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Lost Auction Set for August: Polar Bear Not Included

Roger Friedman
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Lost Auction Set for August: Polar Bear Not Included

I want the blue VW van from the Dharma Initiative!

And you can have it, too. All the stuff from “Lost” is going up for auction on August 21st and 22nd.

You can see it all at http://www.profilesinhistory.com/lost-auction-preview/lost-auction-preview/page-5-5.html

Mr. Eko’s Jesus stick, Desmond’s photo of himself and Penny, Charlie’s ring, Daniel Faraday’s journal with all the time travel scribblings–they’re all part of the deal.

There are some pretty odd, expensive things in there too: Locke’s wheelchair, Jin’s Rolex, and the Swan station turntable and projector, as well as the pearl necklace Sun’s Korean lover gave to her.

But I do want that van. It’s the coolest.

And, no, the Smoke Monster, the polar bear, and stuff from the Hatch don’t seem to be included.

Six Feet Under Actor Freddy Rodriguez Ready for Chaos

Roger Friedman
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Six Feet Under Actor Freddy Rodriguez Ready for Chaos

Chaos reigns.

The Brett Ratner produced CBS series about CIA agents is on again after nearly being killed by corporate network warfare.

Sources tell me that star Freddy Rodriguez, who was so good in “Six Feet Under” and the movie “Bobby,” is all set to play the lead. The rest of the cast is secure as well, despite contrary reports.

CBS and 20th Century Fox Television will make “Chaos” as a joint venture for CBS TV after weeks of playing tug of war with Ratner and the show’s creator.

At the center of their disagreements was money, of course, and location. CBS wanted to shoot “Chaos” in Dallas, where Ratner made “Prison Break.” The only problem is, “Chaos” needs an international feel, with good locations and sets. Now that Ratner and co. have won the right to do the show properly, it will be returned to Hollywood.

By the way, the great Irish actor Stephen Rea co-stars in “Chaos.” It’s getting crazy how many terrific movie and theater actors are now in TV shows. Christine Baranski is in “The Good Wife,” for example. Lorraine Bracco is in “Rizzoli and Isles.” And Martha Plimpton has a new series on Fox.

Tom Cruise: Knight and Day Worst Box Office Since 1992

Roger Friedman
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Tom Cruise: Knight and Day Worst Box Office Since 1992

Tom Cruise can only look at the box office results for “Knight and Day” and shudder.

The film will cross the $70 million mark this week. But it’s unlikely it will get to $75 million domestically. It’s his worst performance at the box office since “Far and Away” in 1992.

Even “Valkyrie” did better, with a total of $83 million. It would be hard to imagine “Knight and Day” ever getting close to that number.

Internationally, “K&D” has done better of course. Where English has not been a first language, audiences haven’t minded the travelogue vanity caper. The film has yet to open in the U.K., Spain, France or Italy. Cruise may get some action there. So far the box office abroad has come to just over $60 million.

But just think: “Inception” has made in four days what it’s taken “K&D” almost a month to rake in.

The only movie with which Cruise has been associated recently that’s done worse was “Lions for Lambs,” but that was a film that also featured Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in a kind of weird experiment.

Paramount will hope that “Mission Impossible 4” will be its own draw, and that Cruise’s negative factors will be outweighed by the series’ built in appeal. The odds are “MI4” will feature Cruise surrounded by a team of spies including some new hot actors. Did I hear Taylor Lautner? Also, in this age of vampire-mania, they could resurrect Cruise’s character from “Interview with the Vampire” as his doppleganger. Just some ideas!

But Cruise may have to face the fact that his big run of $100 million films is over. It was good while it lasted. But box office, unlike diamonds, is not forever. Just ask Sylvester Stallone and a handful of stars who made it big in the 1980s. Cruise would be well advised to concentrate on character roles like the one he played in “Tropic Thunder.”

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Could Be French Starlet

Roger Friedman
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Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Could Be French Starlet

The casting is on for the ingenue to star in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

Yes. every young actress wants to play Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson‘s trilogy. The British press has already suggested Ellen Page, Carey Mulligan and a lot of new, now usual, suspects.

Alas, I am told that there’s a new girl in the pack, and once her screen test is done, she may be in the lead. That would Lea Seydoux. The oung actress is like royalty in France, too, where her family is famous: her grandfather was the chairman of Pathe Studios and her uncle was the head of Gaumont.

Lea has already made her impact in  movies. She’s in the opening scene of “Inglourious Basterds,” one of the girls on the French farm. And she the “French pastry”–aka Elinor of Aquitaine–whom King John (Oscar Isaac) bedded early on in “Robin Hood.” My friend Baz Bamigboye of the Daily Mail in London noted last May that Lea Seydoux would be the next breakout international star.

All those American and British stars had better start worrying. I am told that the movie’s producers are enthused about Lea. And it’s not hard to see why!

PS So far Daniel Craig is on track to play the male lead character, Mikael Blomkist.

Katie Holmes Gets “Extra” Credit for Movie Premiere

Roger Friedman
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Katie Holmes Gets “Extra” Credit for Movie Premiere

Katie Holmes blew into town to attend Monday night’s New York premiere of “The Extra Man.” She briefly walked the red carpet, avoiding the screening and after party, before moving on to Toronto for an early call to the set of the tv mini-series “The Kennedys.” She plays Jackie Onassis, a role not unlike the one she plays in real life as Mrs. Tom Cruise.

Expected not to attend, Katie was brave to support writer/director Shari Springer Berman and her co-stars Kevin Kline and Paul Dano considering that many reviewers after the movie’s opening at Sundance found her performance “weak.”

As Mary, Holmes plays a vegan office mate and heart throb for Paul Dano’s Louis Ives, a nerdy devotee of F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s “The Great Gatsby” with a taste for cross dressing; in one scene he sports a black lace teddy you may wish to have seen on Holmes, were she not slated for the “straight man” role in a movie that abounds in eccentrics.

It’s hard to say whether the part was written lamely, or if Holmes is just lackluster in it. The days of “Pieces of April” are farther and farther away.

Kevin Kline as Henry Harrison heads this quirky concoction of character actors, the extra man or social escort to haute monde matrons. Lynn Cohen and the magnificent Marian Seldes cheered him on from the audience. Tracey Ullman, scouting for a seat, could have rounded out this eccentric cast.

Before the screening began, writer/director Shari Springer Berman (her partner Robert Pulcini was absent),  dedicated the opening at the Village East Cinema to the memory of recently deceased Harvey Pekar. “American Splendor,” also directed by Berman and Pulcini, was based on his work.

Novelist Jonathan Ames–creator of HBO’s Bored to Death as well as the author of the novel on which The Extra Man is based–was next at the microphone. He performed three yelps, which sounded like a Shofar being blown on the High Holidays. Yes. he yelped. Loudly.  It was fairly odd. Ames also noted that this location on 2nd Avenue was a one-time Yiddish Theater

Vapiano, a new pizza and pasta emporium on University Place was packed for the after party. Guests queued up for individually created servings of carbonara, or pesto, allowing diners — like Mrs. Kevin Kline aka Phoebe Cates, Sean Lennon, Samantha Mathis, Drew Nieporent, Zoe Kazan, designer Cynthia Rowley, Eli Tahari, Patrick Demarchelier, actress Yaya DeCosta, Eammon Bowles, Rachel Dratch, Judah Friedlander, Dan Hedaya– to exert some eccentricity of their own.

Seymour Stein Back on the Charts with The Maine

Roger Friedman
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Seymour Stein Back on the Charts with The Maine

Well, well.

Seymour Stein‘s Sire Records–long a part of Warner Music– is back on the charts. And with a My Space group they found and cultivated called The Maine. The group, of course, hails from Phoenix, Arizona.

We must give credit here since the Warner Bros. name no longer appears on the charts, just its Atlantic division.

There’s no surprise that Sire finally came through. They did bring us Regina Spektor in the last few years.

And Seymour Stein is the guy who brought us The Ramones, The Pretenders, Talking Heads, the Sex Pistols, and whats-her-name, Madonna.

So congrats to Seymour and the Sire staff. The Maine‘s debut Sire album enters the charts this week at number 16 with 22,634 copies sold, according to hitsdailydouble.com. And, guess what? They’re good. New groups can still be “broken.” Maybe Warner Records itself will do that someday.

Dan Pritzker’s Long Awaited Silent Film: Here’s the Trailer

Roger Friedman
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Dan Pritzker’s Long Awaited Silent Film: Here’s the Trailer

Remember a few weeks ago I told you about Hyatt Hotel heir Dan Pritzker–he’s been shooting a film about a little known jazz musician for three years. It’s called “Bolden!” starring Anthony Mackie. It’s still shooting and re-shooting.

http://www.showbiz411.com/2010/06/05/billionaire-producer-still-shooting-jazz-movie-three-years-later

Pritzker also made a silent film called “Louis” about Louis Armstrong–and it’s debuting on Wynton Marsalis‘s jazz tour this summer. It’s a whole separate film that Pritzker has made while making “Bolden.”

Here’s the trailer, which just debuted on ITunes.

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/louis/

Andy Warhol’s “Mrs. Rockstar” Is Writing a Book

Roger Friedman
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Andy Warhol’s “Mrs. Rockstar” Is Writing a Book

Liz Derringer, a well known New York press agent, was married to rocker Rick Derringer for 22 years. She grew up with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and has been friends with Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall for most of her adult life.

Now Derringer is sending around a book proposal called “Joy Ride: My Life as Mrs. Rockstar Wasn’t What I Wanted After All.”

The 74 page proposal (co-written with Billboard magazine’s Chuck Taylor)  is funny and lively without destroying of all of Liz’s relationships or selling anyone out.

“Joy Ride” begins with Derringer being introduced to Andy Warhol. She subsequently met people like Todd Rundgren and his girlfriend Bebe Buell. Derringer introduced Buell–still her close friend–to Steven Tyler. The result was Liv Tyler.

It’s just one of many inside stories in “Joy Ride.” But a lot of the book pertains to her marriage to Derringer, who had hits like “Hang on Sloopy” and “Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo.” He also played with and produced the albums of Edgar Winter,  including the hit, “Frankenstein.”

The book should make a great complement to Buell’s best seller of a few years ago, “Rebel Heart,” and Tyler’s upcoming book.

The “Joy Ride” proposal kept me reading right through as Liz pursues Derringer, then part of the McCoys. She and her friend Andi Feldman–who becomes Warhol superstar Andrea Whipps–get entangled with Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding and their early band. They’re right at the center of Warhol’s world and in the middle of New York’s rock scene. When the McCoys merge with Edgar and Johnny Winter, Derringer–who at last succumbs to teenage Liz–is integral.

Some publisher is going to gobble up “Joy Ride” shortly, and with any luck we’ll get to read more of these stories in the next year.

Steve Carell on Get Smart Sequel, The Office, and Schmucks

Roger Friedman
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Steve Carell on Get Smart Sequel, The Office, and Schmucks

Steve Carell is so startlingly good in Jay Roach‘s hilarious “Dinner for Schmucks” you can see why he’s ready to leave “The Office.”

“I do think it’s time,” Carell told me last night at the Schmucks party at the aka Boom Boom Room atop the Standard Hotel. The cool event followed a socko premiere screening at the Ziegfeld. He’s right, too: better to leave on top.

Carell also said he’s looking forward to seeing Amy Ryan when “The Office” resumes shooting next month for his seventh and last season. Ryan, who plays Holly, his sometime love interest, will (presumably) help usher Carell’s Michael Scott out the door.

After seeing “Shmucks,” you know it’s time for Carell to leave “The Office” to others. He’s a movie star.

In the film, he plays a kind of savant who makes dioramas using dead mice in costumes. This is considered so weird,and his character is so odd, that Paul Rudd wants to bring him to a dinner for idiots his boss (the as usual terrific Bruce Greenwood) organizes for the upper echelon of his company. Everyone has to bring a fascinating idiot whom the diners can mock.

If this sounds like an odd premise, it is: the first 20 minutes of the movie, including the setup, are funny but weird. And then Roach settles down to tell what is really a story with a lot of heart and soul. And laughs, Lots of laughs. When you realize Carell’s Barry is no idiot at all, the film kicks in. Carell’s performance is his most nuanced ever.

I told him Barry reminded me a little of Jerry Lewis from his early films.

“Jerry Lewis?” he countered. “I didn’t know I was channeling him!”

And what of “Get Smart”? Will we ever see a sequel to the movie he made with Anne Hathaway? “It’s written,” he said, “I think it’s just a matter of finding time to do it.” And that’s why he’s leaving “The Office” next May.

And isn’t this ironic? Back in June, a movie blog said the buzz about “Dinner” was that it “wasn’t working.” And here’s the movie, a very, very funny, well executed comedy that totally works and should be a substantial hit. Jay Roach has fashioned something disarmingly humorous and substantial from the screenplay by David Guion and Michael Handelman.

Everyone in it–from Lucy Punch to Paul Rudd and Zack Galifinakis–makes a big contribution. Jemaine Clement, late of HBO’s “Flight of the Conchords,” is a droll villain who recalls Alexander Godunov’s silly playboy from “The Money Pit.”

Song for “Schmucks”: Beatles Score $1.5 Mil for “Fool on the Hill”

Roger Friedman
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Song for “Schmucks”: Beatles Score $1.5 Mil for “Fool on the Hill”

The Beatles rarely if ever give permission for their records to be used in movies. Sometimes they allow the songs to be covered by other artists. But it’s a given that the answer is ‘no’ when a film producer asks for a Beatles record to be part of his or her soundtrack.

Well, this week there’s an exception. The Beatles have allowed their classic, “Fool on the Hill,” to be used as the song over the opening credits in Jay Roach‘s “Dinner for Schmucks.” I am told by inside sources that Paramount/Dreamworks paid $1.5 million to buy out the rights in perpetuity. That is a staggering amount of money to pay for one song in a film.

It didn’t hurt that “Schmucks” comes from Dreamworks, which means Spielberg, who is Paul McCartney’s neighbor in the Hamptons. Also, producer Walter Parkes says that both McCartney and Yoko One saw and liked the movie. Ono also allowed the lyrics to “Imagine” by her late husband, John Lennon, to be used. For a price.

In the past, the Beatles have not allowed the use of their records in many films. When Wes Anderson wanted “Hey Jude” and “I’m Looking Through You” for “The Royal Tennenbaums,” he put them in the version that was shown at the opening of the New York Film Festival. Subsequently he had to remove the recordings and substitute them with instrumental versions made by Mark Mothersbaugh.

Coincidentally, director Jay Roach’s wife, singer Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles, has recorded one Beatle song herself: “Got to You Get You into My Life,” with Matthew Sweet.

You may wonder why no Beatles recordings have ever made it into movies. The late great Neil Aspinall, who ran the Beatles’ Apple Corps for almost 40 years, was adamant that the Fab Four’s identity was never diluted or demeaned by being pushed into rush of other media. He was right, too. By keeping the Beatles above the fray, Aspinall put them in a class of their own. So “Schmucks” will likely be the last movie t0 allow such a thing for a long time.

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