Day: May 27, 2021

HE to friendos: Outside the trades and the N.Y. Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post, et. al., do any of you know of any stringer critics or website columnist-critics who are attending Cannes in July? France just announced a 30-day quarantine for British visitors — it may be finessed away by the festival, but why only the English? If the French are serious, why aren’t they calling for a 30-day quarantine for Americans as well?”

Friendo to HE: “Probably because the UK has done far worse than the U.S. in terms of getting people vaccinated, plus the number of Brits coming into France certainly far exceeds the number of Yanks on a daily basis. That said, the French have been very under-supplied with the vaccine — friends who live in Cannes have told me over the past week that they want the vaccine but can’t get it yet.

“If the [French] quarantine is expanded, no Americans will be showing up in Cannes — that’s for sure. As of now, all the trades are planning to be in Cannes in force. Can’t say I’m thrilled about the gobs of tourists who will be in Cannes in July for the beach and will then feel the need to rubberneck around the Palais.

“Thierry Fremaux is being very upbeat and is stressing all the precautions and new protocols that will be in force, but still…we shall see. Venice managed surprisingly well last September but there were scarcely any foreigners there and the Lido is very separate from Venice itself, so not so hard there to maintain safety procedures.

“That said, the line-up of Cannes films should be very strong — lots of films jammed up, waiting for the light of day. Still, the festival holding all the aces this year should be Telluride — two years’ worth of foreign films we haven’t seen plus new high-end American goodies.”

From “Amid Cannes Uncertainties, Many Dealmakers May Skip In-Person Event,” posted this morning (5.28) by THR‘s Alex Ritman and Scott Roxborough:

If you’re just strolling along the Malibu Colony beach, cool. A simple communion with the wealthy vibes, intoxicating sea smell, gentle breezes, etc. You can approve a photographer (i.e., Carinthia West) taking snaps but that’s liable to draw attention, and in public places most celebrities do what they can, of course, to not call attention. So play it cool, Carinthia. We don’t want autograph seekers rushing over and spoiling the mood, right?

So why, one wonders, is Ron Wood carrying a couple of large, crimson-colored cheerleader pom-pom sticks? Answer: “It was October 1976 and Mick, Ronnie and I were on our way to Diana Ross’s daughter Tracee’s fourth birthday party, for which Ronnie is taking these red balloons. Ronnie and Krissy Wood had rented 54 Malibu Colony which was the base of operations for the all-night jamming sessions and partying so beloved of Ronnie. Ronnie’s manager at the time was Bob Ellis Silberstein, who was married to Ross.”

I saw the Stones perform in Madison Square Garden in the summer (or was it the fall?) of ’75. And then again in Paris in June of ’76 — Les Rolling Stones aux Abbatoirs.

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…for boomers. Younger generations, not so much. But whatever your age perspective, few images in 20th Century cinema have conveyed a feeling of quiet dread and eeriness equal to this.

We’re now almost three months into the 2021 Oscar year. A bit more than seven months between now and 12.31.21. Time moves along, doesn’t it?

What films released since 3.1.21 could conceivably warrant awards attention? Okay, unfair question for this time of year — none. Which films released since 3.1.21 could be called, without reservation, very good and an honor to their makers? If you ask me, Above Suspicion totally qualifies in that regard. Some would claim that Zack Snyder’s Justice League is also quite the achievement. (Apart from the glorious 1.37:1 aspect ratio I couldn’t stand it, but that’s me.) What am I forgetting?

Airplane! is not one of HE’s favorite 1980 films. Just because everyone laughed and it made a lot of money ($171 million or $580 million in 2021 currency) and was the last mainstream movie in which a suave jet-pilot character, played by famous TV actor Peter Graves, conveyed a sexual interest in a young boy…that doesn’t make it great or classic or anything in between. It was just a highly successful goof-off parody film…nothing more. Never forget that the mere act of making people laugh is the lowest form of humor.

Nor will I buy into the long-established counterview that Michael Cimino‘s Heaven’s Gate is some kind of masterpiece. Visually it’s very handsome and impressive, but it also is, was and always will be one of the most grueling sits of my life.

And I’m no fan of Dressed to Kill either — it reeks of sexual loathing and disdain for poor Angie Dickinson‘s character, and I hate that scene in which she’s followed around inside the Metropolitan Museum by a good-looking asshole smoothie who hasn’t the balls to say anything to her, and is therefore worthless. I was around 17 or 18 when I learned the wisdom of “he who hesitates, masturbates.”

HE’s top 1980 features (in this order):

1. The Empire Strikes Back (magnificent from start to finish)
2. Raging Bull (a great film except for the odd closing tribute to Haig Manoogian, which has nothing to do with Jake La Motta and therefore leaves you with a “what? reaction — this is why RB is in the second slot)
3. Ordinary People
4. Atlantic City (sublime Burt Lancaster, and he was only 66 when the film was shot.)
5. The Elephant Man
6. Coal Miner’s Daughter (Sissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones and Levon Helm are aces)
7. Breaker Morant (lean, grave and masterful)
8. Used Cars (brilliant Preston Sturges film)
9. The Stunt Man
10. Diva
11. American Gigolo (has improved with age)
12. The Shining (when you consider what Stanley Kubrick‘s adaptation could have been, you can’t help but sigh with a certain air of regret — it’s a very rigid, almost constipated film)
13. Somewhere in Time (i.e., the version with the original uncut crane-and tracking shot that ends the film)
14. Kagemusha
15. Stir Crazy

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I’ve watched these YouTube clips from J.C. Chandor‘s Margin Call at least a dozen times and possibly more than that. They radiate serious grip — a magnificent feeling of real-world psychological tension and unspoken currents — the kind of thing that I live for (or used to live for) when I went to screenings and public showings.

Margin Call premiered at Sundance in January ’11 (I attended the first press screening at the Holiday Cinemas), and by the time it opened the following October Chandor was well branded as a leading young light — a serious-focus, auteur-level helmer who, it was presumed, would make moviegoing for educated over-35s a slightly less draining experience.

This presumption was happily fulfilled with the brilliant All Is Lost (’13), containing Robert Redford‘s greatest performance, and A Most Violent Year (’14), an excellent Queens-based noir about a family business.

In July 2014 Chandor was hired to direct Deepwater Horizon, but by January 2015 he’d left the project over creative differences (i.e., head-butting arguments with Mark Wahlberg). And then, four years later, came Triple Frontier, a Netflix thing which I found fully realistic and satisfying except for the finale when the thieves decide to give a significant portion of the dough to Ben Affleck‘s calorically-challenged daughter. If it was my call, she’d get Affleck’s share and no more.

Last August Chandor, one of the true good guys of cinema and a reach-for-the-sky craftsman and visionary, was hired to direct Kraven, The Hunter with Aaron Taylor-Johnson playing the titular character. The release date — 1.13.23 — tells you everything.

We all have to earn money and keep the lamps burning, but the idea of Chandor directing Kraven is, no offense, shattering.

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I saw Jules Dassin and Mark Hellinger‘s The Naked City (’48) back in the early ’80s, or so I recall. I would’ve gotten around to a re-viewing sooner or later, but now I’m revved after catching Bruce Goldstein‘s “Uncovering The Naked City,” a 23-minute doc that explores the various locations and strategies that went into filming this hard-boiled New York cop movie, shot entirely on location. Now I’m locking into watching Criterion’s HD version this weekend.

Enterprising photographer Stanley Kubrick, 19 at the time, was spotted hanging around the Naked City set.

Hellinger, who narrates the film (and I wish they’d forgotten about any narration at all — it makes it feel hokey now), died of of a heart attack on 12.21.47 at age 44. (Who keels over at age 44?) The Naked City opened the following March.

Film historian William Park has argued that, despite Weegee‘s work on the film and its title coming from Weegee’s 1945 photo book, the film owes its visual style more to Italian neorealism rather than Weegee’s photographic work.

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