Standards of hotness change over time. I’ve said more than a few times (most recently in an HE piece posted on 8.15.14) that sexual attractiveness standards have definitely evolved in favor of the notties over the last…oh, 10 or 12 years. We’re now living in an age, partly if not largely perpetrated by the films … Read more
Four days ago (9.17) I mentioned that I had seen Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin‘s Splitsville (Neon, now playing), a freestyle, marital infidelity, fuck-everything-and-everyone sitcom. I didn’t exactly “like” it because the schlubby-looking, bordering-on-homely Covino and Marvin play the two sexually active male leads, and that’s a stopper right there. Especially with their significant … Read more
The word around the campfire is that Gregg Araki‘s I Want Your Sex, an erotically provocative “thriller” of some sort (although I can pretty much guarantee that “thriller” doesn’t apply…not in the sense that most of us understand the term…not from Araki)…the buzz says that Araki’s film will play in Cannes next month, although not … Read more
John Krasinski is a nice-looking, well-tended guy as far as it goes, but he’s always seemed a little bit nerdy with those brown, marble-sized eyes and the slightly swollen Polish-prole nose and grubby beard stubble. And his tepid response to HE and Richard Brody’s Quiet Place social theory (i.e., the brown spider monsters are metaphors … Read more
Variety‘s Alex Hitman is reporting that Cooper Hoffman (Saturday Night, Licorice Pizza) will play a would-be “sexual muse” to an artist played by Olivia Wilde in Gregg Araki‘s I Want Your Sex. Written by Araki and Karley Sciortino, pic is described as a “provocative thriller” that “blithely explores desire, domination and fantasy.” I’m sorry but … Read more
“But I never made it. But in that era it was JFK, it was Muhammud Ali, it was Sean Connery, Howard Cosell…you can go all down the list…that’s a real man. I want to be like that someday.” — Jerry Seinfeld during q & a sitdown with Bari Weiss, posted this morning. Back in the … Read more
In IFC Film’s Shithouse, director-writer Cooper Raiff plays a somewhat emotionally hindered college freshman named Alex. His problem is that he wears his heart too plainly on his sleeve and therefore isn’t aloof or blase enough. This becomes apparent when he scores with Maggie (Dylan Gelula), who feels weirded out by his morning-after sincerity. Or … Read more
The Guardian‘s Emma Brockes has posted an interview with Tom Hanks about “Uncommon Type,” a collection of short stories written by the 61 year-old actor and former superstar. Hanks is one of the best-liked guys in this business, in part because he’s always been delicate and diplomatic in airing opinions about this or that. But … Read more
A coding error erased 80% of this review earlier today — sorry: I didn’t laugh at Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone‘s The Boss (Universal, 4.8), but I respect the conviction that informs it. Melissa McCarthy plays Michelle Darnell, a self-hating, emotionally blocked, Type-A butch boss who reminded me, frankly, of two or three Hollywood-serving women … Read more
There’s an old, old joke (referenced 34 years ago by N.Y. Times columnist Russell Baker) about the difference between above-the-credit-block and below it. “When Ronald Reagan-for-President talk first started,” Baker wrote, “Jack Warner, one of Mr. Reagan’s Warner Bros. employers, is said to have replied, ‘No, Jimmy Stewart for President — Ronald Reagan for his … Read more
I felt next to nothing last night as I watched Guy Ritchie‘s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Warner Bros., 8.7) with a crowd of second-string, all-media loser types at the Arclight. I didn’t “hate” it and I’ll admit that I chuckled two or three times, but I mostly felt anesthetized — suspended in the tepid depths … Read more
People, Places, Things is another schlumpies & dumpies relationship movie. Jemaine Clement simply isn’t sexy or good looking enough to have a dishy wife. He’s nice enough looking but just not attractive enough for the likes of her…sorry. Guys like him get married to moderately fetching, not-very-hot women as a rule. And look at the … Read more