It was announced Thursday night that Michael Moore‘s Farenheit 11/9, a shut-down-Trump doc, will open in theatres on Friday, 9.21, or roughly three months hence. I don’t know how many screens, but it’ll be distributed by Briarcliff Entertainment, a new company formed by Moore and Tom Ortenberg. A 6.28 Hollywood Reporter story says this won’t be the same Farenheit 11/9 that was announced as a Weinstein Co. release in May 2017. (Whatever that means.) It’ll probably screen at Venice, Telluride and/or Toronto…right?
Directed by the “visionary” Panos Cosmatos**, Mandy (RLJE, 9.14) allegedly contains an epic Nicolas Cage performance. I say “allegedly” because I ducked this film during the recent Sundance and Cannes festivals. It just didn’t seem important enough to see at the expense of stuff I wanted to see more. But I’ll get there. Allegedly essential. Currently brandishing a 97% RT rating.
“As if its sole goal was to take the heavyweight title of Nicolas Cage’s Craziest Movie Ever, Mandy exhibits what Shakespeare called ‘vaulting ambition’ in producing the nuttiest ways for Cage to get into one phantasmagorical showdown after the next. Cosmatos’ full-out stylization complements it all, the director’s interest in scope and detailed production design leading to costumes, weapons and locations that elicit their own sense of wonder. Mandy shows an actor in his element and a director growing into his own, and we merely bask in this union in all of its cuckoo crazy glory.” — from Nick Allen’s Sundance review, filed on 1.20.18.
Earlier today a coding error distorted the design of an all-media invitation to see Dwayne Johnson‘s Skyscraper (Universal, 7.13). These things happen, no biggie. But the image suggested what things might feel or look like if Johnson were to accidentally sample the wrong kind of LSD during the making of this film, which everyone is calling is calling Die Hard meets The Towering Inferno. If this were to happen, director Rawson Marshall Thurber would need to find a calming LSD guru to calm Johnson down, and who better to handle this delicate task than Cary Grant, aka Captain Trips?
(l.) Skyscraper producer-star Dwayne Johnson; (r.) North by Northwest star Cary Grant.
The following happens inside Johnson’s on-set trailer. Subdued lighting. Queen tunes are playing gently out of a Sonos speaker. Knock-knock. Grant enters.
Grant: Hello, Dwayne. I got here as soon as I could. You’re looking wonderful. Johnson: Oh, hey, Cary. Good to see ya, man. (clears throat) Uhhhmm. Grant: How are you feeling? Johnson: I don’t know, man. I really…it’s hard to describe. Grant: Don’t try — that’s the first thing. Don’t attempt anything. Just settle in. Johnson: But I have a movie to make, man. I gotta muscle up and do the job. Grant: Rawson is doing the job. He’s the director. All you have to do is be yourself. Johnson: Uhhggghh…. Grant: You’re there, you’ve got it. Johnson: Hmmmmm. Grant: If you want to let it out, do that. And if you don’t, don’t. Johnson: But this is the biggest bombastic movie I’ve ever made. Everyone will be comparing me to Bruce Willis. I have to deliver. I gotta be better than Bruce, I mean.
“The only other big studio release worth taking seriously so far this year (besides A Quiet Place) is Sicario: Day of the Soldado, a potent and sharply focused sequel that arguably has more to say about the U.S.-Mexican border situation, and does so in a more nuanced way, than the original. Denis Villeneuve and Roger Deakins may have provided a few hyper-visual sequences that surpass anything on view here, but the sacrifice of Emily Blunt‘s protagonist provides Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin a lot more time to richly develop their characters, a trade-off that proves quite beneficial.
HE is looking to run more “friends of Soldado” quotes throughout the weekend, but with particular attention to non-pro viewpoints (i.e., ticket buyers). HE will be catching it a second time at an Arclight screening today, sometime around 5:30 or 6 pm. I consider it an honor to buy a ticket.
From Mark Ebner’s “Grey Zone’ podcast about Skip Chasey, aka “Master Skip,” an out-and-proud leather man and spiritually grounded leather fellow in the City of the Fallen Angels. A 6.29 Variety report states the following: “According to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, Duncan Gilbert, 48, died on Nov. 19” — seven months ago — “at Chasey’s home during ‘recreational mummification bondage.’ The agency first learned of the death this week, after it was first reported on journalist Mark Ebner’s podcast, “The Grey Zone.”
According to the coroner’s report, Gilbert was wrapped “head to toe in plastic wrap and gaffer’s tape, with small breathing holes at the nose and mouth.” It happened at a pivate residence on Holly Knoll Drive (north of Franklin) in Los Feliz.
Just passing this along. Hollywood Elsewhere has no comment. I wouldn’t know how.
Boiled down, Jesse Peretz‘s Juliet, Naked (Lionsgate, 8.17) is a half-charming, half-thorny romantic triangle type deal. It’s a bit curious and lumpy at times, but essentially likable.
Set in an English coastal town and based on Nick Hornsby’s 2009 same-titled novel, it’s about Annie (Rose Byrne) gradually disengaging from her dorky boyfriend Duncan (Chris O’Dowd) and his fanboy obsession with a disappeared, Glenn Gould-like cult-rocker named Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke), and gradually getting to know and then romancing Crowe himself, whom she meets online and then in the flesh when he travels to England to visit a long-lost daughter.
The film is basically about Annie recoiling from the realm of obsessive cult-rock fandom as she slowly engages with a flawed, aging, somewhat failed rock musician who’s already saddled with tons of baggage. On the other hand Annie is merging with an actual, real-deal artist (however failed or past-his-prime) instead of some website-running geek.
The problem for me is that neither Hawke nor O’Dowd are especially appealing in a romantic context, and yet Annie is obviously a looker and a catch. Right away you’re wondering how and why she got involved with the loser-ish O’Dowd in the first place, and then you’re wondering what she sees in Hawke, whose character, an admitted alcoholic, suffers a heart attack when he arrives in London and whose life is a mess, and who’s rather gray and creased and pudge-boddy with a wardrobe that’s basically “a blind man visits Goodwill”. (Hawke is 47 but could easily pass for older in this film.)
I was feeling a certain distance from the general story and situation, but then Act Three kicked in and Hawke sang “Waterloo Sunset” in front of a small gathering in Annie’s home town, and I was won over. Things eventually work out as you expect them to. The ending is actually pretty great, come to think.
