...except in the matter of WGA strikes. A feeling in my bones tells me the just-begun work stoppage, which right now is only affecting the late-night talk shows, could last well into the summer. Or beyond that, God forbid. I read this morning that the dispute boils down to 2%ofstudioprofitmargins. But the real bugaboo is the generative AI factor.
Login with Patreon to view this post
A leftie friend bawled me out yesterday for saying that the ’24 presidential race would be more stimulating and issue-oriented if Joe Biden were to run against Vivek Ramaswamy rather than Orange Plague. I was flat-out told to rescind my endorsement of the guy.
Response: “One, I didn’t endorse him. I merely said that, in theory, the ‘24 campaign would be much more substantial and thoughtful if Biden were to run against Vivek than that sociopathic, mouth-breathing animal from Mar a Lago. VR won’t get within 100 miles of the Republican nomination, of course, but it would make for a smarter, more philosophical battle if he was the Republican candidate. Trump vs. Biden will be awful, grotesque. Would you honestly like to see Trump run against Joe? Please.”
I said that anyone who questions climate science simply hasn’t paid attention, but I did add that I feel a certain allegiance with Ramaswamy’s anti-woke rhetoric, particularly in the arena of radical trans ideology.
“Having a granddaughter wakes you up to this stuff,” I wrote. “It’s no longer a conceptual thing for doctors and psychological specialists to recommend hormone blockers or even biological mutilation with kids who’ve expressed a certain ambiguity or anxiety about their gender…it makes you realize that radical gender ideology is more specific and real-deal when you have a granddaughter who may come under their influence in a dozen years.
“I think that some trans activists have crossed the line in some ways,” I said. “I think kids should be left the hell alone until they’re 18 or whatever. Some would say gender is a spectrum and nobody’s one thing or the other and that alleged gender dysphoria has nothing to do with social peer pressure. Well, I think it does have something to do with peer pressure in some cases.”
Bill Maher: “If this spike in trans children is all natural, then why is it regional? Either Ohio is shaming them or California is creating them. It wasn’t that long ago when adults asked kids ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ They meant ‘what profession?'”
HE: “Some would further say it’s healthy and liberating for drag performers to perform for grade-school kids. I’m of two minds about this. On one hand it’s obviously fun and harmless but on the other hand I’m thinking ‘fuck those guys for trying to mold kids while they’re soft clay.’ Hence my allegiance with guys like Vivek. I don’t agree with him in many respects, but from where I’m standing he strikes me as relatively sane.”
In response to which the leftie pally said “how conservative have you become over the last couple of years?”
HE response: “I’m not a rightie at all. I’m a center-left moderate. It’s the crazy left that has gone over the waterfall. Okay, I’m a little more conservative these days, sure, but so are you. I was a good leftie for many decades, but then the woke crazies muscled their way in around ’16 or ’17, and now old-school lefties are being accused of being righties. It’s not me — it’s the woke crazies who’ve injected crazy serum and changed the political spectrum.
But when I saw this imaginary Reddit image of an 82 year old Marilyn Monroe, I almost said to myself “gee, there’s something to be said for dying at age 36.”
Login with Patreon to view this post
…or certainly infuriating, no matter who the jury chairman is or what the general mood may be.
Celebrating films of quality has come to matter less than celebrating films with the right socio-political narratives. That’s certainly been the rule since the woke virus began to infiltrate the Cannes bloodstream six or seven years ago. Or perhaps over the last decade, now that I think about it.
Many felt that the JaneCampion-led, mostly female jury, for example, had taken leave of their senses when they didn’t hand the Palme d’Or to Andrey Zvagintsev‘s drop-dead brilliant Leviathan (’14) and gave it instead to Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s WinterSleep, a respectably solemn but slow-moving 196-minute drama that noone was over the moon about.
Okay, I applauded when Ruben Ostlund‘s The Square won the Palme d’Or in 2017 — a good, smart call.
But two years later Bong Joon-ho‘s Parasite won the Palme d’Or, and with that awarding the crazy bird had flown the coop. That movie obviously and completely crippled itself when the con artist family let the fired maid indoors during that rainstorm, but the Alejandro G. Inarritu-led jury (which included Elle Fanning, Yorgos Lanthimos, Paweł Pawlikowski, Kelly Reichardt and Alice Rohrwacher) didn’t want to know from nothing. Rich vs. poor, class-warfare social satire + a bespectacled, food-loving Asian director known for focusing on genre fare — the right kind of director had made the right kind of film, and nobody much cared about script flaws or how well the film’s final third had been assembled.
It was even more wackazoid when Julia Ducournau‘s Titane, admittedly a fierce and metallic act of erotic imagination, won the Palme d’Or in 2021.
Ostlund, the savagely satiric Swedish helmer of Triangle of Sadness, The Square and Force Majeure, is heading this year’s jury. Given the attitude of his films, it’s my presumption that Ostlund will not be in favor of bestowing Cannes jury prizes for reasons of virtue signalling and social justice warrior motives. It would be truly delightful if the ’23 Cannes winners were to be determined by actualartisticmeritasopposedtowokepoints.
That probably won’t happen, of course. The Cannes awards pattern is almost set in stone — films strongly preferred by Cannes journos will almost certainly not win the top prizes (Palme d’Or and Grand Prix). The juries live and breathe on their own planet.
Most critics couldn’t control themselves when it came to over-praising AreYouThere, God?It’sMe, Margaret. Yesterday they were panting and shrieking and hyperventilating, and guess what? Joe and Jane Popcorn pulled a “meh” and mostlystayedawayindroves.
Login with Patreon to view this post
Rachel McAdams' performance in Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret is fine as far as it goes. As Barbara Simon, the mother of Abby Ryder Fortson's titular character, she radiates calmness, caring, focus, fortitude. Which is all she's been asked to do. It's not an attention-seeking performance, and it certainly isn't an end-of-the-year thing. A lot of people have lost their composure over this film, jumping up and down and insisting upon its greatness. To put it as mildly as possible, they're embarassing themselves. It's a nice little movie, but let it go.
Login with Patreon to view this post
I re-watched my 4K UHD Apocalypse Now Bluray last night, and I wasn’t totally happy. I saw this 1979 classic at the Ziegfeld theatre two or three times in August and September of ’79, and the big-screen presentation (we’re thinking back almost 44 years) blows the 4K disc away. Aurally and visually, but especially in terms of sharp, punctuating fullness of sound.
Apocalypse Now was presented at the Ziegfeld within a 2:1 aspect ratio, which Vittorio Storaro insisted upon through thick and thin. The 4K disc uses what looked to me with a standard Scope a.r. of 2.39:1.
And the general sharpness of the image on that big Ziegfeld screen just isn’t replicated by the 4K. It looks “good”, of course, but not as good as it should.
As we begin to listen to The Doors’ “The End” while staring at that tropical tree line, John Densmore’s high hat could be heard loudly and crisply from a Ziegfeld side speaker. Before that moment I had never heard any high-hat sound so clean and precise. But it doesn’t sound nearly as pronounced on the 4K disc, which I listened to, by the way, with a pricey SONOS external speaker.
Remember that “here’s your mission, Captain” scene with G.D. Spradlin, Harrison Ford and that white-haired guy? When that scene abruptly ends, we’re suddenly flooded with electronic synth organ music…it just fills your soul and your chest cavity. Filled, I should say, 44 years ago. But not that much with the disc.
When Martin Sheen and the PBR guys first spot Robert Duvall and the Air Cav engaged in a surfside battle, Sheen twice says “arclight.” In the Ziegfeld the bass woofer began rumbling so hard and bad that the floor and walls began to vibrate like bombs were exploding on 54th Street…the hum in my rib cage was mesmerizing. Not so much when you’re watching the 4K.
As Duvall’s gunship helicopters take off for the attack on a Vietnamese village (“Vin Din Lop…all these gook names sound the same”), an Army bugler begins playing the cavalry charge. It was clear as a bell in the Ziegfeld — less so last night.