Don’t…y’know, beat me over the head with a guilt stick. Make it feel like Costa-Gavras’s Z. That’s all I’m saying. Don’t Detroit me.
Jeffrey Wells
Joaquin Phoenix’s “Distended Testicles”
Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid (A24, 4.21) was previewed yesterday (Saturday, 4.1) to a paying audience at Brooklyn’s Alamo Draft House (445 Albee Square, Brooklyn, NY 11201), and Variety’s Brent Lang was apparently there to endure it.
Before reading any further, HE readers are requested to read Wikipedia’s longish Beau Is Afraid synopsis, which goes on for eight bulky paragraphs.
Presuming that the synopsis is legit, Aster’s 179-minute “horror comedy” (set to open in select IMAX theaters on 4.14 before opening wider on 4.21) is apparently some kind of grotesque, audience–punishing fantasia — a surreal acid trip version of a 21st Century Alice in Wonderland-meets-Homer’s The Odyssey, except with a bloated, gray-haired, “twitchy and over-medicated” Phoenix in the Alice role — and not for the faint of heart.
A few excerpts from Lang’s article, which was filed late Saturday afternoon:
(1) Q&A moderator Emma Stone to Aster following the screening: “Are you okay, man?”
(2) The film features a paint-drinking, antagonistic teenaged protagonist (Kylie Rogers), an animated sequence, a “recurring gag involving Phoenix’s distended testicles”, and “a sex scene with [the mid 50ish] Parker Posey that may rank among the wackiest ever committed to film.”
(3) “The [Draft House] crowd seemed to love it, although the general public may have a tougher time” with this “bladder–testing epic.”
(4) Aster comment during the Stone Q&A: “I want [the audience] to go through [Phoenix’s] guts and come out of his butt.”
(5) The black-garbed Phoenix attended the screening but chose not to participate in the Q&A.
Lang’s article ends as follows:
Guide to Modern Urban Living
Instead of using the term “tiresome fanatical woke asshole,” use “super-sensitive word monk.”
Where’s The Upside In Scorsese Avoiding Cannes Competition?
It’s been confirmed by Variety’s Elsa Keslassy that Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon will not only play the ‘23 Cannes Film Festival but debut on Saturday, 5.20, and will thereby avoid the dreaded opening-night slot.
It tends to be bad business all around for a serious film to open the festival. Occupying that berth usually means there’s something a tiny bit flabby and less than snap-crackle-pop about the film in question. Thank God Flower Moon has chosen to avoid that signage.
Keslassy reports that the festival hasn’t specified whether or not Scorsese’s film will play in or out of competition. Wouldn’t it seem odd if a decision is made to screen it out of competition? Just asking.
Mystifying Ski-Slope Aftermath
In the wake of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Park City victory against Terry Sanderson, the usual pests and trolls tried to characterize my anti-Paltrow stance as deranged or jaundiced on some level. Here’s how I responded this morning:
Their stories wildly diverged, and I was fairly astonished by the apparent fact that either Gwyneth or Sanderson were flat–out lying. We all understand that ski slope accidents occasionally happen. I just couldn’t figure it. Why sue if you don’t firmly believe you’re in the right, and can present a strongly compelling case to that effect?
Sanderson waited three years to file the lawsuit, obviously having loads of time to ponder the situation and calculate the odds and cost. Why file if there was a reasonable chance that an impartial jury might hold with Paltrow? Why go through all of that time and effort and expense if there was any half-reasonable likelihood that the jury might decide that it was a toss-up about who slammed into whom?
Sanderson is allegedly wealthy — why would he go through all that? Because he was bored and needed a little drama in his life?
And what about that fat friend of his who was near the scene and testified that he was convinced that Sanderson was completely in the right?
It didn’t make basic sense to me that Sanderson would just file on a whim. He knew Paltow’s attorneys would point to all the travel and adventure that he’s enjoyed since the accident. Why file if he didn’t at least have a better-than-decent shot at winning? Why file what might be seen as a frivolous nuisance lawsuit? It didn’t make basic sense to me.
First Ex-U.S. President To Be “Indicated”, Says Trump…Yowsah!
Alvin Bragg’s indictment of Donald Trump is warranted under New York State law, but it’s a nickle-and-dime beef. Ditto, if you ask me, the Mar a Lago refusing-to-relinquish-documents charge. The indictments that will really matter will be about inciting the Jan. 6th riot and trying to steal the Georgia vote in the 2020 election.
"There's no figure in US history that deserves more disdain for the profound damage he has done to this country, but Donald Trump is entitled to protection under the law."
More on why his indictment calls on his critics to be better than his supporters: https://t.co/VPYZiM7H5L pic.twitter.com/4kBY4O8u4A
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) March 30, 2023
“Goopy Proctor”
Kate Neilan nailed it yesterday. Associating Gwyneth Paltrow with the Salem witch trials = people see her as some kind of evil figure…a rich, harsh-minded prig throwback to the 17th Century. They’d like to dunk her in a lake.
During these televized celebrity court trials the public decides who’s guilty. Last year it was Amber Heard — this year it’s Goopy.
Enough Of This Horizon Line John Ford Shit
Dead-center horizon lines are banal, agreed, but the best outdoorsy photos, paintings and cinematic compositions are about whatever works, depending on the ingredients…the mystical altogether, balance and intrigue…God’s eye is God’s eye, and horizon lines be damned. I’ve been snapping photos since I was 12 or 13 so don’t tell me, John Martin Feeney.
“Towards Thee I Roll”
“…this all-destroying, constantly-farting Chad Stahelski leviathan…to the last I grapple with thee…in!…in!…oh, damn thee, whale!”
