I bunked in the New York City region from late ’08 to March ’11 — call it a year and a half. Maybe my memory is a bit hazy but my general impression was that Manhattan screenings and press junkets happened more or less in concert with the same activities in Los Angeles. You didn’t lose out by being a New Yorker — you had approximately the same access to timely screenings. Or so it seemed.
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Over the decades I’ve been lucky enough to know and trust many women of good character, but mostly in the realm of friendship.
I’m speaking of sensible, practical-minded women — women I always felt I could trust and rely upon and who always had a certain steadiness. And who were wise about human nature, and had a pretty good idea about who they were and believed in hard work and discipline and who always offered affection in a comforting, nourishing, no-pressure sort of way. Women, in short, who’ve reminded me in certain ways of my late mother, Nancy.
Every guy on the planet says this, I know.
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Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck‘s Never Look Away (Sony Classics, 11.30) is a sprawling, three-hour epic about a gifted German painter who gradually finds his voice over a long period of totalitarian rule. It begins in World War II and ends sometime in the late ’60s. (Or so I recall.) Like von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others, it focuses on the tension between an artist and changing political regimes and upheavals affecting his art.
Inspired by the life of painter Gerhard Richter, who lived under Nazi and Communist rule in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s before escaping to West Germany in ’61, it’s “engaging” in a rather prim and conservative manner, like a romantic TV movie or an on-the-nose airport novel. This happens, that happens…chapter by chapter, episode by episode. The viewer is always being told that the Richter-like protagonist (played by the not-very-tall Tom Schilling) is moving towards a profound climax or destiny of some sort. Struggling through all kinds of adversity and difficulty but gradually breaking through.
It honestly reminded me of The Other Side of Midnight except it’s about a committed artist rather than Marie France Pisier‘s gold-digger. The generous servings of gratuitous (but entirely welcome) nudity also carry a ’70s echo. It costars Sebastian Koch (the striking lead in The Lives of Others), Paula Beer, Saskia Rosendahl and Oliver Masucci.
Obviously I didn’t find it brilliant, but I didn’t mind it. I was never bored. The last hour is the most rewarding. Most of the critical community has been thumbs-up, and some have been knocked out. Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman has called it “a stunning masterpiece…one of the best movies I’ve ever seen in my life.” Who am I to dispute that kind of passion?
A German critic friend says it’s “aimed clearly at a higher-educated, middle-class audience that has an interest in art and history, but not necessarily in cinema. There’s a long tradition in German cinema for films like this that have all done really well. But I agree with you that it’s quite stuffy and almost antiquated — quite the opposite of the kind of risk-taking and wild art that the film champions.”
You may see a breezy, hah-haayyy! Hollywood Reporter cover shot of the Vice trio — director-cowriter Adam McKay, costars Amy Adams and Christian Bale. And you may be chuckling over Bale’s decision to skinny himself down to his Machinist weight after becoming a lardbucket to play the Ultra-Luciferian Dick Cheney. And you may enjoy McKay’s head-rest sitting posture during the video chat. And your interest in seeing Vice may be greater as a result. All to the good!
But what I see, mainly, is the Los Angeles community (and the Annapurna marketing team in particular) saying to the New York film journalist community, “Aaahh, being first out of the gate is so nice! We’ve seen the film, talked about it, sussed it out. Some of us may even be dipping in for seconds. You New Yorkers will see it soon, don’t worry, but in the meantime it feels so good, so top-of-the-world to be the first responders.”
Herewith is Hollywood Elsewhere’s second flaky stab at a list of adult-friendly, quality-aspiring 2019 films — possible critical faves and perhaps even award-season contenders. Yesterday’s post contained about 30; I’m posting 30 more today and the final 30 will appear tomorrow. The comes the process of weeding out the chaff, and then deciding which belong in the top 20 or 25.
32. Jordan Peele‘s Us — Plot unknown; described as a “social horror-thriller” — Bob Strauss champing at the very bit. (Lupita Nyong’o, Anna Diop, Elisabeth Moss, Kara Hayward)
33. William Nicholson‘s Hope Gap — A family deals in the aftermath of the shock revelation that a husband plans to end his 29 year marriage to his wife. (Annette Bening, Bill Nighy, Josh O’Connor, Aiysha Hart)
34. Aaron Schneider‘s Greyhound — During World War II, an international convoy of 37 Allied ships, led by Commander Ernest Krause (Tom Hanks), cross the treacherous North Atlantic while being hotly pursued by wolf packs of German U-boats. (Tom Hanks, Elisabeth Shue, Karl Glusman, Stephen Graham)
35. Dan Gilroy‘s Velvet Buzzsaw — American horror thriller film, written and directed by Gilroy. (Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Zawe Ashton, Natalia Dyer, Tom Sturridge, Daveed Diggs, Toni Collette, John Malkovich and Billy Magnussen)
36. Sam Mendes‘ 1917 — World War I saga, plot unknown. (George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman)
37. Untitled Miranda July Project — A woman’s life is turned upside down when her criminal parents invite an outsider to join them on a major heist they’re planning.
(Evan Rachel Wood, Gina Rodriguez, Debra Winger, Richard Jenkins)
38. Ciro Guerra‘s Waiting for the Barbarians — A Magistrate working in a distant outpost begins to question his loyalty to the empire. (Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson, Mark Rylance, Harry Melling)
40. Jim Jarmusch‘s The Dead Don’t Die — Deadpan comic zombie film (Tilda Swinton, Adam Driver, Caleb Landry Jones, Chloë Sevigny)
41. Casey Affleck‘s Far Bright Star — Set in 1916, an aging cavalryman leads a team of men to hunt down the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. However, after an ambush in which most of the men are killed, the cavalryman must struggle to survive in the desert. (Joaquin Phoenix)
42. Josephine Decker‘s Shirley — A famous Horror writer finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple. (Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Logan Lerman, Odessa Young)
I’ve been humming, or more precisely sinus-throbbing, bass notes for most of my life, going to back to when I was 10 or 11. When I say sinus-throbbing, I mean that my bass guitar is inside my head, or more precisely inside my ear drums and to a lesser extent my nasal cavity. When I “play my bass,” so to speak, I’m the only who hears it properly. The vibration is magnificent. I should’ve learned how to play bass instead of becoming a mediocre drummer.
“Almost all music is centered around chords. Chords define the harmonic structure of each song and tell you which notes will sound good and which won’t. If you study music theory, you’ll spend a lot of time learning about what the different chords are and how they lead from one to another. Guitarists and pianists play full chords, simultaneously sounding every note that makes up each chord. They are the ones who really fill out the harmonies.
“But as a bass player, your relationship with chords is a little different. You don’t play every note in a chord, but your deep, low tones ground the chord and help define its sound. Your primary job as a bass player, besides rhythmic support, is to provide the foundation for the chords. Your low notes really give a solid tonal grounding to guide listeners’ ears in following the shifts of harmony. For the most part, this means playing the roots of the chords.” — from “How to Play Along With Chords on Bass” by James Porter, posted on 6.10.18.
You may see a breezy, hah-haayyy! Hollywood Reporter cover shot of the Vice trio — director-cowriter Adam McKay, costars Amy Adams and Christian Bale. And you may be chuckling over Bale’s decision to skinny himself down to his Machinist weight after becoming a lardbucket to play the Ultra-Luciferian Dick Cheney. And you may enjoy McKay’s head-rest sitting posture during the video chat. And your interest in seeing Vice may be greater as a result. All to the good!
But what I see, mainly, is the Los Angeles community (and the Annapurna marketing team in particular) saying to the New York film journalist community, “Aaahh, being first out of the gate is so nice! We’ve seen the film, talked about it, sussed it out. Some of us may even be dipping in for seconds. You New Yorkers will see it soon, don’t worry, but in the meantime it feels so good, so top-of-the-world to be the first responders.”
At the end of the comment thread for “The Haters Are Due on Maple Street,” which is about how p.c. zealots are doing everything they can to take down Peter Farrelly‘s Green Book, I wrote something that I should have included in the original piece:
“Isn’t every film finally about where its heart is, whether it’s been made in a 20th or 21st Century way?”
Not every great film has a discernible heartbeat of one kind of another, but the ones that people love and reference decades later all share that emotional seep-in thing —Ikiru, Manchester By The Sea, Brokeback Mountain, The Seven Samurai, The Best Years of Our Lives, La Strada, Call Me By Your Name, Au Hasard, Balthazar, etc. It really shouldn’t matter if the film in question is attuned to contemporary mindsets or to the way people felt and thought 20 or 30 years ago or whatever. All that really matters is whether or not a film knows itself — whether or not it’s settled and confident in its own shoes — and delivers accordingly. In the end that’s all that counts.
Back to my thread comment: “Whether or not the p.c. assholes want to acknowledge this, Green Book has a good heart and it knows from restraint and the value of high craft, and it applies exactly the right kind of just-so emphasis, the right kind of tone for this kind of story.
“God, I hate the p.c. zealots…I hate them the way Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz hated those nabobs.”
Glenn Kenny response: “‘This is a wonderful movie about humanity, compassion and mutual respect, and anyone who says different I wanna see dead’ is peak HE, I guess. This season’s meltdown promises much entertainment. It’s nice to see Jeff and Sasha doing the Jack Klugman/Anita Gillette bit from the “Quincey” anti-punk-rock episode here, too.”
Wells to Kenny: “Touche — that’s a semi-fair point. But of course, p.c. zealots aren’t ‘people’ — they’re radicalized rhetorical constructs walking around with arms, legs and heads.”