This poster for Anthony Mann’s BendoftheRiver (‘52) shows “Julia” Adams (better known as CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon’s Julie Adams) with a Native American arrow lodged in her upper right chest…above the breast, next to right armpit).
This amounts to a blatanttheft of a scene in Red River (‘48) in which Joanne Dru is arrow-shot in almost the exact same spot. Not cool!
If I’d been directing the arrow would’ve pierced Adams’ left collarbone area.
Every film maven knows tall, dark and reptilian Steve Cochran, who played Virginia Mayo’s extra-marital boyfriend in William Wyler‘s TheBestYearsofOurLives (‘46) as well as Mayo’s extra-marital gangster lover (“Big Ed”) in Raoul Walsh‘s WhiteHeat (‘49).
Known for playing casual attitude bad guys on-screen, Cochran’s inside-the-industry rep was that of an insatiable party hound…booze, broads, fast cars, private planes and inevitably “scoring” with his female costars. The town gradually formed an opinion that Cochran was much more into cooze and trim than than investing in the basics of a solid film career (devotion to acting, playing his political cards right, trying to be cast in prestige projects). In the late ’40s and ’50s Cochran was almost the Bob Crane of his time.
Fewer know about Cochran’s abrupt and curious death aboard his sailing yacht Rogue. It happened in mid-June of ‘65, somewhere off the coast of southern Mexico or perhaps Guatemala, when Cochran was 48. If you know the story of his sudden demise and especially the grisly aftermath, it’s hard not to imagine someone (perhaps Michel Franco?) making a dark twisted film about it. The Cochran saga could be a perfect vehicle for a feminist director making a standard-issue “all men are pigs” movie.
There’s something simultaneously chilling, existentially creepy and almost perversely “funny” about Cochran, who, in his late ’40s and ’50s heyday, surely dipped his wick as much as Errol Flynn or Charlie Chaplin or George Roundy or any other hardcore poon hound…there’s something simultaneously wicked and darkly funny (in a pathetic, lampoonish sort of way) about Cochran hiring three young Mexican girls to accompany him on a cruise to Guatemala in order to (heh-heh) research a film (Captain O’Flynn), and the ship being hit by a heavy storm and one of the masts being damaged, and the Cochran suddenly falling ill with an infected lung and wham, he’s dead two days later.
But the three girls don’t know how to sail and the Rogue is a long way from the coast, and so they’re stuck with Cochran’s stinky, decaying corpse — getting smellier and smellier as it bloats and turns black — for ten days until a fishing ship happens by.
The poor women had no choice but to tough it out. If they’d thrown Cochran’s body overboard and let the fish eat him, the authorities would’ve accused them of murder.
I’ve been sensing uh-oh vibes from Paul Thomas AndersonOneBattleAfterAnother since 3.29.25, which is when I talked to a fellow who’d recently seen a preview screening and called it “asatireofradicalleftrevolutionaries”…”it’s played for comedy but thewokeyswon’tlikeit”.
Who the hell cares enough about rural looney-tune radical lefties to see, much less enjoy, a satire of their behaviors? I hated PTA’s last Thomas Pynchon adaptation so what are the odds I’ll be receptivetothisone?
Preview guy also called it “a guy movie like UncutGems but aimed more at black women and [even] white conservative women than liberalwhitewomenonanti–depressants…I wouldn’t take my girlfriend to it…it’s nota2025movie…it would’ve gone down well during Obama’s second term, but movieslikethisarenotmadetoday.”
It is therefore not surprising to read a JordanRuimyreport that the Warner Bros. distribution team may have decided not to premiere the PTA at the 2025 Venice Film Festival (8.27 to 9.6):
I’ve been sniffing weirdo gas fumes (i.e. the eccentric “I love black women!” kind) from this pricey PTA flick all along. If the Italian Cinematore guy is correct, it would appear that WB p.r. execs are persuaded that the film will draw a “mixed” or half-negative critical reaction in Venice and have decided it’s better to cutbaitratherthanfish.
The Venice lineup will be announced on Tuesday, 7.22.
My system wasn’t just wilting from a massive injection of James Gunn geek arsenic, but from a feeling of terrible spiritual exhaustion…a feeling of defeat and hopelessness that had nowhere to go but down.
From Owen Gleiberman’s 7.13essay about the movie-critic war over the horror of Superman:
Jackie Gleason’s 39th birthday party was held on 2.26.55 at Toot’sShor’s (51 W. 51st Street). He was rolling in clover and adulation back then, and on this particular night (i.e., Saturday) he was being toasted and celebrated by every showbiz hotshot in town (including Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio).
Plus ratings for TheJackie Gleason Show had been surging since ‘53 or thereabouts, and Gleason had recently decided to gamble big on a full season (39 episodes) of TheHoneymooners, a hugely successful half-hour series which ran from 10.1.55 to 9.22.56 and is still being re-watched as we speak.
Gleason was a genius madman back then — big drinker, smoker and spender, living for the highs, burning the candle at both ends — and he enjoyed a long and successful career, of course, but I hated his constantly seething Buford T. Justice in the Smokey movies, and I never cared much for his old-school, tweedle-dee mustache.
Gleason was beautiful when youngish and livin’ large and full of beans, but the old pizazz ebbed away as he got older. His heyday had happened in the ‘50s, and everyone knew that.
When you’ve got it, flaunt it. Life is short. Go for the gusto while it’s still gusting, etc.
Gleason’s final peak momrnt — at least in my estimation — was his performance as Minnesota Fats in Robert Rossen’s TheHustler (‘61). for which he was Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category. Gleason should have damn well won the Oscar, but WestSideStory’s George Chakiris unjustly edged him out.
Poor John Milius is grappling with the big C. Here’s to a great eccentric gun owner, a great individualist, a great commentary-track raconteur, an allegedly devotional surfer and one of the most influential director-writers of the ‘60s, 70s and ‘80s. Salute!
How do you write about Lena Dunham’s semi-autobiographical TooMuch, a 10-part Netflix series that popped on 7.10, without stepping on a land mine or stepping over the woke-terror line by addressing the elephant in the room?
You start by praising Dunham’s writing, I suppose. (Right?) The dialogue is well honed and just right — wise and zeitgeisty and agreeably settled-in and never less than perceptive. I immediately felt at ease because of this talent, this signature, this attitudinal stamp.
And because of Megan Stalter’s believably dug-in and disarming lead performance.
But we can’t just sail along and pretend that TooMuch, despite its emotional precision and candor and generally elevated vibe, isn’t a chubbo sell-job.
The truth is that I briefly gasped when a shot captured a partially disrobed Stalter in profile. I didn’t gasp because I wanted to earn or ratify my ayehole credentials. I gasped because a voice deep inside went “holy shit!”
Remember when the great Shelley Winters (who once told me I reminded her of an old boyfriend) ballooned up in the mid ‘60s? In Jack Smight and Paul Newman’s Harper (‘66) she was candidly and unapologetically described with the “f” word. Imagine!
Remember James Mangold ‘s Heavy (‘96)? And Catherine Breillat’s FatGirl (‘01)? Remember that moment in Sideways when Thomas Haden Church described Missy Doty as “the grateful type”? The Stalinists would never tolerate this terminology now..
Too Much is an engaging, faintly downish but agreeably hip and certainly chuckle-worthy feminist romcom that is also (I’m repeating myself but an emphasis is warranted) an attempt to normalize.
Normalize what? Well, what has always seemed to me and tens of millions of others like anexoticconcept, which is that obese, whipsmart, Type-A women and lean, open-hearted, chubby-chasing dudes often hook up and wind up happily entwined or even married. Not to be spoil-sportish but this kind of thing is not by any stretch a common relationship occurence, not even among size-affirming Millennials and Zoomers.
We all understand the basic appeal of curvy, zaftig and even a little Rubenesque action. As far back as the ‘70s a friend used the term “tons of fun”, and I knew exactly that he was joking about, conceptually speaking.
Speaking as a trim guy from way back, how many overweight women have I “been” with? One. Okay, maybe two. (And I don’t mean obese.) Did I mostly steer clear of calorically challenged lassies because I’m a bigot? It sure didn’t seem that way back then (i.e., the 20th Century). Nobody “slept” with fatties.
Backstory–wise, TooMuch is about a moderately fetching Dunham-esque producer-writer-whatever (Stalter) who moves to London in the wake of a traumatic breakup with a longtime Brooklyn boyfriend (the trimly proportioned Michael Zegen) who’s dumped her for a model-esque hottie (Emily Ratajkowski).
The main order of business is about Stalter falling for a poor, well-sculpted musician and kindred spirit (TheWhiteLotus’s Will Sharpe) who, in a non-wokey, normal-seeming world, would almost certainly be seeing a girl more his own size and shape. Or at least a zaftig rather than a tubby tuba.
What happens between Stalter and Sharpe is the meat and essence of the show, of course. Most of it romantically resonates and touches bottom and all that good stuff. (Including, I’ve read**, one or two harsh stand-offs.) Dunham is grade-A all the way. But how do you get around those gasp moments?
I felt so drained Wednesday night and Thursday by my recentdiagnosis that I figured I couldn’t stand the combination of atherosclerosis plus watching James Gunn’s Superman.
But now that I’ve settled into (i.e., accepted) the glumness of things, I guess I can handle a Superman viewing. That’s what I’m doing now. Suffering through the godawful trailers, I mean.
And now it’s time to face the consequences of too much sugar, generally not-great food choices, way too little exercise as all my free time goes into the column, and — I know this is borderline suicidal — occasionally chugging energy drinks because I’ve always loved the bolt and the buzz and the sheer fuck-off-edness…the old Don Loganthing.
All my life I’ve had an exceptionally strong and resilient constitution. I don’t smoke or drink and have kept my weight more or less in check, and so I’ve lived my life like a relatively unencumbered 37 year-old for the most part. Because I’m a lucky inheritor of strong genes. I’ve felt like an exception to the rule for decades. I don’t get sick or certainly not for extended periods — that happens to others and not me.
But over the last four days I’ve been grappling with news that I have…uhm, a heartissue…screeech! All of a damn sudden I have to hit the brakes on my 37-year-old lifestyle and divorce myself from a general presumption about being more or less bulletproof. I suddenly need to radically healthify the diet and perhaps even have a procedure or two — a plaque-arresting stent and a balloon angioplasty.
All I know is that I feel as healthy as always (okay, not like a 37-year-old but generally like an anything-but-frail, go-for-the-gusto type) but a recentdiagnosis begs to differ. I’m not certain that my Medicare + United Health insurance package will cover the stent and the angioplasty but here’s hoping. My dad submitted to the latter in his late 60s; ditto a pair of boomer film journo friendos in the recent past.
…despite how good, bad or mezzo-mezzo the film or play may have been, great poster images have an attitude and energy field all to themselves.
I don’t even remember Beth Henley’s Nobody’sFool (‘86), although Ivdud see Robert Benton’s Nobody’sFool eight years later (‘94). But that Eric-and-Rosanna pic is perfect.
“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...