Jeff Wells

Burton’s Camelot dancing begins around the five-minute mark.

Second iime, “Carol Burnett Experience”:

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James Gunn‘s Superman is about so much stuff — big jolts, goofing off, silliness, monsters, emptiness, jerking off, twists and turns, urban destruction, social media trashings, the basically rancid nature of Average Joes and Janes — that it’s not really about anything except sadism…sadism directed at David Corenswet‘s Man of Vulnerability, and sadism directed at the audience.

The damn thing runs 129 minutes, and at least 80% or 85% — call it 110 minutes — of this crazy-ass, scatterbrained, no-holds-barred exercise in aggressive, over-visualized and sound-slammed fuckyou-ism (comic-book geeks will be delighted but people with taste will be rolling in nausea)…this effing film is largely about Superman getting his ass whupped, and that makes it not just repetitive and tiresome but infuriating after the first 45 or so.

Note to a friend: “I realize that no major critic wants to shit on comic-book movies — light scolding is permitted, but no dumping on them — because hard pans of such films tend to make critics sound mean-spirited, old-fogeyish and out of touch. And I’m not saying Superman doesn’t have a diseased scheme of its own, a kind or cancer-ridden, audience-despising worldview, but how in the world could anyone give this thing a pass?”

While watching I was muttering to myself “this film is fucking evil” but if I actually write this — if I literally call it a Superman flick with a 666 tattoed on its neck — the HE commentariat will say I’m mean-spirited, old-fogeyish and out of touch.

As noted, it’s mostly about Corenswet getting the shit beat out of him….pounded, bloodied, gut-slammed, bone-crunched, Kryptonited, cancelled, jailed, all but killed, goaded, derided, doubted, made to scream and howl ad nauseum. It’s Gunn’s intention, obviously, to make Superman into a whiny little bitch…to show him suffering, wincing, screaming, weeping, moaning, wailing.

HE to Gunn in my fifth row seat: “Will you fucking ease up on this shit? There’s more to life than just suffering.”

Corenswet is beaten more savagely, continuously and relentlessly in this thing than Jim Caviezel was beaten and bloodied in Mel Gibson‘s The Passion of the Christ. And that’s saying something.

Who wants to watch a once-heroic, true-blue figure (i.e., heroic back in the old Chris Reeve era) get bashed and bruised and pounded over and over and over and over and over and over?

And how, in the opening scene, does Corenswet manage to get bruised and bloodied in the first place? How does that work exactly? Yeah, he’s “human” in a certain emotionally vulnerable sense, but he’s also Superman.

And what’s with Krypto the attack dog? Why is he even in this thing? Krypto the white poodle presumably arrived from Krypton along with the infant Superman, so that would make him 30 years old or a really old fart in dog years…roughly 136.

I would really hate to jump into the churning sizzling brainpan of James Gunn and splash around. The man has no discipline, no soul, no shrewdness, no sense of restraint……he’s so geeked up and CG-pretzel twisted that he’s become a kind of mad fiend or gila monster.

If by clapping my hands three times I could eradicate James Gunn-ism from the face of the earth and hurl it into an eternal flaming hellscape, I would clap my hands three times.

Superman deals so much story at such a whooshing, whizbang pace that I was choking on it. I was swatting at the plot turns like flies.

“I don’t give a shit about any of this,” I was muttering. “Fuck all these people, all these meta-folks with their bullshit costumes and whatnot. I don’t want or need this shit in my life. And I pretty much hated the main characters. If Rachel Brosnahan‘s Lois Lane had been killed, I wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow….fine! The only character I really didn’t want to see killed, Corenswet aside, was Edi Gathegi‘s Mister Terrific. I would haver been totally fine if Skyler Gisondo‘s Jimmy Olden has been killed…no sweat at all.”

The fact that Gisondo looks like a young Bruno Kirby (he has a cucumber-sized nose) makes the idea of Sara Sampaio‘s Eve Teschmacher having a crush on him seem ridiculous. Women who look like Sampaio never give guys with big honkers the time of day.

I would have been totally at peace if every last person in Metropolis had been drowned or burned or squashed to death. Okay, except for a pretty woman who is saved by Superman from being crushed by a falling building. I don’t know her name but she’s attractive.

Nathan Fillon‘s Green Lantern wears the worst, dumbest-looking blonde wig every worn by any actor in the history of motion pictures.

I recognized the played-Leonard-Bernstein guy in a cameo, of course; ditto Angela Sarafyan from Westworld.

“A tragicomic story about the impossibility of a couple’s life….neither a pornographic film, nor a sociological exposé, nor a moral lesson.” — Frank Ripploh on Taxi Zum Klo.

HE to Ripploh: Okay, yeah but not really. It’s really about dickdickdickdickdickdickdickdickdickdickdickdickdickdick…about a gay school teacher who loves cruising around West Berlin during that brief window of limitless sexual opportunity that gay men enjoyed in the mid to late ’70s before AIDS came along and brought all kinds of devastation.

The fact that Manhatan’s only theatrical boooking of the 4K restoration or Taxi Zum Klo is at the Metrograph…that should tell you something. If you’re not familiar with hardcore gay cinema, perhaps you should think twice.

I saw Taxi Zum Kmlo 44 years ago at the N.Y. Film Festival, and all I could say back then was “well, it’s certainly amiable and good humored, and it’s definitely a groundbreaker in terms of watching guys do each other…later.”

Apparently there actually is an outfit called Anus Films (the logo is obviously a riff on the one for Janus Films), and apparently it really does have something to do with Taxi Zum Klo, though I know not what. Okay, maybe it’s a put-on but it had me fooled.

Posted on 8.31.09: “As long as we’re talking no-nos and ‘thanks but no thanks’, I don’t really want to see guys in whatever kind of shape doing each other. I know that all modern cineastes are obliged to politely sit through gay sex scenes, but doing so requires a certain amount of grimming up. Sorry, but this stuff (Salo, Taxi Zum Klo) makes me squirm in my seat. And I’m allowed to feel and say this without anyone calling me this, that or the other thing. I know the p.c. things I’m supposed to say. I know how to play the game and blah-blah my way through a discussion of films of this type. But if you can’t man up and say, ‘Well, this is how I really feel about this,’ then what good are you, Jimmy Dick?”

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This is actually the only scene in No Hard Feelings that really, really touches bottom….that really works.

[Posted two years ago — 6.18.23] “It’s very difficult to do comedy because if they don’t laugh when they should laugh, you are there with egg on your face, and that’s sad. In a serious picture you don’t hear them being bored, but in a comedy you can hear them not laughing. You tried so hard and the guy did the pratfall, but nothing — and you wish you were dead.” — Billy Wilder.

I really wanted to have a great bawdy old time with No Hard Feelings (Sony, 6.23), a casually coarse sex comedy about an “inappropriate age gap” relationship between Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence), a 32 year-old Montauk bartender in a financial hole, and Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman), an introverted 19-year-old who’s about to become a Princeton freshman.

Percy’s helicopter parents (Matthew Broderick, Laura Benanti) are concerned about his lack of outgoingness plus the fact that he’s still a virgin, so they place an ad in Craigslist that says “looking for a 20something woman who can pull our son out of his shell” — the implication being that they want this woman to sexually initiate the lad and generally prepare him for the social pressures of college.

They’re slightly concerned about Maddie being (a) 13 years older than Percy and (b) something of a low-rent townie, but they figure a woman who’s been around and has some mileage will handle him with care, etc.

So the premise isn’t bad and right off the top you can see that the laughs will come out of the somewhat impatient, blunt-spoken Maddie feeling increasingly frustrated and even irate as her attempts to seduce the reticent, romantic-minded Percy lead nowhere. You can also see from the get-go that Maddie and Percy will soon get past the sexual initiation and performance stuff and start relating to each other as vulnerable humans, etc.

To his credit, director and co-screenwriter Gene Stupnitsky balances the lewd and rude material with moments of introspection and truth-telling.

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Based upon events that led to the 2010 West Memphis police shootings, Christian Swegal‘s well-reviewed Sovereign opens Friday, 7.11. This is the first I’ve ever heard of it. Costarring Nick (“keep that bath towel on!”) Offerman, Jacob Tremblay, Thomas Mann, Nancy Travis, Martha Plimpton, Dennis Quaid.

The best part comes at the 12:30 mark.

Penn: “I fully understand and believe in sensitivity, and allowing anyone to feel the way they want to feel, but I don’t know how you talk about pronouns when babies are gettin’ fuckin vaporized on the front line in Ukraine. I don’t even know how you even talk about it.”

“Thank God no one asked him the toughest question — ‘Why the hell did you make Shanghai Surprise? — I think his life since then has been one of self-flagellation for unleashing that horror upon humanity.” —@Borella309

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After writing and thinking yesterday about the late Gwen Welles, whose peak career achievement was her Nashville performance as an absurdly untalented, ultimately humiliated country singer, I came upon a portion of Donna Deitch‘s An Angel on My Shoulder, a doc about Welles’ cancer affliction and death. (She passed on 10.13.93.)

Diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in 1992, Gwen decided against conventional treatments.

Besides her Nashville highlight she acted in Robert Altman‘s California Split (’74), and in three Henry Jaglom films. She lived with Roger Vadim for three years in France. She married the recently passed Harris Yulin in the mid or late ’80s — they stayed together until her death.

HE will submit to Superman early Wednesday evening. I will post a fair and balanced review by 10 or 11 pm tomorrow night.

Written by the San Francisco Chronicle‘s G. Allen Johnson:

The first thing you need to know about James Gunn’s version of Superman is that he can be hurt and he can bleed without the presence of kryptonite, which makes you wonder if he’s even Superman at all.

The second is that he has a superdog, Krypto, which raises a lot of questions. Did this dog stow away on baby Superman’s spaceship before the planet Krypton exploded? If so, is he immortal, because he’d be about 30 years old, or 210 in dog years? And why isn’t he yet out of his puppy phase?

Superman operates as an almost parody of the superhero genre, which may be appealing to some. It has the same silliness of Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies, which are some of the best films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that irreverence doesn’t fit the Superman character.

Superman, created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster for Action Comics #1 in 1938, is not just any ole superhero. He’s special, a moral avatar in shifting times.

In 2025’s Superman, which is far from the worst Superman movie but also far from the best, he is merely another interchangeable caped crusader in an era, whether it be DC or the MCU, in which every other superhero with arrested development can do all the things Superman can do.

A very serviceable David Corenswet assumes the cape and his alter ego Clark Kent, the Daily Planet reporter who is barely in this movie. Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) is Lois Lane, who, as the movie opens, already knows Clark is Superman.

One of the pleasures of the movie is they actually seem hot for each other; there are a couple of erotic kisses that are quite unusual in this era of asexual superheroes, although it must be said that in 1981’s Superman II Christopher Reeve’s Supe and Margot Kidder’s Lois actually made love within misting distance of Niagara Falls.

You might be wondering about the plot. Same here. (HE interjection: Funny!)

It involves Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult of Juror #2 and Nosferatu) essentially keeping Superman distracted by smearing him on social media and unleashing creatures, including a Godzilla-like lizard, on Metropolis while Luthor engineers a war in the Middle East.

Social media and screens in general are big in Superman, with citizens of Metropolis taking selfies with attacking creatures in the background, making one wonder if any of them deserve to be saved. Even the ultimate man cave, Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, is outfitted like a gamer’s paradise.

Of course, these days there can’t be just one superhero in a movie. You have to expand your universe, so popping up as the plot dictates is the Green Lantern (a badly miscast Nathan Fillion in a badly miscast blond wig), Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced of The Last of Us).

Given that these films take years to make, it’s chilling how many scenes reflect current reality. The Middle East war between the fictional Boravia and Jarhanpur seems very reminiscent of the Israel-Hamas conflict. At one point, Superman is arrested by masked agents and, because he is an immigrant, is stripped of due process and shipped off to a foreign prison.

Those prescient scenes make the movie sound better than it is. Gunn is so focused on eye candy and swirling activity that he glosses over the human element, aside from those Lois-Clark smooches and one nice scene between Clark and his parents (Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell). Wasted is Perry White (Wendell Pierce) and Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo), though it’s nice to see that the Daily Planet still values their print edition.

Superman is a mess, but it’s a colorful one. It’s either a terrible superhero movie or an OK parody. Take your pick.

…was 15 years ago. It happened at a downtown post-screening after-party — we’d all just seen Dunham’s semi-autobiographical Tiny Furniture — in the fall of 2010. I was a huge instant admirer, of course. The honestly dreary vibe struck me as genuine.

The 5’3” Dunham was 24 at the time. In my review [see below] I mentioned weight as an influential factor in her Tiny Furniture character’s arc or fate. Yes, even back then.

During a post-screening q&a at Goldcrest: (l.) Anne Carey, (r.) “Tiny Furniture” director-screenwriter-actress Lena Dunham.

Dunham, Tiny Furniture producer Kyle Martin.

Dunham, now 39, is currently doing press for Too Much (7.10), her new London-based, semi-autobiographical Netflix romcom series.

I’m not saying a word.

@bbcnews Lena Dunham says she's been focusing on writing projects that don't centre her as an actor, adding that she feels "lucky" to have a relationship with her body that exists outside of what she says is a "deeply fatphobic" society. #LenaDunham #TooMuch #NetflixSeries #BodyImage #Health #News #BBCNews ♬ original sound – BBC News

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…that producers of Criterion Closet videos have traditionally kept the hands and arms of assistants or friends or whomever this woman might be…friendly hands and arms aren’t allowed to intrude upon Criterion Closet videos…period and finito.

Secondly, Cavett’s praise of Criterion’s Only Angels Have Wings Bluray is mistaken or under-informed or something, as I pointed out nine years ago in an HE riff called “‘Angels’ Shadowed to Death.” It’s the darkest, inkiest rendering of this 1939 classic ever created. The mine-shaft blacks and haunted-house shadows are thoroughly noirish and gloom-ridden. Somewhere in heaven Gordon Willis is quaking with envy.

Except for two irksome elements, Mariska Hargitay‘s My Mom Jayne (Max) is an emotionally affecting doc about identity — both suppressed (Mariska’s) and misunderstood (in the case of Mariska’s late mom, Jayne Mansfield) — and emotional closure by way of family ties and genetics.

It’s a little too weepy and whiney here and here. There is always an urge among modern women to turn women of the past into victims. But the doc settles in and touches bottom by the end.

In plainer terms, it’s about (a) the 61 year-old Mariska delving into who her famous blonde bombshell mom (who died in a horribly violent car crash at age 34) really was deep down, and (b) how Mariska came to discover that her biological dad wasn’t Mickey Hargitay, her putative father who was married to Mansfield between 1958 and 1964 and who raised Mariska after Mansfield’s death.

Mariska’s actual dad is a Brazilian-Italian lounge singer named Nelson Sardelli, whom Mansfield had an extra-marital affair with in mid ’63 and early ’64.

Mariska didn’t get around to facing the truth about Sardelli until the early 1990s, a year or so before she turned 30. For structural and dramatic reasons the doc holds his information back until the final 25 minutes or so.

Irksome element #1 is that as a young child Mariska (aka Maria) appeared to have been adopted, as her eyes and hair were much darker than those of her siblings. Any stranger would have taken one look at young Mariska and presumed she wasn’t from the same gene pool as her two brothers, Miklos and Zoltan, whose natural father was Mickey Hargitay; ditto her much older sister, Jayne Marie Mansfield, from her mom’s first marriage.

Mariska’s biological dad, the Neapolitan-featured Sardelli, was born in Brazil and is of Italian descent. Hence Mariska looked vaguely like a daughter of southern Italy or Sicily. She certainly bore no resemblance to her Hungarian body-builder caregiver “dad”, who was born in Budapest. It’s odd how this obvious biological fact was ignored or denied for as long as it was. Which just goes to show that if there’s a strong enough will, denial can be a very powerful force in people’s lives.

Irksome element #2 occurs when Mariska interviews actor Tony Cimber (born in ‘65), the son of Jayne and her third husband, Matt Cimber, a film director and promoter.

Mariska confronts Tony with stories about some ugly behavior that happened between Jayne and Matt, mostly a result of Matt’s provocation (presumably domestic violence and bruisings). She seems to be asking Tony to atone for these incidents or perhaps even accept responsibility for his father having struck Jane — a bizarre idea, to say the least. Tony says he’s not going to “own” his father’s behavior, as he doesn’t see how this could lead to anything that would heal or cleanse. Mariska’s non-verbal but emotionally readable response is one of seeming disapproval or disappointment.

HE to God: In what realm do you look at the son or daughter of an acknowledged shithead and say, “You need to face the fact that your parent was an abusive person, and so perhaps you need to apologize for this.” WHAT?

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