Day: March 23, 2021

Segal Out

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The exceptionally gifted George Segal was a necessary, nervy, highly charged actor for over 50 years (early ’60s until 2014). In his heyday he was an explorer of urban Jewish neurotics with underlying rage…half superficial, half pained and always guilty or bothered about something…at other times Segal was a smoothie…an amiable grinner with sandy brown hair and an eye for the ladies.

Segal’s two best roles were in Paul Mazursky‘s Blume In Love (’73) and in Robert Altman‘S California Split (’74).

Segal worked hard and dutifully and never stopped pushing, but honestly? His leading-man peak period lasted only nine or ten years. Or if you want to be cruel about it, he was The Guy Everyone Understood and Related To for only about five years, between ’70 and ’75.

The golden period began with Segal’s breakout performance in Ship of Fools (’64), and then as a crafty prisoner of war in King Rat (’65). This was followed by his career-making performance as Nick, the ambitious and randy biology professor who beds Elizabeth Taylor but can’t get it up, in Mike Nichols‘ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (’66). Segal’s streak ended with his lived-in performance as compulsive gambler Bill Denny in California Split, opposite the wonderfully on-target Elliot Gould.

Segal didn’t catch serious fire until neurotic Jewish guys became a hot Hollywood commodity in the early ’70s. His first serious breakout came when he played a vaguely unhappy cheating commuter husband in Irvin Kirshner‘s Loving (’70). This was followed by his guilty, lovesick moustachioed Jewish attorney in Carl Reiner‘s Where’s Poppa? (’70).

After this Segal starred in six winners — The Owl and the Pussycat, Born to Win (drug addict), The Hot Rock (Kelp the locksmith), Blume in Love, A Touch of Class, The Terminal Man and finally California Split — my favorite of all his films.

Between the mid to late ’60s Segal starred in five films that were somewhere between interesting and pretty good but at the same time not great — The Quiller Memorandum (’66), The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
(’68), Bye Bye Braverman, No Way to Treat a Lady (’68), The Bridge at Remagen (’69) and…well, that’s it.

Segal’s last decently written role was as Ben Stiller‘s dad (and Mary Tyler Moore‘s henpecked husband) in David O. Russell‘s Flirting With Disaster (’96).

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Not A Bird Is Stirring in the Trees

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On 1.17.21, World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy reported that “there are early, but very serious, talks from Mouse House head honchos to punt the football and release a majority of their 2021 releases straight to Disney Plus, some in unison with theatrical releases. The titles being seriously discussed include Cruella, Luca, Shang-Shi, Jungle Cruise and, most intriguingly, the overtly-delayed Black Widow.”

Today Deadline‘s Anthony D’Allesandro reported that Disney will open Cruella and Marvel’s Black Widow “simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access (which is usually $30 a purchase extra for subscribers) in most Disney+ markets on Friday, 5.28 and Friday, 7.9, respectively. It also shifted release dates on five other films.”

Big deal Who cares? I wouldn’t pay $30, $13 or even $3 to see Black Widow. Whadaya think of them apples?

Greatest Miniature Train Wreck on Earth

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Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Greatest Show on Earth (’52) is one of the least deserving Best Picture Oscar winners of all time. We all know that. But when they show it on the streaming services, they ought to respect the original “boxy is beautiful” aspect ratio (i.e., 1.37:1).

As we speak, Amazon and Paramount Plus aren’t respecting this — they’re showing it within a 16 x 9 a.r., and that ain’t cool. Yes, a new Paramount Home Video Bluray with the correct boxy proportion with be out in a few days.


Cleavered version of DeMille’s epic, now streaming on Amazon and Paramount Plus

Correct 1.37 aspect ratio:

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Significant Sasha Excerpts: “Green Book” Agonistes

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This morning Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone posted a sum-up piece that addresses the militant oversteps of the totalitarian Twitter mob over the last three years, give or take.

The piece is called “Best Picture and the Green Book Effect.” I’ve highlighted a few portions, but before I post them never forget an essential HE legend, which is that Green Book‘s Best Picture triumph, which happened a little more than two years ago, was an absolutely glorious pushback against the p.c. Twitter jackals.

Yes, I’ve said this two or three times before but it feels so good to repeat it.

Sasha excerpt #1: “I have never believed Green Book deserved the [ugly] treatment it got [from the wokesters], certainly not how the filmmakers’ past was rifled through and exposed. To me, it was redirected anger at Trump that caused a lot of the anger. [And yet Academy] voters didn’t seem to care and still picked the film to win Best Picture. Although now most people in the film coverage industry believe Green Book got what it deserved and that the Academy, which had picked Moonlight just two years before, was racist for voting for Green Book.”

Sasha excerpt #2: “The balloon of hysteria that arose on Twitter in reaction to Green Book’s success [was tumultuous]. They mostly left the film alone until it started winning the top prizes. The critics had thrown their lot 100% behind Roma and fully expected the Academy would make history with the first ‘foreign language’ film to win Best Picture.

“The Academy finally did that the following year [with Parasite], probably because of what happened with Green Book and Roma.

“But Roma was never going to win. If you gave voters only those two choices there is very little chance they were going to pick Roma. It was a beautiful film but it was not a general audience crowd-pleaser like Green Book is.

“In almost every case, a Best Picture winner is that one movie you can sit anyone down in front of and they will at least get it if not love it. They have to get it. Many could not and did not get why Roma was receiving so much praise.”

HE side riff: Roma lost support because of two things: (a) the opening 15 minutes, in which Yalitza Aparicio‘s Cleo” is shown cleaning up a spacious two-story Mexico City home and making beds and whatnot for what feels like forever, and (b) there were too many dog loads in the driveway, a problem made worse by the fact that Cleo made no real attempt to regularly clean them up.

Sasha excerpt #3: “Film Twitter tends to dictate the narrative and the journalists pick up on that narrative. If they say a movie is racist, journalists sometimes go along with it. If they say sexism is why a person did not get a Best Director nomination, journalists go along with it.

“But even if people who cover the race objected to the treatment of Green Book, they weren’t going to say anything. It was way too risky.

“If they did say anything it would be in support of the attempts to bring the film down. That’s really the way you build clout online in the insular world of film criticism or bloggers or fans online. You go along or else face being ignored or being attacked.”

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Kilday Without Filter

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We all know that Hollywood Reporter contributor Gregg Kilday is really saying about the current Oscar nominees, and in particular those for Best Picture: He’s saying that 2020 (which includes early ’21) has been a dud movie year and a general downer for all concerned.

Everyone knows this and wants to move on and return to normal. All hail gains by women and POC filmmakers but nobody really loves the wokester progressive surge except those who’ve directly benefited. (And don’t forget that wokesters are the Robespierre-like architects of cancel culture.) Everyone’s morose and bummed and nobody gives a shit about the ’20 and ’21 nightmare because it’s an asterisk and a tragedy — a gloomy movie year defined by streaming and domestic hibernation and the slow suffocation of our souls…half-dying under a grim cloud.

Joe and Jane Popcorn aren’t exactly caught up in the thrill of the Oscar race, to put it mildly. Even professional Oscar watchers are having trouble maintaining a semblance of enthusiasm.

Kilday has posted five or six mitigating quotes that basically say “oh, no, this is a great year and streaming makes everything more accessible and we’re living through a great time.”

He’s also posted one honest quote from Unbroken producer Matthew Baer: “The grand slam for the Oscar best picture is a popular movie with artistic ambitions fulfilled. But given theaters were closed, popularity is difficult to judge. It’s ironic that this year Nomadland is a leading candidate because the business itself became displaced. Also, given nothing else matters in comparison to recovering from COVID, while winning an Oscar is the ultimate victory for artists, it will have less meaning in American culture this year.”

If theatrical was alive and thriving, the leading Best Picture contenders…well, who knows? But we all suspect the same thing, which is that they wouldn’t have stirred much in the way of crowds.

Boulder Shooter Disturbs Narrative

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The Boulder shooter who perpetrated the King Soopers grocery store slaughter has been identified as a 21-year-old Syrian guy named Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa.

A recent media + Twitter narrative, which the facts in last week’s Atlanta massage-parlor shootings don’t seem to support so far, has been “mobilize against racial hate, especially in the matter of venal white guys”, as indeed we all should in every way possible. But the Boulder tragedy doesn’t fall in line with this.

I am a moderate left-centrist and therefore not a Daily Wire rightie, but this 3.23 story, reported by DW‘s Asche Schow, is a more honest account of what’s been happening since Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was identified as the shooter than anything you’ll read in the N.Y. Times or the Daily Beast. or via woke Twitter.

N.Y. Times excerpt: “The police in Arvada, Colorado, said they had two encounters in 2018 with the suspect, identified on Tuesday as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa — one on a report of third-degree assault and one of criminal mischief. It is not clear if he was convicted of a crime.

“Court records show Alissa was born in Syria in 1999, as did a Facebook page that appeared to belong to the suspect, giving his name as Ahmad Al Issa; the page was taken down within an hour of his name being released by the authorities. Michael Dougherty, the Boulder County district attorney, said the suspect had ‘lived most of his life in the United States.'”

“The Facebook page said he went to Arvada West High School, where he was a wrestler, and listed wrestling and kickboxing as being among his interests. Many of the posts were about martial arts, and one, in 2019, said simply, “#NeedAGirlfriend.”

Honest HE reaction after looking at photo of alleged assailant (w/ bleeding leg wound) being led away by police: This is a 21 year-old? Look at him — overweight, pot-bellied, rapidly thinning hair if not balding, bearded. He looks 38 if a day.

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