I’ve never felt much affinity with lightweight Today show co-host Billy Bush, who’s been suspended over his distasteful giggling at Donald Trump‘s lewd remarks in that 2005 Access Hollywood hot-mike tape. But people who regularly interview celebrities are pretty much required to adopt an obsequious, non-judgmental attitude toward almost anything that “talent” may say, and if possible laugh at it. If Bush had a semblance of character or backbone he wouldn’t have giggled at Trump’s creepy bragging, but guys like Bush are never valued for this — be honest. They’re valued for their breezy on-air personalities and being able to spin almost any occurence or utterance into a chuckle moment.
A friend saw Gavin O’Connor‘s The Accountant (Warner Bros., 10.10) last night. “Ben Affleck is quite good as an autistic hitman,” he writes, “and those two words say all you need to know about the film. It’s thoroughly watchable but totally ridiculous, filled with too many plot contrivances, a very long exposition scene explaining the plot, and a way-too-long shootout scene at the finale. Also, if you’re going to hire top actors like Jean Smart and Jeffrey Tambor in supporting roles, why give them about two lines to speak, and then shuffle them off into oblivion? Bottom line: this film is not exactly an advertisement for autism research.”
Asked to explain his undecided mindset about the upcoming Presidential election, internet sensation Ken Bone, obviously a bright fellow, told Jimmy Kimmel last night that he’s “more undecided than ever.” If that was all Bone had said I would find his position reprehensible given the absolute odiousness of voting for Donald Trump. But then Bone elaborated. On one hand he wants the fossil-fuel industry (for which he works) to thrive and thereby hasten the melting of the poles and the flooding of cities, which is why he’s half-inclined to vote for Trump. But he also finds the notion of taking away the rights of certain peoples and tribes “unconscionable” and is therefore more of a Hillary Clinton guy. And yet when it comes to saving his fossil-fuel income it’s possible Bone might accommodate himself to this or that unconscionable policy. He’s just not sure. He needs to think it through. On top of which he’s a Jabba. I’m sorry but Ken Bone has had his 48 hours. That’ll do, I think.
This morning I clicked on a 9.27.16 Cinemaholic piece, written by Ashes Roy, titled “The Ten Best Movies About Spies and Secret Agents.” I expected I would get a piece out of strongly disputing some of the picks. To my surprise I partly agreed save two or three plus the order of the rankings. Without making a big deal out of it here’s my amended list with an understand that I’m focusing on movies about intelligence tradecraft — the chess games spies play in order to acquire and act upon important information.
10. Michael Winner‘s Scorpio (1973) — I realize this is mostly a flimsy B-level programmer, but I had to include it due to a brilliant third-act “hit” sequence in which Burt Lancaster puts two bullets into a CIA chief;
The Cinemaholic/Roy piece lists John Frankenheimer‘s The Manchurian Candidate (1962) as a fifth-place choice. I don’t regard this classic Kennedy-era thriller as a spy film. It’s a political-cultural satirical piece about ’50s paranoia and commie-hunting with an undercurrent of perverse black humor. In short it’s way too rich and multi-levelled to be labelled as a spy flick.
There was a 45th anniversary screening of William Friedkin‘s The French Connection last Friday night (10.7) at the Academy. A related 10.8 Moviefone piece by Gary Susman notes that a bumper-car moment during the famous subway chase sequence (contained in the clip below) “was unplanned, caused by an unwitting Brooklyn driver on his way to work who crossed onto the set and into the path of Popeye’s Pontiac.” Up until 20 minutes ago I never knew that.
Legendary Polish director Andrzej Wajda passed yesterday at age 90. A prominent member of the “Polish Film School” movement, which lasted from the mid ’50s to ’63 or thereabouts, Wajda was best known for Man of Iron, although his breakout happened with a war trilogy released in the mid to late ’50s– A Generation (’54), Kanał (’56) and Ashes and Diamonds (’58).
Four Wajda films were nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar — The Promised Land (’75), The Maids of Wilko (’79), Man of Iron (’81) and Katyń (’07).
Danton is a harrowing drama about the infamous reign of terror in post-revolutionary France that lasted from September 1793 to July ’94. I’ve seen it two or three times, and will always remember the vivid writing, the bold performances (particularly Gerard Depardieu‘s as Georges Danton) and the mesmerizing recreations of 18th Century Paris.
Regarded by some as an allusion to the battle between Polish Solidarity and the doctrinaire Communists who ran Poland and repressed and penalized Lech Walesa and his Solidarity cohorts in order to hold onto power, Danton is basically about the clash between two revolutionary leaders, Danton and Maximilien Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak), and the many guilllotine deaths that resulted on both sides.
Trust me — there are solid parallels between what’s depicted in Danton and the p.c. terror campaigns that we occasionally see on Twitter.
The title of this post is a line of dialogue from Stuart Rosenberg‘s The Laughing Policeman (’73), a grimy, decent-enough policier that costarred Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern. Shot in San Francisco, it was an adaptation of a same-titled novel set in Stockholm. The blunt attitudes about gays and blacks fall well short of today’s p.c. standards, but very few ’70s films that deal with these cultures would pass that test. Policeman has been on DVD for eons, but there’s a Bluray being released on 10.18 by Kino Lorber.
The Laughing Policeman is a character-and-atmosphere film first and a big-city whodunit second. (Or third.) The plot doesn’t add up but it’s a fairly decent film. Realistic mid-range policiers with movie stars haven’t exactly disappeared but when was the last good one? The above-referenced line is spoken by Dern, playing a hot-dog detective, to an African-American dude that he’s hassling or trying to get information out of. Dern was more or less playing Brad Pitt‘s character in Se7en, and Matthau was playing Morgan Freeman‘s. Dern’s detective was a typical creation of that era, a grinning or glaring eccentric, half-weird, half-cagey.
Some of the just-announced Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards nominations are pasted below. Speaking as a BFCA voting member, my current preference for Best Documentary Feature is Ezra Edelman‘s O.J.: Made in America, and my Best Doc Director pick is Edelman. The Best First Doc award must go to Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg‘s Weiner. My Best Political Doc preference is Ava Duvernay‘s 13th. My preference for Best Documentary Feature (TV/streaming) is Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn‘s Amanda Knox. There are other categories but that’s as far as I’m willing to go right now.
I haven’t even been invited to the all-media of Ron Howard‘s Inferno (Columbia, 10.28) but some reviews surfaced a couple of days ago in lieu of the film opening in Europe on 10.13 and 10.14. I’ve been assuming all along the finale to Howard and Tom Hanks‘ Dan Brown trilogy would be a wash (I never even saw the second one, Angels and Demons), but The Hollywood Reporter‘s Leslie Felperin is claiming that the film’s twists are satisfyingly delivered and that it’s “arguably the best in the franchise so far.” And yet Variety’s Guy Lodge has written that “things…have gotten a little bit worse…the film more or less goes through the popcorn motions, but with less technical finesse (and even less mischievous irony) than one might expect from the Howard imprint.”
I’ve already noted that undecided voter Kenneth Bone, who asked an energy-related question during last night’s debate, could have played an Italian fascist in Bernardo Bertolucci‘s The Conformist. He has a creepy-perv vibe that could fit (or could’ve fit) right into any number of films. Our task today is to name them. Any era, any genre — Bone can use the HE time machine whenever he sees fit.
Kenneth Bone (seated, fat, glasses, red sweater) during last night’s debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Bone could’ve played Stanley Tucci‘s role in Peter Jackson‘s The Lovely Bones. He would have certainly been cast in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure or any Jerry Bruckheimer film of the mid to late ’90s or early aughts. Todd Solondz would love him. Bone could have played the Peter Lorre character in Fritz Lang‘s M, or one of Burl Ives‘ sons (i.e., Chuck Connors‘ half-brother from another mother) in The Big Country. He could have played an angry brother in The Greasy Strangler, strolling out of his basement bedroom in his skivvies.
And if Hollywood were to reject him (though I can’t imagine why) Bone could become a geek film critic. He’d have to drop the red sweater and wear more black and buy some atrocious T-shirts and maybe grow a goatee, but otherwise he’d fit right in. I can just see Bone waiting in a press ticket line inside one of those white tents outside of the Holiday Village or Park City Library.
