Day: October 31, 2015

Last night N.Y. Post/”Page Six” columnist Richard Johnson posted a piece about Harvey Weinstein allegedly being “furious” at Quentin Tarantino for calling cops “murderers” at a Manhattan rally last weekend (10.24). With New York, Philadelphia, Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles police unions (not to mention the National Organization of Police Associations) calling for a boycott of Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, Johnson is reporting that Weinstein “wants Tarantino to apologize, or at least walk back his comments.” He quotes an “insider” view that “the last thing Harvey needs is a boycott that will scare off Oscar voters and hurt the box office.”

First, tempestuous Harvey is a ’90s thing for the most part. Second, I know him well enough to know he isn’t “furious” at Quentin. Maybe regretful on some level but hardly foaming at the mouth. He and Tarantino have known each other for nearly a quarter-century, and by now are fully acquainted with each other’s personalities. Third, police organizations aren’t going to affect The Hateful Eight‘s box-office one tiny bit. And fourth, the Academy, SAG and the Golden Globe members respect cops as far as it goes, but they also aren’t likely to be swayed by this. If anything these groups are probably more on Quentin’s side of the argument.

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An all-new remastered high-def version of Leni Riefenstahl‘s Triumph of the Will (among other things an alleged inspiration for the finale of George Lucas‘s Star Wars) will pop on 12.8.15. The Bluray is derived from a new 2K scan that has been digitally corrected and restored under the supervision of restoration guru Robert A. Harris (Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, My Fair Lady).

The usual mixed feelings apply. Even when a film delivers repellent content true cineastes are able to recognize highly effective and even mesmerizing chops when they see them. I once bickered with Manohla Dargis along these general lines a dozen years ago. She was saying Triumph of the Will was and is reprehensible and I was saying, “Yeah, of course, no dispute…but you can’t say Riefenstahl didn’t have a great eye and a commanding visual style.”

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As noted, early yesterday afternoon Sasha Stone and I had lunch with Chad Newsom, who teaches in the Cinema Studies department at SCAD. As we were about to leave on our bikes for the Live By Night set I asked Newsom about whether his students regard movies from the ’80s as ancient history (which is what I’ve gathered here and there), and Newsom said they actually regard movies made in the early ’90s as dusty classics, and that the ’80s are a little beyond their sphere of interest. And forget the golden age of the ’70s and before that — totally off their radar. It’s not so much that they’ve never heard of, say, Cary Grant, but that Grant and other superstars of the big-studio era hold zero interest.

This is depressingly confirmed in a chat between Star Wars: The Force Awakens star Daisy Ridley, 23, and Princess Leia herself (i.e., Carrie Fisher) in a 10.30 Interview q & a: Fisher: “And males? Any crushes?” Ridley: “Not really! I’ve never been one for crushing on famous people.” Fisher: “Cary Grant! Do you know who that is?”  Ridley: “Maybe I could appreciate the old-school film stars more.”

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The “brothers who couldn’t be more different” scheme falls apart if they’re wildly unalike — sired from wholly separate gene pools. I can see the markedly dissimilar Roy Scheider and Dustin Hoffman being brothers in John Schlesinger‘s Marathon Man (’76) but not Mark Strong and Sacha Baron Cohen in The Brothers Grimsby. Call me a literalist without a sense of humor but all good comedies are made of the same stuff that goes into good drama, including occasional echoes of the world as it actually is. Worse: SBC having sex with a fat girlfriend in a mattress showroom.

The word around the campfire had been that Revenant director Alejandro G. Inarritu and costar Tom Hardy got into some kind of physical throwdown during the shoot in Alberta. Hardy has told EW‘s Nicole Sperling what actually happened, so to speak: “When things get a bit too serious, I go, ‘Why don’t we have a cuddle in front of all these people here?’ It ends with both of us falling down in the snow. I think that’s a good thing. If I’m the naughty boy for doing that, then I’d rather be the naughty boy and release that tension.” Inarritu, says Hardy, “is unlike any director I’ve ever worked with. He sees things how he sees them, so to give him back what he wants is quite an interesting experience. It could drive you f—ing nuts.” Inarritu’s comment: “On the surface, [Hardy] can look inaccessible or difficult. But he is just a beautiful human being. He’s incredibly sensitive and lovable.” [Images from Empire magazine via a German Leonardo DiCaprio fansite.]

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In a 10.30 EW chat with Nicole Sperling, Revenant costar (not to mention Legend and Mad Max: Fury Road star) Tom Hardy has conveyed a message to those who like the idea of his being nominated for an Oscar: “Lock me out of that, for your own good. It’s like putting a wig on a dog, or a tutu on a crocodile. It doesn’t look right, it’s not fair to the animal, and inevitably someone will get bitten and hurt.” In other words, those Gold Derby “experts” who are forecasting a Hardy Oscar nom for his rough-and-tumble performance in The Revenant — Vanity Fair‘s Michael Hogan, Huffington Post‘s Michael Hogan, Fox News‘ Tariq Khan, Gold Derby‘s Paul Sheehan, GD‘s Jack Matthews along with Sperling herself — need to let it go. And once they have perhaps a little light will shine through and they’ll say to themselves, “Okay, then I’ll ease up on my less-than-thoughtful prejudice against summer releases and give Love & Mercy‘s Paul Dano his rightful due as a Best Supporting Actor champion.”