This week we have two big-time offenders: Mike Myers’ The Love Guru, which has brought concern from Hindus, because the comedy seems to be making fun of the Hindu religion; and Ron Howard’s Angels & Demons, the “sequel” to The Da Vinci Code, adapted from Dan Brown’s bestseller. Earlier this week, the Vatican banned the latter production from all Catholic churches in Rome. The following statement from Father Marco Fibbi, spokesman for the diocese of Rome, was a favorite quote from the story: “Usually we read the script but in this case it wasn’t necessary. Just the name Dan Brown was enough.”
Of course, these days, religious organizations taking offense to a movie seems so commonplace that news like this is hardly even considered bad buzz. Neither The Love Guru nor Angels & Demons will be too aversely affected by the protests or boycotts. Both films will merely be added to the following list of major offenders (in alphabetical order so as not to offend anyone who thinks one is more offensive than another), as almost a genre cataloging than an inventory of condemned.
Brokeback Mountain - Because of its promotion of “the homosexual lifestyle,” many right-wing Christian groups protested Ang Lee’s film. Most famously, it was pulled last-minute from a multiplex owned by Mormon businessman and Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller, though his motivation was not necessarily claimed to be religion-based. Despite there being hundreds of gay films throughout the years, because of its popularity, this one was the worst offender. …Read more
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a riveting documentary airing June 9 at 9:00pm on HBO, digs into the facts of Polanski’s notorious case around his sexual misconduct with a 13 year old, and how the justice system failed them both. The Promotion–opening tonight–looks like a comedy but is more an unnerving lightning rod for middle class anxiety, a darkly comic portrayal of what the American Dream has become. People expecting John C. Reilly and Seann William Scott to be foolproof laugh material will be surprised.
The New York Observer’s Culture blog notes that “Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski documentary will open in New York on July 11, two days after it airs on HBO.” No mention of the fact that it has already premiered here and, as AJ Schnack points out, will not be feted by a second or repeat review in the New York TImes.
Vulture casts Dennis Quaid, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen in the fantasy movie version of the story of Mudcrutch, on which we assume Peter Bogdanovich could pull in a paycheck as creative consultant.
Pajiba offers the Anti-Blockbuster Documentary Festival, “ten of our favorite documentaries, intelligent films that you can call up on your Netflix queues when your mind is feeling a bit rotty.” Related: I’m totally going to see Iron Man tonight, bitches!
This is interesting: a Defamer tipster points out out a tiny ad in what looks like the print edition of the Village Voice, listing screenings beginning today in way, WAY uptown Manhattan of Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. The much-discussed Sundance doc was picked up at that festival, as we noted on our deal chart, for domestic release and Oscar qualifying by HBO. Other than this little ad, there’s been no publicity and no reviews of the film in advance of this New York release; I consulted Moviefone’s AIM movie listings bot, and was told that “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired has not opened yet. It will open on 12-31-10.”
Defamer’s Stu VanAirsdale posits that this secret release is happening as a way of meeting Oscar nomination qualifications––and he’s probably right––but even token qualifying releases are usually given *some* kind of publicity budget. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised: Anne Thompson essentially predicted an in-name-only theatrical release for Wanted when the HBO deal was made at Sundance. As she put it on her blog,
People here in Park City are going crazy for Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. According to Variety, the film was courted by four buyers after its first screening last night (the Weinsteins nabbed international rights, but US distribution is still on the table), and not only was there substantial applause at this morning’s packed press and industry screening, but I don’t think I saw a single person leave the theater. For an 8:30 AM Sundance press show, that’s rare.
So the hype train is rolling full steam ahead, but what do we actually have here? For me, Wanted and Desired convinces that this seemingly trivial footnote in cinema history is actually a story about the media’s role in turning the very idea of justice into a farce. Zenovich goes some way towards crafting a valuable historical document, but its credibility on that front is weakened by its clearly imbalanced sympathies.
It’s an methodical but irreverant look at the legal quagmire and media scandal and that erupted in 1977, after a 13 year old girl accused Polanski of raping her in Jack Nicholson’s hottub whilst taking topless photos of her for Men’s Vogue. Polanski admitted to having intercourse with the girl, but said it was consensual; the film tracks how Polanski’s plea on a lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor was mutated by media-hungry Judge Rittenband, ultimately causing Polanski to flee to France in fear of being sentenced to half a century in prison.
Zenovich sets up Rittenband and Polanski as polar opposites in the realm of media-mediated justice. Polanski, a public figure due to his profession but a media star due to a combination of charisma, bad luck, and his admitted personal “recklessness,” is forced to face the reality that even in the anything-goes swirl of Hollywood in the 70s, absolute free will is an impossibility of public life. Meanwhile, hungry for his own taste of media attention, Rittenband drifted towards celebrity court cases (he previously chose to officiate Elvis’ divorce), and allowed his obsession with controlling his own media image to dictate his rulings. Ironically, Rittenband’s push for glory directly led to Polanski fleeing to France, where he was able to escape not just jail time, but the gaze of an unsympathetic media.
We’ve made several updates to our Sundance 2008 Deal chart over the past 24 hours. The most significant news is that the Weinsteins have acquired the doc Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired for theatrical distribution in every territory *except* for the U.S. and Canada. I saw the film this morning and will have more to say about it later today, but suffice it to say for now that the film casts a very, um, “European” eye on Polanski’s child rape scandal, poking quite a bit of fun at American attitudes towards sex and media and, especially, our justice system.
Also of note: United Artists has bought the remake rights to Timecrimes, a Spanish sci-fi film premiering here before hitting theaters under the auspices of Magnolia, as well as the excuse for a raging karaoke party in Park City last night (anything you may have heard about your blogger’s Fred Schneider impression has been grossly exaggerated.) Finally, Celluloid Dreams has signed a deal to rep Lance Hammer’s Ballast for international sale. I hope to see Ballast later today–it wasn’t on my original schedule, but after a colleague described it as “The Dardennes on the Mississippi Delta,” I’m intrigued.
Check out the full list of Sundance 2008 deals here.
Cruise’s lawyer and close confidante Bert Fields gave a rare interview to The Mail on Sunday to pour scorn on Morton’s book, titled Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography.
He criticised a passage in which Morton claims some “fanatical” Scientologists believed Suri Cruise was actually the result of a sperm donation by Scientology’s dead founder, L. Ron Hubbard.
Morton writes that Ms Holmes may feel she was in “the horror movie Rosemary’s Baby, in which an unsuspecting young woman is impregnated with the Devil’s child”.
Let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, that this actually happened: Tom Cruise actually had Katie Holmes impregnated, without her knowledge or consent, with L. Ron Hubbard’s sperm. Is Morton a bit fuzzy on the plot of Rosemary’s Baby, or did L. Ron actually come back from the dead and handle the job himself? Or both? I can’t find the actual conception scene from the film online, but maybe the original trailer will help us puzzle it out.
MTV has posted a fantastic interview with Jack Nicholson, in which he talks in depth about Chinatown, its sequel, The Two Jakes, and a planned third film that was to complete the trilogy, but, because of the poor reception to Jakes, never got made. An excerpt:
We always planned on making three films. We wanted it all to be tied into elemental things. Chinatown is obviously water. The Two Jakes is fire and energy. And the third film was meant to be about Gittes’ divorce and relate to air.
MTV: Was the third film in the Chinatown trilogy ever scripted?
Nicholson: No. I would imagine Robert [Towne] has some kind of outline. I can tell you it was meant to be set in 1968 when no-fault divorce went into effect in California. The title was to be Gittes vs. Gittes. It was to be about Gittes’ divorce. The secrecy of Meg Tilly’s character was somehow to involve the most private person in California, Howard Hughes. That is where the air element would have come into the picture.
Nicholson goes on to say that he “certainly would consider” making Gittes vs. Gittes if Paramount and Towne were to show interest. That and much more here. The interview’s a two-parter, which I usually find annoying, but Part One was good enough that I’ll happily be back for Part Two tomorrow.
This week we have two big-time offenders: Mike Myers’ 
The New York Observer’s Culture blog
MTV has posted 
