Day: February 7, 2024

Today (2.7) The Hollywood Reporter‘s Jordan Hoffman posted a story about illegal streamings and at least one recent peek-out viewing of Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance in Manhattan.

Hoffman doesn’t mention last April’s private screening that was attended by resturateur Keith McNally and Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman, but he does acknowledge Will Sloan’s 1.15 Letterbox review.

Hoffman also mentions “a bar/event space in New York’s East Village [that] recently hosted an underground ‘NYC Premiér’ of Coup de Chance.” Maybe that’s how Sloan happened to see it?

In paragraph #5, however, Hoffman states that distribution-wise “nothing is in the works for Coup de Chance.”

I’m sorry but my understanding is that Hoffman is dead wrong about this. A distribution deal has been hammered out (at the very least involving streaming and possibly even a touch of theatrical). I was recently told that an announcement about same would happen sometime this week.

Hoffman also fails to report that Coup de Chance is currently streaming on illegal torrent sites.

Hoffman has, on the other hand, seen Allen’s new film (as I have), and has written the following: “This viewer is ready to declare common wisdom correct and say it is far better than Allen’s recent output.

“The lead performance by French actress Lou de Laâge is particularly good. Had this been a U.S.-based production in a parallel timeline, someone like Dakota Johnson would be getting accolades for it.

“The movie is similar in tone to Match Point or Irrational Man in its treatment of happenstance leading to life-altering experiences, the decision to commit murder, and the random distribution of justice.

“[So] it’s an interesting movie worthy of conversation given the importance Allen has in cinema. Maybe someday people in North America who would like to see it will be able to without sneaking around.”

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She may not know if Madame Web will be any good, but Dakota Johnson is certain that today’s streaming distributors are not ony scared of their own shadows but slow on the pickup.

“It’s Spelled Daddy-o,” posted on 9.10.23:

The more I read about Christy Hall‘s Daddio, the sorrier I am that I ducked it in Telluride. I was especially persuaded by Todd McCarthy’s Deadline review. I’m very much looking forward to the next viewing opportunity.

Pic is a two-hander about a grizzled New York City cab driver named Clark (Sean Penn) covering the verbal and cultural waterfront with his blonde 30something passenger (Dakota Johnson).

I should admit there was a specific reason why I didn’t see Daddio last week. It was because of the dopey Millennial spelling. If it had been spelled right I would have gone in a heartbeat.

Daddy-o is a beatnik anachronism. The root term (duhh) is “daddy” with a “y”. Daddio is for dingleberries.

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I respect director Michael Sarnoski (Pig) but this is a paycheck whore job for the poor guy. London version, same old shite. Poor Lupita Nyong’o and Djimon Honsou. The first one was decent, but I’m sick to death of this effing franchise.

…when I was 12 or 13. Like Truman Capote I also was more into movies, reading books and drawing stuff than girls (the hound-dogging didn’t start until I was 23), sports or, God forbid, school studies.

When I was 16 or 17 I was putting much more time and energy into typing a socially satirical hand-out (circulated among my ruffian friends) than doing homework. I surely could have refined my writing skills by attending journalism school in my late teens or early 20s, but I’ve always been a do-it-yourself type.

Speaking of Hannah Arendt…

However jarring or chilling Jonathan Glazer ‘s The Zone of Interest may seem to some, one thing it’s clearly not is thematically complex. Write “the banality of evil” a thousand times on a blackboard.

As we speak there’s only one copy selling on EBay, but there are quite a few more available in Russia.

Posted on 4.2.20:

The great John Waters on the nonbinary sexual revolution, as reported last week by the Desert Sun’s Ema Sasic: