Day: November 2, 2009

Among the four breakout performances mentioned on 10.30 by the N.Y. Times Karen Durbin, there’s no question who makes the most robust impression and who seems (to me anyway) the most talented, personable and charming — A Single Man‘s Nicholas Hoult, who’s not yet 20.

Nicholas Hoult in Tom Ford’s A Single Man

Guys this young rarely have this kind of quietly charismatic confidence. Either way he exudes something that feels steady beyond his years. Focus, discipline, some kind of tick-tocky metronomic thing going on inside. Hoult doesn’t seem to be playing an alert and confident student who talks straight, knows how to handle his feelings, and has the confidence to speak his mind (and heart) — he seems to be this guy. That’s solid acting. Plus he has astonishing eyes and a great smile.

Of course, a lot of what I’m describing is due in part to Tom Ford‘s writing and direction of A Single Man. I’m sure Hoult is capable of seeming mediocre, given half a chance. Who isn’t?

Intriguing as they may seem to others, Durbin’s other three — Up In The Air‘s Anna Kendrick, The Road‘s Kodi Smit-Mcphee and Fish Tank‘s Katie Jarvis — strike me as less formidable, presence-wise, and probably less talented (or certainly less developed) than Hoult.

Sony Classics’ deal to acquire Rodrigo Garcia‘s Mother and Child “came together shortly after Toronto but took some time to close,” reports Indiewire‘s Peter Knegt. The plan is to open it sometime next year so Annette Bening‘s Best Actress nomination is of course out the window. I remain persuaded that Bening gives the best performance of her career in this film.

My initial TIFF gush review was a mistake as it was based on having seen most but not all of Mother and Child. I’m still a bit stunned, looking back, that a film that delivered as well as it did for the first 70% or 75% didn’t quite maintain the same on-target current during the final 25 or 30 minutes. A very rare, almost unheard-of thing in my experience. Live and learn.

I won’t purchase the new VCI Bluray of Bryan Desmond Hurst‘s A Christmas Carol (1951) until sometime this evening, but the frame scans posted by DVD Beaver’s Gary Tooze look stunning. I’ve written repeatedly that Hurst’s is the most emotionally affecting, the best acted, the spookiest and the most atmospherically correct of all the versions. So it’s great to finally have an immaculate Bluray rendering to have and hold.

The great Alistair Sim captured on VCI’s Bluray

Scanned off VCI’s 1998 DVD

Tooze chose to compare the Bluray to scans of VCI Video’s 1998 DVD, which looked fairly murky even back then. The contrast would have probably seemed less striking if Tooze had comparison-scanned VCI’s 2007 Ultimate Collector’s Edition, which I own and regard as a relatively decent mastering.

It goes without saying I’m much more cranked about this Bluray than the Robert Zemeckis/Jim Carrey version coming out on Friday — no offense. No matter how good this Disney film looks or plays, it can’t hope to match Hurst’s old-London flavoring and the constant sense that the ghost of Charles Dickens might have co-directed, or at least would have given his stamp of approval.

A little movie about a middle-aged guy getting to know his neighbors by sleeping over at their homes sounds very appealing. Julia Roberts‘ Red Om intends to make such a film, using Peter Lovenheim‘s In the Neighborhood, a forthcoming non-fiction book based on the author’s June ’09 N.Y. Times Op-Ed piece (called “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?“). It sounds like a perfect role for some agreeably seasoned older type — Richard Gere, Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Jenkins, Daniel Day Lewis, etc. (But not George Clooney!)

The “but” factor is in the routine presumption that Roberts sees a role for herself in the film.

The shlumpy, low-key charm of the thing will be compromised (if not lost) if the yet-to-be-announced screenwriter performs a sex-change so Roberts can play the Lovenheim part. Julia Roberts asking a neighbor if she can sleep over obviously presents a whole different dynamic than some graying 40-something guy suggesting the same. And if Roberts portrays one of the neighbors who says “sure, okay, you can stay in the guest room,” that opens the door to one of those intriguing mature-relationship stories that Roberts is known for, which would give the film a formulaic feeling.

This isn’t directly related, but one way of getting to know strangers that has entirely disappeared from the American landscape is hitchhiking. I used to thumb around all the time during my wayward youth, and I can still remember intriguing conversations and faces — vividly — from numerous mobile encounters. (Some of them, okay, involved middle-aged gay guys looking to get lucky. I remember rolling my eyes and muttering “oh, Christ” as one gray-haired dude suggestively stroked the stick shift of his Mustang fastback.) I only know that open and friendly chats with strangers in that context is over and done with. You used to see kids with their thumb out on highway entrance ramps in the ’70s and ’80s, even. No more.

There’s actually one place where you can still hitchhike with a reasonable hope of getting a lift — i.e., in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival. Especially if you’re wearing a prominent press badge and a cowboy hat.

Jon Krakauer‘s Where Men Win Glory investigates the life of former Arizona Cardinals linebacker and U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman, and particularly his April 2004 friendly-fire death in Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley McChrystal‘s roundabout admission earlier this year that he fraudulently approved awarding Tillman a posthumous Silver Star as a result of enemy fire has been heavily focused upon by Krakauer’s book and in a 10.14 Daily Beast article.

“After Tillman died, instantly — within 24 hours certainly — everybody on the ground…everyone knew it was friendly fire,” Krakauer said yesterday on Meet the Press. “There was never any doubt it was friendly fire. McChrystal was told it was friendly fire. There was no enemy fire. And yet McChrystal [testified that] he didn’t read this hugely important document [that clarified matters] about the most famous soldier in the Army…he didn’t read it carefully enough that he didn’t [absorb the reported facts]? That’s preposterous…that’s not believable.”

In other words, McChrystal saw a political opportunity to cast valor and glory upon the Afghanistan mission — a move that his Bush administration superiors would obviously reap political gain from. In other words McChrystal is not above spreading a lie if it helps politically. In other words he’s cut from the same cloth as other generals in command of previously unpopular wars who’ve done the politically expedient thing. In other words McChrystal can’t really be trusted any more than Lyndon Johnson could trust Gen. William Westmoreland about alleged progress during the Vietnam War. In other words President Obama needs to wake up.

“The floor of a cave called. It wants its bat shit back.” — Bill Maher on Rep. Michelle Bachman, from the 10.16 show.