Day: January 15, 2011

The always electric and captivating Susannah York, 72, died earlier today from cancer. I fell in love with her performance as Meg, the daughter of Paul Scofield‘s Sir Thomas More, in Fred Zinneman‘s A Man For All Seasons (’66), and was pretty much hooked from then on. One of her best scenes in that film begins around the 2:20 mark.

York’s eyes were wonderful. Gleaming, teasing. They always knew. And then you add that delicious smile. She always conveyed adult intrigue, exceptional perception. At times a certain melancholy crept into her features, but it was always mitigated by hints of need, playful intelligence and, of course, erotic insinuation.

Born in 1939, York enjoyed an unusually long run — 18 years — in first-rate films of her day. The list began with Ronald Neame‘s Tunes of Glory (’60) and continued with John Huston‘s Freud (’62), Tony Richardson‘s Tom Jones (’63), A Man For All Seasons, Robert Aldrich‘s The Killing of Sister George (’68), Sydney Pollack‘s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (’69 — Best Supporting Actress nominated), Robert Altman‘s Images (’72 — Best Actress, Cannes Film Festival), Jerzy Skolimowski‘s The Shout, and — the end of the really good stuff — Daryl Duke‘s The Silent Partner (’78).

For some reason my two favorite York performances after A Man For All Seasons were in The Shout (a strong sexual current with Alan Bates , or so I recall) and — don’t laugh — Kaleidoscope with Warren Beatty.

I’m sorry she’s gone — 72 is far from elderly — but for actresses of York’s calibre quality of achievement is as important, perhaps more so, than the number of years spent on the planet.

At 3:30 am New York time Nikki Finke reported that Ron Howard‘s The Dilemma has, like, tanked. It did $6 million yesterday with a shot at $20 million by the end of the Martin Luther King holiday.

That’s “shockingly soft,” she says, if you compare to opening grosses of Vaughn’s Four Christmases ($31 million) and Couples Retreat ($34 million) and James’ Paul Blart: Mall Cop ($31 million) and Grown-Ups ($40 million).

Like I said on Thursday, it’s the movie and not the guys. People are smelling what this film is putting out and it’s not going down all that well — end of story.

Michel Gondry‘s The Green Hornet did around $10.5 million yesterday and is looking at $35 million by the end of the four-day weekend. That’s low, of course. The buzz is awful so what else could have happened?

Reactions to either?

Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan will take in just under $10 million by Monday night for an estimated cume of $73.8 million. How far can it go?

Watching my Ishtar Bluray the other night led me to Peter Biskind‘s September 2010 Vanity Fair piece about the making of that misbegotten (but now forgiven in most quarters) 1987 film. And while I’ve read Biskind’s Beatty autobiography and should have some memory of this, I came upon an anecdote that sank in because it contains — I’m not exaggerating — perhaps the most eloquent and half-touching rationale for promiscuity I’ve ever heard or considered. And conveyed in only four words.

Biskind got the story from Ishtar costar Dustin Hoffman.

“Despite his growing difficulties with [director Elaine] May, Beatty never complained about her — except once. He and Hoffman were in the desert, along with 150-odd extras. He took his co-star aside and started venting.

“‘Warren was going off about how painful it was to make this movie with Elaine,’ Hoffman recalls. ‘He said, ‘I was going to give this gift to Elaine, and it turned out to be the opposite. I tried this and I tried that…’ He was so passionate, but in the middle of it — it’s like he had eyes in the back of his head, because there was some girl walking by, maybe 50 yards away, in a djellaba. He turned and froze, just watched her. I mean, this was while he was producing and everything was going in the toilet. But he couldn’t help it.’

Finally, Beatty turned back to Hoffman and asked, ‘Where was I?’

“‘Warren, let me ask you something,’ Hoffman said. ‘Here everything is going wrong on this movie that you planned out to be a perfect experience for Elaine, and here’s a girl that you can’t even see a quarter of her face because of the djellaba — what is that about?”

“‘I don’t know.’

“‘Let me ask you something else. Theoretically, is there any woman on the planet that you would not make love to? If you had the chance?’

“‘That’s an interesting question: Is there any woman on the planet’ — Beatty paused and looked up at the sky — ‘that I wouldn’t make love to? Any woman at all?’

“Hoffman continues: ‘He repeated the question, because he took it very seriously. This problem with the production was now on the back burner, and it was like he was on Charlie Rose.’

“‘Yes, any woman,’ said Hoffman.

“‘That I wouldn’t … ?’ said Beatty. ‘No, there isn’t.’

“‘Theoretically, you would make love to any and every woman?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘You’re serious.’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Why?’

“‘Why?’

“Hoffman: ‘He was thinking. He was searching for the right words. ‘Because…you never know.’ I thought that was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard a man say, because he was talking about spirits uniting. And then it was ‘Where was I? I just don’t know what to do about Elaine…’ But this took precedence.’

“Hoffman was right,” Biskind concludes. “Beatty was searching for perfection. It was the same passion that fueled his prodigious appetite for takes: ‘because…you never know.'”

There are always little things that people do that faintly irritate others. So faintly that they barely register, and are certainly not worth mentioning in mixed company. To casually do so would suggest a petty and neurotic nature, and who wants that? But this is a Saturday morning and very little is going on. Remember Holden Caulfield sitting on that bus and noticing the way a guy is trying to hide that he’s picking his nose? We all think this stuff.

I inwardly flinch (i.e., not so you’d notice) whenever I see a cluster of eight or ten people standing or walking together. It’s ever-so-vaguely threatening and it invites a faint feeling of contempt. The herd instinct is one of the lowest imaginable behaviors, connoting fear and/or uncertainty and a general lack of Gary Cooper-like qualities. I’ve always rebelled, even when I was five, against the idea of huddling with any group, for any reason. I would huddle for warmth, I suppose, but that hasn’t happened yet and what are the odds at this stage?

I also don’t care for anyone who takes little baby sips out of a bottle of any liquid. I’m talking about raising a bottle for no more than a second and sipping maybe half a jigger’s worth of beer or Coke or whatever. I scowl ever so slightly when I see this. Actors always baby-sip, perhaps having been taught this in acting school. (Or because they don’t want to take 15 or 20 man-swigs should the director ask for that many takes.) I only know that it looks spazzy. If you’re going to sip something, do it like Bill Murray would, with a certain leisurely cool. Don’t be weird or herky-jerky. Tilt your head back and sip a little more slowly and allow a little more liquid — a healthy half-mouthful, say, or roughly two jiggers worth — to slide in and be savored. Now that I’ve written this it’s going to be all the harder to deal with baby-sippers.

What could happen at tomorrow night’s Golden Globe telecast that would turn heads? A surprise win, I suppose, but it wouldn’t matter much in the greater scheme. No one cares about the preferences of this utterly discredited bunch. It’ll be okay if they give the Best Motion Picture, Drama award to The King’s Speech, as some are predicting. Tom Hooper‘s film will enjoy a gratifying nationwide moment. And good on Annette Bening if, as expected, she wins the Best Actress, Comedy or Musical award for her performance in The Kids Are All Right.

The only things that will matter are (a) Ricky Gervais‘ opening monologue and (b) a winner flubbing it in some small way during their acceptance speech. But who would? They’re all aware, of course, that everyone will be watching precisely to see if anyone pulls a Mickey Rourke, and I can’t imagine anyone being that reckless. Christian Bale won’t go there. He’ll more or less repeat what he said at last night’s Critics Choice Awards, something sincere, restrained and on the money.

In a recent interview with Ryan Seacrest on KIIS-FM, Gervais reportedly said “I’m going to go all out this time…I’m going to make sure they’re never going to invite me back.”