Is director Paul Bartel (“Scenes From the...
Is director Paul Bartel (“Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills”) the first casualty of “Casualties of War”? Last week, Bartel was barred from a screening of the pic when he showed up at Burbank Studios with a journalist friend.
“It was nothing personal,” stressed a Columbia spokesperson about the incident. “But . . . the screening was strictly for long lead press.”
Given the boot, Bartel “was walking around the lot, looking for someone to have lunch with,” he told us, when he ran into an old friend, director Joe Dante. Bartel, who is also an actor, ended up clinching a part in Dante’s upcoming “Gremlins II.”
He’ll play a theater owner under “Gremlin” attack. His fellow thespian in the scene: Steven Spielberg--playing himself.
About his screening room snub, Bartel told us: “I don’t care about petty politics--life’s too short.”
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