Jeffrey Wells Certain scenes in certain films melt some of us down. Not all of us — some are built differently in terms of emotional thresholds and whatnot. I have a shortlist of scenes that choke me up (the finale of Carousel, the last 20 minutes of The Best Years of Our Lives), and no one is obliged to say “me too.” At the same time it’s fair, I think, to occasionally remark “that movie made you cry?” I respect CODA for what it is (i.e., a family sitcom with a would-be lump in its throat) but…
What the pandemic managed to do was all but kill the communal watching of quality-grade movies — i.e., theatrical — outside the rarified environs of film festivals and elite special-venue houses. Multiplexes have been devolving for years into gladiator arenas, showing only mostly lowest-common-denominator gruel for the grunts. Covid finalized that process. Cinema has obviously “survived”, but (festivals aside) largely through streaming. And don’t get me started about the shuttering of Hollywood’s ArcLight plex plus the Dome.
The El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, New Mexico, needs a spell-checker. Desi Arnaz‘s name is misspelled on the menu, and the website announces that “Fred MacMurry” (sic) stayed there once.
11.1, 9:05 am update: Kenneth Branagh‘s Belfast is a Telluride lock. The Toronto honchos lied.l about their world premiere, etc.
Earlier; So the Toronto Film Festival is lying about a so-called world premiere of Kenneth Branagh‘s Belfast (Focus Features, 11.12.21). The TIFF screening is slated for Sunday, 11.12.21, but it will have its actual world premiere, I’m hearing, at the Telluride Film Festival.
I can’t say “take it to the bank” because I’m not holding a 2021 Telluride Film Festival brochure in my hand as I write this, but it appears that the TIFF guys have been fabricating on this particular matter.
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, which will debut at the Venice Film Festival on 9.2, will also screen in Telluride.
And Rebecca Hall‘s Passing, by the way, is not playing Telluride.
And not enough Lou Reed? Put another way: Todd Hayne‘s Velvet Underground allegedly has more Cale than it should. It’ll play soon in Telluride, and then we’ll know.
Posted on 7.7.21: Honestly? I’d much rather see a smart, sexy, well-layered, in-depth documentary about the late Lou Reed than a doc about the Velvet Underground. Because all my life I’ve had to deal with John Cale‘s jagged, screechy-ass electric violin, and while I know (and respect the fact) that Cale’s tonally abrasive playing was an essential component in the Velvet Underground sound, it always bothered me regardless.
Telepathic HE to Cale while listening to “Venus in Furs”: “Yeah, I get it, man…you’re a brilliant string-saw, an avant garde musician who’s moved past the tired milquetoast game of trying to comfort or ear-massage your listeners…but every now and then I wish I could shut you up, no offense.”
I loved the Velvets because of Reed and Nico and most of the songs, but I liked Reed a lot more when he was free of Cale–screech and began cutting his own albums with David Bowie, Mick Ronson and his own musicians — Transformer, Berlin, Sally Can’t Dance, Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal, Coney Island Baby, Street Hassle, Magic and Loss.
I’m therefore a little bit sorry that Todd Haynes‘ The Velvet Underground doc, which premiered Wednesday night in Cannes, allegedly focuses a bit more on Cale than on Reed. Or at least, it does according to Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman. That’s unfortunate, if true.
Tatiana and myself and maybe ten other people (if that) constitute the entire visiting tourist population in Seligman, Arizona.
I’m now fully persuaded that No Time To Die (UA Releasing, 10.8.21) will be an above-average Bond flick. At the same time I understand that it can’t break the mold — that it has to do the usual Bondy-Bondy things.
Keep in mind that principal photography for No Time To Die began during April 2019 — nearly a full year before the pandemic kicked in. Principal photography finished in October 2019, or just under two years ago.
If you’re one of those old-fashioned classicists who believes that the evening hours should be accepted and submitted to, the general atmosphere at the Rodeway Inn & Suites in Needles is…what’s the best description?…horrific. It makes you feel nauseous. A voice inside is muttering “it shouldn’t be this way…this is a perversion of God’s plan.”
It’s like staying in a low-security penitentiary for white-collar criminals. There are lights, lights, LIGHTS everywhere. The idea seems to be “Rodeway will protect you from the predatory darkness…we will illuminate everything…we will make the darkness day!”
The main lobby is over illuminated,. Acoustic Johnny Cash is playing too loudly when you check in. The bathroom fixtures are dogshit-level. There’s a nice air-conditioned McDonald’s next door (good wifi). We are living in a total Jetson’s world…except in a few rare pockets, real-deal Americana has been completely extinguished. Comfortable but ghastly. It’s 10:05 am and the temperature is 95 degrees. The sky is bright blue.
The 51st Academy Awards telecast, which celebrated the finest film achievements of 1978, happened on 2.20.79.
HE personal picks are as follows: Best Picture — tie between Coming Home and Days of Heaven. (Runners–up: Heaven Can Wait, The Deer Hunter, Midnight Express, An Unmarried Woman, Interiors.)
Best Director — tie between Hal Ashby, Coming Home, and Terrence Malick, Days of Heaven. (Runners–up: Warren Beatty and Buck Henry, Heaven Can Wait; Michael Cimino, The Deer Hunter, Woody Allen, Interiors, Alan Parker, Midnight Express).
Best Actor: Jon Voight, Coming Home. Best Actress: Jane Fonda, Coming Home. Best Supporting Actor: Jack Warden, Heaven Can Wait. Best Supporting Actress: Maureen Stapleton, Interiors.
Best Original Score: Ennio Morricone, Days of Heaven.
Beanie Feldstein‘s performance as Monica Lewinsky has been more or less approved, but Impeachment itself isn’t faring as well.
“Only a couple actors dig themselves out from underneath the weight of leaden dialogue, overt exposition and, in some cases, extremely distracting prosthetics. Otherwise, Impeachment is an overwrought rehash that’s more off-putting than enlightening as it crams everything it can into its inherently complex narrative.” — from Caroline Franke’s 8.31 Variety review.
“Even as the season zeroes in on the finer details of the story (drawing primarily from Jeffrey Toobin’s book ‘A Vast Conspiracy‘), it struggles to locate a larger point worthy of the time it takes to convey it. For a star-studded drama about an explosive historical moment, Impeachment feels oddly static.
“[And] in reducing [the principal female characters], once again, to the roles they played rather than the people they were (or are — Lewinsky serves as an EP on the series), Impeachment feels a little too little, a little too late.” — The Hollywood Reporter‘s Angie Han.
Tatiana didn’t want to arise at 5 am tomorrow and drive 10 hours to Gallup, New Mexico. So we left at 7:30 pm this evening with an intention to crash in either Needles by midnight or Kingman, Arizona at 1 am. We’re on 15 north as we speak.
