My one big brush with celebrity since moving to LA came over a year ago. I was contacted by Brad Grossman, cultural attaché to Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment. (The position of "cultural attaché to Brian Grazer" is sufficiently interesting the search for Brad's replacement after he eventually left became the basis for an article in The New Yorker.) Grazer is one of the biggest producers in Hollywood -- he's the partner of Ron Howard, who does the directing. Think A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13 -- entertaining movies that can also make you think a bit.
Of course, they were also responsible for The Da Vinci Code, which was neither very entertaining nor especially thought-provoking. But it sure did make lots of cash. So they signed up to make a film of Angels & Demons, the sequel. This time they really wanted to do a better job, but the raw ...
