I’m sorry but I can’t see how this old-guy version of The Hangover can escape mediocrity with a script by the dreaded Dan Fogelman, who will live in infamy forever for having written Stupid Crazy Love, and the likelihood of rote, by-the-numbers direction by Jon Turtletaub, who gave us National Treasure and Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Straight paycheck work for Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline and supporting players.
Michael Douglas, who presumably plays the older guy who’s about to get married, looks terrific.
Prediction: Gaiety, booze, hookers, madness…and one of them croaks.
For the 179th time, George Lucas has spoken about how he plans to one day make his “own little personal films.” He conveyed this intention, which he has voiced for many years without actually doing making any small personal films, while attending Ebony magazine’s Power 100 Gala last Friday night. Lucas said that his last film, Red Tails, “barely got into theatres [but] I’m going to go further out than that. The [films] I’m working on now will never get into the theaters.”
It’s not Romney’s silence in response to the “End Climate Silence” guy asking about the connection beteen climate change and Hurricane Sandy. And it’s not his idiotic Ken Doll expression when the crowd boos the questioner. It’s the “USA! USA! USA!” chanting in response to the climate-change guy. It’s un-American and un-patriotic, in short, to warn about climate change because it’ll get in the way of job growth. Reducing greenhouse gases is a metrosexual European thing. We’re Americans, and we drive muscle cars!
A thought hit me during Sunday night’s dinner at Bouchon for Beyond The Hills and Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days director Cristian Mungiu that he could be in the Terrence Malick business if he wanted it. His rep as a woman-friendly, deep-focus, introspective helmer is such he could make indie-fashioned pics in this country with any in-demand actress in the business. They’d all work with him at the drop of a hat, Meryl Streep on down, because he’s a celebrated, Bresson-like perfectionist.
I asked Mungiu about this and he said that he’s heard from more than a few American actresses, all saying they’d love to work with him. But he really is a Bressonian in that he prefers (or has so far preferred) to work with non-actresses. He also says there’s something about the aura of an established or famous actress that might impose itself upon his process…maybe. But he’s open to the right thing if it seems right, he said, so no doors are firmly closed. He said he recently got an email from director William Friedkin about wanting to meet, partly because they’ve both shot films about exorcisms. But he’s leaving Los Angeles tomorrow with no plans to return anytime soon.
Three of these films deliver drop-dead beautiful images of wide-open, arid, non-green landscapes, courtesy of dps Freddie Young, James Wong Howe, Tak Fujimoto, Stevan Larner and Brian Probyn.
Two or three days ago I did a brief sitdown with Beyond The Hills director Cristian Mungiu, whom I consider to be a major, world-class talent and a master of plain, austere minimalism. I had last spoken with him during promotion for the great Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days. I’m off to see Beyond The Hills again right now; a dinner with Mungiu and other admirers will follow.
The 65th Cannes Film Festival jury gave the Best Actress award to Beyond The Hills costars Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur.
I rarely venture into, much less dwell upon, box-office cheerleading, but you have to pay tribute to the worldwide monster haul of Sam Mendes‘ Skyfall, which doesn’t even open here until Friday. The 23rd film in the 007 series pulled down a wowser $156 million this weekend, which puts the 10-day overseas total at $287 million. If that’s not staggering news, it’s fairly close to that. And the Skyfall revenues have given Sony Int’l its all-time biggest year ever — $2.6 billion through today. Overall Sony has sold $3.6 billion in movie tickets and a shot at reaching its first $4 billion year ever.
Kristen Stewart looked fetching tonight as she joined her On The Road co-creatives — director Walter Salles, costars Garrett Hedlund and Amy Adams, producer Rebecca Yeldham — in front of an AFI Fest audience before the screening (which didn’t begin until 8:40 pm) at the Chinese. And once again her body language suggested that she hated being there and was vaguely ashamed of being a famous actress. She always gives off that vibe. Lemme outta here.
On The Road costars Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart and Amy Adams — Saturday, 11.3, 8:35 pm in front of crowd at Chinese.
On The Road “is masterful and rich and lusty, meditative and sensual and adventurous and lamenting all at once,” I wrote on 5.23 12 from Cannes. “It has Bernardo Bertolucci‘s ‘nostalgia for the present’ except the present is 1949 to 1951 — it feels completely alive in that time. No hazy gauze, no bop nostalgia. Beautifully shot and cut, excitingly performed and deeply felt.
“It’s much, much better than I thought it would be given the long shoot and…I forget how long it’s been in post but it feels like ages. It’s so full of life and serene and mirthful in so many different ways. I was stirred and delighted and never less than fully engrossed as I watched it, and it’s great to finally run into a film that really hits it, and then hits it again and again.”
