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A couple of months ago I posted a short riff about M. Night Shymalan‘s Old (Universal, 7.23). I was basically repeating something that I’d initially wrote in mid March, which was that the Alan Ladd-sized Gael Garcia Bernal ((5’6″) is too short to be married to Vicky Krieps (5’9″) in a movie, at least without their size disparity being a distraction.

“But,” I added, “I’m sure Shyamalan has framed their two-shots carefully or had Bernal wear ‘lifts’ or stand on milk boxes or whatever it took.

And yet I’m told by a couple of critic pallies that Shyamalan makes no attempt to hide the height difference. Veteran critic #1: “[Shyamalan] pretty much shows that differential. You totally get a sense of what a shrimp Bernal is.” Veteran critic #2: “It’s obvious that Krieps is substantially taller [than Bernal]. I actually exaggerated the height difference in my review for a laugh.”

Rotten Tomatoes critics haven’t touched the tall-short dynamic for fear of being accused of sizeism by the Twitter wolves, which could get them fired. So don’t go looking for any mentions of this issue in any Old reviews. Only Hollywood Elsewhere is bold enough to step into this minefield.

I’ll be catching and reviewing Old tomorrow night. Right now it has a 59% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 57% rating on Metacritic.

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Last weekend French President Emanuel Macron told citizens who’ve refused to get vaccinated that their horseshit would no longer be tolerated — no access to restaurants, cafes, movie theaters, plane flights or long-distance trains without official proof of vaccination (or a recent negative test).

Imagine if President Biden had the sand and the stones to say the same thing to American bumblefucks — “get the vaccine or else, guys…we’ve had it with your stupidity and obstinacy and ignorance…you’re making things worse for everyone,” etc.

N.Y. Times, 7.19, reported by Aurelian Breeden: More than 100,000 people took to the streets across France over the weekend to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s tough new vaccination strategy…demonstrators in Paris and elsewhere vented against what some called Mr. Macron’s ‘dictatorship’ after he announced that a “health pass”would be required for many to attend or enter most public events and venues.

“At the same time, however, his policy seemed to have [brought about] the desired effect: Record numbers of people flocked to vaccination centers in advance of the new rules coming into effect next month.”

Incidentally: All Telluride Film Festival attendees have been requested to upload their vaccination cards by this Friday (7.23),

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From Owen Gleiberman‘s review of M. Night Shyamalan‘s Old (Universal, 7.23):

I think he will. I trust Bob Strauss. He was the one of the first critics to explain that Get Out was much, much more than just an Ira Levin ripoff — that it had a hidden, “holy shit!” double-backflip meaning that only the Gods of Perception were able to grasp. Strauss fully understands the creative schemes and instincts of Jordan Peele. Some people didn’t get Get Out. I got it and so did Levin’s ghost, but if you want the real lowdown, go to Strauss.

Dune trailer observation #1; Kyle MacLachlan wasn’t a big tall muscle man, but he seemed average sized in a fitting sort of way and at least half-capable of handling himself in a fight. In the new Dune trailer there’s a scene shared by Jason Momoa and Timothee Chalamet, and I’m sorry but Chalamet seems rather short and slight in this context. Leading men in epic movies are obliged to fulfill a certain machismo factor. They don’t have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger or whatsisname in John Carter, but on the other hand they can’t be toothpicks.

Dune trailer observation #2: By all appearances this movie would be all sand and wind and big sets and wispy nothingness without the older, salt-and-pepper, middle-aged guys — Josh Brolin, Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista — doing the heavy lifting.

Dune trailer observation #3; Did Zendaya train at RADA? Has she done Shakespeare? Without subtitles I wouldn’t be able to understand a single word that she’s half-muttering and half-speaking under her breath…”rolling over the sands you can see spice in the air..the outsiders ravage our layahnds in front of our eyes.” Could Warner Bros. offer special Zendaya-subtitled versions of Dune in theatres? Because every time she says something it’s gonna be “oh, Jesus…here we go.”

Dune trailer observation #4: Spices are fuel in this context, but they aren’t essentials like food, clothing, water and shelter so who cares from a planet Earth perspective? I sure as shit don’t, I can tell you. And do I really have to hang out in a dusty desert environment for 155 minutes? Yes, bitch — you really have to.

The photo is great for the rain-soaked streets, of course. And interesting because you can’t see the woman’s face, but there’s no missing her distinctive umbrella and overcoat with bunched-up sleeves, and the fact that she’s on the tall side. And her distinctive cab-beckoning technique — not with a general wave but two fingers. A woman of class and subtlety.

Richard Quine‘s My Sister Eileen, an allegedly misbegotten musical that I’ve never wanted to see and almost certainly never will see, opened at the Victoria on 9.22.55. Charles Laughton‘s The Night of the Hunter, a poster for which can be viewed in the distance off to the right, opened at the Mayfair one week later — 9.29.55.

Neither film was a box-office success so it can be assumed that this photo was taken soon after the Hunter opening; probably sometime in early to mid-October. Although back then even box-office stinkers would remain in first-run theatres for somewhat longer periods.

If my estimate is correct, James Dean had died only a week or two before this shot was taken — 9.30.55. Elia Kazan‘s East of Eden, Dean’s big breakout film, had opened at the Astor theatre around seven months earlier, on 3.19.55. Dean’s second film, Rebel Without a Cause, would open two or three weeks hence — 10.27.55.

Criterion’s reportedly handsome new Bluray of Jacques Deray‘s Le Piscine (’69) popped yesterday. All the would-be elites who follow Criterion’s lead have bought into the legend of this Gallic noir. The disc contains a new restored 4K digital transfer, a 2019 documentary about the film by Agnès Vincent-Deray, featuring costars Alain Delon and Jane Birkin, screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, and novelist Jean-Emmanuel Conil; archival footage featuring Delon, Birkin and costar Romy Schneider; an alternate ending; and an essay by film critic Jessica Kiang.

I’m just reminding HE regulars that I watched La Piscine about six years ago and found it rather off-putting. Noirs obviously aren’t about radiating warmth and emotional assurance, but La Piscine is extremely cold; a good portion of the second half radiates outright cruelty. The plot and the tone are as malevolent as this kind of thing gets. And in at least one respect it’s fairly deranged.

Delon’s Jean Paul dumps Schneider’s Marianne somewhere around the two-thirds mark, and it just doesn’t calculate a guy who looks like Delon would jettison one of most beautiful women in the world. Schneider was 30 when La Piscine was made in September 1968, and was dead 13 and 2/3 years later, at age 43.

I’ve said this a few times before, but the fact of the matter is that Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash (`16), a fairly exacting remake of La Piscine, is a hell of a lot richer and certainly more engaging than Deray’s original. The ’69 film is superficially attractive but a turn-off in most respects; A Bigger Splash is an absolute turn-on.

From my 4.11.16 review: “Luca Guadagnino‘s A Bigger Splash is a Mediterranean hothouse noir — a not-especially-sordid sex and betrayal story that builds so slowly and languidly it feels like there’s nothing going on except for the vibe, and honestly? It’s so lulling and flavorful and swoony and sun-baked that you just give in to it. The undercurrent is…well, gently mesmerizing, and that was enough for me. I felt like I was savoring a brief vacation. I’m not saying the dramatic ingredients are secondary, but they almost are.

“The title comes from a David Hockney painting, and that in itself should tell you where Guadagnino is coming from. A Bigger Splash is about island vibes and coolness and louche attitudes and to some extent the splendor of the druggy days, and particularly the legend of the Rolling Stones.

“In my mind the island of Pantelleria, which is halfway between Tunisia and the southwest coast of Sicily, isn’t just the setting but a kind of lead character. It colors and tonalizes and blows little mood gusts.

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I was settling into Gunpowder Milkshake on Netflix…”my God, this is heaven…amazing!…why doesn’t Netflix make more like this?” No, seriously, it made me sick to my stomach. So I turned it off and began to watch Arthur Penn‘s Night Moves (’75), not intending to watch it all through (it was after 11) but I watched about 45 or 50 minutes.

Night Moves runs only runs 99 minutes but always feels like two hours, and yet it’s always engrossing. As noirs go it’s colder than most. It’s a demimonde film about a community of friendly, cynical people who work in the lower end of the film industry and don’t care all that much about anything. It basically says that everyone’s guilty or corrupt or thoughtless…that everything’s rancid and foul. But Gene Hackman‘s Harry Moseby lends a certain humanity.

Anyway there’s a night scene early on in which Moseby, an ex-football player turned private investigator, happens to drive by the Magnolia Theatre (4403 W. Magnolia, Burbank…not far from Warner Bros. studio) with Eric Rohmer‘s My Night at Maud’s on the marquee. A bit earlier his wife, played by Susan George, tells Harry she’ll be catching this very Rohmer film with a gay friend and asks Harry if he’d like to join**.

So he pulls over and waits for the show to end. Never mind about what happens — I was suddenly swooning over the marquee and the quiet street and the idea of little independent movie theatres…a small single-screen theatre showing an arty French film on a weeknight in a quiet little neighorhood in the San Fernando Valley. And I was thinking “Jesus, I really wish I’d driven out there earlier this evening and caught the same 7 pm show.”

** Moseby responds with the famous line “I saw a Rohmer film once…it was kinda like watching paint dry.” This line was quoted in Rohmer’s N.Y. Times obituary.

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I know that look on Leonardo DiCaprio’s face — as Ernest Burkhart, the bad-guy nephew of Robert DeNiro’s William Hale character in Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth’s Killers of the Flower Moon, he’s projecting a lowbrow dumbfuck attitude, a little hostile and guarded, probably not enough brain cells, etc.

Born in 1874, Hale wasn’t that old in the mid 1920s, of course — about 50 or thereabouts. DeNiro looks great-grandpa-ish but we’ll let that slide. (Leo will hit the big five-oh in November ‘24 — three years and change.)

Meanwhile Jesse Plemons, as FBI good guy Tom White, has a haircut and a head shape not unlike that of Lou Costello or, if you will, a basketball. He’s walking with a crutch on his left side.

Photos shot by Owen Hutchison.

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