PI ONLINE:
10-15-04
BY BEN WINTERS
They're making a movie of The Producers! I know what you're thinking: isn't The Producers already a movie? This one is different because it's going to have songs, star Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, and probably make big bunches of money.
And, Producers: The Movie Musical will be filmed in New York City—not, as originally reported, in Canada. Producer/ creator/reaper-of-the-bunches-of-money Mel Brooks was probably kidding when he announced the reason for the switch ("The bagels, just the bagels alone...[y]ou go to Toronto, they're mushy") but he's absolutely right.
The real reasons for filming the thing in NYC are financial, of course. As reported by the Associated Press, "New financial incentives and [Brooks'] love of New York helped persuade him to shoot at the recently opened Steiner Studios [in Brooklyn]." Reuters, at least, sees Brooks' move as the first counter movement to the trend of producers shooting everything in the Great White (and cheap) North.
"Gov. George Pataki signed a bill that would provide a tax credit of up to 15 percent to film and television companies that complete 75 percent of a production in New York," wrote the AP. "'Now we are going to be able to make movies about New York in New York,'" [said Pataki]. And good thing, too, as "Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the film industry was worth $5 billion a year to the local economy and provided 100,000 jobs."
Besides Lane and Broderick (who starred in the play during its first couple of wildly successful, seasons on Broadway), the movie of the musical of the movie will star Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. Brooks is also reportedly working on a sequel to Spaceballs. (He had originally planned to shoot it in space, but apparently the blintzes are terrible.)
Poetry in Motion
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| Raymond Dankowski and Dana Gioia |
The Atlanta Journal Constitution writer Bo Emerson waxed rather poetic himself in the lead to his Sept. 19 piece about the donation: "The aroma of roast leg of lamb in sour cherry sauce pervaded Manhattan's Grolier Club on that brisk January evening, but the Emory professor was onto a different scent...he smelled free books. Lots of them." The professor was Ronald Schuchard, and he followed the trail he picked up that night for eight years, on a quest to corral the massive book collection of one Raymond Danowski.
His success was a huge boon for Emory. Danowski's gift of his private library of modern poets to the University "instantly transforms Emory into the nation's center for poetry research," according to the New York Times. As quoted in the Journal Constitution, National Endowment for the Arts Chair Dana Gioia "said there were five libraries with significant archives in modern literature: Harvard, Yale, the New York Public Library, the Huntington Library (in San Marino, Calif.) and the University of Texas..." But now, he said, "Emory has expanded the number to six."
Which explains why the pictures in the Journal Constitution show various Emory staffers smiling like it was Christmas morning. Indeed, Emerson quotes Linda Matthews, vice provost and director of libraries, saying that "opening these boxes is like having presents delivered every day." And the presents keep on comin'; as the article ends, Danowski shows up to the opening reception for the library with "one more item: a slim Polish journal from 1934, with poems from a young Czeslaw Milosz. Danowski acquired the work by the Nobel winner in the past few weeks and added it to the stack."
What else has Mr. Danowski handed over? The Associated Press gives a long description: "Enraged poetic discourse about the Vietnam conflict and musings about the Spanish-American War share the room with archival material from a poet's first experimentation with LSD. A wall almost entirely devoted to W.H. Auden contains not just the poet's writings, but his edited works, biographies, his personal collection—even an invitation to a party in Auden's honor."
The AP notes further that one of the major reasons Danowski chose to give the stuff to Emory is that Schuchard and the other professors promised him the collection would be open to undergrads. He "said it was the school's focus on poetry and the promised access to students that swayed him to pick Emory," according to AP. "'They haven't been read for 25 years...[a]nd they need to be.' "
And they will be read...as soon as they finish unpacking them.
Fish Shtick
Reading through the reviews of Shark Tale, the latest funny-animals animated comedy from DreamWorks, one gets the feeling that the critics are starting to get a little sick of this sort of thing. In the Dallas Morning News, Chris Vognar says that "Pixar and Shrek have raised a high bar for the computer-animated family film. Some entries will measure up, but many will fall short. Shark Tale is one that falls short." Chris Hewitt of the Knight Ridder Newspapers is similarly dismissive: "Shark Tale isn't a movie. It's leftovers."
But Wallace Baine at the Santa Cruz Sentinel liked it. His positive notice includes a neat summary of the genre. Shark Tale, like Toy Story, Shrek, Finding Nemo, and so on, gives us "a fun fantasy otherworld, zippy movie-star voices, bucketloads of clever pop-culture references and, naturally, a likable hero character who finds personal happiness by doing the right thing. Yes, it's all been done before and that matters not a jot."
DreamWorks certainly hopes Baine is right, as there is more riding on the results than the wide-eyed delight of America's 7-year-olds. According to the Los Angeles Times, the company plans shortly to spin off its animation division and offer an initial public offering—whether Shark Tale sinks or swims in the theatres could be crucial.
"In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing this month, DreamWorks Animation acknowledged much is riding on whether its new movie...makes a splash," wrote Lorenza Munoz for the Times. She then quotes the studio's SEC filing: "'If Shark Tale fails to achieve domestic box-office success,' the document says, 'its international box-office and home video success will be in doubt and our...financial condition could be adversely affected in 2005 and beyond.'"
Those sharks better be funny.