“Believe It, Democrats — Biden Could Lose,” Frank Bruni, N.Y. Times: “Donald Trump may be the presidential candidate whose midday snoozing has generated headlines and animated late-night comics, but President Biden is the one who needs to wake up.
“He’s a whopping 12 points behind Trump among registered voters in Nevada, according to polls by The New York Times, Siena College and The Philadelphia Inquirer that were released on Monday morning (5.13). Biden won that state by nearly 2.5 points in 2020. [Plus] he’s behind among registered voters in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan — in all of the six battleground states surveyed except Wisconsin.
“That’s not some wildly aberrant result. It echoes alarms sounded before. It speaks to stubborn troubles.
In short, Bill Maher was 100% dead-on seven months ago when he stated that by insisting on running for re-election instead of allowing a younger and more vigorous sensible Democrat to step into the breach, Joe Biden “is going to turn the country back over to Trump, and go down in history as Ruth Bader Biden — a person who doesn’t know when to quit and [thereby] does great damage his party and his country.”
Every time I’ve brought this up in the succeeding months, 80% of HE readers have pooh-poohed me…it’s early yet, calm down, Americans will come to their senses, stop doomsaying.
“[This is] difficult for Democrats to believe,” Bruni wrote. “I know: I talk regularly with party leaders and party strategists and I’ve heard their incredulity. They mention abortion and how that should help Biden mightily. They mention the miserable optics of a certain Manhattan courtroom and a certain slouched defendant. They mention Jan. 6, 2021. They note Trump’s unhinged rants and autocratic musings and they say that surely, when the moment of decision arrives, a crucial share of Americans will note all of that, too, and come home to Biden.”
A foam-at-the-mouth, anti-Democracy criminal sociopath will become President next January, and this is partly the symbolic fault of those complacent HE commenters.
Over the years I’ve never been more aware of the cries of seagulls than during the Cannes Film Festival. If you’re staying anywhere near the marina (as Hollywood Elsewhere is) their squawking cuts through the night air like an ambulance siren…wailing, aarking, “wake up, you sleepyheads.” Scavengers by nature, gulls are “often heard very early in the morning”, according to their Wiki page, but I’m telling you they are very nocturnal…2 am, 3 am, 4 am. And exacerbating my inability to sleep.
I brilliantly forgot to bring my ambien tablets this year, and so last night I was trying to ease up and let slumber come naturally and failing for the most part. Partly (largely?) because the gulls wouldn’t stop partying.
It’s 11:20 pm and my midnight London flight is boarding, but the hugely crafty, creatively penny-pinching, super-influential Roger Corman — an industry giant, indisputably titanic, the godfather of hip-pocket cinema in the ’50s, 60s, ’70s and ’80s — has passed at age 98, and I’ve only time to say that anyone who doesn’t know who Corman was, is and always will be is absolutely required to watch Alex Stapleton‘s Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel.
Just watch it already — the whole amazing saga crammed into 95 minutes.
Puck’s Matthew Belloni reported two days ago that Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker) will direct a “hot script”, penned by Noah Oppenheim (Jackie), about “the White House reacting in real time to ballistic missiles headed for America.”
Which sounds like a fairly close cousin of Sidney Lumet‘s Fail Safe, no?
“Oppenheim’s Jackie was originally going to be directed by Darren Aronofsky with Rachel Weisz playing Jackie Kennedy. Oppenheim’s script told the story of what happened that weekend and pretty much how it went down on a beat-for-beat, conversation-by-conversation basis,
“[In 2016] it seemed brash and brilliant for Larrain, who took over the project sometime in ’15, to forsake the historical and sidestep that mass memory and not deliver a rote recap of what Mrs. Kennedy, only 34 at the time, went through that weekend, but to make a kind of art film — to give her portrait a kind of anxious, fevered, interior feeling.
“Which is why I wrote that Jackie really is ‘the only docudrama about the Kennedy tragedy that can be truly called an art film…it feels somewhat removed from the way that the events of that weekend looked and felt a half-century ago…intimate, half-dreamlike and cerebral, but at the same time a persuasive and fascinating portrait of what Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (Natalie Portman) went through between the lunch-hour murder of her husband in Dallas and his burial at Arlington National Cemetery three days later.
“But after re-watching Jackie a couple of weeks ago I went back and re-read a draft of Oppenheim’s script, which is a whole different bird. Pablo cut out a lot of characters and a lot of interplay and a general sense of ‘this is how it happened’ realism, focusing almost entirely on Jackie’s interior saga.
“And honestly? I discovered that I liked Oppenheim’s version of the tale a little more than Pablo’s.
“The script is more of a realistic ensemble piece whereas Larrain’s film is about what it was like to be in Jackie’s head. I respect Larrain’s approach, mind, but I felt closer to the realm of Oppenheim’s script. I believed in the dialogue more. The interview scenes between Theodore H. White (played by Billy Crudup in the film) and Jackie felt, yes, more familiar but at the same time more realistic, more filled-in. I just felt closer to it. I knew this realm, these people.”
Like everyone else, I’m stunned by the sudden death of KTLA entertainment reporter Sam Rubin, 64…felled by a heart attack.
I can’t say I “knew” Rubin all that well, but I certainly ran into him at parties and press junkets over the last 25 or 30 years…joshingly, good-naturedly…and can say he was a smart, devotional movie hound…good fellow, disciplined pro, quick with a quip and a real eager beaver.
I’m very sorry that his curtain came down (or “rang” down as it were) this early. Tragic.
Emotionally Sam’s passing feels like the death of the well-liked Meet The Press moderator Tim Russert, who also died quickly from a heart attack. Tim was 58.
Condolences to Sam’s friends, family, colleagues, KTLA fans, industry acquaintances, etc.
Death has this occasionally rude habit of paying a call when it damn well feels like it, and when your number’s up, you’re done.
Al Pacino‘s career had three great surge periods — the early to mid ’70s, stand-alone Scarface and the ’90s.
Surge #1 was comprised of six films: The Panic in Needle Park, The Godfather, Serpico, Scarecrow, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon.
The rest of the ’70s and much of the ’80s were almost a disaster for the poor guy — Bobby Deerfield, …And Justice for All, Cruising, Author! Author!, Revolution.
Scarface was its own surge, and then came The Glorious ’90s when Pacino’s character-actor instincts and exclamatory hoo-hah ignited a winning streak that lasted through 12 films — Sea of Love, Dick Tracy, The Godfather Part III, Glengarry Glen Ross, Scent of a Woman, Carlito’s Way, Heat, City Hall, Donnie Brasco, The Devil’s Advocate, The Insider and Any Given Sunday.
What brand-name actor has ever had a run like this?
Have I posted this David Simon Criterion interview before?
“There’s something about the juice and the camaraderie of war that undercuts every anti-war message. But not in this film. Because it’s not strictly an anti-war film — it’s an anti-authority film.”
Thank you, non-binary Zoomer contingent, for making boilerplate trade-paper interviews into complex reading challenges, for completely up-ending grammar rules that have been in place for dozens of centuries, and for generally making all of us ask “how high?” when you crack your whip and say “jump.”
Imagine having grown up and spent several decades in a world that didn’t saddle Average Joes and Janes with all this “they/them” shit. This is what the world was like, in fact, as recently as five or six years ago. Growl, grumble.
So instead of flying straight to Nice I’ll be landing in London around Sunday noon (5.12), and staying in town for roughly 18 hours. Lots of walking around, a little pub-crawling (CittieofYorke, YeOldCheshire Cheese), a list of destinations. I’m flopping in one of the cheapest places I could find in my “home” neighborhood of Bloomsbury/Holborn.
What films released over the last three or four years have had great endings? Maybe a few have and maybe none have — I’m asking. Nothing’s coming to mind but then again I’m packing and distracted. I’m driving to New Jersey tomorrow afternoon and flying to London late Saturday night — a 21-hour stopover enroute to Nice.
The best endings are those in which the main characters are finally stuck with themselves and they know it…stuck with the yield of their hustling and bustling…left to ponder who they are deep down and to contemplate the terms “just desserts” and “fair shake”…alone with themselves (even if they’re a couple), facing an uncertain future, throwing their hands up, half-laughing and half-crying about their big scheme that didn’t work out, or because it did but led them to an unexpected place. Desire, deception and discovery.
Great endings, in short, are about acceptance of and submission to fate or dumb luck or, if you will, God’s grand plan. We got what we deserved, and we’ve only ourselves to blame.
The last shot of The Godfather, Part II — Michael Corleone engulfed by solitude and shadows — is a perfect finish.
A nominally “satisfying” ending in which good triumphs over evil but at the same time doesn’t really resonate and could even be called mediocre? The last two minutes of On The Waterfront.
Another ending that doesn’t quite get it? The last shot of Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey in which Keir Dullea‘s infant star child is gazing down upon earth. Also Sprach Zarathrusta tells you it’s an ending, but try to imagine it “working” without music.
On the other hand the ending of Kubrick’s The Killing is damn near perfect; ditto the ending of A Clockwork Orange — “I was cured, all right!” and therefore a healthy psychopath again!
Anyone will tell you how much they love the ending of Barry Lyndon, but it’s not how the movie ends as much as the aptness of the epiloque (“…they are all equal now”).
The best ending of an otherwise mediocre film? The long shadow at the conclusion of Nicholas Ray‘s King of Kings.
Many have praised the last-minute “uh-oh” ending of Mike Nichols‘ The Graduate because the happy ending when Ben and Elaine escape the church ceremony gives way to feelings of uncertainty, loneliness and anxiety. And melancholy is better than ecstasy. They don’t know what to do next. It’s an interesting ending but we all know what happened among audiences, of course. They pretty much ignored the “uh-oh” ending and told all their friends about the good parts, and that’s why The Graduate became a huge hit.
The ending of Planet of the Apes isn’t all that great when you think about it. It hasn’t been set up. The film takes place in areas that look like Nevada and SoCal’s Imperial Valley and Malibu Canyon, and yet we’re supposed to believe that this hilly, desert-like terrain is located somewhere on the East Coast near New York City, hence the fallen Statue of Liberty lying on a beach next to Zuma State Beach cliffs. An “oh, wow” ending that doesn’t make the least bit of geographical sense.
Movies that end with senior characters being burned to death are horrible — wicked sadism for the same of wicked sadism. Midsommar, of course. Both versions of The Wicker Man (’73 and ’06). Ken Russell‘s The Devils. Marlon Brando burned to a crisp at the ending of The Fugitive Kind.
One of the greatest endings ever? And the best ending of a nourish police thriller ever devised? Hand that trophy to the director and writer of Se7en — David Fincher and Andrew Kevin Walker.
Another great Fincher ending — Mark Zuckerberg + “Baby, You’re A Rich Man”.
One of the worst, most full-of-shit endings ever was delivered by True Romance.
One of the best was created for Eric Von Stroheim‘s Greed.
Billy Wilder delivered five great endings with Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Ace in the Hole, Stalag 17 and One, Two, Three.
I gave a respectful thumbs-up to Matt Reeves‘ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (’14), which opened two months shy of a decade ago. I didn’t love it quite as much as Rupert Wyatt‘s Rise of the Planet of The Apes, which opened 13 years ago but it was a fine, well-crafted, grade-A film as far as it went.
But I felt myself disengaging when Reeves’ War for the Planet of the Apes (’17) came along. The truth is that I got off the boat. And now Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is upon us.
I’m honestly debating whether it’s worth my time to see it later today. The first two were exemplary, but now the bloom is off the rose. I don’t mind the idea of seeing Kingdom, but I really don’t see how it matters one way or the other.
Okay, I’ll prpbably see it later today, mainly because of Freya Allan, the pretty lead actress.
13 years ago I went apeshit Rise of the Planet of The Apes, calling it “the best Apes flick ever made, and that includes the original.
“Rise is sharper, tighter, more emotional…lacking a Statue of Liberty finale, okay, but nonetheless with a ‘better’ story in a sense. And without the perfectly styled, Vidal Sassoon ape coifs that bothered me so in the Charlton Heston original. Not one orangutan had a single hair out of that place in that film, the reason being of course that the prosthetic makeup guys felt more compelled to represent the sartorial values of Beverly Hills, ape-appearance-wise, than the corresponding particulars in a world first imagined by French novelist Pierre Boulle.
“Rise is a gripping, compassionate, well-plotted sci-fi fantasy popcorn film — riveting, amusing at times, state-of-the-art CG, movingly acted by performance-capture guy Andy Serkis, etc. No, I’m not exaggerating. It has excitement, intrigue, humanity, empathy, soul. And the story is primarily an ape POV thing — the human actors are strictly backup, speaking the same kind of rote expository dialogue that James Arness, Joan Weldon and Edmund Gwenn spoke in Them!.
“And don’t listen to guys like Lewis Beale, who earlier this evening calledRise a “fun, not-intellectually-taxing summer entertainment.” C’mon…it’s much better than that! It’s a compassionate look at imprisonment and oppression, and a rousing saga of rebellion and revolution. And it all levitates courtesy of some of the best motion-capture CG I’ve ever seen.
“What could have been just another blah-blah origin story has been turned into a simian Spartacus….or more precisely the first act of Spartacus, which ends with the slaves breaking out of the gladiator school in Capua. That’s precisely how Rise concludes, so to speak.
“James Franco plays a nice-guy genetic scientist — intelligent, tactful, bland — who’s trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease by performing serum tests on apes. He soon realizes that a serum given to a chimp mother named “Bright Eyes” (remember who had that nickname before?) has been passed along to an orphaned baby chimp named Caesar. The little chimp soon proves to be a major-league achiever and learner. Franco also tries out the serum on his Alzheimer’s-afflicted dad (John Lithgow), and it’s Awakenings all over again. But Ceasar’s passion and curiosity leads to complications and the authorities seize and lock him up.
“This is when the Spartacus stuff kicks in. We’re not going to take this any more, fellow apes, and I’m the one to lead you guys out of this, because I’m smart and ballsy and a good strategic thinker. (Harry Potter costar Tom Felton plays roughly the same part that Charles McGraw played in Spartacus. Or the ‘Fritz’ role that Dwight Frye had in Frankenstein.)
“Franco hooks up with the beautiful Freida Pinto early on, but this is of no consequence as she has no extended dialogue scenes of any kind. As always, she’s very pretty. She obviously has to do more that just look great if she’s going to last. Her best chance at showing what she’s got will probably come with Michael Winterbottom‘s Trishna, an Indian-set adaptation of Thomas Hardy‘s Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
“The apes are the soul and the spirit of the film. They’re fascinating, fully-emotional and fully-dimensional characters. Much of Rise is non-verbal, and appropriately so. Serkis, I should add, tends to over-emote at times. The facial expressions he gives to the young Ceasar — the lead ape protagonist — are just a tad too expressive for my taste, a wee bit too “actor”-ish. But I’ll probably be in the minority on this issue.”
