Month: October 2018

Before today’s Bryant Park Hotel interview with Cold War director-writer Pawel Pawlikowski and star Joanna Kulig, I was told I couldn’t take my own photos. Which I initially found irksome but whatever. So I asked the hired photographer, a guy with a really nice Canon camera named Andy Kropa, to shoot Pawel and Joanna using window-light only, and to shoot them together and then Joanna alone. Lo and behold, the photos turned out nicely…voila!

The interview was pleasant enough but only lasted 12 minutes, partly because my digital recorder wasn’t working at first. We covered six or seven topics, and indulged in a lot of chit-chatting and cross-jabbering. I’ll expand upon portions of our talk tomorrow.

I explained to Joanna that I’m the only Gold Derby “expert” who’s included her performance as a top five Best Actress contender, but (a) big things have small beginnings and (b) I know what I’m talking about. Here’s my Joanna riff, posted on 9.25.

A saga of a difficult, in-and-out love story in Poland and France of the ’50s and early ’60s, Cold War is a stone masterpiece. It deserves to win the Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar — hands down, no question. It earned a huge, sustained standing ovation at the end of last night’s New York Film Festival screening.

Cold War star & Best Actress contender Joanna Kulig — Tuesday, 10.9, 12:45 pm.

Cold War director-writer Pawel Pawlikowski

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In Here and Now, Sarah Jessica Parker plays a singer named Vivienne who’s told early on that has inoperable brain cancer with a year or so to live. The film is about Vivienne grappling with the whole magillah of her life over the next 24 hours. Fabien Constant‘s homage to Cleo From 5 to 7 costars Simon Baker, Common, Jacqueline Bisset, Taylor Kinney and Renee Zellweger. Paramount will open pic in select theaters plus VOD on 11.9.

The “Michael Keaton with cancer movie” was called My Life. Directed and written by Bruce Joel Rubin, it’s about a youngish husband afflicted with terminal =cancer and at the same time expecting a child with his wife (Nicole Kidman). It ends with a gray-faced Keaton staring into the camera as he breathes his last…over and out. My Life was released nearly 25 years ago by Mark Canton’s Sony Pictures.

Up until yesterday there was some concern that traditional American loyalist types might be cool to Damian Chazelle‘s First Man (Universal, 10.12) because it doesn’t show the American-flag-planting moment on the surface of the moon.

But now that National Review critic Kyle Smith is calling First Man “easily the best film I’ve seen so far in 2018, a standout in everything from the acting to the sound effects,” has this concern about right-wingers dissipated? You might be excused for thinking so. Smith foresees it “earning something like eleven Oscar nominations next winter“…well, all right!

“First Man isn’t overtly a left-leaning or unpatriotic movie,” Smith writes, “but its reserved, interior quality (it actually ends with two people staring silently at each other) is consonant with the tastes of liberals, whose unease with flag-waving is richly rewarded by the film’s omission of the moment when Armstrong plants Old Glory on the Moon.

“Does that choice bother me? Not really. The movie’s focus is simply elsewhere, with overlooked aspects of the mission. Fresh, contrarian approaches to familiar material give First Man so much energy that despite its contemplative character, two hours and 20 minutes pass briskly.”

But hold up there. There are also signs of trouble from certain pockets of left-wing Hollywood culture. First Man isn’t emotional enough, some are saying.

I’m starting to fear, in fact, that despite film festival raves, First Man might do a fast commercial fade with Joe and Jane Popcorn.

A critic friend says “the H-word seems operative here. I know a number of people who say they ‘hate’ it. And I find that beyond baffling, because leaving aside the fact that I love the movie, what’s there to ‘hate’ about First Man?”

All I can figure is that Chazellle’s film operates so closely to the personality of the low-key Neil Armstrong that to some it feels chilly and remote-feeling and a little too tech-heady.

This isn’t a problem for me at all. One thing I really like about First Man is Chazelle’s refusal to do the Ron Howard thing by cutting to wide or establishing shots for standard perspective’s sake. Instead Chazelle keeps us inside the cockpit seat alongside Neil almost the whole time,. All I can figure is that this strategy has made certain viewers feel claustrophobic or something.

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Why do these new Suspiria posters suggest to the HE readership? I’ll tell you what they suggest to me. They suggest domination and discipline from a coven of ballet-dancing witches with powerful thigh and calf muscles…tough, tyrannical witches who would just as soon break your back and make arterial blood gush out of your nose as look at you….tough bitches, tough witches, and several stitches when they’re through with you.

You have a nifty job as the United Sates Ambassador to the United Nations. Stimulating work, pretty decent salary ($180K), nice New York apartment, etc. You’ve been at the job since 1.25.17, and yet 21 months later you announce that you’re quitting. Why? Who bails on a plum prestige gig less than two years after starting? The Trump administration has another two years and three months left.

If you scroll down to paragraphs #14 and #15 in Maggie Haberman’s N.Y. Times story about Nikki Haley resigning as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, there’s a hint of an explanation.

“Ms. Haley’s advisers have long tended to her political image, and stepping away now could be a logical end point if she wants to preserve her own political future.” In other words, she’s stepping away from the Trump administration now before the Mueller report is issued…?

“But in the short term, people familiar with her thinking said that she is likely to work in the private sector and make some money. After nearly eight years in government — six years as governor of South Carolina in addition to her time at the United Nations — her 2018 financial disclosure report shows Ms. Haley has at least $1.5 million in debts, including more than $1 million for her mortgage.”

Imagine being a late-teen or 20something Tennessee resident who can’t be bothered to register to vote in the midterms. Which strikes me as a fairly despicable attitude, all things considered. Now imagine this same person deciding to suddenly register to vote because of Taylor Swift announcing her support of Democratic candidates Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper, who are respectively running for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.

Imagine being that vacuous, that indifferent, that uninterested in the realities of Trumpism and how the world works. Imagine turning yourself around like that because Taylor effing Swift suggested it.

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” — Winston Churchill.

From a 10.9 Guardian story by Laura Snapes: “Of the 5,183 voter registrations in Tennessee this month, at least 2,144 occurred after Swift posted her statement to Instagram on Sunday, said Guthrie. The state’s deadline for voter registration is today, 9 October, which may also have contributed to the rush. There were 2,811 new Tennessee voter registrations in September.”

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President Trump claimed today that Christine Blasey Ford‘s allegation of aggressive sexual misconduct by a teenaged Brett Kavanaugh, among other similar testimonies and recollections, was “all made up,” “fabricated“, “a hoax” and “a disgrace.”

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The governing principle behind the shooting and cutting of all Park Chan-wook films is “look at me, look at me…look at what a brilliant director I am.” He’s admired or at least respected, of course, by nearly everyone. I for one haven’t been won over. Too show-offy, gets in the way. Yes, I agree –the 1984 George Roy Hill-Diane Keaton version didn’t work, and yet Sami Frey was quite good as Kahlil, the Palestinian terrorist.

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Last night Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich tweeted what he described as “premature but final” Best Picture predictions. Here they are with HE assessments. Remember that as brilliant and knowledgable as Ehrlich is, he’s not a hot-dog-eating “man of the people” type like myself. He camps out in his own realm. That said…

1. Black Panther / HE says: Ryan Coogler‘s Marvel blockbuster will be Best Picture nominated, but it doesn’t really kick in until the last hour.

2. The Favourite / HE says: Good Barry Lyndon-esque, English royalty lesbo film for the first two thirds or thereabouts, but not so much during the last third. Possible nominee, no chance of winning.

3. First Man / HE says: On one hand a real “you are there, you are Neil” NASA movie by a first-rate auteur, and on the other hand an emotionally subdued thing that may not quite connect with Joe and Jane Popcorn. Will be Best Picture nominated.

4. Green Book / HE says: Exquisitely crated, perfectly acted feel-good period film that comes together just so and in just the right way. Could’ve been made 30 or even 40 years ago, but easily the most likable award-season flick out there. A Best Picture nominee, for sure. Might actually win.

4. On The Basis of Sex / HE says: The story of beloved Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is an automatic Best Picture nominee as a political-cultural counterweight to the Brett Kavanaugh episode.

5. Roma / HE says: Alfonso Cuaron‘s black-and-white period masterpiece will surely be nominated.

6. A Star Is Born / HE says: An almost certain Best Picture nominee, but there’s a good deal of pushback out there. I don’t see a win.

7. Vice / HE says: No clue, but Bale is a lock for Best Actor.

8. Widows / HE says: Best heist film I’ve seen in years and a tough Chicago story to boot. Will the Academy nominate a genre film that mixes larceny and local politics?