...and then another Hollywood blogger gets a hold of the private e-mail and a shitstorm erupts!
Jeffrey Wells, who does the Hollywood Elsewhere blog, e-mailed James Mangold, the 3:10 to Yuma director, commenting on the movie and begging for nude pics of an actress who has a topless scene in the movie. Nikki Finke, who runs ANOTHER movie blog called Hollywood Deadline or something like that, got a hold of it and posted the naughtiest excerpts.
Jeffrey Wells's response:
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2007/09/wrapping_up_man.phpDon't read the e-mail as it appears on the website because it contains end spoilers for 3:10 to Yuma (the comments do too, FYI).
This is the letter Jeffrey Wells wrote to James Mangold, who directed 3:10 to Yuma (I've only edited out the ending spoilers for folks who haven't seen it yet):
"Jim,
"I'm just gonna be upfront with you, pardner, and tell ya right straight I can't get on the 3:10 to Yuma train and ride shotgun this time. Not like I did with Walk the Line, I mean. Not 100% anyway. It's clearly above-average and sometimes way above average but that ending....hoowee. [SPOILERS EDITED OUT]
"Christian Bale is superb -- one of his career best -- and Crowe is high-end exceptional as always, and I greatly respect Bale's angry older son. A very good actor. DiCaprio-strength emoting. What's his name again? Don't bother -- I'll figure it out.
"I am on my knees, Mr. Mangold, saying thank you, thank you and thank you again for persuading Vinessa Shaw to do her first flat-out, boob-baring nude scene. I was in heaven as Crowe drew her on his notepad. Please tell me there's somebody on the Yuma team who can slip me some stills of the shooting that day...please. I'm serious. I know you think like I do in this respect, so please...as one good hombre to another...you don't have to be the guy who passes along the stills. Just tell the still photographer or the editor or whomever caught her as she posed. I'm not a sleazebag either -- I don't pass along stills to the Mr. Skin crowd or my friends. This would be just for my, myself & I. At the very least it would be great to grab some frame captures from the film itself. Or some unused footage of Shaw and Crowe doing whatever. Out-takes, perhaps.
"I was hoping [that 3:10 to Yuma]s would be akin to Open Range, a movie that really and truly seemed to have been made in the 1890s or whenever even though it came out in '03. Or akin to Unforgiven on some level. Or Shane. Or High Noon. Or Ride The High Country. Or The Wild Bunch. Or any one of those westerns with the cojones to just keep those sidearms holstered until there was really and truly a desperate need to use 'em. (The Wild Bunch obviously the exception in this regard.) Those are my kinds of westerns.
"3:10 to Yuma has that old-west verisimilitude -- very fine work all around. And I forgot all about my chicken-grease concerns. Then it started to feel iffy -- was there ever an insert shot of any kind of Bale's peg leg? [Note: there is -- I just missed it.] Then the stage robbery felt too grandiose and cranked up, or at least not of that era. Then it started to feel too talky. And then it became excellent.
"[SPOILERS EDITED OUT]
"But then it became, by my standards, too shoot-em-uppy. I felt fine with the amount of gunplay in Open Range, perhaps because it was pretty much held in check until the end. To me the action in 3:10 to Yuma felt as if someone was standing over your shoulder and saying, "More explosions, Jim...more gunfire...c'mon, let 'er rip! There are a lot of action films out there doing the same thing...think competitive!"
"It turned out, in short, to be a lot more 2007 than 1892 in its sensibility, especially in Ben Foster's ferocious psycho-killer incarnation. The second I saw Wildman Foster in his $850 Bloomingdale's leather jacket, I went, "Oh shit, here we go...another balls-out nutbag performance." Does it say in his contract that Foster must be allowed to glare his eyes and act like a total angel-of-death rabid dog? He was the same guy in Alpha Dog. He'll be playing the same guy eight years from now. He's a brand.
"The two 3:10 to Yuma problems, boiled down, are the relentless shooting (I'm a proponent of less is more...how many gunshots were in Shane?...a grand total of nine...and five of these were fired at a rock, and four of these were fired in the last gunfight in the saloon) and the ending. The ending is everything. Sorry, Jim, but the ending doesn't work. [SPOILERS EDITED OUT]
"And what is it with those Michael Bennett Chorus Line posters? I love the attitude of marketing guys these days. 'Your movie is very good, Jim but we have something else in mind. Something a little gayer.'
"I called Dutch Leonard this morning. He says he got paid 2 cents a word for the original 1953 short story, which ran 4500 words. $90 for it altogether. Sold movie rights for $4000. He's seen [your film], of course.
"'They did add different western kinds of elements,' he said. 'Apaches attacking at night? Apaches never attacked at night....I thought they just added a lot of stuff in it...it diluted the plot.[SPOILERS EDITED OUT]
"I saw Shoot 'Em Up last night at 7:30, right after seeing 3:10 to Yuma at 4 pm. It's basically a Buster Keaton comedy -- the high-flying camera work and the physical choreography are top-notch.-- as well as a huge fuck-you parody of the gun-queer John Woo wave of super-violent urban action pics that have been setting the tone and running the show since the mid '90s. Your film is a much craftier, higher-level thing -- on balance a better film -- but as absurd as it is, Shoot 'Em Up does its thing in a better and more economical and self-comprehending way than 3:10 to Yuma does its thing. Sorry to be the bearer, but I think it's true.
"[I also suspect that] the under 30s will go in greater numbers to Shoot 'Em Up than they will to your film. [Note: I turned out to be dead wrong on this point.] September 7th is a lousy date. People take that week off....away in faraway places. Not the worst date in the world, but not a great one. The upside for you and yours is that New Line is in disarray with Russell Schwartz on his way out, so maybe the Lionsgate guys are in a position to sell your film better with their gay-gunslinger campaign....who knows?
"Since I'm mixed on your film it would be best for you and yours if I waited to say anything until just before it opens. I don't want to hurt anyone or anything. I respect you and what you've done, but it just didn't ring my bell like Walk the Line did...sorry. Although I really and truly do like a lot of things about it. Many things, really. That whole middle section is almost pure pleasure."
This guy is in his mid-fifties or something like that, btw.
