Most of us have a basic impression about the late Dabney Coleman, who passed yesterday at age 92. Aside from being a dependable, professional-grade character actor, he mostly played sexist jerks, stubborn asshats and comic foils.
But by my scorecard Coleman lucked into at least two interesting characters and did very well by them — (1) “Mayo”, the assistant Olympic ski team coach (subordinate to Gene Hackman) in Michael Ritchie‘s Downhill Racer (’69), and (2) “Dr. Bill Ray”, Jane Fonda‘s sensible, good-natured boyfriend in On Golden Pond (’81).
Mostly, however, he played dicks, and his best-known in this regard were “Ron Carlisle,” the sexist soap opera director in Tootsie (’82) who antagonized Dustin Hoffman‘s “Dorothy” and vice versa and the sexist, jerkwad boss in 9 to 5 (’80). Both were broad, boilerplate performances.
We’re always adapting — all of us, but especially Type-A creative types. Maturing, cranking up, calming down, adjusting, shape-shifting — always in response to a changing world. It follows that no 40 year-old director is exactly the same in terms of craft, choices and sensibility as he/she was at age 30.
I think Francis Coppola (whom I had the pleasure of doing a two-hour phone interview with 41 years ago) was one guy when he made The Godfather, The Conversation and The Godfather, Part II. He was a slightly different guy when he made Apocalypse Now, and a faintly altered version of the Apocalypse Now guy when he made One From The Heart. He was a whole different dude when he made Jack — that’s for damn sure. And a much different guy when he made Tetro, Youth Without Youth and Twixt.
Coppola has said he’s planing to invest over $100 million of his own dough in Megalopolis, which he’s called “a love story that’s also a philosophical investigation of the nature of man.”
It is my prediction that however good or bad it turns out to be, Megalopolis won’t connect with Joe Popcorn. Some will see it (I certainly will) but most won’t, and it’ll just end up as a streaming selection. That said, Coppola is living righteously for an artist who’s nearly 83 — still striving, still dreaming. Here’s hoping he makes Megalopolis and that it satisfies those who are willing to take the journey.
From David Ehrlich’s 5.16 IndieWire review of Francis Coppola’s Megalopolis: “Madison Square Garden has naturally been reimagined as a sandy colosseum. The exterior shots don’t look anything like the world-famous arena they’re meant to represent, but the interior ones get MSG’s iconic ceiling exactly right.”
Ehrlich was thinking of Manhattan’s current Madison Square Garden, which opened in ’68 and stands on Eighth Ave. between 31st and 33rd, above Penn Station.
Coppola’s version, of course, is based on the funky, gunky older version of the garden, the one that stood on the west side of Eighth Ave.between 49th and 50th streets with the neon Nedick’s sign…the one in which Laurence Harvey shot Angela Lansbury through the head in John Frankenheimer‘s The Manchurian Candidate (’62)…the one in which Terry Malloy took “a dive for the short-end money”…the one in which Marilyn Monroe sang “happy birthday, Mr. President” to JFK in May ’62.
Anya Taylor-Joy‘s Theda Bara-meets-Clara Bow look (i.e., beaded headpiece, heavy eye shadow) plus the cropped jacket and naughtily sticking her tongue out duuring the photo call…great old Hollywood vibes. I didn’t attend the Furiosa press conference — catching up on filing plus an hour-long nap seemed more important at the time.
I’m sorry but I found George Miller‘s relentlessly eye-filling Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros., 5.24) a chore to sit through, which is to say lacking in wit, dark humor and irony (which Miller’s The Road Warrior had in abundance) and therefore frankly boring because it’s all on the surface.
Nothing is happening thematically or subtextually or quirk-wise — I didn’t chuckle once.
Every shot is a dazzler, but superficial wows are all you get — knockout action, glorious desert colors, killer CG, cinematography to die for, great costumes and set design.
And Lordy, it goes on for 148 minutes. For a relatively superficial action extravaganza like this a two-hour length would have been much preferred . Hell, 110 minutes.
When you have nothing to say except (a) “here comes another expensive chapter in a popular popcorn franchise” and (b) “boy, did we spend a lot of money making this or what?”, don’t drag it out. Bing, bam, boom and out.
Story-wise it’s basically just a drawn-out revenge saga — i.e., Anya Taylor-Joy‘s Furiosa determined to ice Chris Hemsworth‘s Dementus, warlord chief of the Biker Hordes, for killing her young mom, played by Charlee Fraser, when Furiosa was a young child.
All I can say is that I started to die inside around the one-hour mark.
The cast members (Taylor-Joy, Alyla Browne, Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Lachy Hulme, Nathan Jones. Josh Helman, John Howard) do a great job of behaving in various extreme ways, and, as indicated, Simon Duggan‘s cinematography is wall-to-wall splendor.
If you’re a fool for this franchise you’ll be in Ape Heaven. 40-plus years ago I was a fool for TheRoadWarrior, but those days are gone.
But the film is punishing. My soul felt starved and my leg muscles (especially the left leg) were truly weeping with discomfort.
How tall is Taylor-Joy? 5’2″ or something? Big-boned Charlize Theron (5′ 10″ or thereabouts) felt like a better fit in FuryRoad (’15).
Before last night’s 10:30 pm screening of The Girl With The Needle I slipped into an 8:15 showing of Laurent Bouzereau‘s Faye, an engagingly straightforward life-and-career retrospective about the great Faye Dunaway.
It supplies everything about her career that you’d want to see, everything you’d expect. All the biographical anecdotes, all the required clips, full of respect and appreciation plus healthy servings of Dunaway letting it all hang out (or at least as much as she’s able to do within this format).
It reminded me first and foremost what a great majesterial actress she’s always been. Charisma, timing, energy, just the right amount of push and hesitancy…the whole package.
It barely gets into the strident Faye stories that we’ve all been hearing for decades, but Dunaway’s confession that she was bipolar and occasionally alcoholic helps to explain at least some of her extreme behavior.
The doc offers an amusing retelling of the Roman Polanski-hair-yanking-episode-during-the-shooting-of-Chinatown story, mostly courtesy of producer Hawk Koch.
Dunaway honestly recounts her mad two-year affair with a married Marcello Mastroianni (’68 to ’70). There’s often something reckless and illogical about heated extra-marital romances, and the Dunaway-Mastroianni thing was no exception.
Plus it includes a brief interview with Mommie Dearest director Frank Perry saying that 1981 audiences responding with hoot and howls was fine with him. (Hollywood Elsewhere has always loved this film.)
The doc shows many snaps of young Faye during her youth (she was born in January ’41), and I was surprised to discover that when Dunaway was a teenaged brunette she closely resembled young Barry Gibb of the BeeGees. This resemblance was out the widow, of course, once she turned blonde and glammy in the mid ’60s.
I had to duck out at 9:50 pm so I wound up missing the home stretch and wrap-up, but it’ll be on Max before long.
If there’s one thing that Cannes is not about, it’s laid-back relaxation. Covering is like attending a demanding senior-level bar exam course. You have to be on your toes each and every minute. That said, it’s an honor to be here as an accredited journalist.
“I had suspected I would probably have a bad time with this, but my God, it’s dreadful. Mindless, gaudy throwaway trash. Not to mention dull by way of a mind-numbing repetition of a #MeToo mantra — older men with bulging wallets are toxic beasts.
“Wright got hold of something cool and throttled in the first two-thirds of Baby Driver, but now it’s gone. The bottom line is that he’s a completely untethered geek fetishist — he’s all about design and visual intensity and comic-book-level characters, and at the same time completely disengaged from anything even vaguely resembling an adult sensibility or, perish the thought, an ability to absorb and re-process life as a semi-complex, multi-layered thing.
“In short, Wright is 47 going on 14.
“In the mid ’60s context of Last Night in Soho, Wright isn’t interested in trying to (let’s get creative!) partially channel the spirit of Roman Polanski by way of recalling or reanimating the 1965 atmosphere of Repulsion…God, what a stone cold slasher masterpiece that film is, especially compared to the slovenly Soho. Repulsion and Last Night in Soho are one year apart, and at the same time based in entirely separate galaxies.
“Last Night in Soho essentially says one thing over and over. Ready? Older London men who went to flashy nightclubs in the mid ‘60s were cruel sexist pigs (which many of them doubtless were) and they all wanted to sexually exploit and abuse young women who needed the money. Which made them Hammer horror monsters of the darkest and scuzziest order.
“But that was mid ‘60s London for you! Forget the seminal beginnings of the rock revolution. Forget the Yardbirds. Forget the mid ’60s Soho club scene that had begun to be dominated by London’s rock virtuosos and their many followers. Forget the musical and spiritual explosions conveyed by Aftermath and Rubber Soul. Forget John Lennon and George Harrisonbeing dosed by a dentist in ’65 and experiencing their first-ever acid trip. Forget all that.
“Because in Wright’s view, 1966 London was crammed with creepy, sex-starved, Sexy Beast guys in their 40s and 50s who worshipped the Kray brothers.
“Wright is a truly horrible director of actors. No modifying or keeping it plain and low-key, always presuming that the popcorn inhalers are complete idiots who need everything spelled out in boldface…everything turned up to 11.
“The more I think about it, the more I suspect that Repulsion probably was a major influence upon Last Night in Soho. The difference is that Polanski was and is a visionary, go-his-own-way genius, and Wright is an adolescent shoveller of familiar tropes and garish visual impressions.”
Followed early this evening by Quentin Dupieux‘s Meet The Parents — aka The Second Act — a “metacomedy” about actors playing real people but also being themselves. Costarring Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel, Raphaël Quenard and Manuel Guillot.
Anya Taylor Joy to N.Y. Times guy KyleBuchanan: “’I’ve never been more alone than making [Furiosa],’” she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘I don’t want to go too deep into it, but everything that I thought was going to be easy was hard.’
“Her reticence reminded me of when I first spoke to the actors who had made Fury Road: During that shoot, the desperation of the characters bled into their real lives, and unpacking that experience took a very long time.
“Sensing that she was skirting a sensitive issue, I asked Taylor-Joy what exactly it was about Furiosa that had proved more difficult than she expected.
“For five long seconds, she contemplated giving me an answer. ‘Next question…sorry,’ she said. There was a faraway look in her eyes, as if a part of her had been left behind in that wasteland. ‘Talk to me in 20 years,’ she said. ‘Talk to me in 20 years.'”
George Miller‘s Furiosa screens in Cannes tomorrow night. Has Hollywood Elsewhere successfully reserved a ticket? Of course not. I’m trying to wangle a way in as we speak. If I fail, I’ll catch it at a Cannes commercial cinema ten days hence.
