Day: September 16, 2024

Exactly How Good It Looks

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I own a beautiful-looking Bluray of No Country For Old Men (‘07), and right now I’m watching this Joel and Ethan Coen classic via HD streaming and it looks just as good as the Bluray.

Just as good as it looked, in fact, on that big brilliant screen inside the Salle Debussy in Cannes…17 and 1/3 years ago.

All to say it’s highly unlikely that Criterion’s forthcoming 4K Bluray version will deliver any kind of pulse-quickening bump in visual values, certainly not the kind that might prompt you to sit down at a motel-room desk and write home about.

The older I get, the more that breakfast hour, kitchen table, describin’ a dream ending with Tommy Lee Jones gets me deep down.

Sorry But This Is A Frank, Intelligent, Perceptive Discussion

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“I’d rather be villainized than infantilized…”

If you can somehow forget about Matt Walsh actually wanting Donald Trump, a lying, diseased, foam-at-the-mouth sociopath, to beat Kamala Harris, a transactional politician with obvious problems but who is still far more sensible, consructive and practical-minded as a potential U.S. president, on 11.5, Am I A Racist? is a compelling, fair-minded documentary.

The only problem with this interview is that the Free Press guy is wearing shorts.

“Babygirl” Peek-Out at CAA

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A couple of days ago a friend attended an early-bird screening of Halina Reijn‘s Babygirl (A24, 12.25), a B & D variation on the “Type-A cougar has it off with a hot young dude” genre. Costarring Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Sophie Wilde, Antonio Banderas, etc.

Last weekend’s CAA screening followed a TIFF showing on 9.10 and the Venice Film Festival debut on 8.30.

Friendo is calling it “a groundbreaking investigation of female sexuality by a female writer-director.” Kidman said afterwards it would have been a “completely different movie if a man had made it.”

Pic drew a “sensational response” from an elite audi4nce, he says. Attending were Brad Pitt, Olivia Wilde, Peter Dinklage, Catherine Hardwick, Rooney Mara, Charlie Hunnam.

There was q post-screening discussion between Kidman, Reijn and THR‘s Scott Feinberg, followed by a schmoozy wine gathering. Nicole stayed very late.

CAA honcho Bryan Lourd was there; ditto Nicole’s agent Chris Andrews.

Pic will gather multiple noms, he says — Best Actress (Kidman), Best Actor (Dickinson), Best Direction and Writing (Reijn).

“Don’t underestimate A24…at this time last year I had the same feeling about Poor Things. And previously about All Quiet on Western Front, Parasite, Cold War.