Day: February 27, 2018

I’m told there were “lots of walk outs” during Monday night’s Red Sparrow premiere at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center. Alice Tully Hall was packed when the film started, less so when the lights came up. One patron overheard while exiting: “Disgusting.” The guy who tipped me says “maybe Russia should have hacked the screenplay.”

All this means, of course, is that older, wealthier folks (younger, poorer types don’t attend posh movie premieres as a rule) are finding Red Sparrow a bit harsh, which was pretty much my reaction.

Jennifer Lawrence before Monday night’s Lincoln Center premiere of Red Sparrow.

From 2.16 HE review: “This is not, to put it mildly, a double-agent film with the finesse and subtlety of, say, Martin Ritt‘s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (’65), which was regarded as a rather cold-hearted piece when it opened a half-century ago.

“The focus on cruelty in Red Sparrow makes that John Le Carre adaptation seem rather mild in this regard. At every turn Sparrow says ‘try a little heartlessness.’

“Red Sparrow is more in the realm of Atomic Blonde, the period (late ’80s) spy film with Charlize Theron, minus the gymnastics. It’s an aggressively sexual thing, I mean, but is mainly about all kinds of physical brutality, including a pair of attempted rapes and two especially savage beating-and-torture scenes that would, in the real world, result in God-knows-how-many-weeks in a hospital.”

Looming Tower (Hulu, 2.28) costars Jeff Daniels and Peter Sarsgaard were asked by Meet The Press‘s Chuck Todd about whether they’d work with Woody Allen again. Allen defenders can repeat the same facts and talking points over and over but “will you work with him again?” has become a meme, which in itself tells you that the Farrows are totally controlling the narrative. Anyway…

Daniels responded creatively by splitting the difference. “It’s a difficult decision because of Purple Rose of Cairo,” Daniels said. “That movie will always be a great experience, a great movie for me, and he will always be a great American filmmaker. I got to work with him at the age of 30, and it changed my life. [That said] I believe Dylan Farrow. Would I do another one with Woody? The difficult decision would be to turn him down.”

Read more

Get ready for HE:(plus), a parallel paywall site that will augment Hollywood Elsewhere with extra material and new columns and whatnot. Seriously, no foolin’ — HE Plus will double the dramaquirk-factorangst excitement. Not for me, of course, but hopefully HE readers. It’ll launch sometime in April, certainly before May 1st. I think.

I’m jazzed for the usual starting-a-new-enterprise reasons — it’ll be “fun”, a creative challenge, a dog bark, a splash, an attention-grabber. It’ll be $4.99 mønthly or $49 annually. I could charge less, I suppose, but that would be embarassing. The new material will easily be worth a lousy $1.25 per week…c’mon.

Classic Hollywood Elsewhere isn’t changing or downsizing or anything like that. Everything will stay exactly the same, and for free as always. I’ll continue to bang out four or five riffs, reviews and stories per day, like I’ve been doing since August ’04.

But I’ll also post two fresh articles on HE:(plus) each day plus generate material for some new columns on some kind of biweekly, haphazard, flying-fuck-at-a-rolling-donut basis.

I’m contemplating a biographical column called MISERABLE WANDERER Over Half The Globe (i.e., all the stuff I’d write about if I were to sit down and write a proper autobiography, which of course I’ll never do because of HE🙁plus). A Bluray/streaming column called DYING ART FORM. A relationship column called YOU BROKE MY HEART, a kind of bluesy, world-weary, suburban angst-meets-Miss Lonelyhearts type deal. And TALK’S CHEAP, a forum for HE podcasts. Maybe I’ll implement all of these or junk half of them or whatever. I’ll play it by ear as I go along.

HE’s own Jordan Ruimy will generate a new column, which we’ve tentatively agreed will be titled RUIMY WITH A VIEW. Partly reviews, partly trends or commentary, partly undisciplined musings and incomplete notions…whatever pops out.

A Manhattan-based guy is thinking about tapping out an anonymous smartass-potshot column.

HE’s Svetlana Cvetko has suggested a section that would throw a spotlight on the most promising X–factor female directors currently pitching something or prepping a feature or currently showing a short on the festival circuit or whatever. (I know I’m supposed to avoid “female” but “woman” isn’t an adjective.)

And finally I’m thinking about a new Reddit-like, scattershot column called (a) IL FORO ROMANO or (b) HOLLYWOOD WELTSCHMERZ or maybe something else. It’ll be a kind of HE community bulletin board thing, and will be partly written or “fed” by any trusted friend and/or semi-professional acquaintance of Hollywood Elsewhere who has anything to say. I’ll allow these trustees to post directly without my input. They can post any damn thing as long as it’s not absurd or vulgar or pro-Trumpy or rancid or old-farty, and is reasonably well composed. If they spill ketchup on the tablecloth, they’ll be terminated…simple as that.

Read more

I’ve wanted to own a James Dean Rebel Without A Cause jacket all my life. My problem has been with the big collar. I don’t wear shirts with standard-issue collars — only banded collars (i.e., no collar at all). And I’ve said all along that I won’t wear a Dean jacket unless it has a similar thing going. Like the one below, a Labretta bomber jacket being sold out of England.

Has anyone ever owned one, and if so worn it with jeans and boots and a white T-shirt? Did you feel like you were wearing a Santa Claus outfit? Did anyone make a joke at your expense?

Read more

From HE’s own Jordan Ruimy: “I feel like we have to somehow reinvent the idea of art itself. I’d say more than half of criticism now rates movies, TV and books on whether they properly cheerlead for women, gays, blacks, etc. or whether they’re ‘problematic’ for failing to do so in some way. That is really all cultural criticism is now.”

He’s saying (and I agree with this) that film criticism has become a “pass or fail” decision about whether a film in question says the right thing or the wrong thing according to the comintern and the Twitter commentariat.

An example of a strong “pass” came nearly a year ago from Esquire critic Steven Thrasher, a reverent worshipper of Jordan Peele’s film if there ever was one.

Sample quote: “Peele doesn’t allow white liberals to view the theft of black bodies in a faraway frame of an Antebellum Southern plantation, nor to blame crude Trump supporters. Instead, Get Out blames the theft on contemporary, Northern white Obamaniacs. American liberalism, not just Trumpism, continues to make race by way of bodily theft.”

Really? This on top of “a film for the ages“? You have to hand it to Universal’s marketing team — they’re shameless, really going for broke.

Read more

Obits for famous people are often written in advance, and you know that somewhere in the first two or three paragraphs of Warren Beatty‘s obit-in-waiting there’s a mention of The Great LaLa Land vs. Moonlight Oscar Envelope Screw-Up.

Nominated for 14 Academy Awards and winner of a Best Director Oscar for Reds. The co-auteur of Bonnie and Clyde and Bugsy, and the ruling creative force behind Shampoo, Bulworth, Dick Tracy and Heaven Can Wait. Teen heartthrob star of the early ’60s after his Splendor in the Grass debut. One of the greatest nookie kings in the history of Western Civilization. And — history will never forget — the guy who didn’t know quite what to do when he opened a Best Picture winner envelope that said “Emma Stone, LaLa Land,” and so he handed it to co-presenter Faye Dunaway.

The snafu wasn’t Beatty’s fault, of course, but in the hazy fog of public memory he’ll never be able to fully rid himself of this world-class embarassment. Fairly or unfairly he’s stuck with it. Ditto Dunaway, Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel and the infamous Brian Cullinan, the Price Waterhouse guy who gave Beatty the wrong envelope and will forever be wearing a scarlet tattoo (“T” for tweeter) on his forehead.

I’m recalling all this because of Scott Feinberg‘s “‘They Got the Wrong Envelope!’: The Oral History of Oscar’s Epic Best Picture Fiasco,” which appeared on the HollywoodReporter‘s site on 2.26 and is part of the 2.28 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Great reading, an epic saga, a “howtheydunnit” page-turner.

The piece represents only about 1/5 of what Feinberg gathered together with all the interviews and whatnot. It took him “months.” The initial draft was 31,000 words, and “a lot of juicy stuff” didn’t make the cut, I’m told. I see a book in this — maybe a 50,000 word coffee-table book with all kinds of great photos and sidebars and whatnot. Hell, it would make a great documentary — think of it!

Read more

Out of 26 Gold Derby “experts”, eight (8) are betting on The Shape of Water winning the Best Picture Oscar — Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson, EW‘s Sara Wilkommerson, Susan Wloszczyna, Jack Matthews, Andrea Mandell, Gold Derby‘s Joyce Eng, Variety‘s Tim Gray and Rotten Tomatoes‘ Grae Drake.

There are currently eleven (11) Three Billboards believers, which reflects the fact that Martin McDonagh‘s small-town drama has been gathering momentum over the past couple of weeks and especially since the BAFTAs — myself, Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, Michael Musto, GD honcho Tom O’Neill, Bonnie Fuller, Fox’s Tariq Kahn, ESPN’s Adnan Virk, Rolling Stone‘s Peter Travers, USA Today‘s Brian Truitt and GD’s Thelma Adams.

And there are five (5) Get Out die-hards — The Tracking Board‘s Ed Douglas, Vanity Fair‘s Michael Hogan, Yahoo‘s Kevin Polowy, Fandango‘s Erik Davis and HuffPo‘s Matthew Jacobs.

All hail the character, backbone and general indifference-to-consensus of EW‘s Christopher Rosen, who is standing by Lady Bird. Of the four leading GD contenders, Greta Gerwig‘s period drama is far and away my favorite as well as the best.