Get Low

As he nears 80, Robert Duvall seems to have entered a second grace — or is it his third? The legendary actor has a half century under his belt, hundreds of film and TV roles, six Oscar nominations, one win (for 1983’s “Tender Mercies’’), and nothing left to prove. So he picks and chooses and produces movies that he wants to appear in. Get Low, a charming, witty period piece follows Duvall’s character, Felix Bush, the town hermit in an out-of-the-way corner of Tennessee in the 1930s. With his crazy-man beard and ever-present shotgun, he has been the stuff of tall tales and boys’ nightmares for decades, but no one seems to remember what, exactly, made Felix this way. Which is how Felix likes it.

Until, one day, he doesn’t. So he saddles up his mule, rides into town — the locals gawking as if they’d seen Bigfoot at the grocery store — and stops in at the local undertaker. Felix wants a funeral, but he wants to be there — alive — to hear what people have to say. Or maybe he has something to say to them.

It’s fairly irrelevant to the movie, but there apparently was a real Felix “Uncle Bush’’ Brazeale whose 1938 wake, with the “corpse’’ in attendance, drew national media attention and 10,000 “mourners’’ for what amounted to a giant county fair. Because Duvall’s Felix has a lot he wants to get off his chest, though, “Get Low’’ has a lot on its mind: redemption, forgiveness, acceptance.
The script by Chris Provenzano, C. Gaby Mitchell, and Scott Seeke is slyly observant about the way folks in these parts say a lot with little and it honors their uninflected small-town decency as something valuable that has been lost. But it also leans increasingly on sentiment, and Aaron Schneider, a cinematographer making his feature directing debut, doesn’t have the touch to raise the film out of the likably ordinary. “Get Low’’ is a fable but a workmanlike one.

Instead, Schneider relies on a cast full of ringers. Sissy Spacek plays the old coot’s one-time love, a widow retired from life in the big city but unprepared for the depth and tragedy — the still scalding pain — of Felix’s big secret. Lucas Black, back in 1996 the young boy of “Sling Blade,’’ is an anchor of sanity as an assistant mortician vouchsafed with hiding thousands of dollars in a casket after Felix decides to raffle off his land on the big day.

The head mortician, Frank Quinn — a Chicago fellow running from a few ghosts of his own — is played by Bill Murray, and as much as I love this man and would be happy to see him any time in any movie, the fact remains he feels out of place in this one. Over the years, Murray has become the personification of modern irony in the wisest, most gracious sense imaginable, but an ironic man fits into the Depression setting of “Get Low’’ about as naturally as a two-headed calf. He’s very funny, but there’s room for only one eccentric here, and it’s Duvall.

The star plays his role much as he has his other loners over the years, as a bitter, intelligent tortoise slowly coming out of his shell. Spacek’s character likens Felix to a cave that keeps going deeper and deeper, and over the course of “Get Low,’’ after the beard comes off, we see that he has been warped not by his memories but by the one thing he can’t remember. As he has done so often over the decades, Duvall creates with plain-spoken dignity a portrait of a man who has to bury himself before he can finally live.

62nd Annual EMMY Awards

Modern Family won big last night at the 62nd Primetime Emmys – winning trophies for best comedy, best supporting actor and writing, while Mad Men won its third consecutive Emmy for best drama. HBO, as usual, ruled in the movies categories, with multiple wins for Temple Grandin and the miniseries The Pacific. Al Pacino also won for You Don’t Know Jack. Wins for ABC’s freshman comedy, Modern Family, began early with trophies for creators Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd for writing, and co-star Eric Stonestreet (Cameron Tucker), who accepted the prize for supporting actor by saying “all I wanted to be was a clown in the circus when I was a kid growing up.” When accepting the Emmy for best comedy, Levitan gave a shout-out to all the show’s fans, big and small. “We are so thrilled that families are sitting down together to watch a television show, and we just wanted to say we are so happy that you have let us into your families,” he said on stage, with the full cast behind him.
In contrast, the creator of Mad Men behaved as if he never left the stage when accepting the Emmy for best drama. Having already won the gold earlier in the night for writing, Matthew Weiner took the stage at ceremony’s end by saying ”So where was I?” Remarkably, the actors on the drama have never won an Emmy, though castmembers like Jon Hamm, John Slattery and Elisabeth Moss have received multiple nominations.
Though Glee was a huge favorite going into last night’s Emmys, the only prizes given to the Fox dramedy went to co-star Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester) and creator Ryan Murphy, who won for directing the pilot that first aired last May but ran again — as a director’s cut — at the start of the 2009-10 season.

Edie Falco, an Emmy favorite because of her work on The Sopranos, won for starring in Showtime’s Nurse Jackie. Falco was a critic pick but clearly, she wasn’t expecting to take home another statue and as a result, is now the first woman in Emmy history to post wins for a comedy and a drama. “Oh, this is the most ridiculous thing that has ever, ever happened in the history of this lovely award show,” she said on stage. “I’m not funny.” Jim Parsons earned a statue for Big Bang Theory while Kyra Sedgwick finally took home her first Emmy for The Closer. And Breaking Bad ruled in the male actor categories, with nods for star Bryan Cranston – his third consecutive win – and co-star Aaron Paul.
Other surprises for the night included Archie Panjabi, who was awarded the supporting actor prize for The Good Wife, and Bravo’s Top Chef for winning in the best reality category. The show’s producers were so convinced they weren’t going to win (probably because The Amazing Race has dominated the category for the last seven years) that executive producer Dan Cutworth said on stage that “this is something that we never expected, and I think a lot of people come up here and say this. I really mean it.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart won again in the variety show category – a well-deserved honor, even though there was some sentiment for a win for The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. In the days leading up to the telecast, there was lots of speculation over what the ex-NBC employee would and wouldn’t say if he were to win an Emmy. O’Brien starts his TBS late show in November.The three-hour show began with host Jimmy Fallon kicking off an inspired riff on Glee, with celebrities like Tina Fey, Jorge Garcia, Joel McHale and Jon Hamm joining in on a sing-along of “Born to Run.” The gang — which included a surprise appearance by Kate Gosselin — ended up on stage and was met with huge cheers from the audience inside the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Other highlights included Ricky Gervais distributing bottles of beer and Fallon impersonating Elton John and Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, while crooning a genius redux of songs like “Candle in the Wind” and “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)“ as a way to say goodbye to 24, Law & Order and Lost.

Ricky Martin Autobiography

Ricky Martin has picked an appropriate title for his autobiography: "Me."

The Puerto Rican singer is set to release his memoir on Nov. 2. It will also be released in Spanish the same day. That edition will be titled "Yo," which is Spanish for "I" and "me." Martin has said that preparing to write the book was one of the reasons he decided to reveal earlier this year that he is gay.

Martin said in a statement Thursday that the project led him to extract memories that he had erased from his mind. He says the book was not easy but allowed for an "incredible spiritual journey."

Heaven's Shadow goes to Warner Bros

The Bureau has just learned that David S. Goyer has struck a deal to turn his first novel, Heaven’s Shadow, into a feature film at Warner Bros.

David S. Goyer wrote the novel with Michael Cassutt and will also write the screenplay adaptation as well. The first book, film, will be published by Ace Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing, and will be released in July 2011. The other titles in the trilogy - Heaven’s War and Heaven’s Fall will hit bookstores in the summer of 2012 and 2013.

The story centers around a large object that looks to be headed towards Earth. The widespread panic leads to governments competing with each other to be the first to intercept the object, believed to be a meteor, before anyone else, which then leads to the discovery of an alien race that puts the human race in jeopardy. “It’s a perfect project for Warner Bros. and I’ve obviously enjoyed a long and fruitful working relationship with the studio,” Goyer says about the Warner deal.

INSIDE The Social Network

Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old founder of Facebook (played by one of The Hollywood Bureau’s favorite new emerging actors Jesse Eisenberg) is the one most wounded by a film that seems to portray him as someone who created the application “to get girls or to gain power,” according to Chris Hughes, a co-founder who left in 2007, who spoke to the New York Times.
Facebook is the subject of a soon to be released big Hollywood movie. In a well-reported piece in The New York Times this past weekend, we learn that Facebook has tried to have it both ways with “The Social Network,” David Fincher’s much-anticipated new thriller from Sony. A look at the rise of Facebook and the effect it's had on its founders. About: Aaron Sorkin was commissioned by Sony and producer Scott Rudin to write a movie about Facebook. Interestingly, Sorkin had little to no knowledge of Facebook when he got the job. The film will also star Justin Timberlake who will play Sean Parker, the Napster co-founder who became the founding president of Facebook. Andrew Garfield stars as Eduardo Saverin, a former founder who had a fallout with Zuckerberg.

Facebook executives have tried to shape the direction of the movie, and when that didn’t really work, they’ve tried to ignore it. That’s not really working either. Zuckerberg told WaxWord as much in a casual conversation in Sun Valley more than a month ago. “I started Facebook to improve the world, and make it a more transparent place,” he said then. “This movie portrays me as someone who built Facebook so I could meet girls.”

The Hollywood Bureau has learned from inside sources that Facebook negotiated feverishly for months with Sony to get them to base the script and film on an authorized history of the company written by New York Times writer David Kirkpatrick, instead of the more glammed up sexy account by Ben Mezrich, “The Accidental Billionaires.”

“We would have cooperated with them if they could have made a movie that was the real story,” Zuckerberg said. The back and forth with filmmaker Fincher, writer Aaron Sorkin and producer Scott Rudin did result in changes, but the article doesn’t say what, or how much. Sony did not respond by publication to a request for more detail on what was changed in the film. Ultimately Zuckerberg lost his fight to be the hero of the story – and what better director to bring that story to the screen.

The New York Times wrote: “In Mr. Sorkin’s telling, Mr. Zuckerberg is not so much villain as antihero, a flawed human being whose deep need for acceptance becomes the driving force behind a website that offers the illusion of it.” Facebook looked at legal action, but the First Amendment seemed to give Sony enough cover to go its own way. That’s likely because the founding of Facebook and its subsequent rise did lead to several lawsuits over who founded what, who owned how much and who retained control. The lawsuits were settled. So much for finding out “the truth.” With Facebook under the gun for its privacy policy and under scrutiny for looming so large in society, the company has enough on its plate.

So the strategy has been to ignore the film. But the trailer is all over the popular social network site, and the Facebook page for the movie has been ‘liked’ by 12,480 people as of Sunday night. And early screenings have already created Oscar buzz. Regardless of the publicity and fall-out one thing is certainly for sure and that is Facebook has played a major role in the world’s POP Culture story.

"The Social Network" movie will hit theaters nationwide on Oct. 1. The film is also scheduled to open the N.Y. Film Festival

The New Villains of New Media: Apple, Google and Facebook

Tiger Woods Divorce

Tiger Woods’ marriage was officially over Monday morning.

Elin Nordegren and Woods, who have been living apart, were both present at Bay County Circuit Court in Florida as their lawyers filed the paperwork dissolving their six-year marriage.
The terms of the divorce were not disclosed. It had been an open secret in golf circles that the divorce was imminent in the wake of Woods’ adultery sex scandal, which came to light last Thanksgiving.

Much like any divorcing parents, the two have spent the past few months deciding how their children would be raised and the amount of money Nordegren would receive from the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer. A source with some knowledge of the divorce wouldn’t discuss the financial settlement other than to dismiss reports that Woods would pay $750 million. More recent reports put the figure at between $100-150 million.

“We are sad that our marriage is over and we wish each other the very best for the future,” Woods and Nordegren said in a joint statement released by their respective lawyers.
“While we are no longer married, we are the parents of two wonderful children and their happiness has been, and will always be, of paramount importance to both of us. Once we came to the decision that our marriage was at an end, the primary focus of our amicable discussions has been to ensure their future well-being. The weeks and months ahead will not be easy for them as we adjust to a new family situation, which is why our privacy must be a principal concern.”
The couple was married in a lavish ceremony in 2004 and have two children, a daughter, Sam, who is three, and a one-year-old son, Charlie.

Woods, who is 34, entered a six week in-patient program for sex addiction in Mississippi to try and keep his wife from leaving him, ultimately to no avail. Woods is scheduled to play at The Barclays, the first of the FedEx Cup playoff events, this Thursday at Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey.

True Blood Rolling Stone Magazine

The following is an excerpt of an article from the September 2, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone. This issue is available tomorrow on newsstands, and Friday, August 20th online.

The idea of celibate vampires is ridiculous, True Blood creator Alan Ball says. "To me, vampires are sex," he says. "I don't get a vampire story about abstinence. I'm 53. I don't care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed." On his show, every available orifice is used for intercourse: gay, straight, between humans and supernatural beings, and supernatural being on supernatural being, whether he be werewolf, dog or an enormous Minotaur-looking being called a maenad. None of the sex is quite as good as vampire sex, though, which can happen at the astonishing rhythm of 120 bpm while simultaneously devouring one's neck and making your eyes roll back into your head. Says Stephen Moyer — who plays Bill Compton, the undead Southern Civil War Veteran — "If we go from a base level, vampires create a hole in the neck where there wasn't one before. It's a de-virginization — breaking the hymen, creating blood and then drinking the virginal blood. And there's something sharp, the fang, which is probing and penetrating and moving into it. So that's pretty sexy. I think that makes vampires attractive." He laughs a little. "Plus, Robert Pattinson is just hot, right?"

I'm Still Here

What happened to Joaquin Phoenix?

He literally disappeared after his critically acclaimed depiction of Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. First he announced he had quit acting, and then he did a round of television appearances dressed like a grizzly well-dressed homeless guy, and then he goes and performs an awkward stage dive at one of his debut concerts as a rap musician attacking someone in the front row.

Now Joaquin Phoenix’s famous brother-in-law Casey Affleck has documented Phoenix's transition from a well-respected actor to an unproven rap talent in his directorial debut, "I’m Still Here."

"I'm Still Here" is a striking portrayal of a tumultuous year in the life of internationally acclaimed actor Joaquin Phoenix. With remarkable access, "I'm Still Here" follows the Oscar-nominee as he announces his retirement from a successful film career in the fall of 2008 and sets off to reinvent himself as a hip hop musician. Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, and always riveting, the film is a portrait of an artist at a crossroads. Defying expectations, it deftly explores notions of courage and creative reinvention, as well as the ramifications of a life spent in the public eye.

"I'm Still Here" will have it’s theatrical release on September 10th, 2010.

TWEET of the WEEK

On the set of the 80's remake, Arthur, Russell Brand and Helen Mirren get naughty during bathtime.

"At last. A bath from Helen Mirren. Never has getting clean been more dirty." --Russell Brand Tweeted

INSIDE DETAILS: Chelsea Clinton's Wedding

Chelsea Clinton wed her longtime boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky this weekend at Astor Court, a Beaux Arts riverside estate in Rhinebeck, New York. Despite the tabloid speculation, there were few celebrities at Saturday's beautiful and very private ceremony -- Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand and Steven Spielberg -- were not in attendance, perhaps not even invited. Longtime Clinton friends, actors Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, were among the names who did make the guest list, which included Bill Clinton's close friend and former White House adviser Vernon Jordan, and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

In front of about 500 of their family and friends, the bride and groom tied the knot in an interfaith ceremony. Chelsea wore a strapless gown made of ivory silk with silver beading wrapped around the waist, designed by Vera Wang, a family friend. For her reception, she changed into a silk tulle Grecian Vera Wang gown with criss cross back and narrow grosgrain black belt.

Former President Bill Clinton – father of the bride -- lost more than 15 pounds for the event, was close to tears as he walked his only child down the aisle. Her mother, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was glowing in a vibrant full-length Oscar de la Renta fuchsia gown. The flowers were roses and hydrangeas, all purpley-pinky-blue. It was a hue that corresponded with the attendants' gowns, which we're told were actually wedding gowns dyed a plum color, after they couldn't find a traditional bridesmaid-style gown they liked.

The reception was held on the same property -- not inside the mansion, but in a giant tented structure erected specifically for the occasion. The dinner was catered by the St. Regis Hotel in New York, a menu of short ribs, Atlantic char, a vegetarian option, and gluten-free rolls. The gluten-intolerant bride also selected a gluten-free wedding cake from La Tulipe. An 18-piece ensemble from New York (the orchestra of Jim Valli, a Clinton rep confirmed) performed big-band music. Bill Clinton, with an adoring look on his face, danced with his daughter to Frank Sinatra’s "The Way You Look Tonight." Later the Clinton parents danced together, with no fanfare and little attention, looking as ecstatic as they did at the 1993 inauguration. And yes, they also did the hora, which put Bill and Hillary up in the chairs; up too went the groom’s parents, ex-House members Ed Mezvinsky and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky. After the band wrapped up, guests moved to an after-party that was held in a cathedral tent that was constructed on the estates clay tennis courts, where DJ Mia Morretti played '80s tunes and current Top-40 fare while guests danced until about 3 a.m. Sunday.

Very few details were leaked ahead of time, thanks in part to the couple's stealth wedding planner, Brian Rafanelli, who told the New York Times Sunday that he demanded confidentiality with all of his vendors. Although their honeymoon destination is a closely guarded secret, the newlyweds spent Sunday night in the Pierre hotel in New York City.

On Sunday morning, a caravan of Land Rovers and black sedans ferried guests to the finale -- a brunch at the 500-acre Grasmere Estate near Rhinebeck. Guests received gift bags filled with wine from a local vineyard, pretzels, peaches and a note from the bride and groom. Neighbors received a bottle of wine for their troubles, hand-delivered by Rafanelli.

The Astor Courts Estates where the wedding took place, which was previously for sale and then taken off the market in preparation for the big day, is back on the market. Realtors hope the recent attention will attract a buyer for the $12 million historical estate.

Weekend Box Office Report

Director Christopher Nolan's Inception defeated Angelina Jolie's Salt this past weekend to take the number one spot at the box office for a second week in a row. But even with the much-talked-about new comedy Dinner for Schmucks and the family film Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore opening this weekend there was still very little doubt that Nolan's buzz-worthy movie, which is already earning Oscar consideration, would be number one for a third week in a row.

The film stars an incredible cast of actors including Oscar nominees Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page and Ken Watanabe, Oscar winners Marion Cotillard and Michael Caine, as well as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, and Lukas Haas. While the film dropped 35.6% from the previous week and was seen on 247 less screens, it still managed to earn roughly $7,763 in each of its 3,545 theaters for a weekend total of $27.5 million. Now in just three weeks the film has earned $193.3 million, which surpasses its purported $160 million production budget.

Debuting at number two this week was the workplace comedy Dinner for Schmucks starring Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Ron Livingston, Jemaine Clement, Bruce Greenwood and Zach Galifianakis. The movie opened on 2,911 screens and earned about $8,004 on each for an opening weekend total of $23.3 million. The film will need to still attract audiences for a few more weeks in order to earn back all of its initial $69 million production costs.

Falling one spot back this week and coming in third is Salt, the CIA espionage movie starring Angelina Jolie. In the film, Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent accused of being a Russian sleeper spy who must go on the run in order to clear her name. While the movie fell almost 50% from its debut the previous week it still managed to earn $5,329 on each of its 3,612 screens for a combined total of $19.2 million this weekend. The film has now earned $70 million in just two weeks, which is close to earning back its $110 million production costs.

Falling one place back to forth this week is Universal's new animated film Despicable Me. The film, which centers around the world's greatest villain taking on the new challenge of raising three adorable little orphan girls, boasts an all-star cast of comedic voices including Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig, Will Arnett and Julie Andrews. The movie may have dropped 34.4% from last week but it added two new screens earning $4,315 in each of its 3,602 theaters for a total of $15.5 million this weekend. Now in just under a month the movie has earned almost $200 million far surpassing its $69 million budget.

Failing to find an audience this week was the new brotherhood/afterlife film Charlie St. Cloud starring teen-sensation Zac Efron, Amanda Crew, Kim Basinger, Ray Liotta, Donal Logue and Charlie Tahan. Despite the popular young actor the movie only earned $12.1 million in its debut and failed to crack the top five coming in sixth. It managed to make about $4,465 on each of its 2,718 but will need to earn more in the next few weeks if the studio hopes to make back the film's $44 million production budget.