Month: March 2013

The first official trailer for Richard Linklater‘s Before Midnight (Sony Classics, 5.24) gets it just right. Just enough of a suggestion of what the film is without giving the game away. It lets you know that the writing and the performances are incisive and “real” and that the Greek-vacation atmosphere is to die for, and that it will hold your interest and lead you inward and down a path of deeper thoughts and richer feeling. What else do you want from a film?

Is there any critic of note who doesn’t love this film? It’s easily the best I’ve seen over the first quarter of 2013, and certainly a landmark marital relationship…I was going to say drama but it’s not really that. It’s an encounter, a voyage, an experience, a soul-baring, a marital afternoon & evening, a place to be and open up and wander around in.

“At first I wasn’t sure how much I agreed with the ravers about Richard Linklater‘s Before Midnight, the third (and final?) Ethan Hawke-Julie Delpy exploring-all-things relationship flick (following ’95′s Before Sunrise and ’05′s Before Sunset). I felt intrigued and highly stimulated by this deep-drill, naturally flowing talkfest…but not entirely sold.

“But everything changed with the final sequence of this Greece-set film — a one-on-one confrontation of ultimate marital truth in a hotel room (and then outside the hotel at the finale) lasting…oh, roughly 35 to 40 minutes. This is what brought it all home and convinced me that Before Midnight is not only the finest film of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival so far, but the crowning achievement of one of the richest and most ambitious filmed trilogies ever made.

“This final portion couldn’t be more primal. Every marriage and serious relationship in the history of post-’60s Western culture has had to deal with this stuff — the comfort of knowing your partner really, really well and the need to accept (and hopefully celebrate) all that he/she is, persistent divorced-parent guilt, the onset of pudgy bods and middle-aged sexuality, dashed expectations vs. the acceptance of real-deal trust and bonding, unfortunate eccentricity and craziness, fidelity, personal fulfillment vs. marriage fortification…the whole magillah.” — from my initial Sundance review.

Deadline‘s Dominic Patten is reporting that “after weeks of speculation that Ashley Judd would challenge Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for his Kentucky seat next year, the actress announced today ‘after serious and thorough contemplation’ that she would not enter the race.” Translation: Judd became convinced that she would lose. But what pushed her over. Was it money, data? Who got to her? Is there something in her past that might have proved highly problematic if the McConnell forces had revealed it? A strong voice is telling me something happened. She didn’t just cave.

25 years with Bernie Madoff and she never suspected? Bunk. At the very least she had intuitions, gut feelings, hairs on the back of her neck, little devils and angels whispering in her ears.

In an attempt to dodge a death sentence, attorneys for Aurora theatre shooter James Holmes are reportedly offering a guilty plea in exchange for life imprisonment. But why would prosecutors accept this? I’m no Judge Roy Bean but don’t most of us agree that exceptionally heinous killers ought to pay the ultimate price so that society feels that some kind of justice has been served?

If anyone deserves to be smoked it’s Holmes so I don’t get it. What’s the problem with going for the death penalty? Are prosecutors afraid he’ll get some kind of lesser sentence by claiming insanity? What kind of a system allows a fiend like this free room and board for the next 50-odd years as punishment for mass murder? Shoot him. Or better yet, chain him to a theatre seat and make him watch ten flicks in a row, knowing that during one of the screenings two or three guys will come in suddenly and blow him away with rifle fire. Or give him the guillotine. Or throw him into an alligator pit. But no coddling. Be severe and unforgiving.

Last night I saw Morgan Neville‘s Twenty Feet From Stardom for the second time, and got off on it just as much as I did at Sundance. It has highs, tears, sadnesses, ecstasies, golden oldies and unsuppressable emotional currents. But this portrait of insufficiently heralded backup singers throws a lot of faces, names, careers and personal histories into your lap. The film needs a one-stop-shopping, easy-reference website that tells you who everyone is but right now it only has a Facebook page and a Twitter handle.

The leading lights in 20 Feet From Stardom (l. to r.) Darlene Love, Tata Vega, Merry Clayton, Judith Hill, Lisa Fischer.

The doc focuses on six women — Darlene Love, Lisa Fischer, Merry Clayton, Judith Hill, Claudia Lennear and Tata Vega.
Just hang on to these six names, reference their faces above and their personal websites or Wiki pages — Love, Fischer, Clayton, Hill, Lennear (who mainly teaches for a living these days) and Vega.

From my 1.18.13 mini-riff: “Pic is a snappy, joyful, deeply emotional doc about the career agonies and ecstasies of soul-angel backup singers.

“These ladies have belted out every backup ‘ooh, yayuh-yaaaay!’ and ‘ooh-wah’ and ‘babaaay!’ you’ve ever heard, and — this is the main point of the film — have much more in their quiver. They’re all as rippin’ and soulful as any Aretha Franklin or Mariah Carey or whomever, but none has ever built a strong solo career.

“This is the melancholy that runs through Twenty Feet From Stardom, but Neville has crafted a killer tribute and brought back the spotlight. This is live-wire stuff, an audience film, a winner.

“Twenty Feet takes you back to every Motown and Phil Spector tune that ever mattered, to this and that Joe Cocker song, to David Bowie‘s ‘Young Americans’ (‘Aahhhhllll night!’) and especially to Clayton’s legendary solo on the Rolling Stones‘ “Gimme Shelter”…knockout stuff! The talking heads include Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler and Mick Jagger.”

I loved re-watching Andrew Dominik‘s Killing Me Softly on Bluray last week (for me that brilliant ending is almost the entire ball game), and I also kind of loved that Dominik was not especially gregarious during our phoner. By this I mean he wasn’t the least bit affected. He apparently doesn’t like interviews and after a fashion was simply being copping to this.

I was shocked by that unusually harsh Cinemascore grade that Killing Me Softly got when it opened last December. It deserved at least a little more love than it got, which amounted to $15,026,056 domestic and $35,583,240 worldwide.

And I apologize for either forgetting or being ignorant about Dominik’s possible next project, a Marilyn Monroe biopic “starting at age 7 and ending with her death,” as he put it. It would be an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates‘ Blonde, a script for which Dominik began writing in 2009 without locking down the rights.

Here, again, is our brief phoner.

At the end of the day I don’t think it’s very healthy or attractive to go around writing people off or downgrading them for certain behaviors or style choices. But I’ve mentioned a few. Anyone who giggles like a 13 year-old girl in a theatre lobby or a parking garage after watching a really good film. People who repeatedly laugh like hyenas in bars or cafes, shrieking with hideous gaiety. Anyone who wears gold-toe socks. Gay guys who insist on entertaining their neighbors at 7:30 am with repeated playings of “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.”

Now I feel obliged to mention a new one, although I need to make clear it’s not much of an issue. It’s a very minor thing at best, but people who stand with their feet spread outwards at angles of 35 or 45 degrees as opposed to roughly parallel, and who also walk or run this way have always vaguely bothered me. I’ve heard the term “duck feet” to describe this but maybe that’s an incorrect term. I know that outward-angled feet have always indicated that the owner is a bit of a yokel. I see someone standing in this fashion and it’s same thing as visiting their home and spotting an old car mounted on cinder blocks in the back yard.

Either way it’s no biggie and hardly worth mentioning. I’m only bringing it up because I’ve never brought it up in my life, under any circumstance. But as God as my witness I can distinctly remember having a problem with people who stand like this when I was eight or nine. So I’ve been carrying it around for decades.

I’d like to tick off five or six famous names who stand or walk like this, but only Tom Cruise comes to mind. Watch his legs and feet when he runs in Collateral. But again, it’s not a problem. Just a minor mood mosquito.

Richie Aprile was shot by Janice Soprano in “The Knight in White Satin Armour,” which aired on 4.2.00 as the twelfth show in the 2nd season — almost 11 years ago. Time sure flies along, doesn’t it? I dearly love the way Janice’s younger brother enters very cautiously, like an animal approaching sleeping prey, and then strokes his chin when he realizes what’s happened.

I swear to God this series made me feel so at home, like I was sitting in a suburban New Jersey diner somewhere with friends on a Friday evening or Saturday morning. It made me feel wise and comfortable and secure while fully reminding me in each episode of all the plagues and anxieties.

I understand and accept that you can’t call up and order great dramas like takeout. Profound art has no pre-set conditions and timetables. There’s no dependability — it happens when it happens and when it’s in the mood. (And when it’s not, like when David Chase made Not Fade Away, too effin’ bad.) It’s entirely possible there won’t be another bull’s-eye series quite like The Sopranos ever again. And that’s fine. The Next Big Thing will have its own flavor and rhyme and attitude. But I still miss The Sopranos from time to time. The heart grows fonder.

It ended almost six years ago, in June 2007.

The author of War of the Worlds, of course, is/was H.G. Wells. But way back in 1953 some wall-painter or poster-maker got the idea that his name was H.G. Well. Then the manager looked up and said one of two things: (a) “Lookin’ good!” or (b) “Jesus, some idiot got the name wrong. But you know what? I’m not paying some union guy to go up to the roof with a scaffold and then lower himself down and charge me a full daily rate just to change a single letter and the position of an apostrophe. Eff that.”

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I have to admit that the destruction effects here are pretty good, especially that jaggedy shot of the U.S. Capitol dome collapsing in flames. At the very least this looks like a much grander, pricier and more eye-popping film than Olympus Has Fallen, you bet.

It’s been reported by NY Post critic/columnist Lou Lumenick as well as HighDef Digest that Warner Home Video will release that Shane Bluray that I’ve been complaining about on Tuesday, June 4th. Regretfully, the aspect ratio will be 1.66 and not 1.37, which is how this 1953 George Stevens classic was shot and meant to be seen. The decision to ignore this fact and present a reconstituted Shane is a very bad thing, and there should be a hue and cry about it, dammit.

I don’t care how expertly WHV’s Shane Bluray has been mastered for 1.66. It will present a version with missing gun belts and dog legs cut off and missing boots and slightly lowered skylines. It’s wrong and WHV knows it.

If WHV wants to release Shane at 1.66 for commercial purposes, fine, but for decency’s sake and particularly out of respect for the vision of George Stevens and his dp Loyal Griggs they need to make the 1.37 version available via Warner Archives.

There is absolutely no basis for any debate on this. I am 100% correct and that’s that. Again — read what I wrote before. And then read the two discussions about this matter on Home Theatre Forum — discussion #1 and discussion #2. Shane was shot in 1.37 and should be at least concurrently presented on Bluray at that aspect ratio along with the 1.66 version.

Respected archivist Bob Furmanek has written on HTF that Shane “was clearly composed for 1.37:1. I prefer to see it in that ratio. I feel that is how it should be seen.”

Restoration guru Robert Harris says on HTF that “while I would love to also see the film in 1.37, the 1.66 has been formatted on a shot-by-shot basis, as opposed to locking in at a 1.66 center and running. George Stevens, Jr., whom I trust implicitly, has approved. He was not only on set for the shoot in 1951, but also, rumor has it, knew the director reasonably well. Hopefully, a dual format release can occur, as the data would have been completed both ways.”

From my HTF post: “George Stevens and dp Loyal Griggs shot Shane at 1.37 — that is a stone fact. Between July and October of 1951. Before anyone had ever heard of or even conceptualized 1.66. It was never intended to be seen at 1.66 by its makers, period.

“Has George Stevens, Jr. done an impeccable job of making the 1.66 Bluray version look as good as possible by balancing the visual elements and not chopping heads off and whatnot? Almost certainly, I’m told. But did his father and Loyal Griggs compose for 1.66? No, they did not.

“The 1.66 theatrical release of Shane in April 1953 was a studio mandate. We’ve got to look bigger and broader than TV. Get on board or else. The industry was up in arms against TV. A huge Battle Cry. Wider and bigger, wider and bigger.

“Do you suppose that the 1953-era Paramount studio chiefs went to Stevens and said, ‘Whaddaya think, George? Is it okay with you & your dp if we whack the tops and bottoms off the film that you guys shot? We won’t do it if you say no.’

“Seriously — what was Stevens going to say or do? Be Patrick Henry and fall on his sword while crying 1.37 or death? He was a political animal like all studio directors, trying to swim and stay afloat and stay viable.

“How in the world can anyone be against urging WHV to present the film as it was framed and shot to Bluray viewers? How could it possibly be a problem to urge a concurrent release via Warner Archives of the real Shane (i.e., the 1.37 version)? George Stevens, Jr. told me a while back that he prepared a highdef/Bluray version of same. It’s there to be issued. How could this possibly be a problem for anyone who cares about this film?

“As the Bluray has no doubt been pressed and duplicated and locked down by now, I’m going to send a letter out tomorrow to every person of any importance in the Bluray/home video/archive & restoration community, asking that they sign a letter urging Warner Home Video to issue a concurrent 1.37 Shane Bluray via Warner Archives.

“Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, the heads of the American Cinematheque, AFI, BFI, Robert Harris, Bob Furmanek, Scott Foundas, Todd McCarthy, Robert Osborne and the people behind the TCM Classic Film Festival, Tom Luddy, Gary Meyer, all the restoration guys in the community, Home Theatre Forum, Digital Bits, Highdef Digest, the Film Foundation…everyone of note who could or would care about seeing a Bluray of George Stevens’ film as it was actually framed and shot in 1951.

“And not some bizarre studio-slice version that did not and never will represent what Stevens and Griggs captured on the set. You can cut the pie ten or fifteen different ways and it still comes down to that rock-solid fact.”

HTF commenter Pete Apruzzese: “I hear is going to reframe Maltese Falcon for a new 1.85 version since the film played that way during reissues. I’m sure he’ll honor his father’s vision and that HTF will support his decision. Time to change the HTF mission statement — if a relative of the director does the change to the aspect ratio, then it’s okay.”

A HTF contributor who calls himself Eastmancolor has written the following:

“I’ve seen Shane many times over the years, not only on VHS, laserdisc and DVD, but also on 16mm and 35mm film. Even in previous 35mm screening held here in Los Angeles, I’ve never seen the film shown in a 1.66 aspect ratio. Never.

“As has been discussed, the only reason the film was ever shown in 1.66 was to satisfy the marketing department at Paramount in 1953. And except for screenings around that time (and only in certain venues) was the film ever shown publicly in that ratio?

“The film all of us know and love has primarily been shown in 1.37. That’s also how the original creators of the film wanted it shown.

“1.37 should be a no-brainer.

“The argument for modifying the film to a 1.66 ratio is more to satisfy the folks who want every inch (or almost every inch) of their 16×9 hi-def television screens filled. It’s this same lunacy that’s ruined the presentation of many CinemaScope ratio films. Warner Bros especially loves to take both their new and old scope films and modify them to 1.78, ruining the original screen compositions. Try watching East of Eden on Netlix or Amazon streaming. After the widescreen opening credits at 2.55 they zoom in to 1.78, thus making the film about as unwatchable as those old 1.33 pan and scan jobs from decades earlier.

“Now they want to modify Shane, only cropping off the top and bottom instead of the sides.

“The whole point of of letterboxing in the past has been to preserve the original intent of the filmmakers. This upcoming pillarboxing of Shane goes against what the filmmakers intended. It was only what the pencil pushers in the front office at Paramount intended in 1953. I would no more think of purchasing a 1.66 version of Shane than I would a 2.1 version of Gone With The Wind, but that’s how that film was released to theaters in the 1960’s.

“At the very least, both a 1.37 and the 1.66 presentations of Shane should be offered on the Bluray. The studios love to give us newer films with a Bluray, DVD and Digital copy in the same package. Having two presentations of Shane shouldn’t be too difficult.”