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“It is often said in politics that a candidate’s strength is also his weakness,” writes Matt Bai in a 10.19 N.Y. Times Sunday Magazine piece about Barack Obama and working-class whites. “Obama’s greatest asset as a candidate, the trait that has enabled him to overcome both a thin resume and the resistance of his own party’s establishment, is his placidity.

“Even more than through his ability to give a rousing speech (plenty of other candidates, from Ted Kennedy to Howard Dean, could do that), Obama has differentiated himself from recent Democrats by conveying a sense of inner security that is highly unusual in a business of people who have chosen to spend every day asking people to love them. He does not seem like a candidate who’s going to switch to earth tones in his middle age or who’s going to start dressing up in camouflage to rediscover his inner Rambo. Obama is content to meet the world on his terms, and something about that inspires confidence.
“And yet that same lack of pathetic neediness may in fact be a detriment when it comes to persuading voters who, culturally or ideologically, just aren’t predisposed to like him. I once heard a friend of Obama’s compare him with Bill Clinton this way: if Clinton sees you walking down the other side of the street, he immediately crosses over to shake your hand; if Obama sees you coming, he nods and waits for you to cross.”
And by the same token, it can probably be assumed that if he makes a small mistake, Barack Obama would never stick his tongue out and go “aaaahhh!” like John McCain briefly did after last night’s debate. This is a very appealing trait. It’s a Republican/conservative thing to briefly wig out and be theatrical (like that awful female MSNBC daytime news anchor whom I can’t stand) but it’s also a loose, what-the-hell thing to do in front of a mixed crowd, and something in me responds well to this.

Art by Barry Stock adorns the cover of this week’s Willamette Week, which calls attention to the Oregon weekly’s election recommendations.

As I wrote a week ago, Tomas Alfredson‘s Let The Right One In (Magnolia, 10.24) “is easily the most strikingly unusual vampire pic that anyone’s seen in I don’t know how long. The fact that Overture Films and Spitfire Pictures are developing a U.S. remake with Cloverfield‘s Matt Reeves to direct speaks volumes. It’s one of the standout originals of ’08.” Here’s the trailer:

MCN’s David Poland and L.A. Times columnist Patrick Goldstein got angry earlier today about not being invited by Universal to see Ron Howard‘s Frost/Nixon in time to run reviews concurrent with Variety‘s Todd McCarthy review, which was posted today, as well as a review by the Hollywood Reporter‘s Kirk Honeycutt.
In fact Goldstein and particularly Poland were miffed that they weren’t invited to a specific screening held two days ago (Monday, 10.13.08) that McCarthy and Honeycutt were invited to and attended.
Poland makes some valid points in criticizing Universal’s trades-first Frost/Nixon screening policy. However, he also went off on In Contention‘s Guy Lodge by calling him a “non-pro” and his review an “AICN-style” type deal. It didn’t read that way to me. Here’s what In Contention‘s Kris Tapley had to say, and I’ve pasted here his final two graphs:
“In a nutshell, David was just left out in the cold, without the chance to anoint (or disassemble) Frost/Nixon before anyone else. End of story. Additionally, despite his insults, he is as ‘non-pro’ as the next guy. We’re all making a place at the table for ourselves. For some that means offering film coverage via global contribution. For others, it means muscling studios with inflated Oscar ad rates” — he’s talking about what Poland is charging per ad space — “based on the aggregation of other names and sources for the purposes of Oscar coverage.
“It is what it is. But like I said, I felt compelled to step in and defend Guy here, because nothing warranted this (but hey, we appreciate the link).”
One HE observation: I think it’s fair to say, given what people in London and Los Angeles have written, that in the space of the last 12 to 18 hours Frost/Nixon has been shown and at the very least been diminished as a Best Picture contender with any kind of real heat. It might become one of the five nominees anyway — the play was more than sturdy, and the film relies on the same basic bones — but there’s no disputing that Ron Howard‘s film has been dinged, bruised, shelled and even torpedoed today, and that it may be out of hot-and-heavy competition in the Best Picture race as a result. Maybe.
Frank Langella is a different story — at the very least he’s looking okay for a Best Actor nomination. Maybe. He was great in the play, that’s for sure. A landmark performance of its type.

Two more Frost/Nixon reviews from London — a pan from the Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw and a positive four-out-of-fiver from the Times Online‘s James Christopher.

“Frost/Nixon is an effective, straightforward bigscreen version of Peter Morgan‘s shrewd stage drama about the historic 1977 TV interview in which Richard Nixon brought himself down once again,” writes Variety‘s Todd McCarthy. So do terms like “effective” and “straightforward” counterbalance the less enthusiastic descriptions that have emerged? Calling a movie “effective” and “straightforward” is…how to say it? It’s a bit like describing a girl you met at a party last weekend as “smart,” “friendly” and “really nice.”
Ron Howard‘s movie, says McCarthy, “isn’t out to ‘get’ its much vilified subject as much as it tries to cast him as something of a tragic victim of his own limitations and foibles — tragic for the perpetrator and his country alike. Frank Langella‘s meticulous performance will generate the sort of attention that will attract serious filmgoers, assuring good biz in upscale markets, but luring the under-40 public will pose a significant marketing challenge.”

The only people out there who are truly offended by liberal humanistic values in Hollywood movies are the rabid reds, who live in a different country anyway so let ’em stew on their side of the fence. I’ve scrapped tooth and claw with the Dirty Harry‘s of the world and I know who and what they are. They’re about hammering all day and into the night. They’re the nephews, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Westbrook Pegler. They actually believe Sarah Palin will be a formidable presidential candidate in ’12. They’re not necessarily the ones holding up Obama monkey dolls and shouting “kill ’em!” at McCain-Palin rallies but neither do they seem inclined to admonish those who’ve done so. They’re the laughing stock of the world and the shame of this nation. If I could clap my hands and be rid of them, I would clap my hands.

The AP’s David Germain is reporting that “about 15 newspapers and several TV stations and cable channels” are refusing to run ads for Kevin Smith‘s Zack and Miri Make a Porno because they find the word “porno” objectionable. “Commercials for the film during Los Angeles Dodgers games on Fox Sports were dropped at the team’s request,” says Germain, “after some viewers complained.”

If my six-year-old kid asked, “Dad, what’s ‘porno’ mean?,” I’d say “a porno is a dumb movie made by people with no talent who take their clothes off and roll around and make noises.” Simple.

It’s being pointed out by Jack Morrissey and others that when you visit this Palin as President interactive visual site (which you can’t access on an iPhone) that (a) clicking on many items many times produces different results and (b) that visitors should turn their computer volume up. Particular suggestions: Click on the door a few times, and then the deer. Open the blinds. Open the left window. Click on the portrait, the empty frames, the presidential seal on the wall, and, without fail, the red phone. (Updated daily until November 4th.)

Movie titles with a secondary subtitle — titles like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo — usually indicate mediocrity or at least uncertainty on the part of the distributor. But the practice suggests an interesting riddle game. The idea is to come up with a tight and expressive subtitle that indicates what the movie delivers (or seems to promise) on a primal popcorn level.
Example: In discussing Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood some 35 years ago, Tom Wolfe claimed that a key line came when Dick Hickock said to Perry Smith prior to their fateful visit to the Clutter home, “Honey, we’re gonna blast hair all over them walls.” Wolfe concluded that “hair on the walls” was the invisible subtitle of In Cold Blood — the book as well as the film. So the the title in the poster would naturally read as follows:

The game is a lot tougher than it seems. The subtitle has to say it just right in a kind of haiku way. Simpleton example: The Wizard of Oz: No Place Like Home. The campiest and most emotional movies are the easiest to figure. Gone With The Wind: Waitin’ There Like A Spider. (Alternate: Gone With The Wind: Never Be Hungry Again.) Or Mommie Dearest: No Wire Hangers!
But what, for example, would the subtitle of Mamma Mia be? Twilight? Laurence Olivier‘s Hamlet (’48)? Lina Wertmueller‘s Seven Beauties? Au Hasard, Balthazar? Spartacus? All About Eve? All The President’s Men? It’s hard. Choose any movie title in the world but make it good. Nothing stupid or coarse. Nothing along the lines of Reservoir Dogs: Ear-Slice With Me.
True confession: Years ago in a West Hollywood bar I ran into the famous Scott Wilson, who played Hickock in the 1967 film version of In Cold Blood. I’ve always regretted not going up to his table and asking him sign a napkin with the words “Scott Wilson — hair on the walls.” I wimped out, of course, thinking he’d probably be offended. That was probably the right thing to do, but I’ve felt badly for years that I didn’t do this. Why is that? I’ve made mistakes in life, but who hasn’t? The thing that won’t leave you alone are the things you chickened out on — the things that might have been.

An insider on the new Bad Lieutenant team, responding to the Abel Ferrara item posted earlier this morning, explains it all: “The whole reason the film was made was because [executive producer] Avi Lerner got hold of the rights, which he bought from Ed Pressman for an undisclosed sum. And he went out and pre-sold the film in ten countries for $30 million, or an average of $3 million per country.

“Lerner funded the film for $20 million, and pocketed $10 million for himself. Nic Cage, who likes New Orleans and owns a home there, took a substantial pay cut — only about $2 million — because he wanted to work with [director] Werner Herzog, who probably got his first decent payday check out of this deal. William Finklestein‘s script wasn’t good but Herzog upgraded it considerably. Lerner didn’t even look at the script.”

“Oddly bloodless,” “coldly unilluminating,” protagonists who “rarely emerge as living, breathing people,” and a “doggedly linear approach to storytelling [that] only gets Ron Howard so far”? In Contention‘s Guy Lodge has delivered a fairly stiff slapdown to Frost/Nixon following a showing today at the BFI London Film Festival. I know how satisfying Peter Morgan‘s play and Frank Langella‘s Nixon performance are (or were on stage) so on one level it’s puzzling. But it’s not as if restrained or muted reactions haven’t cropped up before.