I recently invited a friend to a NYC screening of Alex Garland’s Civil War (A24, 4.12).
“Thanks but I don’t think I’m’interested,” he replied. “I’m just not in the mood for a Very Important Movie (read: explicitly political) right now.”
I was going to explain that the narrative backdrop, according to the reviews, isn’t explicitly political, at least in terms of reflecting the red-vs.-blue, Trump MAGA vs. woke libtard dynamic. But that’s okay…
Posted on 3.14 after the SXSW debut:
Posted four years ago: Speaking as a life-long cat lover, I can say with authority that some cats are on the locoweed side. Inexplicable behavior. One out of several hundred, I mean.
If none-too-bright cats are unhappy or freaked about some kind of confining situation, for example, they’ll sometimes do anything they can to escape, even at their own peril. Or they’ll take revenge upon the person they think is responsible.
(1) A woman I knew was driving with an anguished male cat on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The weather was cold, a mild snowstorm was blowing, and her car was surrounded by a fair amount of traffic. She was going the usual highway speed. For some reason she leaned over and rolled down the driver-side window, and the cat immediately leapt out.
(2) My ex-wife Maggie and I had a calico cat who was accustomed to outdoor access, and who became extremely upset when we moved into an 8th floor high-rise apartment. The first night we moved in the cat climbed onto a waist-high balcony wall that overlooked the eight-story drop. I put him inside the apartment as this obviously seemed risky. Later that night he got out and jumped. We’d loved him, petted him, fed him, etc. Go figure.
(3) In the late ‘90s I was driving down Franklin Avenue with a cat who couldn’t handle being in moving cars. Jett and Dylan were with me. The cat was howling and freaking, and at one point jumped onto my shoulder and took a serious milkshake dump all over my neck and onto my blue workshirt. I remember the smell filling the car and the kids screaming with laughter.
(4) My sister and I knew that our excitable cat hated water, so we decided to take him with us on a short rowboat trip to the middle of a pond. As a training exercise. We waited until we were 30 or 40 feet out and then let him go. He looked around, assessed the situation, jumped into the pond and swam ashore.
(5) A girlfriend and I were sharing an apartment on Boston’s Park Drive. Her male cat, Tom, was bunking with us. I love cats but Tom was extremely hostile to me — the only cat I’ve run into who was this negative. One night we came back from a restaurant and found that Tom had peed on my sleeping pillow on our conjugal bed. That was it. Over the next day or two we found someone who was willing to take him.
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.
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.”
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?”
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!”
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.
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.”
Francis Coppola‘s Megalopolis screened late Thursday morning (3.28) at the Universal Citywalk IMAX theatre, and a certain friendo says the response was quite positive, exciting and emotional…”roaring off the screen, roaring into your eyes and ears“…full powered engagement and then some…intense, experimental, dynamic, a happy ending and “nothing at all like The Godfather, Part II….nothing like it or like any other film.”
It played before a crowd of roughly 300 industry elites (distributors, studio execs, Al Pacino, Andy Garcia, Roger Corman…a who’s who of heavy hitters)….”it was like Francis had 300 friends over [to this home]…he was extremely emotional when the lights came up, I can tell you…it was very moving to see him.”
Hollywood Elsewhere can’t make a smooth article out of these scrambled notes, but to understand what Megalopolis is or what it feels like you have to imagine a combination of a film by Francis Coppola and another by Ed Emshwiller, and then mesh them together.
Adam Driver‘s Ceasar, a driven visionary architect…Driver is playing a variation of the same character he played in House of Gucci and Ferrari…another tortured visionary.
Boilerplate: “Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel) is divided between loyalties to her father, Frank (Forest Whitaker), who has a classical view of society, and her architect lover, Caesar, who is more progressive and engaged with his idea of the future. He wants to rebuild New York City as a utopia following a devastating disaster.”
Costar Lawrence Fishburne provides narration.
Friendo (and please forgive occasional repetitions): “It’s very engaging…doesn’t drag at all….constantly entertaining, visually arresting…you have to constantly work to keep up with it. You’ve got to follow it. You can’t help but want to follow it.”
The most extraordinary part of the viewing, says friendo, was when an act of live theatre blended with the film. Friendo: “The lights came on in the cinema, and an actor stood up and he started asking a question of Adam Driver’s Ceasar on the screen, and then Driver answered him as if he could hear the question. Theatre interacting with cinema.”
“There were so many luminaries,” friendo continues. “All the studio chiefs…so many faces……Al Pacino was there.
“It’s a startling film….a very enveloping film, but also highly visual in a ’60s experimental way. It felt like Francis’s youth was returning to him and pouring through his heart at age 84….the kind of independent cinema that he grew up on….it’s a wonderful, larger-than-life, jumps-off-the-screen movie and in a totally personal way….constantly entertaining….it’s not like any movie that’s out there, I can tell you that…avant garde experimental.
“It’s principally about a love affair between Driver and Natalie Emmanuel, the daughter of his rival and opponent (Whitaker)….a battle for her heart. Romeo and Juliet….a Shaekespearean battle between two families…a bit like Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet.
“The statement that I felt summed up the general response was from Andy Garcia: ‘This guy is the reason we’re all making movies.’
“The film is a huge inspiration. I couldn’t tell you what Joe Popcorn might say, but this was a wildly enthusiastic crowd. I thoroughly enjoyed it…a kind of IMAX underground movie from the late ‘60s.
“Special care will be needed to sell it…it follows all of the standard dramatic rules that other films follow, but in an idiosyncratic way…there’s a sense of justice at the end….but this is nothing like The Godfather, Part II. Nothing whatsoever.
“We’re shown an overlaying of images like the beginning of Apocalypse Now, but in a more experimental way….roaring off the screen, roaring into your eyes and ears…more like One from the Heart. Taking place in an unreal world…a big metropolis….in the future but it doesn’t say exactly when….begins after a catastrophe….a city pulling itself together.
“Adam as Caesar, Natalie as his lover….one of the bad guys, the city’s mayor, is played by Giancarlo Esposito.
“Adam Driver is really playing Francis…very much of a visionary….Aubrey Plaza plays a rival love interest….bitchy, grasping.
“It just needs the right handling..Focus or Neon or Searchight…it needs expert handling….an adventuresome film….obviously it’s going to walk a tightrope. It’s probably better to go to Venice and Telluride as Cannes can be a make-or-break…some journalists tend to go there with an attitude.”
Yes, I’ll be watching Dan Reed‘s The Truth vs. Alex Jones sometime this evening. We all know the reprehensible facts and how Alex Jones ignored them and then fabricated his own bullshit scenario.
Nancy Lanza, a working-class NRA mom, indoctrinated her mentally wacko son, Adam, into gun culture, and bought the guns that led to the slaughter of those 20 Sandy Hook kids and those six school staffers on 12.14.12.
Let’s hear it for good old Nancy, whom Adam killed that morning before driving over to the school.
The film has only been streaming a couple of days. Has anyone seen it?
“Even though the legal battle between Sandy Hook families and the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been thoroughly covered, it is still hard to watch him in the documentary The Truth vs. Alex Jones without experiencing a wave of nausea.
“If there is value in seeing these events recapped, it is in the power of seeing the parents confront Jones in court. Over two trials, in Texas and Connecticut, the [paremnts] won more than $1 billion in damages.
“It is also in the horror of seeing just how confidently Jones deflects questions and tries to steer proceedings to his advantage — denying the families what Alissa Parker, Emilie’s mother, calls ‘a moment of reflection’ from him.
“The Truth vs. Alex Jones offers a lesson in just how vicious and pervasive conspiracy theories can become and a chilling portrait of how little they may trouble their purveyors.” — from Ben Kenigsberg‘s 3.26.24 N.Y. Times review.
If I never see John Carpenter ‘s Starman (‘84) ever again, it’ll be too soon.
I hated hated HATED Jeff Bridges’ performance as a mentally handicapped, slow-on-the-pickup alien — the polar opposite of Michael Rennie’s “Klaatu” in The Day The Earth Stood Still. Plus I hated his hair. Less than a half-hour in I was fantasizing about ways Bridges might be murdered by the authorities.
I felt more affection for James Arness’s meowing vegetable in Howard Hawks’ The Thing (‘51) than I did for Bridges’ “Scott Hayden.”
Plus Karen Allen has always bothered me — she was the Sydney Sweeney of her time.
There’s a Starman 4K Bluray on the way…forget it.
