Day: February 22, 2014

Time To Put This To Bed?

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I’m not sure what to think or feel about last night’s “Janet Maslin blasts Nicholas Kristof” report by Gawker‘s J.K. Trotter, but the basics are these: (1) Maslin, the N.Y. Times book critic, sharply criticized Times columnist Kristof for posting Dylan Farrow‘s letter accusing Woody Allen of child molestation, which Maslin called “an outrageous use of an op-ed column” and “a really questionable use of that space”; (2) Maslin also alleged, based on information “through a friend very close to the story,” that the seed of Dylan’s letter was Maureen Orth‘s November 2013 Vanity Fair story, which aired Mia Farrow‘s suggestion that Ronan Farrow may be Frank Sinatra’s son.

Everyone’s attention being focused on Ronan’s possible Sinatra connection rather than her story of an alleged molestation made Dylan “very unhappy that this suddenly wasn’t about her, and I think that’s that part of why she decided to start calling attention to herself,” Maslin said. “Of all the things that have been parsed by total strangers about what went on in that family, no one has ever dared to consider the sibling rivalry issues in there. It’s just too much to think about.”

Perspective

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The story of the origin of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has been told before, but it’s been nicely re-told by David Thomson in this 2.21 Vanity Fair piece. The Academy was basically Louis B. Mayer‘s idea — essentially a p.r. initiative that Mayer hoped would combat the growing influence of Hollywood trade unions. But the basic idea for the Academy was hatched as a result of Mayer’s having contracted MGM carpenters in early 1926 to build him a Santa Monica beach house. It was constructed in six weeks. Mayer lived there until 1944. The home remains today at 625 Palisades Beach Road, Santa Monica, CA 90402. The residence was sold in 1956 to Peter Lawford, and it was here that President Kennedy enjoyed at least one tryst with Marilyn Monroe. (The Movieland Directory has the address wrong, by the way.)

Candid Neeson

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Liam Neeson looks a lot better — thinner, calmer, cleaner, better groomed — during his 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper (airing tomorrow) than he does in Non-Stop, in which he plays an alcoholic, cigarette-smoking air marshall. I doubt if Cooper asked if Neeson is comfortable being known as a guy whose post-Hidden career has basically been about paychecks, but the Irish-born actor says the following: “I’m 61 years of age, man, you know? Going around, fighting these guys…yeah, I feel a wee bit embarrassed, you know?” Maybe but that’s bullshit. Neeson is a big, strong, manly-looking guy in decent shape, and he can do the action thing until he’s 70, at least, and perhaps beyond that. No Non-Stop reviews until Wednesday, 2.26 at 9 am Pacific. Congrats to Neeson for landing a major role in Martin Scorsese‘s Silence, which I’m probably going to have difficulty with.

New Budapest One-Sheet?

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“Rest assured that while The Grand Budapest Hotel (Fox Searchlight, 3.7) is a dryly fashioned experience, it’s also a sublime one. It’s a full-out ‘Wes Anderson film’ (archly stylized, deadpan humor, anally designed) that also delights with flourishy performances and a pizazzy, loquacious script that feels like Ernst Lubitsch back from the dead. It also feels like a valentine to old-world European atmosphere and ways and cultural climes that began to breath their last about…what, a half-century ago if not earlier? It exudes affection for its characters and a melancholy lament for an early-to-mid 20th Century realm that no longer exists. This is easily Wes’s deepest, sharpest and most layered film since Rushmore, which, believe it or not, came out 15 years ago.” — from my 2.6.14 review, filed from Berlin.

Repeating

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I’m more or less at peace with Hillary Clinton‘s presumed election as president in 2016, but I’m very, very sorry that Gov. Chris Christie is most likely not going to run against her. Clinton would have still beat Christie, but it would have been an entertaining race. Who’s she going to run against her now…wacko, froth-at-the-mouth Rand Paul? That’ll be a joke. No would-be Republican contender has the horses right now. She’s almost guaranteed to win. I wish some charismatic Democrat to Hillary’s left would run against her, just to keep things lively.

Early ’60s Brando

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Until this morning I’d never laid eyes upon a photo of Stanley Kubrick and Marlon Brando together. Kubrick was signed to direct One-Eyed Jacks for Paramount Pictures in early ’59, which is presumably when this shot was taken. A year or so earlier Brando’s Pennebaker Productions had paid $40 grand for the rights to Charles Neider‘s “The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones.” Rod Serling‘s adapation was rejected, and then Sam Peckinpah wrote a version that was turned on 5.6.59. Brando fired Peckinpah and hired Calder Willingham to rewrite, and then Willingham and Kubrick were eventually let go. Guy Trosper (Birdman of Alcatraz, The Spy Who Came in From The Cold) became the new screenwriter and wound up with the chief screenwriting credit.


Brnado with French director Jacques Tati on the set of One-Eyed Jacks.

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Paid $14 (Plus Parking and Popcorn) To See Pompeii

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I don’t have to tell you Pompeii is bad. Everybody knows Pompeii is bad. It’s ludicrous, and that’s because mythical popcorn movies have all devolved into the same mindless, effects-driven gruel that even the schlockmeisters of the past (Dino De Laurentiis, Sir Lew Grade, Carlo Ponti) would refuse to touch if they were time-machined forward. Epic, escapist, large-scaled cinema has been engulfed and poisoned by the ComicCon virus (video-game and comic-book mythology, physics-defying fantasies), and submentals the world over are submitting to the historical visions of pulp-loving low-lifes like Zack Snyder (whose 300 I hated) and Steven DeKnight (the Spartacus series) and Pompeii‘s Paul W.S. Anderson (the poor man’s Snyder). Some of the “fans” (i.e., the ones who watch this crap ironically) obviously know that the video-game vistas and blatantly fake-looking CG compositions are unfit to watch and that the cliched, braindead dialogue is unfit to listen to, and yet everyone is nodding out and munching away in the multiplexes as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We all know things are bad — worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy.

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