It was roughly a month ago that former HE commenter Jeremy Fassler, one of the most belligerent and condemning one-note wokesters to ever leave his mark on Hollywood Elsewhere, was given his walking papers.
And yet he used to be a much different person. 18 years ago, I mean, when Fassler was in ninth or tenth grade. I came across a 2.23.15 post about Sideways, written by a 15 year-old Fassler.
“I’m 15, and I saw Sideways before it opened and loved it every bit as much as you did,” he wrote. “But I only have two friends who are around my age who liked it as much as I did.
“Everyone else I’ve talked to has not had a positive reaction to the movie. ‘I didn’t understand why [Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church] were friends,’ one said. I told another to watch it again in a few years and he said, ‘If I don’t like it now why would I ever like it?’ Even some adults, like my substitute teacher in English, thought that it was so unlikable and couldn’t muster up any sympathy for Giamatti’s character.
“I figured you’d be the best guy to ask. Why don’t more people of my age understand Sideways?” — Jeremy Fassler.
Wells to Fassler [also written in early ’05]: “I haven’t a clue as to why your English teacher found it unlikable, but he probably needs to get out more. That or Giamatti’s character reminded him of something in himself on some level, and he didn’t like thinking about that. Your friends not liking it is probably about life-experience issues. My 16 year-old son Jett says ‘several’ of his friends liked it fine.”
Presumably a sizable portion of the HE community caught those ticket-buyer sneaks of Ben Affleck‘s Air last…what was it, Friday?
The non-pro consensus seems to be that (a) early-bird critics have over-sold it (but not me — I gave it a solid 8.5 grade while adding “just don’t go expecting the world”), (b) it was a bit of an odd strategy for Michael Jordan to technically be “present” for the third-act presentation scene at Nike’s Beaverton headquarters without actually being seen or heard and letting Viola Davis do all the talking, (c) the decision not to try and inflate or amplify the story into something bigger than it is was a wise one.
So what did everyone think? Is it modestly excellent or what? Is it basically a “dad” film or will Millennials and Zoomers be able to roll with it?
Ben Affleck’s Air is a solid 8.5 or even a 9 —- just don’t go expecting the world. It’s a modest, well-crafted film about vision and risk and soul and salesmanship, and the best aspect, I feel, is that it doesn’t swing for the fences.
It’s an unpretentious, steady-as-she-goes sports saga that frets about stress and failure and at the same time insists over and over that “if you don’t take a risk you can’t make a gain,” which is precisely what Walter Huston’s chuckling, goat-like prospector said in TheTreasureoftheSierra Madre.
In a way Air is just as much of a pikers-strike-it-rich story as John Huston’s 1948 classic was and is, and the stakes are just as life-and-death when you consider what might’ve happened if Nike hadn’t signed Michael Jordan and if Matt Damon’s Sonny Vaccaro and Affleck’s Phil Knight had taken a gut punch instead.
Their down-to-business story is about marketing and branding that wound up on a super-scale, but told with a modest brush. Nothing goofy or slick or wild-ass. It starts out ordinarily or even ho-hummishly, but then it picks up a little steam and then a little more, and then little dabs of feeling are sprinkled into the second act and then spoonfuls of the stuff into the third as it gets better and better and better.
And then the big payoff moment comes, which isn’t as emotional as Jerry Maguire but then how could it be? Air isn’t about wives or girlfriends or kids or dogs…it’s strictly about business and that’s a good enough thing, trust me.
Here’s the thing: Damon’s Vaccaro is a beefalo bordering on a lardbucket, and I was bothered by this at first. But guess what? I stopped thinking about the paunch around the 30-minute mark. By the one-hour mark I’d forgotten about it entirely. This in itself says a lot.
7:55amupdate: It’s being said that Viola Davis’s grounded performance as Michael Jordan’s tough negotiating mom, Deloris, is the keeper. She’ll probably be Oscar-nominated, but Damon’s Vaccaro shoulders the weight. He’s playing the poet and the singer and the believer of the piece, and it’s his best performance since…what, the second Bourne film? Or The Informant? And I love how he’s never cowed by Affleck’s Knight, calmly standing his ground, and in fact plays him at the very end. It’s brilliant. And I love Chris Messina’s tough-shithead agent who reps the Jordans and is content to eat alone.
…from a film of this sort are stabsatsemi–freshinvention — departures from the usual formula, a surprise or two, unexpected gravitas and a film that basically says “this is a franchise thing, okay, but it’s also 2023 and here we all are, and there’s something about this immediacy that really and truly matters to many of us, and here’s a taste of that.”
Spare us, in short, from the past and the drumbeat of constant Spielberg-Lucas tributes.
HEtoCorrectingJeff [posted this morning in “Don’tLectureMe” comment thread]:
I’ve read and read every day of my life, although to be honest I’m better at reading chapters or portions or halves than entire books. Life often distracts, intervenes. Each and every day I drop a ball, it seems, and fail to catch it on the bounce.
HE’s library list includes John Updike, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Cormac McCarthy, Truman Capote, Harper Lee, William Styron, Pauline Kael, Daphne du Maurier, Michael Chabon, Chuck Palahniuk, Robert M. Pursig, Michael Herr, Gore Vidal, the collected essays of Otis Ferguson, damn near all of J.D.Salinger, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Conrad, et. al., and some of John Steinbeck. . I’ve read D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer,” Herman Hesse, Aldous Huxley, Woody Allen’s short stories, Robert Benchley’s stuff, rock legend bios, endless Hollywood histories (David Thomson’s “The Whole Equation”). And occasional throwaway stuff (“The Nine Nations of North America,” Abbie Hoffman’s “Revolution For The Hell Of It”).
I’ve never read “A Tale of Two Cities” but I’ve read “Tom Sawyer” and the Bhagavad Gita (repeatedly) and one or two books by Alan Watts and “The Red Badge of Courage” and “The Final Days” and almost all of Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson.
Why am I taking the time to make the case for my own literacy to a coarse, badgering asshat on a comment thread?
Honest, no–bullshitquestion: Have you ever read Nick Tosches’ “Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams”? I’ve read that book cover to cover TWICE.
“It’s funny to hear these [mewing little kittens] treating the John Wickflicks like they’re major narrative-driven movies capable of being ‘spoiled.’ I like the new Wick, but neither Wells nor the spoiler whiners seem to understand that a plot doesn’t matter to these movies at all, and [that] notionsofdeathmatterevenless.” — HE commenter “Chuck.”
“Isn’t the ending of John Wick4 all over the internet? I haven’t seen the film, haven’t read a single review, have no interest in the Wick films. But I know that Wick dies or probably ‘dies’ at the end of this one. Seems to be an open secret on the web, so calling spoiler in this case sounds a bit like complaining about people talking about Jesus being crucified at the end of a new Jesus movie.” — HE commenter “Renaissance.”
“I wouid have never mentioned the Darth Vader-Luke Skywalkerbloodrelationship two weekends after opening day. That film is sacred and holy, and it would’ve been criminal to spoil it.
“The difference is clear. JW4 is flotsam — a rank and cynical pornoviolent ‘musical’ that pollutes the environment and lowers the spiritual property values in each and every realm with its gross and cynical disregard for life. I spit on this movie.
“I respected the rights of unpolluted viewers for TWO FULL WEEKENDS. What was I supposed to do, wait six months or something? Besides, like I said, it was really Stahelski’sfault.” — Jeffrey Wells, posted this morning [4.3] in response to spoilerwhinerkvetching.
HE to Stahelski: If you were even half-thinking about making a fifth Wick film, why the hell did you kill him at the close of the present installment? He’s dead and buried, man. If you bring finality, you need to respect finality. Simple.
There’s one way I’ll accept a fifth. Make it a stripped-down, bare-bones, less-is-more prequel. Reverse the engine and renounce the ridiculous over-the-topness of the current model. True, a certain percentage of the style junkies who love John Wick 4 will feel betrayed — “hey, where’s the absurdity?” To which I say, “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”
One of my all-time favorite guitar solos is from Robby Krieger on “You’re Lost, Little Girl,” and so what…right? I love the simplicity of it. Clean tones, nothing flashy, nice finish. 1:42 to 1:56. The shorter, the better.
It’s great that Mitchell is singing and playing guitar and sounding pretty good, particularly in the wake of having suffered a brain aneurysm in late March of 2015. She was in fairly bad shape after that tragedy, but she’s recovered (or at least is recovering) to a significant degree, and praise be to God for this.
The key question to me is “is Joni still smoking?” Because that’s almost certainly what helped to bring about her aneurysm. She initially lost her ability to speak and walk, and still needs a little help getting around as we speak.
I was so concerned about Mitchell’s well-being in the wake of the aneurysm that I once hand-delivered an admonishing fan letter to her Spanish home in Bel Air. I insisted I was one of her biggest fans and begged her to think about vaping instead of sticking with tobacco.
Mitchell may have decided that life isn’t worth living without the pleasure of unfiltered cigarettes, but maybe not. She once said in an interview that she began smoking at age 9 or 10 or something. At a certain point the body just can’t take the nicotine and the toxins and complications will manifest.
It’s wonderful, in any event, that Mitchell has regained (or is in the process of regaining) her singing and guitar-playing abilities. She’ll turn 80 on 11.7.23.
Posted on 3.31.15: I attended a short, smallish concert that Mitchell gave at Studio 54 in October ’82 to promote “Wild Things Run Fast.” The crowd was not huge, maybe 150 or so, and I was standing fairly close and pretty much dead center. No female artist has ever touched me like Mitchell**, and I was quite excited about being this close to her.
I was beaming, starry-eyed and staring at her like the most self-abasing suck-up fan you could imagine, and during the first song her eyes locked onto mine and I swear to God we began to kind of half-stare at each other. (Some performers do this, deciding to sing for this or that special person in the crowd.) Her eyes danced around from time to time but she kept coming back to me, and I remember thinking, “Okay, she senses that I love her and she probably likes my looks so I guess I’m her special fanboy or something for the next few minutes.”
Mitchell was dressed in a white pants suit and some kind of colorful scarf, and she sang and played really well, and I remember she had a little bit of a sexy tummy thing going on. Sorry but that had a portion of my attention along with the songs and “being there” and a feeling that I’d remember this moment for decades to come.
On 8.5.15 L.A. Times staffer Noah Biermanreported that Jerry Lewis had donated a copy of The Day The Clown Cried, an unfinished 1972 holocaust drama that Lewis had directed, written and starred in, to the Library of Congress.
It was stipulated, however, that the film couldn’t be screened “for at least ten years,” and only then with the permission of the Lewis estate. (Lewis passed on 8.20.17 at age 91.)
On 10.14.15 (or two months after the Bierman piece) I was informed by Mike Mashon, head of the Moving Image section on the LoC campus, that the embargo on TDTCC would be in place “for ten years,” and would therefore extend until 2025.
Although the LoC apparently intends to eventually screen The Day The Clown Cried at its Audio Visual Conservation campus in Culpeper, Virginia, curator Rob Stone has stated the LoC does not have a complete print of the film.
Posted on 6.15.16: I’m hardly an authority when it comes to Jerry Lewis‘s never-seen The Day The Clown Cried (’72), but to my knowledge an assembly of scenes from the finished film has never been shown to anyone.
This morning a friend passed along a 31-minute Vimeo file (posted two months ago but yanked on Thursday morning…sorry) that provides the first real taste of Clown, or at least the first I’ve ever sat through.
And you know what? I don’t see what’s so godawful about it.
Okay, the scheme is manipulative bordering on the grotesque — Lewis as a German-Jewish clown in a Nazi concentration camp who’s ordered in the final act to amuse a group of children being sent to the “showers” — but that elephant aside it didn’t strike me as all that agonizing or offensive. Really. Lewis’s performance seems more or less restrained as far as the writing allows, and the story unfolds in a series of steps that seem reasonably logical. The supporting perfs and period milieu seem decent enough.
When everyone finally sees The Day The Clown Cried in 2024 (or ’25) the verdict may be that it’s not a mediocre, miscalculated effort (or that it is…who knows?), but I didn’t smell a catastrophe as I watched this whatever-you-want-to-call-it. Plus it costars HE’s own Harriet Andersson.
Please accept my deepest, saddest and most heartfelt condolence over the passing of Ryuichi Sakamoto, with whom I had the honor of briefly speaking at a Golden Globes party eight or nine years ago.
Sakamoto’s musical compositions for Merry Christmas, Mr, Lawrence, The Revenant, The Last Emperor, High Heels, Little Buddha, Love Is the Devil and Babel are now and forever truly wonderful.
Sakamoto played the sexually conflicted Captain Yonoi in Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (’83), as well as a supporting role in The Last Emperor (’87).
Ari Aster’s BeauIsAfraid (A24, 4.21) was previewed yesterday (Saturday, 4.1) to a paying audience at Brooklyn’s Alamo Draft House (445 Albee Square, Brooklyn, NY 11201), and Variety’s Brent Lang was apparently theretoendureit.
Presuming that the synopsis is legit, Aster’s 179-minute “horror comedy” (set to open in select IMAX theaters on 4.14 before opening wider on 4.21) is apparently some kind of grotesque, audience–punishingfantasia — a surreal acid trip version of a 21st Century AliceinWonderland-meets-Homer’s TheOdyssey, except with a bloated, gray-haired, “twitchy and over-medicated” Phoenix in the Alice role — and not for the faint of heart.
A few excerpts from Lang’sarticle, which was filed late Saturday afternoon:
(1) Q&A moderator Emma Stone to Aster following the screening: “Are you okay, man?”
(2) The film features a paint-drinking, antagonistic teenaged protagonist (Kylie Rogers), an animated sequence, a “recurring gag involving Phoenix’sdistendedtesticles”, and “a sex scene with [the mid 50ish] Parker Posey that may rank among the wackiest ever committed to film.”
(3) “The [Draft House] crowd seemed to love it, although thegeneralpublicmayhaveatoughertime” with this “bladder–testingepic.”
(4) Aster comment during the Stone Q&A: “I want [the audience] to go through [Phoenix’s] guts and comeoutofhisbutt.”
(5) The black-garbed Phoenix attended the screening but chose not to participate in the Q&A.
