THR‘s Scott Feinberg has posted an interesting “Awards Chatter” discussion with Best Actor contender Ben Affleck, whose performance as a recovering alcoholic in Gavin O’Connor‘s The Way Back is arguably his best performance ever…certainly his most life-reflecting by way of naked revelation.

Standout Affleck quote: “One of the things that happened to me was that I was forced to really honestly look at myself — my failings, my shortcomings, my character flaws — to find accountability, to not hide or run from feelings. And I developed a much greater access — this sounds very actory, so forgive me — to the full range of my emotions. I have had so many more life experiences and so much more to bring to a performance. Now, I feel like a much, much better actor than I’ve ever been. And I love it.”

The Way Back (Warner Bros., 3.6) was the last film I saw in a screening room before the pandemic hit. Here’s my 3.4.20 review, titled “Sincere Muted Respect for ‘The Way Back'”:

Last Friday I mentioned something I’d heard about Gavin O’Connor and Ben Affleck‘s The Way Back, a sports redemption drama about an alcoholic basketball coach. The thing that I heard (and that I shared) is that “it’s not Hoosiers.” I saw it the night before last, and it isn’t.

But you know what? In some ways Brad Inglesby‘s script is as dramatically reputable as Hoosiers — it’s rooted in a real, recognizable, occasionally unfair world of fundamentally decent but occasionally flawed peopleGavin O’Connor’s . And O’Connor’s direction is respectably lean and dutiful, pared-to-the-bone and bullshit-free.

And Affleck’s lead performance…well, he certainly knows what it’s like to be a middle-aged drunk, doesn’t he? That authority and experience filter through. The cynicism, the swearing, the hair-trigger eruptions, the lethargy. It’s acting, of course, but without “acting.” And that’s no small feat.

And the film itself is definitely decent. Not levitational but sturdy. I’m giving it an eight. Not an eight-point-five but an honest eight.

Because, for the most part, it isn’t Hoosiers. It’s a step-by-step story about a guy with a serious problem, and while it’s embroidered and punctuated with basketball issues and strategies and the usual ups and downs, it doesn’t turn on the game. It turns on what Affleck’s character, a divorced construction worker who gives up boozing after taking a coaching gig for the same South Bay basketball team that he gloriously played for in the early ’90s, does about his addiction.

In all my years of searching for color shots of significant films playing in Times Square during the ’40s to mid ’60s heyday, I’ve never come across a full-color snap of the Capitol marquee during the run of From Here to Eternity. Until today, that is. An eventual winner of eight Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director / Fred Zinnemann, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor / Frank Sinatra, and Supporting Actress / Donna Reed), Eternity opened at the Capitol (B’way and 51st) without a premiere and on a sweltering weekend to boot. Plus the Capitol had no air-conditioning.

Sometime early in the From Here To Eternity engagement, probably in September or October 1953.

If I remember correctly, Kirk Douglas never once takes his shirt off in Billy Wilder‘s Ace In The Hole (’51). He was well-known, of course, for displaying his brawny physique in Mark Robson‘s Champion (’49), which had made him a star two years earlier. So the Ace in the Hole billboard marketing guy said “fuck it, let’s try and sell this cynical, bitter film about heartless journalism as a Champion reboot.”

I moved to New York City 25 years ago. I came of age, fell in love, and became a father here. Seeing our City in so much pain breaks my heart.

Let’s fight for a future New York City that we can be proud of – together. Join us at https://t.co/TGnxwuBiHB pic.twitter.com/n9zxPybgbh

— Andrew Yang🧢🗽🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) January 14, 2021

Several 20something (i.e, Zoomer) students in a film appreciation class were recently asked to share impressions of Citizen Kane, which they’d all been asked to watch. Some remarks have been simplified or edited down and I threw in a few [sic] qualifiers, but what follows is otherwise verbatim:

Student #1: “I personally did not enjoy being confused by this movie. I need to watch the video breakdowns to understand it a little better. I did really like the camera angles and contrast in sizes. I liked Bernstein because he was a nice and ambitious man. I did not know the movie is 20 years away from its 100th year anniversary.”

Student #2: “I enjoyed this film, but I didn’t understand at first why this film has been called a masterpiece. It isn’t uncommon for us [huh?] the film that using multiple character points-of-view. However, at the time Citizen Kane was made the cinematography [seemed] sensational and it effected [sic] a lot of films later years. If I watched this film in the 1940s, I could have different thoughts. I found Susan’s perspective the most interesting. The impression of Kane from other characters’ perspective is [that he was] very confident, bold and sociable. In contrast, Susan’s perspective [tells us that he was] dignified, frightful and authoritative. This is because shooting from low angle intentionally in order to show how Kane looks from Susan. We can know what is Kane actually like or what did he ask for through his life from her perspective.”

Student #3: “Citizen Kane is a very confusing kind of film (in my opinion). I had to watch it twice to even get through it. The main character, Charles Foster Kane, is a very reserved and closed-off person whom nobody could figure out throughout his whole life. The whole movie’s plot threw me off on the whole last word ‘rosebud’ because it waited until the last possible second to tell everyone what it represented. I feel like this movie is an older kind of movie and I am a younger audience, so it didn’t appeal to me as much as any other kind of movie would. To be honest, I would not watch this again. It was way too confusing to me and I felt like they could have made this film way shorter.”

Student #4: “Although I personally liked the movie I completely understand it being a movie that requires a specific appreciation. I found it confusing and I did not really know what was going on. I need to watch it a couple more times to get a better understanding of the movie. I think it did not appeal to me because it was a movie from an older generation and I did not understand what they were talking about. I also feel it was a little long so I did not feel entertained while watching it. I think when I watch it again it will help me better understand it. I did like some of the angles of the shots they took. You could tell they used different styles of filming. I liked Mr. Bernstein the most because he was a really smart man and he was a really good actor. I liked him because he just wanted people to like him back and to help.”

Translation: I really want to detoxify the Trump brand. My family members and business buddies are worried, and so I’m giving this speech to try and turn things around. I especially want to recover the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster, which was recently cancelled. That one really hurt. So let’s let bygones by bygones…okay? And forget about Impeachment 2.0. Partisan aggression, nothing more.

pic.twitter.com/FIJbvCYGJ6

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 13, 2021

I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something incomplete about the trailer for Mike Cahill‘s Bliss (Amazon, 2.5). It feels like an Andrew Niccol head-scratcher.

HE to Friendo: “What’s with the flashlight gizmo with the nostril tongs? This is the MacGuffin flip switch, I realize — the transportation device — that’s propelling Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek into a digitally reconstituted reality. But is it…what, just an injection experience that lasts for a few hours or what? Are they actually sitting in some drab apartment the whole time? I’ve watched it twice and I’m not getting the geometry of it. Maybe I’m not intended to.”

Friendo to HE: “Apparently they’re plugging into some AI or VR system a la Strange Days, and you spend most of the movie being teased about which reality is the “real” one, etc.”

Boilerplate: “After recently being divorced and then fired, Greg (Owen Wilson) meets the mysterious Isabel (Salma Hayek), a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is just a computer simulation. Doubtful at first, Greg eventually discovers there may be some truth to Isabel’s wild conspiracy.”

Many exotic overseas locations, but the film was lensed in Los Angeles and Croatia…nowhere else.

One of HE’s most anticipated 2021 films is Robert Eggers‘ The Northman (Focus Features). Several sites have described it as a 10th Century Viking revenge saga. Wikipedia calls it “a historical thriller.”

But it doesn’t seem to be any kind of ultra-violent Viking thing with axes and long ships and the worshipping of Odin. Because the basic bones of the script (cowritten by Eggers and Sjon) are based upon the Scandinavian legend of Amleth, which inspired William Shakespeare‘s Hamlet.

Alexander Skarsgård plays Amleth, and Nicole Kidman (to whom Skarsgard’s rich asshole character was turbulently married in Big Little Lies) plays his mother, Queen Gudrun. Anya Taylor Joy‘s character is unnamed, but she’s probably playing Ophelia. Ethan Hawke is the King, Claes Bang is Feng (a character straight out of Amleth), Willem Dafoe as Heimir the Fool, Bjork is the Slav Witch, etc.

Last February Northman dp Jarin Blaschke (who also shot The Lighthouse and The Witch) told JoBlo’s Mike Sprague that the film will be “dark and unusually violent,” and that it will be “bigger than the others.”

In a recent WTF interview with Marc Maron, Kidman discussed her Queen Gudrun role. “I just worked with Ethan [Hawke],” she said. “He played my king. And now I’m crazy about Ethan. He was always a great actor but just personally, what a great guy. And so much knowledge! Such an artist, such an actor. He’s a Renaissance man.”

I don’t like “crazy” being used to express great love or intoxication or enthusiasm. I know it’s commonly used but I don’t like it. Whenever I hear someone say “I’m crazy about that song” or “I’m crazy about my new girlfriend,” I always raise an eyebrow and take a step back.

2:05 pm Pacific: Okay, it’s done, ratified and carved into stone — Orange Plague has been impeached for a second time. The vote was 232 in favor (including 10 Republicans) vs. 197 opposed.

Impeachment 2.0

Earlier: For the first time in U.S. history an American President is facing a second impeachment vote in the House of Representatives. Never before and probably never again. The roll call begins around 4 pm eastern. A majority of House Republicans will be voting “no’, of course, mainly, I’m presuming, because they’re afraid of what the Bumblefucks back home will say or do if they vote to impeach.

HE is shocked and very sorry to read about the death of poor Jessica Campbell, known for Freaks and Geeks and her stand-out supporting role in Alexander Payne‘s Election. She was only 38. I loved her “Tammy Metzler” in Election…she just about stole the film. Condolences to Payne, Cameron Crowe and everyone who ever worked with her. Apparently she passed on 12.29 but her death wasn’t announced until today or yesterday. Not a Covid thing but otherwise unexplained and mystifying.

From “Pence Reached His Limit With Trump — It Wasn’t Pretty”, a 1.12 N.Y. Times report by Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni:

Our brief national convulsion over Bruce Willis‘ mask-averse behavior at a West Hollywood Rite-Aid two days ago has mercifully come to an end. It is now time to move on and focus our attention on the House of Representatives’ impeachment vote.

Tuesday, 1.12, “Rite–Aid Mask Rebel“: [On Monday, 1.11] Bruce Willis showed those Rite-Aid bitches who the daddy is and how to stand your ground when it comes to mask refusal.

Willis actually roamed his ground while declining to pull his bandana up around his nose, and then he thought better of it and left the Rite-Aid like a man, striding out proud and tall.

I’m presuming that the altercation happened at the Rite-Aid at the SW corner of Fairfax and Sunset. I’ve been there many times so don’t tell me. When the employees tell a customer to mask up, they mean what they say and say what they mean.

But Willis apparently wasn’t in the mood to hear it, and so…well, nobody knows if he replied with actual words but his actions clearly said “you don’t tell me to mask up…you tell others maybe, but not me.”