Day: July 3, 2015

Ava Duvernay has said in an Essence interview (posted today) that she won’t be directing Marvel’s Black Panther movie. So much for the dream of Ava scarfing up a fat Marvel paycheck while mapping out the kind of films she really wants to do.

Duvernay: “I think I’ll just say we had different ideas about what the story would be.” Most Likely Translation: “I was a dramatic indie-level director when I made Middle of Nowhere but since Selma I’ve transformed. I’m now a political-minded…make that a revolutionary-minded director who makes bold statement films about proud, gutsy, self-defining African-American characters, and those Marvel guys didn’t want Black Panther to exude too much of that — they more or less wanted a generic superhero movie with some African-American seasoning.”

DuVernay: “Marvel has a certain way of doing things and I think they’re fantastic and a lot of people love what they do. I loved that they reached out to me.” Most Likely Translation: “What a bunch of greedy, formula-following, white-ass cyborg assholes.”

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Obviously Jenny’s Wedding was made well before the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision but I’m getting a little…well, not tired of it but…okay, ease up and take the movie on its own merits. Calm down. I’m just starting to feel a tiny bit fatigued about the whole LGBT commissar mentality. I know that doesn’t sound right and that I’ll probably get beaten up today by Twitter goons but my first reaction when I saw this trailer was “another one?” And I’m saying this, of course, as a huge, huge fan of Carol.

“We’ll” is, of course, a conjunctive for “we will,” and it’s pronounced…actually, it depends. If you want to be absolutely correct you need to say “wheel” but many people find that too demanding. I say “wheel” from time to time but I also pronounce it as “whil,” a one-syllable thing. I also occasionally attempt a one-and-a-half-syllable thing with an emphasis on “whee.” The word is not, after all, referencing Will Scarlet or Will Penny but “we” plural. There’s also a third, even lazier group that finds even my “whil” too difficult. They pronounce it “wuhl,” as in Robert Wuhl. “Okay, wuhl be there at 4 pm” or “wuhl be okay with that” or whatever.

I’ve lately been in touch with a couple I’ve known for ages, going back to the mid ’70s. The guy is a serious Movie Catholic who used to run a repertory cinema and in fact hired me as a projectionist in ’80 or ’81. A lot of frolic back then, and even some perversity. We used to score quaaludes together at the old Edlich Pharmacy on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Anyway we were talking on the phone and they said they’re planning a trip to Italy in September but within budgetary limits. I naturally volunteered my usual-usual about the difference between tourists and travellers (I belong to the latter group) and how nobody stays in hotels any more with all of the glorious (and delightfully less expensive) Airbnb options available and how only dinosaurs consult with travel agents about where to stay.

Well, it pains me to say this but my old friends are evolving into dinosaur-hood. Their choice and their money, of course, but they’re firmly committed to avoiding Airbnb rentals due to fear of “issues.” I assured them that these presumptions are wives tales but they won’t budge. They’ll almost certainly be paying 30% or 40% more by staying in hotels (not to mention mimicking the typical tourist lifestyle) but to each his own. But I thought it might be nice to join them in Venice and so as a last-ditch effort I told them about a two-story loft where I stayed with Dylan in late May 2014, a place owned by a classy lady named Federica Centulani. I sent them a video of the place. [See above.] I explained that if we split the $150 per day rent at Federica’s it would only be $75 each. And they still won’t budge.

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I happened to watch Richard Fleischer‘s The Boston Strangler last night. No, not at the Aero but on Vudu. Not bad but not much of a policier either. Two-thirds of it is about what passed for perversity in early ’60s Boston and a third is about the catching and examination of Albert DeSalvo (Tony Curtis). I was actually less impressed by Curtis’s look-at-me performance and more impressed by Henry Fonda‘s as Detective John Bottomly, and particularly by Hurd Hatfield‘s as Terence Huntley, a closeted but upfront, well-mannered gay guy. This led me to a poster for The Picture of Dorian Gray (’45), in which Hatfield played the lead. It made Hatfield a “star” (i.e., not really) even though the second-billed George Sanders got top billing on the poster because nobody knew Hatfield in ’45. This reminded me of the 2011 Arthur poster debacle in which Greta Gerwig, who played the co-lead romantic role that Liza Minelli had in the ’81 original, was left off early versions of the poster entirely.

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The reviews had made it clear that Magic Mike XXL is a wank and a throwaway, but with the otherwise-engaged Steven Soderbergh having shot and cut it I expected something slick and semi-cool — a movie in which nothing happens but with intriguing detours and a louche, hang-loose attitude. It’s about a group of lightweight hot bods (Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer, Kevin Nash, Adam Rodriguez, Joe Manganiello) making their way from Tampa to Myrtle Beach to compete in a male-stripper contest…and that’s all. Okay, maybe. But a feeling of waste and nothingness welled up as I watched this piece of shit yesterday afternoon. I began with stirrings of mild irritation but had worked up a fairly angry lather in less than 30 minutes. N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott had the nerve to call this “a coherent and rigorous theory of pleasure that is also an absolute blast” — a statement I honestly feel he should not only be ashamed of but should atone for.

Movies about “nothing” (i.e., those lacking conventional dramatic tension or a payoff) can work nicely if done right. This may sound fogeyish but my idea of an agreeable easygoing movie about floating along and never really coming to a boil is Fred Zinneman‘s The Sundowners. Yes, Magic Mike XXL fails the Sundowners test. And I’m not just saying it doesn’t belong in the same sentence as the original Magic Mike (which I called “one of those summer films that comes along once in a blue moon — a fun romp filled with yoks and swagger and whoo-hoo, but also sharp, wise and shrewdly observed, and flush with indie cred”). I’m saying it’s a film that smirks and piddles around but also pisses on you. A big yellow stream shooting out of the screen and onto my lap.

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