Against my better judgment I’m off to submit to fucking Candyman, and if it turns out to be half as unsubtle as some have told me it is, or if I should be shot by a policeman whils strolling through the Grove or if, God forbid, I’m struck by a bolt of lightning, then I’m going to blame some of the people on this thread. And that I do not forgive.
Friendo re Strauss: “Yeah, that’s pretty spot-on. Frankly, the film’s POV — the black characters have been victimized, and a number of corrupt/evil whites get comeuppance — feels like an iteration of classic liberal Hollywood. It’s not a chip-on-the-shoulder ‘take that, whitey!’ movie.”
HE to friendo: “I’m so terrified of sitting through anything that uses a sledgehasmmer.”
Friendo to HE: “It ain’t Ozu. But it is an interesting, curiously ambitious slasher film that plays with the tropes of the post-George Floyd world in a genuinely engaging (if at times overly programmatic) way. I was held by it. And it’s just 90 minutes! It’s nothing to be scared of.”
…in which the habit of moviegoing is at its lowest ebb ever, and certainly nowhere near the semi-regular thing it used to be even in the ’90s and early aughts, and amongst those few intrepid souls who still occasionally flirt with the idea of seeing a film in a theatre, the vast majority don’t have clue #1 who this guy is or what film it’s from or anything. And if you lament this state of affairs (as I am now), you’ll be dismissed as a grumpy, out-of-it asshole who has lost touch with 2021 film culture, if you want to call what’s happening in theatres and in the streaming world “film culture,” and that you’re living inside some cranky membrane.
On the day that Marlon Brando‘s One-Eyed Jacks opened (3.30.61), a 35mm print was sent to the Kennedy mansion in Palm Beach (1095 North Ocean Drive). JFK flew down from Washington that morning, arriving around 11:30 am. He joined his father (Joseph P. Kennedy), Peter Lawford and Bing Crosby for some golf that afternoon. They all had dinner and then watched Brando’s film in the private screening room, which had been installed by Kennedy Sr., a Hollywood mogul in the 20s and 30s, after buying the home in 1933.
“I just wanted to tell you, Joe, how much fun your Wilder book is. I was expecting the usual sequential, chapter-by-chapter approach, and I got that from your very thorough recounting of his youth in Germany. (And you went to Germany for some first-hand digging — respect!)
“But once the Hollywood adventure begins, you start weaving in and out. You don’t abandon a steady, linear, through-line approach, but you don’t exactly stick to it either. The narrative starts hopping around, and I loved that! In your journey with Billy Wilder you become Billy Pilgrim, unstuck in time.
“And I love, love, LOVE that possibly accurate story about the waitress being paid to have it off with the square and virginal Charles Lindbergh in that Long Island hotel on the night before his flight, and then, at the end of the film, the same waitress being part of the crowd during Lindy’s triumphant victory parade in Manhattan, and hedoesn’tseeherwaving! What a great ending! I love the young vanity mirror woman who is actually in the film, but the waitress story would have been ten times better.
“I agree about Gary Cooper’s hesitant (wussy?) manner as he got older, and that he was way too old to pay Audrey Hepburn‘s lover in Love in the Afternoon. But what about that Wilder quote that “I got Coop the week he suddenly got old.” Cary Grant would have been a much better fit. Coop looked like he was at least 65 if not 70 in that film.
“I’m still reading, but I’m hoping for fresh anecdotes and stories about the making of One Two Three. In my estimation the amazing velocity and chutzpah in the last half of that 1961 film represents one of Cagney’s greatest performances by far, right up there with Public Enemy and George M. Cohan and Cody Jarrett. Plus I loved the strident, back-and-forth, give-and-take energy between Cagney and Horst Buccholz…what was it exactly that HB said or did to piss Cagney off so much?
“I’m presuming that at one point you’ll offer thoughts about how and why Wilder succumbed to ‘50s conventionality by deciding to become a proficient ‘house director’ between ‘53 and ‘58. He just went along with the flow of things, took this and that job, tried to be Lubitsch in this or that way, etc. But the fact is that after the making and release of 1953’s Stalag 17 and before the writing and shooting of Some Like It Hot in ‘58, Billy Wilder took a four and a half-year breather from the burden of being ‘Billy Wilder.’ For lack of a better or fairer term, he became Paycheck Billy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
I’ve cracked the Dune code. I’ve figured it out. I finally know what it is. Dune is a “mood piece” that puts you into “a trance”, but it would help if you get really effing ripped before seeing the damn thing. Toke up, suck it down, bring your own brownies and gummies.
I began to sense this when a friend who recently saw it said he was a fan of “epically scaled movies, even flawed ones or those that are hard to follow [as Dune] has a number of distinct characters weaving in and out.” What Dune viewers need to do, in other words, is get themselves into a place in which “flaws” don’t especially matter and “following the action” isn’t all that vital. (Whuht?)
You just have submit to Dune, go with it, and see past ALL THAT FUCKING SAND. And you have to see it on a big screen — no watching Dune on iPads or laptops. You have to go big or nothing. You are little, microscopic …not even a granule of sand. Dune is the whole effing desert and it will fill your soul with wonder.
Then I talked to another guy who’s seen Dune and claims he “went into something of a trance and was mesmerized from beginning to end. Seeing it a big screen was fabulous, and I might well see it again sometime just for the immersive pleasure.” In other words, Dune tripped this guy out. Imagine if he’d dropped two Bliss gummies a half-hour before sitting down.
Third person: “Dune‘s not bad. It just makes no sense. But that’s okay — it’s a mood piece. Good to see if you’re really stoned.”
At first 2001: A Space Odyssey failed to “make sense” or add up for certain snooty people (i.e., critics, rationalists). It was derided for being a “shaggy God story”. And then what happened? Younger people started going to it ripped or even tripping, and suddenly the spaciness of it became the all of it. 2001 became a cult stoner movie, and then the marketing guys finally caught on and they changed their slogan to “the ultimate trip.”
This, I’m sensing more and more, is what Dune is or could be. If you meet it halfway by being ripped out of your gourd, you can climb onto its back like a huge sand worm and ride the whirlwind. The next time Warner Bros. has an on-the-lot screening, they need to forego the wine and cheese and pass out edibles instead.
Late last night the U.S. military announced that it had drone-struck an ISIS-K planner behind the recent suicide bombing near Kabul Airport, thereby turning him instant hamburger. BBC.com: “A Reaper drone, launched from the Middle East, struck the militant while he was in a car with another ISIS member, killing them both, an official told Reuters news agency.”
Capt Bill Urban of Central Command: “The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties.”
Most of your ISIS-K fanatics are believed to be in hiding in this province, which lies east of Kabul.
This may have been a surgically precise response and the ISIS-K target may well have well been the Osama bin Laden behind the suicide bombing, but as many as 169 people, including 13 U.S. troops, were killed in Thursday’s attack. To my way of thinking that means at least 169 ISIS-K guys had to die, and preferably double that. Two doesn’t get it.
Incidentally: Apparently Donald Trump wasn’t mistaking ISIS-K for “ISIS-X”, as he called it. He was imagining or speculating that ISIS-X would be the next iteration after ISIS_K has had its heyday.
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?
