Month: March 2019

David Modigliani‘s Running with Beto, a behind-the-scenes look at Beto O’Rourke‘s rise to political fame and Senatorial campaign against Ted Cruz, just had its big debut at South by Southwest. It’s a good film, apparently. O’Rourke (who is definitely taking his sweet-ass time about formally announcing his Presidential candidacy) showed up after it ended, answered questions, etc. Pic will debut on HBO on 5.28.

Beto O’Rourke dodges the inevitable “When are you announcing your presidency?” question for the zillionth time. But not without finding a galvanizing hook. #sxsw pic.twitter.com/wLQzuWnu0R

— erickohn (@erickohn) March 9, 2019

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Yesterday Jordan Peele‘s Us (Universal, 3.22) was universally praised after debuting at South by Southwest. I’ve read three or four reviews and it definitely sounds good. However — and this is a big “however” — you can’t trust SXSW critics. They’re too genre-friendly, too geekboy, too determined to celebrate Austin world premieres, too invested in identity politics, too caught up in the under-40 hipster narrative. The only way you can be really sure is after Hollywood Elsewhere and other discerning types have had a looksee. Critics who know their stuff and never modify their views for political reasons. I’m not saying I won’t also be impressed by Us — I may well be — but hold your horses until the hardcores have had their say.

Triple Frontier, you’ll recall, is about five commando types robbing tens of millions from a South American drug dealer. I wrote…hell, everyone wrote that it doesn’t pay off until the second half, which is when things start to go badly and it becomes a grueling ordeal mixed with a Treasure of Sierre Madre-like parable about greed. That’s the all of it, the point of it — how greed leads to death and self-destruction.

In short without the second half Triple Frontier isn’t much — a sturdy if unexceptional heist film.

Manohla Dargis‘s N.Y. Times review doesn’t even allude to the second half. She describes the basic situation, the characters, the opening gun battle in a city in “South Americaville,” the reluctant process by which the five thieves (Oscar Isaac, Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, Pedro Pascal) agree to take part in the robbery, the dense and humid jungle atmosphere, etc.

But she doesn’t even cast a sidewqys glance at how it all pays off. She doesn’t even say “the story takes a downward turn later on,” etc. She was so unimpressed that she ignored the basic story strategy.

There’s a moment during the second half that I’ll never forget — when a section of a winding mountain path gives way and a donkey, loaded down with bags of loot, goes tumbling down a steep grade with the currency floating in the air and scattered to the four winds. I’ll never forget this scene for the rest of my life.

Does Triple Frontier stand up to the famous Howard Hawks standard — “three great scenes and no bad ones”? Perhaps not, but it has at least two great scenes (the chopper crash and the donkey), and that’s something.

Before the start of every press screening, there’s always at least one bigmouthed sociopath who’s determined to “perform” for everyone else. A person, I mean, who regards a quiet screening room occupied by 25, 30 or 35 colleagues as a kind of Comedy Store venue…as an opportunity to do a little stand-up…a chance to broadcast each and every banal, eye-rolling opinion that comes to mind with a loud, close-to-bellowing voice.

The douchebag usually “performs” with a partner who acts as the straight man — a sitting guy who always says “uh-huh,” “yep,” “oh, yeah”, “hah-hah, yeah” and so on. The sitting journalist audience (i.e., people silently scrolling through Twitter on their smart phones) have no choice but to sit and listen to this ayehole go on and on about how he feels about this or that upcoming film or about how his junket interview went with Taron Egerton or Ben Mendelson. Or whatever.

These guys will talk and talk about anything and everything. What matters most to them is that others are paying attention.

The offending party is almost always a 40ish or 50ish guy wearing dad jeans — I’ve never seen women or gay guys pull this crap.

If the venue happens to be a large theatre (used for all-media screenings) and it’s not as easy to be heard, the performer will stand in front of his straight-man and lean against a row of seats — facing the rear of the theatre, back to the screen — so that every journo facing the screen is obliged to stare at him as he chats away.

They may not be able to hear every word, but they know he’s got stories and opinions — lots of them — and that he’s quite the gadfly and sharing like a motherfucker.

“The punchlines fly in Mindy Kaling’s script, sometimes too cleanly and quickly — it’s sharp and funny, yes, and also very clearly the work of a TV-trained writer. But that’s not always a bad thing: Late Night is wonderfully sharp when targeting (not infrequently) the cringe-inducing play-date nature of the most successful late night shows at the moment (summarized, most succinctly, as ‘Kevin Hart on a Slip ‘N Slide’), and those who’ve read Jason Zinoman’s excellent David Letterman biography will recognize the logistics of working for of a talk-show host who’s grown so disengaged and isolated, they haven’t ever met some of their writers.” — Jason Bailey, Flavorwire, 1.28.19.

Amazon will release Late Night on 6.7.19.

I thought the somewhat negative critical word on Captain Marvel would diminish ticket-buyer enthusiasm. I thought once the thumbs-down reviews from the cool kidz (David Ehrlich, Jim Verniere, Rodrigo Perez) and discerning female critics had sunk in, that the Brie Larson superhero flick would…well, not fizzle as much as underperform.

And yet Captain Marvel earned $20.7 million last night in U.S. theatres, and will probably end up with $125 million by Sunday night. It has so far hauled in $78 million worldwide.

So all these people buying tickets are…what, not paying attention to Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic aggregate scores? Don’t they understand what’s happening here? In my world Captain Marvel is a pre-ordained stiff…except so far the numbers say otherwise. Can someone explain the discrepancy?

Yeah, I’m half-kidding. I know that spandex superhero fans live in their own realm, for the most part. I realize that Captain Marvel will slow down significantly after the opening weekend. It will, won’t it? Hollywood Elsewhere will be…well, somewhat disappointed if it turns out to be a hit.

Hugs and condolences on the death of poor Jan Michael Vincent, 74. But to be honest, my first thoughts when I read of his passing this morning were (a) “Jesus, I thought he died a few years ago” and (b) “I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did.” Vincent rose from charismatic supporting roles from the late ’60s to mid ’70s, and then into levitational surfer-dude sainthood in John Milius‘s Big Wednesday (’78) and then exalted mega-success as the star of the mid ’80s action series Airwolf (for which CBS paid him $200K per episode).

But for the last 30-plus years the poor guy was known primarily as a drunk and a druggie who was aggressively ruining his life. A walking disaster zone, a cautionary tale, constant turbulence. Drunk driving charges, assault charges, cocaine possession arrests, restraining orders, car accidents, probation violations, assaulting girlfriends, jail time, etc. It never stopped. Now it finally has. What a waste.

Last night I caught an Albert Finney double-bill at the American Cinematheque. Stanley Donen‘s Two For The Road (’67), which I’d never really seen all the way through, and Alan Parker and Bo Goldman‘s Shoot The Moon (’82), which I caught 36 and 1/2 years ago at a Manhattan press screening.

Donen’s film is almost all pillow feathers. Sometimes charming, often lethargic or under-energized, breezy, laid-back, limp and very middle-class. And lazy as fuck. Definitely lazy. And almost never funny. It never gets out of second gear.

Finney seems to bark every damn line, and I didn’t believe he and Audrey Hepburn had ever had good sex, and that, we’re told, is the life force that has kept their marriage going. Plus the whole thing is over-lighted, and this makes it all feel a bit staid and studio-approved. Every scene feels like something created for a film aimed at a 40-plus crowd.

I could feel the attitudes of affluent mid ‘60s America all through Two For The Road. The time-jumpy, in-and-out hopscotch script (i.e., takes on a declining marriage over a dozen years but always during road trips in rural France) was regarded as loose and unconventional at the time (which it was), but it’s probably one of the most carefully staged and “safe”-feeling road movies ever made.

Compare it to the anarchic road-movie aesthetic of Bertrand Blier‘s Going Places — they were shot on two different planets.

Finney was about seven years younger than Hepburn during filming, and looks it. She was around 37 during filming, and he was 29 or 30. And I’m sorry but I just didn’t feel anything carnal from her — that string-bean body, those overly mascara’ed eyes and funny-looking feet. I just didn’t feel the chemistry.

Deadline‘s Pete Hammond has been telling me for years and years that Two For The Road is his all-time favorite film, so I’m partly blaming him for what I went through tonight.

Shoot The Moon drove me nuts from the get-go, mainly because of the use of solitary weeping scenes (three or four within the first half-hour) and the relentless chaotic energy from the four impish daughters of Finney and Diane Keaton. It was getting late and I just couldn’t take it. I bailed at the 45-minute mark.

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Earlier today Paul Manafort, the sociopathic political consultant and former Trump presidential campaign chairman (as well as a proven liar, finagler, money-hider and shady wheeler-dealer), was given a slap on the wrist sentence of 47 months.

The N.Y. Times noted that the sentence “was far lighter than the 19- to 24-year prison term recommended under advisory sentencing guidelines.”

Judge T. S. Ellis, a 78 year-old Reagan appointee, said that although Manafort’s crimes were “very serious,” following the guidelines would have resulted in an unduly harsh punishment.

Manafort has gout and all, but he could do 48 months standing on his head.

HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko has been working feverishly on Show Me What You Got, and it’s kinda sorta pretty much done. A black-and-white, Jules et Jim saga among three late 20somethings (Cristina Rambaldi, Neyssan Falahi, Mattia Minasi), the Blitz Films production, which Svetlana directed, co-wrote and shot, lists award-winning director Phillip Noyce (Rabbit Proof Fence, Salt, Clear and Present Danger) as an executive producer.

How swift and sure-footed is Show Me What You Got? I’m not allowed to comment, being a close and trusted team member who has to observe family protocol, but I can at least say that on a scene-to-scene basis the footage looks and feels like absolute black-and-white dynamite, and that the film has a generally Truffaut-like and playfully erotic mood, and that it’s European-flavored in other ways. And that it dances and darts around and feels like its own bird. It’s basically a menage a trois love story.

My hope or expectation is that Show Me What You Got (which sounds like a cross between “how deep and spiritual are your inner regions?” and “pull your pants down”) will peek out sometime soon. A Los Angeles cool-cat screening may happen before long. Festival-wise I’m hoping for a peek-out during the warm weather months, or at least by the early fall.

Has Svetlana shown me her film repeatedly because she values my tough judgment and because she trusts me to really tell it like it is? I can only answer by saying “is this not what friends are for?” Has she shown it to my music-marketing and band-managing son Jett because she wanted his opinion on scoring? To this I can say “yes, she has.” So the family is up to speed. Before long it’ll be time to raise the world curtain.

Blitz Films financed and produced Show Me What You Got, which is in line with the company’s vision to back up-and-coming directors. Blitz’s Nikolay Sarkisov and Double Take Pictures’ David Scott Smith are producers with Noyce and Sergey Sarkisov exec producing.

Cvetko co-wrote the script with Smith. Her dp credits include Inside Job, Facing Fear, Red Army and Inequality For All.

[Posted by Nate Silver on 3.6.19]: “By virtue of being a FiveThirtyEight and/or a @NateSilver538 follower, your political tastes are much too highbrow. You like Elizabeth Warren because of her detailed policy stances. You’re bullish on Kamala Harris and Cory Booker because you think they could unite the different factions of the party as evidenced by their strong start in endorsements.

“Most Democrats aren’t like you, though. They don’t care that much about policy or any of that shit. They almost certainly have never visited the FiveThirtyEight endorsement tracker. They don’t even follow the news cycle all that closely. They weren’t aware of Beto’s road trip, let alone that it became a subject of derision by smart-aleck journalists. They just want someone who can beat Trump.

“And from what they do know about Beto, they like him, he makes them feel good, and they think — despite his Texas loss to Ted Cruz — he’s a 2020 winner.

“Start with Beto’s favorability ratings, which are among the strongest in the field. In this week’s batch of Morning Consult polling, for instance, which is culled from interviews with more than 12,000 Democratic voters, Beto had the second-best ratio of favorable to unfavorable ratings, with 43 percent of Democrats saying they have a favorable view as compared to just 8 percent with an unfavorable one. Only Biden’s ratio is better, and indeed, Biden, Beto, Sanders and Harris are the four strongest candidates by this metric, just as betting markets have them.”