Dan Glickman

The Motion Picture Association of America, the lobbying organization that speaks on behalf of the movie industry, has had the same guy at the helm for 38 years. Jack Valenti (left), a former speechwriter for Lyndon Johnson, invented the ratings system (G through triple-X and later  NC-17) and ushered Hollywood out of the days of the studio system, through the "crisis" of the VCR, and into the brave new future of CGI, Academy screener controversies, and Dodgeball. 

But in the fall Valenti will retire at last, and the question of his replacement had Hollywood rapt with wonder until July 1. The answer is...Dan Glickman.

That's right—THE Dan Glickman.

A former Congressional representative from Kansas, Glickman more recently "was President Bill Clinton's secretary of agriculture for six years," explained the Washington Post on July 2, "Since 2002 he has been director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and since 2001 he has worked as a lobbyist at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, one of the District's largest lobbying law firms." 

Doesn't really sound like Mr. Hollywood, does he? That seemed to be the question on the mind of Jon Niccum of the Lawrence, Kansas Journal-World; he started his one-on-one interview with Glickman with the obvious question: why you?

"I was on the House Judiciary Committee for years where I did a lot of work in copyright issues," Glickman explains. "The agriculture and entertainment industry (sic) are not exactly the same thing, but they're both very large export industries. They face very similar battles on the world trade front. There are a lot of parallels there."

Which is to say, the MPAA chief doesn't hang out on movie sets eating Danish and flirting with Renee Zelwegger—he's the public face of one of America's hugest largest industries.

As he steps into his new gig, Glickman figures "the group's 'number one issue' is to stop the theft-by-copying of movies, especially in foreign countries such as China, and their dissemination on the Internet," reported Jeffrey H. Birnbaum in the Post. "Several pieces of legislation dealing with protecting movies are pending in Congress, and the question of how to enforce copyright laws is a constant topic of negotiation in many countries and within the technology world."

"Glickman acknowledged he has a steep learning curve," wrote Lisa Friedman, from Washington Bureau of the Los Angeles Daily News. "His closest ties to Hollywood are through his son, Jonathan, who has produced Shanghai Knights and two Rush Hour movies."

Glickman gets to work on Sept. 1.

...EXIT CRAZY MAN...

In much more ubiquitous movie news, Marlon Brando died on July 1. All of his obituaries, from around the worldwide, shared a similar theme: Brando was a towering figure in American cinematic history, a profoundly talented actor and kind of a lunatic.

USA Today, to give one or two out of a zillion examples, noted how Brando "often derided acting as a neurotic joke of a profession." They also recalled the time Brando told Larry King that Hollywood is "run by Jews"...he had to apologize for the apparently anti-Semitic remark. (He also famously kissed King on the lips.)"

Brando was as eccentric in death as in life. The disposition of his will, for example, was complicated because (as one Irish daily put it), "With three ex-wives, a number of disgruntled mistresses and at least 11 kids, things can get a little crazy."   Meanwhile, the London Guardian noted that Brando "fulfilled a lifelong ambition in his final film: to play an old lady. True to his Method training, the actor donned a blond wig and full drag for the part, even though the film was animated." 

(That movie is called Big Bug Man; it should be noted in this context that Orson Welles' final role was as the voice of Unicron in the Transformers movie.)

The New York Times ended its loving lengthy tribute with a quote from Brando about the South Pacific island he owned, in an attempt to reveal Brando's inner character. "When I lie on the beach there naked, which I do sometimes, and I feel the wind coming over me and I see the stars up above and I am looking into this very deep, indescribable night, it is something that escapes my vocabulary to describe. Then I think: `God, I have no importance. Whatever I do or don't do, or what anybody does, is not more important than the grains of sand that I am lying on, or the coconut that I am using for my pillow.' So I really don't think in the long sense.'"

Perhaps the best tribute to Brando, or at least the one he himself might have most enjoyed, was in the UCLA Daily Bruin, which said the actor was "Known for such powerful films as A Street Cart Named Desire." 

...AND CUE SPIDER-MAN!

Maybe it's true that "more than half of the country's non-commercial theatre companies have been operating in the red," as the Boston Globe reported on June 25—citing a gloomy Theatre Communications Group report from earlier in the month—but at least one splashy new musical is being cooked up. Of course, when any flashy movie franchise starts kicking serious butt in Hollywood, rumors start flying of an adaptation for the Great White Way; this time it's Spider-Man, and the rumors seem more serious than usual. According to E! On-line and a couple other outlets, a rather bizarre dream team is being put together: "Writer/director Neil Jordan is being courted to write the book...for the show...Bono and the Edge are being wooed to write the songs. Julie Taymor, who earned accolades and made Disney a mint with the Tony-winning stage version of The Lion King, is said to be the dream director."

Playbill's Robert Simonson is enlisted to explain the theatre business to E!'s readership; he tells us "it's common for hit movie properties to be touted as hit musical properties. 'And then a year passes, and then suddenly you never hear about it again.'"

E! then notes a small problem that a singing Spidey will face, "When fighting crime, he wears a red stocking over his head. His entire head. Including the mouth."

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