The Beverly Hills Playhouse

US movie boss urges approval of free trade pact with Colombia

Hollywood’s top lobbyist called Monday for the U.S. Congress to pass a Colombia free trade agreement that has been held up by Democrats, calling trade the “lifeblood” of the movie business.

Motion Picture Association of America head Dan Glickman, a former Democratic congressman and Agriculture secretary in the Clinton administration, told a National Press Club audience that 60 percent of Hollywood’s box office and home video receipts come from overseas.

“There is a limit to what U.S. consumers can buy,” Glickman said.

“I worry that the process to approve trade agreements has become entirely too political in this country,” he said. “The alternative in my judgment is slower economic growth and giving up the ball to other countries that are more than happy to supplant us politically and economically as well, and I think that’s a big mistake for us if America wants to engage the world in the future.”

The Bush administration has insisted that the Colombia deal would be good for the U.S. economy, but Democratic critics of the deal have cited the continued violence against organized labor in Colombia, among other issues. Bush sent the agreement to Congress this month, but the Democrat-led House of Representatives eliminated a rule forcing a vote on the deal within 60 legislative days. That probably kills consideration of the Colombia agreement this year, leaving it for the next administration.

On another international issue, Glickman was asked whether the upcoming Beijing Olympics would have any affect on the huge intellectual piracy problem in China. He said nine out of 10 DVDs sold in China are pirated.

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Black Dog Films

Iron Man: It’s not your average Superhero movie

If you heard Robert Downey Jr. and Jeff Bridges were thrown into a film directed by Jon Favreau, I’m guessing these are the last five words that would leap to mind: comic book superhero summer blockbuster. The formerly self-destructive Downey has survived drugs, guns, rehab, multiple arrests and prison time to star as Tony Stark in the new $130 million “Iron Man.”

His semi-nemesis is played by Bridges, the beloved White Russian-swilling Dude of “The Big Lebowski,” and they are led by Favreau (writer of “Swingers,” director of “Made,” co-star of “Very Bad Things”). Not exactly a high-tech, special-effects trio. But here’s the kicker: the collaboration works. Beautifully. “Iron Man,” which also stars Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow, opens Hollywood’s summer movie season Friday, May 2.

It’s a terrific action-adventure with laughs precisely because Messrs. Downey, Bridges and Favreau did not go for the standard superhero schmaltz.

“One of the main things Jon Favreau wanted to do was ground the film in reality,” said Bridges on the phone from Los Angeles. “I thought that was wonderful. He didn’t want a superhero who had magic powers or anything.”

“Iron Man” debuted in Marvel Comics in 1963. Defense contractor Tony Stark is brought into the 21st century by dropping him into Afghanistan where he is abducted by bad guys who are some version of Taliban-al Qaeda-terrorist-insurgents.

Stark, inventor-playboy-genius-millionaire (Marvel guru Stan Lee said Howard Hughes was an inspiration) gets busy. He builds a flying, armored suit — a later version comes equipped with jetboots, repulsor rays and missile launchers — a process Downey described as “the ultimate nerdgasm.”

“Robert does just a splendid job,” said Bridges. “There’s no tongue in the cheek, no kind of winking at the audience. At the same time, he was having a lot of fun with the part. He’s such a funny, witty guy in real life, and that served him well in the movie.”

With theaters already on superhero overload (new versions of “Batman” and “The Incredible Hulk” arrive this summer), “Iron Man’ had to carve out a different niche. It is the first film financed solely by Marvel Studios, which also has “Thor,” “Captain America” and “Ant Man” movies in development.

Bridges, who was more into DC comics than Marvel comics as a kid, was jazzed to enter the comics-movies realm. He plays Obadiah Stane, Stark’s business partner who has some nefarious ulterior motives.

When Bridges signed on, his first question was, What the heck’s an Obadiah? He Googled the name and discovered that Obadiah is the shortest book in the Bible.

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The Beverly Hills Playhouse

Hollywood has broad summer range behind the blockbusters

LOS ANGELES – Along with the major blockbusters, Hollywood offers loads of other films this summer. A look at the highlights:

May:

“The Fall” — A bedridden man in early Hollywood spins wild fantasies to encourage a young girl at the same hospital.

“How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer” — America Ferrera and Elizabeth Pena star in a comedy about three generations of Mexican-American women.

“Made of Honor” — Patrick Dempsey covertly romances his best pal (Michelle Monaghan) after she asks him to be “maid of honor” at her wedding.

“Meet Bill” — A lingerie saleswoman (Jessica Alba) helps turn life around for a loser (Aaron Eckhart).

“Noise” — Tim Robbins stars as a man who turns vigilante to combat the constant racket of Manhattan.

“Redbelt” — David Mamet directs Chiwetel Ejiofor as a man of honor in a corrupt world of mixed martial arts fighting.

“Son of Rambow” — A British charmer follows two wildly different boys who team up to make their own “Rambo” action flick.

“The Strangers” — A couple (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) face terror as masked intruders invade their home.

“War, Inc.” — A hit man (John Cusack) poses as a corporate flunky to pull off an assassination in a war-torn country. The dark satire co-stars Hilary Duff.

“What Happens in Vegas” — Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher are scheming strangers who wed on a whim then battle over a Vegas fortune they’ve won.

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Osbrink Talent Agency

Michelle Williams stars in first movie since Heath Ledger’s death

Michelle Williams is back on screen, just three months after ex-boyfriend Heath Ledger, the father of her daughter, was found dead in his SoHo apartment.

Her new film, “Deception,” opens in theaters on Friday, April 25. It also stars Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor.

In the movie, Williams plays S, a sexy singer/songwriter, who seduces McGregor’s character, Jonathan, a Manhattan corporate auditor so immersed in his business, he has no time for pleasure. That all changes after he meets Wyatt, played by Jackman, who introduces him to a mysterious sex club. Soon Jonathan finds himself the prime suspect in a woman’s disappearance and a multi-million dollar heist

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Osbrink Talent Agency

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ star Patrick Dempsey tests his movie stardom

BEVERLY HILLS — During his writers’-strike-induced hiatus from Grey’s Anatomy, which returns with new episodes Thursday (ABC, 9 p.m. ET/PT), Patrick Dempsey whisked wife Jill away for a romantic Italian getaway. No kids. No cameras. And no reporters.

The couple, married since 1999, took in a fashion show in Milan; then, in Lake Como, they were among many marveling at the waterfront estate of that city’s most famous resident: George Clooney.

MORE: How they made Dempsey look 20 years younger

“He’s larger than life,” says Dempsey. “I’ve met him a few times now, and he has always been very funny and charming. I like him.”

Though he’d perhaps prefer comparisons with his idol, Cary Grant, it is Clooney with whom Dempsey has been compared ever since he rejuvenated a stalled teeny-bopper career by hitting it big on a prime-time medical series. Clooney, of course, did the same when he segued from early Facts of Life fodder to ER superstardom.

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Ali

Jason Segel takes full-frontal approach to comedy

An embarrassment of rich gags for longtime Apatow sideman

LOS ANGELES — Much like the hero of the new comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”—who is merrily undressed at home and expecting an entirely different purpose for his girlfriend’s visit than her dumping him—actor-screenwriter Jason Segel endured his own Naked Breakup.

But there is a key difference between what Segel’s state of mind was when it happened to him and that of his movie character, who is too despondent to even pull on a pair of jeans as he gets the news. “It’s like my sickness,” Segel says, “but the whole time I’m trying to be present, and all I’m thinking is, ‘This is the funniest thing that has ever happened! Let her leave so I can write this down immediately!’ ” By “this,” the graduate of the golden Judd Apatow School of Comedic Training means turning his dating humiliation into fodder for a romantic-comedy-literate and raunch-attuned movie audience. As heart-crushed TV music composer Peter Bretter, Segel wrings some cringe-worthy laughs out of a literally and figuratively naked romantic who flies to Hawaii to recuperate only to find his sexy TV actress ex (Kristen Bell) cavorting at the very same luxury resort with her new British rock star beau (Russell Brand).

“I thought, disaster in paradise, a funny juxtaposition,” says Segel, who gives his protagonist hope in the form of a cute, compassionate hotel employee (Mila Kunis), but not before subjecting him to several broken-guy gags that would make even Alan Alda tell him to man up: fetal position wailing, ill-timed confrontations, self-pitying piano playing.

As the 28-year-old Segel put it over dinner recently at the Chateau Marmont, “For some reason, I was born without a sense of embarrassment or shame.” It’s a trait comedy impresario and “Sarah” producer Apatow picked up on 10 years ago when he cast the gangly teenage Segel—a high school basketball state champion nicknamed “Dr. Dunk”—to play the unabashedly obsessive torch-carrier Nick Andopolis for his seminal, short-lived coming-of-age series “Freaks and Geeks.” After that was a memorable guest stint as the jealous, weepy boyfriend Eric on Apatow’s other brief-run series, “Undeclared.” Now as Marshall, the youthful urbanite Segel plays on the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” he is a happily married man, but last season’s busted-engagement story line afforded the actor plenty of hilariously mopey episodes.

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Jackie Chan, Jet Li set for box office supremacy

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Action heroes Jackie Chan and Jet Li will grab the keys to the “Kingdom” at the North American box office this weekend.

“The Forbidden Kingdom,” a martial arts fantasy that marks their first onscreen pairing, is likely to bow at No. 1 with up to $20 million during its first three days.

“We’ll be very happy with a gross of $15 million or beyond, but tracking certainly indicates that we have a shot at doing in the high teens or better,” said Steve Rothenberg, president of distribution at Lionsgate, which is partnered on the project with the Weinstein Co.

“Kingdom,” directed by Rob Minkoff (“Stuart Little“), has earned mixed early reviews but should attract mostly younger moviegoers who eschew critics’ brickbats.

Universal has mounted an edgy campaign for its R-rated comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” with billboard messages including “You suck, Sarah Marshall” getting lots of free ink.

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Actor Billy Mumy known for the role of Will Robinson in the TV series Lost in Space was a Hamilton high school class mate of future actor Craig Cove. They had lots of conversations about music which is another one of Billy’s passions. Craig had family that worked at “the film studios” so “show business” people were not unusual to him.

Some students would stare a lot at Billy or call him Will Robinson. Billy and Craig would laugh and joke about it sometimes. Occasionally, Angela Cartwright who played Penny on the series would pick up Billy after school in her new white Pontiac Trans Am. Angela would park away from people behind campus to avoid attention. Billy wanted to be treated like a normal everyday kid. Nowand then Billy can be found at McCabes Music in Santa Monica.

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Dial ‘D’ for disaster: The fall of New Line Cinema

From ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ to ‘Lord of the Rings’, New Line Cinema created some of Hollywood’s most influential blockbusters. But now its 40-year history is in tatters following a string of big-budget box-office flops. Andrew Gumbel charts the unlikely rise and fall of a Tinseltown institution, while Tim Walker identifies the films that did the damage

Bob Shaye may well be the last of the old-style Hollywood studio chiefs, the kind of guy who got into movies because he loved them in all their stinking imperfection and glory, not just because he saw them as a pathway to glamour or profit.

If nothing else, he’ll go down in movie history as the man who was crazy enough to gamble $200m and green-light all three Lord of the Rings movies in one go – a decision that looked like a stroke of genius when all was said and done, but might also have hinted at the dangerous gambler’s streak that has now finished him off for good.

Nothing in Hollywood lasts for ever, of course, but the tale of his studio New Line’s dramatic rise and fall is one of those chronicles of folly, inspiration, luck, hubris and occasional genius that only a business as crazy as the movies could generate.

It has been barely four years since The Return of the King, the final part of the Lord of the Rings saga, walked off with 11 Oscars, the biggest success story in Hollywood since Titanic. Now, though, New Line has effectively been shuttered and readied for the wrecking ball. Back in February, Warner Brothers announced that it was absorbing New Line into its big-studio fold and kicking out Shaye and the man who co-founded the company with him, Michael Lynne. Yesterday, the demolition began in earnest as 450 of New Line’s 600 staff were told they would lose their jobs by June. Only 40 or 50 of the rest were offered new positions within the Time Warner empire.

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Off New York Streets, Film Piracy Is Online

When Shari C. Hyman tried to buy some pirated DVDs of first-run movies last February, she and her friends went to Canal Street, New York City’s knockoff marketplace. What surprised them was not the racks of phony brand-name handbags, the briefcases of counterfeit watches and other bootlegged merchandise, but rather that illegal DVDs were virtually nowhere to be found.

In a neighborhood full of blankets and sidewalk “offices” with everything a shopper might find in a boutique uptown, Ms. Hyman was coming up empty-handed. “We tried to buy DVDs,” she said, “but we could only get one woman to come out into the street, and she had them stuffed into her jacket.”

And that was a good thing, because as director of the mayor’s office of special enforcement, it is Ms. Hyman’s job to eliminate the rampant market in pirated DVDs of first-run movies.

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