Jeffrey Wells As I said last month, if Will Smith wasn’t such a sad little status-quo money whore (i.e., playing only “safe” cool-guy roles that pay his whopping salary), he’d agree to portray Barack Obama in Jay Roach and Danny Strong‘s Game Change. No one has been cast as Obama yet…right? Ed Harris is playing John McCain.
Apologies for failing yesterday to post Jett Wells‘ review of Massy Tadjedin‘s Last Night, which screened Monday night at the Tribeca Film Festival: “My first Tribeca Film Festival got off to a slow start last weekend due to my dog throwing up in the car before dropping him off at my mom’s apartment, and then my shuttling down to D.C. to see a friend,” Jett begins.
“Directed and written by Massy Tadjedin, Last Night is about the age-old question on whether to cheat or not to cheat. The film portrays a struggling, newly married couple (Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington) having doubts about whether they got married too soon or not. Heard this one before?
“You don’t really get a feel for the couple nor find them likable before they get into their first fight. Even though I’m blinking slowly and wondering why writing about this is more boring than the plot, you do stick around to see who’ll cheat first.
“The film jumps back and forth between Eva Mendes acting annoyingly, somewhat ridiculously and almost sadistically flirty with Worthington despite knowing he’s married, and Knightley bumping into an old flame, played by French actor-director Guillame Canet. I’m not going to spoil the third-act finish, but let’s just say you usually know where these kinds of movies are going to go depending on the gender of the director. And I’ll also say this: the abrupt, somewhat mysterious ending is, for me, pretty satisfying.
“Since Mr. HE himself has unique views on cheating, I’m sure he’d have more disdain for the banal storyline. But for me it boils down to this: it’s never good to cheat, and one should never keep it a secret because chances are it’s going to happen over and over again until the truth becomes a ticking time bomb in the form of a lie (to yourself).
“Neither Knightley or Worthington are bad people — that’s not the point. And it’s obvious neither is going to lie about what they did and didn’t do.”
Jeffrey Wells interjection: Jett chose not to explain my views about cheating so here they are: (a) infidelity is pain — a terrible and hurtful thing to inflict upon your partner — and therefore you should never go there; (b) If you do you should keep it to two or three episodes because extended affairs are always discovered sooner or later; and (c) if you’re questioned by a partner always lie and deny, lie and deny and lie and deny. As Lenny Bruce once said. “Deny it even if she’s got pictures.”
More mythical-fantasy CG crap in the mold of Louis Leterrier‘s Clash of the Titans, and directed by Tarsem Singh. The bare-chested guy yelling “noooo!” at the beginning is Henry Cavill, the star of Zac Snyder‘s Man of Steel. The moustachioed guy in the cattle-horn helmet (i.e., “King Hyperion”) is Mickey Rourke. And poor Freida Pinto (triple-devalued between You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, Miral and this thing) costars as Phaedra.
To mark the 15th anniversary of Saul Bass‘s passing, web designer Christian Annyas yesterday posted a Vertigo movie-poster-design page that includes some alternate images that Bass designed but weren’t chosen as the primary. My favorite is the sexier lower-left image, followed by the despairing lower-right.
The upper-left was chosen for the ’58 one-sheet but the hat worn by the male silhouette dates it, obviously. Here’s my 7.16.10 riff on that awful brown suit worn by Vertigo star James Stewart.
The actual art was done by Bass associate Art Goodman. “Bass designed everything, but often other people were involved in the execution of his ideas,” Annyas explains. Here’s a list of Saul Bass/Art Goodman collaborations.
Here’s an article about Bass by Pat Kirkham that’ll be published later this year.
20th Century Fox… I mean, MGM has created a new 70mm print of Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins‘ West Side Story (’61), and Fox Home Video will issue a Bluray, I’m told, sometime later this year. The 70mm print will screen it this Sunday at 7pm at the American Cinematheque under the aegis of TCM’s Classic Film Festival.
The 1961 consensus, of course, was that West Side Story lacked the snap and vitality of the 1957 Broadway play, and that the play was an exuberantly jacked-up theatrical impression of street conditions among upper-west-side Manhattan’s poor whites and Puerto Ricans in the early ’50s. So the film was twice removed to begin with, and by today’s standards it seems almost satirically inauthentic.
But the overture really works emotionally, and so does the helicopter footage over Manhattan that precedes the opening Jets-vs-Sharks dance number (which was shot not far from where Lincoln Center stands today). The overture, really, is the whole ball game. I can watch this section and the scherzo and ballet sequence over and over. But the rest of it? Richard Beymer and Russ Tamblyn and those freshly painted bright-red tenement walls and Natalie Wood wearing brown Puerto Rican makeup? Later.
Donald Trump‘s response to the White House’s release this morning of Barack Obama‘s live birth certificate was frankly my own: why did they wait so long?
With all the idiots out there claiming President Obama was born in Kenya plus that huge block of Republicans who right now believe the Kenya scenario, what was the upside of not producing this document and putting the issue to bed once and for all?
The certificate was physically obtained in Hawaii at Obama’s personal expense and flown back to Washington, D.C. yesterday.
From the HuffPost‘s Sam Stein: “Last Friday the president himself wrote Loretta J. Fuddy, the director of health at the State of Hawaii, requesting ‘two certified copies of my original certificate of live birth.’ Fuddy complied. Shortly thereafter, the president’s counsel, Judith Corley of the firm Perkins Coie, flew to Hawaii to pick up two copies of the form. The trip was not taxpayer funded but, rather, paid out of the president’s personal account.
“Corley returned on Tuesday at roughly 4 p.m. with the copies. The White House announced a “morning gaggle” for reporters shortly thereafter. One aide explained that they did not want to “hold” on to the documents for release on a later date.”
So far Fast Five, a steroid male-attitude robot fantasy about muscles and possessions and whale-sized physiques and high-octane flamboyance and studly one-upsmanship, has an 81% Rotten Tomatoes rating. It is what it is (blah, blah, blah) and I’m not suggesting that Universal executives or director Justin Lin be indicted for a felony, but I’m going to rip it a new asshole tomorrow morning anyway.
Along with the smart critics who know better but have given it a pass because they know that the regular-guy mob is into it and they don’t want to seem too fickle or prissy or metrosexual if they don’t take off their shirt and jump into the passenger seat and shout “hell, yeah…a good time!” In other words I, Jeffrey Wells, am man enough to pan this thing.
Some have been following the great Ishtar Bluray Delay saga since last January, but most haven’t so let’s recap the chronology. But first let’s report the latest, which is that earlier today the 92nd Street Y announced “a rare screening and discussion” with Ishtar director-writer Elaine May on Tuesday, 5.17 at 7:15 pm. The 92Y press release mentioned the Ishtar “cult” that has taken form in recent years and also the “impending” release of the Ishtar Bluray.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will eventually, no doubt, release their Ishtar Bluray (i.e., the one that almost came out last January but then was pulled at the last minute) but to go by SPHE publicist Fritz Friedman nobody at that company has any specific idea when this long-delayed disc will finally appear. Sometime this summer, next fall, next year…we’ll get back to you.
Why, then, does today’s 92Y press release refer to an “impending release” of the disc? That’s apparently conjecture by Miriam Bale, an associate of May’s who’s referred to in the release as the “curator” of May’s 92Y event.
I’ve been personally involved on the fringes of this prolonged political tangle for several months so here’s how it’s all gone down from my perspective:
(a) I posted a pretty good “where is Ishtar?” piece on 1.8.10.
(b) New Yorker columnist Richard Brody wrote an article called “To Wish Upon Ishtar” on 8.9.10.
(c) Sony Home Entertainment, presumably in response to the emerging Ishtar cult community, announced on 10.26.10 that Ishtar would come out on Bluray on 1.4.11.
(d) The Ishtar Bluray nonethless didn’t appear on 1.4.11, and I was told by Friedman a day later this was because star-producer Warren Beatty felt that it needed to be promoted a bit before being released. As I understood it, Beatty’s idea (apparently in concert with SPHE president David Bishop) was to perhaps stage a couple of special screenings in New York and Los Angeles with Beatty, May and Ishtar costar Dustin Hoffman in attendance and do post-screening q & a’s. These screenings could possibly happen in May, Beatty speculated.
(e) On 1.13.11 I received a copy of the Ishtar Bluray from a guy who bought a copy on my behalf at a Toronto video store. (Somehow a shipment of Ishtar Blurays was sent to Canada despite the decision to hold the release. A few were sold before being recalled.) I ran a piece later that day about seeing it.
(f) I passed along the idea of possible promotional Ishtar screenings in May to Museum of Modern Art film director Rajendra Roy, who had gotten May to appear at a Mike Nichols tribute on 8.18.09, and also to the Austin-based Moses Chiullan, the former HE contributor who said he wanted to try and stage an Ishtar screening in Los Angeles with the help of the Alamo Draft House guys. I then passed along their info and emails to Beatty.
(g) I ran into Beatty at a Santa Barbara Film Festival party last February and asked if he’d heard from Roy or Chiullan and, if so, had they discussed anything? He answered in his usual vague way, but he did say he wanted to make sure Elaine May “is on board,” which sounded to me like an allusion to her being satisfied or happy or taken care of, etc. Peter Biskind‘s Beatty biolgraphy reported that Beatty and May clashed during the making of Ishtar. It’s accepted doctrine that the disastrous reception to the film in 1987 pretty much ended May’s directing career.
(h) A few days ago I called Beatty to ask what happened to the potential May release of the Ishtar Bluray along with the idea of staging special screenings, etc. His response was again vague, but he did mention wanting to make sure May is “on board,” or words to that effect. “That’s still a concern?,” I said. “You said that last February.”
(i) I left two messages for Elaine May through Mike Nichols‘ Manhattan office — silencio.
(j) The 92nd Street Y announced its Elaine May-talks-about-Ishtar evening earlier today.
(k) SPHE’s Friedman called to say that SPHE president Bishop is calling or reaching out or sending carrier-pigeon messages to Elaine May, and that he “wants to talk to her about tweaking the [Bluray] masters to see if she’s happy with it.” (HE Question: In what realm is a Bluray mastered, duplicated and packaged with copies sent to Canada and then three months later the president of the Bluray distribution company tries to get in touch with the director to ask her about tweaks?) Friedman adds that Bishop has reached out to Beatty about possibly arranging for special promotional screenings of the film with Beatty, May and Hoffman doing q & a’s after screenings as a way to stir word-of-mouth. As far as I could tell this last statement was said without irony. Bishop appears to regard this idea as a relatively fresh one.
I’m not making any of this up. Plenty of things may have happened unbeknownst to me, but this is what I personally know to be factual. To me it’s like the Keystone Cops or like a scene from David Cronenberg‘s Scanners with my head about to explode. Things really do move this slowly and disjointedly in corporate circles from time to time.
What’s so awful about The Hangover Part II director Todd Phillips comparing his new film (Warner Bros., 5.26) to The Godfather Part II? Francis Coppola‘s 1974 classic is widely regarded as a sequel that was better (or certainly artier) than the original. Phillips is merely claiming in a droll, tongue-in-cheek way that The Hangover Part II is better than The Hangover…that’s all. Hardly a crime, even if it turns out to be bullshit.
“I think there are very few sequels that have been made that live up to or exceed their first film,” Phillips tells MTV.com’s Josh Horowitz in the above clip. “We had always planned on calling [our film] The Hangover 2, and when we finished the script, I changed the cover page and wrote The Hangover Part II, because I think the film lives up to or exceeds the first one. It was very much a nod to The Godfather.”
He actually meant “a nod to The Godfather, Part II“….Jesus, get this stuff straight.
Hollywood Life editor-in-chief Bonnie Fuller has written an emotionally effusive girly article about Lady Diana Spencer for CNN.com. I’m not challenging Fuller’s personal observations, but I don’t see how anyone can write about Diana without at least touching on the basic fact that she’s dead, and not from sheer happenstance. A tree didn’t fall on her.
The former Princess of Wales essentially orchestrated her demise due to her atrocious judgment in choosing a profligate immature asshole — Dodi Fayed — as a boyfriend. Fayed was just foolish and insecure enough, jet-setting around with his father’s millions and looking to play the protective stud by saving Diana from the paparazzi, to put her in harm’s way.
It came to a head in Paris on the night of 8.31.97. Fayed told his drunken chauffeur to try and outrun a bunch of easily finessable scuzzball photographers on motorcycles, and we all know the rest.
I was working at People when Diana started seeing Fayed in July 1997. Two or three of us were asked to search around, make some calls and prepare a file on the guy. Within three or four hours I’d learned that Fayed was an irresponsible playboy, didn’t pay his bills on occasion, lacked vision and maturity and basically wasn’t a man. Very bad boyfriend material, in short…and yet Diana overlooked this or didn’t want to know. And that’s why she’s dead.
How do you write even briefly about this woman without at least mentioning the tragic turn?
AMPAS announced today that (a) the 84th Oscar ceremony will air on Sunday, 2.26, (b) the 2011 nominations will be announced on 1.24.12, the nominees luncheon will take place on 2.6.12, and final ballot deadline will be 2.21.12. Been here before, not radical enough but fine…whatever.
Weinstein Co. co-chief Harvey Weinstein was in very good form when he spoke to TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman three days ago (Friday, 4.22) during TheGrill@Tribeca, a media and entertainment conference.