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I don’t like to see my movie heroes looking craggy and Gandalf-y. It reminds me that time and biology wait for no one, and that the next chapter after Gandalf or Gandalf-Plus is The Big Sleep, and that upsets me.

It’s comforting that Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro sound sharp and canny (especially Marty), but one look and I’m thinking of “Rocking Chair“, that 1970 Band song. I’ll take these guys in any guise, but if I were Scorsese and De Niro I would want to simulate a state of being that is less in the way of the Debonair Social Club (the place where Joe Pesci met Tommy-the-gangster in Raging Bull) and more in the way of a ’70s Visconti film or that wealthy family in Luca Guadagnino‘s I Am Love.

Scorsese’s eye bags are the same eye bags that Victor McLaglen had in his 70s. I took one look and said “oh, shit.” If I were Marty I would get a get a subtle Prague touch-up (the kind that doesn’t look like anything) along with some follow-up collagen injections. If I were De Niro I wouldn’t wear old man comfort shoes but elegant Italian loafers. During public appearances, I mean. He can wear old man shoes to his heart’s content in private, but when he’s on stage he has to look slick and uptown. Less Mulberry Street, more Museum of Modern Art. Scorsese is doing it right, shoe-wise. Look at those babies.

You can laugh if you want, but I’ve been best friends with these guys since the early ’70s and I don’t want them to get any older. I want them to just stay the same from this point on and live forever. I can’t have that, of course. None of us can, including our Siamese cat, Anya. But the least they can do is pretend they’re 15 or 20 years younger, not just cosmetically and sartorially but in every way imaginable. They’ll feel better if they do, and so will I.

I can’t see Avengers: Endgame winning a Best Picture Oscar, but a nomination could happen, and I would understand why. Or at least I would, you know, acquiesce.

If the Academy could give a Best Picture Oscar to Peter Jackson‘s Return of the King (which was basically an “attaboy” for the financial success of the Rings trilogy), the same principle should fairly apply to the Big, Fat, Fleet and Well-Jiggered Finale of the Marvel Comic Universe series, which has been been chugging along for a full 11 years.

The fact that a serious MCU hater like myself found Endgame engaging and even gripping over the entire three hours…well, that ought to mean something. From the perspective of your average Academy voter, I mean.

Earlier today Alex Ross Perry, whose films I’ve mostly hated and who doesn’t write all that well, posted an essay to support this notion. Here’s a portion:

“To dismiss this Best Picture scenario as a reality is, to me, no different than being a person who, still in the spring of 2019, says ‘superhero movies boo’ and stubbornly refuses to engage with the absolute fact that we live in a world where the Avengers teaming up one final time — on the same weekend as the Battle of Winterfell -— is more culturally relevant, exciting and important than the World Series and Superbowl combined. If people haven’t accepted this by now, they are free to remain obstinate, I guess.

“I, for one, am thrilled to look ahead to a future where the NFL no longer exists and serious analysis of Star Wars, Marvel and whatever the next Game of Thrones might be takes a seat at the cultural table once reserved for the fading era when fully-grown adults would pore over sports statistics and post-game analysis.

“My dp Sean Price Williams was once asked if he ever was into sports. “Yeah, when I was a kid,” he replied. “Before I discovered important things. Like movies and comic books.”

If I was Perry I would have composed the beginning sentence of the fifth paragraph as follows: “To dismiss this Best Picture scenario as a reality is, to me, no different than being a person who, still in the spring of 2019, says ‘superhero movies can blow me.'” I’m sorry but “can blow me” sounds better than “boo.”

Eric Kohn: “How much is this Tarantino movie going to scratch that itch vs. everyone else?” Anne Thompson: “Tarantino gets to play around with [late ’60s] period…with Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate and the Manson murders…with Leonardo DiCaprio as a struggling TV actor and Brad Pitt in a supporting role [as a stuntman].” And blah blah.

Director-actor friend: “Don’t you think Once Upon A Time in Hollywood looks like an Oliver Stone wig movie? Like The Doors?” HE reply: “Why would wig-makers and hairdressers allow people to use the term ’60s wig movie’ in the first place?” Director-actor friend: “This is some absurdist existential mysterious shit, man.”

4.19 HE re-posting of “Cliff Is The Guy”: “Somewhat curiously, Tarantino describes Booth as an ‘indestructible World War II hero’ and one of the ‘deadliest guys alive‘ who ‘could kill you with a spoon, a piece of paper, or a business card. Consequently, he is a rather Zen dude who is troubled by very little.’

“Okay, but how and why would an indestructible killing machine figure into a film that’s allegedly focused on hippy-dippy, head-in-the-clouds, peace-and-love-beads Hollywood? Why bring up killing at all when the 1969 Hollywood milieu was all about getting high and flashing the peace sign and reading passages from the Bhagavad Gita? Exactly — at a crucial moment Cliff will somehow go up against some folks who need to be corrected or otherwise interfered with — i.e., the Manson family.”

In ’94 or thereabouts 19 year-old Charlize Theron showed up at a Laurel Canyon home for a 9 pm meeting with a hot-shot producer. The producer was wearing pajamas, drinking, “muzak” on his sound system. And then he made a move. Theron: “He was a very big deal [back then], and he is still a big deal.” Eight years later, or sometime in ’02, she met this producer again for a job. “Nice to meet you,” he said, and Theron said “actually, we’ve met” and recounted the ’94 scenario. His producing partner was there and was “embarassed,” Theron recalls.

Who was a powerful producer 25 years ago, and is still a “very big deal”? The list can’t be that long.

From “Biden Thinks Trump Is the Problem, Not All Republicans — Other Democrats Disagree,” a 5.4 N.Y. Times story by Shane Goldmacher:

“[The Trump miasma] ‘is not the Republican Party,’ Joe Biden stated yesterday in Dubuque, citing his relationships with ‘my Republican friends in the House and Senate.’

“There is no disagreement among Democrats about the urgency of defeating Mr. Trump. But Mr. Biden’s singular focus on the president as the source of the nation’s ills, while extending an olive branch to Republicans, has exposed a significant fault line in the Democratic primary.

“Democrats, like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, see the president as a symptom of something deeper, both in a Republican Party overtaken by Trumpism and a nation cleaved by partisanship. Simply ousting Mr. Trump, they tell voters, is not enough.

“It’s a debate that goes beyond the policy differences separating a moderate like Mr. Biden from an insurgent like Mr. Sanders, elevating questions about whether the old rules of inside-the-Beltway governance still apply. And it has thrown into stark relief one of the fundamental questions facing the Democratic electorate: Do Democrats want a bipartisan deal-maker promising a return to normalcy, or a partisan warrior offering more transformative change?”

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“Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) defended fellow Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg on Friday after the South Bend, Ind., mayor was confronted by hecklers [shouting] anti-gay messages. O’Rourke, a former Texas Senate candidate, wrote on Twitter that (a) his home state doesn’t “stand for this kind of homophobia and hatred” and (b) “Mayor Pete, we are grateful you came to Texas and hope to see you and Chasten back again soon.”

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President Trump spoke to reporters about his call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. When asked if he told Mr. Putin not to meddle in the 2020 presidential election, the president said, “We didn’t discuss that.” They didn’t discuss it? Trump decided to let it slide, brush it under the rug? Does he think the Russians won’t be interfering again in 2020? More likely is that Trump knows (or at least has been told) that the Russians will most likely re-meddle, and he doesn’t care.

Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe‘s finest and most personal film, opened 18 and 1/3 years ago. I remain a huge fan, especially of the 162-minute director’s cut “bootleg” version that came out on Bluray in 2011.

Crowe’s initial theatrical version ran 122 minutes, in part because Dreamworks producer Walter Parkes kept insisting on “shorter, shorter, shorter.” It felt a bit constricted, didn’t really breathe. The 162-minute Bluray is the definitive version.

During production I got hold of a 1998 copy of Crowe’s script. It was 168 pages long, and I fell in love with it straight off. Almost all of it was shot and most of it became part of the final cut. Unfortunately my favorite scene (which is posted after the jump) wasn’t shot or was shot and never used.

Almost Famous is a largely autobiographical saga about a teenaged, San Diego-residing Crowe stand-in (called William Miller in the script and played by Patrick Fugit) landing a Rolling Stone assignment to profile an up-and-coming band called Stillwater, which had a star performer called Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup).

William hangs out with the band, gets into all kinds of wild-ass adventures, gets to know the Stillwater groupies and so on. After a false start he eventually turns in an honestly written article to Rolling Stone.

Russell and the band members are alarmed when the fact-checker calls. Fearful of being portrayed as insecure dipshits, they lie by insisting that Miller’s account is fiction. The article is killed, and William returns home in a state of defeat and total exhaustion.

The final graph of the Wiki synopsis: “Russell feels guilty for betraying William. He calls Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) and wants to meet with her, but she tricks him by giving him William’s address. He arrives and finds himself face-to-face with William’s mother (Frances McDormand), who scolds him for his behavior. Russell apologizes to William and finally gives him an interview.

Russell, we learn, has verified William’s article to Rolling Stone, which runs it as a cover feature. Penny fulfills her long-standing fantasy to go to Morocco. Stillwater again tours only by bus.”

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To the best of my knowledge, this legendary poster for Richard Thorpe‘s Jailhouse Rock is a stand-alone in one specific respect. It’s the only big-studio release that that sold itself with a big painted profile of the star (i.e., Elvis Presley) that…wait for it…doesn’t look like the star at all. A slapdash resemblance but that’s all.

The poster was used, I’m guessing, because producer Pandro S. Berman, who’d been a big-studio operator since the early ’30s and was in his early 50s at the time, didn’t give that much of a shit. He knew that the dark pompadour-and-sideburns hair sold the Presley presence, which everyone knew from his two previous films, Loving You and Love Me Tender, and his appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and whatnot. But the face doesn’t look like Presley at all. The eyes are way, way off, not to mention the bizarre jawline and the weird, brushed-forward sideburns.

Young Elvis had a kind of half rock-and-roll rebel, half pretty-girl appearance. He had big luscious eyes and sensuous lips, but he wasn’t anyone’s idea of “manly.” The guy in this painting is an older professional illustrator’s “idea” of Presley without having actually settled into his face. To me it’s a portrait of a good-looking Presley wannabe.

THREE MOVIES I HATE: Memoirs of a Geisha, Cannonball Run II, Crazy Stupid Love.
THREE MOVIES I THINK ARE OVERRATED: Forrest Gump, Get Out, The Artist.
THREE MOVIES I THINK ARE UNDERRATED: Silver Linings Playbook, The Outfit, Castle Keep.
THREE MOVIES I LOVE: The Treasure of Sierra Madre, Paths of Glory, Sideways.
THREE MOVIES I CHERISH: L’Avventura, Zero Dark Thirty, Rushmore.
THREE MOVIES I COULD WATCH ON REPEAT: Shane, Dr. Strangelove, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.
THREE MOVIES THAT MADE ME FALL IN LOVE WITH MOVIES: King Kong, Shane, Foreign Correspondent.
THREE MOVIES THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: War of the Worlds, Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia.
THREE GUILTY-PLEASURE MOVIES: Ant Man, North to Alaska, Abbott & Costello Meet The Mummy.
THREE MOVIES I SHOULD HAVE SEEN BY NOW BUT HAVEN’T: Stalker, Rules of the Game, Chimes at Midnight.

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“It will happen this way. You may be walking. Maybe on the first sunny day of spring. And as you walk past a bookstore, you will notice a book in the main display window — a thriller by James Grady called ‘Six Days of the Condor.’

“Something about the sound of that title will immediately intrigue you, but before you reach the next stoplight you’ll know that six days of plot are too many for a movie — that somehow the days will have to be reduced to three or four. You’ve read in the trades that Peter Yates, the Bullitt guy, intends to adapt the book faithfully as a six-day thing, but somehow you know he will ultimately fail.

“And then a moment later an American car, a dark sedan with tinted windows, will pull over, and an actor you know and perhaps even trust will get out. And he will smile, a becoming smile. And he will leave open the door of the car and offer to give you a lift.”

The walking man was Sydney Pollack, of course, and the actor in the dark sedan was Robert Redford. Weeks and then months passed, and eventually Pollack, Redford, Lorenzo Semple, Jr. and Pollack’s ace-in-the-hole punch-up writer David Rayfiel had reduced the story to three days.

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As the Washington Post is a limited pay-walled site, some may not have access to Ann Hornaday‘s brilliant review of Long Shot (Lionsgate, now playing). Here it is — please read it.

Her assessment is not only correct, but the sharpest I’ve read anywhere. Yes, I’m impressed because she largely agrees with my own 4.24 pan. Toronto Star critic Peter Howell also understands and tells it straight.

A lot of reviewers are giving Long Shot a pass (83% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), calling it a “charming popcorn flick” or an outing that does the trick or delivers a good time, etc. Put a check mark next to every such reviewer as a way of reminding yourself to NEVER trust these guys again, at least when it comes to comedy.

Hornaday: “Long Shot, a fantasy-fueled romantic comedy starring Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron, establishes its reality-adjacent ethos from the jump: In its tensely amusing opening scene Rogen’s character, an investigative reporter named Fred Flarsky, has infiltrated a neo-Nazi group and is undergoing an initiation, giving half-hearted ‘Heil, Hitlers’ and keeping the sarcastic patter going as he prepares to get a swastika tattoo.

“The sequence plays like BlacKkKlansman‘s goofball cousin, made all the more ludicrous when Fred escapes the escalating mayhem by jumping out a window and bouncing off a parked car with nary a scratch. Welcome to the raucous, cheerfully preposterous world of Long Shot, where slapstick physical comedy, coarse sex jokes and amusingly on-point political commentary are expected to coexist as happily as the self-righteous, adamantly inelegant Fred and Charlotte Field, Theron’s pragmatic, sleekly fashionable secretary of state who falls in love with him.

Best line of entire review…yes!: “You don’t have to suspend disbelief to enjoy Long Shot — you have to jettison it entirely, along with any sentimental attachments to archaic fundamentals such as sparkling dialogue, organic structure and genuine sexual chemistry.

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