HE’s 30 Greatest American Films: (1) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, (2) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, (3 & 4) The Godfather & The Godfather, Part II (5) The Graduate, (6) Election, (7) Zodiac, (8) Rushmore, (9) Pulp Fiction, (10) Some Like It Hot, (11) North By Northwest, (12) Notorious, (13) On The Waterfront, (14) Groundhog Day, (15) Goodfellas, (16) Out Of The Past, (17) Paths of Glory, (18) Psycho, (19) Raging Bull, (20) 2001: A Space Odyssey, (21) Manhattan, (22) Apocalypse Now, (23) Strangers on a Train, (24) East of Eden, (25) Bringing Up Baby, (26) The African Queen, (27) All About Eve, (28) The Wizard of Oz, (29) Zero Dark Thirty, (30) Only Angels Have Wings.
Nobody is ever accidentally late to anything. If you’re not on time it means you didn’t want to be. You took your time because you felt like it. Period.
Eunice Gayson, the very first Bond girl in this history of the 56-year-old franchise, has passed at age 90. Gayson played Sylvia Trench, a hormonally inflamed brunette in her mid 30s, in three romantic scenes with original 007 Sean Connery — two in Dr. No (’62) and one in From Russia With Love (’63). Wikipage surprise: “Gayson’s voice in Dr. No and From Russia with Love was overdubbed by voice actress Nikki van der Zyl, as were the voices of nearly all the actresses appearing in the first two Bond films.”
But it’s important to see this one…right? Starting in 35 minutes, and I haven’t left yet. I hate watching movies with young kids…hate it. And the sound system where I’ll be seeing it is notoriously bad. And you have to pay through the nose to park there.
Early in John Boorman‘s Deliverance, four suburban adventurers (Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox) enjoy a thrilling if hair-raising canoe ride down the Cahulawassee. In the aftermath Reynolds tells Beatty, “You did good, chubby.” Today that line would be frowned upon as it normalizes fat-shaming. I’m not saying that dropping this line would be an artistic tragedy, but it probably would be dropped if Deliverance were to be remade today. Tell me I’m wrong.
Joe Sixpack is too stupid to vote against President Trump for the usual reasons (i.e., the fact that he’s a lying traitor and a brute authoritarian who’s working hard to dismantle our democracy) but he probably would vote against him if the economy goes south. I wish it were otherwise. I wish Maher was wrong.
Ari Aster‘s Hereditary is one of the most unsettling 21st Century horror flicks I’ve ever seen. It ends on a crazy-as-fuck note, but it turns your blood into crimson ice. In my book it stands alongside John Krasinski‘s A Quiet Place, Robert Eggers‘ The Witch, Jennifer Kent‘s The Babadook and Andy Muschietti‘s Mama, not to mention Roman Polanski‘s Rosemary’s Baby and Jack Clayton‘s The Innocents. And almost all the critics feel the same — 94% and 87% on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively.
And yet — hold onto your hats and drop a Percocet — mainstream horror fans have given it a failing grade according to the curve. Right now Hereditary has a D-plus rating on Cinemascore.
A few days ago Daily Beast critic Nick Schagercomplained that Hereditary isn’t wild or crazy or gorey enough. In response to this, I wrote that “something tells me that mainstream (i.e., grunt-level) horror fans will be saying the same thing when it opens, following in the path of The Verge’s Tasha Robinson.”
Posted on 5.22.18: “Not to paint with too wide a brush, but horror-genre fans tend to be on the coarse and geekish side in terms of their preferences. They’re basically about a general opposition to subtlety or understatement of any kind. Which is not to imply that Hereditary errs on the side of understatement. It certainly doesn’t during the second half. But the first half is almost a kind of masterclass in how to deliver on-target chills and jolts through fleeting suggestion rather than the usual sledgehammer approach.”
What happened? How in the name of Christ can a film as scary as Hereditary end up with a D-plus?
49 years ago NASA did everything they could to minimize the drama, the tension and the risk factor of the first manned landing on the moon. They talked about it like it was a complex dental procedure or maybe something a little gnarlier. Even Norman Mailer‘s book, “Of A Fire In The Moon,” delivered a vaguely dull feeling. Now comes Damien Chazelle‘s First Man (Universal, 10.12), and of course he’s done everything he can to emphasize the drama, the tension and the risk factor. I’ve got the script on my Macbook Pro; reading it soon.
Put-put-putting down the Hoi An river and the memories that go with that — the warm air, the foodie aromas, the magic-hour light, the hornet sound of scooters, the laid-back tropical vibes…for some reason all of this reminds me of Anthony Bourdain, who was alive and well and doing great when this video was shot five and a half years ago, or in November 2012. Vietnam was — always will be — the biggest thing I had in common with the guy. I wept a little today.
I’ve previously explained the basic idea with “Il Foro Romano“, which will launch along with the rest of HE:(plus) later this month. I’m opening it up to any trusted HE regular who wants to post anything they choose — a tweet-sized thought, a three-paragraph riff, a link to an important article with a side comment, a rumor that sounds half-credible, a complaint about something that posted on another site, anything at all. I’ve already spoken to a couple of HE pallies who will be posting when the mood strikes, but I want this option open to several potential contributors. (I offered access to LexG, but of course he didn’t reply.) I guess you could call “Il Foro Romano” a kind of community bulletin board. If you want to post with some regularity, get in touch (gruver1@gmail.com) and we’ll talk it over and if it feels right I’ll give you the login info. Just understand that if you post anything that’s icky or idiotic or gross you’ll be immediately deep-sixed.
Last night George Clooney was honored as the recipient of the latest AFI Life Achievement Award. Hosannah and salutations — we all know the drill. Speaking entirely for myself and my own sense of how things ought to be, George is my idea of a good and gracious fellow, smart and savvy and entirely decent in every way that could possibly apply. He has always been nice to me, always polite and obliging. So nice that it pained me when I had to pan Monuments Men. I wanted to give it a pass but I couldn’t, and it hurt.
I consequently laughed when I read a Jimmy Kimmel anecdote in Anne Thompson’s story about the show. “Kimmel snuck in a raw note of truth when he lambasted [Clooney’s] Leatherheads and The Monuments Men,” she writes. “‘[The latter] was so bad it had me rooting for Hitler,’ Kimmel said.”
A few weeks ago I paid a secret visit to the set of George Clooney‘s Monuments Men in Germany’s Harz mountains. It wasn’t on the level of Henry Kissinger‘s secret visit to China to arrange for Richard Nixon‘s 1972 state visit, but when Sony publicity told me to keep mum until after shooting wrapped on 6.26, I gave them my word.
Yes, I’d previously told HE readers I was doing it, but then I clammed up and pretended I’d never posted such a thing. My mother called from Connecticut to ask where I was. “I can’t say, mom,” I replied, “but I can tell you this much — I’m definitely not visiting a movie set.”
Based on Robert Edsel‘s “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History,” it’s basically about a bunch of caring wiseacres in fatigues and helmets saving civilization from ruin. Literally. By doing what they can to rescue or salvage tens of thousands of art treasures — mostly paintings — that have been stolen and freighted away by the Nazis.
Enlightened warriors, if you will. Guys who know that after World War II ends the quality of life on the planet earth will be seriously diminished if the great European art treasures have been hidden or destroyed. And so they’re out to prevent that with whatever maneuvers they can think of.
Clooney plays Frank Stokes, the leader of a ragtag group of art commandos…hold on, I’m giving the wrong impression here. This is not Ocean’s 11 in olive-drab fatigues or an art-appreciating Dirty Dozen or Kelly’s Heroes. Or is it? I don’t really know because a script is only a starting point, but I also know it’s not Schindler’s List. It feels more to me like a “movie” than a “film”, but that in itself might be inaccurate. I really don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.
George Clooney on the set of Monuments Men, snapped in early May of 2013.
Posted three years ago: The realm of Only Angels Have Wings is all-male, all the time. Feelings run quite strong (the pilots who are “good enough” love each other like brothers) but nobody lays their emotional cards on the table face-up. Particularly Cary Grant‘s Geoff, a brusque, hard-headed type who never has a match on him. He gradually falls in love with Jean Arthur but refuses to say so or even show it very much.
But he does subtly reveal his feelings at the end with the help of a two-headed coin. It’s not what any woman or poet would call a profound declaration of love, but it’s as close to profound as it’s going to get in this 1939 Howard Hawks film. If Angels were remade today with Jennifer Lawrence in the Arthur role she’d probably say “to hell with it” and catch the boat, but in ’39 the coin was enough. Easily one of the greatest finales in Hollywood history.
