Month: October 2013

Michael Bay’s own account of the Hong Kong attack, lifted from his website: “Yes, the story is being passed around is not all true! Yes, some drugged-up guys were being belligerent asses to my crew for hours in the morning of our first shoot day in Hong Kong. One guy rolled metal carts into some of my actors trying to shake us down for thousands of dollars to not play his loud music or hit us with bricks. Every vendor where we shot got paid a fair price for our inconvenience, but he” — the air-conditioner guy — “wanted four times that amount. I personally told this man and his friends to forget it [and that] we were not going to let him extort us. He didn’t like that answer. So an hour later he came by as we were shooting, carrying a long air conditioner unit. He walked right up to me and tried to smack my face, but I ducked [and] threw the air unit on the floor and pushed him away. That’s when the security jumped on him. But it took seven big guys to subdue him. [He] was like a zombie in Brad Pitt’s World War Z — he lifted seven guys up and tried to bite them. He actually bit into one of the guard’s Nike shoe…insane. Thank god it was an Air Max — the bubble popped but the toe was saved. Then it took fifteen Hong Kong cops in riot gear to deal with these punks. In all, four guys were arrested for assaulting the officers. After that, we had a great day shooting here in Hong Kong.”

The unstoppable Michael Bay on set of Transformers 4: Age of Extinction, presumably just after altercation with Mak brothers.

One of the Mak brothers (or possibly their pally Chan) being led away by Hong Kong police.

A new Criterion Bluray of Jules Dassin‘s Rififi will street on 1.14.14. I already own the French-language-only Gaumont Bluray, which I bought in Paris two years ago, so the Criterion (created from a2K mastering) is only an interesting buy because of the English subtitles. They’ve also included “an optional English-dubbed soundtrack”…what? The point of the Criterion brand is to sell or pass along that feeling of being a cultured film snob (“Hey, is that Dennis Lim checking out the new Ozu?…he’s a cool guy, Dennis…we talk from time to time”) so what Criterion fan would watch…choke, gag…a dubbed Rififi? But Tang Yau Hoong‘s cover art is perfect.

A guy who gets around saw John Hancock‘s Saving Mr. Banks this afternoon, and says the following: “I don’t like to say things like ‘this is best film I’ve seen all year’ but this is the best film I’ve seen all year.” I was relieved to hear this. I’m flying all the way to London this weekend to see it. I don’t give political blowjobs — a movie really has to be good for me to write that — but at the same time I don’t want to tap out a tepid response if I can help it.  But I might be forced to.  Even though I’m a fan of Kelly Marcel‘s script, there’s always the chance that Banks might not live up to expectations. But apparently it will. At the very least it sounds pretty good. Banks will debut at AFI fest on 11.7, and then open on 12.13.

A Criterion Bluray of Michael Mann‘s Thief (’81) will street on January 14th, or right before the start of the Sundance Film Festival. Thief has only been available has been a not-that-great, close-to-shitty-looking DVD for years so I’m expecting a huge “Bluray bump” from this. There will be hell to payif Criterion makes it look too grainy, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. How can this not be an improvement? Just watch the grain — that’s all I’m saying. Night shots tend to show grain, and Thief is full of them.

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This morning film reporter and essayist Lewis Beale sent me a 10.16 CNN.com piece he’s written about why people should see 12 Years A Slave. It’s a good article and well worth reading, but I told Beale that the most interesting part is the following: “12 Years A Slave tells us how we got to where we are today racially. It is not a story that Confederate flag wavers, states’ rights advocates, talk-radio stalwarts and all too many other Americans want to entertain. I can just hear them saying ‘slavery ended 150 years ago…get over it.’ It did and it didn’t. And that’s the point.”

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Fox Searchlight will open Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel on March 7, 2014. Ralph Fiennes has the lead role (a legendary concierge) in this 1930s period piece. All Anderson films are about sublime style (directorial, sartorial, production design, cutting, music) and that special serving of deadpan Andersonian coolness. Plus he almost always sticks with his stock company of refined, cultivated, X-factor hipster types (i.e., people with opaque or watercolor personalities and manners who “get” the Anderson thing). This time it’s F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson and Owen Wilson. (Anderson would probably never cast Jason Statham or Mo’Nique or Charlie Hunnam.) It’ll probably play the Berlin Film Festival in February, I’m guessing. Check out the mountains and the waterfall behind the hotel — pretty much the exact same landscape that towers over Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, which I’ve visited twice. A Grand Budapest Hotel trailer will pop sometime tomorrow morning.

Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.

An industry gadfly and Academy member who’s seen 12 Years A Slave wrote this morning and said three things: (a) “I am putting it at the top or near the top of my Best Picture nominations,” (b) “Boy, are you ever correct about Lupita Nyong’o” [being the leading Best Supporting Actress contender]…I can’t imagine any performance this year that will deny her that Oscar,” and (c) “Off the record, I talked to two fellow Oscar voters who’ve said they couldn’t stomach 12 Years. Another two walked out of it. Thought it was brilliant, but too much to bear. They all adore Gravity.”

I wrote right back and asked, “Can you tell me what these four do? What branch are they in? Writers, craftsmen, lighting guys…what? Break it down for me.” And he responded, “Two are in the writer’s branch, two of them are producers — all over sixty.”

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As Hollywood Reporter columnist Scott Feinberg reminded on 10.13, there are six serious Best Picture hopefuls that haven’t been seen by most award-season handicappers: Sony’s American Hustle (which has recently had some test screenings in the El Segundo/Manhattan Beach area); Universal’s Lone Survivor (which will have its first media-invited screening at the end of the month); Sony’s The Monuments Men (research screened in Sherman Oaks last week, no media screenings until November); Relativity Media’s Out of the Furnace (slated for L.A.’s AFI Fest); Paramount’s The Wolf of Wall Street (which will be completed by Thanksgiving and released before the end of the year), and Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks (which is screening today in L.A.for select publishing elites and which will open AFI Fest on 11.7 but which Hollywood Elsewhere will be seeing and reviewing this weekend at the BFI London Film Festival — my flight leaves Friday at 5:45 pm).

I know this is the wrong thing to say and that it’ll make me sound like a pesky little gnat alongside the excellence of 12 Years A Slave and the greater context of its artfulness and social impact, but honestly? My first thought when the camera went in tight on Brad Pitt, who has distinguished and enobled himself for co-producing and co-starring in Slave, is that he needs to get a little more treadmill time in — no offense. He doesn’t look like Billy Bean here. This is what happens when you hit the big five-oh and beyond. You have to work harder to look your best. No biggie, just saying.

“It would be too easy to say that Spike Jonze‘s Her is about the new way we’ve found to fall in love — virtually. But it’s not improper to suggest that many of us are choosing not to engage with the world anymore. Maybe porn has become so readily available and satisfying that real people are unnecessary, real bodies are kind of a hassle. There’s that messy business with satisfying the other person, and the potential to be tossed aside for a more alluring lover. How much easier it is to nestle safely in the arms of a world that will never reject you because it doesn’t ask anything of you.

“There is nothing that can replace the warm flesh and blood of a lover in your arms — even with the complications, even with the inherent risks of getting hurt, even with the fear that you can’t be what they want. This is what we were born to do — fumble towards each other, make a big mess of our emotions. Fuck and laugh and argue. Maybe it all comes to nothing — but maybe, just maybe, you get to take part in the beauty of it all. The track marks of love are the bread crumbs left behind that take you back to the best places you’ve ever been. Reach for them. Hold them dear. Or die trying.” — from Sasha Stone‘s 10.13 riff about Her.

It’s strange, but I was kind of shocked yesterday (or was it the day before?) when I finally realized, more than two decades after she became famous on Seinfeld, that Julia Louis-Dreyfus is really, really loaded. She’s the daughter of billionaire Gerard Louis-Dreyfus, chairman of the Louis Dreyfus Energy Services. Forbes says her family is worth about $3.4 billion. Some superstars are worth $150 million or $200 million (i.e., Brad Pitt, etc.) but there’s something about the word “billion” that has a huge impact of some kind. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch her again in quite the same way.