Jeffrey Wells

I’m thinking now of an Act Two barroom scene in Tony Gilroy‘s Michael Clayton. The titular character (George Clooney) and his boss, Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack), are talking about the apparent suicide of Arthur Edens ( Tom Wilkinson), and Clayton says it just doesn’t figure that Arthur, a manic, high-energy eccentric, would kill himself…”why?” And Bach snaps right back: “Why? Because people are fucking incomprehensible, that’s why. ‘Why’!”

Tony Scott — 1944 – 2012

The apparent suicide death of Tony Scott, 68, is completely incomprehensible, but what do I know? I know that I’m hugely sorry, that I didn’t know Scott well but that I’d met him at three or four LA press junkets, the first being the one for Crimson Tide in ’94 in Marina del Rey, and that he was fun to shoot the shit with…bright, direct, quick, good-humored. Which means absolutely nothing tonight.

How could someone as connected and thriving and plugged-in as Tony Scott figure that the nothingness of death would be better than what life held in store? Good effing God. My sincere condolences to his wife, children, older brother Ridley, everyone who knew and loved him…a whole lotta people.

I know that perhaps my all-time favorite escapist director of the ’90s and the aughts — a guy who made better straight-ahead commercial action-thrillers than just about anyone else in the business, who was always high-styling and side-riffing and slam-banging with supercool scattershot pizazz and never (and I mean never) delivering profound undercurrents or deep spiritual themes or anything that stuck to your ribs, and yet a guy who always portrayed the adult world out there with absolute needlepoint accuracy and complexity…okay, in melodramatic terms with super-flash cutting and authentic performances and cool, handsome cinematography…a guy who had no aesthetic other than to be Tony Scott and produce like Tony Scott, and nobody was as good as he in that regard…this guy is suddenly gone for no reason that makes any sense. At all.

It doesn’t figure, it doesn’t figure, it doesn’t figure, it doesn’t figure. Scott reportedly left a suicide note. Either his family and co-workers will decide to share it or they won’t. But even if they do it won’t make any sense.

For me, Scott’s four best films were Crimson Tide, Man on Fire, Revenge and — yes, I’m perfectly serious — The Taking of Pelham 123. And then True Romance, even with the cop-out happy ending. And then Enemy of the State. And then Unstoppable, Spy Game and The Hunger. That was it for me — nine films that really worked. Okay, the top four with honorable mention for the bottom five.

I’m sorry but I wasn’t a fan of Deja Vu, Domino, The Fan, The Last Boy Scout, Days of Thunder, Beverly Hills Cop II or Top Gun. But when True Romance came along, I lit up. That’s when I started falling for Scott. And then came Crimson Tide…God, I love that film! I watch it once or twice a year.

Gene Hackman to Denzel Washington, final scene: “You were right and I was wrong. (Beat, beat, beat, beat) About the horses, the Lipizzaners. They are from Spain and not Portugal.”

“Several people called 911 around 12:35 p.m. to report that someone had jumped from the Vincent Thomas Bridge spanning San Pedro and Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor, according to Los Angeles police Lt. Tim Nordquist”…and the news only began to get around two or three hours ago? That’s because his body wasn’t recovered until 4:30 pm or thereabouts.

A story I heard once about Scott suggested he had a glint of madness in him. I was told by a friend that he wiped out on a motorcycle really badly a few years ago, that he was tear-assing along like a bat out of hell on some Hollywood or West Hollywood boulevard. I never investigated or read a police report, but that’s what I heard. He was going really, really fast.

I did an interview with Scott during the Man on Fire junket. I was admiring his very cool-looking hiking boots, which had a nice medium-brown deerskin color with brightly colored violet laces (or so I recall), so I asked him “Where’d you get the great-looking boots?” At one of the department stores, he said, but it was a pair of women’s hiking boot…hah! Scott’s feet were small enough, and we all know that women’s footwear are often made with a keener sense of style and attractiveness than men’s. Scott knew this, I knew this, we chuckled…a moment.

Terrence Malick‘s To The Wonder will have its world premiere screening at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday, September 2nd, at 7:30 pm. The Toronto Star‘s Pete Howell has kindly forwarded the synopses and notes from the Venice Film Festival as well as the Toronto Film Festival, where Malick’s film will also screen. It seems evident that the basic plot bones of To The Wonder are at least partly based on Malick’s own personal history, which is ironic given his mania for privacy.

Neil (Ben Affleck) and Jane (Rachel McAdams) appear to be at least superficially based on Terrence Malick and his wife, Alexandra “Ecky” Wallace.

“After visiting Mont Saint-Michel — once known in France as the Wonder — at the height of their love, Marina (Olga Kurylenko) and Neil (Ben Affleck) come to Oklahoma, where problems soon arise,” the Venice synopsis reads. “Marina makes the acquaintance of a priest and fellow exile (Javier Bardem), who is struggling with his vocation, while Neil renews his ties with a childhood friend, Jane (Rachel McAdams). An exploration of love in its many forms.”

I’ve heard or read bits and pieces over the years, but a 5.21.11 “The Search” document by Brett McCracken called “39 Facts About Terrence Malick” reports that in the early 80s, Malick, raised in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, fell for Michele Morette, “a Parisienne who lived in his building in Paris and who had a daughter, Alex. After a few years the three of them moved to Austin, Texas. Malick married Michele in 1985, but they divorced in 1998.” That same year, McCracken writes, “Malick married Alexandra ‘Ecky’ Wallace, an alleged high school sweetheart from his days at St. Stephen’s school in Austin, Texas. They are still married and currently reside in Austin, Texas. Ecky Wallace is the mother of actor Will Wallace, who appears in The Thin Red Line, The New World and The Tree of Life.”

Are you going to stand there and tell me that Neil (Affleck) isn’t Malick, Marina (Kurylenko) isn’t Michele and Jane (McAdams) isn’t Ecky?

As for the Toronto Film Festival, Howell informs that info “is actually taken from the excellent TOfilmfest.ca site, not affiliated with TIFF, which combines all available info about films and is actually more complete than TIFF’s own site”:

To The Wonder / Director: Terrence Malick / Cast: Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Peet, Barry Pepper, Michael Sheen, Rachel Weisz

“New film from Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), about a man who reconnects with a woman from his hometown after his marriage to a European woman falls apart. Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera has revealed some new details regarding the film’s themes. ‘The main recurring theme is the crisis — the economic crisis, which is having devastating social effects, but also the crisis of values, the political crisis.”

What? You’d have to be an idiot not to recognize that To The Wonder is at least a partly autobiographical tale, and yet Barbera’s assessment is that the film is thematically concerned with the socio-economic criss that began in 2008?

What’s with Malick’s decision to offer only that one lonely photo of Affleck and McAdams, which was first circulated on 2.23.11?

It was reported on 5.15.12 that Malick’s film, previously called The Burial, had been given an R rating for “some sexuality/nudity.”

The Venice notes say that “actors Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem (TBC) and Romina Mondello will be in Venice to present the film.” Will Malick pull a sneak visit with shades and a hat on, watching silently from the sidelines?

I don’t believe the bike action in this Premium Rush (Sony, 8.24) trailer. I read that N.Y. Times piece and I don’t care — it still looks CG’ed and tricked up and dishonestly rendered. I could buy something like this if it was shot straight and plain with digital minicams, but fakery (or the suggestion of same) kills.

This is what Hollywood has created with its relentless reliance on CG bullshit when it comes to action scenes. Nobody trusts their eyes any more. Everything action-y is presumed to have been pizazzed up to some degree.

This David Koepp film was shot two years ago. The release delay presumably has something to do with the concept of a “bike messenger chase action movie” not being taken seriously. By anyone.

In honor of Monday night’s Aero screening of Herbert Ross‘s The Last of Sheila (’73), here’s a nicely phrased appreciation from Trailers From Hell commentator Larry Karaszewksi.

I spoke a couple of times to Ross when I was a Cannon press-kit writer. It was in the fall of 1987 when his Mikhail Baryshnikov film, Dancers, was being prepared for release. During our second chat I was asking him about something I wanted to put into the Dancers press kit, and somehow I miscommunicated my intention and Ross got the idea I was trying to debate him. “Look, this isn’t that kind of conversation!,” he said sternly, almost shouting. I immediately backpedaled and grovelled. “No, no, Mr. Ross…I apologize, that’s not what I meant,” etc. I cooled him down but after I hung up, I said to myself, “Jesus God, that is one fierce hombre! He was ready to take my head off!”

Of course, any director who’s elbowed his or her way into mainstream Hollywood and maintained power in that realm over any period of time has to be tough as nails. That’s what I said when I wrote that July 2011 piece comparing Wes Anderson to John Ford and Nunnally Johnson. Here’s the opening graph:

“‘All strong directors are sons of bitches,’ John Ford allegedly said to screenwriter Nunnally Johnson sometime in the late ’40s or early ’50s. His point was that Johnson, in Ford’s view, was too much of a nice, thoughtful, fair-minded guy to cut it as a director. Directors basically can’t be too mellow or gentle or accommodating. They need to be tough, pugnacious and manipulative mo’fos in order to get what they want. And if they’re too deferential, they won’t last.”

Why is it that no one who attended the Chicago screening of The Master has made any attempt to really explore the Scientology parallels, or lack thereof? It’s as if the people who’ve posted reactions have never even heard of Scientology or even toyed with the idea that The Master might be at least an oblique commentary about it. Weird.

I’m aware, of course, that Phillip Seymour Hoffman and others have contended that the film is “not about Scientology”, but I’ve yet to read a piece that explains clearly and precisely how ‘the Cause’ differs from Scientology or goes further and asks “where did anyone get the idea that this might be about Scientology? Because it’s so not that!” Or something along those lines. Have I missed something?

Put another way, did an early decision by director-writer Paul Thomas Anderson to avoid specific allusions to Scientology result in the austere spareness of the film?

“Explanations are pared away; background for ‘The Cause’ that Master (Hoffman) represents is implied, hardly ever explained. Motivations of secondary characters are elided. There’s hardly a force onscreen beyond Master and Freddy (Joaquin Pheonix). Amy Adams, as Master’s wife, has three scenes that show her to be yet another sort of master in the emotional equations.” — MCN columnist Ray Pride, posting on 8.17.12 following Chicago Music Box screening.

My God, does this film sound dense and spare and mesmerizing and all but impenetrable!

“Though it’s not me, it’s cinema that’s all fixated on pants and hair and the Citreon DS.” — Ignatiy Vishnevetsky.

A person who saw The Master last night at the Museum of Moving Image in Queens responds: “Oh, I wouldn’t call it ‘impenetrable.’ While you’re watching it, it’s extremely direct and emotional. The alcoholism of the characters is portrayed very bracingly. It’s when the thing’s over and you’re piecing the various stuff together that it actually gets more mysterious. While you’re in it, it’s incredibly direct and uncomfortable and all the narrative eliding that Pride talks about doesn’t register so much. I’ll be interested in how you like it. if you’re open to it, I suspect it’ll affect you an awful lot.”

“God, that Vishnevetsky guy seems like a smirky little prick!

“As for the Scientology angle or lack thereof, well, yes, of course, the stuff that Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd is doing bears quite a resemblance to L. Ron Hubbard‘s scheme, in both the particulars of the beliefs and the building of the ‘church.’ But not always in the way you expect, and it’s certainly not the movie’s mission to make a commentary on Scientology. The belief system kind of stands in for all belief systems, in a way. You’ll get it when you see it. The movie’s theme is far more primal and elemental than that of a mere sociological/cultural phenomenon.”

I remember deciding a long time ago to instantly dismiss people who use the word “uhhm” while gathering their thoughts. I’m not saying I’ll refuse to deal with them — there are tens of thousands of “uhhm”-ers out there and you can’t live on an island. But the instant I hear that word I tend to pull back and regard the speaker askance. You’ll notice that for the most part “uhhm” is used by younger people and under-educated girly-girls.

I can roll, on the other hand, with people who say “uhhh” or “ahhh.” (I’ll occasionally resort to these.) It’s really the use of the letter “m” that tears it. When you’re pausing between phrases, just don’t say anything that rhymes with the word “bum” — simple.

Part of my problem with this year’s New York Film Festival slate, I suppose, is that I was spoiled by the NYFF’s first-anywhere debut of The Social Network in 2010 — that was a major score that put the NYFF, which had acquired a bit of a sleepy, sedentary rep under Richard Pena, back on the map and was a feather in the caps of the newly ascended Scott Foundas and NYFF selection committee member Todd McCarthy.

Note: I’ve been informed that a certain former Lincoln Center fellow with the initials “K.J.” played a crucial role in landing The Social Network, and that I shouldn’t go overboard in assuming that Foundas-McCarthy were the principal architects of that “get.”

To be sure, landing Flight as the closing-night attraction is a commendable score, but the only thing that could have fully lived up to The Social Network this year would have been Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln (Disney, 11.9). Life of Pi for the opener, Flight for the Centerpiece and Lincoln for the closing-nighter…perfect!

Alas, Spielberg films almost never play major festivals (the big exception was ’08’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), and Disney marketing’s decision not to debut their film as a closing-night NYFF attraction may, I fear, indicate their level of confidence in it, at least as far as how Lincoln will fare with the NY critical community…but let’s not assume too much. Ease up, take it slow.

Still, the fact that Lincoln will open on November 9th, only three and a half weeks after the NYFF closes, makes you wonder if there’s any big-city, media-centric event that they’d be comfortable partnering with for a Lincoln debut. What are they going to do, show it around the country in a series of rube screenings like they did with War Horse?

The answer, of course, is “no” — that screen-it-for-the-rural-popcorn-crowd strategy convinced everyone except for EW’s Dave Karger that War Horse was a problem, and that’s exactly what it turned out to be. It doesn’t matter how much money it made ($79 million domestic, $97 million foreign) because (a) many if not most ticket buyers are not afflicted with that cultural burden or affliction called “taste,” and (b) the fact that War Horse was grotesquely sentimental and wildly manipulative destroyed its Best Picture chances, and cemented the notion that Spielberg’s worst tendencies are out of control these days.

Which is why people are concerned about Lincoln as we speak, and saying to each other that “whatever Spielberg does with this material, you really can’t trust him to do the right thing any more, not after War Horse and also considering the tedious experience of Amistad.” They’re also saying that “the only thing we’ll be able to really count on, most likely, will be Daniel Day Lewis‘s performance, and hopefully Tony Kushner‘s screenplay and perhaps the supporting performances…who knows?” But nobody trusts Spielberg.

Here’s a typically lively Sunday Times piece by Camille Paglia about the highly perverse Alfred Hitchcock and his notoriously complex relationships with women. Paglia also authored a British Film Institute essay about The Birds. Here’s a review.

Me: “I’m flying into NYC directly from Telluride, and staying for two days before flying up to Toronto. And I have to admit that I’m not that taken with the New York Film Festival lineup this year. Sorry but I’m not. Not Fade Away is allegedly a problem, and Life of Pi is a wide-eyed 3D storybook fable. The Olivier Assayas and Flight are the only ones I really want to see, and the rest of the films are Cannes and Toronto leftovers…not impressed. Plus Flight will screen on the Paramount lot right after NYFF so that might be good enough for me.

“Plus I will not pay those godawful New York hotel or sublet rates for two weeks straight. I tried Pod 39 — $450 and change for two nights? I’m sorry, but is that someone’s idea of a low-cost deal?”

“And I’m not flying to [unnamed West Coast city] on 8.22 to see The Master either. That puppy definitely sounds like something I can wait until Toronto to see.”

Colleague: “I think the NYFF line-up is highly impressive. You’ve unfortunately made up your mind on Life of Pi without knowing the first thing about it. I think it’s a major get for the opener. I’m very excited for Flight. And Not Fade Away has been re-edited from the problem’ cut. And I’m happy to see a good selection of Cannes or Toronto holdovers.”

Me: “I know some things about Life of Pi. I know it’s got a fucking Bengal tiger in it. And a zebra. And some of it takes place upon heaving stormy seas. And it’s in 3D. And it stars a young actor from India, and that his eyes are bug-eyed with wonder or fear or excitement most of the time. It’s obviously a wonderful, eye-filling adventure fable, perhaps for the whole family. Where did you hear or read that the problem version of Not Fade Away has been re-edited?”

Colleague: “You have no idea about Pi. But thankfully there are those who know of things like spiritual journey as metaphor, and they won’t dig their heels in and pronounce, ‘This is what this movie is. It’s only what I see, not what’s behind the imagery.'”

Me: “Oh, I don’t know. I think that snarling tigers and heaving stormy seas are metaphors in and of themselves. I think the decision to use these images is, in a sense, content. I think it’s Ang Lee declaring, ‘Let’s put on a show!’ And let’s slip in a metaphor while we’re at it.'”

Colleague: “I’m told that they tested Not Fade Away some time back and that it didn’t go well, and that [director David] Chase worked up a different version that dealt with those issues and that it’s better now. How much better, I can’t say.”

The aging lawman with a turkey neck, a man of virtue, kindly manner, slight pot belly, face like a satchel. That was Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men. Throw in a little Gran Torino action — i.e., an ornery old cuss with plenty of moxie and muscle tone…spit in your eye, kick like a mule. Mix, shake and throw in some third-act Mexican cartel carnage and you’ve got Kim Ji-woon‘s The Last Stand. Is this the first half-decent Arnold Schwarzenegger film since he left Sacramento? Or just a good poster?

The impediment, of course, is that Arnold’s face doesn’t have that creased weary elegance that benefitted Mr. Jones in No Country. AS’s face looks re-molded. I’m not convinced that any border-town sheriff has ever been able to afford such a procedure.

Logline: “A drug cartel leader escapes from a courthouse and tries to make the Mexican border. But he first has to get past an aging sheriff (Schwarzenegger) and his inexperienced staff.” Pic costars Jaimie Alexander, Harry Dean Stanton, Genesis Rodriguez, Rodrigo Santoro, Forest Whitaker, Peter Stormare, Johnny Knoxville, Zach Gilford, Luis Guzman. Wait…doesn’t the projected 1.18.13 opening mean it’ll probably be genre sludge?

So the weekend’s #1 film, The Expendables 2, is something of a weak sister. The goony plastic-surgery action drama is playing in 3316 situations and looking at a so-so $30 million by Sunday night. And yet audiences gave it a CinemaScore grade of A-minus. CinemaScore respondents tend to err on the side of politeness, but an A-effing-minus? For a movie that efilmcritic’s Peter Sobczynski said “bears the same basic relationship to a genuinely thrilling action extravaganza that an order from Papa John’s has to actual pizza”? That the Globe and Mail‘s Rick Groen called “breezily forgettable”? That EW‘s Lisa Schwarzbaum called “excellent crap”?

I decided to forego the pleasure of seeing The Expendables 2…sorry. Maybe someone who’s seen it can explain how it deserves an A-minus? It sounds that by any fair standard that a B-minus or more likely a C would be the way to go. Wouldn’t the presence of facelifts automatically drop the rating down half a point, at least? An Expendables 2 sans plastic surgery would most likely get an A, in other words?

There’s a film series honoring the recently deceased Ernest Borgnine happening at the American Cinematheque, and one of tonight’s features is Richard Fleischer‘s The Vikings (’58). Borgnine plays an elder Viking leader named Ragnar, the father of Kirk Douglas‘s Einar. He’s out at the end of Act Two when he’s forced to jump into a pit of hungry wolves, but first he persuades Tony Curtis‘s Eric to let him die like a Viking with a sword in hand.

I’m mentioning this because I’m bothered by a line in the American Cinematheque online program notes. It says that The Vikings “is a fast, funny spectacle not to be missed on the big screen.” Funny? It’s a broadly staged popcorn movie, okay. And with a sense of humor, for sure, but there’s nothing comical about any of it. It’s campy — any movie about taking women with force (“Bite! Scratch!”) and looting and howling and fighting with axes and swords is a hoot on some level — but it has a touch of genuine gravitas, about brotherly ties and the fear of God.

Here’s how I put it six and half years ago just after Fleischer died:

“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 male Viking characters (particularly Douglas and Borgnine’s) whenever Odin, the Nordic God, is mentioned. We hear a haunting, siren-like ‘Odin theme’ on the soundtrack, and these rough blustery types suddenly stop their loutish behavior and seem to almost retreat into a childlike emotional place…a place that’s all about awe and fear of death, God, judgment. This happens maybe three or four 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.

“The other thing that still works is the film’s refusal to make much of the fact that Douglas and costar Tony Curtis, mortal enemies throughout the film, are in fact brothers, having both been half-sired by Borgnine. Costar Janet Leigh begs Douglas to consider this ten minutes from the finale, and Douglas angrily brushes her off. But when his sword is raised above a defenseless Curtis at the very end and he’s about to strike, Douglas hesitates. And we know why. And then Curtis stabs Douglas in the stomach with a shard of a broken sword, and Douglas is finished.

“The way Douglas leans back, screams ‘Odin!’ and then rolls over dead is pretty hammy” — okay, call it funny — “but that earlier moment of hesitation is spellbinding — one of the most touching pieces of acting Douglas has ever delivered. Douglas wasn’t very respectful of Fleischer’s authority during the making of The Vikings, and for all I know Fleischer didn’t have that much to do with this final scene…but he probably did, and he deserves our respect for it.”