So who’s read it and what’s the verdict?
Day: August 28, 2022
Beware of the Telluride “Belfast” Syndrome
It is presumed that producer Sid Ganis will attend the 2022 Telluride Film Festival, and what would this elite Rocky Mountain festival be without him? But take what Sid may or may not say next weekend with a grain of salt. Just saying.
If Sid happens to choose a favorite Telluride film and if he happens to pass along his enthusiasm to Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, just remember what he said last year about Kenneth Branagh‘s Belfast. Branagh remembers, I can tell you, because Ganis calling it “one of the best films I’ve ever seen” almost surely torpedoed its chances as a Best Picture contender.
Because a significant percentage of Academy members went to see Belfast, expecting something phenomenal if not earthshaking, and they emerged two hours later muttering to themselves, “I don’t get it…Sid said this was one of the best ever…it’s okay in spots and the blonde kid was cute and we all like Van Morrison, but really?”
From “Matter of Personal Honor,” posted on 9.6.21:
Pretty much all of your sharper, tougher Telluride critics have problems with Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. And yet the more obliging middle-of-the-road types (critics, columnists and industry folk alike) have oddly fallen for it.
You can’t grab people by the lapels and order them to have a sense of taste about such matters. If someone likes Belfast or finds it Oscar-worthy, okay — shrug and throw your hands up. But when someone says Belfast is “one of the best films [they’ve] ever seen,” all kinds of crazy reactions come to mind. Because it’s fair, I believe, to compare Belfast’s family dynamic with that of Fred Savage and The Wonder Years, as IndieWire’s David Ehrlich did today.
Either you’re the type who can tolerate or, God forbid, embrace cloying emotionalism, or you aren’t..
From a 9.5 Deadline column by Pete Hammond:
Desperate Exhibitors
But in the other hand, they’re at least showing some initiative and going for the positive-minded gusto. I can’t participate as Saturday, 9.3 is right smack dab in the middle of the Telluride Film Festival.
This Look Works Now
…but those tats are difficult, bruh. Harry Styles understands, of course, that he’ll need to be in a different place (or phase) five and ten years hence. Every artist worth his or her salt figures this shit out well in advance.
Remake “They Live” With Wokesters
In an 8.28 New Yorker interview, Adam Nayman chats with fabled director John Carpenter:
Nayman: “You’ve been very up-front in the past about sequels and intellectual property, and how you can always go back to material if there’s a chance it’ll make more money. Some people can be precious about it, but you’re very direct. There’s always a sequel to be made. There’s always a remake.”
Carpenter: “If a movie makes enough money, you can be assured that it will.”
Nayman: “The rhetoric around Halloween Ends (Universal, 10.14.22) is that it’s definitely, finally going to be the last one. Should it be?”
Carpenter: “I’ll have to see how much money it makes!”
Nayman: “That’s a good answer. Have you had to bite your tongue in the past about sequels or reboots of your movies?”
Carpenter: “I just don’t say anything. It’s better that way sometimes. Every time I open my mouth, I get in trouble.”
HE to Carpenter: Please consider abandoning the Halloween franchise, now and forever. And please consider remaking They Live (’88), your creepy social commentary aliens flick which, of course, was really about unbridled Reaganism and mercenary yuppies. All you have to do is change the identity of the baddies by making them wokesters.
Only Now Can It Be Revealed
In an 11.17.19 email to Rian Johnson, HE passes along reaction to to Knives Out: “It’s actually fairly sharp and clever and funny. The most efficiently assembled, nimble-footed Rian Johnson film ever. Amusingly acted & tightly written. Slick & crafty…nice!
“Daniel Craig is in good shape, but he looks too old to be playing 007. And yet he is.
“The teasing and misdirection moves are very well handled. I had a much better time with it than anticipated.
“Yes, I think it does have a shot at Best Screenplay laurels.
“I’d heard earlier that Chris Evans is the bad guy, but it was still a bit surprising when I realized this was the actual shot.
“Ana de Armas is fine, but seemed to mostly concentrate on looking innocent, pretty, doe-eyed and fetching.
“And yet I HATED the cut of her pants cuffs, riding three or four inches above the sneaker line! Only hipster assholes wear pants that are cut like that — are you telling me that a Paraguayan woman who lives on a modest salary with her family in a grubby, smallish apartment is going to wear HIGH-CUFF HIPSTER PANTS?”
Johnson reply: “So happy you dug it, man. There goes our shot at a BEST PANTS nom!”
Would JFK Have Allowed Photographers To Shoot Fiddle and Faddle?
Now that the Sanna Marin party-video pushback thing has gone away, here’s a simple question that needs an answer.
If a Millennial-age head of state (she’s 36) chooses to have a couple of drinks and dance around with friends, fine. But what head of state in his/her right mind would be okay with someone taking a video of this? Is it some kind of unsuppressible Millennial urge to be performative no matter what? It’s crazy.
N.Y. Times columnist Maureen Dowd, dated 8.27: “What a grim, still-sexist world this is, when Marin is forced to tearfully apologize — and take a drug test — after video leaked of her letting loose.”
She-Hulk Submission
It wasn’t my idea, but the other night I watched an episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Episode 2, as it turned out — “Superhuman Law”.
I don’t what to say or even think. I knew I would never catch another episode so I watched with what you might call a dispassionate attitude. I didn’t hate it but I felt nothing….nothing at all. (I nodded off just before it ended, to be completely honest.) Yes, yes…some are calling She-Hulk woke Disney-corporate garbage and others approve of the feminist manifesto aspect. I have to admit that I liked hanging with the She-Hulk version of “Jen Walters” — tall, buff, striking, green — more than Tatiana Maslany on her lonesome.
That aside I don’t care. A window into the void. It didn’t flatline my soul — it just didn’t do anything.
What Can Wilde Do?
…to save the listing ship? The movie is the movie — the Venice Film Festival verdict is just around the corner, nothing to be done. But Twitter-wise? I would post a supportive pro–Shia tweet: “I admire your naked honesty, your bravery…your commitment to change and healing…my respect is absolute.”
And then I’d sign to direct a film that is completely lacking any kind of female-empowered, anti-white-patriarchy attitude. No gay stuff. Maybe a Woody Allen-styled dark comedy about a headstrong director who falls for a rock star. Or do a Kathryn Bigelow…make a war film. Or some kind of Michael Mann crime thriller. Basically shift gears, become someone else.
Son of Auto Body Guy From Brooklyn
Posted on 8.20.21: We’re trying to sell the car so we had to remove a dent, a scrape and a scuff. A guy I know and trust wanted $350 but his schedule was too jammed, so last weekend I went with a mobile auto-body team — a couple of 30something guys from back east.
One of them, a stocky, fast-talking, type-A dude, called himself “Charlie” but his phone ID read “Nicholas Grant” — a red flag.
They charged $425 and were fast and “efficient”, except “Charlie Grant” and his partner left the passenger side door with a kind of soapy residue over the dented area. Don’t wash it off for 48 hours, I was told. When I finally washed it off it was clear that Charlie hadn’t used the right shade of black paint — it should’ve been glossy, not flat.
I texted Charlie, asking when could he could return and do it right. He ducked me for hours, and then finally texted back. The most I could get out of him was “I’ll let you know” and “we’ll figure it out.” Another red flag. He didn’t do the job right so we (he and I, the technician and the client) would have to “figure it out”?
Myron McCormick’s Sgt. King to Andy Griffith’s Pvt. Stockdale: “Stockdale, you were supposed to clean the toilets, except one of them is still filthy.” Stockdale to King: “We’ll figure it out.”
HE to Charlie: “It’s Thursday noon. Are you coming tomorrow or Saturday?”
Charlie to HE: “I said twice that I would repair the damage, but you’ve insisted on pushing me around and threatening me. Great — let’s have the sheriff’s department get involved and we’ll go to small claims over $425.”
HE to Charlie: “No, you didn’t [say you’d repair it]. You said ‘I’ll let you know’ and ‘we’ll figure it out.’ Those are shifty, snake-oil statements. Quit fucking around.”
Charlie to HE: “I was going to fix it but at this point you’re scaring me. Please call the cops & we’ll just have them deal with it.”
HE to Charlie: “Be a man, stop this shit and do the job. Behave in a professional manner. If you don’t…what do you think I’m gonna do, just give up and walk away?”
Charlie to HE: “You’re an [older guy] who wears yellow shoes and lives next to a bunch of queers. Please don’t act scary or act tough. I’m from Brooklyn — relax yourself.”
HE to Charlie: “And I’m from Westfield, New Jersey. You’re a dishonorable person. You’re not a pro. Do the professional respectable thing. You fucked up the passenger door. You need to un-fuck it.”
And so on and so forth. Who does a shitty job and then fiddle-faddles around when you ask them to make it right?
Postscript: The auto body guy known as “Charlie” never came back, never made it right. Never trust any servicing person who says “we’ll figure it out.” It was only a year ago but I can’t recall what I did to fix the problem, but I figured something out and the car was sold.
Charlie was right about one thing: I’m definitely an older guy who occasionally wears yellow shoes, and I was certainly living in a gay neighborhood.