…is an excellent thing to smell, taste, feel. I spent two hours getting tickets for the NYFF. I was right at the front of the line and OF COURSE they were sold out of seats for both SheSaid screenings. And then I caught a 2 pm screening of a film I can’t write about until Tuesday, 10.4.
A Woody Allen rep is spinning Allen’s recent quote (provided to LaVanguardia, a storied Spanish publication) about making his currently shooting film hislastandfinal.
“Currently [Allen] has no intention of retiring,” the rep said. “Hesaidhewasthinkingaboutnotmakingfilms, asmakingfilmsthatgostraighttostreamingplatformsis not so enjoyable for him, as he is a great lover of the cinema experience.”
HEtoAllenrep: Allen is first and foremost a filmmaker, and has been for the last 50-plus years. How is “thinking about not making films” not a defacto declaration of an intention to retire, at least as far as filmmaking is concerned?
Thesamethinghappenedfouryearsagowhen Robert Redford announcedhewaspackingitin. Theverynextdayap.r. spokespersonsaid “no, no, nottrue…Bob is still very much active and in the game!” Redford said that his retirement statement was “amistake.” And then, of course, he retired.
“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...