You may or may not have read that David Chase and Alan Taylor‘s The Many Saints of Newark (Warner Bros./HBO Max, 10.1) is divided into two chapters and set four years apart.

The first half (maybe closer to 40% or 45%) happens in 1967, and is colored by (a) fraternal family stuff, (b) racial tensions, (c) Newark race riots, (d) sexual betrayal and (e) the absence of Michael Gandolfini. The young Tony Soprano is played in this portion by William Ludwig.

In fact, The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney calls this section “the dominant storyline,” as in “more impressive than the second half.”

Michael, who resembles his late father, James, who headlined HBO’s legendary Sopranos series from ’99 through ’07, doesn’t turn up until the 1971 section, which is heralded, incidentally, by the Rolling Stones‘ “Sway.”

And in the view of Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman, the film’s final portion doesn’t persuade that Michael is on the path to becoming the reigning crime boss of northern New Jersey.

“The thing we most want from [Many Saints] is a sense of revelation. We want it to show us how Tony Soprano, growing up as a ‘normal’ Italian-American teenager, slipped onto the road that would lead him to become a gangster sociopath. We need to see him take that first step.

“The movie may have convinced itself that it shows it to you, but this Sopranos fan found Tony’s ‘evolution’ toward the dark side to be even less convincing than Anakin Skywalker’s transformation into Darth Vader at the climax of Revenge of the Sith.

“At the end, I felt like we needed a second prequel, or maybe just that essential TV thing: another episode.”

So let’s be honest — The Many Saints of Newark is only partly the return of Tony Soprano in the person of Michael Gandolfini (i.e., the second half), and it isn’t even quite that, in Owen’s opinion.

Predatory hawks. Grayish, fog-shrouded milieu…like nuclear winter. 1.37 aspect ratio. “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” Fine but calm down.

One thing stands out — a look of somber self-awareness, a hint of resignation on Denzel’s face.

Visually The Tragedy of Macbeth (shot by Bruno Dulbonnel) reminds me of Peter Brook’s black-and-white King Lear (“noted for its bleak tone and wintry atmosphere“) with Paul Scofield.

Three or four days ago I was heading east on Wilshire, just past Beverly Glen Blvd. 45, 50 mph. I was wearing my white helmet, which has a large, adjustable, brown-tinted visor. But I hadn’t strapped the helmet under my chin (which I often forget to do) and suddenly I was buffeted by a big gust, and the wind got under the visor and lifted the helmet right off my head…whoosh.

I pulled over to the side. As I did this I heard at least one car (or was it two?) honking in alarm. Perhaps they’d hit the helmet; it sounded as if someone might have. I parked and looked back. The white helmet was sitting in the gutter about 30 feet away; the visor was nowhere to be found.

If a cop had witnessed this I almost certainly would’ve gotten a ticket. “Failure to properly secure helmet,” something like that.

This had never happened before, but it was okay. I wasn’t alarmed or even flustered. My attitude was “well, that happened!” I put the helmet back on and went on my way. I have a black back-up helmet with a visor — no worries.

…would be even faintly excited about seeing David Gordon Green‘s Halloween Kills (Universal/Peacock, 10.15), especially given the fact that it’s only the middle-chapter in DGG’s grown-up Michael Myers vs. Laurie Strode trilogy — Halloween (’18), Halloween Kills and 2022’s Halloween Ends.

The franchise killer respectfully requests that you wire all payments to his business manager, not his agent.

Halloween Kills is the twelfth godforsaken installment in the franchise.

The New York Film Festival press screening of Joel Coen‘s The Tragedy of Macbeth happens on Friday morning, 9.24. Several public screenings of the A24 release will happen a few hours later (Alice Tully, Walter Reade and two other venues).

There’s an embargo, as always. Critics can never post reviews of the opening-night NYFF film until that night.

I’ve been detecting “uh-oh” reactions for a while now, but let’s cool our jets until the moment arrives.

Roman Polanski‘s shortened but reasonably faithful Macbeth (’71) ran 140 minutes; Coen’s version runs 105.

The trailer for The Tragedy of Macbeth pops on Tuesday, 9.21.

This is days old but having spent a little time with 14 year-old Hailee Steinfeld in the backstage area of Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theatre back in February ’11 (a month or two after True Grit opened), I just wanted to register my personal surprise when she made her appearance at the Met Gala.

Somewhere in these United States, 35 to 64 year-olds** have been invited to see Aaron Sorkin‘s Being The Ricardos later this week. Word around the campfire is that Javier Bardem‘s performance as Desi Arnaz is the standout element, and a likely contender for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The descriptive copy in the invitation is a bit windy, but here it is:

“Being the Ricardos, directed by Aaron Sorkin, charts the ups and downs of Hollywood legends Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) in creating their iconic I Love Lucy TV show, which both strengthened and destroyed them as a couple.

“Even though the series allowed them to play house and become people they weren’t in reality (but wished they could be), the movie examines how being the top pop icons of the day took a toll on both their personal and professional lives in an inventive and unique style, filled with kinetic energy.

“As Lucy and Desi prepare over the course of a single week to shoot an episode that will go down in history as having some of the funniest and most memorable scenes to grace television, we will be enthralled to peek into why despite all of that passion and success their world-famous relationship could never be.”

Cutting to the chase: Arnaz’s Cuban upbringing taught him that catting around outside the bonds of marriage was perfectly acceptable or at least workable.

Excerpt from Chicago Tribune interview with their daughter Lucie Arnaz: “My father loved women, and Latin American countries have a whole different code of ethics. There’s the home with the wife, and the house with the mistress. Each is highly respected by the other.

“Unfortunately, my mother was from upstate New York, and my father couldn’t get her to go along with that concept.”

A 1955 Confidential article alleged that the Cuban-born actor told a friend, “What’s she so upset about? I don’t take out other broads. I just take out hookers.” (Reported in an 8.13.20 Vanity Fair article, titled “Did Desi Really Love Lucy?“)

Obviously Arnaz was an inconsiderate sexist dog. If a husband is determined to run around to his heart’s content, he at least needs to keep it on the down-low. Out of respect for his wife’s honor, I mean. Never push it in her face. Allow her to think that things might be okay.

A pair of Tom Hanks features originally intended for theatrical have been sold to Apple streaming — Aaron Schneider‘s Greyhound (7.10.20) and Miguel Sapochnik‘s forthcoming Finch (11.5.21), a dystopian drama formerly known as BIOS.

Hanks plays the titular character, an ailing inventor who builds an android (voiced by Caleb Landry Jones) to accompany him and his dog on a cross-country journey.

Wait…what’s that gentle xylophone tune that begins playing at the :33 mark? Recognize it? I sure do, thanks to two previous films.

The music was first heard in Carl Orff‘s Gassenhauer. The composition was first appropriated in Terrence Malick‘s Badlands (’73). It was then re-used and slightly tweaked by Hans Zimmer for True Romance.

Did Zimmer ever acknowledge that he had more or less re-orchestrated Orff’s original composition?

Late Sunday night I was sent an inferior quality screen-shot video of the the teaser for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (UA Releasing, 11.26).

It was captured from a theatre seat at an Alamo theatre. The teaser has also been shown at London’s Prince Charles cinema, Quentin Tarantino’s New Bev and other film-buff-friendly houses. No time code but it runs around 120 seconds. Maybe a bit longer.

Why exactly would Bradley Cooper’s Jon Peters, dressed in white, smash some car windows with a golf club or bat, and then shout and celebrate this aggression? Guess I’ll find out.

The film has been described as a ‘70s San Fernando Valley thing, focusing on the TV industry with a partial focus on Peters and L.A. City Council member Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie), etc. Plus a smiling Sean Penn in a slick gray business suit. And it’s been noted that Cooper (son of Phillip Seymour) Hoffman and rock musician Alana Haim are a significant part of the mix.

The Licorice Pizza teaser announces, in fact, that the film is less about Peters or Wachs or Penn’s character, and more about an apparent love story between Hoffman and Haim. Initial attraction, flirtation, awkward sexual stuff, warmth, smiles.

My first reaction was “really?” I don’t know much about Hoffman, 18, or Haim, 29, and have never felt any kind of rapport with either of them.

It seems to me that if you’re a major-league director making a supposedly important film about a couple of love-struck kids (even though Haim is pushing 30), you can go with one unknown as long as you pair him/her with a skilled name-brand actor, but you can’t have two unknowns carrying the film because no one will care all that much. I mean, movies deal in familiar faces and personalities for a reason…right? (A David Bowie song helps to some extent.)

I might give a damn or even care a great deal about these two when I start watching the actual film, but my first honest reaction was “the movie rests on their shoulders?”

There’s a snippet between Hoffman’s character and and Cooper / Peters in which Peters mentions his “girlfriend” Barbra Streisand, followed by a back and forth about how to pronounce the second syllable of her last name. I always thought one pronounces it as “Streisund” — not “StreiSAND.”

Update: Apparently I’m wrong. StreiSAND is the correct pronunciation.

Congrats to Ted Lasso‘s Jason Sudeikis for having won a 2021 Emmy for Best Lead Actor, Comedy. Speaking as a Lasso latecomer, I have to say that I’m not a fan of his Midwestern yokel accent. An American football coach hired to coach a British soccer team, Lasso is regarded as a primitive if not a simpleton. Sudeikis should have played Lasso with his own natural speaking voice — that would’ve sufficed. The accent is irksome.