Month: January 2014

In a just-posted N.Y. Times piece called “The Flood Next Time,” Justin Gillis reports the following: “The evidence suggests that the sea-level rise has probably accelerated, to about a foot a century, and scientists think it will accelerate still more. The official stance of the world’s climate scientists is that the global sea level could rise as much as three feet by the end of this century, if emissions continue at a rapid pace. Some scientific evidence supports even higher numbers, five feet and beyond in the worst case. Scientists say the East Coast will be hit harder for many reasons, but among the most important is that even as the seawater rises, the land in this part of the world is sinking.”

What are the responses, for the most part? (1) “Talk to China and India — not us”; (2) “Yes, sea levels are rising and the East Coast will definitely be in trouble down the road. But these conditions won’t affect us or our kids — they will affect our grandkids and great-grandkids”; (3) “Yes, we should all be riding bicycles and driving hybrids and generally reducing our carbon footprint, but a lot of people — politicians, movie stars and their ‘people,’ women and especially mothers — feel safe when they ride around in SUVs, especially during the Sundance Film Festival, so what are ya gonna do?”

I know this: never before in the history of our species have educated people of power and influence blithely shrugged en masse and admitted that advanced cultures are slowly drowning the earth — i.e., that the earth’s ecosystem is gradually being overwhelmed by industry, and that this will lead to sea water gradually engulfing the low-lying areas of the United States and causing all kinds of havoc, probably less than 100 years from now. No other culture has ever been confronted with this situation before, and the main reason this catastrophe is more or less assured is that people are determined to enrich themselves as much as possible before dealing with the climate. Money and comfort above all! This basically means adopting a myopic attitude and delaying decisions ad infinitum.

Armond White, the contrarian City Arts critic who reportedly heckled 12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen during last week’s New York Film Critics Circle award ceremony by calling him “an embarassing doorman” and “a garbageman,” was officially and permanently expelled from the NYFCC this morning by an executive committee, according to a N.Y. Times report posted a little after 2 pm today, and a post by Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman.

City Arts critic Armond White

White brought this on himself, of course. Loud heckling is, of course, a vile, low-rent way to make a point. White didn’t just assault McQueen but the propriety and dignity of the NYFCCC. He deliberately asked for this. I recently wrote that if (I said “if“) alcohol was a factor, the only way White could save his skin would be to plead alcoholism and pledge to enter rehab. If White wasn’t drinking and he heckled McQueen sober, he had no excuse. He was a dead man as far as the NYFCC was concerned.

Then again White’s heckling was the source of at least two Golden Globe awards jokes last night. Co-host Amy Poehler addressed Matt Damon at one point and said, tongue obviously in cheek, “Sorry but you’re a just a garbageman” (or words to that effect). When he took the stage 20 or 30 minutes later, Damon said, “It’s me, the garbageman.”

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Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood, a kind of Michael Apted-ish docudrama about the real-life journey of a boy from age 6 through 18, has been added to the 2014 Sundance Film Festival slate. Pic will screen at the Eccles on Sunday, 1.19. The film, which has been shooting in Austin at semi-regular intervals since ’02, follows the young lead, Ellar Simon, from age 6 or 7 to 18, or from kindergarten to leaving home for college. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette play his divorced parents. The film is obviously inspired by Apted’s Up films — a series of docs that have portrayed the lives of several British kids since 1964.

Boyhood star Ellar Simon.

Hawke told Indiewire that “[after] about 20 minutes, your eyes just start tearing up and you don’t even know why. It’s about the nature of time and how it’s crashing into us all.” In another interview with Flixist, Hawke elaborated: “In just the period of a two-hour movie, you watch a human being grow up. It’s almost like watching a flower bloom in time-elapsed photography. For one minute you’re watching a six-year-old boy, and it’s so beautiful what Richard does with time: you don’t ever see him go from six to seven, to seven to eight, to eight to nine. I think it’s the greatest thing that Linklater’s ever done. It’s mind-blowing.”

Apology: When I first posted this I somehow confused Boyhood with “Youth,” the Joseph Conrad short story.

7:57 pm: WHAT? I spoke too soon! 12 Years A Slave takes the Best Motion Picure, Drama award? Yes! This wasn’t in the cards, or certainly didn’t seem to be. You can plainly see that director Steve McQueen is dumbfounded — “I wasn’t expecting this!,” he just said. An amazing finale….totally unexpected. And totally justified. Wow! Obviously a very close vote with Alfonso Cuaron having won Best Director.

7:51 pm: Jessica Chastain presents the Best Actor, Drama Golden Globe to Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyer’s Club. Good speech that he tried out last week in Palm Springs. 12 Years A Slave is most likely a total shut-out. We need to hear from Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan, who declared last September that Slave was a total lockdown for Best Picture. McConaughey: “This film has always been about livin’…it was never about dyin’.”

7:46 pm: The great Cate Blanchett wins Best Actress, Drama for Blue Jasmine. Not too much of a surprise. Great speech! Admittedly augmented by “several vodkas.”

7:44 pm: “And now, like a supermodel’s vagina, let’s all give a warm welcome to Leonardo DiCaprio!” — Tina Fey.

7:39 pm: Here comes the Best Motion Picture, Comedy/Musical ward, presented by a pregnant Drew Barrymore (who looks as big as a house). American Hustle wins, of course. “Which movie will take the big award of the night?” the announcer asks. I think we have that figured out, right? Nothing to do with slavery! An FX-driven space suspense movie (“Sandra Bullock lost in a haunted house but the house is space” — Alexander Payne) is cooler!

7:27 pm: Jennifer Lawrence presenting the Best Actor, Comedy/Musical, and the Golden Globe goes to Leonardo DiCaprio!!! “I never would have guessed I would have won for Best Actor in a Comedy,” etc. In a general career sense, he means, but also because Leo regards Wolf, however hilarious it is throughout, as a deadly serious portrait of a malignant culture. Leo gives an elegant, eloquent acceptance speech. Being waved off by the orchestra. Yay, Leo!!!!

7:21 pm: Brooklyn Nine-Nine wins for Best TV Series, Comedy/Musical. “Winning this award is way better — way better! — than saving a human life!” the top guy says. What an asshole! The runners-up were The Big Bang Theory, Girls, Modern Family and Parks & Recreation.

7:17 pm: Gravity‘s Alfonso Cuaron takes the Best Director Golden Globe. Good technical job, Alfonso! Every “aaah!” from Sandra Bullock rocked my soul. So Gravity is going to win for Best Motion Picture, Drama? Nice one, HFPA! Well, we knew 12 Years A Slave was in trouble with this group. Cuaron’s “herpes”/”earpiece” joke was pretty funny.

6:57 pm: During her Woody Allen tribute acceptance speech, Diane Keaton contemplates death, or rather Woody’s famous remark about it: “I don’t want to live eternally through my work — I want to live eternally by not dying.” (Or words to that effect.) She mentions that while Francois Truffaut‘s films will be savored for a long time to come, “that’s not much help to Francois Truffaut.” (Whose grave, by the way, I visited back in ’87 — it lies in the Cimitiere du Montmartre.) Why did the sound cut out on Keaton’s speech? Two or three seconds were blipped out. Did she say something profane?

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Friday morning I began coughing a bit. By noon I felt some form of the flu coming on. So a few hours later I went to Erewhon Natural Foods Market and bought a buncha stuff to take. Oxylent, Emergen-C, Wellness Formula tablets, Gaia Oil of Oregano tablets, Mucinex cough syrup, Planetary Cherry Bark Syrup. I took an antibiotic last night and it seemed to dry things up in my lungs; going to pick a few more today. Maybe I’ll also buy a packet of antihistamines.

One way or the other I can’t be under the weather when I leave for Sundance on Wednesday so maybe I should blow off the Golden Globes viewing party and the three after-parties? I have to decide quickly. I have to be in Century City to catch the Fox shuttle by 4 or 4:15 pm. My responsible self is saying “be sensible, give yourself a rest, save your energy for Sundance.” My less-responsible side is saying “eff it…you’ll be okay…you don’t want to miss this!”

On 12.8.12 I attended a truly sublime Silver Linings Playbook party at the Chateau Marmont. A glorious, almost giddy atmosphere. Many big or legendary names all over the place. Festive in the very best sense of that term. You know one reason why it worked so well? There were no goons protecting the stars from the riff-raff. The attitude was like “whatever, man…we’re all riff-raff.” I regret to say that attitude was absent during last night’s pre-Golden Globes Paramount party at the Chateau, although it was a generally pleasant event. There were goons blocking access to the inner gazebo space where Leonardo DiCaprio and Paramount honcho Brad Grey and Nebraska‘s Alexander Payne and June Squibb and Will Forte were sitting. Goons are unwelcome. Goons kill the vibe. But it wasn’t too bad. All party conversations last about two to three minutes, if that. Last night I made it through about 20 or 25 three-minute conversations, and then my spirit collapsed. But I gave it the old college try.

I blew off yesterday afternoon’s Spirit Award thing at the BOA Steakhouse (had to write), and I wasn’t invited to the BAFTA Tea Party or the thing at the Soho House either. Big deal.

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Check out last night’s reaction from Lone Survivor author and former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell when CNN’s Jake Tapper says that watching Peter Berg‘s Lone Survivor imparts a sense of “hopelessness” about the deaths in the Afghanistan War. To which Luttrell responds, “You’re telling me my guys died for nothing?” Luttrell’s equation is more or less “these were good guys who were loyal, strong and true, so their deaths can’t be futile — their deaths have to ring with honor.” Really? Okay. Question for Luttrell: Did the 58,000 U.S. casualties during the Vietnam War die for something? If so, what was that?

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A 1.9 Daily Mail article by an anonymous BAFTA voter states — are you sitting down? — that “the voting process is based less on artistic merit than on a combination of coercion, trend-following and pot luck.”

“Maybe 100 films released over the past 12 months have a realistic chance of winning a BAFTA, and probably 70 to 80 of those are released in the last two months of the year,” the author says. “[And come December] you have 50 or 60 films to get through. In less than a month. With Christmas in the middle. And a deadline of January 3rd to vote for your five nominations in each category. It’s just not possible to watch them all. So which ones rise to the top of the pile? The ones you’ve already heard about. And the ones that have already started winning.

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The most recent assessment of Robert Redford‘s chances in the Best Actor Oscar race has been “forget it…he refused to campaign, too proud to get out there and hustle, might not even be nominated,” etc. And he might not be. But earlier today award-season handicappers told me they’ve picked up insect antennae vibrations telling them that tomorrow night Redford might actually win the Golden Globe for Best Actor, Drama. Because…I don’t know why. Because the star-struck HFPA voters are more attracted to the idea of Redford, the ultimate glamorous movie-star of the ’70s and ’80s, being crowned on their stage than the Texas-accented, hard-charging, presumed-to-be-in-the-lead-as-we-speak Matthew McConaughey? Or…I don’t know, because Redford is more glammy than Bruce Dern? One thing you can probably count on: Unlike Dern, Redford will almost certainly not wear orthopedic comfort shoes to the Globes.

This recently posted Nebraska trailer is the first I’ve noticed that actually lays the theme of Bruce Dern‘s Best Actor campaign on the table, to wit: “Your life can have a vigorous and perhaps even triumphant final act, even if your 70s.”

I’m so far behind the curve on Zak Knutson and Joey Figueroa‘s Milius (EPIX, premiering tonight) that I’m almost having trouble writing about it. The big debut happened ten months ago at South by Southwest, but I’m not doing that festival any more. The doc has been viewable on a private Vimeo link for a while now. Did I watch it? Of course not. But two nights ago I finally caught up with this workmanlike, good-enough portrait of legendary director-screenwriter John Milius at a special invitational screening at USC’s Eileen Norris theatre complex.

The doc’s recounting of Milius’s life and career is clean, straightforward and comprehensive. We all know that Milius’s fame is related more to famous dialogue than anything else — “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” “Well, do ya feel lucky, punk?,” the title “Apocalypse Now,” etc. And the doc dutifully recounts this. That’s my only problem with Milius — it feels dutifully outside rather than inside. It doesn’t really swim in the raging rapids (as well as the serenity) of Milius’s adventures and philosophy. It just sets up the camera and comfortably points to Milius and his pals and says “See those guys? They’re talking about the rapids.” It’s a doc that says “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened,” etc.

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This Wolf of Wall Street f-bomb video is a half-decent ADD summary of the film itself. The important comparison, of course, is with the various Scarface compilations. Indiewire/The Playlist‘s Kevin Jagernauth says there are 522 fucks in Wolf; a commenter below the Scarface video claims there are 218 in that 1983 Brian DePalma film; the Wiki list says 207. Wolf is the new all-time champ, but the first runner-up surprises me — Spike Lee‘s Son of Sam.

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