The great Cormac McCarthy — the guy who dreamt up the ice-cold perversity of Anton Chigurh and came up with the line “if it ain’t it’ll do until the mess gets here” — has passed on to the next realm.
I’ve only read three of his books — “Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West” (’85), “All the Pretty Horses” (’92) and “No Country for Old Men” (’05).
A wonderful writer — his sentences are truly magnificent in their construction and economy.
Believe it or not, McCarthy was actually young once…full head of dark hair and everything.
I remember almost nothing about Billy Bob Thornton‘s All The Pretty Horses movie, which came out 22 and 1/2 years ago. A lot of people have spoken about making a movie of “Blood Meridian”, which many regard as his masterpiece, but nobody’s ever done it. In my view the Coenbrothers‘ No Country For Old Men (’07) is the finest McCarthy adaptation of all. I expect I’m not alone in that assessment.
The window of a westbound New Jersey Transit train, covered in grease and slime…you can hardly see through it. The maintenance of Metro North trains is much more disciplined. Don’t even mention European trains in the same breath.
I’m still really angry at those Cannes critics who dismissed or otherwise pooh-poohed Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire‘s Black Flies. It’s nothing phenomenal or earth-shattering, but is bruisingly efficient and sufficiently good for what it is — a jarring, hard-hitting, you-are-there NYC paramedic trauma film.
Black Flies occupies the same general atmospheric turf as Martin Scorsese‘s Bringing Out The Dead (’99), which of course was critically praised because critics know they’re obliged to give any Scorsese film the benefit of the doubt and then some.
If Scorsese had never made Bringing Out The Dead but had produced and/or collaborated to some extent on Black Flies, Cannes critics — almost all of them fickle, posturing snobs — would have been much more supportive.
Call Me Kate, the Netflix doc that I finally caught last weekend, reports that upon her first meeting with Spencer Tracy in mid ’41, prior to their costarring in Woman of the Year, the 5’8″ Katharine Hepburn said, “You’re not very tall, are you?”
Tracy stood around 5’9″, or an inch taller than Hepburn so what the hell was she talking about? Tracy was four inches shorter than the 6’1″ Clark Gable, granted, but at the same time was no one’s idea of a shrimpy shortypants. He was an inch taller than Humphrey Bogart and way taller than the bowling-pin-sized Alan Ladd. Tracy was the same height as Kirk Douglas, whom I hung out with a bit in ’82 and who never struck me as height-challenged.
So where’s the wit or pizazz in Hepburn saying to Tracy “yo, bruh…how come you’re not taller?” Kind of a dumb-ass comment.
Nonetheless the line got around (i.e., was repeated during parties and story conferences) and it turned up three or four years later during the filming of The Big Sleep (’46). Twice, in fact. Martha Vickers‘ “Carmen Sternwood” says to Bogart’s Phillip Marlowe, “You’re not very tall, are you?” and Marlowe replies, “Well, I try to be.” A few minutes later Bogart/Marlowe confesses to Lauren Bacall‘s Vivian Sternwood Rutledge that he’s “not very tall…next time I’ll come on stilts, wear a white tie and carry a tennis racket.”
For the record, the classic-era stars who were, in fact, height-challenged included Mickey Rooney (5’3″), JamesCagney (5’5”), Alan Ladd and Dustin Hoffman (‘5’6″), Bing Crosby, John Garfield, Gene Kelly, Stanley Kubrick and Al Pacino (5’7″) and James Dean, David Hemmings, Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart (5’8″).
Among the tallest classic-era actors were Sean Connery, Errol Flynn, Henry Fonda, James Garner, Cary Grant, Burt Lancaster and Joel McCrea (all 6’2″), Gary Cooper (6’2 1/2″), Fred MacMurray, Gregory Peck, Randolph Scott and James Stewart (6’3″) and Clint Eastwood and John Wayne (6’4″)
Hollywood Elsewhere stands six foot and 1/2 inches. I reached that height sometime around 14 or 15. I’m taller than most other film critics and columnists, and my shoulders are also broader than most.
But given an apparent consensus that Allen’s latest is a respectable, noteworthy film and possibly his best since Match Point, and possibly his last film (who knows?), I’m very sorry for the domestic political quagmire in this country…a political reality that will most likely prevent Coup de Chance from playing the domestic early fall film festivals (Telluride, Toronto, New York).
The Cannes board allegedly said no to Thierry Fremaux about potentially debuting Coup de Chance in Cannes for the same reason…no berth for a filmmaker whom the #MeToo scolds have been labelling as persona non grata for several years now.
Even the most enlightened film programmers — those who believe in simply screening the best available choices of the moment, and who aren’t beholden to woke Stalinism — have no realistic choice in the matter, politically speaking. I feel for their situation as it’s a very difficult call all around. I feel very badly for everyone caught in this mishegoss.
The recently unveiled French-language trailer announces that Coup de Chance is opening in French-language territories on 9.27.23. As we speak no U.S. distributor has found the balls to release the film stateside. It goes without saying I would love to see Coup de Chance play Telluride ’23, but of course it won’t.
Finessed synopsis: “Fanny (Lou de Laage) and Jean (Melvil Poupaud) are an ideal couple: financially flush and professionally fulfilled, they live in a magnificent apartment in [one of] the high-end districts of Paris and seem to be as in love as [they were on] the first day they met.
”But when Fanny crosses, by chance, Alain (Niels Schneider), a former high school friend, she is immediately hooked. They see each other again, and, very quickly, get closer and closer…”
A couple of months ago I reported about an early April screening of Coup de Chance in Manhattan. Resturateur Keith McNally and columnist Roger Friedman raved.
“I am scandalized and indignant that Cannes has chosen not to present [Woody’s] latest film, all because of the accusations made by his wife Mia Farrow and her daughter Dylan. Need I remind everyone that Woody has already been acquitted of these charges twice? This #MeToo obsession continues [to our general misfortune]. Yes, it is bringing real systemic issues to light, but it’s also doing a lot of unjust damage. It’s a witch hunt that goes beyond the bounds of common sense.”
The Golden Globes brand has been bought by Todd Boehly‘s Eldridge Industries and Penske Media’s Dick Clark Productions. The slip-slidey HFPA no-accounts will continue to collect salaries for the next two or three years, but have essentially been shown the door.
And yet, from the perspective of Joe and Jane Popcorn, nothing will really change. The Globes will continue to serve as a warm-up awards show for the Oscars, and the award recipients will continue to enjoy a certain award-season heat. The only difference is that the show will henceforth be produced by a fresh gang of hustlers.
From a 5.10.21 HE piece called “Golden Globes Castle Is Collapsing“: “Nobody loved the HFPA dilletantes before — they were ‘tolerated’ in a shoulder-shrugging, eye-rolling sense of that term, and now distributors and talent are saying ‘okay, fuck these guys…even with the announced reforms they aren’t woke enough, not by 2021 standards, and now, trust us, they’re about to understand the cost of their terrible folly.’”
For their latest Oscar Poker chit-chat, Jeff and Sasha wade in the waters of The Idol, Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, Woody Allen’s Coup de Chance and its almost certain exclusion from domestic film festivals, Sasha’s late reaction to Air, the still unexplained French Connection / William Friedkin censorship thing, the Kate Hepburn and Arnold Schwarzenegger docs, etc. We recorded a few hours before the announcement of the tragic motorcycle death of Treat Williams…condolences.
