Month: January 2015

I for one partly agree with Scott Foundas‘s assessment of American Sniper, which posted on 12.17: “The somewhat jingoistic, flag-waving memoir of ace Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle has become, in the hands of director Clint Eastwood, a melancholic rumination on a number of his career-spanning themes: the iconography of the solitary man of action; the high toll on all sides in the war zone; and the uncomfortable realities nibbling away at the edges of America’s self-glorifying myths.” But mature perceptions of this sort have been falling by the wayside since last weekend when Eastwood’s film (a) became a Godzilla-sized hit and (b) ignited a Hollywood vs. hinterland, lefties vs. conservatives combat scenario, providing reasons for the cultures to lob grenades at each other.

(l.) The late Chris Kyle, portrayed by Bradley Cooper in Clint Eastwood‘s American Sniper; (r.) Sarah Palin.

But now Sarah Palin has jumped into the arena with a Facebook posting, and I’m thinking she’s probably poisoned the well as far as Sniper‘s Best Picture chances are concerned. What self-respecting Academy member will want to vote for anything Palin supports? If I was a Warner Bros. Oscar strategist I’d be on a plane up to Alaska right now to beg Palin to kill the Facebook post, shut the hell up and stay the fuck out of it.

“Hollywood leftists: while caressing shiny plastic trophies you exchange among one another while spitting on the graves of freedom fighters who allow you to do what you do, just realize the rest of America knows you’re not fit to shine Chris Kyle’s combat boots,” she wrote yesterday.

Read more

It has presumably occurred to Dennis Rodman that his 2013 romp-around with Kim Jong-Un in North Korea was the inspiration for James Franco‘s “Dave Skylark” character in The Interview. I’m presuming this isn’t discussed in Colin Offland and Matt Baker‘s Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang In Pyongyang, which will play at Slamdance on Sunday, 1.25. It’s abundantly clear from this trailer that Rodman, who reportedly will not be traveling to Park City to promote the doc, isn’t dealing from a full deck. Somewhat like Skylark, Rodman has claimed he didn’t know that the North Korean dictator had ordered certain atrocities, and has said fairly recently that he intends to return to North Korea and do some more hanging’ with his homie. “I’m not Martin Luther King…if someone wanted to shoot me, please, do it today.” Now, at least, there’s something I want to see at Slamdance.

Sometime in the recent past Mark Harris posted the 12.29 tweet from American Sniper screenwriter Jason Hall that explained why Clint Eastwood used the robot baby in that bizarre hospital room scene between Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller. I would have posted this yesterday but Hall deleted the original tweet, which gave me pause. The last time I’ve seen a baby this fake-looking was in Larry Cohen‘s It’s Alive (’74).

It figures that this graffiti was painted on a billboard at the corner of Wilshire and Bundy, right in the heart of squishy, touch-feely Liberalville. The idea that someone actually believes that Chris Kyle‘s sniper kills constituted murder…the mind does cartwheels. Very few are this naive, I’m telling myself, but perhaps not? It makes this West Hollywood lefty who prays at the church of Real Time With Bill Maher feel embarassed for all West L.A. lefties and the general cause of liberalism. Clint, I apologize. They just need to breathe a little air.

It was announced this evening that Joel and Ethan Coen will be co-presidents of the 68th Cannes Film Festival jury. They’ll each have their own vote, of course, but given their affinity and close creative collaborations over the decades, it makes you wonder if it’s possible that Joel and Ethan might disagree on a favorite for the Palme d’Or. The strong likelihood, I would imagine, is that they’ll be on the same page because they don’t know how to think any other way. But what if Ethan decides he likes Film A and Joel is more of a fan of Film B? Brother against brother, Cain vs. Abel, etc. The Cannes Film Festival runs from Wednesday, May 13th through Sunday, May 24th.

The final hours of Martin Luther King Day plus all the hand-wringing about Ava DuVernay‘s Selma having gotten short shrift from the Academy reminds me what a tragedy it is that Scott Rudin and Paul Greengrass‘s Memphis project, which allegedly had a brilliant script, stalled in mid-2013 and has since gone south. Memphis, I suspect, is the King project that the Academy would have really gotten hot and bothered about. And not, Sasha Stone, because of the gender or ancestry of the director, but because it might have been really damn good. I can only repeat what Greengrass told me at a Captain Phillips after-party at the Academy in early October 2013. Greengrass had cast an Atlanta-based preacher — apparently an eloquent speech-giver and sermonizer — to play King in Memphis, but the poor guy passed away during the summer of ’13. Greengrass was dispirited by this loss (he didn’t want to go into it during our chat but it was clearly a sore subject for him) and apparently lost his directorial mojo as a result. I’m also reminded of a paragraph that Deadline‘s Michael Fleming posted as part of an article about the Memphis project in November 2012: “I read the script when Greengrass tried to make the movie last time around [in April 2011], and felt it was Oscar-calibre stuff that was a powerful testament to King’s struggle and his sacrifice, even if he was portrayed as an imperfect human being. I must say it’s as good as any script I’ve read in years.”

Why? Because it was such a good horror film that the term “horror film” didn’t fit. It was the return of the young Roman Polanski who made Repulsion. It was one of the very few “horror films” (if we must use that term) to work in adult terms — truly sophisticated, psychologically layered and all of the spooky stuff done in-camera. I don’t care about the Gold Derby odds or the campaigning or any of that stuff. By the light of the Godz it deserved a Best Picture nomination. Period.

The Bad and The Beautiful‘s Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) is routinely described as a world-class manipulator and abuser — a Hollywood shit. But every one of his bad traits is counter-balanced by positive or inspirational traits, and that’s why he’s such a great “bad guy”. Because he’s a maze of contradictions. Shields is tough, charming, imaginative, determined, and a Movie catholic who talks to the Godz. Okay, he sexually betrayed Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner) but he also saved her from being a lush and molded her into a star. He abandoned — okay, jilted — his partner Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan) but at the same time forced him to stand on his own and make his own career. He saved James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell) from the endless distractions of his ditzy-brained, Southern belle wife (played by Gloria Grahame) by arranging for a Latin movie idol to take her to Acapulco. Okay, so she and the movie idol died in a plane crash. Okay, so Douglas lied to Powell about what really happened. Question is, when’s the last time you saw a bad guy in a film who also had a lot of good qualities? And about whom you couldn’t quite make up your mind?

All this time I’ve been thinking of N.Y. Times film reporter Brooks Barnes as a progressive-minded, go-getter, big-city journalist — raised in Montana, educated at Marquette, formerly with The Wall Street Journal — who subscribes to the usual liberal attitudes and coastal philosophies. And then yesterday, while tapping out a box-office story about the huge success of American Sniper, Barnes revealed himself to be some kind of secret hinterlander who regards elitist art films askance. I’ve read the following paragraph over and over, and it’s hilarious how Barnes suddenly stepped out of his dispassionate mode and said out of nowhere, “This is who I really am…fuck these elite, navel-gazing filmmakers who are out of touch with real Americans!” The key phrase, of course, is Barnes’ description of the admirers of Boyhood and Birdman as “coastal intelligentsia” who busy themselves “with chatter over little-seen art dramas”…hah!

Last night I came upon this poster for Loving You (’57), the second Elvis Presley flick, and I began to think about the lives that the four leads — Presley, Lizabeth Scott, Wendell Corey, Dolores Hart — led after this moderately okay film opened. They all found differing degrees of success and creative satisfaction in their youth, but two of them — Presley and Corey — became drug- or alcohol-dependent and died relatively young, Presley at 42 and Corey at 54 due to cirrhosis of the liver. And Hart decided to become a nun at age 25 in ’63, giving up the struggle by submitting to (in her mind) a higher, stronger power. All three withdrew under the control of something other than their own determinations. Lizabeth Scott, still with us at age 92, is the only one who lived her own life on her own terms and didn’t get carried away by drugs, booze or God. Read the Wiki bio — quite the individualist. Get up right now and go into the bathroom and look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’re Presley, Hart, Corey or Scott. I’m 75% Scott, 25% Hart.

This trailer for Jiyoung Lee‘s Female Pervert, which will debut at Slamdance on Saturday, 1.24, is a reminder why Slamdance films never seem all that intriguing at first glance. The actors aren’t special enough. They seem pleasant and intelligent, but their vibes seem a little too average-schmaverage, and all the guys have that sensitive dweeby twee thing going on. They’re not unattractive but neither are they dynamically attractive or possessed of that X-factor, spark-plug quality that makes you sit up and take notice. I don’t want to be cruel but I don’t want to watch a film with people I don’t find particularly magnetic at first glance. There are always exceptions to the rule but this is one reason why I never seem to wander up to Slamdance. Female Pervert costars Jennifer Kim, Skizz Cyzyk, Brian Cafferty, Joshua Mikel, Jesse Price, Kate McManus, Taylor Proctor and Eddie Ray. (The trailer won’t embed properly for some reason — just watch it where I found it.)

This will be my first GoPro Sundance Film Festival. I’m going to be walking around with a GoPro Hero 3 Black mounted on my chest with an elastic rig, and…well, maybe I can capture some decent color-and-atmosphere footage or an interesting odd conversation here and there. Or maybe it’ll be boring as crap and I won’t post anything and just discard the idea after a couple of days. I can turn the record function on and off with the GoPro app on my iPhone so we’ll see. I have three regular batteries, a wall charger and a large back-up battery attached to the camera itself. I haven’t bought the “arm” that allows you to shoot yourself as you’re walking around but that would be ridiculous. The chest-mount camera isn’t immediately noticable and I might get away with an interesting shot or two. I’m not going to covertly record friends or talent or whatever…please. Just some random encounters, moments of stillness…whatever.

Each and every year Sundance is almost nothing but a blast — a pulsing spiritual high in terms of the films, conversations, events, parties, press conferences and the generally up-with-everyone-and-everything Park City vibe. This is my 20th anniversary of attending …no, wait, the 21st. But I’d be a lying Polyanna if I said that various irritations don’t pop through all the same. Goes with the territory.

Read more