This Tijuana guy has a little bit of that Almodovar spark…a little bit of that creative madness. We’re staying near La Fonda this evening, and having Anya fixed tomorrow in Rosarito Beach, for much less than it would cost in WeHo.
Daily
Nutrition
Variety: “Instagram has issued an apology to Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar for removing a poster for Parallel Mothers (Madres paralelas), his upcoming Venice opener . The poster in question depicts a lactating nipple. It was initially posted on Monday, and then removed for violating Instagram’s rules against nudity.”
Nudity? This is mother-and-child boobery.
David Rabe’s “Streamers”
Even apart from the woke bullshit, the basic economic model of Hollywood — you spend this much on a movie, it’s got to make the money back — has broken down because of the economics of the streamers. Which, some would argue, not only takes the thrill out of things, to put it mildly, but ensures something else.
In other words: Netflix can spend $220 million on one bad action film, it can lose all of that, and it does not matter, because their business model is “it’s all about the subscriptions, it’s all about the subscriptions, it’s all about the subscriptions, it’s all about the subscriptions, it’s all about the subscriptions….”
It’s that formula that makes the triumph of woke aesthetics possible, that makes “get woke, go broke” irrelevant. Because, of course, “get woke, go broke” remains true. Nobody — nobody! — gives a fuck about woke issues except for the one or two percent of the population who are the scum liberals who control the media and Hollywood.
Without the impossible-to-lose reality of streamer economics, none of this would work.
New Telluride Protocols
Today the 2021 Telluride Film Festival added the following protocols:
• All attendees traveling to Telluride for the SHOW, must present proof of a negative PCR test conducted within 72 hours of arrival in Telluride. Local passholders will also need to present proof of a negative PCR test conducted within 72 hours of collecting passes. In both circumstances we ask for a printed copy of the test results to be presented for each passholder when passes are collected at the SHOW Box Office. If unable to provide negative test, the attendees will be unable to pick up the pass and pass will be held until negative test provided.
•. A mobile antigen and PCR testing unit will additionally be made available to all attendees for added peace of mind while in Telluride
• Masks covering nose and mouth will be required for audiences at all film screenings
• Masks covering nose and mouth are required when awaiting, boarding, traveling on, or disembarking all Festival transportation, including charter flights.
Family of Three
Michael B. Jordan plays Charles Monroe King, a young, happily-in-love military guy serving in the Middle East who writes a journal of his experience for his son, Jordan. That’s two Jordans — actor Jordan + infant son Jordan.
But the instant that Jordan, the 34 year-old movie star, stands up buff and bare-chested, you’re going “wait, wait…who’s built like this? How much did he pay his trainer?”
Based on Dana Canedy‘s “A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor,” the forthcoming Sony release — directed by Denzel Washington, written by Virgil Williams — opens on 12.10.21.
It’s fairly obvious what the film is about, what the main current is.
Pat Hitchcock Ascends
Respect and admiration for Pat Hitchcock, the plucky acting daughter of director Alfred Hitchcock who’s left us at age 93.
Born in England in 1928, Pat moved to Los Angeles in 1939 with her father and mother, Alma Reville. She was their only child, and man, what a life she lived — a first-hand family witness and occasional creative participant in one of the greatest and most legendary Hollywood careers of all time, and a major keeper of the Hitchcock flame in her retirement years.
Pat’s most significant role by far was as the tart-tounged Barbara Morton, the daughter of Leo G. Carroll‘s decorum-minded Senator Morton. (One of the film’s best lines is the Senator saying to Barbara, “One doesn’t always have to say what one thinks.”) Barbara’s resemblance to the murdered wife of tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) triggers a homicidal trance in Robert Walker‘s Bruno Antony — one of Stranger‘s most chilling scenes.
Pat also played a chatty office assistant in the opening act of Psycho, talking to Janet Leigh‘s Marion Crane about tranquilizers, her husband Teddy, her mother and who called who.
Pat participated in numerous Universal-funded documentaries about her father’s films, many of them produced by Laurent Bouzereau.
Until today I never knew that Pat played a “court lady” in Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Ten Commandments. I tried finding a screen grab of her in costume — zip.
“There Is, Of Course, A Third Choice…”
On Tuesday, 10.12, a 4K Ultra HD disc of The Guns of Navarone will be available from Sony. All hail the 60th anniversary of a classic that’s pretty great until Gregory Peck and the team reach the top of the cliff, and then the tension dissipates, the commandos start killing too many Germans, and it becomes an in-and-outer.
Three good scenes follow — interrogation with Anthony Quinn faking cowardice + the uncovering of the traitor + waiting for the elevator to make contact with the wires and explode the whole fortress. But they kill too many Germans.
I already own a 4K UHD digital version on Amazon so what’s the physical media version likely to yield? Perhaps a slightly richer resolution, but you can only uprez and refine 35mm materials so much.
Presented in 4K resolution from the original camera negative, with HDR10. A long list of extras, including a “narration-free prologue” and “a message from Carl Foreman.”
156 minutes. 4K UHD Feature Picture: 2160p Ultra High Definition, 2.35:1 4K UHD Feature Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Compatible) | English 5.1 DTS-HD MA | English 4.0 DTS-HD MA.
NYFF Stuffed With Cannes, Berlin Repeats
World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy has composed a tidy breakdown of the 59th New York Film Festival (9.24 — 10.10).
We’re talking 19 Cannes titles — 8 competition (including Julia Ducournau’s Titane, the Palme d’Or winner), 5 out-of-competition and 6 from Director’s Fortnight.
Only three Venice Film Festival picks will appear at the NYFF: Pedro Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers, Michelangelo Frammartino‘s Il Buco and Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog.
Dog, by the way, will be the only film to screen at Venice, Toronto, Telluride and New York. So it must have something extra-compelling.
NYFF no-gos include Pablo Larrain‘s Spencer, Paul Schrader‘s The Card Counter, Asghar Farhadi‘s A Hero, Sean Baker‘s Red Rocket, Mike Mills‘ C’mon C’mon and Paolo Sorrentino‘s The Hand of God.
Shrimpy-est Diana Ever
A simple reminder about two forthcoming Dianas — Kristen Stewart in Pablo Larrain‘s Spencer and Elizabeth Debicki in the currently shooting season #5 of The Crowd. They are separated by 10 inches of height, Debicki being 6″3″ and Stewart 5′ 5″.
Diana herself stood 5’10” so Debicki and Stewart are separated by 5 inches in both directions.
Secondly, everyone recalls that 1988 video in which Prince Charles and Diana danced on a ballroom floor in Australia. Charles is roughly 5’10” or clearly an inch or two shorter Diana in heels. (If she wore flats they’d have been the same size.)
Be advised that in Spencer, the 5’8″ Jack Farthing plays Prince Charles — three inches taller than Stewart. It’s likely that Stewart wore platforms in every stand-up scene and that Larrain avoided shooting them standing side by side.
Baldwin Elaborates
“Nearly all powerful politicians are isolated, in the extreme, from reality. Cuomo had spent so much time in that rarified air, he forgot what regular people do.” — Alec Baldwin on soon-to-be-ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
But after the #MeToo movement blew up in late ’17, it had to be obvious to each and every handsy, massage-y, touchy-feely 50-and-older politician out there that icky, sexually aggressive behavior was totally over and done with. The culture was shouting over and over “don’t do this, don’t go there, things have changed” and Cuomo still ignored the signals?
Damn Bruising Scolds
You can accuse me of this or that, but you know what I’m totally innocent of, and will remain innocent of for the rest of of my life? Being a mob scold.
I’ve scolded or criticized or vivisected this or that film or actor or you-name-it, but as an individual. I’ve never, ever taken part in a Twitter or comment-thread gang-up or beat-down of someone for having expressed an unpopular or minority view….never.
I’ll debate someone if I disagree with him/her, but once others join me in taking shots and particularly once they get out the pellet rifle and start drilling the victim over and over…I quit. I leave the room. I hate it when those fucking bullies (and you know who I’m talking about) go after someone. Snarling wolf pack, fangs bared, tearing at flesh.
From “HE vs. Snooty Morricone Scolds,” posted on 7.7.20: Futile repeating of basics: The late Ennio Morricone was a legendary film-music composer. The common consensus is that he deserves a place in the pantheon, and I’m certainly not arguing with that. But his score for Terrence Malick‘s Days of Heaven (’78) is the only one I truly love, and I just don’t believe that his stuff was otherwise all that elevating or transcendent. Over a half-century-long career he created good, respectable, at times haunting, occasionally hum-worthy music. And that’s as far as I can go.
Alas, yesterday the People’s Central Committee for the Assessment and Approval of Critical Opinion decided that yesterday’s “Subdued Respect” post had to be condemned. What’s that old Carly Simon line? “These are the good old days.”
“All Of It Gets Washed Away”
Every now and then I’ll come upon a Sopranos YouTube clip that I’ve never seen before. To me, the “Carmela in Paris” clips are brand new,. The Pont Alexandre III moment shared by the titular tragic figure (Edie Falco) and Rosalie Aprile (Sharon Angela) touched me — I’ve experienced a few such moments myself. It’s from “Cold Stones,” which aired on 5.21.06 — the 11th episode of season #6. The ancient Roman bathhouse ruins (Les Thermes de Cluny or Les Thermes du Nord) are located near the southeast corner of Blvd. St. Germain and Blvd. St. Michel.