Good Morning Hollywood, September 23: Social Anxiety

“The Social Network” is flattering, and Joaquin Phoenix wasn’t trying to fool anybody … honest

In this morning’s roundup of movie news ‘n’ notes from around the web, “The Social Network” is flattering, and Joaquin Phoenix wasn’t trying to fool anybody. Honest.

“The Accidental Billionaires” author Ben Mezrich talks to Steven Zeitchik and Amy Kaufman about “The Social Network,” the movie David Fincher has made from his book, and about the fact that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has spoken out against the book and says he won’t see the movie. Mezrich says that the young mogul should be flattered, that it’s the best movie he’s ever seen, and that the portrayal of Zuckerberg “is not negative at all.” I suppose he’s right, unless you think that making somebody out to be a complete jerk is negative. (24 Frames)

I'm Still HereCasey Affleck engages in an email interview with Roger Ebert, in which his main point seems to be that he wishes people hadn’t been so focused on whether his depiction of an out-of-control Joaquin Phoenix in “I’m Still Here” was true or a put-on. “My aim was not to fool,” he insists. “My aim was to provoke thought and stir emotion.” His line is intriguing, but not entirely convincing. (Roger Ebert’s Journal)

Director Robert Zemeckis is so enamored of the motion-capture technique he used on “The Polar Express” and “A Christmas Carol” that he’s planning to use it once again on the sequel to “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” – leaving it to his human star, Bob Hoskins, to point out that it doesn’t really make any sense to follow a movie whose kick came from the way it blended live-action and animation with a sequel that relies on a technique that essentially animates everybody. “The thing is, it looks like a cartoon, so how do you put a cartoon in the middle of a cartoon?” asks Hoskins, sensibly. “I can’t figure out how they are going to do it.” Zemeckis’ plan – to make the “human” characters 3D but keep the Toons 2D – sounds entirely unsatisfying to me, and doesn’t seem to thrill Hoskins either. (Studio Briefing)

The New York Film Festival isn’t a marketplace in the way that Cannes – or, this year, Toronto – is, but it is a key showplace for foreign and independent film distributors, NYFF and indie execs tell Bruce Bennett. Two keys: the audience that sees a film at the fest is essentially the same audience that’ll determine its commercial success in the Northeast, and the critical community in New York is substantial enough to jump-start the buzz on films that might otherwise be too esoteric to attract attention. (The Wall Street Journal)

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