Jeffrey Wells
Fading “Maestro” Enthusiasm
I’m about to buy some NYFF tickets at noon, and I really don’t like that they’re charging more for Maestro screenings, and shitty seats at that. Plus that HE comment thread remark of Glenn Kenny’s — “weak tea” — is sticking in my craw. I’m kinda pissed off and wondering how weak Bradley Cooper’s tea actually is and whether it’s even worth it.
I’m a bit more interested in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man.
Manhattan friendo: “I think it’s one of the very best movies of the year, but a number of people will not agree, and I suspect you’ll be one of them.”
Excerpt #1 from Kenny’s review:
Excerpt #2:
Excerpt #3:
Don’t Bring Me Down…No, No, No, No…uhh-oo-hoo!
I’m dreaming of Cillian Murphy and his 1930s curly moptop haircut and that same damn look he wears throughout Oppenheimer in every damn scene, and I just can’t watch it a third time, I tell you…I can’t go again! Isn’t it enough that I’ve sat through it twice? I awake at 3:30 am and my pillow is damp. It’s a dense and accomplished film but it doesn’t breathe and it feels like work. I struggled so hard the second time…please, not a third. I’ve paid my dues, leave me alone, etc.
My reservations aside, I think it’s really great that Oppenheimer has performed as well as it has. It’s one of the best things that has happened theatrically since the all-but-total devastation ushered in by the pandemic.
I’ve never derided Oppenheimer as any kind of bad or less than immaculate film. It’s clearly a top-tier smarthouse thing — brilliant, ultra-cerebral. It’s never less than “impressive.”
I just found it strenuous and chilly and rigid…an under-oxygenated forced march with a lot of overly wound-up, perturbed academics and a few upper-level bureaucrats.
Not to mention the arduous company of two very angry, brittle and neurotic women who constantly seethed and lashed out. When Florence Pugh’s subordinate character (Oppie’s Communist lover) committed suicide, I honestly felt relieved. I muttered to myself “one down, one to go.”
The world agrees that Nolan should henceforth steer clear of sex scenes. I didn’t believe that Murphy’s Oppie was even capable of sexual thoughts, much less arousal and much, much less actual coitus.
Thank God for Matt Damon’s brass-tacks “what are the basic dynamics?” scenes with Murphy.
It’s quite the vivid, you-are-there symphony and I felt genuine respect and even awe at times for Nolan’s herculean efforts, but at the same time I felt trapped. It started to wear me down, man, and you’ll never convince me that omitting the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the right way to go.
And I really didn’t care for Murphy’s company. I tolerated his frozen eyes and aloof, twerpy manner but I kept saying “what is it with this fucking guy? I’m stuck hanging out with a Martian.”
If you’re checking your watch at the one-hour mark (as I did during my initial 70mm IMAX viewing at AMC’s Lincoln Square) and going “dear God, there’s another two hours to go”…if you’re saying that to yourself there’s something wrong.
Yes, it improves during the second hour and I felt more and more sorry for the poor guy when the D.C. wolves did their level best to taunt and persecute him, but Oppie cooked his own goose by alienating Truman (I’ll never forget that look of rage and disgust on Gary Oldman’s face) and failing to understand that longstanding sympathies and allegiances with Communists would land him in trouble, especially given that he’s repeatedly warned about this throughout the first two-thirds.
I just found Oppie an extremely odd duck and quietly arrogant to boot. If I didn’t know the whole story backwards and forwards I would’ve felt no investment in his fate whatsoever. I felt much more rapport with Russell Crowe‘s John Nash in A Beautiful Mind (’01) or Eddie Redmayne‘s Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (’14).
All I Can Say
…is “what an arrogant, exhibitionist, beyond-egotistical low-rent moron…not to mention that ridiculous Venice canal water taxi incident…talk about the very personification of déclassé.
“American Fiction” Wins TIFF’s Audience Award
Has any TIFF-attending journo written a concise, HE-styled, straight-from-the-shoulder capsule assessment of Cord Jefferson’s film? It’s a racial satire but how effective? Just asking.
Jordan Ruimy: “It’s very good…reminded me of Alexander Payne’s movies.”
THR’s Scott Feinberg predicted this win.
Review excerpt by Film Stage’s Jordan Raup:
Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers was 1st runner-up.
In Plain English
…here’s an updated “friendo” interpretation of the latest WGA vs. show–runners vs. producers negotiating contretemps:
“The showrunners have had it up to here with the hardline WGA all-or-nothing rhetoric…they’ve had it!
“And so the showrunners (aka the upper echelon) are applying pressure for a deal to be made, compromises yielded, a willingness to accept 80 percent over 100 percent of the demands, etc.
“The showrunners are also pushing back against mandatory staffing and the like. They have their own selfish agenda, but their income and dues drive the guild so they cannot be dismissed.
“This confirms your HE assessments as well. Enough is enough. The solidarity in the WGA is mostly from the unemployed. Those that are flourishing and have name value are fed up.
“Meanwhile, Disney is considering selling ABC. That means even less scripted programming as linear TV dies. Writers will have better terms when the strike is over, but less opportunity.”
Just To Be Clear
My Cannes Killers of the Flower Moon review, tapped out on my iPhone 12 outside an old-town eatery, amounted to a B or a B-minus.
What I wrote between bites of pizza and salad under a damp awning wasn’t a pan. I don’t regard Killers as a weak or poorly crafted film (from a technical standpoint) at all. It’s not. I regard it as a solemn, diligent, semi-haunting, very well made film that “doesn’t quite get there.”
Repeating: Flower Moon isn’t a bad film or a failure. It’s somewhere between a B and B-minus. But it never really tags one. Albert Pujols‘ bat never really goes crack. You know that feeling when a film is moving along at a steady professional clip and then the big crescendo is supposed to happen but it just kind of trickles off? A film that rumbles along in a steady, workmanlike and then cruises to the finish line without setting off fireworks? That’s Flower Moon.
Nothing Wrong With Being An Infectious, Finely Crafted Crowd-Pleaser
HE to World of Reel’s Jordan Ruimy: “Whadaya mean by saying that The Holdovers is ‘far from Alexander Payne’s best film’?
“It is one of his best, and it’s very carefully rendered…every line and and every shot lands just so…each and every brushstroke contributes exquisitely to the whole…c’mon, man, don’t be a snob!”
Here’s my abbreviated Telluride review.
