Nobody is more excited by color snaps of actors working on legendary black-and-white films than myself. Unfortunately there are very few of them. I’ve posted choice color shots from Some Like It Hot and Dr. Strangelove. In early ’15 I found some cruddy-looking shots from the set of On The Waterfront, taken from the documentary Listen To Me, Marlon.
Ryan O’Neal‘s precocious daughter was eight during filming; she’s currently two and 1/3 years away from the big six-oh.
In the matter of parent-child films Hollywood tends to cast actors who either (a) vaguely resemble each other at best, or (b) don’t resemble each other at all. In this respect Paper Moon was quite the rarity.
Except for a brief period in the late '90s when I worked at People magazine's West L.A office, I've been working alone in front of a screen for the better part of 30 years. It's not the screens, of course, but the writing that matters -- the devotional discipline that keeps me sane and opens "the doors" from time to time.
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At age 88, Ellen Burstyn has been a combination class act and locomotive for over a half-century (and over 60 years if you count her TV work). She shifted into a big-time film career after her performance in Peter Bogdanovich‘s The Last Picture Show, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary on 10.22.21, and she’s managed to star or costar in mostly cool, tasteful, adult-angled dramas (Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Resurrection, Requiem for a Dream, W., Pieces of a Woman) over the succeeding decades.
Not because she’s even vaguely interested in revisiting the character of Chris MacNeil, the Hollywood actress whose daughter turned into a demon in William Friedkin‘s The Exorcist (’73), but because she can’t turn down the huge paycheck. She has to take this gig in the same way that Lionel Barrymore had to allow Edward G. Robinson and his gangster goons to stay in his Key Largo hotel — he couldn’t say no to the money.
“Universal is not remaking The Exorcist, which was directed by Friedkin from a screenplay that William Peter Blatty adapted from his own novel. But the studio will, for the first time, return the Oscar-winning Ms. Burstyn to the franchise. (Two forgettable Exorcist sequels and a prequel were made without her between 1977 and 2004.) Joining her will be Leslie Odom Jr., a Tony winner for Hamilton on Broadway and a double Oscar nominee for One Night in Miami. He will play the father of a possessed child. Desperate for help, he tracks down Ms. Burstyn’s character.”
Odom: “Excuse me…are you Chris MacNeil? My God, it’s you! How are you? Are you good? I’m asking because my daughter’s been possessed by Pazuzu and I’m wondering if you’re up for kicking that demon’s ass like you did back in the early ’70s.” MacNeil: “I’m fine, thanks, but I didn’t do anything. I persuaded a Jesuit priest named Damien Karras to exorcise the demon, and he asked an older priest, Father Merrin, to help him. I didn’t do a thing. All I did was scream and weep and plead for help.” Odom: “Yeah but you know all about demons and shit, right? You know how to deal with the moving beds and green vomit and all that. You’re experienced.” MacNeil: “I don’t know anything. I just went through a horrible ordeal a half-century ago, and now I’m almost 90. Find your own exorcist.” Odom: “But I need your help.” MacNeil: “What’s wrong with you? Look at me…what am I gonna do?”
Except for Ridley Scott‘s non-competitive The Last Duel, most of the headliners for the 78th Venice Film Festival (9.1 thru 9.11, announced this morning) had been predicted or spitballed by HE and World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy. The surprise omission of Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde is significant.
Major Competition (13): Parallel Mothers, d: Pedro Almodovar; Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, d: Ana Lily Amirpour, The Power of the Dog, d: Jane Campion, Official Competition, d: Gaston Depart, Mariano Cohn; Il Buco, d: Michelangelo Frammartino; Sundown, d: Michel Franco; The Lost Daughter, d: Maggie Gyllenhaal; Spencer, d: Pablo Larrain; Freaks Out, d: Gabriele Mainetti; Leave No Traces, d: Jan P. Matuszyski; The Card Counter, d: Paul Schrader; The Hand of God,” d: Paolo Sorrentino; Reflection, d: Valentin Vasyanovych; La Caja, d: Lorenzo Vigas.
Major Out of Competition (5): Les Choses Humaines, d: Yvan Attal; Halloween Kills, d: David Gordon Green; The Last Duel, d: Ridley Scott; Dune, d: Denis Villeneuve; Last Night in Soho, d: Edgar Wright.
I’ve been waiting a long while to see Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde(Netflix), an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ semi-fictional take on the life of Marilyn Monroe, played in the film by Ana de Armas.
Like Oates’ book, Dominik’s screenplay is semi-truthfulintermsofacknowledging significantplayersinMonroe’slife. Adrien Brody plays a seemingly ArthurMiller-like playwright, Bobby Cannavale plays what sounds like a Joe DiMaggio figure, and Casper Phillipson (who played JFK in PabloLarrain’s Jackie) is “the President” in Dominik’s film. Plus Tony Curtis and James Dean (played by Michael Masini and Luke Whoriskey) are supporting characters.
As it is (a) seriously intended, (b) began shooting in ‘19, and (c) has had plenty of time to fiddle around in post, I naturally presumed Blonde would turn up at one or both of the premiere ‘21 film festivals, Venice and Telluride. Alas, I’m told this isn’t in the cards. I’m sorry to hear this. Blonde will presumably pop on Netflix sometime in the fall.
I still don’t get Anna Fitzpatrick‘s insincere (jokey) disdain for Woody Allen’s decade–oldliterary fantasy. Owen Wilson’s character imagines magical encounters with 1920s “lost generation” luminaries because he idolizes them along with the era they helped define. There’s nothing wrong with or incomplete about the set-up — Fitzpatrick is just pissing on Allen because his pariah status among progressive Millennial women allows her to dismiss his creations willy-nilly.
…to creator of this poster art (found on Twitter) for failing to copy or write down his name. Cameron Crowe’s family + struggling zoo + heart discovery drama is almost a decade old, but in today’s realm Black Widow would never play a secondary role…star or strong costar or nothing.
The Dan Bailey-Tucker Carlson confrontation happened two evenings ago (Friday, 7.23) at Dan Bailey’s Outdoor Company in Livingston, Montana. The store’s website has gone to some effort to alert people that the tall, unshaven, hat-wearing guy who confronted Carlson has no affiliation with the store, even though his name, coincidentally, is Dan Bailey.
Leos Carax‘s Annette, which premiered almost three weeks ago (7.6) at the Cannes Film Festival, will be given a limited theatrical release in the U.S. on 8.6.21, followed by a digital streaming debut on Amazon Prime Video on 8.20.21.
I watched Annette last night. It’s an arthouse doozy that leaves you stunned and astonished, lemme tell ya. There’s plenty of time to write a proper review, but I tapped out a short riff this morning and shared it with two or three friends.
“Only the most perverse, anti-populist critics will even flirt with being kind to, much less praising, Annette when it opens stateside,” I wrote. “Once you get past the strikingly surreal visual style and the fact that it was, like, made at all, there is only the self-loathing rage of Adam Driver’s Henry McHenry character, a stand-up comedian, and Carax’s seething disdain for easily led-along audiences.
“Annette is ‘brave’ and wildly out there, but this is arguably the most morally repellent musical ever made in motion picture history. Driver’s Henry, an envelope-pushing comedian who performs one-man shows that aren’t in the least bit amusing, is astounding — one of the most flagrantly revolting protagonists I’ve ever spent time with in my moviegoing life.
“Remember the rickety, old fashioned idea of a lead character having some sort of relatable qualities that an audience might bond with? Even Al Pacino‘s Michael Corleone had relatables in The Godfather, Part II, and he was an ice man. Driver is playing a kind of sociopathic Jack the Ripper figure. The movie is mostly about him and barely pays attention to Marion Cotillard‘s Ann, an opera singer who marries Henry (and vice versa), and gives birth to their daughter.”
“Annette is a misanthropic rock opera about rabid egotism, demonic personality disorder, black soul syndrome, rage, alcoholism, murder, self-loathing, self-destruction.”
Critic who strongly disagrees: “For daring, imagination, energy, it’s the film of the year so far. Fuck populism.”
The other day HE commenter Bill McCuddy said he wants Patreon paywall posts to make him hard and wet. For $5 a month McCuddy wants thrills, backrubs, shocks, surprises, accelerations, sugar highs. He wants these posts to be the equivalent of visiting a water park in mid July or riding a pogo stick in the West Village or getting a Las Vegas strip club lap dance...okay, forget the lap dance as Bill is happily married. But certainly the HE equivalent of eating the most delicious greaseburger ever prepared in human history...a sizzling hot McCuddy burger, medium rare, covered in sautéed red onions, gently smeared with a dab of Russian dressing, red leaf lettuce, warm sesame seed bun...mouth watering, lip-smacking, blackened by flame!
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