Any thoughts you may have had about Jerry Bruckheimer and Joseph Kosinki‘s Top Gun: Maverick possibly dealing subtle cards and not necessarily using sledgehammer tactics are now…well, let’s just say that hopes along those lines are temporarily dashed. If this just-released teaser is any kind of indication, I mean.

San Diego-based fighter pilots!….the aura of studly military rock stars, coping with buried anger and the burden of expectations, brusque and strapping and throwing their heads back in laughter while playing piano in a honky tonk. (Like Miles Teller‘s son of Goose Bradshaw character does in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it clip.) And the women who both love and compete with them. With the big climactic test of skill and character looming. And so on.

I haven’t read the script (co-authored by Peter Craig, Justin Marks, Christopher McQuarrie and Eric Warren Singer) but the tip-off is a Wikipedia description of Jennifer Connelly‘s character — “a single mother running a bar near the Naval base.”

A single mother! Running a bar! Who dispenses sage advice while mixing a killer Mojito! With, I’m guessing, a possible age-appropriate interest in Tom Cruise‘s Maverick, who’s now a creased and weathered Naval flight instructor. And perhaps, in keeping with the theme of launching the new generation, with an aspiring fighter-jock daughter? Or am I pushing too far?

I want a scene in which Cruise tells Connelly that Kelly McGillis‘ Charlie Blackwood left him for another woman, and then (beat, beat) Connelly tells Cruise, “Yeah, I know…it was me.” Or: “I’m sorry, that’s tough. (beat) She left me too.”

Ed Harris to Cruise: “Captain…what is that?” Jon Hamm playing some kind of tough nut. And Val Kilmer back for seconds. All the young dudes of the original Top Gun are now in their late 50s and early ’60s.

Best shot in the trailer: Crew-cutted Cruise riding a motorcycle without a helmet, bathed in magic-hour amber, loving the wind and grinning the grin.

Cruise’s six career-best roles (in this order): (1) Vincent the assassin in Collateral, (2) the titular Jerry Maguire, (3) Joel Goodson, the U-boat commander of Highland Park, (4) Charlie Babbitt in Rain Man, (5) Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July, and (6) Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia. Honorable Mention: Mitch McDeere in The Firm.

For what it’s worth, this is the funniest Good Boys trailer yet. Assembling an effective trailer for an R-rated tweener comedy requires a certain finesse — timing, cutting, pacing, the right kind of English. The Universal marketing guys got it right this time. Pic opens on 8.16.

“A little too imitative of Superbad with the minor tweaks of three (rather than two) even-younger male protagonists, more swearing, and a lot more drug references, Good Boys lacks that film’s wit and heart. It’s a lively, slick package, yet crude and obvious at every turn, unlikely to attract either the critical or word-of-mouth favor that might create a sleeper hit for Universal’s planned August release.” — from Dennis Harvey’s SXSW Variety review, filed on 3.12.19.

“Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky‘s Good Boys script is packed wall-to-wall with jokes, to the point that this critic missed lines that were drowned out by the roars of laughter from the packed house at [Austin’s] Paramount Theatre. Having written on a string of sitcoms and helmed episodes of The Office, Stupnitsky brings a finely honed skill for punchline pacing to his feature directorial debut. [Except] it’s mostly the same jokes over and over: cute kids cursing and not understanding sex stuff.

“Initially, it’s jolting fun to see these baby-faced boys dropping F-bombs or mistaking a cache of BDSM gear for ‘weapons’ and a sex doll for a CPR dummy. (‘It’s sticky.’) But as the boys run screaming through the second act, these bits offer diminishing returns. The foul language becomes a bit numbing. Thankfully, the third act’s comedy becomes more focused on character than crudeness, which gives its climactic montage a needed oomph.” — from a Guardian review by Kristy Puchko, also filed during SXSW.

My attitude before seeing Ursula Macfarlane‘s Untouchable was “what will this doc tell us about Harvey Weinstein‘s misdeeds and the landmark reporting that brought him down…what will it tell us that isn’t already part of the conversation, and which might move the needle forward?” The answer is that it isn’t so much about Harvey (certainly not in terms of examining his psychology) as several of his victims, and that getting to know who these women are and what they went though in their own words…all I can say is that it matters a great deal, and that their stories, one upon another and then another, make you feel the deep-down rage and melancholy. At the end of the day it’s not so much a prosecutorial indictment (although it obviously is that) as a broken heart movie. It says “this happened and now what?”

The poster for Untouchable is excellent, by the way.

“I wasn’t surprised to hear so many people expressing fear that the racist, divisive, climate-change-denying, woman-abusing jerk who is our president was going to get re-elected, and was even seeing his poll numbers rise.

“Dear Democrats: This is not complicated! Just nominate a decent, sane person, one committed to reunifying the country and creating more good jobs, a person who can gain the support of the independents, moderate Republicans and suburban women who abandoned Donald Trump in the midterms and thus swung the House of Representatives to the Democrats and could do the same for the presidency. And that candidate can win!

“But please, spare me the revolution! It can wait. Win the presidency, hold the House and narrow the spread in the Senate, and a lot of good things still can be accomplished. ‘No,’ you say, ‘the left wants a revolution now!” Okay, I’ll give the left a revolution now: four more years of Donald Trump.” — from 7.16.19 N.Y,. Times column by Thomas L. Friedman, titled ‘Trump’s Going to Get Re-elected, Isn’t He?’

So Friedman is saying what? That only Typewriter Joe will do? AOC is not running for President.

In reportedly agreeing to play King Triton in Disney’s forthcoming live-action CGI remake of The Little Mermaid, Javier Bardem is merely playing his cards like an adult. This is the world in which we live, and paycheck roles in tentpole films (digital Disney remakes, Marvel and Star Wars franchise flicks) is where the money is. Not to mention “the artistic thrills”, to quote Rosemary’s Baby protagonist Guy Woodhouse (John Cassevetes).

The only headscratcher is that Ariel is being played by Halle Bailey, which would suggest that Triton, her dad, should be played by an actor in the realm of Samuel L. Jackson, Cuba Gooding or Jeffrey Wright…right? Perhaps the actress cast as the late Queen Athena will complete the portrait.

The Bardem casting was reported Wednesday by Deadline‘s Amanda N’Duka. Rob Marshall is directing the CG feature from a script by David Magee. Harry Styles is reportedly in talks for the role of Prince Eric. Previously announced cast includes Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, Awkwafina as Scuttle and Jacob Tremblay as Flounder.

In William Wyler‘s Ben-Hur, Pontius Pilate (Frank Thring) attempts to explain to Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) the way of the world as defined by Rome. If Pilate were to comment on the Bardem casting, he would put it thusly:

“Where there is greatness, great government or power, even great feeling or compassion, error also is great. We progress and mature by fault. Disney has stated time and again it is endeavoring to shape our cultural life in a great cinematic future. Perfect freedom has no existence. A grown man knows the world he lives in, and for the present, the world is Disney. Javier Bardem has simply chosen to cash a fat check rather than fight.”

Yesterday The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg seemed to draw an analogy between Tuesday’s Emmy nominations, which ignored many performances by well-known movie stars, and a February ’18 Vulture assessment of certain Academy nomination preferences by the “New Academy Kidz.”

It would seem, in other words, that changes within the TV Academy (new members, new rules, new thinking) are affecting the nominations.

“Emmy categories were announced on Tuesday, recognizing virtually every aspect of the TV business,” Feinberg began. “One thing, though, was noticeably missing from this year’s list that has been a staple of previous years: a large presence of movie stars (or, at least, people who first established themselves on the big screen before moving to the small).

“The TV Academy’s performers peer group took a pass on a host of A-list and/or Film Academy-knowledged actors and actresses who were thought to be in serious contention, including Catch-22‘s George Clooney; Homecoming‘s Julia Roberts; Maniac‘s Jonah Hill, Emma Stone and Sally Field; Grace and Frankie‘s Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin; Kidding‘s Jim Carrey; Who Is America‘s Sacha Baron Cohen; Yellowstone‘s Kevin Costner; King Lear‘s Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson; Ray Donovan‘s Jon Voight and Susan Sarandon; Knightfall‘s Mark Hamill; The Deuce‘s James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal; Shameless‘ William H. Macy; The Widow‘s Kate Beckinsale; and Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons‘ Jamie Foxx, Woody Harrelson, Marisa Tomei, Kerry Washington and Will Ferrell.”

“New voter” quote from Vulture‘s “We Polled New Oscar Voters: How Are They Changing the Way the Academy Thinks?” by Kyle Buchanan [now with N.Y. Times], Stacey Wilson Hunt and Chris Lee:

“’In general, it just feels like there is a feeling that we have to award people who have maybe been overlooked before. It’s about not wanting to award people who they have been rewarded a lot in the past. Maybe we need to give someone else a chance. I definitely think, whether [it’s] conscious or subconscious, [this is] happening.”

Consider again a quote from HE reader “filmklassik” in a 1.24.18 piece called “New Oscar Bait Hinges on Tribal Identity“:

“It’s a bit cheeky to say ‘never ever again’ (because who the hell knows), but yeah, in this particular cultural moment it is all about Tribal Identity. And what’s disturbing is, we have a whole generation now for whom tribal representation is, to use one critic’s word, numinous. The under-40 crowd has invested Race, Gender and Sexuality with a kind of cosmic significance. It doesn’t mean a lot to them — it means everything to them. Indeed, much of their conversation and writing seems to always come back to it.”

On Wednesday morning the Morning Joe team aired a video of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein schmoozing, cavorting and thick as thieves at some kind of easy-pickings Mar-a-Lago party in ’92.

Trump has portrayed himself as estranged from Epstein since the billionaire’s criminal history of soliciting and sexual trafficking recently re-surfaced; the video indicates that Trump has been lying about this, at least as far as the early ’90s were concerned.

In a 10.29.02 New York magazine profile of Epstein, Trump was quoted as follows: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

The late David Ferrie, a JFK assassination conspiracy suspect by the sights of Jim Garrison.

The thing that got my attention, and I mean a visual aspect that leapt right out in a WTF sense, is the apparent fact that Trump was wearing extra-dark, seemingly dyed eyebrows during that Mar-a-Lago party, which happened when Trump was 46 and Epstein was 39.

In the God-knows-how-many-thousands-of-photos snapped of Trump before and after this ’92 soiree, he’s never had these weird black caterpillars. They initially reminded me of the ones worn by Akim Tamiroff in For Whom The Bell Tolls or those Martin Scorsese cat eyebrows.

Before he became a blonde Trump’s hair was medium light brown, and swarthy brows aren’t exactly characteristic of people with fair Germanic complexions.

Then it hit me…of course! These are the inky, paste-on eyebrows worn by Ferrie, a suspect in the mid ’60s Jim Garrison investigation of the JFK assassination.

You’re reading about a new film and thinking about the contributors. What filmmakers of consequence (directors, actors, screenwriters, producers, directors of photography) instill, in this instance, feelings of uncertainty or trepidation? Or dread? Based, obviously, on their past work.

I’m not talking about actors whose faces need punching. That’s a separate consideration. I’m talking about strong creatives who, without any calculated malice aforethought, have rubbed your sensibilities the wrong way. This doesn’t make them bad people or unworthy industry professionals. It simply means that their names make you go “uh-oh.”

For me, the two biggest threats in this regard (and I don’t mean this in a cruel or dismissive way) are cinematographers Janusz Kaminski and Bradford Young — the former for his relentless use of desaturated color plus milky light shafts pouring through large windows, the latter for his devotion to under-lighting (leading to palettes of pea-green murk and mine-shaft ink).

One of the burdens of being a big-deal creative with a noteworthy signature is that you won’t please everyone. That goes with the territory.

From World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy:

The Safdies‘ Uncut Gems
James Gray‘s Ad Astra
Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit
Fernando Meirelles‘ The Pope
Pablo Larrain‘s Ema
Hirokazu Kore-eda‘s The Truth
Bill Condon’s The Good Liar
Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story
Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat
Noah Hawley’s Lucy in the Sky
Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite
Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Michael Angeo Covino’s The Climb
Werner Herzog’s Family Romance LLC
Agnes Varda’s Varda by Agnes

I’d be comme ci comme ca if there was an option to retain the old design, but of course there isn’t.

I didn’t see Alejandro Landes‘ Monos (Neon, 9.13) during last January’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award. Right away you’re thinking “okay, this guy has it.” Compositionally, impressionistically. William Golding‘s Lord of the Flies meets jungle-ritual cruelty and perversity. That line of country.

From Keith Uhlich’s Hollywood Reporter review: “The hands of fate have bestowed a raw deal on the young protagonists of Landes’ bleak, rather ghastly Monos.

“Sporting names like Rambo (Sofia Buenaventura), Lobo (Julian Giraldo), Bum Bum (Sneider Castro) and Patagrande (Hannah Montana alum Moises Arias, hard-left-turning into gun-toting psychopathy), these youths and barely-teens are beholden to a mysterious rebel force known only as The Organization, which is conducting terrorist strikes against some ill-defined powers-that-be in South America.

“This President constantly attempts to distract by flame-throwing…by lighting fires around race and ethnicity. How low can he go? He needs to go back from where he came from” — Queens — “and leave that office.”

Kamala Harris is a fully considered, well-measured adult, which President Trump has never been. And a more thoughtful and articulate speaker than he. Which isn’t difficult. And when riled up, she can be just as combative and jabby. Which is good and necessary.

But the tone and timbre of her voice, conversationally or in the delivery of speeches, isn’t especially transporting, much less soothing. Which isn’t a problem for me, but it may be for some.

Who among the current Democratic contenders has the rousing oratorical command that President Obama had? No one, but the best among them — certainly the catchiest phraser and arguably the most eloquent — is Pete Buttigieg.