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That’s It — Murray Is Toast

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In a twinkling of an eye (i.e., the last four or five days) Bill Murray, 71, has undergone a sudden industry devaluation. I’m not saying he can’t do any more Wes Anderson films but otherwise he seems to be suddenly “over.” As in more or less unemployable.

Unless, that is, Murray submits to behavioral rehab or goes on a major Apology Tour or something in that realm. I for one can’t imagine that Murray would swallow any humble pills. Old leopards can’t change their spots.

Murray is certainly the latest swaggering, boomer-aged hotshot actor to have behaved questionably (i.e., stupidly) in the vicinity of Millennial women on a film set, and thereby jeopardized his career.

Murray: “Hey, guys…I’m Bill freakin’ Murray and I’m just futzing around…or, you know, picking on a younger co-worker. Or experiencing a goofy mood swing. Or a dark one. But it’s cool, no sweat…been doing this for over 40 years.”

Millennial Co–workers: “Do you know why you’re a cautionary tale, Bill? Because you haven’t read the writing on the wall. We run the show now, not you. You will mind your on-set behavior, respect our rules and jump through our hoops or we will destroy your life…got it? Let this be a warning to all of the older assholes in this town…adapt or die.”

This is nothing less than generational cultural warfare.

The last time I briefly spoke with Murray was nine years ago (early May 2013) on the set of George Clooney’s The Monuments Men. He was “on” and funny and a kick — I was saying to myself “this is so cool…Murray is performing and cutting loose and it’s just me and the unit publicist enjoying the show.”

So Aziz Ansari’s Being Mortal is dead because Murray invaded someone’s safe space or pulled somebody else’s pigtail? What about “enough of this crap…everyone back to work?

Decade Ahead Of The Curve

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This Beat The Devil ad ran in the N.Y. Times in mid February 1964. In ‘79 I was the managing editor the Thousand Eyes Cinema Guide, a TV Guide-styled monthly magazine that focused exclusively on Manhattan repertory cinemas, so I knew that realm pretty well but I’d never heard of the 5th Avenue Cinema, which had given up the ghost in September ‘74.

Inaccurate Use Of Word “Accurate”

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In her testimony earlier today about a case seeking to disqualify Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from running for reelection for her role on Jan. 6, the Congressperson repeatedly lied, evaded, hemmed and hawed. She also said “I don’t recall”, “I don’t remember” and “I don’t think so.” Greene undoubtedly committed perjury.

Viking Fraternity

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In his New Yorker review of The Northman, Anthony Lane notes that “the period detail is unstinting,” adding that “scholars of Old Norse who were unconvinced by Tony Curtis’s miniskirt, banded with chevrons, in The Vikings (1958), will be reassured by Eggers’s dedication.”

But for the rest of us, The Northman is not reassuring in terms of emotional involvement. You just don’t give a damn about anyone except for Anya Taylor Joy‘s “Olga”, except she’s kept on a short leash.

Hence this view of Eggers from a producer who’s seen The Northman: “In another era, Eggers would be a landscape painter, but never a portrait painter — unwilling or unable to capture the soul of his subject, and only the technical details of their environment. He might paint one of those massive battlefield canvases where hundreds of warriors gouge each other’s vital organs out, but end up as stick figures of glory against a barren emotional terrain.”

Though clunky and unsubtle, Richard Fleischer‘s The Vikings does not present a barren emotional terrain. Obviously inauthentic by today’s standards, it gives you emotional material to chew on.

[Posted two or three times]: “One thing that still works in The Vikings‘ favor is the film’s refusal to dramatically amplify the fact that Kirk Douglas‘s Einar and Tony Curtis‘s Eric, mortal enemies throughout the film, are in fact brothers, having both been sired by Ernest Borgnine‘s Ragnar.

“Ten minutes from the conclusion Janet Leigh‘s Princess Morgana begs Douglas to consider this fraternity, and he angrily brushes her off. But when his sword is raised above a defenseless Curtis at the very end, Douglas hesitates. And then Curtis stabs Douglas in the stomach with a shard of a broken sword, and Douglas is finished.

“The way he leans back, screams ‘Odin!’ and then rolls over dead is pretty hammy, but that earlier moment of hesitation is spellbinding — one of the most touching pieces of acting Douglas ever delivered.

“I’m not trying to build The Vikings up beyond what it was — a primitive sex-and-swordfight film for Eisenhower-era Eloi. But it did invest in that submerged through-line of ‘brothers not realizing they’re brothers while despising each other’, and the subtlety does pay off.” — originally posted on 3.27.06, on the occasion of Richard Fleischer‘s passing.

Murray “Complaint” Plot Thickens

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So who voiced the complaint against Bill Murray that resulted in the suspension of Aziz Ansari‘s Being Mortal? Nobody’s saying and nobody knows (myself included), but four days ago 28 year-old Being Mortal costar Keke Palmer (aka “Millennial Diva“) posted an Instagram riff about professional behavior, and how “it can lower your rate when people don’t like the experience of working with you.”

One could obviously interpret this post (initially flagged by Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman) as a commentary on the Murray brouhaha, whether Palmer was directly involved or not. You tell me….who knows?

Palmer: “It’s not always about how good you are at the actual job. It’s about how you show up to the job. Are you on time? Do you have a good attitude? Are you efficient? Are you flexible? Are you calm under fire? Do you represent yourself and the employer well? Are you a good communicator?

“These are the things people sometimes don’t think matters, especially those who work in fields that come natural to them. It can double your rate in any field if you create an enjoyable EXPERIENCE for the client. And it can lower your rate when people don’t like the experience of working with you, no matter the outcome of the actual task.

“I’m talented but I’m not arrogant enough to believe that there aren’t many talented people. However, not every talented person is a professional and people PAY for PROFESSIONALISM.”

Creative HE translation: “Being talented and charismatic is all well and good, but Millennials like myself value safe spaces and cheerful attitudes and being cool and professional on the set, especially in the matter of creative conflicts and whatnot. If you think you can ignore Millennial social behavior rules because you’re popular and world-famous, you’d better think again, pops.”

Radical idea #1: If there was personal conflict on the Being Mortal set (possibly between Murray and Palmer or somebody else…who knows?)…but if there was conflict on the set, why didn’t the producers and a Searchlight rep or two simply step in and ask everyone to be a professional, put a lid on the bad vibes, put on a happy face and finish the damn movie? Why suspend shooting on a film because someone got offended? Couldn’t they have simply have had a cast-and-crew sitdown to settle things?

Radical idea #2: Before the movie began filming, the complainer’s manager or agent takes him or her aside and says, “Beware of Bill Murray…he can be difficult but he doesn’t have to be. He’s moody at times so play it smart, give him a wide berth, try to turn the other cheek, pretend he’s an 800-pound gorilla who might hurt you and don’t start any fights. Whatever happens, just let it go. He’s been this way before and nothing is going to change. Just get through it, and hopefully this’ll turn into a good film.”

Radical idea #3: During pre-production Murray’s agent or manager or best friend takes him aside and says the following (which is half-copied from my 4.17.22 riff on Frank Langella): “You’ve been in this racket for over 40 years and you’re not gonna change, but listen to me, bruh…don’t fuck with Millennial safe-space fanatics. Especially Millennial women. You’re an older white guy, and you have to understand that you’re a deer, and that it’s deer hunting season out there right now. Because a decent percentage of urban progressive women (teens to mid 30s and perhaps beyond) are ready and willing to murder the careers of older white guys who say or do the wrong thing. So don’t be dumb — play it smart and careful. Because there are some Millennial women out there who will do what they can to kill you if you give them half a reason…they will turn your life in a raging social-media sea.”

Shocking McCarthy Revelation

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I’m kidding, of course. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, likely to become the House speaker after next November’s midterm rout of the Democrats, is a craven, two-faced liar and shameless kneepad whore when it comes to currying favor with Donald Trump.

McCarthy’s hypocrisy is being relished with last night’s release of tapes confirming that he’s been bald-facedly lying all along about his views of Trump’s complicity in the January 6th insurrection. The whole thing is covered in “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future” (Simon & Schuster, 5.3) by N.Y. Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

McCarthy on 1.11.22 phone call: “Let me be very clear to all of you, and I have been very clear to the president: he bears responsibilities for his words and actions — no if, ands or buts.

“I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened? Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened and he’d need to acknowledge that.”

Deep Blue

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I’ve been struggling in this town for nearly 40 years, and perfect days are rare. Climate-wise, I mean. Flooded with sunshine, warm but not too warm, deep blue skies, magnificent white clouds, a gentle breeze in the air. Today is a perfect day, and about an hour ago I did something very unusual. I stood on a street corner and stared up at the sky and went “wow,” and then took a couple of snaps.

If Los Angeles were like this half or even one-third of the time, people would feel differently about it. I would honestly say that this kind of day happens maybe two or three times per month in the mid-to-late spring, but no more than that.

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Cold, Perverse “Northman” Has Integrity — Give It That Much

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Robert Eggers’ The Northman is my idea of an admirable smarthouse DOA movie — a film you have to see because it’s Eggers, even though it does little more than demonstrate his absolute devotion to a harsh and bludgeoning world — a 100% commitment to a blood-and-intestines Viking flick that you can’t feel anything from, much less care about.

You do, however, come away with serious respect for the fierce and fearless performances by Anya Taylor Joy and Nicole Kidman. Seriously. I would give Kidman the edge — she really jumps into a boiling cauldron. One of the best lady villains ever.

Did Eggers actually say to that New Yorker interviewer that this version of The Northman (i.e., Focus Features pressed him for changes) is more commercial or entertaining than his own directors’ cut? Good God.

Give Eggers credit, at least, for going whole hog and not backing away from the extreme brushstrokes. But c’mon, man…The Northman is way, WAY too grim and gutty for its own good, or for anyone else’s.

The craft levels are tip-top but it immerses you so fully in dampness and cold and misery and sword wounds, and the killings are so extreme that it gradually tips into dark humor. One particular sword killing got the biggest laugh, but otherwise there’s nothing to feel or reflect upon. or thematically sink into.

It’s a tale about honor and obsessive revenge, obviously, but the focus is so invested in grotesque machismo — slashings, stabbings, howling, decapitations (including the first horse to lose its head since The Godfather), screaming — that I began to numb out after the first hour or so.

It’s almost entirely about brutality, savagery, top-tier production design (ninth century) and dazzling visual compositions from dp Jarin Blaschke. But story or character-wise there’s so little to invest in and the ending is so dismaying…it’s almost more of an extended technical demo reel than a film.

How many times did I hear scowling, sword-bearing warriors shouting at the top of their lungs “rrooaalrrraugHHHHRRR?”

Earlier notes: Technically and compositionally first-rate, at times amusingly ultra-violent, The Northman delivers the kind of suffocating, soul-draining ordeal that only a major artist could have provided.

I loved Eggers’ The Witch and The Lighthouse but I pretty much felt nothing this time around.

Excessive isn’t the word — startling, repetitious, numbing, eye-filling, confounding and yet all of a single harmonious compositional piece. Obviously the work of a serious artist. Handsome, exquisitely composed and about as bereft of humanity as a film in this vein could possibly be.

A few days ago a female producer friend told me it’s an empty film and that there’s no “there” there. She was right.

Who’s Seen “The Northman”?

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From Richard Brody‘s New Yorker review of Robert Eggers‘ The Northman (“Just a Bunch of Research and Gore“): “To tell this story, which Eggers co-wrote with the Icelandic poet and novelist Sjón, the director creates a pictorial world of visions and wonders, muck and gore, to evoke the crudeness and the cruelty, the mystical tenor and animistic passion, of the Viking realm — of rural Northern European medieval society over all.

“The cinematography conjures wetness and chill in a monochrome palette that’s interspersed with color images which are most notable for the mossy green of hilly fields. The prettiness of the pictures—the careful lighting, the calculated reflections, the gentle drift or dramatic rush of the camera—undercuts the roughness, the cruelty, the gore (decapitations, disembowelments, hacked-off limbs, bloody slashes and beatings), the freeze, the mud, the ice. The images undercut the movie’s sense of physicality altogether.

“[And yet] with its prettification of the bodily world, The Northman offers no synesthesia, no evocation of any sense beside vision.”

Posted on 7.2.20: “Synesthesia is when you hear music, but you see shapes. Or you hear a word or a name and instantly see a color. Synesthesia is a fancy name for when you experience one of your senses through another. For example, you might hear the name ‘Alex’ and see green. Or you might read the word ‘street’ and taste citrus fruit. The word ‘synesthesia’ has Greek roots.”

Depp’s Druggie Past Returns to Haunt

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From Ted Johnson and Dominic Patten’s Deadline summary of today’s courtroom cross-examination of Johnny Depp: “The extent of Depp’s addiction to oxycodone and other substances was made crystal clear in a text one of his nurses who had commented on Black Mass. ‘I was high as a motherfucker when I made that film,’ Depp told the nurse with a digital laugh. ‘[But] it’s not like I took the pills to get high…I took the pills to get normal.”

The Best Things In Life

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It’s my earnest belief that the best things in life…the things that we tend to regard as the best things in life, I should say…are things that happen on their own…randomly, curiously, suddenly, quietly, oddly and sometimes even annoyingly. But they always drop in.

Sometimes they’re free and sometimes they happen as a result of being somewhere that you wouldn’t have had access to if you hadn’t attained a certain level of income or privilege or cunning.

One of the best things I’ve ever done is ride a bicycle along the dirt roads of Caye Caulker, just after sunset. I never would have tasted that experience if I hadn’t earned some coin to begin with.

One of the worst…okay, stupidest things I’ve ever endured is getting bitten in the ass by a Caye Caulker pit bull. And yet, looking back, memory-wise, it’s a weird keeper.

The original lyrics of this 1927 song were written by Buddy DeSylva and Lew Brown, and I honestly think they’re crap.

I know for a fact that the best things in life almost never happen to bums or addicts. If you don’t work hard and avoid the usual pitfalls and show some discipline and achieve a certain level of economic stability you’re never going to sample the best of anything.

And you must have good wifi everywhere, at all times, forever. Have you ever sampled the wifi aboard the Paris metro? You’re sitting in your seat, the train is racing from stop to stop, Parisians are getting on and off, the sounds are great and the totality of the experience…it’s glorious, man…really glorious.

All my life I’ve tried to follow the example of Cary Grant, and this has served me well. Always try to be gracious and gentlemanly. Stay as trim as you can. Be a cheapskate. Try to eat less. Enjoy good wine but stay away from the booze. LSD can be good for the soul if you treat it with respect and keep a copy of the Bhagavad Gita nearby.

And don’t go bald. If you’re going bald anyway or developing a bald spot, buy a ticket to Prague.

Robert Redford: “Life is essentially sad. Happiness is sporadic. It comes in moments and that’s it. Extract the nutrients from every moment.”

Murray Did Whatever

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Bill Murray doesn’t suffer fools, and I love that about him. When he’s not being funny he can be rather brusque and dismissive. Especially with clueless or insipid journalists. Which is why, in a certain light, he’s long been one of my personal heroes.

Friendo: “God only knows what that’s about. The alleged ‘Bill Murray did or said something inappropriate on the Aziz Ansari film’ thing.”

HE: “He doesn’t crap around or play the game. I’ve seen him in action. The inference is that he acted inappropriately in a sexual way. But I’ll bet money that whatever he did or said, it wasn’t that bad. And that the complainer is a Millennial woman. And that her beef was about Murray being insensitive on some level.”

Friendo: “I’ll bet it isn’t sexual but, as you imply, some kind of sarcastic or angry response by him. Somebody was offended by something he said, and so they complained.”

HE: “Murray’s been in this racket for 40-plus years without significant incident, and suddenly he’s going to… what, inappropriately hit on someone? I can’t wrap my head around that. Why do you think it’s non-sexual? Just curious.”

Friendo: “He’s not that guy…not the lunging horndog. He’s just annoyed and irritated with everyone.”

HE: “Who suspends a movie in mid-production over something that might seem offensive in a certain context, but which isn’t all that serious?”