Jeff Wells Spotted this thing from 10 miles away flying over #Malibu today. Is that a…. real life #Barbie Malibu House?? Seems to be. Pink everything… a water slide… floating "KEN" letters. Publicity stunt? Huge Barbie fans? Filming location #BarbieMovie ? Who knows. @kcalnews pic.twitter.com/6x9gEcFoVf
— John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) June 26, 2023
Nobody talks anymore about Sir “Low” Grade‘s Raise The Titanic, which opened and bombed in August 1980. Which means they’re also not talking about an incident that happens around the halfway point, when salvage experts begin to prepare for the dangerous job of actually raising the Titanic from the ocean floor.
At a depth near 10,000 feet, one of the project’s submersibles, Starfish, experiences a cabin flood and implodes.
“This is Turtle…we got Starfish in visual contact.”
The early car conflict scene between two old guys (Lou Gilbert‘s “Rosenbaum” and Ben Dova‘s “Klaus Szell”) is one of the most gripping sequences in John Schlesinger‘s Marathon Man (10.8.76).
Set on a one-way street in the 70s or 80s in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, it must have been a bitch to shoot with all the traffic control issues and whatnot.
One problem: I’ve never believed that both men would recklessly and obliviously drive full-speed into a fuel truck. Perhaps one of them but not both. A potentially great scene ends on a note of disappointment.
Sidenote: 24 or 25 years before Marathon Man Gilbert played “Pablo,” a trusted friend and ally of Marlon Brando‘s Emiliano Zapata, in Elia Kazan‘s Viva Zapata (’52)
No matter what the topic, Jeff and Sasha are reminded that there isn’t a single aspect of Hollywood diversion these days that hasn’t been woke-modified, influenced, or compromised by the urge to educate and enlighten by way of progressive guilt-tripping. Hollywood, in short, has totally torpedoed the classic idea of entertainment and Average Joes are sick of the preaching.
Oscar Poker Substack topics include the imminent financial disappointment of India Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Ethan Coen and Trish Foster‘s Drive-Away Dolls and the rare journalistic cojones of Deadline‘s Michael Cieply.
Again, the link.
This Tonight Show taping happened around ’75. Ann-Margret had broken through in Bye-Bye Birdie (’63) and Viva Las Vegas (’64), and she was now 34 — four years after Carnal Knowledge, three years after her Lake Tahoe stage accident.
It went without saying that her gymnastic dance moves were secondary to the main attractions.
“Bad wars always lead to a change of regime…”
It’s true — the original Raiders of the Lost Ark (’81) cost $20 million to make — the 2023 equivalent of $66,914,631. Raiders wound up earning just shy of $390 million.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Disney, 6.30) cost $295 million to produce. In order to perform proportionately as well as Raiders, it would have to earn….ahh, forget it. Indy 5 will be lucky to break even. Then again that’s Disney’s concern, not ours.
I’m sick of repeating myself but Indy 5 is a reasonably good ride for what it is. It’s a familiar-feeling thing (naturally) but handsomely produced, well cut, nicely energized, humorous, etc. It certainly doesn’t make you feel burned.
Incidentally: The IMDB says that Ford look-alike and sound-alike Anthony Ingruber performed during the opening Indy flashback sequence.
And by the way: I’m dying to debate a certain plot point that happens during the final act. The film ends in a way that I find doubly astonishing, which I’ll be happy to explain if anyone wants to know the particulars. Please get in touch at gruver1@yahoo.com.
6.24.23 (two days ago) was the 40th anniversary of the opening of Twilight Zone: The Movie, which was produced by Steven Spielberg and John Landis.
The anthology film (four segments directed by Landis, Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller) is primarily known for the ghastly on-set helicopter blade tragedy that killed Vic Morrow and two Vietnamese child actors, Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen.
Morrow’s segment (Called “Time Out”) is about a racist who gets an imaginary taste of his own medicine.
The accident happened on 7.23.82 at an Indian Dunes location in what is now Santa Clarita, during a late-night filming of a Vietnam nightmare sequence. A helicopter lost its tail rotor due to a stronger-than-expected VFX detonation and it suddenly crashed, killing Morrow and the kids.
The rap against Landis, the segment’s director, was that he was incautious, but there’s always been a fine line between reckless disregard and capturing that extra element of super-charged realism. It was an accident, yes, but attitudes about safety certainly weren’t paramount.
I’ve always wanted to read Stephen Farber and Marc Green‘s “Outrageous Conduct: Art, Ego, and the Twilight Zone Case” (1.1.88). The hardback and paperback versions are out of print and the surviving copies are outrageously priced. Why isn’t it purchasable on Kindle?
I was under the impression that intense hot pink and the LGBTQ associations that tend to accompany same was on some kind of cultural upswing, mainly due to the approach of Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie, which is totally pink-flooded and (to judge by promotional materials) buoyantly and energetically gay in certain ways.
But on the other hand we have the abrupt cancellation of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, the poorly reviewed Paramount + musical series. Pink Ladies is a 1954-set prequel to the original Grease (’78) with something of an anti-straight mindset, despite hetero values and lifestyles having absolutely ruled with an iron fist during that post-Korean War, Commie-hunting, James Dean-flavored era.
The Pink Ladies cancelling doesn’t appear to have been a let’s-turn-off-the-woke-spigots thing — it mainly resulted from the merging of Paramount + and Showtime.
Pink Ladies was whacked after a single season. The animated Star Trek: Prodigy series was also cut loose; ditto Queen of the Universe and The Game. I don’t care about any of these shows…blaahh.
It’s not very hip of me to say this, but I thought Steven Soderbergh‘s re-scored, dialogue-free, black-and-white version of Raiders of the Lost Ark (initially posted on 9.22.14) looked too shadowed and inky. I blew it off after a half-hour.
Yes, the combination of Steven Spielberg‘s scene-by-scene blocking and Douglas Slocombe‘s camera placements are wonderful, but we’re still left with a cavalcade of overly dark monochrome images that make you feel as if your eyesight is going.
It’s generally difficult for me to rewatch Raiders anyway because of Karen Allen, whose performance as Marion Ravenwood I literally can’t stand. If I never hear her shrieking rendition of “Indiieee!” ever again, it’ll be too soon. And there’s no way this slender, midsize woman (5’7″) could drink any brawny guy under the table.
Raiders is a great film of its type, but I honestly feel that Allen ruins it.
My favorite chapter is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, otherwise known as the Sean Connery one. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is my second favorite. It took me two viewings to realize that I hated Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I’m pretty much okay with Dial of Destiny.
Never mentioned this before: Sometime in April of ’81 I caught a not-fully-finished version of Raiders at the NYC Paramount building (Columbus Circle). It contained footage of Harrison Ford‘s Indiana Jones hanging on to the outside of a German submarine on the way to the island where the big finale takes place. It made no sense, of course, that Jones could hitch a ride on a sub that would naturally be travelling underwater, but that’s what I saw. Unless I’m misremembering, this footage was cut from the final release version.
Again the link to the Soderbergh version.
…to any President (JFK), Presidential candidate (RFK, Jr.) or First lady (Michelle Obama) who advocates for physical fitness. Or, you know, is swole or posts Twittervid swolefies.
JFK couldn’t do shirtless pushups because of his back issues, but now we’ve got a declared Presidential candidate with a bod like Mark Wahlberg‘s. Perhaps this is unimportant in the greater scheme, but it’s definitely poking at our boredom.
Yes, the shirtless swole brand reminds everyone of Vladimir Putin on horseback, but at least this opens the door to a possible RFK-Putin UFC cage match in ’25 (presuming Putin will still be in power two years hence), which goes hand in hand with the forthcoming Elon Musk-Mark Zuckerberg barefoot battle of the titans.
Some say that in the wake of Occasionally Wobbly Joe (who, to be fair, has kept himself trim with regular workouts) it’ll be amazing to have a swole President. RFK, Jr. would set a great example as average Americans have never been flabbier or more overweight**…dear, God, please forgive me for using the “o” word!
Susie (@SoCalSuister) on Twitter: “My eleven year old son just asked me why I was watching a video of a guy doing push-ups…’do you like him or something?’”
Getting in shape for my debates with President Biden! pic.twitter.com/ns8MdJVlmx
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 25, 2023
The famous and deeply respected Ethan Coen is the director of Drive-Away Dolls (Focus Features, 9.22), a kind of goofball, arch-attitude lesbian road comedy that the 65-year-old Coen cowrote with his wife, Tricia Cooke. Tricia has edited or co-edited many Coen brothers films over the decades. Married since 1990, Ethan and Tricia reside in Manhattan and have two children — daughter Dusty and son Buster Jacob.
In a two-day-old Collider interview with Tamera Jones, Ethan describes his wife as queer.
Forgive my ignorance but I’ve been under the impression that queer means unregenerately queer (we’re no longer allowed to use the word “gay”) without any ifs, ands or buts. I would’ve thought that a woman who’s been married to a straight guy for 33 years and who presumably resides with him, and who’s also raised two kids with him, and yet whose primary emotional or sexual allegiance is to women would be described as bisexual or bi. Or is Trish a recently avowed queer person who used to be bi until she changed her mind or something?
Sorry but I’ve never heard of a queer woman with her matrimonial and maternal particulars. Maybe someone can help me out.
