Jeffrey Wells Poor Ava Gardner had recently turned 36 when the filming of On The Beach began in January of ‘59. She looked at least 45…more than a bit puffy, the ravages of a fast life. Stanley Kramer’s apocalyptic drama opened 11 months later, and it lost money, you bet — $700,000 in the red. Educated folk gave it a tumble; Joe and Jane Popcorn mostly said “no thanks”. The fertilizer line is still a howler.
Before global warming March in the tristate area tended to prompt morose meditations — more wintry than springy, damp, occasionally mild but just as often a climate best ignored. Daydreams of South Beach, Key West, Turks & Caicos.
But within the last few days the air has become warmish, standing on the Westport train station platform feels less miserable and trees are starting to think about sprouting leaves.
I’ve never seen Big Jim McClain (‘52 — John Wayne vs. Hawaiian Communists) but the term “treason trail” has recently become a mental irritant. James Arness and Nancy Olson costarred.
Robert Downey, Jr.’s bordering-on-bizarre evening wear (maroon tuxedoes, broadly flared suit pants, heavy-soled shoes) should be cause for alarm among decent Americans everywhere.
…we’re all going to die. A lot of Democrats are going to “come home” on election day, agreed, but many others are going to stay home. Joe Bader Biden’s denial, obstinacy and arrogance will almost certainly do the trick (i.e., return a lying criminal sociopath to the White House), and God help us. It’s really the fault of the wokeys, whom just about everyone despises with a furious passion.
Chris Cillizza and Nate Silver are not fools or idiots. They’re wired in. They know whereof they speak.
Variety Assistant Copy Editor: “Hey, chief! A guy named Ben Salami (@UglyXKorean) just tweeted about some louche lowlife masturbating during a suburban Detroit screening of Love Lies Bleeding!”
Variety Editor: “Jerking off in a movie theatre? Wasn’t the late Paul Reubens busted for that in the early ‘90s?”
Variety Assistant Copy Editor: “Yeah, but that was in a porn theatre. This happened in a legit multiplex in Southgate, a low-rent suburb of Detroit.”
Variety editor: “And the guy actually pulled out his gross animal member…?”
Variety Assistant Copy Editor: “And began spanking it…exactly!”
Variety editor: “This is obviously deserving of coverage in the showbiz bible. If I’m not mistaken Variety ran a story about a guy masturbating during a showing of Ben-Hur in Tampa back in ‘59 or ‘60.”
Variety Assistant Copy Editor: “Was that during a reserved seat showing?”
Variety editor: “Not sure but we definitely covered it. Plus this’ll help draw attention to Love Lies Bleeding, which needs all the help it can get. And out friends at A24 will appreciate it.”
Variety Assistant Copy Editor: “It’s a ballsy film, if that’s not an inappropriate term.”
Variety editor: “Tell William Earl to write it up, but first get confirmation from Southgate police, of course, as well as the management of the theatre. And make sure that Ben Salami is the tweeter’s actual name.”
Variety Assistant Copy Editor: “Should we run the photo?”
Variety editor: ‘Probably not, but let me check with Jay.”
Because she was in a receptive erotic mood four-plus years ago, and because she gifted her former boyfriend Nathan Wade with a well-paid gig as a senior prosecutor on the Donald Trump election–racketeering case in Georgia, and because she recently decided to lie (i.e., commit perjury) about her romantic timeline with Wade, Atlanta D.A. Fani Willis has done an enormous favor for the foulest sociopath to ever threaten U.S. democracy in this country’s history. Brilliant! Take a bow!
I’m not saying Alex Garland’s Civil War (A24, 4.12) isn’t a first-rate film and I’m not saying it’s being over-praised, but I know one thing for sure and it’s this: Always regard South by Southwest hype askance.
Every now and then the adoring tweets are legit (like with Trainwreck a decade ago) but mostly you can’t trust anyone or anything out of Austin. Just sayin’.
A movie about an American civil war that doesn’t lay the Orange Cancer reality on the line? I don’t like the sound of that.
In response to some recent Sharon Stone recollections about 1993’s Sliver, told to Spotify podcaster Louis Theroux and repeated by Metro’s Rishma Dosani and Danni Scott, director Phillip Noyce has sifted through his own memory vault:
Timothee Chalamet is going to look great as he ages into his 40s, 50s and beyond. Those eyes and bones…he’s going to become a combination of a graying David Niven and a gentle-faced Basil Rathbone with bushy salt-and-pepper hair.**
Ditto Emma Stone. She’ll never put on weight, her face will retain its tightness as long as she submits to an occasional Prague touch-up, and those grand, luminous eyes are never going to lose their wattage.
Margot Robbie is going to radiate much of what she has now when she passes the 45-plus threshold. Firecracker eyes, delectable bones. As long she ignores her gay hairdresser’s advice to wear her hair shorter as she ages, she’ll be totally fine.
Zendaya is also going to weather fairly nicely.
But you know who isn’t going to age all that well? Florence Pugh. She’s pretty and everything but it’s clear she’s just about to flip over. On her way to Kathleen Turner-ville. A round little ball.
Journalists and columnists aren’t allowed to talk candidly about actors’ appearances, but you should listen to casting directors and beauty professionals after they’ve had a couple of drinks and let their hair down.
Who else is seemingly fated to experience significant (i.e., unwelcome) changes as their genes come in for the kill?
** Chalamet may get into trouble if he allows himself to bulk up and become Alan Bates, but he’ll be fine if he sticks to a Cary Grant diet..
In all fairness, Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence (’93) won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, and otherwise managed four other nominations — Winona Ryder for Best Supprting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score and Best Art Direction.
In my opinion the only Scorsese historical drama that felt like a grand slam was The Last Temptation of Christ (’88). Scorsese snagged a Best Director Oscar nomination. Barbara Hershey won a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe award, and Peter Gabriel‘s excellent soundtrack music won a Golden Globe for Best Original Score.
I’m trying to at least post an acknowledgment of the universally expected Best Picture Oscar win for Oppenheimer. Maybe this will post and maybe it won’t. But it was a great show! And I fell over backwards in my chair when the deserving Best Actress winner was announced. Wow…my faith in humanity semi-restored.
But not in theatres, unfortunately. Reactions from last night’s SXSW debut screening assert that it’s emphatically a film to see half-drunk from an eighth-row seat, sprawled.
