“The charge of inaccuracy is a poor thing measured against the potency of truth,” writesN.Y. Times columnist Roger Cohen in a 2.11 article. “Zero Dark Thirty is a truthful artistic creation, one reason it has provoked debate. I think the movie’s portrayal of torture is truthful: It helped at times but at others did not. It provided clues that might have been gleaned by other means.
“In the end the case for the unacceptability of torture is not best made by sweeping assertions that it is useless. The nuance of this movie builds a much stronger case that, whatever torture’s marginal usefulness, it is morally indefensible.
ZD30 screenwriter-producer Mark Boal told Times “he did not want ‘to play fast and loose with history’ — a statement held against him by several of the movie’s critics, most eloquently Steve Coll in The New York Review of Books. My sense, however, is that Boal has honored those words.
“Truth is art’s highest calling. For it the facts must sometimes be adjusted. Zero Dark Thirtymeets the demands of truth.”
N.Y. Times guy Michael Cieplyreported this afternoon that Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner is among 28 signers of a pro-Zero Dark Thirty letter sent to all 100 U.S. Senators. The letter objects to pressure exerted by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and John McCain upon Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s film.
Kushner & Co. have basically stated that Feinstein, Levin and McCain’s 12.19.12 letter suggesting that Sony Pictures “should somehow correct ZD30‘s depiction of torture” is out of bounds and that the trio should back off
“History demonstrates, in particular the 1950s McCarthy period, that government officials should not employ their official status and power to attempt to censor, alter or pressure artists to change their expressions, believes, presentations of facts or political viewpoints,” the letter said.
Last night I tried to rally the anti-Argo crowd by suggesting a way to stop Argo from winning the Best Picture Oscar. My suggestion was mocked, spat upon. But at least it was honest and constructive, which is more than you can say for the current backlash sentiment, which is basically nihilist and defeatist. If people had any backbone or brains or balls they would vote for Zero Dark Thirty…but of course they don’t and they won’t.
A month ago Bluray.com’s Jeffrey Kaufmanreviewed Universal Home Video’s Cape Fear Bluray, and when I read the following I went “ooo-wee baby!” and my heart began to warm. “While [the Cape Fear Bluray is nowhere near the most egregious example of Universal’s tendency to remove grain,” Kauffman wrote, “those who dislike even moderate DNR will probably be less than completely pleased with the look of this Blu-ray.” I knew right away that I’d love it.
Gregory Peck in J. Lee Thompson’s Cape Fear (162).
I bought it last night and I was right. Universal Home Video technicians are masters of tasteful DNR-ing (i.e., digital noise reductions) and in my book the Cape Fear Bluray is a black-and-white DNR orgasm. It’s as beautiful as Universal’s Psycho Bluray, which has also been nicely finessed. I’m an admirer of several black-and-white Blurays that haven’t been DNR’ed (like Criterion’s Sweet Smell of Success and The Bicycle Thief) but something inside me melts when that annoying speckly grain has been tastefully toned down and I get to savor all those deep blacks and shimmering silvers and that wonderfully crisp detail that DNR-ing, when done just right, can provide.
To me grain is nothing but an element getting in the way. It’s a hot summer day, you’re in the foyer, your kid runs up on the porch and comes up and says “dad?” and you can see and hear him pretty well…but he also looks a bit filmy and hazy because there’s a screen door in the way. That’s what fucking grain is. There are few things I despise more in life than the dweeb aesthetic that cherishes overbearing grain. I seethe when I think of those cloistered grain monks like Kauffman and DVD Beaver‘s Gary W. Tooze writing “ooh, look at that wonderful grain structure…this is so great…swarms of divine mosquitoes!” The critics who say stuff like this are espousing an elite form of perversity that’s almost beyond description.
I admire many aspects of Criterion’sOn The Waterfront Bluray, yes, but not the grainstorm portions, of which there are quite a few. I wish Criterion had made four versions of Elia Kazan‘s 1954 classic — a 1.37, 1.66 and 1.85 aspect ratio versions in glorious grainstorm, and a 1.66 version that’s been tastefully DNR’d in the Universal “house” style. Criterion would never do it, of course, but I can dream.
This “pissed-off JFK swearing” tape emerged a couple of years ago. It reminds me that there’s nothing quite as funny or fascinating or revealing as listening to a famous person lose his or her temper. You never learn anything when people are calm and composed, but anger tears all that down and tells you who they are and what they’re really about. It reveals stress, of course, but also values, core convictions, the truth.
We’ve all seen or heard Christian Bale and David O. Russell lose their tempers, but these episodes led some people to think, “Oh, well…that’s because those guys have cranked-up personalities.” The truth is that it’s a very rare person who doesn’t let go with at least a flash of temper every so often, and sometimes with a bit more. An any case Bale and Russell are old hat. We need new recordings. I would pay serious money to hear a recording of one of the placid mild-mannered smoothies — Ron Howard or Tom Hanks or George Clooney or Steven Spielberg — haul back and rip someone’s head off.
Zach Galifiniakis never makes me laugh…ever. His man-infant in the two Hangover films is tedious and pathetic. His pot-smoking Due Date douchebag is more of the same. (There was one good laugh laugh in that film, when Robert Downey, Jr. punched that dicky kid in the stomach.) And this recent “Between Two Ferns” Oscar video is the same old asshole-interviews-hostile-celebrities crap. (Chris Farley’s 1993 Paul McCartney interview began this sort of thing but in a different vein.) Galifiniakis isn’t even accidentally funny. Or vaguely even.
Chris Farley’s 1993 Paul McCartney interview began this sort of thing but in a different vein. Galifiniakis isn’t even accidentally funny. Or vaguely even. All I have to do is look at his face and I’m in a foul mood. Oh, great…the “so unfunny he pisses me off” guy!
What fan of ’50s alien-monster movies wants to shell out $30 for a Criterion Bluray of The Blob, a mildly amusing drive-in flick in which a 28 year-old Steve McQueen plays an anxious teenager? Criterion’s affection for this 1958 film is mystifying, especially with William Cameron Menzies‘ Invaders From Mars — the spookiest and most artful low-budgeter of this type ever made — still un-Blurayed as we speak.
If not Invaders why doesn’t Criterion put out a Bluray of Them! or the 1951 version of The Thing or any ’50s monster-invasion flick with at least a semblance of lasting merit? If they’re going to Bluray The Blob they might as well do it to Gorgo and The Mysterians.
The less McQueen “acted”, the better he was. The more he was required to “act”, the worse he was. His dese-dem-dose Bronx accent in Somebody Up There Likes Me was godawful, and he’s not very good at expressing alarm and confusion in The Blob either, and has particular difficulty with phrases like “it’s this mass that keeps getting bigger and bigger.”
McQueen was so broke as filming began that he took a $3000 fee rather than an offer of 10% of the profits, which would have been around $200,000 as The Blob made $4 million with roughly $2 million returning to the distributor.
For whatever bizarre financial reason The Blob “was filmed in and around Valley Forge, Pennsylvania,” says the Wiki page. “The primary shooting took place at Valley Forge Studios, and several scenes were filmed in the towns of Chester Springs, Downingtown, Phoenixville and Royersford, including the basement of a local restaurant named Chef’s.”
The Blob is thin gruel. The kitschy aspects are diverting but after a half-hour you’re looking at your watch. It doesn’t fit the Criterion profile because it only operates as an amusing wallow. It doesn’t go anywhere else. It’s one of those hokey films that allows the most clueless person in the world to feel hip and superior. “Heh-heh, Jesus…look at this thing…what a low-budget wank…yaw-haw…look at that cheeseball effect…it looks like jello mixed with thick strawberry syrup!…hah, that was funny.”
An 85 year-old official announcing a resignation due to declining health is hardly a shocker. Pope Benedict XVI has been on the job for eight years, but some are going “whoa!” because the usual way for the head of the Catholic church to leave office is to keel over. Outside of Italians and ardent Catholics, who really cares? Another old guy will be selected to fill Benedict’s shoes, and the church will continue to deny or deflect allegations of sexual abuse by this or that priest.