Update: Carrie Fisher‘s brother has told a reporter that she’s currently in ICU and that her condition is “not stable” following a serious heart attack suffered earlier today. Previously: TMZ is reporting that following a heart attack aboard a London-to-LAX flight, Carrie Fisher was “unresponsive” when they landed. The situation occurred 15 minutes before the plane touched down on the tarmac. Witnesses have reportedly said that Fisher appeared unconscious as she was rushed through the terminal. Her eyes were closed and she had an oxygen mask on her face.
Morten Tyldum and Jon Spaihts‘ Passengers, which cost $110 million to produce, opened Wednesday with a lousy $4.1 million. Divide that figure by 3478 screens and you’ve got an average of $1181, which feels light.
TheWrap reported today that Passengers “grossed another $3.23 million on Thursday, having earned $7.3 million so far. [The film] is tracking for a $26 million three-day weekend and $39 million five-day gross.”
Passengers has a 32% Rotten Tomatoes rating and a “B” CinemaScore, and cost around $110 million to produce sans marketing costs.
Deadline‘s Anthony D’Allesandro: “In regards to Passengers, I’m told that should the movie gross $45 to $50 milllion in its first six days that should be fine, but anything under that would be tough sledding. At this point in time, there are several sources who aren’t impressed with the first day figure [of $4 million]. We really need to let the weekend play out through to see where Christmas takes us. It is a six day-weekend.”
Reactions to Passengers from the HE community? What are the views of the ethics of Chris Pratt waking up Jennifer Lawrence, etc.? “Wake me up, wee-yoo…”
Thanks to Variety‘s Jacob Bryant for highlighting 40 of the coming year’s “most anticipated” films. Roughly 70% of these appear to be the usual formulaic, corporate, CG-fortified, franchise-fantasy crap, of course, but that’s entertainment! Seriously, if you want a list of 2017 films with a better-than-reasonable chance of being actually watchable and perhaps even good, consider HE’s List of 65. And the list isn’t quite finished at this stage — the real tally is closer to 70.
Yesterday I received and watched Twilight Time‘s Bluray of John Huston‘s Moby Dick (’56). It delivers an excellent simulation of the appearance of the original release prints — not desaturated but the result of three-strip color prints blended with a black-and-white negative. To my eyes the 1080p image delivers the most striking, well-finessed attempt to imitate what the film looked like to first-run audiences a half-century ago.
The Bluray doesn’t provide an actual recreation of the color process created by Huston and dp Oswald Morris, but it makes Moby Dick look as good as it’s ever going to look in this regard. Call it largely satisfying, and that ain’t hay.
Here’s a portion of a 12.3.15 piece that I ran about Kino DVD version:
“It’s a good time to reconsider the fascinating color scheme — subdued grayish sepia tones mixed with a steely black-and-white flavoring — created by Huston and Morris. This special process wasn’t created in the negative but in the release prints, and only those who caught the original run of the film in theatres saw the precise intended look.
“There have been attempts to simulate this appearance, but the Real McCoy visuals were a different, more distinct animal. I saw about three or four minutes worth of an original Moby Dick release print at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn theatre sometime in the early to mid ’90s, and I’m telling you there was something spooky about them. I was riveted by how striking and other-worldly the color looked — something that wasn’t really ‘color’ as much a mood painting that came from someone’s (or some lab’s) drizzly damp November soul.
“I’d love to visually convey to HE readers what the 1956 release prints of Moby Dickreally looked like — that wonderful silvery overlay, distinctive but muted and mixed with grayish color. But with luscious black levels.
Why is the highly perceptive Michael Musto predicting Manchester By The Sea to win the Best Picture Oscar, and not the blogaroo-adored La La Land? Because “there’s nothing there” inside La La Land, Musto claims — thematically it’s merely saying “follow your dreams” — while Manchester is made of the same family-rooted, finely-wrought stuff that led Ordinary People (’80) to a Best Picture win. Those who feel Manchester is too gloomy will probably do what they can to pooh-pooh this prediction, but the combination of both Musto andIndiewire‘s Anne Thompson betting on Manchester means something. HE position: As one who adores La La Land, I would be delighted if it wins the Best Picture Oscar. But honestly? I love and respect Manchester a bit more.
Director Joe Dante recently forwarded my 12.20 riff about the curious absence of William Cameron Menzies‘ Invaders From Mars (’53) to rights holder Wade Williams. Dante posted Williams’ reply a few hours ago in the comment thread, and Williams has forcefully explained that the rights-squatter allegations are a bad rap or a thin beef, or both.
The basic reveals are that (a) over the last 12 months Williams has had “offers” on Invaders From Mars from Criterion, Kino, Arrow, Twilight Time, Olive and Shout Factory but “none have come through” (whatever that means), and (b) Williams nonetheless believes that “after the first of the year we will either restore [Invaders From Mars] or a new licensee will come forth.”
Williams’ email to Dante: “Invaders From Mars has been available from licensee Image Entertainment for nearly a decade,and before that via Rhino, Englewood Entertainment, Nostalgia Merchants, Starlog Video and the usual pirates.
“Image had access to the negative, separations, trailer and Cinecolor prints. The Image license just expired last January and they had a six-month sell off period. The film has only recently reverted back to me.
“Since last December I have had offers on Mars and other titles from major distributors — Criterion, Kino, Arrow, Twilight Time, Olive and Shout Factory. None came thru. I am not personally set up to manufacture, restore/rescan and distribute DVD’s at this time. I am selling off the leftover ‘overstock’ from Image on Ebay.
“The YouTube/Amazon piracy of uploaders have dampened the desire for classic films on every level worldwide and discourages any worthwhile distributor from investing in new masters for new releases.
“I have attempted for many years to explain why a mint-perfect release on Mars is a problem and I will say it one more time.
Based on conversations with Oscar voters, Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson suspects that Manchester By The Sea might be the stronger Best Picture contender than La La Land. She also believes that La La Land‘s failure to win a Best Ensemble SAG nomination might turn out to be a significant uh-oh. (She’s not the only one.) She also sees Natalie Portman‘s BFCA Best Actress as possible cause for concern among Emma Stone‘s handlers. (On the other hand Stone has lately been surging with critics groups, not just winning a Best Actress award from the Utah critics but also from critics in Detroit and Phoenix, which also indicates that the Isabelle Huppert steamroller effect has come to a halt.) At the same time Thompson believes that 20th Century Women‘s Annette Bening is pretty much locked for a Best Actress nomination.
Movie actors either magnetize, neutralize or leave you cold. Charlie Hunnam has always made me feel…not that much. I didn’t even notice him in Cold Mountain (’03) and ChildrenofMen (’06). He popped through to some extent, I guess, in Guillermo del Toro‘s Pacific Rim (’13) and Crimson Peak (’15), but I was still left wondering what it was that Hunnam supposedly had. I didn’t feel anything special, whatever it was.
Then I caught his performance as legendary explorer Percy Fawcett in James Gray‘s The Lost City of Z, maybe nine or ten weeks ago at the New York Film Festival, and I said to myself, “Okay, that’s it…I really don’t like this guy…I don’t like his voice, his hair, his stiff manner of speech, the absence of magnetism, the deadness in his eyes.”
I began saying this to myself around the 25-minute mark. At the same time I was starting to feel concerned about how much longer The Lost City of Z would last. I looked at my watch….Jesus God, almost another two hours!
I was sitting in a rear-center seat in Alice Tully Hall, and for some wimpish reason I didn’t want to get up and risk stepping on 15 or 16 pairs of feet on the way out so I figured, “Stop it..be a man and stick this out…you can do it.”
I made it to the end but it was brutal, dawg. By the time The Lost City of Z I had concluded that I really, really don’t want to watch another movie with Hunnam in the lead.
An obsessive who wound up tramping through the Brazilian jungle on seven different expeditions in order to find a lost civilization, the 58 year-old Fawcett disappeared on the final trek, which ended sometime in late May of 1925. The Lost City of Z is about Fawcett’s numerous jungle explorations, which began in ’06 and ended, as noted, some 19 years later.
I’ve never watched a film about exploring exotic realms that has had less energy, less excitement, less of a pulse. I was just watching the damn thing and hoping against hope that Hunnam would be killed by a native spear or a wild animal or by falling off a cliff into raging rapids. I knew he wouldn’t die until the end of the film, but I wanted blood all the same. I started imagining ways to kill him. Anything to take my mind off the film.
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman has called Gray’s film “Apocalypse Now meets Masterpiece Theatre,” except there’s no Kurtz and certainly no payoff at the end. It’s not exactly torture to sit through, but it’s pretty close to that.
If you’ve read this column for any length of time you know about the “JamesGraycabal,” and that these guys will pretty much worship anything Gray does. I swear to God there’s somethingwrongwiththesecabalguys but let’s not get hung up on this one point.
Gray’s film is based upon a 2009 book of the same name by David Grann. Maybe that’s the best way to go — read Grann’s book and then wade through the film. All I can say for sure is that I was dead fucking bored.
Yesterday I learned that Sundance Film Festival media relations guy Jason Berger has taken away my beloved Express Pass, which I was honored to carry for five straight festivals (’12 thru ’16) and by which I had easy access to screenings and therefore some extra, extremely valuable writing time.
I feel heartbroken, to put mildly. And angry. Anyone would be. I’m still a member in good standing but my Sergeant stripes have been torn off. I’ve been asked to turn in my key to the executive washroom. I don’t think it’s excessively prima donna-ish to say that I feel as if I’ve been kicked in the privates.
For five years Hollywood Elsewhere strolled side by side with the Sundance Film Festival elite, getting right into Eccles, MARC, Library and Prospector screenings like a hotshot, and now that chapter is over. Even with an Express Pass covering Sundance was always an endurance test, but at least it softened the experience to some extent.
The result is that barring an act of mercy from some higher power (God, Robert Redford, someone), I’ll be back with the grunts for the 2017 festival, which starts in four weeks. Back in the mosh pit, waiting in lines, requesting tickets in advance from the press office, bumming tickets from publicists, forced to hit the Holiday Cinemas pass-holders tent at least 45 minutes or an hour before a given screening, etc. And my access to public Eccles screenings, where a lot of the action often takes place, will be catch-as-catch-can.
Which means I may or may not get into the first showing of a hot Eccles premiere, and may have to write about it two or three days later. Is that an absolute tragedy? No, but I was right there and filing like a hammer when Manchester By The Sea and The Birth of a Nation had their first big screenings. I was right on top of these events, and I may not be next month. Or maybe I’ll get in anyway — who knows?
But it’ll definitely be harder and take longer and involve more sweat and strain. Maybe with all the standing around my plantar fasciitis will start acting up again.
Anyone who says they haven’t considered an oft-mentioned analogy between Adolf Hitler and a certain sociopathic, egoistic, climate-change-denying, shoot-from-the-hip bigot politician who’s about to assume high office is lying. Which leads to a question I’m not asking which someone might be pondering after they see this trailer. You know what I mean. Boilerplate: “Oliver Hirschbiegel‘s 13 Minutes is about a working-class family man who became so infuriated at the Nazi party that he secretly constructed a time bomb and placed it under a stage where Hitler was scheduled to deliver a speech. Ultimately, Hitler cut his speech short by 13 minutes and had left the building before the bomb went off. Elser was eventually found, arrested, mercilessly interrogated for days, and thrown in a concentration camp.” 13 Minutes will open in select U.S. theaters on 3.17.17.
2016 will be remembered for a lot of shitty things, and one of them is how the Twitter harridans trashed the reputations of Bernardo Bertolucci and Marlon Brando, basically for misunderstood, bullshit-level reasons. All Brando and Bertolucci did, really, was fail to confer in advance with Maria Schneider on the day they shot the Last Tango in Paris butter scene. Inconsiderate and sexist? Sure, okay, but far from heinous and totally divorced from any concept of assault, which is what Jessica Chastain and others tweeted about in the early stages. Bertolucci called the hoo-hah a “ridiculous misunderstanding.”
Two or three years ago I started to get the idea that distributors would be sending out 1080p Bluray screeners instead DVD screeners to Academy and guild members + BFCA members and elite press. But the only instance of this happening was/is with La La Land. Some Academy/guild members have received Bluray discs while others been sent DVDs. Does anyone know of any other instances of Blurays being sent to the usual suspects?
The National Enquirer‘s hiring of Dick Morris last June ensures that the supermarket tabloid will continue to kowtow to the secular-reality-processing inclinations of hinterland morons, as it always has. The Ford thing (manufacturing of Lincoln SUVs) is real to some extent, but the Carrier thing was deceptive, way over-inflated.
Every now and then you look back at this or that Oscar winner and ask, “What was the Academy thinking?” Or, if you’re someone like myself, you ask yourself “What was I so excited about? Why didn’t I just man up and express respectful disagreement instead of going along with the pack mentality?”
My current object of Oscar remorse is the Best Actor trophy that Jeff Bridges won for Crazy Heart in early 2010. I never really liked that film or even Bridges’ performance. I respected the chops — he was real, honest, un-actorish — but I never really liked the guy he was playing (too grizzled and pot-bellied, too many cigarettes, too much booze) or the film, for that matter. I just went along with the gladhanders who were saying “Jeff!…Jeff Bridges, what a great guy!…and what a great career!….Oscar, Oscar….show Jeff the love!”
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeff Bridges in Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart.
So I was feeling a little bummed this morning about what I failed to say (or thought I’d failed to say) in late ’09 and early ’10. And yet when I re-read my original 11.13.09 review of Crazy Heart, I realized I actually wasn’t the obsequious sell-out that I thought myself to be. The following passages restoreth my soul:
Excerpt #1: “Jeff Bridges is definitely in the Best Actor derby for his performance as a grizzled, pot-bellied, booze-swilling, cigarette-sucking ex-country music legend on the downswirl who just manages to save himself from self-destruction. It’s an honestly scuzzy performance — Bridges’ best since The Big Lebowski but tonally opposite and much harder hitting, of course.”
2016 verdict: No ass-kissing here, but an honest assessment of what would probably happen, and I was right.
Excerpt #2: “It’s the same kind of ‘look how gross and dessicated I can be’ performance that Orson Welles gave in Touch of Evil — and I say that with genuine respect. Bridges really swan-dives into the toilet, you bet. No sweeteners, no movie-star charm moments, no winking…except when his character is on-stage.”
