James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown would be wise to open later this year as 2024’s award season is looking a bit anemic…compared to ‘23 it’s a weak, mewing little kitten…hobbled by last year’s WGA and SAG strikes.

A boilerplate principle photography period is three months, so James Mangold’s film having begun filming a couple of weeks ago indicates a mid-June finish.

That would give Mangold a fairly comfortable post-production period — five full months — to finish A Complete Unknown for theatrical release…let’s say around Thanksgiving or thereabouts.

Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis (‘13), an early ‘60s folk-music period drama with similar visual elements, shot in the late winter and early spring of 2012. It could have been “rushed” into that year’s Oscar season but the Coens wanted to hang back a bit.

Among the fastest post-production turnarounds in Hollywood history are Robert Webb ‘s Love Me Tender (‘56), Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder (‘59), Oliver Stone’s W. (‘08) and Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers (‘19) — all were edited, fine-tuned and finished in the vicinity of 11, 12 or 13 weeks.

Mangold would have 20 weeks to finish and present A Complete Unknown by mid November. If he finishes principal by mid June, he could even pull a Preminger and have it ready to screen at the New York Film Festival by late September or early October.

HE agrees that Timothee Chalamet‘s simulation of Bob Dylan, as revealed in Entertainment Weekly‘s shots of recent filming of A Complete Unknown, is agreeable.

The hair and brown folkie threads appear to suggest Dylan ’65 — his “Bringing It All Back Home” (January ’65) or “Highway 61 Revisited” (August ’65) period.

Let no one misunderstand that these James Mangold-approved capturings are from METROPOLIS/BAUER-GRIFFIN/GC IMAGES.

Scarlett Johansson‘s reported interest in starring in a new Jurassic Park film is a paycheck move…obviously. She needs the money.

Because…think about it…the Jurassic franchise peaked roughly 30 years ago (1993’s Jurassisc Park + 1997’s The Lost World) and there’s obviously nothing classy or even exciting about making one of these godawful things, which currently appeal to the absolute lowest common denominator…the dregs of megaplex culture.

It would seem that Johansson’s current game is largely or significantly about wanting to keeping living in the lap of luxury and having to occasionally hold her nose when she makes certain films. Paycheck gigs are a fact of life. Nobody likes them, but almost everyone accepts the fact that appearing a well-paying dreck is an unfortunate necessity.

Plus Johansson is pushing 40 (she was born on 11.22.84) and a voice is probably telling her “you’ve had a great 20-year run and although you’re sure to make many more smart and edgy films, your highly-paid glory period is winding down and so it’s probably wise to snag as many hefty-paycheck roles as you can, regardless of quality….get it while you can.”

I’m ranking these by the measure of “which Best Picture winners would I most like to see again?” As I will never, ever watch Oppenheimer again (I’ve seen it twice and that’ll do), it’s not near the top of my list, and if you don’t like that, too bad.

1. Birdman
2. Spotlight
3. Green Book (I was there when Peter Farrelly‘s film premiered in Toronto, and the crowd went nuts. I don’t care if you don’t like that this happened, even though it did. Not a great film, but a warm and gentle one. Some people hate Green Book — I hate Green Book haters)
4. Nomadland
5. Oppenheimer
6. Parasite (letting the fired maid in during the rainstorm…very bad)
7. Moonlight (The Trevante Rhodes chapter doesn’t work or certanly underwhelms…he’s too muscular to be the wimpy skinny kid who got that handjob on the beach).
8. The Shape of Water (Sally Hawkins was great but for me, Michael Shannon’s psycho nutjob all but ruined this film).
9. CODA (basically an ABC AfterSchool Special)
10. Everything Everywhere All At Once (Michelle Yeoh did a very good job, but otherwise this is easily the most loathsome film to win a Best Picture Oscar. I hated Jamie Lee Curtis‘s performance.)

All hail Simon West, Scott Rosenberg and Jerry Bruckheimer‘s Con Air, which is over a quarter-century old now. (Damn near 27 years.) I re-watched it last night with Jett, and it’s still one of the greatest sociopathic action comedies ever made. There’s a perverse satiric thrust built into almost every damn scene, which is one reason why I feel it’s among the best Jerry Bruckheimer flicks ever made.

I’ve been saying this from the get-go but it can’t hurt to repeat: Con Air is a blend of ultra-slick action-movie chops along with an attitude of subversive genre parody. It’s primarily a wickedly funny and (at times) almost surreal conceptual comedy, and secondarily an action thriller. It’s a very handsomely shot and well-edited thing but there’s barely a single sincere line in Rosenberg’s entire script.

And let’s remember that it wasn’t all Rosenberg — Con Air was punched up by a crew of pinch-hitting screenwriters, which was also how The Rock, Gone in Sixty Seconds and Crimson Tide came together.

Con Air plays the big-budgeted action thriller game while mocking and toying with big-budget machismo at every turn. Not in a silly spoof way but using a kind of flip, inside-baseball attitude. As if the people who were paid to put it together — gifted, too-hip-for-the-room writers with jaded nihilist attitudes — felt vaguely befouled for working on a project so caked with cynicism and Hollywood corruption, and decided to inject snide, subversive humor as a form of therapy.

The marvel of Con Air is that the mixture of this attitude with cold action-movie efficiency (this being one of those happy-accident movies that occur every so often) also worked as entertainment because the movie included you in — it made you feel as if you were laughing with it, not at it.

Comment from “jimjonesiii” (posted on 10.2.08): “I`m a fat redneck ape and I approve this movie.”

I love John Malkovich‘s performance as Cyrus the Virus — every line and body gesture says “this time out I’m a total paycheck whore, but you’ll also notice I’m very good at this sort of dry attitude comedy.”

I’ll always chuckle at the buffed-up Nic Cage at his most comically stalwart and sincere. And at John Cusack‘s smarty-pants dialogue and his dopey sandal shoes. And that scene of Dave Chappelle‘s frozen body dropping from 10,000 feet and landing on an old couple’s car hood. (Chappelle was 25 or 30 pounds lighter in ’97, and he had hair!) Cage’s “Don’t mess with the bunny” line. Steve Buscemi defining the word irony. Colm Meaney‘s muscle car (a Sting Ray) getting dropped from 2000 feet up. That idiotic Las Vegas plane-crash finale. Ridiculous but all fun, all the time.

Rosenberg once recalled that Bruckheimer wasn’t pleased with the climax Rosenberg had come up with. Rosenberg, being a typically egoistic writer, got defensive and snarky. Rosenberg: “Jesus…c’mon, Jerry, what more could you want from this thing? What do you want me to do…crash the fucking plane down the strip in Vegas?” Bruckheimer: “Yes! Perfect!”

Con Air is a remnant of an era in which Jerry Bruckheimer movies briefly flirted with with this special signature attitude — i.e., mocking the big-budget action genre and at the same time kicking ass with it.

Con Air was partly Rosenberg, of course, but also partly from Jerry’s own attitude at the time as he hadn’t yet come into his own and was still working to some extent with the legacy and attitude of late partner Don Simpson . And partly from the Clinton era zeitgeist, partly from the luck of the draw, partly good fortune.

The Jerry Bruckheimer who made this film in ’96-’97 would have howled at the absurdity of making a Lone Ranger movie starring Johnny Depp as Tonto.

I will defend Con Air until the cows come home. It’s expensive guy-movie junk in a sense — one that simultaneously chokes on its own cynicism and yet makes you laugh at the absurdity of making movies of this sort, and yet put together with great care and precision and polish.

Bruckheimer used to say “I make guy movies but I don’t serve hamburger — I serve first-rate steak.” Con Air is like a pricey, perfectly cooked marbled T-bone in a great restaurant in old town Buenos Aires or downtown Chicago or the east 50s in Manhattan.

I hold Con Air, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Crimson Tide and The Rock in roughly the same regard. All four are among my all-time favorite guilty pleasure movies. Those were the days. Jerry doesn’t make ’em like this any more.

“P. Vice“, posted on 10.2.08: “I love it. First we decry the unwashed apes and their pathetic taste in movies, then we praise shit like Con Air which is a movie about apes, made by apes for…you guessed it…apes. Hypocrites, one and all.

“And besides, Armageddon is clearly the real deal when it comes to slyly satirizing genre conventions while satisfying them with a straight face. Simon West doesn’t deserve scraps from Michael Bay‘s dinner table.”

LexG, posted on 10.2.08: “CON AIR = COMPLETE, TOTAL and WHOLESALE MEGAAAAAA-OWNAGE. I love that score. Especially the part that goes TSEW, TSEW, TSEW, TSEW over and over again. MASTERPIECE. And also the only time Scott Rosenburg’s weakness for wack-ass character names was amusing. DIAMOND DOG is somehow awesomely stupid, yet MR. SHHHHHHH and MAN WITH THE PLAN is just straight-up EMBARASSING.”

“Nick Rogers,” posted on same date: “Con Air contains some of the most subversive, and entertaining, ‘slumming’ performances I’ve ever seen. Wells, don’t feel guilty about liking this at all. Can’t say I agree with you about Gone in 60 Seconds (too much talking, not enough carjacking), but this is a brilliant post.”

HE’s 24-hour Manhattan sojourn included (a) a last-minute urge to attend a Friday afernoon press screening of Sasquatch Sunset, (b) a subsequent decision to bypass Sasquatch and stick to the original plan of catching a restored version of Claude Sautet‘s Classe tous risques (’60) at the Film Forum, (c) a realization that Sautet’s film, a somber, low-key depiction of a criminal sociopath (Lino Ventura) grappling with betrayal within a demimonde of old pals, is too talky for its own good, (d) a 7 pm Angelika press screening of Carol Doda Topless at the Condor, which was followed by a discussion session with co-directors Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker, and (e) the blustery, bone-chilling air causing a fair amount of discomfort and a firm conviction that the approach of spring really needs to get into gear.

[Originally posted on 9.6.20] I’ve been a sucker all my life for scenes of long-delayed revelation or confession that are nonetheless inaudible due to directorial strategy.

Two of my top three are YouTubed below. My third favorite is Leo G. Carroll‘s remarkably concise explanation to Cary Grant about the whole George Kaplan decoy scheme in North by Northwest. The all-but-deafening sound of nearby aircraft engines allows Carroll to explain all the whats, whys and wherefores in roughly ten or twelve seconds; otherwise a full-boat explanation would take at least…what, 45 or 50 seconds? A minute or two?

My favorite is the On The Waterfront moment in which Marlon Brando‘s Terry confesses to Eva Marie Saint‘s Edie that he was unwittingly complicit in her brother’s murder. Because it’s not just an admission but a plea for forgiveness with Terry insisting it wasn’t his idea to kill Joey or anyone else (“I swear to God, Edie!”), and that he thought “they was just gonna lean on him a little,” as he says to his brother Charlie (Rod Steiger) in the film’s second scene.

I’m mentioned the Mississippi Burning moment between Gene Hackman and Frances McDormand a couple of times before. It’s arguably the most powerful moment in this racially charged 1988 thriller, which is based on the infamous 1964 murder of three civil-rights workers. A third-act fantasy spin was the main criticism when it opened, but it emotionally satisfied and that’s what counts.

There’s also that Foreign Correspondent moment inside the Butch windmill when Joel McCrea can hear the murmur of bad-guy voices but not what’s being said. Others?

Cary Grant, Leo G. Carroll during the Chicago / Midway airport confession scene.

The fanboys are preemptively hating on Leslye Headland‘s The Acolyte, the forthcoming, eight-part Disney + Star Wars series, as another woke undermining of classic Star Wars mythology at the direction of Lucasfilm’s Kathy Kennedy.

I am persuaded that it’s female-centric and identity-driven, and is primarily about progressive instruction.

The series is a prequel, set at the end of the High Republic era and well before The Phantom Menace and the subsequent events of the other big Star Wars films.

It was allegedly pitched by Headland as Kill Bill meets Frozen. This equation means nothing to me as I was never a Kill Bill fan (most of it bored me) and I never even watched 2013″s Frozen ( I despise all Disney corporate animation) so what do I know? Nothing. But I trust the perceptions of the Critical Drinker…I know that much.

The first two episodes of The Acolyte will premiere on Disney+ on 6.4.24. The other six will be released weekly.