Jeff Wells The release of Ignite Films’ 4K UHD Bluray restoration of William Cameron Menzies‘ Invaders From Mars (’53) has been delayed. It was announced months ago that the loaded Mars package would ship on Monday, 9.26, or four days hence. I don’t know what may have caused the delay, nor have I been told what the new release date is. One presumes it won’t be too far in the future.
Vietnam veteran John Kerry, best known as Barack Obama‘s Secretary of State (2013 to 2017), a Massachusetts U.S. Senator from ’85 through ’13 and Democratic nominee for President in ’04, has weighed in on The Greatest Beer Run Ever (Apple, 9.30) in the pages of the Boston Globe.
For what it’s worth, this may be the first time Kerry has publicly opined on a motion picture…ever.
As Peter Farrelly’s currently playing film is one of the first Hollywood movies set entirely during the Vietnam War in many many years, Kerry saw Beer Run early and took an immediate liking. He’s actually seen it twice, I’m told.
Kerry: “[I’m] reminded of the story of a forgotten Marine in the iconic photo of the flag-raisers over Iwo Jima, the one with his back to the camera. He had been killed in action the very next day, and no one ever told this young man’s grieving mother that her son was the one leaning over and planting the pole on the top of Mount Suribachi. Not until a down-on-his-luck, unhappy Ira Hayes shook himself upright, hitchhiked from Arizona to Texas, found his buddy’s mother and informed her that her son was a great man who’d never be forgotten.
“Like Chickie Donohue’s gesture to the mother of his fallen friend, these are wartime reminders of bonds that endure beyond the battlefield.
“The Greatest Beer Run Ever doesn’t challenge viewers like Oliver Stone’s Platoon or Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. It doesn’t have to do that. Its power is bringing to life people and places that anyone who has served in uniform, or grown up in a neighborhood or community defined by loyalty and friendship can relate to — and reminding us that we often can rediscover those bonds in the hardest of circumstances.
“That was one of the realities of Vietnam, where young men put their lives in each other’s hands, and, regardless of where they came from or where they were headed, created lifelong ties as enduring as any built on the streets of Chickie’s Inwood. For those of us of the Vietnam generation, the film is a poignant reminder that, whatever we did in that time and whatever our political perspective, how we experienced Vietnam is inextricably intertwined with who we experienced it with.
“But for all of us, the film can serve as a reminder that even in times of great division and conflict, hopefully we can find common ground; if not, at least we can find our common humanity. Learning that lesson hopefully does not demand that we travel thousands of miles from home as Chickie had to, but that we can find that spirit right here at home, again.”
Nine months after the Sundance ’22 debut, Kathryn Ferguson‘s Nothing Compares — a doc that I totally flipped over — will receive an awards-qualifying theatrical run on Friday, 9.23. At Manhattan’s Cinema Village and L.A.’s Laemmle Monica Film Center.
The 95-minute film will then stream for Showtime subscribers on Friday, September 30, followed by on-air premiere set for Showtime on Sunday, October 2.
“Sinead O’Connor’s Beautiful Scream.” posted on 1.28.22: During her ascendant, hot-rocket period (’85 to ’92), Sinead O’Connor was one of the greatest rockers ever — a ballsy poet, provocateur, wailer, screecher, torch carrier…a woman with a voice that mixed exquisite style and control with primal pain. She was / is magnificent. I still listen to The Lion and the Cobra and I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, and I still love “Madinka”, “Jerusalem”, “Troy” and “Nothing Compares 2 U”…all of it, the primal energy, the shifting pitch of her voice, the Irish punk banshee thing…wow.
It doesn’t matter that this happened 30 to 35 years ago, and that O’Connor has lived a convulsive, ebb-and-flow life ever since…one torrential spew or tussle or throw-down after another…or that she now performs in Muslim robes (having converted two or three years ago)…what matters is that from age 19 through 26, or for roughly eight years, O’Connor was a blazing art-rocker of the first order and an unstoppable historic force…like Bob Dylan was between ’61 and the motorcycle accident + Blonde on Blonde crescendo of ’66.
Kathryn Ferguson’s Nothing Compares, a 96-minute doc that I saw late yesterday afternoon, is mainly about O’Connor’s rise, peak and fall over that eight-year period. (The last 30 years are acknowledged but mainly in the credit crawl.) Sinead’s climactic crisis, of course, was that infamous mass rejection that followed her defiant “tearing up the Pope photo” performance on a 10.3.92 airing of Saturday Night Live, which then was followed by the booing she received at a Dylan 30th Anniversary tribute concert in Madison Square Garden about two weeks later.
She never recovered the magic mojo.
What does Dave Bautista, of all people, have to do with the apocalypse? Or Jonathan Groff, for that matter? I know the film is based on Paul Tremblay‘s “The Cabin at the End of the World” but I smell a flimsy Shyamalan premise.
I’ve seen Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s Bardo, you bet. It’s a Fellini-esque dreamscape, a meal-and-a-half and quite the ride. I’ve “let it in” and thought it through and digested it as best I can, and I’m telling you that this new Bardo trailer — a haunting, wordless, perfectly-timed, dead-brilliant merging with John Lennon‘s “I Am The Walrus” — is fucking perfect.
It’s almost as if an unmurdered Lennon was hired by Inarritu to score the trailer, and this is what he composed.
Here’s my Telluride review, except Inarritu has now removed 22 minutes (it was 174 minutes in Telluride — now it’s 152) and may fiddle around even more before the U.S. release date. Just watch it and let it sink in.
HE instantly approves of Carlota Pereda‘s Piggy (aka Cerdita) for the 1.37:1 aspect ratio. This rural horror thriller film, shot in Villanueva de la Vera between June and July of ’21, feels like a blend of Catherine Breillat‘s Fat Girl (’01) and Brian DePalma‘s Carrie (’76). Directed and written by Pereda, based on her short film.
Laura Galán plays the lead; Richard Holmes, Carmen Machi, Claudia Salas, Irene Ferreiro, Camille Aguilar and Pilar Castro costar.
Women who are merely fat or overweight are one thing; Galan is morbidly obese. Fair is fair.
HE finally gets to see Don’t Worry Darling this evening at 7 pm…huzzah.
“There’s actually something quite old-fashioned about [Harry] Styles. With his popping eyes, floppy shock of hair and saturnine suaveness, he recalls the young Frank Sinatra as an actor.” — from Owen Gleiberman‘s 9.5.22 review.
Sinatra was 29 when he made Anchors Aweigh (’45); Styles is 28 as we speak.
Yesterday an HE reader named Michael2021, who strikes me as a possible antagonist, suspiciously asked “X-factor (white) guy“…what exactly is this supposed to mean?”
HE reply: I’m white because of my ancestral heritage. As much as I’d like to do something about that (as it would win me points with the fanatics), I can’t. But the X-factor thing…
X-factor people are leftie (or, in the current atmosphere of woke political terror and dread, formerly leftie) iconoclasts who tend to sidestep the usual usual in terms of attitudes and behaviors. Semi-original, in some cases quirky or vaguely oddball types (but not too oddball…think Bill Murray-type weirdos) or against-the-grain thinkers, and in many cases serious creatives.
No age requirements, although there seem to be more over-40 X-factors than under-40s. (Go figure.) X-factor fellows never wear flip-flops and generally despise man-toes as a rule. Luca Guadagnino, Cate Blanchett, Phillip Noyce, Tilda Swinton and Willem Dafoe are X-factor; conspicuously wealthy types like Lizzo, Reese Witherspoon, Kanye, Jennifer Aniston, Will Smith and Kim Kardashian are almost certainly not.
We’re otherwise talking folks who prefer Hotel Paisano in Marfa over Houston’s DoubleTree. Or, if you will, Point Pleasant over Atlantic City, Villas Altas Mismaloya or the Thompson Zihuatanejo over Puerto Vallarta or Acapulco, Prague over Geneva, Caye Caulker over Ambergris Caye. Or a narrow, old-school hotel in Old Town Hanoi over a tourist-friendly Sofitel. And Lauterbrunnen any time of the year.
People who usually prefer to drive classic mid-century Mustangs rather than big fat SUVs with built-in wifi. Or who prefer to wear Italian suede lace-ups or even saddle shoes rather than Gucci loafers or white Converse or Nike footwear. Or who wear cowboy hats instead of Kangol berets and head warmers in the winter. Those who generally march to the beat of a subdued and slightly different drummer. Or (one more travel analogy!) those who tend to avoid the San Marco district when visiting Venice, and tend to stick to Dorsoduro.
I apologize for not having been up on Andrew Schulz, but I am now. Stand-up comedian, 38, actor, TV producer and podcaster. Known for MTV2’s Guy Code, the Flagrant podcast with Akaash Singh, and The Brilliant Idiots podcast.
All ten episodes of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan‘s Netflix series about Jeffrey Dahmer, the infamous serial killer of 17 men and boys during the ’80s, begin streaming on Wednesday, 9.21. Evan Peters plays Dahmer; the costars include Richard Jenkins and Penelope Ann Miller (as his parents) and Molly Ringwald (as his sister).
The question for me (and, I suspect, for millions of others) is why isn’t the title simply Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story? Why did the producers decide they had to include his last name twice in the same title? Why, in other words, are they calling it Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story? That’s what’s known as a committee title.
The limited series began filming in late winter of 2021, or a year and a half ago. Tatiana landed a non-speaking part as a Dahmer attorney. Sporting conservative attorney hair and straight-laced business attire, she spent two or three days shooting a courtroom scene, sitting the whole time next to Peters. I’ve seen sitting on this casting news for a long time, and can now finally reveal it.
“Jerry! Sandra showed me some your fiction and your awards, and I have to say ‘powerful stuff.’ Almost too powerful. I’m wondering if your mind can function down on our level. I grew up in Pacific Grove, and I started reading…what’s his name?…I started reading Steinbeck when I was nine. [Tossing a script on the table.] Here’s a piece of shit, Jerry. I wrote and re-wrote it, but it ain’t workin’. If you can make it work, you’re on…okay?”
Some of us remember Permanent Midnight (Artisan, 9.16.98), a mild-mannered addiction dramedy in which Ben Stiller played author and screenwriter Jerry Stahl.
I thought this pitch-meeting scene with Fred Willard as the creator of Mr. Chompers was quietly hilarious in a deadpan way, mainly because I didn’t sense an effort on anyone’s part (least of all director-writer David Veloz) to make it feel funny. It just was.
Permanent Midnight opened a quarter century ago, and I’m suddenly thinking I’d like to give it another spin.
I was at People at the time, and in an early draft I happened to pass along that Stiller, who needed to look like an emaciated addict, had lost weight by adhering to Dick Gregory’s Bahamian Diet powder, which Stahl had ironically referred to as the “junkie diet.”
Instantly alarmed by the term, Stiller’s team (including producer Don Murphy and publicist Kelley Bush) ganged up on me during a conference call. I was merely amused by Stahl’s term and thought it was okay to mention considering that Stiller was playing a brilliant opiate addict, etc. The term was deleted, of course.
Has this Permanent Midnight recollection stirred any poignant memories?
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden arrived a little bit late for the Westminster Abbey funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Which was rude — let’s be honest. And so the Bidens had to wait to be seated — understandably.
I realize that over 500 foreign heads of state, monarchs and dignitaries attended the event, and that a certain seating protocol is enforced when it comes to major funerals of this sort. But it still seems a bit odd that the President of the United States would be seated in the 14th row. A slight diminishment or vague insult of some kind. No?
I hate posting about this because Orange Plague made a thing out of it, but let’s imagine a similar fictitious British scenario. It’s June 1962, let’s suppose, and President Kennedy is attending a Westminster Abbey funeral for, let’s say, the recently departed Prime Minister Harold MacMillan (who actually passed in 1986). I somehow can’t accept that JFK would have been seated in the 14th row.
Biden works out and takes care of himself, I realize, but if I were he I would make a greater effort to walk like I’m in my mid ’50s or thereabouts. I would summon all my strength and make a greater effort not to sway ever so slightly and shuffle along like a geezer.