Month: October 2022

The Hollywood Reporter has revealed its core philosophical allegiance in Alex Ritman’s story about John Cleese‘s decision to become an anchor-commentator on England’s GB News, a recently launched station which is roughly analogous to the Daily Wire. (I thinj.)

THR/Ritman: “John Cleese, the former Monty Python heavyweight and more recently a vocal campaigner against so-called wokeism and cancel culture, is set to become a regular presenter on GB News, the right-leaning news channel that launched in 2021.”

Ritman’s use of the term “so-called” means that THR is highly suspicious of even the existence of wokeism and cancel culture, which is a total wokester dodge tactic.

in a 9.2.21 piece about Johnny Depp appearing at the San Sebastian Film Festival, Variety tipped its hand in the exact same way:

Cleese: “There’s a massive amount of important information that gets censored, both in TV and in the press. In my new show, I’ll be talking about a lot of it. You should be prepared to be shocked.”

Despite the GB affiliation, Cleese has described himself as “an old-style liberal.” Since the emergence of “the terror” I’ve been calling myself a center-left moderate….same difference.

Cleese said he would be working with the existing GB News presenter Andrew Doyle, a comedian who used to write scripts for the fictional “Jonathan Pie“, aka Tim Walker.

I feel truly sorry for people who are living large off and within the film / TV industry and at the same don’t really get the love and worship factor.

Ask Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino: Film is a faith — a religious order, and either you wear the monk robes or you don’t. I never detected the slightest indication that the hard-nosed Nikki Finke understood or believed this.

At their best (5% or 10% of the time) movies are vessels of art and joy and nurture, and before the terrible plague of the last few years (relentlessly empty, soul-smothering Millennial/Zoomer streaming “content” + flooding of farmlands with Marvel/D.C. fanboy crap + mass suffocation from the pandemic + woke gulag Stalinism) theatres were hallowed places of communal worship and self-recognition or at least some form of intimate observance.

To regard and define Hollywood (filmmaking, promotion, distribution) strictly as a dollars-and-cents power game is a philistine distraction. To many of us the game, or more precisely the calling, is much bigger and deeper than that.

David Poland has written a frank recollection of the long, brutal, bruising relationship he had for years with the late Nikki Finke. It strikes me as one of the best columns he’s ever written.

And she wasn’t. But she was tough and tenacious, and she certainly left her journalistic mark in the ‘90s and aughts. Give the devil her due.

There’s more to the trials and tribulations of life than just being liked or disliked. Most people would dispute this, and I wouldn’t argue with them. Human warmth (friends, family, strangers) is worth its weight in gold, but a bit more credit is arguably due to to gifted hustlers, obstinate renegades, generals, pathfinders, pyramid builders, geniuses, inventors, etc.

That said, Finke was my idea of a very harsh and vindictive person. A serpent, a meanie. I’m not exaggerating.

“We’re here and then we’re not here. Somewhere else…maybe.” — Terrence Stamp’s “Willie Parker” in Stephen Frears The Hit (‘84).

Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman (filed at 12:54 pm):

East Coast Friendo: “My wife and I went to see Bros at our local multiplex; 4pm show on a weekday, so there were fewer than five other people. We thought it was very funny, smart and moving.

“As I was thinking about why it’s been such a box-office flop, I think the idea that it feels too woke and preachy misses the mark. When you get right down to it, it was so obviously gay that I understand why it didn’t find a mass audience.

“It’s one thing for Will & Grace, essentially the minstrel version of gay people, to be popular. But I don’t think most moviegoers are ready to watch men kissing, simulating sex and making jokes about ‘your gigantic penis and my tiny little anus.’ I laughed, but I think it would make many people in the flyover squirm.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a mainstream Hollywood film which included an explicit romantic sex scene w/men having face-to-face intercourse while lying down (something you see in hetero romcoms all the time). I’ve also never seen one in which the role of ‘the bottom’ is as explicitly laid out as it is here, where the top says, ‘I want you to fuck me tonight.’

“I would imagine there are a lot of people who are interested in the film but wouldn’t want to be seen attending it or even be known to have watched it. So maybe it will find its audience when it streams and moves to the other platforms.”

West Coast Friendo: “You don’t see much sex in romcoms either. That’s the point. They’re basically grown up fairy tales for heterosexual women. The genre is called ROMANTIC comedy, not sex romp. Thrillers tended to have more sex in them, although even that has been purged.

“No romcom would have Tom Hanks with his hands on Meg Ryan’s boobs or ass on the poster.

“Bros. should have been put on Streaming or HBO where it would have been devoured by its target demo.

“Why didn’t it debut on streaming? Because it’s a missionary movie — its aim is not entertainment but conversion.

“I couldn’t even get a black gay friend to see it with me. ‘It looks stupid,’ he said.”

HE to East Coast Friendo: “Ahh, the joys of gay sex! You brought up Bros sex so allow me to continue the thread…

“What about the fat gay guy telling Eichner that some guy peed on another guy? Did you find that bit amusing or even appealing?

“I rolled with the graphic sexual behavior depictions in Bros, but I can’t honestly say they were particularly welcome.

“Like I said in one of my riffs, at times the depictions almost approached the graphic levels of Frank Ripploh’s Taxi Zum Klo.

“40-plus years ago Eddie Murphy’s ‘Mr. T in a gay bar’ routine was hilarious FOR A REASON. Apart from Murphy’s unfortnate use of the “f” word, it’s still funny. And the funniest line? Mr. T growling ‘I want you to come on over here, and fuck me in the ass.’

Hilarious then, but if you so much as snicker at such a scenario now you’re probably a homophobe and (who knows?) a possible candidate for cancellation.

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Robert S. Bader and Dick Cavett‘s Groucho & Cavett (PBS American Masters, 12.27) was shown yesterday or the day before at the Hamptons Int’l Film Festival.

Excerpt: “Cavett, a writer for Jack Parr on The Tonight Show, met Marx at the funeral of playwright George S. Kaufman in 1961. When Cavett made the transition from writer to comedian in 1965, he was encouraged and mentored by Marx. In 1968, Cavett became the host of his own talk show and Marx became a frequent guest, capturing what Cavett calls ‘the last of Groucho’s greatness.’

“Groucho & Cavett chronicles the pair’s relationship through new interviews with Cavett, footage from Marx’s visits to The Dick Cavett Show and other rare recordings.”

I’ve always heard about Groucho’s off-color and in some cases delightfully vulgar sense of humor, which he only shared in private or during commercial breaks on talk shows. Why do I have this feeling that Groucho & Cavett, obliged to defer to PBS decorum and gentility, won’t share any of this?

Start listening at the 6:20 mark…good goading between Maher and Christie…whether to offer an off-ramp option for Putin, or no off-ramp?

If you want to get on this injury-recovery train with Jennifer Lawrence and then write about what a great emotional release it is…fine. Go with God.

But I can see what this film is…a Jennifer Lawrence-bearing-the-weight-of-the-cross movie…her character is numb and banged-up and not very communicative, and then she gradually loosens up and responds to the Brian Tyree Henry love and so on. And at the risk of sounding heartless, I really don’t have a great interest in seeing this film. Sorry but what do you want me to do, lie?

Who in the HE community has given David O. Russell‘s Amsterdam a shot, and what are the reactions?

It left me heartbroken, almost in tears. On 9.28 I called it “a very busy and antsy period movie about an arcane, who-cares? bumblebee plot (something to do with ascendant U.S. fascism in the early 1930s) that won’t stop lurching to and fro and buzzing all around, and is totally irksome for that.

“It’s all plot and exposition, plot and exposition, plot and exposition…jabber jabber, talk talk…over and over and over. No subtext, no heart, no downshifting, no “things that are there but not said.” I was having serious trouble trying to understand who was who and what was happening for the first hour. Only when Robert De Niro‘s character (“General Gil Dillenbeck”) comes along at the 100-minute mark does the rubber begin to meet the road.

Posted this morning by Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro: “Amsterdam is still DOA with $2.6M Friday, including previews, and an estimated $6.9M third place debut. The Russell fans who showed up gave the movie a B CinemaScore (Russell’s Oscar nominated all-star American Hustle earned a B+) and harsher reactions on PostTrak at 3 Stars and 72%. Pic skewed toward men at 56%, with the largest demo being 25-34 at 37%. Diversity demos were 57% Caucasian, 17% Latino and Hispanic, 12% Black, and 14% Asian/other. Men over 25 at 47% and women over 25 at 37% gave Amsterdam its best response at 75%. But the rest of the audience wasn’t on board, i.e. men and women under 25, who each showed up at 9% respectively and gave the movie a 61% and 55% grade.”

My sight-unseen enthusiasm for Maria Schrader‘s She Said (Universal, 11.18) was unfettered around three months ago. The trailer for the investigative journalism drama, which is basically the story of how N.Y Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey nailed Harvey Weinstein, seemed smart and sure-footed, and I figured that it had to at least rank as a respected cousin of Spotlight or perhaps even All The President’s Men.

But it didn’t appear at the big three festivals (Venice, Telluride, Toronto) and the buzz began to gradually simmer down. Now it’s only days from peeking out at the New York Film Festival. The first public showing happens on Thursday, 10.13.

Last week a guy I know passed along a friend’s reaction to a relatively recent research screening. “Intriguing and important, but somewhat formulaic in its story,” he said. “None of the performances stand out enough for traction in the awards race but apparently it’s a good ensemble piece, from what I’ve heard.”

On 9.27 THR‘s Scott Feinberg posted a list of likely Best Picture contenders, and placed She Said in seventh place, presumably based on a viewing. He put it behind the fifth-ranked Women Talking, the so-so Elvis and the sixth-ranked The Woman King. What does that tell you?

Reaction posted by World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy: “Better than a TV movie. Not sure about Best Picture, but Samantha Morton and Carey Mulligan are the MVPs. Very intelligently made and well-directed. They smartly show the effect of the abuse. Victims go back to the hotel rooms, reenact what happened in the bed and shower, but with their clothes on. It’s very Spotlight, maybe too much so. It also has a fantastic ending. We never get to see Weinstein’s face, only see his back and hear his voice.”

We’ll know soon enough.

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Some might regard me as an irritating asshole now, but I was a much more irritating asshole when I was 15 and 16.

Here’s an example of my behavior: A friend (Jack) and I were in a diner near the Jersey shore on a hot day, and we thought it would be be hilarious to slam one of those soft plastic mustard dispensers on the table top while simultaneously squeezing it. This sent little micro globs of mustard flying into the air, you see, and the goal was to hit the ceiling with a glob or two. We were red-faced with suppressed laughter. I hadn’t laughed like that in years, and that meant something at my age.

Things got even more hilarious when we both simultaneously realized that a white golf shirt worn by a middle-aged guy sitting in a booth behind ours…we split an even bigger gut when we saw that his shirt had been hit by five or six globs. The guy’s wife or son eventually noticed what had happened (or the waitress had told him or something) and he stood up, purple-faced and fuming and threatening to beat the shit out of us. His wife or son begged him not to get violent as Jack and I bolted out of there. A few minutes later Jack and I had decided that despite the trauma the episode was worth it for the laughs.

It was this episode that led me to title a short, decade-old riff “Mustard Droplets.” It was about the various names of a rock band that I’d drummed with. I was a mediocre drummer of the first order. Here’s the 4.23.12 item:

As I mentioned the other day, I once tried to play drums (i.e., none too successfully) in a semi-conflicted Connecticut blues band. It was fun but I was the weak link. The band had five names at different stages of the game — the Golden Rockets (which I hated), the Sludge Brothers, Blind Pig Sweat, Amos Bouldcox and Dog Breath. My problem wasn’t a lack of joie de percussion, but that I was obliged to bang it out on a conventional drum set when my true gift was in the realm of thigh-slapping and coin-jingling and simulating bass riffs in my throat. Today we have sensitive-enough microphones that would permit me to do that.