Month: January 2018

On This Fine Sunday

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Never forget that the real cancer of American culture is not Donald Trump, not really. The consequences of a grotesque, dementia-afflicted sociopath in the Oval Office have been terrible all around, obviously, but the fundamental ground-level evil lies in that sad mass of rural, low-information lowlifes who voted him in.

They’re in great pain, yes, but they’ve demonstrated time and again they’d rather slit their throats than vote for their own interests. Democratic process- and institution-wise they’re emotionally disturbed sociopaths. They don’t give a damn about anything but how miserable they feel and how much they hate the economic and social realities of the 21st Century, and the great tribal loyalty they feel for that swaggering, bloviating, golf-obsessed turd — a guy who almost certainly smirks or shrugs his shoulders at their plight in private, and is playing them like a violin.

What do you do when cancer has invaded your body? Do you say “well, I may not like what this cancer is doing but I have to at least respect it…we live in a Democratic system, after all, and cancer cells have as much right to live and thrive as I do”? Or do you get chemotherapy and radiation and surgically remove the damn tumor?

In Honor of Aldo Ray

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The Salt Lake Tribune‘s Sean Means has finally nailed it down. The location of Park City’s all-new Ray theatre is the site of that big sports-equipment store (Sports Authority) that was there for years, a stone’s throw from the Holiday Cinemas.

The Ray’s upper floor is the location of a new Dolby-fied 500-seat theater. It’ll be roughly the seating capacity of the Library theatre and The MARC. The bottom floor will be for virtual reality razmatazz (i.e., VR, “augmented” whatever-the-fuck reality, mixed bullshit reality and outside-your-mind artificial bullshit intelligence).

Ray is located just across the parking lot from the “Yarrow” hotel, which of course has been called the Doubletree for the last couple of years. The 295-seat Park Avenue theatre, which is mainly for press screenings, is located inside that drafty establishment.

HE’s headline notwithstanding, the Ray is not named for the late Aldo Ray, a hot actor in the early to mid ’50s who was much loved by Harry Cohn. .

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Oscar Bait Movie Is Over

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Jordan Ruimy and I recorded a chat three or four hours ago, but the batteries in my recently purchased Olympus recorder died about 12 minutes in….brilliant. But two good things came out of our chat, and they both belong to Jordan, at least in this context.

Oscar-bait movies are regarded askance by younger industry types plus the new guild and Academy members. And this, Ruimy believes, is why Steven Spielberg‘s The Post never caught on. People smelled Oscar-bait calculation from the get-go, and they don’t like the mindset (an “important” story or theme done classy, aimed at 50-plus types, bucks-up stars and screenwriters) and the “game” of it all.

The 45-and-unders looked at this well-written, respectably made prestige flick with two boomer superstars (Streep, Hanks) and said, “Where is it written that we all have to stand up and salute Oscar-bait movies like little toy soldiers every fucking November and December?”

The fact is that two of the hottest Best Picture contenders — Guillermo del Toro‘s The Shape of Water and Jordan Peele‘s Get Out — are pretty close to B movies, or at least what used to be regarded as B-level material — a romantic monster flick and a dark horror-zombie satire.


Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (’56)

Jack Arnold and William Alland’s The Creature From The Black Lagoon (’54).

In the mid 50s the forebears of these films — The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Invasion of the Body Snatchers — never had a chance of any kind of Oscar attention, much less respect, but The Creature from the Love Lagoon and Invasion of the White Suburban Obama Lovers are right at the top of the heap today.

Ruimy also believes that Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri may start losing cred due to backlash articles that I, frankly, haven’t paid attention to. One is Matthew Olson‘s 1.8.18 Digg piece titled “Expect The ‘Three Billboards’ Backlash To Dominate All Oscars Talk — Here’s Why.” Another is a Maeve McDermott USA Today piece called “The Growing Racial Backlash Against ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’,” posted on 1.3.18.

And don’t forget Bill McCuddy‘s adamant declaration that “Oscar voters will not pick Aquaman.” Older, grayer, creasier Oscar voters, he meant. The under-45s are fine with Aquaman, as noted above. Ruimy also sees an element of vulnerability in The Shape of Water.

So where does that leave us? It’s possible that both of these Fox Searchlight pieces will lose a cetain amount of steam over the next three or four weeks, and that Greta Gerwig‘s Lady Bird will surge in and take the big prize. Ruimy also believes that Get Out might also surge and scoop up the Best Picture Oscar, but I won’t have it…no!

Son of Cropduster Junction

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On 1.12.16 I posted about a visit to North by Northwest‘s cropduster junction. Here it is again, and with larger photos:

Daryl H. Thornhill, grandson of Roger Thornhill, has paid a visit to a hallowed place — a place where his ancestor was nearly murdered by machine-gun fire from a cropdusting biplane. Daryl is standing at “Prairie Stop, Highway 41” — actually an area near the intersection of Garces Highway and Corcoran Road near Wasco, a suburb of Bakersfield. Right by the side of the road, in fact, and taking shots with his iPhone 6 Plus. The weather is sunny and mild. Dead calm.

A SUV appears from behind a far-off thicket of small trees. It approaches and stops about 60 or 70 feet from where Daryl Thornhill is standing. A rural-type fellow in a lumpy brown suit gets out. Thornhill and Brownsuit regard each other. Thornhill decides to walk over and break the ice.

Thornhill: Hi. (pause) Hot day.
Brownsuit: Seen worse.
Thornhill: (Beat) Have you ever seen a film called North by Northwest?
Brownsuit: Can’t say I have ’cause I haven’t.
Thornhill: Well, a couple of websites say they shot a famous scene from that film right here, right on this spot. 12168 Corcoran Road.
Brownsuit: Can’t trust what you read on the web.
Thornhill: My thought exactly. It’s flat out here, but otherwise the area bears almost no resemblance to the area in the film. No corn crops, no tilled soil, no telephone poles. The area in the film looked like rural Illinois or Indiana. This looks like….well, not classic farmland at all. Desert scrub, fruit trees. It looks more like the area outside Ravenna in Antonioni’s Red Desert.
Brownsuit: Red Desert?
Thornhill: Another movie.

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With Time’s Up Donation, Wahlberg Apologizes For Being Greedy

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Mark Wahlberg got the message — Twitter and the media-industry world had decided over the last two or three days that he had acted like a huge asshole for greedily exploiting the last-minute preparation to re-shoot All The Money in the World last November, and in so doing snagging a $1.5 million payday while costar Michelle Willams got zip.

And so he and his agency, William Morris Endeavor, have coughed up a $2 million donation in Williams’ name to the Time’s Up legal defense fund — essentially a “we’re sorry, will you forgive us?” gesture backed by serious dough.

I think Wahlberg has done the right thing here. He’s still who he is and many of his movies still suck eggs, but he’s stood up and atoned for his greedhead move and so has WME. Let it go.

“Over the last few days my reshoot fee for All the Money in the World has become an important topic of conversation,” Wahlberg said in a statement. “I 100% support the fight for fair pay and I’m donating the $1.5M to the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund in Michelle Williams’ name.”

McCarthyism Is Unbecoming

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Joe Berkowitz‘s “Time’s Up, Woody,” an article that posted in yesterday (1.12) Fast Times, calls for a recognition of an ethical line in the sand. I’m speaking of a difference between supporting and applauding the #MeToo movement, which everyone favors, and rashly calling for the career death of an alleged predator who has never, in fact, been charged or even half-proven to be one.

I fully understand the impulse to stand with #MeToo and throw spears on its behalf, but when the facts don’t support your allegation or position, you spears are made of brittle clay and you’re standing on shaky ground.

This morning I sent the following to Berkowitz by email. I’m also posting it here:

“Joe — Based on what little I know about the Woody Allen case, it is my opinion that portions of what you wrote yesterday about Allen were sloppy, partly dishonest and ill-informed. Your piece also delivered a whiff of McCarthy-ism. You should really wade into the extensive, very exactingly researched Robert Weide defense that was posted in mid December.

“The Weide article is, by my sights, fair, balanced, scrupulous and very exacting. A significant part of what you wrote yesterday was not. IMHO portions of what you wrote yesterday were straight out of The Crucible.

“There’s also Weide’s 3-part Twitter response to “every low-information ‘expert’ who insists that #WoodyAllen married his daughter (adopted, step, or otherwise) or that she was underage when they got involved, or that he was ever a father figure to her. #IBelieveMoses,” not to mention his Twitter page for the latest slings and arrows. — Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere”

“Worse Than Mere Insensitivity”

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“The solution to our current divisiveness does not live in the White House. Instead, we will find unity only when we recognize that in our current president we have elected, perhaps for the first time in our history, an enemy of compassion. Indeed, we can be unified not only with each other but with Africa, El Salvador, Haiti, Mexico, the Middle East and beyond if we recognize President Donald Trump is an enemy of Americans, Republicans, Democrats, Independents and every new child born. An enemy of mankind. He is indeed an enemy of the state.” — from “Donald Trump Is the Enemy of Compassion,” a Time essay by Sean Penn.

Fear, Anxiety, Aversion to Facts

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In response to Rebecca Hall’s statement about Woody Allen as posted today by Indiewire‘s Zack Sharf, I’m repeating what I posted yesterday in a piece titled “They’re At it Again.” Robert Weide’s 12.13.17 summary of the debatable 25 year-old allegations against Allen speaks for itself. For anyone interested in this matter, it’s certainly worth the 15 minutes it’ll take to read it. It’s all here. Any fair assessment of the facts suggests that Dylan Farrow’s accusation is, at the very least, clouded by uncertainty.

Cassandra’s Warning

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The Looming Tower (Hulu, 2.28.18) is a ten-episode miniseries about the ineffective tracking of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, due in part to actual blocking of this effort by the Bush administration. It focuses on former FBI agent and late counter-terrorism expert John O’Neill (Jeff Daniels). After leaving the FBI in ’01 O’Neill become the head of security at the World Trade Center. He died from the collapse of the North Tower during the 9/11 attacks. The series is exec produced by Dan Futterman, Alex Gibney and Wright. Futterman also wrote the script. The costars are Peter Sarsgaard, Wrenn Schmidt, Michael Stuhlbarg, Bill Camp, Alec Baldwin, Ella Rae Peck and Jennifer Dundas.

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Trump To Porn Star: “Me Want Fucky Sucky”

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The Wall Street Journal‘s Michael Rothfeld and Joe Palazzolo reported this afternoon that just before the November 2016 election Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen “arranged” a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels (actual name: Stephanie Clifford) in order to keep her from yappity-yap-yapping about a one-off sexual encounter with future President Trump ten years earlier, or in July 2006.

The Journal reports that Clifford had planned to spill the beans with Good Morning America not long before the 11.16 Presidential election, but Trump attorney Michael Cohen stepped in and euphemistically said, “Okay, honey, here’s the money so no more funny with the GMA guys,” or words to that effect.

Trump and Clifford apparently enjoyed each other’s company after meeting at a July 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe.

If late Full Metal Jacket screenwriter Michael Herr had written the Trump-Clifford golf-course scene, it would have gone something like “Hey, big fat billionaire…me so hohhrny…me do fucky sucky boom boom long time…you like me but you also pay $130K ten years later when I shake you down…me so hohhrny!”

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What’s Happened to Willem Dafoe?

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Last month it looked like The Florida Project‘s Willem Dafoe had the Best Supporting Actor race all sewn up. Starting with the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and into early January, Dafoe’s performance as a harried motel manager couldn’t stop racking up wins. He took at least 13 trophies from the National Society of Film Critics, the National Board of Review, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Toronto Film Critics Association, the Indiewire Critics poll blah blah. Okay, enough already, he’s got it.


(l.) Florida Project‘s Willem Dafoe; (r.) Three Billboards‘ Sam Rockwell.

And then five days ago Dafoe suddenly lost…what happened? Sam Rockwell‘s performance as a none-too-bright local cop in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri took the Best Supporting Actor prize at the Golden Globe awards, and out of the blue Dafoe’s mojo was no more. Last night Rockwell won again at the Critics Choice awards, and now people are wondering if Dafoe was strictly a finicky critics favorite but Rockwell is more of a rank-and-file industry guy. They’ve both been nominated for a SAG award in this category; we’ll see how this shakes out on 1.21.

Could Dafoe be the new Bob Hoskins? In late 1986 the likelihood of Hoskins winning the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as a lovesick chauffeur in Neil Jordan‘s Mona Lisa seemed guaranteed. After winning the Best Actor prize at the ’86 Cannes Film Festival, Hoskins — like Dafoe — won the same award from the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics. And then he won the Best Actor BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe…how could Hoskins lose?

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