However surprised you might be to read this in a column written by a normally cranky hardcase like myself, it can't compare to the surprise I felt as DREW's screening at the Vail Cascade Ballroom ended last Saturday night.

You're not supposed to let a festival-crowd reaction to a film influence your opinion of any presumed commercial potential it might have, since festival audiences are always super-enthusiastic and supportive. But there was something "extra" about the reaction to MY DATE WITH DREW, especially during the final act. Here's how I put it to Newmarket Films' marketing ace Bob Berney the next morning:

"Until last night I was fairly resolved in my feeling that this has been a fairly flat festival and close to a waste of time. Then I saw this cheery little FRIENDS-type piece last night with a packed house, and everything changed.

"You've seen it [at the HBO Comedy Festival in Aspen] so you know the deal. But Bob, I'm telling you.... the house rocked, everyone was on a huge high after it was over, and I was close to amazed at how good and well-made it is and, much more importantly, how thematically poignant and touching it manages to be."

Co-directed last summer by Jon Gunn, Brian Herzlinger and Brett Winn (all of whom co-produced with Kerry David), MY DATE WITH DREW is a brisk little confection about a young Los Angeles actor (Herzlinger) with no job or money who decided last spring to shoot a video (along with Gunn and Winn) about his lifelong dreamquest to land a date with Drew Barrymore.

The guys have $1100 to invest (which Herzlinger has won on a game show) and 30 days to get the date, since the camera they're shooting with has been "bought," in a manner of speaking, at a Circuit City store in Los Angeles that was offering a 30-day, no-questions-asked return policy. Return the camera by the deadline and there's zero charge to the credit card.

(This deal is now history. The electronic chain store has downgraded its return policy to 14 days, possibly due to the DREW guys.)

So DREW is a ticking-clock thing as well as a docu-comedy, but it gradually grows into something more....although it's hard to see how this will happen, given an implicitly trite (although extremely well edited) blast-off section that sets everything up.

To me, at first, Herzlinger seemed like a putz. What semi-intelligent male, after all, would come to a conclusion that spending two or three hours (or whatever amount of time it would eat up) with a rich, over-pampered, Hollywood ego princess like Drew Barrymore is worth sinking his heart and soul into? Not to mention all his financial resources?

Early in the film Herlzlinger goes to an older-guy friend for advice, and is told that the Barrymore quest proves that "the dumbing-down of America is now complete."

Even if I have Drew pegged wrong (and I have to admit I found her fetchingly attractive when I shared a drink with her and Luke Wilson a few years back), actresses are always trouble. Whatever the shot, it's always about them. Mort Sahl was never more on-target than when he coined the phrase "actresses and other female impersonators."

But guess what? It doesn't matter. This is not a film about Drew Barrymore. This is a film about gumption, positivism, tenacity, and somehow making your dream happen.

I'm not predicting a domestic DREW gross of $140 million-plus, a la BLAIR WITCH. It may not even make a fraction of that. It could also go through the roof. I don't know. I suppose it's possible some people might say to themselves, "I'm not paying $10 bucks to see a 90-minute video doc about a guy trying to land a date ....later."

This, in fact, is precisely what one marketing exec with a major studio has said -- that it's too TV-ish, not substantial enough, etc. Due respect, but she's missing the point. This movie has it where it counts. It's got heart.

I talked at length on Saturday with Gunn and Herzlinger, both before and after the evening screening, and so did big-time journalist Anne Thompson and friend-producer-screenwriter L.M. Kit Carson, both of whom I dragged to the Saturday screening. Anne and Kit feel the same way I do.

Jon and Brian told me that all the indie distribs have been circling (Thinkfilm, Fox Searchlight, Miramax, Lions Gate, Newmarket) after seeing it at the Aspen festival.

"Bob, it's a movie and it's sellable, and you're the guy to make it happen," I told Berney on Sunday morning.

"This thing is MEMENTO, at the very least. It could be even more. It just has to be shown and shown and shown to audiences everywhere, and eventually the word will start to spread. It's a movie, it's a movie, it's a MOVIE. And it works.

"This thing is hot, Bob, and my honest, considered, speaking-from-the-gut feeling is that Newmarket would be nuts to pass this one up.

"Get on this sucker and acquire it, and I swear you'll make out with it. The reaction last night was astounding. This doesn't happen all that often, and I know serious chemistry when I feel it. People were laughing, crying, hitting the roof."

Gunn and Herzlinger have had a DATE WITH DREW website up for a while now (www.mydatewithdrew.com), and it's been heavily visited. They put up DREW wild-posts all over Vail last weekend, and they also got themselves on three local radio shows. You could say they know how to hustle. Gunn strikes me as especially bright and on-top-of-it.

The word on DREW has gotten around fairly quickly. The Vail Film Festival scheduled an extra Sunday night screening, and they had to turn about 70 people away. There were two extra screenings in Aspen, also packed.

Gunn is pretty much the guy carrying the ball with the distribution deal. He says he and his partners aren't going to sign anything until he and Herzlinger appear on the "Tonight Show" with Jay Leno on Tuesday, April 13. They're also on the "Today" show on Monday, April 19th. They managed both bookings themselves.

Gunn, Herzlinger and Winn don't have a producer's rep helping them sort things out, but their attorney is Philip Davis of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp.

MY DATE WITH DREW will be shown at Manhattan's Gen Arts Festival twice. The first screening is on Sunday, April 18, at 3:00 pm, and the second is on Monday, April 19th, at 7:30 pm, followed by an after-party at a club called The Door (508 9th Ave. between 38th and 39th streets).

Both Gen Art screenings will be held at the Loews Cineplex 34th St., between 8th and 9th Avenues.

Gunn has also been speaking with Roxanne Messina Captor of the San Francisco Film Festival about possibly showing DREW there, most likely during the latter stages. Gunn and Herzlinger are asking Captor to put DREW into competition for a festival prize.

So does Herzlinger finally get his date with Barrymore? See the movie, but consider this ingredient.

There's another famous performer in Hollywood -- a guy, actually -- whose first name is Drew, and he wears glasses and is Irish and does a pretty funny stand-up. Would it be a total turn-off if Herzlinger ended up in a hot tub with this Drew instead of the other one? Is passionate anal sex in steaming hot water between consenting males necessarily an icky thing? Aren't we all getting more liberal about such matters?

Freeway Junction

I take it back about Vail being such an architectural and spiritual disappointment that it deserves the "dogshit" epithet. It's not dogshit, and I'm apologizing here and now to the city fathers for using this term. This blandly affluent place is actually a real-life setting for THE TRUMAN SHOW.

I walked around Vail Village last Friday afternoon after filing last Friday's column and took a few snaps. The architectural stylings of the buildings actually amount to a half-decent knock-off of a typical Swiss, German or Italian village in the Alps. I've been to Cortina and Gstaad, and the Vail guys have done a pretty good job. There's a mustard-colored German gasthof located at one corner that also looks like a good facsimile.

It's just that the place feels so Disneyworld. There was no Vail to speak of prior to 1962, when it first opened for business a ski resort. It's all been "built." Inside of our hotel in West Vail is a sepia-toned blow-up of a photo of Vail Valley circa 1954 - it was all grass and rolling hills back then. Now there's a freeway running through it and all kinds of condo crap and McMansion bullshit everywhere. When the earth is so defiled, we're all guaranteed a ticket straight to hell.

The German influence actually felt a little too real at one point. On Friday evening L.M. Kit Carson and I were approaching a gondola-type lift at the bottom of a ski trail at the base of Vail's Lion's Head Village (we were looking to get to a party being held at the top of the mountain), when loudspeakers suddenly started playing what sounded to me like 1930s Leni Riefenstahl TRIUMPH OF THE WILL music. I was half-expecting Marlon Brando's Christian Diestl (from THE YOUNG LIONS) to stroll by and wave.

Integrity Counts

I'll be getting into this more on Friday, but John Lee Hancock's THE ALAMO (Disney, opening Friday) is nothing close to the train wreck I've been led to expect. You know... the whole pushed-back-from-December deal, the advance-trashing by Sharon Waxman in THE NEW YORK TIMES, etc. But it ain't half bad.

And for my money, Billy Bob Thornton's support-level performance as Davy Crockett is a thing of near-beauty. He nails each and every scene he's in with honest warmth, inflections of wisdom, emotional restraint, and a certain backwoods dignity. It's the finest big-movie performance Thornton has ever given.

My only regret is that Hancock doesn't give him more screen time....extra portions of Crockett back-story, dialogue, seasonings, etc. Maybe Davy (the real guy preferred to be called David) should have been Hancock's lead character, period. It might have given focus to a film that Hancock himself has said needed to be less sprawling and diffuse.

THE ALAMO is not a great film, but it's a completely respectable one. It doesn't move you to tears, exactly, but it gradually earns your admiration for accomplishing a tough job without seriously screwing up. It never seems to deliver the kind of jolting impact a venture of this size and ambition ought to have, but you can't help but give Hancock credit for applying so much sweat and exactitude in his effort to capture history.

And in this day and age that is something totally honorable. Certain recent historical dramas have gotten it right, or have seemed to, but several, particularly those with big action sequences (PEARL HARBOR, FIRST KNIGHT, THE PATRIOT), seem to merge 21st century digital sensibilities with the period they're depicting. The CG seems too arch or cranked up, with their producers concerned about competing with modernist comic-book fantasies like SPIDER-MAN, et. al.

THE ALAMO feels like a 21st Century film production crew was transported back to 1836 San Antonio and just shot what happened, without any thought of competing with anyone or anything back in 2004 Hollywood. It looks, sounds and feels friggin' authentic. It sells itself over and over in this respect.

How can you not love on some level a movie that armed its fighters with 700 flintlock musket rifles, and made sure they used only the original black powder to fire with, and refused any and all fake weaponry? Okay, there are two or three shots that scream out CG....but other than these, THE ALAMO feels like the real deal all the way.

I'm probably going to be in the minority about THE ALAMO (a big-time critic I spoke to after last night's all-media screening was completely dismissing it), but so what? This wouldn't have bothered Davy Crockett and it doesn't bother me.

Ripley's Game

"You must've seen or heard about Nathan Lee's excellent article about RIPLEY'S GAME in the Sunday NY Times (4.4). I know you wrote about this film last year. Irecently saw it on IFC and thought it the best of the Ripley films. Which was interesting since it was made by Liliana Cavani, the director of the loathsome THE NIGHT PORTER.

"Okay, so it's not a blatently commercial picture. But it seems incredible to me that Fine Line, with all the hundreds of millions earned by the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, couldn't give this dark gem even a cursory, platform release, say, at L.A.'s Sunset 5 or Manhattan's Angelica.

"What a shabby way to treat someone as talented as John Malkovich. I gues if you're not a hobbit or an ELF, this company couldn't care less. Mark Ordesky ought to be ashamed of himself." -- Dixon Steele, Hollywood, CA.

Wells to Steele: The "loathsome" THE NIGHT PORTER?

My RIPLEY'S GAME piece last year attempted an explanation as to why it never made it to theatres, to wit:

"The answer's a little tricky but here's a stab. It comes from executive producer Russell Smith, a longtime partner of Malkovich and a co-owner of their production company called Mr. Mudd. Smith is currently trying to interest other distributors in buying RIPLEY before Fine Line puts together some kind of panicky cash-out deal that will result in a possible debut on IFC instead of in theatres.

"Smith says the pull-back decision was 'a political thing inside Fine Line that was between the people in foreign sales and domestic.' When Fine Line got involved in late '01, the expectation was that RIPLEY, trading on the lore of the Damon film, which earned over $80 million in U.S. theatres, and the whole Ripley-Highsmith thing, would bring in about $15 million in Europe alone.

"But soon after this the European TV industry, which Smith says had long been 'the great after-market' for European-made features, began to collapse. The implosion reached a critical stage in early May '02 when German media baron Leo Kirsch filed for bankruptcy. "When Kirsch went down, the TV market went down with him," says Smith, and with that Fine Line's hopes for earning back anything close to $15 million.

"This shifted the burden to Fine Line's domestic division to bring in as much RIPLEY dough as possible. This would have meant that if and when RIPLEY were to tank at the U.S. box-office, the blame would have fallen upon Fine Line chief Mark Ordesky and not on the international guys.

"And on top of indications RIPLEY might not be the performer Fine Line had hoped for (it didn't do very well when it opened in Italy a couple of months ago) plus the prospect of having to invest $8 to $10 million in prints and ads for the U.S. release, persuaded Ordesky to cut bait.

"That's one scenario, at least. Ordesky, who could have offered another, didn't return calls.

"Dougray Scott has the role of Ripley's dupe in RIPLEY'S GAME -- the frame-maker played by Bruno Ganz in THE AMERICAN FRIEND. Lina Heady plays Scott's wife, and Ray Winstone has the role played (I think) by Gerard Blaine in the Wenders version.

"I'm not the only journalist pining for RIPLEY, according to Smith. ROLLING STONE's Peter Travers, who apparently saw it and liked it at the Hampton's Film Festival last summer, has been badgering Fine Line publicity about they're not releasing it, especially in a period as barren as the one we're in now. (Travers didn't return my calls either, but a Fine Line publicist confirmed he's been complaining.)

"And ESQUIRE film critic Tom Carson, according to Smith, has flagged Malkovich's Ripley as a possible '04 Oscar contender.

"I called around yesterday morning to see if any other distributors had taken a look at RIPLEY'S GAME, and were perhaps thinking about adopting it. A guy I spoke to at one of the companies said he'd seen early it earlier this year and 'didn't like it very much.' The head of a well-known Manhattan-based indie distribution company said he hadn't heard about RIPLEY's availability, but that he plans to look into it.

"That's what I was told, anyway. When I passed along this reaction along to Smith, he said, 'Oh, come on!'"

"In the meantime I'm left with two favorite Ripley moments, both provided by Dennis Hopper in THE AMERICAN FRIEND. That shot of him lying on a pool table as he takes one picture after another of himself with a Polaroid, the photos gradually collecting on his chest and around his neck. And that voice-over he says near the beginning: 'I know less and less about who I am, or who anyone else is.'

The Kong Letters

Pro-Wells, Against Black & Jackson

"Of course you're right about Jack Black. His casting is ridiculous. And it's ridiculous on a number of levels, not least of which is that (and I think he's a great comic actor) he has no gravitas. Say what you will about Robert Armstrong -- ham actor, blowhard, whatever -- he had gravitas, and could make you believe he was an explorer/entrepreneur who was putting on the greatest show on earth. Black couldn't make you believe he was promoting a flea circus.

"I have no issues with Naomi Watts or Adrien Brody, but why bother? If this project ain't pure ego on Jackson's part, I don't know what is. The original is still great. In fact, it's perfect. Sure, it's creaky and the effects look a little funny these days, but it's got such magic, such fantasy, even such creepiness. It still moves us after 70 years.

"Why is it that filmmakers think they can remake films like KING KONG, but they won't touch CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE? I don't get it. Is it because the hero isn't human? That the original actors weren't A-list? The fact this film is getting made says everything you need to know about the debased state of today's Hollywood.

"I'm thinking of Robert Armstrong standing on a theatre stage and saying loudly to the audience, 'Ladies and gentlemen, look at Kong - the Eighth Wonder of the World.' Now try imagining Jack Black doing the same scene. 'Nuff said." -- Lewis Beale

"All you need to do to know Peter Jackson doesn't challenge his actors is to watch the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Every single actor in this series plays a variation on their own personality -- just like they do in every other film they are cast in. Ejiah Wood plays a the same simpering wide-eyed shy guy out of his element, Viggo Mortensen plays the same dull, sanguine, guy-on-Xanax that he always plays.

"Could the Jack Black Jackson is casting as Carl Denham the same Jack Black who played a nervy, loud-mouthed doofus in THE JACKAL? And a nervy, loud-mouthed doofus in SAVING SILVERMAN? And a nevery, loud-mouthed doofus in SCHOOL OF ROCK? And in ENVY? ORANGE COUNTY? SHALLOW HAL? Black is a poster boy for redundant one-note performances.

"Sadly though, after the suicidally dull LOTR series Black will probably be the bright spot in an otherwise very dull, sedate King Kong movie. I think I'd honestly rather watch the original 1933 version again." -- Rich

"You ridea to shoot Jackson's KING KONG in black-and-white and in a 1.33 to 1 aspect ratio? Perfection. That is exactly what I hope to see when the film is released. A move such as this is profound, mixing the best of WETA technology with the look and feel that ushered in effects use in creature creation to begin with. I really hope you're right on this one, and I'm glad to hear someone else sharing this sentiment. " -- Mario Anima

Wells to Anima: I'm not "right" about shooting KONG in black-and-white. I was just wanking. Neither Jackson nor Universal have the character or courage to do such a thing, in my view.

"I echo your reaction to the casting of Jack Black as Carl Denham in Peter Jackson's new KING KONG. How can it be anything but a sendup? Perhaps an affectionate sendup, but a sendup nonetheless. I also agree with you that it would have been wonderful to see the Kong flick in the same black-and-white world that the original inhabited. The part that Jackson surely does understand is that the legend is inseparable from the time and place in which it was born, which was Depression-era America.

"Your suggestion recalls another experiment undertaken by Industrial Light and Magic, five or six years ago. ILM wanted to remake FRANKENSTEIN (a similarly iconic 1930s film) as a black-and-white, fully CGI film, as its first foray into feature film production. They prepared a couple short sequences for Universal to demonstrate how ILM intended to remain faithful to the shadowy world in which the original Universal monster films were set, but eventually the project was scrapped.

(You can see a shot from this test here: http://fast.horrorseek.com/horror/drpretorious/movilm1.htm .)

"ILM's Frankenstein monster also appeared to be animated via motion-capture, as Jackson's Kong no doubt will be. It would be wonderful to see this project somehow get revived, although Universal has bought into Stephen Sommers' revisionist versions of their monster saga (VAN HELSING being the latest), which would seem to preclude such retroist orthodoxy." -- Tim Onosko

Criticizing Wells, Pro-Black & Jackson

"It's clear what you're doing. You love KING KONG, and you don't want to see it sullied. So while you wouldn't want to get Jack Black fired, you can do your best to lobby for him to give a bit more of a restrained performance. Fine. I agree. But since you don't state those motives explicitly, you come off as pure snob (with a hint of left-wing garbage).

"Whenever I think about possible casting misfires, I always remember my reaction when I heard that Bruce Willis had been cast as the lead in some action movie. Wimpy Bruce Willis? The weaselly guy from 'Moonlighting'? Well, DIE HARD rocked, and he was great in it. Now, however, he is apparently being body doubled by Hume Cronyn." -- Doug Helmreich.

"Don't be wack, mac, and cut Jack Black some slack. I believe Black has some genuinely weird, as-yet-untapped dramatic acting abilities beyond his usual shtick (which I happen to adore, by the way). Not saying that PJ is the guy to bring it out of him, but I sense it's truly there. Just like Jim Carrey, Black isn't only about mugging, and in time this will become clear to all.

"This brings me to my second point, which is that Jackson's KONG is going to be a movie about a big, giant moneky. How dramatic do you want it to be? It's King Freakin' Kong! And yeah, Brody's a wee slip of a thing, but his casting strikes me as inspired rather than absurd. Brawn's so boorrring. Brody's so not. And you didn't say it, but deep down I suspect you're excited about the casting of Watts, who was so frighteningly brilliant as the aspiring actress in MULHOLLAND DRIVE.

"As for Serkis, I don't know if you've ever met met the dude, but he's pretty goddamn simian, frankly. But in a delightful way! But you know what I really want to see? When are they gonna do a remake of LANCELOT LINK? -- Josh Mooney.

"Even if your suspicions are correct, Carl Denham is an over-the-top salesman at heart, a promoter, and Black's energy could fulfill that aspect easily and entertainingly. But I wouldn't underestimate Black's ability to bring other layers to any character, if asked to do so. We saw glimpses, with varying degrees of success, in SCHOOL OF ROCK and SHALLOW HAL, and I think Jack Black may be capable of a lot more than we've seen.

"As far as journalists being involved in the creative process, you can try, I suppose, to influence a production through early and often badgering, but I sincerely doubt an artist of Jackson's caliber is going to be swayed by your reservations. Ultimately, though, I don't see a conflict. You're offering your opinions on films in production, in the can and everywhere in between. Even if I don't agree with your opinions, they are entertaining enough to make me come back every Wednesday and Friday.

"Still, I've been noticing a trend lately in your writing, and that trend says that you should consider writing a script and see if you can pull off a Rod Lurie. You are obviously finding it harder and harder to be just a passive observer/critic in the process. " -- Larry Cruse

"If you'll recall, Carl Denham (at least in the way Robert Armstrong played him) is an almost fanatical entrepeneur who will go to any length to achieve his goals up to and including putting Anne Darrow in mortal peril. As such, it's not such a stretch to see Jack Black doing very much the same.

"I'm not saying that he should be all wild-eyed and crazy. In that, Peter Jackson should ask him to tone it down several notches, but, just as Robin Williams was able to demonstrate subtlety in both INSOMNIA and ONE-HOUR PHOTO, so should Jack Black be able to convince the audience that he's just driven enough to go to the extremes this particular story requires." -- Stacey

"The truth is that the original Kong was designed to be a pulp blockbuster and just happened to be fortunate enough to employ Willis O'Brien, a special effects genius who managed to get more realism and emotion into five minutes of Kong than Lucas has managed to squeeze out in his whole career. People tend to forget that you can't set out to make an archetypal classic. They just kind of happen. The new KONG, like the 1976 version and JURASSIC PARK, will be designed as a money-printing fantasy thriller. Nothing more." -- Rich Swank, Orlando.

"Enjoying your invective as usual...but also feeling that I myself will wait-and-see regarding KONG. The Jack Black casting does seem off-putting at first, but the Carl Denham character wasn't in the original to provide gravitas in the first place.(At least until the movie's final line.) He's a fast-talking, unscrupulous showbiz huckster, a type whose variations crop up like dandelions in most of the major studios' pre-code oeuvre. He has an impressive command of period jargon ('Once a guy falls for a dame, he cracks like an egg and goes all sappy on ya' is one of my favorite bits) of course, and will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

"Hearing Jack Black say, 'Don't you want this award? It's prestigious' and listening to Robert Armstrong wheedle Fay Wray into joining his crew by evoking the white lights of Broadway -- well, yeah, they're two different things, but they're not oceans apart. If Jackson can actually DIRECT the guy, he might do something true to both the period and his own style. As for Serkis, well, the guy's a relentless self-promoter, and whatever his contribution to the movie will be, I doubt there'll be much Gollum to it. Adrian Brody should scarf down a few cheeseburgers-with extra cheese and mashed potatoes on the side, possibly some pasta appetizers-before taking on Bruce Cabot's role. Still, Cabot, God bless him, was such a stiff (the part really called for it then, but still), that Brody seems an interestingly off-kilter choice.

"I'm most dubious, in fact, about Naomi Watts. She's got beauty and acting chops on one hand, and increasing self-importance and increasing age (relative to Fay Wray, who was about 25 and extremely nubile in the 'creaky old' version-dude, there ain't nothing creaking when she's writhing around in that silk slip) on the other. Really, Elisa Kuthbert might have been a better choice. But all told, it's Jackson's show. A lot of people thought he couldn't pull off the business with the hairy-footed midgest either, and that seemed to have worked out fine." -- Glenn Kenny