Isegoria

Back to Basics reviews Joe Eszterhas’s autobiography, Hollywood Animal:

Jozsef Eszterhas was born in Hungary in 1944. His father, István, was a writer, heavy and short, with a pronounced limp. (“My father had surgery eleven times on his hip without anesthetic.”) Little Jozsi’s mother, Mária, was a tavern keeper’s daughter, “her dark hair highlighted by slanted, deeply brown Eurasian eyes.” At moments like this, you realize why Eszterhas was fated to become a screenwriter. He is a helpless fabulist. Even when he tells the truth, it sounds made up. As American planes attack Nazi-held Hungary at the end of the war, two of their targets are, naturally, the Eszterhas home (“a direct hit”), and the Steir car that is being driven by Jozsi’s father toward the Austrian border: “They machine-gunned us, but my father roared the Steir over a ditch and into the trees.” One thing we know about dads: only in movies do they roar their automobiles. The rest of the time, they drive.

When I caught NPR : ‘Robot Stories’ Director Greg Pak on the radio last night, I didn’t realize that Greg Pak was a friend of a friend of a friend. His movie sounds like something I might’ve done — unlike some of his earlier works:

Pak is an award-winning writer and director who has made his first feature film, Robot Stories. It tells four stories of love between humans and robots. The film has been received warmly by critics, winning more than 23 awards. Previously Pak made a number of very short films including Asian Pride Porn, Cat Fight Tonight, Fighting Grandpa and Mr. Lee.

I have fairly high hopes for Hidalgo, so I read Actor Mortensen Saddles Up for Movie ‘Hidalgo’ and discovered a few things:

Mortensen, 45, had been admired by movie critics since the 1980s, but was relatively unknown to mass audiences until “Rings” and Aragorn thrust him into the spotlight.

Viggo Mortensen’s 45? I had no idead.

Mortensen is something of a Renaissance man. He paints, writes and co-owns publisher, Perceval Press. He speaks Spanish, Danish and English, and for “Hidalgo” learned some of the language of the Lakota Native Americans.

Interesting guy. Incidentally, he was “born in New York of a Danish father and American mother.” I should have noticed that his name ended in “sen” — Danish names tend to do that.

I decided to look up Perceval Press. They’re fairly left wing. Some product description excerpts:

• Dedicated to Noam Chomsky and using William Blake, Jonathan Swift, and Rumi’s prescient wordplay as its point of departure, Pandemoniumfromamerica is a sonic snapshot of 21st century disorientation and dissent.

• Now that the Bush administration’s occupation of Iraq has become more about enforcing the economic and political objectives of a corporate elite and less about disarming a dictator that used to be an American ally and had nothing to do with the tragedies of 9/11, a spirited and informed analysis is needed more than ever.
• Born in Guanabacoa and living in Regla, both religious centers in Cuba, Pupo has a long association with Santeria (Regla de Ocho), and voodoo. Through photography the artist rediscovers his religion from a new perspective, as a philosophy about life where the visions of the individual serve as doors to access the real world, and provide the true way to “see” what is around us.

I suspect I’ll enjoy Hidalgo — as a work of fiction. From Disney tale based on true story? Hold your horses:

On Friday, Disney-owned Touchstone Pictures releases Hidalgo the movie based on “the incredible true story” of Frank T. Hopkins’ 1890 race across the Arabian desert on his trusty mustang.

Trouble is a host of scholars say they haven’t found a shred of evidence that this so-called “Ocean of Fire” race existed. Nor that Hopkins rode in any of the 400 endurance races that he claimed to have won, including one from Galveston, Texas, to Rutland, Vt.
[...]
Hopkins claimed to be a half-Sioux known as the “Laramie Kid,” who became a government dispatch rider in 1877 at age 12. He said he witnessed the 1890 massacre of Lakota Indians at Wounded Knee, won 400 endurance races, rode with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and appeared in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

“We have now been working on the research for more than a year, during which time nearly 80 experts from five countries have demolished every single one of Hopkins’ claims,” Long Riders founders CuChullaine and Basha O’Reilly said in an e-mail.

Singleton to Unleash Black Superhero “Cage”:

John Singleton is in negotiations to develop and direct ‘Luke Cage,’ a superhero drama based on Marvel Comics’ first black crimefighter.

Many people know that Nicholas Cage was born Nicholas Coppola. (Francis Ford Coppola is his uncle.) What most don’t know is that he named himself after Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, the 1970s blaxploitation comic-book hero.

Incidentally, it’s not clear that Luke Cage was Marvel’s first black crimefighter. If I may geek out for a moment, I believe Luke Cage was Marvel’s first black superhero to get his own title (in 1972). Black Panther appeared in 1966 in Fantastic Four #52 (according to the Museum of Black Superheroes). You can find anything on the Net.

The Lord of the Rings meets The Passion of the Christ? From “Chronicles of Narnia” to be film:

Following collaborations on “Holes,” “Ghosts of the Abyss” and the upcoming “Around the World in 80 Days,” the Walt Disney Co. has struck a deal with Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz’ Walden Media to co-finance and distribute The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Budgeted at more than $100 million, according to sources, the film is scheduled to begin shooting in the summer, with “Shrek” director Andrew Adamson at the helm.

The film, the first installment of Walden’s “Chronicles of Narnia” franchise based on the series of children’s fantasy books by C.S. Lewis, will be released at Christmas 2005 by Walt Disney Pictures. Under the deal, which includes worldwide distribution rights, merchandising and all ancillary rights, Disney retains the option to release future films in the series, Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook said.

Really, it is a no-brainer.

I’m actually not a tremendous Star Trek fan, but I enjoyed reading Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek NBC story outline:

Before Gene Roddenberry could boldly launch the Starship Enterprise into history as the most famous space vessel in history, he had to pull off a minor miracle — he had to sell Star Trek to television!

From the pitch:

Star Trek is a “Wagon Train” concept — built around characters who travel to worlds “similar” to our own, and meet the action-adventure-drama which becomes our stories.

I’d actually heard that before, that Start Trek was pitched as “Wagon Train in space”. The pitch doesn’t quite match the final product though:

Their transportation is the cruiser S.S. Yorktown, performing a well-defined and long-range Exploration-Science-Security mission which helps creater our format.

Yorktown? It gets better:

Robert M. April — The “skipper”, about thirty-four, Academy graduate, rank of captain. Clearly the leading man and central character. This role is designed for an actor of top repute and ability.

Captain April? (An actor of top repute and ability?)

It looks like “Number One” become “Captain’s Yeoman”:

The Executive Officer — Never referred to as anything but “Number One”, this officer is female. Almost mysteriously female, in fact — slim and dark in a Nile Valley way, age uncertain, one of those women who will always look the same between years twenty to fifty.
[...]
The Captain’s Yeoman — Except for problems in naval parlance, “Colt” would be called a yeowoman; blonde and with a shape even a uniform could not hide. She serves as Robert April’s secretary, reporter, bookkeeper, and undoubtedly wishes she could also serve him in more personal departments. She is not dumb; she is very female, disturbingly so.

I caught a bit of Go Tigers!, the high-school football documentary, on IFC the other day. Shooting Go Tigers! explains how it was made:

The documentary film Go Tigers! takes the viewer on a journey to Massillon, OH, a small town where football means everything to its residents.The behind-the-scenes chronicle follows three star high school football players through a season. The film captures the town’s enormous infatuation with the Massillon Tigers high school foot-ball team. Roughly 80 percent of Go Tigers! was shot on HDCAM, 15 percent on miniDV, with the remaining 5 percent on Super 16mm film. The resulting 300 hours of footage was eventually edited into a 103-minute motion picture.Go Tigers! screened at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, where IFC Films picked it up.

To be honest, it did not look like 80 percent of Go Tigers! was shot on HDCAM. It didn’t look high-def at all. It looked like a typical documentary.

Like other documentaries, however, Go Tigers! was burdened with a limited budget — roughly $350,000.

I guess a third of a mil doesn’t go as far as it used to…

To obtain personal perspectives from the football players themselves, team stars Dave Irwin, Ellery Moore, and Danny Studer were given a Sony DV-6 one-chip miniDV camera to shoot practically anything they wanted, anytime they wanted. They ended up delivering a great deal of fascinating personal footage that furthered storylines.The Sony miniDV cameras were set to their built-in 16:9 aspect ratios to maintain consistency with the HD widescreen footage. Although it wasn’t the best 16:9 image the producers had seen, they felt the quality compromise was worth it to get the personal footage. In fact, the Go Tigers! crew added a DV-6 camera to their own kit and used it extensively throughout the shoot. Much of the players’ footage made it into the finished film.

Maybe I just caught a lot of the cheap DV-6 footage when I tuned in.

In From News Hound to Hollywood Animal, Ellen E. Heltzel interviews screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, best known Basic Instinct and Flashdance. Before becoming a screenwriter though, Eszterhas started as a journalist:

In my first job, at the Dayton Journal-Herald, mostly I drove around listening to the police radio. One night I heard there’d been a shooting in a suburban neighborhood. I got there before the police did, and I heard someone crying in the house, so I walked in. I moved toward where I heard the crying, and in the first room I saw blood and tissue all over the wall, and a dead body on the floor. I kept going, and there was another body, and more blood and tissue. And then, in the next room, I found an old lady with white hair, and the surreal thing was that she was crying and talking in Hungarian, which is my native tongue. Her son-in-law had shot her daughter and himself. In terms of everything I covered, this really moved me. But I never used it in a movie.

Creepy:

I’d recently come out from Cleveland, and he and I went to some party, where Hunter [Thompson] took out this gigantic needle and proceeded to shoot himself in the navel. I said, “—–, what was that?” He said, “Ether. Would you like some?” I declined.

Eszterhas has described screenwriters as the “discarded whores” of the business:

They cheat and steal from all screenwriters, including me. [...] When I sold “Basic Instinct” for $3 million — mind you, the director still got $8 million and the star got $15 million — immediately after that, Jeff Katzenberg wrote a very famous memo saying we can’t keep paying these prices to screenwriters, because if we do, it’s going to affect the amount we have to pay directors and actors.

I’ve heard other screenwriters make this point before:

My problem with film critics is that they never read the screenplays. They see the movie, and if they don’t like the movie, they tee off on the screenwriter — even if the screenwriter’s work has been mutilated by other people the director brought in to “fix” whatever he thinks is wrong.

Every once in a while, I find myself at NPR.org, and I realize all the NPR stories I missed. Anyway, I recently got the first season of The Office, a BBC comedy, on DVD, and I enjoyed it immensely — in a darkly, comic, Curb Your Enthusiasm kind of way. NPR’s Liane Hansen interviews the star in NPR : Ricky Gervais, a Hit at ‘The Office’:

In The Office, British comedian Ricky Gervais plays David Brent, a buffoonish, self-involved but affable office manager at a dismal paper supply company called Wernham Hogg, in the London suburb of Slough. Gervais created the faux documentary and co-writes and directs the series, which appears on the BBC and has a small cult following on BBC America.

The 61st annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony is tonight, and Gervais is up for a Golden Globe award in the Lead Actor category. He speaks with NPR’s Liane Hansen.