Daily

Grim, Gray Sunday

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On Monday morning (5.8) Hollywood Elsewhere catches a 7:40 am train to Manhattan, and then a 10 am screening of a film I probably shouldn’t identify, all things considered. Then it’s down to a Murray Street Airbnb, where I’ll be working and bunking until Thursday night’s flight to Paris. Four screenings will happen altogether plus a Tuesday morning interview with Long Strange Trip‘s Amir Bar-Lev. (Here’s my 4.13 review.)

Fairfield beach near Pine Creek Rd. — Sunday, 5.7, 3:30 pm. Weather was damp, chilly, breezy.

 

 Sycamore diner in Bethel, CT.

 

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Macron Over LePen, 65% to 35%

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I saw no reports about the now-concluded French presidential election that indicated anything other than (a) Emmanuel Macron would probably win but (b) the final tally might be close. And yet Macron, France’s new president, has destroyed Marine LePen, 65% to 35%. So the MSM knew but chose not to say? Thank God that a Trump-like figure, a racist candidate appealing to foul, fearful instincts, has bitten the dust.

Visual Punch-Through

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Reaction #1: I’ve seen T2: Judgment Day so many times (the kids watched it repeatedly on laser disc in the early to mid ’90s) that I doubt if I’m capable of absorbing fresh kicks, regardless of the dimension factor. Reaction #2: James Cameron‘s 3D-ing of Titanic was such an aesthetically subtle thing that after the first 20 or 30 minutes I forgot I was watching 3D — I just sank into the film itself. If the same approach is adopted for the T2 conversion, it might feel a tad underwhelming. Maybe. Reaction #3: I still say that the moment when Eddie Furlong hugs Arnold just before he lowers himself into that vat of molten steel…that moment would have paid off a bit more if Cameron had allowed Arnold to shed a single tear. Illogical, of course — emotional expression wasn’t part of his design or programming — but it would have worked.

Broadcast News

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I was, like, floored by Kate McKinnon‘s dead-on inhabiting of Mika Brzezinski during last night’s SNL. Her sentence fragments and strangled gestures while Alex Moffat‘s Joe Scarborough explained the topic du jour, the looks of eye-rolling indignation, the stifled swordplay…perfect. Easily McKinnon’s most on-target bit since Hillary Clinton, and her biggest touchdown since stealing the Ghostbusters reboot.

Waves of Alien Nausea

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I didn’t dislike Ridley Scott‘s Alien: Covenant — I hated it. And I’m not saying that out of some lazy-wrath instinct or pissy posturing or what-have-you. I’m talking about serious stomach-acid sensations here. Then again I mostly despised Prometheus so it didn’t take a great deal of effort to come to this.

If Prometheus rang your hate bell, you’re going to despise this one also. For Alien: Covenant, which runs 121 minutes but feels like 150, is truly a spawn of that awful 2012 film. Is it “better” than Prometheus? All right, yeah, I suppose it is. Is it therefore worth seeing? Maybe, but only if you like watching films that make you resent everything on the face of the planet including yourself.

I’m not going to tap out the usual story, character and actor rundown. All you need to know is that I didn’t give a damn about any of Alien: Covenant. Nothing. I was muttering “Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou” the whole time. Ten minutes in I was going “awww, Jesus…this already feels sloppy and reachy.” Of course it has a back-burster scene. Of course it was thrown in to compete with the John Hurt chest-fever scene in the original. All I could think was “the Hurt version was set up so much better, and delivered so much more…this is just Scott hanging wallpaper.”

I hit the bathroom during the the last ten minutes. You never do this if a movie has you in its grip, but I didn’t care.

Scott’s Alien (’79) had clarity, integrity — it was simple and managable, and it didn’t make you feel as if you had hornets in your brain. Best of all it didn’t explain anything in terms of backstory or motivation. The original Alien space jockey (I will love that elephant trunk and split-open ribcage for the rest of my life) was wonderful because there was no explanation about what had happened or why. It was delightful for what it didn’t explain.

Alien: Covenant is detestable for the exact opposite reason — for all the boring and tedious backstory gruel (i.e., all in service of explaining Michael Fassbender‘s malignant creationism) that it explains and clarifies, and then elaborates upon.

The Telegraph‘s Robbie Colin, who loves this fucking thing and cheers the fact that it’s “a million miles from the crowd-pleasing Alien retread 20th Century Fox [execs] have presumably been begging Scott to make,” calls it proof of Scott “operating at the peak of his powers.”

To me Alien: Covenant is a portrait of Scott as a giver of corporate neckrubs. And it grieves me to say this about the director of The Counselor, which I not only worshipped but which will probably turn out to be Scott’s last brilliant, hard-as-nails, close-to-flawless film.

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We’re Good Now

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Redesign guru Sasha Stone threw the switch from classic Hollywood Elsewhere to the newbie about three hours ago. (Roughly 4:30 eastern.) Except Sasha didn’t mention there’s no actual “switch”, but a series of marginal, step-by-step changes that add up to a switch after you’ve been finessing the process for 90 minutes or so. Or two hours. All to say HE was down while the transition happened, but things are mostly pretty good now. A few minor tweaks remain (I’ve made a short list in my head). I’m sure there are things that we’re not even noticing. Please tell us what’s bothering, what could be better, etc.

Legendary Mayfair/DeMille Billboards

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How many years did the DeMille (formerly the Mayfair) use that massive, two-walled, wrap-around billboard at the corner of Seventh Ave. and 47th Street? The Mayfair began in October 1930 and continued for nearly three decades. It became the DeMille Theatre when roadshow, reserved-seat flicks played there during the early ’60’s (Spartacus, The Cardinal, Barabbas, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Hawaii). So how many films were gigantisized? At least 150 or so, but I’ve only been able to find eight or nine decent shots in all my internet searches, which I’ve been doing for the last decade or so. It’s a shame. If I could get my hands on two or three dozen I’d create an HE sub-site that would be about nothing else.

 
 

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“Strangelove-ian”?

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For some reason I can’t seem to recall the name of David Michod and Brad Pitt‘s War…the second word won’t come. Not War Games, not War Dogs…what is it again? War Machine. For whatever reason it won’t settle in my head. Pitt’s white hair sticks. The Afghanistan part sticks. Looking forward to getting past this. The word on the street is that it’s “Strangelove-ian.” To me that means broadly funny but in a way that’s (a) dryly matter-of-fact and yet (b) perverse.

Brad Pitt as Gen. Glen McMahon, a character more or less based on General Stanley McChrystal.

Scammed

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Around this time last year I mentioned that I’d bought my usual Paris-to-Cannes train ticket, and that the cost was 185 euros. In the comment thread Bob Strauss said “that sounds like a lot for train fare.” I agreed that the cost was high, but little did I know that I was being charged that amount because I was a clueless American. This morning I discovered that French natives who order SNCF/TGV train tickets online pay a lot less — 67 euros for the exact same first-class ticket. Repeating: I just paid 67 euros for a ticket would have cost 185 euros for if I’d bought it at Gare de Lyon in Paris, as I did last year. This is repulsive. I was half-overjoyed that I’d just saved 118 euros, and half-furious that I’ve been ripped off like a schmuck the last couple of years.


La Belle et Lon Chaney

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I don’t see a beastly figure in the bathroom mirror. I see a healthy, relatively trim, moderately attractive hombre who bears…well, a certain resemblance to the guy I used to be. (Last night Glenn Kenny tweeted that I had marionette hair — a resentful observation if I ever heard one.) But whatever limited solace or comfort I get from my reflection, it all vanishes when someone snaps a photo. Once in a blue moon I’ll be okay with an iPhone image of myself, but the ratio of “oh my God, please delete that” to acceptable or semi-acceptable (from my perspective) is about 75 to 1.


Myself and the SRO, snapped sometime in March. Mask was bought in Venice, and in the same shop that supplied Stanley Kubrick with all his gargoyle masks for that orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut.