Jeffrey Wells

This trailer tells you that Jacob Bernstein and Nick Hooker‘s Everything Is Copy (HBO, 3.21), a doc about the late Nora Ephron, is chummy, admiring, familial — one of those valentine portraits that occasionally turn up in the wake of a celebrated person’s passing. (Jacob is the son of Ephron and ex-husband Carl Bernstein.) But Variety‘s Nick Schrager says it’s better than that.

“Anything but a morose tale of a bright light snuffed out far too soon, Bernstein’s documentary is an inspiring heartstring-tugger,” he wrote after the doc screened at last September’s NY Film Festival. “Buoyed by proficient nonfiction techniques, it nimbly captures, in both words and images, the spirit of Ephron: a larger-than-life force of nature whose triumphs were born from her unapologetic embrace of ambition, and from her shrewd recognition that honesty, whether sweet or scathing, always goes down better with a dose of humor.”

Here’s most of what I wrote after Ephron passed on 6.26.12:

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Damian Chazelle‘s La-La Land was recently research-screened in Pasadena. I heard (a) “diverting and lightly enjoyable,” (b) “a cute little love letter to old movies, old musicals, and the city of LA” and that (c) Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, the singing-and-dancing leads, are both “really great.” Now TheWrap‘s Jeff Sneider is reporting that La-La Land is being given an award-season slot on 12.2.16 instead of a previously slated 7.15.16 debut.

In other words, they’re figuring that likely critical and industry approval plus an easy Golden Globes nomination for Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical will give the film a better launch than if they just open it in mid-July and hope for the best.

The conventional wisdom is that La-La Land wouldn’t have had a chance against Sony’s Ghostbusters if it had stuck to the 7.15 opening. But of course these films aren’t really competing. La-La Land will appeal to cultured sophistos, fans of old musicals, cineastes, educated types; Ghostbusters is aimed squarely at the animal trade.

This morning I rsvped to a last-minute Brigade invitation to see Gavin Hood‘s Eye in the Sky (Bleecker, 3.11). It happens tomorrow at noon. Right away the publicist replied as follows: “Thanks, Jeffrey — noted. Will keep you posted on confirmation ASAP!” Two minutes later I wrote back: “What does that mean? You’ll…what, let me know if I can attend? It’s a little nickle-and-dime lunch-hour screening.” Publicist: “Correct, we’ve made note of your RSVP and should have word on confirmations by EOD today.” Me: “Can’t wait to find out!”

Seriously, who says “hey, would you like to attend a last-minute screening at noon tomorrow?” and then when you rsvp they turn around and say “okay, cool…we’ll let you know later on if we have a seat for you!”

Update: I’ve been told I’ve made the cut and that they have a seat for me at tomorrow’s noon screening. How flattering!

No biggie…just a moment during yesterday’s afternoon barbeque:

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From 3.7.16 TPM piece, “Lust for Destruction,” by Josh Marshall: “A large segment of the American right is animated by a belief that ‘their’ world, their America is being taken away from them — this includes everything from declining white racial dominance, having to choose whether you want to hear the phone tree message in English or Spanish, changing cultural mores. The whole package. This is the essence of Donald Trump‘s campaign, the most visible and literal part of his appeal — beating back the external threat, the harsh anti-immigrant policies, Muslim bans, flirting with white supremacists, etc.

“Trump is the master of GOP dominance politics — the intrinsic appeal of power and the ability to dominate others. All of this has an intrinsic appeal to America’s authoritarian right, especially in a climate of perceived threat, which has been growing over the last two decades — something political scientists are now catching on to.

“The phenomenon of the imperiled, resentment right is something you’re well familiar with if you’re a close observer of American politics. Back in December we saw this show up in the demographic data in the unprecedented rising mortality rates of middle-aged whites from chronic substance abuse, overdose and suicide. And as the Washington Post‘s Jeff Guo noted last week, the states where middle-aged whites are dying fastest heavily correlate with the states where Trump has had his highest margins.

“Think about that for a second. Trump’s message and policy agenda hits every dimension of threat and change.

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If given a choice between drone-killing a house full of hellbent terrorists and not drone-killing them because a young girl with a hula hoop is frolicking nearby, what would you do? Not a toughie by real-life standards, but a truly agonizing decision by the standards of a Gavin Hood suspense thriller costarring Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul and the late Alan Rickman. But what if you were Dwight D. Eisenhower in early June 1944 and you had two D-Day choices — (a) give the “go” order to invade and eventually defeat the Nazis or (b) not invade and thereby save the lives of God knows how many thousands of innocent French citizens (many of them children) who would inevitably be killed in the crossfire between Allied and Nazi forces. Would you decide against invading? Exactly. The answer to question #1 is a no-brainer.

Eye in The Sky (Bleecker Street, 3.11 NY & LA, 4.1 wide) was well reviewed at last September’s Toronto film Festival — 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, 69% on Metacritic.

Former First Lady and legendary tough cookie Nancy Reagan died today at age 94. She was the toughest, closest and most trusted adviser of her husband, Ronald Reagan, during his California governorship and U.S. Presidency. I never had any strong opinions about her one way or the other. I didn’t dislike her as much as I didn’t care. Except, of course, when she launched her infamous “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign in 1986, which everyone regarded as an embarassment.

But my heart went out to Mrs. Reagan one day about three years ago, give or take. It happened inside Alex Roldan hair salon, which is on the first floor of the London hotel in West Hollywood. She was driven from her Bel Air home to the salon every two or three weeks, my hair guy told me, but she was obviously frail and her legs were apparently gone. I recognized the syndrome as my mother, who passed last June, was going through similar woes at the time. 

Two people — a personal assistant and a hair salon employee — were trying to help Mrs. Reagan move from a shampoo chair into her wheelchair, and it was taking forever.  I was about ten feet away and was on the verge of offering to help. It wasn’t my place, of course, so I just stood there and watched. The poor woman. Old age offers very little dignity, and no mercy at all. Now she’s off the coil.

From a 12.20.89 Washington Post article about Peggy Noonan‘s “What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era“: 

“The most devastating commentary on Reagan comes from this exchange between Noonan and her boss, Bentley T. Elliott…Noonan: ‘The president is clearly an intelligent man, but I get the impression sometimes his top aides don’t think he’s very bright.’   Elliott: ‘There are people who say that’s why the First Lady is so protective of him…because she thinks he’s not smart…because she really thinks he’d do anything, he’s so innocent and dumb.” 

“Noonan gives the First Lady a modicum of sympathy. After all, it’s tough to be confined to a job with no job description. But then, Noonan brings out the long knives:  ‘They called her Evita, they called her Mommy, they called her the Missus and the Hairdo with Anxiety. Her power was everywhere…She was everywhere.'”

Nina Simone will always be a legend. She was obviously a gifted jazz/blues singer. And she was certainly an activist from the mid ’60s to mid ’70s. But “survivor”? She lived until she was 70, but her life became more and more of a disaster zone from 1970 on. Survivors are people who soldier on through great adversity that has rained down upon them. But Liz Garbus‘ What Happened, Miss Simone? makes a convincing case that Simone was her own worst enemy. Pretty much all of her adversity was self-created. A more honest poster for Nina (RLJ, 4.22) would read “Singer. Activist. Legend. Piece of Work.”

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The muffled dialogue and whispery, muttered voice-overs in Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups were barely intelligible when I saw it a month ago. The film is mixed that way. But the subtitles on the German Bluray definitely altered things. I still don’t like this film but I no longer despise it. Because now, at least, I know what some of the characters are on about. Words and sentences are very significant components in our lives; it helps when they’re understood.

At the beginning of the Knight of Cups Bluray a title card suggests that the disc should be played loud. I would have done that but the shitty Sony sound bar I bought the other day can’t go any louder than it already is, which is medium to pronounced.

This spot has obviously been made by a first-rate team. Excellent production values. I wonder how many days it took the Saturday Night Live guys to scout and shoot? Probably two — a day of location scouting (northern New Jersey?), a day of shooting. TV commercials tend to take a couple and sometimes three or four days to shoot, and they always cost a shitload. I’ve watched a couple so don’t tell me. It takes them forever to dress and light shots, and the director is always playing the role of the heavy-cat artist, sitting in his canvas chair like Michelangelo Antonioni…shades, furrowed brow, impassioned discussions with his dp and top crew people.

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Louis C.K. to Conservatives about Donald Trump: “Please stop it with voting for [Donald] Trump. It was funny for a little while, but the guy is Hitler. And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the ’30s. Do you think they saw that shit coming? Hitler was just some hilarious and refreshing dude with a weird comb over who would say anything at all. If you do vote for Trump, at least look at him very carefully first. You owe that to the rest of us. Know and understand who he is. Spend one hour on Google and just read it all. I don’t mean listen to me or listen to liberals who put him down. Listen to your own people. Listen to John McCain.”

At long last, Kino’s Bluray of Richard Fleischer‘s The Vikings (which I pre-ordered some weeks ago) arrives on Tuesday, 3.8. Odin! Shot in Technirama, the same large-format process used to shoot Spartacus, this eye-filling cheeseball epic is sure to look exceptional in high-def.   Not a restoration but certainly an improvement over the old DVD. Brian Orndorf’s Bluray.com review: “Bringing breathtaking vistas to HD, The Vikings Bluray preserves the bigness of the effort. The image (2.35:1 aspect ratio) presentation is generally detailed to satisfaction…a crisp viewing experience that pushes to the natural limits of the original cinematography. Delineation isn’t a problem, handling evening sequences with care. Scenes with mist and fog hit a few pockets of noise. The source remains free of major damage, offering only mild patches of speckling.”

Posted just after Richard Fleischer died in March ’06:

“For me, Fleischer’s peak was The Vikings — the 1958 historical action epic that was mostly dominated by producer-star Kirk Douglas, but was notable for two dramatic elements that still work today.

“One is what seems to happen inside the brawny Viking characters (particularly Kirk Douglas and Ernest Borgnine‘s) whenever Odin, the Nordic God, is mentioned. We hear a haunting, siren-like theme on the soundtrack, and these rough blustery types suddenly stop their loutish behavior and retreat into a childlike emotional place…a place that’s all about awe and fear. This happens maybe three times in this big, unsophisticated popcorn movie (which nonetheless feels far sturdier and more classically composed than a typical big-budget popcorn actioner made today), and each time it does The Vikings has a spirit.

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