Month: October 2019

HE is once again urging anyone with the slightest interest in Montgomery Clift to catch Robert Clift and Hillary Demmon‘s Making Montgomery Clift (1091 Media, 88 minutes, currently streaming). As I stated on 10.9, the doc turned out to be much better than I initially expected. I’ve read two Clift biographies (Robert LaGuardia‘s “Monty” and Patricia Bosworth‘s “Montgomery Clift: A Biography“), and I came away from this viewing what felt like a more intimate, finely textured understanding of who the poor guy really was.

The film is basically an assemblage of home movies, tape recordings and talking heads mixed with first-hand narration by co-director Clift, the son of Clift’s older brother, William Brooks Clift (1919–1986) and journalist Eleanor Clift, with creative collaboration from Demmon.

Earlier today reps for the film offered this excerpt in which Clift’s onetime boyfriend Jack Larson (Jimmy Olsen in The Adventures of Superman) recalls the start of their relationship sometime in late ’52 or thereabouts. Merv Griffin was peripherally involved.

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…but you can’t take the Hoboken out of the guy.

During a “bitter” March 1993 child custody hearing against Woody Allen, Mia Farrow testified that “a former husband had offered to have both of Allen’s legs broken, but added that he had only been joking.” According to a 3.27.93 Independent report, Farrow was asked which of her ex-husbands — Frank Sinatra or Andre Previn — was more likely to make such a suggestion, but the question was disallowed. Four years later Farrow told Howard Stern that it was Sinatra, of course, who made the offer. 75% joke, 25% serious. Possibly 66% vs. 33%.

I’ve either forgotten this or never heard it to begin with — one of the two. The pertinent portion begins at 3:33 mark.

Not being to able to attend this hurts a little. Award season is often like this — if you commit to one thing you always miss out on something else.

10.17, 8:20 am: Landed at Dulles at 7:10 am. Currently enroute to Middleburg in a snazzy black Lincoln provided by Dulles Executive Sedans, and driven by a nice guy named Mido. You can taste the moneyed, honeyed Virginia culture immediately. The topography is slopey, hilly…farms, Colonial architecture, sprawling estates, horse stables NBC. Fall foliage has begun, but the Technicolor hues won’t kick in until Halloween.

Wednesday evening, 10.16: Later tonight Tatyana and I are catching an Alaska Airlines flight to Dulles (IAD) and the four-day Middleburg Film Festival. Departing at 11:20 pm, arriving at 7:20 am — exactly five hours. If you can somehow manage to nod off for a couple of hours, a red-eye flight isn’t so bad. I intend to try this time by way of over-the-counter pills.

Because I was running around today, I didn’t post a review of Zombieland: Double Tap (Columbia, 10.18). Okay, I’m lying somewhat — I didn’t want to write about about Ruben Fleischer’s film because I despised it from the get-go, and I didn’t want to wade into that.

I was totally down with the original Zombieland (’09) and especially loved Bill Murray‘s cameo, but the newbie is lazy and glib and way too self-regarding. I was hating it by the ten-minute mark. I want credit for staying to the end.

Zombie comedies aren’t funny. They never have been. Social commentary or satire has always been the point, but the only way to go is to take flesh-eating ghouls seriously. My all-time favorite is still George Romero‘s Dawn of the Dead.

This seems like a sensible projection on Jenelle Riley‘s part. I won’t be seeing Little Women until next week, but I’ve been hearing since last summer that Florence Pugh gives a standout performance. I happen to be a special fan of Penelope Cruz‘s work in Pedro Almodovar‘s Pain and Glory.

Even I, a more or less dedicated non-Star Trek fan, fell for Galaxy Quest. I didn’t just “like” it — I laughed and chortled and pretty much fell in love. Not when it opened on 12.25.99, but on cable a year or two later. I am therefore totally into Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary (Fathom Events, 11.26), a fan-propelled celebration of Galaxy Quest‘s 20th anniversary.

Boilerplate: “Featuring archival, behind-the-scenes footage and exclusive interviews with many Galaxy Quest cast members and produced by the people behind ScreenJunkies, Fandom and Honest Trailers, Never Surrender is an independently produced documentary that explores the growing fan community behind GQ, which was comically inspired by the Star Trek franchise and its passionate, core fanbase, yet has developed its own rabid fanbase over the years.”

In the trailer Galaxy Quest producer Mark Johnson notes that certain parties at DreamWorks, the distributor, didn’t really get what the movie was — not a kid-friendly thing but an inside-baseball, wink-wink comedy for semi-adult fans of the Star Trek TV series and feature films.

I never did any reporting on the backroom politics, but I’m presuming that this alleged “what the hell is this movie?” attitude came at least partly from DreamWorks honcho Walter Parkes.

I’m offering this supposition because Parkes didn’t get Cameron Crowe‘s Almost Famous either. He was the guy who pushed for several unwarranted cuts while the theatrical cut of Crowe’s film was being prepared; the longer Director’s Cut (or Untitled) version was a much more satisfying film iMHO.

Which is why, if they would just pay attention and flush their heads out and confront the unfortunate possibility that The Beast might be re-elected if his opponent is Elizabeth Warren (even though it seems deranged that anyone would vote for Cheeto over Elizabeth), they’d realize that Pete Buttigieg is the most sensible-sounding, practical-minded, forward-looking Democratic contender who isn’t enslaved to the SJW white-guy-hating progressive left. On top of which he’s the only candidate among the top four who’s below retirement age.

Is Droopin’ Biden slippin’ and slidin’ and most likely fated to lose to Warren? That seems to be the general impression. Nobody is expecting him to bounce back, that’s for sure.

My plan, Medicare for All Who Want It, will get you covered and put you back in charge. It won’t raise your taxes or kick you off a plan you want to keep. Because I trust you to make the right health care decisions for yourself and your family. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/55Yo6f8Xdd

— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) October 16, 2019

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Have I signed up for Apple TV+, which launches on 11.1? No, I haven’t. At this point in time I’m not regarding it as an essential viewing option. (Ditto Disney+, which launches on 11.12.) My attitude could evolve, of course. I’m presuming many of us probably feel the same way. What I mainly care about are HD remasterings of classic films, which are fairly well covered by Amazon, Netflix, Criterion and Vudu.

Then again I’ve been given an option to watch all the forthcoming original Apple+ programs, including the top 3 — (a) For All Mankind (alternate history science fiction), (b) The Morning Show (relationship dramedy in the vein of Broadcast News) and (c) The Banker (fact-based drama), which will premiere at AFI Fest on 11.21, given a limited theatrical release on on 12.6 with digital streaming to begin on 1.31.20.

John Wayne‘s Temujin to Pedro Armendariz‘s Jamuga: “This Tartar woman is for me…my blood says ‘take her'”

Above and beyond the camp factor, The Conqueror is primarily known as the worst radioactive fallout and subsequent cancer affliction film in Hollywood history.

Exteriors happened in the vicinity of St. George, Utah, which is 137 miles (220 km) downwind of the United States government’s Nevada National Security Site and received the brunt of nuclear fallout from testing active in this period. In 1953, 11 above-ground nuclear weapons tests occurred at the site. By the end of 1980, as ascertained by People magazine, 91 cast and crew members had developed some form of cancer and 46 had died of the disease.

Wikipage excerpt: “Director Dick Powell died of cancer in January 1963, seven years after the film’s release. John Wayne, Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead all died of cancer in the 1970s. Pedro Armendáriz was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1960, and killed himself in June 1963 after he learned his condition had become terminal. Several of Wayne and Hayward’s relatives who visited the set also had cancer scares. Michael Wayne developed skin cancer, his brother Patrick had a benign tumor removed from his breast, and Hayward’s son Tim Barker had a benign tumor removed from his mouth.”

The headline quote is a line from Martin Scorsese‘s The King of Comedy (’83).

During yesterday’s Ellen chat Bombshell star-producer Charlize Theron said that one of the motivating factors behind producing the film was “maybe for me to work on [it] as an actor.”

Theron didn’t mean precisely that. She meant to say that her company, Denver and Delilah Films, produced Bombshell in part so she could snag the lead role of Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News anchor, which is undeniably the strongest part in the film. The secondary goal, of course, was to lasso a Best Actress Oscar nomination, which seems fairly likely at this stage given the support of the top-tier Oscar blogaroos (i.e., people like myself and Sasha Stone and the general Gold Derby gang).

Right now the strongest nominees for the 2020 Best Actress Oscar are Theron, Judy’s Renee Zellweger and Marriage Story‘s Scarlett Johansson.

D&D’s Beth Kono and A.J. Dix listed as the film’s top two producers.

Sidenote: Despite my having stated on 9.20 that people need to be gently persuaded not to use the words “amazing,” “awesome” and “incredible”, Theron used all three (and actually said “incredible” twice) during the first 60 seconds of her Ellen chat. I’m not pointing fingers at Theron as much as reminding that these words are a bigger problem than most of us realize, and that a heightened amount of vigilance is required.

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