Day: September 25, 2013

When Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels costarred in the Farrelly Brothers’ Dumb and Dumber (’94) they were roughly 32 and 39 years old, respectively. Obviously not spring chickens but relatively buoyant, fresh-faced, elastic of bod. Now they’re costarring in the Farrelly’s Dumb and Dumber To, which I suspect will be funny and inventive (I was a fan of the Farrelly’s Three Stooges flick), but now we’re talking about a 51 year-old and a 58 year-old playing the same characters. Dumbasses in their 30s vs. dumbasses in their 50s are different equations. You’re supposed to mellow down and gather a little wisdom out as you get older. You can fall into dumb-shit situations when you’re youngish but guys with creases on their faces are supposed to be craftier and less susceptible.

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The following was posted on Facebook by The Canyons director Paul Schrader this morning, roughly five or six hours ago or around 7 am. In the lead-up to The Canyons Lohan had a chance to present a composed, sober-seeming version of herself but she (a) bailed on the Venice Film Festival, (b) never showed for ad photo sessions, and (c) blew off New Yorker critic Richard Brody as well as Film Comment, which had pledged to run a cover story on her? What is her basic malfunction?

Every time I come back to Los Angeles I miss that Manhattan-centric, delightfully comprehensive Harvey Karten email that lists all of the screenings happening over a three-week period. (Karten founded the Online Film Critics Society and the New York Film Critics Online.) It doesn’t contain every last screening but it has a large portion of them, and it’s certainly something to work from as you put your week together. Why doesn’t some LAFCA person in Los Angeles provide the same service? I don’t like having to scramble around and sift through e-mails and sometimes pester friends to see what’s doing. A decade or so ago somebody used to run a priveleged-access website that had all the LA screenings — disappeared five or six years ago.

Backyard of a comfortable Los Angeles home in Hancock Park — Wednesday, 9.25, 9:05 am.

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Oliver Hirschbiegel‘s Diana, which opened in Britain a few days ago and which eOne is releasing stateside sometime this fall, has a 3% positive Rotten Tomatoes rating. Face it — it’s a train wreck. And a major career pothole for Naomi Watts (who plays Diana Princess of Wales). How can Hirschbiegel make a film as masterful as Downfall and then follow it up with a couple of moderate mehs (2007’s The Invasion and ’09’s Five Minutes of Heaven) and then an out-and-out stinker like Diana? How do you un-learn how to make a film fit together just so and make it hit the mark?

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A story posted late yesterday afternoon (9.24) by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Pamela McLintock says that Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street won’t be ready for a sneak screening at the upcoming New York Film Festival.” That’s the breakout news. Otherwise McLintock confirms what Kris Tapley‘s 9.23 In Contention piece suggested, which is that Wolf, currently clocking at 180 minutes, may not be ready for its scheduled 11.15 release and may not be a contender in this year’s Oscar race. So it’ll be a December release then? Again, for God’s sake…show respect for Scorsese and release the long version (three hours sounds great!) and let Wolf be its own sprawling unruly self, if that’s a fair term to apply. “Paramount and Scorsese are hoping that the movie, based on former broker Jordan Belfort‘s best-selling memoir, will be completed by Christmas in time for an awards run,” McLintock writes. “If not, Wolf would be pushed back to next year.” No!!!

To hear it from Variety‘s Andrew Barker, Brad Furman‘s not-so-great Runner Runner (20th Century Fox, 10.4) might be worth seeing for Ben Affleck‘s performance as “a deliciously despicable douchebag.” Excerpt: “In spite of the mostly undeserved flack he gets for his acting chops, it’s hard to think of a better thesp than Affleck to play [the role of online-poker magnate Ivan Block], and his performance here ranks alongside Boiler Room and Mallrats in that regard. At times one detects a certain eye-rolling impatience with the material as he races distractedly through a few of his master-of-the-universe monologues, yet that’s precisely what the character requires, and Runner Runner‘s appeal increases dramatically whenever Affleck enters the frame.”

It’s not just the straight-up blend of brute gangster melodrama and slapstick comedy, but the masterful cutting by Sidney Wolinsky, one of the show’s three editors, under the supervision of Sopranos creator David Chase. The kids, “Bye-bye!,” the wheel, the bystanders, the sound of the skull cracking and squishing. Hilarious and yet dramatically satisfying. Hall of fame.