The highlight of my publicity work during the mid to late ’80s (staff writer at Samuel Goldwyn, unit/in-house publicity for New Line Cinema, press kit writer for Cannon Films) was trying to sell a notion that the great M. Emmet Walsh deserved a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance as sleazy shamus Loren Visser in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Blood Simple. Walsh paid me to create press releases, create trade ads and generate press attention that might push this along. We ultimately couldn’t persuade the Academy, but Walsh won the 1985 Spirit Award for Best Male Lead. And I got to join Walsh for a lunch with Joel and Ethan somewhere in downtown Manhattan.
I wouldn’t go to Comic-Con with a knife at my back and a $1000 cash bribe in a brown paper bag. Except for noteworthy exceptions like Ant-Man, Avatar, portions of the 2014 Godzilla, Guardians of the Galaxy, the first two Captain America flicks and others I’m forgetting right now, the Comic-Con influence is the nexus of evil in the action-movie realm. ComicCon culture despises real-world thrills. Knowing as I do that real-world thrills (example: Han Solo dodging asteroids in The Empire Strikes Back) are the only kind that drill right into my nervous system and that nothing puts me to sleep like generic CG pigfucks in fantasy action flicks (example: the dino stuff in Jurassic World), there’s no choice but to despise ComicCon with every fibre of my being.
Seriously — Solo dodging asteroids in Episode V (a memory that is 36 years old now) feels like bare-bones, no-frills reality compared to the fake-itude and crap-itude that ComicCon product has come to represent in my head.
Comic-book/superhero/fantasy/CG/fanboy culture has obviously been good for Hollywood’s bottom line from time to time, but it’s been poisonous in terms of its formulaic reliance and suffocating repetitions, and the general dilution of the influences and traditions of 20th Century dramas, spectacles, comedies and action films. The ComicCon mentality is a sworn enemy of the actual realities of life on the planet earth, which is to say recreations of same for centuries, going back to the time of Shakespeare. ComicCon-ers are the aesthetic locusts of our time — the dustbowl drought visited upon potentially fertile cinema.
Yesterday afternoon’s post about my loathing for the idea of Hillary Clinton choosing Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for her vice-presidential running mate was honest but too brusque, too emotional. Here’s a more measured rephrasing. My basic reaction was “where did this jowly bear come from? A good fellow by all reports but what does he have to do with 2016 fever?”
Vilsack seems like a nice, decent, liberal go-alonger, but the spirit of the 2016 primary season, including much of the frothy passion on the Republican side, was about “no, no…something cleaner, angrier…something that blows off the usual procedures and reshuffles the deck.” Vilsack (along with Virginia Senator Tim “basketball-head” Kaine, whom Hillary also likes for vp) is a card in the deck. He’s not a re-shuffler or a gamechanger. He’s an amiable politican from Iowa.
Choosing Vilsack/Kaine over electric Elizabeth Warren — who should have run against the 1% oligarchy instead of Bernie Sanders — will be nothing short of (a) a spiritual dilution and even a kind of poisoning of the Democratic climate and (b) a backhanding of the whole Bernie movement and the strongly passionate sense that “we need a revolution” and “we need to get rid of the settled, go-along, acquiescent mentality of legislators who seem less than passionate about reducing the influence of the 1% and advancing income equality,” etc.
The whole primary season was about this feeling, this clamor, and now Clinton is apparently prepared to say “okay, that was that but I’m the cheese now, I’m running the show and this is what I want from a practical perspective.” It makes me seethe. I want to spit on something. If I owned a pair of boxing gloves I’d punch my refrigerator door with everything I have.
Yesterday Trump campaign honcho Paul Manafort (a) discarded the narrative about a “team of writers” being the principle authors of Monday night’s partly plagiarized speech delivered by Melania Trump in favor of (b) saying it was “Melania’s speech.” (What happened to the “team”?)
That all changed this morning when Melania’s speechwriter Meredith McIver accepted blame for inserting Michelle Obama‘s words into the speech and offered her resignation, which of course Donald Trump refused to accept. N.Y. Times reporter Maggie Habermanbroke the story an hour ago. It includes quotes McIver’s statement on the matter, taken from the Trump website:
“In working with Melania on her recent first lady speech, we discussed many people who inspired her and messages she wanted to share with the American people,” McIver wrote.
“A person she has always liked is Michelle Obama. Over the phone, [Melania] read me some passages from Mrs. Obama’s speech, as examples. I wrote them down and later included some of the phrasing in the draft that ultimately became the final speech. I did not check Mrs. Obama’s speeches. This was my mistake and I feel terrible for the chaos I have caused Melania and the Trumps as well as to Mrs. Obama. No harm was meant.”
As usual, Sasha Stone and I talked too long, went astray and meandered half-assedly into topics that we should have left well enough alone. But then Sasha cut it down. At least we got into the likelihood of African-American films being front and center in the coming awards season, if for no other reason than to make up for last year’s Oscars-So-White nominations that led, in part, to AMPAS Board of Governors expanding membership and seeking to reduce the influence of old, encrusted white farts. Here’s the mp3.
As I wrote yesterday, Nate Parker‘s The Birth of the Nation and Denzel Washington‘s Fences will probably be eyeball-to-eyeball in the Best Picture race, and it’ll likely be Fences‘ Viola Davis vs. Loving‘s Ruth Negga in the Best Actress race or — this is Sasha’s brilliant suggestion — Negga sidestepping the Davis competish by running for Best Supporting Actress. Again, the mp3.
As a prospective Democratic vp candidate Tom Vilsack, the current Secretary of Agriculture and Iowa governor from ’99 through ’07, is an even more depressing prospect that Virginia Senator Tim “basketball-head” Kaine, whom Hillary also likes. Hillary needs a running mate with charisma, eloquence and pizazz — qualities she lacks. There’s something odiously settled and sedate about the guy. He’s in no way an X-factor type. That jowly, heavyish face (he has a semi-inflated-balloon neck wattle) makes him look like a Pavillions manager or a cattle owner or an airline pilot or some guy who lives down the street and mows his lawn every weekend. He looks like a family man who eats meat loaf, mashed potatoes and string beans every other night. Vilsack seems like a decent fellow, but the dullness! I don’t want this platitudinous meathead taking over if Hillary should meet with tragedy. I want my girl ElizabethWarren. This is awful…awful.
“Less purposeful than last year’s Bone Tomahawk, less mannered than The Hateful Eight and less gruesome than either (a bit of a let-down when considering the credentials of [director] Ti West), In a Valley of Violence is a tepid pastiche that’s a touch too comfortable with its own lack of vision. Fortunately, West comes at this material from a place of love, and his film’s most familiar moments reflect the greatest of what the genre has to offer. Expertly choreographed, and kissed with our strange nostalgia for a lawless fantasy world, the inevitable climactic shootout suggests that West has watched enough John Ford and Sam Peckinpah to know that all the best showdowns feel like bad theater.” — from a 6.14.16 review by Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich.
Early this afternoon major news sources all began to report that Fox News chief Roger Ailes has been officially whacked over sexual harassment allegations, but that he “may” be leaving with a guaranteed $40 million payout deal. Ailes had been under an internal investigation following a sexual harassment and wrongful termination lawsuit by former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson. New York‘s Gabriel Shermanreported yesterday that Megan Kelly told investigators that Ailes made unwanted sexual advances about ten years ago. As I understand things Rupert, James and Lachlan Murdoch have apparently terminated Ailes or irrevocably decided he’s toast. Will Fox News becomes less evil without Ailes behind the wheel? Of course not. Update: The Fox back-room maneuvering is getting pretty wild, according to this Breitbart report by Matthew Boyle.
If the Trump campaign could turn back the clock to yesterday afternoon, would they eliminate the portions of Melania Trump‘s speech that were obviously cribbed from Michelle Obama‘s speech before the 2008 Democratic Convention, and thereby avoid the plagiarism headlines that have dominated newscasts since last night? Of course they would. The fact that they didn’t catch the mistake and fix Melania’s speech tells you two things. One, the Trump campaign is a sloppy, haphazard operation, which is due to the fact that Trump is a gruff, moody guy with a short attention span — period. A silly blunder of this sort is an indication of how a Trump administration would be run if, God forbid, he moves into the White House next January. And two, Donald Trump doesn’t admit errors or apologize, and so Paul Manafort is trying to call the Melania plagiarism story “absurd” and overblown and is even trying to sell the idea that Hillary Clinton orchestrated the whole thing,
I won’t be seeing Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon‘s Jason Bourne (Universal, 7.29) until next Monday’s all-media screening. It screened last night in Las Vegas, but to my knowledge no thoughts have been posted. I like the reported claim that Matt Damon has only 25 lines of dialogue. But I’m feeling a tiny bit crestfallen after hearing from a guy who saw it yesterday.
Recent insect antennae vibrations + Universal’s reluctance to hold the all-media until three days before the Thursday night opening suggested it might not be a totally wowser, power-punch knockout. Like everyone else I was hoping for something fast, crazy, smart and high-throttle. Now all I’m counting on is a riveting final half-hour. Then again it’s better if an action thriller delivers in the final 30 rather than peaking during the first or second act…right?
I’m not going to get into specifics but the last 30 minutes or so, which includes a noteworthy car chase in Las Vegas and a hand-to-hand combat sequence, are “exciting,” he confides. But that’s all that really got him. “They should have stopped at the third installment,” he says. “Or the third and a half if you count The Bourne Legacy.
Jason Bourne has “the same jiggly camera approach” — for years I’ve been calling it “Paul Greengrass shaky-cam” — but “there’s too much high-tech bullshit” when they’re chasing him in the earlier portions.
“The first 90 minutes is basically Tommy Lee Jones and Alicia Vikander in some control room, booting up instant feeds and deploying all sorts of facial-recognition software and other high-tech tricks. Vikander is the only one who gets to do anything interesting; Jones mostly spends his time glowering and barking orders.
With the Jason Bourne hype increasing and the opening days away (Friday, 7.29), more and more journos are reviewing the four-film Bourne franchise. It’s telling that no one wants to include Tony Gilroy‘s The Bourne Legacy in these assessments, and that Bourne auteurs Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon are on record as not being fans.
Well, I watched Legacy last night and I’m here to re-state that it’s not half bad. Here are portions from my 8.6.12 review — nearly four years ago.
“Tony Gilroy‘s The Bourne Legacy is a respectable 7.5 compared to the 8.5 or 9 that is Paul Greengrass‘s Bourne Ultimatum. That’s definitely not a putdown as I felt fully engaged and occasionally revved by this fourth installment. I just wasn’t floored or super-throttled. It didn’t leave me breathless, but I wasn’t the least bit bored and I took no texting or bathroom breaks.
“You can bitch if you want, but Legacy is what it is — a smart, cagey, nimble and well-crafted Bourne flick without Matt Damon but with the steely and severe and highly expressive Jeremy Renner.
“But Gilroy is capable of much more than delivering a Bourne-eo follow-up to two Greengrasses and one Doug Liman. He’s a highly efficient helmer who knows from high-end coolness, and who lives in a refined and sophisticated realm, etc.. The comfort and excitement levels are considerable in Legacy, but I wanted something deeper, crazier, darker, stranger. Or more layered. Or dryer. Because Gilroy is Gilroy. He’s no sequel-izer bunny.
