Month: June 2021

This two-day-old Lorraine interview with Anthony Hopkins took me back to the whole soul-draining, otherworldly disappointment of the Steven Soderbergh Oscars — easily the most bizarre, tilt-level Academy Awards telecast in human history.

Not to mention that awful, mind-warping post-Oscar assessment video by Variety wokesters Elizabeth Wagmeister, Clayton Davis, Angelique Jackson and Jenelle Riley.

The best response was posted by HE’s “Deydou“:

“Wagmeister, Davis, Jackson, Riley… you could add many more of these so-called columnists, entertainment journalists and Oscar bloggers who know nothing about movies or care about performances. They’re only interested in writing about what descent is this or that actor, and pushing for awards because of this or that origin.

“Who will remember these ignoramuses who ridicule themselves to please those Twitter hyenas that don’t represent anyone in real life? They should be ashamed of themselves. As should be every hypocrite who did their ‘who will win and who should win?’ before the Oscar and always put Boseman’s name in the ‘should win’.

“Chadwick Boseman wasn’t robbed nor snubbed and Hopkins’s win wasn’t shocking at all. Boseman gave one of the best performances of the year in a so-so movie. Hopkins is one of the GOAT giving one of the best performances of all time in an excellent movie that most people loved.

“There was no competition. Hopkins doesn’t even play in the same league than the other four. The Best Actor Oscar is not supposed to be a consolation prize or a race prize. Hopkins has no responsibility in Boseman’s shocking death. He doesn’t have to apologize for being a old white male. Boseman‘s Ma Rainey performance was great but he was not as good as Hopkins, nor was he overdue.

“R.I.P. Chadwick. As a great artist and and great man, I’m sure from where you are, you know Hopkins deserved it.”

The below quote appears at the very beginning of Mark Harris‘s “Mike Nichols: A Life,” which was published four months ago.

I’m a bit puzzled by the line “disaster can reorder our lives in wonderful ways, and then you go on to the next thing.”

I’ve never considered the idea of a disaster being any kind of wonderful experience. The only wonderful thing about getting hit in the side of the head by a waffle iron is what happens in the aftermath — you’re forced to either sink or swim when it happens. According to romantic Nietzschean principles, it makes you stronger by toughening your resolve and determination, or else you drop to your knees and lose your confidence or whatever.

I know that after a certain point in life most people (as in 98% or 99%) aren’t that interested in do-or-die scenarios. But they happen all the same.

Two and one-third years ago I raved about S. Craig Zahler‘s Dragged Across Concrete. This morning I happened to re-read my 3.21.19 review, and I’m wondering how it may have settled into HE community consciousness since then.

Was it an intense flash-in-the-pan thing, or has it acquired some kind of cult status? Has anyone watched it more than once, recommended it to friends, argued about it, found it wanting the second time, etc.?

I called it “a dead fucking brilliant exercise in slow-burn, element-by-element, ultra-violent urban action melodrama. It’s longish (158 minutes) and methodical and about as riveting as this kind of step-by-step ensemble crime film gets. It may be the best rightwing (if morally corrupted) urban action flick since Man on Fire.

“It takes its time, you bet, but once the disparate characters and plot threads start falling into place and it all starts to pay off like a slot machine, watch out.

“Concrete offers the best snarly-tough-guy performance from Mel Gibson in ages, another excellent turn from Vince Vaughn (his best since that True Detective criminal he played during season #2) and a serious pop-through turn by Tory Kittles, who looks like a slightly older Jussie Smollett.

“It’s like a politically conservative Jackie Brown without the mellow, likably laid-back lead performances from Robert Forster and Pam Grier, although Gibson and Vaughn are kind of brusquely charming in their roguishly rightwing, fuck-all deadpan way. Like Jackie Brown it waits and waits and reflects and reflects and then talks and talks and talks some more, and then finally, around the 100-minute mark, wham.

“It’s basically a talkfest thing that waits until Act Three to bring out the hardware and spill the vino. At 154 minutes, Jackie Brown is only four minutes shorter.

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In the Heights has a curious exchange that’s been bothering me.

A 50ish female character named Daniella (Daphne Rubin-Vega) is moving out of her Washington Heights apartment and has hired movers. But when an overweight mover addresses her as “ma’am,” she barks at him for not addressing her as “Senorita.” He quickly apologizes and says “uhm, sorry’ ma’am…I mean Senorita.”

Like the film itself, Daniella is driven by cultural pride and, one gathers, a certain amount of resentment of Anglo culture, and so her irritation is understood. But my reaction was “whoa, sensitive enough?” The term “ma’am” is, of course, not a slur. In every English-speaking territory throughout the world it conveys deference and respect, and there’s really no debate about this. So why bite the guy’s head off?

Magnificent rant. Wonderfully sane. Plain and straight.

And I’m depending upon HE commenter VictorLazloFive to guide and instruct…please. I want to see the light but I need help. My soul is in your hands. Maybe if I totally submit, I’ll get more advertising income next fall.

I don’t think the “with” is necessary, by the way. It should just read “white, privileged, much to learn.”

Well-made crap? Better than it seems? Blood Red Sky “is one of the 71 original films that Netflix will release in 2021.” Directed by Peter Thorwarth, shot in Prague, a German-English coproduction.