Respect and affection for the late Cicely Tyson, who’s passed on at age 96. Her name became iconic between her 38th and 44th birthdays, give or take. Rebecca Morgan in Martin Ritt‘s Sounder (’72). The titular role in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (’74). Binta in the 1977 miniseries Roots. As Coretta Scott King in King (’78), a 300-minute miniseries which also starred Paul Winfield as Martin Luther King. Plus her 2013 Tony Award (Best Actress) for playing Miss Carrie Watts in a revival of The Trip to Bountiful — the oldest such recipient in history.
I’ve been misspelling her first name for decades — spelling it right, forgetting and spelling it wrong, then spelling it right again. Always looking it up…sorry.
News outlets are reporting that the San Francisco Unified School District voted this week to rename 44 schools named after controversial public figures, including a high school named for Abraham Lincoln.
The district, which has more than 57,000 students enrolled, is changing the schools named after historical figures linked to “the subjugation and enslavement of human beings; or who oppressed women, inhibiting societal progress; or whose actions led to genocide; or who otherwise significantly diminished the opportunities of those amongst us to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” according to the text of the SFUSHD resolution.
Abraham Lincoln High School will henceforth be called…it hasn’t been reported. If it were up to me I’d rename it Pol Pot High. Lincoln was zotzed because of “his [poor] treatment of First Nation peoples,” teacher Jeremiah Jeffries told the San Francisco Chronicle last month.
This is the kind of thing that wins votes for the Trump faction of the Republican Party. Honestly? I look forward to the day when this kind of insanity finally goes out of political fashion. If Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day Lewis had an ounce of courage between them, they would release a suitably outraged statement to the N.Y. Times.
Because of recent social-media accusations of cunnilingus cannibalism, Armie Hammer has either relinquished or lost a second major role. In the wake of dropping out of a costarring role opposite Jennifer Lopez in Shotgun Wedding, Hammer has lost the role of Godfather producer Al Ruddy in a forthcoming Paramount Plus series called The Offer, a behind-the-scenes story of the making of Francis Coppola‘s 1972 classic.
Tom Hagen: When a famous actor was accused of cunnilingus cannibalism in the old days, the studio would take care of it. Cunnilingus cannibals were always given a second chance, and sometimes a third or even a fourth. The studio helped out, and the families were allowed to keep their fortunes.
Armie Hammer: Yeah, but only the superstars, Tom. Famous, second-tier actors like myself got knocked off and all their estates went back to the studios and the banks. Unless they went home and killed themselves, then nothing happened. And the families…the families were taken care of.
Hagen: That was a good break. A nice deal.
Hammer: Yeah. They went home and sat in a hot bath, opened up their veins and bled to death. And sometimes they had a little party before they did it.
Hagen: Don’t worry about anything, Armie.
Seriously — does poor Armie Hammer really have to die because of certain sexual proclivities that strike most of us as weird? Because of certain kinky but allegedly consensual relationships that were recently revealed, Hammer is suddenly in big career trouble. Various women have came forward about abuse, including inappropriate and nonconsensual behavior they had allegedly experienced from Hammer.
I don’t know much about B&D sexuality and okay, Hammer may have ignored a safe word or two. But is this really a hanging offense? It feels like Hammer’s stripes are being torn off and his battle sabre broken in two.
Variety‘x mea culpa: “Variety sincerely apologizes to Carey Mulligan and regrets the insensitive language and insinuation in our review of Promising Young Woman that minimized her daring performance.”
“I did not say or even mean to imply Mulligan is ‘not hot enough’ for the role,” Harvey has told Shoard. “I’m a 60-year-old gay man. I don’t actually go around dwelling on the comparative hotnesses of young actresses, let alone writing about that.”
Harvey added that he has been “appalled to be tarred as misogynist, which is something very alien to my personal beliefs or politics. This whole thing could not be more horrifying to me than if someone had claimed I was a gung-ho Trump supporter.”
Harvey said “he avoided the social media discourse triggered by the fallout on the advice of Variety, who said it would “blow over”, and friends who said nobody commenting appeared to have read the review and that some people had said “I must be advocating rape, was probably a predator like the men in the film.” Good God! There’s no terror like that of the Khmer Rouge. They’ve made plastic suffocation bags fashionable again.
Harvey has also questioned the timing of the controversy, as Hollywood Elsewhere has two or three times. He’s noted that his review “had apparently been found unobjectionable enough to escape complaint for 11 months, “until the film was finally being released, promoted and Oscar-campaigned”. Only then [was] his review was “belatedly labelled ‘insensitive’ and flagged with an official ‘apology’”.
Variety’s editors “had not raised any concerns with the review when he first filed it,” Harvey tells Shoard, “nor in subsequent months until [Buchanan’s New York Times article [appeared].”
Harvey’s professional fate “remains uncertain,” Shoard writes. Harvey: “It’s left in question whether after 30 years of writing for Variety I will now be sacked because of review content no one found offensive until it became fodder for a viral trend piece.”
HE to Alexander: Did you like the “laughing uproariously while squatting and shitting” scene, Scott? I ask because the photo above is from this exact moment in the film. Squatting and shitting is what the main protagonist is laughing about. He and some other laughing, sophisticated fellow.
I thought it was…uhm, mildly appalling. But then I’m a prissy metrosexual dandy type. I wish I could say that the memory of this scene will fade, but it won’t. It’s been burned into my brain. Or smeared, I should say.
When was the last time you, Scott Alexander, defecated in public while enjoying a hearty horse laugh? I myself have never done this. Oh, it’s never done in Los Angeles, you say? It’s a lower-caste Indian culture thing? Okay. Well, it sure was exotic!
Maybe it’s just a matter of cultural conditioning. We all tend to nature on a daily basis — why not do it publicly and laughingly?
What if American cinema had at least acknowledged public shitting as something that happens from time to time? What if, say, Cary Grant had decided to drop a deuce by the side of the road during the crop-dusting scene in North by Northwest? What if Dana Andrews had taken a big steaming dump while inspecting those old dusty WWII bombers near the end of The Best Years of Our Lives? What if Gary Cooper had decided to (heh-heh) mark his territory in the middle of Main Street in High Noon when Grace Kelly and Katy Jurado were clopping by in a horse wagon? “Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’…”
Sometime in the summer or early fall of ’94 (can’t remember which) I visited the Culver Studios set of Crimson Tide. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer had invited me. I hung around in a low-key way for two or three hours. No chit-chats with “talent” or anyone except Jerry — basically an opportunity to see the nuclear submarine set, which was built to tilt and lean and shake around. I watched Tony Scott guide Gene Hackman through a confrontation scene over and over. I was maybe 100 feet away.
When you first arrive on a big movie set there’s nothing more exciting. And then you hang around for a while, doing nothing but watching and maybe shooting the shit with whomever and taking notes and sipping soft drinks and nibbling bagels, and you’re eventually bored stiff.
Eventually it was time to leave. I took a last look at the set, thanked Jerry, shook hands and briskly walked off the sound stage and back to my black 240SX Nissan. I eased out of the parking lot and drove north on Ince Blvd. I stopped at a red light at the corner of Ince and Culver Blvd.
Just to my left was a large black limo, idling like me. I looked over and damned if it wasn’t Hackman in the back seat, just sitting there, three or four feet away.
“And so what?” you might ask. I’d just been watching him play the tough submarine captain, saying the same lines over and over. But I was nonetheless fascinated by my close-up view of the guy, and immediately I was telling myself “Jesus, don’t look…don’t be an asshole! They can feel it when fans are staring at them, even if it’s through glass.”
So I snuck a quick peek and turned away. And then another quickie. And then another. Not once did Hackman look in my direction. Maybe he knew I was sneaking peeks but decided not to confront me because I had the decency not to stare. I know that if I’d quickly turned and found him staring right at me it would have been mortifying. Thank God he didn’t.
Several months later I schmoozed with the whole Crimson Tide crew (Jackman, Denzel, Scott, Don and Jerry) at a Marina del Rey junket. A lot of fun, lots of food…a splendid time was had by all.
I remember asking Denzel about the Silver Surfer scene and asking if he had a preference for the Jack Kirby or Moebius version, or whether it had been discussed between takes or whatever. He looked at me, smirked, shook his head and opened his hands, palms up. He was basically saying “I didn’t ask, and I didn’t care.”
Reviews of The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Hulu, 2.26) won’t be posted until Friday, February 19 at 9 ayem Pacific. But surely we’re allowed to acknowledge that Andra Day‘s performance as the gifted, tortured, persecuted and self-destructive Billie Holiday is obviously an Oscar-calibre thang. The film itself is Lee Daniels’ best ever. It’s not just better than Precious but also The Butler — better than both of them put together. But the main thing on my mind is Andra Day for Best Actress, Andra Day for Best Actress, Andra Day for Best Actress.
Right now Viola Davis and Zendaya are currently leading Day among the handicapping Gold Derby schmoes. Which is sorta kinda ridiculous.
All Davis did in Ma Rainey was act huffy and resentful…a performance that was all crust and bluster. And Zendaya can’t overcome that limited range and those liquid shark eyes. Day should be right at the top of this list, and I don’t want to hear any bullshit about it. Her only serious competitors are Promising Young Woman‘s Carey Mulligan (who will probably may win at the end of the day) and Pieces of a Woman‘s Vanessa Kirby. McDormand is excellent in Nomadland, of course, but apparently she’s not happening — she won a Best Actress Oscar three years ago and that’s enough for now.
The only way Spencer helmer Pablo Larrain can get around the casting of the too-short Kristen Stewart (5’5″) as Lady Diana (5’10”) is to (a) employ the usual height-adding tricks (lifts, boxes) and (b) cast costars who are also shorter than their real-life counterparts. The announced Spencer costars are Timothy Spall, Sally Hawkins and Sean Harris.
“White people are on their way out. This is the century of the brown man and the yellow man. I’ve broken out of the coop.” Translation: Kill your masters and don’t look back.
Based on a 2008 novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga, Ramin Bahrani‘s The White Tiger (Netflix, 1.22) is a Nicholas Nickleby-like saga of a low-born, small-village grinning wannabe, Balram Halwai, who hustles his way into a chauffeur gig in Delhi, and then on to Bangalore, where he launches his own taxi business after [spoiler hide] and stealing his cash.
It’s basically about class divisions In India — appalling poverty, Hindu vs. Muslim, caste, loyalty, corruption, payoffs, outsourcing, hunger.
Notes as I watched: “A hungry, clever, intelligent young man from a lower caste learns the rules of the game, figures out the angles, turns a bit ruthless, makes his way up the ladder, gets what he wants.
“Bahrani is an excellent director. The native Indian atmosphere is rich and fascinating, the film is well-edited and nicely shot. A complex tale of ambition, corruption, hunger and lust for power. Inch by inch, rung by rung, darker and darker. Learn to smile as you kill.
“I know where this film is going. By hook and by crook, Balram is going to make it. Even if it requires the unfortunate murder [spoiler stuff]. It’s a Dickens tale with a touch of O Lucky Man. The long journey, the long road and all the potholes along the way.
“But I have to ask everyone who’s told me that I have to watch this, what’s the big deal exactly? I mean, it’s quite the class-A package, quite the immersion, very good writing, a respectable effort….a window into the real, rough-and-tumble India. But what am I supposed to do with it exactly?
“Nicholas Nickleby as a smiling and obsequious but surprisingly ruthless fellow in the end. Who doesn’t appear to be smart enough to even bury the body. Or bleach his teeth. Much better than Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire, but that’s not saying a great deal.
“Only two ways to the top. Crime or politics. Is it that way in your country too?
Friendo: “It’s an engrossing movie. All about the disparity between rich and poor in India. It’s staggering how the poor live. If it has any flaw, it would be that it’s too short. This could have worked even better as an epic, with an additional hour showing his rise to the top. Call it capitalism run amok. They should have showed him going full-on Scarface in the last third.”
Imaginative rewrite of “Mike Pence, wife Karen reportedly homeless, couch-surfing in Indiana,” posted by Yahoo News’ Biba Adams: “Word around the campfire says that the priggish Mike Pence and his wife are basically homeless and on God’s good humor as they figure out where to stash their luggage and furniture.
Actual, non-imaginative quote: “They may be ‘crashing with kinfolk back in Indiana or staying at the Indiana governor’s getaway cabin, but either way they’re laying low out of fear that Trump supporting loonies may want to lynch them for betraying Orange Plague in his hour of need,” etc.
The “homeless Pence” story was originally shared by Business Insider. Quote: “Pence is reportedly staying at a cabin that Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb uses as a retreat, while two other Indiana Republican insiders say that the former second-in-command and ex-Second Lady are staying with family.”
Direct, non-imaginative follow-up quotes: “Money shouldn’t be a major issue for the former VP, who earned more than $235,000 annually during his four years in office. Pence will also have Secret Service protection for up to six months after leaving office and is entitled to a pension.
“Some have speculated that the Pences are moving around frequently to avoid death threats or assassination attempts from supporters of his former boss, embattled ex-President Donald Trump, who just weeks ago chanted ‘Hang Mike Pence’ as they stormed the U.S. Capitol Building.
“The Trump-incited mob that stormed the Capitol earlier this month shouted that they wanted to hang Pence, and some of the people came within about 100 feet of confronting him and his family as they were hurried to a secure location in the Capitol,” Business Insider reports.
The Cannes Film Festival guys have confirmed that the usual May timeslot has been tossed. This year the 2021 festival will happen between July 6th and 17th, they’re saying. That’s a little more than five months hence. As I’ve already explained, Cannes in July is a fantasy…a child’s dream. We won’t be free of this hellish Covid nightmare for at least another seven or eight months, if that. We may not be completely shorn of masks until early or even mid ’22.
Let’s imagine that the Cannes Film Festival happens anyway, Covid be damned. They’d still have to enforce social distance seating in the Grand Lumiere, and how the hell would that work? There could be no crowding around the ropes in front of the Salle Debussy. Obviously no gatherings at La Pizza, and no parties to speak of. No crowds of diners jammed together and popping bottles of wine in the restaurant district. No press conferences. Forget it. Next year is the best hope.
Beloved Cloris Leachman, 94, has left the planet. The first thing she did that struck a chord was playing the panicky barefoot woman running away from Albert Dekker in Robert Aldrich‘s Kiss Me Deadly (’55). 14 years later she played a prostitute in Butch Cassidy and teh Sundance Kid (’69), but I didn’t connect the dots. Her career didn’t really take off until the early ’70s, when she was getting into her mid 40s. First came her performance as Timothy Bottoms‘ older lover in Peter Bogdanovich‘s The Last Picture Show (’71). Then came Frau Blucher in Mel Brooks‘ Young Frankenstein (’74) and her legend was forged forever.
