Day: November 4, 2018

So Stupid It’s Shocking

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A couple of weeks ago I posted an HE-plus piece about one of the most moronic time-passage sequences in the history of motion pictures. It’s contained in Chris Weitz‘s New Moon, the second Twilight film. It proves one of two things: (a) the Twi-harders were either bone dumb or (b) the producers believed them to be.

New Moon contained an ambitious shot that tried to visually convey how completely Kristen Stewart‘s Bella had sunk into depression. Months and months of sitting in a stupor. The camera circled around her three times as she sat in her bedroom in front of a bay window that looked out on her front yard, and either you spotted what was happening or you didn’t.

Anyone with a reasonable number of brain cells would have noticed how the front yard changed from month to month. In the first shot a tree has brown leaves and kids on the street are wearing Halloween costumes. In the second the branches are bare and somebody’s raking leaves on the front lawn. In the third shot the lawn is covered with snow.

And yet Summit producers decided to place titles — OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, DECEMBER — over each camera pass so viewers wouldn’t be confused about the time-passage aspect. Presumably fans complained during test screenings that they couldn’t understand why leaves would fall of a tree so quickly or how there would suddenly be snow covering the front yard, etc.

I don’t believe Weitz decided to use the titles on his own. I’ll bet $100 he was forced into it.

Obviously Sane, Sensible, Pragmatic

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Michael Bloomberg is a wise, crafty, highly intelligent politician and businessman. But if he runs as an independent in 2020 and the Democratic nominee is perceived as tired or a re-hash (i.e., not Beto), the liberal-progressive-centrist vote will be split and Trump will be re-elected. Honestly? As much as I love and admire Elizabeth Warren, Bloomberg would make for a stronger anti-Trump candidate.

Spirit of Van Gogh in Hollywood Hills

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An exclusive Peggy Siegal party for Julian Schnabel‘s Vincent Van Gogh film, At Eternity’s Gate (CBS Films, 11.16), happened today in the Hollywood hills.

The main honorees were director Julian Schnabel and the great Willem Dafoe, whose performance as the tortured and gifted Vincent Van Gogh is surely his finest since inhabiting Jesus of Nazareth 30 years ago in Martin Scorsese‘s The Last Temptation of Christ (’88). At the very least Dafoe (who was well on his way to a Best Supporting Actor win last year until Sam Rockwell stormed the Bastille) has to be Best Actor nominated…c’mon! This is great, primal, world-class channelling. Ask anyone.


(l. to r.) At Eternity’s Gate star and like Best Actor niminee Willem Dafoe, Al Pacino, director Julian Schnabel and co-screenwriter and co-editor Louise Kugelberg.

Tatyana Antropova, Guillermo del Toro.

Al Pacino, who arrived somewhat late.

San Fernando Valley view from the patio.

The fraternal, warm-hearted Guillermo del Toro conducted a q & a with Schnabel, Dafoe and co-screenwriter and co-editor Louise Kugelberg. Al Pacino (The Irishman) and Benicio del Toro were also in attendance.

Hollywood Elsewhere correspondent Tatyana Antropova, a longtime Van Gogh admirer who read Irving Stone‘s “Lust for Life” in her late teens, attended on my behalf.

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Date With Destiny

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I’m about to drive over to a friend’s place for a long-awaited viewing of WHE’s 4K Ultra HD Bluray of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The huge flatscreen and 4K Bluray player are top-of-the-line (i.e., my host is in “the business”) so whatever this disc has to offer, I’m not going to miss a single value or aspect. I’ll check back in later.

Sum of All Intelligence

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The gold-faced, green-tinted, thick-lipped fishbowl guy with plump, vaguely Eastern European features is directing all non-Republicans to abstain from voting on Tuesday. Especially those in Texas. Just go to work, focus on the chores at hand, ignore what’s going on, hit the market on your way home, keep to yourself and throw a few beers down before you crash. If you do this all will be well, and no one will throw you down a hole or insert an explosive brain-control device in the back of your neck. Read my reptilian pinchers — you know what not to do.

Son of Direction Man

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Originally posted on 7.7.13: L.M. Kit Carson‘s Direction Man, a five-minute short starring the immortal “Larry Williams,” played at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. I saw it at the Egyptian toward the end of the festival, and came to the immediate conclusion that it was one of the funniest found-footage shorts ever shot, made or shown.

Ignore the poor video quality — the material and personality are what count. All I know is that there’s very little likelihood of anyone running into a Larry Williams type of guy today with smartphone GPS and whatnot. In my mind Williams is a legend, a kind of genius, a jazzman. And nobody knows where he is today, or so I’ve been told.

It took forever to get hold of a VHS copy of Direction Man, but I succeeded in doing that today with the assistance of Chance Browne, the renowned cartoonist and musician who lives in Wilton, Connecticut, and particularly his wife Debbie. I gave Chance a copy sometime in late ’95 but then lost track of my own — thank God he held onto his.

Alida Valli Reborn in Ex-Girlfriend

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Yesterday Hunter Tremayne posted the following Bohemian Rhapsody comment on HE: “Saw it tonight in Barcelona. Place was packed with families. Laughing, clapping, cheering, the works. People were singing Queen songs all the way to the metro.”

Right away I decided to catch it again, and soon after persuaded a couple of friends to come along. Around 6:50 pm I drove down to the local Wilton Bowtie Cinema to get seats, and the second I entered the lobby I saw Sophie Cabot Black, my ex-girlfriend from the mid ’70s. She was sitting on a bench and studying her phone, and didn’t see me at first.

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]