The bear-like, Brooklyn-born, large-of-spirit Paul Sorvino has passed at age of 83. I ran into Sorvino at the Westport Country Playhouse tavern in ’77 or ’78, and what an aura…he was probably a little bombed but full of feeling and come-what-may passion…I smiled and patted Sorvino on the shoulder in a brotherly way and said “Yo, The Gambler!” and he went “oohhhh, yeah, yeah.” I was referring to Hips, the loan shark in Karel Riesz and James Toback‘s 1974 film, and that moment when he tells a deadbeat gambler who owes more than he has “you worthless contemptible deadbeat motherfucking dog…die!” Yes, his defining performance is Paul Cicero in Goodfellas (“Now I gotta turn my back”) but let’s not forget his performances in The Day of the Dolphin, Bloodbrothers, The Brink’s Job, Cruising, Reds (Louis Fraina!), That Championship Season (Phil Romano!), Dick Tracy (‘Lips’ Manlis!), The Firm (Tommie Morolto!), Nixon (Henry Kissinger!), and Bulworth.
“I had a difference of opinion with a woman I’m working with. I did something I thought was funny, and it wasn’t taken that way.” — Bill Murray to CNBC on or about 5.21.22.
Murray might have been referring to Being Mortal costar Keke Palmer, but there was another woman costar on that Aziz Ansari film — Christina Lanoux. But what are the odds that Lanoux, a woman with only one previous feature credit (Straight Outta Compton) from 2015, would throw a huge hissy fit and thereby halt production? What are the odds that Murray had any kind of substantial back-and-forth relationship with Lanoux during filming of Being Mortal? Ask yourself that.
Friendo to HE: “A studio wag says that Murray dropping out of Wes Anderson‘s Asteroid City over Covid is a convenient excuse, and that he’s heard that Murray isn’t insurable due to Being Mortal not restarting based on whatever antics he pulled.”
HE to friendo: “Murray suddenly isn’t ‘insurable’? Murray is known for behaving curiously and sometimes obnoxiously during filming, but he’s been that way for at least 40 years. A bit of an odd duck, but I know him a tiny bit (press junkets, party chats, watched him work during filming of Monuments Men in Germany) and he’s just colorful Bill. He likes to goof off and have fun but he doesn’t suffer fools.
“What do you do when you can sense that a certain actor (not Murray) is a defensive piece of work and a temperamental Millennial time bomb who’s ready to over-react to any identity-related issue at the drop of a hat?”
Friendo to HE: “In these agitated times a diva’s weaponry can possibly deliver an unfairkillshot, thanks to the fear caused in suites inhabited by invertebrate corporate hacks. Would another studio allow a filmmaker to hire Murray with the last film shut down and not restarted due to his supposed on-set conduct? They’re risk averse.”
HE to Tar director-screenwriter-producer Todd Field:
“That Tar teaser I just watched is one of the best movie teasers I’ve ever seen IN MY FUCKING LIFE…no lie, straight cards, on my knees.
“It’s so good that I wonder if or how the film itself can live up to the promise, but let’s be optimistic and presume as much. But it really is the shit, man…I LOVE THIS EARTH-SHAKING TEASER.
“I fully expect to see Tar in Telluride…caaannn’t wait.”
Roughly ten months after the airing of Women of the Movement, a six-part ABC miniseries about the horrific 1955 murder of Emmett Till and the relentless pursuit of justice by his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, Chinonye Chukwu’s Till (Orion, 10.7), a theatrical feature that apparently tells a similar story, will debut at the 60th New York Film Festival.
Till stars Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till Mobley and Jalyn Hall as Emmett Till. The 14 year-old Till was seized and murdered on 8.28.55, allegedly in response to Till having expressed some form of libidinal interest in Carolyn Bryant, a white, 21-year-old married proprietor of a small grocery store in Money, Mississippi. At the time a fellow of color even broaching the possibility of such a scenario was deemed a hanging offense by Mississippi redneck culture. Carolyn’s scurvy husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam were acquitted of murdering Till in a local trial, but they admitted their guilt in a Look1.24.56 magazine article.
Will Joyce Carol Oates follow the example of James Patterson in the end? Will she humbly apologize for calling out woke terror in the publishing world?
Wait…they gave The Black Phone, which is absolutely substandard, a B-plus? They gave the abysmal Jurassic World Dominion an A-minus? Do they ever give anything a C or a D, or at least a B-minus?
The late Bob Rafelson‘s finest directing achievement will always be Five Easy Pieces (’70). He will also be remembered for seven other films he helped to produce as a partner in BBS Productions (an acronym standing for himself, Bert Schneider and Steve Blauner) — Easy Rider, The Last Picture Show, The King of Marvin Gardens, Head, A Safe Place and Drive, He Said.
Rafelson’s second best work as a director is Stay Hungry (’76), a rural, rompy, free-spirited film about bodybuilding, self-discovery and fiddle-playing. Two or three times I’ve called it one of the best family movies ever — one of the gentlest, warmest and funniest.
Hungry was honestly the last Rafelson-helmed film that I really liked. Eight films followed (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Modesty, Black Widow, Mountains of the Moon, Man Trouble, Blood and Wine, a TV film called Poodle Springs, and finally No Good Deed). But you can’t take those early glory years away from Rafelson, and who would want to?
Last night I managed to stream Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Notre Dame On Fire, which opened in France last March and in England two days ago, and will apparently play on U.S. IMAX screens before long.
The first half is pretty good as far as this kind of thing goes (the blending of recreated moments along with genuine footage is perfect), and the second half — when things got heavy and scary and a few heroic firemen had to step in and save the day within a 15-minute window — is excellent. Seriously, the last half-hour is worth the price of admission in itself.
I’m thinking I’d like to see it again in IMAX — last night’s viewing was on the 65″ Sony, and in 720p.
There’s a little too much sentimental attention paid to the cathedral’s spiritual aura as well as rescuing priceless artifacts (including, we’re told, the original crown of thorns worn by Jesus on his day of crucifixion and even a vial of his blood) and there are infuriating passages when key players are stuck in Paris traffic (get out of the car and hop on a motorcycle) but this is life when tragedy strikes — mistakes are made, banal stuff gets in the way, etc.
In some ways it’s similar to John Guillermin and Irwin Allen‘s The Towering Inferno (’74). There’s no Richard Chamberlain villain who creates conditions that lead to disaster, but the fire is initially ignored by way of carelessness and laziness, as it is in Inferno. No characters are emotionally conflicted and no one (thank fortune) falls to their deaths, but there’s a kind of Paul Newman-type architect character who knows the cathedral and saves the crown of thorns, and there’s definitely a couple of Steve McQueen-type firemen heroes who climb up and into the twin bell towers and manage to finally put the fire out with only a few minutes to spare. Which is what McQueen and Newman accomplished in the final stretch of Inferno.
Plus there’s footage of French president Emmanuel Macron, not speaking but obviously “playing” himself.
Donald Trump is made fun of for tweeting that helicopters should dump water on the burning church from the air, but that’s exactly what I was thinking when it happened. Vacuum water from the Seine into tanks, and then fly over the cathedral and releases dozens or even hundreds of gallons at a pop. Perhaps that kind of drenching might have threatened the Notre Dame structure, but it seemed to make sense at the time.
HE’s Top Ten Greatest Films (and I hate doing this because when you make a greatest-ever list all you think about are the films that you didn’t mention): (1) Paths of Glory, (2) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, (3 & 4) The Godfather & The Godfather, Part II, (5) Blow-Up, (6) The Graduate, (7) Zodiac, (8) On The Waterfront, (9) The Best Years of Our Lives, (10) Shane.
Like I said two or three days ago, I’ll buy the notion of the Nope aliens being a metaphor for white oppression. Nice and clean, works for me.
The last time I checked colonization was defined as “the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area.” Trust me — there is nothing in Nope that even remotely resembles colonization. Not even satirically or idiosyncratically.
Wokeness isn’t just about embracing and indeed celebrating the historically marginalized American super-trio — race, gender and sexual identity. It’s also about identifying and persecuting anyone who doesn’t regard these groups with appropriately sacred reverence.
Herewith films that have always made me seethe with hatred, twitch with revulsion and convulse with contempt. I’m naturally excluding films that are merely dull or excessive or appalling…or so bad they’re funny (Irwin Allen‘s The Swarm).
