“Nobody played the role of movie star in the 1970s with more confidence than Burt Reynolds. Even as his choice of vehicles grew so indiscriminate as to gradually erode his box office appeal, he still radiated swagger, that ever-present smirk suggesting he — and we — knew it was all a put-on anyway.

“Perhaps the problem was that it was just too good an act: Burt Reynolds gave such excellent ‘Burt Reynolds’ on talk shows, in interviews and other forums that the public saw little point in continuing to fork out cash money to see him do the same thing in yet another mediocre, derivative big-screen comedy or thriller. He didn’t take enough risks, and the few times he did were misfires or weren’t appreciated enough. Few stars achieved such massive popularity while retaining a sense of unrealized potential.

“It’s a bittersweet legacy that writer-director Adam Rifkin aims to pay affectionate tribute to in The Last Movie Star (A24, 3.30) which has been retitled by U.S. distributor A24 after playing initial festival dates as Dog Years.

I always knew Marlon Brando indulged in same-sex intrigues from time to time (eons ago the late Dennis Wilson told me that Brando once suggested a little hotel-room action) but for some reason I can’t handle the idea of Brando doing Richard Pryor. It just hasn’t gone down well. I think it’s more about Pryor as a lust object than anything else. Or Pryor undressed, to be honest. It just doesn’t feel right. So I’ve been watching a series of Brando YouTube clips to try and, no offense, flush out certain images.

Hollywood Elsewhere is looking to expand its sales effort by hiring an enterprising, eager-beaver, bushy-tailed go-getter to augment off-season ad sales (mid-March to early October). But you’d have to know the theatrical-Bluray-streaming ad realm to some extent. You can’t be too wet behind the ears. Our first instinct would be to hire either N.Y. Times movie critic Glenn Kenny or former MTV movie guy Kurt Loder, as either one of these two gentlemen would bring a certain class and erudition to the task. Failing that, HE is serious about this opportunity for the right candidate. It’s a decent opportunity for a little extra dough on the side. Fire off an email to seanj048@gmail.com.

When I first learned to shoot pool I used the standard left-index-finger-over-the-cue-stick method. 90% or 95% of players do the same. Obviously because the left-finger wraparound keeps the stick steadier and the aim more precise. But somewhere along the way I decided to become a flathand player, mainly because I thought it looked cooler. I haven’t played with any regularity since my early 20s, but since I became a flathand guy my playing has been somewhere between mediocre and embarassing. I was a better pool player when I was 18 (I used to play with my friends all the time) than I am today. When I think of what I could’ve become…

Same thing with drawing. I used to be a half-decent sketch artist from age 8 or 9 until I was 15 or 16, but then I stopped developing. Today I’m no better at drawing faces or figures than I was in mid teens. If you’re half-decent at something when you’re fairly young (piano, dancing, acting, violin, gymnastics, painting), you have to stay with it in order to become better and better. Failing to do so is a shame. Hell, it’s a sin.

via GIPHY

I was going to title this post “Dunkirk‘s Last Stand” because in my heart of hearts, I believe that Chris Nolan‘s WWII epic is far superior to either Three Billboards or The Shape of Water, and that God would almost certainly step in and deliver a BAFTA win if he/she/it existed. And that’s not a dismissal of the grand visions of Martin McDonagh or Guillermo del Toro — just a statement of what I regard to be obvious artistic fact.

1:28 Pacific Update: Three Billboards has kicked gill-man’s ass to the ground by taking the BAFTA Best Film Award. What this means, I suspect, is that Martin McDonagh‘s hinterland drama will ride the BAFTA momentum into the Oscar voting, and will wind up winning the Academy Award for, at the very least, Best Original Screenplay. Which will leave the wildly overpraised Get Out high and dry. Three Billboards also won for Best Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell), Outstanding British Film and Best Original Screenplay.

We all know that Shape of Water is locked for the Best Picture and Best Director Oscar, and that’s fine. God is content with that outcome.

Sam Fuller‘s Hyman Roth was a little too warm, too kindly, too paternal. Lee Strasberg was a bit colder and snappier, and that’s what the part needed. Especially during that bare-chested “this is the business we’ve chosen!” speech in that Havana hotel room. Still, Fuller’s performance in this audition/read-through for The Godfather, Part II wasn’t half bad. (Posted six years ago by Heiko van der Scherm.)

Re-posted this evening by m_00_m, but created by Frank Dietz and originally posted on 10.27.16.

I’m about to admit something that will make me sound clueless, but here goes. I’ve always liked the actor who played the big, bald, thorn-fingered genie in Michael Powell, Alexander Korda and William Cameron Menzies‘ The Thief of Bagdad (’40). And I’ve always liked the guy who played the dignified, well-mannered assistant to Ronald Colman‘s Michael Lightcap in George Stevens‘ The Talk of the Town (’42). But until this morning I never realized they were one and the same guy — Rex Ingram.

Rex Ingram as Tilney, the assistant to Ronald Colman’s Michael Lightcap in George Stevens’ The Talk of the Town.

In The Thief of Bagdad.

I was thinking about Ingram yesterday when I realized he’d played a preacher in The Green Pastures, which Armond White mentioned in his review of Black Panther.

I posted this almost exactly a year ago: In no particular order, off the top of my head — the 28 Best Picture winners that have aged the best, still hold up, not necessarily the best of their respective years but entirely respectable: Spotlight (’15), Birdman (’14), 12 Years A Slave (’13), The Hurt Locker (’09), No Country For Old Men (’07), The Departed (’06), Schindler’s List (’93), The Silence of the Lambs (’91), Platoon (’86), Terms of Endearment (’83), Ordinary People (’80), Annie Hall (’77), The Godfather, Part II (’74), The Godfather (’72), The French Connection (’71), Patton (’70), Midnight Cowboy (’69), A Man For All Seasons (’66), Lawrence of Arabia (’62), The Apartment (’60), The Bridge on the River Kwai (’57), On The Waterfront (’54), From Here To Eternity (’53), All About Eve (’50), All The King’s Men (’49), The Best Years of Our Lives (’46), Casablanca (’43) and Moonlight (’16).

A little more than five years ago I wrote a piece called “Gazelles & Beefalos,” which was about odd couplings between beefy, wildebeest-sized guys and slender, attractive hotties. I happened to notice such a couple while eating at West Hollywood’s Astroburger, and I was going “what’s going on here?”

I’m mentioning this because there’s a line in Red Sparrow that applies to this dichotomy. Mary Louise Parker, playing an alcoholic with Washington connections who’s making a sale of secrets to the Russian baddies, says something to the effect of “Russian women are always so hot-looking but the Russian guys often look like toads,” or something close to that.

And the beefalos and gazelles observation is still valid. I saw another disparate couple like this (i.e., clearly together in a hetero sense) on the A train a couple of years ago in Brooklyn, and I just couldn’t believe it. She was almost Cindy Crawford and he was Meat Loaf.