Odds: "Porno" gets the R, ThinkFilm doesn't need your damn bills.

By Alison Willmore on 08/05/2008

Kevin Smith gets "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," first rated NC-17, down to a more marketable R. As if there was ever any doubt. [Via the AP]

ThinkFilm is so indie it doesn't even need to pay its bills! Bills just roll right off it! Alex Ben Block gets some fabulous quotes from company head David Bergstein at the Hollywood Reporter: "Some of what is out there is true. The vast majority is not true. And for the stuff that is true, my answer is, 'So what? So what if X, Y or Z might be owed money?' "

"He is used to going in, buying something that's normally four cents for two cents and then saying to everyone, 'It's a distressed asset. I'm only going to pay you half of what you deserve,' " said a veteran talent manager and producer who has worked with Bergstein. "It's just a whole mindset that is antithetical to the movie business."

Alas, one would think this technique would only work if you keep up the pretense that you're actually trying to pay people back for the services they rendered or the film they signed over to you.

At his blog at the LA Times, Patrick Goldstein looks at Slydial, a service that lets you skip straight to someone's voicemail without their phone ever ringing, and notes that producer Scott Rudin perfected a technique to achieve the same end years ago:

As Hollywood insiders will attest, the Oscar-winning, titanic-tempered producer has been famous for being impossible to reach by phone, often returning supplicants' phone calls in the wee hours of the morning or long after closing hours, anything to avoid actually speaking to the intended party. Entire memoirs have been written about playing phone tag with Rudin, who, according to former assistants, was a Slydialer long before this fancy new version of the technology was invented. He simply had two assistants sit next to each other, dialing the same (studio exec/agent/lowly reporter's) cellphone at exactly the same time, ensuring that the calls would come in simultaneously, bumping them both to voice mail.

At Artforum, Darrell Hartman on the Dardennes:

The Dardennes deliver memorable images of life on the brink--as when Rosetta, wrestling with her alcoholic mother near their trailer, falls into a muddy sinkhole. She flounders, cries out, then drags herself out of the slime alone, gasping desperately. You can almost hear the filmmakers crying out: How can a civilized country tolerate anything so abject?

[Photo: "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," Weinstein Co., 2008]

+ Smith wins appeal for R rating for 'Porno' (AP)
+ Has ThinkFilm lost its mind? (Hollywood Reporter)
+ Phone message of the week: Scott Rudin's office, returning (LA Times)
+ Simple Life (Art Forum)