…with his teenager hair — longer, curly — than his older 20something hair (shorter, no curls). He shouldn’t have cut it. If he hadn’t, Faist would be the unquestioned star of Challengers. Because Zendaya‘s acting manner is too dry and flat (as always), and because Josh O’Connor is too grinny and joshy and “yuh-huh…yeah, bro.”
Luca Guadagnino’s tennis film is being called “a romantic sports comedy.” It follows a Grand Slam tennis champion Faist) who signs up to compete in a challenger event against the former lover (O’Connor) of his wife and coach (Zendaya). Or am I misunderstanding?
Challengers (MGM) opens on 9.15.23, just after debuting at the Venice Film Festival.
For days and days the French Connection censorship story has confounded everyone. The “whodunit” factor, I mean, although it’s been obvious for several days that the nine-second deletion was done at the behest of director William Friedkin (formerly known as Hurricane Billy).
Has the 87-year-old Friedkin gone silly in his old age? Bending over in obeisance to the wokesters? I personally think —- all due respect —- that this formerly ballsy, gold-standard helmer should be roasted on a spit for censoring his own film. It sets a terrible precedent.
On Friday, 6.9, HE commenter “The Multiplex” reported that “in Disney’s DCP asset list the currently-streaming version of The French Connection is listed as ‘2021 William Friedkin v2.'” This info, I noted, “is seemingly fortified by a statement from The Criterion Channel, passed along by “The Connection” in another 6.9.23 HE story titled “HE to Friedkin re Censorship Fracas.” CC’s statement said that “according to our licensor [Disney], this is a ‘Director’s Edit‘ of the film.”
After reciting the same evidence that I reported several days ago — “2021 William Friedkin V2.” plus Criterion calling the censored version a “Director’s Edit” — Kenny merely says that “this ostensibly puts the ball in Friedkin’s court.” Ostensibly?
Kenny adds that (a) he’s “reached out to Friedkin through CAA and received no response” and that (b) “a film asset manager I’ve asked about this matter has reached out to Friedkin personally and received a response from Friedkin’s personal assistant saying basically nothing.” And the name of that tune is The Guess Who’s “No Sugar Tonight (In My Coffee).”
“Wells likes to cultivate a barrel-chested, combative, curmudgeonly air in his writings. (Commenting on the blanket of orange wildfire smoke that recently enveloped Manhattan, he shrugged it off, stating, “You should try breathing Hanoi air on a shitty day. Tough guys only.”) He’s long had differences with Criterion’s physical product practices, over issues like aspect-ratios and color timing. He almost invariably couches his complaints in ad hominem terms, and this French Connection business allowed him to really go to town in that respect.
“In one of several subsequent posts commemorating the Twitter rage over what many were still calling Criterion’s censorship of Friedkin’s film, Wells instructed the company’s president to ‘blow it out your ass,’ never specifying the “it” to which he referred. As with the inference that Criterion is some kind of ‘woke’ company, Wells believes that the label represents what he calls a ‘dweeb’ sensibility, and is populated by people who would more than likely snub him at receptions and on movie queues. And honestly, on the latter count, he’s probably not wrong, although not necessarily for the reasons he thinks.”
Or at least not from the voice of Hollywood Elsewhere. Earlier today (Monday afternoon, 6.19) Jeff and Sashareviewed the box-office wreckage left by The Flash and Elemental, AMC caving in to wokester pressure over No Way Back: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care, and the mixed matter of Jennifer Lawrence’s No Hard Feelings, which opens on Friday. Again, the link.
All hail Richmond’s historic Byrd Theatre, a theatrical jewel-in-the-crown if ever there was one. I haven’t actually been there but I can certainly appreciate beauty and tradition.
Built in 1928 (95 years ago!) by Walter Coulter and Charles Somma, this majestic old-school theatre was designed in the French Empire style by Fred Bishop.
Wednesday through Sunday the Byrd shows old soft classics, the kind of fare that is well short of cutting edge — Dead Poets Society, Labrynth, Field of Dreams, Twilight, 10 Things I hate About You, the 1961 version of West Side Story, Reservoir Dogs, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Dr. Strangelove, The Seventh Seal, etc.
If you’re down Richmond way, please stop in and pay a visit to the Byrd and executive director Ben Cronly, a passionate social-cause advocate who’s only been with the Byrd in his current position for three months.
…to any sensible-parent, non-radical, cautionary-tale documentary that urges a stop-and-think response when it comes to proposed invasive transgender procedures. No Way Back was ganged up upon by hard-left activists, who apparently forced AMC to back off on screenings.
I somehow missed a nearly two-week-old Decider piece (posted on 6.7) about the French Connection censorship thing. The self-parodying bias shown by the author, Anna Menta, tells you everything you might want to know (or not want to know) about where some wokesters are coming from on this matter.
Revealing excerpt from Menta’s article: “The French Connection is an R-rated movie for adults, and so fans are arguing that new edits of classic films set a dangerous precedent that could influence media literacy and cinematic history. Others wonder why people want to hear the n-word so badly. The debate rages on.”
“Others wonder why people want to hear the n-word so badly“? Yup, she wrote that.
“I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes / the fatigue’s all around me / And so the feeling grows
“It’s written on the wind, it’s everywhere I go / So if you really hate these fucking films / Come on and let it show.”
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman, posted a few hours ago: “For the first time since the launch of the MCU, which was 15 years ago last month (when Iron Man was released in the U.S.), superhero fatigue is palpable.
“You can read it in the numbers, notably the post-pandemic figures, when we don’t have to put an asterisk next to a film’s box office performance: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opening huge ($106 million) only to collapse and underperform to the tune of $214 million; the tanking of Shazam! Fury of the Gods ($57 million); or this weekend’s [$55 million] for The Flash (the studio publicity, in floating a prediction of $70 million, was already scaling back expectations).
“You can feel it in Chris Hemsworth’s blithe willingness to trash last summer’s Thor sequel — not something movie stars are in the habit of doing, especially when the film in question was a hit.
“You can feel it in the reviews: the jadedness of critics when it comes to sitting through another warmed-over version of these tropes, that CGI, all that interconnected multiverse busy-ness, with less at stake each time.”
In response to reader comments about “Kael’s Huge Miss“, a friend has written the following:
“Basically I”m reading over and over again, ‘Kael was wrong all the time, Kael was wrong all the time, Kael was wrong all the time…,’ repeated like a mantra.
“In truth, she was right a lot of the time, as much as any critic is. She wrote thousands and thousands of reviews; a great many of them stand the test of time, in terms of critical judiciousness and a kind of timeless readability.
“And the ‘Kael was wrong’ mantra? No one on these forums ever — ever — says that sort of thing about Roger Ebert, who consistently, week in and week out on his fucking TV show, had far too much enthusiasm for bad movies, or missed out on plenty of good ones.
“I have no major problem with Roger’s judgments. He was a great critic. My point is: You can’t say ‘Kael’s judgment was lousy’ and at the same time say ‘Ebert’s judgment was infallible.’
“There’s simply no truth to that. It’s a complete double standard. I personally believe that the animus against Kael now is pure fanboy-cineaste sexism.”
Late yesterday or early this morning on a Facebook thread I was called a dipstick or a cretin or a clueless lame-o (or something along those lines) for drawing a blank on the absolutely mythic Sylvie Vartan, the ye-ye pop singer and actress who was partnered with the late Johnny Hallyday during most of the ’60s and all of the ’70s.
I hereby apologize to everyone for his unforgivable oversight, but I was unable to show contrition to Glenn Kenny, who delivered the Facebook assault. Here’s how I replied:
“Good for Sylvie’s singing career and general impact during the ‘60s and ‘70s. Good for each and every gifted or at least earnestly committed artist whose work has failed (through no glaring fault of their own) to penetrate my consciousness.
“But at the same time I’ll wager there are dozens if not hundreds of artists, artisans and people of merit and consequence whom I know of and respect but whom Glenn Kenny has somehow overlooked.
“The difference is that I take life as it comes while Kenny is a rancid curdling life form who lives to sneer and demean in order to elevate his own fragile sense of self-worth.
“Cheers to Vartan, 78, and now, if you guys will permit me, I’m going to continue on my long journey without her radiant and dazzling creations making much of a dent in my head or, no offense, having all that much impact upon the cosmic scheme of things.
“Alas, asi es la vida. Nobody gets out alive. That said, I wish Sylvie a long and happy continuance.
“I’m wondering, in all candor, if the song stylings of Sylvie Vartan have penetrated penetrated Kenny’s cranial membrane were it not for her 15-year marriage and general association with Johnny “wolf eyes” Hallyday.
“Innocent question: In Patrice Leconte’s The Man on the Train, why is Johnny ‘go fuck yourself’ Hallyday ALWAYS smoking an unfiltered Gitanes in every last fucking scene?”
If I had the slightest interest in seeing The Flash (which I don’t…I just can’t do it), I might be dissuaded by Ezra Miller‘s self-proclaimed nonbinary status (he’s a they/them) but mainly I just don’t like his warlock eyes…I remember watching Miller during the 2011 Cannes press conference for We Need To Talk About Kevin and muttering to myself “fuck this guy….he’s creepy.”
I’m kind of glad that The Flash has tanked (a lousy $55 million weekend haul in 4,232 theaters), but I’d like to hear from the HE community why the thinking public rejected it. Yes, the reviews were poor but ticket-buyers often ignore critics. What actually happened?
“I saw John Wick 4 on the plane. Talk about volume. I think the film is disgusting beyond belief. Disgusting. I don’t know what people are thinking. [Keanu Reeves] kills…what, three, four hundred people in the fucking movie?
“As a combat veteran, I gotta tell you [that] not one of [the killings] is believable. I realize it’s a movie, but it’s [more of] a video game. How many cars can crash? How many stunts can you do? What’s the difference between Fast and Furious and some other film? It’s just one thing after another. Whether it’s some super-human Marvel character or just a human being like John Wick, it doesn’t make any difference. It’s not believable.”
Pauline Kael‘s review of 2001: A Space Odyssey is so far removed from what almost everyone is convinced of….so far from the exalted rep that this 1968 film has enjoyed for decades — the general consensus that it’s not only masterful but cosmically spellbinding and even, on a certain level, a black no-laugh comedy — Kael was so far afield from this view it’s fascinating to read from an anthropological perspective. How could she have missed the import of this film so completely?
“2001 is a movie that might have been made by the hero of Blow-Up, and it’s fun to think about Kubrick really doing every dumb thing he wanted to do, building enormous science fiction sets and equipment, never even bothering to figure out what he was going to do with them. Fellini, too, had gotten carried away with the Erector Set approach to movie-making, but his big science-fiction construction, exposed to view at the end of 8 and 1/2, was abandoned. Kubrick never really made his movie either but he doesn’t seem to know it.
“Some people like the American International Pictures stuff because it’s rather idiotic and maybe some people love 2001 just because Kubrick did all that stupid stuff, acted out a kind of super sci-fi nut’s fantasy. In some ways it’s the biggest amateur movie of them all, complete even to the amateur-movie obligatory scene—the director’s little daughter (in curls) telling daddy what kind of present she wants.
“The secondary title of Dr. Strangelove, which we took to be satiric, How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, was not, it now appears, altogether satiric for Kubrick. 2001 celebrates the invention of tools of death, as an evolutionary route to a higher order of non-human life. Kubrick literally learned to stop worrying and love the bomb; he’s become his own butt — the Herman Kahn of extraterrestrial games theory.
“The ponderous blurry appeal of the picture may be that it takes its stoned audience out of this world to a consoling vision of a graceful world of space, controlled by superior godlike minds, where the hero is reborn as an angelic baby. It has the dreamy somewhere-over-the-rainbow appeal of a new vision of heaven. 2001 is a celebration of cop-out. It says man is just a tiny nothing on the stairway to paradise, something better is coming, and it’s all out of your hands anyway. There’s an intelligence out there in space controlling your destiny from ape to angel, so just follow the slab. Drop up.
“It’s a bad, bad sign when a movie director begins to think of himself as a myth-maker, and this limp myth of a grand plan that justifies slaughter and ends with resurrection has been around before. Kubrick’s story line — accounting for evolution by an extraterrestrial intelligence — is probably the most gloriously redundant plot of all time. And although his intentions may have been different, 2001 celebrates the end of man; those beautiful mushroom clouds at the end of Strangelove were no accident.
“In 2001: A Space Odyssey, death and life are all the same: no point is made in the movie of Gary Lockwood’s death — the moment isn’t even defined — and the hero doesn’t discover that the hibernating scientists have become corpses. That’s unimportant in a movie about the beauties of resurrection. Trip off to join the cosmic intelligence and come back a better mind. And as the trip in the movie is the usual psychedelic light shows the audience doesn’t even have to worry about getting to Jupiter. They can go to heaven in Cinerama.”
