The 34 year-old world of Kindergarten Cop never existed, of course, but it half-existed in the minds of the makers (director Ivan Reitman, screenwriters Murray Salem, Herschel Weingrod and Timothy Harris) and many in the mass audience. Arnold Schwarzenegger was 42 or 43 during filming, but looked younger. Who didn’t?
The world of 1990 and especially its values are totally gone, and will never again return.
And the movies that defined that year….Goodfellas, Internal Affairs, Miami Blues, The Hunt for Red October, Longtime Companion, Dick Tracy, Metropolitan, Postcards From Ther Edge, Avalon, Reversal of Fortune, Misery, The Sheltering Sky, The Grifters, Edward Scissorhands, etc. Plus everyone looked and felt so much younger. Plus there were no grown-up Millennials or Zoomers to muck things up, and no political terror! And Politically Incorrect wouldn’t debut until 7.25.93.
I was writing for Entertainment Weekly and Empire (I think), and my very first trip to the Cannes Film Festival wouldn’t happen for another two years.
A few days ago Variety‘s Clayton Davisposted a likely Best Actress list, and believe it or not he had Anora‘s Mikey Madison in tenth place.
Davis actually ranked her behind Emilia Perez‘s Karla Sofía Gascón, whose performance is definitely supporting and who will absolutely lose if she runs in the Best Actress category. (Was I right about Lily Gladstone?) And behind Challengers‘ Zendaya, The Substance star Demi Moore and Maria‘s Angelina Jolie. And behind Lady Gaga‘s unseen performance in Joker: Folie à Deux.
The hard-working but out-to-lunch Davis doesn’t seem to understand how good Madison’s performance is. But I do, and so will everyone else when Anora opens in mid-October.
HE Cannes review:
Sean Baker’s Anora (Neon, 10.18) is a loud, coarse and emotionally forceful film, mostly set in southern Brooklyn (an area close to Coney Island and Little Odessa) with two side journeys to Las Vegas. It’s entirely about straight white Russian trash, and yet a certain amount of soul, grace and dignity are allowed to emerge at the very end.
It’s basically a social-conflict, family-values story (written as well as directed by Baker) about money, sex, arrogance, rage, outsider sturm und drang and a truly bountiful blend of incredible bullshit, screaming hostility and straight talk.
The first act is exasperating (mostly vulgar behavior by profligate 20something party animals) but once a certain family gets involved…look out.
The Anora battle is between the cynical, sex-working, Russian-descended titular character (Mikey Madison, who played the hysterical, screechy-voiced Susan Atkins in OnceUponaTimeinHollywood) who prefers the colloquial “Ani” vs. a demimonde of vulgar, grotesquely wealthy Russians, principally Mark Eydelshteyn’s Ivan, the wasteful-idiot son of a Russian oligarch, and one or two none-too-bright Armenians.
And yet it ends on a note of honest emotional admission and revelation even. There’s actually a decent dude in this film, played by YuriyBorisov…a Russian fellow who isn’t a ferociously propulsive wolverine…imagine.
Madison is a revelation — she deserves to win the Best Actress prize. Out of the blue, her career has been high-octaned and then some.
On top of which Anora isn’t the least bit wokey — no militant trans or gay stuff, no #MeToo currents, no POC or progressive castings, no 2024 Academy mandate inclusions for their own sake and in fact blissfully free of that whole pain-in-the-ass checklist mindset.
Donald Trump wanted a clear No. 2 — a loyal attack dog, and that’s what he has — a blend of William Miller (Barry Goldwater’s 1964 running mate) and a bearded, combative, ultra-MAGA Dan Quayle snakebite fuckface.
Seriously, Cannon said that Special Counsel Jack Smith ‘s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.” Despite this dismissal (Cannon is a total blowjob whore for Trump), Smith has the option to appeal the dismissal to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to try to have Cannon’s ruling overturned.
Or the summer of 2020. She’s probably been advised not to out the “turn down the diversity” director, but if you listen between the lines (what’s up with her swollen upper lip?) Fox quit a project in question because casting-wise, the just-arrived director is more into cultural authenticity than diversity-for-its-own-sake. Something like that.
The glasses and the hair style are fine — obviously a statement that says “I have not only discovered my eccentricity but journeyed into the 1950s homo realm of WilliamS.Burroughs.” But tucking in a sweater that I wouldn’t wear with a gun at my head…..noooooo!!
Lieutenant Howard Hunter on Hill Street Blues, Dr. David Howser in Doogie Howser, M.D., Cpt. Stan Jones on Brooklyn South? All those characters are fine…whatever.
But for me the late James B. Sikking is only the high-powered-rifle assassin in Point Blank.
Sikking was the guy who killed Lloyd Bochner‘s “Frederick Carter” and Michael Strong‘s “Stegman”…remember?
Unlike Thomas Matthew Crooks, Sikking’s downtown L.A. assassin was an excellent shot.
Born in 1934, Sikking was only 32 when he appeared in John Boorman‘s noir classic.
What is wrong with those saying that the motive behind Thomas Matthew Crooks‘ firing at Donald Trump is mystifying or doesn’t add up?
Has there ever been an assassin or would-be assassin who hasn’t been described as a quiet loner? Who wasn’t seen as a nerdy, socially inept outcast? Who hadn’t been bullied by fellow students?
Isn’t it totally common for sudden-explosion shooters to have been identified as bad dressers (i.e., high school audio-visual squad)? As quiet dorks with weird senses of humor? “Nice” but extra-quiet, kept to themselves, etc. No girlfriend, etc. Apparent virgins.
Crooks was obviously a standard-issue, tied-up-in-knots nutter who kept it all inside. He “would sit alone at lunch,” etc.
Remember the haunted, enraged expression of that nerd-squad guy who shot Ronnee Blakely in Nashville? Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…boom.
Daily Mail summary: “Crooks tried out for the school’s rifle team but was turned away because he was a bad shooter, said Frederick Mach, a current captain of the team who was a few years behind Crooks at the school.
“Jonathan Myers, a member of the team around the time Crooks auditioned, said there was something ominous about him back then.
“‘He didn’t just not make the team, he was asked not to come back because how bad of a shot he was, it was considered like, dangerous,’ Myers told ABC News.
“Fellow classmate Jameson Murphy added: ‘He tried out…and was such a comically bad shot he was unable to make the team and left after the first day.’
Crooks reportedly once fired a shot that “missed [the] target by almost 20 feet.”
