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Marisa Tomei, Liv Tyler’s Missing Movie

Roger Friedman
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You may recall a big announcement last spring about a remake of a Korean film, now called “10a/10b” starring Oscar nominee Marisa Tomei and the very choosy (about picking roles) Liv Tyler. The indie world roared with approval.

Well, guess what? “10A/10B” has been aborted, and the result is a pair of lawsuits and a lot of angry people. In fact, not only was the plug pulled on the film, but last May, when the decision was made by the film’s financiers to kill it, they substituted in a hastily written new script that was tailored for the existing sets.

The new film, called “Columbus Circle,” was cooked up by producer Christopher Mallick on the plane coming home from the Cannes Film Festival, where he tried unsuccessfully to sell George Gallo’s “Middle Men.” On the plane, he says, actor Kevin Pollak pitched him the idea, and Gallo agreed to direct it.

Unfortunately, “10A/10B” screenwriter Floyd Byars doesn’t appreciate this bit of trivia. Last week he filed a counter complaint against Mallick and his Oxymoron Entertainment after the latter sued him and his group. At issue: whether Korean director Chul-Soo Park–who directed the 1995 original “301/302″–lied to Mallick about whether a Korean producer really owned the rights to his film. Mallick says he did know, and wants $3 million in damages.

On the other hand, Byars says the matter of rights was an issue that was quickly resolved, and that Mallick bailed on the project at the last minute, leaving everyone high and dry. Mallick, it is agreed, killed the film on the first day that his fairly well known stars, Tomei and Tyler, had started pre-production.

The lawsuits pit Byars–a well-known screenwriter with a long list of credits–versus Mallick, who made his money developing a credit-card billing system for adult movies and pornography. Mallick produced “Middle Men” and recently completed a documentary about what happens to retired porn stars. But Mallick, it should be pointed out, never actually work in the porn world. He just made it easier for people to get it.

Meantime, the American remake of “301/302″ remains in limbo. But its sets will live on in “Columbus Circle,” a film with the same director and some cast as the still unsold, unreleased “Middle Men.” (Wouldn’t it have been easier to work out the problems on “10A/10B”?) It’s sort of like a movie organ donation. Let’s hope the transplant takes.

TMZ Gets Punk’D With Fake Jackson Document

Roger Friedman
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Website TMZ got punk’d today by a concert promoter who wants a chunk of Michael Jackson’s money.

The site has published a letter purportedly from Frank DiLeo, Michael’s manager, instructing anyone who wants to produce a Jackson tribute concert to come through him. The letter bears a scrawled, indeciperable signature and the very funny sentence “Frank Dileo is the’manager of Michael Jackson (deceased)’in life and in death.”

The problem is, DiLeo tells me it’s not his letter, nor is it his signature. He didn’t write it, and has no idea who some of the people are who are named in the letter including a Fadi Rashed. “I’ve never heard of Fadi Rashed,” says DiLeo, and a Google search doesn’t help either.

DiLeo immediately called TMZ’s Harvey Levin, but Levin has yet to remove the fake correspondence.

Who wrote this piece of fiction? Well, yours truly received an email post-haste from publicist Ren Gravatt, who represents Patrick Alloco, of AllGood Entertainment in New Jersey. Alloco, in business officially and unofficially with a group that wants a piece of Jackson’s estate, claims to be suing DiLeo over Jackson family concerts that were supposedly to take place in Texas.

Gravatt was all too quick to send me the TMZ posting with this added information: “This latest expose piece on Frank DiLeo and his partner, Mark Lamicka, spells out the same sort of dubious behavior that has landed Mr. DiLeo and his company in Federal Court with AllGood Entertainment.”

The only problem with that last assertion, of course, is that DiLeo has never been served, and is not in federal court with AllGood Entertainment.

Strangely enough, Alloco is still trying to sue everyone connected with Michael Jackson over his alleged concert scheme, even through the singer is dead. The theory behind this latest move ‘especially after Gravatt’s email’is that Alloco and his group’including Joseph Jackson, Leonard Rowe, and Tohme Tohme‘may have fabricated the letter to make DiLeo look bad.

TMZ, like a lot of blogs, would do well to check each piece of paper that comes in rather than wind up in situation like Dan Rather’and have to deal with fiction.

Oscar Isaac Gets “Sucker Punch”-ed

Roger Friedman
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Oscar Issac

Oscar Isaac

One of Hollywood’s hottest up-and-comers has just landed the male lead in a big new film.

Oscar Isaac, who’s already the star of this fall’s historical epic “Agora” with Rachel Weisz, has been tapped by “Watchmen” director Zack Snyder for Warner’s “Sucker Punch.”

Isaac will be in good company, with Carla Gugino, Vanessa Hudgens, Jena Malone and Abbie Cornish all vying for his attention. Jon Hamm even makes a cameo.

We’ll see Oscar next summer with Russell Crowe in “Robin Hood.” He plays King John. It’s his second Ridley Scott-Russell Crowe movie, after “Body of Lies.”

I should point out that Oscar is managed by Jason Spire, the same guy who’s got Anthony Mackie ‘ hot as a pistol ‘ on track for a Best Supporting Actor nod in the current “Hurt Locker.” Mackie is currently appearing in the Public Theatre’s Central Park production of “The Bacchae.” You may not recognize him, though. In the second act, he wears a lovely frock and high heels. Let’s just say it’s an unforgettable sight!

Michael Jackson Doc Gets SAG Warning, Wrongly

Roger Friedman
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The Michael Jackson documentary, “This is It,” got a warning notice from the Screen Actors Guild. Someone at SAG must have panicked that the movie has never been registered with them, and that the people in it aren’t getting paid through the union.

A Member Alert went up on the union’s website that reads in part: “The producer of the theatrical motion picture ‘This Is It’ (also known as ‘Michael Jackson’s This Is It’) is not yet signed to an agreement with Screen Actors Guild covering the terms and conditions for performers and background actors employed on the picture.”

Apparently, no one has told then that “This Is It” is a documentary made from footage taken of rehearsals of Jackson’s stage show. It was never intended to be a film. No one is acting in it.

Meantime, I am told that the film is coming along nicely in the editing room. Every day director Kenny Ortega shows assembly of footage to a variety of producers involved in the project. The word is that everyone is very happy with what they’re seeing.

Most importantly, they do say that we’ll see Michael giving cogent instructions to dancers and singers, and interacting with his crew and cast. This should end once and for all the accusations that Jackson was out of it to perform, or to do the shows in London.

Meanwhile, no one knows why the police investigation into Jackson’s death is taking so long. Many people close to Jackson right before his death still have not been interviewed by the police. Nevertheless, one Jackson intimate has been very much in touch with the police, and is warning friends that something “big” and “dangerous” is about to happen. Let’s hope so.

‘Antichrist’: Vile, Pornographic, and the Audience Laughs

Roger Friedman
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Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist” was reviled at Cannes this year, although the jury gave Charlotte Gainsbourg an award for living through it. I didn’t see it, but reaction was so hostile that one of my colleagues, Baz Bamigboye of the Daily Mail in London, gave the director quite a dressing down at the press conference. Now I know why.

Last night, the U.S. publicist handling screenings did everything she could to keep me out of the first U.S. showing. She was rude, obnoxious, and disrespectful. She pretended I hadn’t even RSVP’d, and asked me to prove I had on my Blackberry. She was so over-the-top unprofessional that I thought, “What is she up to here?” Once I took my seat, though, I got it. Maybe she was trying to tell me something, like “Run!”

“Antichrist” is a horror, and a horror film. And a horrible film. It’s laughably sensational, pornographic for effect, and ridiculous. The sexual violence is so contrived and disgusting that the people who did make it into the Broadway screening room laughed out loud when the real fun began.

Only later did it seem all the more worse considering the screening room is in the Brill Building, the site where Ellie Greenwich wrote so many of her famous hit songs. I heard about her untimely passing at age 68 from a heart attack just as “Antichrist” ended. And it was an insulting irony.

Let me tell you what happens: a couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) are in the throes of passion. Von Trier shows us Dafoe’s whole package, including gigantic testicles, and the penetration. Meanwhile, their toddler escapes from his crib, climbs to a window ledge, and falls splat onto the snowy pavement. Right there, you know it’s not a comedy, and not in Oscar contention.

What proceeds is a meditation on grief and depression. This must be very Danish. There’s also a lot of nudity and some more fornication before the couple (they are the only characters) go to a rustic cabin in the isolated woods. You know this means trouble, since only bad things happen in the woods.

There’s more sex, nudity and depression. A wolf speaks to the camera and says, “Chaos reigns.” And so it does. Dafoe suddenly announces he wants to kill Charlotte. (He may have exhausted positions with her.) She doesn’t like that. So she mutilates and tortures him. There is a lot of blood, especially from his smashed, yet aroused penis. It’s not good. In fact, it’s nauseating.

When Dafoe’s character retreats to attend his (massive) wounds, Charlotte ” who’s presumably lost her mind, or read the script ‘ mutilates herself sexually with a pair of scissors. Some people left the screening room at this point. A couple of people said, “What’s left?”

Well, plenty. More torture, lots of shots of Charlotte with no pants on, a further attempt at coupling. Willem tortures a crow in a cave while his leg bleeds because Charlotte’s skewered him. A fawn seems to be giving birth. The fox and the crow make friends with the fawn. Willem discovers that Charlotte used to put their dead son’s shoes on reversed left and right. Willem is still able to walk even though he’s bleeding from at least a couple of areas. Charlotte, who looks a lot like the young Patti Smith, bashes him with a shovel. If only she’d taken a little Zoloft.

“Antichrist” should be shocking, but it’s not. It’s just numbing. There’s also way too much of Willem Dafoe’s buttocks contracting during sex. I don’t know what I will say to him the next time I see him at a Yankee game.

As for Lars: sir, we’re too smart for this now. Piling on atrocities isn’t shocking anymore. It just makes you look like an amateur with nothing much to say. Who is the audience for this? Maybe IFC Films knows; they picked it up for distribution. My bet: very few of a paying audience will make it to the end.

However, I did like the talking fox. You can’t beat a good talking animal, even if you’re bleeding from every orifice. I hope there are more on the DVD.

“Antichrist,” by the way, is playing at both the Toronto and New York Film Festivals. They should be having a helluva good party in both cities.

Dominick Dunne, Ellie Greenwich: Greatness in Their Own Ways

Roger Friedman
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Getty photo

Getty photo

Dominick Dunne passed away yesterday at age 83. He was a great friend, something of a mentor and adviser, and a rare man of substance who loved the superficial. You’ll read a lot about him today, but I think of Nick covering the O.J. Simpson trial, making his way downtown every morning from the Chateau Marmont, taking notes. We discussed the how and why of O.J. a lot ‘ how and why he killed two people ‘ and Dunne always had the best theories. He skipped the Michael Jackson trial after covering Scott Petersen, but knew everything about Phil Spector. He relished the details, and was always helpful with hints and information he couldn’t incorporate into his own stories. It’s just impossible to think that he and his writer brother John Gregory Dunne are now each gone. The substantial people to whom we looked for direction seem to be vanishing quickly. I will really miss Dominick Dunne.

Ellie Greenwich had a heart attack and died at 68 yesterday after a bout of pneumonia. I didn’t know her, but like everyone, just loved the music she made. Her off Broadway show at the Bottom Line, “Leader of the Pack,” was a triumph. Her songwriting credits number into the hundreds. So many hits, from the Phil Spector stuff like “Baby I Need Your Lovin”” and “Be My Baby” to the Beach Boys’ “I Can Hear Music,” as well as her signature hit, “Leader of the Pack.” Her songwriting partner was Jeff Barry. They wrote one of the greatest songs in the pop canon, “River Deep Mountain High.” (Ike and Tina are good, but check out the Supremes-Temptations version.) What else? “Chapel of Love,” “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” “And Then He Kissed Me.”

Thanks, Ellie, for all of it.

Hollywood Seniors Tell Sally Field, Tom Hanks, Stars: Stop the Party

Roger Friedman
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Tom Hanks, Sally Field and a bunch of stars are about to give a charity party, even if it upsets the people it’s benefiting.

The charity is the Motion Picture and TV Fund, which operates the Motion Picture Home, Hollywood’s premiere retirement community for entertainers.

Every year on the night before the Oscars, DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg hosts a star-studded event to raise money for the Fund called “The Night Before.” But last winter the Fund announced it’s going to close the long-term care facility at its Woodland Hills campus and transfer more than 100 patients who expected to live out their lives there.

That hasn’t stopped Katzenberg. He’s throwing a similar bash on the night before the Emmy Awards, called The Evening Before. And some of the people connected to the home don’t want a fancy party while their friends are being evicted from the very place that’s supposedly being preserved.

A group called Saving the Lives of Our Own (www.savingthelivesofourown.org) has written letters to the party’s sponsors — Target, People magazine and Sprint — as well as to celebrity hosts like Sally Field, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jon Stewart and Hugh Laurie.

What do they want?

According to the letter, which they’ve given to yours truly:
* An immediate reversal of the decision to close the long-term care facility in acknowledgment of the commitment made to these seniors and their families
* That the MPTF allow fundraising donations specifically earmarked for the purpose of keeping the facility open
* Financial transparency from this non-profit charity in the form of an independent audit of the MTPF and all its related entities.

What will they do if they don’t get these things? The likelihood is that they will protest outside of Craft restaurant in Century City on the night of Sept. 19. They did it last February, on the night before the Oscars. The result was a lot of famous people declining to attend The Night Before.

Ken Scherer, CEO of the Fund, e-mailed me a statement via his publicist. He wrote: ‘MPTF social services and charitable assistance programs that supports over 5,000 industry members each year depend on the funds raised at events like the Evening Before and Night Before. Collectively these two events will raise over $6 million in 2009 to help at a time when more and more industry people are depending on MPTF for assistance.’

Still, Saving the Lives has attracted a number of high-profile supporters including Elliott Gould, Diane Ladd, Mykelti Williamson, and famed writer Larry Gelbart. The Screen Actors Guild National Board recently voted to oppose the closing of the long-term care facility.

In case you wondered, the Motion Picture Fund “home” has become quite the swell place for retirement in the Los Angeles area. The campus is divided into three parts called Country House Cottages, the Fran and Ray Stark Villas and the Frances Goldwyn Lodge. They have dry cleaning, a hair salon, a TV studio and lots of amenities that are rarely seen in assisted living campuses.

Some of the critics claim that if salaries weren’t so high, there would be more money for services. In fact, the top three Fund executives (including Scherer) earn a total of $1,313,948 according to the 2007 tax filing. The next five employees average $140,000 each. According to the 2007 filing, the Fund pays about $33.5 million in other salaries. It claims to have received $31.4 million in direct public support in 2007 and had net assets of nearly $172 million. By comparison, the famed Hebrew Home for the Aged in Riverdale, the Bronx — similar in size — has about the half the amount in assets, and its top three execs are paid a total of 50% less. But they do have Kosher chicken.

The letter in its entirety:

Dear Ms. Sally Field,
We’re writing to you on behalf of Saving the Lives of Our Own. Grown entirely by word-of-mouth, web and Facebook, we are a grass-roots, volunteer coalition of over 4000 Entertainment Industry workers, and concerned community and family members committed to keeping the Motion Picture Television Fund Nursing Home open.

This historic nursing home, also termed a ‘long-term care facility,’ has cared for many of the greats of our industry, including Hattie McDaniel, Bud Abbott, Stanley Kramer, Norma Shearer and many, many others. The residents who live there now were promised that this would be the place where they would spend their final days on Earth, surrounded by their Industry peers.

You might have heard that both the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA recently expressed public opposition and concern over the closure. Our SAG supporters include Anne-Marie Johnson and Ken Howard, along with Elliot Gould, Diane Ladd, Frances Fisher, Bill Smitrovich, John Schneider, Jamie Farr, Loretta Swit (whose 103-year-old mother is a resident), Connie Stevens, the entire SAG Senior Performers Committee and others.

Our goal is simple. We want to KEEP THE HOME OPEN. If you’ve ever had a relative in a nursing home, you know what kind of emotional and physical trauma they would endure if they were suddenly forced to move. You know that they might well not survive it. And this is what we’ve seen in the residents who’ve been transferred from the facility already ‘ five of the first fifteen died within days or weeks of leaving.

There is also a severe shortage of nursing home beds in Los Angeles County, and an even more serious shortage of comparable facilities where our elderly would be cared for in a similar and safe manner.

Saving the Lives of Our Own has two requests: transparency from the Fund and to be allowed to fundraise specifically for the purpose of keeping the long-term care facility open.

We have repeatedly been denied both of these requests.

We believe that the MPTF Board members are good and moral people who may’ve been misled into making this decision. We believe that financial misconduct or incompetence may have occurred, and that the MPTF Board may’ve been misled by administrators. These suspicions are based on these facts:

‘ This nursing home is not free to residents. Residents, families and insurers pay close to $130,000 a year to live there.

‘ The four top Administrators are among the highest paid in the nursing home industry, earning almost $2 million a year, plus bonuses.

‘ The land the Home sits on is already owned by the MPTF and so is the building itself.

‘ The MPTF recently completed construction of several new buildings on the campus, including state-of-the-art new administrative offices, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, while the long-term care facility remained unimproved.

‘ In advance of their surprise closure announcement, the MPTF reduced admissions at the Home. At its full capacity of 195 residents, the Home would make $14 million a year, more than enough to offset deficits. As of now, there are only 84 residents remaining.

‘ The MPTF was created in response to the Depression and has survived economic downturns before without abandoning the long-term care facility.

‘ The MPTF decision was bolstered by a financial report rubber-stamped by consultants they hired themselves.

‘ The MPTF’s expected decrease in fundraising hasn’t occurred, though they are still refusing to accept donations earmarked specifically for the long-term care facility.

So what was behind this decision to close this historic and world-class nursing home? We honestly have no idea.

But we need your help. We’re not asking for money, since, as we’ve stated, the MPTF is refusing to accept donations to keep the nursing home open.

What we would like is to respectfully request that you reconsider your announced participation in the MPTF sponsored event ‘The 3rd Annual The Evening Before,’ Saturday, September 19th, 2009, at The Lawn at Century Park until the Fund immediately reverses its closure decision, allows donations directly to save the long-term care facility, and honors our Industry’s request for an independent audit of the MTPF and all its related entities. As long-time donors to this non-profit charity, we believe you’ll join us in calling for that necessary transparency.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us at keepthehomeopen@gmail.com or at 818-481-3536 for more information, if you have questions, or would like to tour this historic home. Our website is www.savingthelivesofourown.org <http://www.savingthelivesofourown.org> , and you can also sign our petition at www.tinyurl.com/mptfhome <http://www.tinyurl.com/mptfhome> .

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Saving the Lives of Our Own

Music Legends Pass: Larry Knechtel, John Edward Carter

Roger Friedman
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You may never have heard of either Larry Knechtel or John Edward Carter. They have each passed away in the last few days, and they were true music legends. You know that music that marketers like to say is the “soundtrack of our lives”? These two guys were part of the reason that soundtrack exists.

Hohn Edward Carter was a founding member of both the Dells and the Flamingos. This means he sang the falsetto lead on two of the greatest singles ever recorded: “Stay in My Corner” for the Dells, and “I Only Have Eyes for You” for the Flamingos. He died on Friday at age 75 of lung cancer.

The Dells, from Chicago, were the original R&B group. Until Carter’s death, the group had been intact for almost 50 years. The lead singer is Marvin Junior, and you can hear his delicious rich vocals on all their hits, from “Oh What Night” to “Give Your Baby a Standing Ovation.” But the Dells are singularly important because they combined doo-wop and soulful R&B. They were like the bridge between the genres. If Marvin represented the soul side, then John Carter was the doo-wop. His tenor falsetto in the six minute version of “Stay in My Corner” is one of the most magnificent moments in the history of music. It’s interesting to listen to it again and again, and watch him make that connection between two generations of black music. Pure magic. In this clip from YouTube, sit and behold. Carter is on the right. Wait til the very end, as he sums it all up.

Larry Knechtel is best known for two things in his illustrious career. He was a member of Bread, and played keyboards and bass on all their hits from “Make it With You” to “Everything I Own” and “The Guitar Man.” He also played the piano solo on Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Knechtel was part of the Wrecking Crew, a group of musicians that included Leon Russell, Hal Blaine and Carol Kaye. They were Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound.” Knechtel also played on the Beach Boys‘ seminal album, “Pet Sounds,” on all the hits by the Mamas and Papas, 5th Dimension, and Byrds. He’s even the keyboardist on Elvis Costello’s masterpiece, “All this Useless Beauty.” Knechtel’s list of credits is extraordinary. He died of a heart attack the other day at age 67.

Check here for Larry Knechtel’s astonishing list of credits.

Don Hastings’ World is Still Turning

Roger Friedman
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Getty photo

Getty photo

Yesterday, I happened to catch Dr.Bob Hughes on “As the World Turns” just as he was keeling over. He’s played by the best actor on soaps, Don Hastings, who’s 75 and has been on the soap since 1960. That’s right, next year is his (and co- Eileen Fulton’s) 50th anniversary with the show.

Let’s face it: no one writes about soap actors unless they leave and get popular somewhere else. I’ll bet Don Hastings knows all about this. Julianne Moore once played his daughter. Meg Ryan was his friend’s daughter. Marissa Tomei was on the show.

It’s harder to stay, and be the star. The show’s producer, Procter & Gamble, wants out of the business. They’re killing “Guiding Light” next month. Soaps get no respect.

So here’s to Don Hastings. He’s not on the show as often as he once was, but it’s August, and the younger stars are away. The show is featuring their “vets” for once. It’s very refreshing. Dr. Bob seems to have dementia, but it’s no doubt curable. Soap diseases are fatal until they’re not. Dead people always return from the grave. And Dr. Bob is about to celebrate 50 years. He’s great. If you watch him, he has a sly sense of humor. He knows the score. He’s got everyone’s number. Sometimes, he looks like his thought balloon is a snarky quip you’d love to hear. In a way, he’s the Leslie Nielsen of soaps. And this month, he’s being featured (along with his terrific soap wife, Kathryn Hays.) Good for him! A leading man at 75. It gives us all hope.

Tony Bennett, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones: CD A Reality Now

Roger Friedman
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Tony Bennett and Stevie Wonder are going to make their album together, at long last.

I wrote in my old column back on February 18th that this was going to happen. The legendary Quincy Jones will produce. Recording should start this fall.

Last night, Bennett signed an unprecdented new contract with Sony. He’s been on Columbia Records since McKinley was president. But recently the contract expired. I’m not sure Sony even knew that for a while. Tony could have gone anywhere. But the 83 year-old Bennett must have figured it’s one of those Devil You Know scenarios.

Anyway, we love Tony Bennett, we love Stevie Wonder, and Quincy Jones is the greatest, even if the Rock Hall of Fame won’t induct him. Who cares! This should be a landmark recording. And it’s going to be full of classics, although I do hope Stevie throws a couple of his own songs in there, too.

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