Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones to Return — and Other Golden Globe News
At the end of a wild night of partying and celebrating for the 2002 Golden Globes, I had the rare opportunity of talking with Steven Spielberg, Kate Capshaw and Harrison Ford. They were sitting together in a small booth in the basement of Trader Vic's at the Beverly Hilton Hotel at the combined party thrown by DreamWorks, USA Films and Universal Pictures.
This threesome is pretty much it in Hollywood. After all, between Spielberg and Ford they've made some of the highest grossing and best loved films of all time. Capshaw, who's Mrs. Spielberg, co-starred with Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
So what's the story, I wanted to know — with this trio finally in one place, and relaxed enough to talk, will we ever see Indiana Jones 4?
"Yes," they all said, and confirmed that once Spielberg films Catch Me If You Can with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, IJ4 will be his priority.
"We have a title, but we're not ready to announce it," Spielberg said. "I will give you one clue, though. Kate is in it." I asked if he meant that Capshaw's character would appear via flashbacks, and he replied: "No. She'll be in the present."
Ford, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award, said he's ready to take on this last chapter. "It was always about getting the right script, and now we have it," he said.
Harrison gave quite a nice speech last night. I asked him if he'd been nervous about giving it. "For a couple of days leading up to it I was, then I thought What the hell, here I am. And I wasn't nervous at all."
Spielberg, by the way, is finishing up the editing on Minority Report with Tom Cruise. And he told me that his long aborning plan to make Arthur Golden's novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, has finally ended. "I'm not going to do it," he confirmed. "It's over."
Golden can't be happy about that, but at least the decision is made and the book is available for option again.
The Indy Jones trio wasn't the only big news from Golden Globe night. And what a night it was. From the ceremony itself to the parties that follow, this evening is so much different than the Oscars. The real star is Merv Griffin, who owns the Beverly Hilton Hotel, because the entire proceedings take place in this one building. It's like running a triathlon to make it from beginning to end.
The best quote of the night was from Judy Davis, who continues to win awards for playing Judy Garland in the TV movie. Davis lives in Australia and doesn't give interviews despite several Oscar nominations and terrific performances in Woody Allen movies. Is she interested at all in any of this? "Not really," she replied, "I'd rather be working in my garden." Judy is younger than you think, and very pretty (but thin, thin thin). Nevertheless, she is really a curmudgeonette. It's quite fascinating.
The actual Golden Globes ceremony is very different than the Oscars, where the bars are shut off before the show starts so that the stars will be sober on TV. The Globes are billed as a dinner, although solid food is barely served and rarely eaten. Instead, each table is equipped with a magnum of Moet Champagne, and wine is constantly poured by waiters. The only food that's really available are hard rolls and delicious Godiva chocolates at each place setting. The result is that a lot of the people get absolutely tanked before hitting the stage. I can tell you which stars were sloshed, but you can figure it out from looking at the tape.
The tables inside the Beverly Hilton banquet hall are set on three levels, with casts of TV shows placed farthest away from the action. In the middle section, the HBO crowd — Sopranos, Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, commanded the best views. A lot of people mistook Rachel Griffiths for Juliette Lewis — that is, until she deservedly won the award for best actress in a dramatic series. Afterwards, Griffiths had a tearful reunion with her Hilary and Jackie co-star Emily Watson.
In front of the TV gangs sit the motion picture nominees. Of these groups, the liveliest was from Todd Field's In the Bedroom, which produced a best actress win for Sissy Spacek. Bedroom was co-produced by actor Fisher Stevens, whose production company has now become hot as a pistol since this little indie pic is on track for multiple Oscar nominations. In addition to Sissy, stars Tom Wilkinson, Marisa Tomei, William Mapother and Nick Stahl were all in attendance. Wilkinson told me that he and best supporting actor (and fellow British stage actor) Jim Broadbent, who won for his terrific performance in Iris, spent Saturday night meeting Hollywood stars at various parties.
"We met Elliott Gould," Wilkinson said, wide-eyed. "We couldn't believe he was a real person. And he's so tall! We had no idea he was so tall!"
The big surprises of the night: that Lord of the Rings was completely shut out of the winning. This movie was the odds-on favorite, and certainly a perfect Golden Globe winner if ever there was one. But a lot of people I spoke to said that the movie's made "too much money" — how do you like that! — and that the Hollywood Foreign Press (which has suddenly become the bastion of respectability after years of being loony) wanted something more artistic. Thus, their choice of A Beautiful Mind.
But what about the fact that Mind — which won best actor, supporting actress, and screenplay in addition to best drama — only selectively tells the story of John Forbes Nash's life? As reported in many places including the new Entertainment Weekly, Mind omits Nash's homosexuality, his brush with the law over a sex offense, his divorce, his illegimate child — and instead concentrates simply on his schizophrenia and Nobel Prize.
Academy Award voters now have 10 days left to send in their ballots for nominations. Mind will certainly be one of the best picture choices, along with Bedroom, Gosford Park, Rings, and most likely either Amelie or Moulin Rouge. But in the end, Academy voters may take more seriously the idea of awarding Mind its most important award after it's been so discredited.
More tomorrow from the Globes including breaking news about a star couple's impending divorce.
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