MISCELLANEOUS MISCELLANY: BECAUSE IT’S JUST TOO HUMID FOR ANYTHING MORE IN-DEPTH

I’m fluctuating right now as to whether or not I should go, as planned, to the Ted Leo show at the South Street Seaport this evening and brave the humidity and expected scattered thunderstorms. I’ve been looking forward to this show for a couple weeks, but I just don’t think I can handle being wet and uncomfortable for four or five hours today. DEVELOPING … (like you care …)

If it does rain, that double-feature Friday bill of White Chicks and The Chronicles of Riddick is looking strangely appealing, especially since I think I can see both without contributing to either box-office gross!

Meanwhile, my prognostication is that White Chicks will top the box-office this weekend and both Dodgeball and The Terminal will suffer somewhere around 50% drops in weekend gross. Dodgeball has been experiencing pretty good word of mouth, so it may sustain a bit better, but with a similar audience checking-out White Chicks this weekend, expecting more than $15-M would be difficult. And what about Fahrenheit 9/11, you ask? It will probably shatter most individual theater records (as it did at both NYC venues on Wednesday), and it should be a landslide winner of per screen average. But with only 865 screens, it might have a hard time breaking the Top 5. The “experts” are predicting about a $10-15 Million opening weekend.

I’ve stayed away from discussing this week’s Senate passage of ridiculous fine hikes for broadcasters who air what five political appointees (a/k/a the FCC) determine to be “indecent” or “racy” content. The whole subject is just too aggravating. This new bill indirectly amounts to government censorship, and the only senator who shouldn’t be completely ashamed of himself is Louisiana Democrat John Breaux who had the balls to vote against the bill. You see, the fine hikes were attached to a Defense Dept. authorization bill which basically had to be passed. Of course, the relatively conservative Breaux is also the guy who sponsored legislation to get the indecency rules expanded to cover broadcast and satellite, i.e., privately owned entity that should under no circumstances have to face the same restrictions deemed necessary for the “public airwaves.”

There’s better news from Washington today, though, as .a federal court put a stay on the new rules created by the FCC to relax restrictions on media ownership consolidation. Apparently, the three-judge panel didn’t think that Michael Powell and the FCC provided enough explanation as to why this rule change was not only necessary but also beneficial to the media world. With companies like Clear Channel gobbling-up entire media sectors whenever possible and the co-president of Viacom (then-CBS head) censoring Super Bowl ads, it really is helpful to put some kind of restrictions on what Powell and the Bush Administrations cronies are allowed to buy and control. I’m fascinated to eventually read the FCC’s spin as to how allowing any company to own 4 out-of-ten major media outlets in any market is good for diversity of opinion and independent voices. (Sorry … rant over.)

With 2004’s midpoint arriving next week, Variety has an interesting story today examining the potential Oscar race … so far (via Yahoo!). Much of the piece deals with the potential of this year’s two hugely controversial films, The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11, receiving Best Picture nominations. I have yet to see Fahrenheit 9/11, but there is no way Passion deserves a best pic nod. Staying away from anything political or religious or controversial and just looking at its qualities as a movie, the film just is not that good. The technical aspects are superb (especially Caleb Deschanel‘s camerawork), but the movie is boring, heavy-handed, pretentious and overdone in every way. Personally, my pick for best of the year remains Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

And finally, as we head off into this sticky Friday afternoon (and no, still no decisions on my part), there are plenty of interesting bits of tid regarding casting and production. For example:

• “Fox 2000 is remaking the Irwin Allen-created Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.” Because we definitely need more big-budget, special-effects laden remakes. Bright point: the script is being written by Justin Haythe who also wrote this summer’s The Clearing, starring Robert Redford, Helen Mirren and Willem Dafoe. Maybe it won’t be any good, but for a movie to attract that kind of cast, there had to be something interesting in the script. And as Spider-Man 2 seems to be proving according to early reviews, having a real writer script an action movie isn’t necessarily such a bad idea.
• Vince Vaughn plans to produce and co-star as Racer X in the long-in-the-works live-action Speed Racer film. EXCELLENT! On so many levels.
• Jason Schwartzman will join Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman in the big screen adaptation of Bewitched. I’m not one to think that there really needs to be a screen adaptation of the great but corny ’60s sitcom, but at least they’re casting the shit out of it. Kidman is a fine choice for Samantha, and Ferrell is an inspired selection as Darrin Stephens. I can’t think of anybody who could be better than Shirley MacLaine as Endora, and both Michael Caine and Kristen Chenoweth are set as well. Schwartzman plays Darrin’s agent. Agent you ask? Well apparently, the Ephron sisters have changed things up a bit. According to an IMDb plot summary, Ferrell plays an actor looking for a career-comeback by playing Darrin in a Bewitched adaptation. His costar is Kidman, who’s non Samantha character actually happens to be a witch. And hilarity ensues. I think Nora Ephron is a much better writer than director, and sadly, she is helming this pic. I guess we’ll see next summer how over-the-top it is.
• Continuing their trend of coming up with brilliantly creative names such as Coco for their newborn daughter, Courteney Cox and David Arquette have announced the name of their new production company: Coquette! I look forward to the remainder of their clever, imaginative and ground-breaking productions.

And SCENE! Have a great weekend everyone.