Good Marrakech paragraph, posted on 12.6.10: “If I never return to the Marrakech Film Festival it’ll be too soon, but not everything has been bad. Yes, the wifi problems have been unrelenting but everyone you run into is polite and calm and gentle to a fault. There’s apparently no such thing as an impolite Marrakech resident. (Okay, I did run into a couple of ruffians on a bike on Saturday night who tried to assault me and steal my wallet — I later named them Dick and Perry — but I pushed one of them in the chest and told them both to fuck off and then ran in the opposite direction and they were good enough not to follow, so even the thieves and the roughnecks are polite.) And there’s no indoor smoking ban. And there are no helmet laws so you can scooter down the street with the wind blowing through your hair. And the food is wonderful. And the energy in the main old-town square is so exciting and heavenly. And there are horse carts all over the city, and sometimes as you’re driving down the street you can smell horseshit, and that is a very good thing. The older you get and the more plastic and corporate the world becomes, the better horseshit smells.”

One year before the official beginning of the late ’60s to mid ’70s glory period…an era that some believe was ignited or sign-posted by Bonnie and Clyde in the summer of ’67…1966 happened, and that was no chump change.

To hear it from The Limey‘s Terry Valentine (i.e., Peter Fonda), 1966 was the only year in which “the ’60s” were fully in flower. There were countless manifestations — spiritual, creative — and hints of coming disturbances. April ’66 saw the famous Time magazine cover that asked “Is God dead?”, which was used by Roman Polanski during the filming of Rosemary’s Baby a year later. The following month saw the release of Bob Dylan‘s Blonde On Blonde (and the coughing heat pipes in “Visions of Johanna”) and Brian Wilson‘s Pet Sounds, and three months later Revolver, the Beatles’ “acid album” which turned out to be their nerviest and most leap-forwardy, was released.

All kinds of mildly trippy, tingly, unnerving things were popping all over.

But you’d never guess what was happening to go by the mood, tone and between-the-lines repartee during the 39th Oscar Awards, which honored the best films of 1966 but aired in April ’67, or roughly seven weeks before the release of Sgt. Pepper. Bob Hope‘s opening monologue is punishing, almost physically painful to endure. And look…there’s Ginger Rogers!

Fred Zinneman‘s A Man For All Seasons won six Oscars that night — Picture, Director (Fred Zinneman), Actor (Paul Scofield), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction — and there’s no question that it still “plays”. Well acted, beautifully written by Robert Bolt. But it also feels a bit smug by today’s standards, a little too starchy and theatrical.

What 1966 films play best by today’s aesthetic standards? Certainly Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Blowup, a London-based film that completely absorbed and reflected what was happening there in late ’65 and ’66, and that wasn’t hay — the entire avant garde world was rotating around London’s musical intrigues and atmospheres back then.

The second best, I feel, was The Sand Pebbles, which contained Steve McQueen‘s most open-hearted, career-best performance.

The third finest was Richard Brooks‘ The Professionals, a crafty, ace-level western actioner that plays beautifully by today’s measure and which contains Lee Marvin‘s second-best performance (after “Walker” in ’67’s Point Blank).

And let’s not belittle The Battle of Algiers, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Persona, Au hasard Balthazar, Masculin Féminin and Polanski’s Cul-De-Sac…what is that, six?

Other ’66 hotties: Mike Nichols‘ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Lewis Gilbert‘s Alfie, John Frankenheimer‘s Seconds and Grand Prix, Milos Forman‘s Loves of a Blonde, Billy Wilder‘s The Fortune Cookie, Norman Jewison‘s The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, Claude Lelouch‘s A Man and a Woman, Richard Lester‘s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Woody Allen’s What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Karel Reisz‘s Morgan!, or a Suitable Case for Derangement. (12)

Three days ago (4.6.23) the Hollywood Reporter ran one of those “taking stock and honing it all down” laundry-list articles that happen every so often. It’s called “Hollywood Reporter Critics Pick the 50 Best Films of the 21st Century.”

Co-authored by the highly esteemed Jon Frosch, David Rooney, Sheri Linden, Lovia Gyarkye, Leslie Felperin and Jordan Mintzer, the piece highlights several brilliant, important, well-chosen films, but for the most part it’s a DEI checklist roster…the same kind of diverse balancing act assessment that N.Y. Times critics A.O. Scott and and Manohla Dargis began to be associated with starting about five years ago….gay, Black, women, Asian + steer clear of any white male influence whenever possible…gay, Black, women, Asian + steer clear of any white male influence whenever possible…wash, rinse, repeat.

The key question must always be, “If you discount the DEI aspect, how good are these films on their own bare-bones merit?”

Most of these critics understand this is a fair way to winnow and select, but they’re fearful of not doing the DEI dance because doing so could be interpreted as exclusionary, elitist, racist or old-schoolish. In the old days (i.e., before 2017) such lists were sometimes driven by attempts to reckon with the best-of-the-best based on purely cinematic, dramatic, daring or transcendent, soul-drilling terms. Now it’s all about identity politics and Twitter and terror…about being afraid to say what they really think because this might get them into trouble or cause some kind of ruckus. They know this deep down but will never admit it.

Here’s what they chose (HE agreement in boldface)…HE enthusiastically approves of 12 THR picks:

Bottom 25: Weekend (fine), Black Panther (gimme a break!), Time (difficult incarceration story), Bright Star (Jane Campion, John Keats, Fanny Brawne), Pariah (Dee Rees, Brooklyn lesbian saga), Bridesmaids (culturally important but not really good enough to make a serious “creme de la creme” list), Things to Come (Mia Hansen Love, Isabelle Huppert), Grizzly Man (great Herzog), Never Rarely Sometimes Always (weak tea abortion saga), Pan’s Labyrinth (top-tier GDT), Summer of Soul (found-footage POC concert doc…stirring as far as it goes), I Am Not Your Negro (gripping James Baldwin doc), Children of Men (brilliant, classic), Wendy and Lucy (good but basically a sop to the Reichart cult), Lover’s Rock (not the best of the five Small Axe films — the best is Mangrove), The Favourite (good Yorgos Lanthimos costumer but calm down), The Social Network (brilliant), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (blistering lesbian romance, emotional wipe-out), The Return (I’m more enamored of Zvyagintsev‘s Leviathan), Manchester by the Sea (grand slam), Marie Antoinette (please!), The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Romanian classic), A Serious Man (magnificent defeatism, peak Coen Bros.), At Berkeley (Wiseman tribute doc), Y Tu Mamá También (classic Cuaron but “unbearably poignant”?). HE approval tally: 6.

Top 25: Call Me By Your Name (Guadagnino’s landmark romance), Timbuktu (Islamic nutters), 35 Shots of Rum (calm down), Before Sunset (not the best of Linklater’s relationship trilogy — that would be Before Midnight), Parasite (good but overrated — collapses when drunk con artists let the maid in and thereby ruin their whole con), Far From Heaven (commendable but overpraised Sirk tribute), Drive My Car (too long, too many cigarettes, exhausting, runs out of gas), Shoplifters (under-energized, over-praised), Talk to Her (magnificent Almodovar), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (fine), The Power of the Dog (no way in hell does this punishing slog of a film belong on this list), Wall-E (okay), Burning (corrosive and hard-hitting, but overlong and sluggish), Moonlight (way overpraised due to weak third act + too-muscular Trevante Rhodes, but Barry Jenkins‘ depiction of a world-class handjob on a beach will be long remembered), Boyhood (exceptional stunt film), Get Out (racially stamped Ira Levin zombie spooker…possibly the most overpraised film of the 21st Century), 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (brilliant), In the Mood for Love (understated, appropriately respected romance, considerably aided by Chris Doyle‘s cinematography), Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee‘s timeless classic about letting love slip away), Spirited Away (fine), Mulholland Drive (take away the spookiness and perversity and what’s left?), Zodiac (drop-dead brilliant investigation of an endlessly fascinating cold case), The Gleaners and I (never saw it), Inside Llewyn Davis (another serving of world-class downerism from the Coens) and Yi Yi (ashamed to admit that I’ve never seen it). HE approval tally: 6.

The other day James Mangold told Collider‘s Steve “Frosty” Weintraub that his endlessly delayed Bob Dylan biopic will begin shooting five months hence, or sometime in August. Star Timothee Chalamet, primed and pumped, will do his own singing.

Imaginary hypothetical: Imagine that you’re Bob Dylan, and that you have final approval over who directs this film, which has been referred to as Going Electric and A Complete Unknown but ought to be be called Ghost of Electricity. You’ve been told there are five practical choices, given scheduling issues and whatnot — (1) Ridley Scott (this is theoretical), (2) Control‘s Anton Corbijn, (3) Alejandro G. Iñárritu, (4) Robert Eggers and Mangold, whose artistic vistas currently include Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, a forthcoming Stars Wars origin film and an all-new Swamp Thing flick.

Dylan pauses, exhales, furrows his brow and says “definitely the Swamp Thing guy.”

.@mang0ld tells us his @bobdylan biopic with #TimothéeChalamet starts filming in August and Chalamet will do his own singing in the film. #StarWarsCelebration pic.twitter.com/yVluBMTeJz

— Collider (@Collider) April 7, 2023

I can’t unsee this Psycho set photo, and particularly John Gavin’s man-toes and especially those hush-puppy slip-ons. I’m sorry but the man’s stock has just dropped a few points, and I mean eternally.

BTW: This was shot during filming of the Phoenix hotel room scene, and Janet Leigh’s satin or silk bathrobe is the same one that “Marion Crane” wore just prior to taking a shower in cabin #1 at the Bates Motel.

I’ve watched and re-watched The Big Country since it hit Bluray in 2011, and especially since the much improved KL Studio Classic version was released in ‘18. I know this film cold, every scene and line and Technirama shot, every bridge and stanza in Jerome Moross’s score, etc.

But until last night, I hadn’t noticed a very glaring element in the final shot, the one in which Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons and Alfonso Bedoya ride down a rugged mountain trail and into a large valley below.

Throughout the entire film the dominant outdoor color (aside from the sky) is pale straw…the landscape is seemingly under-watered and parched as far as the camera can see, the dry prairie grass covering the plains and hills in every direction.

And then in the final shot and for the first time in the film, the entire valley is covered in green.

Was this a visual metaphor that director William Wyler decided upon, signifying health and ample water and a happy ending as far as human nature allowed? Or had nature simply shifted gears or seasons by sprouting fresh grass toward the end of principal photography?

I know that I can’t recall another outdoor film, western or not, in which an entire eye-filling landscape changes its mind so completely at the very last moment.

Imagine being so clueless, so bottom-of-the-barrel and perverse in your movie brain that when somebody asks “favorite Gene Hackman film?”, you actually respond “Superman”!

In no particular order: Crimson Tide, The Firm, Hoosiers, Night Moves, All Night Long, Downhill Racer, The French Connection (Friedkin & Frankenheimer), The Conversation, Bonnie and Clyde, Another Woman, Young Frankenstein, Mississippi Burning.