Day: May 9, 2020

Somewhere In VOD Vapor

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From Peter Debruge’s 2.29 review: “Turns out there are a lot of things that have gone unsaid in movies until now, and Saint Frances (available on VOD) goes there in a way that’s not only enlightening, but entertaining as well. This exceptionally frank, refreshingly nonjudgmental indie was written by and stars Kelly O’Sullivan, a ‘girl next door’ type whose no-nonsense approach to issues facing both her gender and her generation leaves ample room for laughter — a la Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck.

“But unlike that Judd Apatow-produced studio entry, Saint Frances shares none of the pressure to partner up its potentially ‘unlikable’ female protagonist with a man who can handle her baggage. I put ‘unlikable’ in quotes because I adore this character: Bridget makes a lot of bad choices (who doesn’t?) and seems totally unprepared for most of what life throws at her (she’s the last candidate most folks would hire as a nanny), but she feels as human as they come. So a better comparison might be the work of Girls creator Lena Dunham, as O’Sullivan embraces her own fallibility, renders it into fiction, then presents it as comedy.”

Has anyone seen it? I haven’t.

Staying Warm On The Stove

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Without mentioning the title, I saw a serious goodie yesterday — a June release that I can’t discuss for a while yet. The only other 2020 film (a one-off intended for theatrical, I mean) that I’ve admired as much is Roman Polanski’s masterful J’Accuse (aka An Officer and a Spy). I’ll just leave it that.

Algonquin Wolves

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From “Lean’s Folly?“, posted on 1.10.18: “Ask ten film historians about David Lean‘s Ryan’s Daughter, and they’ll all say it nearly killed Lean’s career. Slow and stately, over-indulged, visually pompous and old-schoolish to a fault. And that awful, Oscar-awarded village-idiot performance by John Mills. Magnificent Freddie Young cinematography, okay, but otherwise a sudden fall from grace. Not even close to the realm of Lawrence of Arabia or Brief Encounter or Bridge on the River Kwai or even the respectably second-tier Dr. Zhivago or A Passage to India.

“But you know what? Last night I began watching an HD Amazon stream of Ryan’s Daughter on my Sony 65″ 4K TV. I was sitting there like a 12 year-old and studying the Super Panavision 70 detail and just marvelling at how good it looks. The HD transfer was apparently taken from a 35mm source but it’s staggering all the same. It looks much better than what I recall from some half-forgotten viewing at some Massachusetts or Connecticut bijou (i.e., not a 70mm house).”

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Lumet’s Lasting “Devil”

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Posted from the Toronto Film Festival on 9.12.07: “Sidney Lumet‘s Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (ThinkFilm, 10.26) is, for me, a major Toronto Film Festival revelation…a knockout I’ll never forget.

“It’s a New York family crime drama like nothing Lumet (83 friggin’ years old and cooking with high-test like he was in the ’70s and ’80s) has ever attempted, much less achieved. And with a killer cast giving exceptional perfs — Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei. It’s like something out of Shakespeare or Greek tragedy…it’s the House of Borgia. And a great suspense film to boot.


Shout Factory Bluray pops on 5.26; also available on Amazon Prime.

“I don’t have time to get into this now (have to hit the I’m Not There party and then another film) but I’ll elaborate tomorrow. But I immediately knew this would be exceptional. How did I come to this conclusion? I figured any film that starts off with a naked Hoffman doing it doggy-style with a naked Tomei — a ‘whoa!’ shot if I’ve ever seen one — has to be dealing from a fairly exceptional deck.

“Lumet had lost the beat from time to time. The ’90s were not a glorious period for him. Critical Care (’97), Night Falls on Manhattan (’97), Gloria (’99), Guilty as Sin (’93) and A Stranger Among Us (’92) were all problem films. Q & A (’90) was the last truly decent Lumet film until Find Me Guilty came along in ’06. And now Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, a better film than Find Me Guilty (which is saying a lot) and Lumet’s best since Prince of the City.”

Here are HE’s top 25 films released in 2007 — Zodiac, American Gangster, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, No Country for Old Men, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, I’m Not There, Once, Superbad, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, Things We Lost in the Fire, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Atonement, Sicko, Eastern Promises, The Bourne Ultimatum, Control, The Orphanage, 28 Weeks Later, In The Valley of Elah, Ratatouille, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Darjeeling Limited, Knocked Up and Sweeney Todd.

What a year! Just as strong as ’99, and perhaps a touch better. And every one of them played in theatres. Remember theatres?

Little Did They Know

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On 2.24.08, No Country For Old Men won four Oscars — Best Picture, Best Directors (Joel and Ethan Coen), Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem) and Best Adapted Screenplay. A Parasite-level sweep. But three and a half months earlier, this Miramax/Paramount Vantage release seemed like an iffy prospect to Oscar prognosticators Tom O’Neil and Pete Hammond.

Here’s how I reacted to their mid-November podcast about same, posted on or about 11.12.07.

“Although he’s now allowing that No Country for Old Men will probably eke its way into one of the five Best Picture slots, The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil is reporting, based on five or so conversations, that the widely-admired Coen brothers film is eliciting respect but not a lot of passion among Academy fudgeballs.

“O’Neil himself isn’t a great No Country admirer (he admits this), but if you know Tom you know he isn’t really speaking about quality judgment as much as the proverbial ‘longing for comfort’ factor. We all understand, I think, why O’Neil and his Academy chums are cool to this landmark film, and it starts, oddly enough, with what N.Y. Press critic Armond White called it — “a crime movie for a world at war.”

“In saying this White is rehashing an old truism, which is that all great films reflect the world in which they were made as much as the literary source material that they’re based upon. A-level artists are always responding to the electric here-and-now, and the Coen brothers were certainly in this groove when they shot and cut this film in ’06 and early ’07.

“No County for Old Men is a period film set in 1980, but it’s saying four dark things about the world of 2007. One, you can’t see what’s coming. Two, you can’t stop what’s coming. Three, the decent people are starting to be outnumbered by the indecent ones. And four, a kind of spiritual apocalypse is gathering like storm clouds and surrounding our culture.

“So there is no comfort for old Academy members in this film, even though it embodies lasting art and immaculate craft. Especially with that ‘unsatisfying ending’ that I’m sure is sticking in their craw — that kitchen-table scene with Tommy Lee Jones lamenting the loss of decency and dependability (as embodied by his late father) in his own life, and again admitting to himself and to us that he’s feeling overwhelmed and outflanked by the bad guys.

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Another ’50s-Era Rock ‘n’ Roll God…Adieu

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The most ahead-of-his-time rock ‘n’ roller in world history has passed on — a gay (i.e., “bisexual”) guy who wore makeup, flashy duds and a foot-high pompadour, and who recorded a hit 1955 song that was covertly about anal sex…c’mon! Every rocker who followed in Little Richard’s wake (i.e., everyone) has acknowledged his seminal lordship and influence. In a break-out time of bland repression and all through the decades that followed, Richard Wayne Penniman stood alone, flew his own flag, made the usual mistakes, kept pushing, kept going. Little Richard, James Brown, Chuck Berry…their legends endure.

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