Day: August 15, 2016

Universal Home Video and Martin Scorsese‘s The Film Foundation oversaw the restoration of Marlon Brando‘s One-Eyed Jacks, but Criterion, not Universal, will release the Bluray. The 4K digital restoration will pop on 11.22.

Extras include (a) an introduction by Scorsese, (b) excerpts from voice-recordings Brando made during the film’s production; (c) “new video essays on the film’s production history and its potent combination of the stage and screen icon Brando with the classic Hollywood western”; (d) a trailer, and (e) an essay by film critic Howard Hampton.

Posted from Cannes on 5.16.16: “The first-anywhere unveiling of the restored version of Marlon Brando‘s One-Eyed Jacks happened late last night, and it looked truly wonderful in every respect.

“Yes, that includes the aspect ratio. I’ve been arguing that the restorers, Universal Home Video and The Film Foundation, should have gone with a somewhat more liberal 1.75 or 1.78 a.r. instead of an announced cropping of 1.85. My tried-and-true “why needlessly slice off that luscious head room?” argument was posted time and again.

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For whatever reason, The Hollywood Reporter has apparently decided to totally ignore the Nate Parker Penn State thing. News cycles on any given story last 48 to 72 hours, at most, but when was the last time that both Variety and Deadline ran with the same incendiary award-season saga, complete with first-hand quotes and major inside-baseball racial reverberations, that the Reporter completely looked the other way on? I’ve said a couple of times that the 1999 Penn State incident is an old sideline story that has no bearing on Parker’s and Fox Searchlight’s The Birth of the Nation, which will launch its fall campaign on Friday, 9.9, at the Toronto Film Festival. It appears as if Reporter management feels the same way, but it’s nonetheless extremely odd that THR‘s award-season columnist Scott Feinberg hasn’t written a single word about it. Today Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeh and Brent Lang ran a follow-up marketing story, asking if Fox Searchlight would be amending its Birth of a Nation campaign strategy in lieu of the Parker hoo-hah. But it seems to be levelling off and perhaps going away right now, due to the combination of the Reporter‘s hands-off attitude plus there being nowhere for the story to advance or develop.

Yes, the reason that Suicide Squad suffered a steep 67% drop on its second weekend is that the second half stinks. Nonetheless a lot of people went to see it, suckage and all. Because some degree of suckitude is presumed from the get-go, especially from the hapless Warner Bros. Right now the worldwide tally is around $465 million with a domestic tally of $222,874,728 + $242.5 million foreign.” If it ends up with $500 or $525 million worldwide, will it be in profit? That 8.3 Kim Masters story in The Hollywood Reporter claimed that Suicide Squad, which cost $175 million to make and a pretty penny to market, has “got to do $750 million, $800 million to break even.” On 8.10 Pajiba.com’s Brian Byrd asked Edward Jay Epstein, author of “The Big Picture” (’00) and “The Hollywood Economist” (’10). “If the film grosses $500 million [domestic], the distributor gets $275 million minus advertising and other distribution,” Epstein replied. “[Those costs are] about $75 million. So it has at least $200 million foreign plus a back end (which will be huge). Ergo, it will be profitable.”

When Randy Newman wrote “I’m Dead But I Don’t Know It”, he wasn’t saying his career was done for. He was saying he’d grown tired of himself and all of his creations, and that he needed to somehow break new ground. I’m not trying to be cruel here but this dynamic obviously applies to movie creatives. Anyone who’s good enough to have made it in a tough industry can always rebound or find a new angle. But now and then we all run out of gas. Which currently working film directors are going through a fallow period? “I have nothing left to say / But I’m gonna say it anyway / Thirty years upon a stage / And I hear the people say / Why won’t he go away?” I could post a long list but I’m not going to. Let’s just say that right now Zack Snyder sits on top.

Honestly? I think I may have watched “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore” maybe two or three times. But I’ve been watching the-next-day YouTube excerpts of everything he’s done or said constantly. He’s a sharp, funny guy — a member in good standing of the late-night family. The way I see it, one good Larry Wilmore joke or moment is worth 10 or 20 of James Corden’s carpool karaoke routines. (Which I hate watching.) So I’m sorry, genuinely sorry, that Wilmore has been whacked. His last show will be Thursday night. I would like to replace him with the “HE Samurai Poet Warrior Hates & Peeves Show” — hating on something or someone in the movie/cable realm every night along with worship of things new and old that are timeless, wonderful and transcendent.

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Last night’s The Night of episode, “Samson and Delilah”, finally got going in a forward-motion narrative sense. The first five episodes were mostly atmospheric procedurals. Slowly and deliberately placed, they repeated the same idea over and over about how New York City’s legal system can grind an innocent man down, all but suffocate his soul and instill a criminal attitude even before his trial begins.

(l. to r.) Amara Karan, Riz Ahmed, John Turutrro.

Things picked up somewhat during episode #5 (“The Season of the Witch”) but now, finally, we’re starting to look at seriously plausible suspects in the brutal stabbing murder of Andrea Cornish. Besides, of course, Nasir Khan (Riz Ahmed), whom the authorities have imprisoned and are prosecuting, and whom we’re all presuming is innocent.

The three suspects are (1) Duane Reade, some kind of lowlife druggie whom John Stone (John Turturro) chased last week through some abandoned basement area; (2) Mr. Day, a thoroughly creepy mortician and limo driver whose Biblical loathing of women is revealed in a brief discussion with defense attorney Chandra Kapoor (Amara Karan); and, most intriguingly, (3) Don Taylor (Paul Sparks), Andrea’s stepfather who had been battling with Andrea over the inheritance of ownership of a home owned by her late mom.

On top of which Turturro’s foot eczema was miraculously cured last night by a Chinese herbalist.

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During a breakfast at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, director Guillermo del Toro said something about wanting to downshift out of the super-fantasy, design-heavy, uber-FX realm and focus on smaller-scaled, more character-driven projects. I took that to mean films in the vein of Mama and particularly GDT’s Spanish-speaking roster — The Orphanage, The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth, Chronos. Perhaps The Shape of Water, “a magical, other-worldly story set against the backdrop of Cold War America circa 1963,” will be a step in that direction.

Shape began filming today in Toronto. (Which means it’ll still be shooting during the Toronto Film Festival.) Costarring Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg and Octavia Spencer. The dp is Dan Laustsen (John Wick: Chapter Two, Crimson Peak, Mimic).

Fear factor: GDT’s co-writer is Vanessa Taylor, whose credits include Game of Thrones and Divergent. This guarantees a fantastical concept. Plus I hated Divergent.

Non-judgmental confession: The Shape of Water title bothers me a bit. As would The Shape of Air. It reminds me of the title of that book written by Paul Giamatti‘s Miles in Sideways — “The Day After Yesterday.” (Virginia Madsen: “Uhm…you mean today?”)

Apologies to the Captain Fantastic crew for failing to include it in HE’s Best of 2016 roster (posted on 8.12). It deserves to be there (“Intriguing, admirable, thoughtful, nicely crafted”) and now it is.

Repeating 2016’s top 15, in this order: Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester by the Sea, David Mackenzie‘s Hell or High Water, Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper, Luca Guadagnino‘s A Bigger Splash, Robert Eggers‘ The Witch, Gavin Hood‘s Eye in the Sky, Paddy Breathnach and Mark O’Halloran‘s Viva, Karyn Kusama‘s The Invitation, Bob Nelson‘s The Confirmation, Ben Wheatley‘s High-Rise, Sausage Party, Matt Ross‘s Captain Fantastic, John Carney’s Sing Street, Jacques Audiard‘s Dheepan, the first 50 minutes of Captain America: Civil War.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the title Hidden Figures doesn’t exactly go zing. Brainy mathematicians, Florida sunshine, soul music, Kevin Costner, clever quips, a little romance. Celebrate and salute, but I can see the scheme of this thing from a mile away.

The leads are Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe. I love that House of Cards and Moonlight costar Mahershala Ali is costarring.

Set in the early ’60s and based on a forthcoming non-fiction book by Margot Lee Shetterly, the film recounts the tale of three African-American women — mathematicians Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and colleague Mary Jackson — who helped NASA “catch up in the space race.”

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