The first thing I said as I watched this trailer for Akiva Goldsman‘s Winter’s Tale (Warner Bros., 2.14.14) was “uh-oh…romantic time travel…based on a 30 year-old novel….a cousin of Jeannot Szwarc‘s Somewhere In Time.” (Which I’ve always respected, by the way.) The second thing I said was “who’s the babe?” Answer: 24 year-old British actress Jessica Brown Findlay. Then I flinched when Colin Farrell, marooned in 2013, half-moaned and teared up when he saw Findlay’s photo. Steve McQueen would have never done that — never “show” emotion, always suggest it by covering it up. Another rule of thumb is that any film in which any character loudly yells out “no!” (as in “no, don’t let that happen!” or “no, don’t let him get away!”) is a problem. Winter’s Tale is therefore (and I’m not delighted to imply this) most likely a problem.
In the booklet inside the new Masters of Cinema Red River Bluray there’s an excerpt from a 1970 Film Comment interview with Red River screenwriter Borden Chase. Changes that were made to Chase’s screenplay by director Howard Hawks are discussed with interviewer Jim Kitses. One of these was Hawks’ decision to cut down John Ireland‘s Cherry Valance role, allegedly due to resentment on Hawks’ part about Ireland having scored with a woman Hawks had been having relations with. Hawks dismissed Chase’s account (which came allegedly came straight from John Wayne) in a subsequent interview. He asked if Chase was sloshed when he said it, and said he “was so full of shit.” I don’t believe Chase was fantasizing, but that’s me.
At first I was excited about the Eureka Entertainment/Masters of Cinema Bluray of Howard Hawks’ Red River, which arrived yesterday. That 1.78:1 menu image is what got me — highly detailed, some apparent DNR refinement, deep velvety blacks, that gleaming Ansel Adams quality. Perhaps that horribly depressing 10.18 review by Bluray.com’s Dr. Svet Atanasov was misleading? Perhaps Hawks’ 1948 classic has been bumped up after all and it won’t be covered in an Egyptian grainstorm? 60 seconds after popping the disc in my hopes were dashed. No bump, no uptick, no nothing — to me this new Red River looks exactly like it has looked for decades. The only difference is that now you can see the grain structure more clearly plus it has vertical scratch marks — terrific! Yes, it doesn’t appear to have been fiddled with. Yes, it honestly looks like film, speckles and all. But as I wrote on 10.21, “When I buy a Bluray [of a classic film] I want something better than the last DVD, and if that means a Bluray with ‘problematic degraining’ then please fucking give me that.” Steppenwolf once sang “goddam the pusher man.” Hollywood Elsewhere’s song lyric is “goddam the purist grain monks.”
The night before last I watched Susan Bellows‘ JFK, a four-hour American Experience documentary that will premiere on Monday, 11.11 and Tuesday, 11.12. How does it differ from the numerous other docs about John F. Kennedy? It’s a bit more candid about some of the dicey personal stuff. Kennedy’s carelessness (and in some instances recklessness) as a youth, the constant lying about Addison’s disease, his many marital infidelities (but none of the sordid details). There’s more of a warts-and-all sense of a man and less of that familiar tribute tone that always creeps in when a beloved figure is examined. Otherwise it reshuffles and deals the same deck of cards. How could it not? As others have, Bellows reports that Kennedy found his footing with the Cuban Missile Crisis and that he was looking at an almost certain re-election in ’64. Death saved him, of course, from having to either extricate U.S. forces from Vietnam (which he would have had a tough time doing altogether) or increase their strength and go down the same road that eventually engulfed Lyndon Johnson. What got me about this doc more than anything else? Those drums again.
I’m actually a little more interested in the Nova “Cold Case” show (airing on 11.13) that will re-examine all the forensic evidence in the JFK assassination by the light of current technology.
This is a catchy poster for John Wells and Tracy Lett‘s August: Osage County (Weinstein Co., 12.25). In the play it happens at the end of Act Two. In the film it’s somewhere around the halfway mark. Meryl Streep’s insults and rudeness get worse and worse until Julia Roberts loses it and leaps like a cat and the chairs go tumbling and the plates and silverware crash on the floor.
Since catching Stephen Frears and Steve Coogan‘s Philomena (Weinstein Co., 11.27) at the Toronto Film Festival I’ve been expressing how appalled I felt by a bizarre offer of forgiveness that the film ends with — a pass given to an obviously reprehensible old-crone nun who has brought considerable anguish into the lives of an elderly Irish mother and her late son. Why can’t I accept forgiveness in this instance? A Cardinal rule of drama is that the main characters (and particularly the main evil-doer) have to meet with some form of justice at the end, and yet Philomena Lee, the real-life mother played by Judi Dench, can’t shake off a feeling of loyalty to the Catholic Church plus she doesn’t want to live with anger. And so evil skates because old ladies need their serenity.
