Movies - Jan. 4, 2002

MOVIES

‘Mind’ Leaves Some Things to Imagination

Certain aspects of John Nash’s life weren’t explored in the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” in which Russell Crowe stars as the tortured, Nobel Prize-winning mathematician who overcame schizophrenia. One of them, Crowe said, was “a certain adventurousness in his sexuality,” which Sylvia Nasar suggests in her biography of Nash.

“And that was a big question for us, how far to go into that,” Crowe tells Entertainment Weekly in the issue hitting the stands today. “It was relevant to his character, but we didn’t want to imply that there was any possibility that schizophrenia and homosexuality are related. That would be ridiculous.”

If you look at the film closely enough, though, you’ll notice a reference to Nash’s sexuality, observed Crowe, who received a Golden Globe nomination and rave reviews for his effort. “There’s a scene where Nash is walking down a corridor at Princeton and he fixes a young man walking towards him with a gaze. The extra turns around and goes, ‘Wow, what was that about?’” the 37-year-old actor said. “You don’t need a whole scene for everything--there are grace notes that you can do.”

Crowe also discussed “Texas,” his debut as a documentary filmmaker, during a news conference in Beverly Hills. After putting together video of himself and his rock band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, playing and hanging out in Austin, Texas, he showed it to Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein, who liked it enough to buy it.

“It’s very raw, very rude, and it puts me in an incredibly bad light,” Crowe said of the movie, which premieres at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 17.

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POP/ROCK

Slash Persona Non Grata at GNR Concert

Former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash’s plan to check out his estranged bandmate Axl Rose on stage last weekend was scrapped by Rose’s representatives, who informed him that he wouldn’t be allowed into the Las Vegas concert hall.

Slash, who officially left GNR in 1996 and has remained alienated from the temperamental Rose, had arranged through a friend to attend Saturday’s show at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where Rose was playing with his new Guns N’ Roses lineup for only the second time.

That didn’t seem like a good idea to Rose’s manager, Doug Goldstein. “We didn’t know what his intentions were,” Goldstein told The Times this week. “If nothing else, it would have been a distraction. Axl was really nervous about these shows. We decided on our own not to take any risk.”

Goldstein sent an assistant to discuss the issue with Slash, who agreed to cancel his reservation. Slash told The Times on Thursday that four hotel security guards accompanied the representative to his room and made it clear that he wouldn’t be admitted to the show.

“They said no way. I knew things were being blown way out of proportion. It was like being grabbed by my hair and being ripped back into the days of when I was in Guns N’ Roses.... I was going to see the show just like anybody else, and to be supportive, for what that’s worth. I spent the last six years trying to stay out of the nastiness that does go on. If Axl had heard I was there and sent somebody down to go, ‘You want to come up and jam on “Paradise City” or “Welcome to the Jungle”?’ I would have done it.”

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Local Group Tops 2001 Album Charts

Linkin Park, the youthful-spirited Southern California rock ‘n’ rap group, has a lot to celebrate these days. Not only was its “Hybrid Theory” just declared the best-selling album of 2001 by SoundScan, but the album also continues to climb the sales chart.

The collection, which was released in the fall of 2000, sold 4.8 million copies last year to edge Shaggy’s “Hotshot” as the year’s biggest seller by approximately 300,000 copies. During its months on the chart, oddly, “Hybrid Theory” never registered higher than No. 7 until this week, when it jumped to No. 2.

With sales of 263,000 copies last week, Linkin Park trailed only Creed’s “Weathered,” which sold 398,000 to maintain the top spot on the chart for the sixth consecutive week.

The rest of the year’s 10 bestsellers, in order: ‘N Sync’s “Celebrity,” Enya’s “A Day Without Rain,” Staind’s “Break the Cycle,” Alicia Keys’ “Songs in A Minor,” Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor,” Creed’s “Weathered,” the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack and the sixth volume of the “Now That’s What I Call Music” hits collection.

Total album sales for the year were 762.8 million, down 2.8% from 2000--the first time annual album sales have dropped since SoundScan began monitoring sales in 1991.

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QUICK TAKES

Jorge Mester has signed a five-year extension to his contract, ensuring that he will continue as music director of the Pasadena Symphony through the 2006-7 season.... Backstreet Boy Nick Carter was arrested on suspicion of refusing to follow police officers’ orders to leave a Tampa, Fla., nightclub after a fight broke out. The youngest of the five-member pop group at age 21, Carter was charged early Wednesday with a misdemeanor count of resisting/opposing a law enforcement officer without violence. He was handcuffed, placed in a squad car and released on his own recognizance. His first court appearance is set for March 4, Tampa Police spokesman Joe Durkin said Thursday.... Dan Aykroyd will trade on a bit of his “Ghostbusters” fame when he launches a new talk show, “Dan Aykroyd’s Out There,” a combination of celebrity talk and the paranormal, on the Sci-Fi Channel this spring.

Elaine Dutka