I’ve been waiting a long time for the “Princess Diana dies in Paris with Dodi Fayed” chapter of The Crown, and now it’s finally streaming with the towering Elizabeth Debicki in the title role. The first half of it, I mean. The final episodes stream in December.)

The fatal car crash in the tunnel can’t skirt what happened — it has to be real. The ending will presumably cover the same material as Stephen Frear‘s The Queen (’06….17 years ago!) but without Helen Mirren‘s elk moment.

I was working at People magazine when Diana began seeing Fayed in July 1997. Two or three of us were asked to make some calls and prepare a file on the guy. Within three or four hours I’d learned that Fayed was an irresponsible playboy, didn’t pay his bills on occasion, lacked vision and maturity and basically wasn’t a man. And yet Diana overlooked this or didn’t want to know. And that’s why she died. She orchestrated her demise by choosing a profligate immature asshole for a boyfriend.

Fayed was just foolish and insecure enough, jet-setting around with his father’s millions and looking to play the protective stud by saving Diana from the paparazzi, to put her in harm’s way. It all came to a head on that fateful night in Paris. Fayed told his drunken chauffeur to try and outrun a bunch of easily finessable scumbag photographers on scooters, and we all know the rest.

Over the decades I’ve experienced many dozens (hundreds?) of perfect moments that were so rich and serene and soul-settling — moments in which I said to myself “Jesus, this is perfect in every way.”

The dusky light and settled atmospheres, I mean…soothing meditations and moods of unusual quiet …solace and contentment…pause moments.

I’m thinking of the faint scent of sea water and the sound of crying gulls at 5 am in Cannes…the taste of a special moment after a super-heavy rainfall in Paris or during a hike in the Palm Desert outback below cloudy skies or a cappuccino detour in Venice’s Campo Santa Margherita in the late afternoon or standing on the deck of a tourist ferry as it approaches Napoli harbor just before dawn…

That feeling we’ve all tasted from time to time…the usual rock ‘n’ roll and hustle and bustle suddenly beating a temporary retreat as you say to yourself “I’d kinda like to hang onto this for an hour or two, or maybe even a couple of days or a week even…where would be the harm in that?”

These stop-the-world moments are so special when they drop in…”away from the maddening crowd,” as Dean Martin once sang in defiance of Thomas Hardy…like that 1982 moment when Rutger Hauer’s “Roy” went to sleep and the white doves fluttered and flew off…

I distinctly recall feeling this in the early fall of ‘88 when my ex-wife and I began to drive across those ancient brownish-green country landscapes in southwestern Ireland, and I said “man, I could die here” even though I was fairly young (decades away from my first Prague touch-up) and in the full vigor and prime of life with six-month-old Jett sleeping in the backseat.

Out of respect for the great Ridley Scott it would appear that Napoleon (Apple, 11.22) is finished as a would-be Oscar contender, and that Joaquin Phoenix‘s Best Actor chances are not just dead in the water but over the waterfall and banging against the rocks.

Pay no attention to the industry whores who are praising Scott’s film to the heavens. They’re just not being honest.  Half-and-half responses are okay however.

The film includes a height joke or two, but very little is made of Napoleon’s short stature (he was somewhere around 5’6″ or roughly Alan Ladd‘s size) or, for that matter, the psychology of the Napoleon complex (i.e., short guys aggressively trying to compensate). The fact that Phoenix stands around 5’8″ doesn’t seem to matter either way.

I’m still recommending that interested parties give Marlon Brando‘s Napoleon Bonaparte a whirl. Henry Koster‘s Desiree (’54) is a mediocre costume epic, yes, but in a certain laborious, stiff-necked way it’s almost more tolerable than Scott’s film.

From David Fear’s 11.8 Rolling Stone piece about David Fincher’s The Killer:

A case has already been made that David Fincher‘s The Killer is a stylistic and spiritual kin — a close kindred spirit — of certain other elite crime noirs — films whose basic situations could be described as “solitary hardcase dude not only does it his own way but is seriously effective in the matter of revenge and settling scores and turning the tables.”

The primary examples that come to mind are John Boorman‘s Point Blank, Mike Hodges’ Get Carter, Michael Mann‘s Thief, Jean-Pierre Melville‘s Le Samourai, John Flynn‘s The Outfit and Don Siegel‘s Charley Varrick — seven including the Fincher. Agreed?

I know it doesn’t matter to the denialists, but Jenna Ellis having testified that prior to 1.6.21 that a Trump attorney told her “the boss isn’t leaving [the White House and] we don’t care”…excellent.

…about the 2:1 aspect ratio connection between Jurassic Park (’93) and Barbie (’23). On top of which I’d never heard  until today that Jurassic Park was printed with a 2:1 aspect ratio. I’ve seen it twice theatrically and had presumed both times it was just 1.85 with possibly stringent masking.

I’ve been told by a veteran film guy that JP is, in fact, 1.85.  Very confusing.

Movie journalists I’ve spoken to don’t even know the difference between 1.66, 1.85 and 2.39…they just don’t notice it. It goes without saying that 98% of ticket buyers are clueless about this, and that they damn sure couldn’t spot the difference between 1.85:1 and 2.1…not if their lives depended on it.

…but it doesn’t really come together. I wouldn’t call it a bore or a bust, but it is a shortfaller, certainly in terms of what most of us might expect from a director as skilled and seasoned as Ridley Scott, who knows from battle scenes and 18th Century cultures and atmospheres. I’ll always be a huge fan of 1977’s The Duellists (Scott’s debut effort) and I guess I figured…aagghh, stop beating around the bush and spit it out.

Napoleon isn’t an outright failure but it certainly disappoints. It huffs and puffs but never really grabs hold or pays off, and a big part of the problem is that Joaquin Phoenix’s titular performance is too smug and sullen and oddball-glum. We’re looking at a clearly older guy (the nearly 50-year-old Phoenix is looking more than a bit lined and jowly) and he’s mumble-playing a famous fellow in his 30s and 40s, and it’s like “what’s going on here?” He’s playing one of the greatest genius generals in history like a teenager on mescaline, and it just feels off. Marlon Brando’s Napoleon in Desiree (‘54) was much, much better.

All I can tell you is that the general mood on the sidewalk outside the DGA theatre after the film ended was morose and uncertain. I mostly hemmed and hawed. One guy said he was flat-out bored during most of it. A friend suggested that the title of my review should be “sacre blows” but it’s not as bad as all that. It’s more of a scattershot thing. Yes, the battle scenes are definitely decent — the best are the depictions of the battles of Austerlitz and Waterloo. But even these felt a little so-what and “what’s the point again?”.

Text sent to a friend: “I don’t think it works all that well. Spotty. In and out. Moody and muttering Joaquin…’muh-muh-mum-mum-mum’…my general reaction was one of mild intrigue but with gradually diminishing returns, although Scott does give his all to the Battie of Waterloo. Subtitles will help when it starts streaming as I understood maybe a third of Vanessa Kirby’s dialogue, IF THAT. The colors are all drab grays and subdued greens and downish blues. My soul felt drab and gray.”

I didn’t nod out but I wasn’t riveted. Am I allowed to say I was vagueiy bored? No, that’s not fair — I was semi-engaged and stayed with it and kept hoping for more. But my mind was certainly wandering and somewhere around the one-hour mark I said to myself, “Face it, this isn’t doing the thing or drilling down…not really.”

Joaquin is such an oddball space-cadet Napoleon…impassive, “I’m not sure what to do so I’ll just sulk”…residing on his own stoner planet. And he really is too old.

Congrats to the five nominees for the 2023 Publicist Guild press award, listed in order of HE preference:

Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone…a nomination and recommendation that speaks for itself.

THR‘s Scott Feinberg…ditto.

Variety‘s Angelique Jackson, who’s still best known for expressing disappointment over Anthony Hopkins winning Best Actor for The Father and thereby denying fans of the late Chadwick Boseman, whose Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom performance was also nominated, a cathartic moment;

Collider‘s Perri Nemiroff, one of the smiling-est film commentators on the web, not to mention a Noovie personality, and…

L.A. Times wokester film writer Jen Yamato, still best known for (a) complaining that Licorice Pizza made Asians into a “punchline“, and (b) complaining to Joel and Ethan Coen that Hail Ceasar, set in Hollywood in the early ’50s, didn’t bave enough minority characters (i.e., #WhyIsHailCaesarSoWhite?”

If you ask me Yamato, Jackson and Nemiroff were included to round things out. Stone and Feinberg are the only serious contenders.