Consider what the northwest corner of the San Fernando Valley and Mission San Fernando in particular looked like in 1873. I somehow never knew until this morning that the remains of Bob Hope, his wife Dolores and other Hopes are buried in a Mission-adjacent garden.
What the San Fernando Valley needed back then was water, but it took a visionary sociopath like Noah Cross** to make it all happen.
** Kidding — I meant to say William Mulholland.
“There’s a ‘performance overcomes craft’ aspect to Bill Condon’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, but it’s not a supporting one in this case. For Condon’s adaptation of the hit musical adaptation of the beloved book, it’s the lead: A stunning newcomer named Tonatiuh, who carries this film with an emotional, physical performance that justifies its existence by itself.
“There are other effective elements in the new Kiss, including supporting turns from Diego Luna and Jennifer Lopez. Still, Condon’s direction often works against what’s good about this version, reminding one how good he can be with performers but how much his vision still lacks when it comes to things like framing, blocking, lighting, etc.” — Brian Tellerico’s 1.30.25 review on rogerebert.com.
“Some say it’s your nose, some say it’s your toes but I think it’s your mind.”
MAGA loyalists know DJT behaved like a rogue and a scoundrel before being elected President in ’16, and they couldn’t care less. Some probably admire him for swaggering around like some neighing stallion or swaggering crime boss…like some louche bad guy.
This doesn’t change the fact that many of us love Elon Musk having basically given Orange Plague the finger earlier today. Delicious stuff.
We’re all aware of CNN’s forthcoming live broadcast of George Clooney and Grant Heslov‘s Broadway presentation of Good Night, and Good Luck, straight from the Winter Garden theatre — Saturday, June 7th at 7 p.m.
Viewers will see an actual stage performance, one that will be concurrently watched by a seated Manhattan audience. The final performance of the play will happen on Sunday, 6.8 — a matinee as Clooney will be attending the Tony awards that evening at the RCMH.
This will be a historic presentation — the first time in history that the performance of a Broadway play has been broadcast live — and fairly wonderful, I feel, on its own merits. There will be pre- and post-show discussions. The presentation will be on CNN’s cable channel as well as CNN.com.
Set in 1954, Good Night, and Good Luck is basically about high-stakes patriotism and the scarcity of backbone and how very few stood up to the brutes and bullies of that era. It’s about Sen. Joseph McCarthy‘s reign of political terror, and how various people in the political and TV realm reacted to this “red scare” atmosphere.
A few called McCarthy’s bluff, but at the time it seemed as if the most influential opponents of McCarthy’s tactics numbered only two, at least as far as general public knowledge was concerned — attorney Joseph N. Welch of the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings and legendary CBS newsman and See it Now host Edward R. Murrrow.
Murrow’s famous anti-McCarthy expose, which aired on March 9, 1954, condemned McCarthy’s argument that if a person disagreed with or called into question McCarthy’s witch-hunt tactics, then he or she must be considered a Communist dupe or sympathizer or perhaps even an actual, card-carrying pinko who was looking to undermine or weaken the U.S. Constitution and its system of government.
The HE commentariat isn’t going to like this, but beginning in 2018 or thereabouts wokesters had pretty much the exact same deal going on. McCarthy’s, I mean.
If you disagreed with woke fanaticism and had the temerity to question its theology (institutionalized DEI, identity issues above everything else, #MeToo cancellations, pregnant men, Lily Gladstone for Best Actress, the power and the glory of being LGBTQ and especially trans, the 1619 Project as absolute gospel, drag shows in elementary schools, presentism or the historically absurd casting of POCs in certain historical settings, Woody Allen labelled a monster, tearing down statues of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, older straight white guys deemed inherently evil, men competing in women’s sports, the George Floyd riots), you were presumed to be a bad person — perhaps a closet racist or homophobic or transphobic or at the very least a social undesirable.
As it was in the ’50s, nobody wanted to be hit with possible cancellations or social ostracizing or worse, and so they kept their yaps shut.
Who were the intrepid souls who stood up to the woke Khmer Rouge during this reign of terror (’18 to ’24)? I’m obviously no Edward R. Murrow but I sure as shit stood up to the insanity, and so did Sasha Stone starting in ’20…day after day after day after day. Very few manned up in this fashion. Everyone ran for cover.
HE to easy-lay types who recently saw and loved F1:
Please guys…please let me know who dies in F1 (6.27, Warner Bros.). You’ve all presumably seen Grand Prix so you know what happens to Yves Montand’s race-car driver. Death is built into this sport. It constantly hovers.
It can’t be Damson Idris because POCs aren’t allowed to die because the filmmakers would surely be accused and most likely found guilty of racism…they’d be tarred and feathered and run out of town.
So that leaves Pitt, but nobody (with the possible exception of Shi Joli) wants poor Brad to buy the farm so who dies? Surely not Javier Bardem or Kerry Condon.
The all-media screening happens on Tuesday, 6.24, only two days before the first commercial showings on Thursday, 6.26
There’s an earlier screening next week for “special people”.
Snapped last night inside the big Danbury AMC, prior to catching Ballerina. Obviously the people behind Fantastic Four: First Steps (Disney, 7.25) have no shame. Has Pedro Pascal ever said no to anything or anyone? And the gingered Joseph Quinn, who will play the physically dissimilar George Harrison for Sam Mendes later this year…this, ladies and germs, is whoredom personified.
9:15 pm update: I was surprised to discover this evening that a good portion of Len Wiseman’s Ballerina is actually kick–asserino…enjoyably engaging, I mean, during the snowy second half. (The first half is mostly a generic origin story.)
I take it back about Wiseman being an “animal” as Ballerina is much better directed than expected, effectively shot and often witty (the action choreography rivals the wit of Buster Keaton here and there) and at times is actually funny — two or three times I yaw-hawed out loud and once I slapped my thigh with enthusiasm.
Ana de Armas is playing Eve Macarro, a major badass, of course, but not a superwoman — she’s believably vulnerable throughout and gets slugged and slammed around quite a bit.
John Wick: “You killed my dog!” Eve Maccaro: “You killed my daddy!”
There’s an especially funny bit when Eve shoves a hand grenade into a bad guy’s mouth and then traps him behind a door and then BLAM-SPLATTER-GLOPPITY!!! Blood and brain matter all over the place….hair on the walls!!
And the duelling flamethrower finale is magnificent! Roast those ayeholes! They’re all disposable meat hunks….nothing but flame–broiled chickens…gaaaahhh!!
As with all previous John Wick films, Ballerina‘s theme and tone are completely divorced from any sort of humanitarian mindfulness…what am I even talking about? This is a movie that says “embrace your inner sociopath.”
And while Anjelica Huston‘s Prizzi’s Honor voice is recognizable (“So, Charlie…ya wanna do it?”), she’s been surgically transformed in such a way that I couldn’t quite get a handle on the situation. As the “Director“, AH is in league with Gabriel Byrne ‘s “Chancellor“. My initial reaction was “well, Gabe has obviously aged but at least he semi–resembles the Usual Suspects or In Treatment guy.”
I can’t believe I’m saying this but I had a fairly rousing time during Ballerina‘s second hour. It’s like a sadistic video game with a wicked sense of humor, made by a team of truly sick fucks with a dark–eyed, no-longer-a-spring-chicken human being (de Armas is 37) at the center of the action.
Earlier today: Tom Cruise is not doing Len Wiseman‘s Ballerina (Lionsgate, 6.6) any favors by (heh-heh) praising it.
We know Cruise has chosen his own films very carefully over the last 45 years, and that a John Wick-ian action film by an obvious animal like Weisman…we know that Cruise would never star in a film of this calibre for fear of damaging his brand. [6.3 update: Wiseman is not an animal.]
We also know that his praise is generally insincere or at least partial because he’s been (heh-heh) “doing” Ana de Armas over the last few months so c’mon…why say anything about this obviously coarse, low-rent film?
Before yesterday’s Ballerina premiere de Armas called Cruise’s recent public support for the film “unbelievable“….that’s right, it IS unbelievable!
“But you know what, he supports every movie,” de Armas went on. “He really wants the industry and cinema to do well and [get] people going to the theaters. We’re working together, so he got to see Ballerina and he actually really liked it…he loved the John Wicks.”
Bullshit! Wick-y flicks like Ballerina (which I’m actually going to see in a couple of hours) are slick garbage…cancer pills…soul destroyers. C’mon, we know this going in.
From Owen Gleiberman’s Variety review:
…although it wasn’t a major, historical year for movies…certainly not like 1939, 1962, 1971, 1999 and 2007 were.
In my humble opinion, the most loathsome film of 1993 was, is and always will be Chris Columbus‘s Mrs. Doubtfire. Piss on this stupid film forever…soak it in horse urine.
And the finest five films of 1993 were and still are, in this order of enjoyment or admiration, (1) Harold Ramis and Bill Murray‘s Groundhog Day, (2) Jonathan Demme‘s Philadelphia, (3) John McNaughton and Richard Price‘s Mad Dog and Glory (a pair of Bill Murray films among the top three!), (4) Fred Schepisi and John Guare‘s Six Degrees of Separation, and (5) Steven Spielberg‘s Schindler’s List.
#6 through #10: Sydney Pollack‘s The Firm (I’ve watched it at least 10 or 12 times, largely because I love Gene Hackman‘s fundamentally humane performance as Avery Tolar, mitigated by his chuckling, shoulder-shrugging cynicism), Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (two or three viewings), Tony Scott‘s True Romance (minus the ridiculous ending but containing the first great Brad Pitt performance), Martin Scorsese‘s The Age of Innocence (very moving finale), Wolfgang Petersen‘s In The Line of Fire, and Joel Schumacher‘s Falling Down.
Honorable Mentions (in order of preference): Tim Burton‘s The Nightmare Before Xmas, Neil Jordan‘s The Crying Game, Robert DeNiro and Chaz Palminteri‘s A Bronx Tale, Jim Sheridan‘s In The Name of the Father, Robert Altman‘s Short Cuts (Julianne Moore‘s red public hair), Adrian Lyne‘s Indecent Proposal, Brian DePalma‘s Carlito’s Way, Rob Reiner‘s Sleepless in Seattle, Alan J. Pakula‘s The Pelican Brief, Jon Amiel‘s Sommersby, George Sluizer‘s remake of The Vanishing (which wimpishly changed the ending of Sluizer’s 19888 original), Clint Eastwood‘s A Perfect World, Bruce Joel Rubin‘s My Life (Michael Keaton with cancer), Ivan Reitman‘s Dave, James Ivory‘s The Remains of the Day (15).
Not So Hot: Renny Harlin‘s Cliffhanger, John McTiernan‘s Last Action Hero.
When I consider the finest feature films made without a musical score, I always think first of Call Northside 777 (’48), Henry Hathaway‘s Chicago-based, docu-styled procedural about a tough reporter (James Stewart) gradually managing to prove that an alleged cop killer (Richard Conte) is innocent.
But of course, Call Northside 777 has a musical score, composed and conducted by Alfred Newman. But only at the very beginning (opening credits…crashing, bombastic) and at the tail end (final 10 seconds, if that). Otherwise this 111-minute film (the first 9 minutes are annoying to sit through) is completely without musical enhancement, and all the better for it. Get rid of Newman’s intrusion and those first nine minutes and it’s perfect.
Among the better known music-free features: Sidney Lumet‘s Dog Day Afternoon, Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds (not even opening- or closing-credit music), Joel and Ethan Coen‘s No Country For Old Men, Ingmar Bergman‘s The Silence, Hitchcock’s Rope. Lumet’s Network has no “score” but aside from the characters and dialogue the first element you always think of is that brassy Howard Beale Show fanfare.
Others?
No, I’m not suggesting that when your dog or cat succumbs to the inevitable (and I’ve been through the deaths of one Siamese cat from pancreatic cancer and two from related illnesses so don’t tell me)…I’m not suggesting that you go right out and get a puppy or a kitten. That would be heartless. Pet owners need to commune with the spirit of the dear and departed and settle into a reasonable period of mourning (a month or two) before bringing home a newbie. I get the idea of respectful meditation.
But I do think it’s necessary to affirm the continuum and embrace the natural life process by embracing youth and vitality and the prospect of a new beginning…a full dog life of 12 to 15 years, or a cat life of 15 to 20. You can’t let yourself sink into mourning and never climb out of that hole. I’ve known people who’ve done this (they feel that their deceased pet, residing in pet heaven, will feel terribly hurt and rejected if he/she is replaced…they feel that keeping the flame burning for the dear and departed is all), and it’s really not right. After 30 or 60 days you have to stand up, brush yourself off and move on….start all over again.
