Year: 2019

Spielberg Isn’t Fooling Around

by

Steven Spielberg really and truly wants to ban all future awards-hungry Netflix films from the Oscar party, including Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman. Unless, that is, Netflix gets serious about extended theatrical bookings.

Spielberg has flat-out said that “films given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week shouldn’t qualify for the Academy Award nomination.” Now, at the annual Academy Board of Governors meeting in April, he intends to propose a rule change that would make Netflix films ineligible for Oscar consideration.

Amblin spokesperson: “Steven feels strongly about the difference between the streaming and theatrical situation. He’ll be happy if the others will join [his campaign] when that comes up [at the Academy Board of Governors meeting]. He will see what happens.”

Hollywood Elsewhere agrees with what Spielberg is trying to do here. He’s just trying to implement strict but fair award-season rules, and to guard against future Roma-styled spending blitzkriegs, and at the same time take steps that will protect (in a very precise and limited way) theatrical exhibition during award season.

In other words Hollywood Elsewhere would definitely prefer that Netflix honchos commit to serious 90-day theatrical bookings before going to streaming. I for one genuinely hope they’ll be forced to do this for their award-season contenders. Amazon is loosening its theatrical attitudes and procedures, but Hollywood Elsewhere stands foursquare behind the idea that serious award-season contenders need to be held to three months in theatres before going to streaming. Really.

I’m not talking about garden-variety, day-to-day streaming — that’s obviously the main way that people see movies these days. But award-season contenders should be subjected to different rules.

The Academy governors will listen politely to Spielberg, but let’s get real — the toothpaste is out of the tube and there’s no putting it back in. What are the odds that the Academy is going to exclude The Irishman, a total Netflix package, from Best Picture competition later this year (and into ’20)? Right now I would say they’re not high, but at the same I recognize that Netflix won’t bend its operational strategy unless the Academy totally puts its foot down about award-season theatrical commitments.

I just hope that enough people join Spielberg in insisting on this award-season stipulation.

For The Record

by

With the opening of Captain Marvel days away, I need to reiterate that Brie Larson was dead-ass wrong when she said the following last June: “I don’t need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn’t work about A Wrinkle in Time. It wasn’t made for him. I want to know what it meant to women of color, biracial women, to teen women of color.”

In other words, if a movie wasn’t specifically “made” for you or your demo — if a film’s theme or subject doesn’t address your gender, age group or ethnic identity — you might want to see something else because you might have difficulty appreciating its finer aspects.

Larson’s statement also implies that there’s no such thing as a seasoned critic being able to recognize whether or not a filmmaker knows what he/she is doing in terms of implementing a vision by way of craft, technique and artful dodging. She seemed to be saying that subjectivity — gender, age, identity — is as important as learned perception, and perhaps a bit more so.

I’ve been in this racket since the late ’70s and there really is a thing called “being smart, educated and experienced enough to really know what you’re talking about.” Being white or over 40 is not necessarily a hindrance in this regard (the over-40 part actually helps for the most part), and being female or a person of color is not necessarily a plus when it comes to assessing films like Captain Marvel, A Wrinkle in Time or Ava DuVernay‘s When They See Us.

I know this is the wrong thing to say in our highly politicized environment, but a good film is a good film.

Good Old Shitty 8mm Movies

by

I bought a video conversion app called 8mm Vintage Camera, and subjected some recently captured footage of the Sierra Nevadas (yes, taken just minutes before I slipped and fell and bruised the shit out of my rib cage) to the process. I have to admit it’s not bad — it turns any video footage into 8mm home movie footage from 1966.

LexG vs. Stuckmann

by

Two months older than my son Jett, Chris Stuckmann (born in April ’88) is one hot-shit film critic. His YouTube site claims 1,439,888 subscribers and something like 390 million views. He has a steady, settled manner of speaking and, like many of his generation, is heavily into fanboy genre flicks. As LexG points out Stuckmann should probably invest in a trip to Paris and other exotic cities, just to broaden his sphere of awareness. A little voice tells me he’s probably not up to speed on Howard Hawks or Nicholas Ray films, and perhaps not even John Ford…who knows? The only issue I have is with the shape or more precisely the angle of his left thumb [after the jump].

Read more

Here We Go Again

by

Netflix will debut Ava DuVernay‘s When They See Us, a five-part dramatic reenactment of the 1989 Central Park Jogger case, on 5.31.19. I wrote about the DuVernay project when it was first announced 19 months ago,

Excerpt: “Ken and Sarah Burns‘ The Central Park Five, a 2012 documentary, was one thing (i.e., not without problems but compelling). But a dramatic miniseries will be a whole ‘nother challenge.

“The case was about the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a female stockbroker, in Manhattan’s Central Park on 4.19.89. Five young black dudes — Anton McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise and Yusef Salaam — were wrongly prosecuted and falsely imprisoned, only to be exonerated and freed several years later.

“The whole episode was a clear expression of racist hysteria (particularly on Donald Trump‘s part) and institutional corruption.

“Duvernay is nonetheless facing two significant problems in terms of her main characters — one being the bizarre police confessions by the five alleged assailants.

“If DuVernay fudges, sidesteps or fabricates (as she did to some extent with her depiction of Lyndon B. Johnson‘s actions in Selma), she’s going to run into trouble.”

Read more

“Ad Astra” in Cannes? Maybe, Maybe Not.

by

Asked by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Jordan Riefe whether Ad Astra will premiere at Cannes ’19, director James Gray hems and haws and says “uhm, well, we’d like to show it there but..”

Gray quote: “We’re trying, we’re certainly hopeful. The issue is a little bit out of our hands because the shots come in from the VFX houses and right now our delivery date is late April, early May, which is really, really cutting it close. You want your visual effects to be so good that nobody thinks about them, that people don’t think of them as visual effects. We have hopes, but the whole team, Plan B and Brad [Pitt] and, thankfully, New Regency, have been fantastic through this.

“We’re all just anxious to put out the very best movie, and whether we actually get to make Cannes on May 18 — or whatever the hell the day is — is of secondary concern to getting the film to look exactly right. And I’ve been wonderfully blessed with great support from them. That’s where the focus is now and we’re just sort of keeping our fingers crossed.”

Ad Astra began filming in August 2017. A premiere in Venice/Telluride/Toronto is obviously starting to sound more likely than Cannes. Which would clear the way for Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood to be the only Brad Pitt film on the Cote d’Azur in May.

Heartland Voters Are Dangerous

by

On one hand, the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate can’t just be championed by the politically correct SJW militants — he / she also has to command a certain allegiance among your Midwestern pudgebods. (Which is where Kamala Harris will run into trouble.) On the other hand, facts argue against anyone getting too romantic about who and what the Trump proletariat is deep down. Never forget that all along Trump voters have been lazily under-informed, defiantly low-information, fact-challenged, deluded. They’re guided by rash, nihilistic, moronic instincts (i.e., keep the predatory “other” from coming into this country). They’re really bad people, in short — the kind of proletariat cattle who championed Hitler and Mussolini in their day. The best approach is to welcome their support in a manner of speaking, but mainly to wait for them to die off.

Oh, No…Oh, Please

by

David Harbour is the new Hellboy in the same way that Glenn Strange played the monster in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (’48). Guillermo del Toro has nothing to do with this R-rated…what is it, a reboot or the third part of the trilogy? Directed by British horrormeister Neil Marshall (The Descent, Game of Thrones) and set in England, blah blah. Hellboy trying to stop a resurrected Queen Nimue (Milla Jovovich) from destroying the planet, blah blah. Also starring Ian McShane, Daniel Dae Kim, Sasha Lane, Sophie Okonedo, Thomas Haden Church, Penelope Mitchell, Brian Gleeson, Kristina Klebe, blah blah.

Perlman statement on being elbowed aside: “Look man, I did two Hellboy movies, I invested a huge amount in playing the character. I spent a long, long time really poking and prodding the bear to get the third one made and I felt sure…I felt like we had owed the fans closure and I just couldn’t…there were too many people who were moving in too many other directions, that I just couldn’t pull it off. If you ask me about it, it’s kind of still an open wound. I wish everybody [on the reboot] well, but I prefer to leave it be.”

Son of Honor of Lying

by

Non-truths flood our communal atmosphere, not because we’re compulsive liars but because of our disrespect for various parties.

Nobody’s 100% honest with their bosses or supervisors; ditto their wives or girlfriends. Familiarity breeds contempt, and with that a willingness to dispense occasional evasions and half-truths.

Very few parents are 100% honest with their tweener and teenaged kids. Almost no drivers are honest with traffic cops. If I truly respect and fully trust you, I’ll be as honest as the day is long. But we live in a universe full of short days.

This goes double or triple from a celebrity’s perspective. Pretty much every famous person lies through his or her teeth when it comes to public statements. Not blatantly but in a mild, sideways fashion.

But that’s okay because they’re well motivated. They’re lying because they despise the gossip-driven media and feel that dealing with a corrupt and disreputable entity means all bets are off.

I think I understand the ethical system they’re embracing because it was explained in a couple of respected ’60s westerns.

Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch is one of them. I’m thinking of a scene in which William Holden’s Pike Bishop expresses moral support for Robert Ryan’s Deke Thornton because he gave his “word” to a bunch of “damned railroad men,” and Ernest Borgnine’s Dutch Engstrom defiantly argues, “That ain’t what counts! It’s who you give it to.”

Burt Lancaster says the same thing in The Professionals when he discusses flexible ethics with Lee Marvin. When Marvin reminds Lancaster that he’s given his ‘word’ to Ralph Bellamy’s J.W. Grant, a millionaire railroad tycoon, Lancaster replies, “My word to Grant ain’t worth a plug nickel.”

Tom Cruise was J.W. Grant-ing, in effect, when he told Oprah Winfrey he was in love with Katie Holmes and wanted to marry her and so on. He was saying, “This is what you’re going to get from me, and if you don’t think I’m being honest then too bad because my life is my own and you guys don’t rate the real truth because you’re scumbags who pass along tabloid fairy tales.”

Read more

Lancaster’s Long Haul

by

You’re hot or you’re not. Earlier this month I posted two thumbnail assessments of the careers of Tony Curtis and William Holden. They both enjoyed relatively brief hot-streak periods. Holden’s lasted six or seven years, or between Stalag ’17 (’53) and The Horse Soldiers (’59). Curtis’s fortunate-son period ran 11 or 12 years, or between Sweet Smell of Success (’57) and The Boston Strangler (’68).

As noted, Holden kept plugging until his death in ’81, but from The Horse Soldiers on (or over the next 22 years) Holden only made six genuinely good films — The Wild Bunch, Wild Rovers, Breezy, Network, Fedora and S.O.B. Curtis had no luck at all after The Boston Strangler.

Burt Lancaster‘s career was different in that he was always a long player. His commercial hot streak of the late ’40s to mid ’50s (westerns or action-swashbuckler films mixed with two or three dramas) happened between his late 30s and mid 40s, but except for his 1950s peak achievement of From Here To Eternity (i.e., Sgt. Milt Warden) along with The Rose Tattoo and The Rainmaker, he was more into commercial bounties.

Then came a prestige-drama-mixed-with-action period — 12 or so years, 1957 to 1969, between his mid 40s and mid 50s — that turned into Lancaster’s greatest run. Oh, the glories of Sweet Smell of Success, Run Silent, Run Deep, Separate Tables, The Devil’s Disciple, The Unforgiven, Elmer Gantry, The Young Savages, Judgment at Nuremberg, Birdman of Alcatraz, A Child Is Waiting, The Leopard, Seven Days in May, The Train, The Hallelujah Trail, The Professionals, The Swimmer, Castle Keep and The Gypsy Moths.

In the ’70s Lancaster, entering his 60s, downshifted into mostly genre-level, mezzo-mezzo films — seemingly a getting-older, wind-down cycle. The highlights were Robert Aldrich‘s Ulzana’s Raid, Luchino Visconti‘s Conversation Piece and Bernardo Bertolucci‘s 1900.

Then came the ’80s and a resurgence with three great performances in three commendable films — aging wise guy and Lothario Lou Pascal in Louis Malle‘s Atlantic City, oil tycoon Felix Happer in Local Hero (’82) and the kindly Moonlight Graham in Field of Dreams (’89).

Lancaster was not a great actor, but he was a graceful and commanding alpha-male presence, and he had a great sense of style, and he knew how to sell it. What was his greatest performance? I’m torn between From Here To Eternity, Elmer Gantry, The Swimmer and Atlantic City (“Boy, that was some ocean”).

Read more

“Captain Marvel” Will Face The Music

by

Dave Itzkoff has a 2.28.19 N.Y. Times story called “Can Captain Marvel Fix Marvel’s Woman Problem?” The problem, historically speaking, is a leering, less-than-enlightened attitude about Marvel’s female characters over the decades. The idea is that Captain Marvel might popularize a less sexist, more liberated agenda. Yes, I’m putting myself to sleep as I write this.

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]

An Actual “Fosse/Verdon” Trailer!

by

You know that Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams‘ performances as Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon are going to be Emmy-level. You know it. The limited series will debut on 4.9.19, and run eight episodes.

The dominant themes or undercurrents seem to be that (a) serious creative innovation is rare, (b) women value fidelity, (c) it’s all over much too quickly, and (d) fast-lane living comes at quite a cost.

Fosse only lived to age 60 — cigarettes, uppers, alcohol, stress. He died of a heart attack on 9.23.87, outside the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. Verdon died at age 75, on 10.18.00.

There’s still no credited director but the guy who shouted “action” and “cut” is probably Thomas Kail — Kail, Rockwell, Williams, Steven Levenson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, George Stelzner and Joel Fields served as exec producers.

The costars are Margaret Qualley (Ann Reinking), Norbert Leo Butz (Paddy Chayefsky), Nate Corddry (Neil Simon), Aya Cash (Joan Simon), Susan Misner (Joan McCracken), Bianca Marroquín (Chita Rivera), Kelli Barrett (Liza Minnelli), Evan Handler (Hal Prince), Rick Holmes (Fred Weaver), Paul Reiser (Cy Feuer), Ethan Slater (Joel Grey), Byron Jennings (George Abbott) and Laura Osnes (Shirley MacLaine).