Day: April 15, 2013

Yesterday’s big twitter topic was about Justin Bieber and his posse visiting the Anne Frank home near Amsterdam and writing in the guest book that (a) it had been “truly inspiring to be able to come here,” (b) “Anne was a great girl” and (c) “hopefully she would have been a belieber.” Meaning that if Ms. Frank had been saved from her fate by time-travelling to 21st Century America she would have become a major fan and bought tickets to Justin’s concerts and jumped up and down and squealed.

Which other significant figures from the anti-Semitic European arena during World War II might have also been Bieber fans if he’d been a popular musical performer in early to mid ’40s Germany?

Adolf Hitler would have probably scoffed at Beiber’s music but would the impressionable Eva Braun have been a fan? Probably not as she wouldn’t have been sure if Bieber is a Jewish or a German-Jewish name and she wouldn’t want to take any chances. Would Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels have been a fan? Perhaps if he could have persuaded Bieber to promote Third Reich values during concerts, but otherwise no. Would Amon Geoth, the Nazi beast portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List, have been a “belieber”? Most likely not. Would the bring young female architect whom Geoth ordered shot in the head have been a Bieber fan? Probably not as she wouldn’t have had a chance to hear his music due to being in a concentration camp. (Frank, remember, would have become a “belieber” only by listening to Bieber sing on her bedroom radio at night.) Would Helen Hirsch, the house maid to Amon Geoth whom Embeth Davidtz portrayed in the 1993 Steven Spielberg film, have been a fan? Absolutely!

Here are two capturings of eyeglasses, mostly tinted and some not. The Bling Ring poster is fairly straightforward. The bottom photo was just taken a few minutes ago — six or seven non-prescription reading glasses (strength 2.25 to 2.50), five or six cheap-ass tinted reading glasses, five or six darkly-tinted 3D glasses for screen-glare protection, and two semi-expensive blue-tint reading glasses (strength 2.75). I have several reading glasses because I lose them and then I find them again, but not before buying replacements.

This afternoon’s Boston Marathon Copley Square bombings just don’t seem big or devastating enough for the culprit (or culprits) to have been inspired by a serious foreign-terrorist agenda. It feels like more of a Ted Kaczynski-type deal.

Update: A Daily Mail report says the JFK fire was unrelated to the Boston explosions. The story quotes JFK Museum director Tom Putnam as saying the fire “was the result of an electrical problem.”

The just-released poster for Spike Lee‘s Oldboy (Film District, 10.11) is twice as tall as the cleavered version pasted below. But it doesn’t matter because the full-boat version just shows another ten years etched out in red ink or blood or whatever. The point is that Josh Brolin‘s Joe Doucett has been imprisoned for 20 years, etc. Elizabeth Olsen, District 9‘s Sharlto Copley and Samuel L. Jackson costar.

Eric Lundegaard suggests that Alan Tudyk has delivered the performance of his life in 42, in which he portrays real-life Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman, a racist dog. The peak moment is a scene in which Chapman taunts Chadwick Boseman‘s Jackie Robinson with racial epithets from the Phillies dugout. It’s easily the most searing moment in an otherwise unexceptional film. Tudyk, 42, has been delivering supporting perfs since the mid ’90s but this is his first pop-through. A ballsy performance as people sometimes associate characters with players.

Last week Vulture guy Kyle Buchanan mentioned something about Neil LaBute‘s Some Velvet Morning being a kind of comeback-resurgence film and possibly his best since In The Company of Men (or something like that). It will screen three times at the Tribeca Film Festival, which begins on Thursday, 4.18. It sounds like a major event — a film that may all but erase memories of The Wicker Man and restore LaBute’s rep as a master conveyor of fear and loathing between the sexes.

Alice Eve, Stanley Tucci in Neil LaBute’s Some Velvet Morning.

But this isn’t a good year for me to attend Tribeca (I can’t afford it) and Steve Beeman of Falco Ink is telling me that the Velvet Morning guys won’t be allowing any Left Coast critics or columnists to see it concurrently via DVD screeners or a limited digital viewing window of some kind. That’s a real shame. They’re presumably afraid of piracy but a limited digital streaming option for favored journalists doesn’t seem like much of a risk to me. So if I want to catch it next weekend I’ll have to fork over $1200 or so and probably more.

“Young and beautiful Velvet (Alice Eve) is enjoying a relaxing morning in her New York brownstone when Fred (Stanley Tucci) interrupts,” the synopsis reads. “With suitcase in tow, he enters the apartment with great expectation. Not having seen or heard from Fred in nearly four years, Velvet is clearly surprised. As Fred unloads the reason for his resurfacing, the history and nature of their relationship is revealed. The weight of their reconnection becomes clear as tension mounts and their chemistry reaches its climax.

“Writer/director Neil LaBute continues his exploration of male and female relations in this enigmatic relationship drama. The use of natural lighting and handheld camera highlights the dramatic realism for which LaBute is known. Both lead actors give electric performances, Stanley Tucci as the manic, ego-crushed older man, and Alice Eve, the dazzling ingénue. Their nuanced performances, paired with LaBute’s dialogue, create an intriguing drama with a stunning finale.”

Update: The only thing that gives me pause is the fact that Velvet is a porn-star name. What semi-upstanding parents would name their daughter Velvet? Any woman who would self-name herself Velvet would do so only to enhance her reputation among oily guys who pay for it. Woman: “Hi, my name is Velvet Kowalsky and I’m applying for the marketing position with your company.” Employer: “Uhm…your name is Velvet?”

Remember that line in Woody Allen‘s Husbands and Wives in which a business colleague was telling Sydney Pollack to call a certain lady of the evening, in part because “she has a mouth like velvet”?

And by the way, what “young and beautiful” blonde 20something who isn’t holding down a senior executive-level position with a major corporation can afford to live in her own “New York brownstone”? At best somebody like Velvet might be able to afford a share…maybe. On her own she might be able to afford some small, moderately dumpy apartment in Brooklyn or Queens.

This Man of Steel teaser is the most promising, intriguing and even exciting come-on yet. Rage, bad reception, a bad acid trip. It’s the only thing to put the hook in so far. For the first time I’m saying to myself “hmmm, yeah, possibly” instead of “Zack Snyder doing another Superman movie?…yeesh.”

“From now on your job is to be a distraction so people forget what the real problems are.” A very significant percentage of the films, actors and actresses celebrated on the MTV Movie Awards tonight are more or less about fulfilling this goal. At least as far as the under-35 audience is concerned. If I think about it I’m sure I can come up with exceptions. Give me until tomorrow morning.