Movie Make-out

“Once upon a time, if I’m not mistaken, it was a party,” Mr. [Laurence] Mark said of the Oscar ceremony. “We’d like to bring back a little bit of party flavor.”
—Producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon, on how they’ll be bringing the sexy and fun back to the Oscars ceremony
[My suggestion? Give everyone alcohol, like they do at the Golden Globes. - TL]

On the “Hells, yes” side of making Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane required viewing in American high schools, we have my pal Michael Pinto at Fanboy.com, who turned in a video-filled essay expressing this exact idea:

There are so many reasons to teach this film—the screenplay alone is a great example of theater, a play with a rightful place in every English class alongside every other classic from Shakespeare to Arthur Miller. What’s wonderful about Citizen Kane is that it’s a film about all of the universal themes like love, greed and hope—yet it’s also a wonderful period piece about the history of the United States.

Adam Sweeney over at Film School Rejects.com took this idea and cutely ran with it, saying: “Tell you what, I will agree that Citizen Kane be mandatory viewing for students in American History classes, but only if the study of Orson Welles’ obesity is covered in health classes. Deal, Pinto?”

Frankly speaking, I’m sorta ashamed that I’m a 31-year old, college-educated, Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate Candidate-educated American who has not yet even seen Citizen Kane herself. (I know, and yet, I write for a movie blog. I am aware of the irony.) It’s something I know I should see, and once I get settled into my new apartment, it’s going in my “to watch” pile.

However, I think I’m also going to disagree with Pinto and say that I’m not entirely convinced that the average American teen would be able to appreciate what a motivated high school teacher would be doing by introducing it into the curriculum, thus dooming the experiment to failure. I have a friend who teaches AP high schoolers in the Bronx, and even they aren’t receptive to classic and awesome literature when it’s assigned, saying that having assigned Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Ubervilles over the winter break “ruined Christmas.”

What I can see, however, is an extra credit project for a non-AP class, where a student could choose between a myriad of films by both American and non-American directors about different periods in American history, compare and contrast the filmed version of events with the real history, talk about critical reception of the film in its day and contrast it with the reception now, etc.

Films they could choose from could include: Birth of a Nation, Avalon, Once Upon a Time in America, Gangs of New York, The Alamo (both versions), Last of the Mohicans, etc. And that’s just the list of Hollywood movies about American history.

Thoughts?

In May 2008, the poker blogs were all abuzz about the simple fact that there has not been one really good poker movie since Rounders. A few writers poked their head into this story, but I think the most definitive comes from Change100 at Pot Committed, because she used to be a script reader in Hollywood:

One of the most successful films of the first half of 2008 was a movie about Las Vegas. And gambling. 21 was modestly budgeted, had one star (Kate Bosworth) but only in a supporting role, and got mixed reviews. Still, it earned over $24 million its opening weekend and has grossed over $80 million to date. If Rounders came out today with the same cast, it would probably earn a similar amount.

Why? There is one common thread these movies have and it’s not a deck of cards.

It’s wish fulfillment.

I personally think that Rounders is one of my favorite movies of all time, which I finally saw on DVD during my 30th birthday bash in my parents’ Las Vegas time share, a few days after I quickly lost $50 in the Planet Hollywood poker room.

I agree with Change100 (and possibly Otis) that the best sports or whatever movies are about wish fulfillment and making you think that you can achieve the same kind of success as the protagonist has. Who doesn’t want to say that they bluffed someone like Doyle Brunson and got away with it?

And the game of poker and everything surrounding it has a bunch of great stories to tell. You could take the same old sports inspirational formula and apply it to the story of Annette Obrestad, aka the youngest woman to win the first-ever World Series of Poker European Championship in London, who started playing online poker when she was 15 years old.

Want a little sex and death with your poker? What about the framing/companion story to Jim McManus’ first trip to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas that landed him at the final table, which was really supposed to be the story of how the son of the WSOP founder was allegedly murdered by his then-stripper-wife and her lover? I know it got turned into a made-for-TV movie, but that’s not the same.

You know what would be a great story? Exposing the possibly-illicit backer system, where a player gets bought into events because the person with the money thinks they can win. However, what happens to someone when they have an inconsistent record—good enough to back, but can’t cash enough to make the rent? How would they ever be able to get out of that hole?

That would make a great story for the basis of Rounders 2, wouldn’t it?

Killing almost every thought I had towards being excited about it, Variety reported that the uber-talented Hugh Jackman will not be able to star as Marc Antony in Steven Soderbergh’s next flick, Cleo, a 3-D live action musical about Cleopatra.

The article noted that people are speculating that he’s not able to do it due to scheduling conflicts, but no one’s sure exactly which project of Jackman’s is causing the problem.

I honestly can’t think of any other actor who can sing and dance who could be able to stand up next to lead Catherine Zeta-Jones when it comes to pure awesomeness in a musical, except for maybe Ewan McGregor (loved being surprised by his singing in Moulin Rouge) and bring that same kind of sexiness and charisma that Jackman brings to his roles.

Variety also noted in the article that Ray Winstone is still “in discussions” to play Julius Caesar, contradicting an earlier Movie Make-out.com report.