MISCELLANEOUS MISCELLANY: IN LIEU OF ANYTHING TOO COMPLEX

Sharon Stone, obviously knowing that Catwoman isn’t going to do the trick in reclaiming her 15 minutes of superstardom, claims that the on-again-off-again Basic Instinct 2 is now on-again. Sharon , nobody cares. I didn’t give a crap about a sequel in the mid-90s when it might have made a little bit of sense. I sure as hell don’t care now. My fearless prediction: if a Basic Instinct 2 ever gets off the ground, it will suffer the same fate as The Two Jakes and Texasville, two sequels unnecessarily produced and released long after their predecessors. I’m not saying sequels always need to follow immediately, but there needs to be more of a reason than cashing in on the original’s character. And at least with these other two films, they had original pedigree that far outshines a slightly above average thriller remembered primarily for one scene that really did nothing more than eventually inspire Paris Hilton.

The movie version of the very funny Comedy Central show Strangers With Candy featuring the great Amy Sedaris seems to have taken one step towards becoming a reality. David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants shingle has come on board as producers: “‘Amy Sedaris is one of a handful of folks who actually make me laugh,’ Letterman said.” Me too, Dave. Me too.

The scariest thing to me about Sci Fi Channel’s series Scare Tactics is their choice of has-been stars as hosts. It appears Shannen Doherty has left the show. Variety says “Thesp is pursuing a pair of projects for the Peacock.” Peacock means NBC, for those of you not into the trades slang. I like that they called her “thesp.” As in “thespian.” I remember when I liked Shannen, but that was a long time ago. Anywho, her replacement seems to be none other than the youngest and most starfucking Baldwin: Stephen. Congrats Stevie. Who woulda thunk that Bio-Dome and Half Baked would have been high points. To think you actually were in The Usual Suspects, too.

Potentially good comedy news for all: Steve Carell gets cast in the lead of a film called Furry Vengeance. All I can do is quote Lindsay and say “Yay!” More Carell is a good thing. He’s usually one of the best and most memorable elements of anything he’s in, Bruce Almighty and Anchorman being prime examples.

I wanted to take a brief moment to flaunt my obvious skills at predicting the weekend box-office. Yeah, so Spider-Man 2 made $10-Mil less than I expected, and while I was right about the “relatively disappointing” part, King Arthur couldn’t even get to the $20-Mil I predicted, falling $5-Mil short. I was $5-Mil short on Fahrenheit 9/11 for the weekend too, although I did have its placement right. And, I knew there was no way Sleepover was cracking the top 5, as it landed at #10. However, “Will Ferrell comes in second with $28-Million.” Yeah! Dead on. I’m so proud.

And finally, R.I.P. to Carlo Di Palma. Who? Di Palma was an Italian cinematographer who shot of Woody Allen’s films dating back to Hannah and Her Sisters, and he died last Friday at the age of 79. He started as a camera assistant working on Italian classics such as Visconti‘s Ossessione, Rossellini‘s Roma, Citta Apera a/k/a Open City and De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief. He worked four times as the great Michelangelo Antonioni‘s DP, particularly on the influential Red Desert. If you want an interesting double-feature somewhat influenced by Di Palma, watch another notable Antonioni collaboration, Blowup, and then for kicks take a look at Brian De Palma‘s Americanized version of the story using sound rather than pictures, Blow Out.