Owen In Mind

By S.T. VanAirsdale

While I'm not uncurious, you won't find me dignifying the gossip surrounding Owen Wilson's hospitalization with my own suppositions; there are plenty of prurient, hellbound assholes handling those duties peerlessly as usual. However, bad news is still news, and today over at The House Next Door, Matt Zoller Seitz has a touching commentary about his experience with the actor over the years:

When he talked about the movie industry -- his knowledge based, at that point, mainly on secondhand reports from older filmmakers and the same faux-insider film monthlies that everyone else read -- he sounded like a kid excitedly summarizing the research he'd done for a paper on deep-sea diving or petrified wood. In 1995, after he'd moved to Los Angeles and started going on auditions and meeting with powerful people, he still seemed more or less the same guy -- observant, bemused, inquisitive and entertained by the unpredictability of life. ...

I wish Owen Wilson good luck in his ascent from the abyss, which I am sure will be willful and permanent. I look forward to seeing another five decades' worth of performances, and listening to his droll speech when he accepts his best original screenplay Oscar, and hearing secondhand reports of how he dotes on his grandchildren.

Jeffrey Wells has been offering his own insights at Hollywood Elsewhere, where he also linked to Tatiana Siegel's gruesome if necessary trade piece about the status of Wilson's films in development and/or production:

Wilson, one of Hollywood's highest-earning funnymen, also is on board to film the 20th Century Fox comedy Marley & Me, opposite Jennifer Aniston. That film was tentatively scheduled to begin production in January. When asked if production on Marley & Me would be affected, a Fox spokesman said, "It's a totally inappropriate question at this time when all of our thoughts and concerns are with his health and well being."

Marketing-wise, the actor next appears in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, which Fox Searchlight will release Sept. 28, creating a conundrum for the specialty label.

I'm in the process of looking into more about Darjeeling -- the opening-night selection of the New York Film Festival -- myself, and will pass along what I learn as I learn it. Meanwhile, best wishes to Wilson and his family.

Posted at August 28, 2007 3:40 PM