Born in 1929, legendary TV journalist and probing celebrity interviewer Barbara Walters (aka “Baba Wawa”) has passed at age 93. She bagged so many big-deal, on-camera interviews during her half-century-plus career (many U.S. Presidents, Fidel Castro, Barack Obama, Katharine Hepburn, Monica Lewinsky, Warren Beatty, Vaclav Havel, Boris Yeltsin) that there’s no room to list them all. Not to mention the satirical stamp of Gilda Radner. Not to mention Walters launching of TheView in ‘97. Respect for a major influencer & feminist pathfinder.
To me, a young fellow who looks “well fed” radiates…it’s hard to put into words but for me it’s a vaguely uncomfortable vibe. A feeling of teetering on the edge. The definition of well-fed is hard to pin down, and I don’t want to sound dismissive. It refers to the physical look of someone who’s not fat or plump or chubby, but who seems to enjoy eating. Someone who’s just a tiny bit heavier than he/she ought to be.
My silent reaction when I see a well-fed 20something is that they’re…I don’t know exactly. A tad indecisive? Not louche or indulgent enough to be fat, but lacking the discipline to be seriously lean and taut. There’s nothing “wrong” with looking well-fed, but at the same time there’s something not quite right about it. Well-fed means a bit stocky but a few bowls of ice cream short of being bulky.
These thoughts were going through my head as I watched Truman Hanks in A Man Called Otto. Truman is Tom Hanks‘ youngest son and is playing a much younger version of Hanks’ curmudgeonly Otto in flashback. The problem is that Mr. Hanks is super-slim these days and a 20something son is supposed to be slightly slimmer than his 60ish dad so something feels off.
It also doesn’t quite work when the hefty son is taller than his father. Plus Truman seems a little too nice. If you have a cranky attitude when you’re older, you’re going to have a few shards of that attitude when you’re younger as well. I didn’t buy it.
I’m not trying to be brusque or unkind — just candid. I honestly don’t care for the appearance of well-fed types. I remember looking in the mirror when I was 28 and going into shock when I realized that I had “the look.” It freaked me out. I changed my diet and drinking habits right away.
During August or September of 2013 Jon Stewart‘s Rosewater shot footage in Jordan, and in preparation for this costumer Phaedra Dadaleh, a well-established professional in that region, was hired. On 9.11.13 Dadaleh told a Rosewater promotional site that she was “nervous” meeting Stewart, but her concerns quickly evaporated. “He’s just the most amazing, friendly, down-to-earth kind of guy,” she said. “He just got up, gave me a big hug and immediately made me feel at ease.”
That’s cool, Phaedra, and good for you, Jon. But people on movie sets have been saying the exact same thing about major above-the-line types for at least a century if not longer, and they never get tired of saying it. Time marches on and they just won’t stop wetting their pants when name-brand people are as kind and gracious and friendly to them as regular Joes are to each other in the outside world. It’s always “I was afraid this famous hotshot might be brusque or snide or otherwise a dick or a bitch, but he/she was totally the opposite…and he/she made me feel so good.”
Rosewater director-writer Jon Stewart, costumer Phaedra Dahdelah during 2013 filming in Jordan.
I know the feeling, and I’m not saying that many above-the-liners — Jon Stewart among them, I’m sure — aren’t really nice to begin with. But one of the main reasons that bigtime showbiz types have made it to the top is that they’re really good — practiced — at putting on that warm, kind and affectionate face when the situation calls for it.
And one atmosphere in which you’re almost guaranteed to receive warmth and love and hugs is one in which people are always alpha-vibing each other to death from the early morning into the wee hours until it’s coming out of their ears — i.e., a fucking movie set.
People loving and kissing and hugging each other like mad. Hugs, backrubs, bon ami…and every fucking joke and one-liner is either hilarious or very funny or at least somewhat funny. A lot of people do the monkey submission thing by slapping their thighs and bending over and staggering backwards when they laugh at other people’s jokes on movie sets. I’ve been visiting sets all my life, and sometimes I wind up smiling so much that my facial muscles are aching after four or five hours.
I’ve only just discovered a YouTube clip of the A&P musical dance sequence that closes Noah Baumbach‘s White Noise. It’s the only portion of the film that really and truly works.
I’ve written about this twice over the preceding two and a half months, but it can’t hurt to re-post. It’s titled “White Noise Finale That Could’ve Been.”
Posted on 10.1.22: “The common consensus is that whatever you may think of Noah Baumbach’s WhiteNoise, a dryly farcical ‘80s period drama set in an Ohio college town, the final sequence — an ambitiously choreographed dance sequence featuring shoppers at an A & P supermarket — is the highlight.
“The sequence affirms the film’s basic theme about nearly everyone turning to all kinds of distractions (including food) to avoid contemplating their own mortality.
“Though brilliantly staged, the dance number is undercut by Baumbach’s decision to use it as a closing credits backdrop. Here’s how I put it to a friend:
“The LCD Soundsystem ‘New Body Rhumba’ finale could have been great if Baumbach hadn’t decided to overlay it with closing credits. I almost shouted out loud ‘Oh no!! He’s blowing it!!’
“I’m saying this because once the credits begin we instantly disengage aswetellourselvesokay, themovie’soversotheaisle–dancingis just a colorful bit, a spirit-picker-upper…whatever.’
“If Baumbach hadn’t given us permission to disengage, the dancing could have been wild and mind-blowing in a surreal Luis Bunuel-meets-Pedro Almodovar way. It could have been a mad slash across a wet-paint canvas…a Gene Kelly consumer-orgy crescendo.
“And then it could have segued into a closing credit crawl. Alas…”
HE commenter Eddie Ginleysaid it best: “With the notable exception of Green Book, recent winners have been those that (a) haven’t been nit-picked to death and (b) that Oscar voters can live with.”
That’s HE’s basic idea with EEAAO — to chisel and bite and nitpick it to death.
Nobody has been stupid enough, have they, to re-watch Bullet Train over the last three or four months?
From The Telegraph‘s “Worst Films of ’22”, penned by Robbie Colin:
Posted on 8.2.22: I’m sorry but I don’t do summer movies as a rule. Smartly strategized, semi-realistic action and thrills are great (especially if they adhere to the forbidden laws of basic physics, which were more or less banned from filmmaking circles 20 years ago), but later with “turn off your brain and submit to the crap”, which is what Bullet Train is about.
Don’t get me wrong — I adore expertly rendered escapism. Being goosed and transported out of my own miserable head and taken to someplace fresh or surprising or hilarious or super-exciting is what movies have occasionally done for decades, and are certainly still capable of doing, and I mean going all the way back to the absolute gymnastic brilliance of Buster Keaton and his dazzling command of action choreography.
Alas, Bullet Train is not a Hollywood Elsewhere type of action flick. Because director David Leitch, an ex-stuntman who allegedly co-helmed the original John Wick (’14) and then actually directed Atomic Blonde (’17) and Deadpool 2 (’18), hasn’t the slightest interest in delighting people like me, and he might even be the kind of guy who would spit on the sidewalk when Keaton’s name is mentioned.
Okay, he might be a Keaton fan but he certainly doesn’t get him.
I vaguely respect (sort of) the fact that Leitch is basically giving people like me the finger and loving it. I vaguely respect (in a perverse roundabout way) that Leitch is fiercely opposed to realistic action chops and focused on fusing martial arts, manga and dry humor in a kind of bullshit Guy Ritchie wacky cartoony vein.
For all I know Bullet Train, which is looking to excite those tens of millions of action fans who also despise the idea of realistic action (you know, the kind with roots in that tedious realm that exists right outside the theatre doors or when you take off your headphones and turn off your Playstation games), and if it winds up making money, great.
Because that’s who and what Leitch is — a man of impudence and conviction and hunger who’s out to make money. And Sony loves him for that. And Brad Pitt, who was allegedly paid $30 million to star in this thing, is almost certainly swooning with affection.
Terry Anzur’s review appeared the following Tuesday (10.2.73) in The Stanford Daily.
My group included ex-girlfriend Sherry McCoy, her sister Donna and three or four pallies who shared a place on San Francisco’s Russian Hill. Tons of gay guys dressed in drag…quite the colorful community. And the crowd roared when Midler, carrying a pair of pink feather boas, ran out to ecstatic applause. Her opening number was “Friends.”
After the show we all went to the backstage door to watch Bette come out and sign autographs. Her hair was tied up in a bun (or she didn’t have the red wig on…whatever), and when she came out and waved ‘hi’ to the onlookers, Donna said “who’s that?” My eyes rolled into my forehead.
Rosewater director-writer Jon Stewart, costumer Phaedra Dahdelah during 2013 filming in Jordan.
