A24 will open Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding on March 8th, just a few weeks hence. Delivers quite an ending a la Saint Maud. The question is “what kind of freaks?”
Jeffrey Wells
Hedren’s 94th
Two days ago (1.19) a Facebook tribute congratulated Tippi Hedren for having reached her 94th year (blow out the candles!) as well as her acting in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (‘63) and Marnie (‘64), among other efforts and creations.
HE to Hyland: She hasn’t out-lived this critic.
Hedren’s characters in The Birds and Marnie have always struck me as curiously prim, overly tidy mannequins. She fit that immaculate, early ‘60s department store window persona — not just conservative, but a bit chilly and brittle.
I’m sorry but you don’t believe for a second that either character has ever been possessed by a single erotic impulse.
Hitchcock was once quoted saying that Hedren “didn’t bring the volcano.” He wasn’t wrong.
Grace Kelly had a similar porcelain quality, but one always sensed an undercurrent of suppressed hunger and passion from her performances.
There’s nothing wrong with inhabiting or conveying a curiously chilly and brittle persona, but if that’s your main game there’s not a lot of range involved.
Try to imagine Hedren as Blanche DuBois — you can’t.
She radiates a certain cool officiousness, a real-estate agent vibe. As such Hedren has reminded me of many women of wealth and assurance that I’ve run into or have known in upscale circles. There’s nothing false or ungenuine about this.
Is the private, off-screen Hedren a woman of kindness, elegance, poise, compassion, etc.? Allegedly so and good for her. She’s lived a good, long, healthy life, and she loves her big cats.
But remember Mitch Brenner mentioning that salacious news item about Melanie Daniels having allegedly taken a nude dip in a pool surrounding a large Roman fountain? The instant he brings this up you say to yourself “no way…Melanie Daniels isn’t the type to disrobe in public, drunk or sober, and she never will be.”
And that’s fine. No disapproval — just a statement of fact. I wrote this as a retort to Tom Hyland.
Proud Owner
I’m going to stick my neck out by saying I’m probably the only tristate area guy with a Red River belt buckle and a “Kennedy for President” sticker on my car’s rear bumper.
That’s All She Wrote for Sports Illustrated (August 1954 — January 2024)
Kaput. Over and done with. Staffers terminated.
I never bought a single S.I. issue or read a single article but it was a respected, top-rank publication from the early Eisenhower era all the way to the age of Joe Biden — nearly 70 years of publishing. All I did was glance at the swimsuit issues.
Let’s Hear It For The Girl
I’m presuming that Thelma ‘s Sundance ‘24 reviewers, very few of whom you can trust due to their whore-ish tendencies, are bending over backwards to be nice to 94 year-old star June Squibb (who was born three years after Marilyn Monroe). But maybe not.
“‘Moby-Dick’ on Horseback”
I’ve never been able to give myself over to Sam Peckinpah’s Major Dundee, a 1965 Civil War–era western, and I’ve frankly stopped trying.
Was the 156-minute version ever seen by anyone except R.G. Armstrong? The 136-minute version is longer but is it necessarily, positively better? I’ve only seen the shortest version (126 minutes) with the Mitch Miller sing–alongers on the soundtrack.
I know two things — during the ‘60s, ‘70s and early ‘80s Peckinpah allowed his career to be stained and diminished by raging alcoholism, and that with the exception of three films (Ride The High Country, The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs) everything he was involved in was to varying degrees colored by rage and snarls and waste.
Over the years his persistent asshole-ishness overwhelmed his creative visions, and people just got sick of him.
I own a Bluray of Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (‘74) and I’ve watched it exactly once. There’s a reason for that. The nihilistic finale leaves you with nothing. Maybe I should give it another go.
I’ve seen Cross of Iron (1977) once, and while I have a favorable recollection of James Coburn and Maximilian Schell’s lead performances, I mostly recall Gene Shalit calling it “a movie of bad.”
All this aside, I sure do envy Joe Dante for having seen the 152-minute version of The Wild Bunch (7 minutes longer than the official, definitive 145-minute Bluray) during the 1969 Bahamas press junket.
Dante recalls as follows:
Dead-End Insanity of “Nomadland”
Frances McDormand‘s Fern was strong but mule-stubborn and at the end of the day self-destructive, and this stunted psychology led to an idiotic ending.
Her old white van was indisputably on its last legs, and 60ish David Straitharn, lonely but harmless, clearly would’ve settled for simple, no-big-deal companionship.
I’m sorry but there’s this notion out there that choosing a healthy or constructive path in life requires (a) not being a stubborn egoistic purist and (b) understanding that opting for common-sense security isn’t necessarily a death sentence or a prison term.
The curious ending of Nomadland refuses to acknowledge this. It basically says “better to die destitute and alone on a two-lane blacktop while shitting in a bucket in the middle of the night than to accept kindness and sensible adult friendship.”
Gladstone, Melton, Gerwig Snubbed in BAFTA Noms
Lily Gladstone’s identity-propelled Best Actress campaign re Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t cutting any ice with the BAFTA gang.
To even HE’s surprise Gladstone has been flat–out snubbed in the just-announced BAFTA Best Actress nominations — six names (including The Color Purple ‘s Fantasia Barrino) but not a Gladstone among them.
A friend believes that BAFTA’s token woke nominee, Rye Lane ‘s Vivian Oparah, apparently elbowed Gladstone aside. The Native American “great reckoning” thing just isn’t resonating in England, I guess. That plus they’re probably not approving of Team Gladstone’s contention that Mollie Burkhart is a lead role.
And speaking of snubs. May December ‘s enigmatic Charles Melton, an early Best Supporting Actor favorite stateside (Gothams, NYFCC, NSFC), is also, in that category, a BAFTA MIA. Seven nominations and the Criterion closet Eo fan didn’t make the cut. And yet All Of Us Strangers Paul Mescal did; ditto The Holdovers’ Dominic Sessa.
I’m genuinely shocked that Barbie helmer Greta Gerwig was also blown off. Perhaps the BAFTA committee simply felt drained by the hype or something.
The fact that Poor Things got 11 nominations suggests that Emma Stone is a Best Actress favorite.
Killers of the Flower Moon helmer Martin Scorsese and lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio were also snubbed.
The Gladstone and Melton snubs are yet another indication that woke derangement syndrome may be on the wane. Which suggests, in a roundabout way, that woke scold critic Bob Strauss may need to pour himself a cup of coffee and rethink things.
On the other hand a SAG/AFTRA sympathy backlash may happen in Gladstone’s favor.
Nolan, Bening & Foster Aside
…the AARP guys are suffering, no offense, from a taste deficiency. “Taste is a result of a thousand distastes.” — Francois Truffaut.
Mia Farrow’s Best Performances?
Can’t decide which performance is better, although I’ve always leaned toward Tina Vitale, her cynical New Jersey moll behind the shades, in the latter film, which opened almost exactly 40 years ago (1.27.84).
The Purple Rose of Cairo opened just over 13 months later, on 3.1.85.
Less than a year later came Hannah and Her Sisters (2.7.86), in which Farrow also dramatically stood out (alongside Oscar-winner Dianne Wiest).
