It’s commonly understood at this point that David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood follow-up is (a) not a sequel to Tarantino’s original, (b) about the continuing adventures of Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) and (c) set in 1977 (cocaine, death to disco). Fincher directing, script by QT, principal photography starting in July.
It’s not my place to suggest any plotlines or casting ideas, but I’m going to anyway. Julia Butters, who played a precocious eight-year-old actress, Trudi Fraser, in Tarantino’s original OUATIH, should be woven in somehow. If only because she made a commendable impression in the 2019 original at age nine or so, and because she’s not only a grade-A actress (she was in Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans plus Leonardo DiCaprio called her “a young Meryl Streep“) but is now 15 and on the verge of you-tell-me.
If HBO creatives aren’t thinking right now about a White Lotus spinoff show called Blame It On The Ratliffs, they should be immediately fired.
An upper-middle-class family suddenly tossed into the horrific animal pit of financial Armageddon and the resultant loss of comfort, elevated status, having to land jobs, sell the house and move to a vaguely crummy neighborhood…pretentious swells forced to adapt to a lesser (dare we say “shitty”?) standard of living and hating every moment of it.
The sure-to-be-psychotic journey of Parker Posey‘s Victoria Ratliff alone…the unmitigated joy of watching Victoria suffer one social-station comedown after another…talk about a bomb cocktail! The Sopranos meets Absolutely Fabulous plus you-name-it. Initial periods of shock, denial and bargaining followed by a brush with catatonic depression. And then she becomes the angriest, most ferocious “Karen” of all time.
Victoria promptly divorces Jason Isaacs‘s Tim Ratliff, of course, as (a) he nearly Jonestowned the entire family with those poisoned pina colada smoothies…okay, four of them including himself…plus (b) she needs to find another sugar daddy pronto, or at least she has that goal in her mind. In reality she’s too old to find a sexually active husband, but she might get lucky with a pot-bellied 70something horndog…who knows?
Tim is looking at government prosecution, of course, plus enormous legal fees (Scott Galloway could play his attorney!) and a country-club jail term of three to five years. Plus, as noted, divorce with Victoria trying to shake him down for every last shekel.
But will his plight be as horrible as he imagined it might be back in Thailand? He’s presumably socked some assets away in anticipation of legal trouble but he might not have been cagey enough to have thought of that. All financially savvy fellows with shady associations know they have to covertly move liquid funds to foreign territories, and perhaps even keep a bag of cash and diamonds in an outdoor shed (maybe in a special below-the-floor safe a la Tony Soprano).
It’s safe to say that in prison Tim will experience a spiritual awakening.
Patrick Schwarzenegger‘s Saxon Ratliff will not handle poverty well. He said that in so many words in episode #7. He runs away at first….maybe a cross-country trip, maybe an escape to a bartending job in Key West, maybe a little drug-dealing, maybe a floor salesman gig at a BMW dealership. Stone-cold miserable at every turn, but then a possible spiritual growth spurt….actually learning to stand on his own two feet and become (we should pardon the expression) a man.
Sarah Catherine Hook‘s Piper Ratliff and Sam Nivola‘s Lochlan Ratliff will be the least affected or at least the most adaptable. Lochlan will be, for sure. Sarah is her mother’s daughter so we might expect a little freaking-out at first.
Get to work on an eight-part miniseries right now. And if they go for this, I want a “based on an idea by” credit.
Snapped in the fall of ’19. Just after a Middleburg Film Festival visit. Wasn’t trying…just happened. Perfect balance and focus, excellent light, a little past magic hour.
Michael O’Donoghue‘s Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video, which I saw once back in ’79, is only sporadically funny if that, not to mention technically coarse and splotchy. But the eagerness to offend is damn near breathtaking.
The written prologue or mock warning starts at the :30 second mark — please read it. There were no lefty sensitivity wackos around during the waning days of the Carter administration, of course, but imagining how today’s wokeys might react is, well, pleasurable.
I’m pretty much resigned to the sad fact that Ben-Hur will never again be theatrically screened at the full Camera 65 aspect ratio — 2.76:1.
“I Live for Ben-Hur Disappointments,” posted on 9.9.16: “It’s common knowledge that William Wyler‘s Ben-Hur (’59) was shot in Camera 65, which when correctly projected (as well as scanned for DVD and Bluray) delivered an aspect ratio of 2.76:1. (Same a.r. with Ultra Panavision 70, which The Hateful Eight was shot and projected at.) All my adult life I’ve been looking to see the full-whack, 2.76:1 Ben-Hur in a first-rate theatrical venue.
“My hopes were up when I attended last night’s 7:30 pm screening of Ben-Hur at the American Cinematheque Egyptian. I was encouraged by the fact that the AC was showing a DCP, or the same digitally remastered version that constitutes the current Bluray, which delivers the full 2.76:1. But they blew it all the same. The AC aspect ratio was, at most, 2.55:1, and it was probably closer to 2.4:1. And therefore each shot felt slightly cramped and wrong.
“Robert Surtees‘ 2.76:1 images on the Ben-Hur Bluray are immaculate — the framings in each and every scene are exquisitely balanced. But whack those images down to 2.4:1 and everything looks fucked. If Surtees had been with me he would have been hooting and throwing soft-drink containers at the screen.
“Excerpt: ‘The fabled 2.76 to 1 aspect ratio was not delivered. It looked to me like we were seeing roughly a 2.55 to 1 image, at best. There’s a shot with Hugh Griffith and the four white horses when Heston enters from the left and says ‘What magnificent animals’ or words to that effect. I knew right away what I saw wasn’t right because Heston was slightly cropped off as he said this line — he didn’t have any breathing room — and you NEVER crop a star.'”
Does anyone even remember Robert DeNiro‘s The Good Shepherd (’06), a somber, dialogue-driven spy flick which made decent coin ($100 million) but ran too long (167 minutes) and felt like a downer to pretty much everyone?
Loosely based on the life of legendary cold-war spook James Jesus Angleton, pic was directed by De Niro from a script by Eric Roth.
Thevibesbetween Matt Damon (as Angleton stand-in Edward Wilson) and Angelina Jolie were utterly miserable, and audiences sank into the swamp with them.
The costars included Alec Baldwin, Tammy Blanchard, Billy Crudup, Keir Dullea, Martina Gedeck, William Hurt and Timothy Hutton. Grim stuff, man.
After my second viewing at the Zeigfeld theatre in December ’06, I told a director friend that Shepherd didn’t play any differently — it was still muted, somber and funereal.
He replied as follows: “I liked it, actually. That said, ‘funereal’, although not the word I would personally choose to describe it, is accurate. It has a funereal atmosphere, almost aggressively so.
“What I liked [about it] is that it doesn’t pander in any way. It almost defies you to like it.
“You’re sitting there saying ‘what is this shit?…you haven’t made me interested in the story or care about the characters, and it’s very easy to get out [of the movie] if you want to do that…it doesn’t deploy the strategies that almost all movies do to bring you in and engage your sympathies. And I respected that.”
A film that “almost defies you to like it”….funny but interesting. HE to readership: Please name other films (reasonably good ones, I mean) whose directors didn’t seem to care if audiences found them engrossing or not. You have to respect that kind of ballsiness. Directors to audiences: “You don’t like my movie? Well, I don’t like you either!”
“The birth of the CIA and the life journey of one of its founding operatives is a fascinating subject, [but] one that is done only lukewarm justice in The Good Shepherd,” writesVariety‘s Todd McCarthy.
I can guess what the HE readership is thinking as they read this — give us rude, disturbing, irreverent, provocative or even gross….but please, please not lukewarm.
“Robert De Niro‘s second film as a director adopts a methodical approach and deliberate pace,” McCarthy continues, “in attempting to grasp an almost forbiddingly intricate subject, with a result that is not boring, exactly, but undeniably tedious.
“The long and short of the problem is that [De Niro] never finds a proper rhythm to allow the viewer to settle comfortably into what turns out to be a very long voyage. Like many films of the moment, this one keeps jumping around in time, not confusingly in the least, but in a way that has no natural flow to it. Tie that to a central character who defiantly offers no glimpse into his inner life and you have a picture that offers scant returns for the investment of time it requests of the viewer.
“Crucially missing is slowly building momentum, a firm hand on pace, a way to convey gradual moral decay and a talent for magisterial storytelling — gifts that are impossible to fake in the long run.
“Seemingly based in great measure on the ever-intriguing James Angleton, Matt Damon‘s Edward Wilson remains an opaque, impenetrable figure throughout, and neither actor nor script provides the subtext to reveal any layers of personality.
The word around the campfire is that Gregg Araki‘s I Want Your Sex, an erotically provocative “thriller” of some sort (although I can pretty much guarantee that “thriller” doesn’t apply…not in the sense that most of us understand the term…not from Araki)…the buzz says that Araki’s film will play in Cannes next month, although not in competition.
Araki has allegedly said that his goal is to “bring back sex to the big screen”, but dear God in heaven, not with the ginger-haired, pig-eyed Cooper Hoffman in the lead male role opposite Olivia Wilde….no!
In the realm of a sexual something-or-other souffle, Wilde, Charli XCX, Daveed Diggs, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho and Roxane Mesquida are totally fine. Just no pudgebods with alabaster skin. I’m fucking serious.
I am honestly more terrified of Araki’s film than Paul Mescal‘s latest gay film, The History of Sound, which may (emphasis on that word) turn up in Cannes also.
World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy is hearing that other sans competition titles may be Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest (Spike wants to be in competition!), Andrew Dominik’s Bono: Stories of Surrender, Trey Edward Shults’ Hurry Up Tomorrow.
Despite that 3.31 Parisien report suggestintg that Luca Guadagnino‘s After The Hunt might debut in Cannes, the submission decision is up to Amazon marketing, I’m told, and publicists are generally terrified of Cannes so calculate the probability.
Will Terrence “wackazoid” Malick‘s The Way of the Wind snag a competition slot? Why would Malick break his six-year editing streak?
I’m not saying Irving looks unduly withered or in any way unattractive — by way of a certain inner radiance she actually looks and sounds great — but my God, the Carrie costar is only 71. It’s one thing for 92 year-old Ellen Burstyn to be entirely white-haired but Irving…this feels unsettling. Then again Bill Murray has snow-colored hair and he’s only three years older than Irving.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will [attain] their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” ― H.L. Mencken, “On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe“.
Buncome or “bunkum” is apparently the original term from which “bunk” was derived.
On the evening of Tuesday, May 13, Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d’Or (gold watch, lifetime achievement) at the opening ceremony of the 78th Cannes Film Festival.
The ceremony (which I may not be able to attend as I’ll only be checking into the pad that afternoon) will omit the fact that quality-wise DeNiro’s career slowed down in the 21st Century, and that over the last quarter-century he’s starred or costarred in only four blue-chip, award-worthy films — David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook (’12, Nancy Meyers‘ The Intern (’15), Todd Phillips‘ Joker (’19) and Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman (’19).
He was excellent in Playbook, very good in the middle two, and magnificent in the sprawling Scorsese epic.
But DeNiro’s 20th Century hot streak was historic. He enjoyed a brilliant 27-year run between Bang The Drum Slowly (’73) and Meet the Parents (’00). One winner after another, especially during the first decade — Drum, Mean Streets (’73), The Godfather Part II (’74) Taxi Driver (’76), 1900 (’76), The Deer Hunter (’78…didn’t like it), Raging Bull (’80).
The ’80s weren’t quite as good but at least he made True Confessions (’81), The King of Comedy (’82), Once Upon a Time in America (’84), Falling in Love (’84), Brazil (’85), Angel Heart (’87), The Untouchables (ditto) and Midnight Run (’88).
And then came a second hot streak in the ’90s — Goodfellas (’90), Awakenings (ditto), Cape Fear (’91….didn’t like it), Mad Dog and Glory (’93….ace-level, character-driven dramedy), This Boy’s Life (’93), A Bronx Tale (’93), Casino (’95), the magnificent Heat (’95), Jackie Brown (’97), Wag the Dog (’97), Ronin (’97) and Analyze This (’99…the second gangster-goes-to-professional-therapist enterprise that year).
27 or 28 gold-medal winners in the 20th Century, and four in the 21st.
But if DeNiro had quit acting after Raging Bull, he would still deserve a career-achievement award. Anyone familiar with that famous wailing jail-cell scene knows the name of that tune. A crude and bestial man experiencing the absolute nadir of his bruising (and bruise-dispensing) life…his explosive feelings of absolute and overpowering self-loathing…this horrific episode results, for viewers, in something oddly cleansing and almost therapeutic.
This was DeNiro’s all-time peak moment…the kind of bravura acting moment that only a young or youngish fellow can capture or deliver.
With an estimated budget of $400 million, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning (Paramount, 5.23) is…you tell me. The same old same old, of course, but the trailer is too fast and frenzied for my taste. The first half is like an M:I greatest hits reel, and the second half is poppity-pop-pop…aaaggghh!…helter skelter stuff.
It’s good to see Holt McCallany as the Secretary of Defense, and I’m not scared of Nick Offerman this time as I’m fairly certain we won’t have to watch him step out of a bathroom wearing a bath towel or, you know, get blown by a bear.
Which 60something black actor is fatter or spends more time sitting down than Ving Rhames? I’m asking.
Two little biplanes…one red, one yellow, both freshly painted. Very handsome.
My favorite shot, seriously, is the one of Tom Cruise leaping out of a chopper and falling into choppy seas.
Final Reckoning is going to have to come up with something pretty hairy to top the dangling train-car finale from the last one.
4:45 pm update: I’ve just been informed by none other than Wes Anderson that The Phoenician Scheme (Focus Features, 5.30.25) will be presented with an aspect ratio of 1.5:1…and not 1.66:1, as I erroneously presumed and posted earlier today.
Is there any living filmmaker who is more of an instantly recognizable signature stylist than Wes Anderson?
I’ve been using the term “WesWorld” for a good 20 plus years, and there isn’t a soul on the planet earth who doesn’t know what means. And yet two years ago, Wes was quoted as saying…
“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...
