$72 for a 50th anniversary remastering of the stereo and mono versions of the Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request? Not happening. But I’ll never forget how Wes Anderson‘s decision to play the entire track of “2000 Man” during a third-act heist sequence in Bottle Rocket impressed the shit out of me. Does any lyric for any ’60s song deliver the prophetic ring of “I am having an affair with the random computer“? Mick Jagger > Nostradamus.
Christian Bale as Captain Joseph Blocker in Scott Cooper‘s Hostiles, which will premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. Set in 1892, pic is about Blocker and some other soldiers (Jesse Plemons, Ben Foster, Timothee Chalamet) escorting a dying Cheyenne war chief (Wes Studi) and his family back to his tribal lands. Could Bale be playing the great-grandfather of Dan Blocker, who starred in NBC’s Bonanza several decades hence, or is he just another rugged individualist given to blocking his emotions?
Yesterday’s Jerry Lewis meditations led to re-reading portions of Nick Tosches‘ “Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams“, and eventually to thinking about old-time, mob-influenced Las Vegas and the original Ocean’s 11. And I was reminded how that so-so film has (a) an excellent beginning via that Saul Bass main-title sequence and (b) a soulful lonely-guy finale as the Rat Pack shuffles along the Las Vegas Strip, their loot up in smoke. The rest is just okay. And I began asking which other films qualify in this regard? They start off like a house on fire and conclude in a poignant, just-right way, but mostly they just dribble the ball.
Suburbicon (Paramount, 10,.27) feels Fargo-ish. Middle-class milquetoast (Matt Damon, William H. Macy) up to no good, dodging the authorities when they drop by the office, a clever investigator (Frances McDormand, Oscar Isaac) on his tail, etc. Just as portions of Stanley Kubrick‘s never-filmed Napoleon turned out to be a warm-up for portions of Barry Lyndon, it seems as if elements in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Suburbicon script, written in ’86 but never filmed until George Clooney and Grant Heslov took the reins, were used in Fargo ten years later.
Two changes: Woody Allen‘s recently upgraded Wonder Wheel added to the roster, and a mistake fixed regarding Joe Wright‘s Darkest Hour.
It took me months to finally buy the Twilight Time Bluray of Karel Reiz‘s Who’ll Stop The Rain? (’78), but I’m so glad I did. The up-rez turned out better than expected. I’ve seen this Vietnam War-era drug-dealing action drama at least 14 or 15 times. I have most of the dialogue memorized. (“You know what I think, ‘on some level’? I think you’re the kind of wise-ass, twinkle-toes cocksucker who writes a tear-jerk play against the Marines and then turns around and smuggles a shitload of heroin into this country.”) But I’ve never seen Richard Klein‘s images look so clean and sharp and organically right. On that awful 2001 MGM “Contemporary Classics” DVD the opening ten minutes looked muddy and bleary — no longer!
11:22 am update, after peak eclipse moment in Casper, Wyoming: I was expecting to see total darkness like it was suddenly 11:30 pm, but it only got dusky. Yes, it was dark enough for the house, store and street lights of Casper to be turned on — cool — but the sky never became night, or at least not according to the video feed. I wanted to suddenly see stars. I wanted the same kind of moment that Bing Crosby experienced in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, but that didn’t happen. As with Jupiter, Hollywood Elsewhere feels let down, disappointed.
Earlier: It’s not the shadow of the moon overtaking the intense glow of the sun. It’s the astonishing gradations of light around us, increasingly diminished but unlike any dusky magic hour ever captured on film. That‘s what everyone will absorb and remember for the rest of their lives.
Last February Shawn Levy, author of “King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis,” recalled two face-to-face meetings with the late comic legend in San Diego, and then, some months after Levy’s book was published, receiving a spiteful handwritten letter. Just watch and listen. Lewis was no day at the beach.
I was no fan of Andrew Dosunmu‘s Where Is Kyra? after catching it during Sundance ’17. I called it “more or less a bust…a funereal quicksand piece about an unemployed middle-aged woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) in a terrible financial jam, and about a relationship she has with a fellow down-and-outer (Keifer Sutherland). It’s a carefully calibrated, well-acted, oppressive gloomhead flick that feels like it’s happening inside a coffin or crypt. This is Dosunmu’s deliberate strategy, of course, but the end-of-the-road, my-life-is-over vibe is primarily manifested by the inky, mineshaft palette of dp Bradford Young — HE’s least favorite cinematographer by a country mile.”
I don’t know anything but this morning a reader confided the following: “A producer [has] told me that Where Is Kyra? will be a 2018 release, most likely sometime first quarter although that’s not set in stone yet. But it will definitely be 2018 sometime, with no 2017 awards qualifying date for Pfeiffer. I know you didn’t like it overall, but it got great reviews from Variety, TimeOut New York, IndieWire and others, and Pfeiffer got rave reviews. It has 78% on RT so far, so it’s weird they’d just dump it in January or February. I think it at least deserves a December release for Pfeiffer. I doubt she would have gotten further than an Indie Spirit nom, but this sounds like a great showcase for her. Too bad.”
Timid drivers are the worst. I’m mainly thinking of people who’d rather sit and block traffic rather than risk being clipped as they try to pull around a driver who’s looking to make a left turn. But judgmental drivers are nearly as bad. Last week I was edging my way across the lanes of West Third Street, and a woman looking to pull out from the other side began frowning and repeatedly shaking her head. Performing her disapproval! I hate drivers like this (I never frown and shake my head at anyone), but they’re totally commonplace so what can you do?
A couple of days later I ran into a lethal combination — a timid and judgmental driver in one.
I was about to pull out of an east-facing Sony Studios parking lot (Madison gate) around 9:30 or 10 pm. But improperly because I’d nudged my way into the street. About half of my Mini Cooper was sticking out, but I was totally stationary as I waited for the light to change. And there was absolutely zero traffic on Madison, which is a four-lane street. Along comes a woman driver on my left side, driving in the lane closest to the sidewalk, and she comes to a full stop. “What’s she doing?” I said aloud to my two passengers. “Just pull back in,” one of them said. So I backed up four or five feet and the woman moved on.
In performing a freeze-stop the woman was (a) showing excessive concern that I might suddenly lunge in front of her, despite the light being in her favor and (b) acting out a form of judgment. She was saying “Oh, you’re so anxious to leave the parking lot that you can’t restrain yourself, that you’re halfway into the street? Well, that’s impolite and arrogant, and so I’m expressing my disapproval by stopping dead in the street. I could turn slightly to the left and just drive around you, but it’s more satisfying to come to a dead stop and just stare at you.”
I’m not saying I wasn’t incorrect by having nudged into the street, but this ridiculous episode would never have happened in Rome or Paris. Drivers there aren’t hung up on judgment and throwing little dramatic fits. They just drive around and go on their way.
