From Steve Rose’s Guardian hit piece (5.14) on the allegedly eccentric Francis Coppola and the reportedly occasionally fraught making of Megalopolis, which Hollywood Elsewhere will see on Thursday, 5.16:
Jeffrey Wells
Having Seen Kevin Costner’s “Horizon”, Deadline’s Mike Fleming Calls It “A Sprawling Film About Manifest Destiny”
If you’re any kind of kneejerk wokester who has more or less believed in the innate malice of white culture since the explosive reaction to the 5.25.20 death of George Floyd, the term “manifest destiny” almost certainly rubs you the wrong way.
Because it basically alludes to a hallowed belief in European-descended immigrant pioneers of the 20th and 19th centuries having brought about essential strengthenings and advancements in the expansionist saga of the U.S. of A.
It also sounds vaguely racist in the view of non-whites (African Americans, Native Americans) who’ve had significant issues and disputes with whites over the last 400 years, to put it mildly.
And yet in a frank, brass-tacks 5.13 interview with multi-hypenate Kevin Costner, director of the soon-to-be-unveiled Horizon: An American Saga — Part One (Warner Bros, 6.28), Deadline’s Mike Fleming, who has apparently seen Horizon, has described the three-hour, covered-wagon saga as “a sprawling film about Manifest Destiny.”
If I was a hair-trigger progressive, I would regard Fleming’s description with a certain degree of alarm. Which is why I, a staunch anti-wokester for the last five or six years, posted a related article two weeks ago, to wit:
THR ‘s James Hibberd indicated as much in a 2.26 interview with Costner.
Horizon will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival early Sunday evening, 5.19.
Face to Face: Film Fanatics & Down-and-Outers
First & foremost, HE and World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy are back at Le Pad…7 rue Jean Mero, a four-minute walk to Salle Debussy…
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Heathrow Air France + Italian Suede Lace-Ups + A Sense of Placidity & Well -Being
I’m at my Heathrow departure gate — terminal 4, gate 10. A full hour before the departure of HE’s Nice flight at 8:55 am.
Yesterday’s London roam-around (see photos posted last night) was fairly glorious, especially ending as it did at Namaste Holborn, a Bloomsbury veggie Indian restaurant with outdoor seating. Perfection in all departments.
Today will be the only low-stress, comme ci comme ca day of the ‘24 Cannes Film Festival. Moving in, shopping, meditating, breathing in the seaside air, getting some dinner and avoiding all the shithead journalists with whom I was once on good, friendly terms with but have since morphed into William S. Burroughs-styled insects.
London Intrigues (St. John’s Wood, Hampstead Heath, Cittie of Yorke)
Sardine In A Can
Hollywood Elsewhere is seated in row 46, right aisle, on a Virgin Atlantic flight to Heathrow…a flight that should have left at midnight but is only just getting underway at 12:41 am.
I have roughly the same amount of wiggle-breathing room that astronaut Alan B. Shepard had in his Mercury space capsule on 5.5.61. Plus I’m seated next to a person of considerable (dare I say oppressive?) size.
Coach flying is an agony-endurance test. You just have to somehow get through it.
4:38 am update: For purely sadistic reasons our Virgin Atlantic flight attendants insisted on serving drinks and snacks for just under two hours…1:30 am to 3:25 am…up and down the aisle, pushing carts, bumping into outstretched legs and feet. Thanks, guys.
To Each His Own
A vote for RFK, Jr. is for all practical purposes a vote for…?
HE’s Last Peaceful Day
…before the start of the exciting, high-stress, sleep-deprived ordeal of the Cannes Film Festival, which is always a kick when you first arrive…here we all are! Great to be back! La Pizza! That briney air and those early-morning cries of seagulls.
But before long that 18-hour-per-day grind feeling takes hold, and before you know it you’re Trevor Howard’s soot-coveted, tired-blood coal miner in Jack Cardiff’s 1960 adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. A coal miner with a pink badge, I mean. Don’t get me wrong — Cannes is never less than a “fun”, flush time, to be sure, but it’s never a day at the beach.
Unless, of course, you happen to see a film that’s so good you feel rejuvenated, and then life is beautiful again.
My first Cannes Film Festival was in May ‘92 so don’t tell me.
The online reservation process for press began early Friday morning (5.10), or more precisely an hour past midnight in Manhattan or 7 am Cannes time. Four days in advance, one reservation day at a time. I reserved tickets for a Tuesday afternoon showing of the first half (I think) of Abel Gance’s Napoleon (‘27) and an evening screening of Quentin Dupieux’s The Second Act.
Early this morning I missed my 1 am wake-up (I arose at 3 am…unforgivable!) so I missed out on a couple of Wednesday films. (Don’t ask.) You have to pounce immediately at 7 am or you might be left out in the cold. It’s a semi-dicey, fraught process — many veterans yearn for the good old days of just lining up and come what may. Yes, you can still get into screenings on a last-ditch rush basis but…
Tonight’s 1 am reservation opportunity (Thursday’s screenings include Francis Coppola’s Megalopolis and Andrea Arnold’s Bird) happens one hour into my London flight, which departs at 11:59 pm. Let’s hope the Virgin Atlantic wifi will be in good working order.
Right now it’s 2 pm on Saturday, 5.11. For the last 22 hours I’ve been hanging in West Orange (and to some extent Montclair) with Jett, Cait and Sutton…TV time, soccer practice, book store, fresh market.