Month: August 2016

The more I reflect upon Bill Maher‘s “Notorious HRC” riff, the more I realize he’s right. MSNBC contributor Mark Halperin said the other day that despite the manic horrors of Donald Trump, many voters still don’t trust Hillary. But in what context? They don’t trust her to restore honesty in American government, to be wholesome and transformative, to shine God’s light? Of course not. But they can and should trust her to be Madam Butch Boss — a tough, cigar-chomping “Ma Clinton,” as Maureen Dowd described her eight years ago. And there is comfort in that.

We’ve all been spoiled by Obama and that light around him, that aura. If there’s anything glowing around Hillary’s head, it’s the light of egoism and self-interest in that familiar political realm that everyone is so sick and tired of. She’s Melvyn Douglas in Michael Ritchie‘s The Candidate. But she won’t be pushed around. She plots, she connives, she negotiates like a sports agent and gives no quarter. I believe this is who Clinton is, and I therefore trust her to be that person.

“If the age calls for a strongman, Hillary in fact has the résumé for it. Like Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel, a woman who survives and flourishes at the top of this backstabbing business is surely made of steel. Donald Trump, in comparison, is rather a fancy man. But her obvious desire to be liked, and the hurt she feels that she isn’t (and, boy, she isn’t), have led her to try to want to be thought of now, in her reimagining, as cuddly, caring and inclusive. That may be a risky bit of self-delusion.” — Michael Wolff in a recent Hollywood Reporter piece.

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I’ve been a movie fanatic all my life (including childhood), and yet I never got around to seeing Fielder Cook and Rod Serling‘s Patterns until last weekend. And it’s an exceptionally good film — tough, hard, finely sculpted and very well acted (especially by the three leads — Van Heflin, Ed Begley, Everett Sloane). It’s about cold ambition and corporate malice inside a large Manhattan-based manufacturing company. Patterns is a little over 60 years old, having opened on 3.12.56. It was originally broadcast live on Kraft Television Theatre on 1.12.55, and was so rapturously received that it was re-performed a few weeks later. Richard Kiley played the Heflin role on the Kraft show [see below]. Some critics believed that Patterns was the best thing that Serling ever wrote. The only problem viewer-wise was the title — average folks no doubt wondered it meant. Earnest apologies for not seeing it earlier. A high-def version is streamable on Amazon Prime.

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I’ve been told that David Michold and Brad Pitt‘s War Machine, a comedy-drama about the Afghanistan conflict, will not open in 2016. Apparently Pitt, who is producing as well as starring as Gen. Stanley McChrystal, doesn’t want attention divided between Allied, the other war film in which he stars, and War Machine. I checked with a Netflix exec about the alleged ’17 release plan but haven’t heard back. I gather Netflix is thinking about opening War Machine simultaneously in theatres and on VOD (i.e., day-and-date). If the news is true I’m personally disappointed as War Machine, which is based on Michael Hastings‘ “The Operators“, seems like it may be an edgier, more interesting film than Allied. Besides Pitt it costars Anthony Michael Hall, Topher Grace, Will Poulter, Tilda Swinton, Jonathan Ing and Ben Kingsley.

(l.) Brad Pitt as Gen. Stanley McChrystal; (r.) McChrystal himself.

The Allied photo that popped this morning reenforced an impression I’ve had for several weeks now, which is basically that Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard are too well-dressed and too glammy-looking to portray a pair of hardcore killers. Robert Zemeckis‘ World War II flick (Paramount, 11.23), written by Steven Knight, is being described as a romantic thriller. It’s based on a true story about two assassins, Max Vatan (Pitt) and Marianne Beausejour (Cotillard), who fall in love during a mission to kill a German official. I can only repeat that they look too Vanity Fair, too wealthy, too comfortable. Assassins are supposed to sweat, fret, look anxious, hide in the attic, etc.

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Until today I had never even heard of John Braham‘s The Undying Monster. I happened to notice a cover design for a forthcoming Bluray of this 1942 20th Century Fox werewolf flick and did a little research. It was obviously overshadowed (and was possibly inspired) by Universal’s The Wolf Man, which opened in December 1941. Monster runs only 60 minutes, which is close to the length of a long-running short. And yet the dp is Lucien Ballard (Ride The High Country, The Wild Bunch) and the composer is David Raksin (Laura, The Bad and the Beautiful).

I’ve recently been developing a notion that Craig Johnson and Daniel Clowes‘ Wilson might be a fall/holiday release. Because it sounds good, for one thing, and would therefore “elevate the season”, and because it seems like my kind of film. You know what I mean. A smart, sardonic, character-driven, vaguely pissed-off movie that’s nonetheless “funny” in an LQTM way.

On top of which it’s a father-daughter relationship movie that’s not Toni Erdmann. That in itself makes me feel favorably disposed. Because it’s not fucking Erdmann.

Anyway, forget it. Fox Searchlight announced today that they’re opening Wilson on March 3, 2017. Presumably because they’ve calculated that it just doesn’t have that award-season schwing. Wilson costars Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern, Isabella Amara, Judy Greer and Cheryl Hines.

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I was scratching my head this morning about three big New York Film festival picks that have recently been announced — Ava Duvernay‘s The 13th to open, Mike Mills‘ 20th Century Women as the centerpiece, and now James Gray‘s The Lost City of Z to close.

My honest gut reaction was “these films don’t seem to radiate the upscale pot-stirring pedigree that NYFF selections have in the past. So what’s going on here?”

Ever since the 2010 NYFF launched with The Social Network people like me have been looking to NYFF films to provoke, get people talking and occasionally figure in awards-season discussions.

I’m sorry but The 13th, 20th Century Women (which I’ve heard stuff about) and The Lost City of Z just don’t strike me as rock ‘n’ roll. They certainly don’t match anyone’s concept of upscale, dweeb-curated, Amy Taubin or Dennis Lim-approved, possible-award-conversation-level movies that the NYFF has tended to favor in the past.

They seem to me like the kind of films that respectable second-tier festivals (Seattle, Savannah, Key Key West) would highlight and make a big hoo-hah about.

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The 14,000 Suicide Squad fans who want Rotten Tomatoes shut down because of the 32% and plummeting grade given to David Ayer’s film…well, forget it. They’re going to have to take it and like it. In fact I feel like grabbing those 14,000 fans by the shirt collar and bitch-slapping them for the fun of it. Suicide Squad is expected to make…what, $140 million this weekend? Expect a pushback from the loyalists. “Much better than those nasty critics are saying!” and so on.

I saw Suicide Squad last night at the Grove, but I refuse to “review” it. Movies of this nature only warrant riffs, and I’m being generous in saying that.

And yet I must admit I was mildly into it for about 40 or 45 minutes, give or take. This reasonably spritzy section is mainly about (a) a nifty opening-titles sequence, (b) semi-humorous character introduction and (c) plot set-up, and all through it I didn’t once look at my watch. Then the standard D.C. conflict crap kicked in and my brain melted into a mush of oversteamed noodles spiked with hot sauce. I looked at my watch about six or seven times starting at the 45 minute-mark. I moaned, I groaned, I shed tears of pique. I told myself “stick it out, don’t leave, hang in there.” But the process of soul-poisoning had begun and I began to feel sicker and sicker as the minutes wore on.

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It was announced yesterday that Benedict Cumberbatch intends to star in an adaptation of Geoffrey Household‘s “Rogue Male” (published in 1939). A simpler way of putting it is that Cumberbatch intends to play the great grandson of Cpt. Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) in a remake of Fritz Lang‘s Man Hunt (’41).

I like the idea personally but it sounds like an HBO or Netflix movie, at best.

If it’s theatrical do Cumberbatch and his producing pallies really intend to stick to the Household plot? Because 95% of the 21st Century audience would probably feel it’s too old-world, too slow and solitary, too lean and not crazy-GG enough. The only way to make it even half-palatable to today’s audience is to (a) set it in the present and (b) make the target of Thorndike’s stalking game not Adolf Hitler but Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS. If they did that, maybe.

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What I’d really like to see is a story of 90-year-old Jerry Langford, the late-night talk show star who was kidnapped by Rupert Pupkin back in the early ’80s. Jerry is semi-retired but still plugging away, involved in real estate and other ventures, still playing golf, still on the cryptic and blunt side, still disdainful when the occasion requires and is no one’s idea of a gentle or lovable fellow. And yet he’s largely unbent and, for an old guy, still full of beans. And he’s nice with kids and dogs.

Does “mean” Mr. Langford feel badly about still being flinty and not all that considerate with each and every person he deals with? Okay, maybe, but he’s ecstatic about the fact that he’s alive and crackling and living a pretty good life for a guy born in 1926. He’s on Twitter and Facebook and owns over 300 Blurays. And he has a 79 year-old girlfriend that he “puts it to” every so often (i.e., extra-strength Cialis), and he rides a bicycle and walks two or three miles every day and lifts weights. Who needs love, kindness and forgiveness when you’ve got your health? Langford pushes on! But watch out when he’s in a bad mood.

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All Vanity Fair cover stories are blather, but if you read them carefully you can sometimes find a line or two that hints at the truth of things. Case in point: Evgenia Peretz‘s profile of The Light Between Oceans costar Alicia Vikander. Peretz describes Derek Cianfrance’s film (Disney, 9.2) as “the kind of wrenching adult melodrama that Hollywood rarely makes these days, because it’s hard to pull off successfully — although they got this one right.”

Let’s imagine for the sake of argument or hypothesis that they didn’t “get this one right.” That the film underwhelms on this or that level. If so, would there be any chance in hell that Peretz or Vanity Fair would indicate this?

What unsuccessful “wrenching adult melodramas,” I wonder, did Peretz have in mind? Which ones have worked and which haven’t? A more thoughtful writer would have explored this sub-topic to some extent, at least, but that’s not Peretz’s job. She’s on hand to fawn, to spin, to convey glamor and fascination.

Peretz later states that there was “no room for restraint” in the making of Oceans, which is “based on a full-on weepie best-seller” by M. L. Stedman. She reports that the book had director Derek Cianfrance “crying on the C train in Brooklyn when he finished it.”

Seriously? Cianfrance told her that he wept on the C train? This in itself is cause for concern.

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