This is hands down the spookiest police interrogation scene in the history of motion pictures, and the spook is 85% or 90% due to David Shire‘s scoring, which isn’t “musical” as much as…I don’t know what but it suggests the sound of a nightmare. Or of hell. It’s brilliant.
The 15-year anniversary of Zodiac‘s commercial release happened earlier this month (3.2.22).
I had a couple of issues with the 4K “restoration” of The Godfather — issues, not arguments. I was/am of two minds. My primary allegiance is with the 2008 Robert Harris-Gordon Willis restoration, but I also loved what the tasteful DNR-ing (or de-graining) achieved. On the other hand I didn’t care for the lack of warm colors in most of the indoor scenes (i.e., the paler, pinkish faces).
But last night I watched the new 4K The Godfather, Part II — all 200 minutes of it — and was completely blown away. Yes, it’s also been DNR’ed but with more restraint, it seemed, than the 1972 original. It looks ravishing, and yet it doesn’t mess with Willis’s storied, burnished, yesteryear color scheme during the young Vito sections. The 1958 footage looks cleaner, sharper and more vivid (especially the daytime outdoor stuff), but not to any problematic extent.
I’ve never seen this 1974 Oscar-winner look so good — it’s delightful.
The non-political Club Random is a cool hang.
My first reaction was that William Shatner…well, I guess there’s no point worrying about a pot belly at age 91. (He was born on 3.22.31.) Shatner: “Why can’t I play a thin, slim 60 year old?”
Maher: “You ‘re not really expected to have made it in your 20s, but when you slip into your early 30s and you still haven’t, that was the roughest time for me.”
Maher’s one-hour HBO Max comedy special, #Adulting, taped on 3.4 and 3.5 in Miami (Beach?), will air on 4.15.
Adam Carolla drop-by, posted on 3.22:
“The latest wrinkle is the woke madness…they’re so crazed and they’re eating their own, you know, they’re just eating their young and [going] nuts. It’s just nuts.” — Oscar comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, speaking to The Ankler‘s Richard Rushfield and Janice Min.
From “Are the Oscars Over?,” a 3.22 Los Angeles magazine article by Scott Johnson:
“Have you heard about Aperture 2025?” [HE to Johnson: Yes, we’ve all heard of it but please continue.]
“It may sound like a Roland Emmerich sci-fi movie, but it’s actually more frightening. And much more controversial. It’s the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’s latest initiative to make Hollywood more equitable and diverse — more woke — by changing the rules by which films are eligible for Best Picture nominations.
“Here’s how it works: Starting in 2024, producers will be required to submit a summation of the race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability status of members of their movie’s cast and crew. If a particular movie does not have enough people of color or disabled people or gays or lesbians working on the set—and what is “enough” will be determined by a knotty tangle of byzantine formularies—then that movie will no longer be eligible for an Oscar.
“Not surprisingly, the plan is not being universally applauded in Hollywood. Critics say it’s invasive, anti-creative, opens the door to privacy issues, and is spectacularly unfair to actors and crew members, who may want to keep their sexual orientation or health profiles to themselves, not to mention to producers and directors who have enough to worry about while shooting a movie than to be saddled with the thankless task of tallying up the identity markers of their creative partners.
“’I mean, why aren’t animals in this?’ sneers one industry insider. ‘What if the main character is a horse?'”
Or at least, it shouldn’t be if all the attendees follow the required protocol. Doing so, however, is rather complicated — achievable but complex. Which means that boomers and Baby Busters (born in the 1930s) will probably have trouble with the process unless, you know, they have a Zoomer or Millennial assistant doing it for them. Either way the line to get into the Dolby theatre will probably be horrendous.
“Last night’s W magazine party was held outdoors at hotspot Gigi’s. A consistent question heard throughout the night was, ‘Are we all getting COVID now?’ Guests nervously joked that Oscar weekend could be a ‘super spreader.’ Mask-wearing at W’s party and a Vanity Fair party earlier in the evening at Mother Wolf was a rare sighting.” — from “Ahead of Oscars, COVID Concerns Loom as Hollywood Parties Almost as Usual,” by Brent Lang & Marc Malkin.
World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy has reviewed selections from a fair number of anonymous Oscar ballots (he includes links to 13 but claims there are seven more piggy-backed or bunched in).
Ruimy reports that Penelope Cruz is the far-and-away favorite in the Best Actress realm, being the top-poller in 15 ballots (or something like that). The next closest contender, he says, is Kristen Stewart with 5 votes; Jessica Chastain has 3 votes.
Obviously this is a non-scientific count and far from comprehensive, but within this small sub-section Cruz is the hottie.
Posted on 5.17.17: “A 20something guy sat next to me during yesterday’s train trip from Gare de Lyon to Cannes. About 90 minutes after departure he got up and went to the food car, an all-metal enclosure on the upper deck, mostly serving McDonald’s-like eats and drinks. But instead of wolfing his food up there, the guy brought it back to our first-class haven.
“Right away the smell of microwaved cheese, pickles and burger meat filled the air. And then he opened the wrappers and it was even worse. I knew that giving this animal two or three stink-eye glances wouldn’t matter, but I did it anyway.
“It would be one thing if he returned with an apple or a cappuccino or a cold sandwich, but subjecting travellers to toxic fast food fumes is only a step away from cutting a series of elephant farts.
“On top of which the guy darted outdoors every time we stopped at a big city (Lyon, Toulon, Marseilles) to smoke a cigarette, and when he returned the putrid aroma of nicotine and cheap tobacco was nearly as bad as the cheeseburger.
“Did it occur to this three-toed sloth that that his fratboy aromas were a problem? Naaah. One of the key traits of assholes worldwide is not being even faintly aware that they might be irritating others. The thought never even occurs.”
On the other hand there’s nothing “normal” about wearing a zebra-skin toga or bathrobe, a sartorial statement coordinated with a white bull terrier and a black panther-like dog in the doorway.
During that arriving-in-America moment in The Godfather, Part II, and as Francis Coppola’s camera tracks along the deck of the Mosholu, we see twins standing only three or four feet apart — short, full-faced, middle-aged men with the same eyes, nose and mouth. Wait…is that a second set of younger, taller twins standing behind them?
Six and a half weeks ago the 2022 Oscar nominations were announced, and to everyone’s surprise Parallel Mothers star Penelope Cruz, whom every handicapper had written off weeks earlier, landed a Best Actress nomination. And now, people are saying, she appears to be surging and may even win the Oscar come Sunday.
Maybe.
I’d love to see this happen, of course. As everyone knows (and as I reminded on 2.8.22) Hollywood Elsewhere stood by Cruz for weeks and weeks, alone and resolute against the stiff winds of seeming indifference…the only name-brand columnist who waved weekly flags for her deeply rooted performance.
All the other award-season Yodas were either Doubting Thomases or cautious fence-sitters…damp-finger-to-the-wind equivocators. If you want to make it in this business you have to have heart.
Penélope Cruz:
-Didn’t get a Golden Globe nod
-Didn’t get a Critics Choice nod
-Didn’t get a SAG nod
-Didn’t even make the BAFTA *LONGLIST*And she STILL got the Oscar nom.
Legend behavior, your faves could never, etc etc etc. pic.twitter.com/hOMOx9LSra
— Zach Gilbert (@zachbgilbert) February 8, 2022
It’s not a secret that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is an arch-conservative, Trump-supporting wacko. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, therefore, that Thomas texted Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows numerous times on 1.6.21, calling Joe Biden’s election victory “the greatest heist of our history” and declaring that then-President Donald Trump “should not concede….this is a fight of good vs. evil.”
Obviously Mrs. Thomas should be subpeonaed to testify, as should Judge Thomas. Will this power couple be subpeonaed? It’s my personal opinion that the leaders of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6h on the U.S. Capitol are, no offense, slow-moving pussies so I guess we’ll see what happens.
