Month: October 2014

The only disturbing thing that happened this morning was coming across a tweet by indie-realm happiness guy Ted Hope that spoke of Birdman, 99 Homes and Still Alice in the same breath. I haven’t seen Alice but the word on the street is that it’s “good but not great”…no worries. But 99 Homes doesn’t belong in the same paragraph with Birdman, and I just had to take issue. The instant I read his tweet the words of George Herbert Walker Bush welled up within: “This will not stand.”

“It’s obvious from the get-go that Garfield, known for his sensitive, doe-eyed expressions and an apparent preference for playing alpha good guys who would rather be fucked over than vice versa, is going to rebel against Shannon and the general venality. Because…you know, he has to do the morally right thing. This is what people do in films like this — they stand up like men and cleanse their souls at the end of Act Three. It’s a whorey-ass cliche, and one that is telegraphed, trust me, from the get-go.

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Yesterday was a big-ass Birdman feast at the New York Film Festival…afternoon press screening, two publics, red-carpet paparazzi, two parties. Twittergasms, as expected. HE‘s Jett Wells attended the 9pm showing with significant other Caitlin — he was knocked out, she was “respectful.” It’s almost too bad that Glenn Kenny likes Mr. Inarritu’s film so much — now there’s nothing to argue about. Check the below clip — Edward Norton‘s Oscar nomination is going to be sealed by that look of smug self-delight that he gives Michael Keaton after delivering a passage from the play during rehearsal…trust me.

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A third New Yorker piece extolling the virtues and intrigues of Gone Girl? On top of a Maureen Dowd column in the N.Y. Times about the myth of dangerous, manipulative women? Plus that intriguing Charlie Rose chat from a few days ago? Not to mention $78 million at the box-office after two weekends, making it the fall’s first big-time hit? That’s it, the die is cast, lockdown…Gone Girl is an Oscar nominee for Best Picture.

It won’t win, of course. The softies who have already decided to give the Oscar sight unseen to either Unbroken (curtsy to the Queen!) or Interstellar (“To break bayhhrriers, to reach for the stahhhrrs”) will see to that. But at least there’s no doubt about its nominatable-ness along with, obviously, Rosamund Pike for Best Actress, David Fincher for Best Director, Gillian Flynn for Best Adapted Screenplay, Tyler Perry for Best Supporting Actor and Kirk Baxter for Best Editing.

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Noah director Darren Aronofsky and I kicked it around for 20 minutes today. The idea was to inject Noah (which has made Paramount happy by earning $360 million worldwide) into the award-season conversation, and that shouldn’t be too hard as far as…oh, Jennifer Connelly‘s supporting performance, Matty Libatique‘s cinematography, Mark Friedberg‘s production design, and Patti Smith‘s song (“Mercy”) are concerned. It’s a measure of my high regard for Aronofsky that I don’t have a problem with his tennis-ball haircut. He’s been through that “feeling of emptiness” that Kirk Douglas spoke about in The Bad and the Beautiful and is now onto the next thing, which of course he won’t talk about. Me: “Are you going to downshift into…what, some little black-and-white film?” Aronofsky: “I’ve already done that.”

Noah director Darren Aronofsky — Saturday, 10.11, 12:05 pm at Le Petit Ermitage.

Our loose-shoe discussion happened on the roof of Le Petit Ermitage, a smallish boutique hotel on Cynthia Street in West Hollywood. Fresh fruit, blueberry muffins, good coffee…oh, and bikini-clad women by the pool. And a general aura of Roman splendor. Again, the mp3.

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When did it begin to sink in that Brendan Gleeson wasn’t just a bearish, flourishy Irish fellow who would always supply a little something extra but a grander lead-actor sort with a fine blend of sadness, compassion and mirth? One of those guys who doesn’t “act” as much as command the room without apparent effort. His voice settles in like a warm whiskey on a chilly autumn day. I’ve been enjoying Gleeson since the early ’90s but the uptick began with his BAFTA- and Golden Globe-nominated performance in ’08’s In Bruges. Most people will tell you Gleeson’s biggest score so far was playing the charmingly corrupt Sergeant Gerry Boyle in John Michael McDonagh‘s The Guard (’11). But then came Calvary, a new McDonagh-Gleeson collaboration that premiered at Sundance ’14. Gleeson won some of the best reviews of his career as a burly Irish priest whose life has been threatened by a man who was victimized by a Catholic priest as a child. The film struck me as being about several social ills affecting Ireland but no one’s obliged to agree, much less listen.

Brendan Gleeson — Thursday, 10.9, 11:55 am.

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There’s a bitchy N.Y. Times critic in Birdman named Tabitha who’s very well played by Lindsay Duncan. During today’s New York Film Festival press conference costar Edward Norton noted (according to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Ashley Lee) that the real-life Tabitha is “Manohla,” referring to Times film critic Manohla Dargis. Costar Zach Galifianakis said he’s “never had a bad review so I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about…it sounds familiar, but I’ve heard people talk about it.”

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Laura Poitras‘s Citizenfour (Radius/TWC, 10.24), the step-by-step story of how Poitras and hotshot journalist Glenn Greenwald broke the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, is a gripping, dead brilliant cyber-thriller. It’s a documentary, of course, but I’ve never seen a doc that feels less like one. This is realtime drama, suspenseful as a motherfucker, and with the tonal vibe of a low-key espionage thriller. In short it’s great cinema — riveting, moody, disturbing. And cut and paced like…what, a 21st Century Ipcress File? Something like that.

The surprise is that it’s emotionally engaging. That’s because the affable, quite eloquent Snowden comes across as a good guy with fears and regular-guy emotions and a pair of steel balls — a personable, highly intelligent fellow in a tough spot but with firm convictions and no regrets whatsoever (or none to speak of). He’s not in a serene situation but he’s clearly at peace with himself, and undeterred.

I was so taken by Citizenfour, which I saw last night at the Aidikoff screening room in Beverly Hills (two or three hours after it played at the New York Film Festival), that I’m seeing it again on Monday. I’ve seen certain docs more than once, but I’ve never decided to re-experience a documentary within a week of an initial viewing in my entire life.

My condolences to Life Itself, The Battered Bastards of Baseball, Red Army, Code Black, Last Days in Vietnam, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Jodorowsky’s Dune, My Life Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn and 20,000 Days On Earth but Citizenfour is almost certainly going to take the Best Feature Documentary Oscar — hands down, game over, forget about it.

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I’m about three hours away from seeing Laura Poitras‘s Citizenfour, a much-anticipated doc about Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency spying scandal. It began screening at the New York Film Festival about 90 minutes ago, or around 6 pm eastern. The UK premiere happens on 10.17 under the auspices of the BFI London Film Festival. Pic obviously features Snowden and Glenn Greenwald qmong others. Co-produced by Poitras and Steven Soderbergh. I for one have never felt threatened by NSA email-monitoring because (a) I’m sure they don’t give a shit about my eccentric postings plus (b) I’m not into anything dicey. I should be concerned, of course, but I’m strangely not. It doesn’t bother me greatly — put it that way.

There’s an earnest blend of opinion about Michael Cuesta‘s Kill The Messenger — 73% from Rotten Tomatoes, 60% from Metacritic. My own opinion will have to wait as I kept blowing opportunities to see it in New York and Los Angeles. (Focus publicity has been very obliging — it’s my fault entirely.) I’ll pay to see it somewhere this weekend and file when I can. Even those who are mixed about the film are entirely positive on Jeremy Renner‘s performance as the late journalist Gary Webb.

My beloved Box-Office Mojo has been erased, obliterated, wiped off the web. Okay, it exists but it’s been swallowed by the IMDB leviathan so it might as well be toast. Yes, you can find Mojo-supplied box-office data on the IMDB but as far as I’m concerned the site has been eaten. I’m heartbroken. It’s like a friend got hit by a car.

“I’ve seen David Ayer‘s Fury,” I wrote a friend last week. “Rough, harsh, real-deal World War II stuff. Men in a small, smelly, vulnerable tank that they occasionally piss in. Months on end, unshaven faces, scars and body odor, best job they’ve ever had. Rugged verisimilitude as far as the battle sequences go…if you’re not bothered, that is, by the fact that the tracer rounds are green, which was mostly used by the other side. U.S. forces have always used red tracers, or so my research tells me. But that’s a side-issue. Yes, Brad Pitt is suitably gruff and paternal and commanding as WarDaddy. But otherwise forget it.

“Well, I don’t mean ‘forget it’ exactly. It’s a decent enough film and relatively well made, but it’s just a good gritty war movie. Not that profound or touching or even believable at the end of the day, certainly in terms of the finale.”

He insisted it was great stuff all around and I said, “It’s not great. It’s strong when it’s strong, but otherwise it’s…strange? [SPOILERS AHEAD]

“Until the finale Fury always makes you feel you’re in a grim, generally realistic situation. The horror, the horror. I for one couldn’t stand the wimpy, sensitive, candy-assed Logan Lerman and his wide-eyed, open-mouthed innocent routine. I wanted to see him killed every step of the way, and painfully at that — but wimps never seem to catch a bullet in films of this sort.

“In any event Fury has two problem scenes. One, a kind of domestic interlude in which Pitt and Lerman enjoy some chill with two German women (Anamaria Marinca, Alicia von Rittberg) in a small village apartment. It involves a little civilized piano playing and a nice meal and a suggestion of sex and a lot of talk, and it goes on forever. I was wondering if the rest of the movie was going to stay in this apartment with the women getting pregnant and Pitt and Lerman renouncing warfare for fatherhood. Anyway, that’s one problem. The other is that fucking head-scratching finale.

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