Day: April 24, 2024

I visited Houston, Texas, in late April ‘06 or 18 years ago, and I frankly doubt if I’ll ever return. There are so many beautiful, soul-stirring cities, towns and regions out there worldwide (I could write chapters upon chapters) and I’m sorry but comparison-wise and with all due respect Houston just doesn’t knock your sucks off.

Here’s how I put it back then…deep in the Dubya miasma and roughly a year before Barack Obama launched his presidential campaign. The HE article was called “Texas Town.” The money quote (“Houston is L.A. without the soul”) came from Texas gal and good friend Cherry Kutac, who had invited me to cover the still-thriving Worldfest, the Houston-based film festival.

I’m sorry to have missed last weekend’s Los Angeles showing of a freshly restored 4K version of North by Northwest, which will be the basis of a forthcoming 4K UHD Bluray that will street late this year. Alfred Hitchcock‘s 1959 classic screened Saturday afternoon (4.20) under the auspices of the TCM Classic Film Festival.

I presumed the TCM NXNW screening was a premiere. (Distributors routinely debut new restorations at TCM Classic Film Festival.) Which is why I was thrown when I discovered yesterday that a “4K restoration” of North by Northwest played at the Film Forum roughly five months ago (late October-early November).

This morning I called the Film Forum and was told by a seemingly knowledgable employee that the restored 4K version of NXNW that played at the West Houston Street theatre last fall was the same version that played last Saturday at the Chinese on Hollywood Blvd.

The employee mentioned that FF senior programmer Bruce Goldstein, who’s also involved with the TCM Classic Film Festival, had finessed the booking, etc.

And yet this didn’t seem right. Why would Warner Bros. Discovery, which oversaw the NXNW restoration and will release the 4K UHD disc…why would they present a freshly minted NXNW 4K restoration at the Film Forum five months before the big TCM Classic Film Festival debut?

Then again, the FF page plainly states “4K restoration.”

Just before last weekend’s TCM showing I reached out to George Feltenstein, WBD’s in-house archivist and restoration hotshot (his technical job title is WBD Library Historian). I wanted to learn about the technical details of the restoration and when the disc might be released, etc.

I didn’t hear back until this afternoon. I was informed as follows by email:

Sentence #1: “The version of North by Northwest that was shown at the TCM Film Festival last weekend is a brand-new scan from the original camera negative, using a new scanner adapted for VistaVision.”

Sentence #2: “To confirm, this is not the same version of the film that played at Film Forum last year.”

Because I hated David Leitch’s Bullet Train with exceptional passion, I’m 96% certain I’m going to loathe and despise The Fall Guy (Universal, 5.3). I know what Leitch is (ex-stunt man, delusions of adequacy) and what he’s basically about deep down (a quarter-of-inch deep aspirations). There’s an all-media screening in Manhattan on Monday evening (4.29) but I don’t feel that The Fall Guy is worth the hassle of travelling in and out. I’ll catch it locally on Wednesday, 5.1…like a dentist appointment.

“Loud Latino Construction Workers,” posted on 10.25.21: “There’s a Latino apartment renovation crew working in the building next door, three or four guys, and they’re being (what else?) obnoxious — shouting to the extent that their voices sound like sonic booms, playing loud sombrero ballads and singing along and occasionally going ‘whooo-whooo!’

“And it’s awful to listen to, man. It’s hell.

“I’ve asked myself if I should walk over to the worksite and ask these guys to consider the fact that this is West Hollywood and not East L.A. and would they mind giving the neighborhood a break with their awful Tijuana border crossing music, etc. But that wouldn’t accomplish much. I understand that.

“I’ve been all around the block with coarse Latinos so don’t tell me. My battles with the Hispanic Party Elephant in North Bergen. The “Loud Latinos” piece that I posted from Brooklyn in June 2010, and got in trouble over.

Posted on 6.26.10: “We all act thoughtlessly from time to time, but the mark of a real animal is someone who never considers that he/she might be giving offense.

“I’ve been all around Spain and I’ve rarely noticed this level of conversational obnoxiousness in cafes. Nor did I notice this element when I visited Buenos Aires a few years ago. The Latin men and women I’ve observed in other countries can be spirited and exuberant, of course, but they mostly seem to converse at moderate levels. People with money and/or accomplishment under their belts are always more soft-spoken.

“You can bet that if you were to go to a cafe with Paul Shenar‘s Alejandro Sosa, the Bolivian drug dealer in Scarface, that he wouldn’t be shouting and bellowing. Does Edward James Olmos bellow in cafes and cause guys like me to complain about him? I seriously doubt it.”

Yet another team — New Regency, director John Hillcoat, screenwriter John Logan — is trying make Cormac McCarthy‘s “Blood Meridian” (’85) into a movie.

Don’t they understand this is an all-but-unfilmable property?…that the history of failed adaptations stretches back at least 25 years?…that Joe and Jane Popcorn lack the constitution to cope with frank depictions of such a blistering and ultra-violent book?

“The black stepped out of the darkness bearing the bowie knife in both hands like some instrument of ceremony. The white man looked up drunkenly and the black stepped forward and with a single stroke swapt off his head. Two thick ropes of dark blood and two slender rose like snakes from the stump of his neck and arched hissing into the fire. The head rolled to the left and came to rest at the ex-priest’s feet where it lay with eyes aghast.”

Producer Scott Rudin has been riding herd on a Blood Meridian adaptation for many, many years.

In the late ’90s, Tommy Lee Jones acquired the adaptation rights to the story and subsequently rewrote Steve Tesich‘s 1995 screenplay. Never happened, deemed too violent.

Ridley Scott and screenwriter William Monahan entered discussions with Rudin for adapting “Blood Meridian” with Paramount Pictures financing. Abandonedm, too violent, etc.

James Franco took a crack at McCarthy’s novel in 2011. He shot 25 minutes of test footage starring Scott Glenn, Mark Pellegrino, Luke Perry and Dave Franco. Never went anywhere.

On 5.5.16 Variety reported that Franco was negotiating with Rudin to write and direct an adaptation to be brought to the Marché du Film, starring Russell Crowe, Tye Sheridan and Vincent D’Onofrio. Nope.