Month: November 2023

Out of respect for the great Ridley Scott it would appear that Napoleon (Apple, 11.22) is finished as a would-be Oscar contender, and that Joaquin Phoenix‘s Best Actor chances are not just dead in the water but over the waterfall and banging against the rocks.

Pay no attention to the industry whores who are praising Scott’s film to the heavens. They’re just not being honest.  Half-and-half responses are okay however.

The film includes a height joke or two, but very little is made of Napoleon’s short stature (he was somewhere around 5’6″ or roughly Alan Ladd‘s size) or, for that matter, the psychology of the Napoleon complex (i.e., short guys aggressively trying to compensate). The fact that Phoenix stands around 5’8″ doesn’t seem to matter either way.

I’m still recommending that interested parties give Marlon Brando‘s Napoleon Bonaparte a whirl. Henry Koster‘s Desiree (’54) is a mediocre costume epic, yes, but in a certain laborious, stiff-necked way it’s almost more tolerable than Scott’s film.

Trailers for action thrillers have to tantalize genre fans with gunplay and whatnot. I understand that. But at the same time I regret that this new Fast Charlie trailer doesn’t convey more of what I liked about Phillip Noyce‘s film when I caught it during last May’s Cannes Film Festival.

Pierce Brosnan‘s cool-cat bayou enforcer plugging bad guys is fine, but viewers should understand that the actual Fast Charlie body count is four on-screen and eight guys total. I noted several weeks ago that Todd McCarthy’s Deadline review made the film sound like it was competitive with Sam Peckinpah‘s The Wild Bunch. 

It was my decision, no offense, to ignore the effing blam-blam while focusing instead on Brosnan’s low-flame relationship with costar Morena Baccarin. Because that’s where the soul and the nourishment are.

Fast Charlie (Vertical, 12.8) is half of a laid-back, settled-down relationship drama between Brosnan‘s Charlie, a civilized, soft-drawl hitman who loves fine cooking, and Baccarin‘s Marcie, a taxidermist with a world-weary, Thelma Ritter-ish attitude about things. And half of a compelling shoot-and-duck thriller.

There’s a suspense scene involving a hotel laundry chute that’s especially worth the price.

Nicely performed by Brosnan, Baccarin, Gbenga Akinnagbe and the late James Caan in his final performance, Fast Charlie is…if you’re willing to ignore the gunfire…a mature, unpretentious, character-driven, action-punctuated story of cunning and desire (not just romantic but epicurean) on the Mississippi bayou. Four adjectives plus gourmet servings.

The Brosnan-Baccarin thing reminds me of Robert Forster and Pam Grier in Jackie Brown. Sprinkled with a little Elmore Leonard dressing. One of those smooth older guy + middle-aged woman ease-and-compatibility deals.

Richard Wenk‘s screenplay, adapted from Victor Gischler‘s “Gun Monkeys,” is complemented by cinematography by Australian lenser Warwick Thornton (director of The New Boy).

From David Fear’s 11.8 Rolling Stone piece about David Fincher’s The Killer:

A case has already been made that David Fincher‘s The Killer is a stylistic and spiritual kin — a close kindred spirit — of certain other elite crime noirs — films whose basic situations could be described as “solitary hardcase dude not only does it his own way but is seriously effective in the matter of revenge and settling scores and turning the tables.”

The primary examples that come to mind are John Boorman‘s Point Blank, Mike Hodges’ Get Carter, Michael Mann‘s Thief, Jean-Pierre Melville‘s Le Samourai, John Flynn‘s The Outfit and Don Siegel‘s Charley Varrick — seven including the Fincher. Agreed?

I know it doesn’t matter to the denialists, but Jenna Ellis having testified that prior to 1.6.21 that a Trump attorney told her “the boss isn’t leaving [the White House and] we don’t care”…excellent.

…about the 2:1 aspect ratio connection between Jurassic Park (’93) and Barbie (’23). On top of which I’d never heard  until today that Jurassic Park was printed with a 2:1 aspect ratio. I’ve seen it twice theatrically and had presumed both times it was just 1.85 with possibly stringent masking.

I’ve been told by a veteran film guy that JP is, in fact, 1.85.  Very confusing.

Movie journalists I’ve spoken to don’t even know the difference between 1.66, 1.85 and 2.39…they just don’t notice it. It goes without saying that 98% of ticket buyers are clueless about this, and that they damn sure couldn’t spot the difference between 1.85:1 and 2.1…not if their lives depended on it.

…but it doesn’t really come together. I wouldn’t call it a bore or a bust, but it is a shortfaller, certainly in terms of what most of us might expect from a director as skilled and seasoned as Ridley Scott, who knows from battle scenes and 18th Century cultures and atmospheres. I’ll always be a huge fan of 1977’s The Duellists (Scott’s debut effort) and I guess I figured…aagghh, stop beating around the bush and spit it out.

Napoleon isn’t an outright failure but it certainly disappoints. It huffs and puffs but never really grabs hold or pays off, and a big part of the problem is that Joaquin Phoenix’s titular performance is too smug and sullen and oddball-glum. We’re looking at a clearly older guy (the nearly 50-year-old Phoenix is looking more than a bit lined and jowly) and he’s mumble-playing a famous fellow in his 30s and 40s, and it’s like “what’s going on here?” He’s playing one of the greatest genius generals in history like a teenager on mescaline, and it just feels off. Marlon Brando’s Napoleon in Desiree (‘54) was much, much better.

All I can tell you is that the general mood on the sidewalk outside the DGA theatre after the film ended was morose and uncertain. I mostly hemmed and hawed. One guy said he was flat-out bored during most of it. A friend suggested that the title of my review should be “sacre blows” but it’s not as bad as all that. It’s more of a scattershot thing. Yes, the battle scenes are definitely decent — the best are the depictions of the battles of Austerlitz and Waterloo. But even these felt a little so-what and “what’s the point again?”.

Text sent to a friend: “I don’t think it works all that well. Spotty. In and out. Moody and muttering Joaquin…’muh-muh-mum-mum-mum’…my general reaction was one of mild intrigue but with gradually diminishing returns, although Scott does give his all to the Battie of Waterloo. Subtitles will help when it starts streaming as I understood maybe a third of Vanessa Kirby’s dialogue, IF THAT. The colors are all drab grays and subdued greens and downish blues. My soul felt drab and gray.”

I didn’t nod out but I wasn’t riveted. Am I allowed to say I was vagueiy bored? No, that’s not fair — I was semi-engaged and stayed with it and kept hoping for more. But my mind was certainly wandering and somewhere around the one-hour mark I said to myself, “Face it, this isn’t doing the thing or drilling down…not really.”

Joaquin is such an oddball space-cadet Napoleon…impassive, “I’m not sure what to do so I’ll just sulk”…residing on his own stoner planet. And he really is too old.

Still glorious, dazzling, heart-melting, wowser.

Congrats to the five nominees for the 2023 Publicist Guild press award, listed in order of HE preference:

Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone…a nomination and recommendation that speaks for itself.

THR‘s Scott Feinberg…ditto.

Variety‘s Angelique Jackson, who’s still best known for expressing disappointment over Anthony Hopkins winning Best Actor for The Father and thereby denying fans of the late Chadwick Boseman, whose Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom performance was also nominated, a cathartic moment;

Collider‘s Perri Nemiroff, one of the smiling-est film commentators on the web, not to mention a Noovie personality, and…

L.A. Times wokester film writer Jen Yamato, still best known for (a) complaining that Licorice Pizza made Asians into a “punchline“, and (b) complaining to Joel and Ethan Coen that Hail Ceasar, set in Hollywood in the early ’50s, didn’t bave enough minority characters (i.e., #WhyIsHailCaesarSoWhite?”

If you ask me Yamato, Jackson and Nemiroff were included to round things out. Stone and Feinberg are the only serious contenders.

My beloved elephant-hide wallet was waiting for me in the Metro North lost & found office — room #100 in Grand Central. I lost it 11 days ago, and they called me yesterday with the good news. I didn’t listen to the message but whatever. And the cash was still there! Unbelievable.

The correct phrase, of course, is “you must lead a charmed life.”

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THR’s Scott Feinberg needs to step out of his DEI sewing circle and come to grips with the fact that outside of the identity fanatics Celine Song’s Past Lives is finished as a competitive Best Picture contender. It’s weak tea (i.e., doesn’t really pay off) and simply isn’t resonating. Let it go.

Scott can also double triple quadruple forget Past Lives’ John Magaro as a Best Supporting Actor hopeful. Not even remotely in the cards. Wimpy character, off-putting floor-mop haircut, too short.

Other ostensible Best Supporting Actor hotshots whom Scott needs to completely abandon: May December’s Charles Melton (Feinberg has the guy in fourth place!) and Killers of the Flower Moon’s Jesse Plemons.

Plus he has to stop shitting on BlackBerry’s Glenn Howerton (far and away the top indie-realm BSA contender as we speak) and The Holdovers’ Dominic Sessa. Howerton and Sessa are currently included in Feinberg’s “possibilities” (i.e., dead meat) roster.

Best Picture-wise Scott needs to elevate the eighth-place positioning of The Holdovers (right now it’s neck and neck with Oppenheimer and Poor Things) and also rescue the brilliant and dazzling Maestro from his seventh-place slot.

Scott further needs to come to grips with the fact that outside the all-non-white-identity-flicks-are-glorious-and-cleansing realm nobody really likes Killers of the Flower Moon. And nobody can figure out why Lily Gladstone’s Mollie Burkhart behaves in such a gentle and non-condemning way with her scurvy, dumb-scumbag husband Ernest, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Plus Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, a one-trick pony, is out.