An absence of steady stoic cool among male characters in today’s films has been, like, noticed and commented upon.
Critical Drinker: “In functional terms what we’re seeing on-screen aren’t really ‘men’ in the normal sense. They’re basically hyper-active, hyper-emotional, hyper-talkative children forced into men’s bodies.”
Funny excerpt: “In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, director-writer Rian Johnson “understood exactly what he was doing…[with his sculpting of old Luke Skywalker] he performed the most epic character assassination of all time, determined to kill not just the man but his legacy along with him.”
"Forty-four years have passed since a feature film was last built around Raymond Chander’s harder-than-hardboiled fictional detective Philip Marlowe -- a screen absence that seems both unduly long and now, in the wake of Neil Jordan’s Marlowe, not quite long enough.
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Four years ago I was persuaded by Late Night that Mindy Kaling, the writer, producer and costar of that feminist-sisterhood comedy, isn't that funny. I'm therefore uninterested in catching Kaling's animated Velma, a woke Scooby Doo that began streaming on HBO Max yesterday (1.12). Forbes' Paul Tassi, however, has assessed the situation. The show is basically getting slammed by both sides while viewership plummets.
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Presumably everyone understands that the Oscars were created in 1927 and continue to exist to this day in order to promote the joys of moviegoing. They’re essentially about glamour and celebration and not necessarily the praising of lofty cinematic art (to say the least), and right now the film industry and exhibition in particular really need to be promoted because Joe and Jane Popcorn hate the fact that the Oscars and Hollywood films for the most part have totally gone down the woke rabbit hole.
The plummeting Oscar telecast ratings over the last few years translate into one sentiment and one sentiment only: “We hate you for turning into woke assholes.” There’s no escaping this fact. Award-season films are largely despised and/or ignored by a majority of ticket buyers.
And yet despite all this, Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water have connected big-time. If there’s any cultural life or spiritual juice in the moviegoing experience today, it’s because of these two films.
Academy voters know that of the three likeliest Best Picture contenders, only one — Everything Everywhere All At Once — has earned decent theatrical coin ($103.9 million). If it wins Best Picture (which it won’t), it could be said that a populist favorite has prevailed. Except EEAAO is not a populist favorite outside the realm of Millennial and Zoomer taste buds. The fact is that people burdened with a sense of grounded cinematic calculus hate this ludicrous, all-but-impossible-to-follow fantasia by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. It drives them crazy, and the levels of loathing among GenXers and boomers are such that it can’t win. Of this I am dead certain.
This leaves the other two favorites, The Fabelmans and The Banshees of Inisherin, but Academy voters know that both are fairly weak sisters in a theatrical-revenue sense. Banshees has made $24.8 million; The Fablemans currently stands at $17.1 million.
The best message that the Oscars can send to the general public, in short, is “yes, of course we get it….we’ve been acting like self-regarding jerks, we’ve woked ourselves to death and you hate us for this…of course you do! We get it! And so, as a way of conveying this understanding, we’re happy to announce that the winner of the 2022 Best Picture Oscar is a film that you guys loved…a well-made, pro-level populist flyboy flick that even the snootiest critics admitted was a rousing, well-produced ride.
For God’s sake, Academy members — wake up by saving the industry and in the process yourselves. Do the right thing by saying the right thing by handing the Best Picture Oscar to one of the two best-loved films of 2022. Don’t go over the cliff like lemmings. Promote, celebrate, embrace.
I’ve never rooted for a movie to win Best Picture as much as Top Gun: Maverick. Probably won’t, but what an awesome moment that’d be at #Oscars. Saved the theater industry, gave it a jolt, unreal production, amazing movie. One of those you feel lucky to have seen in theaters. pic.twitter.com/UpDyPi8g4m
I hate modern electric stoves. They're infuriating. You turn them up the level 8, let's say, and they go on and off. Red, dark, red, dark...I hate that.
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Before a few minutes ago I’d never once seen any photos of the normal Marlon Brando around the time of shooting The Godfather. Sans Vito Corleone makeup, I mean. No bulldog jowls, no pencil-thin moustache.
Pics were snapped at the wrap party, which almost certainly happened in Manhattan on the weekend of 7.2.71, 7.3.71 and 7.4.71. (90% of The Godfather was filmed in the New York City region.) Francis Coppola‘s classic gangster flick shot in New York between 3.29.71 (Monday) and 7.2.71 (Friday). Shooting of the Sicily section began in late July and ended on 8.7.71.
Brando had celebrated his 47th birthday on 4.3.71. Vito Corleone was born on one of two dates — 4.29.87 or 12.7.87. The Godfather begins in 1945, when Vito was 58. He died on 7.29.55, at age 68. Not that old.
Bolt from the blue, shocked to the core — Lisa Marie Presley, the singer-songwriter and daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley who attended the Golden Globes two nights ago, is gone. She was 54.
It all happened over the last few hours. Priscilla Presley to People: “It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us. She was the most passionate strong and loving woman I have ever known. We ask for privacy as we try to deal with this profound loss. Thank you for the love and prayers. At this time there will be no further comment.”
LMP was hospitalized earlier today (1.12.23) following a reported episode of cardiac arrest. EMTs responded to Lisa Marie’s home in Calabasas, California.
What the hell happened? She was relatively young. LMP’s grandmother (Gladys) and father (Elvis) died in their early 40s. Her son Benjamin Keough died by his own hand in 2020. This is so sudden, so bizarre.
Lisa was born in Memphis in 2.1.68, nine months to the day after Elvis and Priscilla’s wedding.
Elvis died in August 1977, making 9-year-old Lisa Marie the joint heir to his estate alongside grandfather Vernon Presley and great-grandmother Minnie Mae Hood Presley. Following their respective deaths in 1979 and 1980, she became the sole heir and also inherited her father’s Graceland residence.
Steven Spielberg‘s Close Encounters of the Third Kind opened in New York City on Wednesday, 11.16.77. That very day I caught an afternoon show at Manhattan’s Ziegfeld theatre, and the instant that John Williams‘ music delivered the big crashing crescendo, concurrent with the appearance of the faded-yellow sandstorm vista in the Sonoran desert, the Ziegfeld’s massive sub-woofer speakers delivered a rib-vibrating whomp. Actually a combination of a whomp and a whoom. It was wonderful.
It's certainly not the big gorilla of the Best Picture race. At best it's a competitive also-ran. Fabelmans vs. Banshees at the end of the day, which means the half-decent Fabelmans will win because of the bloody stumps. The only EEAAO slamdunk is for Best Supporting Actor.
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My favorite Beck-Ola track is "The Girl From Mill Valley. No Jeff Beck guitar but he obviously approved of the track, which features only Nicky Hopkins on piano.
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The shooting of When Harry Met Sally happened in mid to late ’88, when Billy Crystal was just turning 40 and Meg Ryan was 28 or thereabouts. Aline Brosh McKenna‘s Your Place or Mine is from the same romantic hymn book, except the would-be lovers are in their mid 40s — Ashton Kutcher is 44 and Reese Witherspoon is 46. Working from her own script, McKenna is making her directorial debut. She previously wrote The Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses and Morning Glory. She knows how to make this kind of material work. The film opens on Netflix on 2.10.23.
