Rob W. King‘s Distorted (Mind’s Eye, 6.22) is a paranoid thing (obviously) that may be insubstantial. It’s certainly familiar. The general idea seems to be “beware of any kind of big schmoozy sell because there’s always a malevolent agenda.”

If, upon arriving at a new upscale apartment complex, some red-haired guy were to greet me with a repulsive salesman’s smile, open his arms in a well-practiced manner and say, “Welcome to 21st Century living, the ultimate in comfort and tranquility”…if that were to happen, I would say “thanks but no thanks”, that I’m a 20th Century guy who likes to keep things simple and familiar, and that I generally avoid any kind of “ultimate” experience of any kind.

Christina Ricci and John Cusack, fine, but I don’t like Brendan Fletcher, who plays Ricci’s husband. He’s too short, for one thing, and I don’t like his beard. His big previous credit was a supporting role in Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s The Revenant but I don’t remember his performance and I’ve seen that film three times.

Boilerplate: A 32-year-old woman (Ricci) suffering from bipolar disorder comes to suspect the proprietor of the state-of-the-art “smart apartment” she and her husband (Fletcher) just moved into is using the building’s residents as unwitting guinea pigs for a “synthetic telepathy” brainwashing plot with dire global ramifications.

I’ve only just watched Ronan Farrow‘s Loyola Marymount University commencement address. It was posted yesterday. He spends most of the speech talking about the intense trauma he went through as he worked on his big Harvey Weinstein expose, which was ultimately published by The New Yorker last October, and which resulted in the winning of a Pulitzer Prize gold medal for public service (shared with The New York Times). The story begins around the 3:30 mark.

The legendary Pierre Rissient, the French producer, publicist, super-cineaste and film-festival whisperer whose life was dissected and celebrated in Todd McCarthy‘s Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema, has passed at age 81. I didn’t know him at all, but I knew he mattered a great deal to many people of consequence, and I’m very sorry.

I appreciate that few HE regulars will have much to say because the Rissient realm was very inside baseball. You were on to him (via McCarthy’s 2007 doc or personal experience) or you weren’t.

So far I can’t find any way to stream Man of Cinema…irksome.

Rissient’s death was announced by director Bertrand Tavernier via twitter: “Pierre Rissient died last night. His wife Yung Hee asked me to let you know this, and, thinking of her, it is with infinite sadness that I write this message. Pierre was a great human being and an total cinephile. We will miss him.”

(More…)

Eight years ago I posted about an unfortunate decision by Universal Home Video to present a Psycho Bluray in 1.85 rather than 1.37. It actually would’ve been great if Universal had decided to present Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film in both aspect ratios a la Criterion’s On The Waterfont Bluray.

Hitch composed in 1.37 to protect the film for TV airings, but also because 1.37 compositions were perfectly balanced and added to the general intrigue for the extra detail. I ran several comparison shots that showed the differences.

The ’50s and early ’60s were transitional times with many suburban and rural theatres continuing to present films within 1.37 and 1.66 aperture plates, despite 1.85 fascists insisting that the 1.37 to 1.85 changeover was absolute and unequivocal beginning in April 1953. Boxy is beautiful, and it will never stop being so.

The recently released Twilight Time and Indicator Blurays of Joseph L. Mankiewicz‘s Suddenly Last Summer (’59) are another case in point. It was shot a year before Psycho, and the same dual framing aesthetic applies. Both versions crop Jack Hildyard‘s images down to 1.85, even though the 1.37 framings deliver a great sense of compositional balance, wholeness and breathing room.

There’s no explaining this, of course. Either you understand that the 1.37 image of a kneeling Elizabeth Taylor looking up at some anonymous beach stud is preferable to the 1.85 version, or you don’t. Either you appreciate seeing a little more water at the top of the frame and the buried-in-sand feet of the beach stud, or you don’t. Either you get that the 1.37 version is perfectly framed and balanced and that the 1.85 image is less fulfilling and that God himself prefers the former, or you don’t. And if you don’t…well, I’m sorry you feel that way. But you have no eyes.

Even though she’s a Republican, I’ve come to admire and even half-like Stephanie Clifford/Stormy Daniels since the whole Donald Trump-in-Reno thing blew up last January, and particularly since she began to be represented by Michael Avenatti. And I really hope she monetizes this newfound fame to create some kind of new business or revenue stream — an author, a reality-show star, a motivational speaker, a political candidate, etc. Anything, I mean, that will allow her to make a decent living outside of strip clubs and the porn industry. She’s 39, after all. Time to reinvent. As for the SNL skit she appeared in last night, I felt let down. The usual suspects, lots of split-screen, kind of a hellzapoppin’ vibe, didn’t quite connect.

The first fashion mannequins appeared in France in the mid-19th century. Ethnic (i.e., non-caucasian) mannequins began appearing in the ’70s, I think, but they’ve all had the same slender physique since forever. Tonight, for the first time in my life, I saw a fat-guy mannequin in a store window. (A small shop on rue Gregoire du Tours, just off rue de Buci.) A sign of the times, I’d say. Clothing manufacturers and retailers have seemingly concluded that the corpulent-male market is sizable and growing, and are looking to reach out. Has anyone ever seen an overweight-woman mannequin? If so, where and when?

This morning the Guardian published a Rory Carroll piece about the fall of Johnny Depp. A couple of days ago Carroll asked for a thought or two. The question was “is Depp toast?” Rather than chat I emailed him two or three paragraphs. He included a portion of my remarks in the article but his Guardian editors removed them. Here they are:

“In my book Depp is not irrevocably toast because he could always change his ways (diet, sobriety, workout regimen). But right now he’s kinda toasty due to a combination of (a) that surly drunk video with Amber Heard, and (b) the fact that he simply no longer looks like Classic Depp.

“It sounds cruel to say this, but my first thought when I saw his new louche look was ‘Captain Jack has become Captain Fatass’. I only know that all of a sudden (what was it, 18 months or two years ago?), Depp was suddenly on the pudgy, semi-jowly side, which is what happens when drinkers hit their 50s. Since then he’s ditched some of the bulk but the initial image damage had already been done.

“If Depp had held onto that ripped and lean thing like, say, Ed Harris or Tom Cruise have, he’d be in a much better place. His superstar era would still be waning if not over — all things must pass — but he looks gone to seed, over-indulged, undisciplined. And this fights against that low-key, laid-back, jaded cool cat thing that worked in Depp’s favor for so long.”

Watch Rachel Wiesz‘s expression as she listens to David Poland‘s questions. Somewhere between shocked and dumbfounded. As in: “I’m sorry but are you really asking me that?” Then she answers and goes into auto-pilot charm, all smiles and warmth and whatnot. Then Poland asks another and Weitz’s face goes booiinng. Don’t take my word for it — watch this for a minute or two.

Right outside the window, flooding the whole neighborhood…

Sometime yesterday an Apartment-lover named Mason Daniel (aka “BuddyBoyBaxter”) claimed on Twitter that Roman Polanski conveyed his attitude about women in three films — “REPULSION: Woman protagonist is raped during night terrors — ROSEMARY’S BABY: Woman protagonist is raped by Satan to have his child — CHINATOWN: Woman is raped by her father and gives birth to incest child.”

Daniel’s conclusion: “Yeah, really easy to apply ‘separate art from the artist’ with Polanski.”

Soon after The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg called this an “interesting observation” as in “hmm, you might have a point there, Mason!”

HE response: “Interesting” how, Scott? Because these scenes reveal Polanski’s mindset or something? Repulsion is a meticulous, carefully observed, very measured portrait of a young woman (Catherine Deneuve) descending into madness. First, the scene in question is an IMAGINED assault on Deneuve’s part. Second, what makes it stand out is Polanski’s decision to erase natural sound and use only the sound of a ticking alarm clock and the ringing of a bell. Film school lesson #1: It’s not what you show but how you show it that distinguishes pulp from art.

Plus: Rosemary’s Baby author Ira Levin created the sex-with-Satan scene, not Polanski. There couldn’t be any ducking away from this because the whole story hinges on this coupling. Plus: Chinatown screenwriter Robert Towne created the incest link between Evelyn and Hollis Mulwray, except, as Evelyn confesses to Jake Gittes, the sex wasn’t “rape” but consensual.

Conclusion: Mason Daniel is a moron.

A year and a half ago Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich shrieked like a p.c. banshee when I tweeted to Jessica Chastain that an aspiring film critic not only needs to be talented, tenacious and willing to eat shit, but that it would “help” if he/she is “fetching.” Ehrlich was appalled that anyone would even suggest that an attractive appearance might have something to do with how you’re received in mixed company or by potential employers. I called him a delusional little bitch, of course, but last night Bill Maher reiterated the obvious:

“News flash: People just like the physically attractive better. Sorry. The taller candidate usually wins the election. Studies show that the better-looking person, all things being equal, usually gets the job. Even babies prefer to look at attractive faces.”