This is a truly stellar acidic comedy about distrust and loathing between the sexes. It's not too arch in my book. It may have been a gig-for-hire for Joel and Ethan Coen, but they should think about making more mainstream laughers in this vein. They should also consider signing a ten-year indentured servant contract with producer Brian Grazer, because their creative combustion together is sublime.

CRUELTY delivers the single funniest visual gag I've experienced in I don't know many years. I couldn't stop laughing at it. I missed some dialogue in a scene that followed because I couldn't stop.

George Clooney delivers his best performance ever, comic or otherwise -- he's really hit the bullseye this time. Catherine Zeta Jones didn't piss me off like I thought she would and is actually subtle and on-target.

And the Universal spokesperson I quoted in my August article wasn't just "doing his job" -- he was completely on the money.

"INTOLERABLE plays flat-out great," he said. "The Coens maintain their idiosyncratic style but intentionally made a film with an accessible, mainstream appeal that's more associated with Brian Grazer, who produced it. It's a witty throwback to some of the Sturges, Cukor or Hawks romantic comedies that relied on sexual chemistry and verbal repartee, and George, Catherine, Billy Bob and the whole cast are more than up to stepping up to that. You're going to love it."

Clooney plays Miles, a slippery divorce attorney who crosses swords with Zeta Jones' Marylin over the course of three marriages and three torn-up prenup agreements.

As I recounted previously, CRUELTY started as a script by John Romano ("Monk," "Hill Street Blues"). His script was substantially re-written by Robert Ramsay and Matthew Stone (LIFE, BIG TROUBLE), but the verdict came down that their version was "funny but not good enough," according to a producer who was around at the time. This activity happened maybe six or seven years ago. Then Alphaville's Jim Jacks brought in Joel and Ethan Coen to rewrite CRUELTY "for money," the source says.

Then Grazer's Imagine Entertainment worked its way into things. Grazer declared at one stage in the game that Ron Howard would direct, but that never happened. In any event, once Imagine was in "they never left," says the producer. And then later "other directors and producers came and went" before the Coens were lured back to direct.

The rest of what I heard about the film lacking emotion or being overly arch was wrong or short-sighted or whatever. I apologize to everyone connected with this film for whatever negative impression my August piece may have left with anyone. I still maintain that Universal publicity has conveyed a vaguely standoffish attitude towards INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, as if deep down they don't believe in it 110%, but that's neither here nor there at this stage. This sucker works, and it wasn't just me who was laughing last night.

Low Riders

On October 13th, Michael Mann's COLLATERAL -- a movie in which Tom Cruise will make his debut as an out-and-out bad guy -- will begin shooting in Los Angeles. DreamWorks will have it in theatres a year from now. And now it has the honor of being discussed in this column.

I was handed a July 2003 draft of the script (by Stuart Beattie and rewriter-tweaker Frank Darabont) last week. COLLATERAL is a tightly constucted, smartly written, half-comic crime thriller. A kind of dark-toned buddy flick, it's swift and hard hitting and gets more and more intense and outrageous as it goes along. It has a bit more pathos and depth of character than a typical urban shoot-em-up, although it would be a stretch to call the payoff touching or profound.

The story happens over the course of a long and violent night in Los Angeles, and could be described as a mixture of MIDNIGHT RUN, AFTER HOURS and TRAINING DAY...sort of. Max (Jamie Foxx) is an L.A. cab driver with dreams of being a comedy writer, but he's a procrastinating under-achiever and a bit of a dweeb. He's throttled by the hand of fate when a smart-ass, blunt-spoken, cold-blooded hit man named Vincent (Cruise) jumps into his cab and quickly has Max take him around from one "job" to the next -- at first obliviously, and then under duress and force.

I won't say any more than this, but COLLATERAL is about as sharp, classy and well-oiled as an urban diversion of this sort can be.

If this were a Michael Bay film with, say, Will Smith as the hit-man and THE SHAPE OF THINGS' Fred Weller as the cab driver, it would feel like a nice fit all around. But as good as it is, COLLATERAL feels a bit like a slummming exercise for Cruise and Mann both. I get Cruise wanting to play a sociopathic shit with ice water in his veins for the sheer fun of it (or perhaps as a "swing" or antidote to the high-minded DANCES WITH SAMURAI), but Mann hasn't been involved with anything this street-ish and genre-bound since his producing days with MIAMI VICE. It sure as hell isn't on the level of HEAT or THE INSIDER, I can tell you.

Dennis Farina, Irma P. Hall and Jada Pinkett Smith have supporting roles. Adam Sandler was in talks last June to play Max after Cruise signed on, but the deal fell through. Val Kilmer was going to play Farina's role (an L.A. detective named Heller) but he bailed in order to star in Oliver Stone's ALEXANDER.

COLLATERAL was originally slated to shoot back in early '01 with Mimi Leder at the helm. Then she left and Janusz Kaminski came aboard as director, intending to shoot it in late '02 or early '03 after completing his cinematographer duties on Steven Spielberg's CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. One big change that's happened over the last two or three years is that the story's now set in Los Angeles instead of New York City, where it was based when Beattie first put pen to paper.

Young Pup

A brand-new DVD of Bernard Girard's enjoyable and above-average DEAD HEAT ON A MERRY GO-ROUND ('66) came out Tuesday. It's a clever but easygoing caper flick with a nifty final twist. The late James Coburn -- what a charmed run he had during the mid '60s! -- plays an ex-convict named Eli Klotch who masterminds the robbing of an L.A. international airport bank just as the head of the Soviet Union arrives for a state visit.

It's noteworthy the way Coburn/Klotch is always changing identities and accents in order to put the pieces of the heist together. If you forget the job and just study Klotch, he comes into focus as a typically alienated and disconnected modern guy of the mid '60s -- a man who lives only to fake people out and move on to the next hustle. From beginning to end Girard (who also wrote the screenplay) never tells the audience a damn thing about who he is or what he's about. It's almost an Antonioni film in this respect.

Another prominent anecdote is the fact that DEAD HEAT was Harrison Ford's appearance on film. He has a walk-on scene as a bellboy. He was about 23 when the scene was shot, or roughly 15 years younger than Calista Flockhart is now. She was somewhere between 12 and 18 months old at the time.

The footage of the airport is fascinating in itself since there wasn't any upper-level roadway at the time. The main LAX throughfare was just one big, flat, horseshoe-shaped deal.

Solution

Yesterday morning I came up with a nice, easy solution to the MPAA screener-mailing ban that makes perfect sense and will most likely be ignored. Here's the text of the letter I wrote explaining the whole thing. Following it are some responses that came in on Thursday afternoon.

"Early Thursday morning, MPAA prexy Jack Valenti faxed out a memo saying that even commercially available DVD's can't be sent out to Academy members.

"'Questions by some of the companies' subsidiaries have been quoted in the newspapers," it began. "It has been reported that some subsidiaries believe it is okay to send out screeners if the film has been released in home video form. This is incorrect. The policy is [that] no screeners of any kind are allowed to be sent out. Once an exemption is made, the barn door is wide open.

"'I hope you will instruct your subsidiaries that no screeners are to be mailed," Valenti concluded, "whether they have been released in home video/DVD or not.'

"Will someone please explain to me how preventing the mailings of commercially available DVD'S helps to stop piracy? Ding-dong...somebody answer the door!

"Call me excitable, but as soon as I read this I thought of the moment in SPARTACUS when Charles McGraw slaps Kirk Douglas and says, "No talking in the kitchen, slave." Grab that McGraw and stuff his head into a kettle of hot soup! Revolt! Torches and pitchforks!

"I have a solution to the whole problem. Ready? Here it is.

"We all know the film industry isn't a monolithic entity but basically two separate factories. One is a AAA factory that churns out blockbusters and brain-numbing theme-park movies, and the other is an A/B factory that makes lesss expensive, somewhat smaller-scale, smarter, slightly more soulful, and definitely more adult-level movies.

"The AAA's are justifiably terrified of international piracy because their films are the most sought-after on the piracy market and so they have the most to lose. But it's the A/B's who will suffer the most from this ban of mailing DVD screeners because it'll hurt their chances of being in the running for Oscar nominations and awards, which is money in the bank to them, as much if not more than it is for the AAA's.

"In [Thursday's] USA TODAY, Ken Jacobsen, director of the MPAA's Worldwide Anti-Piracy division, [told] feature writer Andy Seiler that the decision to ban DVD screener mailings was based on "13 pirated DVDs that the MPAA discovered in Asia." Jacobsen said that "from memory, I can tell you that some of the 13 movies were definitely Oscar-nominated. But ... I cannot currently guarantee all 13 were."

"There's probably a secondary motive to the AAA's pushing the DVD screener mailing ban, and that's because it'll help to make the Oscar competition a little bit blander and more mainstream-y. It'll create a climate in which Johnny Depp will have a better chance of being nominated for Best Actor in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and Holly Hunter will barely be considered for Best Actress (or Best Supporting Actress) for THIRTEEN.

"The solution is simple: ban the mailings of AAA DVD's and permit the mailings of A/B DVD's.

"We all know the difference between the two. Any kid on the street in Bangkok, Beijing, Capetown or Bombay can tell you which bootleg flicks he's interested in and not interested in. It's a very simple call. He's going to say yes to big stars, spectacle, special effects, overt violence and overt sex. He's going to say no to anything that doesn't have a big obvious hook and is lacking big stars, big scale, cool killings and/or special effects, and seems in any way intimate, small-scale or thoughtful..

"Too arbitrary, you say? Bullshit...it's not. KILL BILL is a AAA -- 21 GRAMS is an A/B. THE LAST SAMURAI is a AAA -- AMERICAN SPLENDOR is an A/B. MASTER AND COMMANDER is a AAA -- IN AMERICA is an A/B. Easy. No confusion.

"But forget judgements of any kind if you like. Base the division between AAA's and A/B's on the decision that distributors themselves make about their print runs. If a film has more than 500 prints, it's a AAA. If it has less, it's an A/B.

"Of course, this means the DVD screener mailing policy wouldn't be "fair" and across-the-board...but what in this life or this industry is "fair" and even-steven? You certainly have to admit that on the face of it, this AAA and A/B solution seems a hell of a lot fairer than the one Jack Valenti and Warner Bros. honcho Barry Meyer are trying to impose. Its not just fair, but realistic and sensible.

"Question #1: Do you support a DVD screener mailing policy that says no mailings for AAA's but approves mailings for A/B's? (If 500-plus prints is the wrong number/standard to determine if a film is AAA, tell me what the number should be.) Do you think it's fair to clasify films in this fashion?

"Question #2: Do you feel Valenti's order/declaration that even commercially released DVD's can't be mailed out to Academy members is (a) fair and sensible?, and (b) a policy that will have the slightest bearing on the piracy situation?

In Their Opinion...

"I say yes to what you propose. I think something has got to be done about this because there's no question that failure to send out DVD's [to Academy members] will tilt the Academy voting away from A/B films to those kind of BEN-HUR choices that were made in the '50s and '60s." -- Robert Towne, director-screenwriter (ASK THE DUST, WITHOUT LIMITS, TEQUILA SUNRISE).

"As for question #1, your proposal is sound. It's so sound it will never work, if you catch my drift. Common sense is a very difficult thing for this industry to follow. As for question #2, Valenti is clearly on the pipe." -- Glenn Kenny, film critic, PREMIERE.

"This is Valenti's dumbest idea ever and proves his retirement can't come any too soon. Also, the boycott will not hold up. All it will take -- and it will happen -- is for one or two studios to break ranks and then they'll all fold and resume sending videos and DVD's to Academy members, important press and various guild members. The gold in question (i.e., Oscar statuettes) is too precious to allow this to continue. Valenti talks about plugging a piracy hole. We think he should plug the hole in his head for comng up with this outrageous idea." -- Veteran Academy Member and Oscar Campaigner

"Of course your solution is fair. Of course some blockbusters are more desirable to the citizens of Bangkok than others. But this is all just a lot of noise -- an attempt to look like something is being done when if fact screeners are not the major cause of piracy. Check the labs and check the booths. This is the movie business's answer to homeland security after 9/11 -- do something drastic, inconvenience the voters, and look like you're doing something. And are we really any safer? With the Academy's new guidelines and campaign diligence it was the perfect time for the MPAA censors to strike." -- Jim Katz, producer.

"If you believe that Valenti is being sincere about this, then I guess you also believe that the MPAA ratings were put in place as a public service for parents. Valenti has usually been a master politician, clever with putting his hidden agendas over on the public.

"Valenti is a lobbyist, pure and simple, for the MPAA signatory companies. This new policy will have the result of more Oscars for the expensive films they make (rather than the cheapies their subsidiaries make and the independent companies make). More Oscars, more money for his clients.

"He does not feel it's worth his time to even try to show that this policy will save the studios even one cent in money lost from piracy. This bold maneuver is like standing under Niagara Falls with a thimble. There are hundreds of ways to do piracy. All you need is a camcorder. [Banning mailings of DVD screeners] will accomplish nothing.

"But it will make hundreds of millions more for the major studios. Oscars are big business. People like Tom Bernard and Bingham Ray and the rest are right to be fighting this all the way. It's a nasty underhanded end run on American culture." -- Reid Rosefelt, longtime indie publicist and lecturer.

"The biggest irony of all is that the very films that need the most exposure come Oscar time -- the smaller, more obscure titles that typically compete in the acting and writing categories -- are those least likely to be pirated. Common sense dictates that must-see epics like MASTER AND COMMANDER, COLD MOUNTAIN and THE RETURN OF THE KING should only be seen within the secure confines of a theatre. A watermarked DVD of 21 GRAMS, on the other hand, is hardly number one on the black market hit list. Even if a few counterfeit copies did surface, the loss incurred would be outweighed by the irreparable damage done to Hollywood's creative vitality and longterm livelihood." -- Colin Brown, Editor-in-chief, SCREEN INTERNATIONAL.

"They will never go for your idea because they'll say it's unfair to categorize films as AA's or A/B's. But I'm furious. This [policy] is an attack on independent cinema as far as I'm concered. It's the first thing that came into my mind when I first heard about it -- it's going to severly hurt the independents. Who finances the MPAA? The big studios. I'm an avid moveiger and go to as many films as I can, but because I'm working as much as I do, I'm unable to get out and see every single film. Screeners are invaluable if only because they allow you to watch two or three [films] in a single night. The MPAA should battle technology with technology. It's the only way to do it. They can use coding to track down the bad apples." -- Roger Avary, writer-director (THE RULES OF ATTRACTION)

"As bad as independent filmmakers getting the fuzzy end of lollipop will be the ramped-up media blitz of Oscar nominations. You think it's bad now? Wait until relative merit is removed from the equation and it comes down to little more than the Hollywood version of the golden rule: The one who spends the most marketing gold rules.

"There are probably (minor) technical hurdles to overcome, but I don't see why they can't "watermark" DVDs so that pirated copies can be traced back to individual owners. (Or even claim they're doing so, so another thirteen -- thirteen?! All this over thirteen miserable titles?! -- pirated titles won't show up overseas and bankrupt some poor studio. Call this the SPEED-CHECKED-BY-RADAR solution. But then they'd have to actually prosecute the miscreants publicly. (Picture Roger Ebert on some street corner wearing a court-mandated sandwich board that reads I GAVE A SCREENER TO MY NEPHEW WHO SOLD IT ON E-BAY.)

"Or they could simply be adults and let the studios/filmmakers decide. Risk of piracy vs. increased chance of Oscar. Ya sends out yer screeners, ya takes yer chances." -- David Ludwig.

"About six weeks ago I got in touch with the MPAA's anti-piracy division to drop the dime on a warehouse in Irwindale that had about 25,000 DVDs that were about to be bootlegged. It's a little complicated, but most of these had studio-level (some Oscar-winners) trailers, DVD-extras and other non-feature (but still very copyrighted) material on them. They all had full features on the flip sides (most were indie films like my own OMAHA, THE MOVIE which was on 10,000 of them). But about 1000 had the MPAA-member film SPECIES on them.

"I called and e-mailed the MPAA giving them the exact street address of the warehouse and the name, address, and cell number of the guy who was going to sell them. What does the MPAA do? Nothing. Not a goddamned thing. Not even a friggin' courtesy call back to tell me that they weren't going to do a thing. Okay, it's not a sexy internet-ripping scheme out of Beijing to write home about, but it's something. And I'll bet if Russell Crowe or Robert Redford or Madonna found out their interviews were being bought and sold out of a warehouse in Irwindale (they're all on the same disc as me), they'd be a little frustrated, too.

"So the next time the MPAA or Valenti or the studios come whining to me about bootlegs and protecting 'artists' rights' I'll be sure to give them as much respect as they gave me. Hope you're doing well, and keep an eye out for my new film OPEN HOUSE (the real-estate musical starring Sally Kellerman, Anthony Rapp and Kellie Martin) to premiere somewhere in Park City. Hey, I'm submitting to Sundance tomorrow! " -- Dan Mirvish, director & Slamdance co-founder.

"The screener ban is bullshit. DVDs are already protected, but Hollywood wants simple solutions and if they can eliminate smaller movies at Oscar time, so much the better." -- Manohla Dargis, film critic, LOS ANGELES TIMES.

"I cannot imagine that the ban will have any kind of bearing on the piracy issue. As far as I can tell, the closest Academy members get to 'file sharing' is that many of them pass tapes and DVDs around amongst themselves within the confines of the entertainment industry, for convenience. Okay, a few send the tapes on to their mothers. I find it impossible to believe that these films somehow get from an Academy Member's mailbox to a street corner in China." -- Catherine Olim, publicist, PMK/HBH

Wells to Olim: I'm told by a well-positioned source that it's the belief of Warner Bros. honcho Barry Meyer that this move wouldn't have been necessary had it not been for the passing along or selling of Academy screeners by certain persons (or friends of same) within the Holywood Foreign Press Assocation. Meyer denied this through a spokesperson when I called earlier this week, and the HFPA's president Lorenzo Soria called it a baseless rumor. Nonetheless, I'm told that this scenario or hypothesis (no one at the MPAA called me back with any investigative data to support this) is subscribed to by Meyer.

"I think it is rather insulting to the Academy members that the MPAA is assuming that we contribute to piracy at all. Aren't all the films given the macrovision treatment to prevent piracy? As a working member of the Academy, and the looming deadlines for screening the fims, it'll be almost impossible for me to be able to see the qualifying films for 2003. I do believe it's mostly a ploy to discourage the independents from being in the Oscar race and that it is mostly the studios' way of figuring out ways to do that." -- Marcus Hu, Strand Releasing.

"The answer is [that] Valenti is a demented dwarf. If he can't disinguish between the distribution of commercially available DVDs and unreleased movies then the power has gone to his head. He's too Stalinist to tolerate any arguments, and [thereby] becomes irrational. His move will, of course, weight the awards process toward the blockbuster movies. Which is the only possible point of all this. The studios already enjoy a situation that in any other era would prompt an anti-trust case. Valenti's job is to make it airtight." -- John Anderson, film critic and feature writer, NEWSDAY.

"Although all the examples you cite make sense, I don't think you can separate films into AAA and A/B or whatever in the long run, because there will be too many gray areas, notably smaller films from big studios (even something like THE HOURS or WONDER BOYS) which might have big stars but aren't very commercial on the face of it and need all the help they can get.

"The big problem here was the way the decision was ramrodded through without a discussion/debate period during which all the complexities and issues could be batted around and rational solutions arrived at; it's the haste with which Valenti and the studios finalized this that has given rise to all the conspiracy theories, as much as anything.

"Other than quickly working out a way to encode DVDs, which has often been done in the past and I'm assured is quite simple, or using perishable DVDs or tapes, ones that self-destruct after one viewing or a week/month or whatever, my solution would be a simple and democratic one: Whoever's concerned about piracy can decide not to send out screeners, and whoever thinks it's not a huge risk can just send them as they please. Since there's obviously not a one-size-fits-all solution to the problem, just let filmmakers do what they want." -- Todd McCarthy, film critic, VARIETY.

"You could justify the distinction on the availability of the film to the voting members of the Academy, I suppose. More screens equals more access to the membership; fewer screens suggests increased difficulty, hence the justification for screeners.

"But it would be better, I think, to code the DVDs individually and publicize that fact. How many are actually made? Ten thousand? At most? Haven't I read that the technology is there to tag the disks individually? If a tagged disk gets out and is eBayed or pirated, the owner gets the blame.

"And the suggestion that distribution of commercially available DVDs is also a piracy-fighting measure leaves not much question that piracy concerns don't have much to do with this edict, and that the devastating effect on less mainstream films is a matter of little concern to the majors, except to the degree it might be seen as a plus." -- Cotty Chubb, producer (DARK BLUE).

"Even with its vast resources, the movie industry failed to anticipate widespread electronic piracy of their product. If they'd used their loot to technologically position themselves ahead of the inevitable piracy curve, every Academy screener going out this late in the game would be protected against piracy. There is the argument that any geek with a degree from Cal Poly or MIT can outwit the protective technology out of Hollywood, yes, but with the same wrecklessness of a movie star having unprotected sex in a bath house, Hollywood failed to cover itself.

"I suppose the upside to all this is that the lazy, residual-sucking members making up a majority of the Academy might be compelled to get off their asses and actually go see the contending films in a theater. They don't even have to pay, and we know how much they love free shit." -- Mark Ebner, author, the forthcoming "Hollywood Interrupted."

"There's a much simpler solution. Just copy-protect all Academy screeners! The technology is readily available, and I'm sure the indie distributors would view any additional cost involved as a small price to pay." -- Jack Lechner, Manhattan marketing whiz.

Silence Over Kazan

"It's difficult to understand the complexity of a relationship from the outside. It's what [Marlon] Brando said to [Elia] Kazan and what Kazan said to Brando that's important. Kazan is dead and Brando knows that. Anything Brando says now would not be for Kazan's benefit anyway, so to avoid the limelight on the death of his old and most important colleague is honorable. At least to Brando and Brando is most definitely ALIVE. Trust me, Brando loves Kazan--- but it's between them." -- Tony Kaye, director.

Wells to Kaye: I don't presume to understand the complexity of Brando's relationship with Kazan or vice versa, but they made their mark on stage and in film, and the public witnessed their time of greatness, and whatever Brando knows or feels in the privacy of his Mulholland Drive home, it seems extremely disrespectful or uncaring not to issue a terse statement of some kind to the public that knows their history together and understands that in a very real if temporary sense Kazan was Brando's priest, his mentor, his brother, his artistic comrade-in-arms during the greatest period of their lives. If you live famously and achieve famously, you have to die and eulogize famously. You can't bug out and hide away when the man who molded your art into something great and mighty passes away. You just can't. It's bad form, I feel."