Month: December 2005

MSNBC critic-commentator Erik Lundegaard is on the Kevin- Costner-is-back train…yes!…following my similar riff about eight or nine days ago. “Costner’s best work has an element of the rascal in it,” Lundegaard concludes. “[And] his roles this year — Denny Davies in The Upside of Anger and Beau Burroughs in Rumor Has It… — help underscore the point. In both he plays nice guy/rascals comfortably surrounded by women; in both he plays his age. But in the end Beau is a little dull because he’s too much nice guy and not enough rascal, while Denny is classic Costner: the not-smart man who wins smarter women through patience, persistence and frumpy charm.” I put it roughly the same way: “There’s no middle-aged actor around these days who seems quite as settled into himself…Costner is Mr. Anglo- Dangle Bojangles…the laid-back guy in loose shoes who can charm without trying but just as easily let the whole thing go if the vibe’s not right.” Lundegaard says “we need to see more of this. We need the Razzies to lay off already. Costner was never as great as people believed in 1990 nor as bad as people believed in 1997. But he’s always been good.”

Terrence Malick’s The New World (New Line, 12.25) is almost in theatres but enveloped in a deafening silence. I mean, except for the put-down quotes in the Rotten Tomatoes selection of reviews. Salon‘s Stephanie Zacaharek says Malick “may not care much for people, but he never met a tree he didn’t like.” (Somebody previously said this when The Thin Red Line came out, only they used “leaf” instead of “tree.”) She calls it “so much atmospheric tootle…his idea of using actors in a movie is straight out of ‘Where’s Waldo?'” The L.A. Weekly‘s Scott Foundas calls it “suffocating…a movie less interested in expanding the boundaries of narrative cinema than in forsaking them.” The hands-down funniest blurb is from Mike Clark’s USA Today review: “That sound you’re about to hear is the cracking of spines as Terrence Malick enthusiasts like me bend over backward trying to cut The New World a break.” Second prize goes to e-Film Critic’s Eric Childress: “Between the Smith-wanna-poke-a-hontas relationship, the seditious behavior back in Jamestown and the fear of the naturals that their kindness may be turned against them, a story as vast of The New World should serve as more than just a footnote in American history and a stain on the art of storytelling for all eternity.” And yet draggy-final-third and all, it’s still worth seeing…as I tried to explain in my own review: “[During] those first two thirds, The New World is a truly rare animal and movie like no other…a feast of intuitive wow-level naturalism that feels as fresh and vitally alive as newly-sprouted flora.”

Manohla Dargis’s New York Times review of The New World is probably the most sponge-like and respectful. She tries to fully absorb and relate what this generally fascinating (though finally unsatisfying) film does to you…not just its intentions and accom- plishments, but the dewy organic atmosphere of it. As well as pay oblique tribute to the legend of its shadowed, hidden-from-plain- sight creator, Terrence Malick. It’s a funny review because although she says admiring things about it, you’re not convinced she’s 100% on the boat. And yet she’s tried harder than most to really convey what this World feels, tastes and smells like…and what it all seems to mean.

Opening day and Munich‘s creme de la creme Rotten Tomatoes rating is still in the 50s….58%, to be exact. Which means that among the big guns it’s pretty much a split vote. Does this mean the Academy will respond more or less the same way? Wait a minute…why am I even asking this question? The current p.c. attitude is “poor Munich“…prematurely bashed, unfairly tarnished, etc., so why can’t I just get with the program? I really do agree with this view. Forget the big guns…forget all that crap. Just see it and don’t let that third-act sex scene mixed with a Munich-airport-massacre flashback influence you unduly… awww, there I go again.

Here’s a very thorough point-by-point piece by USA Today‘s Scott Bowles on Oscar likelies, tendency tips and possible wind-shif- tings…but I don’t know. Too much in the way of intelligent rational assessment has a way of sapping passion and draining color. Does Bowles loathe or cherish anyone or anything in this year’s race? Let’s hear a little of that “kill the umpire!” Bleacher Bum spirit. USA Today reporters can’t express their personal passions directly, of course, but the way for any reporter to get around this is to find smart-ass sources who echo his/her own views. Sorry, Scott….you’re a good hombre and and you quoted me and all…I haven’t had my coffee yet.

Reader/listener alert: I don’t think I can manage a fresh “Elsewhere Live” broadcast today. Tech problems, no speaker phone, continuing transit strike, stranded in Brooklyn, etc. It’s insane. I was going to talk about this and that but mainly run my interview with the great Werner Herzog so here it is. I’ll put up the MP3 file as a stand-alone link in Elsewhere Live either late tonight or tomorrow morning. (I may also run a portion of the q & a in transcript form.) Herzog’s Grizzly Man comes out on DVD on 12.26 via Lion’s Gate, and he has a live-action feature called Rescue Dawn, a non-Vietnam War jungle survivalist drama set in Laos in 1965, coming out in March ’06 (according to the IMDB). Partly inspired, suggested or at the very least echoed or hinted at by Herzog’s 1997 doc Little Dieter Needs to Fly, the film costars Christian Bale, Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies.

I believe what I believe about Munich‘s worthiness as a Best Picture contender, but I’m at least flexible enough to realize that the “poor Munich” thing has kicked in, and I’m adaptable enough to go with it. It has been beaten up by right-wing political types, and does deserve sympathy and understanding in the wake of this.

From late August to roughly mid-November, Capote‘s Phillip Seymour Hoffman was the far-ahead front-runner to take the Best Actor Oscar. But Heath Ledger has surged over the last two or three weeks, and it seems right now as if Ledger is ahead on points…sadness points, empathy points. Ennis del Mar feels like a sadder, more tragic figure than Truman Capote because he isn’t in the least bit brilliant, and enjoys far fewer opportunities and is overcome by “this thing” that he can’t quite make himself deal with. Capote is overcome also…by ambition, by a curiously deep love for Perry Smith, by his own self-interest. But his story is more complex and totally uptown and economically flush, whereas Ennis del Mar’s is rural and fumbling and hardscrabble. Hoffman is such a masterful actor, but Ledger so choked me up. I’m torn by these two performances…torn and divided. I know they’re both great, but I don’t know which way to turn.

I should have mentioned this earlier, but kudos to the Pheonix Film Critics for announcing an original independent thought by giving its Best Picure award to Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man…and also by naming George Clooney as Best Director for his helming of Good Night, and Good Luck.

Finally got around to reading the piece by Salon‘s Michelle Gold- berg about the political attacks against Munich (all by the pro- Israeli right), and I agree — it’s a very thorough and perceptive analysis. And the sympathy surge for this Steven Spielberg film continues…and that’s fine.

Looks like the transit strike will be over by tomorrow (i.e., Friday) or thefreabouts. Perhaps only one more exercise day remaining! Hollywood Elsewhere is planning another 140-block visit in Man- hattan later today. A visit with Capote director Bennett Miller, stopping by to pick up a script of Mike Binder’s Reign Over Me, visiting the AMC plex on 42nd Street, etc.

Fun With Dick and Jane…what is that? A movie? The title is on the marquees, the cans of film are in the booths, but to paraphrase Richard Burton’s line in Peter Glenville’s Becket, “In me there is only…a void.”