Day: May 23, 2025

Why did Kelly Reichardt make a 1970 art heist film?, you’re asking yourself. Or an anti-heist film, which a certain Reichardt cultist is calling it.

Because The Mastermind, which I sat through several hours ago, is basically about a married, middle-class, not-smart-enough jerkoff — Josh O’Connor‘s James Blaine Mooney, or “JB” — being so inept at organizing a theft of some Arthur Dove paintings from a museum in Framingham that he’s unmistakably in the running for the sloppiest felon in motion picture history, and I mean right up there with Al Pacino‘s Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afernoon.

We know going in, of course, that Reichardt doesn’t do genre stuff and that The Mastermind, which is being praised, of course…we know her film will be exploring something else. It certainly isn’t Rififi, for sure. But what is it?

Reichardt is primarily interested in JB’s life being blown to smithereens when the half-assed robbery goes wrong. But why? Is it about JB’s subconscious attempt to punish himself for marrying Alana Haim‘s Terri and having two boys with her and…I don’t know, feeling trapped by this? Is he looking to thumb his nose at his straightlaced parents (played by Bill Camp and Hope Davis)?

It certainly seems to be about a form of convoluted self-destruction.

JB winds up on the run, penniless, scrounging around, snatching an old lady’s cash-filled handbag and finally being arrested during an anti-war demonstration. But to what end?

The Mastermind asks “how would a born-to-lose guy go about escaping from his life?” Suicide would be the simplest way, of course, but JB seems to lack the necessary character and conviction to put a pistol in his mouth. If he wants to join up with some hippies and run away to Hawaii or Mexico or Central America, why doesn’t he just do that? Why go to the trouble of hiring a pair of young fuck-ups to steal the paintings, knowing that in all likelihood one or both will eventually screw up and get popped and rat him out?

All I know is that The Mastermind has a little story tension going on during the first 75 minutes or so, but once the jig is up and JB goes on the lam, it has nowhere to go. The last shot of JB in a police paddy wagon conveys a little something, but the film basically peters out.

I don’t want to say any more. The film isn’t dull or uninteresting — O’Connor is always good in a grubby, glint-of-madness sort of way — but it’s basically a wash. For me, at least, but then I’m not a cultist.

I sat next to three empty Coke bottles in their early to mid 20s — a foxy girl and two short-haired dudes — at today’s 4K Barry Lyndon screening. Right away I knew they were trouble. Both guys got up to use the facilities right after sitting down, which is what frisky, ants-in-their-pants lowlifes always do.

And then Thierry Fremaux invited Lyndon costar Marisa Berenson to take the stage and share some recollections, which she did. And then the lights finally came down and the film began.

The Coke bottle trio couldn’t handle the unhurried 18th Century pacing along with John Alcott’s exquisitely lighted, old-school compositions. They watched about ten minutes’ worth before bailing. You insects…you miserable know-nothings.

“Rough Draft That Had To Be Tossed,” posted on 7.25.24:

Biden: “There’s no possibility of my being completely candid with you…it’s simply beyond the realm of my own personality and psychological makeup to explain why I did a 180 last weekend by deciding to abandon my presidential campaign…a major pivot after insisting there was no argument or force short of Almighty God that could persuade me to quit.

“How did this happen? Was it my wife, Doctor Jill, whom some of you have compared to Lady Macbeth? Did she keep me in a bubble where I wouldn’t hear more open and honest assessments?

“The truth is that I was determined to tough it out no matter what…I said this over and over in various unyielding, mule-stubborn ways…even if it meant losing and taking the whole Democratic ship and crew with me, all of us swirling down to Davy Jones locker…

“The bottom ine is that I didn’t quit out of selflessness or personal sacrifice or any of that lofty, noble, Patrick Henry stuff…I was finally told there was no path to winning, and was therefore finally persuaded that in the eyes of history my name would be mud if I let that happen…and that was it…in order to save my legacy, to avoid the utter shame of self-ruin I was shoved out, plain and simple…and I fought this like a dying wolverine…snapping and snarling and screaming…I decided to fold my tent only under extreme Irish duress…and I mean I was howling and spitting and punching my refrigerator and baring my fangs and kicking and even shitting my pants. It wasn’t pretty.

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On this, my last day of Cannes ‘25, I’m shooting for four screenings.

That’s not counting the 2 pm showing of the 4K Barry Lyndon, which I want to attend because I’ll never again have a chance to see this 1975 classic projected upon a big, bountiful screen in one of finest theatres in the world. I’m figuring I can watch about 75 minutes’ worth.

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