Paul Verhoeven‘s Benedetta (IFC Films, 12.3) won’t open for another two and half months, but like many films that have been in the oven for a long time and promoted heavily for months on end, I’m starting to feel as if I’ve already seen it. Although the factors that led IFC Films to decide on a December opening probably weren’t extraordinary, a voice is telling me it should come out sooner.

With the exception of Screen Daily‘s Stephen Whitty, the critics who’ve seen Joel Coen‘s The Tragedy of Macbeth via the New York Film Festival are not only admiring but in some cases highly enthused.

Right now both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes are posting 89% approval ratings.

How does this square with the fact that nothing came of a months-old screening for Cannes topper Thierry Fremaux, and the fact that the Venice Film Festival committee didn’t care for it, and declined to invite it to the recent 2021 gathering.

Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman and THR‘s David Rooney found Coen’s film impressive. To go by their reviews, The Tragedy of Macbeth sounds respectable enough. Perhaps not to everyone’s liking, but certainly a film with integrity and a certain scheme. And yet Venice turned it down.

Nonetheless something about these upbeat notices feels a tad suspicious. Robert Daniels calling it “definitely the bleakest adaptation” of Shakespeare’s tragedy prompts the inevitable “okay but why?” Macbeth isn’t bleak and bloody enough on its own? How does Coen’s decision to make his Macbeth stark and stripped down and lacerating…in what way does this approach enhance the material?

Roman Polanski’s 1971 version of this melancholy masterpiece was and is a knockout on so many levels, and yet critics at the time were partly dismissive because they didn’t care for Polanski having injected his own personal tragedy (i.e., the savage murder of his wife and her housemates two years earlier) into the film. And yet, perverse as this sounds, Polanski’s history gave his Macbeth an urgency and an attachment to the early ’70s zeitgeist; in this context very much alive.

What igniting element has prompted Joel Coen’s film other than wanting to give his gifted wife (Frances McDormand) a chance to play a great role? No Country for Old Men was a superb suspense film about a stalking killer, but it was also about a certain cultural poison that, in the view of original author Cormac McCarthy, had begun to infect the water table. What is informing Coen’s Macbeth in this sense? What’s the echo factor? Does it have one?

Friendo: “It’s no secret that pandemic-era film critics have veered towards hyperbole and over-praising certain films. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case with Macbeth, but I’m very excited to see it. Visually, it looks stunning.”

In the unlikely event that Joe Biden decides against running in ’24, Kamala Harris somehow snagging the Democratic nomination for President would absolutely ensure a Republican win. I admire and respect Harris, but she just doesn’t have it. Even if Donald Trump becomes her Republican opponent…I actually don’t have a reading on that hypothetical race, but God help us if that were to happen. Let’s imagine that Biden declines to run for whatever reason — which potential Democratic candidate could step in and win?

BooneOakley‘s “Don’t get vaccinated” van campaign, which happened last Sunday in Charlotte for only a few hours, should be used nationwide. Earnest pleas to millions of Covid vaccination skeptics to please reconsider and take the stab have not worked among certain pockets of rural white bumblefucks, African Americans and Hispanics so maybe a sardonic negative approach will get through to more of them. (Charlotte vaccinations have reportedly risen around 20% since last weekend.) As we speak roughly 182 million Americans — 54.8% of the population — have been fully vaccinated, although 77% of U.S. adults have received at least one dose.

The Spanish section of Jonathan Glazer and Jeremy Thomas‘s Sexy Beast (’00) was shot in Agua Amarga, a small village in the Almeira region on the southeastern coast. The large, white, three-bedroom cliffside home that was occupied by “Gal” Dove (Ray Winstone) and his wife DeeDee (Amanda Redman) is located on Calle Ferrocarill Minero (04149), and is called “El Palmeral“. I can’t tell if rooms inside the home are renting for $164 nightly or if the entire place rents for some other figure.

If you’ve seen Sexy Beast, you’ll appreciate this Google Maps photo of the home and the mention of a certain character just south of the residence (i.e., the swimming pool).

What I’m Hearing‘s Matt Belloni has asked certain players for opinions about Paramount’s newly installed CEO Brian Robbins. Here’s the final paragraph in the free version (I haven’t subscribed to Belloni’s column yet) — it’s probably fair to say that the kicker quote is going to stick.

This obviously doesn’t mean anything, but Robbins was born on 11.22.63.

No matter what Steven Spielberg winds up doing with West Side Story (and I’ve already stated my belief that he’ll probably improve upon Robert Wise’s 1961 multi-Oscar-winner), he can’t go wrong if he simply includes Leonard Bernstein‘s “Scherzo (Vivace Leggiero)” passage. If he doesn’t include it, that’ll be a negative.

In a just-up interview with The Tragedy of Macbeth‘s Joel Coen and Frances McDormand, Deadline‘s Michael Fleming tries to detour them by asking about producer Scott Rudin, with whom Coen and McDormand have worked many times.

Fleming mentions something he’s heard about Coen and McDormand having witnessed “a Rudin outburst toward an underling and not reacting.”

Toward the end of the Rudin discussion McDormand gets a little testy. She basically tells Fleming that they’re finished talking about Rudin, and that the interview may be over if he continues in this vein. Here’s the transcript.

Fleming: “[The Tragedy of Macbeth] was originally hatched with producer Scott Rudin, with whom you collaborated on in the Best Picture Oscar winner No Country for Old Men and other things. His name is not in the credits; he put himself on sabbatical after his bullying behavior toward subordinates was exposed by THR. His bullying was widely known in industry circles but presented and reframed by THR in this #MeToo moment, it created an outcry for him to be gone, despite him being an undeniable champion of taste-making subject matter like The Tragedy of Macbeth, which has always been hardest to get made. There was a report there that both of you witnessed an outburst by him toward an underling, and not reacting. It has nothing to do with what I just saw onscreen, but it is out there. What can you say about all this?”

Coen: “To work backwards from your question. I’ve made a number of movies with Scott over the years. I’ve known him since I started making movies, probably when he was head of production at Fox on our second movie, but if you look at all of the producers out there in the world, there aren’t that many who you would say, well, making an adaptation of Macbeth is a natural fit for the two of us. I mean, there’s Scott and then there’s nobody else that you would say that about. So, knowing him and having made movies with him, he seemed absolutely natural to go to with this, and in fact, he was. So, that’s that part of it.

“As far as the allegations and Scott’s behavior, yes, I think there isn’t anyone who works in the business who hasn’t heard those stories over the last however many decades that Scott has been working. Yeah. I hear stories about all kinds of people, I myself have witnessed all kinds of behavior. I never witnessed any of it with Scott, absolutely never. But on the other hand, I heard the stories and to a certain extent, I didn’t doubt the stories. I knew there was…you hear a lot of it and you figure a lot of it is probably true. But like I say, I hear stories about lots of people and I’ve seen questionable behavior from lots of people, but I never, ever saw anything like that from Scott. I don’t condone it, of course, but I never saw it.

“As far as people saying that we did, I just want to say this. I’ve been making movies for almost 40 years, Fran has been making movies that long, I think both Fran and I have reputations, and you can ask anybody we’ve worked with, for being aboveboard and honest, and the honest truth is I never saw it. So, I know I’m being honest about that. You can ask anybody who knows us whether they believe we’re honest about that.