Month: May 2025

Puts “Sinners” To Shame

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Yesterday “Los Bostonian”, while callously dismissing the AI-authored “Celluloid Renegades” script, complained there’s too little in the way of elemental film passion on this site…”rarely any discussion of editing, lighting, screenwriting, shot composition.”

Okay, here’s a riff on lighting, or more particularly a comparison between (a) Pawel Edelman‘s beyond-brilliant cinematography, fortified by his soft and subdued but wonderfully calibrated lighting, on Roman Polanski‘s An Officer and a Spy (’19), which I re-watched a couple of nights ago, and (b) the occasionally muddy, oppressively under-illuminated, at times barely discernible lensing of Sinners by Autumn Durald Arkapaw.

Each and every frame of the Polanski is a bath…an eyeball massage…a capturing of Belle Epoque Paris that never stops hitting the sweet spot…never over- or under-lighted, every shot as perfect as it could possibly be for a period film of this sort. Easily in the class of John Alcott‘s Barry Lyndon, if not in a class of its own.

Too many people have written that Arkapaw’s lighting of the second half of Sinners (i.e., the nocturnal vampire stuff) is so depressingly under-lighted that at times it’s borderline unwatchable. When images are this soupy, something is very wrong.

Edelman’s lighting expertise is so far above and beyond what Arkapaw is apparently capable of or interested in…it’s almost unfair to mention them in the same sentence.

Edelman’s credits include Taylor Hackford‘s Ray, Steven Zallian‘s All the King’s Men, Andrzej Wajda‘s Walesa: Man of Hope, and Polanski’s The Ghost Writer (masterfully lighted). Arkapaw shot Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (no great shakes) and The Last Showgirl (never saw it).

Fair enough?

Return of Mumbly, Gurgly, Slurry-Voiced Joe

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Everyone knows that Joe Biden‘s arrogant decision to run for re-election two and a half years ago (i.e., right after the ’22 midterm elections) pretty much ushered in Trump 2.0. He fucked us, and in my book that makes him a really bad guy.

Asked on The View about his mental decline over the second half of his term, Joe muttered and wheezed and gurgled a denial of sorts.

And then wife Jill jumped in to shore him up during the interview’s second half. All through ’23 and ’24 Joe and his Democratic gaslighting squad did what they could to spin and dodge and obfuscate. Joe actually said today that had he stayed in the ’24 race, he would have beaten Trump. This is ridiculous!

What about the books that have been written about his cognitive decline? “They are wrong,” Joe mumbled.

Jill: “The people who wrote those books were not in the White House with us. If you look at things today, give me Joe Biden any time.”

“Door Tests” Stopped in Early ’90s

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Most of Chaz Palmintieri‘s A Bronx Tale (’93) is set in 1968. Back then the “door test” was a legitimate and reliable way to figure out if a prospective girlfriend was selfish or not. Remote door locks, which became common in US-made vehicles starting around ’90 or thereabouts, gradually put the door test out of commission.

I was driving a 1990 Nissan 240Z when I saw A Bronx Tale, and I distinctly recall it had no remote door lock. With some relish I subjected a couple of women I was seeing to the door test. They both passed with flying colors, or so I recall.

“They Are All Equal….Uhm, Dead Now”

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A new 4K restoration of Stanley Kubrick‘s Barry Lyndon will screen at the grand and immaculate Debussy theatre on Friday, 5.23 — my final night at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

There’s no way this Criterion-supervised version (due to “street” via 4K Bluray on 7.8.25) will deliver any kind of noticable bump over the current Criterion manifestation. It’ll look magnificent of course, but the viewing experience, boiled down, will be the same one I saw projected at the Ziegfeld in late December of ’75.

I’ve seen Lyndon at least 10 or 12 times since, and I know every line and frame by heart. And Marisa Berenson‘s empty, blank-faced performance has sapped my spirit on each and every occasion. She was such a drag to hang with.

However, the 5.23 Cannes screening will probably be my last opportunity to see the handsome, downbeat, darkly humorous Barry in a truly first-rate venue — really big screen, perfectly projected light levels, state-of-the-art sound. So I’ll probably have a seat.

“Speaking of Flatline Elements“, posted on 5.14.23:

Stanley Kubrick was famous for encouraging lively, eccentric and even over-the-top performances. Steven Spielberg’s 1999 recollection abut a 1980 dinner with Kubrick at Childwickbury Manor, during which Kubrick explained that Jack Nicholson‘s over-the-top performance in The Shining was a kind of tribute to the acting style of James Cagney, is a case in point.

It is therefore strange if not bizarre that during the making of Barry Lyndon, Kubrick directed Marisa Berenson to give such an opaque non-performance. In each and every scene, her Lady Lyndon conveys utter vacuity…absolutely nothing behind the eyes.

Did Kubrick realize too late in the process that he’d made a mistake, that Berenson was profoundly ungifted and had next to nothing inside, and that the best course would be to emphasize (rather than try to obscure) this fact?

Berenson is the primary cause, in fact, of Barry Lyndon‘s “dead zone” problem.

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Clip-Clop Heels

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Obviously another shallow social satire by way of a gumshoe investigation…another Drive-Away Dolls, except set somewhere in Bakersfield or in the upper desert. The style feels Raising Arizona-ish. Poor Ethan Coen needs to disengage from this odd lesbian bag, and keep it that way. And a trilogy? One was enough, two is too much and three…please.

If a Cannes screening fits into my schedule, fine. Out of respect for Ethan’s history, but only that. In the old days the creative hand of Ethan Coen (along with Joel) meant something…mostly. Then again I never liked the overly broad Raising Arizona or, truth be told, The Hudsucker Proxy.

Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, Charlie Day, Billy Eichner, Gabby Beans (great name!), Talia Ryder.

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Trendsexuals

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This is not about celebrity parents loving and supporting their queer, trans or nonbinary kids. Any parent with a heart and a soul would and should do the same.

Nor is this about the appearance of Los Angeles-based celebrities apparently rearing a much higher percentage of queer, trans or nonbinary children than typical parents statistically appear to do in Tampa, Mobile, Tenafly, Peoria or Sandusky, Ohio (the girlhood home of Sugar Kowalczyk!)

This is about the mathematical likelihood of a parent, be they a resident of Pacific Palisades or Duluth or Burlington, raising and supporting three queer, trans or nonbinary kids. A trifecta….three out of three!

Marcia Gay Harden has a trio of such kids — one non-binary, one gay, and one identifying as “fluid”. Megan Fox also has three — Noah, 12, Bodhi, 11 and Journey, 8.

Can we please cut the shit? Just for a few short seconds, and then everyone can crawl back into their little gopher holes of denial.

Many if not most of these kids are almost certainly trendsexuals…proclaiming their queerness or gender fluidity or transiness because they’ve been instructed by the entertainment industry’s woke-progressive culture that there isn’t anything less cool or more embarassing, even, than to be straight and white, or, worst of all, to be a straight white male. Because they can’t bear the stain or the congregational verdict of being terminally clueless or out-to-lunch or socially hopeless by way of gender identity (I was terrified of being labelled as schlumpy or twerpy or dweeby by my tweener or high-school peers), they opt for gayness or gender fluidity and — presto! — they’re no longer a pariah, no longer looked down upon, part of the avant garde.

This would be a fascinating topic of a 100-minute Alex Gibney documentary, or for a PBS Frontline examination or for an in-depth NPR series. But of course, Gibney, Frontline or NPR would never, ever go there. Ditto Anderson Cooper or Ross Douthat or Chris Cuomo or any other MSM journalist. If they did they would be shunned and shredded and carpet-bombed on social media. They would be putting themselves in not just social but professional jeopardy. Among the timid their names would be mud.

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Jarecki’s Assange Doc Allegedly Debuting in Cannes

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Nearly a year ago WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pled guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets, and aFter doing this he walked…no jail term.

U.S. authorities had been trying to imprison Assange for ages (how many years was he holed up in London’s Ecuador embassy?), but the saga came to a surprise conclusion when the white-haired Assange, 52, entered his plea in a U.S. district court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands. Assange didn’t want to risk entering the continental United States, and the Saipan authorities decided to accomodate his wish.

And now Eugene Jarecki‘s doc about Assange, The Six Billion Dollar Man, which pulled out of Sundance ’25 due to “unexpected developments” in the saga, is apparently going to debut in Cannes. Speaking as a longtime fan of this partiuclar Jarecki (The King, Why We Fight, Reagan, the Trials of henry Kissinger) I will be at this Croisette screening with bells on

Why did Jarecki yanks his Assnge doc out of Sundance? “The truth is, significant recent and unexpected developments have emerged at the heart of the story which, if not incorporated in the version for Sundance, would not represent a finished film,” Jarecki said in a statement. “Sundance has shaped my career and been a cornerstone of my journey — only something of this magnitude could make me withdraw.”

Trump Seems To Be Hedging on Sweeping Hollywood Tariff Plan

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After freaking out most of Hollywood last night with a pledge to impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made films, Orange Plague has been softening his stance or, if you will, turning tail. Which is good!

Earlier today Variety‘s Pat Saperstein reported that President Trump told White House journos that he would meet with Hollywood film honchos to discuss his tariff plan, but that he’s “not looking to hurt the industry…I want to help the industry…I want to make sure they’re happy with it, because we’re all about jobs.” In other words, he was preparing to cave.

And now Variety‘s Gene Maddaus has just reported that Jon Voight, whose Sunday (5.4) visit with Trump at Mar a Lago riled things up as well as incited the tariff pledge…Voight, says Maddaus, is doing what he can to turn down the heat on this story while trying to to sound like a measured, sensible MAGA guy with a plan.

Voight and producing partner Steven Paul told Maddaus that they have submitted to President Trump “a comprehensive” plan to rescue the entertainment industry.”

Maddaus: “The plan includes federal incentives for production and post-production, as well as infrastructure subsidies for theater owners, job training, and other changes to the tax code. The plan also calls for tariffs in ‘certain limited circumstances.’”

“The President loves the entertainment business and this country, and he will help us make Hollywood great again,” Voight said in a statement.

In short, Trump has apparently decided to back away from the hardcore tariff thing, and Voight is setting the stage for that extremely welcome capitulation.

“Can You Handle it?”

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Because teasers rarely convey depth or complexity, I’m seriously impressed with this fresh-out-of-the-box for Spike Lee‘s Highest 2 Lowest, a kidnapping drama. Sharp, taut, thoughtful. Immediately engaging. My blood is up for the Cannes screening, which isn’t far off.

Directed by Spike and written by William Alan Fox…a reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa‘s High and Low, which I’ve never liked that much. Denzel Washington, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jeffrey Wright, Ice Spice, ASAP Rocky.

Ground-Floor Pioneers of Stoner Humor

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Until last Friday night I’d somehow missed the fact that Cheech and Chong’s Last Movie had opened on 4.25, or a week and a half ago. It’s playing right now at the AMC Empire 25, but only in the early afternoon.

I’d seen Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong on Real Time with Bill Maher, y’see, and the first question that came to mind was why does the 86-year-old Chong seem less diminished and crumpled by age than the 78-year-old Cheech?

I interviewed Cheech in the early ’90s; the line that sticks in my memory is that “the name of our city is Los ANGELES and not LOS ANGLOS.”

Their apparently scripted documentary-road movie will presumably be streaming before long.

Yes, Cheech and Chong created stoner humor back in the ’70s, but the best film with a discernible current of stoner humor is still Curtis Hanson‘s Wonder Boys. And the absolute best Cheech Marin film, of course, is Born in East L.A..