It turns out the Russell Crowe phone-throwing episode was captured on tape. It’s also being reported that Crowe didn’t just throw a phone at Mercer Hotel concierge Nestor “Josh” Estrada, but also a vase. It’s also been written in this “Page Six” piece that what got Crowe so enraged was Estrada saying “whatever” after Crowe repeatedly complained that he couldn’t get an international phone connection. Now I know who the real bad guy is. I’ve dealt with guys like Estrada all my life and their “whatever” attitudes about life’s challenges, and they really don’t belong in service industries. When a celebrity wants you to hop, there is one and only one answer, and that is “how high?” A guy who says “whatever” about...

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I would love to jump into War of the Worlds (having seen it last night) but along with everyone else Paramount publicity insisted on a written pledge that I not review this Steven Spielberg film until Wednesday morning. I think it’s fair, however, to pass along one bit of reportage. The widely-buzzed-about disappointment with the finale, which I passed along in this space two or three days ago, is not about Spielberg’s decision to go with the the original H.G. Wells ending. It is not — not — about earthly bacteria in the alien’s bloodstream. As fantastic and genuinely scary as most of the film is (c’mon…you knew this would be the case), I can tell you that people sitting near me inside the Zeigfeld theatre at 9:05 pm last night were audibly moaning and whimpering when this offending scene unfurled. (It turns out, by the way, that Ain’t It Cool News didn’t break the review embargo — Paramount let them skate on the whole thing.)

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The dozens of oddball revisions and reshufflings aside (which are fine — Peter Jackson isn’t doing a Gus Van Sant-folllowing Psycho remake), the new King Kong trailer is actually fairly (emphasis on the “f” word) cool. It’s just that his criteria seems to have been “how can I do this my way, so it doesn’t look like I’m copying?” instead of “how can I take what’s already been done very well and make it better, deeper, spookier…more haunting?” But I love the seeming fact that Jackson has Kong doing his Manhattan rampage in the winter, with snow on the streets…brilliant.

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Six or seven bent-over guys wearing ape-pelts around their shoulders and chests are circling a young woman sitting in their center and chanting the chant that goes “Kong!…konnalong- konnalong-konnalong-konnalongalong Kong Kong!!” and beating their chests with each repetition of those last two syllables. They do this two or three times and then suddenly one of them stops circling and stands up and looks at the others and says, “Wait a minute… something feels wrong…it’s not the same.” And the other ape-pretenders wave their ape arms and tell him to shut up, and then they tell him, “It is what it is, bubba. Peter Jackson’s in charge now, not Merian C. Cooper…deal with it.” And then they resume their chanting: “Kong! Konnalong-konnalong-konnalong- konnalong-along

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From Roger Friedman’s column a couple of days ago: “Meantime, I’ve got a solid new figure for the budget on War of the Worlds. Are you ready? Not counting promotion: $182 million. With promotion, think more like $230 million.”

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For the last two or three days there’s been a ripple effect coming off that press-junket screening of War of the Worlds (Paramount, 6.29),and specifically one cutting remark in particular about the conclusion being underwhelming or otherwise not cutting it because it doesn’t deliver a big crescendo-ish blowout but ends rather quietly and internally…in a bacterial realm. I won’t be seeing the film until Monday night but this is the ending that H.G. Wells used in his original novel and more or less the same one used in the 1953 George Pal movie with Gene Barry. Wells intended WOTW was a metaphor about British militarism and colonial takeovers, and how the invader will always be defeated by natural organic elements. You can interpret the Spielberg film as a metaphor about U.S. occupation of Iraq, or, as screenwriter David Koepp has explained, as primarily being about Tom Cruise’s...

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I was blown away by Fernando Meirelles’ The Constant Gardener (Focus Features, 8.26) this evening. I don’t know how popular it will be (it may be a little too complex and sophisticated for the schmucks) but it’s very high-quality merchandise with a decent shot at year-end awards and Oscar noms. I expected it would be at least pretty good, considering how extraordinary Meirelles’ City of God was, but I didn’t expect it to be this smart and impassioned and as strongly political. This is easily the best adaptation of a John le Carre novel since The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1966). It’s a combination love story and whodunit wrapped inside a realistic political drama that feels as raw and teeming as City of God and then some. Set mostly in Kenya, its about the murder of activist Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz ) and the efforts of her mild-mannered diplomat husband Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) to find...

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For years, Anita Busch was like Old Faithful. Every time I saw her at a screening or a party, she always gave me a vaguely dirty look. Every…damn…time. Which is one reason why I enjoyed…no, not enjoyed…why I didn’t especially grieve over Nikki Finke’s respectful vivisection and entombment of the former entertainment journalist in this just-posted L.A. Weekly column. The subhead reads, “Pellicano charges are vindication for the former Hollywood reporter, but we’ve already buried her.”

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What…are you kidding? This is fantastic. You can tell right away that Elizabethtown has a nicely seasoned mood, a tone that’s not quite this, that or the other thing but is definitely alive and absorbing and trying to dig down. You can feel the whimsy, humor, gravitas, regrets. Kirsten Dunst seems…I don’t know…hotter and more emotionally come-hither than in anything she’s acted in before, and something tells me this will be Orlando Bloom’s home run. (Or something approaching this…a triple?) This easily overrides the effect of those moderately dull school yearbook cast photos that appeared on the Elizabethtown site a week or so ago. Jane Fonda is advised not to click here — it’ll only depress her. Everyone else, feel free.

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Could everyone I’ve been speaking to about doing a new column (and you know who you are) please re-contact me so we can finalize everything and get this stuff rolling? Thanks.

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When Cinderella Man opens theatrically in England and Europe in early September, will local distribs be using a different title? I ask because a lot of people stateside felt that the vaguely pansy-ish Cinderella Man title may have been one of the reasons the ’30s boxing saga didn’t perform up to expectations, and because the title being used in Germany (where the Ron Howard film is opening September 8) is Das Comeback. It’s routine for films to be retitled for European audiences in the local vernacular, of course. Finding Neverland was retitled for Germany as Wenn Traume fliegen lernen (i.e., When Dreams Learn to Fly) and Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was renamed in Germany as Die Tiefseetaucher (The Deep Divers). In France Cinderella Man will be getting a typically native...

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The new trailer for Fernando Meirellles’ The Constant Gardener (Focus Features, 8.26) is up and rolling. Download it and make of it what you will, but also consider the view of a reader who recently saw the entire film: “Gardener is a tad more conventional and mainstream than Meirelles’ City of God, which I was a huge fan of, but it combines thriller elements, a love story and searing reportage of everyday catastrophes besetting Africa…it’s by far the strongest Le Carre adaptation in feature form ever. There are just so many good things about it that it’s hard to know where to start. And while this film is nobody’s notion of an easy sell (the big problem is the unfortunate title), The Constant Gardener‘s uncompromising and indisputable emotional power should give it a shot at a lot of recognition and buzz. You want to see this one ASAP.”

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Those attending the War of the Worlds all-media showing this Monday (6.27) will be obliged to miss the televised debut of the two -and-a-half-minute trailer for Peter Jackson’s King Kong. But there’s an alternate option: an announcement on the official King Kong site says that “Volkswagen, the exclusive automotive promotional partner of King Kong, has been granted the exclusive online debut window for the teaser trailer. Beginning at 8:44 PM ET (15 minutes prior to the NBC Universal primetime roadblock), the teaser trailer may be viewed exclusively on the Volkswagen website (www.volkswagen.com). This Volkswagen online exclusive will continue for 48 hours.”

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“You gotta find a good woman. Not too smart, not too dumb. Not too old, not too young. One that can cook and clean.” — Saddam Hussein’s advice to an unmarried 20-something American guard in Baghdad, according to a news report.

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It won’t be enough for that new David Spade Comedy Central satire show (“The Showbiz Show”) to goof on moronic Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight-style coverage of Hollywood and celebrity news. These shows parody themselves. Spade is going to have to really get down and be mean…if you catch my drift. If the show were on right now, for instance, he would have to really talk about what’s going on with everyone talking about but not really talking about the Tom Cruise meltdown. If Spade just does his usual “nyah-nyah..I’m a funny smart-ass” thing without taking it to the next level, the show won’t make it.

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I’ve thought and thought about it over the last 24 hours, and I still don’t get Sharon Waxman’s Tom Laughlin-wanting-to-do-a-Billy Jack remake story. It seemed to mainly be about Waxman (or maybe Times editors Michael Ceipley or Jodi Kantor) being a fan, etc. I couldn’t figure any other reason why it ran. Does Laughlin seriously expect people to relate to a 73 year-old barefoot Billy Jack setting things straight about…what?..the religous right, nuclear power, the Iraqi War and the proposing of a third-party candidate? Tom Laughlin and Billy Jack nostalgia are waaaay past the identification or recollection abilities of the general ticket-buying demographic. It would be one thing if Laughlin was planning on hiring a younger guy to play the Native American character, but there was no indication of that in the story….so I don’t get it. What did I miss?

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My people-rebelling-against-flaunted-celebrity-behavior theory (by way of Nathaniel West’s Day of the Locust) seems to be gaining validity. The London Independent‘s Andre Gumbel has, in a just-posted article, half-rationalized and come close to applauding last weekend’s squirt-gun attack (click on video here) upon Tom Cruise by a guy from a Channel Four news team. “Though [Cruise] kept his cool, the stunt will have been heartily applauded by those who are beginning to tire of Cruise’s endless self-promotion,” Gumbel wrote. “The production of Tom Cruise: The Movie is in full swing and the response, at least so far, appears to be a resounding thumbs-down.”

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A sincerely rendered approval-slash-redemption piece appeared in last Sunday’s New York Times, with Charles Isherwood lauding the talents of Elizabeth Berkley and her work in Scott Elliott’s revival of David Rabe’s Hurlyburly. “I hereby spread the word that [Berkley] is pretty darn good,” he wrote. “You may have already heard that virtually everyone is terrific in this much-acclaimed production. That Ms. Berkley holds her own among this skilled company of scene- stealers (i.e., Ethan Hawke, Josh Hamilton, Wallace Shawn) is a testament to how much her talent has grown since her appearance in [a certain] monumentally bad movie. As Bobbie, a ‘balloon dancer’ who gets more than she bargained for on a joyride with a frustrated actor, the statuesque Ms. Berkley is like a big, battered Barbie doll, a bruised good-time girl who, contrary...

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The hostility levels are rising between celebs and photographers and the public. It may be coincidence, but I’m picking up vibes from that mob riot scene at the end of Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust. First, the confrontation levels between celebs and crazily aggressive paparazzi started to lunge way out of control, prompting Us editor Janice Min to pledge that the magazine wouldn’t run photos captured via ruthless methods. At the Bewitched premiere last week Nicole Kidman went up to a New York photographer and called him “very rude” after he booed her. Then Leonardo DiCaprio got cut with a broken beer bottle at a party last Friday…not by a media person but an unbalanced woman who apparently didn’t know him. (The facts aren’t in yet, but it looks like she wanted to hurt him because he was Leonardo DiCaprio.) Then Tom Cruise got

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The aliens are looking to slaughter everyone in Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (Paramount, 6.29) and, of course, the film doesn’t bother to explain their motive. In a current Newsweek piece, Spielberg says “having no idea why they’re killing hundreds of thousands of people is scarier than having them arrive, make an announcement and then go to work.” At least screenwriter David Koepp makes a stab at an explanation. “I think the whole war is about water,” he says. “I figure their planet ran out. Wars tend to be fought over very elemental things: water, land, oil.”

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Right off the top and sight unseen, I’m intrigued by David Koepp’s decision to write Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds character as “kind of a jerk.” Ray Ferrier is described in the Newsweek article as “a divorced, blue-collar guy more interested in fast cars than in his young daughter (Dakota Fanning) and teenage son (Justin Chatwin). But then huge alien tripods begin destroying everything in their path, and Ray finds himself on the run with his kids.” Cruise, says Koepp, has “played so many characters that are capable and cocky, and I thought it would be fun to write against that [and make him into] someone whose life didn’t pan out the way he thought it would.”

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This Friday’s opening of George Romero’s Land of the Dead (Universal, 6.24) has stirred an observation about pedestrians in the touristy areas of Manhattan. This is nothing new, but out-of-towners always seem to walk the streets without the slightest hint of spunk or urgency in their step, like they’re making their way from the bedroom to the refrigerator at 2 ayem in their pajamas and nightgowns. And they’re always wearing those dead-to-the-world expressions. (Writer Fran Leibowitz has described the shuffling gait of tourists as the “mall meander.”) Every day I’m walking along at my usual spirited pace and these Jabbas and sea lions are always walking ahead of me in self-protecting groups or, worse, three abreast. The idea that they might be blocking people, much less defying the basic transportation law of going with the flow, doesn’t seen to occur to them. Then again, the flow in Jabba tourist areas (Times Square,...

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Just so it’s understood: the zombies in George Romero’s Day of the Dead still slowly shuffle around. They do not do the zombie sprint (i.e., running toward their victims like Olympic athletes) as witnessed in 28 Days Later and the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead. Romero’s zombies are still taking their time because, according to Romero (or rather a Universal publicist who says Romero has said this), zombies are “more spooky” when they’re lumbering rather than running.

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You’ve seen Yes and therefore know its refrains;

You’re thus prepared to read Anthony Lane’s

Review of this film by Sally Potter

About sex and verse and feeling hotter.

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Read David Poland’s “Hot Blog” comments about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes…just read ‘em…very blunt, very hard-nosed, very this-is-what-it-is…a tiny bit wimpy at the very end when he gets “moral” and says no more TomKat reporting, but don’t mind that. The only thing I choked on was his description of how publicist Cindy Guagenti’s handling of the Pitt-Jolie entanglement as “just good, solid publicity management.” Is that what they call lying through your teeth these days?

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A very smart and thorough take by the Hollywood Reporter‘s Anne Thompson about the over-35 adult audience, and how they still show up for solid adult-angled movies when the calibrations are right (like they were with Lion’s Gate’s Crash). The piece also observes how the mainstream studios have failed to nurture this audience and in fact have done what they can to systematically alienate them. Good work, guys!

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I love it that Lion’s Gate’s Crash, that piercing L.A. drama about racism and criss-crossing fates from director Paul Haggis, has hung in there ($44 million since it opened 5.6 on 1,500 screens) and keeps on chugging. I realize the same thing might not happen with Palm Pictures’ Cronicas (opening 7.8) and also that Sony Classics’ The Beautiful Country (also 7.8) is also facing an uphill ordeal, but I’d sure like to see them both do better than expected.

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