“Email Conversation: David Edelstein and Lynda Obst”

Slate.com March 20-24, 2000

From: David Edelstein
Monday, March 20, 2000, at 10:46 AM PT

Hi Lynda:

I can already feel the disappointment settling in among our readers that my last name isn't Mendelsohn (see last week's "Breakfast Table"), but I'm going to tough it out and pretend that people are just as happy to read me ... I know they'll be thrilled to read you. It's an honor to be trading e-mails with you this first week of spring, when the campaign in Hollywood has bumped that other silly campaign off the front pages and we can finally get into some real issues.

I'm filing my first Breakfast Table installment a tad late out of respect for the fact that you're on the West Coast and will need some time to perform your morning ablutions, have a cup of coffee, read the Los Angeles Times, etc.

OK, not really. What happened was that I set my clock for 5:30 a.m. to get a good jump on the morning papers, then lingered in bed and made a rough outline in my head of the first installment, then wrote a staggeringly brilliant missive, then e-mailed it to you, then went back to sleep. Whew! What a load off my mind! Then my wife shook me awake at 8:45 and asked if I was ever planning to get up and write and I said, "Ho-ho, I've been up, I've already written my first e-mail!" and she said, "That's weird, because you've been snoring so loudly for the last three hours that I had to put a pillow over my head."

Here's the thing: I know I wrote that e-mail. I can see those words in front of me now. I can't, unfortunately, read any of them, but I'm convinced that they exist--somewhere. No one in your film Contact believed Jodie Foster when she said she had just spent a day shooting the breeze with aliens on the opposite side of the universe, but we know better, don't we? I'd like to think that denizens of a faraway planet are even now reading that Breakfast Table and choking with mirth.

It's possible that said aliens have received their American Beauty videos and screenplays, since everyone else has. I get the sense--correct me if I'm wrong--that the good folks at DreamWorks are still smarting from last year's Saving Private Ryan upset and have opted to blanket the galaxy with AB freebies. (The roach clip and rolling papers were an especially nice touch.) Friends have told me that The Cider House Rules was making in-roads last month but that it's all but history now. Most of us figured Hilary Swank was a lock for Best Actress, but even she seems to have been elbowed out of the spotlight by the effervescently pregnant (and, I concede, quite wonderful) Annette Bening. It probably doesn't help that Swank has made the talk-show rounds herself and is as dumb as a post.

Before I go on, let me own up to my hypocrisy: I make fun of the Academy Awards each year as artistically meaningless yet continue to write and talk about them. In part, I admit, it's because I like the attention that comes my way. But it's also interesting to speculate on how, in a given year, the motion-picture industry wants to present itself to the world: They elect a movie the way we elect a president. As a film, American Beauty seems OK. It's beautifully made, although its satire strikes me as too easy, and at heart it's not much more than a '60s-style, take-this-job-and-shove-it doper comedy tricked up with New Age visuals and a jolt of nihilism. The Cider House Rules is a much more rounded, satisfying experience--and rather stunning in its unambiguous pro-choice politics. But American Beauty is the more cunning piece of work--the one that's more in tune with how we want as a society to rationalize our cynicism. Even Bill Clinton--who impressed me when he told Roger Ebert how much he admired Three Kings--paid tribute to American Beauty. And why shouldn't he? Its hero dallies with a nubile cheerleader out of despair over his life with a driven, robotically humorless, and castrating spouse. He gets to inhale righteously.
There's a lot more in the papers today to talk about, but I have to fire this off and let you respond. Some odds and ends:

The most telling thing in last night's 60 Minutes segment about iVillage--and about the growing and profitable attraction of women for computers and the Internet--was Lesley Stahl's final admission that its female producer subsequently took a job with iVillage.

The contestant on last night's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire missed a question about Newton Minow, who in 1961 called [fill in the blank] a "vast wasteland." My last Breakfast Table correspondent, Nell Minow, would have found that a hoot if she hadn't been trained from early childhood not to spend so much time gazing into the vast wasteland.

In the New York Times this morning, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt reviews Stephen King's Riding the Bullet, which he read on a computer screen and an e-book. "But with both formats," he writes, "I was also restlessly aware of the unusual effort it was taking to read onscreen. As near as I can put my finger on a reason, it is that the screen's back-lighting makes the words appear to float in the foreground and seem less solidly present than they do on the printed page. Or maybe it is Mr. King's story itself, not one of his best, that made reading onscreen seem insubstantial."

My money's on the latter. Lynda?


From: Lynda Obst
Subject: Meet the New Hollywood ...
Monday, March 20, 2000, at 1:02 PM PT

Hi David:

I'm almost relieved to read (on hard copy no less) that you had a technological glitch from another galaxy this morning as well. I was so looking forward to beginning our correspondence in bed, but your e-mail never arrived. I received many others, but the ether has chosen to keep us electronically apart--hopefully, we'll connect by our next relay. So I'm writing now from the office, long after those precious ablutions.

It's the New York Times I ablute with, incidentally; old habits die hard, and that local paper is the worst place for national news. But about now, when the news cycle looks westward, the Los Angeles Times kind of perks up with local stories. To wit: The continuing drama over the stolen Oscars that turned up yesterday in a dumpster in Koreatown ... the mystery of the missing ballots ... the PR war between Miramax and DreamWorks (last year's story goes on and on) ... and the exhilarating news that the show itself might not be a hideous cheesy affair this year. Lili and Dick Zanuck--actual, breathing, working feature producers of note (Driving Miss Daisy, Double Jeopardy) are producing the show this year, and this morning's calendar featured their musical stroke of genius. Not only are the interminable dance numbers cut, much to the horror of the choreographer's union, but the music itself will be produced by Don Was--a hipster and musical demigod par excellence in tandem with Burt Bacharach, newly re-glamorized by Elvis Costello. Highlight should be Robin Williams singing "Blame Canada"--which to locals will have new subtext now that Hollywood is being union-busted by Canada's rebates on shooting done there. I could get wildly distracted by that upsetting train of thought, so let's get back to the races. The ones next week.
I filled out my ballot last night--can't divulge or they'll set jackbooted-thug enforcers from the Academy. The Academy--a fascinating assemblage of attitudes, archaic and modern--is in an uproar over the Wall Street Journal's efforts at polling us members. So we have received numerous missives warning us about you newspaper types (really). I always lose home betting pools to my son, because I go with a peculiar mixture of my heart and my calculating Academy head (if it's a Jewish documentary--about the Holocaust, it's likely to win; the Jewish vote is strong. But this year, with Buena Vista Social Club nominated, the hipsters will come out in force. And there's a not-widely-seen documentary on Black September with a heavy Jewish angle. So this is will be an interesting indicator of the whether there is a change in the demographics of the Academy, at least in the documentary voters.)

So my feeling is that your friend is right--it's American Beauty's to lose. It was, in Academy-think, edgy (showing their sophistication), a director's conception fully realized (showing their occasional support for auteur filmmaking), socially important in its depiction of gay issues (showing their political tolerance), and most important, it made money! I loved Cider House Rules, but the community considers it lucky to have got the notice it has, in its nominations and critical response. It will probably win for screenwriting (we know John Irving is an important author), and maybe for supporting actor (Michael Caine). (Or as we call it in my family, best actor in an athletic supporter.) But this is the toughest race to call. I'm for Annette, but I love her and I'm not objective. Hilary Swank gave a great and noted performance, which was certainly the favorite after the Globes. It's the kind of virtuosic oddity that the Academy tends to reward (think My Left Foot), but not many of the older Academy members will like, be able to handle, or even see this one. Also, the Academy feels that Annette is of them--it's her time, etc., etc., and she's deserving for her body of work. (See how you can anthropomorphize the sensibility of a group? Yet I warn you, I always lose my home pool.) Did you see Rick Lyman's piece last week on how Hollywood was changing? Becoming indie? I was so excited I couldn't wait to get to work today to see what changes would occur. Downbeat endings? Not in my last story meeting! I'll keep you posted on these imaginary changes as the week goes on. Hope our technology catches up to our word count. I missed Millionaire last night. I had a meatball and spaghetti Sopranos party off the New York feed. I can't watch that show anyway. Makes me too anxious.
Talk again after my first day in the new Hollywood.
--Lynda


From: David Edelstein
Subject: Trashdance
Monday, March 20, 2000, at 3:27 PM PT

Dear Lynda:

I promise to e-mail you tomorrow's first missive in time to read in bed. What time do you get up? Do you want something soothing and chamomile-ish or bitter and caffeinated?

It must have been fun to wake up in L.A. this morning to the news that the statuettes had been found in a dumpster. How poetic. I imagine the man who stumbled on them, Willie Fulgear, will have a place of honor at this year's ceremonies. Will the Zanucks make him a presenter? Will the show open with him pulling Billy Crystal out of the trash? Does he have a deal yet?
Good news about the Zanucks, by the way. What has bothered me most about the last few years of Oscar telecasts (aside from the fact that Robert Duvall didn't win for The Apostle, but don't get me started) is that Gil Cates was always standing in the wings with a stopwatch and a big (orchestral) hook. So the really entertaining drunken or drug-addled or exhibitionistic thank-you speeches got cut off while the godawful production numbers and painful scripted banter remained. Maybe the Zanucks can restore the balance.

Memo to the Zanucks: Let the actors gas on. That's what we live for.

Too bad that most of the favored performers this year are pretty self-possessed. Speaking of which, I share your enthusiasm for Annette Bening and loved her in American Beauty. But--don't laugh--I think her truly stupendous performance last year was in In Dreams, that weird and not-very-satisfying DreamWorks/Neil Jordan scare picture. She has a scene in the hospital after her character has cut her wrists that's like being at a séance: She really goes somewhere--somewhere way out there--and she takes us along. I don't know another actress who can portray so indelibly the movement of thought onscreen. Remember, in Bugsy, when she gets the news that Beatty has been killed? She opens her mouth to say something and it's as if you can see 15 different responses form one after another in her brain. But none of them says what she wants to say, so she finally closes her mouth and says nothing. And I can't think of another 15 seconds of silence in which an actor conveys so many specific things. She's peerless. (By the way, I don't care what anyone else thinks of What Planet Are You From?--I liked it--she's utterly enchanting.)

So I won't be too disappointed if Bening gets an Oscar, although Swank's performance is probably the greater achievement. I love Boys Don't Cry (sources tell me you didn't), but I concede that parts of it are tough going. (In my very favorable review, I pointed out that the last half-hour was "unrelieved torture" and got an e-mail from producer Christine Vachon that read: " 'Unrelieved torture,' huh? Thanks so much for the money review.") Really, all the nominated performances this year are great, with the possible exception of Julianne Moore in The End of the Affair. Don't get me wrong: Moore is one of my favorite actresses on earth. Her "You called me lady" speech in Magnolia is a hysterical classic; her scene in the woods with Sigourney Weaver in A Map of the World is moving beyond words; and almost everything she does in The Big Lebowski made me scream at the screen I was laughing so hard. She's a treasure. But she shouldn't go the Meryl Streep great-lady/accent route. And anyway, both Weaver and Reese Witherspoon (in Election) gave such incredible performances this year, it's a shame not to see them recognized.

I'd like to think Rick Lyman's Times piece on Hollywood becoming indie simply reflects what many critics said in their year-end wrap-ups: That somehow or other, more idiosyncratic screenplays have been surviving the journey through the Hollywood food chain that once disemboweled them as a matter of routine. I gather from your front-line response that the lesson learned from, say, Election and Being John Malkovich is that mordant endings don't sell?

At least The Sopranos has recovered: After a pretty diffuse start, it's almost back to last year's level. What I especially admire is David Chase's (and his writers') refusal to go soft on Tony Soprano. At the end of last season he was (despite the fact that he blew several people away) threatening to get squishy. This year they started out making him almost too thuggish, but now that he's back in the shrink's chair they've recovered their balance, and the show is once again the most exhilarating seesaw of sympathies ever put on television.

I'm about to settle down with today's Wall Street Journal supplement on entertainment and the new technology--and maybe go online and check out some of the Web sites where you can view scenes from all those low-budget masterpieces that can't find distributors. Fun, huh? Do I hear you salivating, Lynda? Lynda?

From: Lynda Obst
Subject: Happy Endings and Narcissistic Diatribes
Tuesday, March 21, 2000, at 7:46 AM PT

Dear David,

As you might have guessed, I am for highly caffeinated beverages, the more bitter the better, from about 7ish on. The papers open by 7:15 or so, and the office opens at 8. I am often found fulminating out loud around this time, so our "Breakfast Table" chat fits into my morning window perfectly. We have small windows here in the trenches. Often, with bars.

I guess it was my reeling out of the CAA screening of Boys Don't Cry looking green that gave away my reaction. I thought the first half was astonishing, but felt literally brutalized--like I'd been raped--through the last half. I wondered whether the filmmakers were so committed to being as tough as men can be in a violent scene--or whether it had an ideologically male-hating excess in its depiction of the disrobing and violation of Brandon. I guess it is a sign of how powerful it was that I couldn't sleep; but I worry that we are so desensitized that we can't feel anything unless it tears us to shreds and sends us to bed. I admire Christine Vachon enormously--she's the real thing--as proved by her perfect reaction to your quote--so dead on! I think she's the coolest and hope she forgives my softness here. Maybe it's generational. (Though after reading the horrifying article in the New York Times yesterday about women who are 25 lying about their age, I shouldn't admit that.)

I was hoping you might have been referring to Annette's underappreciated performance in The Siege because a) we're still out on video and b) because the director, Ed Zwick and I had a helluva time casting her. Both our stars from that film are nominated this year, (she starred against Denzel) and we feel retroactively justified! (You take it anywhere you can get it.)
On changing Tinseltown, you know I'm the guy who cynically thinks nothing ever changes the movie business while using any opening you guys create to make ever so slightly edgier choices. It's very piecemeal in the studio system. But the year that everyone was so excited about Shakespeare in Love, we were all still developing big adventures based on the prior year's Titanic. It takes at least two years for something to come out of the studio pipeline from scratch. So you'll be seeing a lot of big spectacle à la Spartacus, Perfect Storm, Charlie's Angels. I do think that Rick Lyman was talking about the buzz you guys created, so it felt like self-referential loop-think to me. We respond to hits. As far as endings are concerned, it's true that Malkovich and Boys Don't Cry would have been even more influential in dashing happy ones if they'd been giant box-office hits, but some subtext gets through. Gender Bending is cool. Adult Fantasy is possible. Cast Hilary Swank in a romantic comedy, and see if you can get Spike Jonze on the studio agenda. We like to take a fresh voice, co-opt it, offer it a lot of money, so it can buy a big house with a mortgage and never do something tooo chancy again. The Aussies have caught on to this, though. They alternate a studio picture (one with a big star and production value, ergo big budget) with personal one. Neil Jordon does this well too.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see our dumpster hero, Willy Fulgear (now patiently awaiting his $50,000 award, assuming they find the culprit) as a presenter. I live for the red-carpet moment when Joan Rivers can look at him and recoil, saying, "Whose is that?!?" (He will, as he must, answer "Badgely Mischka." Who is this designer, anyway?)

And I agree wholeheartedly about the drunken narcissistic diatribes. We live for them. I know Lily is smart enough to know that. But I am concerned, because in a Los Angeles Times interview they were very hookish--warning that the trains were going to run on time. I think the networks must browbeat the producers into this Mussolini-type thinking. We know what works. And if they (the Zanucks) have any stage-managerial control, I have every confidence that they'll let the big moments play. I was excited to discover that you are a Big Lebowski fan--the most hilarious comedy of many a year. My son and I know half of it by heart. And I too love Julianne Moore--her moment in Magnolia was bril--as was her Mommy scene with Heather Graham in Boogie Nights.

It's a bad time to talk to me about movies online. Last Monday I had the dubious distinction of unwittingly representing the "old media" in a panel of four movie dot-commers in Austin, during the South by Southwest conference. My eyes not only glazed over, but I was horrified to discover that besides the moderator, Bill Kurtis, I was the only one in a suit. But if one of those masterpieces has a happy ending, let me know ...
From: David Edelstein
Subject: A Good Man--and Thorough
Tuesday, March 21, 2000, at 8:16 AM PT

Good morning, Lynda. Or should I say, GOOD MORNING, LYNDA. I have this fantasy of a big-deal movie producer getting coffee, the newspaper, and a laptop carried in on a silver tray. Me, I dragged my sorry carcass out of bed especially early to make a batch of Hamantashen (happy Purim, by the way) with my almost-2-year-old daughter. For some reason, the dough wouldn't roll out without tearing, so we decided to call them "Prune Crumbles." They tasted good, though. We ate them watching Teletubbies, which I actually find entertaining--like a British oompah music-hall show performed by village idiots.

We have a temporal hiccup here, since your last e-mail to me yesterday wasn't posted until this morning. But I've been thinking about your comments on Boys Don't Cry all night (i.e., "I wondered whether the filmmakers were so committed to being as tough as men can be in a violent scene--or whether it had an ideologically male-hating excess in its depiction of the disrobing and violation of Brandon"). I think it's both. But I've been wrestling with my responses since I saw the much longer (and more brutal) rough cut more than a year ago. First I said, "Enough already!" Then I said: "Hey, shouldn't a rape be torture? Shouldn't we feel violated along with Brandon?" Then I said, "Enough already!"

In the end, I think, there's a failure of imagination in that rape scene--especially in light of the movie's first half, in which Kimberly Peirce finds an astonishing balance between comedy and tragedy. (We know the male rituals in which Brandon participates with such charming exuberance will be the key to his murder.) And yes, maybe that failure of imagination is related to Peirce's ideology. She left out the fact that the killers shot a male witness along with the two women--an omission she attributed to the need to streamline the narrative. But I don't think it's a stretch to say that showing a heterosexual male getting offed as viciously as a transgenderish woman wasn't part of her agenda.

So what are you working on at the moment? You did Contact, you did The Siege, you did The '60s. When did you go to Paramount? What are all these meetings we have to work around? Are you "co-opting" any fresh voices we should know about?
Speaking of which, a childhood buddy, Scott Spector, and I have been wondering for months whether Charlie Kaufman, the terrific screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, is in fact the smart and funny Charlie Kaufman we went to acting and/or Hebrew school with in West Hartford, Ct., in the early '70s. It was reported in Sunday's New York Times that he's in his mid-'30s, grew up in New York, and is pathologically shy. Our Charlie is at least 40, hails from Connecticut, and was a wonderfully inventive comic actor. But both were smallish with curly hair and had like sensibilities--and now a friend of Scott's has e-mailed him that she's sure, based on a sighting, that it's the same Charlie. Can you help, Lynda? And if it is the same person, isn't it great that former exhibitionists can reinvent themselves as pathologically shy? It sure keeps the media at bay.
Speaking of exhibitionists, I share your concern about Mussolini-type thinking at the Academy Awards. What these producers don't understand is that Oscar ceremonies have never run long on account of garrulous acceptance speeches. I'll write that again, in italics: Oscar ceremonies have never run long on account of garrulous acceptance speeches. Doesn't it make you crazy to watch two drunks stare with glazed eyes into a TelePrompTer and read limp banter for three minutes while a winner's spontaneous expression of gratitude is choked off after 45 seconds? Is that showmanship? (You need time limits only if someone like Ally Sheedy or William Hurt is nominated.)

By the way, a lot of people I know own and have memorized much of the The Big Lebowski, a movie that was undersung on release (to say the least) but that now (thanks to cable and word of mouth) has acquired the kind of reputation that usually takes decades. My wife and I are fond of saying, apropos of nothing at all, "Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock--with nail polish," and we routinely refer to people as "a good man--and thorough." We have also taken to smoking dope and drinking White Russians. The movie has given us new role models.

There's a lot to talk about in today's New York Times, starting with Walter Goodman's overly charitable assessment of "Dr." Laura Schlessinger's "blasts at misbehaving callers [that] often sound like sadism posing as telling it like it is." My quarrel is with the needless qualifier "often."

Last question, does Rudy Giuliani seem as repulsive from 3,000 miles away?

From: Lynda Obst
Subject: Editing the Oscars
Tuesday, March 21, 2000, at 11:47 AM PT

Dear David,

Now we have all the kinks worked out; your e-mail, my vanilla cappuccinos from Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and the two morning papers all arrived (on a funky red wooden tray) in perfect syncopation this a.m., and I'm feeling newly competent and technological ... ready to start a Web page. I was envious reading about your Purim baking session, it sounded cozy and yummy, and my son never cooked anything with me in my entire life. (Is this his fault or mine? Not going there.) Tonight is a big Purim scene in my frumish neighborhood--lots of party hopping. My best friend is going to a gay Purim party where all the boys dress up as Esther. This is party hopping week in Hollywood, and I think its fitting that the kids get to dress up before the grown-ups.

I'm curious to know how the East Coasters feel about Denzel winning for Hurricane. Not that it's a shoe-in, but he's still my favorite. The movie was hurt, I think, by the ferocious attack from the bruised media; the movie was clunk-headed enough to leave out a genuine episode of crusading journalism--Selwyn Raab's great investigative reporting for the New York Times--and it paid for it. It was dumb to concentrate on this Canadian commune (what is that anyway--a broad social phenomenon? Canadians saving black Americans? But there I go again on Canada ...) in its narrative device. But, verisimilitude on it's own can never drive the narrative of a drama. Will Denzel be hurt by the slight deflation of the movie? I don't think so. It's a performance that made a movie, a one-man show, and he's one of the greatest actors in the world. (More objectivity.)

These meetings we're working around (the annoying interruptions of my much more enjoyable non-paying work) are mostly story sessions with writers and directors. Yesterday, we were delayed by a two-hour conference call with Tony Goldwyn, my director on Animal Husbandry, and the writer, Elizabeth Chandler. It's based on Laura Zigman's very funny book. (I wonder whether she will recognize it at all???) Ashley Judd is set to star, hopefully in New York in July, if I win my battle with the studio to stay out of Canada ... but you can see where I'm going with this.
I feel, with your permission, that I should forward your quite excellent commandment regarding long acceptance speeches directly to the Zanucks. This could possibly be the best use of my access in years. I think part of the problem is that the Hollywood personality is pathologically terrified of outbursts, moments out of control, things that veer dramatically close to the precipice. On set, it is their job to make sure this doesn't happen, so it's a struggle with this training and mindset to just let things play. The script is the thing, the guide-track, the record of intention by which we can measure success or failure, and its abandonment feels close to chaos. I say go for it, chaos rules at the Oscars. (Although I have to admit, very un-PC, that last year Roberto Benigni gave me a headache.) Cause-oriented speeches, unless the causes are wildly left-wing or eccentric, are also boring and platitudinous. Don't you think? And we could use some editing on family members. If you're drunk enough, they should edit out lesser relatives. (This is why the Globes are so much more fun. Liquor.)

I'd love to know your thoughts on the toughest race to call. (Question to Jacob Weisberg, my idol: the Michigan of the Oscars?) Best Supporting Actor. I can make an argument for every actor nominated. I change my hunch daily. In this match, I don't expect my vote to win. Tom Cruise could win. (Always honor the humility of a great movie star taking a difficult role in an edgy ensemble piece.) Haley Joel Osment, who was terrific. (The Sixth Sense probably had the biggest impact on the market of any movie this year in terms of future clones.) Michael Caine. (A way of distinguishing Cider House Rules if it loses Best Picture, and he's an Academy darling.) And the impeccable and startling performance of the white-hot Jude Law. (What on earth happened to everyone and everything else on this wonderful movie? The perceived slight could help Law.) What's your take?
I'm vamping here so I can wake up my mutual friend with Charlie Kaufman, to do some digging for you. But since he's a writer, he's not up yet, and I'll know by this afternoon's reply. Kaufman's is a rare and exciting new voice, and he has the town by the gazuggies, shyness and all. (The very best protective coloration for true gift in this town is flying far under the toxic radar.) His scripts will get bought and made this season even if no one understands them. Postmodern is hard to grasp in a town so, well, postmodern.

Giuliani is repulsive from many thousands of miles away, yes--but I am an ex-New Yorker and have despised him from the git. I remember the day he swept away all the street vendors--and many of my happy childhood memories surround buying chestnuts from a street vendor in front of Carnegie Hall while my grandfather tried to unionize the assembled vendors. Have New York women given up their petulant ambivalence about Hillary yet? It's time, don't you think? In I.A.L. Diamond's and Billy Wilder's immortal words, "Nobody's perfect."
That was an eclectic and interesting selection of my movie credits. You left out my chick flicks! And my favorite. Enjoy today. The whole Megilla!

Love,
Lynda

From: David Edelstein
Subject: Save the Child
Tuesday, March 21, 2000, at 12:59 PM PT

Yes, Lynda, you can certainly forward anything I write to the Zanucks. Hi, Zanucks. Oh, by the way: That stuff I said about garrulous actors never being a problem? None of that applies to Roberto Benigni. Also, Zanucks: I'm aware that Benigni will be presenting the Best Actress prize. If Annette Bening wins, PROTECT THE FETUS.

"That was an eclectic and interesting selection of my movie credits," you write. Forgive me, Lynda. Those were not meant to be my favorites of the films you've produced, merely your most recent projects. And, of course, that hilarious book, Hello, He Lied, like Julia Philips only sane and with taste.
You ask my opinion about Denzel Washington in The Hurricane? You won't like it. I agree he's a great actor--he was great in Soldier's Story, Glory, Malcolm X, The Siege, The Bone Collector for crying out loud, and, yes, The Hurricane. But with all due respect to Norman Jewison--one of the greatest Canadian directors who has ever lived, by the way--I found the movie unwatchable. It pissed me off so much I had to pace around the back of the theater, and not because I think Hurricane Carter is a killer. I just don't like being sucker-punched for two hours. And Selwyn Raab didn't "slightly deflate" the movie, he eviscerated it. I know that Washington is the favorite, but my hunch is that Kevin Spacey will take the award in an American Beauty sweep. (Note to Spacey: Try this acting exercise. Take another look at your last Oscar speech and do everything in the exact opposite way. Pretend you're auditioning for the role of Kevin Spacey's nice twin.)

I can't help you in predicting the Best Supporting Actor race, because I don't know how some of the performances that have won prizes over the years even got out of the editing room. (Maybe it's lucky I didn't see the dailies.) My own fave, John C. Reilly, didn't make the cut, and I think Peter Skarsgaard in Boys Don't Cry is the equal of his female co-stars. (Skarsgaard won my affection playing John Malkovich's son in The Man in the Iron Mask--it's one of the subtlest takeoffs on another actor I've ever seen.) That Haley Joel Osment kid, though ... man, he's spooky. That pinched, old-young face. That exquisitely morbid sensitivity. And unlike most child actors, he has a magical rapport with his co-stars--both Toni Collette and Bruce Willis. He's so good he wipes the smirk off Willis' face, which not even Denzel Washington could do.

As for Cruise, well, Paul Thomas Anderson plays shrewdly to his strengths: The movie lets the actor use some of his own phony-baloney mannerisms and then it rips the mask off him. Collaborating in that unmasking is the bravest thing that Cruise has ever done--and I didn't even mind that his bedside hysterics invite unflattering comparisons to Brando in Last Tango in Paris. Do Academy voters like the joke that Cruise spent two years shut up with Kubrick endlessly refining the most lifeless performance of his career only to give a couple of white-hot weeks to Anderson and win an Oscar? (It's a joke that I certainly like.)

But Caine is just grand. A lot has been written about his not wanting that part because he was afraid of the American accent. The upshot is a performance that should be taught in acting schools. The problem with accents is not that they sound wrong but that actors often let the accent do too much of the work--forgetting that very, very few of us are that conscious of our own inflections. Caine's American accent isn't perfect, but that's OK, because he never makes it an issue. He's too busy trying to reconcile the man's idealism with his increasingly desperate unhappiness.

But let's consider something else about the Academy Awards. Caine has been in--what?--hundreds of movies, some good, most very bad. And even in the worst he has been excellent, sometimes remarkable. Only once in his long, packed career has he ever given an awkward performance. What was it? Why, the one in Hannah and Her Sisters, the only time the strain--and hence the acting--ever showed. And, of course, the only one that got him an Oscar.

From: Lynda Obst
Subject: The Black-Hole Award
Tuesday, March 21, 2000, at 2:09 PM PT

Dear David,

I feel that "Save the Fetus" should certainly be the rallying cry of the Oscars, particularly since Willy Fulgear looks to be getting his reward, now that the crack Los Angeles Police have busted the Oscar-robbing perpetrators. (Otherwise the cry might have been, what? FREE WILLY?) I'm forwarding our correspondence to the Zanucks, assuming that they're far too harassed to be online. Let's see if they weigh in by Thursday. By the way, I forgot to add in my last letter that producers--we pathologically controlling personalities averse to unscripted outbursts--are fine about outbursts of our own.

I understand your feelings about Hurricane, though you were much faster on the uptake than I was. The movie sort of melted in my mouth, hours after I'd been swept away by Denzel's charismatic tour de force. I loved him most recently in He Got Game, an utterly underappreciated movie and performance (Spike's best, to me) that would have been a more perfectly realized film with 20 minutes cut. The producer solution always involves cuts, for many reasons apart from our industry-induced attention deficit disorder. (By the by, if they cut the Prozac down on this demographic, there would be even more unscripted outburts ...) But I am putty in D.'s hands. I discovered the most interesting thing about him while working on The Siege. I couldn't double him, even in the exact wardrobe, from the back. To save money and time, we often use doubles to shoot the reverses on walking or running scenes. He was the only actor I've ever worked with that I couldn't double, even on long shot. His walk is so distinct--and modified so subtly for each character, that he can't be matched. But my son is avidly rooting for Kevin Spacey, and you both could be right. American Beauty holds up.

I loved your analysis of the Supporting Actor category. John C. Reilly was the most moving and complete character in Magnolia but maybe it just wasn't demented or dysfunctional enough for the Academy limelight. These often go to fly-by-night amazements or dazzling turns (my favorite would have been Philip Seymour Hoffman in Talented Mr. Ripley). The buzz near me this minute seems to lead toward the wizened young kid--Haley Joel Osment--a turn that made the movie, which wouldn't have worked at all with the wrong child actor. This is great directing of a child, one of the hardest things to do. He held the screen (yes, wiping away that smirk) with Willis and carried the movie. But I wouldn't be surprised at any outcome. Especially Michael Caine. He gave Cider House its emotional authenticity, and made me cry like a baby.

The chicks' supporting race--the one that seems to belong to Angelina Jolie--now this is a killer category. Literally. That is, the awarding of this Oscar is most always followed by a precipitous collapse of careers. No one understands this. It is the black-hole award: Looks like good news, then ... You list them. I'll get in trouble.

As for my credits, I just wondered if you had a thing against chick flicks. For a more complete list (excluding flops), click here.

Talk to you in the morning,
Lynda

From: David Edelstein
Subject: Roberto Must Die
Wednesday, March 22, 2000, at 8:56 AM PT

Good morning, Lynda.

I'm glad we agree that protecting Annette Bening's fetus in the event she has to accept an Academy Award from Roberto Benigni should be the first priority of the show's producers. A couple of ideas came to me last night while watching the English-dubbed Life is Beautiful on cable:

Hire bodyguards to accompany Bening on stage and encourage them to use force, preferably lethal, to prevent Benigni from making physical contact.

Offer to let Benigni present the Supporting Actor prize earlier in the evening; rig it so Michael Clarke Duncan wins; tell Duncan he has license to use force, preferably lethal; tell Benigni that Duncan likes big, wet kisses.

Arrange an emergency Caesarian for Bening several hours before the ceremony. If the fetus is not viable, arrange an emergency Caesarean for Benigni several hours before the ceremony.

But something even more important has come up, and since you're on the Paramount lot, you might be in a position to make a difference. I read this morning that Star Trek: Seven of Nine (I forget the show's formal title) is being canned after next season. I realize the studio makes this move every seven (how ironic!) years in lieu of renegotiating the cast's boilerplate contract, but the powers that be can hardly have overlooked the fact that Seven herself did not join the series (when it was called something else, I forget what) until the fourth season, and so must have a different arrangement. I have some ideas about how to employ her for the next three years--although at the moment they mostly involve Roberto Benigni and phasers set on "Kill."

By the way, I tried to watch some short movies over the Web last night so I could fill you in on all the brilliant young filmmakers dying to be co-opted, but my state-of-the-art laptop kept freezing, and even when it didn't, the image (coming in at 56k) was as through a glass muddily. Until the technology improves, I'm going to stick to listening to music over the Web. (Do you know there's an all-Mahler, all-the-time station?)
Since I'm not writing a movie column this week, I'll note my bitter disappointment over Romeo Must Die, the hip-hop kung-fu farrago that will probably be a hit but that wastes the talents of Jet Li--who was lean and godlike and impossibly fluid in the Once Upon a Time in China series but looks short and squat next to all those totemic African-Americans. More to the point, the fight scenes are all hacked up: The film attempts to be an editor's tour de force instead of a fighter/choreographer's. Elvis Mitchell in the New York Times today notes that Li's "Cinemascope beatdowns [are] more dramatic than the rest of the picture, but they're chopped together like a ransom note, all slivers and pieces."

Is that wonderful writing? I gather there has been some grumbling in industry circles that the new Times critics, Mitchell and A.O. Scott, are "too smart for the room"--which is proof, I submit, of how the room was dumbed-down by their predecessors. I think they're already the hippest tag-team in criticism, and they complement each other gorgeously. Mitchell, whom I've known for about a dozen years, is an inspired collagist: Not all the images and arguments fit seamlessly together, but every review has five or six lines you could pull out and frame. He's a brilliant original. A. O. Scott (who has written for Slate) is more analytical but never dry: You read his analyses with a mounting excitement. Eliza Truitt quotes this dismissal of the Erin Brockovich in her "Summary Judgment" column: "It retails the fantasy that selflessness and self-interest are perfectly congruent." Although I had problems with the Brockovich finale, too--the emotional climax of the thing is her bonus check--I liked the film a lot more than Scott, and I could argue that selflessness and self-interest can be congruent. (The relationship between them is tantalizingly complex.) But that doesn't matter. The larger point is: When has the New York Times had a film critic with the intellectual stature to pose that kind of question so cogently?

I've been dipping into other film writing this week, but the breathless Oscar odds-making of magazines like Entertainment Weekly rubs me the wrong way. I concede this smacks of hypocrisy: I have this platform only because of interest stirred up by the Academy Awards, so there's something unseemly about denouncing other writers for similarly exploiting the occasion. That said, I've never had a problem being unseemly before ... I do prefer the barbed, Movieline approach, with its "Alternative Oscar" ballot ("Castor Oil Movie of the Year," "Worst Performance by a Previous Oscar Winner," "Overpraised '70s Director Who Most Clearly Demonstrated He'd Lost Touch With Reality," etc.): That's a nice way to have your cake and make fun of it, too.

Speaking of (cheese)cake, no, Lynda, I have nothing against your chick flicks. More chicks! And it's great you're working with Tony Goldwyn--I loved A Walk on the Moon. (The only problem with Hilary Swank's being so universally acclaimed this year is that she pulled the awards spotlight off two other magnificent performances in "little" movies: Diane Lane in Moon and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in Limbo.)

Tell me your impressions of the "cursed" Supporting Actress category (aka the Tomei-Sorvino Memorial Award). I think Jolie smoked in that chicks-behind-psychological-bars picture. (All the chicks in that one were cuuuuuute, actually.) And what do you make of this, from Scott Shuger's "Today's Papers" column:
USA Today goes long regarding research coming out today in the Journal of the American Medical Association on the long-term downsizing trend among Miss America winners. Sometime in the mid-1970s, says the research, the winner's body-mass-index fell below the level regarded as unhealthy by the World Health Organization. And has rarely returned--according to the figures on the figures accompanying the story, in the past quarter-century only one winner--1998's--has a BMI considered healthy.
Maybe you should pitch a picture called Girl, Emaciated.

From: Lynda Obst
Subject: Selfless Ambition
Wednesday, March 22, 2000, at 10:16 AM PT

Dear David,

All the Purim festivities last night must have really knocked me out, because I woke up uncharacteristically late today--I must be confusing myself with a writer. Of course, I was wide awake as ever at the jolting 4 o'clock witching hour, ready to make lists and plunge into the fray. But this is old news. I've been on New York time since I moved here in the '80s.

But your suggestions for saving the baby from Benigni were so spectacular, and frankly, doable from a production standpoint, that they brought me right out of the grumpy twilight. I personally favor suggestion No. 2, as the big-fat-wet-kiss part with the martial-arts twist has a kind of genre-bending wallop, and it's an opportunity for Duncan to audition for the iconic African-American role in the next Jet Li film. (I have no idea who this is--he never auditions for chick flicks. Is he cute?)
I'm horrified to tell you that you know so much more about Star Trek negotiations than I do (maybe more than Paramount business affairs), but I promise to get into it. Lest you think my reporter's skills are too rusty, I found my mutual friend with Charlie Kaufman, Damon Santostefano. Not only was he not sleeping in Los Angeles (my writer's life fantasy--no insomnia, typing in bed, never answering the phone ...), he was editing in New York. He says Kaufman is around 40 (so far so good), but he thinks he's from Long Island--Great Neck, in fact. He had no secondary sources though, so that's all I can glean till his agent calls back. I could end up with in a development deal with Kaufman after all this digging--a postmodern thing ... that Elvis Mitchell might like.

Well, Elvis Mitchell is certainly the talk of the town--among the literate, that is. The very notion that the New York Times has a dreadlocked hipster railing cutting-edge point of view on its pages is exhilarating--and yes, terrifying to many of us. I had been blithely enjoying his rich ideas and prose before I had any idea he would leave NPR back woods (where a bad review can't hurt us, let alone humiliate our parents) for the New York Times, where it can destroy all hopes of life. (Well, not if it's an Adam Sandler movie.) I ran into him and Frank Rich strolling the lobby of the Four Seasons in Austin during the SXSW festival last week, and he looked at me--I am probably making this up--as the very gatekeeper responsible for keeping the voices he was in Austin to celebrate off the big screen and onto that little grainy one.

The observation by A.O. Scott that Erin Brockovich promotes the idea that selflessness is perfectly congruent with self-interest is trenchant on many levels. The wording "retails the fantasy" is exactly what mainstream movies do. They retail reassuring ethical notions and fantasies that you can have it all--be it the rich man, the winning team, or, as the world gets ethically thornier, the coupling of self-interest and selflessness. This mirrors my experience of living here: The more corrupt the individual, the more money he spends either a) promoting world peace (preferably through bogus operations run by Deepak Chopra) b) staving off death (by giving parties for and money to Deepak Chopra), or c) giving lots of parties and money to Democrats--particularly if they involve reciprocal invitations to the White House. In Hollywood selfless is never a one-way street. I remember when my boss, the operator himself, David Geffen, once insisted that I end a debilitating feud with my then-rival, Dawn Steel. "Get over it, he said to me. "Congratulate her. It's not good for your career." I always felt that David invented the idea of selflessness as a tool--a position--to further your ambitions. It sure worked for him.

The curse of the black-hole award will surely go to the showiest "newcomer of the year," Angelina Jolie. She broke the movie wide open and let it bleed. The movie came viscerally alive when she was on screen. I can't even see how her star will be crossed by her likely victory, unless, let's pray not, she crosses it herself. I am working up a pitch on Girl, Emaciated as soon as I file, in which she can star and break the damned curse. Will keep you posted on its bulimic progress through the development grind.

I feel a tinge of guilt from you when you talk too much Oscars-- it might feel like a tacky indulgence. Am I wrong? Just remember that it's a tacky indulgence the world shares with you ... Now let's talk director. The real question here is sweep or no sweep for American Beauty.

From: David Edelstein
Subject: Swallowing the Bermuda Triangle
Wednesday, March 22, 2000, at 1:28 PM PT

Yes, yes, yes I feel guilty speculating about the Oscars. Because I've always believed that critics who cite the Academy Awards in their reviews are employing the laziest, most vulgar kind of shorthand. More important, the films and performances I cherish most don't tend to win Oscars. Robert Duvall didn't get for one of the great pieces of acting in the last decade: He lost to Jack Nicholson doing a Jack Nicholson impersonation. Juliet Stephenson wasn't even nominated for Truly, Madly, Deeply, and how many performances get under your skin the way that one does? How many awards did The Big Lebowski rack up--or any classic comedy (The Shop Around the Corner, The Lady Eve)? Sure, freak amazing performances get through (once under your auspices--Mercedes Ruehl in The Fisher King). But if I got all starry-eyed about the Oscars--if I ceded power to make aesthetic judgments to the majority of voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences--then I wouldn't be much of a critic, would I?

Of course, I'm not really a critic at our cyber "Breakfast Table." And I shouldn't waste my opportunity to pepper you with stage-door-Johnny questions. What's Annette Bening really like? Is Tom Hanks still a nice fellow? Have you ever seen Seven of Nine on the lot? And for pete's sake hurry up and find out whether Charlie Kaufman is the same guy I went to Hebrew school with.

I'm sorry you thought Elvis Mitchell was dissing you; I'm sure he wasn't. He certainly doesn't have a knee-jerk anti-studio bias: He was once, you might recall, an executive at Paramount. (God, does that sound weird now. What a cockeyed optimist Brandon Tartikoff was! I once told Elvis I envied his getting to sit in on meetings for the first Star Trek: The Next Generation feature; he looked at me as if I'd lost my marbles and called Paramount's most lucrative franchise "a talk show in outer space on Valium.")

I must also reiterate that A.O. Scott's point, however brilliant, is not completely fair to Erin Brockovich, especially if you lop off our heroine's $2 million jackpot at the end. Yes, I know, that's a big lop. But there's a particularity to the Brockovich/PG&E case, a specificity of setting and context that renders such paradigmatic contentions both specious and somewhat superfluous. Well, maybe not, but there is Julia's wardrobe ...
Since you mentioned, indirectly, The Operator: I just finished slogging through it (well, I skipped a lot) and it left me depressed, mostly because it gave the impression that David Geffen is a very, very small man with a very, very, very big bank account. The question I have is: Has Geffen that little stature? (I don't mean physically.) Or is it just that (as my colleague Judith Shulevitz has suggested) the author himself didn't have the stature to invest his protagonist with more? Geffen ends up such an arm's-length figure in his own biography--and for so many pages. I learned more about him from that wonderful West Wing episode, in which the Geffen figure (the amazing Bob Balaban) is both terrifyingly ruthless and, at the same time, a sort of oblique force for good.
I love every one of the nominees in the Best Supporting Actress category, but that doesn't matter. If my hand were moving to a put an "X" on the ballot it would be drawn to only one. You say that Angelina Jolie could shake the Curse of the Black Hole Award. I think a black hole couldn't contain her. I think she could swallow the Bermuda Triangle and pick her teeth with the Titanic.

And obviously Sam Mendes (American Beauty) will win for Best Director. That film was so fucking directed.

Later,
David

From: Lynda Obst
Subject: Tom and Annette
Thursday, March 23, 2000, at 7:20 AM PT

[Received last night.]

That was some wickedly sexy prose, David. "Swallow the Bermuda triangle and pick her teeth with the Titanic." Like a swaggering noir doll, a Howard Hawks dame on acid. And let's not forget her lips! Lips that have driven thousands of age-battling women to their dermatologists for collagen shots. No emaciation there.
Fortunately, you asked me about two of my favorite actors. (What would I have done otherwise? I'm getting so loose-lipped, I shudder to think.) They actually are (to bore you witless) as charming as they seem. The worst thing I can say about Tom is that he once tripped me playing running charades. He's hilarious and smart as a whip. Reads everything. They both do. And love their families. (I told you this was boring.) She is utterly unaffected. Curious, kind, focused. We were all in love with her. What all her work has in common is that she can't lie. She never watched dailies, second-guessed herself, or even checked her makeup. She trusted herself and the director. You have no idea how amazing this is.

I didn't know that Elvis Mitchell had been a Paramount executive! You could have knocked me over with a feather. Did he ever write about it? Where was I? We could have pitched Girl, Emaciated to him. And Brandon Tartikoff hired him? He was the rarest of suits, and a dear, dear friend. His is just the spirit that's missing now. (I keep thinking how much he would have loved The Sopranos. You're so right about this season. And what about our Carmela ... Jesus, Mary and Joseph!) Boy, did you get Brandon's cock-eyed optimism right. This defined him. Are you psychic?

About the Operator: Of course this is tricky for me, and I was delighted not to review it and chose not to read it. Instead, I devoured every morsel of reporting about it, including reviews, essays, and in particular Judith's insightful piece. I hate reading about the business in bed--particularly about ex-bosses--I have a hard enough time sleeping. But reading about ruthlessness at night after a day of being at its mercy is utterly unacceptable. David Geffen is, of course, an incredibly complex mixed blessing of a man, and if King didn't show this then Judith is right. Your description of his West Wing characterization sounds exactly right. He is a great believer in tough love, and it is how he reared and weaned me. I watched him and studied power, and the way he chose to manifest it. He taught me to follow my gut and to never let a feud get in the way of my intentions, as I watched him do exactly that. Then fix it. Then stir it up again. He is not big in the nuance department. A glimmer: had to rewrite the collagen anecdote in my book four times for his approval, and in the end, though it was exactly how he remembered it, he still didn't like it. I think he is shocked whenever he reads about himself.

Back to our guilty pleasures: I just returned from lunch with an old friend, a brainy, tasty casting pro and pumped her silly on our acting categories. She says Tom Cruise for sure. He hasn't won for any of his other major performances--and was a contender for Jerry Maguire, Fourth of July, and Rain Man. So he is ready. (We say, "It's his time," in hushed tones.) He is also deserving, gave a dazzling yet submerged star turn, and as she pointed out in acute Academy-think (the skewered reasoning that provokes your contempt), he brings millions and squillions of dollars into the business. You know what this means. He's good for the Jews ... not to mention the Scientologists ... Ditto on Sam Mendes, exactly right.

Till the a.m.,
Lynda

P.S.: Do you think we maintain control of the Oscar voting to weight our diminishing portion of the acclaim derby?

From: David Edelstein
Subject: Career, Schmareer!
Thursday, March 23, 2000, at 8:51 AM PT

Since today will be our last to have breakfast together, I want to point out something to our readers. As a critic, an outsider, and a malcontent, I have had the luxury of romping through these exchanges with nary a fear for my career, while you, a producer and an insider, have had to respond with one hand (and probably four fingers of the other) tied behind your back. Yes, you were a journalist in a former life and have written a scary-funny memoir about producing. But you're also making big-deal movies in a world of fragile and sometimes vindictive high-rollers, and--although you fear your lips have been loosened--you've clearly had to let some provocative things I've said slide by without comment. I hope people realize that if you wanted to, you could blow the roof off this thing with a few strokes of your keyboard.

So, look: Why don't you? Career, schmareer--live for the moment! You'll never be this young and free again!

Martin Arnold's "Making Book" column in today's New York Times says the Geffen bio has been a commercial disappointment (Tom King got $700,000!) and notes that its subject made calls to executives at Bertelsmann and Random House to register his disapproval, then asks: "Still, how would you feel if you were a movie mogul and learned that no one was interested in reading about you?" From what you've written, Lynda, it sounds as if Geffen would feel just dandy. Arnold also reports that Random House will soon publish a book by Rachel Abramowitz called Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?: Women's Experience of Power in Hollywood. Have you read it and/or are you featured? Apparently, Abramowitz talked to actresses who have taken executive roles in response to their traditional powerlessness. What has it been like for, say, Jodie Foster or Sandra Bullock, in the boardrooms? Now's your chance to address the subject of your "chick flicks."

Speaking of quixotic hires, yes, Elvis Mitchell was drafted by Brandon Tartikoff to be a Paramount exec, and he later hired Mitchell again to appear on Last Call, a late-night talk show so bad it even made Chevy Chase shiver. (It wasn't Mitchell's fault, by the way; he was the best thing on it.)

Last night I was waiting for The West Wing to begin (are you a fan? The writing and acting are sensational. And it's so great to see the wonderful Allison Janney, normally cast as a harridan or, in American Beauty, as a mummy, play a smart, high-strung, sexy broad), I caught a Dateline Oscar special that galled the hell out of me. The correspondent went through all the based-on-true-stories films that are nominated (Boys Don't Cry, The Hurricane, The Insider) and made fun of the ways in which they departed from fact. He interviewed Kimberly Peirce and then sneered, in voice-over, at her suggestion that artists need to compress and rewrite to create compelling narratives. I wonder if it ever occurred to this philistine that in the way he framed the issue he was employing the same shorthand techniques he was so righteously lambasting.

Yesterday I had to rush off to meet Dan Minehan (co-writer of I Shot Andy Warhol) to talk about digital filmmaking for another book I might write with Christine Vachon. He has a wonderful, big-budget (for Christine, not you) Halston script that left Fox Searchlight with Lindsay Law. While the project makes its sloooow way from studio to studio, he has turned around and shot an inventive feature in three-and-a-half weeks for $100,000 on digital video. And in my e-mail box is a long press release from POP.com, "the recently announced Internet entertainment company formed by Imagine Entertainment, DreamWorks SKG and Vulcan Ventures, Inc.," which has just announced a project with John Sloss called POPFEST to showcase "independently produced short films, animation, games, and other digital content." So Lynda, do you ever want to join this digital party, or do you see yourself as a studio celluloid gal for the foreseeable future?
Speaking of parties, which ones will you be going to? What are you wearing?

David

From: Lynda Obst
Subject: The Star-Maker Machinery
Thursday, March 23, 2000, at 10:36 AM PT

Dear David:

Oh, if I could afford to throw it all away ... the endless meetings, development hell, mopey actors, head-banging disappointments, not to mention directors--those husbands (or wives) I temporarily marry, to whom I must blithely cast off my autonomy (I always say that if could behave with a lover as I do with my director ...) ... the daydreaming has just begun. To be able to take more than an hour to respond to your every rich insight ... but then what of the parties? The subsidized meals, the august treatment on set, the college payments? It's certainly a trade-off. But I have to admit that nothing in my movie day is as stimulating as filing to you twice a day, my reporter fantasy, the road left half traveled ... compels me still. But not too far. Yet. I have to save stuff until I'm unemployable. (Gray hair starts to show.)

I, too, was riveted by Marty Arnold's column today. For one thing, it was the first time I saw our grotesque box-office quantifiers applied to publishing. Since when does a book "open"? And I guess it's clear that some books have "legs" ... Tuesdays With Morrie comes to mind, or Midnight in the Garden, which was leggy in the extreme, but I can't help but be disturbed by this Variety-speak eating everything; like PacMan, vocabulary can eat up crucial distinctions. Are there any? Bookstores pull books from shelves as movie theaters pull underperforming films, and publishers cease to print, as studios dump a picture. So it is apt, I suppose, but grim. His analysis of the sales of The Operator is fascinating. With Hollywood books, everyone who knows anyone who might be in the index buys it the first week, so they are au courant at Orso's, and this fuels it with an escape velocity that often propels it to the best-seller list, especially here in L.A. Then it needs to be either wildly salacious, à la Phillips', or chock-full of amazing gossip and observations, like Peter Biskind's.
I was recently discussing the insultingly backlash-titled book Is That a Gun in Your Pocket? with one of its most famous subjects. (I didn't talk with Abramowitz, the author; my occasional messy quotes are from unattributed random interviews.) Lamenting her cooperation, the Mogulette consoled herself with the thought that no one would want to read about us, anyway. "We're not famous in Idaho, honey," she started. "And can you imagine David Geffen being remotely interested enough to spend a day reading about us girls?" Anyway, as she pointed out, none of us (sadly) have done anything sleazy enough to catch general attention. No drugs, no orgies, no wife- or husband-swapping. It wasn't the '70s after all, when we started to infiltrate the power suites around here. It was the quieter and much safer late 80's, when the survivors among us learned to say, "Father, may I?" Politely. With heels (short ones). This reminds me of my favorite celluloid moment about women in film. Remember when the chick exec at the studio in The Player, upon realizing that she was sandbagged by the director, broke her heel as she ran across the lot to get help from her (complicit) boss? (This little nugget says everything, everything about the pathos and bravery of these women that is missed in Gun.) I felt the book was everything we already knew. No subtext lives in Gun either. Nothing even elucidating the Freudian accusation in the title. Do we have penises or not? (Is my career over yet?)
As far as actress/producers go, only Jodie Foster is covered in the book. But there are a few really serious mogul/movie stars operating now. Sandy Bullock is certainly one (I told her during our intense strategy sessions on the release of Hope Floats that if she weren't so beautiful, she could have run a studio. Though we have beautiful, if high-strung, studio heads, too.) She is a worker and a true pragmatist. And Drew Barrymore has a first-rate indie-flavored production company at Fox, Flower Films. She put together Charlie's Angels with her partner--and is taken very seriously. (You should note that both of these women can also open movies, which makes them a double threat.)

After my panel on Internet filmmaking, where even the game-makers were boasting of an AOL-Time Warner affiliation, and AtomFilms was boasting of making an alliance with Propaganda, I don't think the Internet will put the theaters out of business. But this is true only if we keep providing sufficient production value and the theaters themselves continue to become more attractive destinations to leave your bedroom for. I do feel my role is inside the system (why else have I spent these long hideous years almost learning how to get some version of what I want done?). And I can't give up a certain addiction to mass popular culture. The best feeling I ever had was with The Fisher King, which was written as an indie but stretched the edges of the mainstream as a studio flick. The task really taught me my job: how to protect something precious. I'll keep looking for those projects that otherwise would not have seen their way onto the big screen, those that require movie stars to be seen by the masses, and hope for a shot at the really big parties this weekend next year. (That is unless some dot-commer out there has an IPO proposal for me ...) You can't imagine the dot-com envy around here, by the by. All our most hegemonous moguls woke up one morning to find themselves marginalized. So much for world domination. The world is bigger than that.

I will, however unnominated, go to the best non-corporate party of the year, Ed Limato's annual Friday-night bash. Ed's a legendary agent--this year he has Denzel nominated, but everyone in town goes, and there's drinking and flirting galore. It's right before everything gets too tense to be fun. I hibernate through the corporate ones though--no fun unless you're nominated. You're cropped out of the party! And thank you for asking. I'll be wearing Badgely Mischka, of course.

Love,
L

From: David Edelstein
Subject: Why You're a Posturing Establishment Fraud, Nyeh-Nyeh
Thursday, March 23, 2000, at 1:03 PM PT

Dear Lynda:

There's a sentiment in Slate's "Fray" that I've been sucking up to you this week and ought really to be attacking you for the movies of yours that I don't like. Clearly, these readers have never spent time around Hollywood producers because they do not know what sucking up is. Anyway, my job here is to talk about the Oscars and sundry other entertainment issues, not to attack the author of a book I used as a model for Shooting To Kill or the producer of one of my favorite films of the '90s, The Fisher King (nor even to attack a close friend of the writer/director of one of my least-favorite films of the '90s, You've Got Mail. Happy, guys?).

This is one of the most exciting/most depressing aspects of cybertalk: With the evident exception of the Mendelsohns--who got to practice their admittedly adorable repartee on one another for decades--there is just no pleasing people. The last time I did the "Breakfast Table" and talked about politics, I was told that movie critics ought to stick to entertainment. Having stuck with entertainment, I've been implicitly criticized for not writing about the "important" issues of the day. My single snide reference to Giuliani--at a time when even New York Republican honchos are worrying that he's too unstable to win a Senate seat--prompts the insulting comment that I must live in a cushy liberal neighborhood like the Upper West Side or I'd appreciate what the mayor has done to combat crime in this city. For the record: I was mugged twice in the '80s in New York City, once violently, and certainly appreciate safer streets--although they're much safer in other, Giuliani-less cities, too, in part because the crack epidemic was, thank God, self-limiting. I'm told a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. Well, I did have a low tolerance for that arrogant stumblebum David Dinkins. But I'm not going to apologize for having a visceral reaction to a politician so grotesquely insensitive to peoples' pain (and so grotesquely hypersensitive to his own, as when he ordered city workers to pull down New York magazine posters that carried the gentlest ribbing imaginable) that he makes Ed Koch seem like Mr. Rogers.

What else can I attack you for? Wearing Badgely Mischka? Envying dot-Communists? I liked Hope Floats and I loved Gun Shy, and I hope Sandra Bullock gets to produce/executive produce more movies. What you said about female producers in light of the Abramowitz book makes me wish you'd write a sequel to Hello, He Lied, and the sooner the better. I have nothing to attack you for. Say something despicable.

My friend Scott e-mails to say that our Charlie Kaufman lived in Massepequa, Long Island, until junior high, when his family moved to West Hartford, so it's looking likely he's the guy. Fancy that. The age/geography disparities in various profiles aren't especially illuminating, but I do think it's a new wrinkle that Charlie the screenwriter--the so-called shy recluse--was in fact a fantastic comic actor in his adolescence. (He killed as the lead of Play It Again, Sam, for instance.) That doesn't mean he's not also legitimately a shy recluse, only that his showbiz-performing instincts are more developed than most people realize. Does he have a chance to win an Oscar for his screenplay, or do you think American Beauty has that one locked up, too? That would be a shame.

David

From: David Edelstein
Subject: A Suggestion for Conflict
Thursday, March 23, 2000, at 1:23 PM PT

P.S. to my last e-mail: Why don't you say that all critics suck and that even the one or two with half a brain have no business writing about movies because they've never made one and aren't in the arena? That will get me riled up, so I'll say something smarmy about the scene on the beach in Sleepless in Seattle when Tom Hanks gambols with his son while Meg Ryan watches teary-eyed. Then you'll say I'm not fit to critique Hanks' undershorts and we'll go out with a bang.

From: Lynda Obst
Subject: Going Down in Flames
Thursday, March 23, 2000, at 4:34 PM PT

Dear David,

You scum-sucking critic, you ass-wiping Robert Duvall-loving armchair second-guesser, sitting in your cushy home/office dissecting our work. As if. And this to the miscreant in Redmond, Wash., who hates chick flicks: Try getting laid without one. SO there. Despicable enough? I could go on but must spare some vitriol for the mangling of off-beat screenplays this afternoon.

Why is it that Jennifer Mendolsohn elicits marriage proposals and somehow I provoke the launching of a thousand flames? Not even a public offering, let alone a private one. I hope your gallantry on my behalf doesn't hurt your credibility. That would be ironic, if your career is in shambles after this instead of mine. Maybe we'll both go up in flames, that would entertain our readers!

On Charlie Kaufman, whose script did not get mangled through the famously tortuous systemic grind (though it still managed not to have a coherent ending--or at least one that I understood). I didn't get the move from Long Island to Hartford, Conn., so the Internet is certainly faster than Hollywood phone tag in getting the facts. (Shocking.) But I think Charlie has a very good (bad, maybe for him) chance of winning, as it was a breakthrough movie maybe even noticeable to the Academy. Stylistically, tone-wise, women-role-wise, the industry appreciates its enormous originality. It just depends on the physics of the sweep. That is, if it numbs out as AB night, or voters were able to make those subtle distinctions in awarding one movie costumes (Ripley) another's effects, (Matrix), another for screenplay. (Note to jackbooted academy thugs: these are not necessarily my votes.) As for writers, my bets are John Irving for adaptation and Charlie for original. The way the academy can congratulate these smaller movies is with the lesser but prestigious screenwriting award. (Lesser mostly in sequence.) I think his big competition is The Sixth Sense, a terrifically crafty original screenplay. And because M. Night Shyamalan will probably lose to Sam Mendes, and this picture is among the biggest if not the biggest of the year, the academy will find some way for it to be recognized.

I just want to close by saying that I hope The Fray doesn't become some junior-high rank session where every Tom, Dick and Harry can analyze and criticize every mistake I've ever made in my entire career. No one deserves this, not even an agent. I mean, this really isn't fair. (Fair? What kind of nihilist are you?!?) So to any one you future armchair critics, looking to cut your mean tooth on my work, I say, YOU'LL NEVER WORK IN THIS TOWN AGAIN! Now I've gone out on a bang, right David?

Lynda

From: David Edelstein
Subject: Above the Fray
Friday, March 24, 2000, at 7:25 AM PT
Well. That is rather hurtful.

Let's go back to being nice, OK? Those people can get their own columns and we'll post nasty things on their sites.

Actually, I have a large number of supportive e-mails. R. Herzog says: "Loved it! You and Lynda are great. Don't worry about the 'Fray.'" And Emma Waterhouse writes: "You two are the funniest, sexiest, most delightful couple since Nick and Nora. Please write more!"

Well, OK, I made Emma Waterhouse up, but R. Herzog exists and there are others where he came from.
And I think the reason Jennifer Mendelsohn got more marriage proposals than you, Lynda, is that you mentioned a kid, and you know what a can of worms that is.

Before I sign off, I want to mention that my vote for the best awards organization goes not to the Oscars but to the Silver Lenas of Toronto, Canada. They have some extra categories that the staid Academy never thought of. Most important, there's both a "best" category and a "coolest" category--a useful distinction. This year's "coolest" prize went to South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut--which was actually my choice for the best film of the year. (But think of the ridicule I'd have been spared if I'd had a "coolest" category.) Other coolest winners were Cate Blanchett in Ripley and Janeane Garofalo in Mystery Men (a movie I thought I was alone in liking). In the categories Best History, Most Underrated, and the Eric Stoltz's Head Award for Widescreen Composition, the Silver Lena winner was the magnificent The Iron Giant.

Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace was named the year's worst film, while the Most Overrated prize went to American Beauty. Something called the Big Mallet That Goes Bok-Bok Award--my favorite category name of all time--went to Eyes Wide Shut. The Silver Lena press release adds that "Nicolas Cage achieved a remarkable feat when his performance in 8mm was presented with both Most Underplayed Role and Most Overplayed Role; the first time such a thing had happened. As more than one voter said, 'Those who endured the movie should understand.'"

That's great criticism.

Now then. Where do you and I stand on the Oscars?
We think, along with everyone else, that American Beauty will win big. But I like Cider House Rules best of all the nominees and will hold out a slim hope. (My feelings have nothing to with the DreamWorks vs. Miramax feud.)

We think Kevin Spacey will win. You prefer Denzel Washington; I have greater affection for Richard Farnsworth and Sean Penn. But Spacey, we both agree, was the cat's pajamas. (Oh, I forgot to mention, the Silver Lenas gave the Best Animal prize to the psychic cat in Go.)

We think Annette will snag it. In truth, I think Hilary Swank deserves it more but I won't be unhappy to see Bening with that statuette, especially if Roberto Benigni's broken body lies nearby.

We don't know about the Supporting Actor category, but your casting-agent friend says it's Tom Cruise. We think it could be Osment or Caine. I think they're all deserving in this category except for Michael Clark Duncan, but I blame the bum role, not the actor. (And I want to mention John C. Riley, Peter Skarsgaard, Christopher Plummer, and Peter Fonda in The Limey as being plausible nominees. Great category.)
We think Angelina Jolie is DA BOMB. Chloë Sevigny and Toni Collette are also superb and deserving, but it's Jolie who's the force of nature.

We think Sam Mendes is a lock.

We'd like to see my old Hebrew-school chum (er, I think) Charlie Kaufman get it for Being John Malkovich. And although we didn't talk about it, I'd be happy with either Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor for Election or John Irving for Cider House.
We have not eliminated world hunger or deposed Rudy Giuliani in the "Breakfast Table" this week. But it seems to me that if--thanks to your lobbying of the Zanucks--more drunken exhibitionists are allowed the time and space to make fools of themselves on Oscar night, or if Annette Bening's child is born with no physical (or mental) trauma at the hands of Roberto Benigni, then we'll have contributed something of lasting value to society. Can the Mendelsohns say that?

XXX
David

by Lynda Obst, Slate.com March 20-24, 2000