Good Morning Hollywood, August 9: Meathead Cries Bonehead

Rob Reiner has a well-received movie, and a bone to pick with the studio that released it

In this morning’s roundup of movie news ‘n’ notes from around the web, Rob Reiner has a well-received movie, and a bone to pick with the studio that released it.

Rob Reiner has made four straight films for Warner Bros., including his new “Flipped,” which has picked up some fairly rapturous reviews in its limited release. But I wouldn’t look for Reiner to be hanging around the WB lot for too much longer, judging by the fact that he tells Patrick Goldstein that Jeff Bewkes, the head of WB’s parent company Time Warner, is “idiotic” in his plans for the studio. At issue is Bewkes’ 2009 announcement that studio chiefs Alan Horn and Barry Meyer, would have their contracts extended for only two more years, despite an extremely successful 10-year run. Reiner, a close friend to Horn (photo below by Kevin Winter/Getty Images), points out that the two-year announcement was “boneheaded” because it takes at least three years to bring a new film to fruition. “Even if you were dumb enough to want to fire the best guy in your company's history,” he asks, “why ruin the future for everyone else at the company?”(The Big Picture)

Rob Reiner and Alan HornReiner, though, is in a better mood these days because of news on the political front: As one of the backers of the successful legal challenge to California’s Proposition 8, he’s rejoicing about a Superior Court decision that he terms “a home run where the ball still hasn't come down.” Gregg Kilday has the story – which, truth be told, is far from over. That home run of Reiner’s may well be subject to instant-replay reviews all the way to the Supreme Court. (The Hollywood Reporter)

It has been suggested that viewers’ response to “Inception” is to some degree a function of age: twentysomethings love it, fiftysomethings don’t. And now there’s another movie that may fall into that paradigm as well: “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” Ben Child surveys the reaction so far, which to him suggests “that this is a film which will struggle to find appeal beyond its core youthful hipster audience.” I liked both films and and definitely on the high side of the target demographic, but I’d suggest that “Scott Pilgrim” may well end up as a far more robust illustration of the generation gap than “Inception.” (The Guardian)

Dylan Marchetti reads Mark Lipsky’s piece about the impending death of movie theaters – available on Lipsky’s InciteCinema  blog, and also at theWrap – and has a succinct response: “Bulls—.” He also has a lengthier response, which begins this way: “I’ll be specific- the fundamental misunderstanding is that Lipsky and his ilk seem to think that movie theaters exist solely as a content delivery system, while completely ignoring the social aspect of it. This is dead wrong … ” In other words, it’s all about the people. (Variance Films)

“The 3D bloodbath starts next year,” predicts David Poland, who thinks Hollywood’s hot new format will remain profitable until 2011, when the glut of product will squeeze theaters and alienate moviegoers, and it’ll no longer be worth it for studios to pay the extra cost of shooting in or coverting to that extra dimension. Wade through Poland’s sea of ellipses, and you’ll find him criticizing most of the 3D media coverage so far (”all this obsessive 3D analysis is for the birds”), but laying the blame at the foot of the studios for an upcoming oversaturation; the only way to stop it, he says, is with a bit of under-the-table collusion. Not that he’s encouraging studios to break anti-trust laws, mind you … (The Hot Blog)

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