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‘Wall Street 2′: Could Be Cannes Closing Night

Roger Friedman
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‘Wall Street 2′: Could Be Cannes Closing Night

20th Century Fox has suddenly sent Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps” to a Sept. 24 opening instead of its planned April 23th release.

There are two reasons for this: one is that they’ve submitted the film to the Cannes Film Festival and are awaiting word. It’s more than likely that Cannes will take it, especially with Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Josh Brolin, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, and Charlie Sheen in the Oliver Stone cast. What a group for the red carpet !

Second, Fox feels that Sept. 24th is a better bet for Oscar nominations. This may be true, but as long as I’ve been writing about Hollywood, September has been a toss off month. Last year these were the movies released during that week: “Capitalism A Love Story,” “Rage,” “Fame 2009,” “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” “The Boys Are Back,” “Coco Before Chanel,” and “Paranormal Activity.” Only the latter had a pulse, but it was a genre film. No Oscar touted film is released in September. Period.

This turn of events throws a monkey wrench into publicity already churning for “WS2.”. Michael Douglas is on the cover of Vanity Fair right now promoting both “Wall Street 2″ and his excellent indie film “Solitary Man” which also costars Sarandon and Danny DeVito. (This is a must-see film.)’ There’s also a Lincoln Center tribute scheduled for him on May 24th. The publicity and marketing are in place now for “Wall Street 2,” not next fall.

“Wall Street 2″ is indeed a perfect Cannes opening night ‘ the glamour quotient alone will have the place in an uproar. But to make a closing night film might be problematic since the Lincoln Center event would be the next day in New York. Sacre bleu!

Now that they’ve opted for September, Fox might just be better off and wait for the Toronto Film Festival (Sept. 9-18).

(P.S. Those Toronto planners did a great planning job ‘ Rosh Hoshanah is Sept. 9 and 10; Yom Kippur is Sept. 17-18. Whoops!)

Meanwhile: there’s now a rumor that Julian Schnabel may take his new film, “Miral,” to Cannes as well. His “Diving Bell and the Butterfly” started there, and the results were both Best Picture and Best Director nominations at the Academy Awards. Schnabel and Stone at one Cannes ‘ it’s too much to think about!

‘American Idol’ Producer: Elton Still Best Simon Replacement

Roger Friedman
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‘American Idol’ Producer: Elton Still Best Simon Replacement

This is a pretty good week for Sir Elton John.

On Monday night, former “American Idol” producer Nigel Lythgoe told me ‘ when I ran into him at the new Beverly Hills Soho House ‘ that he still thinks Sir Elton is the best choice to replace Simon Cowell. “He’s absolutely it,” said Lythgoe, who also said he thinks Ellen DeGeneres is still warming up and has yet to show her full potential. And he misses Paula Abdul. “She was the glue that held it together, wasn’t she?” he said wistfully.

On Sunday night Sir Elton hosted his annual Oscar dinner and party at the Pacific Design Center. Tons of A listers filled up the tents to hear Grace Jones and rub elbows with stars like Betty White, Jamie Foxx, Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Hudson, Salma Hayek, Will.i.am, Josh Groban, Malin Akerman, Slash, John Waters, the Osbournes, Hayden Panettiere, Victoria Beckham, Heidi Klum, Alan Cumming, Serena Williams, Nick Jonas, Kara DioGuardi, Simon Cowell ‘‘who was driven around in a $540,000 Rolls Royce Phantom ”Miley Cyrus, and even, as an oddity, Perez Hilton! Grace Jones was wild, outrageous, as good as ever. The party planners created an all red nightclub for her within Elton’s tents. It was quite a treat.

‘

Then, last night: at the Helen Hayes Theater, Elton and David Furnish hosted a pre-opening night on Broadway for a wonderful new play they’ve put their names on as producers, called “Next Fall.” Whoopi Goldberg, Edie Falco, David Schwimmer, Donna Karan and Lorraine Bracco, director Doug Liman, and Oscar winning “Amadeus” director Milos Forman were in the audience to see this very funny and moving dramedy by Geoffrey Nauffts. Patrick Breen and Maddie Corman are standouts in this story of love and loss, but everyone in the cast is spot on ‘ especially Cotter Smith as a redneck dad who might be hipper than we think. Among Nauffts’ many laughs are several thought provoking conversations about religion and sex and death. Bravo to Elton and David for giving this play a leg up!

So that’s Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday. “Next Fall” has its real opening tonight, with more accolades. What will Elton do on Friday? Sleep?

Conan O’Brien Live Tour: Small Towns, Big Cities Will Roll Out Red Carpets

Roger Friedman
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Conan O’Brien Live Tour: Small Towns, Big Cities Will Roll Out Red Carpets

Conan O’Brien’s live tour has been announced officially. I told you about it on March 5.

The tour starts on April 12 — I was asked to say “mid-April” because the dates weren’t all booked — and in Eugene, Ore., of all places. (This column said it would be in Seattle or San Diego. At least we were on the right coast!)

Conan’s tour will be a hot, hot ticket. And the funniest thing about it will be charting the travel arrangements of all the guests who come and go. Some cities, like Eugene, are going to be quite busy rolling out the red carpets. That could be the most hilarious part of the tour!

Pink Floyd Wins Download Case: Who’s Next?

Roger Friedman
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Pink Floyd Wins Download Case: Who’s Next?

Pink Floyd has won what could be a landmark case today in the British courts. EMI can no longer sell its individual tracks piecemeal to iTunes and other downloading services. Floyd’s lawyers argued that the group’s contracts with EMI meant that albums like “Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall” were meant to be listened to and sold in their entirety.

Personally, I would have argued that the original singles released from those albums — like “Money,” “Us and Them,” and “Another Brick in the Wall” — were always singles and could be bought that way now. But no one asked me!

Anyway, the court case could be a precedent for groups like the Who and Led Zeppelin and any other act — say Marvin Gaye, with “What’s Going On?” — who could insist that those albums were made as whole pieces and not as singles. This could certainly be said for “Who’s Next,” “Tommy” and “Quadrophenia,” for example.

This would have affected the Beatles, of course, if their music were sold online at all. Alas, and luckily, it’s not. Indeed, by staying away from downloading services, the Beatles sold 17 million remastered CDs last year (this counts single CDs in the box sets).

This also marks another brick in the wall for Pink Floyd as they try to extricate themselves from EMI’s continuing soap opera. Just this week the record company appointed a new chief, from outside the record biz, and let go of the one they’d been touting for the last couple of years.

‘Cove’ Makers May Hook Up with Tarantino Producer

Roger Friedman
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‘Cove’ Makers May Hook Up with Tarantino Producer

Now that “The Cove” has won Best Documentary, the world is an oyster for director Louie Psihoyos.

I am told that Psihoyos and his team are in deep discussions with Quentin Tarantino’s long time producer, Lawrence Bender, to make their next film.

The new film is even deeper than “The Cove.” It’s about the extinction of species, and what we can do to stop it before it happens.

Currently there are hundreds of thousands of species that are vanishing all over the world, from small to huge. Psihoyos’s new project would follow the list of extinct-prone animals and organisms, and the battles to save them.

According to one report, nearly 17,000 different plant and animal species are currently in danger of extinction, along with the record business and investigative journalism. But Psihoyos will just address himself to the former.

Oddly enough, I’ve also heard that the latter ‘ investigative journalism and its gradual demise ‘ may be the subject of another doc by a nominated filmmaker, Robert Kenner (”Food Inc.”).

Ronald McDonald Kills Michelin Man, Gets Oscar

Roger Friedman
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Ronald McDonald Kills Michelin Man, Gets Oscar

Ronald McDonald kills the Michelin Man in a short film that won an Oscar on Sunday night for Best Animated Short film.

“Logorama” played at Sundance, but it unlikely to be seen’in many theaters. It possibly runs afoul of at least a thousand trademark violations by lampooning logos of well known companies from McDonalds to Michelin to Starbucks, Apple, Nickelodeon, and so on.

The film, made by Francois Alaux, Herve de Crecy and Ludovic Houplain,won Best Short at the Stockholm Festival and the Kodak award at Cannes. But no one in America saw it until its Sundance screening and a few museum showings. Sacre bleu!

“Logorama” is a satire about branding, I guess. It’s animated, and propels Ronald and the Michelin Man, as well the kids from Haribo Candy, and the mustachoied Pringles man (voiced by director David Fincher of all people)’and many other well known brand characters into a bizarre story that is literally chock full of logos and a little violence. You might think it’s a product plug, but this is the antithesis of that. You have to give the animators credit: they’ve found just about every logo they could think of, even Atlantic Records. Dunkin Donuts is in there, as well as Avis, MGM and Best Western. You can get a taste of it at http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/15/logorama-animated-ci.html.

“Logorama” is incredibly inventive. It reminded me of old cartoons from the 1950s that took regular swipes at topical subjects. Maybe the companies involved will have’a sense of humor and let it go. The Oscar should help. We can only hope.

Kevin Spacey Film Sure to Anger Everyone

Roger Friedman
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Kevin Spacey Film Sure to Anger Everyone

Former ” ‘and disgraced ‘ Congressman Tom DeLay thinks the unemployed should just buck up and take it.

“You know,” Delay said on CNN recently, “there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don’t look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.”

Ok, so no one likes him. Now George Hickenlooper’s new film, “Casino Jack,” won’t do much to improve this idiot’s status. DeLay, you see, enabled former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff to loot and pillage Washington while George Bush was president. Abramoff is now in jail.

58993841Kevin Spacey seems like he was born to play Abramoff, a so-called devout Jew with a non-Jewish wife and very blonde little girls. “Casino Jack” isn’t necessarily good for the Jews but it’s not good for anyone else either, like the Christian right.

That Spacey plays disingenuous’and creepy well is no surprise, but the film does have its surprises nonetheless. Barry’Pepper is a revelation as Abramoff’s main associate. Jon Lovitz is pond scum personified as a mattress’dealer-slash-thug’and con man who allowed himself to be a front for Abramoff’s’stealing.

I saw “Casino Jack” last week in Hollywood. It reminded me of “GoodFellas.” Not so good people discover evil, sell out, and lose everything.’It’s quite a story. And the really funny part is that Abramoff is only serving six years. When he gets out, he’ll be rich. And he plans to move to Hollywood and become a film’producer. Why the hell not?

Now Hickenlooper will take’his film to festivals and find a distributor to’release “Casino Jack” in the fall. There will be Oscar nominations for Spacey and Pepper, certainly. And a lot of screaming from Oliver Stone, as “Casino Jack” is really a contemporary version of “Wall Street.”

As for Tom DeLay: this is a contestant from a dance show on TV. Let’s just ignore him.

‘Precious’ Wins Should Shame National Board

Roger Friedman
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‘Precious’ Wins Should Shame National Board

All the awards and nominations bestowed on Lee Daniels‘ movie, “Precious,” should shame the already shameful National Board of Review.

The NBR, a fan-based, fee-paying group, snubbed “Precious” this year. It was not named as the one of the group’s Best Films of the year. The only citation it received was a throwaway nod to Gabby Sidibe as Breakthrough Performer. The NBR was pretty much the only group in the world that didn’t give its Best Supporting Actress award to Mo’Nique.

The real and utter embarrassment for the NBR though comes with the Oscar awarded to Geoffrey Fletcher, who adapted Sapphire’s novel “Push.” Fletcher won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. He was ignored by the NBR after resigning from the group last year. His reasoning? He thought it would be a conflict of interest if he stayed. Of course, Fletcher was a fee paying member. Maybe the NBR didn’t like losing his $600 a year.

The National Board of Review has devolved over the years into a travesty. In the past, its only significance was that it announced its winners first, early in December. This gave the studios an early way to advertise their Oscar movies. The public assumed the National Board of Review was a) national and b) made up of reviewers.

But in fact the NBR is neither. It’s a group of well-to-do New Yorkers who pay $600 to belong and see screenings, and $600 more to attend a gala in January and have their pictures taken with the stars. It’s run by a kabal headed by Annie Schulhof, a society matron who once had aspirations to produce movies. The group’s only real critic, Annette Insdorf, a respected writer and teacher at Columbia University, was ousted a couple of years ago.

The “Precious” scandal echoed another from a couple of years ago. The NBR also passed on “Dreamgirls.” They gave Jennifer Hudson, who wound up winning the Oscar, that same Breakhrough Performer award they tagged on Sidibe. Why the studios take this group seriously any more is a mystery. But after this episode, they’d be right to insist on changes or simply let the NBR drift into deserved obscurity.

‘Blind Side’ Turns Blind Eye to Key Actor

Roger Friedman
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‘Blind Side’ Turns Blind Eye to Key Actor

QAaron Blind Side Turns Blind Eye to Key ActorEvery Academy Award success story carries with it a tale of someone who’s been forgotten.

So let’s say I was a little astonished to find actor Quinton Aaron waiting for a car outside the Kodak Theatre after the Oscar show was over.

Who is Quinton Aaron? Well, while Sandra Bullock was accepting kudos for her Oscar for “The Blind Side,” someone obviously forgot that Quinton played real-life football player Michael Oher. Which is a little shocking: There would have been no “Blind Side” without him.

Aaron told me he received only one ticket to the Oscars — no date, no escort — and no ticket to the Governors Ball.

“I did get two tickets to the Vanity Fair party,” he said, “so I’m waiting for my date to come pick me up.”

More awards coverage

Aaron is 26 years old and was born in the Bronx. He is an actor, not a football player. He is not his character. It’s funny: The first thing Gabby Sidibe said to me after the first screening of “Precious” was: Please tell everyone I am not this character. Oprah embraced her. Gabby was treated like a queen at the Oscars. But Quinton Aaron was the forgotten man.

Later, I did run into Quinton at the Vanity Fair party at Sunset Towers. He was smiling and taking pictures with fans. He was far apart from Sandy Bullock, who was in the middle of a crush of people. She waved to Quinton. But somewhow, I suspect, the Bronx actor who’s mostly played bodyguards on shows like “Law & Order” has wound up on Hollywood’s own blind side.

Mo’Nique Brings a Bodyguard to the Oscars

Roger Friedman
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0
Mo’Nique Brings a Bodyguard to the Oscars

monique1 MoNique Brings a Bodyguard to the OscarsMo’Nique may have been the first Oscar nominee to bring a bodyguard to the Oscars. He walked her and husband Sidney Hicks up the red carpet. What, exactly, was she afraid of?

“It’s the safest place in the world,” joked an Academy publicist, who shook his head in disbelief.

Yes, Mo’Nique is in a world of her own. She wasn’t seen at the Elton John party or at Vanity Fair.

When someone asked who designed her royal blue dress, the question was referred to the bodyguard. He didn’t know, which was not a surprise. A conference occurred on the red carpet. No definitive answer returned.

But it was good to know the actress and her husband felt safe amidst all those loaned diamonds and rubies!

… Meanwhile, at the Vanity Fair party, Jeremy Renner’s mom and his publicist, Sue Patricola, showed me their loaned diamond watches from Piaget. The stunning sparklers were worth $150,000 apiece. Their only bodyguard was Jeremy…

Back on the red carpet, Pedro Almodovar was excited, and came over to say hello. He was wearing cool sunglasses. “Hello. It’s me, Pedro,” he said.

“Yes, I know,” I replied.

He said, “Penelope is here with Javier! It’s the first time they’re coming out together.”

It was almost like he was a proud papa. So Almodovar is writing his next film. Alas, so far, there is no role for Penelope Cruz. Dios mio!

More awards coverage

…Penelope appeared next on the red carpet, with just her publicist. She was her usual sensational self in a Donna Karan gown. “Where is your boyfriend?” I asked, referring to Javier Bardem. Penelope never before has answered one question about her personal life. But now she and Javier hold hands, go to events together. It’s lovely. And she said, “He’s already inside.”

…Let’s talk about the Lobby Bar, the most popular and populous place during every Academy Award show in years past. There’s an additional, smaller side bar that has an entrance to the stage. Nominated actors and presenters use it for respites and bathroom breaks. The side bar fills up quickly. In the past there’s always been a flat-screen TV in there with poor sound. But people watch the show, and cheer, and mingle.

Not so this year. The TV was removed. A second TV, placed in the lobby for the seat fillers to watch the show, was also removed this year halfway through the show. This meant the only way to monitor the show was on two small screens with no sound, attached to the ceiling on either end of the main bar, high up and not very helpful.

The seat fillers weren’t pleased. They’re volunteers, after all. In the side bar, I ran into former Academy president Frank Pierson, the elegant, white-haired Oscar and Emmy winning writer and director (”Dog Day Afternoon,” “A Star Is Born,” “Mad Men”). He stood where the old screen used to be. We lamented its absence. He said his favorite speech of the night was Mo’Nique’s. “A good speech,” said the Academy veteran, “is when they tell you the obstacles they overcame to get to this point. I don’t need to hear a long list of thank yous.” Frank and his wife Elaine loved “Precious.” Take note Oscar prognosticators: These people are the Academy. Cool, huh? …

[CORRECTION: Javier Bardem won an Oscar in 2008, not 2009]

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