Jimmy Kimmel-like excerpts from David Rooney’s THR review of Robert Eggers’ The Northman (Focus, 4.22):
Daily
More Sunset Strip Corporatism
A year or two from now a large, rectangular, 12-storied, glass-walled building (business + residential) will arise on the south side of the Sunset Strip — 8850 Sunset Blvd.. Right across from Panini, an Italian pizza take-out place that I’ve been going to for decades, and bordered by Larabee on the eastern side and San Vicente Blvd. on the west.
No, they’re not destroying the Viper Room…well, they are but they’re re-launching or reconstituting it as a kind of corporate lounge rock-music club, or so it seems. The VR’s glowing shamrock green color (a trademark thing) will frame the entrance.
This morning a couple of older guys with a notepad and printed reading materials dropped by to solicit opinions about the forthcoming structure. I shared a few thoughts, using the words “soul-less” and “rancid” and “corporate-feeling”, etc.
After they left I posted the following on the 8850 website:
“The proposed (and almost certainly forthcoming) 8850 Sunset Blvd. structure will be, to go by your illustrations, another moderately ugly and soul-less office building that will (what else?) degrade the aesthetic atmosphere of the Strip. All of that glass looks so synthetic, so humdrum, so similar to tens of thousands of other office + residential buildings all over the world.
“Imagine if, say, Frank Gehry had been hired to design it. Or a disciple of Gehry’s. I have no ideas myself, but a less conventional Gehry-ish design would probably feel a bit more fitting, given the uptown vibe and all.
“It’s L.A. buildings like these that make visiting the historical sections of London, Paris, Rome, Florence and Prague such transporting experiences. Over there they respect history and classic architecture and keeping in touch with the past. Then again this part of the Strip hasn’t been anything to architecturally shout about for decades.
“The upside is that the building will offer affordable housing to a certain number of low-income citizens (less than $40K or $45K annually), and that’s a good thing. Plus they’re going to include a space for the Viper Room, which unfortunately will lose the coal-black exterior and a ton of other atmospheric touches, but at least will still ‘exist’, so to speak.”
Follow-up: If I were calling the shots I’d insert a kind of Hollywood Walk of Fame marble sidewalk square that commemorates River Pheonix, who died in front of the Viper Room on 10.31.93.
For the usual expedient reasons the people behind this project are pretending to be interested in what average WeHo residents think about it. I don’t know why I just wrote this. The fix is in. What’s next, the destruction of Book Soup?
Oddly Touching
Variety‘s Clayton Davis has never been to Europe much less to the Cannes Film Festival, but that’s about to change next month. Congrats and safe travels.
HE to Davis: Your tickets are already purchased, you’ve said, but I’m hoping that you’ve arranged to schedule a brief stop-over in Paris (which you’ve also never visited) on the way back. After every Cannes Film Festival I’ve attended (my first was in ’92) I’ve always downshifted in Paris, Rome, Prague, Berlin, Barcelona, Lauterbrunnen, London, Ireland, etc. It would be almost sinful, I feel, to ignore this post-Cannes opportunity. But that’s me.
Credit Where Due
As previously noted I am tingling with excitement about watching Everything Everywhere All At Once. It’s obviously and totally my kind of movie. But before the viewing happens, I have to at least salute the brilliant one-sheet.
Never Trust Modified Opinions
Sam Elliott has apparently been told by his agent to walk back his Power of the Dog diss for political reasons. I don’t know for a fact that industry Robespierres have decided that Elliott is anti-progressive or sexist or something in that vein, but many probably have. And as a result they might’ve diminished Elliott’s appeal as an actor-for-hire. Maybe.
Apologizing for a previously expressed opinion is Elliott’s right, of course, but we all know what the shot is here.
Deep down Elliott is almost certainly saying “c’mon, man…I can’t express an opinion that you don’t like because my career will be hurt if I don’t walk it back? And you think…what, that it’s a good thing that incorrect opinions, as you see them, are being squelched in urban blue environments by wokesters? Okay, guys — I get it. You guys are HUAC-style wolves dressed in humanist-diverse clothing, but I’m nonetheless ‘sorry’ for my transgression. And in the meantime, perhaps some of you might to watch Ken Russell‘s The Devils.”
I’m posting this out of respect for Elliott, of course, and partly from my own experience last year.
Sam Elliott apologizes for his controversial comments he previously made about ‘The Power of the Dog’ #DeadlineContenders pic.twitter.com/XZ86wCAXmL
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) April 10, 2022
Bacon’s Most Enjoyable Character
Ask me for a Kevin Bacon career highlight, and without hesitation my first answer will always be Tremors (’90). “Valentine McKee”, Bacon’s lively, none-too-bright yokel in cowboy boots and a jean jacket, is his most fully-rounded, emotionally-winning character ever. I re-watched Tremors six or seven years ago and loved it all over again.
Bacon and Fred Ward were a great shitkicker duo in that Ron Underwood film. Tremors was called a failure because it only made $16.7 million after costing $10 million to produce, but it wasn’t a wipe-out. And it did catch on at Blockbuster, and it gradually spawned a few Tremors sequels. I saw the first one (Tremors 2: Aftershocks) and quickly got off the boat. The others were probably just as bad.
Jett, Dylan and I watched the original Tremors over and over when it hit laser disc in ’96. (They called it “Sand Monsters”.) Not long after I introduced Jett to Kevin at a post-screening reception. A proud moment.
I had first met Bacon in early ’82 (40 years ago!) when I was assigned to interview him for Us magazine. The topic du jour was his breakout performance as “Fenwick,” the nihilistic kid who knows all the game-show answers, in Barry Levinson‘s Diner. Every film journalist loved that little movie, and Joe Popcorn mostly went “meh” — it only managed $14 million domestic.
All to say that I found the above Tremors interview fascinating. Bacon was in a shaky position at the time, he says. A career slump, running out of money. But he knew he could have fun with the character.
Right after Tremors on my Bacon scale is Diner (’82). I would never, ever mention Footloose, which I instantly hated. I would then mention Bacon’s wise-ass gay prostitute in JFK, his Marine prosecutor in A Few Good Men and astronaut Jack Swigert in Apollo 13. I also liked him in Paul Verhoeven‘s The Hollow Man (’00), HBO’s Taking Chance (’09) and Amazon’s I Love Dick.
Why Doesn’t Biden Scold Oil Companies for Unconscionable Profiteering?
In April ‘62 JFK derided steel executives for raising steel prices by $6 a ton, and thereby showing “utter contempt” for the interests of average Americans. Right now big oil is showing the same kind of disregard by using the Ukraine War as a rationale for sending gas prices through the roof. Lefties are calling them on this, but has President Biden said anything? This is what the bully pulpit is for.
And by the way, on his recent trip to Europe why didn’t Biden visit Kyiv and do a walk-around with Zelenskyy, like British PM Boris Johnson has just done?
Jurassic Franchise Prison
Various dino breeds leaving footprints in the snow is, I’ll admit, a striking visual concept; ditto the extra-large Gigantosaurus. But the most attractive element (for me) is the sight of dinosaurs sprinting around on the island of Malta, where some of this was filmed.
It’s my feeling that the return of the Sam Neill-Laura Dern-Jeff Goldblum trio for the first time since ‘93…I’m afraid this only reiterates what a shameless paycheck project this basically is.
Colin Trevorrow directed this 6.10.22 release.
Is it really true that the aspect ratio is 2:1 — Vittorio Storaro’s preferred a.r.? The IMDB page says this.
Question: How does a TRex-like dino manage to swim with just those tiny little arms to paddle with?
June Allyson Detour
Memories of June Allyson have pretty much evaporated. Only boomers remember her, and vaguely at that. Her peak movie-star decades were the ’40s and ’50s. Born in 1917, she’d aged out of romantic or loving-wife roles by the late ’50s and had shifted her focus to television. I’ve always thought of Allyson as Doris Day without the singing — a petite blonde with a warm heart, a spunky personality and a great smile.
But whenever Allyson’s name comes up (which is infrequently) I don’t think of her movie roles. I think, rather, of her extra-marital affairs with Dean Martin and Alan Ladd. I’m genuinely fascinated by the marked contrast between the spirited, bright-eyed girl from the movies and the actual woman Allyson was when temptation occasionally called.
From Nick Tosches‘ “Dino: Living High In the Dirty Business of Dreams“: “[In 1948, Martin] took up with America’s quintessential girl-next-door, June Allyson. On August 10th, the day after Allyson attended the Martin-and-Lewis opening at Slapsy Maxie’s, she and her husband Dick Powell took delivery of a two-month-old baby from the adoption agency that had long kept them waiting. It was the happiest day of their marriage. She told Dean so a few weeks later, on the night she first went to bed with him.”
Allyson and Ladd’s affair happened during the filming of The McConnell Story (’55), a reputedly schmaltzy drama which I’ve never seen and probably never will see. Ladd fell hard for Allyson. Everyone’s heard the story about him calling Powell and saying “I’m in love with your wife,” and Powell responding with “Everyone’s in love with my wife.”
Both Ladd and Allyson grappled with alcohol issues. You could see the puffiness in Ladd’s features by the mid ’50s — his appearance in Shane, when he was 38, was his most glamorous.
Allyson (her real name was Eleanor Geisman) had it rough as a kid. After Powell’s cancer-related death in ’63, her drinking reportedly became…well, noticable. She turned things around in the ’70s. She became a Depends spokesperson for a couple of decades. Allyson was a staunch Republican.
McConnell’s Amoral Perspective Is Essential
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R), the U.S. Senate Minority Leader, is a pure political animal, an expedient parliamentarian and a cold-blooded reptile. (Turtles, we sometimes forget, are reptiles.)
On 2.13.21, Mitch McConnell said “Former President Trump’s actions preceding the [Jan. 6th] riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty. There is no question that [Trump] is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The rioters [attacked the Capitol] because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election.”
Two weeks later McConnell told a Fox interviewer that he would “absolutely” support Trump if he wound up as the Republican presidential nominee in 2024.
Speaking two days ago to Axios’ Jonathan Swan, McConnell said he has “an obligation to support the nominee” of his party. And that his two statements on Trump were “not at all inconsistent…I stand by everything I said on January 6 and everything I said on February the 13th.”