HE response: Michelle Williams‘ Gwen Verdon out-points Sam Rockwell‘s Bob Fosse, agreed, but both are knockouts. I’ve been saying all along that Williams gives the more affecting performance, but Rockwell’s expression as he’s lying on that Washington, D.C. sidewalk at the very end of “Providence” (premiered on 5.28, caught it yesterday on the plane) is one of those unforgettable moments. His eyes don’t convey shock or terror but a kind of quizzical “really?” He seems almost half-amused by the realization that there really is such a thing as an “end” of a life. The way he’s looking at Williams and going “wow, okay, this is it…thanks for our life together, turbulent as it sometimes was…sorry I was such a selfish dick but that’s who I am or, you know, what I was”…WOW! Yes, Williams owns it for the most part, but Rockwell’s Fosse is easily his finest performance and his first epic one.
I’ve only seen three of the eight episodes that constitute Fosse/Verdon (FX, 4.9) so I’m obliged to restrain myself. But I know it when all the main elements (editing/montage, screenwriting, pitch-perfect performances, exactly the right rhythm and tone, cinematography) have come together in just the right away.
I’m telling you that Fosse/Verdon — the decades-spanning story of legendary director, choreogrqpher and more-than-slightly-flawed human being Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell) and his longtime wife, lover, best friend and trusted creative colleague Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams) — is really, really top-drawer.
I actually think it’s masterful.
In All That Jazz, Roy Scheider‘s Joe Gideon was all this and more. The difference between Jazz, which presented a Verdon-like character (played by Ann Reinking) as a peripheral figure, and Fosse/Verdon is that Verdon is just as essential and deeply-dug-in as Fosse, if not more so. This may be the best performance Williams has ever given. Seriously.
Largely directed by Keaton Kail (five of the eight episodes) and written by Steven Levenson (and based upon Sam Wasson‘s “Fosse“), this is one pizazzy, well-seasoned, theatrically-staged saga of a louche genius who was touched by the dancing godz and who also knew how to direct films, and a wonderfully gifted, spirited and emotionally buoyant dancer-singer who put up with a ton of shit until she left him (even though they never divorced), and the truly great stuff they created for the Broadway stage (as well as their collaboration on the Oscar-winning Cabaret).
You know that Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams‘ performances as Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon are going to be Emmy-level. You know it. The limited series will debut on 4.9.19, and run eight episodes.
The dominant themes or undercurrents seem to be that (a) serious creative innovation is rare, (b) women value fidelity, (c) it’s all over much too quickly, and (d) fast-lane living comes at quite a cost.
Fosse only lived to age 60 — cigarettes, uppers, alcohol, stress. He died of a heart attack on 9.23.87, outside the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. Verdon died at age 75, on 10.18.00.
There’s still no credited director but the guy who shouted “action” and “cut” is probably Thomas Kail — Kail, Rockwell, Williams, Steven Levenson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, George Stelzner and Joel Fields served as exec producers.
The costars are Margaret Qualley (Ann Reinking), Norbert Leo Butz (Paddy Chayefsky), Nate Corddry (Neil Simon), Aya Cash (Joan Simon), Susan Misner (Joan McCracken), Bianca Marroquín (Chita Rivera), Kelli Barrett (Liza Minnelli), Evan Handler (Hal Prince), Rick Holmes (Fred Weaver), Paul Reiser (Cy Feuer), Ethan Slater (Joel Grey), Byron Jennings (George Abbott) and Laura Osnes (Shirley MacLaine).
HE’s favorite Emmy wins were (a) Michelle Williams taking the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie trophy for her work on Fosse Verdon, which I loved from the get-go, and (b) Jason Bateman‘s Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series Emmy for Ozark (Episode: “Reparations”, Netflix). I haven’t seen a single episode of Fleabag…nothing. The major networks are all but out of the game.
Our 11 and 1/2 hour Norweigan Airlines flight (Paris to Los Angeles) touched down around 6:20 pm. I really hate extra-long flights. “Comfortable” but vaguely agonizing, seemingly endless, confinement, cat-napping, never-quite-slumbering, tolerable, watching this and that, listening to my iPhone music, eliminating iPhone photos…anything to stave off those soporific waves of boredom.
I watched episodes #7 and #8 of Fosse Verdon (the finale is devastating), watched most of Out of the Past for the 17th time, watched all of The Limey, read five or six chapters of Sam Wasson‘s “Fosse“, gave myself two whore baths, read about 75% of Brett Easton Ellis‘s “White” (anti-snowflake, anti-identity politics, anti-“woke” watchdogs, anti-safe spaces…”a veritable thirst trap for the easily microaggressed”) and generally suffered like I always do.
When I think fondly of the 2019 films that will endure and grow in esteem as the years fall by…well, we all have our favorites. But in my mind at least and in a perfect world, the films that should have won the Best Picture Oscar are not, no offense, Parasite, which did win, and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, the first runner-up.
I realize, of course, that almost no HE commenters agree with me, but I still say that the Best Picture Oscar champ should have been Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman.
Failing that, the most deserving winners could or should have been, in a perfect world, the following: Kent Jones‘ Diane, Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse, Lulu Wang‘s The Farewell.
It’s absurd to mention Craig Zahler‘s Dragged Across Concrete in this context, but it’s a truly jarring, trail-blazing film that I’ll never forget. I wanted to forget Parasite after my second viewing — I didn’t dislike it, but I found it underwhelming.
The Best Documentary Oscar should have been won by A.J. Eaton and Cameron Crowe‘s David Crosby: Remember My Name.
Posted on 8.18.20: A couple of decades hence young cineastes will ask their older brethren, “Explain again why a well-made but not especially overwhelming social criticism drama from Bong Joon-ho won the Best Picture Oscar instead of this obviously superior Martin Scorsese gangster epic, especially considering the fact that The Irishman didn’t have anything like that Parasite scene in which a family of con artists welcomes the one person in the world who has a motive to rat them all out, and yet they let her in during a rainstorm while they’re all drunk and dishevelled…why did everyone give that scene a pass again?”
HE’s beloved Irishman won only one trophy at the 25th annual Critics’ Choice Awards show on Sunday night, and that’s a shame. My heart is aching over the apparent fate of this awesome classic.
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood scored awards for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Brad Pitt (who didn’t show up), Best Original Screenplay for Quentin Tarantino, and Best Production Design (Barbara Ling and Nancy Haigh).
And 1917‘s Sam Mendes split the Best Director prize with Parasite‘s Bong Joon-ho, but thank God Parasite didn’t win anything else. This underlines the likelihood that Parasite will only win the Best International Feature Oscar on 2.9.20. I regard this as a kind of victory or vindication.
The indicators suggest that either Once Upon A Time in Hollywood or 1917 will take the Best Picture Oscar. The Critics Choice awards have often reflected the final choices of the Academy.
I think it’s tragic that enough people don’t seem to be standing up for The Irishman, which is easily the year’s best film…easily. Either they’re impatient or too stupid or simply not interested in the lives of gangster geezers with neck wattles and pot bellies.
The CC Best Actor and Best Actress awards were taken by Joker‘s Joaquin Phoenix and Judy‘s Renee Zellweger. The Best Supporting Actor award went to Pitt, as noted. Marriage Story‘s Laura Dern won the Best Supporting Actress trophy — no surprise.
On the TV side of the equation it was Fleabag, Fleabag, Fleabag and Succession Succession Succession. Plus prizes for Watchmen‘s Regina King, Barry‘s Bill Hader, When They See Us‘s Jharrel Jerome and Fosse/Verdon‘s Michelle Williams (who, like Pitt, didn’t bother to show).
People applauded warmly or appreciatively when this or that white nominee took a prize, but you could feel extra whoo-whoo currents when anyone outside this fraternity won.
When John Lithgow announced that the Best Director award had been partly given to Sam Mendes, the applause indicated that people were saying “aaah, good, we approve!” When Lithgow added that the other winner was Parasite‘s Bong Joon-ho, it was like a home town basketball team had won the state championship. Ditto when Ava DuVernay‘s When They See Us (Netflix) won for Best Limited Series.
What an intermittently strange Golden Globes award show! Congrats to Joaquin, Renee, Brad, Laura and other winners. But big-spending Netflix suddenly appears to be looking at an uphill situation. Marriage Story is probably a lost cause (Laura Dern‘s likely Best Supporting Actress Oscar aside) but they need to somehow re-energize the Irishman campaign.
HE asked a seasoned director about what happened with the two big 1917 wins (Best Picture, Best Director). Answer: “Ambivalence towards Netflix. Hollywood and its denizens will not let Netflix win until they properly release their contenders. Plus 1917 arrived relatively late in the game. Recent impressions are stronger. Boldness of vision and concept.”
8:07 pm: The Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Drama goes to 1917? Congrats and well done, but who was predicting this? Text Message from Jett: “The Irishman is in trouble.” Netflix, in fact, was all but shut out. A lot of what was expected to happen didn’t happen.
8:03 pm: Renee Zellweger, as predicted, wins Best Actress, Motion Picture, Drama for Judy. What was Ricky Gervais‘s Harvey Weinstein joke? It was bleeped.
7:54 pm: Joaquin Phoenix wins the Golden Globe for Best Actor, Drama. Joaquin just got bleeped! JP: “I don’t want to rock the boat but…” JP got bleeped again! “We have to take responsibility upon ourselves,” etc. And then he gets played off. JP: “I know people say this but I really do feel honored to be mentioned with you,” etc. Maybe we’ll find out later on what he actually said.
7:45 pm: The Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical goes to Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Expected! Julia Butters and Margot Robbie take the stage with Quentin Tarantino and others, but Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCapriodon’t take the stage. Odd.
7:37 pm: Awkwafina wins for Best Actress, Comedy or Musical. An actual predicted win aside from Pitt! Richly deserved except for those moments when she first arrives in China and can’t seem to stop herself from radiating gloom, which is not the idea as the family is trying to keep grandma from suspecting the Big Secret.
7:34 pm: Taron Egerton wins Best Actor, Comedy or Musical? What happened to Eddie Murphy, bruhs? 2019 has not been an Egerton year — it’s been a Murphy year. What just happened? Mendes, Egerton…what’s going on?
7:27 pm: Brad Pitt, as expected, wins Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. Pitt thanks Quentin, of course, as well as “LDC” and Tom Rothman “for his big balls.”
7:23 pm: Joker composter Hildur Gionadottir wins! I thought it would either be 1917‘s Thomas Newman or Marriage Story‘s Randy Newman.
7:12 pm: Richly deserved! Michelle Williams win the Best Actress, limited TV series, for Fosse/Verdon. MW: “Women, please vote in your own self-interest. We are the largest voting body in this country. Let’s make [America] look more like us.” Bravo!! And congrats to Team Chernobyl for winning Best Limited Series of TV Movie award.
7:01 pm: The Golden Globe Best Director award goes to…1917‘s Sam Mendes? A very good film by a highly gifted director, but what just happened? Bong Joon-ho, Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese supporters are slapping their foreheads as we speak. Where did this come from? Who had predicted it? Definitely a left-field win.
6:50 pm: Tom Hanks melts down over love for his family during his acceptance speech. Probably the most widely loved, most amiable fellow in the business. “Show up on time, know your lines and bring a head full of ideas. Check the gate! If the gate is good, then you move on. It’s the cold that’s making this happen. I’m not nearly this emotional at home. Thank you.”
6:40 pm: Unbelievable‘s Toni Collette should have won the Best Supporting Actress. That said, cheers to winner Patricia Arquette (The Act) for referencing the impending likely war with Iran and the Australian bush fires, and the absolute necessity of removing Trump later this year. Hooray also for The Crown‘s (and HE’s own) Olivia Colman for her win.
6:28 pm: For so many years songwriter Bernie Taupin looked like a handsome, good-looking music industry guy in a certain wispy and delicate way, and now he looks like Ernest Stavro Blofeld…like a bald Swiss banker or arms dealer. Congrats to Bernie and Elton for winning the Best Song award.
6:17 pm: Best Supporting Actress award goes to Laura Dern for Marriage Story. (And to a lesser extent for her performance in Little Women.) The saga of of Marriage Story is not about “a family finding their way for their child.” It’s about what the mother wants for her career and how much stress and expense the selfish father will endure to win as much time with his son as possible. Oh, and cheers to Fleabag for winning Best TV series award.
6:10 pm: HE doesn’t “do” animated, no offense, but congrats all the same to Missing Link for winning the Golden Globe Best Animated Feature award, or whatever it’s called.
6:05 pm: Ewan McGregor is wearing blacksides! White shoes with black soles. Quentin Tarantino, winner of the Best Screenplay award, mispronounces John Milius‘s last name. So this means OUATIH wins Best Feature, Comedy/Musical?
6:02 pm: Best Actor, TV Series, Drama: Succession‘s Brian Cox. Excellent actor each and every time. The show is fine. Not to my taste but fine.
5:44 pm: Kate McKinnon handing out the 2020 Carol Burnett award to the great Ellen DeGeneres. Good! A courageous champion and a genuinely witty comedian. That said, EDG’s haircut is too strict and under-cutty. The hair should be longer. And her eyes …well, we’re all getting older but the norm is to “do” something about that, no? It’s normal, expected, par for the course. Brilliant, super-confident riff on “I’m gonna keep it quick.” Plus: “I couldn’t have done it without my husband Mark.” Perfect, just right…cheers.
5:36 pm: And here comes the Parasite award!! Bong Joon-ho had this one in the bag for a long time. Take note, Oscar voters; You can nominate Parasite for Best Picture, fine, but that’ll suffice. Due respect and admiration for a very good film. In the international realm.
5:33 pm: And the GG award for Best Actress in a TV series, Musical or Comedy does to Phoebe Waller Bridge, Fleabag. I’ve watched…uhm, two episodes.
5:28 pm: Gervais quips, “As you know the meal tonight was all vegetables. As are the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press.” Not funny.
5:26 pm: Stellan Skarsgard, whom I spoke to last night at the Lionsgate party, wins the supporting actor award for his Chernobyl performance. Funny guy. Good Milos Forman imitation. Congrats to the Succession guys for winning Best TV Series (Drama). I’m not allowed to say that I stopped watching early in the game because I couldn’t care less about the snakes, vipers and lizards. Throw them all into a volcano pit.
5:10 pm: Russell Crowe wins Best Actor in TV format for The Loudest Voice. He’s not at the ceremony because of the devastating Australian bush fires. Jennifer Aniston reads a statement from Crowe stating that global warming is a prime cause for what’s happening down under. He’s right.
5:03 pm: Ricky Gervais doesn’t care. “Many people of color were snubbed [in the Globes Nominations]. But the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press are very racist…and nothing can be done about that.” Or words to that effect. Plus the Epstein joke. A lot of pop-outs — is NBC bleeping him?
No bullshit, no hesitations, no side glances — here are Hollywood Elsewhere’s 20 favorite films of the year without regard to awards handicapping and in order of preference — included because I responded on a pure gut-engagement level.
1. Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, which I’ve seen four times and could easily watch another couple of times without breaking a sweat.
2. Ladj Ly‘s Les Miserables — “Start to finish Les Miserables is rough, riveting, incendiary — written by Giordano Gederlini and Alexis Manenti and brilliantly shot by Julien Poupard. It generally feels like a rough-and-tumble Antoine Fuqua film, using the basic dynamic of Training Day (but with three cops instead of two) plus a little Do The Right Thing plus a dash of the anxious urban energy of William Freidkin‘s The French Connection.” — posted on 5.15.19.
3. Todd Phillips‘ Joker — “I don’t know how or why Warner Bros. got behind a film as nutso radical as Todd Phillips, Scott Silver and Joaquin Phoenix‘s Joker (10.4), but this is notcorporateproduct. Make no mistake about the fact that this 122-minute film is propelled by misery, loneliness, alienation, despair, ennui, delusion and general social malevolence and madness. And it doesn’t back off from that.” — from “Genuine Art, Serious Madness, Real Anarchy,” posted on 9.29.19.
4. Melina Matsoukas and Lena Waithe‘s Queen & Slim — “Driven by predatory racism and sporadic violence, but essentially a feel-good film about kindness and charity and black togetherness, sans gun battles or car chases.” — from “Cop Killers With Kind Hearts…Really,” posted on 10.7.19.
5. Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins‘ 1917 — “A landmark war film with a single, continuous-shot approach that delivers an intense, knockout-level, ‘you are there’ slaughterhouse experience…an emotional hellscape that primarily struck me as a technical exercise, although blended with humanism, humor, sadness, brotherly compassion and even a moment of domestic tenderness.” — posted on 11.24.19.
13. Noah Baumbach‘s Marriage Story — “In and of itself Marriage Story is a very fine, emotionally open-hearted film. Impressively acted, written, paced and sung. But it could have been Shampoo or Rules of the Game if Baumbach had wanted to go there. The fact that he didn’t is fine with me.” — from “Marriage Story Could Have Been Shampoo,” posted on 11.11.19.
15. Celine Sciamma‘s Portrait of a Lady on Fire / “By my sights as close to perfect as a gently erotic, deeply passionate period drama could be,” excepted from “Midnight Panini,” filed on 5.21.19.
17. Todd Douglas Miller‘s Apollo 11 / Just because I forgot to review this Neon/CNN Films doc doesn’t mean it doesn’t deliver a profound IMAX charge. I love that it offers no narration or talking heads.
19. Trey Edward Shults‘s Waves — “One measure of a gripping Telluride film, for me, is catching a 10:30 pm showing (and they always start late) and maintaining an absolute drill-bit focus on each and every aspect for 135 minutes, and then muttering to myself ‘yeah, that was something else’ as I walked back to the pad in near total darkness (using an iPhone flashlight app to see where I was walking) around 1 am. This is what happened last night between myself and Trey Edward Shults‘ Waves.”
Obviously a lot will change after the top four fall festivals weigh in — Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York. This is the last HE assessment before those festivals unspool.
Likely upsetters to come: Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, Noah Baumbach‘s Marriage Story, Marielle Heller‘s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Tom Harper‘s The Aeronauts, Steven Soderbergh‘s The Laundromat, Fernando Mereilles‘ The Two Popes, Edward Norton‘s Motherless Brooklyn, Todd Phillips‘ Joker, Pablo Larrain‘s Ema, James Mangold‘s Ford v Ferrari, etc.
13. Celine Sciamma‘s Portrait of a Lady on Fire / “By my sights as close to perfect as a gently erotic, deeply passionate period drama could be,” excepted from “Midnight Panini,” filed on 5.21.19.
150 film critics have named Jordan Peele‘s Us as the Best Movie of 2019 thus far. Sure it is! Peele’s film was actually fairly decent as far as it went, but I found it…well, certainly ballsy. Imagine the cojones it took for Peele to decide upon Ken Kragen’s “Hands Across America” campaign as the film’s ultimate evildoer or baddy-waddy.
In all seriousness, Us earned a Metacritic score of 81 and a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 94 and an audience rating of 63. So why did Ruimy’s Raiders call it the best of the year so far? I have my suspicions ** — what are yours? Time Out‘s Joshua Rothkopf compared Us to John Carpenter‘s The Fog (’80), the somewhat disappointing follow-up to the hugely successful Halloween. That’s about right.
The next most popular nine among the 150 are (in this order) The Souvenir, Booksmart, Long Day’s Journey Into Night 3D, High Life, Transit, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Apollo 11, Ash is Purest White and Avengers: Endgame.
There are no upcoming June releases of any apparent consequence so I may as well post HE’s Best of 2019 at Half-Time roster. A grand total of 23 films, and I don’t care if they’re docs or features, streaming or theatrical…none of those distinctions matter any more. I’m once again profusely apologizing for not having seen Christian Petzold‘s Transit but I’ll be correcting this oversight very soon.
How many of the 23 are really, really good? The first 20 with the exception of Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, which I feel is mostly a flavorful in-and-outer that pays off only at the very end. So basically 19 out of 23 are the cat’s meow. Seriously.
Jordan Ruimy‘s list: Luce, Dogman (HE: not so much), Dragged Across Concrete, Ayka (what?), The Art of Self-Defense, David Crosby: Remember My Name, Gloria Bell, Midnight Family, Cold Case Hammerskjold (excellent!), American Dharma, The Farewell (didn’t see it), Avengers: Endgame, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Portrait of A Lady on Fire.
I asked a young Manhattan-based friend for his 2019 faves, and he had the nerve to send a list that included David Robert Mitchell‘s Under The Silver Lake…c’mon! I hate it when films that certain people have found “interesting” or “offbeat intriguing” are listed as among the year’s best. No way in hell is Harmony Korine‘s The Beach Bum (55% on Rotten Tomatoes) one of the year’s finest; ditto the Dardennes brothers’ Young Ahmed…please.
13. Celine Sciamma‘s Portrait of a Lady on Fire / “By my sights as close to perfect as a gently erotic, deeply passionate period drama could be,” excepted from “Midnight Panini,” filed on 5.21.19.
16. Sydney Pollack and Alan Elliott‘s Amazing Grace / “Finally Saw Amazing Grace,” filed on 12.14.18.
17. Todd Douglas Miller‘s Apollo 11 / Just because I forgot to review this Neon/CNN Films doc doesn’t mean it doesn’t deliver a profound IMAX charge. I loved that it offers no narration or talking heads.
From Boston Herald‘s Jim Verniere: Arctic, Gloria Bell, Diane, Dogman, The Fall of the American Empire, Booksmart, Greta, Halston, Aquarela, Hail Satan.
