Day: March 29, 2024

Deauville Dreamlovers

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This Chanel Iconic Handbag spot is a tribute to Claude Lelouch‘s A Man and a Woman (’66). The dreamy mood, the black-and-white cinematography (although the original was shot in monochrome, sepia and color), Francis Lai‘s famous musical theme.

The stars of that 58-year-old romantic classic, Jean Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimee, were in their early-to-mid 30s when it was shot in ’65. Today’s Chanel costars, Brad Pitt and Penelope Cruz, are significantly older (60 and 49 respectively) and so the directors, Inez and Vinoodh, have digitally de-aged them.

I get the idea, of course, but Pitt doesn’t look like a 30something — he looks like a late 50something whose face has been almost totally erased, certainly of character. I like the slightly weathered, crinkly-eyed guy he played in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood better.

The tall waitress (5’10”) is Dutch fashion model Rianne Van Rompaey.

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HE Disapproves of “Sex Positive”

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A few days ago I twitched once again at the sight of the term “sex positive.” I’ve riffed about this once or twice before, but this time it was in a Zack Sharf Variety piece about The Idea of You (Amazon Prime, 5.2.24). It’s about an affair between Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway), a 40 year-old single mom, and Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the 24-year-old lead singer of August Moon, a super-hot boy band.

Sharf: “Hathaway was drawn to the film because it shows it’s never too late for a woman to come of age. The film is also sex positive.”

I wrote the following a couple of years ago: “‘Sex positive’ sounds a little too nice…a little too much like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Tame and tidy, not skanky enough. The best heteronormative sex is usually untidy and objectionable in some way — rude, hungry, raw, animalistic, runting, howling, pervy.

There’s an old Woody Allen line (probably from Annie Hall or Manhattan) that answers a question about whether sex is dirty or not. Reply: “It is if you’re doing it right.”

In the mid ’80s I was “seeing” a pretty British woman in her early 30s. She had apparently come from a conservative family, or had somehow gotten the idea from her mother that when it came to the possibility of sexual congress and the “yes or no” moment…she had been told that behaving in a cautious or conservative or even prudish manner was a safe, sensible way to go.

But I’m telling you that one of the hottest things I’ve ever heard a woman say at the moment of surrender came out of this lovely lady — “oh, God, I love it!”

It wasn’t so much the “I love it” (which was fine) as the “oh, God” part that got me. What that meant, I determined, was that deep down she was apologizing to God the Father for enjoying being harpooned. “Oh, God” meant “dear Lord, I’ve tried so hard to be a more virtuous woman and here I am failing again…I can’t help myself…send me to a nunnery.”

Derisive Laughter Worn As A Badge of Emptiness

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I just read a 3.25.24 article titled “Stop Laughing at Old Movies — audiences behaving badly at the theater, concerts, and everywhere else.”

The author is Jessica Crispin, who runs a Substack blog called “The Culture We Deserve.”

It reminded me of a 2012 Toronto Film Festival screening of Joe Wright‘s Anna Karenina. I was sitting in the seventh or eighth row, and during the third act some uncouth animals began chuckling at an emotional scene that wasn’t in the least bit funny. I distinctly recall whipping around and glaring.

I generally hate groups of people who laugh loudly in any context outside of watching comedies. I can tolerate laughter but only in short bursts, and that means no shrieking. I can be walking down a Manhattan street and if a group of younger people start to shriek-laugh at something, I’ll immediately flinch and snarl to myself “those fucking assholes,” etc.

The second-to-last paragraph in Crispin’s piece mentions that during a presumably recent screening of Blow-Up, people in the audience were cackling “at the mimed game of tennis, a group of people playing with an imaginary ball. It doesn’t get past me that [this is a] representation of atomization and isolation, the absolute inability to connect. The whoop of laughter is a signal to say ‘not me.’ And it’s pathetic because it suggests exactly the opposite.”

If I’d been at that Blow-Up screening I would’ve…okay, I wouldn’t have gotten up and thrown the remainder of my soft drink into the laps or faces of the chucklers — way too aggressive — but I definitely would’ve followed the chucklers into the lobby after it ended and politely asked, “Sorry to bother but if you don’t mind answering, what did you guys find funny about the silent tennis ball scene? I’m just curious because I’ve never heard a group of people laughing at it and I’ve seen Blow-Up several times. I mean, are you guys a new breed of some kind?”

Signature Lines of the Last 15 or 20 Years

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Two and two-thirds years ago (8.14.21) I posted “Signature Dialogue Lines“, which got a lot of responses and then the day ended and everyone moved on.

It came back to me after I mentioned Louis Gossett, Jr.’s big signature line — “I want your D.O.R., Mayonnaise!” Most of the reader responses to the 8.14.21 mentioned classic lines from the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. Naturally — movie dialogue is generally understood to have been better in the old days.

I might be overstating this, but we’re not exactly swimming in great signature lines these days. We haven’t been over the last 20 or 25 years. Okay, maybe I’m being too dismissive but off the top of my head I’m not coming up with a lot of 21st Century zingers. Let me dig around…

Margot Robbie: “We’re not gonna be friends” or “I’m here to see my gynecologist.” Leonardo DiCaprio: “Good!…pick up the phone and dial.” George Clooney: “I am Shiva, the god of death.” Joaquin Pheonix: “It’s so hard to just try and be happy all the time.” Javier Bardem: “You’ve been putting it up your whole life, you just didn’t know it…call it.” Daniel Day Lewis: “I drink your milkshake…I drink it up!” Tommy Lee Jones: “And then I woke up.” Brad Pitt: “Don’t cry in front of the Mexicans.” Jonah Hill: “Are those my only two options?”

Please come up with a few more, but none from the 20th Century!

I would argue that if an alleged movie star doesn’t have a signature line or two, he/she isn’t really a movie star.

Original article: Back in the 20th Century people used to ask actors for autographs instead of selfies. Eccentric as it may sound, fans would actually carry around autograph books for this purpose. It’s been suggested that now and then hardcore fans would ask for more than just a signature — they would ask the celebrity to write a quote he/she is famous for uttering in a film.

If you were an autograph hound and you ran into Gloria Swanson back in the day, you would ask her to write “I am big…it’s the pictures that got small.”

If you bumped into William Holden, you’d ask for “if they move, kill ’em.”

If you walked into an elevator and Warren Oates was standing there, you’d ask for “lighten up, Francis.”

If you ran into James Cagney, you’d ask for “made it, ma!…top of the world!” Or perhaps “I ain’t so tough.”

What’s Sandra Bullock‘s signature line? Margot Robbie‘s? Emma Stone‘s?

Nic Cage? I strangely can’t think of one off the top.

Meryl Streep: Drawing a blank.

Bette Davis: “Fasten your seatbelts — it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Harrison Ford: “I know.” (The Empire Strikes Back)

Jeremy Irons: “You have no idea.” (Reversal of Fortune)

Charles Grodin: “Pecan pie…they’ve got it back there!”

Warren Beatty (originally suggested by “filmklassik“): “Let’s face it, I fucked ‘em all. I go into that shop and they’re so great looking, you know. And I’m doing their hair and they feel great, and they smell great. Or I could be out on the street, you know, and I could just stop at a stoplight or go into an elevator, or I…there’s a beautiful girl. I don’t know, I mean, that’s it…it makes my day, it makes me feel like I’m gonna live forever. And as far as I’m concerned, with what I’d like to have done at this point in my life, I know I should have accomplished more, but I’ve got no regrets. Maybe that means I don’t love ’em, maybe it means I don’t love you, I don’t know. Nobody’s gonna tell me I don’t like ’em very much.”

Daily Beast contributor Tom Teodorczuk posted an interview with 45 Years costar Tom Courtenay, and about halfway through Courtenay mentions that he was recently approached by an autograph hunter asking him to sign a piece of paper underneath the words “the personal life is dead” — one of the utterances of Strelnikov, his character in Dr. Zhivago.

Back in the late ’70s I recalled running into In Cold Blood costar Scott Wilson in a West Hollywood bar. Wimp that I am, I stifled an instinct to ask for an autograph along with the words “hair on the walls” — a Dick Hickock line from Truman Capote‘s nonfiction novel.

If I could persuade Brad Pitt to write down a signature line, I’d ask him to write “don’t cry in front of the Mexicans.”

If I’d run into Marlon Brando in the ’70s, I would have asked him to write either “whatta ya got?” (a line from The Wild One) or “Don’t be doin’ her like that” (from One-Eyed Jacks).

If I’d enountered Montgomery Clift I’d ask him to write “nobody ever lies about being lonely” — a Robert E. Lee Prewitt/From Here To Eternity line.

Samuel L. Jackson: “I don’t remember askin’ you a goddam thing!”

Bruce Willis: “Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker!” or “Welcome to the party, pal!”

Al Pacino: “You don’t get to watch my television, Ralph!”

All Hail The Towering Louis Gossett, Jr.

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I pretty much worshipped Louis Gossett, Jr. all my life, and I really wish I could have somehow seen him play “George Murchison” in the 1959 Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun,” when he was 23.

Gossett was arguably one of the handsomest actors to ever punch through to the big time, and definitely the best-looking and glowing-est actor of color within the frame of the 20th Century. And man, I sat up and took notice when I saw him in The Landlord, Skin Game (costarring with James Garner), The Laughing Policeman, The White Dawn and Sadat, the 1983 four-hour miniseries. Not to mention “Fiddler”in Roots.

And I really felt badly for the poor guy when he put on that lizard-skin makeup and costarred with Dennis Quaid in Wolfgang Petersen‘s Enemy Mine. which many were making jokes about as they left the Los Angeles all-media screening in late ’85. I remember exiting through the crowded middle aisle and doing my imitation of Gossett’s reptilian, gurgly-ass speaking voice.

But let’s cut to the chase. Gossett’s career-defining role was Marine Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in Taylor Hackford‘s An Officer and a Gentleman (’82), which landed him a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Peter Fonda‘s most famous line was “we blew it.” Clark Gable‘s was “frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Gossett’s was “I want your D.O.R….D.O.R.!” Foley is, was and always will be the greatest-of-all-time movie drill sergeant, and yes, that means he was better than Lee Ermey. Gossett was 45 or thereabouts when he gave that performance.

Gossett passed earlier today in Santa Monica at age 87.

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After The Fact

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I adored Maestro for the style and reach and flourish of it, and Carey Mulligan’s last-act demise was, for me, devastating.  But before I saw it and I mean throughout my whole life, Leonard Bernstein was the soul-stirring music man — composing, conducting, Lincoln Center, Tanglewood. Maestro didn’t exactly take issue with this, but it certainly sidestepped it. What it mostly seemed to do was whisper in my ear or poke me in the ribs as it said over and over, “O, I screw a lad.”  (That’s an anagram for “Oscar Wilde.”) And I don’t relate to that. There is so much more to life than the raptures of the phallus. And this nagging focus upon young men interferes with the sad French horn I hear in my head every time I think of Terry and Edie and that rooftop pigeon cage. Or, you know, what “Somewhere” does to me every time.

Friendo to HE: ” I still don’t get why the public was willing to embrace Oppenheimer but not Maestro. Neither J. Robert Oppenheimer nor Leonard Bernstein were well known to young audiences when the films arrived.”

HE to friendo: “The public detected that Maestro was mostly about the gay stuff and said ‘okay, yeah…nope.’ J. Robert Oppenheimer may have been a weird genius dweeb but he didn’t fuck pretty boys. Imagine if Oppenheimer had been mostly about the boys and just a little tiny bit about building the A-bomb in Los Alamos and then being politically persecuted in the 50s. I know this is an unpleasant realization for some, but 95% to 96% of the country is straight. Sorry.”