[US Entertainment] Popular all over the world

"Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The middle 100 minutes of the movie are utterly charming and surprisingly funny. Josie Horton is a famous movie star, but in The Secret , she proved once again that she is a talented actress."

"Peter Travers of The Rolling Stones: A great [-]-star masterpiece full of growth, heart, friendship and inspiration. Perfect casting and race scenes, with excellent pacing and a clever twist at the end, all four leads The performances are well put together—Kevin Costner, Sally Hawkins, Josie Horton and Josie Horton's horse—sleek, beautiful, emotional, Hollywood yearning but Rarely does it."

"Jamie Bernard, New York Daily News: This is a truly inspiring film, reminiscent of Yentle, gorgeously shot and brilliantly acted, echoing an uplifting Emotions, worth watching over and over again. And, I have to say, the sequence where Josie Horton fights a bloody path through the men to get back on the horse and win the race is enough to go down in movie history."

"Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Yes, it's that cheesy, but it's also surprisingly catchy, and it's not the most uplifting inspirational saga or horse racing movie ever made, but it does A well-acted, riveting and satisfying biopic."

"Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum: The cast of this movie is luxurious, but it can't change the soulless nature of the whole story. It's very self-righteous. It's bigger than Gary Rose's debut novel "Happy Valley." Substandard, and Josie Horton's special effects makeup is unconvincing."

In the living room on the first floor of the cliff villa, Ella, Josie's assistant, was reading aloud the latest film reviews of "The Secret" from the film critics. No matter how many times, this link made Ella feel very excited and excited.

Her boss, Josie, was sitting on the black sofa in her old place, flipping through another printed box office statistics and forecast data. The film aroused the enthusiasm of movie fans as soon as it debuted.

And the excellent strength of the film itself also made this fire more and more prosperous.

Eve Price, Caroline Mills, Kimberly Wexler, and Martha Miller were sitting or standing respectively, using the huge living room of the cliff villa as their temporary headquarters, ordering one by one from Transfer from mobile phone, PDA or notebook computer.

Hearing the comment from the film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum of the "Chicago Reader", Eve sneered out of her busy schedule and said, "I thought Jonathan Rosenbaum's film review would be more interesting. , such as Kenneth Turan's is good."

"Obviously, except for our real enemies, no one will be making fun of themselves at this juncture, and at most they will just be teasing." The word-of-mouth explosion of "Secret" did not surprise Caroline at all. nice black female sips coffee.

Generally speaking, the professional ratings and audience reputation of "Secret" are excellent so far, but the problem is that its opponent is the equally excellent "The Pianist".

Regardless of the director's own morality, this biopic depicting the difficult survival of a Polish Jewish pianist during World War II is a masterpiece in itself, especially since the director Roman Polanski himself is a survivor of the Nazi occupation of Poland and is generally considered to be extremely difficult. Critics praised her artistry and skill for telling a persuasive account of her own personal experience of the Holocaust era in Poland.

As early as this year's Cannes Film Festival, "The Pianist" aroused widespread discussion and won the Palme d'Or. Focus Features first contacted them. Later, the film fell into the hands of Miramax and became Another trump card for Harvey Weinstein in this year's Oscars.

Yes, another one.

"Miramax has too many cards in his hand." The senior public relations expert said eloquently, and at the same time tickled the corners of his mouth at the reply he just received on his phone, "In addition to "The Pianist", there are "Frida", "Chicago", "Gangs of New York", "The Hours"... Sometimes it is not necessarily a good thing for someone to have too much harem, which means that his energy must be scattered. Like " The New York Times can give us six pages of advertising space, and those six pages can be all "Secrets", but not enough for Weinstein's harem to appear in turn."

Eve took a sip of coffee, and said, "My informant told me that Miramax thinks the loss of the Directors Guild Award for "New York Hei Gang" is a signal, and has decided to reserve all the advertising spots in the "New York Times" for "The Pianist", Martin Scorsese is dissatisfied with this, after all, it was "New York" that was used to confront "Secret" before this, and now they have become sacrificial children to attract early firepower."

Josie thought about it after hearing this, and said, "Press Miramax again, I want most of the advertising pages of "Los Angeles Times", "Variety Show" and "Hollywood Reporter" to be covered by "The Pianist" A dismal box-office takeover."

"No problem. I already have a solution." Eve said proactively, "Oh, by the way, Polanski doesn't like "Schindler's List" in private, which can be exploited. Spielberg's this year's "How to Get Away with Murder" and "Minority Report" were so disregarded that they almost missed out on the Oscars. I think fans always need an outlet, don't they?"

"Arrange the reporter to interview that little guy (Roman Polanski), and find someone in Europe." Caroline sighed: "Spielberg still respects the academy too much, he has a child-like awe for Oscar .But we'll make him have to join the war."

"Don't make too much noise, I don't want to receive calls from Steven." Josie reminded.

"OK." Eve made a gesture and continued, "The [-] paper advertisement pages prepared for "Secret" are ready, and every Starbucks in Los Angeles can see them."

"One hundred thousand copies?"

"Yes, Kevin Costner paid an additional [-] from his own pocket."

"How did you convince him?"

"I just told him: 'You know what, Nicholson does that too.' And he jumped in."

As a producer, Martha couldn't help but glanced at Eve and said, "But this year's performance awards are very competitive."

"Which year wasn't intense?" Eve spread her hands, "To be honest, these actors' vanity is much stronger than that of actresses. If you see them face to face and greet each other with a smile, then there are nine out of ten. They are secretly comparing net worth, coffee position, salary and the weekly box office of new films. Men are the most realistic animals in Vanity Fair."

"That's why the peacock is opening its tail." Caroline concluded, and then said: "We will continue to focus on public relations with the West Coast media, aiming at the realistic and cruel war scenes reflected in "The Pianist", as well as the newly acquired The plaintiff's testimony on the previous QJ case of the little man. As for the other competitors, I think the enemy of the enemy is my friend, such as Scott Rudin, another producer of "The Hours", he and Ha Weinstein almost got into a fight on the set of The Hours, and if you're not interested in this year's Best Actress, I think he'd be willing to put pressure on Miramax."

"Okay, you can deal with Scott Rudin, Nicole and I already have a tacit understanding." Josie said.

In fact, it is not very difficult for Josie to be nominated this year. What is difficult is to win the second best actress with her young age and qualifications.

It's not that there is no room for manipulation, but firstly, Josie is unwilling to use her prestige to coerce anyone to vote for her, and the Oscars are not worth it; It is also the closest Nicole Kidman is to the statuette, due to the compensation ticket for "Moulin Rouge", the sympathy ticket for the divorce battle with the superstar and the performance quality of the film "The Hours".

Moreover, the longer one stays in this circle, the more unbearable the aura of Oscar becomes. The so-called most influential film award in the world is actually just a plaything in the hands of Hollywood bosses and public relations.

The end of 2002 was spent in such a short period of peace.

Some people with keen information already sensed that the international situation will change, but when the Secretary of State delivered a speech on the Iraqi issue at the UN Security Council on February 2, the sense of urgency of the US-Iran war made the public panic.

Frank Horton called to check on his daughter's recent situation, but he insinuated about the deployment of the McCullough family, the leader of the Texas consortium, in the military industry, and whether the relationship between Josie and Eli had the possibility of further development.

Dina Merrill also thinks that Josie should have a fiancé. It is best to get engaged after dating for a few years, and then get married before the age of 35. This is more in line with mainstream values, but the object must not be that rude Texan, because the outbreak Households and old money are distinct groups; and preferably not a notorious Hollywood star like Leonardo DiCaprio, such a spouse will hardly help Josie's media empire.

However, Dina Merrill could only offer one suggestion. She knew very well that her influence on Josie was very limited.

Instead, Lauren Bacall invited Josie to come to Dorota's Mansion. Taking advantage of the opportunity to screen "The Secret" for some New York academy judges, the actress from the golden age of Hollywood also talked about this issue with Josie.

Lauren Bacall personally poured a cup of black tea for the girl in front of her, and kept her voice at a volume that only the two of them could hear, "I heard that Dina introduced you to a young man from the Kennedy family?"

Josie took a sip of black tea and shook her head: "She is old, I can understand her, she is now a queen mother who is worried about the succession of the dynasty. But Lauren, you know, because of my parents' bad marriage, I had no hope of finding a mate."

Lauren Bacall was noncommittal, just said: "Frank is not a good role model, but you don't need to be too pessimistic, sweetheart, your life is still very long, isn't it? As long as you haven't closed your eyes, you can't be sure about tomorrow What will happen. When I met Bogart as a teenager, I thought we were true love, but the truth is, we quickly entered an open relationship, and only fans believed that we were stronger than gold."

After saying this, the lady laughed at herself and took a puff of the mint-flavored women's cigarette, still calm and elegant, with a good demeanor.

"I know that you are a completely different woman from me or Dina, and power is the soil for your survival." Lauren Bacall said, "But things are far from the step of signing a prenuptial agreement. Even if it is a decoration Well, you need to make yourself look normal, not too perfect. This is Hollywood, and the so-called high society. Find an obedient young man, preferably from a middle-class family, not too smart or too stupid, he can Help you eliminate the hidden danger of Lindsay Lohan's incident, and also share some necessary social interactions for you. When you don't need it anymore, such a person can be easily kicked away..."