Go to the 36-second mark in this scene from Martin Scorsese‘s The Last Temptation of Christ, and particularly the moment when Willem Dafoe, sitting on the edge of a rocky cliff, says “I know what God wants…he wants to push me over!” As he says this the camera lunges over the edge and gazes at the rubble below.
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Chloe Zhao, director of the critically acclaimed The Rider, has accepted a paycheck gig to direct The Eternals, a Marvel film based on a 1970s Jack Kirkby comic. The screenplay is by Matthew and Ryan Firpo; Kevin Feige is producing. Zhao is the second female to helm a Marvel movie after Captain Marvel‘s Anna Boden, who is co-directing with Ryan Fleck. Cathy Yan is the first Asian-American woman to direct a superhero movie with Warner Bros./DC’s Birds of Prey.
[Click through to full story on HE-plus.]
Last night Variety‘s Chris Willman posted a photo of the now-touring Fleetwood Mac “after their official live debut last night at the HeartRadio Festival in Las Vegas,” etc. In response to which “Lindsey Buckingham’s Army” replied, “What band are you talking about, Chris? The new band Fakewood Mac, where Lindsey was fired and then trashed by IA’s main hand puppet Stevie Nicks? Also, what were you even watching? Or did IA pay you to write this dribble?”
HE to Willman or anyone who might know: What does IA stand for? Indefensible Assholes?
“Nocturnal Braying,” posted on 7.10.13:
Jada Yuan‘s Vulture profile of Stevie Nicks reminded me that my ex-wife and I lived next to her in ’87 and early ’88. Our homes were way up in the hills on Franklin Avenue, and I presume this was during one of her coke periods because I remember she used to sing late at night, and with a heavily amplified system that was loud enough to disturb our slumber.
One night it was so loud that I said “eff it” and walked over and knocked on her door. It was something like 1:30 am, and as I approached her home I was thinking of a phrase that some rock journalist had used to describe Nicks: “The epitome of the pampered hippie princess.”
A pretty boy in a white T-shirt and jean cutoffs came to the door and I explained the deal. “It’s a little late, man…you know? Up until midnight, cool, but not at 1:30 am…okay?” He didn’t argue and went “uh-huh” and “yeah, I hear you” and that was it. Nicks never shattered neighborhood glass with her sonic waves again. Or at least not so I noticed.
The Best Picture situation right now (Sunday, 9.23) is all about jostling, elbowing, representation and advocacy. It can be safely presumed right now that the New Academy Kidz, whose guiding mission and philosophy is to celebrate genre films whenever possible as well as representation and identity politics at every turn, are in the tank for Barry Jenkins‘ If Beale Street Could Talk, Spike Lee‘s BlacKkKlansman, Ryan Coogler‘s Black Panther and Steve McQueen‘s Widows.
[Click through to full story on HE-plus]
I admire and respect Quincy Jones as much as the next guy. He hasn’t done much since the ’80s, but he’ll always be cool. I was intrigued when I read that Jones’ ancestors include Betty Washington Lewis, a sister of president George Washington, and Edward I of England, and I loved that Vulture interview he gave earlier this year, and particularly an implication that Jones had enjoyed some kind of intimate contact with Ivanka Trump. But I had no interest in seeing Alan Hicks and Rashida Jones‘ Quincy, as I don’t enjoy kiss-ass portraiture as a rule. The first 44 seconds of the trailer are suffocating in this regard.
I would love to sit down with the 85-year-old Jones for hours and hours and listen to his stories, but his friends need to give that “oh my God, what an awesome, genius-level talent!” shit a rest…no offense.
HE-plus went live today. It will be a free, all-access, wide-open site for about three weeks, or until 10.15. Then the paywall will launch and HE-plus access will be yours for a small monthly fee or a single annual payment of $49. The usual HE output is roughly six stories (or riffs or reviews) per day. From here on I will post three stories on Hollywood Elsewhere and three HE-plus stories, and occasionally a bit more or less.
If you don’t want to buy access to HE:plus, fine. And if you want to pay for it, fine. Either way the daily content will be split half and half between the two sites. There’s no turning back now.
The other contributors I’ve spoken to (including World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy) will either step forward and start filing or they won’t. If some don’t feel like going forward, fine. I’ll just scratch them off and no harm done.
Please excuse the changing shape of the front page section — the integrity of the framework isn’t holding firm, and is shifting and squeeze-boxing depending on how small or large you make the browser window. I’ll probably have this fixed in a day or two.
And for whatever reason the front-page openings of each story aren’t displaying the html coding (italics, boldface, underline) that appears when you click through to the whole story.
Every new site has glitches that need refining, but HE-plus is in good enough shape to start rolling now. I’ve only been preparing it for six months. I was initially terrified at the idea of having to fill two columns per day, but if I split this three-and-three (or four and three or whatever) I’ll be okay.
I’ve said three or four times that Irwin Allen‘s The Swarm (’78) is not just the worst disaster flick ever made, but one of the most comically awful films ever made, period. The usual distribution strategy for a stinker is to cut it down as much as possible without destroying coherency. It was therefore odd that Warner Bros. released a 116-minute cut into theatres. But you have to really admire the decision by Warner Archives executives to offer a two-hour, 36-minute version for the new Bluray. A 156-minute exploration of the synergy between killer bees and laughter. You also have to admire how much richer the colors are on the Bluray.
Every now and then I’ll walk out of a bad film. Not out of boredom as much as an “irresistable impulse,” which is a rationale that Michigan attorney James Stewart used for Ben Gazzara murdering a guy in Anatomy of a Murder. Every time I do this I get ripped to shreds by “how dare you?” types. It’s very comforting to occasionally read there are fellow Gazzara types out there.
From “Beto and Ted — Who’s Ahead?,” a 9.21 Gail Collins column about the Texas Senatorial race between 46-year-old Democrat Beto O’Rourke and 47-year-old Republican Ted Cruz:
“Whatever else you feel, you’d have to admit this race has been darned interesting. Beside the normal fights over guns and health care and immigration, at one point the Cruz campaign called O’Rourke a ‘Triple Meat Whataburger liberal who is out of touch with Texas values.’ The state is still not entirely clear on what that means. Whataburger is a popular fast-food chain, and it seemed a lot like announcing your opponent was a left-wing Big Mac.
“O’Rourke responded by eating a Whataburger and then skateboarding around the restaurant parking lot. We definitely need more of this kind of cheery diversion in politics. People are already talking about a presidential run if he wins. Actually, Beto is so hot that people are speculating about a presidential run if he loses.”
I’m sorry but a candidate for the U.S. Senate skateboarding around a fast-food restaurant parking lot at night? This is huge. This is generationally significant. Has there ever been a serious Senate candidate who can whirl around like this? Before I saw this I was thinking “Beto could win.” Now I’m thinking he probably will.
Last April I read a 2017 draft of Adam McKay‘s Vice, the Dick Cheney movie. (The script was called Cheney when McKay typed the title page; it was later called Backseat.) It struck me as a dark political horror comedy with a chuckly tone. A friend who read the same draft calls Backseat “a mixture of McKay, Deadpool and Armando Iannucci.”
One of the distinctive aspects of the ’17 draft were a couple of scenes in which Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) and his wife Lynn (Amy Adams) assess their situation in Shakespearean verse. I don’t recall if there were musical scenes in this draft but apparently one was shot.
In any event Vice (Annapurna, 12.14) research-screened last week in Los Angeles, and at least one guy who attended was enthusiastic.
“This is powerful political stuff,” he began. “A very didactic, matter-of-fact examination of Dick Cheney‘s empirical rise behind the scenes.
“McKay has removed the big comedic set-pieces from the film,” he added. “Missing from the new cut was an elaborate musical sequence and a substantial scene of Bale and Adams reciting Shakespeare. As it stands, the film still works. Now it’s just a more dramatic Big Short. It implements the same style of filmmaking (flashy editing and montage). Bale commits to a transformative performance, and Adams has two early volcanic scenes that can win her the Oscar. Steve Carell‘s Donald Rumsfeld is comic relief. And Sam Rockwell‘s George Bush is little more than a cameo — he appears in three scenes. Plays him as insecure and fragile as you’d hope.”
Before Thursday night’s Old Man & The Gun Manhattan premiere, star Robert Redford walked back his retirement.
“That was a mistake…I should never have said that,” Redford told a Variety reporter. “If I’m going to retire, I should just slip quietly away from acting, but I shouldn’t be talking about it because I think it draws too much attention in the wrong way. I want to be focused on this film and the cast.”
The reporter asked Redford to double-clarify and he said, “I’m not answering that…keep the mystery alive.”
Hollywood Elsewhere interpretation: Redford may or may not be hanging up his spurs, but I suspect he’s been told by either his publicist or Fox Searchlight reps to walk back the retirement thing. Why, I’m not sure. Presumably because they believe that on some level it detracts from interest in the film. I would think that paying audiences might make a special effort to see David Lowery’s light-hearted period romance given that it might be Redford’s last shot.
Imagine Alan Ladd‘s Shane clop-clopping on his horse and riding up into the mountains. Young Brandon DeWilde shouts out “Shane! Come back!” Shane stops, turns around, looks back at DeWilde and does just that. “You’ve convinced me, Joey,” he says. “I’ll stick around. What the hell, the bad guys are dead.”
Two and a half months from now critics will be deciding which 2018 films will go on their ten-best lists. Please don’t forget to include Stefanio Sollima‘s Sicario: Day of the Soldado, which will definitely be on my roster. In my book it’s a better film than Sicario because it isn’t saddled with Emily Blunt‘s weepy, overly emotional, pain-in-the-ass FBI agent and is therefore more appropriately focused on Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro‘s at-the-ready commando guys. The critics who didn’t upvote it (and thereby slapped it with a completely absurd 63% Rotten Tomato rating) are morons. I still don’t own a 4K Bluray player, but I love that a Bluray has been issued in this format. I streamed it last night…perfecto.
“Not Best Drug-Dealing Drama Since Traffic, But Close“, posted on 6.22.18:
By the standards of a violent drug-cartel drama and particularly those of a sequel in this realm, Stefano Sollima‘s Sicario: Day of the Soldado is, for me, a serious knockout. I can’t call it a great film, but I can certainly tag it as beautifully calibrated pulp with a surprisingly strong heart. Given what I expected due to the somewhat low Rotten Tomatoes score of 68% (due to bizarre pans by Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich, TheWrap‘s William Bibbiani and Screen Crush‘s Matt Singer) it’s surprisingly, almost mind-blowingly good.
For me it’s much better than Denis Villenueve‘s Sicario, which was seriously compromised by Emily Blunt‘s tedious, pain-in-the-ass female FBI agent. Rock-steady, dead-on performances by Josh Brolin and particularly from Benicio del Toro and the young Isabela Moner anchor this sequel, which for me felt far more assured, poignant and suspenseful than the 2015 Villenueve film, which I never warmed to all that much. Not to mention more purely cinematic. You can just tell right away when a director really knows what he/she is doing, and this is one such occasion.