Am I raising this issue because T3 is now playing in the U.S. but the Sony people in Paris haven't screened it for me yet? Okay, yeah, partly. But Arnold is talking more and more like he's really serious about taking the plunge (i.e., saying in the July ESQUIRE that "if the state needs me, and if there's no one I think is better, then I will run"), and I find the whole thing fascinating in terms of political spectacle.

I don't know that I'd vote for the guy, but I definitely have no problem with his running. Ronald Reagan, George Murphy, Jesse Ventura...why not the Terminator?

The notion of politics and politicians being mainly fodder for David Letterman and Jay Leno's opening monologues is so burrowed into our heads, it's hard to take any political race seriously these days. But we're all tired of namby pamby do-nothings, and you know in your gut Arnold wouldn't pussyfoot around. Not if his approach to governing California is anything like the way he's handled himself over the last 20-odd years in cutthroat Hollywood.

He's a Republican, okay, but he's not Attila the Hun. Politically, at least. Anyone who's played ball with Hollywood opportunists and hucksters as long as Arnold has can't be too much of an ideologue. He doesn't have much ground to stand on as a family-values type, but being a bit of a hound should never disqualify anyone from seeking political office. Womanizing means zilch. Having just finished reading Robert Dallek's excellent JFK biography "An Unfinished Life," I'm more convinced of this than ever.

Besides, he's chairman of the Nation Inner-City Games Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides free after-school and summer activities to low-income kids. And he's loosely attached to the Kennedys (by way of wife Maria Shriver) and, from what I've been able to gather, reasonably progressive in his thinking. For an egocentric rich guy, I mean.

I also like the idea of a California governor with a thick Austrian accent. We're supposed to be the land of opportunity where anyone with sufficient ambition, money and political wherewithal can run for office, regardless of their background or whatever. Are we for real about this or not?

The bottom line for me is that Arnold's an operator who knows how to wield power and play the game. He's known for swaggering around and smoking cigars and sometimes telling phonies to blow it out their ass. These aren't necessarily disqualifying traits. A little take-it-or-leave-it bluster and perhaps even a touch of backbone from a big-state governor would certainly make political column-writing more interesting.

The only thing that could give Arnold pause and maybe even result in a wipe-out would be the fact he's never really had his feet held to the fire by the entertainment press, and he may not have the emotional temperament to deal with the heavy artillery that's sure to come if he runs. (Charles Fleming wrote a tough piece about him for SPY several years ago, and there was that John Connolly piece in PREMIERE a while back, but there hasn't been much else in this vein.)

I guess we'll see if he can take it, when and if he declares.

False Alarm

Steven Spielberg's spokesperson Marvin Levy is saying his boss isn't bailing out of directing the next Indiana Jones movie, despite quotes from Sean Connery, allegedly conveyed to an ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT reporter and reported on a British website, saying just the opposite.

"Nothing has changed for Indy 4," Levy said Wednesday. "That story floating out there is not true. Somebody must have misunderstood something somewhere. The plan is still for Steven to [make the] film in 2004 for release in 2005."

The story started with a report on EMPIRE ONLINE claiming that Connery had told the E.T. reporter during a press junket for THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN that Spielberg is "not doing" -- directing -- the next Indy flick.

This argued, of course, with Spielberg and Harrison Ford having said at the '02 Golden Globes ceremony they would be teaming with George Lucas to shoot this fourth (and presumably last) installment. Fox News also reported that Spielberg had said his wife, Kate Capshaw, would be co-starring.

"All I know is that someone called the office and said that Steven was not doing the movie," Connery was quoted saying, "[but] that Harrison had in fact verbally agreed to do another one and would I be interested? And I said of course I would." Connery added he was "disappointed to hear that Steven wouldn't be doing it, but in the end it all comes down to how good the script is -- if it's really workable."

The inference seemed to be that Frank Darabont's script isn't cutting it. Would Spielberg have backed out, assuming Connery knew what he was talking about, if it was something wonderful? But forget the damn inference, says Levy, because the whole thing is malarkey.

"If I had Indy's whip, I might be able to quell [this] wrong story even quicker," he remarked, "but this will have to do it."

Catching Hail

Dark gray clouds began to gather around 7:30 pm or so. Then came the thunderclaps, and then the hailstorm. Yes...in July. The sound of the stuff coming down was thrilling. You could almost hear the little ice nuggets hitting the pavement, tens of thousands each second. I stuck my hand out of the French doors in the living room and caught a few. It wasn't all hail after a couple of minutes, but I caught one or two of the little buggers every so often and popped 'em into my mouth.

The wrath-of-God energy of the downpour was like something out of Guatemela. My building is on a moderate hill, and the occasional soda cans and empty cigarette packs being carried along by the raging current in the gutter down below must have been traveling a good 15 mph. When the rain got really monsoon-y at one point I could hear a kid (or was it a woman?) screaming outside in amazement, or maybe alarm.

And then more thunderclaps and lightning, and after 10 or 12 minutes of insanity it all settled down into regular rainfall. I haven't felt this much weather excitement in a long time.

Blonde Twist

I was half-charmed by and mostly okay with Charles Herman-Wurmfeld's KISSING JESSICA STEIN. Reese Witherspoon and her handlers were even more enthusiastic and gave him a gig directing LEGALLY BLONDE 2: RED, WHITE & BLONDE as a result. I haven't seen it yet, but the overwhelming critical consensus is that it's far afield from the disarming aspects of the original BLONDE (which I found only tolerable), let alone the chemistry of JESSICA STEIN.

In other words, Reese's gang completely ran the show and Herman-Wurmfeld was brought in to point the camera and maybe embroider a little bit, and possibly sprinkle in some indie-type seasonings.

I didn't have to see RED, WHITE & BLONDE to see this coming. Anyone who knows about the political rules of making a movie for a young ascending superstar powerhouse like Reese Witherspoon could have predicted it months ago.

If I were Herman-Wurmfeld I would of course deny any of this happened if I happened to sit down with a NEW YORK TIMES writer, which is precisely what he did when columnist Dave Kehr came a'calling. Kehr seemed to imply a slight skepticism, but TIMES writers sometimes err on the side of subtlety.

"Conventional wisdom says there's supposed to be some huge transition process: suddenly, the big, bad studio bears down, and I have some revelation about the truth of what it means to make movies in Hollywood," Herman-Wurmfeld told Kehr. "But I have to say to me the process was unbelievably similar to KISSING JESSICA STEIN."

The director said that during the shooting of RED WHITE & BLONDE he felt he was with "a family of artists. I'm there with a project I believe in[and] with a character who I think is a hero, just like the first time. The concentric circles that surrounded us there in that little microcosm were wider, but the reality of the core was nearly the same. I had a blast!"

That's great, Charles, but I need to throw up now.

There's one thing he said that rang true, which is that it's better to know your film is definitely going to open in theatres than to be, you know, not sure.

"It was a joy to get into the process with a release date already set," he said. "For any artist, the fear is always that no one is going to see what you do, that you're going to write your novel and not get it published, or make your movie and it's not going to get picked up. That anxiety was present all the way through JESSCIA, but I knew from the moment I signed on with MGM that I was going to release a movie on July 2. And that was an unbelievable luxury."

Any BLONDE 2 reactions would be welcome, especially from JESSICA STEIN fans.

Festival Action

I'll be doing the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic this weekend. I wasn't sure about going at first because of my penny-ante budget situation, but then I was told about some hotels in this warm-springs resort town (located about 90 minutes west of Prague) than run only about 40 Euros a night, and I suppose I'll be able to sustain myself on party food.

Things are a bit cheaper in the Czech Republic, but France has been murder so far so it won't even balance out. Every time you walk into any store or pizzeria or whatever in Paris, you get nipped.

I've been hearing for years, in any event, that Karlovy Vary is a first-rate gathering, and so I'm looking very much forward to it. Some names will be there (Morgan Freeman, Stephen Frears, etc.) and, I trust, some excellent films.

I've also been accredited by the 10-day Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, and been told they'll cover the hotel. It runs from August 6th through 16th. This is another top-drawer, high-prestige affair, and some of the film festival regulars (Roger Ebert, Emanuel Levy, et, al.) are expected to attend, so it'll definitely be fun socially.

The Jerusalem Film Festival has also sent greetings and offered to put me up for five days, but it's a 1600-mile journey from Prague (it starts on July 10th) and I can't even think about flying there, so that's that. Still, the idea of driving all through Eastern Europe (Bosnia-Herzogovina, Albania) and into Greece and Turkey and then down into Jordan and Israel sounds exciting as hell. Not to mention the prospect of getting blown up.

Kutcher Puzzler

"What cinematic evidence can be cited to prove Ashton Kutcher can actually deliver a nuanced, believable lead performance? What's attracting the likes of Shymalan and Crowe?" -- Craig Mathieson, Melbourne, Australia.

"Are you at all bothered by Ashton Kutcher getting offered close to eight figures for these big-sounding features when he hasn't appeared in a single memorable bona fide hit film? He's got an amusing MTV candid-camera show, but reality comedy doesn't prove anything about acting ability (re: JOHNNY KNOXVILLE). He's a somewhat funny, one-dimensional goon on THAT 70'S SHOW. I know he has that supposedly creepy drama THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT in the can (i.e., pushed to next year), but otherwise what has he done to prove himself>

"And now he's up for features by two of our best directors, M. Night and Cameron Crowe. Does he test well or are those directors just jumping on a bandwagon? Is it just the teen hottie appeal? Okay, he's funny, but he's shown nothing beyond that. Should I just give in to the fact that actors no longer have to earn their stripes on film but rather just have to hire good publicists and make well-executed People magazine maneuvers like the Demi affair?

"First Colin Farrell (who at least has chops) gets jammed down our throats, and now this. I'm stunned." -- R.C.

Wells to Mathieson and R.C.: Kutcher may not be the most riveting young talent out there, not to mention the sharpest tool in the shed (or so I'm hearing), but if he works with top-ranked directors, he could morph into something more than what you and I are detecting at this stage. Some were saying Gregg Kinnear was a fly-weight and out of his depth when he started making films. Now look at him. But are Crowe and Shyamalan just jumping on a bandwagon, to some extent? Yeah, they are. They're rolling the dice on him.

Satanic Majesty

"I'll agree that McG may be the New Great Satan of Hollywood, but I think he may lose his title one day to Brett Ratner. Whatever Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan bring to the RUSH HOUR movies aside, I can't think of a more formulaic, uninteresting franchise series (except maybe CHARLIE'S ANGELS). And RED DRAGON was just utterly forgettable. I was talking with someone about Ed Norton and the films he's done recently, and we talked for 15 or 20 minutes before either of us remembered it. Thank God Ratner passed on SUPERMAN." -- Vikram Weet.

Angel Droppings

"I really, really, really intended to go see 28 DAYS LATER that weekend, honest, but fate intervened with the need for a movie after a shitty day and then made CHARLIE'S ANGLES: FULL THROTTLE the only movie at the right time and place. I sat down, the lights came down, etc. 40 minutes later I'd had enough and walked out.

"The main thing I couldn't stand was the digitalization-to-death of the action scenes. THE MATRIX RELOADED has made everyone into Gumby figures who can bend any way and do anything, but this is human movement so pixellated and slowed-down and hyperfritzed it feels as fake as Terry Gilliam's paper cutouts on the Monty Python TV series.

"That said, the yahoos in the audience seemed to be eating the whole cynical mess up, so get ready for the next installment." -- Frederick J. Fostick

Pogo Stick

"Your beef about the Hulk leaping hundreds of feet in a single bound is as ridiculous as people grousing that the Hulk is bigger in some scenes than others and that the filmmakers didn't pay attention to scale. Both of these complaints are misinformed. As explained in the comic, Hulk can bound hundreds if not thousands of feet in a single leap...and the more rage he felt and the more things thrown at him, the larger he becomes.

"I'm not a fan of the movie - I found it too long, and felt irritated by the same dad vs.son theme over and over....BUT, even comic fans who aren't jazzed about it as a film appreciate that Ang Lee and his team were loyal to the comic-book character. You can't have a film about Superman and say you can't have him flying because no one can really fly. It's a comic book come to life! I'm really puzzled that you would have them put real world constraints on the character to make it more, quote unquote, 'believable.'" -- Colin Law

Wells to Law: I'll go with anything fantastical as long as the filmmakers have worked out a reality system within the film that makes some kind of sense. The MATRIX told us that all this kung fu, zipping around, bullet-dodging stuff was happening inside a computer program -- fine, solid, allowable. Superman flies around because...well, I don't know why he flies around but he's from Krypton and has other-worldly powers...I'll buy it. A kid gets bitten by an exotic spider and his basic DNA becomes affected and he can suddenly throw spider webs hundreds of feet and swing from building to building? No problem.

But a mortal guy dressed in a Batman suit in a facsimile of the real world jumping off a 60-story building and not slamming into the pavement below because he's got a little mini-cable gizmo on his Bat-belt and a big black rubber cape that's supposed to function like the wings of a glider plane? Nope, sorry. A 1500-pound behemoth comes crashing down to earth from a height of half a mile, and then bounces up again into the lower stratosphere like he's a tennis ball with flubber stuck to it because he's big and angry and working out his aggressions, but most of all because he was born in the head of the great Stan Lee? And I should forget about any reality-system criteria and just go with this?

CGI crap levels are getting more and more outlandish because filmmakers feel they have to top or least strongly compete with the last CGI comic-book extravaganza -- period. All the rest is hooey and chili sauce. Because they know most of the geek-boy crowd will give them a pass, no matter what they come up with.

Tripoli

"William Mackham's TRIPOLI is a kickass ride. I don't know why Fox is balking at the price tag, but this screenplay has blockbuster written all over it. After MATCHSTICK MEN tanks (and believe me, it will), Ridley Scott hopefully will start prepping this one seriously. It has great roles for Russell Crowe, Ben Kingsley (an Oscar-potential role for Sir Ben) and two young American actors. Crowe does needs to do a modern-day something or other before TRIPOLI as there are too many similarities between this part and the one he's playing in FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD. Still, a damn good script!" -- Jean-Francois Allaire, a.k.a.. "Deadpool"