Month: October 2022

So the dressing that flavored and annointed the salad that Olivia Wilde prepared for Harry Styles as their Don’t Worry Darling affair was just getting underway two years ago…the salad dressing was Nora Ephron‘s from “Heartburn“: “2 tablespoons of Grey Poupon mustard mixed with two tablespoons of good red wine vinegar. Then, whisking constantly, add six tablespoons of olive oil.”

There’s nothing like the rapture of a mad love affair as it’s just turning into something, but it never lasts, of course. The intensity dial always drops from 9 or 10 into a 6 or 7, and the lovers, if they’re good, have no choice but to find (or create) a day-to-day groove that may be nurturing and good for their souls and so on. But the sex always settles down.

HE to friendo: “Wilde lied about the timeline of the Styles affair, of course. She and Suidekis has fallen out of love, or she had at least. It happens. Harry Styles is cuter and sexier thsn Sudeikis, and Wilde went for it. I’m presuming that she and Styles are probably winding as a couple as we speak. She’s too old for him — it probably can’t last. Not with a big pop star.”

Friendo to HE: “Yeah, I saw them walking together in a recent photo and thought ‘that’s way too much baggage for him.'”

I came across the above description of Todd Field’s Tar yesterday — an analogy between Cate Blanchett‘s Lydia Tar and Daniel Day Lewis‘s Daniel Plainview.

The seed appeared in Jessica Kiang‘s 9.19 Film Comment roundup of the Venice Film Festival ** (“Venice ’22: Women on Fire“), to wit:  “For over a decade I’ve wondered, off and on, when we would get a female movie character to equal the ferocity, charisma, and monumental destructive narcissism of There Will Be Blood’s Daniel Plainview. Though the two films could not be more different, I think I can stop wondering now. Lydia Tár would drink your milkshake without ever thinking it might not be hers to drink.”

Kiang’s month-old essay doesn’t mention “Girlboss” though.  (Before failing to note the URL, I thought I had read “Bosswoman” or “Bitchboss”.) It comes, I’ve just been told, from a 10.15 Letterboxd piece by Brenda Nowicz. Hats off. (And thanks to “LightInfa” for the heads-up.)

I know that the There Will Be Blood association opened something up. A little light bulb switched on. One could even make the claim that the final shot in that Asian ComicCon gathering in Tar is equivalent to Daniel Day Lewis’s final TWBB line — “I’m finished!”

Tar may be a “monster”, as Kiang calls her, but over the decades I’ve been in the orbit of several such headstrong egoists, male and female alike, and when you become a big, wealthy visionary cheese such behavior sometimes (but not always) goes with the territory.  Regrettable and possibly unpleasant for certain parties, but not evil.  Kiang is one of those who regards Lydia Tar”s third-act takedown by woke “robots” as a justified thing.  That, to me, is horrifying.

Tar is a piece of work, all right, and I wouldn’t want to get too close to a real-life counterpart for fear of stray venom pellets, but she’s not that awful — her behavior has been observed among many headstrong creators.  Nearly ever powerful person in world history, especially the creatively powerful and world-famous, has used his or her power to persuade attractive young people to fuck or pleasure them or serve as arm-candy. They’ve all done it. Lydia Tar is no different. Way of the big, bad, grown-up world. And after you turn 20 you have to figure that stuff out.

Plus I”m still bothered by the fact that Field doesn’t allow a single sexual vapor into the film — he asks us to supply our own imaginings.

**Thanks to “SlashMC.”

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…but the dress distracts, and anyone who says that’s a typical sexist horndog remark or that Wilde didn’t choose this dress knowing full well that she would arouse such a reaction…anyone who says this is being dishonest and less perceptive than they could be.

Paramount has decided to open Damien Chazelle‘s Babylon wide on 12.23…terrific. Variety‘s Rebecca Rubin: “Sources close to Babylon suggest the earlier release date points to the studio’s confidence in the film”…maybe.

Paramount could also be figuring it’s safer to sell the big, broad elements than depend on early-break word of mouth. Who knows?

What are the main elements? An epic-sized capturing of a wild, crazy time. Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie in the ’20s. A splashy old-time Hollywood epic about change and convulsion. Orgies, elephants, cocaine and all manner of perversity.

Martin Scorsese will hate me for this, but HE is asking for predictions about how well Babylon will do with Joe and Jane Popcorn. Film mavens will eat it up, of course, and even from this distance it seems assured of several Oscar noms (including Best Picture). But how will Millennials and Zoomers respond?

It doesn’t look like streaming fare — it almost looks like something out of the Ben-Hur factory…call it Ben-Twisted…emphatic, ambitious, large-scale, orgiastic..something you really need to see on a big-ass screen..

From a certain angle it seems like a descendant of John Schlesinger‘s The Day of Locust (’75). Not the same kind of package as Babylon (a darker one actually), but vaguely similar in certain big-scale, crowd-scene respects, and it certainly seemed lavishly produced when it came out. Production costs were around $5 million, or $27.5 million in 2022 dollars.

Babylon cost $78 million.

Okay, it’s not intuition — the Toronto reviews made the situation clear. I don’t want difficulty with this film. I loved The Father. On the other hand I can’t stand the kid (Zen McGrath). Instant loathing. Opens on 11.25.

The new Tulsa King trailer makes the forthcoming Paramount + series (debuting on 11.13) seem like a deadpan crime comedy. I’m presuming it’s actually not since series co-creator Taylor Sheridan and co-screenwriter co-exec producer Terence Winter don’t do comedies as a rule, but who knows? I’ll tell you what I know — the trailer made me chuckle three or four times. Sylvester Stallone is playing the persona, of course, with a little tongue-in-cheek.

It’s not my fault that today is a slow one.

Rian Johnson‘s Glass Onion (Netflix, 12.123) screened last weekend at both the Hampton’s Film Festival and the Middleburg Film Festival. I’ve spoken to a couple of fellas who saw it but there’s plenty of time to get into reactions down the road. Okay, I’ll share a few.

There are, it turns out, a few Last of Sheila echoes but it does opt for its own plot, which restarts and constantly goes back upon itself toward the end. Somebody dies, yes, but not whom you might think. Yes, Daniel Craig‘s Detective Benoit Blanc is depicted as gay but so what? Janelle Monae is very good, one opined. Ditto Kate Hudson, said another. Longish, they both said. The title refers to the all-glass Greek island home owned by Ed Norton‘s “Miles Bron”, an Elon Musk-like tech billionaire. Dave Bautista plays “Duke Cody”, a YouTube star and men’s rights activist in the Joe Rogan mold.

Speaking of suspected or supposed gayness, here’s a Peter Ustinov Spartacus story [starts at 15:59]: “The [unit] publicist, Sonia Wolfson, said to me, ‘Oh, Peter, steer clear of the commissary today…Hedda Hopper is there and she doesn’t want to see you.’ Well, this was like a red rag to a bull. I didn’t want to see Hedda Hopper either but I didn’t see why I shouldn’t be seen by her. So I said ‘what’s wrong?’ and Sonia said ‘no, it’s too embarassing’ but I eventually wheedled it out of her. Hedda Hooper had said to someone that I was so brilliant as Nero in Quo Vadis that I’ve got to be queer. Well, of course, I went straight to the commissary, went up to her and said ‘how are you….hah-hah-hah-hah!’ and behaved in the way of a rather gross English sergeant, and we never had [any such trouble from Hopper] again.”

Another excellent Ustinov story begins at the 23:00 mark.