Karina on SpoutBlog

Way back in June, I passed along the news that Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Reubens was set to star in Life During Wartime, Todd Solondz’ alleged semi-sequel to Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse. According to this post on MTV’s Movie Blog, Reubens is still attached to the project, but the project itself may not be any closer to getting made. The former Pee Wee says Wartime has “gotten pushed three times” due to “problems with the financing on it.” At the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Solondz issued a statement about the “unbridled enthusiasm and support” the project enjoyed from then-financiers Fortissimo Films. Are we to assume that said enthusiasm has waned?

Regardless, that’s not even the most interesting nugget of the MTV story. Reubens confirms that as written, Wartime features “characters from Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness whose paths converge. It???s all different people playing the same roles…I???m playing a role someone else played in one of those movies.???

So who do you think it could be? Assuming Solondz is taking age and gender into account in his casting process (and post-Palindromes, there’s no reason to assume that at all), the safest bets would probably be one of three characters from Happiness. There’s Allen, the pervy caller played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (see the clip above, beginning around 5:40); Dylan Baker’s father/psychiatrist/pedophile; and the character played by Jon Lovitz, potential suitor who is jilted in the film’s first scene by Jane Adams. Given Reuben’s personal history, the Dylan Baker character is probably the most obvious, but I think the Jon Lovitz character might be more interesting. Tell us your own thoughts in the comments.

So. Tired. Of. Talking. About. Juno.

Look, let’s get one thing straight: in that post that I wrote earlier this week,?? I wasn’t making a statement about Juno’s quality. I’ve done that elsewhere, but at this point it seems like my energy would be best directed elsewhere–it’s not THAT offensive, and it’s certainly better than Little Miss Sunshine. All I was saying, is that the idea that this film has “crossed over” from an “indie” sphere to mainstream success is a fiction created and promoted by Fox Searchlight in order to align Juno with past “crossover” successes. This is working for them, so that’s great. But the idea that Juno is “small”, that it’s some kind of an underdog??????either at the box office or within the clusterfuck of award’s season??????is categorically insane.

It’s also somewhat troubling to think that if this kind of marketing coup works so well once, it’ll almost certainly work again, and at some point, there won’t be room in the marketplace for actual “small” films that have actually “crossed over”, because they’ll be pushed out of the conversation by studio films (I don’t care how much Juno cost to produce–it was paid for by a studio and it has the full benefit of a studio’s marketing apparatus) masquerading as “small” “crossovers.”

I don’t think I have anything left to say about this, but feel free to have at it/me in the comments.

• Netflix will partner with LG to create a set-top box that will stream movies directly to a television without a disc or computer intermediary.?? Netflix has been rumored to be working on such a thing for a loooong time, but was it worth the wait? According to the Hollywood Reporter story, the first iteration will be aimed at HD-TV owners, and may be prohibitively expensive for the average consumer.
• The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has yet to hammer out a deal with the Writers’ Guild to allow writers to work on the Golden Globes telecast, which is still tentatively scheduled for January 13. According to Dave McNary at Variety, the WGA looks so unlikely to budge that party planners and studio execs are proceding with plans on the assumption that the show will not be televised–and thus, the WGA won’t have reason to picket, and nominees and presenters will actually show up.
• Sean Penn will chair the jury of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
• THR is confirming rumors, which first hit the web last week, that Tyler Perry has been cast as the head of the Starfleet Academy in J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. Since there doesn’t seem to be any call for?? Perry’s usual makeup-aided, multi-role schtick, the casting seems like a clear ploy at broadening the remake/sequel/whatever’s built-in audience. Which makes me wonder: is this thing already so over-budget that Paramount is worried they won’t be able to manufacture a blockbuster on the shoulders of Trekkie love alone?