From Maureen Dowd‘s 5.8.21 N.Y. Times column, “Liz Cheney and the Big Lies“: “It must be said that the petite blonde from Wyoming suddenly seems like a Valkyrie amid halflings.
“She is willing to sacrifice her leadership post — and risk her political career — to continue calling out Donald Trump’s Big Lie. She has decided that, if the price of her job is being as unctuous to Trump as Kevin McCarthy is, it isn’t worth it, because McCarthy is totally disgracing himself.
“It has been a dizzying fall for the scion of one of the most powerful political families in the land, a conservative chip off the old block who was once talked about as a comer, someone who could be the first woman president.
“How naïve I was to think that Republicans would be eager to change the channel after Trump cost them the Senate and the White House and unleashed a mob on them.”
“These are not ordinary times for the industry. The systemic collapse of [Steven Soderbergh‘s Oscar show] revealed the hollowness of the core we’re all sitting on. The greatest conglomeration of entertainers the world has ever seen — on the biggest night of the year, center stage, spotlight right on them — were unable to entertain and they didn’t seem terribly concerned with even trying to.”
Kindly HE correction: Anyone, I think, would find it hard to apply the word “entertainers” to all but one of the 2021 Best Picture nominees — Nomadland (melancholy, meditative), The Father (a drip-drip tragedy about decline and degeneration), Judas and the Black Messiah (dour drama about the troops of J. Edgar Hoover closing in and bringing death and destruction in the late ’60s), Mank (interesting, well-made but less than “entertaining”), Minari (except for two or three grandma moments, definitely not entertaining), Promising Young Woman (a waker-upper but the saga of a 30something woman bent on revenge and self-destruction is hardly a delight) and Sound of Metal (spiritually transporting, quietly transformative). Aaron Sorkin‘s The Trial of the Chicago 7 was the only Best Picture nominee that could be called entertaining.
Back to Rushfield: “They couldn’t make jokes, they couldn’t touch the heartstrings, they couldn’t even speak to the concerns of anyone outside Hollywood. Since the Academy last assembled a year ago, there has been a little world-historic event that disrupted the life of the entire planet, not to mention killed millions. By my count, the show made three, extremely passing references to this happening.
“That’s why this felt like an extinction-level event: the night the Hollywood elites walked away from the audience and vice versa. Even with the inner circle’s resident genius and innovator at the helm, they no longer have any understanding of who is the audience, why they are watching — and [they] no longer particularly care.
“And the whirlwind will be reaped.
“A better analogy might be that this was Hollywood’s Ceausescu speech — the moment the crowds turned on the god, and what had been authoritative and inspiring in an instant became ghoulish and pathetic, and his grip on the public slipped away, fatally.”
Nine or ten days ago I ordered a Region B Gaumont Bluray of Roman Polanski‘s J’Accuse. Alas, without English subtitles. An hour ago I popped it in. Before today I’d only seen an Italian-dubbed version with English subs, a 720p pirate torrent. Now I’ve finally seen and heard it properly…in French, 1080p, needle-sharp focus, softly lighted like a film shot during the actual Belle Epoque, perfectly timed and balanced. Watching it with French subtitles helps, although I’d love to see an English-friendly version someday.
Advance apology to HE readers who feel that this site has posted far too many riffs and reports about woke terror. I definitely hear you — the sooner all this shit stops, the better. That said…
Two days ago a #MeToo complaint surfaced about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and more particularly the finale with Prince Charming kissing the comatose Snow White and thereby bringing her back to life.
The #MeToo view is that the prince over-stepped, and that perhaps he should be…well, not cancelled but at least admonished and censured. The kerfuffle grew out of Anaheim Disneyland’s newly revamped Snow White’s Enchanted Wish ride. It’s been claimed that the ride features a “problematic” kiss because it happens without Snow White’s consent.
The issue was debated two days ago by ITV’s Andrew Neil and actress Nicola Tharp. The latter’s view is that it would’ve been better all around if the Prince hadn’t happened along and if Snow White had stayed in the coma.
It is HE’s view that Prince Charming should be stripped of his royal title — that he should be Al Franken-ed and sent packing. If you’ve seen Into The Woods you know he was a misogynist asshole to begin with.
I usually ignore trade stories about forthcoming films — better to hold off until they’re wrapped and in post. But given my admiration for director Ari Aster (Midsommar, Hereditary), a 4.27 post about Aster’s Disappointment Boulevard has my attention.
It’s some kind of eerie creep-out that will costar Joaquin Phoenix and Meryl Streep, according to World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy. The info is from DeuxMoi and “a source from MTL Productions.” A24 will distribute.
On 4.17, the signing of Phoenix in Disappointment Boulevard was reported on by Dread Central. Pic will reportedly begin filming in Montreal on 6.28.21.
The original title was Beau is Afraid, and apparently grew out of Aster’s 2011 short film, Beau. The decade-old short has been described as a “surrealist horror film set in an alternate present.” Phoenix would play an “extremely anxious man who never knew his father, and has a fraught relationship with his overbearing mother.”
IMDB logline: “A neurotic middle-aged man’s trip back home is delayed indefinitely when his keys are mysteriously taken from his door. He is subsequently haunted by an increasingly sinister chain of upsetting events.”
On the film’s IMDB page Aster describes it as “a sickly, domestic melodrama in the vein of Douglas Sirk” — a description sure to be welcomed by Sirk-worshipping snob critics the world over.
During a press conference held yesterday in Spain, Woody Allen allegedly told French TV that his next film will be a dark drama a la Match Point, and that it’ll be shot in Paris.
This comes from World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy, who caught a live stream of the press conference. Apparently no U.S. media reps were in attendance.
One presumes that the plot would deliver another variation on familiar Allen themes — life is a grim bowl of cherries, betrayal lurks around every corner (especially in the realm of relationships), and your worst enemy is more often than not yourself.
If I were Allen I wouldn’t sidestep or pull punches. I would take certain familiar elements from my life over the last decade or so and transform them into a fictional narrative. A film, for example, about a flawed but in one instance falsely accused protagonist a la Polanski’s J’Accuse. If he doesn’t create something that echoes the Mia/Dylan thing to some extent, what would be the point?
This frame capture explains all you need to know about how good Risky Business is, and how exceptional director Paul Brickman was.
19 out of 20 directors would have directed this scene like John Badham, the rote or good-enough way, and we would’ve simply been told/shown that some neighborhood kids are listening to a front-yard dispute between Joel Goodson (Tom Cruise), Guido the killer pimp (Joe Pantoliano) and a couple of tart-tongued prostitutes (Rebecca De Mornay, Shera Danese)…hah-hah! The kids would have just stood there, and maybe reacted in some kind of “holy shit, this is unusual!” way.
But Brickman told them to look studious and absorbed and perhaps even a little bored. And so the boy on the left is leaning against his bike, starting to tire from the effort of wondering who’s the more promising pimp, Joel or Guido? And the two little girls are watching with arms folded. This is the difference between average and brilliant filmmaking.
To be fair to the “nearly 40” students who hadn’t a clue, Elizabeth Taylor‘s career peaked between 1950 and ’51 (Father of the Bride, A Place in the Sun) and ’63 (Cleopatra). She’s remembered by older film buffs and the gay community, of course, but Joe and Jane Popcorn checked out at least a half-century ago, if not earlier.
Apple’s Big Sur operating system came out six months ago, but I only got around to installing it on my 15″ Macbook Pro (500G storage, 8GB memory) two or three days ago. Except the installation stalled or got gummed up, so I had to run down to Best Buy for a 2 terabyte Western Digital external hard drive. I loaded the entire contents of the Mac onto the WD, wiped the Mac clean and re-installed everything — now it’s all good.
I haven’t owned an external hard drive since ’08. It only held 500G, weighed a couple of pounds and needed a wall plug-in for power. The WD is (a) powered by the laptop, (b) only a little bit bigger than a playing card and (c) barely weighs anything.
In less than 14 months, Joel Goodson of Glencoe, Illinois (otherwise known as Thomas Cruise Mapother IV) will turn 60 years of age. Joel was actually around 17 or 18 when the Risky Business events happened; Cruise was around 20 when the film was shot. Just saying.
