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    <title>Slate Magazine - Hollywood</title>
    <link>http://www.slate.com/id/2142062/?from=rss</link>
    <description>Inside the industry.</description>
    <copyright>2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC</copyright>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <pubDate>Thu, 14 Dec 2006 15:11:43 EST</pubDate>
    <lastBuildDate>Thu, 14 Dec 2006 15:11:43 EST</lastBuildDate>
    <ttl>120</ttl>
    
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  <title>The development hell of A Confederacy of Dunces.</title>
  <link>http://www.slate.com/id/2155500/?from=rss</link>
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  <description><![CDATA[  In January of 1980, Scott Kramer, a young executive at 20th Century Fox, received the galleys of an oddly titled novel. The publisher, the Louisiana State University Press, had no presence whatsoever in Hollywood, but Kramer had contacted them a year earlier, using studio letterhead to obtain an arcane guide to the flora of Louisiana, which he gave to his mother, an amateur botanist, for her birthday. In the process, he unwittingly became the press's only contact in the movie business. When the book arrived, Kramer had no desire to read it, but making some effort, he rationalized, would give him a clear conscience when he passed on the project. As it turned out, the manuscript changed his life. Kramer became one of the first of many readers to be seduced by the comic charms of A Confederacy of Dunces. The producer has spent 26 years trying to make the book into a movie, and his odyssey underlines a perennial Hollywood question: Can you adapt a satire without losing your shirt and your mind?<br /><br />[<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2155500/?from=rss">more ...</a>]  ]]></description>
  <category>hollywood</category>
  <author>Peter Hyman</author>
  <comments>http://fray.slate.com/discuss</comments>
  <pubDate>Thu, 14 Dec 2006 15:11:43 EST</pubDate>
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  <title>Will Hollywood back Mel Gibson?</title>
  <link>http://www.slate.com/id/2146881/?from=rss</link>
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  <description><![CDATA[  Are we really surprised at Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic outburst last week? After his wink-wink Holocaust denials in the past? Probably not. The question is whether Hollywood will continue to countenance him. Disney is set to release his next movie; Oren Aviv, the new head of the Disney film studio, says he is prepared to forgive and forget.<br /><br />[<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2146881/?from=rss">more ...</a>]  ]]></description>
  <category>hollywood</category>
  <author>Kim Masters</author>
  <comments>http://fray.slate.com/discuss</comments>
  <pubDate>Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:00:01 EST</pubDate>
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  <title>Were the conditions unsafe on the set of Miami Vice?</title>
  <link>http://www.slate.com/id/2146623/?from=rss</link>
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  <description><![CDATA[  This is a correction. No, we didn't screw up, thank God. We're correcting something that Michael Mann told us in no uncertain terms when we interviewed him about his new film, Miami Vice.In our previous story, which described Mann's demanding nature, location manager Maria Chavez said the director certainly has "high expectations" but is also respectful of those who know what they're doing. "You're not going to bullshit Michael Mann," she said. So, in that spirit, we want to clarify one point. The production was working in Miami during hurricane season. Our story reported that some crew members thought work continued in unsafe conditions. What we did not report was an allegation that work continued when a hurricane warning was in effect. We held back because when we asked Mann about it, he emphatically stated that it never happened. "Every time there's a hurricane warning, you stop," he said. On August 24, such a warning was issued at 11 p.m. The hurricane in question was Katrina (not to be confused with Tropical Storm Dennis, which, at another point in the shoot, blew out the glass in a building as Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx sat in a top-down convertible below). On that Wednesday, filming continued until after dawn. We know this because Mann's comments in our original story made a crew member irate enough to supply documentation of the hours worked that night. We followed up with Mann, who kicked the question over to line producer Pieter Jan Brugge. Brugge set up a conference call with Jeff Peel, director of the Mayor's Office of Film and Entertainment in Miami. The presence of Peel seemed a bit puzzling, since we had already consulted him while reporting the earlier story. He told us then that Miami does not allow shooting during a hurricane warning, and that all permits are revoked when a warning is in effect. He also told us in that previous conversation that there's no way to enforce a revoked permit, especially if the shoot is taking place on private property (as the Vice shoot was, at that point). But cops assigned to provide security on sets are not supposed to stay. "One of the main effects of the … film permit being rescinded is that all Police Officers are pulled from their off-duty film-related jobs and assigned to emergency services," he wrote in an e-mail. Now, Peel says that since the Katrina warning came late at night, his office would not have faxed the paper revoking the Miami Vice filming permit to the production office until the next morning. So, he thinks the permit technically was valid until the official notification the following morning. He also thinks that maybe it was OK for the off-duty cops to stay. According to line producer Brugge, they did. Brugge also says he knew about the hurricane warning from the moment it was issued late Wednesday night. In fact, he says that Mann personally advised crew members of the situation and released those who lived locally so they could deal with their homes and families. Our crew-member source doesn't remember that happening until the production wrapped that day—after dawn. But that would be OK with the union, according to Jack Nealy, the business representative for Local 477 of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees. Nealy says the union asks that productions send crew members right home when there's a hurricane warning, but that's really a guideline. "We try to be as accommodating as possible," he says. "Nothing's mandated." Weather problems have hurt business recently, he adds, so productions like Miami Vice are more than welcome. "They were a great production and hopefully they'll want to come back and do more," he says.<br /><br />[<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2146623/?from=rss">more ...</a>]  ]]></description>
  <category>hollywood</category>
  <author>Kim Masters</author>
  <comments>http://fray.slate.com/discuss</comments>
  <pubDate>Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:35:03 EST</pubDate>
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  <title>Suri Cruise, Tom Cruise, and Steven Spielberg.</title>
  <link>http://www.slate.com/id/2146229/?from=rss</link>
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  <description><![CDATA[  Let's get this out of the way right now: Much as we hate even to touch on this question, there are in fact people who have seen baby Suri. Among them: producers Frank Marshall and Kathy Kennedy (they're married; she produced War of the Worlds). They saw the baby in Telluride, Colo., very recently and told friends that all seemed quite ordinary.But we're not here to talk about baby Suri, though she does make a cameo appearance below. The question at hand is the relationship between the director of War of the Worlds (that would be Steven Spielberg) and the baby's daddy (that would be Tom Cruise).As many folks in Hollywood and elsewhere know, there was a rift between Spielberg and Cruise that arose last year during and after their collaboration on War of the Worlds. This was in part because Spielberg felt that Cruise's off-camera antics dinged the film's grosses. And there was another issue, as reported this week in The New Yorker and previously elsewhere. It seems that after Spielberg (in a conversation with Cruise present) praised a psychiatrist who had helped a family member, representatives from the psychiatrist-loathing Church of Scientology staged a protest at the doctor's office.Although Cruise was said to have assured Spielberg that he was not behind this incident, it infuriated the director and (perhaps more important) Kate Capshaw, also known as Mrs. Spielberg. For a time, it seems, the Spielbergs waited in vain for the star to explain how, exactly, those protesters happened to appear at the doctor's office.All this may have more than mere gossip value with the prospects for Cruise's production deal at Paramount looking grim. After the middling performance of Mission: Impossible 3, there is a perception that Paramount may not be keen to ante up millions of dollars in overhead to keep Cruise on the lot. (M:I3 director JJ Abrams just made a rich deal at Paramount, diminishing the likelihood that the studio will shell out for the star.) Spielberg's company, DreamWorks, is now owned by Paramount, and there is a perception that the DreamWorkers might not be avid supporters of a Cruise deal.Against this background, Cruise might well want to patch things up with the most powerful player in Hollywood. About a month ago, the gimlet-eyed folks at Defamer.com posted an item saying that Cruise had appeared at Spielberg's office with the baby for a photo session with the director. Then, last weekend, Cruise "surprised" Spielberg during a tribute at the Chicago International Film Festival. Cruise's appearance was such a well-kept secret that no one in Spielberg's camp knew about it, according to Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy.In fact, Cruise had already shown up in a taped tribute, along with Harrison Ford and other Spielberg alumni and associates, such as David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. The only other talent actually present for the event was Roy Scheider. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski was booked to appear but canceled. Cruise filled the void.Perhaps the organizers of the Chicago event didn't know about a rift between Spielberg and Cruise. Or maybe they simply couldn't resist having a giant star turn up. Certainly Spielberg seems to have been surprised. A few in the industry think that photos of the occasion reveal something less than unalloyed joy on his face.Not so, says Levy. Spielberg thought the Chicago Film Festival tribute was the best ever, other than the one hosted by the American Film Institute. And Spielberg was "excited" that Cruise showed up, Levy says, adding, "I would dispute that the photos made him look uncomfortable." But would Spielberg be happy to see Cruise if there is a rift? "I don't know that one necessarily is exclusive of the other," says Levy.Maybe a Cruise and Spielberg rapprochement had already gotten under way, if Spielberg had previously posed for pictures with father and child. Do such pictures exist? Levy says that question will not be answered.Those who know Spielberg well say he's nonconfrontational and he's not one to carry a grudge for all that long. But the wife might be another matter. So, the real story behind the Chicago surprise, as well as the mystery about those pictures with the sought-after infant, may have more to do with the politics of the hearth than the politics of Hollywood.<br /><br />[<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2146229/?from=rss">more ...</a>]<!--AD BEGIN--><br clear="all" /><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/slate.rss/politics;pos=ad9;tile=9;ad=rss;sz=479x40;ord=4882" target="_blank"><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/slate.rss/politics;pos=ad9;tile=9;ad=rss;sz=479x40;ord=4882" border="0" vspace="5" /></a><!--AD END-->  ]]></description>
  <category>hollywood</category>
  <author>Kim Masters</author>
  <comments>http://fray.slate.com/discuss</comments>
  <pubDate>Thu, 20 Jul 2006 15:10:31 EST</pubDate>
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  <title>How Jamie Foxx forced a different ending of Miami Vice.</title>
  <link>http://www.slate.com/id/2145622/?from=rss</link>
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  <description><![CDATA[  If it weren't for the talent of Michael Mann, a movie version of Miami Vice would almost certainly be as awful as it sounds. And even with the talent of Mann, Universal is fighting negative early buzz about the film. What's clear is that the movie is dark, R-rated, and hardly a nostalgia-fest for fans of the television show.<br /><br />[<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2145622/?from=rss">more ...</a>]  ]]></description>
  <category>hollywood</category>
  <author>Kim Masters</author>
  <comments>http://fray.slate.com/discuss</comments>
  <pubDate>Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:12:49 EST</pubDate>
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