Conclave begins with the death of an elderly pope…that and the subsequent need to choose a replacement. Ralph Fiennes portrays plays Cardinal Lawrence, the British-born manager of the conclave — a cloistered Vatican City gathering of cardinals — that will choose a new pontiff.

Fiennes’ performance is exquisitely subdued…highly concentrated but low-key, solemn, down-under. You can read every thought and consideration on his lined, late-50ish face, but on a seep-out, leak-out basis.

Fiennes does, however, have fun with a pair of vocal outbursts…brief Shakespearean gushers.

One at the conclusion of an intense discussion with John Lithgow‘s Cardinal Tremblay. It ends with Tremblay suggesting that for discretion’s sake “this conversation never took place”, and then walking off. Lawrence waits a couple of beats before bellowing “but it did take place!”

10 or 15 minutes later Fiennes is discussing the latest pope vote with Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz), who hails from Kabul. Benitez tells the reluctant Lawrence that he’s voted for him three or four times. Fiennes goes loud again: “I don’t want your vote!”

In my mind these hors d’oeuvres are almost in the same ballpark as Daniel Day Lewis‘s “I drink your milkshake” in There Will Be Blood. Except Fiennes sounds more like Ian McKellen.

“those words are naughty. so i’m not gonna say it” – martin scorsese, director of the wolf of wall street and casino pic.twitter.com/9jWK3ZWRzE

— ana (@pelicinema) October 23, 2024

I’ve said this once or twice before, hut if WHE were to release a Bluray of the boxy version of Alfred Hitchcock‘s Dial M For Murder, I would buy it in a split second.

All through the 20th Century and into the 21st I watched Dial M for Murder at 1.33 or 1.37. I also saw it in 1.33 or 1.37 3D at the Eighth Street Playhouse in ’80. And the compositions and framings were and are entirely satisfactory and didn’t need to have their tops and buttons CHOPPED OFF WITH A MEAT CLEAVER.

Sidenote: This is a very small deal and barely worth mentioning, but in Dial M for Murder Ray Milland and Grace Kelly‘s street-level, one-bedroom flat is not in Mayfair, as Marty says below at the 1:19 mark, but Maida Vale.

“Dial M Mauled By Fascists,” posted on 4.28.12:

The 1.78 or 1.85 a.r. on the Dial M For Murder Bluray was favored because of one reason only — because this a.r. conforms to the 16 x 9 aspect ratio of high-def flat panels. The people who made this call were nothing but a FASCIST REVISIONIST GANG.

“We have a vision,” their manifesto reads. ‘A vision of all films shot from the early ’50s to mid ’60s with their tops and bottoms CHOPPED OFF, and we will stop at nothing to achieve that goal. Because of 16 x 9 high-def screens, we are committed to killing visual information. And we will succeed because we have the factual data and research to back up the assertion that these films were shot to be shown at 1.85, but could also be shown at 1.33 or 1.37 for purist film buff screenings and for television airings and VHS and DVD versions.

“Repeat after us: WE HAVE A VISION, and it is about KILLING VISUAL INFORMATION by slicing off the tops and bottoms of films.”

More height is always right.

So is it fair to infer that Universal and John Chu‘s Wicked (11.22) is a some kind of family-friendly delivery device for queer theology?

Cynthia Erivo‘s real-life sexuality and the metaphor of Elphaba Thopp’s frowned-upon outsider identity aside, Wicked has no openly queer characters, but “this hasn’t stopped fans from exploring several queer-coded elements and metaphors,” says one of the queer-authored essays I’ve been reading.

Elphaba has a thing early on for Jonathan Bailey‘s Fiyero Tigelaar, a “Winkie prince”, but the deeper, more profound friendship is between Elphaba (destined to become tHe Wicked Witch of the West) and Ariana Grande‘s Galinda Upland, who becomes Glinda the Good Witch (played by Billie Burke in The Wizard of Oz).

I’m presuming that square, middle-American moms and dads are most likely overjoyed that yet another family-angled entertainment from Hollywood wokesters will be selling queer theology to their kids. I for one am delighted on Sutton’s behalf.

..fills me with dread. I will certainly sit through Part 2, but I can’t imagine it not being a hate-watch.

Bill McCuddy: “Uhm…stick around until Episode 3 and thank me later.

“Leila George is Greta Scacchi‘s daughter, of course. Playing young Cate Blanchett. Thankfully Vincent D’Onofrio‘s genes were recessive.

“As a bonus she has Blanchett’s mannerisms down pat.

“How the episode 3 sex scenes got made in an era of on-set intimacy police, I have no clue.

“Do you know the old Orson Welles story? He’s lunching late in his life at his daily LA haunt (Ma Maison, I think) when an older lady from Kansas comes to the table. Wants to know about Citizen Kane. Orson had heard every question about Citizen Kane except this one, it turned out.

“’Mr. Welles, do you realize when Kane says rosebud there’s no one in the room to hear it? So how do we know he said it?”

“Welles allegedly turned ashen and said something like “No, I did not realize it, and don’t you ever tell another living soul.”

“The same thing is true about the damning book that Lesley Manville, playing Kevin Kline‘s late wife, has written in Disclaimer. One person is dead and the other person never told anyone. So how’d Manville know any of this? She didn’t.

I saw September 5 (Paramount, 11.29) at the Chuck Jones theatre in Telluride, and my immediate reacion was “a very decent portrayal of a grim, sobering tragedy…it holds you in as it recreates the 1972 details and atmosphere and whatnot.

“Does it get into the whys and wherefores on the part of Black September’s terrorism or any of the general political particulars? Nope — it focuses solely on the strategic calls behind the reporting by ABC’s Munich-based news team, who were stationed only about 100 feet from the Israeli Olympic team’s condo.

“I didn’t feel under-fed or cheated, but I wanted to feel more of the totality of the tragedy.”

From Peter Debruge’s 8.29.24 review: “The Steven Spielberg film that September 5 most resembles is The Post, in its flurry of trying to act responsibly amid the incredible pressures of a breaking-news environment.

“September 5 takes us behind the scenes of the 17-hour Munich ordeal, beginning shortly before the attack and cataloging key decisions until just after the tragic finale, when World of Sports host Jim McKay famously confirmed the chilling news, ‘They’re all gone,’ on air.

“[And yet] as an in-the-trenches account of how ABC Sports approached the story, the film focuses primarily on a young, ambitious producer (played by a period-appropriate-looking John Magaro), based on veteran sports broadcaster Geoffrey Mason’s memory of events.

“ABC Sports may have gotten the story, but it also got it wrong, prematurely repeating an unconfirmed report that the hostages were recovered safely.

“Moritz and Fehlbaum’s matter-of-fact script lacks the punchy pressure-cooker sparring quality of inside-baseball series such as The Morning Show or Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night, which can leave one feeling like the real story is happening elsewhere — and it is, since there’s only so much that news crews can extrapolate from telephoto lenses trained on a faraway balcony.

“When shocking incidents happen live, our imaginations tend to fill in what can’t be seen with the worst. In this case, revisiting it half a century later, knowing what happened doesn’t preclude us from wanting to get a better understanding of the specifics. But this movie’s insights are limited to the newsroom, focusing on such minutiae as TV hosts using the words ‘as we’re hearing,’ versus the reality of what transpired during the climactic disaster at Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base.”

In the wake of news about Harvey Weinstein facing eradication by cancer, Paul Schrader was recently admonished for posting that given the fact that the upper reaches of the film industry was a poon paradise when Harvey was young and trying to hustle his way in…perhaps a little context is in order, Schrader said.

It wasn’t a club atmosphere that necessarily looked the other way at rape and sexual assault (although sexual criminality no doubt infected the quiet corridors of power back then) but an atmospehere in which wealthy, over-40 industry dudes had the license and wherewithal to dip their wicks without fear of being sentenced to a career gallows…a long-ago time in which picking flowers in the garden of eros wasn’t necessarily regarded as evil and assaultive and deserving of severe punishment.

You had to be there, I guess, but the late ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s constituted the greatest era for nookie since the heyday of the Roman empire.

Harvey’s problem was that he wasn’t at all attractive and knew it, and that he was fairly enraged that life and circumstance had dealt him such shitty sexual cards. This made him very angry, and somehow that anger made him go a bit nuts in a certain way. He got it into his head that women he was helping career-wise owed him a boink or two — obviously a crude, gangsterish attitude. Harvey tried to finagle and muscle and bully his way into their pants, and now he’s paid the price.

Michael Keaton “Beetlejuice” says don’t vote for Trump! pic.twitter.com/kpGBNbhiyz

— Tim Burton Daily (@TimBurtonDaily) October 22, 2024

I’ve posted this Times Square photo before. Snapped sometime prior to the 6.3.55 opening date of The Seven Year Itch, it’s about old, working-class, overall-wearing guys regarding a super-powerful, unreachable, untouchable sexual icon…zero opportunity…their youth and vitality gone with the wind.

Itch was the second of five ’50s films directed by the once-great Billy Wilder during his house-director phase, so-called because these films represented a creative hibernation for Wilder…a retreat from his usual cynical characters and stories, acid-tinged dialogue, third-act emotional turnarounds, etc.

The house phase also included Sabrina (’54), The Spirit of St. Louis (’57), Love in the Afternoon (’57) and Witness for the Prosecution (’57). Wilder finally returned to form in ’59 with Some Like It Hot.

The house phase began in the wake of the success of Wilder’s Stalag 17 (’53). It’s been speculated it may have partly been prompted by the failure of Wilder’s bitterly caustic Ace in the Hole (’51).

Wilder called The Seven Year Itch “a nothing picture because the picture should be done today without censorship…unless Tom Ewell, left alone in New York while the wife and kid are away for the summer, has an affair with Marilyn Monroe there’s nothing. But you couldn’t do that in those days, so I was just straitjacketed. It just didn’t come off one bit, and there’s nothing I can say about it except I wish I hadn’t made it. I wish I had the property now.”