The boilerplate synopsis says that James Gray‘s Ad Astra (Disney, 9.15) is about an astronaut (Brad Pitt‘s Roy McBride) who embarks on a space voyage in search of his long-lost father Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones) “whose experiment threatens the solar system.” Right away I’m thinking “huh?” What kind of an experiment could threaten even a single planet, much less the whole solar system?

Be honest: If Tommy Lee Jones’ “experiment” were to eradicate Jupiter in the same way Alderaan is destroyed by the Death Star, who would care? It’s just a pretentious ball of gas. **

My second thought is that Ad Astra (a Latin phrase meaning “to the stars”) may not sound dumb enough for your lowest-common-denominator filmgoer. Americans tend to regard askance any film with the slightest hint of erudition.

What would happen if Stanley Kubrick had never made 2001: A Space Odyssey 50 years ago, and if Gray had directed the exact same film with Ryan Gosling as Dave Bowman and it was coming out in the fall? What kind of money would it make? I’ll tell you what it would make. It wouldn’t make squat. The ending would piss people off, and the Cinemascore rating would probably be a B or more likely a B-minus. The Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores would be mixed. The word of mouth that happened among stoners in ’68 would never materialize, and even if it did Gray’s 2001 would be kicked out of theatres and put into streaming so fast your head would spin.

All to say that the crowd that flocked to Spider Man: Far From Home is probably going to be a teeny bit suspicious of Ad Astra. This latest TV trailer suggests it might not be half bad (it seems like something I might like except for the Gravity shots and that moment when Tommy Lee Jones makes a scary face), but “if people don’t want to see something you can’t stop ’em.”

A riff about King of Kings from yesterday’s Rip Torn comment thread:

What a strange, compromised in-betweener King of Kings is. Composed according to the rules of a costly, conservative, big-studio Biblical epic (i.e., even the wandering poor wearing studio-finessed wardrobes with perfect hair stylings) but at the same time political-minded and eschewing the usual religious sentiment (except towards the end). It seems to be straining to become something less conventional but without the focus and nerve to really push into that.

Director Nicholas Ray was quite the muscular auteur in the ‘40s and ‘50s, but he was a director-for-hire here. And yet a faint hint of personality emerged in one respect. Ray seemed to regard Jeffrey Hunter’s Jesus as a vague relation of James Dean’s Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. How else to interpret Hunter’s red shepherd cloak + white undergarment matching Dean’s famous red jacket + white T-shirt outfit? But Ray’s bold power days were behind him. King of Kings was a job — he was pocketing a paycheck. You can almost sense a tone of resignation.

Ray fell apart two years later during the making of 55 Days at Peking (’63). Wiki excerpt: “Ray was a tortured individual at the time of the production of 55 Days at Peking. Paid a very high salary by producer Samuel Bronston to direct 55 Days, Ray had an inkling that taking on the project — a massive epic — would mean the end of him and that he would never direct another film again. Ray’s premonition proved correct when he collapsed on set halfway through shooting. Unable to resume working (the film was finished by Andrew Marton and Guy Green), he never received another directorial assignment.”

Young Rip Torn (29 during filming) gave a thoroughly uncharacteristic performance as Judas Iscariot, solemnly invested in playing a devoted disciple according to the accepted mode of earnest, second-banana acting in 1961. As Barabbas Harry Guardino was in his own spear-and-sandal movie, playing a Che Guevara-like mad man insurrectionist, turning on the Italian machismo spigot and using raw bleating lung power to rail against the Roman oppressors.

The only elements that hold King of Kings together are Miklos Rosza’s reach-for-the-heavens score, Ron Randell’s crisp, disciplined performance as a skeptical but compassionate Roman Centurion, and Hunter’s Nazarene — a performance that doesn’t attempt much in the film’s early stages (underwritten, going through the motions) but gradually takes hold during the second half.

Starting at 5:08: “I can sincerely tell you that I tried to get out of [Jaws]. Because I had done a film in Canada called The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. And I turned Steven [Spielberg] down. And he said ‘why?’ I said ‘because this is going to be a bitch to shoot, and I’m really lazy.’ And then I saw Duddy Kravitz. For the first time. And I said to myself, ‘If somehow this film is sold in the United States, I will never work again.’ I had to get that [film] behind me.

“So I just did what every normal human would do. I begged for the [Jaws] part. On my knees, And then Steven gave it to me. [To do that Steven] had to deal-break another actor out of the film. I felt like shit. I got the role and did it as well as I could, and that made me ‘a something.’ I wasn’t a star, but I wasn’t not a star.”

Why doesn’t Dreyfuss talk about Stakeout? Or American Graffiti?

What’s Daughter of the Wolf?

In a just-posted Cut piece titled “Could Jeffrey Epstein Avoid Life in Prison?”, Irin Carmon writes the following:

“If all else fails, Epstein’s attorneys could try to get a deal by offering his cooperation or he could plead guilty to a lesser charge. But don’t count on it. ‘In my experience as a prosecutor involved in trafficking cases in the SDNY, that office is not in the practice of giving slap-on-the-wrist deals to sex offenders and will prosecute the case fairly but with appropriate zeal,’ wrote Mimi Rocah in the Daily Beast. In the view of says former SDNY prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, cooperating is [Epstein’s] “best chance to get a lower sentence. But even if he cooperates, he has to be willing to give up everybody and everything that he knows about.” Namely, his famous and powerful friends and possible clients.”

Also from Rocah: “What should we make of reporting that Epstein’s prosecution is being overseen by the Public Corruption Unit of the SDNY? Short answer: It’s too soon to say. It could mean that a public official is being investigated or will be charged with Epstein. That could be a minor public figure or a major one. It could mean that SDNY is investigating misconduct in the plea that Epstein was given in 2008. Or it could mean none of those things.”

One odd thing: In another Cut piece titled “The Décor in Jeffrey Epstein’s NYC Townhouse Is the Stuff of Nightmares,” Hannah Gold lists several curious or bizarre features of Epstein’s NYC mansion on East 71st Street. “The Prison-Guard Mural”. “The Wall of Fame”. “The Heated Sidewalk”. “The Human Chessboard”. “The Doll Chandelier”. But under a section titled “Dramatic Proportions,” Gold notes that the front door of Epstein’s mansion “is an unnecessary 15 feet high.” Huge wooden doorways (or medium-sized doors mounted inside a large wooden frame) are totally common in apartment buildings in Paris and Rome. They’re everywhere.

Until today I hadn’t noticed that John Turturro’s remake of Bertrand Blier‘s Going Places (’74) and the Big Lebowski sequel (aka The Jesus Rolls) are one and the same. Screen Media will distribute Turturro’s three-year-old film next year. Great title, but I’ve never understood how a flick about an older trio of “sexually depraved misfits” (played by Turturro, Bobby Cannavale and Audrey Tautou) could work. The French-made original was about reckless youth frolicking in counter-culture upheaval — a couple of amoral hooligans (Gerard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere) and the various adventures that befall them. Substitute these guys with 40something actors in the 21st Century and it’s…I don’t know what but on some level it feels out of time. Especially with today’s #MeToo scrutiny. Pic costars Pete Davidson, Jon Hamm. Susan Sarandon (in the Jeanne Moreau role) and Sonia Braga.

The exalted Rip Torn has passed at age 88. A fine, intense, occasionally snarly actor who was gifted (and seemingly afflicted from time to time) with just a slight touch of madness.

Born in ’31, raised in Texas, professionally and creatively shaped in the ’50s, drawling and cruising through thick and thin for over half a century. And Rip Torn wasn’t a screen name. For some reason I’ve long thought of Torn as being spiritually related to the equally moody and sometimes surly Warren Oates and Timothy Carey — outliers, all.

All the obits will lead with Torn’s Henry Miller in Joseph Strick‘s Tropic of Cancer, his rural Southerner in Martin Ritt‘s Cross Creek (’83) and the ongoing “Artie” role on HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show.

But for me Torn became lightning with a pair of performances released two years apart — the eccentric Raoul Rey O’Houlihan in Norman Mailer’s Maidstone (released in ’70 and infamous for that improvised fight that began with Torn charging Mailer with a hammer) and as country music star Maury Dann in Daryl Duke‘s Payday (’72). Dann was a minor-leaguer who snarled and mistreated and generally out-nastied Paul Newman in Hud.

I don’t even remember Torn’s uncredited role in A Face in the Crowd, but he was certainly interesting as a laid-back officer Lewis Milestone‘s Pork Chop Hill, as Judas Iscariot in Nicholas Ray‘s King of Kings (’61), and as a sinister, to-the-manor-born Southerner in Sweet Bird of Youth (’62).

The Maidstone fight scene [after the jump] is astonishing still.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m suddenly feeling a mixture of super-negative emotions — bummed out and trembling with anger — after reading a 7.9 Variety story that says Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds will score “massive paydays” (i.e., $20 million each) to costar in Red Notice, a Netflix thriller about art thievery.

Matt Donnelly and Brent Lang are reporting that Reynolds will be paid $20 million with Johnson making that plus “millions more” from a producer’s fee. Gadot is “expected to make the same after salary and the streamer’s practice of buying out typical ‘back end’ profits stars would make from a theatrical release.”

I felt even worse when I read that director-writer Rawson Marshall Thurber (the Mysteries of Pittsburgh + Skyscraper guy whose six-syllable name makes me twitch with discomfort) will be paid $10 million.

On the surface Red Notice sounds like just another slick escapist package, this one about an “Interpol agent tracking the world’s most wanted art thief.” Apparently another reworking of a familiar genre. Entrapment, Ocean’s Twelve, William Wyler‘s How to Steal A Million, the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair…there are only so many ways you can slice this kind of pie.

When I read this story my very first thought was “eff you guys and your huge effing paychecks.” Not that I want Netflix to take a bath (I don’t), but I won’t be unhappy if these actors have a harder time landing a super payday when they negotiate their next deal.

I’ve been accustomed to the idea of life being unfair since I was 11 or 12, but the idea of these three plus Thurber being paid $70-million plus to deliver an art heist movie? My blood boils.

Due respect and apologies to Netflix, but I now have an attitude about Red Notice.

Earlier today I was sent a decade-old draft of Steven Zallian‘s The Irishman. 134 pages, dated 9.15.09. I read the last ten pages, and then the first ten pages. And then a ten-page passage somewhere in the middle. I’m presuming it’s been intensively developed (refined, added to) over the last few years, and that the odds of it bearing a substantial resemblance to Martin Scorsese’s finished film version are…who knows? But they could be slight.

I’m not sure I want to read all of it, but I may not be able to help myself. Because Zallian’s Obama-era script is so spare and direct and absorbing, such a page-turner, so seemingly familiar with the behavior, rituals and language of 20th Century northeastern criminals, and so meditative and authentic and “final.”

Remember the ending of Goodfellas with the sound of a jail cell slamming shut? I got a similar feeling from this, but in a withered old man vein. It also made me think of the last few minutes of The Godfather, Part II. It really does seem to be a melancholy summing-up of the whole Scorsese criminal culture exploration that began 46 years ago with Mean Streets. A fascinating assessment of what this kind of life amounts to, and what it costs in the end.

A $200 million, decades-spanning saga of the life and times of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a labor union leader and alleged hitman for the Bufalino crime family. Presumably coming to your local cinema in a few months’ time.

In a national poll of average American voters (7.6 thru 7.8), Emerson has found — are you sitting down? — that Donald Trump nudges out Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, 51% to 49%.

This isn’t a dream — it’s a nightmare. 51% of the respondents actually stated that it’s better to stick with the compulsively lying, amoral, raping, racist, criminal, traitorous, climate-change-denying, ADD-afflicted authoritarian fraud that they know than three liberal accomplished Dems whom they don’t know so well.

That’s it…between this and the climate disaster that will be lapping at our shores within 70 or 80 years, this country is officially finished. A slight majority of voters actually prefers the most odious, incompetent and self-deluding U.S. president in the nation’s history because they don’t like the idea of a woman of color from Oakland, a progressive bespectacled schoolmarm or a brilliant, 37 year-old gay teenager taking his place. These are their actual persuasions.

It crushes my spirit to acknowledge this, but “Typewriter Joe” Biden is the only one who has Trump beaten by a significant margin (53% to 47%).

Emerson quote #1: “Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters said they followed the Democratic debates. A plurality of viewers, 30%, said Harris had the best debate performance. Eighteen percent (18%) of voters said Biden performed the best, 13% said Warren, and 10% chose Sanders. Conversely, when asked which candidate had the worst performance, 19% of voters said Biden, 15% said Sanders, and 13% said O’Rourke performed the worst. ”

Emerson quote #2: “President Trump’s approval has ticked up one point from the June national poll, with 44% approval and 48% disapproval. In June, the President’s approval was at 43% to 48% disapproval. Trump continues to hold a strong lead in the Republican primary with 91% of the vote against former Gov. Bill Weld at 9%.”

Emerson quote #3: “The most important issue for voters in deciding their vote for President is the economy at 26%. Healthcare is the second most important issue for voters at 21%, followed by immigration at 17%, and social issues at 16%. There is a party divide however, as among Democratic primary voters, 29% chose healthcare as the most important issue, followed by social issues at 22% and the economy at 14%. With Republican primary voters, 42% chose the economy as the most important issue followed by immigration at 25%.”

Last night I read a 2018 draft of Todd Phillips‘ Joker, written by Phillips and Scott Silver. It’s Scorsese-ish, all right — set in 1981 “Gotham,” tingling with echoes of Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy with a little touch of Death Wish. The basic philosophy is “the world’s a venal, plundering place so who can blame Joaquin Pheonix for becoming a killer clown?” It’s a stand-alone but at the same time it definitely feeds into the Batman legend.

“If you can’t throw away $100 million dollars on a Ben Affleck action film that no one will watch, what is the point of even being in the movie business?” — genius-level line from Richard Rushfield‘s latest, just-posted Ankler column.

“As a woman unraveling while struggling to make sense of the deaths of her husband and son, Diane Kruger showed she could carry a movie in Fatih Akin‘s In the Fade. But she needs more textured material than she’s given in The Operative, a choppy espionage thriller.

“Pic casts Kruger as a Westerner making bold moves to disentangle herself and right a wrong after years of undercover Mossad activity, pulling in Martin Freeman as her former handler to help facilitate her exit. Writer-director Yuval Adler connects the dots of the convoluted plot with reasonable clarity, but The Operative only intermittently builds suspense.” — from David Rooney‘s Hollywood Reporter review.

Boilerplate: “The Inglourious Basterds actress plays an undercover Mossad agent who is sent to Tehran, Iran, where she masquerades as an English teacher in order to gather information about Iran’s secret nuclear program in this John le Carre-style spy thriller. Written and directed by Israeli filmmaker Yuval Adler (Bethlehem), the psychological espionage thriller is based on the spy novel “The English Teacher” by former Israeli intelligence officer Yiftach Reicher Atir.