Page 29 - Trending_051319

For Rebel Wilson, it was a fight to keep ‘The Hustle’ PG-13
By JILL DOBSON Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Rebel Wilson had to fight to make sure she and Anne Hathaway could make the same kind of risque jokes their male counterparts do and not have their new film “The Hustle” get classified as R-rated.
Wilson, who is a producer and stars in the “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” remake, fought back last year when the film received an R-rating. The rating was appealed, and “The Hustle” arrives in theaters Friday as a PG-13 release.
“I felt like it was so unfair to force cuts of jokes from coming out of our two mouths when much ruder content was in male-driven PG-13 films,” Wilson told The Associated Press. “When I put my arguments forth, analyzing other male-driven films like ‘Anchorman’ or last year’s ‘Jumanji’ you can see that you know what’s in our film is probably less than what’s in some of those male-driven comedies.”
Hathaway agreed, saying the entire culture of a film is more important than just casting actresses in starring roles.
“It’s not enough to just put two women in the in the lead of the film. Then the culture that surrounds those two women told us, ‘Oh you can’t be funny in that way,’” Hathaway said. “Even though there was a norm established ... in the world saying when men say these sort
of things it’s appropriate for teenagers. But when women say these sort of things, no that’s unexpected that’s too, that’s too new. That’s too different.”
Wilson said the film is more than just a gender-flipped remake of the 1988 comedy starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin. It gave her and Hathaway a chance to tackle contemporary issues facing women.
“The idea just seems really justified right now ... with the Me Too movement. This wasn’t
just a case of, ‘Oh let’s just gender flip ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,’” Wilson said. “This was a case of, well oh yeah, it really does make sense that now women can get back at dirty rotten men who have been conning them for years.”
Despite tackling systemic issues women face, both Hathaway and Wilson say “The Hustle” remains a broad comedy.
“I’m so happy right now to put something light out into the world, to put something out there that you can just laugh,” Hathaway said. “Grab your favorite people and go and just get that warm feel good feeling.”
“Sometimes ... movies have more serious messages and this definitely has a few subtle, you know, female empowerment messages, but not so subtle, I guess.”
“But it’s all within like the world of fun,” Hathaway added.
Conan O’Brien settles joke-theft lawsuit weeks before trial
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Conan O’Brien has made peace with a man who heckled him not from the crowd but the courts.
O’Brien and several co-defendants, including his writing staff, agreed Thursday to settle a 2015 lawsuit with California writer Robert Kaseberg, who alleged the talk-show host stole five jokes from his Twitter feed and blog for O’Brien’s monologues on his TBS show, “Conan.”
Attorneys for both sides filed documents in San Diego federal court announcing a deal had been reached about three weeks before a trial that would have seen O’Brien, his sidekick Andy Richter and other famous names called to the stand. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The joke-theft case was rare from the start, and O’Brien also gave it an unusual ending, ex- plaining why he settled at length in a column in Variety rather than opting for the confidentiality common in Hollywood lawsuits.
O’Brien insists that he and his staff had
never heard of Kaseberg, his blog or his Twitter account before the lawsuit, and did not steal any
jokes. But he did not want “a farcical and expen- sive jury trial in federal court over five jokes that don’t even make sense anymore.”
“Short of murder, stealing material is the worst thing any comic can be accused of,” O’Brien writes. “Had I, for one second, thought that
any of my writers took material from someone else I would have fired that writer immediate-
ly, personally apologized, and made financial reparations.”
Kaseberg released a statement saying he was happy with the friendly resolution.
“As a professional comedy writer, all I want
to do is make people laugh and stand up for the things I believe in,” Kaseberg said. “I am proud my case helped shed light on an issue facing all comedy writers and am happy to have been part of contributing legal precedent on the issue of protection afforded to jokes.”
One of Kaseberg’s jokes that closely resembled O’Brien’s was about 2015 Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady giving the truck that goes with the title to Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll, whose coaching
decisions many believe are the biggest reason Brady’s New England Patriots won.
“Trust me, Pete Carroll gags were hilarious back in 2015,” O’Brien writes.
O’Brien said the similarity of this and the other lines in the lawsuit is simply the result of the same comedians landing on the same newsy joke, a phenomenon that has exploded with social media.
“At the same time,” O’Brien writes, “that joke was being written by literally 34 other people on Twitter, and one of those people decided he had been robbed.”
O’Brien writes that he most wants to stand up for the integrity of his “remarkably hard-work- ing and decent” team of writers.
“As I wrote several years ago,” O’Brien concludes, “ ‘No legacy is so rich as honesty.’ Of course, William Shakespeare is now claiming he tweeted that in 1603.”
But, O’Brien writes, Shakespeare “can talk to my lawyers.”
JOURNAL REVIEW | 29