Month: December 2017

“What Steven Spielberg is really up to in The Post is preparing us for what lies ahead, possibly in 2018. The movie implicitly asks: If the war in Vietnam called for the Pentagon Papers, what does the situation today call for?

“As of now, we’re talking about two potential catastrophes: (1) the firing of Robert Mueller, which if it occurs over the next several months, with a Republican Congress in place, would provoke a constitutional crisis in which the essential meaning of American checks and balances will be hanging in the balance; and (2) the potential for the hostility between Trump and Kim Jong-un, the ruler of North Korea, to boil over into a nuclear conflagration.

“Faced with the prospect of either of those circumstances, what are the forces of American media going to do then? Publish some leaked memos?” Wells interjection: Or release the pee-pee tape? Back to Gleiberman: Or are they going to look for, and discover, a way to report on — and influence — what’s happening that transcends what their modus operandi has been up until now? Maybe the issue of the president’s mental health needs to be placed front and center in a way that’s only just beginning to happen. Maybe liberal journalists need to think of forging a revolutionary new alliance with Republican lawmakers, or America’s military leaders, to ferret out how privately aghast many of them are at the president they’ve now slithered into bed with.

“Obviously, I’m not implying I have the answer; no one does. But the point is that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. And that, rather than boomer nostalgia for a golden oldie of ’70s journalism, is the real message of The Post” — from “Why The Post Backlash Misses the Movie’s Real Message,” posted by Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman earlier today.

Hollywood Elsewhere has been attending the Fox Searchlight viewing and after-party at the Golden Globe awards for…what, four or five years? It’s always been held at a special temporary Fox pavilion tent adjacent to the Beverly Hilton, but this year it’s happening on a Beverly Hilton rooftop terrace, which I’m told is “much” smaller, and so guest lists are being trimmed. Yeah, I’ve been bumped along with other “press guests” and even some Fox staffers.

The party is held in honor of Fox Searchlight (which is having a big nomination year with Three Billboards and The Shape of Water), 20th Century Fox (All The Money in the World), Fox Broadcasting, FX, Fox Int’l, Hulu and other divisions. The Amazon guys are back in the Stardust penthouse again, and Focus Features (Phantom Thread, Darkest Hour) is having a GG party in the vicinity.

I’ve studied the FS viewing-party crowds over the past few years, and I’ve never recognized anyone. A lot of 20somethings, Fox staffers plus friends from ad and talent agencies, etc.

Why would the Fox family decide to hold their party in a smaller space when they’re enjoying a banner year in terms of nominations? To save money?

Despite the crunch I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the usual press suspects — Kris Tapley, Pete Hammond, Anne Thompson, Sharon Waxman, Steve Pond, Eric Kohn, Scott Feinberg, Kyle Buchanan, Tom O’Neil, Rebecca Keegan — will somehow attend the Fox thing anyway.

All The Money in the World director Ridley Scott has been doing loads of interviews over the last 12 days or so. In itself, his herculean feat of shooting new scenes with Christopher Plummer between 11.20 and 11.29 easily warrants a Best Director nomination. Will it happen? In a fair world, it would, but in the one we live in, probably not. The five likelies are Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape of Water), Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) and Steven Spielberg (The Post)…right? Which is why the Academy should break tradition and give Scott a special Oscar this year. I wouldn’t be hard — they’d just have to do it.

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For three or four years I’ve been riding a big fat Yamaha Majesty 400, which you might as well call a motorcycle. It’s large and fast and makes a nice rumbly-gurgly sound, and it has leather saddlebags and a mounted snap-shut carrying case on the rear. Between ’07 and ’08 I owned a BMW yellowjacket motorcyle, which wasn’t a substantially different thing except that it had a little more power and made more noise plus you had to constantly shift gears with your foot.

For whatever reason the foot-shift thing is hugely important to some guys. In their minds foot-shift vehicles are ridden by men, and non-foot-shift vehicles are ridden by dilletantes, and so anyone riding a large, Harley-sized, bloop-bloop scooter is somehow relegated to the realm of dandelions and dingleberries.

Scooters are smallish, Vespa-sized vehicles that sound like a swarm of hornets when you rev them up. If a two-wheeled bike is big (even heftier than some motorcycles) and studly and powerful enough to achieve speeds of 70 or 80 mph without breaking a sweat, it’s a rumblin’, easy ridin’, two-wheeled beast. Period, end of story.

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As a regular moviegoer have I shown limited interest over the years in films about characters who are not like me in this or that way? I’m probably guilty of this. Anyone who says they aren’t at least initially interested in movies that reflect their lives, interests, gender, income level and appearance to some extent is a little bit of a liar.

On the other hand I’m not sure I’d want to see a film about a married Los Angeles movie columnist who drives a rumbling two-wheeled beast and goes to film festivals. I know all about that. If I’m sitting down with a container of popcorn I’d rather sink into a milieu that feels a wee bit exotic.

I’ll tell you right now I would probably be reluctant to sit down with an early ’80s comedy about three obese, none-too-bright Samoan guys who work at the local Target and want nothing more than to party and get laid. Nor would I be all that keen on watching the story of a dull, pudgy married guy from Iowa who…fuck it, I don’t want to hang with anyone who can’t show a little dietary discipline. Seriously. People like that bother me unless they’re canny or clever or extra-witty, like Jonah Hill in Superbad or War Dogs or The Wolf of Wall Street….pretty much any Jonah movie.

But I will nearly always take a chance with well-made, well-reviewed films about characters of almost any shape, ethnicity, political outlook or income level, and especially those with drive and determination and higher-than-average brain cell counts.

I really am a sucker for Metacritic scores in the 80s and 90s. If I have an option of seeing, on one hand, a movie about a dirt-poor farming family struggling to bring in a crop in 1930s Texas and on the other a film about a dirt-poor farming family struggling to bring in a crop in 1940s Mississippi, I’ll probably take a chance with the Texas flick first because I’ve read everywhere that it’s, like, way better than the Mississippi one….no offense.

And I’ll definitely risk seeing a film about people who aren’t like me if they have at least one of two things going for them — innate intelligence or nerve. I can’t stand films in which the main characters are too dumb or stubborn or emotionally blocked to figure out the rules of survival and therefore can’t or won’t figure out a strategy that will move their situation along. As long as the main characters (even criminals or shitkicker types) have some kind of half-sensible plan, I’m on their side.

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If you want to know what was happening in the award race two or three weeks ago, check with the Gurus of Gold. They’ve always been safe betters, like retirees having fun at Santa Anita with their social security checks. They’re slow in catching up with trends and bends in the road. Cautious, stodgy.

They’re all still projecting, for example, that Darkest Hour‘s Gary Oldman is the likeliest winner of the Best Actor race. Not one Guru is betting on Timothy Chalamet? Oldman might win in the end, but Chalamet has clearly had the momentum in recent weeks. Are the Gurus even aware of this?

I’m cool with a majority believing that Lady Bird may win the Best Picture Oscar, as Greta Gerwig‘s film is one of HE’s three Best Picture standouts, the other two being Dunkirk and Call Me By Your Name. Yes, the vote for Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is very close to Lady Bird, but the Gurus don’t seem to be channeling a damn thing. David Poland and Susan Wloszczyna have Billboards at the top of their lists. A fair number of them haven’t even voted for (seen?) Phantom Thread.

Toronto Star critic Peter Howell is the only Guru who thinks The Shape of Water might take the prize. Howell was the only Guru who last year predicted a Best Picture win for Moonlight.

When I read the below tweet an hour ago, I told myself that if it checks out this might be the first thing this raging blowhard has claimed to have done that I half-approve of. I felt badly about admitting this, but if Trump’s Middle Eastern fighting tactics had really made a difference, I had to give him fair credit.

Then I read a 10.25 Washington Post article that evaluated a similar claim that Trump made on 10.13.17, which was that his administration had “done more against ISIS in nine months than the previous administration has done during its whole administration — by far, by far.” Reporter Glenn Kessler determined that Trump’s claim was mostly about exaggeration and hyperbole, although tactical changes ordered by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have “resulted in an acceleration of the coalition meeting its objectives.”

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I took this shot of a huge black-and-white fashion poster (possibly for Calvin Klein jeans) seven or eight years ago. It was right on Fifth Avenue around 53rd Street, give or take. Right smack dab in the middle of tourist-ville, and nobody said anything because the aesthetic was gayish without being queer. Last weekend artist Carolina Falkholt painted a huge red johnson on the side of a building on Soho’s Broome St., but it was soon painted over due to neighborhood complaints. I understand why Falkholt went there (she had the Robert Mapplethorpe precedent to consider, and she had to at least out-provoke Calvin Klein) but nobody likes queer art interfering with the general urban neutrality. That includes me.

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Variety‘s Kris Tapley has posted his first Oscar nomination guesses of the season. In so doing he’s helping to promote a scenario in which his favorites (which he’s presumably decided upon, at least partly, after chatting up Academy members) will in fact be nominated. He’s helping, in other words, to confirm their legitimacy and favoring odds. As many of us (myself included) try to do during awards season.

But I am really and truly stunned that Tapley is apparently hearing and therefore “guessing” that Woody Harrelson‘s amiable, low-key sheriff in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri as well as Richard Jenkins‘ emotionally frustrated gay guy in The Shape of Water are more likely to snag a Best Supporting Actor nomination than Call Me By Your Name‘s Michael Stuhlbarg, for his performance as one of the wisest and most supportive dads in cinema history.

Stuhlbarg’s fatherly advice scene with Timothee Chalamet doesn’t move audiences — it melts them down, and I’m not just talking about the LGBT community. We’re all read the comments, heard the stories. Stuhlbarg’s gentle speech is a Beatrice Straight one-off — the kind of scene everyone talks about. If there’s another scene in any of the big award-season films that has wowed people to this degree, I’d like to know what it is. Good and admired as they are, Jenkins and Harrelson don’t come close to matching, much less surpassing, what Stuhlbarg delivers.

And yet Tapley is suggesting that Stuhlbarg’s CMBYN costar, Armie Hammer, will take one of the five Best Supporting Actor noms — a nomination that has Stuhlbarg’s name on it! Sure, Hammer might be nominated. He’s awfully good in Luca Guadagnino‘s film and has certainly “worked” the town enough. But c’mon.

It goes without saying that The Florida Project‘s Willem Dafoe and Three Billboards‘ Sam Rockwell are In Like Flynn.

This is how I live my life, 1/8 of a mile at a time. Before I know it I’ve gone a whole mile without a blowout or running out of gas or being sideswiped by another vehicle. And then another mile. And then it’s time to crash. Pull over, I mean, and get some shut-eye. The sun comes up the next day and I submit to the same drill. Eyes on the road, sensible speeds, both hands on the wheel, etc.