So Devin Faraci‘s 3.31 report about Suicide Squad doing extra shooting to add “more humor and lightness” is incorrect, according to a tweet posted by director David Ayer this morning. And yet additional shooting has occured, according to costar Jai Courtney. His comment to Entertainment Tonight: “I wouldn’t say we’re trying to make it funny…there’s some additional action stuff that we’ve been doing that’s pretty dark.” HE comment #1: The Suicide Squad trailer footage has been fairly arch and meta-jokey so it seems unlikely that any kind of additional material would be “pretty dark.” Faraci wrote that “[they’re] not inserting jokes left and right but that they’re beefing up fun character moments and interactions.” HE comment #2: With Suicide Squad not opening until 8.5.16, Warner Bros. will presumably be carpet-bombing with promotional materials for the next five months…right? I’m already half-sick of this thing.
Who will historians point to 100 or even 80 years hence, when the waters of the Hudson and East River will have begun to lap onto the streets of Manhattan, as the most rancid and villainous figures of early 21st Century culture? Indeed, who at the moment of their deaths are sure to be seized by feral, growling, sharp-clawed demons and plunged into the hottest caverns of hell? Climate-change denialists, for openers, but even more deserving of damnation will be the anti-climate-change propagandists. And so I dream of Sarah Palin, naked and howling and roasting on a spit. But with her glasses on. Palin and her ilk just keep coming, keep spewing. Not God Herself nor the wonders of all creation will get in their way.
No offense but I don’t trust Antoine fucking Fuqua — he lacks discipline, he’s popcorn, he’s cheeseball and he damn sure is no Akira Kurosawa or John Sturges. But I still feel a certain lust in my heart for The Magnificent Seven (Columbia, 9.23). Boilerplate: “With the town of Rose Creek under the deadly control of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), the desperate townspeople employ protection from seven outlaws, bounty hunters, gamblers and hired guns — Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), Josh Farraday (Chris Pratt), Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), Billy Rocks (Byung-Hun Lee…swords!), Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). As they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money.” [Poster image captured at Ceasar’s Palace in Las Vegas by Collider‘s Steve Weintraub.]
Now that Karyn Kusama‘s The Invitation (Drafthouse) has opened with a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score and done pretty well and has been viewable on iTunes and Vudu for a couple of days, what’s the verdict? I didn’t say a damn thing the other day for fear of giving anyone the slightest hint of what it’s about, but…well, I can say this. It’s an expert slow-burner, and all the more impressive because it’s all about hints…about what you can sense might be happening without anything in the way of precise evidence. But when it all starts to pay off with some third-act violence, I have to say I felt a teeny bit let down. It seemed a little too familiar. But then came the finale and I thought “wow.”
I was going to call this post “The Third Man” because the third Direct TV technician arrived today and left without doing anything because he hadn’t been told by Direct TV management to install a 4K-capable genie. He also said I’d need to make a fourth appointment for someone else to drop by and do that. “Actually, I don’t think so,” I said with a smile. “Thanks for your information but this is the absolute end of my 4K dealings with Direct TV. Go with God, have a good Sunday but this is it…I’m done.”
The first Direct TV guy was too hard to understand (thick-as-hummus Middle-Eastern accent) and then he wouldn’t let me talk to his supervisor.
The second Direct TV technician who visited three days ago (4.7) was an emotional infant who left without notice because he didn’t feel sufficiently loved and appreciated and because…what, I wasn’t radiating the right vibes? In fact I was sitting in the lotus position and listening to an Alan Watts CD when he walked in. Plus I was wearing a Mahatma Gandhi diaper and wore a look of cosmic serenity so I don’t know what else I could have done.
And then today’s guy came by and delivered zip…end of story.
I had pre-paid all the fees to the tune of over $400. I demanded and got a total refund today. I’m staying with Direct TV’s cheap-ass basic cable because it’s less than $10 a month but I will never pay for 4K TV service from these guys. The door has closed.
The opening night presentation at the 2016 TCM Classic Film Festival (4.28 thru 5.1) will be “a 40th anniversary screening in collaboration with Warner Bros. Classics” of Alan Pakula‘s All The President’s Men. Who cares, right? Another theatrical screening of a movie we’ve all seen many times. Except it could be a significant deal if TCM and WB Classics are presenting a visually correct version of this 1976 classic. Because it needs correcting. Some of you might remember that ATPM cinematographer Gordon Willis complained about the most recent Bluray version in a 2011 HE interview.
Willis comment #1 about 2011 ATMP Bluray: “It’s all fucked up…all the medium tones [are wrong] and contrast is way higher than it oughta be…it’s overloaded.”
Comment #2: “All they had to do was use the most recent DVD as a reference because that’s fine. They don’t get it. They get on those fucking dials…it’s a disease. Their idea for a Bluray is to make it for guys who are watching football.”
Boston Globe editorial: “At some point, after the election, Republicans will also need to ask themselves some tough questions about how their actions and inactions made the party vulnerable to Trump. After all, a candidate spewing anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, authoritarian rhetoric didn’t come out of nowhere; the Tea Party has been strong enough long enough that someone like him shouldn’t be a surprise. Chasing short-term political gains, the GOP missed a lot of chances to fight the hateful currents that now threaten to overwhelm it.”
HE: The GOP has been winking at racist dumb-shit sentiments and aggressively soliciting votes of unwashed rurals since the dawn of Richard Nixon‘s Southern strategy. The Trump phenomenon is simply a case of the mob getting in front of the strategists, of the rural cart leading the horse.
