Michael Cohen dropping his lawsuits against Fusion GPS and Buzzfeed means what? Obviously that he doesn’t want to submit to the discovery process and/or testify under oath that he was or wasn’t in Prague in the late summer of 2016. But in the wake of a two-day-old Washington Times article in which a Mueller staffer warned that “many” articles about the Trump-Russia probe have been “wrong,” there is pressure upon McClatchy’s Peter Stone and Greg Gordon to deliver a follow-up to their 4.13 story that said Team Mueller has “evidence” that Cohen did in fact visit Prague, according to “two sources.”
Cohen is basically a thuggish, Trump-beholden Michael Clayton…right? Without the moral awakening. Instead of Cohen saying “you’re so fucked” to Tilda Swinton or some other steely adversary at the end of the third act, knowledgable attorneys along with the entire Twitterverse are saying this to Cohen, day in and day out.
“Too Many Paycheck Flicks,” posted on 12.4.17: “Surely Chris Pratt understands that he can’t continue to star in light-hearted, mock-ironic fantasy jizz films indefinitely, one after another after another. The man keeps inhaling helium — The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World, The Magnificent Seven, Passengers, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Avengers: Infinity War, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Avengers: Infinity War.
I don’t believe that any actor, no matter how engaging or popular he may be on talk shows, can continue to make empty movies indefinitely and still keep the popularity thing going. I realize that Dwayne Johnson refuses to make quality and he’s still filling seats, but sooner or later the dogs will stop eating the dog food. You have to man up and make something good.
HE believes that every fourth or fifth film that a marquee-brand actor makes has to at least aspire to something real and soulful. Within the next two or three years Pratt has to deliver an honest, well-honed performance in a movie about real life, real people, etc. The last intelligent, human-scaled film Pratt made was Her, and that wasn’t even his.
Last night I read a few pages of a 2017 draft of Adam McKay‘s Backseat, the Dick Cheney movie. (The script was called Cheney when McKay typed the title page.) Wikipedia describes the film, which Annapurna will release on 12.14.18, as a “biographical drama.” Okay, but it reads like a dark comedy to me. Chuckly, winky. It’s probably safe to say it’ll be a leading contender in the Golden Globe Comedy or Musical category. A friend who’s read the same draft calls Backseat “a mixture of McKay, Deadpool and Armando Iannucci.”
Backseat apparently tested not long ago. A friend got wind of reactions and shares the following: (a) Amy Adams‘ performance as Lynne Cheney could win Best Supporting Actress. She may need an additional strong scene to clinch it, but she’ll definitely be in the mix; (b) Christian Bale, who plays Cheney, gives a committed, full-blooded performance; and (c) Sam Rockwell‘s George Bush only makes a few appearances but each time it’s a scene-stealer — apparently more of an impression than a performance, but it made a huge impact.
Amy Adams as a somewhat older version of Lynne Cheney in Adam McKay’s Backseat.
All my adult life I’ve been bothered by a garbled lyric in the chorus of “I’d Really Love To See You Tonight”, a loathsome soft-rock tune by England Dan & John Ford Coley. The printed lyrics: “I’m not talking ’bout movin’ in / And I don’t want to change your life / But there’s a warm wind blowing the stars around / And I’d really love to see you tonight.” The problem is that the singer doesn’t sing “movin’ in” — he sings “duhlivian.” If you don’t believe me, listen to this and then this. Listen to this a second time — there’s no question he’s not saying “movin’ in.” All my life I’ve been saying ‘what does ‘duhlivian’ mean?’ So in my head I changed it to “deliverance” because at least that made some kind of sense, but not really if you think about it. I just wanted to clear that up. It’s been bothering me since the mid ’70s.
That’s it — Amy Schumer‘s I Feel Pretty (STX, 4.20) has gotten pasted on Rotten Tomatoes (30%) and Metacritic (44%), and that’s probably all she wrote. Comedy-wise this is Schumer’s second dud since 2015’s Trainwreck. Her last effort was Snatched with Goldie Hawn. Making a good, character-rich comedy is really hard. Hell, making a good movie period. Judd Apatow obviously did pretty well with Trainwreck, but I Feel Pretty‘s co-directors, Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein…who knows what went wrong? Sorry.
A 4.18 review by The Stranger‘s Elinor Jones is kinda hilarious:
“I Feel Pretty is about a woman who suffers from a lack of confidence due to, you know, existing. After hitting her head in a spin class, she starts to believe she’s beautiful, which leads first to a positive attitude and then to successes in love and her career in selling makeup. (UGH.) It’s supposed to be funny, because everyone can plainly see that Schumer is disgustingly average! LOL, right?! A silly lady over 30 who weighs more than 120 pounds thinks she’s pretty! HA HA HA! HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA! I laughed until I cried, because I am also over 30 and weigh more than 120 pounds, and my body could serve as a punch line too.”
“Everybody’s talkin’ at me…I can’t see their green faces…only the shadows of their eyes.”
Criterion’s Cowboy, a “4K digital restoration approved by cinematographer Adam Holender,” is described by Tooze as “significantly sharper” than MGM’s 2012 Bluray but “colors shift to be very green/blue. I found the teal-leaning very noticeable initially but I got used to it, and the improved detail is such a dramatic improvement over the older 1080P transfer. I have never seen it look this good.”
Are you telling me that Criterion’s greenish Cowboy capture [below] is the more natural-looking of the two? God’s blue sky is greenish turquoise in the Criterion. Has anyone ever seen a sky that looked this putrid?
Are you reading what Tooze is saying? He found the color-tint desecration of Midnight Cowboy to be somewhat off-putting and what-the-fucky, but then he “got used to it.” He decided to succumb to the greenish teal re-imagining because Criterion served it up and they know best, right?
Look at the main title image comparisons above — the browner, dustier, desert-tan version from the 2012 MGM Bluray is obviously more natural than the greenish Criterion version beneath it…c’mon! Look at the color of Jon Voight‘s shirt below this — blue in the older shot, blue-green in the Criterion. Look at the kitchen dishwasher — more or less natural looking in the MGM Bluray version, soaked in muddy green in the Criterion.
A little more than three years ago Criterion screwed up in a similar way when they horizontally compressed Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill while adding a greenish-yellow tint to the color. A public outcry led to a correction. Will fans of this legendary Best Picture winner go along with Criterion’s greenish-teal re-do, or will they grab their pitchforks and torches and march down to Criterion’s Manhattan headquarters?
Criterion’s 4K Bluray of Leo McCarey‘s The Awful Truth pops today. The six-minute nightclub scene (Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Ralph Bellamy) is far and away the best in the film. There really isn’t another scene that I can remember the dialogue from. “Gone With The Wind,” “New York is okay to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there,” “not Oklahoma City itself?”, etc. Am I thinking about getting the Bluray? I’d pay to stream it in a second, but plunking down $32 bills for a movie that’s smothered with billions of digital mosquitoes?
Former First Lady Barbara Bush, 92, has passed on. She was the wife of George H.W. Bush, the nation’s 41st President, and always, it seemed, a person of honor, dignity and restraint. She was a Republican but it seems fair to forgive her posthumously. Very few oldsters, it seems, enjoy being 90something. My mother and father sure didn’t. All is peaceful and well now, from a certain perspective.
Some kind of Twitter challenge popped this morning from the Filmstruck gang — define yourself with four films, two reflecting the basic emotional reality of things and two about wishful thinking.
Hollywood Elsewhere’s emotional definers are (1) Billy Wilder‘s The Spirit of St. Louis (’57) because it says that life is about the big challenge and the long haul, and that despite all indications that God is a myth a caring, compassionate entity can nonetheless lend a hand at a crucial moment, and (2) Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory (’57) because it reminds that life is unfair and in fact horrid for the grunts, and when the shit hits the fan it’s better to be Kirk Douglas than Ralph Meeker, Joe Turkel or Timothy Carey.
HE’s wishful thinking movies are (3) the first half of David Lean‘s Lawrence of Arabia (’62) because it reminds that intrepid adventurers can manage the near-impossible if determination is truly with them, and (4) Fred Zinneman‘s High Noon, which says that when the chips are down you can’t trust anyone except yourself, and even then you’ll need a certain amount of luck to make it through the gauntlet.
“We’ve seen him dozens of times before, saying any damn thing that comes into his head (because living on the planet for 70 or 80 years has given him the right to do so). He’s on his own incorrigible wavelength, dropping putdowns as fresh as his body is old, spicing every cranky comment with a perfectly chosen F–bomb.
“He’s also part of the family, of course. He’s the grumpy old man, the naughty codger from hell — the hilarious over-the-hill a–hole who is always played by someone like, you know, Alan Arkin. Just about every time we see him, he’s a showbiz creation, a character baptized in shtick.
“But in Boundaries, a touching yet wised-up father-daughter road movie that’s the best version of this sort of film you could imagine (it’s standard, but very tastefully done), Christopher Plummer plays him with a lived-in, soft-shoe command.
“At 88, Plummer looks about as handsome as a man his age can be, with cheekbones that take the light beautifully, his white hair swept back and set off by a beard that’s still, from certain angles, sort of sexy. He plays Jack Jaconi, the pathologically charming and selfish father of Laura (Vera Farmiga), and by the end of the opening scene, when she’s sounding off to her therapist about him, we’re certain that he must be some version of the monster she describes. Laura won’t even take his calls — that’s how much damage he’s caused.
“Then Jack shows up, and he’s such a smiley and debonair old coot that he doesn’t only seem not so bad; he seems real. True, the tropes are all in place. Jack, who has just gotten kicked out of his senior-citizen facility, has $200,000 worth of marijuana he’s trying to unload. (Yes, he’s a drug dealer.) He also speaks his mind with such a sly-boots sense of humor that it takes us a moment or two to notice how merciless he is. When his teenage grandson, Henry (Lewis McDougall), makes a mild off-color remark about not wanting to go into a shed for fear of being molested, Jack says, “You wouldn’t get molested with a bow in your hair.” Ouch! (On several levels.)
All along the concern about Bohemian Rhapsody (20th Century Fox, 11.2), the Bryan Singer-Dexter Fletcher biopic about Queen and Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek), was that it might be too softball, fan-clubby or family friendly — not adult or hard-edged enough. After Sacha Baron Cohen left an earlier version of the biopic in 2013, Queen guitarist and producer Brian May was quoted saying that “we can’t mess up [Mercury’s] legacy.”
Yesterday I flipped through an 11.4.15 draft of Anthony McCarten‘s script of Bohemian Rhapsody. Scripts are only blueprints, of course, and McCarten’s draft was rewritten sometime in mid or late ’16 by Justin Haythe, so impressions of a two-year-old script hardly mean anything.
Nonetheless my general impression is that if the McCarten draft bears any resemblance to the finished film, it’s (a) going to be a huge hit with both Queen fans and dilletantes in general (the 1985 Wembley Stadium Live Aid concert is quite the crescendo) but (b) it’s a long way from warts and all.
I solicited the opinions of a script aficionado (male) and a Los Angeles-based producer (female) who had also read it.
“I think the script is a device for two things: Rami Malek and the music of Queen,” the script guy said. “I liked the script, although it could have been more shocking or darker. I wouldn’t call it softball but it isn’t edgy either. It’s certainly mainstream enough to work at the box-office and get Oscar buzz. A source told me (apparently Bohemian Rhapsody tested last week) that Malek knocks it out of the park.”
The producer notes that “two of the band members who are producers on the film” — May and drummer Roger Taylor — “wanted a family friendly picture, which would account for the softness. And yes, the script amps up Freddie’s relationship with Mercury’s lifelong companion Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) and downplays the lurid nature of the secret trips to the Mineshaft as a result.
“Mary seems to have the virtue and patience of a saint — not a real character. And the parents (Meneka Das as mother Jer Bulsara, Ace Bhatti as father Bomi Bulsara) are just too Ozzie and Harriet cute. Everyone is too cute.
Yesterday the owner of The Tracking Board, producer Rock Shaink, Jr., whacked the newsroom and shut the site down. Editor-in-chief Jeff Sneider, chief film critic Drew McWeeny and film reporter Ed Douglas have all been cut loose.
I don’t know how and where TTB’s CEO & founder Chris Contreras fits into this, but the site is definitely kaput.
Sneider broke the news yesterday afternoon on Twitter, stating that “my time as an Editor-in-Chief has come to an end, as the newsroom has been disbanded. I’d like to thank the site’s owner for taking a chance and giving me this incredible opportunity, which has been a really valuable learning experience, one I’ll always be grateful for.”
The site currently says “as we prepare to share a new partnership rollout, we’ll be experiencing limited posts over the next few weeks, but will be featuring a new spec book, Launch Pad Feature & Pilot announcements, and the new annual spec book!”
Obviously Shaink and Contreras, who stalled for months and months to change the name of the site to The Industry, felt that they were losing too much money because ad revenues were too low and that their goals in that realm didn’t seem achievable within the right time frame.
Sneider was made editor in January of ’17; Douglas and McWeeny were hired last fall. It just seems weird to launch a serious effort like this, trying to compete for a piece of the advertising pie that is more or less owned by Penske Media, The Hollywood Reporter and TheWrap, hiring name-brand contributors and then abruptly pulling the plug 15 months after it begins…WHAM. It suggests that Shaink is an impulsive or whimsical fellow, not a long-game player.
The Ankler‘s Richard Rushfield: “The Tracking Board was some semi-legit producer” — presumably Shaink — “who was operating it out of his house. He had the notion for a script tracking board, and when that didn’t turn into riches, he thought he’d make it a general trade site, putting in some money to it but not enough to really muscle your way into a seat at the table alongside Penske and THR.
