There were slight concerns about Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth having been turned down by at least one major festival, but now the sun is shining with the black-and-white, shot-on-a-sound-stage version of William Shakesperare‘s classic melodrama of bloody greed and ambition booked to open the 59th New York Film Festival on Friday, 9.24.

Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand will play long-of-tooth versions of the titular Scottish character and his scheming “out damned spot” wife. The only costar names I recognize are Brendan Gleeson and Stephen Root.

We all understand that films chosen to open a major film festival are usually audience-friendly, as in a wee bit soft or milquetoasty or at least not overly edgy. It would appear that The Tragedy of Macbeth may be an exception to this tradition, given the NYFF’s decision to apply the term “anguished” in their official description.

NYFF press release: “A work of stark chiaroscuro and incantatory rage, Joel Coen’s boldly inventive visualization of The Scottish play is an anguished film that stares, mouth agape, at a sorrowful world undone by blind greed and thoughtless ambition.”

If NYFF honcho Eugene Hernandez manages to land Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Soggy Bottom, that’ll be two significant feathers in his cap.

A24 will release The Tragedy of Macbeth theatrically before it streams on Apple or Apple +.

Roman Polanski‘s Macbeth (’71) will always be my favorite version.

Dune trailer observation #1; Kyle MacLachlan wasn’t a big tall muscle man, but he seemed average sized in a fitting sort of way and at least half-capable of handling himself in a fight. In the new Dune trailer there’s a scene shared by Jason Momoa and Timothee Chalamet, and I’m sorry but Chalamet seems rather short and slight in this context. Leading men in epic movies are obliged to fulfill a certain machismo factor. They don’t have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger or whatsisname in John Carter, but on the other hand they can’t be toothpicks.

Dune trailer observation #2: By all appearances this movie would be all sand and wind and big sets and wispy nothingness without the older, salt-and-pepper, middle-aged guys — Josh Brolin, Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista — doing the heavy lifting.

Dune trailer observation #3; Did Zendaya train at RADA? Has she done Shakespeare? Without subtitles I wouldn’t be able to understand a single word that she’s half-muttering and half-speaking under her breath…”rolling over the sands you can see spice in the air..the outsiders ravage our layahnds in front of our eyes.” Could Warner Bros. offer special Zendaya-subtitled versions of Dune in theatres? Because every time she says something it’s gonna be “oh, Jesus…here we go.”

Dune trailer observation #4: Spices are fuel in this context, but they aren’t essentials like food, clothing, water and shelter so who cares from a planet Earth perspective? I sure as shit don’t, I can tell you. And do I really have to hang out in a dusty desert environment for 155 minutes? Yes, bitch — you really have to.

The photo is great for the rain-soaked streets, of course. And interesting because you can’t see the woman’s face, but there’s no missing her distinctive umbrella and overcoat with bunched-up sleeves, and the fact that she’s on the tall side. And her distinctive cab-beckoning technique — not with a general wave but two fingers. A woman of class and subtlety.

Richard Quine‘s My Sister Eileen, an allegedly misbegotten musical that I’ve never wanted to see and almost certainly never will see, opened at the Victoria on 9.22.55. Charles Laughton‘s The Night of the Hunter, a poster for which can be viewed in the distance off to the right, opened at the Mayfair one week later — 9.29.55.

Neither film was a box-office success so it can be assumed that this photo was taken soon after the Hunter opening; probably sometime in early to mid-October. Although back then even box-office stinkers would remain in first-run theatres for somewhat longer periods.

If my estimate is correct, James Dean had died only a week or two before this shot was taken — 9.30.55. Elia Kazan‘s East of Eden, Dean’s big breakout film, had opened at the Astor theatre around seven months earlier, on 3.19.55. Dean’s second film, Rebel Without a Cause, would open two or three weeks hence — 10.27.55.

I know that look on Leonardo DiCaprio’s face — as Ernest Burkhart, the bad-guy nephew of Robert DeNiro’s William Hale character in Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth’s Killers of the Flower Moon, he’s projecting a lowbrow dumbfuck attitude, a little hostile and guarded, probably not enough brain cells, etc.

Born in 1874, Hale wasn’t that old in the mid 1920s, of course — about 50 or thereabouts. DeNiro looks great-grandpa-ish but we’ll let that slide. (Leo will hit the big five-oh in November ‘24 — three years and change.)

Meanwhile Jesse Plemons, as FBI good guy Tom White, has a haircut and a head shape not unlike that of Lou Costello or, if you will, a basketball. He’s walking with a crutch on his left side.

Photos shot by Owen Hutchison.

Since returning from Cannes and presumably having concluded, along with everyone else, that the Toronto Film Festival has descended to (temporary) second-tier status, World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy has been trying, along with everyone else, to sagely spitball the Venice, Telluride and New York Film Festival rosters.

I have to say that I’m feeling a wee bit gloomy about the likely Telluride roster, given that two films that I was really hoping-against-logic to see there — Clint Eastwood‘s Cry Macho (Warner Bros., 9.17) and Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde (Netflix), which began shooting in August ’19 — won’t be there for sure, although the latter may turn up in Venice or Toronto.

I was also hoping to see the Sopranos prequel, David Chase and Alan Taylor‘s The Many Saints of Newark (Warner Bros, 10.1), in Telluride, but who knows?

I’m also hearing (although I don’t know this for a fact) that Adam McKay‘s Don’t Look Up (Netflix) will bypass Telluride. That’s a drag. And forget Guillermo del Toro‘s Nightmare Alley playing there also, I’m told.

There’s also the question of Joel Coen‘s The Tragedy of Macbeth (A24/Apple), which, I’m told, has been seen and gently passed on by at least one important award-season player. That, to me, means nothing because everyone will want to see it anyway because Coen + William Shakespeare + Denzel Washington + Frances McDormand is too highly charged of a combo. Slated for a theatrical fourth-quarter release by A24 followed by Apple streaming, it will seem curious if The Tragedy of Macbeth bypasses the festivals and just “opens,” as it were.

Right now the Telluride keepers (per Ruimy and others) appears to be Paul Schrader‘s The Card Counter, Reinaldo Marcus Green‘s King Richard, Pablo Larrain‘s Spencer (I regret having to repeat that Kristen Stewart is too short to play Diana Spencer), Mike Mills‘ C’mon C’mon, Jane Campion‘s The Power of Dog, Pedro Almodovar‘s Madres Paralelas, Lin Manuel-Miranda‘s Tick, Tick…Boom! (saga of Rent maestro Jonathan Larson), Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune, Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch and Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s The Lost Daughter.

Not to mention Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground, Celine Sciamma’s Petite Maman, Will Sharpe’s The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, Michael Pearce’s Encounter and Ken Burns’ multi-part Muhammad Ali documentary.

Toronto keepers include Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, Michael Showalter’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. Blonde may also play there, apparently, in the wake of a Venice debut.

Ruimy’s Venice projections include Blonde, Madres Paraleles, The Power of the Dog, Triangle of Sadness, The Card Counter, Last Night in Soho, The Hand of God, Spencer”, Driftwood, The Lost Daughter, Official Competition, Freaks Out, Veneciafrenia, Lost Illusions and Henrico’s Farm.

Having seen a new Dune trailer plus a generic-sounding IMAX sizzle reel, Forbes Scott Mendelson has posted a 7.21.21 “what will happen to Dune when it opens?” article, and the general feeling is one of “uh-oh.”

The article has two stand-out proclamations, both alarmist. The first is the headline’s mention of the money-losing John Carter…that in itself is cause for shrieking. Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding…parched desert milieu! big ugly monsters!…ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! The second alarm-bell is a Mendelson statement that “the marketing folks at Warner Bros. have their work cut out for them” in order to spare Dune from a Carter-like fate.

“And that second trailer, mostly culled from the first ten minutes, was oddly less narratively coherent than the initial teaser,” Mendelson explains. “More so than the first teaser, the second trailer” — expected to pop early next month — “seems to be selling the mere idea of ‘Hey look, we made a mega-budget, all-star Dune movie!’ as its primary hook.”

Helpful Mendelson suggestion: “[The second trailer contains] hints of a ‘prince of privilege switches sides and aligns himself with the oppressed’ plot. That primal story that has resonated in everything from Exodus to Avatar. If there is a third trailer (perhaps timed to the film’s Venice Festival launch or to No Time to Die in late September), I’d suggest leaning hard into that angle. Hell, even if they have to lie a little bit, I’d play up the notion that Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya are dueling protagonists whose destinies eventually intermingle.”

…but they’re always swamped with so many expressions of rapt adoration and slavish praise, like water gushing out of a firehouse, drenching everyone in attendance…a feeling of drowning, of not being able to breathe…give it a rest! It’s left to the recipients to turn it down and somehow make it feel real, but by the time they’re before a mike and sharing whatever you’re too drained and exhausted to care. The only tribute events that I can stand are roasts, except they’re exhausting and draining in different ways.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has announced its 44th lifetime achievement award winners, to be handed out on 12.5.21: Motown founder Berry Gordy, opera star Justino Díaz (who?), singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, entertainer Bette Midler and Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels.

Gordy, Midler and Michaels are legendary, of course, but Mitchell is the only kissed-by-genius, Pablo Picasso– or Frank Sinatra– or Billie Holiday- or Isodora Duncan-level artist among them.

The coupling of Aaron Sorkin and Paulina Porizkova has gone south, and “why” is none of my damn business. But I can’t help myself. My guess is that Sorkin, like most writers, needs to live and work in a certain regulated hardcore way, and he’s not the type to drop to his knees and slavishly worship his wife or girlfriend on a daily basis. That or he simply didn’t spend enough money on Porizkova, who almost certainly demands, being an ex-supermodel, a triple-A, bucks-up, nothing-but-the-best lifestyle.

As for Porizkova’s psychology, read (a) Katie Rosman’s 5.15.21 N.Y. Times profile along with (b) Roger Friedman’s 5,15,21 assessment of the article and Porzikiova herself — “There’s no end of weirdness here.”

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The thing I noticed about the new trailer for Ridley Scott‘s The Last Duel, which is set in 14th Century France, is that Matt Damon is wearing his hair in a rural-Pennsylvania ’80s mullet style. (I know this suggests that I’m not an especially deep or thoughtful person, but that’s the first thing that hit me.)

The second thing is the subdued color scheme used by dp Dariusz Wolski — grayish and almost monochrome except for evening scenes set near a fireplace, in which case the tones are primarily amber.

The third thing that came to mind is that the “accused rapist who insists he’s innocent” plotline, which is based on historical fact, delivers an echo of sexual harassment and assault in the #MeToo era.

The fourth thing is that El Cid features a similar duel scene that lasts about nine minutes.

There were some recent reports on Reddit about one and possibly two sexual assault scenes that were allegedly difficult for some viewers to sit through, but I don’t want to get into it.

Here’s a Lapham’s Quarterly article (“The Woman in Black“) that explores the historical basis of The Last Duel.

The Last Duel (20th Century, 10.15) costars Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer and Ben Affleck.