I paid a visit a couple of days ago to the construction site of Sunset LaCienega, the Las Vegas-like eight-story complex that’ll be completed sometime next year. It’s actually modest by Vegas standards but it does interrupt or diminish views of (or from) the Hollywood hills to some extent. Buildings have to get bigger and taller to accommodate an expanding population and business environment — I get that. You can bitch and moan but you can’t stop progress. But I would be more than a little unhappy if my view of the flatlands (or of the hills) was being blocked by this, or by the other big-ass Strip buildings that will surely follow. I’m not happy with this thing on general aesthetic grounds. I would prefer it, frankly, if the Strip looked like it did in the video after the jump.
Ask any 1.85 fascist (like occasional HE commenter Pete Apruzzese) to explain the basic aspect-ratio laws and you’ll hear the same thing time and again: All non-Scope films released after the fall of 1953 should be presented at 1.85 unless otherwise specified by the director. They’ll allow for exceptions among some 1950s and early ’60s releases (various British films, United Artists releases) and/or when the director specifies 1.66 or 1.78 or whatever. But their general attitude is 1.85, 1.85 and 1.85 unless otherwise noted. Most of the 1.66 Bluray croppings are found in films from the ’50s and ’60s, but they begin to radically thin out when you move into the ’70s and beyond. (One glorious exception: the 1.66 aspect ratio of John Schlesinger‘s Sunday Bloody Sunday.) Which is why my heart soared when I noticed a 1.66 aspect ratio being used for the Criterion Bluray of James Ivory‘s A Room With A View (’86). The fact that the a.r. was approved by Ivory kills any pushback, but the thought of Apruzzese and Glenn Kenny and all the other 1.85 strict constructionists seething and gnashing their teeth is just heaven to me.
Monica Belucci, 50, will become the oldest “Bond girl” in history when her performance as Lucia Sciarra, “the widow of an assassin killed by Bond”, is seen in Sam Mendes‘ Spectre (10.26 in England, 11.6 worldwide). The below b & w photos are from Esquire. They remind us of one the most tedious aspects of the Bond franchise — i.e., the legendary no-nips policy and a general rule that erotic suggestion can’t exceed that of a typical 1956 LIFE magazine photo spread. 007 franchise producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli have insisted all along that the Bond films must be family friendly. What other movies or franchises live in this kind of time-capsule realm? Isn’t the term “Bond girl” culturally synonymous with “Playboy bunny” and all those other randy terms left over from the Eisenhower-Kennedy-LBJ eras?
I’ve been waiting a long time to see Universal Home Video’s restored Spartacus Bluray, which streets on Tuesday, 10.6. I asked earlier today if I could snag a review copy but they said they had none, so I bought a copy on Amazon. DVD Beaver‘s Gary Tooze was sent a review copy, at least, and he’s posted quite the review: “The green is in the title, the dye restored and colors are a dramatic improvement in replicating the original appearance,” he writes. “Skin tones [have] a more natural state and there is also more information in the frame on all four sides! Detail has tightened [and] there is a sense of depth…magnificent!” Plus the disc contains a nine-minute “Restoring Spartacus” essay.
Framne captures from Gary Tooze’s DVd Beaver review. The above image is from the “shiny” 50th anniversary Bluray issued in 2010; the bottom image is from the restored version.
I need to see the reportedly not-so-hot Freeheld for sake of MichaelShannon‘s performance, which I hear is the stand-out element. If Shannon’s performance turns out to be as good as Christian Science Monitor critic Peter Rainer and others say it is, this plus his performance as 99 Homes might warrant serious talk about a Best Supporting Actor nomination. If Shannon has nailed it (as he often does) I want to report that. You think I’m looking forward to this?
In my humble view the best James Bond films are the first two — Terence Young‘s Dr. No (’62) and From Russia With Love (’63). These are the only ones featuring a lean and rugged Connery without an obvious toupee and before he began to pack on a couple of pounds, and facing semi-believable combatants in a half-credible, real-world milieu. After these two a sense of technological swagger and more than a touch of tongue-in-cheek humor started to penetrate the franchise with Guy Hamilton‘s Goldfinger (’64) — the last Bond film you could accept as an occasionally semi-realistic fantasy. These are the only three I re-watch on Bluray, although I don’t like Goldfinger as much as the first two.
I have a certain affection for Lewis Gilbert‘s The Spy Who Loved Me (’77) — the beginning of a brief ’70s period when the 007 series descended into light comedy. There was an effort to use a bit less gadgetry in John Glen‘s For Your Eyes Only (’81 — the only Bond film I ever paid a visit to at Pinewood) and I didn’t mind Glen’s The Living Daylights (’87). And I was amused by the return of Connery is Irvin Kershner‘s Never Say Never Again (’83). And I admit to feeling a surge of excitement when I first saw Martin Campbell‘s Casino Royale (’06)
All the other 007s except are somewhere between glossy flotsam and aggressive popcorn. Yes, including the other Daniel Craig films. (Be honest and ask yourself why you’ve never re-watched Skyfall or Quantum of Solace.) Yes, including Goldeneye, which some have a thing for.
53 years ago Joseph Wiseman, in the person of Dr. No, looked Sean Connery in the eye and explained that he was “a member of SPECTRE…special executive for counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge and extortion.” Every Bond fan in the world memorized that acronym, and before long it was as famous as CIA, KGB, MI5 and MI6…infamous, I mean. And yet in the new Spectre trailer Daniel Craig‘s 007 asks Lea Seydoux, “This organization…do you know what it’s called?” At the very least the Spectre screenwriters (John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Jez Butterworth) should have had Craig say, “Spectre? That relic from a half-century ago?” And then Seydoux could set him straight. But for Bond to say in this day and age that he’s never even heard the name is ridiculous. The next thing he’ll say is that he’s never heard of Ernst Stavro Blofeld or the white cat or Rosa Klebb.
Six and a half months after the South by Southwest 2015 debut and several weeks after that ridiculous stonewalling episode sparked by Gravitas Ventures’ spokesperson AJ Feuerman, I finally saw Colin Hanks‘ All Things Must Pass (Gravitas, 10.16) late yesterday afternoon. And I have to say it’s much better than I expected. I was hoping for something reasonably well done or “good enough” or attaboyish, but this rise and fall of Tower Records history is extra-level — tight, comprehensive, exacting, epic-scaled. Hanks has clearly invested rivers of feeling and loads of hard work.
This thing is emotional. Especially that. If you lived through and savored the Tower Records heyday (mid ’60s to early aughts but more essentially the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s) it’ll open the floodgates big-time. The doc is full of characters and personalities and the usual eccentricities and foibles. It’s not just a recitation of occurrences or statistics. It’s about the heartbreak of time, about the cost of loss and how it all falls away sooner or later. It’s about “what happened to the fun?”
Because ATMP is not only a chronicle of a mythical record-store mecca but a farewell valentine to the now-concluded era of the record (or video) store as a family meeting place — an organic, tactile clubhouse where you went to hang and converse and debate as well as occasionally buy stuff. Streaming has made everything bountiful in terms of access but the face-to-face community aspect is toast. Social media is a chillier, lonelier way of communicating. Which is why I still go to Amoeba once or twice a week. Half the time I’ll decide to rent a streaming version of a Bluray I’ll see in the racks or pay less money by buying online, but I go for the visitation vibes, the personalities, the energy, the people-gazing.
Because (and I realize this is probably the most common observation of 21st Century life out there right now) there’s obviously an isolating element to social media absorption. I “talk” to more people these days than I ever did before Twitter and texting, and in much more intimate and particular terms in a sense, but the conversational quality isn’t the same.
I’ve posted a trailer of Stevan Riley‘s Listen To Me, Marlon before but this one is much better. Not so much for the first 75 seconds, but from the 1:18 mark to the finish…fairly close to sublime.
From age 16 until Hollywood Elsewhere came along I’ve had over 20 jobs, and all but two I was let go from. Partly because I used to daydream a lot, and partly because I’m not that good at kissing ass, and partly because I can be willful and obstinate. I was fired from the Silvermine Tavern after one night as a bus boy. (“I’m sorry but it didn’t work out.”) I was cut loose from a truck-driving job with a Wilton lumber yard. I was canned from Boston Yellow Cab for driving a regular customer off the meter. I was cut loose from a chain link fence company after I eased a truck bed into the back of some guy’s car. I was fired as an airport shuttle driver. I lasted for a while with the Spring Street Bar & Grill but then something happened. I lost two or three more Manhattan waiter jobs (including one as a host at Lincoln Center’s Adagio Room). I didn’t get fired from my Film Journal managing editor job but I did lose my Hollywood Reporter gig a year or two later. I lasted for a while as a press-kit writer at the Samuel Goldwyn Co. I landed some publicity work with New Line Cinema over a two-year stretch. I didn’t get whacked from Cannon Films (I did pretty well as their in-house press-kit writer) but I was canned from a development gig at a company I won’t name in ’89, and then as an editor of Sound + Vision, a retail-funded promotional trade, a year and a half later. I was a regular freelancer with the L.A. Times Calendar section for a while. I did pretty well with Entertainment Weekly for four or five years and then my string ran out. A People desk job lasted for 20 months or so. My L.A. Times Syndicate column lasted for five years (’94 to ’99) — a long time for me. And then I became a salaried online columnist from ’98 through ’04 and then, finally, Hollywood Elsewhere. Something close to job security for the last 11 years(!), and probably for another 15 or 20 or whenever I drop dead. (Preferably in Paris.) Long is the road and hard that out of darkness leads up to light.
