Month: May 2018

If you’re paying $18 for a movie ticket, as I did the other night at the Arclight to see First Reformed, why not make it $20? You plus your girlfriend/wife or kid and you’ve spent $36. Popcorn and whatnot is another $10 or $12 each — call it $60. Plus whatever you’re paying for parking. Going out to a movie used to be a relatively cheap date. And these days most of the films in the big plexes are shit so is anyone surprised that attendance is down?

I realize that Joe Shrapnel has written about subjects other than war and violence — his credits include Against All Enemies, Circle of Treason, Live Die Repeat and Repeat, Race, Frankie & Alice — but I would imagine he experienced some career difficulty. “Joe Shrapnel wants to write a tender love story or a screenplay about young kids…how would that work?” I would imagine that having that last name is like being named “Sue” by Johnny Cash or being called Joe Machine Gun or Joe Flame Thrower.

Robert F. Kennedy, whose appeal was so galvanizing that even the bumblefucks of the late ’60s (i.e., voters who later flocked to George Wallace in ’72) were supporting him, was shot to death in Los Angeles almost exactly 50 years ago. The anniversary happens on Monday, 6.4.18.** As with so many things, I doubt if many Millennials have paid attention to the RFK thing or will care all that much about this somber occasion. Certainly not Generation Z. They have enough aggravation.

This country was rocked hard for just over two months (precisely 64 days) in the spring or ’68. First came the elation among the antiwar left — call it euphoria — that followed Lyndon Johnson‘s decision not to run for president, which he announced on 3.31.68. Then the horror of Martin Luther King‘s assassination four days later, on 4.4.68. And then RFK’s murder exactly 60 days after that.

The tone of things turned bitter when Kennedy finally died in the wee hours of 6.6. Everyone deflated. People couldn’t stop shaking their heads. That funeral service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the people standing by the tracks as the funeral train (NYC to Washington, D.C.) rode by, etc. All of it. Everything was dark and forlorn.

And then Richard Nixon beat the spineless, wishy-washy, LBJ-fellating Hubert Humphrey, and the dog-whistle Southern Strategy become the Republican playbook, etc.

** RFK was actually shot just after midnight on 6.5.68.

I got started late today because of a spotty sleeping night. And I’m accompanying Tatyana to the dreaded Cole Avenue DMV (God, I hate that place) at 1:30 pm so she can take her written driving test. I have an hour left before we leave so my usual quota of stories (five or six) will be on the short side, I’m afraid, although I’ll probably jump into things later this afternoon.

I awoke at 5:15 am (I so love that feeling of pre-dawn solace and serenity) but crashed again at 7:30 am. I could have started workthat getting required sleep is more important than doing the work, so it’s partly her fault.

From “Will Dormer vs. Fitful Sleep,” posted on 1.3.18: “For decades my sleep pattern was to get about six hours, midnight or 1 am to 6 or 7 am. Over the last couple of years I’ve taken a one-hour nap around 2 or 3 pm on the couch. But every now and then (i.e., usually when I’m really stressed about something) I’ll become a fitful sleeper, and that means a 3 or 3:30 or 4 am wake-up, which always results in (a) moving to the living room couch for a 90-to-120-minute Twitter session. (b) finally returning to sleep around 6 or 6:30 am, and (c) waking again at 9 or even 9:30 or 10 am.

In short, I go through periods in which I am almost Al Pacino in Insomnia. But not quite.

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I’m sorry but this is a really superb, beautifully written third-act scene. Not to mention the acting. Jig’s up, end of my rope, gas tank empty, I’m done but thanks anyway. Perfect in every way.

Last night I caught a screening of Baltasar Kormakur‘s Adrift, a not-great, not-bad, survival-at-sea drama that’s based on an actual early ’80s saga, and more particularly “Red Sky at Mourning: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Survival at Sea” by Tami Oldham Ashcraft and Susea McGearhart. It’s not a time-waster or a throwaway, but I didn’t respect it in the end. And neither will you.

You can tell right away that Adrift wants to deliver coo-coo romantic vibes for its target audience (i.e., younger women, couples). Loving currents first and surviving nature’s wrath second. The sailor-lovers are played by Shailene Woodley (as Oldham) and the good-looking Sam Claflin (as her bearded boyfriend and sailing partner Richard Sharp). The filmmakers wanted to milk the bejeesus out of that togetherness, that “I love you more than life itself” stuff. And that they did.

This strategic determination, crafted by screenwriters Aaron Kandell, Jordan Kandell and David Branson Smith and obviously agreed to by Kormakur, results in a significant third-act revelation or confession that reveals their lying, cheating hearts.

Adrift creators to audience: “We wanted to give you a film about a young, loving, struggling-to-survive couple, and we did that for the most part so too effing bad if we flim-flammed you. Get over it. Life is full of fake-outs and people dealing from the bottom of the deck. We didn’t do anything that bad. Have some more popcorn.”

At the very least Adrift reminds you how much better All Is Lost was, is and always will be. All hail J.C. Chandor and Robert Redford for delivering a stone classic of this realm. Anyone who sees All Is Lost and goes “yeah, not bad, decent” needs to get his/her pipes cleaned. It’s made of landmark, classic, world-class stuff, and is most definitely a metaphor for the struggle and the loneliness and sometimes the feelings of futility that comes with late-period aging (which I got from the experience of my parents when they hit their 80s).

If you ask me this is a classic New York City tabloid headline, right up there with STACKO! [after the jump], BRIDE OF JACKOSTEIN (a 1996 N.Y. Daily News headline), HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR, SAM SLEEPS, etc. Kim Thong Un!

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Sanders to young journalist: “As a kid, and certainly as a parent, there is nothing that could be more terrifying for a kid to go to school and not feel safe. So I’m sorry that you feel that way. But I’ll be honest with you. This administration hasn’t the slightest interest in doing anything to make schools safer from random shooters. Not a damn thing except for helping schools to arm teachers. Arming and training teachers to shoot straight and true. That’s all we’re interested in doing. We’re not interested in restricting access to firearms, period. If some of your classmates get shot up, God forbid, all you’re going to get from us is ‘thoughts and prayers.'”

Listen to this clip and, without Googling, tell me the name of the film, the director and the name of the guy speaking. Again, the mp3.

Topliners: 1. Damien Chazelle‘s First Man, a space drama about NASA’s Duke of Dullness, Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Corey Stoll, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke); 2. Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma (Marina de Tavira, Marco Graf, Yalitza Aparicio, Daniela Demesa, Enoc Leaño, Daniel Valtierra); 3. Adam McKay‘s Backseat (w. Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell); 4. Terrence Malick‘s Radegund (August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Michael Nyqvist, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jürgen Prochnow, Bruno Ganz); 5. Bjorn Runge‘s The Wife (Glenn Close‘s Best Actress campaign + Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Annie Starke. Max Irons).

6. Bradley Cooper‘s A Star Is Born, w/ Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, and Dave Chappelle. 7. Felix von Groeningen‘s Beautiful Boy with Steve Carell and Timothy Chalamet; 8. Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On The Basis of Sex; 9. Saoirse Ronan in Mary, Queen of Scots (w/ Margot Robbie, David Tennant, Jack Lowden, Guy Pearce); 10. David Lowery‘s The Old Man and the Gun w/ Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, Sissy Spacek, Danny Glover, Tika Sumpter, Tom Waits, Elisabeth Moss.

11. Steve McQueen‘s Widows (Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Andre Holland, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell); 12. Barry Jenkins‘ If Beale Street Could Talk (Kiki Layne, Stephan James, Teyonah Parris, Regina King, Colman Domingo, Brian Tyree Henry, Diego Luna, Dave Franco); 13. Bryan Singer‘s Bohemian Rhapsody (15-year period from the formation of Queen and lead singer Freddie Mercury up to their performance at Live Aid in 1985) w/ Rami Malek, Ben Hardy, Gwilym Lee, Joseph Mazzello, Allen Leech, Lucy Boynton. (20th Century Fox, 12.25.18); 14. Luca Guadagnino‘s Suspiria (Dakota Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth); 15. Xavier Dolan‘s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (Kit Harington, Natalie Portman, Jessica Chastain, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates).

16. Spike Lee‘s Black Klansman (John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Corey Hawkins — Focus Features); 17. Stefanio Solluima‘s Soldado (Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Catherine Keener (Columbia, 6.29.18); 18. Asghar Farhadi‘s Todos lo saben (Spanish-language drama w/ Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Barbara Lennie, Ricardo Darin, Inma Cuesta, Eduard Fernandez Javier Camara); 19. James Gray‘s Ad Astra, w/ Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Donald Sutherland, Jamie Kennedy; 20. Benh Zeitlin‘s Wendy (was filming in March ’17, should be released by late ’18).

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I wasn’t invited to last night’s elite-journo screening of Ocean’s 8 but I’ll survive. It doesn’t sound like my kind of heist film. Seemingly as much about fashion as larceny. “Typical clever heist stuff,” a friend remarks. “Very entertaining.” I’m sorry but Anne Hathaway speaking the phrase “we got the giggles so hard” fills me with cold-blooded dread. The giggles. The giggles. Lordy, the giggles.

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