Year: 2019

I’ve been to the Musee Picasso twice in Paris, and while “Guernica” was hanging at MOMA I stood before it at least two or three times. How did I manage to enjoy these experiences, knowing what kind of a fuck Pablo Picasso was with his wives and lovers?

Simple — I put the bad stuff in a wooden box. It’s called compartmentalizing.

Same deal while watching Alfred Hitchcock films. How can I enjoy The Birds while knowing what Hitchcock put poor Tippi Hedren through during filming? Just shut it out. I’ve heard stories about others but I won’t go there. I can do this all night long.

History constantly reminds that a lot of famous, talented people have treated others cruelly, brusquely or otherwise brought pain or trauma into their lives. I wish it didn’t go with the territory but it seems to. Not always but often enough.

1966 dark green Mustang fastback (Steve McQueen, Bullitt); 1964 light-green Aston Martin (Sean Connery, Goldfinger); 1938 Plymouth DeLuxe (Humphrey Bogart, The Big Sleep and High Sierra); 1977 Pontiac Trans Am (Burt Reynolds, Smokey and the Bandit), 1963 Volkswagen Beetle (The Love Bug)…I don’t care about this. Not a big car guy. But I do hate the idea of Middle Eastern corporate architecture.

From N.Y. Post “Page Six” story by Derrick Bryson Taylor: Memes floating across social media show Kate Beckinsale, 45, and Pete Davidson, 25, engaged in some serious lip-locking while Queer Eye star Antoni Porowski awkwardly sits next to them. One meme shows Beckinsale in the middle with a caption over Davidson reading, ‘Guys with problems from childhood whom I can ‘fix.’” A caption over Poroswki reads, “Wholesome guys with good paying jobs who text back and have no baggage.” Beckinsale commented on it saying, “Antoni is gay, if that helps clarify at all #queereye.”

HE comment #1: The fact that Beckinsale openly (if very briefly) considered the idea of boning Porowski tells you she’s theoretically open to other potential boyfriends, which should give Davidson pause. HE comment #2: Davidson’s tattoos are appalling, absurd. (Especially that amateurish heart tattoo behind his ear.) And his fashion sense! Anyone who would wear skeleton sneakers with pink socks…forget it. I give this relationship another month or two, at most.

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.