Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim‘s The Great Hack (Netflix, 7.24) “exists as a giant contradiction sure to evoke strong responses from anyone impacted by its drama, which is basically everyone,” wrote Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn last January. “As a Netflix production, it has a puzzling identity in the marketplace: Audiences for this revealing movie are poised to discover it through the very same process of hidden algorithms at the center of its alarming narrative. That’s either a bitter irony or exactly right.”

“For the sake of cinema, Disney needs to be broken up“…yeah! Rousing headline! Sounds like a mission statement or a call to arms. Except that Observer columnist Guy Lodge doesn’t precisely urge this course of action. Well, in a roundabout way by inserting the word “might.”

What he mainly says is that the Disney dominance or “box-office stranglehold” of the last five or six years translates into the fact that Disney has become a kind of engulfing Hollywood colossus — “the principal architect of an ever more uniform and homogeneous popular cinema.”

In other words, the studio that Walt and Roy Disney worked and struggled so hard to build has is no longer about creativity but corporate rubber-stamping and the serving of familiar stories, characters and formulas. Obviously nothing radical or new in this observation,

Lodge’s central thought is that “this kind of Hollywood imperialism is not encouraging news if you fear that reduced competition begets reduced creativity,” which of course it has. “What other acquisitions are on [Disney’s] wishlist?,” Lodge asks. “Are we seeing a return to the rigidly controlled Hollywood studio system of the 1940s and 1950s — only with one studio effectively as the system? If so, a movement not dissimilar to the demands to break up big tech currently rippling towards Silicon Valley might be in order.”

An attorney friend said this morning that he’s starting to think that Trump will be re-elected. Because the Democratic primary echo chamber is one thing, and mainstream voters are another. Biden is too old and too yesteryear, he feels, and that reality will sink in more and more as the months wear on. And he fears that average voters will be reluctant to support someone perceived as overly owned by or indebted to the leftist-outrage woke camp.

I love the idea of Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren winning, but I’m also scared. Harris will kick Trump all over the stage in a debate and will almost certainly win the blue states and city voters, but how will she do with the same Middle American slowboats who couldn’t stand Hillary? I can imagine Warren snagging the Democratic nomination but I’m extremely fearful of her being out-tweeted and out-bludgeoned by Trump. I’m heartened by the polls that show Biden leading Trump by a large margin and I’ll vote for him , of course, if it comes to that, but he’s the wrong guy for the 2020s. We all know this in our gut, but many, like myself, are also afraid of what might happen with Harris or Warren.

Mayor Pete is the guy, but African American voters are apparently dead-set against him (or so I’m reading) along with what I’m guessing are millions of closet homophobes.

I forgot to attend last night’s Lion King all-media screening. Apologies. We all understand that “forgetting” to do something is usually a result of a lack of interest in same. I know it’ll be slick and “satisfying” to the serfs and make a lot of money, but what’s the point, really, of sitting through another CGI reboot of another Disney animated feature from 15 or 20 years ago? I felt so Lion King-ed out back in the mid to late ’90s (two viewings of the 1994 original, a viewing of the Broadway musical in the fall of ’97) that 20-plus years later I’m still reluctant to revisit any further permutation. Make that deeply reluctant.

It has always struck me as ludicrous that the dominant predators of Africa could somehow be re-imagined as possessors of royal blood. Not to mention the idea of various species of prey bowing their heads in respect to the lordly Simba…please!

Every day on YouTube I watch at least one African wildlife killing **, and each one is cruel and horrific. The poor victim cries and howls in terrible agony and death is never quick. In my humble opinion the daily YouTube murder channel (which of course didn’t exist in the mid ’90s) has not only desanitized but fundamentally altered our understanding of what predators actually do and how they operate. Predators are part of the nature’s natural order, of course, but try watching hundreds of these videos and see how it affects your basic outlook. A quarter-century ago I found myself half-investing in the Lion King mythology, largely out of deference to the kids. But no longer.

My lack of interest is such that I wasn’t even interested in reading Lion King reviews. But now I feel differently. Because I’ve been revived and rejuvenated by what Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich has written:

“Unfolding like the world’s longest and least convincing deepfake, Jon Favreau’s (almost) photorealistic remake of The Lion King is meant to represent the next step in Disney’s circle of life. Instead, this soulless chimera of a film comes off as little more than a glorified tech demo from a greedy conglomerate — a well-rendered but creatively bankrupt self-portrait of a movie studio eating its own tail.

“With the possible exception of 2015’s Cinderella, which was touched with just enough magic to feel like a new wrinkle on an old fairy tale, all of Disney’s live-action rehashes have been faint echoes of their animated predecessors. But The Lion King isn’t an echo, it’s a stain. This zombified digital clone of the studio’s first original cartoon feature is the Disney equivalent of Gus Van Sant’s Psycho.”

It seems logical, at least from a dramatic standpoint, that David Fincher‘s Mank, a forthcoming Netflix feature about the life and times of Citizen Kane co-screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, would portray Kane director, producer and star Orson Welles in a less than flattering light.

The whole Welles-vs-Mankiewicz mishegoss has been the subject of fierce debate for nearly 50 years, or since the 1971 publication of Pauline Kael’s disputed essay that claimed Kane was almost entirely written by Mankiewicz. Where’s the drama if the third act isn’t about Welles trying to buy Mankiewicz off or otherwise elbow him aside?

Calling Joseph McBride and other Welles biographers and admirers! To arms! To arms! Pass out the muskets and gunpowder!

I have to be honest and say I’m not all that keen on watching Gary Oldman play Mankiewicz. Oldman is a little too old for one thing (61) — a little too weathered and blinkered. Born in 1897, Mankiewicz worked on Kane when he was a relatively spry 43 and 44, and who enjoyed his main Hollywood heyday during his 30s and 40s. Mank died of drink at age 55, in 1953.

You know who should play Herman Mankiewicz? Bill Hader or somebody in that vein. A clever 40something or nudging-40 type with a twinkle in his eye. Mankiewicz was chubby, yes, but not overly so. A thin guy could pull if off.

Wiki excerpt #1 — Mank and The Wizard of Oz: “In February 1938, he was assigned as the first of ten screenwriters to work on The Wizard of Oz. Three days after he started writing he handed in a seventeen-page treatment of what was later known as ‘the Kansas sequence’. While Baum devoted less than a thousand words in his book to Kansas, Mankiewicz almost balanced the attention on Kansas to the section about Oz. He felt it was necessary to have the audience relate to Dorothy in a real world before transporting her to a magic one. By the end of the week he had finished writing fifty-six pages of the script and included instructions to film the scenes in Kansas in black and white. His goal, according to film historian Aljean Harmetz, was to “capture in pictures what Baum had captured in words — the grey lifelessness of Kansas contrasted with the visual richness of Oz.” He was not credited for his work on the film.

Wiki excerpt #2: “Mankiewicz was an alcoholic. He once famously reassured his hostess at a formal dinner, after he had vomited on her white tablecloth, not to be concerned because ‘the white wine came up with the fish.’ He died March 5, 1953, of uremic poisoning, at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles.”

The boilerplate synopsis says that James Gray‘s Ad Astra (Disney, 9.15) is about an astronaut (Brad Pitt‘s Roy McBride) who embarks on a space voyage in search of his long-lost father Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones) “whose experiment threatens the solar system.” Right away I’m thinking “huh?” What kind of an experiment could threaten even a single planet, much less the whole solar system?

Be honest: If Tommy Lee Jones’ “experiment” were to eradicate Jupiter in the same way Alderaan is destroyed by the Death Star, who would care? It’s just a pretentious ball of gas. **

My second thought is that Ad Astra (a Latin phrase meaning “to the stars”) may not sound dumb enough for your lowest-common-denominator filmgoer. Americans tend to regard askance any film with the slightest hint of erudition.

What would happen if Stanley Kubrick had never made 2001: A Space Odyssey 50 years ago, and if Gray had directed the exact same film with Ryan Gosling as Dave Bowman and it was coming out in the fall? What kind of money would it make? I’ll tell you what it would make. It wouldn’t make squat. The ending would piss people off, and the Cinemascore rating would probably be a B or more likely a B-minus. The Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores would be mixed. The word of mouth that happened among stoners in ’68 would never materialize, and even if it did Gray’s 2001 would be kicked out of theatres and put into streaming so fast your head would spin.

All to say that the crowd that flocked to Spider Man: Far From Home is probably going to be a teeny bit suspicious of Ad Astra. This latest TV trailer suggests it might not be half bad (it seems like something I might like except for the Gravity shots and that moment when Tommy Lee Jones makes a scary face), but “if people don’t want to see something you can’t stop ’em.”

A riff about King of Kings from yesterday’s Rip Torn comment thread:

What a strange, compromised in-betweener King of Kings is. Composed according to the rules of a costly, conservative, big-studio Biblical epic (i.e., even the wandering poor wearing studio-finessed wardrobes with perfect hair stylings) but at the same time political-minded and eschewing the usual religious sentiment (except towards the end). It seems to be straining to become something less conventional but without the focus and nerve to really push into that.

Director Nicholas Ray was quite the muscular auteur in the ‘40s and ‘50s, but he was a director-for-hire here. And yet a faint hint of personality emerged in one respect. Ray seemed to regard Jeffrey Hunter’s Jesus as a vague relation of James Dean’s Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. How else to interpret Hunter’s red shepherd cloak + white undergarment matching Dean’s famous red jacket + white T-shirt outfit? But Ray’s bold power days were behind him. King of Kings was a job — he was pocketing a paycheck. You can almost sense a tone of resignation.

Ray fell apart two years later during the making of 55 Days at Peking (’63). Wiki excerpt: “Ray was a tortured individual at the time of the production of 55 Days at Peking. Paid a very high salary by producer Samuel Bronston to direct 55 Days, Ray had an inkling that taking on the project — a massive epic — would mean the end of him and that he would never direct another film again. Ray’s premonition proved correct when he collapsed on set halfway through shooting. Unable to resume working (the film was finished by Andrew Marton and Guy Green), he never received another directorial assignment.”

Young Rip Torn (29 during filming) gave a thoroughly uncharacteristic performance as Judas Iscariot, solemnly invested in playing a devoted disciple according to the accepted mode of earnest, second-banana acting in 1961. As Barabbas Harry Guardino was in his own spear-and-sandal movie, playing a Che Guevara-like mad man insurrectionist, turning on the Italian machismo spigot and using raw bleating lung power to rail against the Roman oppressors.

The only elements that hold King of Kings together are Miklos Rosza’s reach-for-the-heavens score, Ron Randell’s crisp, disciplined performance as a skeptical but compassionate Roman Centurion, and Hunter’s Nazarene — a performance that doesn’t attempt much in the film’s early stages (underwritten, going through the motions) but gradually takes hold during the second half.

Starting at 5:08: “I can sincerely tell you that I tried to get out of [Jaws]. Because I had done a film in Canada called The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. And I turned Steven [Spielberg] down. And he said ‘why?’ I said ‘because this is going to be a bitch to shoot, and I’m really lazy.’ And then I saw Duddy Kravitz. For the first time. And I said to myself, ‘If somehow this film is sold in the United States, I will never work again.’ I had to get that [film] behind me.

“So I just did what every normal human would do. I begged for the [Jaws] part. On my knees, And then Steven gave it to me. [To do that Steven] had to deal-break another actor out of the film. I felt like shit. I got the role and did it as well as I could, and that made me ‘a something.’ I wasn’t a star, but I wasn’t not a star.”

Why doesn’t Dreyfuss talk about Stakeout? Or American Graffiti?

What’s Daughter of the Wolf?

In a just-posted Cut piece titled “Could Jeffrey Epstein Avoid Life in Prison?”, Irin Carmon writes the following:

“If all else fails, Epstein’s attorneys could try to get a deal by offering his cooperation or he could plead guilty to a lesser charge. But don’t count on it. ‘In my experience as a prosecutor involved in trafficking cases in the SDNY, that office is not in the practice of giving slap-on-the-wrist deals to sex offenders and will prosecute the case fairly but with appropriate zeal,’ wrote Mimi Rocah in the Daily Beast. In the view of says former SDNY prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, cooperating is [Epstein’s] “best chance to get a lower sentence. But even if he cooperates, he has to be willing to give up everybody and everything that he knows about.” Namely, his famous and powerful friends and possible clients.”

Also from Rocah: “What should we make of reporting that Epstein’s prosecution is being overseen by the Public Corruption Unit of the SDNY? Short answer: It’s too soon to say. It could mean that a public official is being investigated or will be charged with Epstein. That could be a minor public figure or a major one. It could mean that SDNY is investigating misconduct in the plea that Epstein was given in 2008. Or it could mean none of those things.”

One odd thing: In another Cut piece titled “The Décor in Jeffrey Epstein’s NYC Townhouse Is the Stuff of Nightmares,” Hannah Gold lists several curious or bizarre features of Epstein’s NYC mansion on East 71st Street. “The Prison-Guard Mural”. “The Wall of Fame”. “The Heated Sidewalk”. “The Human Chessboard”. “The Doll Chandelier”. But under a section titled “Dramatic Proportions,” Gold notes that the front door of Epstein’s mansion “is an unnecessary 15 feet high.” Huge wooden doorways (or medium-sized doors mounted inside a large wooden frame) are totally common in apartment buildings in Paris and Rome. They’re everywhere.

Until today I hadn’t noticed that John Turturro’s remake of Bertrand Blier‘s Going Places (’74) and the Big Lebowski sequel (aka The Jesus Rolls) are one and the same. Screen Media will distribute Turturro’s three-year-old film next year. Great title, but I’ve never understood how a flick about an older trio of “sexually depraved misfits” (played by Turturro, Bobby Cannavale and Audrey Tautou) could work. The French-made original was about reckless youth frolicking in counter-culture upheaval — a couple of amoral hooligans (Gerard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere) and the various adventures that befall them. Substitute these guys with 40something actors in the 21st Century and it’s…I don’t know what but on some level it feels out of time. Especially with today’s #MeToo scrutiny. Pic costars Pete Davidson, Jon Hamm. Susan Sarandon (in the Jeanne Moreau role) and Sonia Braga.

The exalted Rip Torn has passed at age 88. A fine, intense, occasionally snarly actor who was gifted (and seemingly afflicted from time to time) with just a slight touch of madness.

Born in ’31, raised in Texas, professionally and creatively shaped in the ’50s, drawling and cruising through thick and thin for over half a century. And Rip Torn wasn’t a screen name. For some reason I’ve long thought of Torn as being spiritually related to the equally moody and sometimes surly Warren Oates and Timothy Carey — outliers, all.

All the obits will lead with Torn’s Henry Miller in Joseph Strick‘s Tropic of Cancer, his rural Southerner in Martin Ritt‘s Cross Creek (’83) and the ongoing “Artie” role on HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show.

But for me Torn became lightning with a pair of performances released two years apart — the eccentric Raoul Rey O’Houlihan in Norman Mailer’s Maidstone (released in ’70 and infamous for that improvised fight that began with Torn charging Mailer with a hammer) and as country music star Maury Dann in Daryl Duke‘s Payday (’72). Dann was a minor-leaguer who snarled and mistreated and generally out-nastied Paul Newman in Hud.

I don’t even remember Torn’s uncredited role in A Face in the Crowd, but he was certainly interesting as a laid-back officer Lewis Milestone‘s Pork Chop Hill, as Judas Iscariot in Nicholas Ray‘s King of Kings (’61), and as a sinister, to-the-manor-born Southerner in Sweet Bird of Youth (’62).

The Maidstone fight scene [after the jump] is astonishing still.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m suddenly feeling a mixture of super-negative emotions — bummed out and trembling with anger — after reading a 7.9 Variety story that says Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds will score “massive paydays” (i.e., $20 million each) to costar in Red Notice, a Netflix thriller about art thievery.

Matt Donnelly and Brent Lang are reporting that Reynolds will be paid $20 million with Johnson making that plus “millions more” from a producer’s fee. Gadot is “expected to make the same after salary and the streamer’s practice of buying out typical ‘back end’ profits stars would make from a theatrical release.”

I felt even worse when I read that director-writer Rawson Marshall Thurber (the Mysteries of Pittsburgh + Skyscraper guy whose six-syllable name makes me twitch with discomfort) will be paid $10 million.

On the surface Red Notice sounds like just another slick escapist package, this one about an “Interpol agent tracking the world’s most wanted art thief.” Apparently another reworking of a familiar genre. Entrapment, Ocean’s Twelve, William Wyler‘s How to Steal A Million, the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair…there are only so many ways you can slice this kind of pie.

When I read this story my very first thought was “eff you guys and your huge effing paychecks.” Not that I want Netflix to take a bath (I don’t), but I won’t be unhappy if these actors have a harder time landing a super payday when they negotiate their next deal.

I’ve been accustomed to the idea of life being unfair since I was 11 or 12, but the idea of these three plus Thurber being paid $70-million plus to deliver an art heist movie? My blood boils.

Due respect and apologies to Netflix, but I now have an attitude about Red Notice.