Day: February 12, 2015

The great N.Y. Times “Media Equation” columnist and all-around sage David Carr died Thursday at age 58. Just like that. Collapsed inside the Times newsroom, found around 9 pm and pronounced dead at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital. A Houdini punch in the stomach. Devastating. Words fail. Shocked.

Solemn, pained condolences are offered to David’s many friends and colleagues at the Times (particularly Tony Scott, with whom David taped several “Sweet Spot” video discussions) and especially his wife, Jill, their daughter Maddie and David’s twin daughters from a previous marriage, Erin and Meagan.

I became friendly with David during his run as the Times‘ Oscar-beat guy (a.k.a., “the Bagger”) from…was it ’05 to ’09? I know that Melena Ryzik took the reins in late ’09. Carr was taxed and tested by Hollywood, but he was absolutely the greatest at that gig. I loved his wit, his bon mots, his columns, his insights into the game, his Times Square video interviews. I loved his personality, his scratchy voice, his pencil neck, his laser brain. I loved that he found Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln tedious and said so during one of his “Sweet Spot” chats.

He treated me like a regular hombre colleague and took me to lunch once in Manhattan, at a haunt on West 44th. Or was it twice? We saw each other all the time at the same Oscar-season parties on both coasts, one after another after another. And he did a video interview with me on Park City’s Main Street during an ’06 or ’07 Sundance. But he was closer buds with Sasha Stone.

I only know that I worshipped the guy and that I felt duty-bound to plug the shit out of his Bagger columns during that four-year run, and I just feel awful…shattered. This is beyond any realm that I know. It’s almost like when Elvis died.

Read more

There’s talk about suspended NBC anchor Brian Williams possibly going on some kind of “apology tour” as a way of getting himself back into the good graces of the public, NBC and the News Godz. First of all he almost certainly won’t return to NBC…right? He’ll have to take a gig at CNN or someplace else. But he can’t go on the air again until he cleanses himself completely, until he atones for his sins. And the only way to do that is go back to the desert, back to the Middle East conflict where his troubles originated in ’03, and do some hard reporting and place himself in harm’s way. This kind of remedy is straight out of Joseph Conrad‘s “Lord Jim.” If you haven’t read the book then watch the 1965 Peter O’Toole movie.

I’m being perfectly serious here, serious as a heart attack. Williams has to put on the desert boots and the sunblock and go back to Iraq or maybe even Syria and get down on the ground and dodge bullets and this time ride in a helicopter that really gets attacked. Williams’ news industry colleagues would understand this. So would the public. They know from Christian mythology that the only way to purify your soul is to roam for 40 days and nights in the desert. Williams would be risking his life, of course, but people would respect that. They would get the idea.

Read more

It’s 50 degrees warmer in Los Angeles right now than the 35 degree temperature in New York City. And it’ll be 85 degrees here tomorrow also. Warm enough to buzz around on the Yamaha without a jacket. Warm enough to sunbathe, to wear nothing but a T-shirt and shorts, to prompt thoughts of turning on the air conditioning (but not really), for all the Drew McWeeny types with unattractive feet to put on their sandals.

In a back-and-forth N.Y. Times discussion piece about the Oscars, which are only ten days away as we speak, critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis avoid talking about likely winners and losers or any of that horse-race jazz. Obviously there’s nothing they can possibly add on that score. But I’ll tell you this and you can take it to the bank. The Oscar blogosphere is doing everything in its power to keep alive the notion that there’s still a neck-and-neck, up-for-grabs Best Picture competition between Boyhood and Birdman with American Sniper possibly in a position….naahh, too many lefties hate that Sniper vibe.

Why is the Oscar-blogging community still calling it a close one? Apart from the fact that it’s good for web traffic to keep the ball in the air? Because some of these guys and gals want their personal pony, Boyhood, to win despite the odds favoring Birdman. All because of the crazy BAFTAs having given their Best Picture award to Richard Linklater‘s film last weekend.

If the situation was reversed and Boyhood had so far won the SAG ensemble, PGA Daryl F. Zanuck and the top DGA award with the BAFTA guys having recently given Birdman its only triumph, some of the Oscar prognosticators would definitely be saying it’s all over but the shouting and that Boyhood pretty much has it in the bag…trust me.

I realize it’s been a weak, crazy-ass year and that it’s possible that Boyhood could take the big prize. But if that happens there will be “so great a cry across the land,” to quote a Charlton Heston line from Ben-Hur. A cry of joy, that is, from all the squares and fuddyfarts who’ve been naysaying Birdman all along, going back to that female Telluride resident who told a couple of visitors in a gondola ride up to the Chuck Jones Cinema that “whatever you do, don’t see Birdman!” Which prompted the guy sitting across from her to smile and say, “I financed Birdman.” (This story came from a Telluride-residing producer friend who got it straight from the woman.)

Read more

My heart breaks a little when I see Ethan Hawke doing a paycheck movie. Because he’s so good at “playing” the quintessential New York actor-poet-writer-soul man-confessor that he is 24/7. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Williams, River Phoenix…”It’s hard to grow up…it doesn’t stop when you’re 40…a hard row to hoe.” I’ll never forget feeling blown away by Hawke in two New York stage productions, the 2005 Hurlyburly revival at the 37 Arts complex, and the 2006 Vivian Beaumont presentation of Tom Stoppard’s Coast of Utopia trilogy. He’s on Charlie Rose tonight to plug Seymour: An Introduction, a doc he made about classical pianist Seymour Bernstein.

Nobody loves honestly adrenalized action scenes (fights, shoot-outs, chases, derring-do) more than myself. By “honestly” I mean action scenes you can at least half-believe in. Two default examples are the car chase in Ronin or subway chase sequence in The French Connection. The latest default example of the wrong way is the skydiving car sequence in the forthcoming Furious 7. The real-deal fight scenes in Steven Soderbergh‘s Haywire, for another example, were damn near perfect. Gina Carano clearly had the moves and the strength and the attitude. Many of the geekboy genre zombies didn’t approve of Soderbergh’s exercise, and yet a lot of these same guys are giving a pass to the cynically disconnected, utterly rancid Kingsman: The Secret Service (20th Century Fox, 2.13). I get what the scheme is but it’s not funny, man. Not exciting, not intriguing…a waste of my time, a ton of money down the well…why?

Read more

In his quitting announcement, Jon Stewart alluded to spending more time with his family, which includes two kids, aged 10 and almost 9. What’s one of the biggest gripes older, out-of-the-house kids have about their Type-A dads? “He was never there.” But parental love isn’t the only thing that matters in the long run; parents probably influence their kids more profoundly by example. Which is why I believe that Sarah Palin did a terrible thing to her younger kids when she quit her term as Alaska’s governor in order to make money. I’m still presuming that Stewart’s intention is to direct more films. I don’t think for a millisecond that he’d run for political office, much less President…not with his temperament. But what if he does have this in the back of his mind?

Cartoon by Emily Flake — posted on NewYorker.com website.

Yesterday afternoon Indiewire‘s Kevin Jagernauth posted a five-part, nearly three-hour essay on the films of Stanley Kubrick. I’ve watched about half of it. Astutely written, well-edited and smoothly narrated by Cameron Beyl, it adopts the generic view that everything Kubrick made starting with The Killing…okay, starting with Paths of Glory was monumental, world-class art. (Except for the commendable but not great Spartacus.) Which has long been my opinion. But no history of Kubrick’s life and career is complete without acknowledging that the defining behavioral trait of the last 30 years of his life was an increasing tendency to lead a hermetic, hidden-away existence. I’ve long felt that this isolation made his later films seem more and more porcelain and pristine, and less flesh-and-blood. I mentioned this once to Jan Harlan, Kubrick’s producer and brother-and-law, and he didn’t disagree. “That was the man,” he said. I don’t know if Beyl goes there as I’ve yet to watch the last two chapters, which cover this exact same 30-year period. The five essays are embedded after the jump.

(l. to r.) Christiane Kubrick, Ryan O’Neal Stanley Kubrick during filming of Barry Lyndon.

Kubrick, Jack Nicholson, some bald guy during shooting of The Shining.

DeMille theatre premiere of Spartacus, probably on 10.6.60.

Leow’s State marquee during 1962 run of Lolita.

Read more

Sony chief Amy Pascal‘s non-verbal conveyances during yesterday’s chat with Tina Brown at the Women in the World conference in San Francisco — head rocking up and down, very little of the usual guardedness that corporate chiefs exude, an all-around PTSD vibe — aren’t just fascinating. They’re entirely winning. You can’t help but admire, feel respect, nod approvingly…Pascal has been through the internet meat grinder but isn’t hiding…right back in the hot seat…saying exactly what she thinks. You can obviously sense the stress but also the curious calm.

Read more