Month: October 2020

Bite Your Tongue

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Yesterday an HE sorehead wrote that Florian Zeller‘s The Father (Sony Pictures Classics, 1.20.21) “isn’t happening. Or anything related to it. It’s another self-inflated bubble among movie pundits who will have no existence whatsoever in the real world.”

HE reply: “You’ve seen The Father? If you have you’re really crazy to have said that. It’s not a ‘bubble’ movie in the slightest. The idea of putting the audience into the shoes of an aging fellow with dementia is one of the most striking and inventive strategies for a domestic drama that I’ve seen in a long time. And Anthony Hopkins is nothing short of brilliant in the role. Everyone gets old and loses their edge to some extent. (Except for Gore Vidal, whom I spoke to a year or so before the end and seemed sharp as a tack.). And almost every family or middle-aged son or daughter has dealt with a declining parent. It’s about as un-bubbled and ‘real world’ a subject as you can find.”

It’s No “Miracle”

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Last night a former boozer wrote that “through the miracle of sobriety, I found my way back to the real world.” Good for him. Excellent. I know how he feels. However…

HE reply: “Speaking as someone eight and a half years sober, I can’t quite agree with calling it a ‘miracle.’ Because you did it one day at a time, and I’m 100% certain that the last time you looked in the mirror you didn’t say ‘man, you are one effing miracle of a human being!’ Nor is sobriety itself a miracle. It’s cleansing and liberating and wonderful in a kind of radiant rainbow way, but not quite (i.e., slightly shy of) miraculous. In the same way that anything involving will and focus and choosing life, good health and possibility over death, despair and the cocoon of ruin…it’s the only way to go, but I’ve been the recipient of serious, clear-light miracles in my life, and sobriety ain’t the same thing. It’s something to be proud about and grateful for but…well, I’ve said it.

“Promising” Trailer

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“I wouldn’t use the word ‘restrained’ when describing Promising Young Woman. There’s nothing subtle about this movie, and it’s not realism at all. It’s a post-#MeToo fantasy, a feminist version of Death Wish…a justifiably angry woman (Carey Mulligan) punishing filthy men. Mulligan is depicted as heroic without any real-life consequences or police investigations or social media gotchas. It gives you a lot to chew on and talk about post-screening — in a sense it’s right at the forefront of the post-#MeToo conversation — but then again it’s not saying anything new. And it’s definitely a world apart. It charges into extreme realms.” — Word of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy.

Death Rides A Skateboard

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As the YouTube world has been teeming with stylistic Wes Anderson tribute videos for the last 15 or 20 years, it will come as no surprise that another has just landed. But a pretty good one. It’s from Blood Cultures and director Saleem Barbados.** Jett Wells is their manager, and he passed it along, etc. It premiered on YouTube this morning. “Hard to Explain” is a 19-year-old song, originally recorded by The Strokes.

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If I Weren’t So Terrified…

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…of running even slightly afoul of the militant #MeToo crowd, I would say that Michelle Pfeiffer, who’s been on the planet since April ’58, looks really terrific. But I’d better not say that for fear of being called all kinds of names. I enjoyed about 15 minutes of face time with Pfeiffer in May of ’82 (she had just turned 24) during a press schmoozer for Grease 2. I’ve just been sent access to her latest film, Azazel Jacobs‘ French Exit (Sony Pictures Classics, 2.12.21). The surreal comedy will premiere at the New York Film Festival on 10.11.20.

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According to Clayton Davis…

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In a 10.8 Variety piece, award-season prognosticator Clayton Davis has picked some Best Actor favorites. Here they are plus my two cents:

1. Anthony Hopkins, The Father (Sony Pictures Classics) / HE sez: Definitely.
2. Delroy Lindo, Da 5 Bloods (Netflix) / HE sez: Due respect for a strong performances, but I think Lindo belongs in supporting as Spike Lee‘s back-to-Vietnam film is an ensemble.
3. Gary Oldman, Mank (Netflix) / HE sez: Haven’t seen David Fincher‘s period film, but almost certainly.
4. Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah (Warner Bros.) / HE sez: This means Clayton has seen it, I presume. I haven’t, and I haven’t heard squat. Anyone?
5. Steven Yeun, Minari (A24) / HE sez: Haven’t seen it, but the reviews don’t exactly scream “holy shit, drop to your knees…Steven Yeun hits it out of the park!” The Sundance reviews were positive, approving, respectful.

Second Tier:

6. Tom Hanks, News of the World (Universal Pictures) / HE sez: Nobody’s seen the film, but the New Academy Kidz would prefer to award an actor of color. Or so I understand.
7. Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal (Amazon Studios) / Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman sez: “Ahmed plays Ruben as a sweet but blunted outsider who confronts his ]increasing deafness] the same way he does everything else: with poe-faced blankness.” Doesn’t sound like a Best Actor performance to me.
8. Kingsley Ben-Adir, One Night in Miami…” (Amazon Studios) / HE sez: A steady-as-she-goes performance as Malcom X in a good film, but calm down.
9. Dev Patel, The Personal History of David Copperfield (Searchlight Pictures) / HE sez: You think?
10. Tom Holland, Cherry (Apple TV Plus) / HE sez: Haven’t seen it.

Strange Coding

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For years the vast majority have been visiting websites on their smart phones and iPad/Kindles, and the coding naturally caters to that reality. But when you go to the main N.Y. Times page on your Macbook Pro, the copy is centered and occupying roughly 60% of the acreage. Visit Hollywood-elsewhere.com on your laptop, and the top logo-and-banner area occupies 70% of the screen while the centered column-space width represents about 1/3 of the screen space, and is easily expandable. But when you go variety.com everything is weirdly scrunched into the middle; The Hollywood Reporter occupies a wider area or close to half the screen. I only know that laptop-wise, HE’s column copy is bigger and wider and less of a hassle than the trades.

Classic Baseball Cleats

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Respect and adieu to Whitey Ford.

In the old days major-league baseball players wore knee socks and black leather lace-ups with metal cleats. Today’s players don’t wear knee socks for the most part, and their footwear is more or less on the level of standard Sports Locker sneakers. With cleats. And in the old days you almost never saw an overweight baseball player, Babe Ruth aside. These days roly-poly players are at least somewhat common. I don’t watch enough baseball to get into this any further. I’m just saying.

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English Is No Picnic

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Yesterday Tatiana announced the official launch of Tatiana-pravda.com, with a caveat that all the articles will be in English. She’ll probably post most of her articles concurrently on HE, or at least those about movies, books and travel. This one is about her struggle to learn English in her youth.

Tatiana excerpt: It’s almost certain I will never ever speak English as well as Russian. 70% at best, and only after years and years of hard work.

As I began this article there were two competing voices within.

One said, “Nobody will be really interested in your writing. Even a super exciting story sounds dull and trivial if it’s told clumsily or without spirit.”

Another voice replied, “Yes, you’re absolutely right. You will sound dreary and your readers will be bored. But you know how a person achieves great heights? When he/she finds himself in an uncomfortable situation and needs to climb out of it. Or if a person creates a challenge for himself. But the heart beats faster and faster and the blood craves adrenalin. It’s like jumping with a parachute for the first time in your life.”

I fell in love with English at first sight, or more precisely at first sound :-). I was six or seven years old when I first heard it spoken. In the Soviet Union era all students were required to study a foreign language after graduating from elementary school (three years). We all went to school when we were seven years old. After elementary school we transferred to middle school (five years). And then high school (two years).

Exceptions were the language schools where you studied a foreign language from the very beginning.

I was very excited about studying English. But guess what? We were instructed in English but not encouraged to speak it conversationally. Anti-capitalist propaganda, the Cold War, full isolation of the USSR from the world…we all were very busy with building communism.

We were reading texts about London (“London is the capital of Great Britain”), Washington and New York, but were absolutely unable to speak the language of an imperialist nation that we taught to regard as our enemy.

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Jimi Hendrix’s “Salmon House”

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Buying a house is necessarily a slowish, meticulous, step-by-step process. Endless protocols and procedures, and it’s never a done deal until you’ve signed every last form and inspected the place with a fine-tooth comb. But congrats are nonetheless in order for HE’s Jett Wells and wife Caitlin Bennett on purchasing their first home.

It’s located on a leafy cul-de-sac in West Orange, New Jersey, which is 20 or 25 minutes from Manhattan. Built in the 1930s, nice-looking floors, three bedrooms (or three and a half…I forget), an attic, a basement, 1 1/2 bathrooms, excellent front porch, huge back yard for the dogs, hilly. Expected occupancy by 12.1.20, or possibly a bit earlier. Their neighborhood is due south of Montclair; it’s also near Caldwell, where my maternal grandparents lived for decades.