Tom Green picks fight with Martin Short
Ottawa comic Tom Green says he can take a joke, as long as it's a funny one. Martin Short begs to differ.
And suddenly it looks like the fellow Canadian celebs are headed for a comic catfight, stemming from a four-year-old exchange on Short's now-defunct Comedy Central show Primetime Glick. This week Green launched a "Martin Short is Lame Game" and lashed out in his online diary about comments Short made about him in the May issue of W magazine.
"The sad truth is, Martin Short hasn't done anything funny since (former Saturday Night Live character) Ed Grimley," wrote Green on Tuesday. "I find it sad, that someone who admittedly was once very funny, can become so mediocre and lame."
Green is furious at Short and, on his website at least, says he'll only settle for a public apology after the W article promoting next month's release of Short's feature film Jiminy Glick in Lalawood.
Short says in the three seasons he played the fat, obnoxious, ill-informed celebrity reporter, Green was the only guest to take offence at his intentionally ignorant barbs.
At the time, Green had been telling jokes about his successful treatment for testicular cancer.
"So I asked about it," Short recalls in the piece, "and then I pretended to take a phone call during the answer."
In the article, due on newstands April 26, Short says Green stormed off the set and refused to let the spot air.
Green, who briefly recounted the episode in his 2004 autobiography Hollywood Causes Cancer, says Short went a little further than that.
"He of course didn't mention that he was making fun of my cancer/one testicle etc. ... He just plays it off to people like I am some sort of jerk," writes Green. "I can say here right now, I have never walked off anything in my life, except that. He pushed hard, he pushed mean, and I left."
Green even got his long-time manager, Howard Lapides, to back up his story on his blog. Lapides calls the incident "a massacre" that blindsided his client.
"I can't believe Martin would have the balls to bring it up again," wrote Lapides. "But, Martin has two balls ...so it was easy for him to 'make fun of' those who only have one ..."
Short told W he was sorry Green was offended, but it didn't stop his Glick from making other stars uncomfortable for laughs. In the opening scene of Lalawood, W reports, the faux journo mistakes Whoopi Goldberg for Oprah Winfrey.
Short interviewed Green once before the Glick fiasco, on a talk show he briefly hosted. As Short and Green's fellow guest Steve Martin looked on, Green proceeded to honk like a goose with a box on his head.
Short once parodied Green on that talk show, pretending to play him in a skit where he interviewed his beleaguered parents after he'd had them kidnapped and taken to Afghanistan.
Green's faithful fans obviously have his back. Hours after Green posted his rant Tuesday, several fans had already sent in photos of themselves wearing "Martin Short is lame" T-shirts.
Foo Fighters Album Preview: Grohl Gets Grand On In Your Honor
Band averted breakup to record double album featuring Norah Jones and John Paul Jones.
When record labels hold listening sessions for upcoming albums, there are usually speeches by marketing VPs and A&R reps that involve statements like "the first single is already impacting modern-rock radio." These speeches are usually given in lavish conference rooms with large oak tables and elaborate light fixtures. Often there are refreshments.
But when RCA previewed five tracks off the Foo Fighters' much-anticipated double album, In Your Honor (due June 14), there was none of the aforementioned hullabaloo. Just two burned CDs and a VHS cassette.
On the cassette was a seven-minute interview with a very tired Dave Grohl. Sitting in the band's guitar-strewn studio, he stretched his legs, scratched his patchy beard and delivered — in very slow, deliberate pauses — a mission statement, as it were. The Foo Fighters have been a band for almost a decade now, he said, and he wasn't quite sure if they had another record in them. Then he started listening to the tunes he and the band had been writing — enough for two whole albums, one of heavier material and one of "mellow" arrangements — and his whole plan changed.
"When someone comes up to you and asks which Led Zeppelin album they should buy, you should say Physical Graffiti," he said. "And, in 20 years, when your kid comes up to you and asks which Foo Fighters album he or she should buy, I want you to say In Your Honor."
A lofty goal, to say the least, which is probably why Grohl and the rest of the Foos come out reaching for the heavens from minute one of In Your Honor. The opener, from which the album takes its name, kicks in with a huge wall of guitar drones that escalates to a bowel-shaking crescendo while Grohl howls, "Can you hear me?/ Hear me screaming?"
The guitars are positively gigantic, the feedback nearly disorienting, but the whole thing is held together by Taylor Hawkins' massive, machine-gunning drum work. As the song piles on the sonics, Grohl is left yelping, "In your honor/ I will die tonight," and the tune comes crashing to an echoed conclusion ... only to be revived a split second later as a chugging guitar-and-drums freakout that proves Grohl learned a thing or three from his collaborations with Mötorhead's Lemmy Kilmister.
In stark contrast to the album's opening number is the first single, "Best of You," which is closely reminiscent of the Foo milestone "Everlong" (from 1997's The Colour and the Shape.) There are the churning guitars that bassist Nate Mendel imported from Sunny Day Real Estate, and Grohl delivers his lines like the famously late lead singer of some other band he used to be in. But again, the real star is Hawkins, who drums heavy and sloppy in all the right ways, holding things together and letting the colors run when necessary. While not as hard-hitting and precise as Grohl, he's at least become a reasonable facsimile of him.
"Resolve" is the softest number on Honor's heavy disc, with "Strawberry Fields" guitars, washes of chimes and some pretty vocal harmonization thrown in for good measure. It's a ballad, to be sure, but there's also muscular power chords to give it some added oomph. It serves as a nice bridge between the meaty first disc and the mellow second, which features the album's much-discussed guest stars.
Norah Jones lends her breezy vocals to Honor's most pleasant surprise: the jazzy "Virginia Moon." Over a shuffling guitar/drum rhythm straight out of Brazilian legend João Gilberto's playbook, Jones and Grohl coo lines like "Secret fascination/ Whisper a quiet tune" and "Hear me calling you." There's also an impressive, nearly bolero guitar solo thrown in for good measure. It's a tune that carefully treads the line between cheese-ball exotica and really good bossa nova.
That's opposed to the love-is-awesome ballad "Miracle," which features Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones on piano. Maybe the rest of the Foos were too in awe of JPJ to lend him any support, but on "Miracle" — which features Grohl singing, "I got my hands on a miracle/ And there ain't no way I'll let you take it away" — there's little more than lightly strummed guitars and string flourishes, and the tune as a whole fails to cover any new ground.
But that's what happens when you go for grandeur. On any double album, there's bound to be a clunker or two. With In Your Honor, Foo Fighters are clearly reaching for the stars ... or at least looking to ride Zeppelin's mystic coattails. As is the case with such epic pursuits, you're going to fall on your face from time to time. The real achievement here is that the Foos manage to look so good while looking they're dusting themselves off.
IT'LL MAKE YOUR HEAD SPIN
Morgan Creek Productions to unspool Paul Schrader's take on the prequel to the The Exorcist on May 20 in limited release, according to Variety. Schrader was fired after shooting the movie and replaced by Renny Harlin, whose version hit theaters last August, grossing about $80 million worldwide.
Last Stop for MGM: 'Amityville'
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The historic and no longer independent MGM will take a final bow this weekend without any direct competition in the marketplace.
Friday (April 15) marks the debut of the remake "The Amityville Horror," the last wide release to be managed solely by MGM's distribution team and the first MGM-produced film to count as part of Sony Pictures' market share as Sony takes over distribution of MGM titles. The film also is a co-production with Miramax's Dimension Films.
Based on the best-seller by Jay Anson, the remake from director Andrew Douglas follows the Lutz family, who move into their dream home only to find that demonic forces reside there too. Screenwriter Scott Kosar also wrote 2003's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," the film "Amityville" is most closely modeling itself on as it aims for opening-weekend grosses.
But while "Chainsaw" opened to $28 million before going on to earn $80 million, industry insiders believe the R-rated "Amityville" should scare up closer to $20 million, though it might climb into the mid-$20 million range. Like "Chainsaw," this "Amityville" comes from Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes, which produced along with Ted Field's Radar Pictures. Commercial and music video director Douglas is making his feature film debut.
The 1979 original, starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder, opened to $7.8 million on 748 screens before grossing $86 million. The remake features up-and-coming actors Ryan Reynolds ("Blade: Trinity") and Melissa George ("Down With Love," "Mulholland Drive"). It will bow in 3,323 theaters and should easily take hold of the No. 1 spot.
LIMITED OFFERINGS
The other films opening this weekend are all in limited release.
Lions Gate will bow two films this frame. "State Property 2," from rap impresario Damon Dash, is an R-rated film revolving around three gangsters who vie for control of the streets of Philadelphia. Dash directs and stars in the film, which will bow in 202 theaters. The original, released in 2002, made $2 million.
The company's other release is David Duchovny's directorial debut, "House of D." The film, which was screened at ShoWest and last year's Tribeca Film Festival, opens on two screens in Los Angeles and New York. Starring Duchovny, wife Tea Leoni and Robin Williams, "House of D" centers on Duchovny's character, who is seen in flashback as a teenager and begins working through problems stemming from his past.
Subversive director Todd Solondz ("Welcome to the Dollhouse," "Storytelling") is back with his fourth film, "Palindromes," and is likely to polarize audiences again. This time around, Solondz tells the story of 12-year-old Aviva, played by a handful of actresses, who runs away from home after her parents force her to have an abortion and ends up in the hands of several abusers. The unrated film, from Wellspring Media, bowed Wednesday in New York. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Ellen Barkin co-star.
Fine Line Features also will bow one of its last films, the documentary "The Year of the Yao," before it is swallowed up by the newly formed company run by Bob Berney and featuring the production assets of HBO and New Line/Fine Line. The uplifting story follows a year in the life of Yao Ming, the basketball star who left China and his career with the Shanghai Sharks to become the first pick in the 2002 NBA draft. The PG-rated documentary from directors Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern opens Friday on 12 screens.
Freestyle Releasing will bow "Down and Derby" Friday on 58 screens. The film, from director Eric Hendershot, centers on Phil Davis (Greg Germann), your average dad-next-door, who becomes obsessed with his son's Pinewood Derby competition. Lauren Holly and Pat Morita co-star in one of Freestyle's first releases as a distributor.