Day: May 26, 2019

Whither “Booksmart”?

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So why the meager Booksmart business? You can call it a female reboot of Superbad if you want, but it has its own story, theme and attitude. It’s very well directed by Olivia Wilde, and it doesn’t just go through the motions. It delivers what seemed to me like an authentic, connected, well-crafted portrait of Los Angeles teen culture. Is it as good as Superbad? I think it comes reasonably close. Does it offer the same kind of zeitgeist-capture that Risky Business or American Graffiti managed in their eras? In a way it does.

Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro: “We can’t ignore the small start of UA/Annapurna’s Booksmart, which is bound to see $7.8M over four days. The movie looked like a female Superbad, but more indie. Great reviews and solid exits, but no one is taking the time out over the holiday weekend to see it. Saturday’s $2.1M ticket sales were down 16% from Friday. Smart, R-rated, critically acclaimed teenage girl pics remain a tough sub-genre. Booksmart‘s bests plays were in big cities on the coast, especially in the west.”

Why has it underperformed? Is it because audiences generally prefer to watch guys perform this kind of rambunctious material? Or is it…what, the lesbian angle or something? (A possible factor outside the big cities, especially in the middle of the country.) Booksmart was supposed to be the film that would finally deliver serious coin to Annapurna, which needs a hit. I was suspicious of the ecstatic SXSW reviews, but this was an exception to the rule.

Dalton vs. Connors

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In Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, we’re informed that Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Rick Dalton starred in Bounty Law, a black-and-white TV series that ran from 1958 to 1963. Early on we’re shown a quick Bounty Law TV promo, with Dalton turning and staring at the camera as in “yup, that’s me and I’m definitely cool.” But he doesn’t do it quite right. He doesn’t sell that studly “I own this shit” thing. Leo basically looks like he’s waiting for Tarantino to say “cut.”

There’s a measure of irony in the obviously gifted, Oscar-winning Leo not doing this kind of thing as well the less talented, non-Oscar-winning Chuck Connors in that opening-credits blam-blam sequence for The Rifleman.

Posted on 10.31.17: “If Chuck Connors never did anything else, that look he gives the camera after firing off 12 shots from his specially modified Winchester 44-40 model 1892 would be enough. He doesn’t glare, doesn’t scowl, doesn’t smirk, doesn’t grin or suggest any kind of cockiness, and yet that look in his eyes manages to say ‘this is what I do, take it or leave it — I drill guys over and over, pretty much every week, and yet I’m even-tempered and respectable and so the law’s always on my side…pretty good deal, eh?’

“But who ever heard of a Winchester that fires 12 shots in a row? Look at it — where would 12 cartridges even fit?”

Nihilism In The Blood

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David Denby hasn’t been on the stick since ’14 (at least not in my realm), but I’ve always admired and respected his writing. You can always feel an authentic, this-is-me current underneath or within his opinions. Initially regarded as a “Paulette“, Denby was a must-read, take-it-to-the-bank film critic for four decades (Boston Phoenix, New York, Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker) and a respected book author (“American Sucker“). So there was no skipping his Facebook post about the Trump miasma.

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Beware The Despair

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Since opening on 5.17 or ten days ago, John Wick 3 is currently at $175,388,941 worldwide. I’d much rather see this than the allegedly-McDonald’s-flavored Aladdin. It’s playing in Paris at several venues, but I suffered through the last one (“There’s a vapor cloud of stupidity hanging over the film at every turn”). I’d go if Wick 3 was as funny as the first one, but the reviews aren’t saying this. I don’t want that dumb-ass poison surging through my system again.

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Thoughts of Fisticuffs

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Hollywood Elsewhere commenter “Django Killer” continues to annoy and harass about the playability of Region 1 vs. Region 2 Blurays in the States. The latest issue concerns a 2017 Region 2 Arrow box set of Woody Allen films (including Hannah and Her sisters, Another Woman, Shadows and Fog and Crimes and Misdemeanors).

The Amazon copy says in capital letters “NON-USA FORMAT,” but the obstinate DK has nonetheless written that it’s “no wonder so many people get exhausted pointing out your fucked-up tech mistakes [about] region coding. There is no ‘difference in data’ between Blurays of different regions.”

I haven’t been in a fistfight since I was 13 or 14 years old, but there’s a small, suppressed part of me that would LOVE to slug it out with this guy. My first fantasy was drilling him with a Winchester repeater a la Chuck Connors in The Rifleman, but that was too raw.

I don’t know what DK means about “no difference in coding” but I can definitely confirm that if you have a Bluray from Region 2, it won’t play on your Region 1 player from the States. I wish it were otherwise, but THIS IS HOW IT IS. I have a nifty Samsung 4K Bluray player and a Sony Bluray player, and my Region 2 Blurays (and I have about 10 of them) won’t play on either player. Several times I’ve politely asked them to open their digital gates to Region 1, but they won’t budge.

I’m going to repeat this — Region 2 Bluray discs WON’T PLAY ON EITHER OF MY TWO BLURAY PLAYERS. Which is why Amazon felt obliged to post “NON-USA FORMAT” in big-ass letters, in order to catch the attention of deranged reality-deniers like “Django Killer“.

I used to have a Sherwood Region 2 player, but it gave up the ghost. I also have 2012 Oppo Bluray player than can theoretically be programmed to play only Region 2 Bluray discs. It’s not hooked up as we speak.

Amazon quote on the Woody page: “Playback Region B/2 :This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.”

Biological Revolt

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My stubborn biological system keeps insisting on long naps in the middle of the day. I just awoke from a three-hour snooze (12 noon to 3 pm) — the second such occurence since arriving in Paris the night before last. I guess you could call me a “burn the candle at both ends” type of guy, but occasionally the body demands a different deal.

System to Hollywood Elsewhere: “I don’t insist on eight hours as other bodies do. Back home in Los Angeles six or seven is good with an occasional one-hour nap, depending on the stress levels. I understand what your professional demands are, and I’m willing to work with you. And I understand that stress levels go up to level 11 during the Cannes Film Festival in terms of filing. Four or five was all we managed between 5.11 (when we did an all-night flight to Stockholm, followed by a daytime flight to Nice) and 5.24.

“But when the festival ends I insist on payback, whether you like it or not.”