Even though the teaser suggests otherwise, it’s generally understood that Sam Mendes‘ 1917 (Universal 12.25) will be presented in a single unbroken take a la Birdman. But until this morning, I didn’t realize that the film will also occur in “real time” — the running time corresponding more or less precisely to the time span of the depicted action.

I realized this when a friend sent me a 4.26.18 PDF draft of the script, co-written by Menzes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, and I saw the following on page 3:

1917 is therefore joining a small fraternity of distinguished real-time films. Here’s a list of the best known, starting with the most highly regarded and working down. I’ve thrown in an estimate of the stopwatch accuracy of each:

1. Fred Zinneman‘s High Noon (’52) — The action doesn’t occur in actual, real-deal, stop-watch time, but it comes close. Will Kane and Amy Fowler’s marriage ceremony ends at around 10:35 am on a Sunday, and the telegram notifying Kane about the pardoning of Frank Miller is delivered at 10:40 am. The climactic shoot-out happens right after the arrival of the noon train, and by my calculations Kane throws his star into the dust about 12 minutes later. Add the opening-credits footage of the Miller gang meeting up and riding into town (roughly 140 seconds) and High Noon should last a minimum of 102 minutes, give or take. And yet it only runs 85 minutes.

2. Sidney Lumet‘s 12 Angry Men (’57) — The judge reads instructions to the jury sometime in the late afternoon, the jury retires to the deliberation room, and after some small talk and bathroom time they get down to business about 10 minutes later. They deliberate long enough for the sun to go down, for a rainstorm to hit and pass, for a discussion about ordering dinner, and for Jack Warden to miss out on his early-evening ball game. By my calculations this would take a minimum of two hours if not three, and yet the film runs 96 minutes.

3. Paul Greengrass‘s United 93 (’06) — In actuality the flight of United 93 from Newark Airport to Shanksville, Pennsylvania lasted 81 minutes — departure at 8:42 am, ground-slam at 10:03 am. The film lasts 110 minutes but that covers the hijackers saying early-morning prayers, the passengers waiting in the lounge and being seated, and the flight being delayed before takeoff. If you forget about the morning prayers the real-time count is fairly precise and on the money.

On 6.30.16, or just before the opening of Justin Lin and J.J. Abrams‘ Star Trek Beyond, I posted an imaginary chat between Abrams and Albert Brooks about who and what Lin really was. (The dialogue was mostly stolen from a scene between Brooks and Holly Hunter in Broadcast News.) I’m mentioning this because I’ve taken a fresh look at Lin’s track record since his brilliant 2002 break-out film, Better Luck Tomorrow, and over the course of 17 years he’s either directed or is set to direct seven (7) fast-car movies…seven! In other words, with one or two exceptions Lin has almost always gone for the high-octane, bucks-up jizz whizz. If I was harsh or mean-spirited I would conclude that such a fellow is spiritually lacking on some level, but I wouldn’t want to sound too on-the-nose.

A mere three months after completing principal photography, Sam Mendes‘ 1917 (Universal 12.25) will be research-screened next week in a northern New Jersey suburb of Manhattan.

Based in part on an account told to Mendes by his paternal grandfather and co-written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson–Cairns, 1917 filmed in rural England between 4.1.19 and sometime in late June, or so I understand.

Boilerplate: “At the height of the World War I conflict, two young British soldiers, Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), are given a seemingly impossible mission. The message warns of an ambush during one of the skirmishes in the Third Battle of Ypres.

“The two recruits race against time, crossing enemy territory to deliver the warning and keep a British battalion of 1,600 men, which includes Blake’s own brother, from walking into a deadly trap. The pair must give their all to accomplish their mission.”

Backlogs, back pages, oldies but goodies, etc.

At a Beverly Hills screening facility next Tuesday. Or, if I want to be adventurous, at the Mill Valley Film Festival early next month.

I haven’t paid the slightest attention to Doug Liman‘s Chaos Walking, a dark fantasy flick from Lionsgate that was shot two years ago but has no release date, although it’s expected to open sometime next year. A director-writer friend says “the upcoming epic failure of Chaos Walking could sink Lionsgate, which is why they’ve pushed it off until 2020. After poor test screenings and reshoots last April, Lionsgate is now contemplating selling it to a streaming service as a four-hour miniseries to try to maximize the sale price versus just a two-hour movie. The latest reshoots haven’t helped and they’ve invested way too much in this thing.”

“Hurt people hurt people….the whole world is a strip club…sleep is where and when it happens.”

I knew that Lorene Scafaria‘s Hustlers (STX, 9.13) was a cut above immediately. I mean within five or ten seconds. I could tell that the focus was honest, intimate, up close, and that Scafaria and the actresses were keeping it real as the material allowed. And so I relaxed and settled in.

The first act of Hustlers isn’t so much about the bods and the flash and the cash (although it is) as what the dancer characters — played by Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, Lizzo and Cardi B — are feeling and grappling with, about the move-it-or-lose-it grind of working at a top-tier Manhattan strip club and how the dancers are all coping with insufficient pay and the constant company of Wall Street “assholes.”

I’ve put quotes around that word because it’s an oft-supplied description from the dancers who were interviewed by Jessica Pressler for her 2015 article (“The Hustlers at Scores“), which inspired Scafaria’s script.

Julia Stiles plays the Pressler character (“Elizabeth”).

I read Pressler’s 2015 article when I got home, and so I know the ins and outs and most of the particulars. Some sharp women decided to turn the tables on the stock traders and Wall Street patrons by getting them drunk and taking them for as much dough as they could, running their credit cards behind their inebriated backs while doing lap dances and flashing their boobs and (I gather) offering private-room blowjobs. Until the scam reached the ears and eyes of the fuzz, and then it all fell apart, charges were filed and the girls had to pay the price.

The fact that this is Scafaria’s most likable and engaging film thus far may be interpreted in some corners as damnation with faint praise. I don’t mean it that way. I simply didn’t care for the premise or the vibe of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, which Scafaria directed and wrote. I half-liked her follow-up effort, The Meddler, a mother-daughter drama with Susan Sarandon and Rose Byrne, but not enough to write anything about it. But for what it is, Hustlers hits the spot.

Hustlers enjoyed a wowser reception a few days ago at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was applauded for its humanity, spirit, efficiency and general enjoyment factor. Tribune News Service’s Katie Walsh called it “girlie Goodfellas“. On top of which Lopez was talked up as a possible Best Actress contender. In my opinion Constance Wu gives the best performance but the hype machine wants what it wants.

This morning a colleague said that he respected Hustlers “but the film is half music video.” Yeah, I said, but it’s nonetheless focused on the interior lives of the principal dancer characters. And the embezzlement stuff was offered as just and fair could because the marks were assholes — wealthy Wall Street greedheads (indistinguishable from the Wolf of Wall Street guys). Oh, and by the way I blinked and missed poor Frank Whaley.”

The heat that Hustlers got out of Toronto was, I believe, partly if not significantly driven by p.c. factors. It’s a kind of “you go, girl” revenge flick…get those assholes, take their fucking money, fuck those guys, they hurt others to we’re going to hurt them (“Hurt people hurt people”)…yes, yes, yes! Mainly because there’s no cultural group more loathed and despised in this Trumpian age than greedy, swaggering, entitled white guys in pricey suits…three of them are murdered in a subway in Joker and here they’re being fleeced and scamboozled and that’s fine because they FUCKING DESERVE IT!

Bernie Sanders needs to man up and drop out. I know he won’t do this until after Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, but with Droolin’ Joe and Elizabeth Warren tied at 26% each in a new Economist/YouGuv poll (1500 respondents) and Sanders only polling a lousy 16%, it’s the only thing to do.

Sanders and Warren stand for essentially the same progressive principles, and if Bernie disappears a good chunk of his support (at least 10% or 12%) will probably go straight to Warren, which would put her 10% to 12% ahead of Biden. Down with the gaffemaster!

And then Warren could choose Mayor Pete for her vp. Homophobic black voters (of which there are quite a few) might not like this, but what are they gonna do? Vote for Trump?

Bill Maher: “The Trump voter? I don’t think they’re blind to Trump’s myriad flaws. If you talk to them, what they like about him is ‘he’s not politically correct.’ Especially that. I think we underestimate how much America has been choking on political correctness for the last 25 years.”

Except the wokesters, who only manifested a couple of years ago, and cancel culture are a much more malignant manifestation.

Little Women costar Meryl Streep to USA Today‘s Brian Truitt: “Not to hype it, but Little Women is like a masterpiece.”

Apart from the vested aspect, there’s a difference between a famous actress stating that a film she’s made (a) “is a masterpiece” and (b) “is like a masterpiece”…no? Isn’t that a fair thing to note? It would be one thing if Streep had said Little Women “is a flat-out, unambiguous, take-it-to-the-bank masterpiece.”

Obviously she’s speaking very highly of it. She’s sharing honest enthusiasm. I’m just saying that the word “like” is, like, a qualifier.

Sony will open Little Women on 12.25.

I’ve written two or three times about Noah Hawley‘s Lucy In The Sky, and also about the disturbing side issue known as “pizza and darts.” Lucy will have its big Toronto Film Festival debut tonight at 9 pm eastern. Fox Searchlght/Disney will release it on 10.4.19. Here’s a Deadline discussion about the film’s varying aspect ratios, posted on 9.10:

Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro: “The other element about Lucy in the Sky that’s fascinating is how you continually adjust the aspect ratio.”

Hawley: “My goal was to make a movie that was…as close to the experience of being Lucy Cola (a stand-in for the real-life astronaut Lisa Nowak) as I could give you. One of the first thoughts I had is the reduction of scale when she comes back from space. It’s a full-screen experience when she’s up there in space and she’s energized and feels alive in a way she’s never felt alive before, and then the moment she lands back on earth everything feels smaller, and so the screen closes down to what is a 4 × 3 box, and that became the beginning of the cinematic approach to the film, which ended up involving a lot of different aspect ratios and the screen sort of expanding and contracting to try to simulate the feeling of being her so visually and also through the sound design.

“There’s a moment in which you know toward the end of the film where she commits to a path that will ultimately lead to her ruin but in her mind as someone who has never met a problem she can’t solve, but who has been put into a no-win scenario, she goes a bit nuts and she commits to this path of confronting the people she thinks have wronged her and it takes her on the road. In her mind there’s an exhilaration to it and that’s what re-expands the screen in the 15 or 20 minutes of the film.”

HE comment: Hawley doesn’t supply the actual aspect ratio dimensions? No filmmaker worth his or her salt says “4 x 3 box” — they say 1.37:1. Or in the case of The Lighthouse, 1.2:1. And nobody describes 2.39:1 or 2.55:1 aspect ratio as a “full-screen experience.”

You want it short and straight? Okay, here goes, and this is about as plain and blunt-spoken as any assessment you’re likely to read anywhere:

White guys still dominate the movie-reviewing field. A January 2018 USC study found that 77.8% of reviews of a recent sample had been written by males, and 22.2% percent by females, and of these 82% were white and 18% were from underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds.

It follows that in today’s atmosphere of politically correct terror and intimidation, “white” and “male” are negative definers, and so fair-skinned guy critics (especially older ones) are white-knuckle terrified of the wokester mob. Plus their ranks are thinning anyway because of the weakening of traditional print outlets.

Which is why white male critics are generally trying to reflexively kowtow and kiss the feet of any film that champions or embodies progressive values. (Like Jojo Rabbit, for example….down with hate!) Because they don’t want to be targeted or ostracized or regarded as out of the swing of things by “them” (women, Millennial progressives, POCs, Twitter fanatics, New Academy Kidz). Which is why you can’t trust many critics these days. Because many (if not most) of them are “playing it safe” in order to protect themselves.

Are they all cowards? Baahing sheep on the hillside, nudged along by p.c. shepherds? No. There are some who tell the truth as best they can and let the chips fall, and for this they deserve everyone’s respect and allegiance. But these fellows are not in the majority.