Month: May 2023

What am I really, actually looking forward to at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off a week from tomorrow (5.16)? I’ve put asterisks next to 14 films (below), but when you get right down to it and get past the films you believe that you should see but probably aren’t actually hot to see, the list is shorter.

HE’s serious Cannes hotties (in order of preference): Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon, Steve McQueen‘s Occupied City, Jonathan Glazer‘s The Zone of Interest, Todd Haynes‘ May December, James Mangold‘ Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Kore-eda Hirokazu‘s Monster, Jessica Hausner‘s Club Zero, Wes Anderson‘s Asteroid City, Alice Rohrwacher‘s La Chimera. (9)

COMPETITION (9):

* Club Zero, Jessica Hausner
* Asteroid City, Wes Anderson
* The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer
Fallen Leaves, Aki Kaurismaki
Les Filles D’Olfa (Four Daughters), Kaouther Ben Hania
Anatomie D’une Chute, Justine Triet
* Monster, Kore-eda Hirokazu
Il Sol Dell’Avvenire, Nanni Moretti
* La Chimera, Alice Rohrwacher
About Dry Grasses, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
* L’Ete Dernier, Catherine Breillat
The Passion of Dodin Bouffant, Tran Anh Hung
Rapito, Marco Bellocchio
* May December, Todd Haynes
Firebrand, Karim Ainouz
* The Old Oak, Ken Loach
* Perfect Days, Wim Wenders
Banel Et Adama, Ramata-Toulaye Sy
Jeunesse, Wang Bing

OUT OF COMPETITION (3):

* Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese
The Idol, Sam Levinson
Cobweb, Kim Jee-woon
* Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, James Mangold
* Jeanne du Barry, Maiwenn

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS:

Omar la Fraise, Elias Belkeddar
Kennedy, Anurag Kashyap
Acide, Just Philippot

SPECIAL SCREENINGS (2):

Retratos Fantasmas (Pictures of Ghosts), Kleber Mendonca Filho
* Anselm, Wim Wenders
* Occupied City, Steve McQueen
Man in Black, Wang Bing

Posted on Facebook late this afternoon, the subject being Pauline Kael’s 1965 review in McCall’s:

I don’t agree that I need to explain to that little woke-ass weenie (i.e., Byrne) that the cultural atmosphere of 1965 (Dr. Zhivago, Cat Ballou, Darling, the Voting Rights Act, the aggressive escalation of the Vietnam War, Rubber Soul) was, like, a teeny bit different from the current Stalinoid terror climate of 2023. And that people who were smart and crackling and flexing their biceps in ‘65 couldn’t possibly be expected to anticipate the state of mental identity derangement that we’re currently experiencing.

Laurence Olivier‘s Othello (1965) is a capturing of the National Theatre Company’s 1964-65 staging of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy. Directed by Stuart Burge. It stars Olivier, Maggie Smith, Joyce Redman and Frank Finlay; Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon made their film debuts in it.

“Olivier’s Othello is history already; it’s something to remember. And Othello isn’t even much of a ‘movie’. Just a reasonably faithful (one assumes) record of a stage interpretation. After thirty-five years in movies and masterpiece upon masterpiece acclaimed in the theatre, Olivier still could not raise the money to do a real movie version of his Othello. And of his Macbeth, acclaimed as the greatest since [something], we have not even a record.

“Olivier’s greatness is in his acting; as a movie director, he is merely excellent and intelligent.

“Yet his Shakespearean performances deserve — at the minimum — the kind of movie he or other talented directors might do, what he brought to Henry V, Hamlet, Richard III. It is a scandal, an indictment of Anglo-American civilization and values, that eight million dollars can go into a spy spoof, twelve into a comic chase, twenty-seven into a spectacle, and for Olivier in Othello, we and history must content ourselves with a quickie recording process.

“And yet the joke is on the spoofs, chases and spectacles. For Othello lives.

“Olivier is the most physical Othello imaginable. As a lord, this Othello is a little vulgar — too ingratiating, a boaster, an arrogant man. Reduced to barbarism, he shows us a maimed African prince inside the warrior-hero, Iago’s irrationality has stripped him bare to a different kind of beauty. We are sorry to see it, and we are not sorry either. To our eyes, the African prince is more beautiful in his isolation than the fancy courtier in his reflected white glory.

“I saw Paul Robeson‘s Othello [for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford in April 1959], and he was not black as Olivier is; Frank Finlay can hate Olivier in a way Jose Ferrer did not dare — indeed did not have the provocation — to hate Robeson. Possibly Negro actors need to sharpen themselves on white roles before they can play a Negro. It is not enough to be: for great drama, it is the awareness that is everything.

“Every time we single out the feature that makes Olivier a marvel — his lion eyes or the voice and the way it seizes on a phrase — he alters it or casts it off in some new role, and is greater than ever. It is no special asset, [but] the devilish audacity and courage of this man.

“Olivier, who, for Othello, changed his walk and talk, is a man close to sixty who, in an ordinary suit in an ordinary role, looks an ordinary man, and can look even smaller in a role like Archie Rice in The Entertainer. What is extraordinary in Olivier is what’s inside, and what is even more extraordinary is his determination to give it outer form.” — from a Pauline Kael essay that appeared in McCall’s in March 1966.

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“…’cause they’re hip to your tricks.”

By the way: I found it odd that Meriem Perez Riera‘s Rita Moreno: Just A Girl Who Decided To Go For It (Roadside, 6.18.21) didn’t even mention Moreno’s cameo in Carnal Knowledge, presumably because Riera didn’t approve of Moreno playing a prostitute… But of course, Moreno’s character, ‘Louise,” has the power in this scene. She’s indulging Jack Nicholson’s need for pathetic fantasy in order to have a decent erection — she’s going along with the act, of course, but obviously finds it ridiculous and a little bit sad.

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One ballsy boomer against AMPAS Stalinoids.

…would the Zoomers and Millennials be appalled, or would they say “yes!…this is what we’ve been talking about!…the mid-30ish white guys in this film are truly diseased, and this proves why we need more angelic men of color and gay guys and trans-persons in positions of responsibility…this is exactly what we’ve been talking about!”

Steve McQueen and Paul Newman saved as many lives and as much of the day as they could. Bill Holden played a corrupt contractor in a terrible maroon tuxedo jacket, but…I can’t actually recall if he survived the water tank explosion. (Update: He did.) O.J. Simpson played a cool security guard, but did he survive? (Update: Yes.) I know for sure that Faye Dunaway survived — at the very end she was sitting on those marble steps outside the half-destroyed skyscraper, chatting with Newman and McQueen. And the heartbroken Fred Astaire made it out okay.

But weep anew for poor Robert Wagner (seared and blackened like a marshmallow) and his poor screaming blonde girlfriend, played by Susan Flannery (burned and splattered). And don’t forget Jennifer Jones (fell out of glass elevator, became a ruptured guts balloon when she hit the ground), Robert Vaughn (fell 135 stories, exploded into raw hamburger) and Richard Chamberlain (screamed the loudest as he fell alongside Vaughn).

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…that the HE flame hasn’t burned brightly over the last 18 and 2/3 years. HE’s 20th anniversary will be celebrated on or about 8.20.24. If you include the old Mr. Showbiz, Hollywood Confidential and Movie Poop Shoot columns (and how could they not be taken into account?), the 25th anniversary of the launch of my online bang-bang will be champagne-corked in early October. The Mr. Showbiz launch happened sometime around 10.15.98.

“You were talking earlier about why woke ideology is so dangerous to the west…it’s because people in other parts of the world are not teaching their young children to hate their own country. And if [the American wokester mafia] continue to do this, how is the west going to do in the battle of civilizations? Because that’s what we’re in, right? The Asians want to thrive, the Russians want to thrive…and they’re teaching their children to be strong, to be confident, to go out there and learn science instead of, you know, equity and diversity.” — Konstantin Kisin on the most recent Real Time with Bill Maher.

(The HBO show, by the way, is now pausing indefinitely due to the writer’s strike.)

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Two observations about this morning’s coronation of Charles III and Camilla as the King and Queen of England.

(1) In the clip below you’ll notice at the 6:04 mark that Charles, royal sceptres in both hands, had to be helped to his feet by a pair of senior Church of England fellows, who then escorted him down the main aisle of Westminster Cathedral…slowly, slowly. If I’d been Charles, I would have spent many weeks strengthening my leg muscles and practicing getting to my feet without assistance, even while holding two sceptres and wearing a heavy bejeweled crown. The symbolism of a long-of-tooth fellow being helped to his feet is devastating.

(2) As they flanked their newly crowned monarch, it was immediately apparent that Charles (allegedly 5′ 10″) was significantly shorter than either of his attendants. Which made him appear less than commanding. It’s unbecoming for a king to appear frail and a bit shrunken, but that’s what we saw.

Royal Windsor men should stand straight and tall without assistance. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was six feet tall. And let’s not forget the medieval Edward I, who stood 6’2″.

The sum visual effect was that ruddy, pink-eyed, wrinkly-faced Charles, 74, is well past his prime. And yet, given the age of his mother and father at the the time of their respective deaths (96 and 99), Charles will most likely reign for a good 20 years or so, or, barring some unforeseen complication, until sometime in the early to mid 2040s. At which time William, Prince of Wales (born 6.21.82), will ascend to the throne, probably between the ages of 60 and 65.

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The practice of spontaneous sexual come-ons of an aggressive nature (i.e., sudden smooching, pussy-grabbing) has been “largely [common among male stars]…not always but largely…unfortunately or fortunately” — Donald Trump during a deposition about the E. Jean Carroll rape-charge case, taped on 10.19.22.

Carroll attorney: “You consider yourself to be a star?” Trump: “I think you can say that, yeah.”

A few seconds later: “[As far as having a sexual interest in a woman] you” — the Carroll attorney — “wouldn’t be a choice of mine either, to be honest with you. I hope you’re not insulted. I wouldn’t under any circumstances have any interest in you.”

Good God, the man has roasted himself. He’s not only admitted to having behaved like a spontaneous Caligula, but has stated that spontaneous Caligula-ism has been a normal thing among male “stars” (i.e., super-famous, super-powerful guys) since the beginning of human civilization.

In other words, Trump has more or less said, “What’s the big deal with a guy like me, theoretically speaking, spontaneously having it off with a woman like E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room? Stars have been historically entitled to do this for centuries….whadaya whadaya?” He’s actually said this!

How could the jury possibly find in his favor?

From 1.18.23 report by cnbc.com’s Dan Mangan:

“Former President Donald Trump recently mistook his rape accuser E. Jean Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples when being questioned about a decades-old photo of him and Carroll by her attorney for a defamation lawsuit, a newly public court filing shows.

Trump’s belief that Carroll, a writer, was actually his second wife Maples sharply undercuts the New York real estate mogul’s repeated claims that he would not have even had sex with Carroll because she is “not my type.”

Carroll, 79, first alleged in a 2019 magazine article that Trump, who was president at the time, had raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996 after a chance encounter in the store.

Trump, 76, denied her claims, accusing Carroll of lying. He also said Carroll was motivated by a desire to generate sales of a book and political animus in making the allegations.

“She’s not my type,” Trump told The Hill news site in 2019.