There are perhaps no harder Monday mornings than the ones of mid-to-late August, when we all know we're showing up for work weeks where nothing interesting can possibly happen. Distract yourself from the drudgery with the weekend box office numbers, then put your head down and nap until Friday afternoon:
Even though we never did finish that MBA and some crucial data are missing from the chart (it's like The Tuxedo and The Medallion never existed!), we think we understand what Var's trying to say about Jackie Chan's American movie career: Without the support of a certain visionary filmmaker and a high-pitched, fast-talking sidekick, he's just one more Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle away from domestic obscurity.
The near-constant attention that's accompanying the imminent opening of Rush Hour 3 seems to have turned the already unedited Brett Ratner into something of a chronic oversharer. A couple of days ago, Ratner offhandedly informed the audience at Chinese Theatre know that he lost his virginity at a precocious 13, and in an interview posted on The Advocate's website today, the director deflects accusations that his new movie features some cheap, homophobic jokes by falling back on the time-worn defense [along the lines of—see clarification immediately following!], "Some of the best blowjobs I've ever gotten were by dudes pretending to be chicks." [Ed.note—Allow us to clarify that we are not saying that Mr. Ratner ever spoke these words. They are an apparently confusing attempt to parody the "Some of my best friends "are of x race/sexual persuasion/religion" defense used when an open-minded individual is accused of bias. Also, we in no way mean to imply that the act described to the Advocate below was among the best he's received. Thanks for staying with us during this joke-killing Defamer Clarification.] Wait, what? Ratner explains:
With a mere eight days until the opening of Rush Hour 3, we have perhaps no more than three or four dozen more opportunities to discuss the life and work of visionary filmmaker Brett Ratner, a man whose legacy will live on long after the pyramids have crumbled to dust. This morning's bounty of Ratneria requires that we bullet-point up the highlights:
At Wednesday night's Chinese Theatre premiere of Rush Hour 3, the latest installment of his tripartite cinematic exposé on the intolerance of native-born comedians towards recent immigrants who've had trouble learning to speak unaccented English, director Brett Ratner took a moment to put four of the greatest achievements of humankind into their proper perspective. Declareth Ratner, according to the LAT:
· Did Robert Evans pony up some dough to give a little back-pat to his boy on Brett Ratner, Billion Dollar Director Day? You bet. Did Big Bob tear up a little when he picked up that Sharpie to write a nice note to a guy that's like a son to him? You know it, kid. [ad via Digital Variety]
· Did you really need an expert to tell you that celebrities feels so protected from life's problems by fame that they might not realize they have substance abuse problems until they've bottomed out?
· Inspired by Lindsay Lohan's recent, racially charged finger-pointing, HuffPo presents Great Moments In The "Black Kid Did It!" History.
· Trust us, don't click on this one.
"He's out there too much, too publicity-conscious," Evans says. "It hurts him. He should be more legitimately accepted and praised for his work as an artist instead of being seen as a flamboyant butterfly. He lacks mystery; directors far less capable are embraced by actors because of their mystery."—from "Ratner Boasts Box Office Prowess," Variety, July 30, 2007, Brett Ratner, Billion Dollar Director Day.
Upon picking up their copies of Variety this morning and seeing the above image, subscribers to the trade publication would discover that today is Brett Ratner, Billion Dollar Director Day, a joyous celebration of the ten-figure gross accumulated by the preternaturally hacky director/local bon vivant's seven feature films, an unassailable record of success that ensures that the still-creatively-evolving 38-year-old will have the opportunity to helm lucrative Rush Hour sequels well into the next decade.
Shortly after fainting from delight from reading the phrases "Brett Ratner is set to direct," "Brian Grazer is producing," and "film about the life of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner" contained in the lede of today's Variety story on the progress of a Hef biopic, a quick-thinking intern revived us with smelling salts, allowing us to read about how Hollywood's most lovable fauxteur and its leading, newly single superproducer have come to team up on the dream project. Reports Var:
PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and tell everyone about the time you overhead Jessica Alba politely decline the styling assistance of a fellow Coffee Bean patron.
The battle for the entertainment industry's hearts, minds, and huge, filthy piles of cash raged on at the home of noted local political hacktivist Brett Ratner, who on Wednesday night generously hosted a campaign fundraiser for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. At the event, a mere $250 donation afforded Young Hollywood a rare chance to get close enough to the candidate to discuss matters of policy while gyrating to the strains of "It Takes Two" at Hillhaven Lodge's in-house disco, and an upgrade to the VIP level of patronage bought each Clinton supporter 90 seconds of face-to-face time with the senator in Ratner's famous photo booth. Var recaps the party, including an obligatory roll call of attendees:
When the marketing team for Knocked Up conceived its cute Make-Your-Own-Bastard web game, they couldn't have foreseen the horrifying parental combinations that the Hurty Elbow blog would soon feed into it. We hope that when they come across the dead-eyed spawn resulting from the commingling of superproducers Brian Grazer and Jerry Bruckheimer or hacky directors Brett Ratner and Michael Bay, they realize that their once-fun project has been hopelessly corrupted and destroy the infernal apparatus that produced such abominations.
· Mike Myers is the latest star to try and take a whack at the long-gestating remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which has now moved from Paramount to 20th Century Fox, and to which Owen "The Butterscotch Stalliion" Wilson and Jim "My Career's Way Too Cold To Have A Decent Nickname" Carrey were once attached. [Variety]
· MTV Games has announced a Jackass video game, which will ship with a special controller that will deliver blunt-force trauma to a player's genitals or emit flatulence in his face as he steers Johnny Knoxville and his gang through a variety of wacky stunts. [THR]
· Fox's American Idol predictably dominates in its timeslot, but there's some potentially bad news for the network: the preview/premiere of On the Lot opens to a weak number, calling into serious question Brett Ratner's TV drawing power. [Variety]
· Cuba Gooding Jr. will produce and play a pivotal janitor role in "edgy," Napoloean Dynamite-esque teen comedy Harold. [THR]
·Writers' collectives are so hot right now: Screenwriters like Christopher "Usual Suspects" McQuarrie, John "Undercover Brother" Ridley, and Naomi "Jake and Maggie's Mom" Foner Gyllenhaal have formed the 1.3.9 co-op, joining forces to help each other maintain more control over the creative process.
We weren't even going to mention Brett Ratner's appearance on Sunday night's episode of Entourage, so disappointed were we that the lovable, attention-craving fauxteur was unable to live up to the standard of hacky-director-cameo excellence set by Crash's Paul Haggis last season. But today's Gatecrasher column notes that Ratner's gently self-satirizing turn accurately mimics his real-life shoot etiquette (we can't recall the exact wording of his most notable line, but we remember it involved the appreciation of a model's ass), forcing us to revisit our letdown:
With American Idol soon set to crown its winner and its audience teetering on burnout—even the phone-in results have felt a little phoned-in since Sanjaya was sent packing—Fox is hoping to recapture the nation's sizzling love affair with the couchbound minting of new creative superstars through its latest reality venture, On The Lot. In keeping with current Hollywood trends, no step of the search for the next Spielberg (or, more realistically, the fauxteur apparent to judge Brett Ratner) will remain untouched by the almighty brand-integration dollar:
In today's LAT column expressing profound dismay that even a gifted* and wildly successful filmmaker like Steven Spielberg has proven unable to resist the creatively bankrupt siren call of the sequel in signing up to direct Indy 4, a despondent Patrick Goldstein, unsatisfied by the self-serving explanation of Spielberg DreamWorks collaborator Stacey Snider, turns to the Voice of a Hacky Generation for some straight answers:
