The UBS Evening Movie News 02.28.08

Posted by George H. Sirois on 02.28.2008

The “Leave It to Johnny” Edition




Welcome everyone to the latest edition of The UBS Evening Movie News. I'm George H. Sirois, and allow me to be the latest to congratulate the Coen brothers for their three Oscar wins on Sunday evening. And I'll also congratulate Chad and Robert for winning the 411 pool. I'm still reeling from my second straight second place finish at my work pool. Two years in a row, I come in second by ONE POINT! No, I'm not bitter!

Anyway, this week's Mad Prophet rant is more of a rave, something that I never thought I'd see again on a particular channel for a very long time, and something that I have to give my thanks for letting it happen. But first, we got news!


TOP STORY

The Writers Guild of America's new contract with the majors has been sealed with a kiss by guild members.

In an anticlimactic finale to the bruising 100-day strike, 93.6% of scribes voted to back the three-year pact.

A total of 4,060 votes were cast, nearly 40% of the ballots sent out. The number of ratification votes cast was significantly lower than the 5,506 ballots cast in October's strike authorization vote.

The WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers opted Tuesday for low-key and criticism-free statements -- a sharp contrast from the fiery blasts that emerged regularly during the strike.

WGA West president Patric Verrone said on Tuesday, "This contract is a new beginning for writers in the digital age ... It ensures that guild members will be fairly compensated for the content they create for the Internet, and it also covers the reuse on new-media platforms of the work they have done in film since 1971 and in TV since 1977. That's (It covers) a huge body of work that will continue to generate revenue for our members for many years to come as it is distributed electronically."

The AMPTP issued a brief statement: "Now that our industry is back in business, our goal is to collaborate with everyone in the industry -- writers, directors, actors and stagehands alike -- to produce the highest-quality entertainment products without any further interruption."

WGA East president Michael Winship called the new pact "groundbreaking on many levels. Not only does it establish Writers Guild jurisdiction in new media, it gives writers the same separated rights provisions in new media enjoyed by the creators of original TV and motion picture scripts, as well as residuals for the reuse of movies and television programs on the Internet and in new media," Winship said. "Those residuals will be based on ‘distributor's gross' -- real money for our members -- that we'll be able to audit and monitor more effectively than ever before."

Verrone and WGA East prexy Michael Winship told members Tuesday that they'll need to be vigilant to assure that writing for the Internet's performed under a WGA contract. And they said the same sort of vigilance will be needed to assist SAG and AFTRA members.

"They are about to go through a similar process to the one we experienced," the duo said. "Their support of our cause was invaluable. We must use all our efforts and experience to support them as well. Further gains that they can achieve will have an immediate, positive effect on our contract."

The WGA's gains in new media largely mirrored those achieved by the DGA, which ratified its deal a week ago. The least popular aspects of the WGA deal were the lack of gains in cable and the inability of leaders to shorten the DGA's 17- to 24-day promotional window in ad-supported streaming of TV shows.

In its announcement Tuesday, the WGA singled out five key gains in the contract:
- Establishing WGA jurisdiction over writing for new media
- Giving writers "separated rights" in new-media content (separated rights are the contractual rights traditionally enjoyed by writers of original television and motion picture scripts)
- Establishing residual payments for new-media reuse of covered material, including Internet downloads and ad-supported streaming of feature films and TV programs.
- Establishing "distributor's gross" as the basis for calculating new-media residual payments.
- Creating meaningful access to information and auditing tools that will allow the WGA to monitor the development of new-media markets.

SAG, which was the WGA's closest strike ally, was the first showbiz union to issue a statement Tuesday via president Alan Rosenberg: "We applaud the WGA's solidarity and the dedication of their membership in the struggle to achieve an agreement that serves the interests of professional writers."

Great news for the WGA, and hopefully this means there won't be any more strikes in the near future. Obviously, I wish there wasn't a strike in the first place, but at least it's over now and everyone can get back to work. And thank God the Guild didn't eventually buckle under the pressure given to them by the AMPTP, because that would have been the worst possible thing that would have happened and the writers would have wound up being less respected than ever before.


SYBIL THE SOOTHSAYER

UPCOMING MOVIES

Semi-Pro: Will Ferrell plays the coach of a semi-pro basketball team in Flint, Mich., who wants to help them make their dreams come true.

Just like you can count on an incredibly lame spoof film to come out every year now, you can also rely on a Will Ferrell sports comedy. And just like the others, I predict this will open well and work its way to another near $100 million gross.


The Other Boleyn Girl: Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson star as two rival sisters vying for the hand of King Henry VIII (played by Eric Bana).

There's something about this one that's making me very not anxious to see this. I know the book was a huge best-seller and it was only natural that a movie would come out of it, but based on the trailer and television commercials I've seen, there just doesn't seem to be any sort of energy from the performers. The movie just looks… there. It doesn't seem to have that air about it that the Merchant Ivory films have. I don't know, it's just not looking that appealing to me.


Penelope: Modern-day fairy tale about love and self-acceptance, starring Christina Ricci as the daughter of wealthy socialites who is afflicted by a secret family curse.

I remember seeing this trailer before Pan's Labyrinth, and that was over a year ago. It's nice to see that it's coming out since it seemed perfectly charming – although this seems like something that Christina Ricci would have done when she was younger – but I can't help but wonder, what took so long?


DVD NEWS

Remember when Paramount made the formal announcement that they would no longer be shipping Blu-Ray discs and going HD exclusive? It was right around that time when Michael Bay got pissy and said he wouldn't do Transformers 2, but then came around to HD less than 24 hours later.

Well, It turns out that Paramount Home Entertainment is already shipping Blu-Ray Disc titles again. Although no new titles have yet been released, you can once again get Blu-Ray copies of films like Shooter, Sleepy Hollow, Tomb Raider and the Mission: Impossible movies on your favorite format, among all the other films that Paramount had previously made available on Blu-Ray.

Credit: DVDReview.com


MOVIE TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Doomsday

I saw the commercials for this many times this past weekend on MTV. Now, why was I watching MTV this past weekend? I'll get to that soon…




JIM WEBBING AND HIS IT'S-THE-HONEST-TRUTH-DEPARTMENT

I Hear Horror Films are Getting Remade: Jon Tenney and Amber Heard have joined the cast of Screen Gems' "The Stepfather," a remake of the 1987 horror thriller being produced by Maverick Films.

Tenney will play a father trying to reconnect and protect his teenage son, played by Penn Badgley ("Gossip Girl"). Heard plays Badgley's girlfriend. "Friday Night Lights" actress Adrianne Palicki was in negotiations for Heard's part, but the dates did not work out, according to her reps.

Sela Ward is already on board as Tenney's ex-wife, whose soon-to-be husband (Dylan Walsh of "Nip/Tuck") might have murdered his previous family.

"Stepfather" re-teams director Nelson McCormick and writer J.S. Cardone, who worked together in the same capacity on another Screen Gems remake, "Prom Night," which opens April 11.


I might as well call this section "Horror Remake News" because that's all I keep seeing in the news these days. You know, there's a reason why certain films became established as cult hits, and that's because they appealed to a certain kind of audience and was able to thrive from them and them alone.

These days, when a movie has to appeal to a universal audience in order to make it past its opening weekend, I just don't see either of these remakes working for everyone. The fans who know of The Stepfather and Prom Night are pissed that these films are getting remade and likely won't see it. Or they'll go see it and hate it.

Of course, Screen Gems will likely be banking on just trying to make a good movie and then having the cherry on top for people who are in the know that this just happens to be a remake. Hey, Screen Gems, what's wrong with just banking on trying to make a good movie that doesn't have anything to do with one that was made over twenty years ago? Give it a shot, you might like it.

Oh, and just so you know who Dylan Walsh is succeeding in the role of The Stepfather? Terry O'Quinn! Yeah, from John Locke to Dr. Sean McNamara. Only in Hollywood.

Credit: HollywoodReporter.com


The Rock is Now Wearing Arnold's Fairy Costume: Dwayne Johnson will star as the title character in "The Tooth Fairy," a 20th Century Fox comedy that's coming together for an August start.

Michael Lembeck, who helmed the second and third installments of "The Santa Clause," will direct. Johnson will play an ordinary man who's brought in to try to save the tooth fairy kingdom.

"The Tooth Fairy" was scripted by Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel and Joshua Sternin & Jeffrey Ventimilia. Jason Blum's Blumhouse will produce with Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray's Mayhem Pictures. Ciardi and Gray most recently worked with Johnson on "The Game Plan."

Johnson is currently starring in Disney's "Witch Mountain," and he will be seen starring this summer opposite Steve Carell in the Warner Bros. comedy "Get Smart."


I wonder if The Rock can smell what his old wrestling fans are cooking. I'm sure whatever they have, they're ready to fling at his front door.

Looks like Johnson found his niche after the success that was The Game Plan. I could have sworn that movie was gonna tank, but it stuck around and was a big hit with families, so I'll admit being wrong on that one.

As for this film, remember when the talk was about The Rock succeeding Arnold as the next big action star? Well, apparently the transition from action star to family comedy star took a little less time than before, but their paths are a little closer than you think.

Back in the early 90s, Arnold was approached with this very script and he was stuck between either doing this one, or doing a film called "Extremely Violent" written by Adam Leff and Zak Penn. He chose the latter, which became Last Action Hero. Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don't.


FILM MUSIC NEWS
* Dario Marianelli, Glan Hansard and Marketa Irglova Win Music Oscars
* AMP Announces New Officers
* Report: Downloads Will Surpass CD Sales in 2012
* The Scoreboard: Hundreds of Composers and Their Projects
* Signings and Projects: Mark Snow, John Powell and More
* The Chart Doctor - by Ron Hess, "Notating Without Thinking, Or What the Computer Can Do For This Generation of Composers"
* Music Technology and You - by Peter Lawrence Alexander, "RME Fireface 800 and the KRK VXT8s"
* Soundtrack Review - by Daniel Schweiger - Movie Score Media Albums
Download This Week's Issue at:
www.filmmusicweekly.com.


VOX POPULI

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: February 22 - 24, 2008

1. Vantage Point: $22,874,936
Total: $22,874,936
2. The Spiderwick Chronicles: $13,100,192
Total: $44,076,043
3. Jumper: $12,708,768
Total: $56,264,386
4. Step Up 2 the Streets: $9,605,703
Total: $41,238,093
5. Fool's Gold: $6,554,284
Total: $52,400,000
6. Definitely, Maybe: $5,217,775
Total: $21,814,805
7. Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins: $4,158,700
Total: $35,667,115
8. Juno: $4,154,502
Total: $130,431,948
9. Be Kind Rewind: $4,050,655
Total: $4,050,655
10. There Will Be Blood: $2,687,229
Total: $35,112,557

Credit: BoxOfficeGuru.com

Click here to take part in the latest discussions in the Past/Current Movies Thread at the 411Movies/TV Forum.


THE INTERACTIVE BABE PHOTO NEWS BRIEF

If you weren't a fan of DivasRGr8 before, you will be since he made me aware of our latest subject of the Photo News Brief.

Not only is this young model an absolute knockout, but she has a little something to do with my Mad Prophet rant this week. Her current significant other is none other than Steve-O! Yes, THAT Steve-O! Now, why am I bringing him up here? You'll have to read on to find out. In the meantime, presenting the lovely Brittany McGraw!

Image host - Supload.com

You can find more of Brittany on her official site: Brittany McGraw Online.


AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

JOIN THE 411 MYSPACE COMMUNITY HERE!

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH HIDDEN HIGHLIGHTS' OWN JAMES "JT" THOMLISON HERE!
We miss you, JT! Come back soon!

AND THERE'S ALSO DAN OWEN'S INTERVIEW OF ME HERE!

AND MY INTERVIEW WITH RECORDING ARTIST STAN BUSH HERE!

SHOP AT THE 411MANIA MALL HERE!



LISTEN TO THE POLITICAL UNIVERSE ON BLOG TALK RADIO HERE!

CHECK OUT AARON BRAUNSTEIN'S SHOW "WISEGUYS, BLACK GUYS AND RABBIS" MONDAY – THURSDAY 6PM – 7PM HERE!

JOIN THE REVOLUTION! WILL HELM FOR LATE NIGHT IN '09!



And check out these other areas of 411Mania while you're at it…

The 411 Wrestling Zone
The 411 Music Zone
The 411 Politics Zone
The 411 Games Zone
The 411 Sports Zone


MAD PROPHET OF THE AIRWAVES

Saturdays are always a day of both catch-up and rest in our apartment. It's the first of two days where we get to sleep in late, and both of us take advantage of that quite a bit. This past Saturday was no different, since we used it to relax in the living room for a few hours before running some errands and then meeting up with friends for our friend Liz's birthday party. (Shout out to Liz Power!)

Anyway, Cheryl was flipping through the channels and came across something on MTV that prompted us to keep it there. I don't remember what it was, but what came after it is the subject of this week's rave.

At 12 noon last Saturday, a 24-hour takeover of the channel went into effect, as all MTV programming was suspended and controlled by the entire crew of Jackass. Yup, Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Bam Margera, Wee-Man, Party Boy, Ehren and everyone else were going to be on MTV for 24 straight hours controlling whatever we were going to watch. Now, it was my assumption that this would just be another 24-hour marathon block of old episodes, with some Viva La Bam and Wildboyz mixed in as well. Turns out I was right and I was wrong.

Yes, there were some episodes of all three shows, and even though I wasn't a devout fan of Knoxville and Co., they did make me laugh despite my need to take a shower at some points after laughing at what they had done. But more often than not, they kept cutting back to the MTV Studio where the group was holding court and entertaining themselves and a live audience. They got some of them to participate, they answered questions that were sent in on webcams, and even performed some new stunts. One of those stunts was the "Naircut," in which Ehren's hair was shampooed with Nair and then yanked out. Steve-O in particular had quite a bit of fun with this by trying to Nair Ehren's eyebrows off.

But then, during the first hour, I noticed something else that was going to be mixed in with the madness. Are you ready for this?

They played MUSIC VIDEOS!!! I swear to you, MTV – Music TeleVision – played videos from the 80s, 90s and 2000s! And they played some great stuff, some videos that I haven't seen in years! If you've never seen the video for Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher," then you just haven't experienced the whole song. "SIT DOWN, WALDO!!!"

This 24-hour block was the ultimate example of freeform broadcasting. They played Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" and followed it up right away – no commercial in between – with GnR's "Welcome to the Jungle!" How beautiful is that? And then, they would cut back to the studio where Johnny was preparing to hit one of his friends in the nuts with a baseball pitching machine. Oh, and if you happened to catch this segment, you would have seen the ultimate proof that this was live television as Wee-Man said "the machine's fucked up" and the censor missed it.

As Cheryl and I got back from the party, the 24-Hour takeover was still in effect, and the guys were still coming up with random stuff to do live on the air. Preston decided he wanted to be the host of his own late-night talk show, so they brought in a desk and let him interview the rest of the group. Comedian Zach Galifanakis (I'm guessing I'm close enough on the spelling, I'm too damn lazy to look it up right now) came on and did the same thing just a couple hours earlier. Both talk show interviews had some classic Jackass and Viva La Bam between them to space it out.

We were so hooked into watching this day's worth of total creative freedom that we realized the only thing that would be predictable would be the commercials. Apparently, I think about 7 sponsors bought TV time and their commercials would be played many many times, usually in the same order. Taco Bell's fiesta platters would be followed by the OnDemand commercial with Sara Breilles (again, close enough on the spelling) and then the commercial for Doomsday after that.

Leave it to the Jackass crew to bring MTV back to their roots. Before this takeover, Saturdays were filled up on this channel by marathons of either The Real World, Road Rules or Real World / Road Rules Challenge, with maybe a late-night marathon of The Hills. Whoopee!

It wasn't always like that on this channel. It used to be loose; it used to be something fun to keep on the television while you cleaned the house or took a nap. It used to be unpredictable. And they used to have videos! You remember them, right? There's a reason why the awards on the VMA's were pushed to the side in favor of performances. It's because nobody knows what videos are the best because nobody gets to see them!

But for this one weekend, we had videos. We had originality. We had laughs. We had random interview segments. And it was good. It was damn good. It reminded me of the time when I loved this channel before it got swallowed up by "reality" programming. I hope the execs at MTV were watching, and I hope they're taking notes. If you want this channel to be relevant again, all you need are two guys, a video camera, and a pitching machine. Oh, and make sure it's live so someone can say fuck and get away with it.



And that's a wrap for Chapter 54 of The UBS Evening News. I'm George H. Sirois, and I'll see you next week!