so in many ways I have to agree with Patrick Walsh on Cinematical: “Going to the theater is far too expensive to be as unpleasant as it so often is–why not experiment with the formula?”