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Yesterday Tatiana announced the official launch of Tatiana-pravda.com, with a caveat that all the articles will be in English. She’ll probably post most of her articles concurrently on HE, or at least those about movies, books and travel. This one is about her struggle to learn English in her youth.

Tatiana excerpt: It’s almost certain I will never ever speak English as well as Russian. 70% at best, and only after years and years of hard work.

As I began this article there were two competing voices within.

One said, “Nobody will be really interested in your writing. Even a super exciting story sounds dull and trivial if it’s told clumsily or without spirit.”

Another voice replied, “Yes, you’re absolutely right. You will sound dreary and your readers will be bored. But you know how a person achieves great heights? When he/she finds himself in an uncomfortable situation and needs to climb out of it. Or if a person creates a challenge for himself. But the heart beats faster and faster and the blood craves adrenalin. It’s like jumping with a parachute for the first time in your life.”

I fell in love with English at first sight, or more precisely at first sound :-). I was six or seven years old when I first heard it spoken. In the Soviet Union era all students were required to study a foreign language after graduating from elementary school (three years). We all went to school when we were seven years old. After elementary school we transferred to middle school (five years). And then high school (two years).

Exceptions were the language schools where you studied a foreign language from the very beginning.

I was very excited about studying English. But guess what? We were instructed in English but not encouraged to speak it conversationally. Anti-capitalist propaganda, the Cold War, full isolation of the USSR from the world…we all were very busy with building communism.

We were reading texts about London (“London is the capital of Great Britain”), Washington and New York, but were absolutely unable to speak the language of an imperialist nation that we taught to regard as our enemy.

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In a Variety cover story penned by award-season handicapper Clayton Davis, the legendary Spike Lee is asked what message he has “for Oscar voters who don’t agree with the new set of [diversity-favoring] Academy rules?”

Lee’s response: “They probably voted for Driving Miss Daisy and Green Book.” Lee is alluding to a bloc of voters known for their white boomer mindsets, and otherwise regarded as change-resistant bugaboos with conservative perspectives and what he presumes is a grumbling resistance to p.c. quotas and checklists.

In a 10.7 Indiewire piece posted earlier today, Zack Sharf writes that Green Book and Driving Miss Daisy “tell stories about race from a white perspective.”

Yes, there’s a New York Italian-American perspective in Green Book, and yes, the script was co-written by Nick Vallelonga (son of Viggo Mortensen‘s Tony Lip character) along with Brian Hayes Currie and director Peter Farrelly.

Then again it’s based on the documented recollections of Don Shirley as well as Tony Vallelonga, and it’s not told so much from a “white” point of view as much as a 1962 social perspective, when things were a lot less liberal and fair-minded compared to today.

And it’s fundamentally a parent-child relationship film with Mahershala Ali‘s Shirley character, a masterful jazz pianist, maintaining the ethical and behavioral upper hand throughout most of the film.

Lee’s derision doesn’t seem to be based on how the story is told (what would he have done differently if he wanted to be truthful about Vallelonga and Shirley’s recollections?) but that Green Book was made at all.

In short, Green Book isn’t a “white perspective” movie but a blend of all the above. Sharf, a dutiful foot soldier in service of the woke Indiewire agenda, is deliberately misrepresenting, as Lee has all along.

No dispute about Bruce Beresford‘s Driving Miss Daisy reflecting a whitebread industry consciousness about racism. I’ve never been much of a fan of this 1989 film, but to be fair it is set in Atlanta of 1948, which was a whole different moral universe than the realm of Los Angeles some 41 years later, much less today.

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The person who designed the jacket cover for Paramount Home Video’s forthcoming Collateral 4K disc (12.8.20) got it wrong. Tom Cruise‘s “Vincent” doesn’t have a narrow dark beard of any kind. He sports a light 10-day growth…a salt-and-pepper thing that doesn’t begin to merit the “b” word.

The ending of Collateral is one of the most curiously moving I’ve ever seen. For an urban film in which a few guys get killed, I mean.

“This world is just a game but…”

It dawns upon “Guy” (Ryan Reynolds), a non-engaged video-game character, that he’s (a) living inside an action-packed video game and that (b) his world is also about to end. And so he’s determined to change his fate by making himself the hero, and then saving the game before the developers can shut it down. But he’s only a digital construct, of course, and not a part of any organic scheme so where could this possibly lead? Talk about a story with nowhere to go.

Peter Weir‘s The Truman Show (’98) was a somewhat similar fantasy. Jim Carrey played Truman Burbank, an innocent who’s grown up living within a large, dome-shrouded TV set populated by actors…a guy who knows nothing about life except for this fake, fascistic realm. Written by Andrew Niccol, The Truman Show would have had a fascinating third act if (a) Truman had escaped the dome only to be shocked by how sad and frustrating and hugely difficult real life is, and then (b) returned to the dome, suddenly grateful that he has a place to live that’s much less “happier” that what the real world allows.

Free Guy would be interesting if Reynolds and or two of his fellow characters could somehow become human. I doubt this is in the cards.

Directed by the dependably shallow Shawn Levy and cowritten by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, Free Guy (20th Century Studios) pops on 12.11.20.

My theatrical viewing of Tenet a few weeks ago in a Flagstaff Harkins plex was a great thundering high. Big screen, booming sound, small buttered popcorn, extra-comfy rocking chair, first indoor viewing experience in over six months…mother!

Plus I wasn’t thrown by my all-but-complete inability to understand the particulars. (I’d absorbed the broad concepts in advance.) I knew going in that Tenet would defy understanding in the usual sense. I hate, hate, hate Nolan’s arrogant sound-design schemes. I couldn’t understand Tom Hardy‘s Bane, and I couldn’t understand half of Inception, and Interstellar, which I loathed from the very depths of my soul, was even worse. So I went into Tenet with an attitude of “go ahead, make my day…make it all but impossible to understand…I won’t care.” And I didn’t.

But time and again, as I mentioned in my 9.5.20 review, I was acknowledging that I’d never seen anything quite like this before. Excerpt: “I was smiling quizzically and a few times literally guffawing with pleasure. Tenet is all but impossible to fully ‘understand’ (certainly upon a first viewing, and even after reading the Wikipedia synopsis I was still going ‘wait, what?’) but my eyes, mind and expectations were constantly being challenged and blown. Pleasurably, of course.”

Yesterday Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman summed up this reaction as follows: “The film doesn’t entirely make sense, but that’s okay, because even when it doesn’t it’s such a bravura spectacle of head-spinning awesomeness (or something) that our heads are spun…sort of.” Yup, that was the reaction of Old Flagstaff Jeffie. And that’s what I’ll hang onto until a subtitled Bluray or the subtitled streaming version comes along, and then I’ll derive a whole new level of comprehension.

Gleiberman’s 10.4 column was titled “Why Tenet Was the Wrong Movie at the Wrong Time.” Here are some salient paragraphs and my corresponding reactions.

OG: “By the last act of Tenet, which is a grandiose action battle full of explosions that run backward (the sand funneling down into the earth, because those forces are moving in reverse), you can see that the effects are cool, and the idea is cool, but how the logistics of it all fit together remains barely coherent, which kind of limits the fun.” HE: “Yes, it’s curious and limiting, but I knew going in that Nolan was going to pull the same shit he did before.”

OG: “But what I discovered, to my surprise, is that Tenet, in all its high-toned kinetic quasi-obscurity, completed the alienation of the [oppressive COVID] experience. Rather than offering a great escape from the COVID blues, the movie was perfectly in sync with the COVID blues. Which is exactly what made it the wrong film for this moment.” HE: Disagree. Tenet rescued me from that climate of widespread depression outside the Harkin plex. For two and a half hours, I managed to forget the dull, dispiriting gloom of face masks, social distancing, no indoor restaurants, no flying to Europe, etc.

OG: “No, the reason that people are going to want to go back to the movies is joy. That’s what they want to feel; that’s the feeling that sitting at home can leach away. And Tenet, while marketed as a great escape, is a movie so tangled up in itself that it turned out to be as joyless an experience as the very prospect of going to see a movie during COVID.”

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Ladies and Gentlemen, here’s my little corner of Hollywood Elsewhere’s space.

It’s my own project, named PRAVDA (Truth).

Possible topics: (a) My opinion about films; (b) The difference between Russians and Americans in terms of general views about life; (c) Education; (d) Healthcare; (e) Reactions to marijuana legally for sale in California.

Please send me your ideas on what might be interesting for you, and I will get into that as best I can. You can contact me here in comments or through my email: t.antropova74@gmail.com.

I have so much to share with you. The only obstacle is a language barrier. Unfortunately, my English speech currently is not as elaborate and expressive as the Russian. But everything is temporary. :-))

When I feel strong enough, I will move to my own website. But right now I need your support and help.

Thanks to Jeff’s friend who suggested this idea and inspiration.

My first topic is about perception of the Russian language. As a linguist with a bachelor’s degree, I’m curious how English-speaking people regard the Russian language from a phonetic point of view. What does Russian sound like? Is it harsh? Musical? Pleasant or unpleasant?

Over the last couple of days I shot and edited a short video about Grace Kelly, my favorite Hollywood actress. Shot on my iPhone, edited with iMovie. Duration: 3 min. 48 sec. Russian language.

The below clips are similar. Both are about three or more cops interrogating a person they suspect of being a murderer. In police parlance they “like” the suspect. In both scenes the person of interest (a sleekly attractive blonde novelist, a bald factory worker in work boots and overalls) conveys a certain indifference to the currents of suspicion that the cops are clearly swimming in.

The difference is that Paul Verhoeven‘s direction in Basic Instinct tries to nudge or poke you into reacting — it’s unsubtle and “manipulative” (whip pans, extreme close-ups) and therefore less effective — while David Fincher‘s direction of the Zodiac interrogation scene is extremely delicate and almost imperceptible — you can feel the creepy tingly but without Fincher making any overt moves. It’s the difference between conventional and masterful.

The two Presidential candidates of 1960 were certainly better behaved and more dignified than Orange Plague was a couple of nights ago. Seriously, what a degradation in standards and values (spiritual, cultural) and it’s all on the boomers — the elitist greed of older urban liberals in the 21st Century and and especially the despair and nihilism of the bumblefuck boomers and GenXers.

Nixon would live another 34 years; Kennedy would be dead just over three years (roughly 38 months) hence.

Nixon’s sometimes decisive but often arch and paranoid presidency would end in disgrace in ’74, and yet he pushed for universal health care and established the Environmental Protection Agency.

Kennedy turned out to be a far less progressive president than his successor, Lyndon Johnson. His greatest moment was his mature and measured handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis; his achievements were more defined by a certain spirit and verve than concrete legislative advancements.

JFK would have sailed to victory over Barry Goldwater in ’64, but to achieve this he would have had to pledge to stop worldwide Communism whenever or however. His hand would’ve been subsequently forced in Vietnam — commit to a massive military investment or cut bait and let North Vietnam overrun the South. I’m having trouble imagining that he would have firmly stood up to the military-industrial complex and totally followed the advice of George Ball.

However you slice it the mid ’60s (SDS, Stokely Carmichael, burning cities, anti-establishment counterculture, anti-war protests) would have been a dispiriting ordeal for the nation’s 35th President. Fate saved him from all that, not to mention the dispiriting possibility of Nixon succeeding him in ’68.

I intended to post these Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom stills yesterday, but my energy waned.

They tell us that (1) Chadwick Boseman is greatly missed and (2) this 1920s-era film (“fateful recording session in 1927 Chicago, exploitation of black recording artists”) will deliver a certain poignant, painterly atmosphere by way of dp Tobias A. Schliessler (Patriot’s Day, The Taking of Pelham 123, Dreamgirls, Friday Night Lights).

The director is George C. Wolfe. Ruben Santiago-Hudson‘s screenplay is an adaptation of August Wilson’s 1982 play. Boseman aside, the costars are Viola Davis, Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo and Michael Potts. The Netflix film pops on 12.18.

Paramount’s Bluray of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone will run 157 minutes, or five minutes shorter than the original 1990 version. The newbie pops on 12.8.20.

Francis Coppola’s statement: “For this version of the finale, I created a new beginning and ending, and rearranged some scenes, shots, and music cues. With these changes and the restored footage and sound, to me, it is a more appropriate conclusion to The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, and I’m thankful to Jim Gianopulos and Paramount for allowing me to revisit it.”

Yesterday (9.29) Widescreen‘s Anthony Francis posted on Facebook about some of his favorite death scenes. What follows are my reactions to some of these as well as a reposting of “Son of Brando Death Bubbles,” a riff about Marlon’s death scene at the end of The Young Lions (’58).

1. Marlon Brando‘s hacking cough death in Act Three of The Godfather (’72). Francis comment: “The man dies a monster — a mirror image of his true self.” HE comment: Vito Corleone does not “die as a monster” but as a kindly, animated old guy playing with his grandson. The scene in which Vito scares young Anthony by putting a piece of orange skin in his mouth is one of the most heartwarming moments in American cinema. That and the heart-to-heart scene with Al Pacino (“Wasn’t enough time, Michael”) is why Brando won the Oscar.

2. Christopher Walken shoots himself in the head in The Deer Hunter (’78). Francis comment: “One shot and with a smile, [Walken] becomes another casualty of war.” HE comment: I hated Cimino’s idiotic Russian roulette gimmick from the get-go, and have always refused to read anything into it. No lead character in a serious film has ever died for a dumber reason than Walken did in The Deer Hunter. Which I haven’t seen, by the way, since ’78 or thereabouts.”

3. John Hurt chest-burst death in Alien (’79). Francis comment: “The death that shocked audiences all over the world.” HE comment: Well, okay but people weren’t reacting to Hurt’s death as much as the realistic physical effects that made the chest-fever scene seem so vivid and traumatic. It wasn’t a death thing but a ‘holy shit, how did they do that?'”

4. Rutger Hauer‘s wings-of-a-dove death scene in Blade Runner (’82). Francis comment: “All those moments will be lost in time like tears…in the rain. Time…to die.” HE comment: “One of the saddest, gentlest and most beautiful death scenes in movie history.”

5. Josh Brolin‘s off-screen death in No Country For Old Men (’07). HE comment: “One of the strangest directorial cheats of all time…almost on a fuck-you level…you spend a whole film with a guy and then he gets blown away by some crazy Mexicans and we don’t get to witness it in real time?”

6. James Cagney‘s blown-to-kingdom-come death in Raoul Walsh‘s White Heat (’49). HE comment: “Better to go out with a big glorious bang than whimpering and anesthetized inside some padded cell.”

7. A lovesick, house-sized ape plummets 86 stories to his death in King Kong (’33). HE comment: “20 or 30 seconds before he lets go and falls there’s an expression on Kong’s face as he looks up at the planes. The look says “you fucking assholes…I’m in love and all you want to do is kill me…you’re such pricks, all of you…why didn’t you just leave me alone with Faye Wray back on the island? I would’ve taken care of her.”

8. Each and every electric-chair death in The Green Mile elicits HE contempt. As God is my witness I’ll never see that godawful film again.

9. William Holden‘s pointless and easily avoidable death in Sunset Boulevard. HE comment: Joe Gillis knows that Norma Desmond tends to react over-dramatically about everything, and he knows that she’s obsessively in love with him, and that the odds of her doing something rash if he announces he’s leaving her are high. If Gillis was smart he’d play it cool, leave her a sensible note, take the nice wardrobe and escape while she’s sleeping. And then go to the cops and say, “There’s an eccentric wealthy woman who may do something violent.”

10. Cagney’s dead-drop-flop at the end of William Wellman‘s Public Enemy (’31). HE comment: No comment required.

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This is going to sound a bit strange, but late last night I experienced what felt like a kind of epiphany — a sense of myself and especially my hardnosed style of writing that that I’m suddenly not happy with on a certain level, and an idea that henceforth I need to dial that down. I’m not talking about abandoning my voice but chilling it down some.

After last night’s debate I was reading over some of my old stuff, and the strangest thing happened. I was suddenly stepping outside myself and reading the material like a 30something critic from England, and I was saying to myself, “This guy pushes too hard and uses too many adjectives. I could make him sound better by turning the current down and easing up on the pugilism.”

The combination of listening to Donald Trump bark and goad like a junkyard dog and then (this is going to sound really strange) watching Mervyn LeRoy‘s The FBI Story (’59), a total Eisenhower-era propaganda film that is nonetheless about basic middle-class decency and serving something greater than yourself…the combination of these influences seemed to open a door within, and all of a sudden I was saying “I have to stay as far away from caustic Trump vibes as possible, and I need to inject a little Jimmy Stewart into my soul.”

I know, I know…I’ll never be Jimmy Stewart or Tom Hanks either. I’m a sober, cat-loving Chris Walken from Connecticut by way of Next Stop, Greenwich Village, The Dogs of War, At Close Range and The King of New York. But I just knew last night that I needed more Stewart and less barking in my life.

The daily HE grind is a bear. It’s tough to push out four or five riffs or rants or reviews in exactly the right way. Sometimes a column piece won’t really read right until I’ve edited it over a 12-hour or even a 24-hour period, and then even then it sometimes feels a bit off.

I only know that I need to calm things down and not push quite so hard. I learned the value of “less is more” back in the ’70s, but I need to re-apply it. A voice is telling me this, or more precisely a whisper. Which is how inspiration always makes itself known.

To echo that great South African critic and cinematic seer Guy Lodge, “What a brand!”

Over the last 22 years Hollywood Elsewhere (including the early expressions on Mr. Showbiz, Reel.com and MoviePoopShoot) has gone through four phases.

First was the frank, occasionally tart, sometimes bludgeony attitude that began with the October ’98 launch of Mr. Showbiz, and which ended in April ’06 when I junked the twice-weekly column posting with “The Word” (short items) and shifted into a daily bloggy-blog format.

HE output increased greatly after that, and built up steam between ’06 and ’12 — a somewhat more gushy, stream-of-consciousness tone began to take over, and with that a certain…well, brashness-and-buckshot approach from time to time. Not always but now and then.

Phase Three began to take hold when I embraced sobriety on 3.20.12. The effects of a dry lifestyle are always gradual and drip-drip-drip (and sometimes one step forward and two steps back), but the wild and woolly era of ’06 to ’12 began to downshift in…I don’t know, ’13 or thereabouts. Certainly by early ’14.

Phase Four began in early ’18 when the wokester Robespierres began to seize the reins and go after transgressors, and despite the fact that my sins have never been about anything other than being overly mouthy and intemperate within the confines of the column, things became to get increasingly combative and punitive. A consensus began to take hold that I was some kind of obstinate shitheel and that I needed to dial it down and eat a little humble pie. More and more the title of this column became Hollywood Elsewhere: Under Siege.

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