The Daily Mail‘s rewrite of the Wall Street Journal‘s “fucking idiots” story notes that the James Bond scripts overseen by Barbara Broccoli “follow the franchise’s cardinal rules, such as Bond rarely shooting his weapon first, to the letter.”
Excuse me, but one of the absolute best Bond shootings happens in Dr. No (’62), and it’s not in the heat of battle.
Anthony Dawson‘s Professor R. J. Dent shoots six bullets into what he presumes is a sleeping Sean Connery in the bedroom of Zena Marshall‘s Miss Taro…”thunk thunk thunk…thunk thunk thunk.”
But Connery, waiting for Dent or some other Dr. No flunky assassin, is way ahead of the game, and after a brief conversation and following Dent’s second attempt to fulfill his mission, Connery says “you’ve had your six” and calmly plugs him twice.
Yes, Connery shoots Dent after several shots have been fired, but not in his direction. Dent’s ammo is spent and Connery doesn’t really need to waste him. But he does anyway because (a) he’s mildly pissed by Dent’s attempt, (b) he’s having a Johnny Cash moment and simply wants to watch Dent die, or (c) he simply likes plugging bad guys.
Has there been another cold-blood killing of a villain in any other Bond film? I’m asking.
An “ideological split” between longtime James Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson and Amazon — particularly Amazon Studios honcho Jennifer Salke — which two years ago acquired MGM and with it rights to the Bond franchise…wait, let me start again.
The WSJreports that during a meeting about the next, vaguely conceived 007 film, an “employee” — possibly Salke or perhaps a feminist underling — stopped the conversation in its tracks by saying “I don’t think James Bond is a hero.”
Daily Mail: “Broccoli, 64, who has more fully taken the reins of the franchise as the 82-year-old Wilson nears retirement, has told friends that the people at Amazon are ‘fuckingidiots.'”
Salke is “reportedly demanding ideas for new Bond movies, although Broccoli has seemingly no interest in making them with the studio.”
Since the November 2022 acquisition Salke has been charged with managing Amazon’s dealings with Broccoli.
Alas, Salke and Broccoli have an oil-and-water relationship, it is reported, with Broccoli telling colleagues she doesn’t trust “temporary people to make permanent decisions”, according to Schartzel and Toonkel.
Seasoned, non–wokedirector–writerwho’sbeenaround: “Two years ago Salke squashed a Conan the Barbarian remake from Game of Throne producers, calling the project ‘toxic masculinity’. The Bond impasse is allonher. She’s an inexperienced idiot with limited experience and unlimited resources.”
I’ve acknowledged from the get-go that the lively and engaging Wicked has been very efficiently produced, shot, performed, and choreographed. It is also a vessel of assertive feminist propaganda (i.e., social image enhancement)
There’s a massive, alternate-universe disconnect, of course, between Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West and Cynthia Erivo’s misunderstood Elphaba, but that’s part and parcel of the new (21st Century) feminist mythology.
Throughout the 20th Century American culture had the WWotW all wrong, Wicked is saying. This has been especially true since the redefining of female perspective and identity by the #MeToo revolution of 2017.
The demonic cliche of wicked witches goes way back, of course. It probably originated with the Brothers Grimm and had certainly been intensified by the Salem witch hysteria of the 17th Century. It was then furthered by FrankL.Baum’s fabled, written-for-children fantasies and then by the MGM dream factory of 1938 and ‘39 and the resultant impression of the mean, shrewish, Victorian-minded Almira Gulch.
Either you’ve been fed this crudely condemning concept (boomers and GenXers grew up with it) or you haven’t been.
21st Century mythology has reversed this, of course. Spirited notions of feminine self-empowerment in response to entrenched and oppressive male sexism is the only allowable narrative these days — obviously a much more positive and socially constructive thing than the old Almira Gulch model.
“I don’t believe in icons. I don’t believe in personalities, I believe that peace lies beyond personality and invitation and disguise, beyond the red S on your chest that makes bullets bounce off. I believe that it’s deeper than that. I believe we’re a field of energy dancing for itself, and I don’t care.” — Jim Carrey to E! News‘ Catt Sadler on or about 9.11.17.
The fact that Timothee Chalamet loves Carrey’s “fuck icons” red-carpet interview from 2017…this in itself speaks volumes about Chalamet’s moral-spiritual value system, which appears to be in excellent shape…seriously.
Will this generally sluggish feeling be shared among BAFTA members also? Maybe.
In a phrase, Wicked is melting in England…melting! Oh, what a world, what a world!
Maria‘s Angelina Jolie also came up short with the Brit critics. Face it — her Oscar campaign is all but dead.
Anora and The Brutalist were the big winners, although again we’re only talking nominations at this stage.
London Film Critic nominees for Film of the Year (alphabetical): All We Imagine As Light, Anora, The Brutalist, La Chimera, Conclave, Emilia Pérez, Kneecap, Nickel Boys, Nosferatu, The Substance.
Wicked is in trouble, let’s face it. It’ll be Best Picture nominated, of course, but without the BAFTA vote it’s going to come up short.
Spoiler warning: Two nights ago I finally saw the second half of Brady Corbet‘s The Brutalist, and I’m sorry but it still struck me as a gloomy, anguished drag.
Yes, it has a certain blow-me integrity (i.e., if you don’t like it, it’s your damn fault and not ours), and yes, I respect Corbet for having pulled off a film of this pretentious scale in Eastern Europe for so little money, but I still hated watching it.
Like Bob Dylan‘s Ophelia in “Desolation Row”, The Brutalist‘s sin is its lifelessness.
I didn’t care for anyone’s company in the whole film…no one did it for me. I hated the Philly-Pennsylvania atmosphere..I wanted to escape from this film more than William Holden longed to break out of Stalag 17.
I couldn’t decide which supporting character I hated more — Joe Alwyn‘s wealthy snotnose or Alessandro Nivola‘s ayehole furniture store owner. At other times I was thinking I hated Adrien Brody‘s Laszlo Toth the most. I’m saying this having loved hanging with Brody’s titular character in Roman Polanski‘s The Pianist.
I didn’t like the grim-slide vibe. All through the damn thing I felt like Ishmael contemplating “the damp, drizzly November of my soul.”
The only Act Two scene I actually kind of liked was when Felicity Jones gives Brody an under-the-sheets hand job. I know that sounds primitive and I’m sorry for this, but I perked up when she leaned over and snuggled up.
If you ask me the anal rape scene is ridiculous. Guy Pearce is playing a tough, domineering control freak industrialist, okay, but why would he want to fuck Adrien Brody in the ass just to make a point? Why would anyone want to fuck Brody in the ass?….ask yourself that. And it happens in some kind of half-lighted basement adjacent to the European stone quarry? Just a couple of guys in dark clothes and overcoats reaching and grasping and wrestling around?
Don’t even mention the Deliverance ass-rape scene in the same breath; ditto Pulp Fiction‘s.
You know what would’ve been interesting? If Brody were to fuck Jones in the ass. This would’t have made any sense, of course, but it would be bizarre or startling in a way that you wouldn’t see coming. It would make you say “wait,…what?”
Too many critics are bowing down before The Brutalist because it struts around like a heavyweight champ…adopting the posture and pretensions of a Big Important Epic Movie…the length, the overture, the intermission, the social gloom…the whole “we’re hammering home a significant statement about capitalism devouring or at least having no patience for European gentility or integrity”…the general “pay attention to this shit” feeling…the sluggish oomph of it all.
While I completely hated the first half, I merely disliked the second half. So my final verdict ie “okay, not altogether terrible but never again.”
For its 31st annual critics poll, the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association voted Sean Baker‘s Anora as the best film of 2024, and also handed Baker their Best Director award and Mikey Madison their Best Actress trophy.
Fair warning to “This is Heavy, Doc“, whose obsessive anti-Anora comments have repeatedly crossed the line. I will delete henceforth each and every comment he posts about Anora, and if he persists I will stamp his ticket and give him the boot.
The HE world (cinematic, cultural, political) is full of fascinating things to think and write about. Just no more spray-pissing on Anora, and if you won’t listen I will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Enough is enough.
Before last night’s Manhattan screening of A Complete Unknown (Searchlight, 12.25) I wrote that I expected James Mangold‘s film to “at least hold its own and perhaps even improve slightly”, especially given that “I already know what’s wrong with it so there won’t be any unexpected potholes.”
Well, guess what? The HE approval meter rose at least 30% or 40%. It’s a constant drip of pleasure, pleasure, pleasure…one anthem-like song after another…this is the real “sing sing.” Tears welled up again in the same first-act portions. The crowd applauded when it ended. A 40ish woman sitting behind me said to someone nearby that she “loved it…loved it.”
My third or fourth viewing will presumably happen with subtitles, and then I can really savor Timothee Chalamet‘s dialogue, which he slurs and mutters and mumbles most of the time. I heard most of the good lines (“you can be ugly or beautiful but you can’t be plain”) but I’d like to read all of them.
The Brutalist director looks a bit less Orson Wellesian in this Variety sitdown with Anora‘s Sean Baker. HE is always the first to offer congrats when a calorically challenged film person has arrested his or her descent into hippopotamus scale-tipping.
…before catching an IMAX presentation of ACompleteUnknown than HE’s own Perri Nemiroff interviewing the Wicked guys…bringing me down, bad for the soul.
And why isn’t she dead? And why after all these years would any film lover with even a smidgen of taste want to wade into this stupid-ass, mind-numbing franchise?
I expect ACompleteUnknown to at least hold its own and perhaps even improve slightly. I already know, of course, what’s wrong with it so there won’t be any unexpected potholes.
