4:45 pm update: I’ve just been informed by none other than Wes Anderson that The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features, 5.30.25) will be presented with an aspect ratio of 1.5:1…and not 1.66:1, as I erroneously presumed and posted earlier today.
Is there any living filmmaker who is more of an instantly recognizable signature stylist than Wes Anderson?
I’ve been using the term “WesWorld” for a good 20 plus years, and there isn’t a soul on the planet earth who doesn’t know what means. And yet two years ago, Wes was quoted as saying…
Repeating: Several White Lotus SPOILERS will follow…trust me!
The vaguely pear-shaped Sam Rockwell needs to slim down, no offense. Or at least not do any underwear scenes. Just saying.
Natasha Rothwell‘s Belinda Lindsey is too stupid to run her own business. Dumb as a rock. Thank God for her son, Zion — the smart, plain-spoken Nicholas Duvernay. The boy’s got a head for business.
No catharsis for Parker Posey! No nothin’, in fact. Except, maybe, a job at Wal-Mart when she gets back home.
The three girls deciding to be “happy together” like the Turtles is bullshit…total bullshit.
I’m glad that Sam Nivola‘s Lochlan Ratliff has had a mystical experience of some kind. Nearly meeting your maker (or, you know, nearly kissin’ the eternal) will do that.
I somehow never realized Scott Glenn‘s ears were as big as they looked tonight. The real Robert Evans: “When you get older your teeth get smaller, your nose gets bigger, your ears get longer and your dick shrivels unless you take Cialis. And women don’t want to fuck you as much, or at all.” Oh, and Glenn/Jim is somebody’s father (last-minute surprise!).
The last shot of Walton Goggins‘ Rick Hatchett — his face — is a portrait of serenity and acceptance, so at least there’s that. Not so much Aimee Lou Wood‘s Chelsea, but them’s the breaks.
Jason Isaacs‘ Tim Ratliff damn near Jonestowned himself, his wife, daughter and older son, and then his blender concoction came thisclose to killing his younger son, and suddenly he’s at peace with himself? Now he’s finally ready to tell the truth and face the FBI? His entire family will quickly put two and two together, of course, and realize he nearly murdered them all…he’ll never have their love or trust again. Ever. Obviously.
Lalisa Manobal‘s “Mook” Sornsin to Tayme Thapthimthong‘s Gaitok, the pathetically wimpy security staffer: “My hero with a gun!! Because you’ve killed, I love you.”
Bodies! Bodies! Five bodies!
And all the White Lotus luxury spas are going to experience a decline in business, I’m afraid.
Hugs and condolences to the fans, friends and colleagues of Jay North, star of TV’s Dennis the Menace series (1959-1963), who’s passed from colon cancer at age 73.
North felt miserable and mistreated during filming on the series. He totally spilled the beans about this when John Hughes‘ Dennis the Menace movie opened in ’93.
The series was never funny, of course, but Walter Matthau‘s bathroom-agony scene in the film was and is hilarious.
You know before their 4.1.25 podcast starts that Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary are going to more or less cream in their pants about Steven Spielberg‘s calamitous 1941.
Tarantino: “It’s not funny hah-hah, but it’s very impressive”
I tried re-watching 1941 a few years ago in the living room…no way. I started fast-forwarding almost immediately.
I’m vividly recalling a mid-November screening at Universal’s midtown Manhattan screening room, two or three weeks before the 12.14.79 opening. I could feel the disaster vibes less than 15 minutes in. At the very beginning Spielberg went with an homage to Jaws…winking at his own legend. I murmured to a friend, “Oh, God…this is bad, bad…really bad.” Sitting through the remainder was agony.
Michael O’Donoghue reportedly had some pin-on buttons made that said, “John Belushi — born 1949 — died 1941.”
It’s been repeatedly made clear that film connoisseurs aren’t allowed to like or even respect Mike Nichols‘ The Day of the Dolphin (’73). For most critics the mixture of cloying sentimentality and rote thriller plotting (bad guys try to use a pair of talking, trusting dolphins for evil purposes) was intolerable.
But despite the torrent of acidic putdowns (“A thinking man’s Flipper…Flipper meets The Parallax View…calculated sentimentality that evokes Lassie Come Home….the most expensive Rin-Tin-Tin movie ever made” and so on) some of us were taken in. Me for one. I accepted the scientific premise and (go ahead, call me a putz) bought into the sentiment.
Dolpin obviously doesn’t work altogether (it’s intriguing but lacks conventional dramatic tension…there are flat portions) but it moved me at the very end (c’mon, it melted everyone), and there’s a hugely satisfying Act Three moment when the bad guys get their just desserts. Go to the 4:00 mark on the top video.
You can be as cynical as you want, but you can’t totally trash a film that (1) the director of The Graduate and Carnal Knowledge poured his heart and soul into, (2) Roman Polanski wanted to make for a while, (3) Nichols directed from a script by Buck Henry (no sentimental slouch, he), (4) starred an emotionally persuasive George C. Scott, and (5) benefits from a gentle, beautiful score by Georges Delerue.
Dolphin incidentally costarred a 29 year-old Edward Herrmann (slender, suntanned), and a decidedly chubby, 33-year-old Paul Sorvino.
There was another 1973 thriller with a five-word title that (a) dealt with a planned presidential assassination, and (b) used the same four words (The Day of the…). It was directed by Fred Zinneman and was instantly recognized (and is still respected today) as a quietly gripping, highly intelligent, real-world drama.
Jackal opened in mid-May of ’73 — Dolphin came along seven months later (12.19.73).
In a cryptic conversation with Alec Leamas (Richard Burton), “Control” (Cyril Cusack) brings up Hans-Dieter Mundt (Peter van Eyck), head of East German intelligence.
Control: “And how do you feel about him?” Leamas: “Feel?” Control: “Yes.” Leamas: “He’s a bastard.” Control: “Quite.”
Another fascinating Cusack riff:
Control: “Fiedler, my dear Alec, is the lynchpin of our plan. Fiedler’s the only man who’s a match for Mundt, and, uhm… he hates his guts. Fiedler’s a Jew, of course, and Mundt’s quite the other thing.”
I’ve watched The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (’65) several times. Mainly for Oswald Morris’s black-and-white cinematography (the Criterion Bluray is wonderfully rendered in this respect) and especially for the pleasures of Oskar Werner’s performance as the brilliant Fiedler.
Richard Burton is good, of course, but playing the dour, sardonic and scowling Leamas requires him to be relentlessly draining. (He’s such a pill that he even turns down Werner’s offer of free recreational sex with an East German woman.) I actually hate that moment when Burton laughs at Claire Bloom when she confesses to being a devoted commie. She may be naive but at least she deeply cares, and Burton can only snicker at her conviction.
Last night’s viewing of White Heat (‘49) reminded me of the second such operation — the San-Val Drive-In Theatre (2720 Winona Ave. Burbank, 1938-1973).
Newspapers insisted on using a hyphen between San and Val; management disagreed. HE is siding with the news guys.
There’s an Act One scene in which James Cagney‘s Cody Jarrett, Virginia Mayo‘s Verna Jarrett and Margaret Wycherly‘s Ma Jarrett pull into the San-Val to escape a pursuing police car.
And man, the San-Val looks great! — towering big screen, blazing neon signage, car-hops with snazzy outfits.
There are just two…make that three curiosities.
The San-Val’s double feature (right on the marquee) is South of St. Louis (Joel McCrea, Alexis Smith, Zachary Scott, Dorothy Malone) and Siren of Atlantis (Maria Montez, Jean-Pierre Aumont), except the film on the big screen is Task Force (Gary Cooper, Jane Wyman, Walter Brennan).
Curiosity #2 is the fact that South of St. Louis opened on 3.6.49, and White Heat didn’t begin principal photography until 5.5.49…two months later. What are the odds that South of St. Louis played for over two months at the San-Val? I’m presuming White Heat‘s second-unit team shot the San-Val footage soon after the March ’49 debut.
Curiosity #3 is that White Heat opened on 9.2.49 while Task Force didn’t open commercially until 9.30.49. Pissed-off moviegoer: “Hey, I’ve seen a trailer for Task Force…it’s not opening for another month. How come the Jarrett’s are watching it way before the rest of us?”
But what’s the protocol (and I think this is a fair question) when the identity of Schrader’s accuser is fairly obvious to anyone searching around?
Especially given the fact that “Jane Doe” has been (a) anything but shy about her social media profile, (b) has been described in news reports as “a 26 year-old personal assistant to Schrader between ’21 and September ’24”, (c) has been photographed numerous times with Schrader, particularly at the 2022 Venice Film Festival and during last May’s Cannes Film Festival, and has even been identified in photo captions, and (d) has reportedly “posted on social media about how much she loved her job and referred to Schrader as an extraordinary mentor and ‘my man'”?
The AP has reported Jane Doe’s account that Schrader “trapped her in his hotel room, grabbed her arms and kissed her against her will last year while they were promoting his latest film, Oh, Canada, at the Cannes Film Festival in France.” Which, if true, was ridiculous.
Consensual sexual activity with a younger woman is one thing when you’re 60something, but no half-sane male in his mid to late 70s would even flirt with initiating some kind of touchy, vaguely intimate thing with a pretty 26 year-old Zoomer. Schrader is a consecrated Movie God, but appearance-wise “Jane Doe” is way out of his league, and if her allegations are even half-true it was flat-out crazy of him to even hope that anything might happen.
Once you’ve become a mid-to-late 70something you’re more or less finished…it’s over. Okay, unless you’re Richard Gere (75) or Michael Douglas (80), but I’m not so sure about even those guys.
As emails were allegedly involved…I don’t want to think about it.
It just doesn’t calculate that a person as obviously wise, seasoned and street-savvy as Schrader could have possibly put his neck into this kind of noose.
Bill Murray, 54, was sitting on a couch during a Broken Flowers after-party at Manhattan’s Maritime Hotel. The date was Wednesday, 7.27.05. Jett and I were standing nearby. The Focus Features publicist had explicitly said “no photography” and yet some guy snapped Murray regardless. Murray immediately leapt up and over a coffee table to confront the renegade shutterbug with an outraged “what are you doing, man?”, etc.
I was quickly told I couldn’t write about the incident and I didn’t, but hey, it was 20 years ago.
Murray still isn’t taking shit from photographers.
The below snap was taken at Chelsea Cinemas on 7.27.05 by Hollywood Elsewhere.
