Day: May 21, 2023

Todd Haynes‘ May December, which I saw late last night, struck me as awkward and even silly at times. Haynes tries for a tone that mixes satiric whimsy and overheated emotional spillage while channeling Bergman’s Persona, but scene after scene and line after line hit me the wrong way.

It’s about a famous actress, Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), paying a visit to the pricey Savannah home of Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore), a somewhat neurotic and brittle 60something who runs a dessert-cooking business. Elizabeth’s plan is to study Gracie as preparation for a soon-to-shoot film about her once-turbulent life, which involved a scandalous sexual affair with a minor and a subsequent prison term. Elizabeth naturally wants her forthcoming portrayal to deliver something truthful, etc.

For her part Gracie is cool with the arrangement but at the same time a wee bit conflicted and anxious. She’s calculated that she’ll come off better in the film if she invites the pissing camel into the tent**.

Seemingly modelled on the late Mary Kay Letourneau, a former school teacher who was prosecuted and jailed for seduced a 13 year-old boy, Gracie is married to Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), a 36 year-old half-Korean dude who was also 13 when Gracie technically “raped” him while they were working together at a pet store, and with whom they now have two or three kids. (This is one of those films in which the exact number of kids in a given family is of no interest to anyone…zip.)

If I had the time I would list the eight or nine things that especially bothered me about this film. Suffice that my basic reaction was one of exasperation. I literally threw up my hands and loudly exhaled three or four times. I groaned at least twice. I’m pretty sure I muttered “Jesus!” a couple of times. I also recall slapping my thigh.

For what it’s worth Letourneau and Fualaau insisted from the get-go that their relationship was consensual; ditto Gracie and Jo in May December‘s backstory. After serving her prison term Letourneau married Fualaau and soon after had kids with him; same deal with Moore and Melton’s pretend couple.

** Exact Lyndon Johnson quote: “It’s better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”

The other day Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary offhandedly announced the death of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton, the struggling, none-too-bright C-level actor who initially caught on with Bounty Law, slowly faded and then resurged in ‘69 after roasting Manson follower Susan Atkins (aka “Sadie Glutz”) with a flame thrower.

Retired since the late ‘80s, Dalton died in Hawaii at age 90.

I for one would have appreciated a photo of Dalton in his dotage (sparse snow-white hair, Gabby Hayes beard, drooping neck wattle), which would have been easy to compose with Photoshop or any decent manipulation software. Okay, perhaps Quentin and Roger didn’t have such a photo ready at the exact moment on 5.19, but why not since?

When I learned of Jim Brown‘s death a couple of days ago, I immediately thought of James Toback‘s “Jim: The Author’s Self-Centered Memoir on the Great Jim Brown.” I realize I’m not allowed to mention Toback these days, but this ribald…okay, hedonistic and affectionate memoir is what sold me on Brown’s settled, come-what-may coolness.

Not to mention his appearances on The Dick Cavett Show in the late ’60s and early ’70s (particularly the Lester Maddox walk-out episode). And I’ve always loved Brown’s ringside commentary during the Muhammud Ali-George Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle”, and particularly his prediction that “I don’t think George is gonna make it.”

Before his directing and screenwriting career took off, Toback was allegedly assigned to write a negative magazine piece on Brown. But after getting to know his subject Toback decided that Brown didn’t deserve this, and was so taken with the ex-football player’s laid-back, cool-cat attitude that he decided to write “Jim” as a makeup. Brown was a bit of a Zen libertine back then, and the book relates how he and Toback embarked on an erotic adventure or two, or so I recall.

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In last night’s Killers of the Flower Moon review, I failed to mention the general sense of pleasure and assurance and high-level articulation that you always get from a Martin Scorsese film. There are concerns, yes, about the occasionally plodding pace and the 206-minute length and a lack of sufficient dramatic payoff, but start to finish you know you’re in the hands of a master filmmaker who always works with good people.

Thelma Schoonmaker‘s editing never feels rushed or anxious or slapdash — every cut feels exactly right, barely noticed and smooth as silk. Early on Robbie Robertson‘s musical score ignites with a reverb-y guitar riff that heralds the mixed-blessing discovery of oil on Osage land, and soon after settles into a steady metronomic rhythm that suggests the sound of native drums in the distance. And every frame of Rodrigo Prieto‘s widescreen (2.39:1) cinematography is exquisitely framed and lighted.

The final import of Killers may win you over or not, but it’s always soothing to watch, and the moral undercurrent never dissipates.