NY POST/PAGE SIX....
HARVEY Weinstein is everywhere lately.
The Miramax mogul just returned from the Los Angeles premiere of Steven Soderbergh's 'Full Frontal,' which features 'a fake Harvey,' a heavyset movie producer who guzzles Diet Cokes and growls, 'My brother Bob should see this.'
Meanwhile, in the Newsweek cover story on director M. Night Shyamalan (more on whom below), Rosie O'Donnell tells of how she defended the maker of 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Signs' in 1996 when he made 'Wide Awake' for Miramax.
Weinstein insisted it be re-edited. O'Donnell, who played a Catholic nun in the turkey, recalled: 'I said, 'Listen Harvey, I don't want you to release it unless it's Night's version. He's the artist. You're just the guy who frames it and sells it.' Well, you know what? That didn't go over big.
'He started saying, 'Who do you think you are? You're just a [bleep]ing talk show host!' He went off . . . He said, 'Like you would [bleep]ing know. You bitch! You c- - -!' '
A Miramax spokesman says, 'They definitely had a heated disagreement, and Harvey did apologize and send her flowers, but some of that language is exaggerated. He didn't use the c-word.'
Weinstein also turns up in a Variety story about 'Gangs of New York,' which is set to open on Christmas Day, the same day that another Leonardo DiCaprio picture, 'Catch Me If You Can,' is being released by DreamWorks.
The conventional wisdom is that DiCaprio's fans will see one or the other, but not both, and that the box office for both films will suffer. But neither Weinstein nor DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg will back off the Yuletide release date.
And Weinstein can't really blame DreamWorks for the conflict. As 'Gangs' perfectionist director Martin Scorsese points out to Variety: 'Harvey wanted to go Christmas 2001.'
Weinstein also had a hand in Milan, where he set up a meeting between Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, and Roberto Benigni, the multiple Oscar-winner for 'Life Is Beautiful,' and Benigni's wife Nicoletta Braschi. They discussed world events and rising anti-semitism in Europe. (Benigni is now making a darker, more grown-up version of 'Pinocchio' for Miramax.)
There will be plenty more Weinstein before the summer ends. 'Frida,' the Miramax movie starring Salma Hayek as Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, has been chosen to open the Venice Film Festival at the end of August, with a huge party afterwards at the landmark Harry's Bar where the Cipriani family got its start.
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