Sherry Lansing

What makes some movie executives better than others? Is it just about box office success? Only in the sense that being a professional baseball player is about batting average. If you get that good, odds are you are going to produce some big hits. No, the mark of the best movie executives is a love of films. Sherry Lansing, the soon to be former head of Paramount, announced her retirement this week. She is one of the most fascinating Hollywood figures of the last few decades. She attained the Presidency of 20th Century Fox in the late seventies, leaving when the higher-ups did not see the value in the films she was making. She then formed a successful partnership with Stanley Jaffe. They produced Fatal Attractions among other hits of the eighties. She has run the production side of Paramount since 1990. Fourteen years is an eternity in Hollywood and she earned her time with a series of quality films as well as gargantuan box office hits (most especially Titanic - which no matter what you might think of the film was a putting all the chips on one number bet if ever there was one). I will miss Sherry Lansing because at her best she understood how to balance commerce and art - and it is that conflict that has often produced the best that Hollywood has to offer.

Coming soon: Reviews of The Incredibles, Alfie, and Birth - as well as Green Day's saturday night performance at Cobo Hall in Detroit.