Year: 2019

Poor Bruno Ganz has left the planet at age 77. Launched by Wim Wenders as the king of European ennui and weltschmerz in The American Friend, and then re-fortified ten years later as a mortality-envying angel in Wings of Desire. 14 years ago Ganz scored big-time as Adolf Hitler in Oliver Hirschbiegel‘s Downfall, and then acquired everlasting life on YouTube via those hundreds of Hitler parodies.

Those were the four big hits of Ganz’s life. He made tons and tons of crap, but what actor doesn’t? He costarred in Terrence Malick‘s Radegund, which may or may not be released this year — with Malick you never know. For me Ganz was always the kindly, soulful gloom guy. Born in ’41, mostly a stage actor for his first 15 or 20 years in the trade. Born and died in Zurich, which is a great city in more ways than I’d care to mention right now.

We met only once, during a Los Angeles Downfall press encounter. Instant kinship. Ganz seemed to recognize or at least sense my German ancestry on my mother’s side, or so I told myself. A twinkle in his eye, a hint of a smile.

I strongly identified with The American Friend when I first saw it at the 1977 New York Film Festival. “Jesus, that’s me up there,” I thought as I gazed from my 17th row seat at Alice Tully Hall. “That’s my life, my soul…everything churning inside.”

I was half Ganz and half Dennis Hopper, I decided. I loved the metaphor of Ganz’s Jonathan Zimmerman — vulnerable, thoughtful, gentle currents, European craftsmanship — but I identified more with Hopper’s Tom Ripley because (I’m not happy admitting this) of the polaroid-taking scene on top of the pool table, and because Ripley was a hustler and a survivor, and because of that cowboy hat.

Which is why I decided to become Ripley, in a sense, when Mark Frenden re-did that American Friend poster three years ago. But Bruno was right there with me, in a sense. He was my “friend” and spiritual comrade, a guy I understood and cared for as far as it went, etc.

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Saturday, 2.16, 8:30 am: Last night Tatyana and I attended Bill Maher‘s 10 pm show at the Mirage. The usual good snappy material — Trump, p.c. snowflakes, etc. He was heckled about halfway through, apparently by a rightwing Christian: “What about kindness?” Maher: “Kindness isn’t funny — I can tell you that.” Somebody yelled out “AOC!”…he either didn’t hear or couldn’t think of anything. 1200 seats, almost filled, $100 to $130 bills per head…total haul of $125K plus. Out of which Maher pockets what? $40 or $50K? I wonder how it all works. Maher is allegedly worth around $100M.

Weatherbug app said it was 48 degrees last night…bullshit. Weatherbug didn’t endure those icy, gale-force winds during our walk from Bally’s to the Mirage.

Good news about human condition: Tatyana dropped her favorite scarf as we were walking through the Mirage casino after Bill’s show. We looked and looked. A half-hour later we went to the security office next to the main cashier, and they had the scarf! “Some guy in a suit” turned it in.

After yesterday’s strongly worded letter of protest from industry hotshots, the Academy has backed off from its controversial decision to temporarily ghetto-ize below-the-liners by handing out Oscars for Best Cinematography, Editing, Short Subject and Makeup/Hair Design during commercial breaks. Now all 24 Oscars will be presented live and within real time, and no more bullshit about it. No exaggeration or hyperbole — the ABC Disney execs who urged the Academy to ghetto-ize these four categories in the first place are evil.

Joe Eddy‘s Chasing Bullitt played at last year’s Dances With Films but at no significant festivals since. (Am I wrong?) Do the math. However, the casting of Andre Brooks as Steve McQueen is physically spot-on; ditto Augie Duke as Neile McQueen. I can sense trouble, but I want to see it anyway. My longstanding McQueen thing, etc.

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Almost three years ago I posted some N.Y. Times movie ads from 3.16.72 — the day The Godfather opened. I thought I’d repost as three days ago I mentioned the 3.27.73 Oscar telecast (“King of the Ugly Tuxedos“) that celebrated Francis Coppola’s gangster saga. There’s no need to jump into the whole cultural comparison thing, but the comments were pretty great.

Guy: “I feel like getting out. Wanna catch a movie or something?” Girl: “I don’t know. Is anything playing?” Guy: “I dunno, lemme check.”

Episode #232 of Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson‘s Screen Talk podcast series asks “Why Has This Year’s Oscar Show Ticked So Many People Off?” By all means listen away but I can save you the time. So far the three big Academy errors have been (a) the short-lived Best Achievement in Popular Film Oscar idea, (b) the Kevin Hart fiasco, and (c) the decision to hand out five Oscars during commercial breaks in order to keep the Oscar telecast down to three hours.

One, the Best Popular Movie Oscar was and is a good idea — it just needed to be based on ticket sales. A solution posted on 9.10.18 by Bloomberg’s Virginia Postrel made sense. Her idea was to not cast indirect shade upon mass-appeal films but simply create two Best Picture categories based on admissions — (1) a Spirit Awards-type Best Picture Oscar for films that have sold less than 10 million tickets and (2) a mainstream Best Picture Oscar for films that have sold more than 10 million tickets. Simple, no shade, and fully reflective of how the the movie-watching world is defined these days.

Two, as everything and everyone has to be fully vetted before it goes public, the whole Kevin Hart thing could have been avoided if the Academy producers had simply told the comedian to severely edit or better yet wipe clean his Twitter history before they announced his selection as Oscar host.

Three, the Oscar telecast will never be watched or supported by ADD sufferers who care less about movies than they do about their social media feed. The Disney ABC execs who pressured Academy honchos to shorten the telecast regardless of the implications or consequences are the enemy. They don’t understand that the most important element in Oscar telecasts over the decades has been the unruliness — the surprises, gaffes, emotional acceptance speeches, questionable choices. The show has always been a bit messy and long-winded, despite the 1973 Oscar telecast having run two hours and 38 minutes with no below-the-line Oscar winners getting the bum’s rush.

Good morning, Friday. Several lightweight, marginal or otherwise inconsequential movies that I don’t care about — In’t It Romantic, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, Happy Death Day, What Men Want, Cold Pursuit, The Upside, The Prodigy — opened or continued last night.

Which, I realize, is par for the course for February. Oh, for the days when the (very) occasional February release was in the realm of The Silence of the Lambs.

Please convey your immediate reactions to this photo of Isn’t It Romantic costars Rebel Wilson and Liam Hemsworth. Imagine living in a world in which one is expected to at least feign interest…I don’t need to complete this sentence.

Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth in Isn’t It Romantic.

“However one chooses to describe [Wilson] physically, never in the history of the genre has the heroine of a romcom required the NFL’s concussion protocol as early and as often as she does in Isn’t It Romantic. To what degree this unusual injection of corporeal menace is a result of Wilson being one of the few larger-sized actresses to star in a Hollywood film of this type (or any type, for that matter) or a way to exploit the breakout star of the Perfect Pitch series’ penchant for physical comedy is in the eye of the beholder. On which side you fall on that question will likely end up determining whether you enjoy the film.” — 2.14 review by Observer‘s Oliver Jones.

I know you’re not supposed to say stuff like this, but when I was a young buck I never ran into plus-sized women as a rule. I’m truly sorry but that was the world back then.

Nowadays heft and heavy are almost de riguer, and if you so much as mention this you’re an likely to be bloodied on Twitter. Nowadays movie stars like Hemsworth are obliged to occasionally pretend…I don’t need to complete this one either.

Back in the old days rock musicians were almost all slender — you could count the exceptions (Catfish’s Bob Hodge, Canned Heat’s Bob “The Bear” Hite, “Frosty” Smith who played with Lee Michaels) on one hand. The other night at Highland Park’s The Lodge I listened to a technically proficient band in which the singer-lead guitarist and bass player were the size of Sumo wrestlers.

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