Friendo sez: “Apple’s Reckoning Day is at hand after an avalanche of free spending (Napoleon, Blitz, Wolfs, Fly Me to the Moon, Killers of the Flower Moon, Argylle) and not much to show for it. Tim Cook has told his dumbo execs to lower budgets and actually make hits….duhhh.

Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg were the new Golan Globus but with unlimited funds — soft-touch bros, the art of over-spending. Now their purse strings have been pulled tight.

“Apple’s strategy was basically to buy into big names…Scorsese, DiCaprio, Scott, Clooney, Pitt, etc. Clooney dismissed reports that he and Pitt were way overpaid for Wolfs, but I heard they were, in fact, overpaid by a tonload. Does anyone care that Wolfs 2 has been tossed?”

Apple’s strange decision to keep Steve McQueen‘s Blitz out of the major early-fall festivals is still a head-scratcher. I fell for Blitz after finally catching it a couple of weeks ago, and it just didn’t add up to show disrespect for McQueen’s expertise and vision.

After Blitz, the best Apple film by far IMHO is Doug Liman‘s The Instigators — here’s what I wrote about it on 8.18.24:

Was the late character actor Tim McIntire the secret son of Orson Welles?

Actress Jeanette Nolan, who married John McIntire in 1935, was Tim’s mom. Producer James B. Harris (still with us!) made the paternity claim in a Film Comment interview with Nick Pinkerton.

Excerpt:

HARRIS: “The only trouble with Tim was that he was mostly high in the afternoons, which eventually killed him. He just abused himself to death.”

PINKERTON: “I wasn’t really familiar with McIntire outside of Fast Walking. He has a sort of young Orson Welles thing about him.”

HARRIS: “You know why? Because he’s the illegitimate son of Orson Welles! I don’t know if you can verify it, but everybody says it, and the proof is in the pudding. His voice is exactly like Welles, his nose is exactly like Welles, he’s subject to the overweight thing, just like Welles. Welles made a picture with his mother, I forget her name —Jeannette Nolan. So everything leads to his being Welles’ illegitimate son. And… he is. I spent so much time with him and I felt like I was talking to Orson Welles most of the time.”

HE TO FRIENDO: Jeanette Nolan may have cheated on husband John McIntire, Harris says in the interview, by getting pregnant by Welles in 1943 or ‘44….right? But feature-wise she and Welles didn’t work together until his 1948 Macbeth. Plus Harris says the Welles paternity thing is mentioned in Tim McIntire’s Wikipedia page…except it isn’t.

So all it boils down to Harris claiming that “everybody” says the Welles paternity thing is genuine.

FRIENDO: “You’re right, it’s not on the Wikipedia page. However, there ARE several mentions/discussions about it elsewhere around the net (I went looking a few hours ago).

“And don’t forget: Jeanette Nolan did several RADIO shows with Welles in the early 1940s. Like Welles, she was a staple of radio from that era.

“There is just no question this guy is Orson’s kid. Even his fucking VOICE is close to Orson’s.”

“So an actress prone to infidelity does several radio shows with Orson Welles in the early 1940s — develops a close relationship with Welles — gives birth to a son in 1944 — and the kid ends up looking like this:

I;m not saying the Welles-Mcintire connection is valid. I’m just mentioning it.

I asked a couple of Welles scholars and it was a split decision — one always suspected that the story might be true but could never verify it, and the other said “nope.” When I asked the latter for any evidence or details supporting his negative belief, he didn’t reply.

From Owen Gleiberman‘s Variety review of That’s The Way God Planned It:

“It wasn’t until The Concert for Bangla Desh, George Harrison’s trend-setting rock-concert movie from 1972, that I registered who Billy Preston really was. For most of that Madison Square Garden benefit concert, Preston was in the background, tickling those plugged-in ivories. But then, introduced by Harrison, he performed the single he’d recorded in 1969 for Apple Records, ‘That’s the Way God Planned It.’ It stood out from the rest of the show as dramatically — and magnificently — as Sly Stone’s performance of ‘Wanna Take You Higher’ did from Woodstock.

“The sound of a holy organ rang out, and the camera zoomed in on a stylish-looking man in a big wool cap and a Billy Dee Williams mustache, with a handsome gap-toothed grin and a gleam of reverence. He began to sing (‘Why can’t we be humble, like the good lord said…’), and it sounded like a hymn, which is just what it was. The lyrics lifted you up, and Preston caressed each cadence as if he were leading a gospel choir.

“As he launched into the chorus, with its delicate descending chords, its bass line following in tandem, at least until the climax, when that bass began to walk around like it had a mind of its own, you could feel the song start to…ascend. Preston, rocking back and forth, tilting his head with rapture, the notes pouring out of him like sun-dappled honey, was the only black performer on that stage, and he was offering what amounted, in the rock world, to a radical message: that God was here.

“As the song picked up speed in the gospel tradition, Preston, moved by the spirit he was conjuring, got up from his keyboard and began to dance, jangling his arms, his legs just about levitating. It was an ecstatic dance, one that seemed to erupt right out of him, as if he couldn’t stop himself.

“Paris Barclay’s eye-opening documentary Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It opens with that sequence, and it’s cathartic to see it again.”

The word has been out for a couple of weeks — Ridley Scott‘s Gladiator II (Paramount, 11.22) is a well-produced mediocrity, an expensive underwhelmer, a Gladiator reboot that nobody needs or has ever asked for.

I didn’t find it especially painful, but it did put me into a don’t-give-a-damn mood.

Aside from deriving great pleasure from Denzel Washington‘s performance as the smoothly villainous Macrinus, I mean. Nominate this man for Best Supporting Actor! One of the most enjoyable bad guys in many a moon. Cruel and ruthless, of course, but I really enjoyed his company. I liked Denzel much, much more than Paul Mescal‘s Lucius. Hell, more than anyone else in the film. Smooth criminal, my bruh, etc.

HE to Scott: Denzel is much more charismatic than Donald Trump…please.

I’ve been dumping on poor Mescal for months. I despised his performance in All Of Us Strangers (and I’m saying this as a rapt admirer or Luca Guadagnino‘s Queer) along with his jutting jaw and arched nose, and I hated his weepy moments in Aftersun. But after all the contrary commentary that came Mescal’s way ten days ago (“shaky at best,” “struggles to enliven the gig”, “a forlorn pussycat turned rager”), I only felt sympathy for the poor guy during yesterday’s viewing. He tries, works it, does his best. He’s already suffered a decisive beat-down. Leave him alone.

I also admired and respected Pedro Pascal‘s Marcus Acacius — both the character and the actor exude manly integrity.

I felt nothing but disgust for Joseph Quinn‘s Emperor Get and Fred Hechinger‘s Emperor Caracalla, of course, but that’s obviously an intended thing.

My first Gladiator II drop-out moment came with the appearance of those ridiculous big-fanged baboon dogs. Why did Scott go for cartoonish CG overstatement? The instant I saw the baboon dogs I said “okay, fuck this movie…Scott obviously doesn’t care about serious, ancient Rome world-building.”

I hated the CG sharks swimming around during the Colisseum naval battle…stupid.

I hate that Scott reimagined Rome as a city on a great plateau (although the Palatine area was hilly, of course) and the Colisseum as Rome’s dominant and defining structure, viewable from miles off. The Colisseum itself looks great, of course.

All through the film I was thinking “poor Connie Nielsen…taking the paycheck but stuck in a second-tier sequel…same age as Pam Bondi,” etc.

@siennahubertross Everyone deserves a chance to fly #arianagrande #wicked #comedy @caroline ♬ original sound – Sienna Hubert-Ross

“I said the sheriff is near!”

If you’ve ever felt humbled or blown away by a woman’s beauty (we’ve all been there), the way to play it is to not stare at her like she’s a warm apple pie just out of the oven and you haven’t eaten in three days. The way to play it is the young Warren Beatty way — one, express more interest in her personality and especially her mind than her looks, and two, behave as if you’re the beautiful one.

Volvo posted a 3 minute and 46 second ad on Instagram, shot by Hoyte Van Hoytema, the cinematographer of Interstellar and Oppenheimer.

It goes against every single rule you can think about as a social lead. Length. Format. Over-produced.

Every comment under the ad said it… pic.twitter.com/wkmghuP4ye

— Guillaume Huin (@HuinGuillaume) November 21, 2024

Director: @marcusibanez
Iconic CD: @larissabechtold
Prod. Co.: @newland.tv
DoP: Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC
EP: Erik Torell
Producer: @martenmelinder
Production Manager: Erik Amberntsson
Director’s Assistant: @felixscheynius

…but as the late George Harrison…WHAT?

Sam Mendes has reportedly tapped the 30-year-old Quinn (A Quiet Place: Day One, Gladiator II, Stranger Things) to play the quiet, mystical, sardonic George in his forthcoming Beatles quartet, which won’t be seen until,.,,what is it, 2027? The problem, obviously, is that Quinn doesn’t even remotely resemble Harrison.

First and foremost the late Beatles guitarist had rich brown hair and certainly wasn’t a ginger, which Quinn obviously is. Quinn and Harrison share the same color eyes (brown), but Harrison’s were big and round with a playful glint.

Again…Quinn as Ginger Baker? Fine. But the Harrison casting, if true, is horrifying.

From Jeff “insneider” Sneider:

…but you can’t trust most of the people who’ve posted opinions thus far, and I mean especially Clayton Davis. I’ll accept the praisings of Scott Menzel, fine, but I’m still trying to figure out what David Poland thinks of James Mangold‘s film, except that he needs to see it again, which he says about almost everything.

You can always trust HE as I have no hidden agendas. (I have put the Mangold episode of 2009 into a sealed box.) I’ll be catching A Complete Unknown on Monday evening (11.25).

Poland: “A Complete Unknown manages to tell us everything about Bob Dylan while telling us almost nothing about Bob Dylan.” HE: What the fuck does that mean? Poland: “The movie is ultimately about the power of the individual and talent and how what we all want can turn on a dime, repeatedly.” HE: What the fuck does that mean?

Poland: “Chalamet brings enormous power to this portrait of a man who just keeps leaving but then also keeps delivering surprises. Edward Norton’s turn is perfectly true to Seeger. Monica Barbaro delivers a Baez of many facets, from fire to ice. And Elle Fanning is destined to be underrated in a complex turn as ;the first NY girlfriend.’ I really need to see it again to fully negotiate all that is there and all that is not there by design.” HE to Poland: Spit it out!

Chris Gore: “Two friends who grow up to become enemies….I’ve seen the play four times, and it respected the original Wizard of Oz…Elphaba is Trump, and the Wizard is Biden…it’s very gay in a sense, but it’s mainly about female friendship….Elphaba and Galinda…having said all of that, in the backdrop of Shiz University’s diversity…gay, drag queens, straight…guys in skirts…Bowen Yang…the gayness of the film is in the background…this movie is very gay, and if you’re looking for that, you’re gonna see it. But if you kind of ignore this, it’s a beautiful story.”