By using “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” for the Haute Cuisine trailer, Weinstein Co. marketers have dishonored Christian Vincent‘s film and the legacy of Nancy Sinatra (even if the song heard is a cover sung by someone else). This is a modest and wonderfully un-Americanized film about real-life French chef Daniele Delpeuch (Catherine Frot) and her two-year tenure as the private cook for French president François Mitterrand (’81 to ’95). It is throughly French and a truly sublime foodie movie for the ages. (Really.) It’s basically a tale about a gifted but headstrong eccentric trying to be genuinely creative within a highly political, hair-trigger environment — a combination that obviously can’t last. Haute Cuisine is very carefully assembled and true to the laws of the foodie realm. I was completely engaged start to finish and had no issues whatsoever except for the casting of Jean d’Ormesson as Mitterand — why not cast someone who at least vaguely resembles the Real McCoy?
Daily
A Title of Something — Book, Movie, Poem
In the space of less than a week “It’s September, for God’s sake” — a line used by Grantland‘s Mark Harris in a 9.12 piece about too-early Oscar projections — has become something bigger than itself. It’s now a meme of sorts, a metaphor for the increasingly hurried pace and the manic, distracted quality of 21st Century urban life. Five words that protest the relentless onrush of fate, time, biology. Anything that seems to be happening much too quickly and without sufficient warning. An allusion to unwanted haste and impermanence and tumbling tides, and perhaps even to the shocking approach of death — “I’m in the autumn of my years, not the winter…Jesus.” From now on instead of saying “already?” or “do we have to leave right this minute?,” I’m going to say “It’s September, for God’s sake!”
Too Much Like A ’70s Film
Warner Home Video’s Bluray of John Schlesinger‘s Marathon Man looks about as good as a scratch-free 16 mm print projected on my bedroom wall. Some of it sharply rendered, some of it shadowy, much of it grainy and almost splotchy at times. Basically like the projected image when it opened at Leows’ 86th Street on 10.8.76. Nothing to get too excited about but a decent representation of what cinematographer Conrad Hall wanted audiences to see. Except this isn’t good enough for me. When I buy a Bluray of an older film I want the images to look as good as they did at the very first check screening at the film-processing lab plus a little more. I want a Bluray uptick — a version that would surprise its makers and inspire them to say, “Wow, this looks a bit better than I remember!”
Honest and Ballsy
The just-released poster for Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska (Paramount, 11.22) tells you it’s a serious award-season film about the stark realities of aging. (Obviously similar to the 2002 one-sheet for Payne’s About Schmidt.) My white hair is so sparse that I might as well be bald plus I have a neck wattle plus I’ve won a million bucks from Publisher’s Clearing House plus I’ve been an abusive drunk for most of my life plus my old friends and relatives sit around their living rooms and watch TV like immobile zombies. No sedatives, no soothing bromides to speak of, no emotional comforts of the usual sort.
Setting Sun
My first thought upon reading that Nancy Gibbs, 53, has become the first female managing editor of Time magazine in its 90-year history was that I stopped reading Time a little less than eight years ago when they ran that cover story about Steven Spielberg‘s Munich being a “secret masterpiece.” I’d been reading Time since I was twelve, but that story killed my allegiance. The only way I’d consider reading Time again would be if they literally published a “Time Advanced” edition — a three-year-old Onion riff.
Mild Academy Embarrassment
As Woody Allen was the biggest and most influential supporter of Hollywood Elsewhere’s successful campaign to persuade Warner Home Video to release George Stevens‘ Shane in the original aspect ratio of 1.37 and not the dreaded 1.66 that had been plannned, I felt honor-bound to attend last night’s Manhattan screening of this 1953 classic because a videotaped message from Allen was part of the program. Ironically, the Academy projectionist projected Shane at an aspect ratio closer to 1.66 than 1.37 — approximately 1.5 or thereabouts. (I know exactly what the 1.37 version looks like and can say without the slightest doubt that the projectionist messed up.) Here’s what Allen had to say. I also spoke to guest presenter Adam Holender, the celebrated, still-active director of photography of Midnight Cowboy and Panic in Needle Park. Holender told me he rented a fifth-floor, hardwood-floor studio apartment at the corner of Columbus and 71st — at the time a “bad neighborhood” — for roughly two years in the mid ’60s. His monthly rent was $65.
(l. to r.) Celebrated cinematographer Adam Holender, Patrick Harrison and George Stevens, Jr. at Manhattan’s AMPAS theatre for a screening of Shane on 9.16.
Across The Bleak Terrain
In order for Nebraska‘s Bruce Dern to elbow his way into one of the five nominee slots for the Best Actor Oscar he’ll have to…look, I’m in no way rooting against the guy. Dern is one of the great fellows of our time. I’m just saying he’s making it hard on himself by not going for Best Supporting Actor. As far as I can see 12 Years a Slave‘s Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dallas Buyers Club‘s Matthew McConaughey and All Is Lost‘s Robert Redford (also the most likely recipient of a Gold Watch career tribute nomination) are locked and loaded. That leaves two slots and that means standing up to Wolf of Wall Street‘s Leonardo DiCaprio, American Hustle‘s Christian Bale, Captain Phillips‘ Tom Hanks and The Butler‘s Forrest Whitaker. Does anyone honestly think Dern’s got the horses to push aside three of these four guys? Man up, eat humble pie and go for supporting. The blogoscenti will stand up and cheer.
Sucking Up To Brand Names
In a Monday, 9.16 article about potential Best Actress contenders, Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet has completely ignored Adele Excarchopoulos‘ world-class, aching-heart performance in Blue Is The Warmest Color. He doesn’t even mention it as a possible contender — in effect saying her performance doesn’t even rate as an outlier. Instead he kowtows to the name-branders — Blue Jasmine‘s Cate Blanchett, Philomena‘s Judi Dench, Saving Mr. Banks‘ Emma Thompson, August: Osage County‘s Meryl Streep and Gravity‘s Sandra Bullock. It’s only September, for God’s sake, and guys like Brevet are pissing on one of the greatest female performances of this century. Why? Because they don’t believe that IFC Films will step up to the plate with a full-on campaign for Exarchopoulos (i.e., ad buys, parties, special events) because without this kind of push the Academy bluehairs won’t pay attention. The corruption here is blinding. Shame on Brevet and everyone else who is dismissing Exarchopoulos for these, the most banal and least admirable of reasons. Eff the parochial taste buds and lazy-ass viewing tendencies that Brad and his ilk are anticipating.
And With These Words…
“Your need to take Oprah down is bizarre,” Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone wrote yesterday in response to my “Oprah Facing Reality” piece. It’s not a takedown thing, I replied. I was simply noting the Grand Canyon-sized gulf between a serious award-quality performance like Lupita N’yongo‘s in 12 Years A Slave and a highly respectable performance like Oprah Winfrey‘s in The Butler. I was simply saying (with no neurotic agenda of any kind) that you can’t compare the two — they don’t exist in the same realm.
“Both women give great performances,” Stone wrote. Wells response: Oprah gives a very fine performance in The Butler, but Stone isn’t showing respect for the word “great.” We all need to apply exactitude and proportion in our use of the English language or it just becomes Swahili. “One [performance] happens to be in a film [that] all of the critics and festival goers like so far,” Stone explains. “But that doesn’t mean you can draw such conclusions as this early on. There will be many names bandied about all season long. And it’s really, really early.” Wells response: I’m not sure but I think what Sasha really meant to say was, “It’s September, for God’s sake.”
“I Haven’t Seen 12 Years A Slave…”
Variety‘s Justin Chang: “I take it we’re in the same boat. I haven’t seen 12 years A Slave…” Grantland‘s Mark Harris: “And neither have I. Yeah, nothing’s changed since I wrote that Grantland column a few days ago.” Chang: “We’ll both be up to speed soon.” Harris: “It’s just that I just keep saying to myself…” Chang: “That…what, that it’s only September and we all need to calm down?” Harris: “Yeah, okay, I said that but my thinking has evolved. I mean, what are the people who went to Telluride and Toronto supposed to do? Forget that they saw 12 Years A Slave? Expunge it from their memories? These are the hot times, right now…the post-festival rumpus, the runaround, fingers to the wind. We can’t stick our heads in the sand, Justin. We have to get with the program.”