My older son Jett says Dallas Buyers Club is at the top of his list so far, and he’s seen Gravity, 12 Years A Slave, All is Lost, etc. Will Jean Marc Vallee‘s film become the little Best Picture contender that could? What seems clear, I regret to say, is that a lot of older viewers I’ve spoken to are sneering and grumbling about Slave‘s brutality. Steve McQueen‘s film is a grand-slam stone classic in my book, but I keep hearing pushback sentiments. That leaves Gravity as the consensus fallback, but shouldn’t a Best Picture contender be about more than just wowser “ride” movie visuals, however brilliantly rendered by the great Alfonso Cuaron? This is where Dallas Buyers Club comes in. It tells an inspirational, true-life, indomitable-human-spirit story, and it’s got the craft, the performances (McConaughey, Leto, Garner), the brass balls, the social conscience, the eff-the-FDA attitude. What’s not to vote for?
Daily
What Is a Norbit?
Every award season some columnist-blogger will point to a tawdry downmarket film starring an Oscar contender and ask, “Is this [fill in the blank]’s Norbit?” The term — a proper, non-italicized noun — refers to a belief that Eddie Murphy didn’t win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his Dreamgirls performance because Norbit, one of his coarse, low-rent comedies, was released on 2.7.07 — right smack in the middle of Oscar voting — and in so doing reminded Academy members that Murphy had never been especially committed to serious, quality-aspiring films or roles, and so a majority turned against him. But an exploitation film selling at the AFM can’t be a Norbit — it has to be a general theatrical release. And it has to open in January or February when the voting is actually happening. And it can’t be a one-off. A Norbit points not to a single paycheck role but to an actor’s continued downmarket inclinations. It reminds everyone that he/she has often wallowed in crap and that the current Oscar-calibre performance in question is an exception to the rule.
New York State of Mind
12-12-12, which I saw a couple of weeks ago, is a better-than-decent film about community. It’s basically a concert flick, of course, but it’s really a finely-woven patchwork thing about organizers and entertainers putting aside their agendas and working together to raise $50 million for the communities hurt by Hurricane Sandy (i.e., the Robin Hood Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund) and…well, about a big mass hug. Director Amir Bar Lev (The Tillman Story) conveys a strong sense of community, feeling, caring. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Billy Joel (who needs to drop a few pounds), Alicia Keys, Paul McCartney (looks great), Dave Grohl, Roger Waters, Eddie Vedder, Chris Martin, Michael Stipe, Adam Sandler, Eric Clapton, Jon Bon Jovi, The Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger will always be the consummate rock and roll rooster), The Who, Kanye West, etc. A lot of musicians in their 60s, a lot of classic rock tunes, a lot of long stringy gray hair flopping around. At one point Billy Crystal, hanging around backstage, says it’s comforting to watch and listen to musicians who are older than him.
Outer…Space!
A couple weeks ago I bought the Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack on Amazon. It arrived a half-hour ago. The song lyrics are printed on a leaflet inside. Here, obviously, are the lyrics to “Please Mr. Kennedy,” the show-stopper performed at roughly the halfway mark. The authors are Ed Rush, George Cromarty, T Bone Burnett, Justin Timberlake and Joel and Ethan Coen. One of the things I hate about listening to karaoke (don’t get me started) is that the singers never seem to sing tunes with ironic attitudes. “Got a red-blooded wife with a healthy libido / you’ll lose her vote if you make her a widow.”
Son of Flying Lettuce Leaves
Roughly 16 months ago Terrence Malick was shooting the Austin-based “musical drama” once known as Lawless but now called Untitled Terrence Malick Project (2014). You can never trust the IMDB about release dates but it has the Austin flick opening in the Netherlands in early September 2014. We all know Malick’s tendency to dither in post but this film, which costars Natalie Portman, Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett, Val Kilmer, Benicio del Toro and Holly Hunter, could possibly screen at next year’s Telluride or Toronto festivals…maybe.
Chinese Stadium
The transforming of the TCL Chinese (formerly the legendary Grauman’s Chinese) into a stadium-seating theatre with a fake IMAX screen is one of the best renovations of this type I’ve ever seen. The plush red seats blend in with the walls and the red curtains and the classic Chinese artifact ceiling and everything else. It looks like it’s always been a stadium seating theatre. If Sid Grauman‘s ghost could see this, I think he’d be pleased. It may be the most beautiful-looking theatre around now. (200 seats and the old balcony were sacrificed by the designer — c’est la vie.)
Relationships Are Hard
I posted a Craigslist ad for someone responsible (i.e., not a 20something Indian guy) to stay here for free and feed the cats while I’m in Vietnam for 10 or 11 days. The following text exchange happened two days ago. Interested party: “Hi — I’m responding to your [ad]. Please call me back at your earliest convenience, please.” Me: “Are you an animal, vegetable or mineral?” Interested party: “A little of each.” Me: “Okay.” [I figured this person would follow up with some details — gender, age, job, phone number, etc. But nothing was offered.] Me: “Later.” Interested party: “Later what?” Me: “I’ll let you stay here for free in your next life.” Interested party: “Okay, weird.” Me: “You’re weird, or haven’t you noticed?” Interested party: “Wow! I feel sorry for the person that stays @ your place.” Me: “Wow! I’m going to be away, asshole. It’ll just be the cat-sitter and the cats.” Interested party: “LOL — seems you have anger problems. I feel badly for your cats.” Me: “The cats are fine, Sam. My only problem right now is with people who like to be vague and mysterious when they ask about staying at my place.”
Piecemeal
First screener of a major Best Picture contender to arrive so far.
Gloria Penalty
Sebastián Lelio‘s Gloria (Roadside Attractions, 1.17.14) is about a spirited, attractive 50something divorcee (Pauline Garcia) with grown kids who doesn’t want to resign herself to loneliness and is therefore looking for an attractive, quality-level boyfriend. I knew going in that the film would have some nudity and sex scenes and whatnot, so I was secretly begging Gloria to please find someone youngish-looking (in decent shape, not balding or white-haired, white teeth) and at least as attractive in his way as she is in hers because I really, really don’t want to watch sex scenes with some moderately flabby, sagging older guy with gray or yellowish teeth who probably needs a pedicure. Please don’t do this to me…please.
Sure enough Gloria falls for some moderately flabby, sagging older guy named Rodolfo (Sergio Hernandez), and within 10 or 15 minutes there’s a sex scene. Good God! Due respect to Hernandez, a distinguished Chilean actor, but I don’t want to watch a going-to-seed male in his mid 60s having sex ever again.
Vietnam Typhoon Blahs
A friend just called to ask if I’ll be making special preparations for the Vietnam journey (the plane leaves on Wednesday night) considering that Typhoon Haiyan is hitting the coast of central Vietnam as we speak. “What do you want me to do?,” I asked. “Bring an inflatable life raft?” The latest report says Hurricane Haiyan, which has caused thousands of deaths in the Phillippines, has been reduced to a Category 1 event, which is very wet and windy but nothing that scary. By the time I arrive in Hanoi the ground won’t even be damp.
Superbly Composed Fatalistic Rustbelt Downer
If I know anything about Joe and Jane Popcorn, they won’t be storming the megaplexes when Scott Cooper‘s Out of the Furnace opens on 11.27. I didn’t want to see it myself. “Who wants to sink into some violent rustbelt melodrama about grimy, morose working-class beardos and hillbilly druggies?,” I asked myself. “Driving around some Pennsylvania backwater in pickup trucks with Godzilla-sized smokestacks blowing tons of shit into the atmosphere? Later.” But guess what? I saw it last night and it’s a surprisingly accomplished (if gloomy) Terrence Malick-y melodrama — a smooth painterly atmosphere trip with good acting first and a portrait of characters who are stuck in a rust-belt gulag second.