Here’s the original post (9.20.23).

This is an old story, but it can’t hurt to tell it again.

It’s been 21 years since the late Roger Ebert pushed back at Asian-American political correctness following a Park City Library screening of Justin Lin‘s Better Luck Tomorrow.

The original version of Lin’s film, which I saw at the very same screening that Ebert attended, was a very sharp and striking film about opportunism and amorality among Asian American youths. During the q & a some guy got up and said this kind of depiction denigrated Asian-American culture and called it “empty and amoral.” Ebert stood up and called that way of thinking repressive horseshit.

Can you imagine how anti-woke Ebert would be today if he was still with us?

Rewatching this video reminds me how Lin copped out on Tomorrow‘s ending after his film got picked up by Paramount. In so doing Lin conveyed to the suits that he was basically looking to roll over and play ball and make commercial films. And that’s what he wound up doing.

After the Paramount acquisition Lin got pressured about the original ending (in which the lead guy, played by Parry Shen, gets away with murder and isn’t all that bothered about it) being overly dark and despairing. So Lin changed it so that the film implied at the very end that Shen would probably get caught for his crime.

Lin’s capitulation is partly what led to my posting this imaginary conversation piece.

GenX dads with attitudes vs. Millennials, Zoomers and sensitive Stalinists. Pretty much a Bill Burr show — starring, directed by, co-written (with Bill Tishler), co-produced by. Plus Bobby Cannavale and Bokeem Woodbine. Netflix debut on 10.20.

Pic was described as a “semi-autobiographical” and “Bill’s stand-up in a narrative form” by The Hollywood Reporter‘s James Hibberd.

…and others can’t. Or shouldn’t, at least. Nic Cage is among the latter group. I am too — I could never, ever go there. Which is why finding a certain clinic in Prague was one of the best things that ever happened in my life.

Posted on 5.11.17: With God’s grace, even moderately talented, less-than-genius-level actors can briefly rise to the heights. Simply by being lucky enough to find the right role in the right film at the right time.

HE’s Top Ten in this regard: Madonna in Evita. Vin Diesel in Find Me Guilty. Kate Hudson in Almost Famous. Justin Timberlake in The Social Network. Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight. Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love. Sly Stallone in Rocky. Ann Margret in Carnal Knowledge. Ryan O’Neal in Barry Lyndon. Gary Lockwood in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Which others?

Kurt Russell: “Nine years ago Godzilla turned fat. Actually morbidly obese. He was totally out of control, and what’s worse, 90% of the fan base blamed Hollywood Elsewhere…a massively overweight Godzilla wasn’t the problem, they said, but fatphobia itself. Everything went downhill from there.”

Posted on 8.22.19: I respect the nostalgia that some have shared about the drive-in experience, and I love the Americana aspect of drive-ins…those iconic images of ‘50s and ‘60s films playing to an army of classic Chevy roadsters, Impalas, Buicks, Dodge station wagons, Cadillacs, Ford Fairlanes and T-Birds.

But if you cared even a little bit about Movie Catholic viewing standards (decent sound, tolerable light levels, no headlights hitting the screen every five minutes) you avoided drive-ins like the plague. If you went to drive-in it was mostly for the heavy breathing, and you brought your own beer.

I never actually “did it” at a drive-in. Too uncomfortable. Lots of second-base and third-base action, but what is that in the greater scheme?

Wise guy to HE: “I guess this explains the affection for Elton John ballads. You really are from Connecticut, aren’t you?”

HE to Wise Guy: “What are you saying, that people actually got laid at the drive-in? Some did, I guess. But they sure kept it a secret.”

The last time I saw a film at a drive-in was sometime in the early to mid ’80s. I think it was a Bob Zemeckis film (Used Cars or Romancing The Stone). Somewhere in the northern Burbank area, or in North Hollywood. My first drive-in experience was with my parents, somewhere in the vicinity of Long Beach Island on the Jersey Shore.

“Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads…here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up. Here is…”

The Sun‘s Simon Boyle is reporting that Robert De Niro will reprise Travis Bickle in a currently lensing Uber ad campaign. De Niro will be riffing on the Bickle thing (“You talkin’ to me?”) in a series of spots being filmed in London this week. “He’s going to be Travis Bickle, saying some phrases and playing up to it,” etc.

First of all, Bickle died in that 1975 East Village shoot-out. As his soul hovered over the carnage Bickle dreamt that blowing away three guys (Harvey Keitel‘s “Sport,” that gray-haired asshole in the brown suit, that creepy-looking detective with the white shoes) had not only restored his life and made him into a hero (bullshit) but also persuaded Cybill Shepherd to find him attractive, but he’s dead so fucking forget it.

Secondly, even if Bickle had lived it would be meaningless to show him driving an Uber at 80 years of age. Complete bullshit.

However, if the Uber ads use the young Bickle of the mid ’70s…then we’d have something. Then all would be cool.

Phillip Noyce‘s Fast Charlie will have its big debut at the Mill Valley Film Festival debut on Saturday, 10.7. Screening invites and links have been received.

I became a fan after catching it at a buyer’s screening during last May’s Cannes Film Festival.

It’s half of a laid-back, settled-down relationship drama between Pierce Brosnan‘s Charlie, a civilized, soft-drawl hitman who loves fine cooking, and Morena Baccarin‘s Marcie, a taxidermist with a world-weary, Thelma Ritter-ish attitude about things. And half of a blam-blam action thriller.

There’s a suspense scene involving a hotel laundry chute that I’m especially taken with.

A trailer will hit in a month, or just after the MVFF debut.

Fleetly performed by Brosnan, Baccarin, Gbenga Akinnagbe and the late James Caan in his final performance, Fast Charlie is….ready?…a mature, unpretentious, character-driven, action-punctuated story of cunning and desire (not just romantic but epicurean) on the Mississippi bayou. Four adjectives plus gourmet servings.

The Brosnan-Baccarin thing reminds me of Robert Forster and Pam Grier in Jackie Brown. Sprinkled with a little Elmore Leonard dressing. One of those smooth older guy + middle-aged woman ease-and-compatibility deals.

Richard Wenk‘s screenplay, adapted from Victor Gischler‘s “Gun Monkeys,” is complemented by cinematography by Australian lenser Warwick Thornton (director of The New Boy).

I’m sorry but every time I listen to the brief conversation between James Cagney‘s “C.R. MacNamara” (inspired by then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara?) and the painter guy, I bust out chuckling. It happens between 2:12 and 2:19.

“We had to go with Cagney because Cagney was the whole picture. He really had the rhythm, and that was very good. It was not funny, but the speed was funny…the general idea was, let’s make the fastest picture in the world…and yeah, we did not wait, for once, for the big laughs. — One Two Three director-writer Billy Wilder talking to Cameron Crowe.