Jeffrey Wells

In my latest piece about 1.85 aspect-ratio fascism (“Will Dial M For Murder Be Mauled By Fascists?”, 4.28), aspect ratio know-it-all Bob Furmanek contended that Elia Kazan‘s On The Waterfront was initially projected and was intended to be seen in a 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio — a truly sickening notion given the compositional balance and perfect framing contained in the 1.37 to 1 version of this 1954 classic.

Waterfront in 1.37 is all anyone has ever seen on the tube, VHS, laser disc and DVD. But if guys like Furmanek have their way…

To explain the correctness of his Waterfront position, Furmanek reported the following sequence of events: (a) April 7, 1953 — Columbia announces their new ratio of 1.85:1; (b) April 28, 1953 — Columbia announces 100% widescreen; (c) November 17, 1953 — On The Waterfront commences with principal photography; (d) July 14, 1954 – Variety review, 1.85:1; (e) July 14, 1954 — Exhibitor review, 1.85:1; (f) July 24, 1954 — Boxoffice review, 1.85:1.

I’m not disputing Furmanek’s Waterfront reporting, however repellent his aspect-ratio aesthetics may be. But how does he explain a new Bluray of Fritz Lang‘s The Big Heat, a Columbia release, being presented on the Twilight Time Bluray at 1.34 to 1, given that Lang’s film opened in October 1953 — a full six months after Columbia laid down the 1.85 law? According to a Bluray.com review, the Big Heat Bluray was “culled from HD masters provided to Twilight Time by Sony-Columbia” — in other words by Grover Crisp.

Lang was an esteemed, old-time director who’d begun in Germany in the 1920s, so you can bet he composed The Big Heat and intended to have it seen at 1.33. But if everything had to be 1.85, why didn’t Columbia just give orders to projectionists to show The Big Heat within a 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio and to hell with Lang’s 1.33 compositions?

I don’t know for a fact that The Big Heat began shooting in April 1953 — it might have begun a bit earlier, or in late 1952 even. But an edict is an edict. Did Cohn have a soft spot for Lang? Was Cohn a tough guy or wasn’t he? Cohn ran Columbia with a bullwhip and typical big-studio shooting schedules were tight, and a five- or six-month turnaround (the beginning of principal photography to theatrical release) would have fit within the norm.

Somehow or some way a person in control of the shape of The Big Heat wimped out — Cohn, Crisp, somebody in the food chain.

If Crisp’s intention is to make good on Cohn’s meat-cleaver aesthetic then Blurays of all April 1953-and-beyond non-Scope films have to be 1.78 or 1.85, and fascists like Furmanek should support Crisp in this effort. In fact, if Crisp and Fuhrmann were truly committed to chopping off the tops and bottoms of 1.33 films they would cleaver Sony Home Video’s endlessly delayed From Here To Eternity Bluray to 1.85. Why Not? Don’t fudge it, guys. You have to be hard.

Four or five days ago a critic friend told me that Dark Shadows is a no-go. So I asked another guy who’s seen it and generally liked it, and he said this: “It’s getting a polarizing response as there are many positives about it. If you’re looking for career growth, forget it. But it’s entertaining — better than Burton’s last couple of work-for-hire gigs.”

The Avengers has hit $200.3 million for the biggest three-day U.S. weekend of all time. Add the int’l cume of $441.4 million and you’re talking…hold on…$641.8 million for the domestic three-day plus the 12 days since it opened on the 26th or thereabouts.

Cheers to Kate Beckinsale (best thing she’s done since Nothing But The Truth), Judy Greer (finest achievement since her phenomenal Descendants performance) and Andrea Savage.

I saw Sydney Pollack‘s Jeremiah Johnson once in late ’72, and that was it. Despite an excellent memory for particulars, I have no recollection of this 116-minute film having a roadshow aura with an overture, entre’acte and whatnot. But DVD Beaver’s review of the just-out Bluray says it did. An intermission for a film lasting 116 minutes would have been unusual, if not bizarre. The Wiki page says there was a shorter version lasting 108 minutes.

A sense of increasing warmth and a gradually approaching summer was unmistakable in Los Angeles and New York in recent days. And then I came to Berlin. Grayish, grumpy weather tends to make people (i.e., me) feel the same. On top of which I wasn’t able to see last night’s super moon because of the heavy cloud blanket.

The gist of Michael Cooper‘s 5.5 N.Y. Times article about swing-state prospects in the 2012 Presidential election is that (a) Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin are where the action will be, and that (b) despite “a range of economic data provided by Moody’s Analytics [showing] that all nine states are rebounding and that most now have unemployment rates below the national average, the so-called grumpy voter effect” will kick in to some extent and perhaps even prove decisive.

Explanation: “Despite economic improvement in a state, if the economic situation in a state is really too bad the grumpy voter will discount the improvement.”

Not to mention the various enlightened voters of all stripes who want to rid the country of the nation’s first socialist Muslim foreign-born president who routinely kowtows and bows down to foreign despots, and who wants to rob Americans of their economic freedom by forcing them to accept a limited government-funded health care system and to live their toothless, tattooed, trailer-trash, fast-food lifestyles with impugnity.

Bottom line: The grumps could hand Romney a win.

The 4% Rotten Tomatoes and 14% Metacritic scores for Nicole Kassell‘s A Little Bit of Heaven (Millenium, 5.4.12) suggests it may be 2012’s absolute worst of the year, at least as far as critics are concerned. Not, in other words, just the latest chapter in the ongoing career suicide of Kate Hudson but also a potential career-damager for Kassell.

If any HE regular has seen it, please advise. I was never invited to an LA screening. Odd as this may sound, I’m going to rent a DVD at a nearby Berlin video store later today. The film opened in Europe last year. A German DVD was released three months ago.

If not A Little Bit of Heaven, what 2012 stinker would currently occupy the top slot? The contenders so far: The Devil Inside, Contraband, Darling Companion, Red Tails, Man on a Ledge, One for the Money, Flowers of War, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, Let the Bullets Fly, Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, One for the Money, Gone, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Wrath of the Titans.

Second best line: “You promised me that Hugo would be under two hours.”

The Dictator “is frequently funny and fast-moving and inventive,” I wrote from Las Vegas on 4.24. “And it’s not just another Borat-Bruno here-we-go-again yaddah yaddah, which I had feared it might be.

“Okay, don’t trust me (I don’t care) but it was clear to yours truly and presumably others last night that (a) The Dictator is much, much better than Bruno, (b) it’s not a victim-punking mockumentary but a ludicrously farcical movie-movie with an arc and character development and a payoff — a personal journey of awakening (‘like Eat Pray Love,’ as Sacha Baron Cohen‘s General Admiral Aladeen quips during the last third) that is mostly ridiculous but isn’t dismissable, partly because (c) it has actual political content and a great political third-act speech that for some reason reminded me of a payoff moment in a Preston Sturges film (like Hail the Conquering Hero, perhaps).”

On the promotional circuit for whatever film Kristen Stewart, being as inwardly directed as you or me or perhaps more so, is constantly trying to say things that don’t lend themselves to promotion. But that’s not the job at hand so she’s asked all the usual-usuals (as usual) and she’s always saying “well, yeah, kinda…uh-huh, thank you…I guess so” and other defaults. An obvious reticence and discomfort angling toward otherness…right?

After spotting this two or three years ago I thought Stewart might share the moodiness and perhaps some of the talent of Sean Penn or Marlon Brando. Or that she might at least indulge in experiments from time to time that might unleash something. Now I don’t know. Because Snow White and Huntsman (clip at 9:40) looks profoundly ridiculous, and I’m wondering when will the Penn-like, Brando-ish career experimentation start…or is she just going for the money and saying “fuck it” and whatever else?

It’s very heartening to sit in a warm Berlin apartment on a Sunday morning with a strong cup of coffee and watch YouTube fragments of Friday night’s Real Time, etc. You have to be out of the country to feel this particular form of affection.

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