Month: July 2022

Millennial Czech Swingers

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I’m halfway through Tomasz Winski‘s Borders of Love, which recently debuted at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. We all understand how things eventually go when a couple tries an open relationship. Somebody abuses the rules in some way, shape or form and trust goes out the window. I’ve seen Ingmar Bergman‘s Scenes From A Marriage (’73), of course — similar territory. At the very least the newbie is moderately interesting.

This From An “Elvis” Fan…

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Herewith an amusingly mixed, damning-with-faint-praise review of Elvis, posted yesterday by Presley biographer and HE’s former Entertainment Weekly colleague at Pat H. Broeske:

“Yours Truly finally caught up with the new Elvis film, and it was definitely worth the price of admission! Serious eye candy!” HE comment: What does that mean, “serious eye candy”? Is there an un-serious form of eye candy…a less-than-fully-committed kind?

“Now, speaking as an Elvis biographer (1997’s ‘Down at the End of Lonely Street,’ co-written with Peter Harry Brown), this screen rendition is a very, very authorized take on Elvis. There is absolutely nothing in this movie that can upset the powers-that-be within the Elvis industry/Graceland.

“But if it’s a sanitized account of the King and his career — and that’s the only way this movie was going to get access to all that Elvis music, etc. — it’s also fabulously produced and earnestly performed.

“[Director] Baz Luhrmann (of the overwrought Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby) takes oodles of creative license as he charts Presley’s rise, his 1960s stagnancy, his phenomenal 1968 TV special (one of the greatest showbiz comebacks ever), and his Vegas years.

“It all happens in flamboyant, sometimes mind-boggling fashion (a Luhrmann trademark), with Austin Butler as Elvis and Tom Hanks as manager Col. Tom Parker.

“Along the way the film dodges minefields, as in significant people and events in the superstar’s life. Several women with whom he was seriously involved, who aren’t popular with certain members of the Presley clan, don’t warrant so much as a howdy-do. And except for meeting the beautiful young Priscilla in Germany, Elvis’s military time gets short shrift while in real life, that’s when he seriously started popping pills.

“Also, the film downplays the Memphis Mafia — and the fact that several of its members betrayed Elvis with a hurtful tell-all, published just weeks prior to his death.

“Nor does Elvis get into E’s weight-related issues (there’s not even a snippet of him scarfing down one of those peanut butter and fried banana sandwiches). His use/abuse of prescription meds is also minimized. And so on.

“But if this isn’t a warts-and-all screen bio, it does hit the high notes of E’s career, and at the end of the day (and by the time the multitudinous credits have rolled), it serves to remind filmgoers of what made Elvis so special. It also introduces younger viewers to those qualities. And it’s certainly a showcase for Luhrmann’s hyperventilating screen style.

“Come Oscar time, this film will be in contention for numerous technical categories. and possibly for Hanks’s performance.” [HE: No niomination for Butler?] But in the meantime with everyone all shook up, Elvis will continue to entice.”

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If They Don’t Like It, Tough

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Eff the hinterlanders who may not be able to deal with a felonious and traitorous ex-President being charged with serious crimes. If they respond to his arrest and indictment with violence and weapons and whatnot, good — round ’em up, cuff ’em and put ’em in jail. We live in a Democracy built upon laws and legislation, and no one is above it. Trump is a sociopath who fully deserves whatever punishment may be coming his way.

Charlie Rose Misgivings

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Friendo: How has our world been made better by the erasure of Charlie Rose?

HE: Rose, as you well know, is serving a term of indefinite banishment for having been a creepy lech with women who worked for him. He’s been #MeToo’ed and guillotined and is for all practical purposes a dead man, and that’s that.

Friendo: I know but my question is ‘how has our world been made better without him’?

HE: It’s not better. Not by my sights. I loved his show for years. But anyone who says that openly will have the woke Stasi on their ass.

Friendo: We have these gaping holes in our culture now. It’s grotesque that we are living this way. Rose’s show was so soothing and elevating and necessary and seemingly irreplaceable, and it’s not like he died.

HE: We’re living in a totalitarian system of sorts — a tyranny of sensitive Millennial Stalinists determined to make things safer by way of terror. Rose didn’t die, of course, but he’s “dead” all the same. I loved his interviews with smart filmmakers. He could be a bit of a dick in person — a curt, dismissive type if you weren’t famous enough for his tastes.

Friendo: I guess but I feel like with all of this nonsense I’m being punished. I have to live in a world without Charlie Rose. I have to live in a world without movies produced by Scott Rudin. I have to live in a world without great comedy all because of little cry babies who throw a fit and everybody responds like indulgent parents.

HE: Cry babies by way of the East German secret police.

Buttigieg in ’24, Not Biden

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President Joe Biden is in excellent physical shape (he works out, rides a bike) and mentally spry, but most voters want someone younger. Joe will be just shy of 82 after the ’24 election and if he’s re-elected he’ll be 86 when he finishes his second term. That’s too old. I really, really want Pete Buttigieg to run in his place in ’24. I realize that Pete would face an uphill situation as far as BIPOC voters are concerned, but the reality has to be faced — if Biden’s opponent is Ron DeSantis or Glenn Youngkin or Liz Cheney, he will most likely lose. Pete would be a far better Democratic candidate at this stage of the game. Listen to him — he’s got it.

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Vise Grip of Authentic Identity Casting

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25 days ago the world-famous Tom Hanks, an industry A-lister for 35 years and a 65 year-old boomer looking to project an acceptance of the present, was quoted saying the following to the New York Times:

“Let’s address ‘could a straight man do what I did in Philadelphia now?’ No, and rightly so. The whole point of Philadelphia was don’t be afraid. One of the reasons people weren’t afraid of that movie is that I was playing a gay man. We’re beyond that now, and I don’t think people would accept the inauthenticity of a straight guy playing a gay guy. It’s not a crime, it’s not boohoo, that someone would say we are going to demand more of a movie in the modern realm of authenticity.”

Hanks’ Philadelphia character, Andy Beckett, a hotshot attorney working for a powerful Philly law firm, was professionally closeted but otherwise “out” as far as his family, nocturnal lifestyle and loft-sharing boyfriend (Antonio Banderas) were concerned. And if Jonathan Demme’s 1993 film were to be remade today, Andy would have to be played by a gay actor, Hanks seems to believe — no ifs, ands or buts. (He’d also have to be totally out, most likely.)

But what about Bradley Cooper playing Leonard Bernstein in the currently filming Maestro?

Bernstein was a gay man, and living a life not unlike Andy Beckett’s — publicly and professionally closeted, and accomodating himself to a “beard” marriage to Felicia Montealegre (whom he genuinely loved and with whom he had three kids) to further his career. But first, foremost and finally, in the words of Arthur Laurents, Bernstein was “a gay man who got married…he wasn’t conflicted about his sexual orientation at all…he was just gay.”

So if Andy Beckett was basically Leonard Bernstein and vice versa, will the authentic identity casting fascists be complaining next year that the apparently straight Cooper shouldn’t be playing the esteemed composer of West Side Story? Hanks has called this a settled issue — no more high-profile straight actors playing gay guys because “we’ve beyond that now” and the public is entitled to “demand more of a movie in the modern realm of authenticity.”

It is HE’s view, of course, that the “authentic identity casting fascists” are insane, and that gifted actors should be allowed to play anyone they want as long as they can pull it off, and that includes Hanks as Beckett, Hugh Grant as Maurice, Hillary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry, William Hurt as the gay inmate in Kiss of the Spider Woman, Heath Ledger as Ennis del Mar and even Laurence Olivier as “the Mahdi” in Khartoum and Orson Welles as Othello. But that’s me.

Father & Son, Still Bickering

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[Originally posted on 8.13.21] At the very end of Field of Dreams, a conversation between Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) and the ghost of his dad, John (Dwier Brown):

Ray: Is there a heaven?
John: I…I really wish I could tell you.
Ray: But you just asked me if this baseball diamond, upon which we’re both standing right now, is heaven.
John: Yeah.
Ray: But what could I possibly know? You’re dead and you don’t know the basic picture?
John: Okay…Ray?
Ray: You were alive once. You know what it’s like. Nobody really knows anything.
John: I don’t think we need to argue about this…do we, Ray? I’m just happy to be here. Let’s leave it at that. I love you and I’ve missed you. Being with you right now is a blessing.
Ray: Dad, you just asked me if this is heaven. In other words, since you died you’ve been somewhere else, so to speak. A place that didn’t feel like heaven. What was that place? Tell me a thing or two…c’mon.
John: Wow, we’re arguing.
Ray: I love you too, Dad, but would you please answer me?
John: I don’t know what happened when I died, Ray. Honestly, I don’t remember anything. I do know that all of a sudden I was in a baseball uniform and I had my old beat-up catcher’s mitt. It was wonderful, and then I walked through the cornfield.
Ray: Yeah?
John: And here we are.
Ray: This isn’t heaven, dad. It’s a beautiful place but it’s not. You just asked me a straight question and I gave you a straight answer. But you won’t reciprocate. You’re not going to answer my question because ghosts are too heavy-cat to address earthly concerns.
John: I can’t tell you what you want to know.
Ray: You won’t tell me, you mean.
John: I can’t.
Ray: Could you do something else?
John: Sure, Ray. What?
Ray: Try and fix things in heaven so I don’t have to make mortgage payments any more.
John: (eye roll) Ray…

There are two generally understood concepts of heaven. Concept #1 focuses on material-world stuff…pleasure, happiness, fulfillment, great sex, neck rubs, bags of money, great Italian food. Concept #2 is about a bullshit fairy tale after-realm that religious leaders have been selling to their parishioners for centuries, as in “be good and go to heaven.”

I’ve always said that if there’s a heaven, it certainly doesn’t work on a merit or virtuous behavior system. Upon dying everyone becomes Keir Dullea‘s space fetus at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, or nobody does.

Alien Pinocchio Gangster

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I’ve watched YouTube snippets of The Untouchables, the hit Desilu TV series that ran from ’59 through ’63. But I’ve never watched an actual episode. Partly because the lighting is so flat and the production design and general atmosphere seem so inauthentic, presumably due to the relatively low TV-series budget.

The first 25 minutes of the better funded Some Like It Hot (’59) looked and felt like old-time Chicago, or at least convinced you that it was a reasonable facsimile.

But The Untouchables used a signature image that everyone knew — a main-title drawing of a group of Chicago wise guys up to no good. It was seen at the start and close of each episode, and that image has always bothered me because of the alien-meets-carved-Pinocchio features of the second-from-the-left guy.

If he looked vaguely human there would be nothing to say, but he clearly doesn’t. Plus his hat is two or three sizes too large. Strange vibes.

It’s somewhere between a charcoal drawing and a wood carving with a conveyance of early 20th Century Ashcan impressionism (I’m reminded of George Bellows‘ “Stag at Sharkey’s“, and I especially love the lunging body language of the second-from-the-right guy) and yet none of the other six men are biologically or proportionately beyond the pale. You could call it “Six Gangsters Fleeing An Alien With An Oversized Hat.” I just needed to say that.

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Brando Particles

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These clips have been viewable on YouTube for years and years, but it’s so soothing and nourishing to just sit back and listen to the best of them…41 minutes of Marlon Brando recollections, one after another, etc. The video quality is mostly awful, and they’re not even the best I’ve seen or heard, and the guy who threw them together repeats a Karl Malden clip. But it’s still something. Especially the observations of Francis Coppola (starting around 17:00). My favorite is Chris Reeve‘s candid admission to David Letterman [31:55] that he “doesn’t worship at the altar of Marlon Brando [because] he doesn’t care anymore.”

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“You Shouldn’t Talk That Way To Me”

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I never even saw the dystopian A Boy And His Dog (’75), the only film ever directed by the late L.Q. Jones. All my life I’ve associated Jones with his Wild Bunch character (“Y.C.”), a bounty hunter described by Robert Ryan‘s character as “egg-suckin’, chicken-stealin’ gutter trash.” Jones was an honored member of Sam Peckinpah‘s stock company (Ride the High Country, Major Dundee, The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid). Jones began working as a character actor in the mid ’50s, and he kept at it until the mid aughts. He passed earlier today at age 94 — respect and condolences.