Day: March 13, 2024

How hard is it to accept that The Abyss opened almost 35 years ago?

I’ve seen it twice on a big screen (standard theatrical version plus the longer director’s cut) and have never bought the “Ed Harris brings the chalk-faced, eyes-fixed-and-dilated Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio back to life” scene…I thought it was manipulative bullshit.

MEM is obviously drowned and lifeless and yet Harris pounds her chest and slaps her two or three times and yells “don’t quit!” and suddenly she starts breathing?

And I never bought the climactic appearance of those beatific dragonfly aliens saving Harris from death and hauling him through their magical underwater metropolis, plus those huge tidal waves that almost wipe out several major cities and then change their minds out of compassion for homo sapiens…an eye-filling finale, for sure, but it doesn’t work.

Hence my decision not to shell out $50 for the just-released 4K Abyss Bluray…it’s a tense, fascinating, well-throttled James Cameron superfilm but it’s not worth five sawbucks aka a Ulysses S. Grant. I would go $25 or $30 but no higher. Eventually a 4K streaming version will pop.

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Franklin is an eight-episode Apple miniseries about the randy statesman, inventor and roving ambassador. Directed by Tim Van Patten and written by Kirk Ellis and Howard Korder, it’s based on Stacy Schiff‘s “A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America” (’05). The series launches with three episodes on 4.12.24, and concludes on 5.17.24.

Mr. Franklin was a wise, ingenious and well-educated printer, inventor and statesman, but he was also a serious hound, and I fully expect to see this aspect of his personality depicted…the life of a charming, pot-bellied smoothie who ravaged dozens of Parisian women during his ambassadorship and beyond.

I don’t know what the voice of the Boston-born Franklin sounded like, but it’s a near certainty that Michael Douglas said “fuck it, I’m going to play Franklin with my own deepish, gravelly voice and let the chips fall where they may.”

The 79 year-old Douglas is the right age to play Franklin — he hits the big eight-oh on 9.25.24.

Franklin lived in France (mostly Paris, based in a home in Passy) for nearly 20 years, from late 1776 until sometime in 1785. For roughly eight years Franklin served as the United States ambassador to France, and in so doing persuaded France to lend financial assistance to the United States fight against the British.

Forward to Schiff’s book: “In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France.” So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin — seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French — convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America’s experiment in democracy.

“When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin’s most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man.”

What’s the one thing that comes to mind when everyone thinks of the prosecution of Trump and others over Georgia election interference? Obviously the taped 1.2.21 phone call in which Trump tried to cajole and threaten Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — “I just want to find 11,780 votes” — into overturning Trump’s loss of that state in the 2020 election.

A tape of the phone call was obtained by The Washington Post and released the following day. Over and over Raffensperger responded with respectful “sorry, Mr. President, but no way” statements.

And yet, believe it or not, this phone call — irrefutable evidence of Trump’s attempt to alter the Georgia vote count and steal the election — has been thrown out by Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton Superior Court. Six charges against Trump and his hooligan allies have been tossed by McAfee, leaving a total of 35.

The ruling was not related to a Trump defense attempt to disqualify Fulton County D.A. Fani T. Willis, over committing apparent perjury in court testimony over a now-concluded romantic relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade. McAfee is expected to rule on that matter by week’s end.

In response to some recent Sharon Stone recollections about 1993’s Sliver, told to Spotify podcaster Louis Theroux and repeated by Metro’s Rishma Dosani and Danni Scott, director Phillip Noyce has sifted through his own memory vault:

Timothee Chalamet is going to look great as he ages into his 40s, 50s and beyond. Those eyes and bones…he’s going to become a combination of a graying David Niven and a gentle-faced Basil Rathbone with bushy salt-and-pepper hair.**

Ditto Emma Stone. She’ll never put on weight, her face will retain its tightness as long as she submits to an occasional Prague touch-up, and those grand, luminous eyes are never going to lose their wattage.

Margot Robbie is going to radiate much of what she has now when she passes the 45-plus threshold. Firecracker eyes, delectable bones. As long she ignores her gay hairdresser’s advice to wear her hair shorter as she ages, she’ll be totally fine.

Zendaya is also going to weather fairly nicely.

But you know who isn’t going to age all that well? Florence Pugh. She’s pretty and everything but it’s clear she’s just about to flip over. On her way to Kathleen Turner-ville. A round little ball.

Journalists and columnists aren’t allowed to talk candidly about actors’ appearances, but you should listen to casting directors and beauty professionals after they’ve had a couple of drinks and let their hair down.

Who else is seemingly fated to experience significant (i.e., unwelcome) changes as their genes come in for the kill?

** Chalamet may get into trouble if he allows himself to bulk up and become Alan Bates, but he’ll be fine if he sticks to a Cary Grant diet..