What Happens in Vegas is Funny!

Stone Cold Steve Austin and Adam Mast the Six Million Dollar Fan.

This will be my final Showest report. (I swear) I'm going to start with a review of El Cantante (is it Gigli 2?) starring Jennifer Lopez and hubby Marc Antony, and then fill you in on Lionsgate's presentation starring my run in with The Exorcist king William Friedkin. Don't miss this one, this is the funny one.

El Cantante

The following review is what we in the business call a Wik-job. Actually Adam is the only other guy "in the business," that I ever converse with and he probably doesn't know what I mean by Wik-Job (it's a term of my own invention) but he could probably make an educated guess. Adam's one of those sneaky smart guys – likes to play it all humble, but watch yourself, he's got warehouses of data locked away in that steel trap of a brain he calls a mind. Not to mention, what, in my humble opinion is the most comprehensive and widely coveted collection of zombie porn in existence today. Truly staggering. The centerpiece of course, a mint 35 mm print of "Eat Me" the film that started it all.

So anyway a Wik-job. Sometimes even the most erudite and knowledgeable critic such as myself, will be called upon to write about a film which may contain one or two areas of subject matter that may not be as familiar to him as he would like.

Off the top of my head a good example can be found during the opening scene of the great film American Beauty. You may recall that the lead character played by Kevin Spacey was standing in the shower engaged in an activity that "at the time" I have to confess I had no familiarity with whatsoever.

I've since gained a better grasp on this seemingly unnecessary practice but the point still stands. It's at times such as these when a critic can easily maintain his know-it-all stature by simply consulting a website called Wikipedia. Much like an Encyclopedia (which for whatever reason don't sell as well as they did in the previous century) a wealth of information is literally at one's fingertips. 100 per cent free. Isn't technology awesome? Wagnalls is still in a Funk!

Just as an exercise I'll occasionally read what I'm writing about just as a spot check to make sure I haven't strayed from the focus of my review. And to be perfectly frank I think this one may have slipped a bit. Just from the standpoint of internal cohesion I can tell you right now that this isn't one of my better reviews, but I'm sorta known for my fourth quarter comebacks. Which reminds me something my high school football coach used to say, what was that he said again. . .

El Cantante is a fairly standard biopic about the life and career of one of Latin America's premiere Salsa singers, Hector Lavoe. The film stars the husband/wife team of Marc Antony and Jennifer Lopez. On paper such a project must have seemed a tad risky. Can you spell Gigli? There had to have been great shudders at the prospect of another JLo-teams-with-husband/fiancé/lover, I'm sure they were handing out valium at the test screenings. Quite to my surprise, Antony takes to the screen like a natural, and quickly puts the Gigli curse to bed.

To be perfectly honest with you, I could not name a single (not one) Mark Antony song and I'd always thought he was sort of fruity with his white jackets and tank tops, no socks with the Italian leather loafers. That's just not the type of guy I generally go for. In any case, by keeping it simple and by not "acting" he really has a graceful screen presence that was a pleasant surprise.

Lopez is cast opposite her real life squeeze as Lavoe's real life squeeze Puchi, whom she portrays as a strong woman, certainly long-suffering standing beside him through his struggles with drugs, dalliances and depression. As for the film itself, it seemed that director Leon Ichasco was to some extent attempting to downplay the darker side of Lavoe. Perhaps in an attempt to avoid the clichés or at least not wanting to wallow in the pathos.

Lavoe's success came so quickly and relatively easily that he truly was the prototypical overnight sensation. Having everything so immediately thrust upon him at such a young age he was a prime candidate to tumble to the excesses of the entertainment world and having avoided any the type of "dues paying" that is generally part and parcel of musical success, he didn't have the ability that many artists have of remaining centered even in the eye of the hurricane. As a result Lavoe was known for acting out like a petulant child. His habitual problem of showing up late for gigs or not coming at all, would eventually lead to a falling out with his closest friend and long-time collaborator, band leader and Salsa legend Willie Colon.

Their's was an amicable split and they continued to work, write and record together for many more years. Missing from the film, in large part is Lavoe's legendary comic antics. He possessed a caustic wit and he would frequently get more laughs during his shows than swoons from the senoritas. Essentially what Ichasco delivers is more of a most beloved Salsa hits concert film, "The Last Tango." Perhaps El Cha Cha Final." If you're familiar with this genre of music you may find this film enthralling, if not you may find you've dozed through parts of it. Nice try though, I'm going

C

Press Conference Madness

Before the Big Lionsgate Luncheon, came the first press junkety event of the Convention, from my experience with this sort of thing last year, I wasn't prepared for the utter disgraceful hysteria that drives these paparazzi-types. This was Lionsgate's time to shine and we were in a medium-sized hall that still had a bar with visible beer on ice. True, it wasn't quite Noon yet and no one else was looking for an alcohol hand-out at this hour, but you have to understand that I live at a computer-terminal and am so seldom exposed to the miracle of free beer that I was really hoping that someone else would succumb to the temptation. I didn't want to look like some kind of Baldwin brother on the lam from a treatment facility. (All due apologies to Stephen, who has become some kind of crusading prohibitionist. Whatever, a Baldwin never changes it's stripes – I give it another year until he's once again luring married women to California with promises of stardom. That's the Stephen I prefer.)

Tobin Bell

Actually Tobin wasn't the first celeb that they tossed to the lions, there were two guys who were animation directors, I didn't even bother to write down what movie they were connected to, and I think maybe one guy took a picture of them just to be nice – (menu –trash? Arrow Yes? ) In any case I was quite unprepared for the raucus commotion and deafening caterwauling that Tobin Bell's entrance would cause. True the Saw movies have raised the man's stock to heights no one could have predicted, but at Comicon, there was no such fuss made over Tobe and to make matters worse as he sat on stage with Wan and Whanell he was all but comatose. Fielding questions with all the animated enthusiasm of Clint Eastwood on thorazine. [Excerpt - Avid Fan) "This question is for Mr. Bell – I just want to say that I've been a fan of yours for years and am so happy that you've found such success in the brilliant Saw franchize, what can you tell us about what motivates Jigsaw, and what can we expect from him in Saw 3?" Bell ". . . Mm hmm."]

Interestingly, at Showest Tobin seemed to really have come out of his Bell shell, mugging for the cameras and fielding the frenzied questions as best he could. Since we brought along Sheldon to handle the photography and this sort of thing is more Adam's bag, I hung back and watched the madness from a safe distance. Still no one had made a move on the rollaway bar with beer poking through the ice as plentiful as spines from a porcupine.

William Friedkin

Of all the names on the Lionsgate's slate Friedkin was definitely the one I was most fascinated to lay eyes on. I'd never seen him interviewed or anything and I guess I was sort of expection more of a Scorcese/Serling/Cassavettes sort of looking guy – not even close. It's too bad What's My Line was cancelled, 50 years ago, because Freidkin would kick some ass. His new film is called Bug and is a psychological thriller about the effects of paranoia. More on Captain Howdy to come.

Dane Cook

Dane generated one of the loudest commotions of the morning, he obviously knows how to work a room and from the noisy clot of humanity that he dragged along as he made his way through, I'm sure he was delightful. I'm a Cook fan for the most part, and since they were giving away copies of Employee of the Month in the press room, I checked it out and must confess that I think it was unfairly savaged. Then again there was another Employee of the Month (or Year) a while back and Adam hated it, so maybe I'm confused. I mean it's pure formula and as predictable as rain in Seattle, but with Andy Dick, Harland Williams, Cook and Dax Shepard it's got it's moments. Plus Dax Shepard plays Josh Warburton and looks like his twin. Cook's new Lionsgate release is called Good Luck Chuck and we'll worry about that later.

Jason Statham

Statham is definitely got a solid future in film. Beyond the Transporter stuff, Crank was hot and now he's teaming up with Jet Li in War. Which looks to be 100 hundred minutes of shooting, kicking, punching (Statham has single handedly brought "the punch" back to the cinema) of course there'll be shooting, and I'm gonna guess maybe a little stabbing and probably some gouging. Lookin' forward to it.

Eli Roth

"Eli's Coming . . . Girl you better hide your heart, I said girl, Girl you better hide your heart" 3 Dog Night 1972 – Yea I'm old, gotta problem with that? Maybe I don't run with the "in" crowd, or rock n' roll all night long, or hear very well out of my left ear, or eat spicy food, or stand up to pee, or remember uhhhhh, remember what's his name, the young fella who did the sadistic picture with the eyeball pluckin' and young girls fu'cryin' out loud, Eli Roth it's right up at the top. Anyhoo, Roth was on hand to promote Hostel 2. Lionsgate is banking on the current trend of people showing up at films that revel in blood, guts and mans inhumanity to man. It'll be a cash cow and the likable young Roth was all smiles as, amid the chaos, he answered questions about the next cringe-fest, pretty much reiterating that Hostel 2 will dispense with the long set up and pretty much throw audiences into the fun and games straight away. To be honest, Eli really seems like a cool guy, the kinda guy you'd like to sit down and bullshit with over a couple of pitchers.

Stone Cold Steve Austin

Speaking of beer – after the crowd went ballistic over Stone Cold Steve I figured "screw it" and walked straight over to the bar and plucked a long neck out of the ice. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, besides everybody was facing the other direction. Austin was actually quite pleased to be surrounded by press folks that were interested in his doing something beyond smacking someone with a folding chair. He's starring in The Condemned about 10 death row inmates loosed on an uninhabited island with the lone survivor winning his freedom. Kind of like the press at Showest. More about this at the luncheon. That was quite a Luncheon, due in large part to the next guy through the gate:

Larry The Cable Guy

Larry undoubtedly caused the biggest commotion of the morning, proving once and for all that you can make it big in this industry no matter what your last name is – just ask Ahnold. Larry's career got a serious boost when he portrayed Mater the redneck tow-truck in Cars and even though the critics weren't awfully kind to his Health Inspector movie, I'm not sure, but I don't think it sucked. Over the holidays I was staying with my wife's folks and her brother put on the DVD and I didn't see it, but I listened to it while I was at the computer working and to be honest it sounded pretty funny. I guess you'd have to see it to hate it. Anyway, look for Lar in the upcoming Delta Farce, which I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess might contain a fart joke. You heard it hear first folks.

As things were winding down I was gathering my things and suddenly this guy stormed over to the table I was at and slammed down his camera on it's tripod and started going off on this fucking bullshit and that fucking bullshit. As you may have noticed no one was very pleased with the way that the press was being treated, but this guy (who turned out to be Robert Sanchez of iesb.net) finally snapped. Next thing you know Jason Padgitt (one of Showest's biggest cheeses) tried to settle him down, but pretty much had to hold Robert off with a whip and a chair. I didn't know that much about iesb before this bit of unpleasantness but we ended up hanging out with him some through the rest of the show and he's a pretty interesting guy, wrapped a little tight, but his site is about beating other sites to the scoops which would probably get anybody a little nerved up.

Blowing My Big Chance

Adam and Sheldon had wandered off to get the celebs to shoot little spots for their TV show Film Fanatics "Hi I'm Eli Roth and I'm a Film Fanatic" they got a bunch of ‘em. Anyway I was just sort of killing time before the Luncheon, the room had emptied when all the sudden William Friedkin walked in and sat down. Since he was by himself and so was I, I walked over and sat down with him, told him I thought the Exorcist was not only the best horror film of all time but in the top 5 best "films" of all time and off went the conversation. I think most people would envision William Friedkin to be some sort of brooding and sardonic, unapproachable recluse, quite to the contrary he's such a normal, friendly guy he reminded me of my Bishop. He looks a lot like Darryl Hammond doing Clinton. He told me about Bug, and we talked for probably 10 minutes about script writing (I had told him I had one, that has common elements with the Exorcist) and what he though really makes them great. I would have done the old "how about reading my script" bit, but I would have only gotten the standard "I'm not legally allowed to accept bla bla bla" plus I didn't want to spoil what will be a great memory. What made it even better was that I got to walk into the luncheon with him. Nobody bothers with seeing your credentials when you're walking in with the Exorcist. True story. Adam can foreswear its voracity because he and Sheldon walked up just as Friedkin's people came to escort him away. I was trying to play it cool with Adam and Sheldon like, "where you guys been?" and then my head turned all the way around and they knew I was seriously starstruck.

I'm leaving out an actor from a film coming up soon called Pride, with Bernie Mac and Terrence Howard. I checked imdb for the guy but his name wasn't even on the first page, sorry dude. Pride looks to be the swimming version of Henry and June. Just kidding, we'll go with Glory Road. Anyway I'll just whisk you off to the luncheon then, right this way. True I marched in side by side with William Freidkin but I'd be amiss if I didn't thank Judy and Stephen Thorburn theflickchicks.com for their generous assistance throughout.

Lionsgate Luncheon

It's not every day that you stroll into a huge banquet past tables with movie stars chowin' down, shake William Friedkin's hand goodbye and sit down to a delicious meal and a glass of wine. In fact that hardly ever happens to me, anymore. Since I've touched on a lot of this stuff already, I'll just cut to the chase and give you the highlights of the Lionsgate presentation. Pretty much everyone that I've already mentioned was called to the lectern to accept an award or introduce a clip or in Larry The Cable Guy's case do 35 minutes of stand up. Most people grumbled and murmured about Larry's lengthy bit, but I enjoyed it. I got enough laughs out of it - hell I'm just eating, drinking and being merry, I was just fine. His best bit was when he mentioned how he was having trouble with some sex-tapes that he made when he was younger that had recently surfaced and were causing him a lot of embarrassment. "But it's like they say," he went on, "once you get famous and make a bunch of money, those relatives start coming out of the woodwork." Sadly the trailer for Delta Farce that he introduced was really brief and not the least bit funny. He might want to stick to animation.

Producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules received the Showest Producers of the Year award for their success with the Saw franchise. There wasn't any footage available from Saw 4, but my friend Patrick Melton (who won the Project Greenlight contest with their horror spoof Feast) is writing the script with his partner Marc Dunstan so I'm rooting for this one. Burg and Koules also broke the news that Saw 5 will be in production shortly in order to make a Halloween release date later this year. At some point they're gonna run out of gizmos and wicked ways to off people, it's too bad they're beating it into the ground – they're going to end up with Sawdust.

They introduced Tobin Bell who came up and read about a 10 minute thank you speech from the teleprompter. After his outing at Comicon I found that a bit spooky. It was like he was one of those Dead Silence dummys. "If it weren't for you people that run the theaters across this great nation we'd be out of work." Tobin is just naturally creepy, I remember back when he was chasing Tom Cruise around in The Firm, thinking "that dude's creepy."

Really all in all, considering how stingy they were with the clips there wasn't anything in the presentation that was terribly memorable, with one exception. They showed a really killer sequence from 3:10 To Yuma. James Mangold introduced it and it looks like it's going to kick ass. The clip was an intense moment featuring both Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, I don't even want to give anything away but I can see the Western getting another go ‘round if this succeeds. Mangold applauded Loinsgate's courage to make the film, mentioning how long it took him to get a studio interested in Walk The Line.

Anyway if you're still there, look for one more massive report from Adam that will cover Hairspray, Hot Fuzz, Surf's Up and the rest of the whole bloody shebang. Cheers.