Flame-haired actress Patricia Owens (1.17.25 – 8.31.00) had been playing supporting roles in Hollywood films since ’43. And then in late ’56, her career suddenly caught fire. Five films of serious merit, one after another…bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

And then, after the July ’58 release of The Fly, in which Owens played her most iconic role, that of Helen Delambre, wife of David Hedison‘s eccentric scientist André Delambre, the fire went out.

During her hot streak Owens played top-billed supporting roles in four grade-A films from major helmers — Robert Rossen‘s Island in the Sun (6.12.57), Martin Ritt‘s No Down Payment (10.30.57), Joshua Logan‘s Sayonara (12.5.57, portraying Marlon Brando‘s unsettled fiance) and John Sturges‘ The Law and Jake Wade (6.6.58)

Then came her penultimate role in Kurt Neumann‘s The Fly (7.16.58). And then something turned, and before you knew it Owens was no longer in demand. Or at least not in the eyes of the grade-A gang.

Was it because the characters she played seemed too…I don’t know, too bland and middle-class wifey-wifey? Because she was approaching her mid 30s and, by the sexist standards of old-boy Hollywood, deemed somewhat less desirable…maybe a little too PTA-ish??

Owens kept working until the late ’60s, but the party was over. She passed from cancer at age 75. She’s very, very good in Sayonara, by the way. She’s obviously a highly skilled actress, and more than holds her own in her scenes with Brando and costar Ricardo Montalban.

Extreme weather always causes random deaths, and so far at least 12 Californians (including a five-year-old boy) have breathed their last under the current California onslaught. I’m very sorry for any and all suffering, but at the same time I’d be evading if I didn’t admit to a certain dark fascination with catatstrophes, natural and otherwise. Something about major disruptions in the natural ebb and flow of things…something about this grips my throat. Okay, I’ll just say it: I wish I could be Montecito right now so I could stand near the Ellen Degeneres rapids and go “wow.”

Montecito is under mandatory evacuation. We are on higher ground so they asked us to shelter in place. Please stay safe everyone. pic.twitter.com/7dv5wfNSzG

— Ellen DeGeneres (@EllenDeGeneres) January 9, 2023

After arguing with Ari Aster about the length of his latest film (three or four hours? Two and a half?), A24 has decided to release the anxious, mondo bizarro, wimpy-sounding Beau Is Afraid on 4.21.23. I’m sorry but this WTF pre-Cannes release date tells us damn near everything.

It tells us first and foremost that Beau Is Afraid is a problem film. Obviously. No distributor releases an epic-lengthed, major-league auteur film in late-April unless they’re totally confused and off-balance and scared shitless about what it is or how to sell it.

If A24 had any balls they would open Beau Is An Old, Terrified, Mommy-Traumatized Candy-Ass on the Cote d’Azur, but no — they’re too chickenshit! Afraid of what the international critical community (especially the Brits) might say!

Aster wanted to release a four-hour version, remember. Imagine watching a four-fucking-hour version of this trailer. You know Beau is going to be a slog….you know it.

It would be one thing if this surreal, memory-injected old man’s psychological horror film was 110 or 120 minutes, but you know that at 179 minutes Hollywood Elsewhere is going to be flailing around on the floor and howling and hyperventilating and possibly shrieking. David Ehrlich will probably call Beau is Afraid a perverse masterpiece but he’ll bend over for almost anything nervy or provocative. Amy Ryan will probably receive the NYFC’s Best Supporting Actress trophy.

It’s either Ari Aster‘s Synecdoche (a tip of the hat to World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy for coming up with this brilliant analogy) or an angry, terrified old man’s Wizard of Oz saga, complete with a wicked-ass witch (his own mom, played by Amy Ryan). Every character in this film (except for the kid version of Joaquin) is some kind of smooth ghoulish predator.

Beau Is Afraid (formerly Disappointment Blvd.) is probably going to have its big debut at South by Southwest, a festival that is committed before-the-fact to giving a warm, giddy embrace to any oddball film that premieres there. I’m not kidding about that alternate title: Beau Is An Old, Terrified, Mommy-Traumatized Candy-Ass. HE to A24: Seriously, give this some thought.

Initial texted comments: “So Phoenix is wearing balding, old-fart, liver-spots makeup throughout the whole thing? What happened to Beau being some kind of dynamic entrepeneur or whatever? Now we know why A24 was unhappy with the length.”

At one point Aster described Beau is Afraid on the IMDB page as “a sickly, domestic melodrama in the vein of Douglas Sirk.” That settles it — Glenn Kenny and Richard Brody are going to do cartwheels in the lobby. These two are Maynard G. Krebs in reverse. When Maynard heard the “w” word, he went “work!” When Kenny and Brody hear the name of Hollywood’s most celebrated German-born director of lavish ’50s soap operas, they go “Sirk!” except they mean it lovingly.

In his recent Home Theatre Forum review of Kino’s forthcoming 4K Bluray of Michael Winner‘s Death Wish (’73), restoration guru Robert Harris has used a kind of double-edged sword.

One one hand he describes it as a substandard 4K release that’s not worth the price, and says that the 40th anniversary Bluray version (released in 2014) is a better deal overall. On the other hand he’s calling the 4K version something new on hi-def market — 2K UHD.

Harris: “I’ve been giving the 4K Death Wish situation some thought, and the answer is simple — it represents a new format.

“It’s a 4k UHD release derived from a 2k master. [It therefore doesn’t] in any way take advantage of an actual 4K resolution, but rather simply [goes] for the HDR/DV ‘pop’ that will be seen on OLED panels.” In HE terminology, Harris is referring to a “4K bump.”

Kino is distributing the 4K version, but the actual work has been performed by Paramount.

“The question is that since [the 4K Death Wish] doesn’t actually carry true 4K resolution, what to call it? I’d go with ‘2K UHD’.

“How to market 2K UHD releases? First, try and explain [what they are] to consumers. How to price them? A few dollars above Bluray.

“The 2K UHD variant already exists, but has not been recognized as such.

Continuing: “I’ve now compared the Bluray variant with the 4K, and they’re quite different.

“While they both seem derived from the same master, which appears to be an older image harvest from an interpostive and not the original camera negative, the Bluray disc has a more natural grain structure.

“The 4K UHD disc has highly reduced grain, and a very awkward digital grain pattern that seems to clump, and at times appears to have mold embedded in the film element.

“The 4K [version] has very little relationship to film, while the 2014 Bluray has a more natural appearance.

“I’d be equally happy with a Bluray derived from the same newer master, but those who purchase 4k should be on notice before they place an order, that they are not receiving true 4K, and merely the HDR pop.”

Remember that final scene in La Strada? A half-wasted Anthony Quinn grappling with a terrible cosmic realization as he sits on a beach late at night? That was me ten minutes ago when I read Jason Blum’s tweet about RRR‘s supposed Best Picture heat.