Month: January 2023

Bolt from the blue, shocked to the core — Lisa Marie Presley, the singer-songwriter and daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley who attended the Golden Globes two nights ago, is gone. She was 54.

It all happened over the last few hours. Priscilla Presley to People: “It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us. She was the most passionate strong and loving woman I have ever known. We ask for privacy as we try to deal with this profound loss. Thank you for the love and prayers. At this time there will be no further comment.”

“I know that my father would…be proud.” — #LisaMariePresley on “Elvis” at the @ElvisMovie party last night pic.twitter.com/6IaJtOtAUi

— Marc Malkin (@marcmalkin) January 9, 2023

LMP was hospitalized earlier today (1.12.23) following a reported episode of cardiac arrest. EMTs responded to Lisa Marie’s home in Calabasas, California.

What the hell happened? She was relatively young. LMP’s grandmother (Gladys) and father (Elvis) died in their early 40s. Her son Benjamin Keough died by his own hand in 2020. This is so sudden, so bizarre.

Lisa was born in Memphis in 2.1.68, nine months to the day after Elvis and Priscilla’s wedding.

Elvis died in August 1977, making 9-year-old Lisa Marie the joint heir to his estate alongside grandfather Vernon Presley and great-grandmother Minnie Mae Hood Presley. Following their respective deaths in 1979 and 1980, she became the sole heir and also inherited her father’s Graceland residence.

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It’s certainly not the big gorilla of the Best Picture race. At best it’s a competitive also-ran. Fabelmans vs. Banshees at the end of the day, which means the half-decent Fabelmans will win because of the bloody stumps. The only EEAAO slamdunk is for Best Supporting Actor.

My favorite Beck-Ola track is “The Girl From Mill Valley. No Jeff Beck guitar but he obviously approved of the track, which features only Nicky Hopkins on piano.

The album’s London recording took place over seven days in April 1969 — 4.3, 4.6, 4.8, 4.10, 4.11, 4.14 and 4.19. This shitty-looking black-and-white video was shot on 4.14.69 — obviously the recording of “Plynth (Water Down The Drain).” Before today I’d never seen this footage.

If you insist on believing in some kind of sentient, all-seeing, all-knowing entity called “God” then I don’t know what to tell you. Have you ever considered becoming addicted to heroin? It’ll make you feel like Jesus’s son. Kidding.

Okay, let’s hypothesize that “God” is there and, heh-heh, “watching”. On second thought let’s not. Because as Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen said time and again, God doesn’t give a shit about you or your fate or the well-being of your family. Really. It’s not that he’s hostile to you and yours, but that he’s indifferent as to whether you end up rich or struggling or pregnant or dead from Russian shrapnel or whatever. He’s not in this.

Okay, yes — I’ve occasionally thanked God for good fortune or prayed for a fair shake, but it’s not meant with any sincerity. It’s a figure of speech.

I hated, hated, HATED Kelly Fremon Craig‘s The Edge of Seventeen. I’m not saying I’m already planning to get my hate-on for Craig’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (Lionsgate, 4.28), which is based on Judy Blume’s 1970 novel. I haven’t seen it and will naturally wait for a screening, but I’d be lying if I said I’m not feeing the negativity from afar. Because I can.

HE nemesis Benny Safdie plays the father of the lead protagonist, Abby Ryder Fortson‘s “Margaret Simon”. This whets my appetite, of course.

And they threw poor George Harrison into this?

“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile, but that it’s indifferent.” — Stanley Kubrick, sometime in the mid ’60s.

From HE’s The Edge of Seventeen review, filed on 9.17.16: “In the words of John F. Kennedy, I do not shrink from the occasional responsibility of shitting on a teen-angst dramedy — I welcome it. I was frowning and throwing my hands in the air and exhaling and checking my watch less than five minutes in. Okay, The Edge of Seventeen became somewhat more tolerable during the last third, which is when neurotic characters in movies of this sort begin to fold and weep as they lay their emotional cards on the table. But God, that first hour! And the cliches! It poked and prodded and put me through long stretches of hell.”

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Ten nominees for the Producers Guild of America’s Daryl F. Zanuck award have been announced, and Sarah Polley‘s Women Talking — a dialogue-driven film that wokester critics have been touting as a Best Picture contender since it premiered in Telluride — didn’t make the cut.

I’ve been saying all along that Women Talking is a non-starter, and THR‘s Scott Feinberg tweeted during Telluride that he’d be surprised if it catches on among male industry veterans.

And yet Darren Aronofsky‘s The Whale, a film that more than a few gentle souls are terrified of even watching, is among the ten…go figure.

The ten PGA nominees: Avatar: The Way of Water (20th Century Studios); The Banshees of Inisherin (Searchlight Pictures); Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios); Elvis (Warner Bros.); Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24…no!); The Fabelmans (Universal Pictures); Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix); Tár (Focus Features); Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount Pictures); and The Whale (A24).

HE to Friendo #1: “Are these Next Best Picture guys crazy? Women Talking is in third place among Best Picture contenders? On what planet?”

HE to Ruimy: “The truth is that almost every pundit has Women Talking in their predictions, but don’t be surprised if it misses out on a nomination. I’d say right now 60/40 it gets nominated.”

Friendo #2 to HE: “When it comes to Women Talking, the fix is in. A Best Picture nomination is going to happen whether people want it to or not. You could see that in Telluride.”:

HE to Ruimy: “Because of #MeToo tokenism and the fact that the one male character (Ben Whishaw‘s “August Epp”) is passive and tearful?”

Friendo #1 to HE: “The critics will have to drive this movie to Oscar nominations, and I don’t think they’re all on board.”

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This is a six-day-old story so feel free to ignore, but on 1.6.23 an avaricious pair of Daily Beast reporters — Diana Falzone and Justin Baragona — tried to get Billy Bush re-cancelled for making a hot-mike “woody” crack about Kendall Jenner‘s “Jessie the Cowgirl” costume on 10.31.22.

Yes, over two months ago. Some vigilant observer who works (or worked) for Extra provided the Beast-ies with a video clip of Bush’s “objectifying” comment when the subject of Jenner’s Halloween costume came up.

Bush said the following: “Kendall goes as Jessie and, believe me, there were a lot of woodies.”

This was basically a so-whatter — a no-big-deal allusion to Tom Hanks‘ Woody character in Toy Story 2, the 1999 film in which the Jessie character (voiced by Joan Cusack) made her debut.

As far as Kendall Jenner is concerned, her brand is precisely and entirely about being objectified. That’s what she does in order to make money — guys get woodies and younger women are made to feel envious (and sometimes try to imitate her).

Bush, who got into trouble six years ago for giggling at Donald Trump‘s hot-miked “grab women by the pussy” remark, shared a mild crack about Jenner being an object of common sexual attraction…big deal. And a couple of months later a staffer or stringer on the Extra set tried to add to Bush’s angst by feeding the video to the fanatics at the Daily Beast.

In some media sectors the woke climate is nothing less than psychotic. This is but one example.

…if I was able to write something? I can’t tap anything out because I’m driving and it’s dark out. Later this evening…Jeff Beck sleeps.

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I’m in a nice friendly cafe, and I happen to sitting near a couple of seemingly gay women who are just getting to know each other. Maybe they’ve “met” via Lesly and are speaking for the very first time.

I’m mentioning this because I can’t help overhearing their yappity-yap-yap and absorbing their amorous energy. The same kind of expectant singles-bar hormonal hoo-hah that we’ve all heard and felt. I radiated the same hundreds of times in my heyday.

I’m just thinking to myself “these two are so into impressing each other…they’re trying so hard to be funny and sharp and witty that I’m getting exhausted just listening to them. It’s none of my business and I should try harder to not listen, but an inner voice is saying ‘Jesus, fellas…maybe you don’t have to try so hard? Give yourselves a break and turn it down a bit.'”

Don’t prospective lovers talk like this any more?

Posted from Honlulu on 11.19.12: “I landed in Honolulu at 10 pm local time (or midnight LA time) after a 5 and 1/2 hour flight. My Tokyo flight leaves tomorrow at 1 pm so I’m staying at an airport-vicinity dump called the Pacific Marina Inn (2628 Waiwai Loop, Honolulu , HI, 96819), which is located among a cluster of drab warehouses and small businesses with two ugly gas stations the only beacons (apart from the PMI) of people-friendly commerce.

“Aloha! Good to be here! The skanky industrial regions of Oahu can be just as ugly if not uglier than the skanky industrial regions around LA or Newark or Orlando.

“As soon as the bags were in the room I stepped outside and breathed in the Hawaiian night air with the idea of going for a nice walk. But about 70 feet away in the darkness of the parking lot there were two curvy, bordering-on-plus-sized girls leaning against a car and making out, and every time I stuck my head out they turned around and gave me this look that said ‘so are you going to stare at us all night, pervy, or do we get a little privacy here?’ So I began to feel intimidated. Like it or not, the girls had laid claim to the parking lot and intruders were not welcome.

“Then I told myself I had just as much of a right to enjoy the parking lot as these girls did. Then I asked myself, ‘What would Ryan Adams do? He’s a sensitive guy, writes for Awards Daily, stands up for gay rights. He’d know what to do. I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t call these girls ‘lesbos’ but would he just roam around and take pictures and do what he wants or would he hide inside the motel room like me, unsure of his next move?'”

Titanic has already been re-released in 3D, but this forthcoming re-release (2.10.23) is being presented in high-frame-rate format, presumably 48 fps. Smoother, more fluid action. That might be interesting to see.

Never forget that that last August the IndieWire gang ranked Titanic as the eighth best ’90s film, and that David Ehrlich, IndieWire‘s hardnosed, often contrarian senior critic, said the following: “Titanic is as personal and cohesive as any film a fraction of its size. Each character, from the card-playing Swedes on the docks of Southampton all the way up to Jack and Rose themselves, is endowed with a lifeforce all their own, enough so that it feels like a family reunion 84 years in the making when you see their ghosts crowding around the first class staircase in that immortal final shot.”

Owen Gleiberman in 2012: “Once the ship scrapes up against that iceberg, Jim Cameron‘s filmmaking turns humanly brilliant, as the prospect of sudden death unmasks — in the most touching and shocking ways — who each and everyone on board really is. Jack’s death scene in the water has the shuddery majesty of the greatest silent films, because it’s a moment that touches how vulnerable and precious life really is. To watch Titanic again is to do nothing less than enter a movie and come out the other side, with one’s spirit feeling just a little bit larger.”

I still say that playing Celine Dion‘s “My Heart Will Go On” over the closing credits was a terrible thing. It added a pop schlock feeling to a film thaty had ended on a beautifully solemn and even transcendent note. And the CG needs a George Lucas-style upgrade.