Hollywood Elsewhere congratulates Alex Castro, Variety‘s vp of video, for the impressive production values (especially the title graphics) that are the best part of “The Take“, a new showbiz chit-chat show (lasting 7:40) that popped on 7.9.21.
The co-hosts are Variety‘s senior correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister and awards editor Clayton Davis, who completely cemented their woke reps last April when they openly lamented Anthony Hopkins winning the Best Actor Oscar, and, more precisely, the late Chadwick Boseman not taking it instead. Total “hooray for our side” cheerleaders.
The tone and attitude of The Take is completely vapid, of course — a showbiz Live With Regis and Kathy Lee minus the wit. But it feels first-rate, or at the very least looks slick and polished.
I wrote, in fact, that Anderson “has a much more interesting face (indications of emotional complexity, soulful eyes) than Johansson and costar Florence Pugh combined.”
Instead of a “muscular hardcase sisters against their violent pursuers” action thriller, Black Widow would’ve been far more intriguing if Anderson had been made ScarJo’s costar (instead of Pugh), and the story had been some kind of time-warp mother-daughter thing in which ScarJo’s Natasha and her younger self (Anderson) are paired, and the basic dynamic would’ve been been Natasha protecting and schooling her younger self.
Not everyone has “it,” but Anderson definitely does.
I’m always irked when moviegoers react in an overly charitable, overly emotional way to something that’s obviously only so-so.
Example #1: During a screening of Paddington in mid-January 2015, a friend of a name-brand critic wouldn’t stop laughing at the klutzy-bear-causes-physical-chaos jokes (oops, another disaster!). The laughter was so unwarranted and so relentless I almost turned around and glared.
Example #2: There was an older, overweight woman sitting behind me during a 12.8.11 screening of Stephen Daldry‘s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close at LACMA. I distinctly recall how she moaned a couple of times when the film summoned echoes of the 9.11.01 disaster, and how she stood up and cheered when the film ended. I wasn’t a huge fan of this Warner Bros. release, but that woman persuaded me to take an even more negative tack.
Example #3: On 12.5.19 a loud Al Pacino fan ruined a THR “Awards Chat” interview at the DGA with the Irishman costar. (The interviewer was Scott Feinberg.) The guy had to cheer and laugh too loudly and go “ahhh!” and “whoo-whoo!” every time Al shared a funny line or whenever a well-regarded Pacino classic was mentioned. It was awful.
But I hate it even more when audience members are having a rollicking good time while watching a formulaic piece of shit. This happened last night as I watched an 8pm show of Black Widow inside the Century City AMC plex (theatre #10).
I was sitting in the handicapped row, and there were two or three Marvel fans right behind me, and once the comic-relief stuff started (all Marvel films begin to dispense snappy, smart-ass humor starting around the 30-minute mark and then return to it at regular intervals) these guys were laughing too enthusiastically. They were giggling and whooping at damn near everything. Any little quip or side-remark or smart-ass bit, and these guys were all but rolling in the aisles. They squealed with delight when Florence Pugh‘s Yelena asked ScarJo‘s Natasha why she always poses in the middle of a fight, landing close to the ground and flipping her head back.
Mind — these guys were the only ones in the theatre who were laughing loudly, and they were making a difficult experience even worse for everyone, or so I imagined. Did I turn around and glare? No, but I stole a quick glance.
Goldfinger had just ended and the author was on his way up the lobby stairs to the men’s room when he heard a young guy complaining to his girlfriend about how slow and boring Goldfinger was. The submissive girlfriend asked if they’d be staying for Thunderball and the guy replied “hell no!”
This young sophisticate had apparently been persuaded that the ’60s James Bond / Sean Connery films delivered action highs along 21st Century lines (the idiotic Kingsman flicks, the Fast and Furious franchise, etc.). I recognize how the pacing of Goldfinger could seem, to a cinematic knuckle-dragger, a bit slow and steady, and that this 1964 Guy Hamilton film (my third favorite Connery after From Russia With Love and Dr. No) is more invested in character and dialogue than your average teenager or 20something of today is used to.
Nonetheless I found this anecdote hugely depressing.
There are tens of millions of sensible left-center moderates like myself who despise cancel culture, and certainly no one who loathes it more than myself. I am nonetheless sickened and disgusted by Mel Gibson having apparently saluted Donald Trump as he arrived at an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC 264) event two nights ago.
From Todd McCarthy’s Deadline pan, posted on 7.12: “Breathing in the air that the master breathed, staying in his home and becoming saturated with all manner of first-hand Bergman-iana has in no way qualified Bergman Island writer-director Mia Hansen-Love to be mentioned in the same breath as the late Swedish master Ingmar Bergman, much less make a film about his aura and legacy.
“This story of a filmmaking couple — Tony (Tim Roth) and Chris (Vicky Krieps) — who make a pilgrimage to Faro Island to soak in the man’s influence, is a very poor excuse for an homage except as a travelogue. When Woody Allendid it, it was both sincere and very funny.”
In a phrase: “Lazy, unimaginative and incapable of expressing admiration for Bergman in any meaningful way.”
“The first 20 minutes of Bergman Island hold a certain interest simply on a touristic basis. It’s hard to think of any other filmmaker whose home, like those of certain presidents, has become a travel destination. Still, I once made a pilgrimage to Yasujiro Ozu’s grave in Japan; on his tombstone is simply inscribed the word ‘mu,’ which means ‘everything and nothing.’
“’How can I sit here and not feel like a loser?,’ cries Chris in despair as she sizes up Bergman’s body of work, which not only consists of 30-odd scripts and films but also plays and books. Well, you probably can’t, but Chris has to find out the hard way by getting down to work with Tony on a script she’s been thinking about.
“She figures that sitting in Ingmar’s chair and just existing in his lingering aura might be enough to inspire them to unprecedented heights of creativity on their next project. Ahhh, how presumptuous mere creative mortals can be.”
Serious question to Cannes-based Jordan Ruimy: “Given the mostly encouraging reviews for Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch so far (an 88% Metacritic rating) and no other film doing as well with the critics so far, is it fair to suggest that Dispatch seems likely to emerge as a prime contender for the Palme d’Or?
The five biggies (and correct me if I’m wrong) are The French Dispatch, Drive My Car, Benedetta, Compartment #9 and Val.”
Ruimy to HE: “Dispatch is minor Anderson.”
HE to Ruimy: “Not as good as Grand Budapest Hotel?”
Ruimy to HE: “Hell no.”
The scene in Cannes as the end-credits wrap following the world premiere of THE FRENCH DISPATCH, as Wes Anderson-y a movie as any… pic.twitter.com/qmShSnzqfc
— Scott Feinberg @ Cannes (@ScottFeinberg) July 12, 2021
HE to Ruimy: “Okay.”
Ruimy to HE: “[David] Ehrlich didn’t even like it.”
HE to Ruimy: “I was influenced by Peter Debruge‘s Variety rave…so he’s just capitulating to the underlying desire to praise films because it feels good or something?”
Ruimy to HE: “I think a lot of critics are doing that. Cannes ’21 is being celebrated as the reemergence of cinema. There’s a celebratory mood in the air here.”
HE to Ruimy: “So there are no real HOTTIES so far…not really. No big consensus films.”
Ruimy to HE: “Benedetta is too shocking for [some]. I guess Dispatch is the de facto Oscar movie here so far, but it’s very minor. The photography is stunning, but the anthology aspect of it does a major disservice to Anderson’s style. He works better with a large tableaux and a two-hour narrative.”
I’m sorry my Black Widow review is so late in arriving. I only saw it last night, and I’m not even sure I can write anything that won’t bore everyone silly. It opened last Friday and everyone has already moved on, and it was so dreadful to sit through…really. This morning Jordan Ruimy called Black Widow “unwatchable.” He’s not wrong.
It has, at least, a fairly obvious feminist metaphor. Black Widows are a worldwide network of ruthless female assassins, trained in a Russian-organized “red room” program run by Ray Winstone‘s “General Dreykov” with their minds totally controlled in some kind of zombie-ish fashion. The film’s basic focus is on a pair of Black Widow sisters — Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson) and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) — whose younger selves we first meet in a 1995 flashback prelude. But the key thing is the discovery of an antidote that can potentially free the Widow army from Dreykov’s chemical control and allow them to self-determine.
So that’s the basic MacGuffin — an elusive but sought-after antidote that allows an army of female warriors to throw off the yoke of male oppression. But of course, Black Widow is about a lot more than that central idea. Unfortunately.
I knew I would suffer through this godawful thing. I knew it would pound and narcotize me to death and suffocate what’s left of my soul, and boy, did it ever. It was serious formulaic torture, but I had to watch it, I felt, and in front of a big-ass screen with a suitably loud WHOMP-THROMP-EERURRP sound system. Once again I sat in the handicapped row, and before the 8 pm show began I was already weakened by 20 minutes of trailer pulp…idiot-level action movies designed to make you vomit and scream. And then, finally…
Directed by Cate Shortland and running 134 minutes, Black Widow begins quietly — that flashback sequence in suburban Ohio. A brief acquaintance with Russian undercover agents Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) and Melina Vostokoff (a digitally de-aged Rachel Weisz) and their “surrogate” daughters Natasha (Ever Anderson) and Yelena (Violet McGraw).
I was immediately intrigued by the 13 year-old Anderson, who has a much more interesting face (indications of emotional complexity, soulful eyes) than Johansson and Pugh combined. I was thinking to myself, “Okay, maybe…”
And then Black Widow loses its mind. The family is suddenly armed and loaded and on the run, being chased by weaponized bad guys (U.S. authorities?). They jump on a private plane…or three of them do while Harbour shoots it out — recklessly, absurdly — with the pursuers on the tarmac. Then he ridiculously leaps into the plane wing as he continues to fire, and of course no one gets hit with a bullet as the plane ascends into the darkness…right away I was muttering “this is so infuriating, so friggin’ stupid.”
Marvel is all formula, all pandering, all the time. Except for Avengers: Endgame, Ant Man and Joe Johnston‘s Captain America and maybe one or two others, Marvel films are almost always a gruesome experience. Aimed at American none-too-brights, Marvel films “charm” and “thrill” like hooded executioners. They oppress and suffocate the soul. Head-pounding aggression. Sardonic attitudes.
Poor Ray Winstone, I was thinking…stuck playing another Mr. Big goon. And what’s happened to poor William Hurt? He looks too thin, barely resembles himself.
My head was spinning, screaming. Can I take another 100 minutes of this shit?
Last night I watched Robert Bresson‘s L’Argent (’83) — a chilly but devastating morality tale of how society will, depending on the bad breaks, occasionally turn a relative innocent into a beast. It’s quietly commanding film — a visually plain, low-temperature thing, and at the same time immensely sad (as opposed to downerish) and impossible to forget.
I hadn’t seen L’Argent (Bresson’s last) start to finish since my first viewing in ’83. It was a nourishing sit. But somewhere in the middle of this unusually short film (83 minutes), I was struck by something else.
Yvon, the lead character and tragic victim of the piece, is played by Christian Patey, who seemed to be his early 20s. (Which would make him roughly 60 today.) He looks like a young James Marsden mixed with some early ’50s Jeffrey Hunter and the late Jim Morrison before he became a pot-bellied beer drinker. In short, more exquisite than “good looking.”
Except Patey is not (or wasn’t back then) an expressive actor — in L’Argent he barely emotes. Bresson surely knew of Patey’s limitations, but chose him anyway because he figured that Patey didn’t need to “act” — his eyes, mouth and cheekbones conveyed everything about Yvon’s essence — a basic settled-in decency by way of a kind of deft neutrality — steady, soft-spoken, unruffled.
Is Patey believable as an axe murderer, which is what he truthfully confesses to being during L’Argent‘s last couple of minutes? Nope, and I’m not just talking about looks but whom or what he actually seemed to be within.
And it didn’t matter anyway. Call it whatever you prefer but Patey was a pleasure to hang with — you trusted in his apparent decency. The fact that he was cut from the same basic cloth as the young Tyrone Power, Rock Hudson, Guy Madison, Tab Hunter, Tony Curtis and others from this fraternity didn’t hurt either.
Hollywood lived by this formula for decades, of course, casting good-looking (or exceptionally good looking) actors for their looks alone, knowing full well that they wouldn’t last unless they were able to somehow reach into their hurt and transcend their looks or at least pick up some professional skills. Some managed that, many didn’t.
All to say that over the last 10 or 15 years Christian Patey-level attractiveness hasn’t seemed to matter all that much in terms of casting, certainly in the indie community.
Here’s how I put it four years ago (“When Ax-Blade Handsomeness Was Okay“): “Ax-blade handsomeness isn’t trusted, much less admired these days. It’s even despised in certain quarters. Because it’s now synonymous with callow opportunism or to-the-manor-born arrogance. Men regarded as ‘too’ good-looking are presumed to be tainted on some level — perhaps even in league with the one-percenters and up to no good. This kind of social shorthand has been around since Wall Street types and bankers began to go wild in the mid ’80s.
The word along the Croisette is that certain distributors have either pulled their films out of the 2021 Toronto Film Festival or are seriously thinking about same. Why? Because (a) the Telluride and Venice festivals, unlike Toronto, are not leaning on streaming, and (b) distributors greatly prefer live-audience projection screenings.
Why is Toronto a mostly-streaming festival this year? Because the Canadian government is being extremely cautious about the new Delta strain of Covid, despite high rates of vaccination.
In short, this is not Toronto’s year. Which is a good thing, of course, as Toronto, like Sundance, has become a repressive and prejudicial wokester festival. All hail Telluride and Cannes…festivals that believe in art, freedom of ideas and fair access.
Ingmar Bergman‘s Scenes From a Marriage (’73) was originally a six-part Swedish miniseries that ran 281 minutes; the shorter, theatrically released version ran 167 minutes. It costarred Liv Ullmann, HE nemesisErland Josephson and Bibi Andersson.
In Hagai Levi’s remake of the Bergman series, a multi-episode thing that will air on HBO in September, a woke switch scheme has been hatched. Instead of Jessica Chastain playing Ullman and Oscar Isaac playing Josephson, Isaacson plays Ullmann and Chastain is doing Josephson. (Or so I’m told.)
The miniseries is exec produced by a boatload of people, but Isaac, Chastain and Williams are among them.
The good-looking Isaac (i.e., Poe Dameron) is only 42, but with his gray hair and beard he looks at least 50 if not 55. It’s obviously a choice and there’s nothing “wrong” with this…just saying. Chastain is no spring chicken (the clock never relents), but she looks fine. Ditto Williams.
