Black Widow (Disney, 7.9) has been screened for the usual salivating suspects, including your MCU fanboys and fangirls. I’ll bet $10K that their reactions are, for the most part, completely without meaning or resonance or trust. At 134 minutes it’s almost certainly going to be a form of punishment for anyone who isn’t a Marvel cultist, especially given that it’s half an origin story — a form of imprisonment in itself. A significant (large?) percentage of critics will default with positive reviews due to the gender representation factor (Scarlet Johansson, Florence Pugh, Cate Shortland directing). But you know what’s coming. Almost certainly a burn, completely negligible, etc. I’m not looking forward to sitting through two hours and 14 minutes of this — what reasonable person of taste would be? Plus Natasha Romanoff has left this mortal coil. Yes, of course — death is an utterly meaningless concept within the MCU, but I saw Endgame…

Ned Beatty‘s recent passing took a lot of us back to John Boorman‘s Deliverance (’72). Released 49 years ago, it was perfect for its time, but would probably not be right for ours. Sometimes it’s better to leave well enough alone.

It’s too white, for one thing. And I’m not sure audiences would want to see an action thriller triggered by the anal rape of an overweight suburban salesman by some unwashed toothless hillbilly — that’s some rough stuff. But what a primal, fascinating tale.

Deliverance was the first and possibly the last well-made drama that scared viewers half to death with the idea that city and suburban folk should stay the hell out of the primitive areas of this country and far away from the residents of these cultures. A film that said “you don’t want to know those people, and they don’t want to know you.”

The basic attraction of Deliverance is the thrill, danger and horror of four suburban guys on a nourishing canoe trip down a beautiful wild river, and how, for a while, it all seems like the greatest woodsy adventure ever.

Until everything turns around in the darkest way imaginable…sexual assault, bloody murder, hiding a body, another killing, a subsequent life or death struggle to survive by having to kill again and and then, back in civilization, having to lie their way out of a possible arrest and prosecution in the aftermath. And all it happening in the midst of a bucolic hillbilly hell — leafy, primal, horrific.

Did Deliverance paint an incorrect and malicious portrait of deep-rural types? Yes, and them’s the breaks. But there’s never been another horror film quite like it. And despite the restrained realistic vibe and first-rate dialogue and Vilmos Zsigmond‘s magnificent cinematography, that’s exactly what it is — a southern nightmare trip.

I wonder how familiar under-40 audiences are with Deliverance, and whether a remake could work. Would there be complaints from the LGBTQ community that a depiction of male rape might somehow demonize homosexuality? (I’ve always wondered if the male rape scene in Pulp Fiction was inspired by Deliverance.)

I’m also wondering how the original would have played if Sam Peckinpah had directed it. It’s probably for the best that he didn’t. The film benefits from Boorman’s deft, somewhat artsy touch.

I’m also wondering how it would’ve played if Gene Hackman, Lee Marvin or Jack Nicholson had played the Jon Voight part. Or if Marlon Brando had played the Burt Reynolds role. Or if Donald Sutherland or Charlton Heston had taken a whack at it.

Any time someone posts any kind of “hooray, the Donald is going down!,” the HE commentariat always says “take the needle out of your arm…nobody is going to indict a rich ex-President and make it stick…the man is all but bulletproof…the only thing that can stop him is death itself,” etc. Please tell me what is suspect or unlikely about what Richard Signorelli has tweeted here. Loans will be called in, properties will be liquidated, no new deals, no liquor licenses, etc.

This is an old revisionist routine, but just for the record I thought I’d re-award some of the 1990 Oscars (i.e., the winners of the 63rd Academy Awards that aired on 2.13.91 or 30 and 1/2 years ago).

Original Best Picture winner: Kevin Costner‘s Dances With Wolves. HE re-chosen winner: Martin Scorsese‘s Goodfellas. Other nominees: Awakenings, Ghost, The Godfather Part III.

Original Best Director winner: Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves). HE re-chosen winner: Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas). Other nominees: Francis Coppola (The Godfather Part III), Stephen Frears (The Grifters), Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune).

Original Best Actor winner: Jeremy Irons, Reversal of Fortune as Claus von Bülow. HE winner: Ditto — no change. Other nominees: Kevin Costner, Dances with Wolves; Robert De Niro, Awakenings; Gérard Depardieu, Cyrano de Bergerac; Richard Harris, The Field.

Original Best Actress winner: Kathy Bates, Misery. HE winner: Ditto — no change. Other nominees: Anjelica Huston, The Grifters; Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman; Meryl Streep, Postcards from the Edge; Joanne Woodward, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.

Original Best Supporting Actor winner: Joe Pesci, Goodfellas. HE winner: Ditto — no change. Other nominees: Bruce Davison, Longtime Companion; Andy García, The Godfather Part III; Graham Greene, Dances with Wolves; Al Pacino, Dick Tracy.

Original Best Supporting Actress winner: Whoopi Goldberg, Ghost. HE re-chosen winner: Lorraine Bracco, Goodfellas. Other nominees: Annette Bening, The Grifters; Diane Ladd, Wild at Heart; Mary McDonnell, Dances with Wolves.

Original Best Original Screenplay winner: Ghost, Bruce Joel Rubin. HE re-chosen winner: Metropolitan, Whit Stillman. Other nominees: Alice, Woody Allen; Avalon, Barry Levinson; Green Card, Peter Weir.

Original Best Adapted Screenplay winner: Dances with Wolves, Michael Blake. HE re-chosen winner: Reversal of Fortune, Nicholas Kazan. Other nominees: Awakenings, Steven Zaillian; Goodfellas, Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese; The Grifters, Donald E. Westlake.

I was flirting with the idea of catching a Los Lobos concert at the Greek amphitheatre on 8.21. The last time I caught a Greek concert was almost exactly six years ago (6.20.15) — a Brian Wilson Beach Boys concert for the ages.

The seats, comped by Lionsgate / Roadside to promote Bill Pohlad‘s Love and Mercy, were somewhere in the right-side B section — the third-best seats you could get. The Los Lobos seats will be strictly cash-on-the-barrelhead, of course.

If I want to sit in the GA PIT section for the Los Lobos show, it’ll set me back $331 per seat or $662 for two of us…not bad! A Center section seats (green) are about the same — $335, $670. If I want to go the El Cheapo route by sitting in the north or south terrace section (violet), the price plummets to $257 or $267 per seat or $314 or $334 for two.

It’s entirely possible that I’ll never attend another large-stadium concert again, and I’m speaking as someone who attended quite a few back in the day. One of my favorite Greek concerts was a Boy George show in ’84 or thereabouts…”I’m Afraid of Me,” etc.

Twitter (i.e., Michael McKean) asks: What 5 movies are you confident you’ve seen at least 10 times?

HE sez: Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, The Hospital, Mean Streets, Heat, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Notorious, Network, Out of the Past, The Guns of Navarone, Some Like It Hot, High Noon, Red River, Only Angels Have Wings, The Thing From Another World, Barry Lyndon, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 12 Angry Men, Double Indemnity, King Kong, Lawrence of Arabia, The Departed, Gunga Din.

Alfred Hitchcock films are about…where should I start? Anxiety, murder, threats, suspense, unsettling intrigues, unfairness, innocent characters caught in a tight spot, paranoia, creepy undercurrents, more suspense, knives, scarves, pistols, etc. But that’s not what the creator of this T-shirt has in mind. For what he/she is longing for is a sense of conservative order and a feeling of being safe from chaos. Hitchcock films are always about immaculate control — about Alfred’s ability to create and in fact dictate a world that always behaves according to his own cautiously conceived rules and refinements, not to mention his dry sense of humor. As Hitchcock once said, ““Some films are slices of life…mine are slices of cake.”

O’Casey on Blowup mystery — posted on 8.1.07

According to Blowup costar Ronan O’Casey, who explained the full, partially-unfilmed plot of Michelangelo Antonioni‘s 1996 classic to Roger Ebert seven years ago, the inattention paid to the murder plot — on Antonioni’s part as well as that of David Hemming‘s photographer character — was a kind of accident. Antonioni was forced to go all mysterious and inconclusive, he says, because producer Carlo Ponti shut the film down before all the scenes were shot.

Ronan O’Casey’s only Blowup closeup

“The intended story was as follows: the young lover, armed with a pistol, was to precede Vanessa [Redgrave] and me to Maryon Park in London, conceal himself in the bushes and await our arrival,” O’Casey explains. “I pick up Vanessa in a nice new dark green Jaguar and we drive through London — giving Antonioni a chance to film that swinging, trendy, sixties city of the Beatles, Mary Quant, the Rolling Stones, and Carnaby Street. We stop and I buy Vanessa a man’s watch, which she wears throughout the rest of the film.

“We then saunter into the park, stopping now and then to kiss (lucky me). In the center of the park, Vanessa gives me a passionate embrace and prolonged kiss, and glances at the spot where her new lover is hiding. He shoots me (unlucky me), and the two leave the park intending to drive away. Their plans goes awry when he notices Hemmings with his camera and fears that Hemmings has photos of her. As it turns out, he has.

“None of this was ever shot. There were other scenes, such as those between Sarah Miles and Jeremy Glover [i.e, Vanessa’s character’s boyfriend who was also the trigger man in Maryon Park] that also went unrealized. Some of the scenes that were shot pertaining to the murder plot ended up in the film, but are completely puzzling to the audience. For example, in the film there is a scene with Vanessa and Hemmings at a cafe.” Wrong! The scene hes’ describing is between Hemmings and his bearded book editor.] A young man approaches, notices that she is with Hemmings, and runs away. That’s Glover. This makes for an odd, mysterious moment because the audience is completely ignorant of his identity.”
Ponti did Antonioni a favor, of course. If the all of this murder-plot, watch-buying stuff had been filmed and integrated into the film, Blowup would have been a much lesser work. That moment when Glover approaches the cafe and then walks away is perfect — absolutely perfect.