Day: July 13, 2017

If there’s one thing we need in this world, it’s an HBO-produced, star-studded documentary about the power, glory and immaculate wonder of Steven Spielberg. Directed and produced by Susan Lacy, Spielberg will debut on Saturday, 10.7. I’m not saying the point of Lacy’s doc is to warm up the atmosphere and fluff up the bed on behalf of Spielberg’s The Papers (20th Century Fox, 12.22), but it certainly won’t hurt in this regard.

Lacy talked to Spielberg for 30 hours while collecting insights and recollections from J.J. Abrams, Leonardo DiCaprio, Richard Dreyfuss, Ralph Fiennes, Harrison Ford, David Geffen, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Holly Hunter, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Ben Kingsley, Kathleen Kennedy, George Lucas, Liam Neeson, Martin Scorsese, Oprah Winfrey and Robert Zemeckis. Is there a chance that even two or three of these guys will share something that isn’t totally obsequious and kiss-assy?

Imagine if Lacy’s doc was given to brutal honesty and was titled Super-Hack, and was basically about selling the idea that throughout his life Spielberg’s default instinct has never been anything more profound than wanting to get a rise out of Joe Popcorn, and that aside from E.T., Schindler’s List, Lincoln and maybe four or five other exceptions to the rule, there’s nothing wrong with banging out commercial movies or being the most talented and financially successful hack in Hollywood history. Celebrate that! Own it! No apologies!

Spielberg knows his craft like few others, but 85% to 90% of his films have mostly been free of any kind of singular passion or deep-rooted beliefs about human nature and how the world works or an underlying current of any kind. Spielberg is a Capra-esque suburban sentimentalist who believes in the goodness of American families, small-town neighborhoods, emotional moms, chubby kids, aliens cute and ferocious, happy endings, carefully choreographed action and wow-level spectacle. For over 40 years Spielberg has shoveled and the public has bought, and that’s why honest film historians of the future will regard him in the same light as Cecil B. DeMille and Mervyn LeRoy. Which is fine as far as it goes. By the way, whatever happened to Robopocalypse?

No one is happier than myself that the great Steven Soderbergh has returned to directing with Logan Lucky (Fingerprint/Bleecker, 8.18), which is just around the corner. That said, for the last few weeks I’ve been reluctant to share a slight concern about this blue-collar caper comedy set in North Carolina, but it won’t leave me alone so maybe it’s not as slight as I thought.

My concern is that the guys — Channing Tatum, Daniel Craig, Adam Driver — are too beefy-looking. Call me neurotic but I don’t want to watch a redneck movie in which the actors look like they’ve been inhaling chili dogs and french fries and chugging beer all day long. I want to see a fantasy redneck movie in which the actors look lean and muscular and well-buffed, like they flew in from Los Angeles a few days before the start of principal photography, and with their trainers in tow.

I’m not certain that Soderbergh told his male cast members to load up on working-class food for the sake of verisimilitude, but they sure as hell look it. I’ll do what I can to get past my discomfort with this aspect (Tatum’s bulk in particular — he looks inflated) but I will have to work my way past this…just saying. Did Burt Reynolds pack on the pounds when he made all those redneck movies that wound up destroying his career? No — he kept himself in shape.

The publicity guys are just starting to screen Soderbergh’s film, by the way. The first showing, set for Monday at 5 pm in Beverly Hills, conflicts with a hot-ticket IMAX screening of Dunkirk that evening so I guess I’ll have to wait a bit.

David Ayer’s departure from the new Scarface remake has reminded me of a thought that occured several months ago. I don’t want to see Diego Luna as the new Tony Montana, and I’m not saying this to be pricky or sound like an asshole. Luna is just not gangsta. Going back to Y Tu Mama Tambien he’s always been the mild-mannered amiable guy. He was steady and satisfying in Rogue One, but he doesn’t have that hungry animal quality that Paul Muni and Al Pacino had in their respective versions. What Latin actor would I prefer to see in the role? Gael Garcia Bernal, whose best role was in Pablo Larrain‘s No and who really lit the furnace in Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s amores perros. The new film, written by Jon Herman and the Coen brothers, will be set in Los Angeles. The producers are Dylan Clark, Scott Stuber and Martin Bregman.

In the category of Outstanding Variety Talk Series, Jimmy Fallon got stiffed this morning. Why did the TV Academy decide to nominate Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, Samantha Bee, James Corden and Bill Maher but not Fallon? I don’t know, hard to say — opinions?

Hooray for Alec Baldwin‘s Donald Trump inhabitings on Saturday Night Live, which won him a nomination as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series; ditto Melissa McCarthy‘s Outstanding Guest Actress nomination for her SNL portrayals of Sean Spicer.

Joe Wright‘s Darkest Hour (Focus Features, 11.22) will obviously have to stand on its own two feet. And it may well do that. Wright is a first-rate helmer. And how can Gary Oldman not come out of the coming award season with flying colors? Chamberlain appeases Germany, Britain takes a pounding, Churchill rallies his countrymen, etc. Dunkirk‘s brother-in-arms. Oldman’s delivery of the “we shall fight them on the beaches” speech is more spirited — peppier, more actorish — than Churchill’s. The only thing that scares me is Ben Mendelsohn playing King George VI. Seven years ago Colin Firth was the late monarch’s emissary here on earth. Somewhere in heaven George VI is sulking.

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