In an environment where the public seems to avoid all things political at the box office, Oliver Stone is making "W," the much-publicized biopic of President Bush.
In my latest column for The Politico, I look at Lionsgate's plans for marketing the pic, as well as something that very few people are talking about: "W" will have elements of satire, which could in turn actually make entertaining what could otherwise be a rehash or, even worse, pedantic.
There's little doubt that former Secretary of State James Baker likes HBO's movie "Recount," its upcoming chronicle of the fabled 2000 post-election day Florida fiasco. He calls it "a very entertaining film to watch," and he's even hosting a screening of the pic at his public policy institute in Houston.
But, with a mixture of amusement and polite contention, he does challenge some of its portrayals. Like his own.
"They made me out to be a little more like Don Corleone than I really am," Baker tells Variety, a bit wryly.
He praises Tom Wilkinson, who with slicked back hair and heavy makeup comes across as an an aggressive, hard-charging James Baker, ready to win as if it were a street fight.
Yet Baker's original counterpart in the recount, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher (played by John Hurt), representing the Gore team, is portrayed as too slow to maneuver, overly worried that the post-election dispute would be orderly, and willing to reach some kind of compromise in the first week after the election.
"I don't think I am as ruthless as the movie portrays me, or that Warren Christopher is as wimpish as he is portrayed to be," Baker says.
In fact, Christopher is none too happy with HBO. He told the New York Times that "much of what the author has written about me is pure fiction. It contained events that never occurred, words I never spoke and decisions attributed to me that I never made."
Even though he has not seen the movie, he reviewed a transcript of scenes in which he appears. Christopher also tells the Times that he wasn't given an opportunity to review the script --- as Baker was --- and even learned of the project through his tailor, who had been asked by the filmmakers to reproduce one of his suits.
Another figure likely to be unhappy is Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, played by Laura Dern, who comes across as nothing less than a puppet of the GOP. Baker says it "was sort of a caricature. That was really not a fair rendition of her. ...But the actress did a great job."
Yet Baker seems to accept the film's dramatic license, admitting that had the recount turned out differently, so, too would the nature of his portrayal.
"I recognize that it is a movie," he says. "There are things in there that are not true, but that is because it is a movie....Movies like to simplify gray and complex issues into black and white images."
He notes that in one instance, his character says in a particularly hard-nosed moment, "Until this is over, I don't want to see a copy of the New York Times unless it's to wrap garbage." Baker says he never said that.
He also cites some of the film's omissions. He wishes that the movie could have captured the fact that the Florida dispute went to the U.S. Supreme Court twice, not once.
Nor is there any mention of a media consortium that studied the vote after Gore ultimately conceded. Its findings showed that if the Supreme Court would have allowed the recount to proceed under the rules requested by Gore, Bush still would have been elected. (County officials, however, were unable to deliver as many as 2,200 problem ballots to investigators, so the margin of error made the study "instructive yet not definitive").
Screenwriter Danny Strong sent Baker a copy of the script, and he sent a letter outlining an objection to an original ending, in which a final message flashes across the screen: "We will never know for certain who won Florida."
"I wrote them a letter where I said 'Wait a minute. We know who won Florida," Baker says. "The person who won Florida has been president for 7 years. He was sworn in by the chief justice of the Supreme Court."
It was taken out.
Instead, the movie ends with a momentous meeting and conversation on an airport tarmac between where Baker and Ron Klain (Kevin Spacey), the Gore lawyer and the figure portrayed at the center of the recount. The meeting itself never happened, but Baker calls it "a nice, bipartisan way to end the movie."
On May 20, Baker will host a screening of the movie at the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, followed by a discussion with former President Jimmy Carter. Baker and Carter produced a report in 2005 that called for such things as photo IDs for all voters, the impartial administration of elections and verifiable paper trails to back up electronic voting machines. Another recommendation was for a regional primary system --- something that would prevent the current Democratic impasse over the Florida and Michigan delegations.
Although he notes that the filmmakers and HBO "went out of their way" to reach out to both sides, ultimately he says he movie is "pretty sympathetic to the Democratic position, but that is understandable because they won the popular vote and not the electoral college."
"As I say, I thought the movie was quite entertaining and interesting," Baker says. "But I recognize that it was a movie. That is the way movies are."
A postscript: I talked to Strong earlier on Tuesday. He says he depended on extensive interviews with some of the principals in doing his research, as well as several different journalists books written about the recount, including Jeffrey Toobin's "Too Close to Call." (Toobin was an adviser on the pic).
Although the film features some invented scenes and dialogue, he says that it still reflects what really happened. For instance, in one scene, Klain is exasperated by the recount and says, "You know what is funny about all this? I am not even sure I like Al Gore." Klain never said it, but Strong said "that was sort of the feeling that you get from some of the stuff, from books, that he alienated some of his staff."
Strong says that Christopher's position in the film actually is "honorable."
"Maybe this wasn't the best tactic for a street fight, but he was very honorable" in worrying about how a protracted election fight would look to other countries, Strong says.
"I think it says more about those who criticize him" for taking that approach in the recount, Strong says.
Michael Fleming of Variety reports that Oliver Stone has landed Lionsgate as a distributor for his George W. Bush biopic and a release date: Oct. 17.
That's just weeks before the presidential election, and is bound to create a stir as the Democrats cast John McCain's campaign as a third Bush term.
"We don't really know much about Mr. Bush beyond the controlled images we've been allowed to see on TV. This movie's taking a bold stab at looking behind that curtain," Stone said in a statement. "I'm real pleased that Lionsgate has the independence necessary to bring this provocative story to an American audience."
President Bush and John McCain each released statements on the death of Charlton Heston.
Per The Page, President Bush said Heston was a "strong advocate for liberty."
McCain called Heston "a real-life leader. He served his country and proudly gave his voice in support of some of our most basic rights."
The full statements here:
Updated
Charlton Heston, who died on Saturday at age 84, was perhaps Hollywood's most outspoken and visible conservative during the 1980s and 90s even as the industry tilted left.
Often appearing as a draw for Republican candidates at fund-raisers and on the stump, Heston also was a champion of gun rights, and served as president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003, even as one of his best friends, Gregory Peck, campaigned for gun control. In 2000, he famously held a rifle above his head at an NRA convention and said that his second Amendment rights couldn't be taken from my "cold, dead hands."
Amazing as it sounds, given that he has become so associated with conservative causes, Heston was one of Hollywood's prominent liberals during the 1950s and 60s, having campaigned for John F. Kennedy, marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington in 1963, leading the arts contingent in Hollywood that was seeking to end racial discrimination in the studios and unions. Heston said years later than he marched with King "long before it was fashionable" and risked his career in doing so.
According to the New York Times, he switched his party affiliation to Republican after the Democratic-controlled Senate turned down President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987.
He was a good friend to Reagan, a fellow former Screen Actors Guild president and former Democrat, and campaigned for him during the 80s, even as Hollywood's political establishment began to be replaced with a new generation of more liberal figures. Heston found himself on the opposite side of issues such as abortion and affirmative action, but he often complained that he was misunderstood within the entertainment community.
"Political correctness is just tyranny with manners," Heston said in a 2000 speech at Brandeis University, where he lamented a "cultural cancer that is eating away at our society."
"Politicians, the media, even the entertainment industry is keenly aware that heated controversy wins votes, snares ratings and keeps the box office humming. They are experts at dangling the bait, and Americans are eager to rise to it. Our culture has replaced the bloody arena fights of ancient Rome with stage fights on TV with Sally, Ricki, Jerry, Jenny and Rosie. Fear of ideas creates more divisions. As a result, we are becoming increasingly fragmented as a people. Our one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all now seems more like the fractured streets of Beirut, echoing with anger."
Even though he could be critical of the news media, he was often accessible and quotable, earning attention because of his acting pedigree and experience in political causes.
In the early 1990s, he was so appalled at Ice-T's CD "Cop Killer" that he appeared at Time Warner's shareholders' meeting and read the offensive lyrics.
"I'll never be offered another film by Warners, or get a good review from Time magazine," he said later. "But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk."
He was critical of then President Clinton when he assumed the leadership of the NRA. According to the Times, he told those gathered at the NRA convention in 1996, “Mr. Clinton, sir, America didn’t trust you with our health care system. America didn’t trust you with gays in the military. America doesn’t trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don’t trust you with our guns.”
Heston bristled at critics who charged that some of his comments were homophobic or even racist. Gore Vidal said that he added a gay subtext in writing the screenplay to "Ben-Hur," but Heston denied such a claim.
Heston said in the 2000 speech, "I recently told an audience that I felt that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or whatever color pride you prefer. For those words, I was called a racist.
"I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told another audience that gay rights should be given no greater consideration than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.
"I served in World War II, and if you saw "Saving Private Ryan" you have some insight into what a savage conflict that was. But when I told an audience that I thought law-abiding gun owners were being singled out for cultural stereotyping much like Jews were under the Axis powers, I was branded an anti-Semite."
One of his final screen appearances was in "Bowling for Columbine," Michael Moore's scathing indictment of the NRA and the gun industry. Heston granted the filmmaker an interview, but found himself flustered by Moore's questions, centering on an NRA meeting that was staged in Denver in the wake of the 1999 Columbine massacre. Even some of those who agreed with Moore's positions couldn't help but feel sympathy for Heston, who around that time was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
As a former president of the SAG (he served from 1966 to 1971), Heston at times had a contentious relationship with guild leadership in the 1990s, but he still supported the commercials strike in 2000 as well as other union causes.
More on Heston's career here.
Michael Moore's tribute, in which he requests that donations be sent to the Motion Picture & Television Fund, here.
On April 7, 1973, Universal executive Jennings Lang hosted a fund-raiser at his home for Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo, then on trial for their roles in leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times.
The event turned out to be more than a humdrum cocktail party. Barbra Streisand performed, and agreed to sing to anyone over the phone for $3,000 a song. Guests included John Lennon and Yoko Ono, as well as Ringo Starr. Streisand sang "Happy Birthday" to Ellsberg, who had just turned 42. All told, according to Time, some $50,000 was raised for the defendants' legal costs.
The head fund-raiser back then, Stanley Sheinbaum, and his wife Betty, are hosting a reunion of sorts on April 7, the 35th anniversary of that event. This time it is to raise money for "The Most Dangerous Man in America," a documentary in development about Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers that is being produced and directed by Rick Goldsmith and Judith Ehrlich. Ellsberg and his wife, Patricia, are the guests of honor.
According to the invite, the "2nd Edition of the Amazing Daniel Ellsberg Birthday Party" costs $350-per-person ($1,000 per co-host), and includes "work-in-progress film clips, Dan's infamous magic tricks and, of course, birthday cake!"
The host committee is led by Streisand and her husband, James Brolin, and includes Cindy Asner, Dianna Cohen and Jackson Browne, Jodie Evans and Max Palevsky, Sheri and Richard Foos, Claire Greensfelder, Lyn and Norman Lear, Jamie and Michael Lynton, Sara Nichols, Lynda and Stewart Resnick and Marge Tabankin and Earl Katz.
The charges against Ellsberg and Russo were dismissed on the grounds of governmental misconduct --- one of many chapters in the Watergate
The Jimmy Carter in Jonathan Demme's upcoming documentary, "Man from Plains," is reserved and rarely regretful, especially as he criss-crosses the country for the tour of his most controversial book, "Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid."
Not until Carter nears the end of the tour, speaking to a group of students at Brandeis University, and after he's been called "a bigot, an anti-semite, a coward and a plagarist," does he offer a hint of reflection.
"I've been hurt," Carter says, carefully, "and so has my family, by some of the reaction."
Far from offering the restorative power than Al Gore enjoyed with "An Inconvenient Truth," "Man from Plains," which debuted at the Toronto Film Festival, is a far more complex picture of its subject. It is clear that Demme lionizes him, with reminders that Carter's efforts in ending the Iranian hostage crisis and in allieviating the energy crisis were prescient rather than the stuff of ridicule. On his book tour, Carter is a misunderstood figure, battling against incendiary groups and an often vapid media.
But as much as Carter is lauded, this is not a movie about his record of good deeds.
That's because his Nobel-worthy accomplishments are overshadowed by the furor that was inspired by his book, and in particular the one word in its title, "apartheid." And on this issue, the ex-president's moral authority is far from clear cut. Carter used the provocative word to describe the walled in areas of Gaza and the West Bank, which he says choke off Palestinians from their livelihood, a characterization that his critics interpret as no less than anti-Israel.
Carter was blasted not only by groups like the Anti-Defamation League and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, but from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and even Rep. John Conyers. At one point, after he is intially turned down for a free speaking engagement at Brandeis, he tells his Simon & Shuster publicist Elizabeth Hayes, that he will give a lecture "at any college that wants me."
The former president, in defending the book and the title, said that his intention was to spur debate on an issue that otherwise never gets discussed. For lawmakers, it's just too sensitive, too politically risky, to do anything other than give support to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, among other groups, Carter says.
"If a candidate won't pledge to do so," he says, "their opponent will get their support."
In his eyes the 40-foot-high wall has only worsened the situation because it has isolated the Palestinians, and in Gaza they are "imprisoned."
He tells a crew from Israeli TV that the wall "is not designed to prevent attacks on Israelis; lately it's designed to take land."
He's direct about what it will take for peace in the region. "The only way Israel is ever going to have peace, and to be recognized by its neighbors, is to withdraw from the occupied territories," he says in one interview.
As much as he defends his choice of words --- noting repeatedly that it refers to Palestine and its territories and not to Israel --- his arguments often fall on deaf ears. That's where this movie can be particularly engaging, where the message gets muddled with the messenger. In one scene, before an audience at the Carter Center, he points out one of the center's board members,the Atlanta's consulate general from Israel.
The consulate says later that Carter misses the point that the fence has actually curbed suicide bombings after a relentless series of suicide bombings. "We are very sorry that he can't see the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian issue," he says.
Nor does Demme demonize Carter's critics. Dershowitz gets the opportunity to explain his side. When one of Dershowitz's aides points out an interview where Carter has referred to the Holocaust as "the so-called Holocaust," Dershowitz is ready to grab the ammunition. But then he sees web video of the interview, he sees its context, and gives Carter a break as using a poor choice of words.
As much as he is guarded, Carter's frustrations do slip through. He's doing a phone interview with some radio hosts that only gets worse with each question. Carter chides them for not reading the book. He hangs up and says to Hayes, "Those two were absolutely obnoxious."
He lets loose on President Bush, noting that his National Security Adviser, Steven Hadley, barred him from visiting President Assad of Syria. "I've known this president (Assad) since he was a college student," Carter says.
"Man from Plains" is too long and a bit plodding, but it is different from other recent documentaries of political figures. It errs on the side of verite, rather than point of view. He's at his modest home, still eating a modest dinner with wife Rosalynn (and paper napkins), still teaching Sunday school, still flying commercial, and shaking hands with everyone down the aisle. It's a picture of a man you may not agree with, but he is humble and tolerant.
Appearing on "The Tonight Show," Jay Leno even asks him, hasn't some group offered to send him a private jet?
Carter quips, "Not since this book came out."
Above WireImage photo: Jonathan Demme and Jimmy Carter at the premiere of "Man from Plains" at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday.
That, and other news, in today's Political Panorama.
Labor Day weekend marks the start of a frenzied campaign season, but also a breakneck pace of film festivals. And front and center will be Iraq-themed movies, starting with Brian De Palma's "Redacted." Debuting in Venice, it created more than a few headlines today for its depiction of the real-life killing and rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers. The AP reports that the screening left some viewers in tears.
De Palma says he relied on the Internet --- YouTube, soldiers' blogs, etc. --- for much of the material, that that the title refers to mainstream media's withholding of information from the general public. "It's all out there on the Internet, you can find it if you look for it, but it's not in the major media. The media is now really part of the corporate establishment," he said.
Also debuting is Paul Haggis' Iraq-themed "In the Valley of Elah," focusing on the homefront and soldiers' families.
With these pics and other political films, the challenge will be to actually draw audiences who have so far largely shunned current events at the multiplex. And though they may spur debate in some circles, especially with Congress once again taking up troop funding next month, my guess is that these pics will largely be preaching to the converted. That is still significant, but so far audiences haven't seemed to respond to Iraq pics.
Snow Resigns: As expected, Tony Snow is resigning as White House press secretary.
Fred Still Flies: Apparently convinced that equal time rules don't apply to cable networks, TNT plans to continue showing "Law & Order" reruns next week when Fred Thompson launches his presidential campaign. NBC, however, will pull episodes featuring the Arthur Branch character.
Michael Moore responds to Rudy Giuliani's attacks by pointing out that he's been unresponsive to the 9/11 workers featured in his film, "Sicko." Like firefighters groups that have launched anti-Giuliani ads, he's targeting what has been thought to be the former New York Mayor's greatest strength.
"You have refused to help them," Moore says in a YouTube message posted on his site today. "You have refused to even talk to them."
Two of the workers, Reggie Cervantes and Bill Maher, sent Giuliani a letter in May, asking him, "Given the fact that you are running for President, we would like to meet with you to discuss what your plans are for helping the health care needs of 9/11 responders if you become President." The letter also was critical of President Bush's investigation of Moore for taken them and others to get health care treatment in Cuba. They got no response.
Today, by the way, was the first day of Moore's Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan.
The full video below.
Michael Moore's response to Rudy Giuliani's attacks? Expect something soon, as the filmmaker rarely lets such high-profile attention pass by, especially with "Sicko" still in theaters.
Chris Lehane, who has been the film's political adviser, sounded almost thrilled by Giuliani's latest strategy, in which he has lumped Moore in with the top Democratic candidates as supportive of socialized medicine.
"You only get attacked if you are seen as a threat," Lehane says.
He pointed out that while GOP candidates used to use Ted Kennedy as a kind of left-wing boogeyman to appeal to a conservative base, now it is Moore. "For progressives, it is considered a badge of honor," Lehane says.
"There is not a better way to generate box office success than to draw attention to the movie," Lehane says. "Whatever short-term benefit Rudy may get ... it is in the short term an immediate benefit to the box office and in the long-term a benefit to health care reform."
Then, he quipped, "It must be their own theory of trickle down economics."
Of the 2008 candidates, only Dennis Kucinich has actively embraced Moore and the movie, although Lehane points out that they have gotten support from organized labor groups and other lawmakers. He added that he is encouraged that '08ers are at least broaching the ideas of large-scale overhaul of health care and a universal, single-payers system as "maybe something we need to look at."
"People are now beginning to talk about the situation in more dramatic terms," he says.
When Rudy Giuliani surveys the Democratic field, he lumps in Michael Moore.
Specifically, in an interview with the Rocky Mountain News' M.E. Sprengelmeyer, he equates the health care proposals of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama to that of the filmmaker's call for universal health coverage in "Sicko."
Sprengelmeyer, who is staked out in Iowa for the entire campaign as their Des Moines bureau chief (he's also an old friend from our days at Northwestern) and author of the Back roads to the White House blog, asked Giuliani about where he and Mitt Romney disagree.
"I don't think of the Republican candidates that way," Giuliani said. "I only think of the Democratic candidates that way. I think about how I disagree with Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and what they want to do with health care, which is a kind of European-Canadian-Cuban system of health care for the United States. That disagreement is so vast that it pales in comparison to any of the disagreements I might have with some of the Republican candidates. I'm not even sure what they would be."
Moore has waged his publicity blitz for "Sicko" like that of a political campaign, but he has given no indications of joining the race. Nor has he been exactly complimentary of the Democratic field's health care proposals, saying that they don't go far enough. He has not endorsed Clinton, Edwards or Obama.
So obviously Giuliani is trying to link the Democratic field to Moore in the same way that the GOP has in the past tried to connect Jane Fonda to the party. But don't think that this means Giuliani will wage an anti-Hollywood campaign. After all, he and his wife say they're hooked on "The Tudors," the Showtime series loaded with sexual trysts and philandering.
Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post has an extensive piece on why Hollywood hasn't made a definitive biopic on the life of Martin Luther King, or of the civil rights era, for that matter.
She pegs it to the opening of the movie "Talk to Me," which which Don Cheadle as Washington disc jockey Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene tries to calm listeners in the wake of King's assassination.
She writes, "The scene (which admittedly takes some liberties with chronology) also reminds viewers that, while familiar images of King are commonplace in 1960s montage sequences, Hollywood has yet to make the definitive King biopic. Indeed, of all the social, cultural and political touchstones of the baby boom generation -- World War II, the Kennedy assassinations, the Vietnam War, Watergate, feminism, gay rights, AIDS and all manner of political coverups -- the civil rights movement has yet to be the subject of a pivotal, defining feature film."
The irony in all of this is that while many different civil rights era projects languish in studio development, often with the reasoning that overseas audiences just don't take to U.S. history, the story of King, Rosa Parks and many other aspects of civil rights history has been told, often many different times, on television. Paul Winfield starred as Martin Luther King in a 1978 miniseries "King," Angela Bassett played Rosa Parks in a 2002 CBS TV movie, and Danny Clover starred in an excellent TNT TV movie about the civil rights marches in 2000 called "Freedom Song," which was directed by Phil Alden Robinson. There are also countless other projects, like HBO's "Boycott," starring Jeffrey Wright and Terrence Howard, about the Montogomery bus boycott in the 1950s.
Of course, TV movies are quickly forgotten, and it has been a challenge to get more stories of that era into production. An effort to bring Taylor Branch's "Parting the Waters," considered the definitive account of the era, to the screen as an ABC miniseries never went anywhere.
But the record of quality TV projects cannot be dismissed. "Boycott," for instance, won a Peabody award. About a decade ago, I was on the set of an ABC TV movie called "Selma, Lord, Selma," in which the 1965 civil rights marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge were recreated at that very spot in Selma, Alabama. Among the extras who were there in vintage costumes was Martin Luther King's daughter, Yolanda King, who recently passed away. And the director, Charles Burnett, even complained that it was not easy securing permits to shoot in the town. The mayor at the time, Joseph Smitherman, had been in office since the 1960s when the marches took place.
The point of all of this is that Hollywood hasn't ignored the civil rights era --- it's just that most of the projects have been in a medium that is here one day and gone the next.
Michael Moore's "Sicko" posted an impressive $4.5 million on 441 screens, the second highest opening for a documentary after "Fahrenheit 9/11."
As the movie rolls out across the country, Moore is hoping to greatly influence the narrative of the health care debate, particularly in the ongoing presidential campaigns.
Moore and his supporters are asking all presidential candidates to sign a pledge supporting free, universal health care, the end of private insurance companies' involvement in care, greater oversight and regulation of pharmaceutical companies and a vow not to take campaign money from the health care industry.
But save for Fred Thompson's attacks on Moore's trip to Cuba, the campaigns have as yet been silent on the movie.
On Friday, I talked to Chris Lehane, Moore's political adviser on the movie, who nevertheless credits "Sicko" for having an impact "on the discourse."
Moore and groups like the California Nurses Assn. have waged their own campaign for the movie, through screenings, by testifying in Sacramento or appearing on the steps of the Capitol. Moore last week screened it for the homeless in downtown Los Angeles.
What they are hoping is that groups like Move On and labor will cite the movie and its content and pressure the candidates into supporting universal health coverage.
"I think that it has already had a significant impact on the healthcare debate, which has forced the candidates and campaigns to engage on it," he says.
The movie "may not manifest itself instantaneously in all of these campaigns coming up with these bold new reforms, but I think what it does is it begins to fundamentally change the health care narrative. And it shows that whoever becomes the next president --- and I think it is more likely than not going to be a Democrat --- people want a lot bigger changes than we have historically talked about."
He sees the movie as being "the cinematic equivalent" of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," the 1906 novel credited with leading to new standards in food and packing industries.
The health care industry did take a detached approach to the movie --- if they commented at all --- but Lehane believes that has changed in recent weeks.
"They are now engaging directly trying to attack the film," he says. "It reflects the fact that I think they came to the realization that their hope that this film would be merely a blip on the screen, and would come and go with little impact, was a miscalculation their part."
While there were fears that a posting of a copy of the movie on the Internet would cut into box office, Lehane says that research calls last week to potential moviegoers showed that there was "no indication" that the piracy issue "really had a significant impact."
You knew it would come to this.
On Thursday, former House GOP leader Tom DeLay called filmmaker Michael Moore a “plus-sized publicity hound” who is “chicken” because the controversial helmer canceled a skedded appearance this Sunday on a talker to debate health care issues, the subject of his “Sicko.”
ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous” had arranged the debate. But according to DeLay,
Moore refused to provide a copy of the doc so that the ex-lawmaker could see it in advance and then cancelled without explanation.
“Guess he didn't expect anyone to seriously take him on,” DeLay wrote on his Web site. “Had I known he was this chicken, I would have accepted on the spot, but at least I can spare myself the agony of watching one of his mockumentaries. Bottom line: his movies, his politics, and his incessant bullying are all an act.”
Moore replied that the debate was originally set up with Billy Tauzin, a former congressman who is now head of the enormously influential pharmaceuticals industry lobby.
“Instead of informing the viewers that Mr. Tauzin would not debate me and allowing me on the air, [ABC] proposed a debate with Tom Delay, a man who currently has nothing to do with the specific issues raised in the film Sicko and is under indictment,” Moore said in a statement. “We will be happy to debate Delay in whatever prison he ultimately relocates to and allow ABC to cover that debate -- but with regards to this weekend we would certainly not agree to his demands that he be given a digital copy of the movie.”
---By William Triplett in Washington.
Michael Moore testified at an informational briefing today in Sacramento hosted by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, but it was like preaching to the converted. The dozen or saw lawmakers there all were advocates of a single-payer health care system.
Rather, it was a pretty well-calibrated publicity windfall for his film "Sicko," which takes aim at the healthcare system and the insurance industry.
"I'd like to see executives of these companies in a perp walk in handcuffs," Moore said.
Moore acknowledged that the event, which was followed by a rally and screening, will help publicize the film.
Asked during a news conference if he was worried the film might be used by Democratic politicians to promote their agenda, Moore replied, "I thought it was the other way around."
Updated
Michael Moore's attorney, David Boies, says that the federal government may have selected the filmmaker "for discriminatory treatment" in its probe of his trip to Cuba for "Sicko."
Boies, famous for representing Al Gore's 2000 challenge in the Florida recount, noted Moore's criticism of President Bush via his film "Fahrenheit 9/11." He, Moore, and Harvey Weinstein were due to give a press conference in New York this afternoon.
"I am requesting that you provide to me information regarding the person or persons who participated in making the decision to send Mr. Thompson's letter, the nature of the discussions that took place, and the knowledge your office had of Mr. Moore and his trip to Cuba at the time the letter was sent," Boies wrote in a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The Treasury Department informed Moore last month that he was under investigation for violating a trade embargo against Cuba when he travelled there to shoot a scene for "Sicko," slated for release on June 29.
Moore is scheduled in Sacramento on Tuesday to testify at a hearing on health care, and to attend a screening of the movie later in the day.
Update: At the press conference, Moore's team accused the Bush administration of a smear campaign. From Variety's Dade Hayes: "Moore, who did most of the talking Monday, told the 30 or so media members present that he is 'concerned about that the Bush Administration might do over the next couple of weeks. I would have thought they would have waited until long after the film had been released to go after me.'"
Further boosting the publicity and perhaps credibility of his new project, Michael Moore will testify at a California legislative briefing on his new documentary "Sicko" on June 12.
Given its emphasis on the campaign trail, with candidates unveiling variations on health care reform, there will be plenty of material ripe for Moore's comment.
The briefing is sponsored by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, chair of the Senate health committee, who is pushing a new healthcare reform bill.
Moore will follow up his visit with a rally on the steps on the state capitol that features the group Physicians for a National Health Program. That evening he'll screen "Sicko" for RN's. doctors and others.The California Nurses Assn. and the National Nurses Assn. Organizing Committee also is involved in promoting the film as well as Kuehl's bill and a national effort to establish a single payer system.
Charlie Sheen released a statement today saying that he has not yet decided whether to narrate a newly edited 9/11 conspiracy pic, "Loose Change," which has been floating around YouTube.
The New York Post's Page Six has been hounding Sheen since March, when they reported that he had agreed to narrate the pic to boost its visibility. Then they reported that he was having second thoughts.
Here's Sheen's statement:
"My views and convictions regarding the events of 9/11 have not wavered. I still firmly believe the citizens of this great country, especially the family members of those tragically lost, deserve a much more accurate and thorough investigation surrounding the horrific events.
"The suspicious fact that certain relevant testimonies were not included in the Keen Commission's final report, discredits the majority of their findings. A bi-partisan, democratically selected panel needs to be established that would include (but not limited to), victim family members, firefighters, rescue workers as well as key eye witnesses to the various crime scenes. Not some tepid rehash of Bush-serving lap-dogs cherry picking evidence to support erroneous and fictional "Magic Bullet" explanations.
"We will not tolerate any testimony behind closed doors from subjects not placed "Under Oath". We will not tolerate the real and hard questions being dismissed for reasons of "National Security". We will not tolerate our freedom of speech being dismantled and ignored as not to "Disrespect the deceased".
"I'm baffled as well by the fact Bin Laden's crimes listed on the FBI's most wanted list DO NOT include those of 9/11. If you do not believe me, see for yourselves:
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm
"As far as "Loose Change- Final Cut" is concerned, I await the newest version to be presented to me, at which point I will make my decision to participate (or not) based on the film's content and merit.
I remain patriotically steadfast."
Charlie Sheen.
Cigar in hand, Fred Thompson responded to Michael Moore's debate challenge by pointing out his busy schedule --- "I don't think I have time for you" --- and also noting that Fidel Castro had another documentary filmmaker locked up and given "devastating" electroshock treatments.
"A mental institution, Michael, it might be something you ought to think about," Thompson says.
Moore's website posts the video and the message, "Smoke 'em if you got 'em." His letter to Thompson said, "While I will leave it up to the conservatives to debate your hypocrisy and the Treasury Department to determine whether the 'box upon box of cigars' violates the trade embargo, I hereby challenge you to a health care debate."
Video via Breitbart TV.
Michael Moore sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, writing, "I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide."
He outlined reasons why he believes that the Treasury Department's investigation of his trip to Cuba is politically motivated: He went last fall, but the department informed him of the investigation on May 2, just weeks before "Sicko" premieres at Cannes; the health care and insurance industries are huge contributors to Bush and the Republican party; and the probe was opened as the right has escalated its attacks on him.
Moore writes, "This investigation is being opened in the wake of misleading attacks on the purpose of the Cuba trip from a possible leading Republican candidate for president, Fred Thompson, a major conservative newspaper, The New York Post, and various right wing blogs."
The department sent a letter to Moore earlier this month informing him that he is under investigation for violating a trade embargo against Cuba when he took 9/11 workers there for medical treatment. The trip is expected to be featured in "Sicko."
Moore posted his letter on the liberal blog DailyKos, and plans to do a chat on the site next week. That's not to mention the hordes of attention he will get at Cannes, as he did when he premiered "Fahrenheit 9/11" there in 2004.
While this incident surely helps Moore with publicity, it should be noted that others have been targeted in the past. In the late 1990s guitarist Ry Cooder was fined $25,000 for working on the "Buena Vista Social Club."
That, and other news, in today's Political Panorama.
If Michael Moore's releases thrive on new ways of drawing attention from all quarters, then with "Sicko" everything is going to plan.
The U.S. Treasury is investigating Moore's trip to Cuba, where he took ailing 9/11 rescue workers for treatment as part of a segment of his upcoming movie.
According to the Associated Press, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba.
On Moore's website, Meghan O'Hara, producer of "Sicko," said that the investigation was "politically motivated" by the Bush administration. Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" targeted Bush and his response to the 9/11 attacks.
In her statement, she noted the irony that the 9/11 workers "are not receiving the care they need and deserve." "President Bush and the Bush Administration should be spending their time trying to help these heroes get health care instead of abusing the legal process to advance a political agenda."
The investigation will certainly add a new wrinkle to the film's release, which, like all Moore projects, is bound to be provocative in nature and will inspire caustic reaction from those targeted. The film will debut at Cannes and be released in late June, and political strategist Chris Lehane has been retained to help with the rollout.
"This office has no record that a specific license was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba," Dale Thompson, OFAC chief of general investigations and field operations, wrote in the letter to Moore, a copy of which as obtained by the AP.
Moore's movie already has come under fire by pharmaceutical companies, which expressed doubts that their views will be heard in a statement released yesterday. And potential presidential candidate Fred Thompson weighed in on his National Review Online blog, writing, "I have no expectation that Moore is going to tell the truth about Cuba or health care. I defend his right to do what he does, but Moore's talent for clever falsehoods has been too well documented."
Limbaugh Runs "Magic Negro": Speaking of need for attention, Rush Limbaugh has been running "Barack the Magic Negro," to the tune of "Puff, the Magic Dragon," on his radio show. From the UK's The Guardian: "On his show Limbaugh says he is an entertainer and the song is a parody. He justifies it by saying the first linkage of the term "magic negro" to Mr Obama was by a black commentator, David Ehrenstein, in the liberal Los Angeles Times." Obama's camp plays down the song, calling it dumb.
The Univision Effect: Univision is backing a citizenship drive for Latinos that could have a big impact on the 2008 election, reports the Wall Street Journal. The company is owned by a consortium led by Haim Saban, a key backer of Hillary Clinton, even though the effort is nonpartisan.
Murdoch Goes Carbon Neutral: Rupert Murdoch announced an effort to make News Corp. carbon neutral by 2010, following up on earlier promises to address global warming. "When all of News Corporation becomes carbon neutral it will have the same impact as turning off the electricity in the city of London for five full days," Murdoch said.
Rad for Ad: John Edwards unveiled new ads this week, but it is Bill Richardson's spots that are drawing attention today --- for their humor quotient. The spots show the New Mexico governor in a job interview, and are on par in irreverence with spots he ran in his 2006 gubernatorial race.
Will there be a health care industry response to Michael Moore's "Sicko"?
You can already see the pic shaking up the health care debate --- or at least the way that the debate is waged.
I have been told that some health care groups have been so concerned about the movie that last year, they tried to retain public affairs experts to influence the outcome of the movie --- but were bluntly told that that is just about the last thing you want to do to a Michael Moore.
One group, Consumers for Health Care Choices Foiundation, is offering fiscal sponsorship for a counter doc, "Sick and Sicker," produced by Logan Darrow Clements, but more money needs to be raised.
But leading representatives for Pharma and health insurers are publicly trying to rise above the pic, casting themselves as working on expanding coverage.
With the news that the film will hit theaters on June 29, Ken Johnson, senior VP of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said, "A review of America's health care system should be balanced, thoughtful and well-researched to pin down what works and what needs to be improved. You won't get that from Michael Moore."
He adds, in a statement, "Our attention is focused on more important matters than Michael Moore's latest escapades. While he's finding new ways to advance his political agenda, PhRMA is seeking to improve and expand health care coverage in America through Partnership for Prescription Assistance, an effort supported by pharmaceutical companies and more than 1,300 local, state and national partner groups like the American Academy of Family Physicians, United Way and the American Cancer Society."
America's Health Insurance Plans, the major trade group repping insurance companies, takes a similar approach.
"Our view is that Michael Moore is a well known Hollywood entertainer and we expect that there will be attention to his latest movie," says spokeswoman Susan Pisano, adding that they are "very focused" on issues such as universal coverage and quality health care.
"Our focus is really on the big health care picture."
With the proliferation of TV medical dramas --- and quite a few negative storylines about insurance companies --- the group retained the William Morris Agency back in 2002 in what was regarded as an effort to enhance the insurance industry's image. "We continue to work with them," Pisano says.
"We engage in all the issues, and will be prepared to engage in whatever discussion comes out of the movie."
For its part, the Weinstein Co. has retained Chris Lehane, who was chief spokesman for Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, as a strategist.
Corrections were made to this post. Consumers for Health Care Choices Foundation is offering fiscal sponsorship of the movie "Sick and Sicker."
The director unveiled the 30-second spot, featuring former Army Sgt. John Bruhns, at a Santa Monica press conference.
In the ad, Bruhns says, "We were told to liberate these people. They were shooting at us," Bruhns says to camera. "To keep American soldiers in Iraq for an indefinite period of time, being attacked by an unidentifiable enemy, is wrong, immoral and irresponsible."
The spot will appear on CNN for a week, starting today.
Ron Kovic, the author of "Born on the Fourth of July" and the subject of Stone's movie, provides a brief. voiceover. He appeared with Stone at the press conference.
Stone made last year's "World Trade Center," which was regarded as a patriotic picture and even received positive reviews among conservative critics. He's also been developing "Jawbreaker," about America's response to the terrorist attacks and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Cyrus Nowrasteh, who wrote the controversial ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11" that drew fire from President Clinton, was to write a draft of a script.
But those projects have not colored Stone's politics on the war.
"I made three movies about Vietnam and I thought it was behind us," he said on Thursday, according to Reuters. "This is a bad summer repeat of a war that happened 40 years ago. We must listen to the soldiers who are coming back."
He expressed doubts he would do a movie on the war in Iraq, only the politics behind it. "I find that fascinating."
The big winners will surely be the lead story at Sunday's Oscars, but one of the sidelight is in the documentary feature category and whether "An Inconvenient Truth" will win, if Al Gore will join director Davis Guggenheim onstage or whether the former vice president will make some kind of special appearance during the telecast.
Whatever the case, the principals involved obviously are lining up a number of public-interest projects in the coming weeks and months, all designed to keep the cause of global warming going. "I don't think anyone in their wildest dreams could have realized that this movie would find its way into the public consciousness," says producer Scott Burns. "I look forward to the day when I won't have to explain what 'carbon neutral' means. Perhaps that day isn't so far away."
A summary:
Al Gore: Through a new campaign called "Save Our Selves," he's working with "Live 8" producer Kevin Wall to throw a worldwide series of concerts on July 7, featuring everyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Snoop Dog. Proceeds will help the Alliance for Climate Protection, which Gore chairs. He's been training surrogates to stage his slideshow at forums around the world. He plans to release another book this spring, in addition to fielding the persistent calls for him to jump into the 2008 race. (Gore, right, is pictured with Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas at Thursday night's Entertainment Weekly party.)
Davis Guggenheim, director: In addition to working with Gore, he's taking an eco vehicle to the Oscars. Meanwhile, Picturehouse is set to release his next feature "Gracie," about a girl who fights to let women in a soccer league, this year.
Lawrence Bender, producer: Launching a campaign called "18 Seconds," the amount of time that it takes for people to switch 60W lightbulbs into more efficient compact flourescent ones. "The idea is to make people feel that this is a part of their everyday life," Bender says. He's also says he "has a few ideas circling around" for public interest film projects.
Laurie David, producer: In April, she plans a tour of southern cities with Sheryl Crow on a bio-diesel bus to motivate college students to the global warming movement. The tour kicks off on April 9 in Dallas, where they will put pressure to stop the construction on some 11 new coal-burning power plants; and concludes on Earth Day, April 22, in Washington, where Crow and David will take their message to Congress.
Scott Burns, producer: His HBO pic "PU-239," which he directed, debuts this spring. It's the story of a Russian nuclear facility worker who is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation and sets out to sell it on the black market. The pic was in production and "then the Litvenko angle came out of nowhere," Burns says. He's also talking to Gore about working with him on branding his new Alliance for Climate Protection.
The movie itself will make its world television premiere on Showtime on March 11.
Meanwhile, speculation is building that an Oscar win would jump start a draft Gore movement. "People think that he's paid his dues, he's had more of an impact on issues that people care about than many people who have been in office and there's a feeling that he's finally lost that student council condescension that was fingernails on a blackboard to a lot of supporters," Martin Kaplan of USC's Norman Lear Center tells CNN.
But Bender has doubts that he will run.
"He was right on Iraq. He was right on global warming. He has an issue that is so formidable and has attacked it, tackled it," Bender told CNN. "So I would love to see him run, sure, but I don't see that in the cards."
And finally, the Los Angeles Times' Elizabeth Snead has the guest list from last night's Al Gore party at the home of Banderas and Melanie Griffith, which ruffled a few features in the press because it was closed to reporters.
In their issue next week, the New Yorker profiles Joel Surnow, right, the conservative executive producer of Fox's "24," in which he says, a bit flippantly, "Isn't it bizarre that in Hollywood it's easier to come out as gay than as a conservative?"
But much of the piece centers on the show's depiction of torture --- and whether it promotes it as an acceptable form of inducing suspected terrorists to give up information. Jack Bauer has used torture, everything from knifing suspects to threatening murder, to stunning success in stopping ticking time bombs. So last November U.S. Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan visited the set along with three experieced interrogators to make the case that the show promoted illegal and unethical behavior and was adversely affecting the training of real soldiers. "I'd like them to stop," Finnegan says. "They should do a show where torture backfires."
Surnow wasn't at the meeting, as he was preparing for his upcoming counter to "The Daily Show" called "The Half Hour News," which airs on Fox News on Feb. 18. But he says, “We’ve had all of these torture experts come by recently, and they say, ‘You don’t realize how many people are affected by this. Be careful.’ They say torture doesn’t work. But I don’t believe that. I don’t think it’s honest to say that if someone you love was being held, and you had five minutes to save them, you wouldn’t do it. Tell me, what would you do? If someone had one of my children, or my wife, I would hope I’d do it. There is nothing—nothing—I wouldn’t do.”
Kiefer Sutherland is said to be worried about the "unintended consequences of the show," even though he didn't agree to be interviewed for the New Yorker piece.
Writer Jane Mayer, by the way, also interviewed Surnow's friend Rush Limbaugh, and asked him about it. "Torture? It's just a television show. Get a grip!"
That's what the producer and former William Morris agent says is his ambition in Evan Wright's profile in Vanity Fair's Hollywood issue. Dollard in 2004 embedded with U.S. Marines in Baghdad to make a "pro-war documentary," "Young Americans," which is still in production. "My first time in a combat zone, I felt like I had walked into some bizarre ultra-expensive movie set," Dollard tells Wright. "I had this vivid clarity, like when I used to take LSD. I felt joy. I felt like I had a message from God. or whoever, that this is exactly what I should be doing with my life. I belong in war. I am a warrior." In February, Dollard was nearly killed when the Humvee he was riding in was struck by a bomb, killing two Marines on board. "This is a propaganda war, and if I can fight with a camera the same as a Marine with his rifle, I will."
Wright, the author of the award-winning "Generation Kill," his account of a Marine platoon in Iraq, says that he was attracted to the article because "we have been through similar battles but have drawn different conclusions about the war." Wright detailed some of those views about Iraq in a piece he wrote for Variety's V Life, "Dazed and Confused." He did agree with Dollard when it comes to comparisons of the war to a Hollywood movie:
Wright wrote, "When I was in the midst of battle, "Apocalypse Now" often came to mind, mostly because it captured the weird exuberance of destruction, those "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning" moments that sometimes struck me while watching Marine helicopters light up palm groves with rockets and machine guns. These moments were particularly disturbing because the reality is that being in a war is at times a very pro-war experience."
A clip from Dollard's doc, now on You Tube and www.patdollard.com.
Oscar nominations, announced early Tuesday morning, will show whether the Al Gore doc "An Inconvenient Truth" has made it to the final five in the category for dramatic feature.
Obviously, a nod will keep the film in the public eye and ignite a new round of speculation over Gore's presidential aspirations. Entertainment Weekly is planning an Oscar party for Gore on the Thursday before the ceremony.
But a nomination for "Truth" is no sure thing, even if the film arguably has had the greatest impact of all of the 15 potential nominees on the Academy's short list. The Academy's documentary committee is notoriously quirky, even though rules changes in recent years have mollified some critics. "Truth" 
director Davis Guggenheim also didn't make the list of nominees for the Directors Guild of America's doc award. And the field of entries is, to say the least, very competitive.
In an irony that only the entertainment industry could conjure up, one of the competitors along with "Truth" is Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan's "An Unreasonable Man," a documentary look at the life and career of Ralph Nader, the man who many say took enough votes away from Gore in 2000 to cost him the election.
The others in the field of contenders are no less heavyweights. Four are tied to the war in Iraq: James Longley's "Iraq in Fragments;" Patricia Foulkrod's "The Ground Truth;" Deborah Scranton's "The War Tapes" and Laura Poitras's "My Country, My Country." Each is an amazing feat in reporting. Longley, for instance, spent months filming and interviewing the Mahdi Army, the militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr. The Dixie Chicks concert doc, "Shut Up and Sing," directed by Barbara Kopple, deals with the fallout from their anti-Bush comments after the war started.
Two docs lift the veil off of organized religion: Amy Berg's "Deliver Us From Evil," a profile of a Catholic priest charged with molesting young parishoners; and Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's "Jesus Camp," about the religious right's influence on a group of young evangelical children. The latter has a the distinction of being the first doc to feature Ted Haggard before his fall from grace. Alexandra Pelosi's upcoming HBO film "Friends of God" has Haggard musing on how evangelicals have the "best sex life."
Others in the pack include "Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?," about an idealistic political 
novice seeking a Missouri congressional seat; the mountain climbling pic "Blindsight"; "Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple"; "Sisters in Law," about lawyers protecting the rights of women in Cameroon; and "Storm of Emotions," about Israel's disengagement from Gaza from the point of view of several Israeli Army officers.
Top: Al Gore in "An Inconvenient Truth"; Ralph Nader in "An Unreasonable Man"; Tory in "Jesus Camp" and Jeff Smith in "Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?"
Robert Redford says that this year's Sundance Film Festival has become more political because of what he calls the "snuffing attempts that have come from the administration."
His comments came at a press conference today that opened the festival, one that he's declared the year of the documentary. The Bush leadership, Redford said, "has such a dim view of history. Films and documentaries can bring that information."
That was underscored with the fest's opening night entry, Brett Morgen's "Chicago 10," about the 1968 Democratic Convention and its aftermath, which was screened Thursday night to what some sources said was a standing ovation from most in the crowd.
"Brett's film is about another time when young people of this country and others of like mind joined them in protest and raised their voice in that protest," Redford said prior to the opening night screening, according to IndieWire. "They risked something...they put themselves out there in harm's way to have their voice heard."
One of the docs, "In the Shadow of the Moon," about the Apollo lunar missions, already sold to TV rights to Discovery Communications.
New York magazine already has said that this year's Sundance Film Festival, which opens Thursday, as "the most politically ambitious slate of films to date."
More than 40 pictures have political themes, led by "Chicago 10," Brett Morgen's documentary about the events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the trial that followed. The twist is that this documentary weaves news footage of the day along with original animation. Morgen tells the AP, "I don't think anyone's seen a film quite like this before. I'm expecting it to be explosive on opening night."
In the dramatic feature competition is James C. Strouse's "Grace is Gone," which stars John Cusack as a father trying to summon the courage to tell his young daughters that their mother has been killed in Iraq. Other Iraqi themed projects include the doc "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib," in which director Rory Kennedy gathers testimony from those involved in the prison abuse scandal; and "No End in Sight," about the chain of decisions that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Among the other documentaries generating some pre-fest talk is "For the Bible Tells Me So," which looks the Bible and homosexuality by focusing on five Christian families with gay members. Among them are the families of former Rep. Richard Gephardt and Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson. Executive producer and former congressman Michael Huffington wrote on the Huffington Post that the film has "the potential to open the minds of those people of faith who have been told ad nauseam to "hate the sin, but love the sinner."
Other docs include "Send a Bullet," about corruption and violence in contemporary Brazil; "Banished," about what might be done to correct the wrongs done in American towns that ejected their black populations in the early 20th century; "War Dance," about three Ugandan girls who travel from their refugee camp to compete in a national music and dance festival; "Nanking," about the "rape of Nanking" by the Japanese in the 30s; and "White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," looking at the cost of atomic warfare.
Closing the festival will be "Life Support," in which Queen Latifah plays a former drug addict who becomes and AIDS activist.
Making a big presence this year will be the Creative Coalition, which is hosting a half dozen events. On Saturday afternoon (Jan. 20), they will throw the "Distinguished Moviemakers Brunch," honoring actors and filmmakers from the festival such as director Rod Lurie of "Resurrecting the Champ," actor Ed Begley Jr. of "Life with Ed" and Fisher Stevens of "Crazy Love." That evening, their 21st Century Dinner will anoint the "most significant new talent at the festival" and bring them together "with the influencers of the national agenda." On Sunday evening, the Coalition's Ray-Ban Visionary Award will be given to Aaron Eckhart at Harry-O's.
On Monday afternoon, the Coalition will hold what is described as a "2007 Dialogue and Sushi Luncheon" with a panel, "Reel Life vs. Real Life: Shoot the Messenger?" The panel will include Lionsgate's Tom Ortenberg, actors Joe Pantoliano, Cara Seymour and Daphne Zuniga and 20th Century Fox VP Rita Prosyak along with pundits Lawrence O' Donnell Jr. and Eric Alterman. That evening, it hosts, along with Bloomberg, a State of the Union dinner at the Talisker Club in the Tower at Empire Pass.
With President Bush announcing a "new way forward" in Iraq that includes the addition of some 21,000 troops, W&W fielded reaction from four filmmakers who have spent the last few immersed in all aspects of the country and the conflict there.
Each of the director has an Iraq-themed documentary that has made it to the Oscar documentary short list, which will be winnowed down to five nominees on Jan. 23. Their perspective on what to do next in Iraq are as varied and nuanced as the people and issues they cover in their works. But all had significant doubts about the President's new strategy, even if they varied on the merits of the American mission and the need to continue the U.S. presence there.
Deborah Scranton, director of "The War Tapes," a chronicle of the front line struggle against the insurgency, filmed by the soldiers themselves: "I can understand the whole argument that we need stability and to restore order before we move forward. But on the other hand, you are fighting what by so many accounts seems to be a civil war unfolding and you wonder, 'If they put this many boots on the ground, what is to stop [insurgents] from just hanging out until we go away?' I don't know what the answer is. I think it is very complex. ... I always think of the iceberg. What we see is just the tip. There is a whole lot underneath there, and I don't even begin to pretend what all that stuff is.
"From my experience, when I heard [the 21,000 troop] number, I thought, 'I don't see how this translates to 21,000 boots on the ground, as if they were all infantry guys or Marines.' It is going to mean support soldiers, other people who go over in other capacities. And if you extrapolate the number that General Petraeus really wanted, it was 150,000.
"I do think there is a large disconnect between the American public and those who serve in the military. Over 95% of Americans have no personal connection to this war, where they have a relative or friend who is serving in Iraq. But I think it is very important that we remember that we are a country at war, that we understand what war looks like and what it feels like, and what we are asking these men and women to do in our name."
"We were at the Tribeca Film Festival, with five of the soldiers, and a woman in the audience stood up and asked, 'What can I,' then she corrected herself and said, 'What can we do to help these soldiers?' Brandon Wilkins, whose footage opens the film, very eloquently said, 'Get to know one.'"
Patricia Foulkrod, director of "The Ground Truth," which follows soldiers and their struggles through recruitment, training, combat and homecoming, in which they encounter an uncomprehensing public and an indifferent government: "When you are around these soldiers, the thing that you hear all the time is they cannot believe the way the news works in America. It is so different than the way things really are there. They feel like we've forgotten them. Well, to have this election and then to ask them to stay longer? To do more? This doesn't take a toll on anybody except our soldiers.
"This surge in troops is really going to make things much worse because what we are really talking about is people are not going to come home. I don't think any one of us can comprehend what it is like to be in combat for a day, let alone months and months on end. Every day is whether you are going to live. That kind of stress we never hear about. It is bad P.R. And you don't have to have killed someone or to have had some gut wrenching awful experience in Iraq to come home a mess. Very few people talk about that.
"I woke up this morning thinking that I should talk to Focus Features about getting some copies [of the film], then get on a plane to Washington and deliver a people to as many people in Congress as I can possibly show it to.
"I don't see how this new Congress can forget in a couple of weeks what the American public voted for. I think that there was a real feeling, for the first time in six years, that what people felt was actually being manifested in the vote.But to have it be just the beginning of January and to have the adminstration come up with this as their best plan? It is like saying 'I was in a four car collision so I am just going to keep driving down the road with no tires, and hope I don't kill too many people.' That is not what you do. You get out of the car. You get the vehicles off the road."
James Longley, director of "Iraq in Fragments," a portrait of the country through two years of the war, as seen through the eyes of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds: "If they are simply adding to the number of troops that are already there, who are taking part in a failed policy, a failed occupation of the country, and they are not going to do anything substantially different, and I can't imagine that they will, then I really don't see how that will improve the situation. Iraq right now is suffering because of growing divisions between political interest groups in the country. The United States is very much a part of those divisions, and not a solution.
"One of the things we are asking the government to do right now is to crack down and lessen the influence of groups like the Sadr group. We make demands of the Iraqi government and we put prices on their non compliance. So everyone in Iraq realizes that the United States is there with things that it wants and things that it is trying to achieve. ...The people of Iraq have suffered a great deal under this occupation. I think the feeling among the majority of the Iraqis who want the United States to leave is based on the premise that the United States is not there to help them, and is not helping them. So at this point, what are they doing in the country? They keep moving the goal posts for what they want in the country and they keep talking about what they want to achieve and so forth. But really what they are trying to achieve is a government which will stay in power and which will do the bidding of the United States in Iraq.
"The Democrats would do well to cut off funding. Or they can acquiesce. I think it is more likely they will acquiesce, but if they are smart they will actually act in a way that has an impact."
Laura Poitras, director of "My Country, My Country," a journey into war-ravaged Iraq in the months leading up to the January, 2005 elections, through the eyes of a doctor and political candidate: "It is not clear to me what is new about the strategy and what is being laid out, because all of these things of trying to protect people and supporting the government and supporting the political process, all of those things are what we have been claiming all along. And the situation continues to deteriorate. Listening to it, it seems so little so late.
"I just did a screening at the War College. These were all officer types who are making decisions and tstudying war planning, and I talked to people what they thought of the idea of a troop increase. And every one said they didn't think this was going to solve anything. And that is coming from the military.
"We are viewed as a curse in the country. If you get too close to Americans and you are an Iraqi, you can get killed. We just created this huge instablity. Dr. Riyadh, who I filmed, says he has seen more than 100 friends of his assassinated. I recently go an email from him where he said he has four friends in local government who were found dead with drill holes in their head.
"Personally I believe that we have a moral obligation to stop the bloodshed in Iraq because the United States is largely responsible for the chaos that is entering its fourth year. ...We can't pull out our resources. What I would wonder is if there was any way we could reach out to the international community to come up with a peacekeeping plan in conjunction with a pullout. I don't think we just withdraw all of our troops. The country is hemorraging, and I think it is our responsibility to stop the hemorraging. But what is not getting said is, 'Hasn't this project already failed, and what do we do now?'"
Photos, from top: Sgt. Zack Bazzi in "The War Tapes"; followers of Moqtada Sadr at a rally in "Iraq in Fragments"; and Dr. Riyadh at Abu Ghraib in "My Country, My Country."
A school district in Seattle has put what it calls a "moratorium" on the showing of the Al Gore doc "An Inconvenient Truth" after one parent complained.
The Federal Way School Board instituted new rules requiring teachers to offer opposing points of view if they wish to show the film and permission from their principal. The parent who complained, Frosty Hardison, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher. The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."
The P.I. gets react from producer Laurie David: "I am shocked that a school district would come to this decision. There is no opposing view to science, which is fact, and the facts are clear that global warming is here, now."
From a Variety screening a few weeks back, Al Gore talks about why he was initially reluctant to make "An Inconvenient Truth," whether he thinks the movie is changing popular opinion and why he thinks the electoral process is broken. Video link here.
The Los Angeles Times' Patrick Goldstein sits down with retired CIA agent Milton Bearden, technical adviser to "The Good Shepherd" and a 30-year veteran of clandestine services. Among other things, Bearden hooked director Robert DeNiro up with ex-KGB agents in Moscow so he could gather their tales of Cold War skullduggery. But Bearden also comments on the film's accuracy, in that it features a scene where a Soviet defector is being tortured by the CIA. It's hard not to think of the present day debate over waterboarding of suspects.
Says Bearden: "If you mean 'Did we ever beat the [crap] out of someone till they jumped out the window?' I'd have to say 'No,' Torture is just [bull]. It's used by people who want an admission for their checklist. It doesn't elicit real information. When agency people who've seen the film say, 'Hey, that's not accurate, we never water-boarded anybody,' I tell them, 'No, you just stuck a [expletive] defector in a solitary cinderblock for 3 1/2 years.' We may not have water-boarded guys in 1957, but we're doing it all the time now, so I don't think it's a dishonest portrayal at all."
Particpant Prods. is offering 50,000 copies of the Al Gore doc "An Inconvenient Truth" for free to school teachers across the country. It follows a highly publicized brouhaha in the past few weeks in which the National Science Teachers Assn. declined to accept the copies to distribute to its members, saying that it would violate a policy of not endorsing a product.
But in an editorial in the Washington Post and in an entry on her Huffington Post blog, "An Inconvenient Truth" executive producer Laurie David said that the Science Teachers Assn. also had expressed concerns over what impact accepting the offer would have on other funders. She pointed out that among the supporters of the association are ExxonMobil and Shell Oil, as well as the American Petroleum Institute. She added that the association distributed a video by the American Petroleum Institute called "You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel," "a shameless pitch for oil dependence."
"A petroleum institute memo leaked to the media as long ago as 1998 succintly explains why the institute is angling to infiltrate the classroom: 'Informing teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science will begin to erect barriers against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in the future,'" David wrote.
But in a rebuttal, the association says that total support from energy companies is 3.77% of its budget, and that the NSTA is "solely responsible for developing, directing and implementing the programs we offer to teachers." They add further that they no longer partner with the American Petroleum Institute, and can find no record of "having a role in the development or mass distribution of the video."
The NSTA did offer to link to a site where teachers could obtain a free copy, among other ways of promoting the DVD, but Participant has set up this disbursement on their own. They will be available through Jan. 18, 2007 on a first come, first served basis at www.participate.net, with the major requirement being that teachers provide their school's tax ID number.
Peter Boyle, who died last night, established his career with politically charged roles in "Joe," in which he played a blue-collar member of the
