Author and screenwriter Ed Naha recently shared (via Facebook) an abbreviated rundown of draining medical issues. Nothing horrible but dreary and gloom-instilling, he wrote.
I’m sorry for Naha’s mild misfortunes, but — this is going to sound perverse and perhaps even cruel — they triggered a certain alpha-karma payback response. A subtle feeling of satisfaction even.
Rather than try to explain my admittedlyoddreaction, please read Naha’s post and then an 11.14.12 HE post titled “Happiness Pills.”
Nobody seems to speak with much reverence these days about Mervyn LeRoy, mainly because his rep isn’t much different than Clarence Brown‘s — a reliable, well-respected house director.
But LeRoy helmed a fair amount of first-rate films during the heyday (early 30s to late 50s), plus Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (11.15.44) is arguably Hollywood’s most rousing WWII propaganda flick. Great cast (Van Johnson, Spencer Tracy, Robert Walker), a first-rate Dalton Trumbo script, fine cinematography by Robert Surtees and Harold Rosson.
I can only report that this 16-minute clip hooked me. Everything stopped. I had to stay with it.
10 pm update: I’ve just rewatched the first 60 minutes, which felt overly sentimental, unsubtle, mawkish. I know the film picks up once the Ruptured Duck heads for Japan.
Posted early Tuesday by HE commenter “roland1824”: “Obsession is whatever. The more interesting story here is how the hype has reached a self-perpetuating velocity that built on itself exponentially. There’s a feeling of Obsession FOMO…that this is some kind of cultural moment that people must partake in. I suspect there was some early bot seeding online to launch it before your loud easy-lay horror fans took over. The low-budget narrative is something that has been drilled into heads — you had to see it (has anyone mapped out how union minimums break down $750k?)”
Anonymously written Bluray.com review, posted about 10 days ago: “Criterion’s 4K restoration of Lawrence Kasdan‘s Body Heat is a massive upgrade in quality, whether seen in native 4K or 1080p.
“The improvements in delineation, clarity, depth, and especially the dynamic range of the visuals, are humongous. On a large screen, viewing the new 4K restoration and the old 1080p presentation is a night-and-day experience. Color reproduction and balance are outstanding.
“All primaries and supporting nuances are properly set, and there are absolutely no traces of the awful tealing that destroyed the recent 4K restorations of big films like Point Blank and Night Moves.
“Unsurprisingly, Criterion’s Body Heat now has a spectacular, very faithful, very attractive period appearance. The Dolby Vision grade helps some of the most gorgeous visuals look even better. I was particularly impressed by the opening sequence because the different nighttime colors looked tremendous. The darkest areas looked good on my system, too.
“The 1080p presentation also produces stunning colors, which is one of several reasons why the new 4K restoration and the previous 1080p presentation produce visuals with very different dynamic ranges. The entire film is spotless.”
Emphasis: The Criterion Bluray situation has gotten so bad in terms of teal-tint vandalism (the most grievous offenders being Eyes Wide Shut, Sorcerer, Night Moves and Point Blank) that when they DON’T ruin a film’s original color scheme. It’s cause for celebration.
I still think that the Criterion should be prosecuted in The Hague. There is nothing more EVIL in the realm of Bluray remastering than to saturate an original color scheme with teal poisoning. These diabolical fiends should be brought before The Hague judges in chains. I’m dead serious.
Martin Scorsese to N.Y. Times: “I’m interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences. Remember, cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve.”
I was suprised to learn two things the other day. One, “Linda“, that insipid 1962 bubblegum tune sung by Jan & Dean, was originally written in 1942 by Jack Lawrence. And two, the song was inspired by the one-year-old Linda McCartney, the daughter of Lawrence’s attorney, Lee Eastman.
The song wasn’t published until after Lawrence left the military in ’45 or thereabouts. It was then recorded by a string of performers, the last of which were Jan & Dean. This may be common knowledge among pop music aficionados (i.e., Chris Willman), but I was ignorant until last weekend.
Why does each and every person who reviews Blurays on YouTube…why does each and every reviewer look so dependably nerdy, dweeby, bearish? And, in more case than not, chubby?
In any format or on any platform critics, reviewers and columnists have never been movie-star attractive, of course, but why do they all look exactly the same these days?
I’m obviously not talking about knowledgability or perception. I’m asking why in the entire universe of Bluray-reviewing…why is there not even one who looks like, say, the 1950s-era Henry Fonda? Or the young Mickey Rourke? Or the youngish Gene Siskel? Or Lee van Cleef or Strother Martin even?
If you’re just reading a review, nobody cares what you look like. But when your schpieling is on YouTube, there ought to be something appealing if not arresting about your visual presentation. Imagine if George Clooney were to launch a Bluray-reviewing YouTube channel….imagine! Or if Bill Murray were to give it a go.
I’d like to say that that Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and challenger Spencer Pratt will end up competing in a November runoff election. But recent polling says that Nithya Raman is polling second, right after Bass and just ahead of Pratt. This strikes me as odd as Raman seems bland.
The election is happening today. How will it all shake out? Pratt is a franker, more colorful candidate, but there’s something a bit downmarket about the guy.
I saw Curry Barker’s Obsession (Focus, 5.15) last night. Over the last two weekends it’s become a massive, phenomenal hit, as we’ve all read. Except it’s not really good enough (it’s certainly not Weapons-level) to warrant this kind of social-earthquake response. Yes, it’s well acted and has an imaginatively out-there downscale vibe and it’s certainly bloody and gorey here and there…aahh, let me start over.
I didn’t hate Obsession. It’s Walmart-level, but tolerably so. I felt hugely repulsed by Michael Johnston’s male lead (a music store employee called “Bear” who behaves more like a greasy little cub), but I was down with (i.e., felt erotically stirred by) 25 year-old Inde Navarette, who plays Bear’s whackjob girlfriend, Nikki, with serious manic spunk. I felt aroused by her hair-trigger lunacy.
I’m not saying Obsession is crap. I didn’t feel at the end that two hours had been stolen from me. I felt a bit soiled but not burned. Call it marginally effective low-rent horror gruel with at least one excellent whambam jump scare.
My 9:25 pm screening was 90% to 95% filled, which is highly unusual for a Monday night…packed with moderately mulchy, none-too-sophisticated 20somethings who were behaving in an “animated” way…commenting or groaning (“Nice rack!” when Navarette pulled off her normcore sweatshirt…a general “yo!…we crave your bod” atmosphere) or otherwise talking back to the screen like black audiences used to do in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s.
Me and maybe three other guys were the only over-45 types. I was the only older dude with slightly longish hair and certainly the only viewer wearing pricey, Italian-made, black leather loafers, I can tell you that much.
What is Obsession, boiled down? It’s basically a serving of moody, splotchy, button-pushing, crazy-girlfriend garbage by way of anything-goes horror exploitation, but augmented with above-average, babygirl-Zoomer acting and Zoomer dialogue that felt reasonably honest or real-world as far as it went.
It’s a rehashing of “The Monkey’s Paw”, a 1902 horror short story by W.W. Jacobs, with a little spritz on the side of “Nick of Time”, that 1960 William ShatnerTwilightZone episode in which Shatner’s young newlywed becomes entranced by a wicked fortune-telling device.
Thematically or metaphorically, it’s about…uhm, be emotionally real and genuine with women, and don’t hide behind put-on games or pretentious posing or wimpy dodging…just be straight and sincere. But at the same time don’t be cringe-sensitive. Don’t secrete your icky hetero longings. Try to behave like a semi-normal, straight-from-the-shoulder type.
And that goes double if you’re Johnston’s “Bear”, a wimpy-voiced, babygirl-ish, kitten-mewing, totally candy-assed (read: anguished sensitivity) guy with greasy hair and standard five-day facial stubble…a guy who wears shitty normcore threads (as well as the butt-ugliest, light-gray, lace-up Foot Locker sneakers…don’t get me started).
Obsession starts with Bear in the throes of erotic whatever…emotionally enthralled by a pretty, dark-haired, agreeably bosom-y coworker (i.e., Navarette) who maybe stands 5’1” in heels. I was saying to myself “just let it go, bruh…you’re too mushy, too girlyman…she’s out of your league.”
Find the courage, the film is saying, to behave like a man of at least some substance and not like an emotionally intimidated three-year-old.
Like so many other lower-budgeted gloomy-spooky films, Obsession has that under-lighted, processed-in-lentil-soup palette (subdued amber-grayish colors, no real daylight to speak of, a Gordon Willis scheme but without the panache of Gordo’s super-rich blacks and occasional shafts of punctuating sunlight).
You can’t tell me “Curry” isn’t a funny-sounding first name. A spicy Indian sauce that rhymes with “furry” or more particularly Coury-brand cat food, which Elliot Gould’s Phillip Marlowe tried to buy at 3 am in a Hollywood market back in ‘73.
The overweight, Jim Belushi-ish Cooper Tomlinson, who plays Ian, another music-store employee who’s friendly with Bear and Nikki, holds up his end and then some. He’s the only normal-ish character in the whole film, and certainly the only relatable male. God, I so despised Johnston’s mealy-mouthed, chickenshit, greasy-faced performance!
As I was leaving I spotted a 20something Latin-x woman (gold-painted toenails) who seemed to be recovering from the trauma of watching the film. She was standing next to the exit door with an anguished expression. As I moved past her I almost ran into an equally traumatized, slightly younger girl who went “oh!!” as we suddenly faced each other. I tried for a little calm-down action by shrugging and saying “I’m just walking out…no worries…cool.”
The same kind of cheap tattle-tale reporting could have theoretically torpedoed JFK’s presidential campaign in 1960. Some men are led around by their dicks; I’m sorry that Platner appears to be among this fraternity, but it doesn’t matter anyway. We all need to give woke pearl-clutching femmebot sensibilities a rest.
For my money the most perceptive analysis of the anti-Fjord wokester cabal, not to mention the most stinging, was posted Sunday night by “Aka MingWe.” I’ve never spoken to this person, but hats off, full respect & thank you.
The post is initially driven by a dispute with HE commenter “Christophe”, who accused yours truly of sounding contradictory or inconsistent.
