Jeffrey Wells

What am I missing?

I honestly hadn’t noticed it until Facebook‘s Robert Chandler posted about it yesterday. Be honest — don’t “say” you knew all along unless you really did.

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I’m definitely not predicting that Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid will snag a Best Picture nomination early next year. It’s way too unconventional for those dumb-ass, easy-lay SAG-AFTRA voters who loved EEAAO, but it is the kind of unhinged, wackazoid, Fellini-esque family psychodrama that deserves such an honor.

I’m serious as a heart attack. I was expecting hell but it kind of knocked me flat. Not altogether but close. The craziest, trippiest and least predictable film I’ve seen since I don’t remember what.

It’s a nightmare comedy that’s really out there and ooh, man, does it swing for the fences! At the very least it’s a solid triple. Speaking as a confirmed LQTM-er it means something, trust me, that I laughed out loud four or five times.

I can’t call this 179-minute crazytown film “pleasant” but aside from a couple of sluggish spots it’s truly fascinating and exciting as fuck for the most part. Not a perfect film but unmistakably brave and intelligent and immaculately conceived and constructed, and certainly all of a piece.

It struck me as mining similar turf as that which the Coen’s A Serious Man lies upon, only way more surreal. Is it God or your mother who’s out to torture you to death, or are you the bad guy, consumed by cowardice and self-loathing?

During the super-imaginative first 60% to 70% I was thinking Beau would be a great film to watch with a little lysergic acid diathylamide in my system, but I wasn’t thinking along those lines during the last third, which is alternately loopy and sexual and fiercely guilt-trippy (please, mama!) and intense.

Even when it’s not fully working, it’s a brilliant tour de force on a Fellini Satyricon level…hoo-hoo and cuckoo…through the looking glass & down the white rabbit hole…a truly no-holds-barred, psychologically warped Wizard of Oz mescaline nightmare, unleashed and unloosed…a fine madness…demonic, crazy-ass shit and much of it half mind-blowing and half-hilarious.

Paunchy, balding and unshaven Joaquin Phoenix whimpers and weeps and moans his way through the whole thing, but like a hemophiliac with blood pouring out of his arm. Patti Lupone is amazing, . blistering — instant Best Supporting Actress noms. And it’s great to have Parker Posey back in the swing of it!

This is a landmark feat of imaginative wackazoid filmmaking. Yowsah!

Buried under Renfield’s pornoviolent overkill approach is a half-amusing idea about Dracula’s long-suffering, insect-eating servant (Nicholas Hoult) looking to free himself from an agonizing toxic relationship with his narcissistic, fang-toothed, blood-sucking master (Nicolas Cage).

The trailer was fairly amusing; the feature is foul, profane, over-acted, bludgeoning crap.

I lasted exactly 47 minutes, and I almost hate myself for not walking out sooner.

Director Chris McKay, working from a screenplay by Ryan Ridley and a story by Robert Kirkham, had no faith in the comic seed of this thing, and decided that the only way to go was to beat the shit out of the story and pulverize the audience concurrently. It’s one of the most sickening, soul-deadening, simian-level…I take that back as I don’t want to insult apes.

There’s really and truly something wrong with McKay and the people who helped produce this thing. Depraved, I mean. They’re helping to stink-bomb a once-proud or at least respectable industry. They should be indicted and prosecuted. I’m serious.

The great Pedro Almodovar on Strange Way of Life, a Brokeback Mountain-ish, seemingly tongue-in-cheek short that will debut next month in Cannes:

The brilliant title of this post was thought up by “Filmklassik”, not me.

The iPhone camera somehow diminishes the yellow and violet blossoms. The colors don’t quite pop like they do with the naked eye.

Spoiler whiners are little babies whose sole…okay, primary concern is subject matter (i.e., “then what happens?”).

You’ve gone through college and decades of living and struggling and you still don’t understand that subject matter is oatmeal?…a thing to start with but also a form of confinement if you allow it to run things? It’s the lowest and most rudimentary form of absorption and processing that a film or streaming-drama viewer can possibly know. For peons only.

But to the whiners subject matter is their Lord and Ruler…a flag, a way of life, a Gregorian chant. To 95% of viewers, subject matter is damn near everything.

Around 11 pm last night somebody told me what had happened on Succession, and urged me to watch episode 3 straight away. Firstly I thanked them, and secondly it only whetted my appetite.

Having been tipped off didn’t affect my enjoyment of any of the elements (story, acting, dialogue, visual strategy) IN THE SLIGHTEST WAY. Do you know why? Because I’m not an infant. Because I’ve achieved a semblance of an adult perspective in my life.

A teenaged friend once spoiled the ending of Nicholas Ray’s King of Kings (‘61). Not just the crucifixion part but the resurrection stuff…all of it. I’ve never forgiven him.

“The singer, not the song”…shut up! Bastard! I don’t want to know you!

However, HE’s basic limited spoiler avoidance policy (i.e., always wait two weeks after a film opens unless everyone else has already spoiled it) remains in place. Same policy regarding shocking plot turns on extended streaming series (i.e., mum’s the word for two weeks unless it’s been spoiled by everyone else right away, in which case it’s fine to jump into the pool).

HE’s Cannes Film Festival policy is to exercise restraint whenever appropriate, but if everyone else spoils I’m not going to hold out.

Or do I mean “mainstream kiss of death”?

Answer: That recent Facebook post about Ari Aster ‘s Beau Is Afraid by IndieWire ‘s Eric Kohn.

If you know how Kohn assesses and writes and what his often generous reviews sometimes really signify, reading that sentence was like hearing the sound of a condemned man’s neck snapping.

Honestly? I first smelled trouble when I saw the face of Armen Nahapetian, who plays Joaquin Phoenix’s titular character at age 14 or so, in an early one-sheet. Nothing I could put my finger on, but, to paraphrase Bill Maher, I just knew.

Kohn’s self-description in his Super Mario Bros. review: “An optimist who searches for the potential of movies to thrive wherever they can”

It happened last night, and I, for one, was deeply impressed by the fact that the first knock of the door wasn’t dramatized and was in fact barely shown, certainly as far as the departed was concerned.

And it really held you. It was all about awkward, anxious, dumbfounded, grieving, semi-stumbling reactions. Truly excellent writing and direction. Palpable anxiety, fascinating behavior, etc. And it was only episode 3.

Small side issue: I distinctly recall, in my early to mid 30s, feelings of trepidation and even, truth be told, horror as I began to grapple with facial puffiness (sugar and wine). It’s your body telling you to cut down on the partying and to join a health club.

Last night was my first taste of season #4, and I’m afraid that this syndrome (and I’m not faulting) is beginning to afflict poor Sara Snook, certainly compared to her appearance over the first couple of seasons. Not a tragedy, not a felony, just saying.

…if a gifted, pro-level artist could paint or compose a serious “Meryl Streep and all her significant roles” group portrait — not a cut-and-paste job like this thing but one in all of these Meryl incarnations are freshly considered and re-angled (i.e., not dependent on marketing materials).

I can’t unsee this Psycho set photo, and particularly John Gavin’s man-toes and especially those hush-puppy slip-ons. I’m sorry but the man’s stock has just dropped a few points, and I mean eternally.

BTW: This was shot during filming of the Phoenix hotel room scene, and Janet Leigh’s satin or silk bathrobe is the same one that “Marion Crane” wore just prior to taking a shower in cabin #1 at the Bates Motel.

I’ve watched and re-watched The Big Country since it hit Bluray in 2011, and especially since the much improved KL Studio Classic version was released in ‘18. I know this film cold, every scene and line and Technirama shot, every bridge and stanza in Jerome Moross’s score, etc.

But until last night, I hadn’t noticed a very glaring element in the final shot, the one in which Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons and Alfonso Bedoya ride down a rugged mountain trail and into a large valley below.

Throughout the entire film the dominant outdoor color (aside from the sky) is pale straw…the landscape is seemingly under-watered and parched as far as the camera can see, the dry prairie grass covering the plains and hills in every direction.

And then in the final shot and for the first time in the film, the entire valley is covered in green.

Was this a visual metaphor that director William Wyler decided upon, signifying health and ample water and a happy ending as far as human nature allowed? Or had nature simply shifted gears or seasons by sprouting fresh grass toward the end of principal photography?

I know that I can’t recall another outdoor film, western or not, in which an entire eye-filling landscape changes its mind so completely at the very last moment.