Wednesday 20 October 2010

Hollywood Babble On & On #618: Miscellaneous Musings

Welcome to the show folks...

Time for a few shorter bits, with a few short thoughts to go with them.... and maybe some snark where it's deserved.

DO BRIT ACTORS LACK VANITY.... DEALS?

Tim Adler from Nikki Finke's
Deadline posse wonders why so few British actors have what are called "vanity deals" with studios.

A "vanity deal" is where a movie star and their business partner and/or manager form a production company in order to get producer credits on the films the actor stars in, whether they made any contribution to the production of their films or not.

Some of the prevailing theories are...

1. Most Brit actors aren't interested in such deals, finding them distracting from their acting.

2. Studios don't respect Brit actors and don't even bother to offer such deals to them.

Well, I have my own theory, and it comes from my previously stated theory on British actors.

You see British actors view their work as a profession, not an entitlement. This attitude means that you look for work, and if you can get it, quality work, without embarrassing yourself too badly. British actors who become "producers" tend to become actual producers without the snarky quotes. It's more than just putting a name in the credits for something they didn't do, but for purely professional reasons. They are created to allow themselves more control over their career, and the profits to be derived from that career. But they don't have to slap their shingle on everything they just happen to act in.

LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!

A parent's group is upset over a photo-shoot for GQ featuring sexy pics of scantily clad starlets from the show
Glee. Some have even likened it to pedophilia.

Really. There isn't anyone from
Glee in this photo-spread below the age of 21, and everyone knows it. One commenter at another site joked that the faces of the cast have more lines than a David Mamet play.

This whole kerfuffle is triply stupid.

A) The complainers obviously don't know much about show and its cast, nor do they realize that they are being used by Fox and GQ for free publicity.

B) Fox seems to think that this photo-shoot will make straight men watch the show. It won't.

C) This controversy has forced me to post a requisite cheesecake picture of actress Lea Michelle, just to illustrate what all the fuss is about.
I hope you're happy, because you know, I'm not the type to use cheesecake pics on this site to attract readers.
I'm only doing this because you people are forcing me to.

Really.

JOHNNY DEPP IS AFTER THE THIN MAN

Actor Johnny Depp is very keen on doing an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man.

If you're part of the great illiterate horde, Depp will be playing Nick Charles, a former private eye who retired to a life of leisure after he married an heiress named Nora. Nick gets dragged back into detecting when people involved with a missing scientist (the "Thin Man" of the title) start dropping dead. Nick and Nora crack the case while trading witty repartee and downing enough alcohol to make Don Draper's liver scream for mercy.

I think Depp can pull off Nick Charles. He can clean up well when he has to, and he's got the comedic and action chops needed to play the snappy private eye.

But Depp's not the problem.

The problem will be Nora Charles.

Nora has to be young, beautiful, intelligent, confident, witty, and above all have powerful chemistry with the man playing Nick. You can't just slap any pretty face in the part, she has to mesh with her cinematic hubby perfectly.

The reason there were six hit Thin Man films in Hollywood's Golden Age was because William Powell and Myrna Loy worked so beautifully together. Watch those films, and see that their banter is like watching to great jazz musicians riffing off each other. They're sexy, playful, charming, and above all, seem completely natural with each other. They made it seem effortless, when it was in fact, very hard work.

That's what Depp & Co. need in a lead actress. They can't limit themselves to just the people on the magazine covers, they need to look long and hard to find just the right match.

Because if they don't, then The Thin Man could wither away to nothing really quickly.

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