Originally posted on 8.8.10: I’ve been a Paddy Chayefsky fanatic for as long as I can remember, but I waited until ’08 to see Middle of the Night (’59), a melancholy May-December romantic drama. Directed by Delbert Mann, it costarred Fredric March and Kim Novak with Albert Dekker, Martin Balsam and Lee Grant supporting.

Chayefsky adapted it from his 1954 Philco-Goodyear live-TV drama, which costarred E.G. Marshall and Eva Marie Saint in the March-Novak roles. It was also presented in ’56 on the Broadway stage with Edward G. Robinson and Gena Rowlands.

Middle of the Night is a dirge — the kind of movie that you can easily respect but otherwise requires a certain effort to get through. Right away I was telling myself “this is good but I’m not enjoying it, but I’m determined to stay with it to the end because it’s a Chayefsky thing and is obviously well acted, especially by March and Novak and Albert Dekker, and because it has some fascinating 1959 footage of midtown Manhattan and yaddah-yaddah.”

It’s about Jerry (March), a recently widowed 56 year-old who runs a Manhattan clothing business, having an affair with Betty (Novak), an insecure 24 year-old divorcee. It’s a grim, grim film — even the off-screen sex feels like a vague downer of some kind. But it also feels honest and even courageous in the sense that relatively few 1950s films painted frank portraits of big-city despair and depression.

When I say “well-acted” I mean according to the mode and style of 1950s acting, which tended to be on the formalistic, speechifying, straight-laced side. (Which is why the internalized styles of Brando, Clift and Dean were seen as huge breakthoughs.) I found myself wishing that Mann had asked everyone to tone it down a bit. Nobody mutters or stammers or speaks softly, or struggles with a thought.

Middle of the Night is about loneliness and guilt and fear of social judgment that you’re not behaving as you should (or as your family wants you to behave), and the opposing notion that you may as well lunge at whatever shot at temporary happiness that comes along because life basically sucks and no one gets out alive.

It feels cleansing to come upon an Eisenhower-era drama that admits that a fair percentage of people are miserable (even or perhaps especially those who are married) and explores this situation in some detail, and with the usual blunt eloquence that you get from any Chayefsky work.

Everyone in the cast (including Lee Grant and Martin Balsam as March’s daughter and son-in-law) walks around with a certain melancholy under their collar, unhappy or at least frustrated but committed to keeping up “appearances.” God, what a self-torturing way to live!

Sad is loss, suffering, cruelty. Sad is “one day the universe rolled out of bed in a bad mood, decided this or that person’s life or career was no longer necessary or compelling, and decided to crush him / her like a cockroach.” It’s also “I had this thing and then lost it, and now it’s gone forever.”

Until I watched this video I’d never had the slightest interest in Rand Paul‘s height. But post-viewing I have to say that my primary observation was “wow, he’s definitely no basketball player.” Google says he’s 5’8″. I can believe it. Right next to Lindsey Graham (5’7″).

You need to deploy a certain kind of musical rhythm to deliver a good speech. Especially if you’re reading off a prompter. Some have a natural gift (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama) and some need to learn it, and others can’t find the groove even with years of practice. All to say that Donald Trump‘s delivery last night was flat and robotic. No spirit, no energy, no relish. And it went on for what, 70 minutes or so? The speech itself was the usual bullshit, but he would’ve done much better if he’d winged it.

Variety’s Kate Aurthur + virus-blocking plastic face mask (i.e., Question Mark & The Mysterians) on catching Tenet in a Vancouver Scotiaplex: “All the stuff you’re starting to read about not being able to hear the dialogue is true.”

…would be 20% to 25% cooler if they were to rename it Mojo Burger. Just saying.

The trades have reported what they know about the Ron Meyer-Charlotte Kirk curiosity in their usual fashion — forthright, discreet, careful. Richard Rushfield’s discussion of same was more candid in a neighborhood tavern sort of way, and therefore more enjoyable. One of the reasons, etc.

I have this vague impression that wokesters with the major domestic film festivals have been less than fully receptive cool to the established-older-white-guy contingent in terms of festival passes. (Excepting the trade critics, of course.) They — Sundance for one, Toronto for another — seem to be preferring to accredit women critics, younger regional critics, critics of color, LGBTQ critics.

I was famously stiffed by Sundance in ’19, of course, largely thanks to the delightful Scott Weinberg but also the spirit of Maximilien Robespierre. I also didn’t attend Toronto that year.

This year, needless to point out, has been a wash due to Covid. Virtual viewings + drive-in screenings just ain’t the same.

I’m nonetheless surprised to discover that a few younger critics have recently gotten the TIFF brush-off — Jordan Ruimy (World of Reel), Nathaniel Rogers (The Film Experience), @NextBestPicture’s Matt Neglia and Blackfilm‘s Wilson Morales. Bizarre but true. A tweet indicates that even Monica Castillo and Beatrice Loayza were briefly denied a TIFF pass, although these decisions were later reversed.

I’m also hearing that several members of the Toronto Film Critics Association have been denied accreditation.

One dismayed suitor explains that “a lot of people got rejected…their reasoning being that they need to limit the amount of people they accept due to the virtual component of the fest this year, which doesn’t make any sense.”

Morales: “Two publicists went to bat for me and still no luck…not sure what they were looking for, given the years of experience and how much I have covered TIFF in the past.”

Has anyone else of note been stiffed by TIFF?

At least I still have Cannes, Telluride, Santa Barbara and Middleburg in my quiver!

Hats off to N.Y. Times Andrew Blackwell and Taige Jensen for this faux campaign ad (8.27.20).

IM SCREAMING pic.twitter.com/39PltYGfWY

— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) August 28, 2020

“And of course Charles, who spent most of his time loitering and waiting to be offended…he was an extremely vulnerable and sensitive soul…he was therefore of course equally open to flattery, and when he heard [the praise of a passing female tourist] he preened.”

I’ve posted excerpts from this “Peter Ustinov recalls the making of Spartacus” interview once or twice since HE’s launch in August ’04. It’s easily one of the best interview or commentary supplements ever offered on any disc of any film, and of course the Charlies Laughton portion (imitations and stories — 8:20 to 15:00) is the highlight.

The 20-minute supplement initially appeared on the 1992 Criterion laserdisc of Spartacus, and again on the 2001 Criterion DVD.

It’s a shame that Universal Home Video never licensed the Ustinov interview for their various home video versions — the 50th anniversary “shiny” Bluray of 2010 (since discredited), Robert Harris‘s 2015 Bluray restoration and the recently released 4K UHD upgrade.

How much could it have cost to include the Ustinov segment? Given the fact that the 480p Criterion versions look atrocious compared to what followed, the only way to savor the Ustinov these days is via YouTube. Had Universal sprung for the license fee the interview would have been HD-upgraded…a shame.

In view of widespread complaints about viewers being unable to understand (key?) portions of Tenet‘s dialogue, this concisely phrased summary by Vulture‘s Christina Newland (“Tenet Is a Locked Puzzle Box With Nothing Inside”) might be worth storing on your smartphone’s notepad:

“John David Washington, known only as The Protagonist, is brought into a top-secret cabal working to stop the literal destruction of the planet through means of an ‘inverted’ bomb. That is to say: In this world, objects and, it turns out, people can actually exist on two planes, moving both forward and backward through time, simultaneously. This dynamic can be manipulated, and some very bad people know how to do so — namely Andrei Sator, played by a silly-accented Kenneth Branagh as a Bond-villain-esque Russian mastermind.

“At least initially, this ‘temporal inversion’ is a generous platform for plot trickery and an even better one for action sequences. Bullets surge backward, like the gun is swallowing them; hand-to-hand combat is on rewind and fast-forward; explosions can be funneled back into their bombs. This means a lot of grinding, inventive sound design, as wind moves in the wrong direction and debris flies in reverse; the soundtrack is accordingly and throbbingly unpleasant. Its efficacy is hard to deny.

“The Protagonist and his British compatriot Neil (a foppish Robert Pattinson) fight their way through London, Mumbai, and numerous other far-flung locales by way of arms dealers and art forgeries in order to find and entrap their man, eventually looping back in on themselves in multiple situations.”