All I said in yesterday’s riff about Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson putting Dune at the top of her Gold Derby slate of Best Picture contenders…all I said was that (a) I’ve been seriously dreading sitting through Denis Villeneueve‘s film for many months now, being no fan of dense, multi-part sci-fi sagas taking place in distant exotic realms and blah blah, and that (b) this prejudice coupled with a friend’s dismissive reaction to Dune resulted in my not trusting Thompson’s vote of approval, especially given the fact that (c) Thompson saw it at a lah-lah Warner Bros. lot screening augmented by wine, cheese and crackers.
I just don’t trust Anne’s response, is all. I feel that it’s better to wait for the reactions of free-thinking, clear-light people who have no investment or agenda or any kind, or better yet sci-fi haters.
That doesn’t mean that Anne isn’t a sharp, wise, intelligent observer — she certainly is that. But she occasonally tends to be overly obliging (she was oddly supportive of Terrence Malick‘s A Hidden Life when everyone else was saying “this again? more wackadoodle?”) and the phrase “butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth” arguably applies depending on your temperament or point of view so that’s all I’m saying. We all have our way of seeing things and working the town, etc. Anne’s judgment is fine, and she’s a first-rate human being. I’ve known her for a very long time.
Remember Jared Gilman, the bespectacled 10 year old in Wes Anderson‘s Moonrise Kingdom (’12). Well, he’s 21 or 22 now, and he looks like a slightly fleshy Sean Lennon, and he’s playing the Cyrano role in Scott Coffey‘s high-school remake of Cyrano de Bergerac, titled It Takes Three.
The question, of course, is why in the world would Gilman’s character want to help a flagrantly shallow Nowhere Man (David Gridley) seduce a sensible, thoughtful, introspective woman of quality (Aurora Perrineau). Why would anyone want to be a party to that? To what end? I took one look at Gridley and immediately hated his guts.
Creased and silver-haired Sirhan Sirhan, the former Palestinian militant who murdered U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy on 6.5.68 and thereby brought about the election of Richard Nixon and the terrible Vietnam War carnage that followed, was grantedparole today.
AP report: “Two of RFK’s sons spoke in favor of Sirhan Sirhan’s release and prosecutors declined to argue he should be kept behind bars.
“The decision was a major victory for the 77-year-old prisoner, although it does not assure his release.
“The ruling by the two-person panel at Sirhan’s 16th parole hearing will be reviewed over the next 90 days by the California Parole Board’s staff. Then it will be sent to governor Gavin Newsom, who will have 30 days to decide whether to grant it, reverse it or modify it.”
If you were Newsom, would you approve Sirhan’s release? Be honest.
“Sirhan’s lawyer, Angela Berry, argued that the board should base its decision on who Sirhan is today.
“Prosecutors declined to participate or oppose his release under a policy by Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, a former police officer who took office last year after running on a reform platform.
“Gascon, who said he idolized the Kennedys and mourned RFK’s assassination, believes the prosecutors’ role ends at sentencing and they should not influence decisions to release prisoners.”
HE viewpoint: I’m not sure how to respond to the possibility of Sirhan being set free. It seems odd, to say the least. But if (and I say, “if”) someone were to approach Sirhan after he gets out and shoot him in the back of the head, my reaction would be “well, that’s harsh but it’s also biblical retribution…an eye for an eye, a bullet in the brain for a bullet in the brain.”
I wouldn’t applaud his murder should it happen, but if it were to occur I couldn’t honestly condemn it. Imagine if Lee Harvey Oswald had lived and been convicted and jailed, and was now being paroledatage82. How wouldyoufeelabout that?
According to a 7.10 posting by terrencemalick.org’s Paul Maher. Jr., Terrence Malick‘s To The Wonder — an Oklahoma-set romantic drama he shot in late 2010 with Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel Weisz, Jessica Chastain and Javier Bardem — has scared away distributors, who have presumedly been shown the film in its entirety or in portions.
In other words, the same buyers who were going “what the eff is this?” after seeing The Tree of Life are again throwing up their hands and muttering to themselves in the general vein of “here we go again,” “life is too short,” “Jesus H. Christ” and “not me, babe.”
As Maher puts it, “Possibly the difficulties of The Tree of Life and its polarizing effect on the box office may be an underlying issue.”
Maher’s source is either closely affiliated with or working for Film Nation, and of the female persuasion. I’m listening to Maher because he’s a Malick fan, and like any webmaster running a kiss-ass website his default tendency is to praise Malick and otherwise shine favorable lights upon his accomplishments.
Not only is To The Wonder not being released in this country any time soon (although it may open in Europe a few months hence), but “the possibility of any trailer or publicity-related material coming out in the fall of 2012 is still vague, possibly unlikely,” Maher writes. He also reports that “when asked for any kind of teaser image or information, I was told [by my FilmNation source] that there still is nothing in the public domain that they could release.”
What the eff does that mean?
Malick taking two years to cut a film together is SOP (Days of Heaven was in the editing room from ’76 to ’78) but he can’t be moved to even issue a selection of still images from To The Wonder? Or allow a one-sheet to be created? Or put together an appetite-whetting teaser of some kind?
I’ve been saying for years that Malick needs a tough ballsy producer who isn’t afraid to get in his face and read him the riot act and goad him into adhering to a semi-reasonable editing deadline (i.e., between a year and eighteen months, let’s say) and perhaps even influence the shaping of his films in a way that won’t flagrantly agitate the thick-fingered vulgarians in the distribution business, at least to the point that they’ll make semi-serious bids on his finished films, which has not apparently happened on To The Wonder, per Maher.
The fact that To The Wonder is allegedly homeless nearly two years after principal photography is the proof in the pudding. Terrence Malick needs an intervention. He needs a strong partner and counsel who can save him from himself.
More to the point, the indications are overwhelming that Sarah Green and Nick Gonda, Malick’s producers on (a) To The Wonder, (b) the film formerly known as Lawless and (c) Knight of Cups, do not believe in the tough-love approach used by Bert Schneider, Malick’s producer on Days of Heaven. Malick’s endless dithering and dilly-dallying indicates that Green and Gonda are not forcing the issue and have decided to serve him in a passive, whatever-Terry-wants sort of way. They appear to be hand-holders, friends, toadies, facilitators, go-alongers, enablers.
In a 5.18.12 interview with The Hollywood Reporter‘s Pamela McClintock, FilmNation’s Glen Basner said he “hit it off with Sarah Green and Nick Gonda, two of the producers of [To The Wonder]. We were very like-minded people and maintained a friendly relationship. They were looking to make his next movie more outside the system, allowing Terry to have a process that works best for him, and we devised a way to finance the movie that met all of those needs.”
In other words, Malick says “jump” and Green and Gonda say “how high?”
The next Bond film needs to run at least three hours, and it needs to include an overture, an intermission and exit music. And it needs to open with reserved seat engagements in New York, Los Angeles and London. Seriously — this would make it into something more than just another Bond flick.
The lengthiest Bond film before Die was Spectre (’15) at 2 hours and 28 minutes — 17 minutes shorter. Casino Royale (’06) was four minutes shorter than Spectre — 144 minutes. Skyfall (’12) was one minute shorter at 2 hours and 23 minutes. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (’69) was one minute shorter than Skyfall, and License to Kill (’89) was a whopping 2 hours and 13 minutes — ten minutes shorter than Skyfall.
Dr. No (’62), the first Bond film, ran 109 minutes, or 54 minutes shorter than No Time To Die. From Russia With Love (’63) ran six minutes longer — 115 minutes. Goldfinger (’64) ran 110 minutes. What were they thinking?
Liz Cheney calls Trump’s deal w/ Taliban a “surrender.”
“We completely undercut the Afghan nat’l gov., we absolutely emboldened the Taliban … and that led us to the catastrophe today.”
Michael Moore/Substack on “The Miracle of Kabul”: “What’s happening in Kabul right now is a miracle. President Biden has saved the lives of over 100,000 Americans and Afghans after the Taliban won the war and Kabul fell. Yet he has been pilloried by pundits and armchair generals, and his approval rating has fallen.
“On this day of chaos, misery and suicide bombings, I want you to hear why President Biden has made a bold, courageous and smart move and why he deserves our thanks.”
It doesn’t really start until the 16-minute mark, and really the 23-minute mark. I have to say that Moore is way too generous in his descriptions of the Taliban. These guys are medieval hillbillies who will make life miserable for Afghan women.
Moore: “Everybody saying this is a bad idea to withdraw. Biden said ‘no, we’re leaving and that’s that.’ And he would not walk it back.”
Yesterday afternoon I passed along an old story about my cat, Mouse, crapping on the back of my neck, and I don’t mean the usual squeeze-outs but a warm stinky milkshake — an anxiety discharge. She was freaked out by the movement of the car, and leapt onto my shoulder and dumped the chocolate malted onto my neck and onto my blue workshirt.
The boys were with me, and we were driving east along Franklin Avenue. (It was sometime around ’03.) Jett was sitting shotgun and saw what was happening and began howling with laughter, and then the smell hit all of us…”aaagghhh!” My first instinct was to stop the car and leap out. I hurriedly tore my shirt off and used it to wipe the brown ooze off my neck and upper back as I arched my back. I was outside my mind as I went “eewwgghh, eewwgghh” like Humphrey Bogart when Katharine Hepburn is trying to burn the leeches off his back in The African Queen. I was searching for a garden hose or a sprinkler system of some kind but couldn’t find one. I threw the shirt away — I didn’t want it near me. It was awful.
Mouse had done this as a deliberate “fuck you” for subjecting her to the trauma of car travel. When cats don’t like something or more particularly when they don’t like you, they really let you know it.
