A “playful” photo op from the 1953 Venice Film Festival, just over 71 years ago. 37 year-old KirkDouglas was bearded for the forthcoming filming of Ulysses (’54), a cheesy adaptation of Homer‘s “Odyssey” by way of pulp sword-and-sandal aesthetics, courtesy of producers Dino de Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti.
Woody Allen once nonsensically said he’d like to be reincarnated as Warren Beatty‘s fingertips. I would settle for being reincarnated, just as nonsensically, as Douglas’s felt-tip pen or, failing that, Douglas himself.
The first significant thing I noticed about getting stoned was dry mouth. The second thing was succumbing to uncontrollable laughter. The third thing was the munchies. But the fourth thing was the most interesting. I’ve since come to identify it as short-term memory loss, otherwise known in my head as the Chris NolanMemento effect.
Basically when you’re blasted you tend to follow curious thoughts and left-field observations into a mental rabbit hole. These thoughts and observations can take hold of your mind and feel so compelling and enveloping that whatever your rudimentary activity of the moment may be — walking, making coffee, driving, ordering food at McDonald’s, taking out the garbage — you emerge at the other end of the tunnel with no recollection of what’s just happened. And you say to yourself, “How did I get here?”
You could have just ordered small fries and a Coke, but when you come out of the Paul McCartney / “Day in the Life” dream you have no memory of having done so.
And then another dream comes along and you drop into another rabbit hole, and it keeps going like this until the THC finally wears off.
Guy Pearce in Memento: “What am I doing?…oh, I’m chasing this guy. (beat.) No, he’s chasing me.”
Baron Bror von Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) is a tiny bit miffed that his estranged wife Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) has taken Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford) as her lover.
Brandauer to Redford: “You might’ve asked, Denys.”
Redford to Brandauer: “I did. She said yes.”
Redford was around 46 when Out of Africa was filmed; Streep was 34.
The Out of Africa screenplay is credited to Kurt Luedtke, but the above exchange was almost certainly penned by Sydney Pollack pinch-hitter David Rayfiel.
Having missed it in Telluride, I finally saw Will and Harper (Netflix) last night. It’s basically a cross-country road doc about Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, SNL colleagues and friends since the mid ’90s, exploring and working through Steele’s relatively recent decision to become a woman.
The film amounts to more than just an asphalt journey, of course. It gradually becomes a probing inward thing — gentle, affecting, emotionally vulnerable. The theme might be an echo of a Steele quote: “There isn’t a trans person I’ve met who doesn’t have a sense of humor about themselves.” Steele has described herself, politically and philosophically, as “purple-haired woke.”
The 62-year-old Steele further describes herself as well past her relationship sell-by date, but adds that she misses being in a relationship and would love to find someone. She also discloses that she hasn’t had her dick surgically removed so, you know, finding the right person might be a challenge. She also has a voice as deep as Harvey Fierstein‘s. She also insists on wearing heels everywhere, and I don’t know a single woman who doesn’t prefer sensible shoes or sneakers. She also has a thing about visiting rural, blue-collar bars with Ferrell and telling the local yokels why she’s transitioned. (Wise?)
Harper knew she was different as a little kid, she recalls, but never wore dresses or beads or became actively gay. She wanted to transition decades ago, she says, but kept it all under wraps. Plus she never mentions if she enjoyed an occasional discrete same-sex affair.
The film is full of many such questions and curiosities, but it’s a compassionate, kind-hearted thing so let’s not pass along too much grief.
Farrell, 57, is almost totally gray-haired in the doc but was back to his trademark light-brown hair color on a recent talk-show appearance. The gray hair makes him look at least 20 years older.
Marilyn Monroe gave a cameo-strength performance as a streetwalker in O. Henry’s Full House, an anthology feature from 20th Century Fox. Released on 10.16.52, it was her fourth film release that year. It feels like the kind of role that a young actress (Monroe was 25 during filming) would play in hopes of being noticed or, considering her costar Charles Laughton, classing up her career. But Monroe was already well on her way.
Her twin breakout performances in John Huston‘s The Asphalt Jungle (’50) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz‘s All About Eve (ditto) had surfaced two years prior. Her performances in Fritz Lang‘s Clash by Night (6.16.52) and Edmond Goulding‘s We’re Not Married (7.11.52) received above-the-title billing. Plus she was Richard Widmark‘s front-and-center costar in Don’t Bother to Knock (7.18.52). Plus she’d been seeing Joe DiMaggio (whom he would marry in early ’54) for several months.
The great KrisKristofferson — poet, troubador, songwriter, actor, hang-back guy — has passed at age 88.
Film acting-wise, Kris enjoyed a truly great peak period between the early ‘70s and early ‘80s. I think his finest all-time role and performance was in PaulMazursky‘s Blume in Love (‘73).
It’s been 43 years, but I seem to recall Rollover being a relatively decent effort. Second-tier Alan Pakula but passable. It more or less predicted the 2009 worldwide crash, and the legitimized-with-empty-bullshit reasons why it would happen. And it was made right as the Reagan administration was deregulating the crap out of everything.
David Shaber (The Warriors, Last Embrace, Hunt for Red October) wrote it. Key line: “Of course it’s a game…that’s ALL it is.”
But Rollover was largely sold as a hot-sex-in-high-places thing**. Wall Street hotshot Kris Kristofferson, looking buff and well-coiffed in one perfectly-tailored three-piece suit after another, giving Jane Fonda‘s chemical-company chairperson the old invitational eye-twinkle.
Hume Cronyn, as First New York Bank chairman Maxwell Emery, delivered the reality-check assessments, and very effectively.
Fonda and Kristofferson were allegedly involved during filming (i.e., one of those “what happens during filming stays there and goes no further” affairs), but I only heard this once from a second-hand source.
I checked Amazon and Vudu to see if it’s streaming in high-def…nope. I can’t roll with 480p any more.
“When I first heard about the premise of Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night — the entire film takes place in the 90 minutes leading up to the late-night comedy landmark’s first episode in 1975 — it seemed like there would be a backstage let’s-put-on-a-show “What can go wrong? Everything can go wrong!” real-time frenetic bustle to the thing. And that sounded like fun.” — from Owen Gleiberman‘s “What Does Saturday Night Think Saturday Night Live Is About?“, posted this morning.
It didn’t sound like “fun” to me for I knew what Chevy Chase has recently stated, which is that the material that would consitute the first episode (skits, jokes) had been very thoroughly rehearsed and worked out down to the tiniest little detail. So the final 90 minutes before the show went on the air live couldn’t be hellzapoppin’. Nobody on the show (Lorne Michaels, writers, performers) could or would have been that improvisational or self-destructive.
So the film is just dishonest about how this NBC counter-culture comedy show came together all those years ago. It’s a phony scheme, I mean. The performers (dull-as-dishwater GabrielleLaBelle aside) are pretty good but I wasn’t buying the premise that it was all last-minute juggling. How could anyone?
They’ll be required to state the obvious, which is that there was something seriously wrong with the tens of millions who voted for Trump in ’24, despite knowing what kind of person he is and what he’s capable of, etc. Not that Kamala Harris doesn’t have issues and annoyances, but she’s at least sane and sensible and law-abiding. There are nonetheless millions of alleged adults who’ve been saying “no, I prefer the animal…I prefer the sociopath.”
Holy cow. Mark Cuban is now making his rounds on national podcasts listened to by mostly young white men who lean conservative. The latest is with Theo Von & Mark Cuban torches Donald Trump as a scam & as a bad businessman. This matters a lot. Watch. pic.twitter.com/kyfG6tuc6N
I finally sat down with Azazel Jacobs‘ His Three Daughters on Netflix, and I have very little to add to what everyone else has been saying, which is that it’s a fairly delicious ensemble piece.
It’s about three adult-aged sisters (Carrie Coon‘s control-freak Katie, Natasha Lyonnes stoned-all-the-time Rachel and Elizabeth Olsen‘s space-casey Christina) tending to their dying dad (Jay O. Sanders) inside a dreary-looking apartment — almost all dialogue, great performances from everyone top to bottom but especially from Coon.
My favorite scene is when Katie and Rachel, who routinely get on each others’ nerves, lose their tempers and come damn close trading blows, but are prevented from doing so by a huddling, freaked-out Christina.
My only problem is with Sanders’ bulky, fleshy appearance. As soon as I saw him my suspension of disbelief went out the window. Sanders’ character has been dying for months and is very close to the end, and yet he’s got a fair amount of weight on him and his facial features have a jowly thing going on. The last time I checked older men who are cancer-wracked are fairly skinny and gaunt looking. Sanders is too beefy, too heavy-set….like a linebacker or a professional wrestler.
And I didn’t iike the Three Daughters apartment, which seems to be part of a Co-op City structure of some kind (fake-brick siding, chain-link fences, spindly trees, security guard downstairs). It appears to be located within a vaguely shitty Queens neighborhood that’e near an elevated subway line. Perhaps Washington Heighte but who wants to live in a soulless Queens or Bronx apartment complex…a place without any color or personality to speak of…generally lacking in real New Yorkyness?
And I wasn’t in love with Sam Levy‘s cinematography, which mostly emphasizss one color — amber gold– and always look soft and hazy to the point of the film almost seeming unfocused.
