Excerpts from my 10.15 review of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (TriStar, 11.11), posted from NY Film Festival on 10.15.16: “I went into last night’s 6 pm screening with high expectations for the 120 frames-per-second, 4K 3D photography (I’ve been a general fan of HFR for decades) and a slight sense of caution and uncertainty about the basic bones of the thing, which all along had sounded to me like an Iraq War rehash of Clint Eastwood‘s Flags Of Our Fathers (the gap between hollow patriotic pageantry and the harsh realities of war) and therefore nothing new.
“And then I saw it and the cards got all shuffled around. The tech aspect impressed but also underwhelmed in certain ways. My eyes became used to the hyper-clarity after a while, and as the acclimation took hold I began to search for the usual nutritional stuff, and to my surprise Billy Lynn gradually sank in and delivered — not in a rock-your-world sense but in quiet, unforced terms. The story, acting and plain-dealing emotion bring things to a mid-level boil.
Will Mel Gibson‘s Hacksaw Ridge (Summit, 11.4) earn any Oscar nominations? The favorable reviews and robust box office (it earned $12 million from 2886 theatres last weekend) suggest that Gibson could earn a Best Director nom…maybe. But that bushy white beard he’s been wearing makes him look like Duck Dynasty‘s Phil Robertson, and this only reminds industry yoters that he’s a rabid arch-conservative, which in turn reminds everyone of his fly-off-the-handle comments of a decade ago that turned him into an industry pariah.
So if Gibson really wants to turn over a new leaf he’ll lose the beard. But the beard isn’t “his” — it’s for a film he’s shooting (or about to shoot) called The Madman and the Scholar. Gibson will portray noted lexicographer and Oxford English Dictionary author James Murray“>James Murray, and Sean Penn will play Penn will play Dr. William Chester Minor, a retired army surgeon who contributed thousands of quotations to the O.E.D., while residing in an insane asylum. (Here’s my Hacksaw Ridge review.) So the beard stays.
(l. to r.) Hacksaw Ridge director, Madman and the Scholar star Mel Gibson, British lexicographer and Oxford English Dictionary editor James Murray, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson.
50-something years separate these two Warren Beatty photos — the gray-haired version taken last night with Rules Don’t Apply star Lily Collins at the Hollywood Film Awards, and the brown-haired version snapped at either the 1962 or ’63 Oscar awards, which he attended with Natalie Wood. The fact that Beatty plays the famously reclusive Howard Hughes in Rules allows me to mention the late Tony Curtis (who became a Hollywood Elsewhere pally 16 years ago), and how he once told Bill McCuddy that Hughes and John Wayne “wouldn’t like” Brokeback Mountain.
Curtis also told me the following during a chat we had at the Beverly Glen shopping mall in March 2000: “Can I tell you a story, Jeffrey? In 1948, when I was 23 or 24, when I first came out here I lived in a house on Fountain Avenue. I rented a room there. And they had a swimming pool. I had an appointment and I got on a trolley car…they were running right down the middle of the freeway back then. Then I got back, I jumped into the pool, I took a shower, got dressed and got into the car, and drove up here to meet you. That’s how quick these 50-fucking-two years have gone…quick as that.’”
“Susan Sarandon endorsed Jill Stein. That’s it. That’s the joke.” — spoken last night by James Corden during opening monologue for last night’s Hollywood Film Awards. (Sarandon was in the room, having agreed to present a Best Actress award to Jackie‘s Natalie Portman.) Second best line from HE’s own Jonah Hill as he introduced honoree Leonardo DiCaprio: “As a right-wing Republican, I believe that science is just for pussies and Jews.” — from Mia Galuppo’s Hollywood Reporter story about the Hollywood Film Awards.
I’ve been waiting for HBO’s Westworld to shift into a more exacting and aggressive mode. It’s almost starting to feel like a Gordian Knot thing. It’s not that I’m irked by the way it’s been threading and expanding and the way all the layers are accumulating and densifying, which is interesting as far as it goes. And I like that one of the tease threads (of which there are many) is flirting with the idea of Jeffrey Wright‘s Bernard being a host or, better yet, perhaps a “mole” version of Arnold (i.e., the allegedly deceased co-founder and former partner of Anthony Hopkins‘ Ford).
And yes, I respect the hard, herculean effort required to juggle 17 significant characters and give them all interesting things to say and do and shoot back at, and I love the great sets and scenery and whatnot. And I liked the Eyes Wide Shut-like orgy scene from a couple of weeks ago.
Westworld honcho Ford (Juggernaut-era Anthony Hopkins) and his dead father. Or maybe his deceased partner Arnold. You tell me.
Westworld has definitely been holding my interest. It’s a smart, well-organized effort from a lot of bright, talented people who want to shake the tree and sample exotic fruit. It’s not boring me. Every Sunday night I’ve said to myself, “Okay, great, here we go.”
But over the last couple of episodes (the sixth, “The Adversary”, premiered last night), I’ve been saying “okay, maybe this time something will finally start to happen.” Because so far it’s been all slow-mo buildup and atmospheric layering and tantalizing embroideries and diddly-doo plot wanking. Last night Hopkins and a little-kid droid came upon a dead rotting dog, and I suddenly said to myself, “The fuck? Why am I watching a dead dog?” Something snapped. I was suddenly tired of the bullshit.
I don’t want to even flirt with the idea of all these story lines taking place concurrently. Who gives a shit?
To me, Westworld is feeling more and more like a longform puzzler and head-scratcher for nerds. Intercut, yes, with ultra-violent, Wild Bunch-like shoot-outs and occasional nudity moments (not just Thandie Newton, Evan Rachel Wood and James Marsden but sagging grizzly guys with thimble-sized dicks) in the lab, but essentially it’s a puzzle maze for gamers and dweebs.
The fact that David Chen does a weekly Slashfilm podcast called “Decoding Westworld” tells you everything.
“The Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776, proclaimed that the 13 American colonies were detaching themselves from English rule and were therefore free and independent states — quite a brave thing, raised quite a rumpus. The United States of America would not become relatively united and cohesive until after the end of the Civil War, of course, but for 135 years the U.S. of A. at least approximated the idea of a nation more or less bonded by shared beliefs, convictions and social goals. That’s obviously no longer true. Today the U.S. of A. is impossibly divided and never the twain shall meet. The right has gone totally around the bend. The urban Blues are the Czech Republic and the rural Reds are Slovakia, and I really think it’s time for the Czechs to sign a new Declaration of Independence and cut those bozos loose.” — posted on 7.4.14.
Casey Affleck “is on the precipice of wider glory…with his much praised lead performance as a grief-stricken janitor in Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea (Roadside, 11.18),” writesN.Y. Times award-season columnist Cara Buckley. “The movie, and Mr. Affleck’s turn, drew gasps at this year’s big film festivals, along with awards chatter; the accolades heaped on Mr. Affleck included ‘the performance of his career.’
“All of which makes him squirm, or so he says. ‘The idea of someone not liking me or not liking my movie was always easier to deal with than someone really liking it,’ Mr. Affleck, 41, said in an interview last month in Manhattan. ‘I don’t know why.'”
I’ll tell him why. Most of what sounds like praise is gushy and fleeting and probably insincere to some extent, but dislike or disapproval are fairly trustworthy, at least over the short haul.
The essence of Affleck’s Lee Chandler character in Manchester is an inability to put aside a painful episode, to forgive one’s self, to move on. Some people don’t relate to a character like Lee because we’re all committed to a positive, make-it-better attitude — healing, self-improvement, growing, opening doors. But everybody has something bad that they’ve done (or have failed to do) that they can’t forgive themselves for. Everyone. For me it’s something I did when I was five or six, when I beat what looked to me like a snapping turtle with a stick, beating it so hard that I made the turtle’s shell bleed. I also feel pretty badly about descending into vodka abuse from ’93 to early ’96, and the shit that came out of that.
Everyone has one or two of these episodes stuck in their craw, and if you can’t relate to Lee Chandler’s plight in Manchester, you’re probably being dishonest with yourself to some extent.
From Alan Rappeport N.Y. Times story, posted less than an hour ago: “The F.B.I. informed Congress on Sunday that it has not changed its conclusions about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, [and thereby] removing a dark cloud that has been hanging over her campaign two days before Election Day.
“James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, said in a letter to members of Congress that ‘based on our review we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.’
“The news that the bureau was looking at emails that it found on the computer of a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, Huma Abedin, rocked the presidential race last month and provided a new opening for Donald J. Trump.
“Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said in a post on Twitter that the campaign was always confident that she would be cleared of any wrongdoing. ‘We were always confident nothing would cause the July decision to be revisited,’ Mr. Fallon said. ‘Now Director Comey has confirmed it.'”
When this Laurel & Hardy scene was shot sometime in the early ’30s, laughing a little too loudly in a restaurant was regarded as a social faux pas. Nowadays it’s completely normal and even de rigueur for people to laugh like Stan Laurel and then some — shrieking like hyenas, throwing their heads back — in cafes, restaurants and bars. Especially among women who’ve had a couple of glasses of wine. In the same sense that George C. Scott‘s General Patton claimed that he fought in a famous battle between the Romans and the Cathaginians, I am that moustache-wearing guy sitting behind L&H who twice turns around to give Stan the stink-eye. I am also that woman seething at the table.
I hate, hate, hate the idea of paying to see Doctor Strange sometime this afternoon. I loved Antman and the first two Captain Americas, but I despise the cultural scourge and stylistic CG oppression of Marvel/D.C. product. And yet I have to see the damn thing because of the massive numbers ($84,989,000 domestic, $240,400,000 foreign = $325,389,000 worldwide) and because L.A. Daily News critic Bob Strauss called it “lysergic.” (Glengarry Glen Ross‘s Ricky Roma says: “Lysergic? Fuck you!”) I’m presuming that HE readers have seen it — please weigh in.
Denzel Washington‘s Fences (Paramount, 12.25), which everyone saw last night, is going to kick major Oscar nomination ass — guaranteed noms for Best Picture, Best Director (Denzel), Best Actor (ditto) and Best Supporting Actress (Viola Davis, 100% locked to win)…bare minimum. Mykelti Williamson may snag a Best Supporting Actor nom as Denzel’s mentally damaged brother.
I can’t “review” it until the embargo lifts, but c’mon…we were all there last night. It screened, it happened. Fences is stagey but clean (i.e., unfettered), eloquent, emotionally affecting, smooth and damn near close to perfect. It’s a heartfelt, beautifully refined thing, and every semi-intelligent moviegoer over 30 will rush to see it. The unwashed, un-cultured morons will say it’s not cinematic or Dr. Strange-y enough and stay away, but what else is new?
Last night’s blowout screening happened at the Westwood Village; the after-party at Napa Valley Grille. The post-screening q & a included Denzel, Viola and costars Stephen Henderson (who’s also in Manchester By The Sea), Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson, Jovan Adepo and newcomer Saniyya Sidney, who’s also in Hidden Figures and is absolutely destined for stardom.
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Denzel Washington, costar Stephen Henderson during Fences after-party at Napa Valley Grille.
(l. to r.) Fences costars Russell Hornsby, Jovan Adepo, Saniyya Sidney, Denzel Washginton, Stephen Henderson, Mykelti Washington at Napa Valley Grille.
(l.) Fences dp Charlotte Bruus Christensen (Life, The Girl on the Train, about to start shooting Molly’s Game), HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko (Inside Job, Inequality for All, Red Army).
Mr. Robot‘s Rami Malek has been hired to play Queen’s Freddie Mercury in that same biopic/band saga that has been stuck in neutral, fraught with creative differences, since 2010 or thereabouts. Sacha Baron Cohen, who would’ve been a perfect Freddy, bailed earlier this year after working on the project for six years, mainly because of conflicts with Queen member Brian May, who allegedly wanted a somewhat sanitized, upbeat portrait of the late singer. Bryan Singer has signed to direct the Queen film, which will be called Bohemian Rhapsody. It will be produced by GK Film’s Graham King, and based on a screenplay by Anthony McCarten (The Theory of Everything). Malek doesn’t feel right — he certainly doesn’t look like Mercury — but he might be okay. I have a bad feeling about this. One way or another May and the other gatekeepers will, I suspect, compromise the story or sand off the edges or whatever.
