Day: August 20, 2016

If you care to read Ted Chiang‘s “Story Of Your Life,” the 39-page short story that Denis Villenueve‘s Arrival (Paramount, 11.11)is based upon, here it is.

If that sounds too hard, here are excerpts from the Wikipedia synopsis of Chiang’s story, to wit:

“Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is enlisted by the military to communicate with a race of aliens — called Heptapods — who’ve landed on earth and are looking to learn and communicate.

“The Heptapods’ spoken language is known as Heptapod A (harder to learn than Japanese or Czech) while Heptapod B is their written language, Heptapod B has such complex structure that a single semagram (or determinative) cannot be excluded without changing the entire meaning of a sentence.”

Are you getting a feeling that Arrival is going to be a very cerebral experience — i.e., the anti-Independence Day? Which is good, right? Who wants to watch another bonehead alien-invasion flick? Why then do I wish that Jeff Goldblum was costarring in Arrival instead of Forrest Whitaker, who’s always hulking, panting and slurring his words?

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For some reason a trailer was recently posted for Julia Marchese‘s Out of Print, a 2014 documentary about West Hollywood’s New Beverly cinema. The 87-minute valentine to 35mm film-geek culture is rentable or buyable on Amazon. Marchese was cut loose from the Beverly sometime in late 2014 when owner Quentin Tarantino brought in new management and instituted a 35mm-only screening policy. I’ve said time and again that I love the fact that the New Beverly is alive and well and showing 35mm, but I don’t care for the theatre (too tunnel-like, too long of a throw) and I don’t relate to the film bums who hang out there.

August is generally a slow time for movie columnists. I therefore understand why New Yorker critic-essayist Richard Brody posted an 8.17 essay about the wonder of Alfred Hitchcock‘s Marnie (’64), which I regard as Hitchcock’s worst by a country mile. Last year I posted two essays that argued with Brody’s astounding thesis that Marnie is, in fact, Hitchcock’s best. (The first appeared on 4.16.15, the second on 7.23.15.) I’ve nothing to add but Brody’s latest Marnie essay can’t go unchallenged.

“Don’t Marnie Me,” 4.15.15: “Three days ago I nearly fell out of my chair when I noticed a Twitter dispute among some Alfred Hitchcock devotees (including occasional HE gadfly Glenn Kenny) about who had been more influential in restoring the reputation of Hitchcock’s Marnie — New Yorker contributor-columnist Richard Brody (a.k.a., tinyfrontrow) or the late Robin Wood, whose fascinating interpretations in his 1965 book “Hitchcock’s Films” did a lot to advance the belief that Hitchcock was a major mainstream artist.

“Given that Marnie is still a ghastly thing to sit through (I tried doing so a couple of years ago), I wasn’t aware that Marnie‘s reputation had ever been restored. But that’s the foo-foo crowd for you, encamped and gathering firewood on their own tight little island.

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Last night I joined four friendos (HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko, David Scott Smith, Russian filmmaker Nick Sarkisov and Svet’s visiting niece, Natasha Radisic) for a visit to WeHo’s Improv Cafe, which I hadn’t been to in 22 or 23 years. ($25 a person plus drinks.) The show wasn’t the usual standup stuff but Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman‘s Hollywood Babble-0n, a sitting-down-and shooting-the-shit routine that they perform with some regularity. Agreeable, good-natured, occasional hilarious.

Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman during one of their “Hollywood Babble-on” Improv routines.

(l. to r.) HE homies Natasha Radisic, Svetlana Cvetko, Nick Sarkisov, David Scott Smith.

HE regulars know that for two years (8.02 to 8.04) I wrote a twice-weekly version of the column for Smith’s Movie Poop Shoot site. He paid me a modest salary. I never liked writing for a site with the word “poop” in the URL but I sucked it in and did the job.

I was hanging in Paris in June of ’04 when Kevin called to inform that he had to cut me loose. He said I’d be paid one final month’s salary, covering July. I knew then and there I had to launch and operate HE on my own. I’d have to learn HTML coding and figure out how to sell advertising, but the internet economy was starting to bounce back and I knew it could work.

But I needed more than a month to get things rolling so I called Kevin a week later and asked for an extra month’s salary. And without blinking an eye he said “okay.” That gave me the necessary time to learn what I had to learn and attend to the dozens upon dozens of details that any start-up requires. I’ve never forgotten Smith’s generosity. Let no one say in my presence that he’s not a mensch. From one New Jersey guy to another…cheers.

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