Last Friday, I suggested that the prologue to Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympiabe featured ahead of Olympics coverage. But I’ve changed my mind after seeing this montage created by L.A.’s Cinefamily (the gang behind the recently revitalized Silent Movie Theater) & Pimpedelic Wonderland for a 4th of July event last month. It clearly says everything there is to say about America, and it would certainly pump us up adequately for patriotically rooting for the U.S. teams. Plus, unlike like Olympia, it’s not made by Nazis; like Olympia, though, it has nudity!
The only thing possibly more appropriately American than this video is Entertainment Weekly’s new interviews with Barack Obamaand John McCain about their pop culture preferences, a feature that finally allows us to make up our minds based on things more fun than “important issues”. I don’t know about you, but I’d never vote for anybody who honestly thinks We Were Soldiersis the best Vietnam movie of all time. Thanks, EW, for keeping me from making a terrible mistake on Election Day.
I do regret that erstwhile stripper Diablo Cody will not be joining us for the awards on January 6. She sure had my vote.
Gross, right? If the guy really thinks Juno was the best screenplay of the year, he’s entitled to that (wrong) opinion, but then what does it matter that Cody is an “erstwhile stripper”? As it stands, it reads like Cody got Lumenick’s vote not because she wrote the best screenplay, but because she’s more likely than the Coen Brothers to do something sexy at the awards ceremony (and/or, Lumenick is more likely to enjoy fantasizing about it). At best, it’s a stab at Friar’s Club-caliber comedy that does nothing to dispel the notion that these critics circles are too old, white and male for their own good.
As if it wasn’t gross enough to think that Juno’s critical success could be the product of a bunch of journalists wanting to hang out with a sometime stripper, and all the “once a sex worker, permanently a whore ie: maybe she’ll get naked during our interview” bullshit that entails, it’s almost worse to think that these dudes are, like, patting themselves on the back for spreading the urban legend about The Stripper Who Actually Had a Brain. And this is, remember, all in service of a movie that was essentially made for young girls. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of vomiting to do before the HFPA takes this line of thinking to its inevitable conclusion.
I don’t know how I missed this in this week’s trades, but I guess that’s what Pajiba is for: Diablo Cody has sold yet another screenplay, this time for a “comedic supernatural thriller” starring Transformers babe Megan Fox, titled Jennifer’s Body. Which is also the title of a Hole song, and I don’t think that’s an accident–an entire scene in the Cody-scripted Juno revolves around a song from the same album (I *think* it was “Doll Parts”, but I could be wrong). This puts Cody and I in an exclusive club: we’re possibly the only mid-90s Courtney Love apologists left.
Pajiba also spots a kinship between former stripper Cody and Fox, who “looks like she would be working the pole in some dive in Panorama City if not for the serendipitous intervention of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay.” For her part, on her blog Cody says Fox “is hotter than the earth’s core. And now–Hollywood’s tiresome profusion of ‘girlfriend roles’ be damned–she’s going to literally get out there AND DESTROY SOME FUCKING BOYS.”
Stripper-turned-blogger-turned-Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody has “revised” the script for a new musical called Burlesque. Concieved by Pussycat Dolls co-creator Steven Antin, the musical will incorporate “established songs” into the story of “a young woman who tries to escape a hollow past and finds it performing in a neo-burlesque club in Los Angeles.” So it’s like Flashdance meets Moulin Rouge, with Cody undoubtedly supplying references to Thundercats and “porkswords.”
In what The Hollywood Reporter is calling “an industry first”, the upcoming special edition DVD of Live Free or Die Hard will include an extra version of the film specifically for use on computers and mobile devices. The file, which will carry no DRM, will be compatible with all “Windows-based computers or portable video players equipped with Microsoft Windows’ PlaysForSure feature, available from such manufacturers as Archos, Toshiba, Samsung, RCA, Dell and Creative Labs.” So those of us with iPods can suck it.
Drew Carey has launched a new web project in cahoots with think tank the Reason Foundation. The newly-minted game show host will host a series of short documentaries for the site, tackling a variety of social issues. Says Carey: “We need Reason to help fight the stupid drug laws, the stupid immigration laws and stupid big government in general.” I swear, that’s the actual quote.
In a shocking victory over the competition (um…The Nanny Diaries?), Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series has been selected to receive the Variety–sponsored Blockbuster Book to Film Award later this month at the Quills.
Speaking of Harvey flogging, the Weinstein Company has acquired North American rights to Make it Happen, after brokering sales of international rights to other parties at Berlin and Cannes. The film, which was penned by the guy who brought you Save the Last Dance and Step Up, tracks an aspiring dancer who moves to Chicago and becomes a stripper. So, basically, it’s a remake of Flashdance.
Variety has confirmed that Kevin Spacey will be back as Lex Luthor in the next installment of Bryan Singer’s Superman franchise. In the piece, Spacey also vociferously refutes rumors that recently claimed he was retiring from movies. “In no way did I use the word retirement. Someone else pulled that out of thin air. It’s false, there’s not a lick of truth to it.”
Check out this creeptastic quote from Lou Lumenick, lamenting Juno‘s failure to win the New York Film Critics Circle’s vote for Best Screenplay:
I guess Harvey hasn’t totally given up on the idea of flogging 
