Month: December 2015

A word of tribute to the late, legendary Holly Woodlawn — transgender trailblazer, downtown Warholian personality in the ’60s and early ’70s, immmortalized by a stanza in Lou Reed‘s “Walk on The Wild Side,” costar of Paul Morrissey‘s Trash and Women in Revolt. Woodlawn, 69, passed yesterday in Los Angeles from brain and liver cancer. Things were tough for her in recent years. I’m very sorry. I spoke to Woodlawn on the phone a decade ago about an interview, but it never happened. Her Wiki page asserts that in 1970 George Cukor “petitioned the Academy to nominate Woodlawn for Best Actress for her work in Trash; however, nothing came of this campaign.” I can’t find a clip I once saw in which Woodlawn delivered a perfect imitation of Kim Novak calling for her Siamese cat Piewacket in Bell, Book and Candle (“Pie! Pie!”). That was her, right?

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Here are the format options for press screenings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Tuesday, 12.15. Notice that Disney isn’t offering a 3D option in the evening (i.e., for people with any taste, or who can’t get away in the daytime). The bloom is off 3D and then some. It’s not something that discerning movie hounds would want to choose. Unless, you know, the 3D film in question is something truly exceptional like Baltasar Kormakur‘s Everest or Jean-Luc Godard‘s Goodbye to Language or Werner Herzog‘s Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Or if it’s a question of seeing the climactic wire-walking sequence in The Walk in 3D (essential) vs. 2D (less so).

After the 11.28 Joy screening on the Fox Lot I posted some generally admiring tweets. Good as it is Joy is a little something of a mixed bag, and so I was struggling with my responses. It works but in a scattered, neurotic, off-and-on way. In my head I was giving it a grade of around 84 or 85, which is a B. Good, tasty, sharp, focused and very David O. Russell-y, but not on the level of Silver Linings Playbook and The Fighter. Then I saw it again and it didn’t play quite as well, and so I downgraded it to about a 77 or 78. Joy is nonethless a very well made, grade-A film that works in fits and starts, and Jennifer Lawrence‘s performance is unquestionably strong and redeeming…so that’s where it is for me. It’s a thumbs-upper but not way up. Which I why I was shocked by Joy‘s aggregate ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic — 53% and 63% respectively. That’s an average of about 58%, and by a high-school grading system that’s a serious flunk. Joy is too expertly made to rate that. It absolutely deserves a general pass. And don’t forget that Robbie Collin Telegraph rave.

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Twitter is where you go to find out how rancid some people are deep down. Twitter is a social-media form of those ugly-truth-revealing glasses that certain characters put on in “The Cheaters,” that 12.27.60 episode from Thriller. Twitter is where you find out how small, smug, lazy, stupid, tedious, hateful and sometimes even disgusting people are. Twitter has brought to me to places I never knew existed and am now very sorry I know about. The loathing I feel for those strutting, shrieking, foo-foo Twitter scolds out there sometimes manifests into stomach acid, indigestion, headaches and God knows what else. It’s all I can do to keep from spitting on the floor.

Six days ago Deadline‘s Nellie Andreeva reported two things about Sylvester Stallone and Rambo: New Blood, the Fox TV series. One, that he would executive produce the series and two, that she was hearing “conflicting information whether Stallone has a deal in place to act in the project, about Rambo and his son, though he certainly has the option to do so…some sources indicate that the actor would reprise his role as the famous renegade soldier, which he has played in all four Rambo movies to date, while others say that he won’t appear in the series.”

Today Andreeva reported that Stallone is out of it entirely. “Contrary to reports, Sylvester Stallone has opted not to participate in the planned Rambo television series in any way at all,” a spokesperson for Stallone said.

Translation: Stallone, a likely Best Supporting Actor nominee for his artistic comeback role in Creed, doesn’t want to self-Norbit himself during Oscar season by bringing up Rambo associations, and so, whatever the actual particulars of the Rambo: New Blood deal, he’s publicly distancing himself. No lunkhead action flicks, no Expendables 4…none of that stuff while he’s in the Oscar race. Smart move.

Question: In industry circles “Norbit” has become a verb — to self-Norbit is to temporarily ruin one’s artistic credibility by way of tacky, low-rent associations in past, current or future films or TV series. In an outside-Hollywood sense one could self-Norbit by allowing unsavory associations of any kind to surface, although I have doubts as to whether the term will ever have any currency beyond geographical Los Angeles.

Today’s Oscar Poker chat, a three way between myself, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and Awards Watch‘s Erik Anderson, was an attempt to take stock of things in the wake of the last few award hand-outs — NBR, NYFCC, BOFCA, BFCA and LAFCA. We had plenty to chew on. Again, the mp3.

For those who’d prefer to just listen, here’s an mp3 of the whole event and an excerpt in which Quentin talks about the cop thing.

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association — often contrarian as far as old-fart Academy thinking is concerned, often looking out for their pet ponies, sometimes preciously inclined — has done the right thing, I feel, by giving the org’s Best Picture award to Tom McCarthy‘s Spotlight. Ditto their honoring Max Max: Fury Road‘s George Miller with their Best Director award — yay, George! LAFCA also gave their Best Actor trophy to Michael Fassbender for his hard-hammer performance in Steve Jobs (Son of Saul‘s Geza Rohrig came in second), and their Best Actress award to 45 Years‘ Charlotte Rampling (who edged out Brooklyn‘s Saoirse Ronan).

Ex Machina/Danish Girl‘s Alicia Vikander was named Best Supporting Actress and 99 Homes/Freeheld‘s Michael Shannon was handed LAFCA’s Best Supporting Actor award. The Best Screenplay award went to Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy for Spotlight, and Asif Kapadia’s Amy was named best documentary. Anomalisa won the Best Animated Film award over Inside Out — somebody finally said “sorry, not this time” to Pixar! John Seale‘s cinematography for Mad Max: Fury Road was also awarded; ditto Colin Gibson‘s production design for that film. Carter Burwell won for best musical score for both Anomalisa and Carol. The Best Editing award went to The Big Short‘s Hank Corwin. LAFCA’s previously announced recipient of their 2015 Career Achievement honoree is editor Anne V. Coates.

From a participant: “Just so you know, there was no sense of consensus for Best Picture. The votes were spread all over the place, more than any other year I’ve witnessed. There was no clear frontrunner.”

What’s up with critics relentlessly handing out Best Supporting Actress awards to Kristen Stewart for her performance in Clouds of Sils Maria? NYFCC, Boston Online Film Critics and today’s Boston Film Critics awards…she was very good in that 2014 Olivier Assayas film (shot in ’13, premiered in Cannes 19 months ago) but calm down. (Update: Stewart was also the LAFCA runner-up for their BSActress award.) How about giving an occasional Best Supporting Actress award to a performance from a 2015 film now and then? What about the entirely deserving Elizabeth Banks performance in Love & Mercy or that show-stopping Jane Fonda performance in Youth? Seriously, this Stewart vogue has to stop. Otherwise hey-hey for Love & Mercy‘s Paul Dano sharing the Beantown Best Actor award with The Revenant‘s Leonardo DiCaprio. And hooray for Spotlight winning Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Here’s the Variety report.

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…as you come down the main lobby stairs, or rather as I came down them last Thursday night…wham.