Magnolia will open Ruben Ostlund‘s The Square, Palme d’Or winner of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, on 10.27.17.
On 5.19 I called it “an exquisitely dry Swedish satire, mostly set among the wealthy, museum-supporting class in Stockholm. It’s basically a serving of deft, just-right comic absurdity, the high points being two scenes in which refined p.c. swells are confronted with unruly social behaviors. It works because of unforced, low-key performances and restrained, well-honed dialogue.
“Ostlund’s precise and meticulous handling is exactly the kind of tonal delivery that I want from comedies. There isn’t a low moment (i.e., aimed at the animals) in all of The Square, whereas many if not most American comedies are almost all low moments.”
Incidentally: Why do people post clips that you can’t hear very well unless you’re wearing earphones, and even then it’s not quite enough?
“The franchise pile-up that summer has become is a real problem. There are only so many weekends, and only so many times in one season that the world can get totally psyched about the new installment of some series that ran out of creative steam a few episodes ago. There are only so many new character posters and Snapchat filters an ADD-addled public can absorb from April through August. Hollywood could use some new ideas, [but] that’s only been true since the mid-1930’s or so. And putting lots of eggs in a basket is a big risk, as Universal may well find out somewhere down the Dark Universe road. When you make massive 20 year bets on untested ground, lots of ways that can go.” — from today’s edition of Richard Rushfield‘s The Ankler.
It was announced last March that Netflix has acquired global rights to Orson Welles’ unfinished The Other Side of the Wind, and that it will finance the completion of this allegedly out-there film, which was shot in pieces (and on different film formats) between 1970 and ’76.
30-plus years ago director and longtime Welles collaborator Peter Bogdanovich promised Welles he would finish TOSOTW if the latter wasn’t able to. Welles died in ’85 at age 70. I ran into Bogdanovich yesterday at a party and asked how things are going.
The editing is finally beginning this month, he said. All the elements are in Los Angeles, and “1000 reels” are now being scanned and digitized. Peter and a couple of other guys will naturally have to look at everything and then begin this bear of a task. They have that 40-minute assemblage that Orson cut together plus, Bogdanovich said, plus some notes he left behind. “Any chance you’ll make the 2018 Cannes Film festival?,” I asked. Peter shrugged, said something inconclusive.
I talked this morning to a guy who’s heard a couple of things: “It’s a big job. Nineteen hours of footage. They’re aiming for Cannes.”
All the fireworks I saw last night happened at a really nice party we attended. Oh, and Tatyana was very impressed with the Chardonnay. That’s all I’m going to say except that the host has a beautiful large pool and everyone sat near it over the last couple of hours. The last 12 or 15 guests congregated around a patio table under a large cloth umbrella, sipping and chatting in the cool night air. It was probably the most relaxing get-together I’ve attended in many months. Thanks for having us.
A 7.5 Brent Lang Variety piece reports that Chris Nolan‘s Dunkirk (Warner Bros., 7.21) will open in 70mm celluloid in 125 locations. “The widest 70mm release in 25 years,” Lang’s headline proclaims.
Okay but calm down because (a) Joe and Jane Popcorn don’t give that much of a toss, (b) the 70mm Dunkirk roll-out is only 25 theatres larger than the one for Quentin Tarantino‘s The Hateful Eight, and (c) no one except hardcore cinefiles give a damn about this either. I respect Nolan and Tarantino’s devotional belief in the visual power of 70mm, but time has given this once-supreme shooting and projection format the go-by.
IMAX is still terrific (the size alone rules) but Nolan’s thing for 70mm is, I feel, essentially sentimental. Championing 70mm projection as the ultimate cinematic rush experience just doesn’t pass the 2017 smell test. Not in my world, it doesn’t. Ask any honest, forward-thinking cinematographer about the latest 8K cameras or the Arri Alexa 65, which is what War For The Planet of the Apes and portions of The Revenant were shot with. Hell, ask me or anyone who’s seen Matt Reeves’ simian masterpiece — the images are immaculate, stunning, to die for.
See War For The Planet of the Apes in a theatre with state-of-the-art digital projection, and you won’t hear a single soul saying “oh, Lordy, why couldn’t they have shot it in good old IMAX and 70mm instead?” That viewpoint is over.
I’m not suggesting that Dunkirk won’t be luscious to simply gaze at (from a purely visual standpoint it could probably be sold to the American Cinematographer techno-geeks as FUNkirk) but we’ve reached a point in which the difference between IMAX and 70mm celluloid and the latest high-end digital capturings are apples and oranges.
The difference this time, I’m presuming, is that Hoyte van Hoytema‘s large-format cinematography (a combination of 70mm and IMAX) will capture images that are much richer, sharper and more robustly lighted than Robert Richardson‘s 70mm cinematography for The Hateful Eight. 30% of Tarantino’s western used white wintry conditions with the other 70% shot inside a darkly lighted cabin.
I was taking in the splendor of old Hollywood yesterday, and more specifically the Mediterranean-style Crescent Drive mansion where Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn lived from 1946 until his death in ’58. I swear to God I felt Harry hovering nearby, or at least a spectral remnant. “Who the hell are you?” Cohn’s ghost said. “I’m Jeffrey Wells, samurai poet columnist,” I replied, “and one of the few guys in this town who remembers you and even mentions you from time to time so show a little respect.” The ectoplasmic Cohn grumbled as he floated away, heading for the pool area.
All my life I’ve read that Cohn was a crass, tyrannical bully-boss, grudgingly “respected” but feared and most certainly despised. Screenwriter Ben Hecht famously referred to him as “White Fang.” Like other studio chiefs of his day Cohn had a quid pro quo relationship with mob guys, was something of a racist thug (“The Kid in the Middle“, a BBC doc, reports that Cohn had goons threaten Sammy Davis, Jr. over his relationship with Kim Novak), reportedly hastened the death of poor Curly Howard (the woo-woo guy with The Three Stooges) and of course was always trying to fuck the hottest actresses.
Harry Cohn lived here (1000 No. Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills) between 1946 and ’58.
Nobody out-Cohned Cohn. Read Bob Thomas‘s “King Cohn” when you get a chance. Cohn was the model for The Godfather studio chief Jack Woltz (the horse’s head incident never happened but Frank Sinatra almost certainly pleaded for the Pvt. Maggio role during a visit to Cohn’s home). Legend has it he was also the inspiration for Broderick Crawford‘s thick-fingered sugar daddy in Born Yesterday.
But Orson Welles respected Cohn’s dogged gambler instinct [see above], and unlike today’s soul-less corporate lackey studio heads, at least Cohn had movies in his blood. Okay, he could be a prick and yes, he was dead wrong for strongly preferring Aldo Ray to play Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt in From Here To Eternity instead of Montgomery Clift, but you can’t be entirely dismissive of a roster that included It Happened One Night, Lost Horizon, Holiday, Only Angels Have Wings, The Lady From Shanghai, All The King’s Men, Born Yesterday, From Here to Eternity, On The Waterfront, The Caine Mutiny, Picnic, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Hell Cats of the Navy.
The actual CE3K 40th anni is on 11.16.17, but what’s a few weeks? I presume they’ll be re-releasing the original cut (135 minutes) but what do I know? They could also re- release the Directors Cut (137 minutes) and/or the Special Edition (132 minutes).
Ten years ago I ran a piece about the fact that while Spielberg’s Jaws (’75) has aged fairly well, Close Encounters has not. I called the article “Close Encounters Deflation“:
“I’ll always love the opening seconds of Steven Spielberg‘s once-legendary film, which I saw on opening day at Manhattan’s Zeigfeld theatre on 11.16.77. (I wasn’t a journalist or even a New Yorker at that stage — I took the train in from Connecticut that morning.) I still get chills thinking about that black-screen silence as the main credits fade in and out — plainly but ominously. And then John Williams‘ organish space-music sounding faintly, and then a bit more…slowly building, louder and louder. And then that huge orchestral CRASH! at the exact split second that the screen turns the color of warm desert sand, and we’re in the Sonoran desert looking for those WW II planes without the pilots.
“That was probably Spielberg’s finest creative wow-stroke. He never delivered a more thrilling moment after that, and sometimes I think it may have been all downhill from then on, even during the unfolding of Close Encounters itself.
“I saw CE3K three times during the initial run, but when I saw it again on laser disc in the early ’90s I began to realize how consistently irritating it is from beginning to end. There are so many moments that are either stylistically affected or irritating or impossible to swallow, I’m starting to conclude that there isn’t a single scene in that film that doesn’t offend in some way.
“I could write 100 pages on all the things that irk me about Close Encounters. I can’t watch it now without gritting my teeth. Everything about that film that seemed delightful or stunning or even breathtaking in ’77 (excepting those first few seconds and the mothership arrival at the end) now makes me want to jump out the window.
“That stupid mechanical monkey with the cymbals. The way those little screws on the floor heating vent unscrew themselves. The way those Indian guys all point heavenward at the the exact same moment when they’re asked where the sounds came from. MelindaDillon going ‘Bahahahhahhree!’ That idiotic invisible poison gas scare around Devil’s Tower. That awful actor playing that senior Army officer who denies it’s a charade. The way the electricity comes back on in Muncie, Indiana, at the same moment that those three small UFOs drones disappear in the heavens. The mule-like resistance of Teri Garr‘s character to believe even a little bit in Richard Dreyfuss‘s sightings.
“The worst element of all is the way Spielberg has those guys who are supposed to board the mother ship wearing the same red jumpsuits and sunglasses and acting like total robots. Why? No reason. Spielberg just liked the idea of them looking and acting that way. This is a prime example of why his considerable gifts don’t overcome the fact that Spielberg is a gifted hack. He knows how to get you but there’s never anything under the ‘get.'”
I’ve never known my film critic pals to be anything but sharp, knowledgeable, inquisitive, highly charged. But Francois Truffaut was on to something when he suggested during one of the “Hitchcock-Truffaut” discussions that imagination might not be among their strong suits. Paradoxically or not so paradoxically, my imagination got in my way when I was trying to launch myself as a film critic back in the late ’70s. I tried to sound like a “film critic”, but deep down I always had something more free-form and fuck-offish in mind. It took me a long time to find the brass to just be myself. My reactions were always more along the lines of “it would be better if…” rather than “it doesn’t work and here’s why.” In my early struggling years it was my imagination that blocked me, got in the way. Then I embraced it, and then everything started to come together.
Another 4th of July holiday. Blue skies, hot outside, a.c. on, computers humming, the Oppo playing Criterion’s new Straw Dogs Bluray (slight improvement over the 2011 MGM Bluray). On top of which I have a party to attend around 5 pm. Translation: I don’t feel like cranking out fresh material today.
But I feel slightly guilty. I’ve re-examined some 4th of July favorites this morning and they’re all good stuff so why not? Submission #1: “Money Talks,” posted on 10.14.13:
“I never think about what big-name actors and filmmakers are worth. I know most of them are loaded but I don’t care. I’ll read an occasional Forbes article about who’s the richest or highest paid, but you know me — I try to focus on the purely creative and spiritual, what’s going on inside. At least to the extent that external aesthetic choices are often metaphors for “internal affairs,” so to speak.
“Even during my 2009 battle with the legendary Hispanic Party Elephant, the guy who lived upstairs from my place in North Bergen, it was essentially about sensitivity and spiritualism or rather the lack of as that guy was toxic — he was fucking nowhere. I know that if I sense that a woman I’ve met is inordinately impressed by financial splendor, I immediately write her off. The important thing is to do what you love and then live with the rewards of that, whatever they may be. Which is what I’m doing, and I’m reasonably happy as a result. Especially since ’06 or thereabouts.
To me, the heartache of Aura’s sudden passing meant getting another kitten right away. I’ll never stop feeling sad about Aura’s cruel fate (she died after only eight years and a couple of weeks) but you have to get back on the horse. This morning I bought a five-week-old bluepoint Siamese kitten, whom we quickly named Anya. She’s a baby — being fed special young-kitten formula out of a bottle, crying a lot, likes to be constantly held or to sit next to a warm human body. But she’s smart and spirited and very emotionally responsive, like all Siamese. Yes, I know that kittens should stay with their mom until eight or ten weeks of age, but the guy was selling and she only cost $250 so I wasn’t about to school him or look a gift-horse in the mouth.
I don’t expect much from Janus Metz Pedersen‘s Borg vs. McEnroe as a whole, but I want to see it. The hot-tempered, possibly wackadoodle Shia Labeouf playing John McEnroe, the ’70s and ’80s tennis champ known for his emotional tirades and disputes with judges…perfect. Plus I always liked the way McEnroe would emit that combination cry-groan thing with every serve. I expect a classic expletive performance. Hair-trigger McEnroe was beaten by the cool and dispassionate Bjorn Borg at the conclusion of the 1980 Wimbledon Men’s Singles final, but he had his revenge two months later, beating Borg in the five-set final of the 1980 U.S. Open.
