Day: March 13, 2017

L.A. Times forecaster Glenn Whipp has posted a list of ten 2017 films that might become Best Picture favorites among the Gurus of Gold and Gold Derby-ites (and therefore among Academy and guild members) nine or ten months hence. I’ve had most of the same films posted in HE’s Oscar Balloon since last January, but let’s review Whipp’s choices before reconsidering my own:

1. Michael Showalter‘s The Big Sick (Amazon/Lionsgate, 6.23). Cast: Kumail Nanjiani, Ray Romano, Holly Hunter, Zoe Kazan. Whipp’s rationale: Romcoms generally don’t end up as Best Picture nominees, but this one is smarter, hipper and more cross-pollinating with Nanjiani co-writing as well as playing himself. Plus L.A. Times critic Justin Chang wet himself when he saw it at Sundance so it must be a Best Picture hottie.

Wells verdict: Sick was the second best film I saw at Sundance (Call Me By Your Name was #1) but it’s looking at an uphill struggle as a Best Picture contender. Not because it isn’t good, but because (a) no one will ever remember Nanjiani’s name much less how to spell it, and (b) Kazan’s character, based on Nanjiani’s wife and co-writer Emily Gordon, gets too angry at him for too long a period — she freezes Nanjiani out for nearly two-thirds of the running time, and mostly because he doesn’t stand up to his dictatorial Pakistani mom by confessing that he has a white, non-Muslim girlfriend. Even after Kazan forgives him at the finale you’re thinking, “What happens when he fucks up the next time? Will she freeze him out for a year or divorce him or hire a couple of goons to beat him up?” Kazan is too much of a hard-ass. The audience is kept in limbo for too long.

2. Chris Nolan‘s Dunkirk (Warner Bros., 7.21). Cast: Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Harry Styles, Fionn Whitehead. Whipp’s rationale: Dunkirk will probably resonate with boomer-aged Academy members (whose parents were the vanguard of the WWII generation) and Nolan will knock it out of the park scale-wise, verisimilitude-wise, IMAX-wise…expect him to “capture every inch of the rescue’s horror and triumph,” especially with Hoyte van Hoytema shooting and Hans Zimmer scoring.

Wells verdict: The late July release obviously won’t help, and the movie may only register as a logistical or technical triumph if it doesn’t have character arcs and performances that stick to the ribs. Nolan wrote the script so these aspects will be on him. Then again this is his first stab at history and realism, and it therefore might be interesting. Will Dunkirk make the cut? Let’s say “maybe” for now. If Warner Bros. decides against previewing it in Cannes, the know-it-alls will begin to whisper that they don’t quite have the goods.

3. Kathryn Bigelow‘s Untitled Detroit Riots Project (Annapurna, 8.4). Cast: John Boyega, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, Ben O’Toole, Hannah Murray, Anthony Mackie. Whipp’s rationale: For the last six or seven years (i.e., since The Hurt Locker) the rep of director Kathryn Bigelow and producer-screenwriter Mark Boal is that they make nervy, drill-bitty Oscar flicks. Fait accompli. Garlands for the conquerors.

Wells verdict: The Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker put Bigelow & Boal into that presumptive winner category six years ago. If you ask me Zero Dark Thirty should have won Best Picture instead of Argo. The problem is that August 4th release date, which seems to send a signal to the blogaroos that Untitled Detroit Riots might not be an Oscar Derby-type film. But maybe it is. On the Bigelow-Boal brand alone, I’m calling it a Best Picture nominee. (I used to call them Biggy-Boal but no more; can’t think of another snappy term to replace it.) Still, that release date worries me.

4. Joe Wright‘s Darkest Hour (Focus features, 11.24). Cast: Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, Ben Mendelsohn as a sweating, grim-faced, Marlboro-inhaling King George VI, John Hurt as Neville Chamberlain, Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine Churchill. An obvious tour de force opportunity for Oldman in his portrayal of the legendary Prime Minister who weathered the Dunkirk disaster, toughened British resolve during Nazi bombings, presided over the D-Day invasion and soldiered through to Gemany’s defeat in ’45.

Wells verdict: An almost certain Best Picture contender unless, you know, it sucks. Wright is a truly brilliant director when he has the right material. I haven’t read Anthony McCarten‘s script, although I’m a little bit afraid of this kind of multi-character saga being compressed into a two-hour film.  It would probably work better as an eight-hour miniseries.

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From “Trumpcare Is a Historic Social Calamity That Would Deprive 24 Million of Insurance,” by New York‘s Jonathan Chait: “The American Health Care Act — i.e., Trumpcare — would deprive 14 million American citizens of their health insurance next year, a number that would rise to 24 million by the end of the decade. It is a proposal that could only be enacted by a party in the grips of an combination of ideological and partisan fanaticism unfathomable to most of the world, and even to most Americans.

“The changes Trumpcare would impose upon the health-care system are easy to understand. It is, quite simply, a redistribution bill. It would reduce taxes on the rich, and thus reduce the amount of subsidies for coverage for people who can’t obtain it through their job or Medicare. Poor, sick, and old customers would get enormous cuts in their subsidy levels. An analysis quoted in today’s Wall Street Journal finds that, in one Nebraska county, a 62-year-old who earns $18,000 a year, who currently pays $760 a year for insurance, would have to pay $20,000 a year under the Republican plan. Which is to say, that person would not be able to obtain insurance, since the cost of care would exceed his entire salary.

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I’ve said that I won’t even flirt with the idea of buying a 4K Bluray player until the distributors start issuing 4K discs of classic or quality-level films instead of bullshit CG fantasy flotsam.

But I’m open to streaming. Last December I was more than pleased by the micro-detail in a 4K streaming version of Lawrence of Arabia that I bought on Amazon, even though it wasn’t real-deal 4K due to intense compressing. I’ve been told this version is probably delivering between 2K and 4K, but that the physical 4K Lawrence Bluray, due later this year, will be the real prize.

Five or six weeks ago I streamed a 4K Brownfellas, but I found it too lentil-soupy — too dark, too many red faces, too inky.

Last night I watched a 4K streaming version of The Bridge on the River Kwai, and I have to say that while 15% or 20% of it looked like 1080p with the color cranked up, 80% or 85% looked phenomenally sharp and vivid. From a certain purist perspective the detail and general vibrancy are almost too much as I’m certain that reserved-seat audiences at the RKO Palace in 1957 didn’t see images this clean and needle-sharp. I’m not complaining, mind — this new Kwai stream delivers an unmistakable 4K bump. 

Hell, I liked it so much that I bought it lock, stock and barrel, as I did the 4K Lawrence stream three months ago.

I’m also noticing that a UHD Bluray of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven will pop on 5.23.17.

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225 years ago Alexander Hamilton, in an essay titled “Objections and Answers Respecting the Administration,” described a certain type of malignant personality that governments are forced to cope with from time to time. The applicable terms are “prescience” and “foreknowledge.”

I don’t trust that James Franco‘s The Disaster Artist (Warner Bros., opening later this year) was euphorically embraced yesterday at South by Southwest. One, SXSW audiences are notoriously easy — they’ll go apeshit for almost anything edgy or geeky. And two, it’s the easiest thing in the world to poke fun at a no-talent filmmaker. Laughing at cluelessness allows the audience to smugly imagine that they’re better (or at least potentially better) than the object of derision. and that shit has always turned me off.

In this case the schmuck is an actual guy named Tommy Wiseau. Director-star Franco (i.e., the elder) plays Wiseau, and is “clearly having a blast in the role of his career,” writes The Hollywood Reporter‘s Michael Rechtshaffen

(l. to r.) Disaster Artist costar Dave Franco, director-star James Franco costar Seth Rogen prior to last night’s SXSW screening at Austin’s Paramount theatre.

Based on Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell’s same-titled book about the making of Wiseau’s notoriously awful The Room (’03), The Disaster Artist may, for all I know, be as good as or even better than Tim Burton‘s Ed Wood (’94).

But Burton’s film, remember, was about a guy (Johnny Depp) who so loved the hustle of Hollywood and the making of movies that he didn’t allow his complete lack of talent to get in the way. It wasn’t about a notoriously mediocre director (although it was) as much as Wood’s unstoppable alpha.

Burton focused on Wood’s openness, optimism and especially his devotional love for Martin Landau‘s Bela Lugosi…generally his all-consuming devotion to the wily game of commercial filmmaking. There wasn’t even a pinch of derision in Ed Wood, and that was why it worked.

Remember Franco’s “Alien” in Spring Breakers and particularly his “look at mah sheeyit” riff? Whatever and whomever Alien might have been on the page, there wasn’t a drop of compassion for the guy in Franco’s performance. Every line and gesture said “look at this pompous, predatory, drug-dealing dick.” Okay, I felt something for Alien when he died, but before that moment he was just a scuzzball.

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