Scott Mantz, one of the happiest, smiling-est and most effusive film buffs and Will Rogers-like operators in the early-screening fraternity, has posted a “no” reaction to Jordan Peele‘s Nope.
Day: July 19, 2022
Excellent Fall Festival Spitballing
Yesterday Nextbestpicture.com‘s Matt Neglia posted what seems to me like a reasonably savvy and comprehensive guess list of what the hot fall festivals may (and probably will to a large extent) be screening. I’ve heard this and that, and Neglia’s guesses seem pretty spot-on. Boldfaced HE = exceptional interest and unseen (and in some cases Cannes-viewed) approval.
Which projected festival are giving me the slight willies? Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, for one. Aronofsky’s The Whale, for another.
Why isn’t Neglia projecting Blonde to play Telluride? Venice and Toronto but not Telluride? Doesn’t figure.
VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
The Banshees Of Inisherin (Dir. Martin McDonagh) – WORLD PREMIERE
Bardo (Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
Blonde (Dir. Andrew Dominik) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
Bones & All (Dir. Luca Guadagnino) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
Don’t Worry Darling (Dir. Olivia Wilde) – WORLD PREMIERE
The Master Gardener (Dir. Paul Schrader) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
Tár (Dir. Todd Field) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
The Whale (Dir. Darren Aronofsky) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL
Aftersun (Dir. Charlotte Wells)
Armageddon Time (Dir. James Gray) / HE
Bardo (Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu) / HE
Broker (Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Close (Dir. Lukas Dhont) / HE
Decision To Leave (Dir. Park Chan-wook)
EO (Dir. Jerzy Skolimowski)
Holy Spider (Dir. Ali Abbasi)
The Master Gardener (Dir. Paul Schrader) / HE
One Fine Morning (Dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)
The Pale Blue Eye (Dir. Scott Cooper) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
See How They Run (Dir. Tom George) – WORLD PREMIERE
She Said (Dir. Maria Schrader) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
Showing Up (Dir. Kelly Reichardt) / HE
The Son (Dir. Florian Zeller) – WORLD PREMIERE
Tár (Dir. Todd Field) / HE
Tori and Lokita (Dir. The Dardenne Brothers)
Triangle Of Sadness (Dir. Ruben Östlund) / HE
The Whale (Dir. Darren Aronofsky) / HE
Women Talking (Dir. Sarah Polley) – WORLD PREMIERE
Gigli-Cleopatra Connection
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman has posted an essay about the iconic pairing of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, formerly known as Bennifer or, if you will, “B-Lo”, and their recent Las Vegas marriage and especially Gigli, their 2003 box-office bomb that was directed by Martin Brest.
But what got my attention was the following passage: “And, of course, just as Liz and Dick had a famous bad movie to launch them, so did J. Lo and Ben. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had begun their torrid love affair on the set of Cleopatra in 1961, and by the time the movie came out, in 1963, it seemed to be all about the two of them.
“The same can be said for Gigli, the infamous debacle of a 2003 romantic comedy. Lopez and Affleck first got involved during the shooting of it, in 2002, and by the time the film came out, in August 2003, what was happening on screen seemed a mere footnote to the real-life dramatic series of their romance.
“Cleopatra was an iconic movie, a four-hour spectacle of ancient glitz bloated with expense and designed to lure audiences back from their pesky new loyalty to the small screen. Nothing about Gigli, when it came out, looked especially iconic; it wasn’t showy or expensive, and it was given such a rude collective backhand by the critics that it died a quick death.”
HE response: I don’t think it’s quite fair to dismiss Cleopatra as a “bad movie.” It’s a slog to sit through, of course, but it’s so handsomely and expensively produced and Leon Shamroy‘s cinematography is luscious eye candy, and Rex Harrison’s Julius Caesar is crisp and rousing, I feel, especially during the opening 15 or 20 minutes, and Roddy McDowell’s Ceasar Augustus is easily the best adult performance he ever gave and Martin Landau’s Ruffio is very good also, and even Burton and Taylor have their moments. And you can’t fault those first 15 or 20 minutes, and the opening credit sequence is wonderful. So you can’t just dismiss it as a “bad movie,” although it obviously has pacing and story-tension problems.
Excellent Bill Clinton Story
Told by Bill Maher to Cedric the Entertainer…begins at zero and ends at 2:35.
“Nope” Encounter
Jordan Peele‘s Nope opens on Friday, 7.22, which really means Thursday night. I’ll catch it at 7 pm this evening.
Premise: “After random objects falling from the sky result in the death of their father, ranch-owning siblings OJ and Emerald Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer) attempt to capture video evidence of an unidentified flying object with the help of tech salesman Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) and documentarian Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott).”
If your first name is Antlers, what do your friends call you — Ant? Anty?
New HE Mission Statement
[Tapped out this morning in comment thread for Harry Styles story]: “I’m standing up for straight X-factor male identity in the public eye. I’m standing up for normal boilerplate hetero guyness.”
“Normal”, that is, according to social gender standards of ten years ago. Today all bets are off, at least within urban Left and East Coast cultures.
“Live and Die” Lives Again
Anthony and Joe Russo, directors of The Gray Man (Netflix, 7.22), have said that William Friedkin‘s To Live and Die in L.A., (’85) was an influence in the making of their new film, which struck me as wholly uninvolving and spiritually dead in a Grand Theft Auto sort of way.
Late yesterday afternoon a friend and I caught a screening of Friedkin’s film at Netflix’s flagship theatre in Manhattan, the Paris on 58th. It was my third or fourth viewing but my first in a theatre since ’85, and I was fairly blown away by the clarity of the screenplay, which was co-authored by Friedkin and Gerald Petievich.
Not only can you actually hear and understand the dialogue but — bonus! — you can follow the story on a plot point-by-plot point basis. The vast majority of today’s action thrillers are deliberately written in order to keep the viewer “behind” the narrative — you’re never completely on top of what’s going on, the nagging questions are never answered until the end and sometimes even a climactic windup isn’t enough due to sloppy confusion or loose ends.
To Live and Die in L.A. employs the same narrative discipline that Friedkin used in The French Connection, The Exorcist and Sorcerer. Shot in late ’84 or early ’85, but every inch a “’70s film.” At least by my understanding of that term.
And everyone is so young. William Petersen, pushing 70 as we speak, was 31 or 32 during filming, but he looks a good five years younger than he did as FBI agent Will Graham in Manhunter (’86). Willem Dafoe was 29 during filming, but he looks like a teenager. I didn’t like John Pankow‘s candy-ass treasury agent when I first saw this, but I still don’t like him today…he’s playing a wimpering little girl. Costar Dean Stockwell was in his late 40s. As Petersen’s blonde, hard-luck girlfriend, Darlanna Fluegel was intense and believable. Her career was in good shape throughout the ’80s and early ’90s, but she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s in ’09 and died in 2017 at age 64.