Friendo: “I’m surprised that you bought into this narrative about The Menu‘s box-office performance. The Menu isn’t a horror film. It’s a sophisticated satire of foodie culture with elements of horror sprinkled in — totally a movie for adults. That means that its box-office gross this weekend, which will be close to $10 million, is a triumph. In a single weekend, in one fell swoop, it has beat all the other adult dramas of the fall.

“How is this a case of ‘hasn’t sold all that many tickets’? It’s going to be one of the only relatively small-scale hits of the fall. And I personally think it’s a terrific movie that, for once, has sold all those tickets for the right reasons.

HE to friendo:: “I was going by an assessment by Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro. He wrote that “with an estimated $30M production cost and $8.87M opening, possibly $9M, The Menu is not a bomb, bomb, bomb — but nothing spectacular.”

Friendo to HE: “Inaccurate. It did cost more than your average adult drama, but it’s not like its total gross is $9 million. This is the opening weekend. Right now it looks on track to gross somewhere in the neighborhood of at least $25-30 million domestic. And it has a major international appeal. This means that I think it will emerge, in the end, as a success for Searchlight. It’s certainly no bomb.

“But my point about the numbers isn’t simply related to whether it ultimately makes money for its studio or not. Maybe it will (I think it will), maybe it won’t. My point is: Here’s a movie for adults that people want to see.”

HE to friendo: “I thought it was actually pretty great for that reason.”

Friendo to HE: “I wasn’t sure how much you liked/didn’t like it. I think it’s tons more fun than anything Michael Haneke ever made. And with respectful disagreement: I think it’s a very funny movie. The horror stuff, you’re right, is just horror (though with a wild edge that you could certainly argue has a black-comic frisson), but the satire is delicious. It’s the rare movie that gave me honest laughs. At the end, when Ralph Fiennes called the smore “a fucking monstrosity,” I just about busted a gut.”

HE to friendo: “It’s essentially about malice and hate and unfettered loathing. Dryly or darkly satiric, okay, but not ‘funny.'”

I understand, I think, why The Menu (Searchlight, 11.18) hasn’t sold all that many tickets over the last couple of days.  I saw it Friday, and immediately warmed to the cold, pared-to-the-bone discipline aspect.  It’s basically Michael Haneke‘s  Funny Games transposed to the realm of high-end gourmet dining. 

It’s essentially about contempt for the one-percenters — a contempt especially felt by creatively gifted types.  As well as a general all-round contempt that some of us have deep-down for ourselves. 

I would actually call The Menu dry-ice cold rather than just boilerplate ice-cube cold. 

The Menu‘s Wiki page calls it “an American black comedy thriller.”   That’s misleading.  It’s a dry, pitch-black chamber piece  — archly-written and performed with a chilly, darkly ironic attitude — but it’s certainly not comedic.  It’s about 12 financially flush diners squirming over the distinct prospect of possibly being killed in some horrible way, and if you find this kind of squirming comedic there’s really and truly something wrong with you.

“We’re Gonna Die,” posted on 8.11.22:  “Obviously The Menu is a black social satire. The focus is on the repulsion that some gifted artists feel for consumers, including the rich elite. The idea, apparently, is that Ralph Fiennes‘ Slowik, the celebrity chef behind an exclusive restaurant called Hawthorne, is a sociopath. He’s probably a variation of Leslie Banks‘ “Count Zaroff” in The Most Dangerous Game (’32).”

The fact that Adam McKay and Will Ferrell produced The Menu (along with Betsy Koch)…this fact should tell you something.  None-too-brights have interpreted this to mean that The Menu is a kind of comedy.  In fact it’s a misanthropic fuck-you satire.

When off-key singers have murdered the “happy birthday“ song, I’ve also been reduced to tears. But the singing wasn’t that bad earlier today.

My intuition is that the Harry Styles-Olivia Wilde relationship, which began during filming of Don’t Worry Darling in October of ‘20, was strongest in the early stages (like all relationships) but faltered when various pressures and complications began to weigh heavily. (Not to mention the ten-year age difference.) My sense was that the current had all but petered out by the time of Darling’s debut at the ‘22 Venice Film Festival. A two-year relationship means there was genuine spirit and substance. No harm, no foul.

It’s been patently obvious for several years (i.e., early ’17) that President Donald Trump was a criminal, anti-Democratic sociopath and bully boss grifter. The Biden administration has been in power for nearly two years, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has only just announced that potential prosecutions of Trump and his criminal colleagues will henceforth be seriously examined by Jack Smith, a special prosecutor.

People have been calling Garland a wimp and a foot dragger for many months now, and if you ask me for more than sufficient cause. Bring on the new Archibald Cox slash Leon Jaworski!

N.Y. Times‘ Michael Schmidt: “Special counsels were created to put distance between the politics of the moment and the investigative work of the Justice Department. Under the regulations for special counsels, the Justice Department will have to tell Congress about any major investigative moves that the special counsel wanted to take that were overruled by senior department officials. Also, the special counsel can be fired only for cause — essentially, for not doing their job.”