Jeffrey Wells

All I can recall about Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi‘s Baise-Moi, which opened stateside in the June ’01, is that (a) it was more controversial than good, (b) it was more invested in violent male-hate than anything erotic or half-porny, and (c) it was shot with somewhat primitive video equipment without supplemental lighting and therefore looked extremely crude. I’m only mentioning it because Arrow Video is hyping a new Baise-Moi DVD (out Monday, 3.25) in an unusually honest way.

While some critics thought the low-budget look “added to the film’s uncompromising style, others strongly disagreed with the New York Post [stating] that it ‘looked like hell,'” Arrow’s press statement says. “It is because of the film’s production techniques that Baise-Moi will never be released on the Bluray format. While some distributors may have looked to cash-in on an ‘improved’ Bluray version, the original digital print of the film is not high quality enough to ever look any better than this DVD version, regardless of the medium it is shown on.”

That statement alone almost makes me want to buy the Baise-Moi DVD. I probably won’t have to as I’ve written the Noble guys and asked for a freebie, but either way this kind of honesty is pretty much unheard of in video marketing circles. I’m also partial to any film released in 1.66.

“I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done.

“You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans — my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

“Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam,and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

“I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to ‘liberate’ Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues.

“Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region.

“On every level — moral, strategic, military and economic — Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love.

“I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.” — Open letter posted a couple of days ago by dying Iraq War veteran Tomas Young.

There’s a highly absorbing Scott Raab interview with Robert Redford in the April Esquire as well as right here. The idea is to bring attention to Redford’s The Company You Keep (Sony Classics, 4.5) but the pleasure is in Raab’s writing and the way in which he considers Redford’s past that makes it almost seem like fresh material.

That said, Raab’s article affords an opportunity to discuss Redford’s hair. He mentions the “dirt-blond impasto of [Redford’s] mane” and quotes Pauline Kael as having written in the ’70s that Redford “has turned almost alarmingly blond — he’s gone past platinum, he must be into plutonium; his hair is coordinated with his teeth.”

Yeah, I think it was dyed. Certainly all through the ’60s, ’70s and…I dunno, until the mid ’80s? I know that once I started seeing Redford in person at the Sundance Film Festival in the mid ’90s he’d reverted back to his original color, which was a kind of dull faded copper. I know that I once interviewed a friend who knew Redford when he was a vaguely alienated teenager in Van Nuys and that his friends called him “Red.”

As shallow as this sounds I was sorry when Redford dropped the blond hair because it always looked so great on him. The copper thing looks okay, I guess, but the man with the golden hair was such a stone movie star. So beautiful. I love watching the young or youngish Redford (anything from the early ’60s to early ’80s) for the simple pleasure of savoring his looks.

Early on Raab gets Redford to share a really good Pauline Kael story:

“I’m at a restaurant with my wife and some friends in Santa Monica, and a waiter comes up and says, ‘Mr. Redford, Mr. Newman is in the next room.’ By this time, Paul and I had a wonderful thing going, playing gags on each other, so I said, ‘So? I’m busy here.’ I blew him off. We finish our meal, we’re on our way out of the place, and this woman comes running toward me and lunges at me. She grabs both my hands and she says, ‘I’m Pauline Kael. You must hate me. But you have to understand something. You let me down.’

“There was so much nervous tension coming at me, I couldn’t put this thing together — I thought it was a gag. My first thought was Newman’s paid somebody a fiver to come out and pretend to be Pauline Kael. But then when she said ‘You let me down,’ I was confused. She said, ‘I’m here for the stupid Academy Awards — if you’d like to talk, I’d be happy to see you.’ I was so thrown that I said, ‘Let me call you.’

“I realized it really was her, and then I saw it all. That’s where a critic goes over the line —- they want to own you. They want to dictate your path. I called and she said, ‘Are you going to come by for a drink?’

“I said, ‘I don’t think it would be appropriate. I appreciate the invitation, but I don’t think I should.’ And then she really got pissed. Everything I did from then on, she just tore into me.”

And there’s a portion about speeding on the highway that’s almost scary:

Raab: Still a Porsche man?

Redford: Oh, yeah.

Raab: Still go fast?

Redford: You bet. I’ll have breakfast in Napa Valley at my place and I’ll drive straight through 720 miles to Salt Lake for dinner.

Quick.

Redford: I’m moving 120, 130 miles an hour on an open highway.

Raab: Shit. Seriously?

Redford: I don’t want to talk too much about this. I just love movement. I get really antsy if I can’t move.

Wells: 130 fucking miles an hour? With your reactions being a little slowed down by being in your mid ’70s, or at least not what they used to be? That’s crazy, man.

What kind of extreme circumstances could have motivated director Lynne Ramsay to bail on Jane Got A Gun, an indie melodrama that was about to begin principal photography in Santa Fe two days ago? It sounds like an irresponsible action, not to mention tempestuous. But this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what happened.

Putting aside the possibility that Ramsay might have given in to an unwarranted emotional impulse, a neutral observer has to presume that she came to believe that (a) her ability to capture the film she saw in her head had become so compromised by unforeseen production budget limitations that there was no point in even trying and (b) that the film’s producer, Scott Steindorff of Scott Pictures, wasn’t on her side and perhaps had become, in Ramsay’s mind at least, a kind of adversary.

It just doesn’t add up that a gifted director would walk off a film as shooting was about to begin because she had a temper tantrum. A woman who only makes three features over a period of 12 years is clearly picky and exacting but probably no more than that. Ramsay, 43, began directing short films in the mid ’90s and released her first feature, Ratcatcher, in ’99. She made Morvern Callar in ’02, was hoping to direct The Lovely Bones before leaving the project in ’04, and directed nothing for five or six years before finally making We Need To Talk About Kevin, which came out in ’11.

Yesterday Steindorff told Deadline‘s Michael Fleming that “we’re ready to shoot, we have a great script, crew and cast and [I have] millions of dollars invested. I’m shocked and so disappointed someone would do this to 150 crew members who devoted so much time, energy, commitment and loyalty to a project, and then have the director not show up. It is insane [that] somebody would do this to other people. I feel more for the crew and their families, but we are keeping the show going on, directors are flying in, and a replacement is imminent.”

The latest turns are that (a) Gavin O’Connor has been hired to replace Ramsay, and (b) costar Jude Law has left the project out of loyalty to fellow-Brit Ramsay. I’m sure Ramsay shared every last detail and grievance with Law and he figured it was better to pull up stakes without Ramsay guiding the herd.

Costar Michael Fassbender left the project a while back, and one wonders what the real reason for that might have been.

Former legendary porn star Harry Reems, best known for his costarring role in Deep Throat, has died in Salt Lake City of pancreatic cancer. Reems entered the Salt Lake City VA Hospital on March 5th and slipped into a coma, according to this report. Condolences to family, friends and fans.

Reems quit the porn industry eons ago. He reportedly had an alcohol problem but he turned things around in the mid ’90s by getting sober (which I relate to) and becoming a Christian (whatever works).

I spoke to Reems on the phone a little over eight years ago. I was writing a piece about Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey‘s Inside Deep Throat, which was about to screen at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, so I decided to impulsively call Reems at his Park City home. He was at the time a successful real-estate broker. It was obviously noteworthy that he would be smack dab in the middle of that year’s festival in more ways than one.

I found Reems through 411 and called after 9 pm on a Monday night. I hadn’t called to interview him right then, but to see if we could set something up. He was nice enough and chatted a bit, and said talking later would be fine. That never works, by the way. If you have someone on the phone, get what you can straight away. Don’t put it off. I never got in touch with Reems once the festival began due to the usual hurly burly and head-spinning.

Piers Morgan: “It did cross my mind, how many of these Senators, who, in my view, probably do think there should be an assault weapons ban, probably do think there should be universal background checks, but they have decided to go against their principle to protect their political seats. How many would change if one of their kids had been in that Sandy Hook school and gone through [Rob] Portman-like experience? In other words, it was right home to them and their families.”

Michael Moore: “Well, I think we all know the answer to that question. if a man with an assault weapon goes into the school where Harry Reid‘s grandchildren go to school tomorrow and kills his grandchildren, would he stand in front of that microphone at 5:00 and say, ‘I know how Dianne had to witness the mayor getting murdered and my grandchildren just got killed today but, you know, we can’t get it passed because we don’t have the votes.’ Would he do that really? I don’t think so.”

Danny Boyle‘s Trance (Fox Searchlight) opens in England on 3.27, here on 4.5 — two and a half weeks. It wasn’t screened at South by Southwest but they’re screening it now. No reviews or tweets so far. Twists, puzzlements, non-linear. David Poland‘s first question to Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel hints at this.

You’re hiding behind the shrubbery outside your former home as you watch your ex-wife have sex with some younger guy, and then the dog comes over and starts barking and you run for it. But if you’ve been busted by a dog you wouldn’t yell “heel!” as you run off because you wouldn’t want your ex to hear your voice. You’d run away as silently as possible. That’s why the scene isn’t funny. You have to do this kind of thing exactly right or it doesn’t work.

A similar scene happens in Paul Mazursky‘s Blume in Love when George Segal is snooping outside a therapist’s office and listening to his ex-wife, playing by Susan Anspach, share her thoughts. Anspach tells the therapist she’s sensing that Segal may be snooping outside; the therapist asks if she’d like him to check and she says yes. Cut to a shot of Segal running down the carpeted hallway as quickly as possible on the balls of his feet, anxious not to make a sound. That was funny.

I mentioned the Mazursky film because Stuck In Love obviously has the same ring and cadence. I’ll bet director-writer Josh Boone had it in mind at some point.

And by the way if that dog is one that you and your ex used to take care of together he’s not going to bark if he sees you outside the house. He’s going to come up and whimper and pant and want you to pet him. It’s even debatable if a strange dog is going to bark at you unless he’s an asshole, which admittedly some dogs are.

Last weekend Monuments Men director, producer, coscreenwriter and costar George Clooney was photographed entering Grill Royal, a swanky Berlin restaurant located right next to the Spree. He’s got a World War II German moustache, which for some reason reminds me of the moustache worn by Armin Mueller-Stahl in Avalon and The Music Box. I’m planning (as in expecting) to visit the Monuments Men set in early May.

George Clooney in Berlin on Saturday, 3.16; Armin Mueller-Stahl.