Eric Kohn’s 4.8 interview with Criterion Channel honcho Peter Becker made no mention of image quality whatsoever. 1080p vs. 720p vs. 4K streaming down the road…nothing. Not to mention a concern that HE readers have shared about Filmstruck streaming occasionally choking and stalling.

A few days ago I asked a Criterion spokesperson if the Criterion Channel is going to be 100% 1080p or not. Answer: “Criterion shows the best format they can secure. The overall goal is to connect the audience with the movies they want to see and not let tech requirements keep good films invisible, but that said they always seek out the best format they can find, and when they improve a master they replace the one they have improved upon.”

To which I replied, “Got it — the Criterion Channel will presumably offer 1080p for the most part but may sometimes show films at 480p or 720p (‘not let tech requirements keep good films invisible’). They will always seek out the best format they can find, cool — but what about 4K streaming, which other providers offer from time to time?” Answer: “4K is not supported at the moment. We’ll see what the future brings.”

HE followup questions: “One, what percentage of Criterion Channel films are being presented at 1080p (HD)? And what percentage are being offered at 480p (DVD standard)? Two, why aren’t the films being offered with a posted assurance that they’re being streamed at 1080p, when applicable? Failing that, why not a general assurance that all films are in HD except when otherwise specified? And three, what’s the problem with 4K streaming? Does it cost too much or something? 4K streaming is becoming more and more common with other services. And so many Criterion upgrades and restorations have been scanned and restored at 4K.”

The response to the last three questions was that the spokesperson couldn’t offer specific percentages as the Criterion Channel is just starting to launch.

Scroll forward to 1:40: “There is no such thing in honest politics that revolves around the word ‘again.’ I’m here to join you to make a little news. My name is Pete Buttigieg. They call me Mayor Pete. I am a proud son of South Bend, Indiana, and I’m running for President of the United States.”

Famed Ingmar Bergman actress Bibi Andersson died today at age 83, after suffering a stroke nine years ago. Seemingly unrelated to HE’s own Harriet Andersson (or am I mistaken?), Bibi had a 14-year peak period between ’57 (costarring roles in Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries coupled with an “intense” affair with Bergman) to Bergman’s The Touch (’71, costarring Elliot Gould).

Andersson’s most significant, respected and best-known Bergman role was opposite Liv Ullman in the probing, psychologically layered, somewhat lezzy-ish Persona.

Her other noteworthy performances were in The Passion of Anna (’69), The Kremlin Letter (’70), Scenes from a Marriage (’73), I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (’77), An Enemy of the People (’78), Quintet (’79), The Concorde — Airport ’79 (’79) and Babette’s Feast (’87).

Andersson always delivered a palpable undercurrent. Complex, a bit bothered. Nobody of her generation did moody and vaguely mysterious better or more provocatively.

The fanatics may or may not flinch over the following but Andersson was something of a high-toned Swedish sex object in her ’60s and early ’70s prime. A fair amount of tasteful nude scenes, a brightener of moviegoer imaginations, etc. Anyone who knows her career will tell you this. I shouldn’t mention this for obvious reasons, I realize, but honesty compels it.

In yesterday’s Paths of Glory thread (“And Today’s Verdict Is…?“), LexG claimed that my recent assertion about Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood being based on the 1969 situations of Burt Reynolds and redneck movie director Hal Needham is a “Wells loony tune” riff. LexG allegedly knows this town pretty well, and yet he says “where did this gem come from?”

I’ll tell him where it came from — (a) common knowledge and (b) Reynolds and Needham‘s Wiki pages.

Tarantino will probably tap-dance or shilly-shally when some junket journalist asks him this point blank, but it all fits together. It’s right there on the page. The 1969 career situations of DiCaprio’s “Rick Dalton” (struggling, pushing-40 TV actor) and Pitt’s “Cliff Booth” (Dalton’s same-aged stuntman-buddy who shares his home) mirror Reynolds-Needham. Fucking obvious. Okay, with a little Clint Eastwood thrown in.

Cliff Booth, Rick Dalton in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.

Burt Reynolds, Hal Needham during filming of Smokey and the Bandit.

In ’69 Reynolds, who had been acting on TV since the late ’50s (when he was in his early 20s), was a steadily working but diminished “known quantity” who was more or less poking along with B-level features like Sam Whiskey and 100 Rifles and short-lived TV series like Hawk and Dan August.

Reynolds had been trying and trying but was unable, during the first year of the Nixon administration when he was 33 years old, to break through into the bucks-up realm of A-level features.

And then, after 15 years in the business (when he was 20 or 21 he was told he couldn’t play a supporting role in Sayonara because he looked too much like Marlon Brando), Reynolds finally made it over the hump and became BURT REYNOLDS.

He accomplished this with the one-two-three punch of (a) his breakthrough lead role (studly survivalist Lewis with the bow-and-arrow) in John Boorman‘s Deliverance (’72), (b) that Cosmopolitan centerfold and (c) becoming a talk-show star with his amusing, self-deprecating patter in chats with Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin and David Frost.

In the space of a few months Reynolds was no longer Mr. Semi-Obscuro but suddenly the cool guy whom everyone liked and admired.

Reynolds Wiki excerpt: “Deliverance director John Boorman cast Reynolds on the basis of a talk-show appearance. ‘It’s the first time I haven’t had a script with Paul Newman‘s and Robert Redford‘s fingerprints all over it,’ Reynolds joked. ‘The producers actually came to me first.’

“‘I’ve waited 15 years to do a really good movie,’ Reynolds said in 1972. ‘I made so many bad pictures. I was never able to turn anyone down. The greatest curse in Hollywood is to be a well-known unknown.'”

For me, Tim Burton‘s Batman gradually became a parent punisher. I used laser discs to distract the boys in their toddler years, and they wanted to watch this 1989 film over and over and over. I gradually became so sick of the dialogue; every line that Pat Hingle said drove me up the wall. I’ll probably never see it again. Favorite sequence: When Jack Nicholson‘s Joker tells his goons to leave a Francis Bacon painting unharmed. Least favorite sequence: The bat-costumed Michael Keaton swan-diving off a super-tall skyscraper and not dying because…I forget. Because his leather cape slowed him down or some kind of stupid micro-thin cable attached to his belt…I don’t want to remember.

For tough-minded critics, the pared-to-the-bone perfection of Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory falls apart during this final scene, which lasts just under four minutes. To them it’s a forced finale — an attempt to abruptly squeeze emotion out of a deeply cruel situation that Kubrick has portrayed in a cool, realistic, matter-of-fact manner from the start. And then, out of the blue, a roomful of coarse, rowdy soldiers, showing their own kind of cruelty to poor Christiane Kubrick, is gradually reduced to silence and then tears in the space of 100 seconds.

In short, critics have said, the first 84 minutes constitute one thing, and the final four are something else.

In my view the scene is saved by the unknown actors (who may have been extras for all I know but nonetheless hit the notes) and the expert editing, which allows the sadness to leak out just so.

How would Paths of Glory play today, if a fact-based World War I film was to somehow get made and distributed theatrically? One, making it would be awfully difficult — too much trouble and expense for too little return. Two, it would never open theatrically — a film of this sort would never have a chance with the downmarket megaplexers, but would probably find a berth with Netflix or Amazon. Three, the film festival circuit would appreciate it but the p.c. fraternity would probably give it a mixed response, partly for the ending and partly because it’s too white (no French solders of color) and too straight (no LGBTQ characters).

Billy Dee Williams at Episode IX panel: “I’m sick and tired of people saying I betrayed Han. Did anybody die? I was going up against Darth Vader. I had to figure something out.” HE reply #1: Lando could have whispered to Han and Leia as they arrived that Vader and his goons were already encamped and ready to pounce. HE reply #2: No, nobody “died” but Lando’s complicity resulted in Han being (a) severely tortured and (b) frozen in carbon.

Last night Donald Trump was fanning the usual anti-Islamic hate flames by attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar for referring to the 9/11 attacks last month as “some people did something.” Righties have glommed onto these four words as an indication of a blithe disregard about a truly horrific slaughter, but lefties haven’t helped the situation by focusing only on conservative Islamophobia while ignoring the import of Omar’s words.

Which was worse — Trump declaring on 9.11 that 40 Wall Street was “now the tallest” building in Manhattan after the collapse of the Twin Towers, or what Omar said?

But in all honesty, what would the reaction be if any official or politician was to refer to the 9/11 attacks as “something” that “some people did”? The Left is aggravating the situation by ignoring the fact that Omar did attempt to minimize the 9/11 tragedy. A Somali-American, Omar was obviously indicating an unwillingness to strongly condemn the perpetrators, whom (be honest) she probably feels a slight kinship with on some vague cultural level.

Imagine the reaction if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton had described the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre as “a local disturbance.” What would the gay community have said if a Florida politician had described the 2016 Orlando massacre as “an unfortunate incident involving a nightclub crowd”? Imagine if Franklin D. Roosevelt had announced to a joint session of Congress that Japanese bombers had “stirred things up” with the 12.7.41 attack on Pearl Harbor.

Omar could have made this whole thing go away by apologizing for a poor choice of words, and expressing profound sorrow about the slaughter of nearly 3000 New Yorkers that day.

Posted on 10.3.14: Abel Ferrara‘s Pasolini, screening this evening at the New York Film Festival, is about the last day or so in the life of the noted visionary Italian filmmaker — a brilliant writer and impassioned artist, upscale and refined, incredibly hard-working, the maker of one of the most rancid and perverse films of all time…and a guy with a thing for low-class, curly-haired boys. And an inclination on some level to flirt with danger.

Ferrara is obviously in awe of Pasolini’s artistic bravery (or obstinacy) and has captured some of his visions and dreams by depicting portions of Pasolini’s “Petrolio,” a meandering unfinished book he was writing, and has depicted his violent death with a certain raw power but…how to best say this?…I was faintly bored by some of it. Not dead bored — it’s an intelligent, earnestly presented film about an interesting man — but my fingers were tapping on the tabletop. Too many shots are murky or underlit…not Gordon Willis dark but “you can’t see shit” dark.

I actually loved Ferrara’s capturing of three scenes from Porno-Teo-Kolossal, a film Pasolini intended to make as a follow-up to Salo, The 120 Days of Sodom. And Willem Dafoe‘s performance as Pasolini is arresting — he obviously looks the part, and for whatever reason I didn’t mind that Dafoe and almost everyone else speaks English the entire time. And I love the way he pronounces “bourgeoisie” as “BOOJHwahzEE.”

But it’s finally a mercurial film aimed at Pasolini devotees. I agree with Variety‘s Peter Debruge that “it’s not fair to require audiences to know Pasolini’s ‘Petrolio'” — if you haven’t done your homework some portions of Ferrara’s film will throw you blind. But it’s lively and unfamiliar and anything but sedate. It’s not so bad to be faintly bored; it also means that you’re somewhat engaged. I’m glad that I saw it. It has portions that work. My vistas have been somewhat broadened.

Yesterday I found a yellow, dog-eared copy of the November 1979 issue of The Thousand Eyes Cinema Guide. Only three or four issues were published before the wily and colorful Sid Geffen, publisher of this TV Guide-like publication and operator of the then-thriving Bleecker Street and Carnegie Hall Cinemas, pulled the plug.

I served as the tireless managing editor and even, for a brief while, as the advertising guy. It was a great publishing experience while it lasted, but also grueling as hell because all 60 pages had to be written, edited, re-edited, copy-corrected, pasted and re-pasted by hand. With adhesive and Exacto knives. It took two or three days, two all-nighters and 85 cups of shitty coffee to finish the job at a composition-and-print house north of the city.

Yep, there really were 21 repertory cinemas (or venues) operating in Manhattan at the time. And yes, there was a certain musty romance to the analog, 27″ x 41″ display poster, reel-changing celluloid movie world of 1979. But for lovers of classic. indie, foreign or weird cinema, things are much better today in so many respects. Choices, image quality, ease of access…everything.

Over the years many actors and performers have ducked out of sight for a year or two (Robert Downey, Jr., Dave Chappelle, Winona Ryder, Eminem, Britney Spears), but as far as I can recall only three big-time movie stars absented the screen for several years — Henry Fonda, who vacated after 1949’s Jigsaw and didn’t re-appear until 1955’s Mister Roberts, Dustin Hoffman (Tootsie to Ishtar) and Al Pacino, who disappeared between Revolution (’85) and Sea of Love (’89).

Who am I forgetting? Contenders don’t measure up to Fonda, Hoffman and Pacino unless they were a big star when they dropped out, and they had to stay away from movies at least three or four years.

Warren Beatty doesn’t count. His post-Reds career has mostly been about not pulling the trigger.

Pacino was technically vapor for three and three-quarter years with Revolution opening in December ’85 and Sea of Love debuting in September ’89, but you might as well call it four. The legend is that the moody and whimsical New Yorker was lost and depressed, or maybe he was just charging his batteries. But however you slice it Pacino was a movie ghost all through ’86, ’87, ’88 and most of ’89.

But once he finally returned, Pacino made history with the best decade of his career and indeed his life. Nine grandslam performances in ten years — Dick Tracy (Big Boy Caprice), Glengarry Glen Ross (Ricky Roma), Scent of a Woman (Colonel Frank Slade), Carlito’s Way (Carlito Brigante), Heat (Lt. Vincent Hanna), Donnie Brasco (Lefty), The Devil’s Advocate (John Milton/Satan), The Insider (Lowell Bergman) and Any Given Sunday (Tony D’Amato).

[Thanks to Robert “Kid Notorious” for nudging me about Hoffman.]

A digital 4K restored version of Lawrence of Arabia played last weekend at the Bedford Playhouse. It was only the second time that this super-luscious, extra-detailed version (sourced from Grover Crisp‘s 8K scan) had been shown to an east coast audience — the first time was six years ago under the aegis of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Original Lawrence restorer Robert Harris, who introduced the Bedford screening, told me this morning it’s the finest looking version he’s ever seen, including any and all 70mm presentations.

The Bedford Playhouse has a 37-foot wide screen. Sony delivered the film on two DCPs. If only I’d had the time and scratch to fly back and attend. I’m told that the 4K version has screened out here, but I’ve never heard of any such showings.

You can stream the 4K Lawrence via Amazon, of course, but as good as it looks you’re not really getting the full whack. 4K streaming delivers something like 2.6K, depending on the breaks — only physical media can deliver the full visual boatload. High-end connoisseurs have been pleading for a 4K Lawrence Bluray for years, but the market for 4K Blurays is flat, limited and possibly sinking, as we all know. Believe or not, 45% of physical media enthusiasts STILL watch films on DVD.

Last year a European audio-reference site, avcesar.com, reports that Sony will deliver a 4K Lawrence disc sometime this year**. Here’s hoping.

** The site also reports that Warner Home Entertainment will deliver 4k Blurays of Heat and Wyler’s Ben-Hur in 2019.