Jeffrey Wells

Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness” Was Booed

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…at the end of yesterday afternoon’s Salle Debussy screening.

It’s a kind of darkly humorous, oddly grotesque, Bunuelian satire of middle-class misery…an attempt to capture the cold, deathly emptiness of things…the self-loathing, the horrifying banality. It’s basically a surreal elevated horror film…dead-eyed zombies and slithering serpents and empty robots eating food, talking about their fears, manipulating each other, indulging in wife-swapping, diving into empty pools, a husband asking a wife to cut off a finger and serve it as a snack, and then deciding to give it to the cat instead…you get the idea.

There’s a point to all this cold repellent antiseptic shit, and I respect that the humanity-hating Lanthimos had a deeply perverse vision in his head as he put it all together, but unlike Bunuel he hasn’t much chuckle in him, and when a film gets booed, even if only by two or three malcontents, it usually means something.

Between 96% and 97%

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…of ticket buyers don’t regard “insane” (as in unstable, directionless, subject to whim, blown by the wind) as a cinematic virtue.

Most viewers want filmmakers to show a sense of control, discipline, assurance and command.

One of the most unappetizing “crazy” films ever made was and is Philip Kaufman’s Quills (‘00). I hated Geoffrey Rush’s Marquis de Sade, especially when he began using fecal matter with which to paint on prison walls.

Coppola’s “Megalopolis” Made My Eyes Moisten

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So far the Cannes reviews of Francis Coppola‘s Megalopolis, which screened this morning for elite crickets and late this afternoon for schlubs like myself, have been a mass exercise in “c’mon, give Coppola a break…he’s a visionary who spent $120 million of his own dough…be creative and find ways to offer charitable impressions…this film may be a surreal exercise in whatever, but you do not want to pan it…c’mon, it’s Francis.”

I mean, IndieWire‘s David Ehrlich has given Megalopolis a B-plus grade, for Chrissake. Talk about the delusion of too much compassion. Remember A Clockwork Orange‘s “Cat Lady” sneering at Malcolm McDowell and saying “cut the shit, sonny“?

It’s 12:10 am and I’m really too whipped to tap out a review — I intend to expand and polish tomorrow morning but for the time being allow me to share a few post-screening notes and texts, written in a rather crude fashion.

(a) “Coppola has seemingly lost his mind. Watching Megalopolis just now and listening to random moo-cow boos as the closing credits began to roll was a very sad and sobering experience. It’s not just an embarassment and a calamity — I almost feel like weeping for the poor guy — but a film that hasn’t a prayer of attracting any Average Joes or Janes whatsoever, and you can totally forget any sort of fall awards campaign or any distributor even flirting with paying for same…no way, man!”

(b) “On the other hand…Jesus, I don’t know what to say or think as I don’t want to dump on a film that is so nervy and creatively ludicrous and out-there bonkers. I’m not surprised by how Megalopolis played with the Salle Debussy crowd, and I’m certainly not angry about having sat through it, but holy fucking moley.”

(c) “It’s such a head-in-the-clouds goofball thing with such an overload of pompous-sounding, smarty-pants dialogue that it’s almost like a 1965 philosophical psychedelic fantasy flick by the Merry Pranksters, shot in 16mm and edited by a guy who’d been chewing peyote buttons.”

(d) A friend has compared portions of the dialogue as well as the narration (voiced by Larry Fishburne) to Ed Emshwiller‘s “Unveiling The Mystery Planet.” HE is hereby advising the readership to see Megalopolis while tripping. (Not acid necessarily but maybe some soft mescaline?)

(e) Jon Voight‘s Crassus character, adorned in black silk pajamas, during a third-act comic-detour scene: ““Whadaya think of this boner I’ve got here?”

(f) “All this said, I feel MUCH better about having seen Megalopolis than having seen Fast X or any of the shitty, soul-draining, post-Iron Man franchise movies because at least it’s about something other than the usual corporate bullshit and is at least alive with quirky indivduality, and that ain’t hay.”

(g) Journalist friend to HE five minutes after Megalopolis ended: “What the fuck was that?”

Magnus von Horn’s “The Girl With The Needle” — Brilliant, Harrowing, Ultimately Horrific — Facing Hurdle with Gerwig’s Jury

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And that’s that this grim, fact-inspired tale about the cold, brutal conditions of women on the bottom of the social order in post-World War I-era Copenhagen has not been directed by a woman.

If it had been, Team Gerwig would be short-listing it for a major festival award. They might still hand acting trophies to Victoria Carmen Sonne or costar Trine Dyrholm. =

It has to win something, I’m telling myself. As relentlessly downish, oppressive social-malaise art films go, this is one of the best I’ve seen in many years. Hats off, full respect.

Until I Catch “Furiosa” Tomorrow Morning…

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Here’s a fully considered, really well-phrased half-and-half review by Variety’s Owen Gleiberman — an affectionate pan mixed with honest, medium-level praise.

It’s obviously too well written for Gleiberman to have tapped it out today.

Do I now feel a tad less enthused about my 8:30 am Thursday screening in the Grand Lumière? Yeah, but I still feel moderately pumped.

Money line: “It’s got a touch of Marvel-itis.”

Less Than Accommodating

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Press reservation tickets for Sunday’s (5.19) 6 pm screening of Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga were due to be available this morning (5.15) at 7 am.

I signed in at 7 am on the dot only to discover that tickets are completely inaccesible, or “complete.” Unfair! Not cool!

Now I have to find the Warner Bros. team and beg for a ticket. Not the way it’s done, guys. Yes, there’s a Salle Agnes Varda screening on Monday morning at 8:30 am, but that theatre isn’t as big as the Salle Debussy, where a parallel screening should have been scheduled concurrent with Sunday’s Grand Lumiere 6 pm show.

Having Seen Kevin Costner’s “Horizon”, Deadline’s Mike Fleming Calls It “A Sprawling Film About Manifest Destiny”

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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.

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Heathrow Air France + Italian Suede Lace-Ups + A Sense of Placidity & Well -Being

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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.