Warning: Spoiler material in paragraph #5.

During the first 45 to 50 minutes of The Woman in the Window (Netflix, now streaming) I was saying to myself “hey, this isn’t all that bad…it’s smart, absorbing, carefully composed, shot and cut in fine style and generally kinda nifty.”

Right from the get-go you can feel the presence of Joe Wright, the clever British director who also delivered the audacious Anna Karenina, along with the propulsion of what seems at first like a well-jiggered script, mostly written by Tracy Letts and later tweaked by Tony Gilroy.

There’s also a delicate but highly charged lead performance by Amy Adams, and a dishy one-scene cameo by Julianne Moore. Plus the Hitchcockian references (Rear Window, Spellbound) and hallucinatory flickerings. It’s really quite the package. Until it changes into something else.

I was troubled, I admit, by a weird early scene in which Adams, a wine-sipping, pill-popping, 40something agoraphobic therapist named Anna who lives in a three-story townhouse, is visited by a troubled teenager, Ethan (Fred Heichinger).

Ethan is the son of a bickering, tempestuous couple, Alistair and Jane Russell (Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore), who’ve just moved in across the street, and Anna watches them rant and rave right through their undraped windows. Once Ethan, bearing a small gift from his mom, introduces himself and starts talking jibber-jabbering with Anna, you’re asking himself “is this kid some kind of psycho nutjob? Why’s he so fucking hyper? There’s something Norman Batesy about this guy.”

You’re also asking yourself why Moore is (seemingly) playing a character named Jane Russell. Is there another across-the-street neighbor named Gary Cooper and one around the block named Bob Mitchum? Letts plays Anna’s therapist…what’s his name, Cary Grant?

Spoilers: Anyway I sat up in my seat and began to imagine that the critically panned Woman in the Window might have been misjudged and was actually kinda trippy, as it is during the first 45 or 50.

But then it falls through a trap door when everyone gangs up on Anna/Adams and she folds and confesses to being a delusional fantasist. Another way of putting it is that The Woman in the Window suddenly jumps off a cliff. It goes NUTS. And the climactic third-act scene when a steely-eyed Ethan returns with a knife is CRAY-CRAY.

The problem, in short, is not how Joe Wright directed it — it’s the crazily shifting script. I know Gilroy’s work fairly well, and I know he’s fairly incapable of writing cray-cray so I guess he was stuck between a rock and a hard place and had no choice. It must have been rough on the poor guy.

One, presuming that Bob Wilson and his wife Julia (William Shatner, Christine White) are flying coach, it’s amazing how much breathing and leg room average folks had on flights in the early ’60s. Two, the windows have sliding plaid curtains…luxury! Three, a stewardess asks the distressed Shatner if he needs a blanket — it’s been years since I’ve seen blankets in coach (even those shitty synthetic ones). Four, before today I never realized that the gremlin was played by Nick Cravat, who was Burt Lancaster‘s lifelong friend and acrobat partner. And five, Richard Donner directed mostly big-budget features but “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” was a more effective ride than almost everything he did for the big screen (except for Lethal Weapon, his peak effort).

It was announced earlier today that Robert Eggers‘ The Northman (Focus Features) will open on 4.8.22. There goes the concept of duelling Shakespeare-related dramas (which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago) opening during award season.**

The Focus folks are understandably terrified of anyone associating The Northman with Hamlet. I would certainly be if I was in their shoes.

As I mentioned on 1.13.21, the basic bones of the script (cowritten by Eggers and Sjon) are based upon the Scandinavian legend of Amleth, which inspired Shakespeare‘s legendary tragedy.

Focus synopsis: “The Northman is an epic revenge thriller, that explores how far a Viking prince will go to seek justice for his murdered father.”

It’s cool if GenXers and others with nostalgia pangs for the ’80s want to buy Criterion’s just-released Bluray of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It’s okay to do this. The only thing I would ask is “why?”

Amy Heckerling and Cameron Crowe‘s 1982 film is an enjoyable…well, half-enjoyable sitcom-type thing…an episodic in which stuff happens but that’s all. It captured a certain moment in both film culture and culture all over, back when indoor malls were popping up everywhere and the remnants of ’70s youth-culture had nothing more to prove and starting to feel over or co-opted. Reagan-era attitudes and dollar-driven lifestyles were gaining ground among 30somethings, who 10 or 15 years earlier were stoner types or something in that realm.

I’m not sure that “yuppies” was even a term back then, although it may have been invented by journalist Dan Rottenberg in a 5.1.80 Chicago magazine piece. By ’81 or thereabouts you could definitely sense that things were tipping in this direction.

If you apply the Howard Hawks definition of a first-rate film (“three great scenes and no bad ones”), what scenes do you pick aside from (a) Sean Penn‘s (i.e., “Jeff Spicoli’s) “I’m so wasted” during a phone call, and (b) Phoebe Cates unhooking her red bikini bra in slow-mo? If I had a favorite character, it was Judge Reinhold‘s “Brad” but now that you mention it I honestly can’t remember any crescendo moment that he had. I recall the air of sexual tension and frustration, but not much else.

I’m not sure Fast Times really amounted to much back then, and certainly not now. It’s been nearly 40 years since it opened, and I haven’t….okay, I take that back. I watched a DVD version 15 or 20 years ago.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is an obnoxious mosquito and attention-whore. She also seems to be psychotic. Her taunting of AOC is, of course, a theatrical stunt aimed at her none-too-bright Georgia constituents.

As with many things in life, it’s deeply frustrating that maturity and decorum require that there can be no catharsis in a situation like this. AOC has to chill and take it.

If this was a movie, catharsis would of course happen. AOC would come to Greene and propose fisticuffs or kickboxing in a gym somewhere, but only on the condition that their fight be kept totally secret — the same terms that Gregory Peck insisted upon with Charlton Heston before their fist fight in The Big Country.

A few years back I wrote that John Frankenheimer‘s The Manchurian Candidate (’62) wouldn’t work half as well without David Amram‘s baroque string-quartet score. It tells you from the get-go that something unusual and even a bit curious is about to unfurl. It says “this movie is going to be a bit weird…creepy and chilling and off on its own orbit…aimed at adults but with a mind of its own.”

During my very first viewing (tender age) I felt vaguely creeped out by the Queen of Diamonds. I saw something evil in her eyes, particularly in those stress bags and that slightly scowling mouth. I found her just as creepy as the gold-faced, green-tinted, thick-lipped fishbowl woman from Invaders From Mars (the “sum of all intelligence“).

I’ve been putting off watching The Woman in the Window for a long, long time. It’s sitting on Netflix right now — all I have to do is flop on the couch and pick up the remote. But I’m still thinking “why bother?” It obviously doesn’t work. World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy is struggling with Joe Wright‘s urban thriller as we speak: “This is excruciating to sit through…please, for the love of God, make it end already.”

Posted on 12.20.19: For seven or eight years Joe Wright was a cross between Chris Nolan, Sam Mendes and Steven Spielberg. Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, The Soloist, Hanna, Anna Karenina.

I will never back away from the view that Karenina was drop-dead brilliant — the most thrilling and innovative adaptation of Tolstoy’s 1877 novel ever made. Then the calamity of Pan happened. Then Wright recovered somewhat with Darkest Hour, a conventional but reasonably effective biopic with an Oscar-winning lead performance.

And now Wright seems to be operating in the realm of…what, Curtis Hanson‘s The Bedroom Window? Maybe a touch of David Fincher‘s Panic Room? Something like that.

Written by Tracy Letts, shot by Bruno Delbonnel, scored by Danny Elfman and produced by Scott Rudin.

Big-city dwellers can hear someone shout or scream in the adjoining or upstairs apartment. Rear Window‘s James Stewart heard Raymond Burr‘s wife scream as he stared into a common backyard area in the West Village. But hearing a woman scream from across the street? Doubtful.

There are three things that a film has to do in order to qualify for eternal blue-ribbon, Mount Olympus status and the simultaneous allegiance of Joe and Jane Popcorn along with your elitist, dweeb-level, ivory-tower critics.

One, it has to deliver the plain, honest truth (or undercurrent of truth) about a given world or situation — along with a little entertainment value, okay, but without undue exaggeration, no shallow exploitation, not too much sugar or vinegar, and no blatant bullshit of any kind. (This requirement in itself leaves out at least 80% of commercial cinema.)

Two, it has to persuade audiences to emotionally invest in it — to trust what it’s doing and where it seems to be going.

And three, it has to put you into a kind of alternate-reality mescaline dream state that you want to stay in and never leave, or at least make you want to return to frequently — a realm that feels so inviting or stylistically transporting that you want to live in it, even if it seems a bit dangerous.

Yes, of course — all movies are dream states, in a way. The better ones always lead to a certain primal feeling of alteration or discovery (the film has taken you to an entirely new but seemingly straightforward place) or emotional comfort and reassurance. But the ones that hit the jackpot are the ones that tell you what this or that slice of life on planet earth (or life aboard an intergalactic space cruiser) is basically like …how it really is…the full, honest, non-delusional truth of things.

There is no bullshit and nothing but truth in The Bicycle Thief (notice that I didn’t call it The Bicycle Thieves), North by Northwest, East of Eden, Mean Streets, Repo Man, Election, The Hospital, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, David Fincher‘s Mindhunter series, Gunga Din, Some Like It Hot, Two Women, La Strada, Zero Dark Thirty, Vertigo, Fellini Satyricon, Manchester By The Sea, Paths of Glory, Vertigo, Nomadland, Only Angels Have Wings, Collateral and 12 Years A Slave.

Except I didn’t want to live in or even visit the Nomadland realm (bucket pooping, bald tires, borrowing money for van repairs, shooting the shit around campfires) so I guess it doesn’t qualify.

Let’s look at the 2021 Best Picture contenders and ask ourselves “which of these films did we actually want to live in, or at least frequently visit?” The general truth is nobody wanted to live in [most of] these films, and that’s one basic reason why nobody watched last month’s Oscar telecast.

On 2.23.21 HE noticed a FYC ad for The Father that suggested Anthony Hopkins‘ character was a clever, debonair sort, perhaps a tad unscrupulous or caddish but never without a rapier retort when his daughter, played by Olivia Colman, questioned his thinking, morals or behavior, even though her attitude was always one of amusement. Now, in ads for the 6.11 British opening of Florian Zeller’s film, the Sly Fox is back. Except this time around Colman appears delighted by her dad’s rascally ways. No more sighing, eye-rolling or tearful regrets of any kind — eccentric old dad is simply irresistable. A scoundrel, but she can’t help herself!

Art by HE regular Michael Gebert:

So with Los Angeles opening up (restaurants, movie theatres, shopping malls) and on the day that President Biden and the CDC announced that masks are no longer required for fully vaccinated adults (indoors and outside), Bill Maher, who’s been fully vaccinated, tests positive for COVID. This Friday’s show has been cancelled. Bizarre on Maher’s part (reportedly asymptomatic), and over-cautious on HBO’s, it seems. They can’t do another show or two from Maher’s Bel Air home, like they did last year?

Leslie Jones to “Just for Variety“‘s Marc Malkin (5.12): “When [the COVID vaccines] first came out I was like, ‘I’m not taking that shit.’ They’re just going to come up with a potion and we’re supposed to take that shit? I was like, ‘I’m going to wait until the last batch and then maybe somebody could talk me into it.’

“But then Jones spoke to her aunt’s friend, a biologist working in COVID research. “She was like, ‘This is very serious…please get vaccinated.’ But Jones still wasn’t ready until she was asked to host the MTV Movie & TV Awards, airing live from Los Angeles on 5.16: “I was like, ‘I gotta be sage so let me just go bite the bullet.’”

In other words, if serendipity and self–interest hadn’t intervened — if Jones hadn’t spoken to her aunt’s biologist friend and hadn’t landed a MTV Awards hosting gig — she might still be a vaccine hold-out. America ravaged by 583,000 COVID deaths, a life-saving vaccine finally comes along and in certain quarters the response is “no way!” Brilliant.

When the COVID vaccines began to be available earlier this year, I was like ‘how can I get that shit? I wanna get jabbed and quick…where do I sign up and how do I do it?” My first injection happened on 2.23, the second on 3.16.

Posted on 11.20.07: I’d love to get into Denzel Washington‘s The Great Debaters, which I saw this evening, but it’s early yet. Discussions and terms await. But it’s essential to mention Nate Parker, who plays one of three African-American debaters (the other two played by Jurnee Smollett and Denzel Whitaker) from Wiley College in 1935 who wound up debating the Harvard University team, under the guidance of Washington’s Melvin B. Tolson.

Nate Parker

I’ve never seen Parker before, but he’s got it. Charismatic, good-looking…a “tan” Paul Newman (as Newman was in The Young Philadelphians) who looks people in the eye cool and steady, and perhaps has a slight weakness for women.

Parker has only been in the game since ’04. He’s acted only on TV and in crappy movies so far. (I missed his supporting performance in Pride, the swim-team sports movie with Terrence Howard and Bernie Mac that opened last March.) Worse, his next two are low-rent exploitation films — Tunnel Rats (directed by — yipes! — Uwe Boll) and Felon. The Great Debaters is Parker’s first and only A-level effort. He needs to build on it and move in another direction, or in five years he’ll be Dorian Harewood. It’s his call.

All I know is, Parker has a quality, a presence, a vibe. He could be another Denzel. A small group I spoke with after tonight’s screening agreed on this point, or at least that he’s Newman-esque. It’ll be intriguing to see what happens.