Day: December 19, 2022

7:55 pm update: I forgot to include several ’22 films for my primo list — I’ll include them in Tuesday’s bigger, more definitive rundown.

The ones I forgot to mention are Bardo, The Batman, Thirteen Lives, Armageddon Time, Argentina 1985, Apollo 10 and 1/2, Navalny, God’s Country, Watcher and Palm Trees and Power Lines — 10 in all for a total of 29. Okay, if I add Till it’ll make an even 30.

Take that, Jeremy Fassler!

Earlier: Some of these 2022 films (boldfaced) are excellent. I’ll post an expanded rundown tomorrow with a few excerpts and rimshots, but here, for now, are 2022’s finest. Okay, it was a weak year.

Earlier this afternoon HE commenter Jeremy Fassler wrote “hey, man, all you do is piss on everything! If you hate movies so much why do you maintain HE?” Or something close to that.

Every year I come up with a list of least six or seven top-top tier films combined with 12 or 13 good to pretty good ones. This year’s tally came to 19.

Hey, Fassler — have you seen Close or Happening or Vengeance? Have you considered the possibility that your taste in films might be your own and that my preferences follow their own suit?

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Lakshmireddy Srinu, a resident of the Kakinada district of India’s southern Andhra Pradesh region, died of cardiac arrest last weekend while watching Avatar: The Way of Water.

It has been theorized (but not proven) that Srinu’s heart couldn’t handle the 3D wowser excitement levels.

A report posted this morning (12.19, 9:37 am) by metro.co.uk’s Alicia Adajobi didn’t mention (a) what day Srinu died on (although it was probably on Friday, 12.16), (b) how old he was or (c) whether or not he was obese.

The original report, posted on Saturday, 12.17, was filed by Parmita Uniyal of New Delhi’s Hindustan Times

Dr. Sanjeev Gera, director of Noida’s Fortis Hospital, told Unival that Serinu may have died “because of stress…increase in blood pressure like what happened in this case, arteries of the heart could have ruptured and that can cause sudden cardiac arrest.’

Aster CMI Hospital’s Dr. Pradeep Kumar added, ‘This may be due to a plaque rupture in the coronaries or triggering of an arrhythmia due to excitement.”

So James Cameron‘s film didn’t actually kill the poor guy. Most likely his heart was in bad shape to begin with, and all he needed was a little push.

You know this story adds to the Avatar want-to-see factor. You know it does.

The MAGA insurrection against the U.S. Capitol happened on Wednesday, 1.6.21. According to the below text, Former Trump assistant Hope Hicks expressed concerns to President Trump about potential violence during the then-forthcoming 1.6 demonstration on Monday, 1.4.21 and Tuesday, 1.5.21. And that he didn’t share her concerns.

Hick’s 1.6 Committee testimony begins at 4:15. Notice how Hicks speaks with a kind of twangy, vocal-fry sexy baby voice:

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Two and one-third years ago**, Tom Cruise performed a wild-ass, death-defying motorcycle jump off an up-sloping ramp in Hellesylt, Norway. It will presumably be the most hair-raising action stunt in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (Paramount, 7.14.23).

And the featurette is a fascinating proof of two things. One, the 60 year-old Cruise (58 when the stunt was performed) is utterly fearless. And two, the on-camera “Tom is the man!” testimonials by the filmmakers (including director-writer Chris McQuarrie) and stunt coordinators is relentless. Example: “He’s an amazing individual…the most aware person I’ve ever met.” If just one person had shrugged their shoulders and said, “Yeah, the stunt is really hairy but this is what Cruise has always done…it’s his brand and we’ve been watching him do this shit for several years so you can’t say it isn’t, you know, kinda familiar.”

Two questions: (1) The ramp was constructed by the Dead Reckoning engineers, but within the world of the film’s story, what’s it doing there? What’s the actual purpose? Who would build such a thing except to give an adventurous actor an opportunity to perform a terrific motorcycle stunt? (2) Why doesn’t the featurette let us see the motorcycle smashing into the rocky terrain below and exploding into pieces? I love watching vehicles get destroyed.

The sequel, Dead Reckoning Part Two, will be released on 6.28.24.

** Right in the middle of the pandemic, of course, as well as the Biden-Trump presidential campaign.

TAR‘s muddy, under-lighted, haunted-house interior visuals were shot on an Arri 765 (film) and an Arri Alex (digital).

HE to Santa Barbara friendo: “My final verdict is that I kinda hate TAR visually, and that the various shadings and ghostings and mysteries are just too tricky by half. It’s too referenced, too smartypants. It drives you nuts.”

Excerpt from 12.9.22 TAR piece by Slate‘s Dan Kois:

HE to Santa Barbara friendo: “Field is deliberately snobbing the audience. Shipobo-Conibo is the straw that broke this camel’s (my) back. On one hand Lydia has been savagely cancel-cultured by robots, and at the same time she’s totally responsible for her fate? Field is all over the map. Truly great art speaks to the none-too-bright, under-educated person as well as the brilliant viewer with an elegant education.”

Santa Barbara friendo to HE: “I’ve had the reverse reaction. On the surface TAR is engaging and it can be enjoyed by everyone. After repeated viewings (like you’ve done) you start to uncover deeper layers.”

HE to Santa Barbara friendo: “Field is only interested in attracting your well-dressed, elegant education, hybrid-driving crowd. I’ve seen the damn thing four times, and it still frustrates me.

“Kois’s analysis piece states the following: “In the middle of the night, Lyda gets up to comfort daughtet, Petra. And if you look closely, you’ll see, motionless in the dark corner of Lydia’s bedroom, nearly unnoticable at the back of the frame, a red-haired woman — Krista.

“First, you can’t notice Krista standing in a dark corner of Lydia’s bedroom because Florian Hoffmeister‘s cinematography is so covered in mud and shadow that you can’t see much. That’s intentional. And two, you’re telling me I have to watch this film a fifth time?”

TCM’s death reel errs grievously by calling the late Leon Vitali an “actor”. As Tony Zierra‘s Filmworker makes clear, Vitali only began as an actor. He became a legendary figure by devotionally serving the ultimate sorcerer, Stanley Kubrick, on a 24/7 basis.

From “At Long Last Leon,” posted on 5.12.18:

“Vitali said to himself early on that he’d like to work for Kubrick. What he didn’t expect was that once that work began Kubrick would want Vitali at all hours, all the time…focus and submission without end. If the early sentiment was “I’d give my right arm to work for Stanley Kubrick.” Kubrick’s reply would be “why are you lowballing me? I want both arms, both legs, your trunk, your lungs, your spleen, your ass and of course your head, which includes your brain.”

“Yes, Virginia — Stanley Kubrick was no day at the beach. Then again what highly driven, genius-level artist is?

“But he was also a sweetheart at times, to hear it from Leon. It was just that Kubrick believed in trust and had no time for flakes, fractions or half-measures of any kind. His motto was that if you’re “in”, you should be in all the way. And Vitali was, obviously, and yet during those 21 years he worked on only three Kubrick films — The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. But that was Kubrick, a brilliant control freak who wound up eating himself in a certain sense.”

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We’re basically talking about a p.r. move. The Elon Musk proxy would essentially be a facilitator, a smoother-over. He/she wouldn’t change the fact that Musk, Twitter’s enfant terrible CEO, wants to bring about the subjugation and, if possible, the ruination of the fanatical wokester left — a cause that in itself exudes a certain honor as wokesters aren’t just culturally suppressive Stalinists but Trotskyites. Alas, Musk has counter-balanced that horror by being impolitic and a blunderer.