Washed It!

Throughout the new film “I’m Still Here,” Joaquin Phoenix insists he’s done with movies — acting, the Oscar-nominated “Gladiator” and “Walk the Line” star says, is “fraudulent” and “misery to me” — as he tries to rock the mike in his new calling as a hip-hop performer.

Now it looks as if Phoenix is backing away from his “I’m retired” pronouncement.

Several producers have said in recent days that they have been approached by Phoenix’s talent agents about their client’s return to movie roles. Though no deals have been announced, the preliminary conversations suggest that Phoenix could be in front of cameras soon — and not just as a guest next week on “Late Show With David Letterman,” the scene of Phoenix’s infamous monosyllabic appearance in February 2009.

Over the last several weeks, Phoenix has been offered parts in the upcoming movies “The Raven,” “The Sitter” and “The Avengers,” according to someone who works closely with the actor, but he turned them down because they weren’t the right fit. Like the producers, the person asked not to be named so as not to jeopardize future work with Phoenix.

Separately, two women who worked in prominent positions on “I’m Still Here” who had sued director Casey Affleck, alleging sexual harassment and intentional infliction of emotional distress have settled their lawsuits against the filmmakers, a spokeswoman for Affleck and a lawyer for the women said Monday.

Throughout the making of the film and in the run-up to its release Friday, Hollywood debated whether the movie was an authentic documentary about an artist at a professional crossroads or a contrived piece of performance art. Critics and audiences have argued over the endeavor’s authenticity, but both Phoenix and Affleck have insisted that it was not a prank.

Phoenix, who appears disheveled, bloated, cavorting with prostitutes and snorting what appears to be cocaine in “I’m Still Here,” has gotten himself back in physical shape. In contrast to his yeti-like appearance in the film, Phoenix showed up last week at the Venice Film Festival well-groomed, slimmer and wearing a closely tailored suit — looking like a movie star, in other words. Several executives who had been interested in casting Phoenix said that they had little doubt he would work again.

Phoenix’s talent agent, WME’s Patrick Whitesell, has been open to discussions about roles for the actor, according to one executive who asked not to be named. The talent agency, which never completely stopped pitching Phoenix during his apparent stint as a rapper, declined to comment.

“I’m Still Here” opened to mediocre box-office business of $97,000 in 19 locations Friday. It goes into wider release this weekend in about 110 locations and will be available through distributor Magnolia Pictures’ video-on-demand outlets Sept. 24.

Studios had not given up on Phoenix even during the filming of “I’m Still Here,” which purports to trace Phoenix’s attempts to get people to take his career switch seriously. “This is me changing my life in front of your eyes,” Phoenix says to some friends at one point in the film. “I want to leave something special on earth.”

In one scene in the movie, Ben Stiller shows up during the casting of Focus Features’ offbeat love story “Greenberg” to see if Phoenix would be interested in a starring role. (The meeting does not go well, with Phoenix insulting Stiller and his blockbuster comedy “There’s Something About Mary.”) And there had been interest in casting the actor in at least one other art house movie, and likely more, in the latter half of 2009 and the early part of 2010. But nothing came of the talks, executives said.

Phoenix’s last feature film role was in 2008’s “Two Lovers,” a drama with Gwyneth Paltrow that started filming in late 2007. It was during the promotion of the movie, which was released in U.S. theaters in February 2009, that Phoenix appeared on Letterman’s talk show, where his unkempt appearance and disjointed mumblings turned the interview into a YouTube blockbuster.

In the film, Phoenix describes the appearance as a fiasco. “I’m so stupid,” he says. “I’m just going to be a joke forever.”

Phoenix skipped the film’s screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival in recent days, as did Affleck (although both attended the world premiere in Venice). The director said in a statement read aloud by Toronto co-director Cameron Bailey on Friday that the film had been subjected to a “misguided and surprisingly reductive debate in the press.” Affleck declined to be interviewed.

In July, two key crew members on “I’m Still Here” filed lawsuits against Affleck and his company, Flemmy Productions, accusing the director of sexual harassment and inflicting emotional distress.

Producer Amanda White alleged that Affleck breached his verbal agreement to pay her $50,000 after months of work on the film, also describing in detail how she was “forced to endure uninvited and unwelcome sexual advances in the workplace.” Among White’s claims: that Affleck hired transvestite prostitutes “for his personal gratification” during filming, referred to women as “cows,” manhandled her when she rejected his sexual advances and instructed a camera operator to flash his genitals at her on several occasions. She was seeking a $2-million settlement.

In a separate action, cinematographer Magdalena Gorka sued Affleck and Flemmy, claiming she was subjected to a “near daily barrage of sexual comments, innuendo and unwelcome advances” by crew members, encouraged by Affleck. In that suit, Gorka described awaking one night to find the director in bed with his arm around her “caressing her back, his face was within inches of hers and his breath reek[ing] of alcohol.” She was seeking $2.5 million in damages.

In a motion filed with the court in July, an attorney for Affleck, Martin Singer, said White “concocted this fabricated sexual harassment lawsuit over a year after she failed in her devious attempt [to] extort a better production deal.” Brian Procel, the attorney representing both Gorka and White, declined to comment for this story. Singer did not respond to requests for comment.

In a statement released Monday by Affleck’s spokeswoman, the parties said the lawsuits “have been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties” and are being dismissed.

steve.zeitchik@latimes.com

john.horn@latimes.com

Zeitchik reported from Toronto; Horn reported from Los Angeles.

Times staff writer Chris Lee contributed reporting to this report.

Joaquin Phoenix is still here (and may be available for film roles)

Richard J. Bing of La Ca

California pension officials are investigating the pay received by former top officials of Bell with an eye toward excluding large chunks of their salaries from retirement calculations.

A ruling against former City Manager Robert Rizzo and his colleagues could affect other officials across California who receive salaries from several government agencies simultaneously.

Rizzo is set to receive a pension of about $600,000 a year, which would make him the highest-paid pensioner in the California Public Employees’ Retirement fund. That amount is calculated from a salary of nearly $800,000.

His most recent contract split up his compensation so that his pay came not only for his work as city manager but as executive director of Bell’s Surplus Property Authority, Community Housing Authority, Public Financing Authority and Solid Waste and Recycling Authority.

The pay arrangement made it difficult for outsiders to determine Rizzo’s full salary, and it might come back to haunt him.

Brad Pacheco, a spokesman for CalPERS, said the fund is investigating whether pay that Rizzo received for jobs other than city administrator should count toward his pension. CalPERS is also looking at compensation for former Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia and former Police Chief Randy Adams, he said.

If CalPERS rules that pay drawn from other agencies cannot be counted for retirement calculations, it could reduce pensions received by retired Bell council members. For example, former Councilman George Cole, who during some of his tenure received pay from various agencies, is receiving a pension of nearly $50,000 a year for the part-time job.

A Times survey of city managers’ pay last month turned up officials in several cities who had been receiving payments for more than one municipal job.

Rizzo’s salary and pension benefits have prompted widespread outrage and legislation that limits the raises of local government officials.

Rizzo’s attorney, James Spertus, said he would fight efforts to reduce his client’s pension.

“Mr. Rizzo never agreed to accept less compensation or to do anything that would impact his retirement,” Spertus said.

Rizzo’s latest contracts were signed by himself and Mayor Oscar Hernandez. Former City Atty. Edward Lee said he neither prepared the contract nor approved it. Hernandez did not return calls Friday.

CalPERS itself has been sharply criticized because it knew about the high salaries paid to Rizzo and Spaccia four years ago and did nothing to stop them.

Pedro Carrillo, Bell’s interim administrative officer, said CalPERS officials recently spent about three weeks at city offices going through records. He said he expected to receive a draft report identifying any problems within 10 days.

“The salaries and pensions of certain individuals are certainly a concern of myself, the city attorney and most folks in the city of Bell,” he said.

Along with the CalPERS audit, the Los Angeles County district attorney and state attorney general have launched wide-ranging investigations in Bell that include the high salaries city officials received and allegations of voter fraud and improper business dealings. The state controller is also conducting an investigation.

A review of records by The Times showed that City Council members were paid for their work on commissions that rarely met or did so for only a few minutes.

Questions about Rizzo’s pension may be the result of five new contracts he signed in September 2008, two months after his previous one went into effect. Old contracts paid him for being city manager. The new contracts paid him as city manager and as executive director of the four city commissions.

His total compensation remained the same. He received about $221,460 a year to run the city, and the remaining $566,177 was split among the authorities.

This final contract was not provided to The Times in its original request for Rizzo’s contract in June, a violation of the California Public Records Act.

In addition, Bell’s City Council on Friday announced plans to sue former city administrators, consultants and attorneys for actions that led to the city’s crisis.

City leaders said they suspect Rizzo conducted city business using his personal e-mail account and issued a subpoena to obtain copies of messages and computer files going back five years

The decision to subpoena the e-mails came after The Times reported that Rizzo had given city loans of nearly $400,000 to two businesses without public notice or council approval.

Rizzo was ordered to appear in person and produce copies of the e-mails by the next City Council meeting, which is scheduled for Sept. 20.

Spertus said his client wants the facts to come out, but the city has refused to talk to him.

“It would not surprise me if the city of Bell or other agencies in this political time … tried to pursue criminal or civil actions against Mr. Rizzo that are unfounded,” Spertus said.

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

ruben.vives@latimes.com
In wake of Bell scandal, CalPERS may change pension calculation rules

“Chefs-d’Oeuvre?”

The question — “Masterpieces?” — posed by the inaugural exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz is a matter of many opinions.

Four months after the quirky museum with a swooping white fiberglass and Teflon roof, designed by Shigeru Ban of Japan and Jean de Gastines of France, opened its doors in this little-known town 175 miles east of Paris, visitors continue to ask if the strikingly modern building near the majestic old train station resembles a Chinese straw hat, a hut for the Smurfs or a manta ray in flight.

The masterpieces query is a weightier matter and it comes with lots of historical baggage. Composed of about 800 works, the sprawling show is a think piece about the ever-changing meaning of a term coined in the Middle Ages to judge the work of craftsmen in the European guild system but often dismissed as quaintly irrelevant these days.

“I have no definitive definition of a masterpiece,” Laurent Le Bon, director of the Metz museum and curator of the exhibition, states in a publication accompanying the show, “but, in my view, it is a work that permits diverse interpretations, indeed contradictions.”

Critical reactions to the show include proclamations that it’s the most impressive assembly of 20th century art in all of Europe and accusations that it’s so confusing and anti-hierarchical as to be meaningless. In art historical circles, the exhibition has revived a debate about the concept of masterpieces. Interviews with curators indicate that there’s hardly a consensus on the subject, with some saying it’s a valuable way of measuring quality and others pointing out the flaws of any such system.

The Pompidou Center, a Parisian cultural powerhouse that houses the French National Museum of Modern Art, built the satellite in Metz to share its 60,000-piece collection with a city of about 200,000 people. But visitors expecting the Pompidou’s greatest hits are in for a surprise. What they get is an eclectic array of paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos, installations, architectural models, furniture and printed material.

An introductory section on the ground floor tracks the evolution of masterpieces “from Middle Ages to revolutionary genius” in works lent by various institutions. But the bulk of the show ending Oct. 25, which continues on three upper floors, is drawn from the Pompidou’s 20th century and 21st century holdings. The final display, “Masterpieces ad infinatum,” grapples with notions of uniqueness in an age of endless reproductions.

As the exhibition unfolds, major works by such stalwarts as Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso, Louise Bourgeois and Bruce Nauman share gallery space with examples by relatively little known European figures and a few sculptures from Africa, Asia and Oceana. The works on view rarely conform to conventional ideas about masterpieces as paragons of beauty or tours de force of skill and they aren’t necessarily the best examples of the artists’ output.

But pieces such as Bourgeois’ enormous installation “Precious Liquids” sum up essential themes — in her case, conflict between the artist and her father and bodily liquids that symbolize pleasure and pain. Other works mark zeitgeist moments that have influenced ideas about what a masterpiece might be.

Marcel Duchamp, who famously said that a masterpiece is created by the viewer, not the artist, is represented by his first “readymade,” a bicycle wheel mounted on a wood stool in 1913. Georgio De Chirico’s 1914 painting “Premonitory Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire” is a Surrealist tribute to a leading avant-garde poet and critic, portrayed as a classical statue wearing sunglasses.

Alain Jacquet’s 1964 painting “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe” is part of his “Camouflages” series based on widely distributed reproductions of masterpieces from bygone times. His version of Edouard Manet’s celebrated Impressionist work recasts the luncheon on the grass as a poolside picnic obscured by a silk-screen pattern.

The most recently made pieces have yet to pass the test of time. A stunningly detailed photograph of commercial goods packed into a 99 Cents Only Store is a seminal image by Andreas Gursky. But it was made in 1999 by a German artist whose reputation and work continue to grow.

Experts’ views

Once upon a time, a masterpiece was a creation that met rigid standards of artistry and craftsmanship. These days, the term usually refers to the best work of an artist’s career or an example of outstanding creativity or skill, but there’s little agreement on the meaning and relevance of the term, particularly in modern and contemporary art.

Consider what a few Southern California authorities have to say in interviews and e-mail exchanges:

Douglas Fogle

Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs, Hammer Museum

That word has so many heavy connotations with connoisseurship and a certain attitude about art history, that one masterpiece comes after the other. There are great works, absolutely. In contemporary art, there are seminal or building-block works that changed everything. You can point to a Rauschenberg combine painting. “Monogram” is a great work in that way. You can point to Jackson Pollock’s first drip paintings.

It’s a masterpiece, whatever that means

Construction on the long-stalled Grand Avenue hotel, condo and shopping complex may be delayed at least another two years because developers have been unable to secure financing.

The $3-billion Frank Gehry-designed Grand Avenue complex was supposed to be the centerpiece of an elaborate effort to rebuild the blocks stretching from the Walt Disney Concert Hall to City Hall. But while backers of downtown development cheer Eli Broad’s recent decision to build his new art museum on Grand Avenue and a new 16-acre park nearby, the latest delay is a reminder that the fate of the broader reimagining of the Civic Center area is still uncertain.

The project developer, Related Cos., said this week that it plans to request a two-year extension of its current February 2011 deadline to begin construction.

If the new deal is approved by city and county officials, groundbreaking would not have to start until 2013 — six years after work was first slated to begin. Bill Witte, the president of the developer’s California division, said Related may request yet another extension if the economy hasn’t improved by 2013.

“There is no chance of financing a significant project in the near term,” Witte said. “In fact, I’m not sure there’s much of a chance of financing even an insignificant project in the near term.”

Proposed in the early 2000s during the zenith of downtown’s building boom, the project’s plans call for a boutique hotel, thousands of luxury condos and acres of retail space for upscale restaurants, shops and art galleries. A 40- to 50-story Gehry-designed glass tower was to mark the spot as a cultural hub for tourists, shoppers and a new breed of wealthy downtown denizens.

Now it’s likely that Broad’s museum and the planned park — which was conceived as part of the overall development — will open before construction on Gehry’s tower begins.

The project remains popular with downtown boosters, but some concede that the plans may need to be tweaked to take into account the economic downturn.

Eric Richardson, the publisher of blogdowntown.com, praised the Grand Avenue project for “the attention that the idea brought to downtown revitalization.” But he said some residents feel that what the area really needs is more grocery stores, pharmacies and other basic amenities.

“We’ve been very slow to pull in the retail that kind of completes the picture of life downtown,” he said. “Some people are asking, ‘Does downtown really need a mega project at this point?’”

Grand Avenue, which was approved by city and county officials in February 2007, is one of the last of several proposed “mega projects” in downtown that are still alive since the real estate market crashed in 2008.

Paul Novak, the land planning deputy for L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a longtime critic of the project, said he doesn’t think there is an appetite downtown for Grand Avenue’s upscale offerings.

“OK, you’ve got very high-end condos and a high-end hotel,” Novak said. “But the condo market is in the dumps downtown, and downtown already has a five-star hotel.”

Officials with Related said they have already secured millions of dollars in equity but have had trouble securing loans to pay the $1.1 billion required to build the first phases of the project.

During the last renegotiation of the construction deadline, Related agreed to pay a penalty of $3 million a year to push construction back. Under the new extension, which Related may ask for in the coming weeks, it must pay the joint city-county authority that controls the land an additional $1 million in penalties. The penalties would be paid once construction begins.

Witte and others say they hope the Broad museum and the new Civic Park will raise the profile of Bunker Hill and make it easier to secure loans for Grand Avenue.

Witte said Related is considering altering its plans for the project, but he would not say what changes are being considered.

Steve Needleman, who owns the Orpheum Theatre and lofts on Broadway, said Grand Avenue’s developer should consider making changes “like building office space or more modestly priced apartments.”

“I think the Grand Avenue project, by the time it gets built, will change again,” Needleman said. “You’re having to reevaluate what makes sense.”

Carol Schatz, the executive director of the downtown-based Central City Assn., also acknowledged that aspects of the development may have to be reconsidered.

“The Grand Avenue project made a great deal of sense at the time that it was approved,” Schatz said. “But things are different now.”

kate.linthicum@latimes.com
Grand Avenue project faces 2-year delay over funding

Some architects reach the point where even a minor or obscure example of their work becomes significant. That may be the case with architect John Lautner, whose underdog individualism has propelled his reputation skyward.

Supporters hope Lautner’s prestige can help save one of his earliest commissions, a 1951 house north of Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills known as Shusett House. The current owner, Enrique Mannheim, wants to knock it down and build a new place to live. The demolition could come in the next few days.

Mannheim says he’s tried to make the place work for his family, but after 23 years, he’s reached the end of his patience with the structure – as well as with Lautner fans.