Last night Hollywood Elsewhere watched Steven Soderbergh‘s Kimi (aka KIMI). My basic take is “minor Soderbergh but pretty good…a reasonably decent Rear Window meets The Conversation tribute film, set in Seatlle during the pandemic. (With a tiny spritz of The Parallax View.) Nicely shot, cut, acted, produced…better than decent.”

Directed by Sodie, shot by “Peter Andrews“, written and produced by David Koepp.

Every compelling protagonist in a thriller needs a handicap of some kind. In Rear Window James Stewart‘s handicap was that his leg was in a cast. In Vertigo his handicap was that he suffered from a fear of heights. Kravitz’s handicap is that she’s agoraphobic.

And boy, she sure lives in a nice loft! How can she afford a place like this? Her mom bought it for her? She’s just a WFH tech — can’t be earning enough to buy a loft this spacious and bucks-up.

75% to 80% of Kravitz’s performance is absorbed or dominated by her perfectly styled blue hair. Kimi‘s hair stylist needs to stand up and take a bow…enjoy your moment! We’re watching the movie and thinking “okay, snappy Soderbergh and some nice Rear Window action” but two-thirds of the time all you can think about is HER HAIR!…HER HAIR!…LOOK AT THAT EXQUISITE COIF AND DYE JOB!

Friendo: “Yes, it’s true — the hair dominates. But Kravitz gives a good minimalist performance. She creates an intriguingly brittle character. She’s very true to everything that we all loathe about Millennials (i.e., Kravitz is 33).”

“I agree that it’s minor Soderbergh, but it’s good minor Soderbergh.”

HE: I loved it when she suddenly becomes a kind of Charles Bronson figure at the very end. Obviously a Hollywood-style solution to her troubles, but I emotionally wanted this to happen.

The paranoid mindset of The Conversation and The Parallax View influenced everyone and everything back in the early to mid ’70s. Ever since that time the corporate world has been the source of all the bad guys. A corporate guy appears, you KNOW he’s up to no good. It’s an idea that’s dominated thrillers for a good half-century, and will continue to dominate for the foreseeable future. Because corporations have been running the real domestic realm since Gerald Ford-slash-Jimmy Carter, and certainly since Ronald Reagan.

Friendo #2: “It’s a woke thing, right? Sexual assault. Zoey discovers an incident of sexual assault and possible murder.”

HE: True — a woman being assaulted by a rich corporate pig.

Friendo #2: “Textbook woke. There are only two melodramatic themes today — sexual assault and racism. I guess we can add LGBTQ concerns.”

HE: Except Rita Wilson, Kravitz’s boss and allegedly a sister-in-arms, doesn’t help when Kravitz reports the possible murder.

Friendo #2: “Yeah, but it’s more woke fan fiction. They always make these unbelievable scenarios at a time when it would NEVER happen. Maybe ten years ago. Not now. They want to tell stories about the world that existed before it became what it is post-#MeToo, post-George Floyd, etc. The nonstop obsession with women as victims is so tired by now. They’re like girl people. Not adults. Still children.”

HE: It would be more interesting if they threw in an unusual crime. Like dog-napping a la Lady Gaga. Or an older gay guy murdering his partner over infidelity a la Prick Up Your Ears.

Friendo #2: “Anything other than this. Make the victim a dude. Plus who wants to watch people wearing masks in movies now? It’s nice to see faces. So Zoey is just paranoid?”

HE: Agoraphobic. Afraid of life outdoors.

Now that Criterion has established itself as an outfit that likes to add teal tints to highly regarded classics (Teorema, Midnight Cowboy, Bull Durham, Sisters), I’m naturally dreading what might happen with their forthcoming Great Escape Bluray, which will street on 5.12.

Make no mistake — with four teal-tinted disasters to their credit, a Criterion Bluray of a late 20th Century color film is now something to be feared.

To go by DVD Beaver captures that I’ve posted three or four times, what they’ve done with the above four titles is nothing short of vandalism. I’m especially concerned with DVD Beaver‘s Gary W. Tooze having complained seven years ago that MGM’s 2013 Great Escape Bluray was “a little heavy on the teal.”

Even if Criterion doesn’t screw the colors up, their 4K remastering almost certainly won’t deliver a “bump” to John Sturges’ 1963 war classic. I’ve seen this film ten or twelve times, most recently a restored projected version at the 2013 TCM Classic Film Festival, and it just doesn’t look all that extra–level. It never did and it never will. Daniel Fapp‘s 35mm cinematography is perfectly fine but except for two or three sequences that were either shot in fog or tinted misty-gray, there’s nothing about his widescreen visuals that really stand out.

I don’t know why Criterion is even releasing a 4K digital restoration, but God forbid they”ll make it look worse than even before.

“Underwhelming Great Escape“, posted on 4.27.13: “I caught yesterday afternoon’s TCM Classic Film Festival screening of The Great Escape, and I’m sorry to say that it was a pleasant but no-great-shakes experience.

“John Sturges‘ classic World War II action drama has been remastered for a forthcoming Bluray (due May 7th) and I was assuming that the DCP version would make this 1963 film look and sound a little spiffier and brassier and more eye-filling than it did the last time I saw it in a theatre, which was sometime in the ’80s.

“Especially, you know, if the DCP guys scanned the original negative and were given the funding from MGM Home Video to do an extra nice job.

“I’m kidding, of course. MGM Home Video is renowned as a bargain-basement outfit. They don’t want to spend a dime more than they have to. If MGM Home Video ran an airline you wouldn’t want to fly with them, trust me. The result is that they probably scanned an inter-positive rather than the original Great Escape negative with an order to do the best job they could within a tight budget. I don’t know any budgetary facts but what I saw on the big Chinese screen looked like a handsomely-shot film that had been mastered by the Mrs. Grace L. Ferguson Airline and Storm Door Company.

To go by frame captures provided by DVD Beaver’s Gary W. Tooze, the Criterion teal monsters are back, and this time they’ve desecrated Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s Teorema. Once again, natural or subdued blues have apparently been rendered with a garish teal-green tint. Look at the images. A year and a half ago I asked Tooze if there might be something off about the color tuning on his 4K Bluray players or 4K TV, and his emphatic reply was “I’ve been doing this 18 years, and it’s not me.”

So what is wrong with Criterion? This is vandalism, plain and simple. This is organizational derangement. This has happened three times previously with teal-tinted Blurays of John Schlesinger‘s Midnight Cowboy, Ron Shelton‘s Bull Durham and Brian DePalma‘s Sisters. And nobody has complained except for Tooze (half-heartedly), myself and a handful of thread commenters. And now Teorema.

I was initially intrigued by Lucy Ellman‘s “Patriarchy Is Just a Spell,” a 12.26 N.Y. Times piece about Alfred Hitchcock‘s Spellbound. But the subhead — “I’m outing Alfred Hitchcock’s 1945 thriller Spellbound as a #MeToo film” — doesn’t really manifest.

Ellmann basically notes how the male characters in Spellbound treat Ingrid Bergman‘s character, Dr. Constance Petersen, like a sex object or otherwise disregard her authority as a psychoanalyst. Over and over and over, Gregory Peck included. That doesn’t make Spellbound a #MeToo film. It makes it a study of upscale 1945 culture and how almost all males from that realm were sexist assholes in one way or another, certainly by the standards of 2019.

Spellbound is, was and always will be a less-than-satisfying film. The psychological jargon has always felt gimmicky and simplistic, and Peck’s character, John Ballantyne, is, in fact, a brooding, hair-trigger jerk.

But the film has always held my attention for (a) the falling-in-love, opening-of-doors sequence when Bergman realizes she’s head over heels for Peck and vice versa, and (b) the fact that Bergman and Peck did in fact lock loins during production. Both were 29 at the time.

Peck to People‘s Brad Darrach in a 1987 interview: “All I can say is that I had a real love for her (Bergman), and I think that’s where I ought to stop. I was young. She was young. We were involved for weeks in close and intense work.”

Ellman #1: “Psychoanalysis has often despaired of women. Detailing the faults of mothers has worn out the velvet of many an analytic couch. Freud expressed mystification and exasperation with the uncharitable question ‘What do women want?’

“Well, maybe what women want is to steal the show, regain center stage, which is in fact their rightful place in the world — and in the movies. Echoes of the matriarchal cultures that dominated prehistory lurk in our collective unconscious. Female supremacy is alluring.”

I too find female supremacy alluring. This is probably the way to go, given the toxic tendencies of too many boomer, GenX and Millennial males. Things have to change.

But when I think of what’s happened to the Sundance Film Festival over the last five years **, it does give me pause. Think about that and all of the Robespierre beheadings cancellings.

In the wake of Criterion’s garishly tealed-up Midnight Cowboy and Bull Durham Blurays, the teal monster has re-appeared in Criterion’s forthcoming Bluray of Brian DePalma‘s Sisters (’73). Or it has, at least, according to frame captures posted by DVD Beaver’s Gary. W Tooze.

HE to Tooze: “This continuing Criterion teal thing is crazy. WHAT IS CRITERION DOING? No disrespect but is there any chance at all there’s something screwy on your end? Something to do with 4K discs or your 4K player? Nobody else is talking about Criterion’s teal obsession. Please level with me — WHAT COULD BE HAPPENING HERE? BECAUSE IT’S INSANE. Why would Criterion do this? The latest offender is Sisters.”

Notice the distinct teal tint in the bottom image, which is taken from Criterion’s Sisters Bluray; the above image is from an earlier Arrow Bluray.

Mark Smith to HE: “To go by DVD Beaver frame captures Criterion’s Sisters Bluray is not as egregious, offensive and baffling as the recent Bull Durham and Midnight Cowboy releases, but it’s in the ballpark.

“This MUST have something to do with color technology on 4K or HDR or…something. I cannot believe that this is just a series of full–on botch–jobs. These transfers are director- or cinematographer-approved. There’s no way Criterion and Adam Holender looked at the teal sky in Midnight Cowboy and said, ‘Perfect!’

“What is Gary Tooze seeing that Criterion is not? What monitors are they all using? Why are not all of Criterion’s new releases tealed-up? I’d be willing to bet that this is an HDR/4K monitor problem.”

Tooze replies: “Hello, Jeffrey — We don’t obtain our captures on 4K UHD monitors. We have sampled comparisons with other sites (that also use the VLC software) and they seem to be the same on our reviews of other films.

“As I noted in our review, [the teal tint] is less-visible on my OLED (4K UHD) but all systems may have different filters, especially nowadays. We used the latest version of VLC — flat with no enhancement.

“The teal effect has been noticed on plenty of non-Criterion Blurays for years. And you can see about 800 Criterion reviews on DVD Beaver WITHOUT the teal…so it ain’t me. I’ve been doing this 18 years.

“Maybe directors in the booth are swayed by modern technical-ability to shift colors? I don’t have an answer as to why it exists – I am just reporting it.” — Regards, Gary Tooze”

“Major Kong? I know you’re gonna think this is crazy, but I’ve just heard about a two-story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in Telluride that sleeps four or five. It’s one of the units in the Viking Lodge, and it’s going for only $225 nightly during the Telluride Film Festival (8.30 thru 9.3). If three people share it’s only $75 a night or $300 for the whole four days.”

Esteemed critic and obliging nice guy Chris Willman is looking for two hygienic, industry-savvy persons to join the band. Write me for Chris’s info.

HE to Criterion management: Judging by screencaptures posted by DVD Beaver’s Gary W. Tooze, there’s a serious amount of teal-tinting in your Midnight Cowboy and Bull Durham Blurays. I haven’t bought your Midnight Cowboy or been sent a Bull Durham review disc, but they seem to have parachuted down from the Planet Tralfamadore.

I think it’s fair to ask if Criterion is going to recall these discs, as you did with your Dressed to Kill Bluray after following director Brian De Palma‘s request to narrow the images. Mistakes occasionally happen, and Dressed To Kill was one such occasion. Now it’s happened again, twice.

The DVD Beaverscreen captures make the case — the teal tint on both discs looks grotesque.

I’m making attempts to reach Bull Durham director Ron Shelton, who signed off on the teal tint. There has to be some reason why he did so, though I can’t imagine what it could have been. I’ve also sent along to a message to Kevin Costner.

It doesn’t appear as if the Bluray-reviewing community will say anything about the teal issies. So far the silence has been deafening. As mentioned, the teal-tinting seems just as bad on Midnight Cowboy, and yet on 6.4.18 High Def Digest reviewer Matthew Hartman didn’t even MENTION the teal factor. Like it’s not a factor at all. This is dereliction, pure and simple.

What’s up with Criterion’s penchant for teal-tinting? Whatever’s blue, they’ll turn it into teal. Six weeks ago the ludicrous teal-tinting of Criterion’s Midnight Cowboy Bluray (“Green Cowboy…Eegadz“, “Criterion’s Teal Tint Insanity“) was revealed. Now we have the teal-tinting of Ron Shelton‘s Bull Durham to contend with by way of Criterion’s forthcoming Bluray. The DVD Beaver frame captures tell the tale. The question is “why?” Teal-binging makes no sense. It’s absolutely deranged.

“Criterion’s image has a bad case of the ‘teals’,” according to DVD Beaver’s Gary W. Tooze. “Blue jackets have moved to teal…the ‘teal’ controversy will resume.”

Natural blue jackets — the way they’ve always looked.

Criterion’s teal dye job.

On 4.24 a guy named Krishna Ramesh Kumar posted a video essay that compares the forthcoming, Christoper Nolan-approved, unrestored 50th anniversary re-release of 2001: A Space Odyssey with corresponding images from the Warner Home Video 2007 Bluray. Please watch the essay but pay particular attention to three sets of comparison captures that I’ve posted below. The 2007 Bluray images are on top; the unrestored 70mm Nolan versions are below. The Nolan is obviously warmer, yellower and even teal-ish with weak contrasts and less detail. Plus it has no deep blacks or true whites. It looks weathered.

And this, the Nolan, is apparently what’s being re-released into theatres in May. The images rendered for the upcoming 4K Ultra HD version of 2001, which pops on May 8th, will be restricted to those with 4K Bluray players. It seems obvious to me that the colors in the Nolan aren’t as satisfying and the images are less precise than even Warner Home Video’s 11-year-old Bluray, much less whatever the new 4K version will deliver. This seems absolutely NUTS.

Examine the 2007 version of Dave Bowman‘s face through his red space helmet visor vs. the far less distinct Nolan version — anyone who says that the Nolan version is preferable needs to be hunted down by men in white coats RIGHT NOW and sent off to an insane asylum. Examine the “Dawn of Man” bone-bashing images — the sky in the 2007 version is true blue but a kind of greenish teal in the Nolan version. Examine the two close-up images of HAL — you can obviously see more red-glow detail in the 2007 version while the Nolan is darker and murkier. Who in their right mind would say “the Nolan versions are better”? This is FULL-ON INSANITY.

2007 Bluray capture above; unrestored Nolan verson below.

ditto

ditto

Last night I read some Bluray.com comments along with a review that made me gasp. Actually they made me fall out of my chair. The thread was about Criterion’s curiously re-colored, teal-tinted Midnight Cowboy Bluray (5.29), which I wrote about a couple of days ago.

The Criterion jacket says that the Midnight Cowboy Bluray is a “new 4K digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Adam Holender.”

To go by recently posted comparison shots, this is easily Criterion’s biggest Bluray boondoggle** since the Dressed To Kill calamity of 2016, when Criterion went along with Brian DePalma‘s request that the images be narrowed (i.e., horizontally compressed) and the colors tinted yellow-green without much of a black layer. Criterion gradually admitted to error and released a corrected disc.

Natural-looking capture from 2012 MGM Bluray.

Same shot rendered by Criterion’s “teal team.”

Many times I’ve gazed upon the green Atlantic Ocean while basking in the hot-sand warmth of Miami Beach.

In a 4.15 review, Bluray.com’s Dr. Svet Atanasov refuses to even acknowledge the teal-tint issue, which automatically makes you wonder what he’s up to. “The color palette [of Criterion’s Midnight Cowboy Bluray] is a lot more convincing,” he writes. “On the old release [the 2012 MGM Bluray] some of the primaries were not as stable and well saturated as they should have been and now the new 4K restoration makes this painfully obvious.”

What the hell is Atanasov talking about, “not as well saturated”? I own the six-year-old MGM Bluray and it’s totally fine, and it doesn’t have any space-alien tinting.

Please read this thread. It includes a few fair-minded, sensible-sounding remarks, but also comments from some real lunatics.

One of the latter is a guy who calls himself “RCRochester.” In a remarks about contrasting shots (Criterion vs. MGM) of a small-town Texas motel [see above], he claims that “the sky looks blue in both…it’s just that the Criterion cap looks brighter. The movie’s title in the same shot looks bright white, if the image was ‘tealed’ I would expect that to have a bluish tint to it as well.” The man has gone over the waterfall in a barrel — he actually maintains that the sky in the Criterion image is blue when it’s obviously an eerily bright blue-green.

A looney-tune named “The Green Owl” exclaims that “the screenshots look great to my eyes,” and that he’s ordering the Criterion as a result.

A guy named “Markgway” doesn’t like what he sees, but says he might go along regardless. “Unless someone can say for sure that the film was meant to look teal, I’m going to assume something is awry,” he says. “It happens too many times that older films are remastered to a modern grading standard and wind up looking suspiciously different to the way they had before.”

Lewis Gilbert‘s Damn The Defiant!, a British-produced tale of a 1790s mutiny aboard a British warship, opened in England on 4.15.62, and then in the U.S. in late September. Two and a half months later Lewis Milestone‘s Mutiny on the Bounty, a bigger, American-financed, star-driven stirring of the same basic ingredients, opened in reserved-seat theatres. Mutiny was a bust ($13.7 million gross vs. $19 million in negative costs) but it sold more tickets and attracted a lot more attention than poor Damn The Defiant!, which was regarded as an also-ran even though it beat Bounty to the box-office by several weeks.

A similar dynamic is affecting a pair of upcoming Winston Churchill dramas. Jonathan Teplitzsky‘s British-produced Churchill, will open on 6.2.17 in the U.S. and 6.17 in England. Nearly six months later Joe Wright‘s Darkest Hour, a seemingly bigger, brassier, possibly more dimensionalized Churchill drama with Gary Oldman in the title role, will open stateside via Focus Features.

You know that Wright’s film is going to blow away Teplitzsky’s in terms of press attention, award-season heat and ticket sales. Then again you can’t dismiss Brian Cox, whose Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter was just as malevolent as Anthony Hopkins‘ in The Silence of the Lambs. Cox does it first, and then another actor with bigger backing redefines.