I prefer the NMDLND version because it’s more succinct, less colorful, a little sadder and scruffier.
The more colorful version with portions of five license plates (Alaska, California, Arizona, South Dakota and one other) is more eye-poppy. It suggests that the film may be about a vibrant and colorful journey of some kind — different regions, vistas, aromas, flavors. It suggests some kind of eye-opener or pick-me-up experience, and that Frances McDormand‘s “Fern” may be in for a bracing adventure.
The NMDLND version conveys less in the way of optimism, and more in the way of “art.” I’m always more in favor of an implication rather than a statement of plain fact.
The first Nomadland reviews will happen at the Venice Film Festival on 9.11 — a little more than three weeks hence. The commercial opening is on 12.4.20.
…and allow us to carefully explain the gist of the humor in Mel Brooks‘ Blazing Saddles. Without which some of you might take to Twitter to scream about systemic Hollywood racism, etc. 1974 audiences didn’t need a tutorial, but you do. What does that tell you?
The protestors were probably presuming that the guy was somehow in league with that guy who killed a woman in Charlottesville by backing his musle car into a crowd of protestors.
N.Y. Post account: “A series of clips on social media shows the victim being surrounded in his white Ford truck at 10.30 p.m. Sunday as others attackedawoman he was with, who was punched and even tackled to the ground during the violent melee. The unidentified driver eventually sped off, with the mob chasing him — with some heard loudly laughing when he crashed into a tree and then a building, according to the clips.
“He was dragged from the truck and tackled to the ground as he beggedforhelp, getting repeatedly punched as he tried to call his wife while pleading with his attackers as he sat on the ground.”
BLM supporters need to double-down on this stuff. This is exactly the king of thing that could possibly persuade swing voters to hold their noses and painfully vote for Trump. You can bet Team Trump will be using this footage for a campaign ad. Brilliant, hats off, etc.
Oh, and Joe and Kamala? Don’t say a word. You don’t want to criticize the BLM movement or progressives might not support you. BLM-ers need to keep trashing cities, keep looting, keep beating up crackers in pickup trucks. This is the ticket, the true path…what the Biden-Harris ticket needs more of in order to lose.
Following a recent Toronto press screening, World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy has posted two reactions to Chris Nolan‘s Tenet. Here are fragments — please visit Ruimy’s site for the full magilla:
Tipster #1: “[It’s] about reversing time and righting the wrongs of the past.” [HE insert: Like Trump’s electoral victory, the making of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the 9.11 attacks, John Lennon‘s murder and the JFK assassination?] “Clearly made for Nolan fans, [who] will love every single minute of it…his best movie since Inception. So many twists and turns [with] a puzzle-like nature to its story…very much a time-travel movie done in the most deliberately complicated of ways, [such that] I quite honestly still don’t fully grasp a few [story points]. The final scene does bring the need for multiple viewings.”
Tipster #2: “[It’s] not Dunkirk, [and] is far better than Inception and Interstellar because (a) there isn’t as much exposition, and (b) the actors — especially a stellar John David Washington and Elizabeth Debicki — actually get to act. Robert Pattinson is the cool and calm fella a la DiCaprio in Inception**. The reverse-engineering plot device is actually not that complicated — you can actually follow this movie and not get too lost. [And] the action scenes are flat-out great.”
Warner Bros. will open Nolan’s long-awaited (i.e., endlessly COVID-delayed) actioner in over 70 countries worldwide, including Europe and Canada, on Wednesday, 8.26. Next comes the U.S. on Thursday, 9.3, but only in cities that have “reopened safely”, whatever that means. Fans should probably not count on seeing it in New York City and Los Angeles, at least not initially.
Please understand there is only one way to re-experience this 1987 war classic, and that’s via the HD boxy version on HBO Max. (Which I happened to watch a portion of only a day or two ago.) It is absolutely the most visually pleasing version anyone will ever see. Perfectly framed. The head room is transporting. Nothing is cleavered or trimmed. Exactly the way Kubrick wanted it.
10:02 am update: Where does Nic Cage stand on these topics?
Friendo: Cave’s article is important and eloquent. HE: He’s just saying what many others have said, and will continue to say. A cutting-edge musician is repulsed by the Khmer Rouge — shocker. Friendo: But in general you’re not posting remarks by people from the cool tribe. This will shame guys like Pete Meisel. There is no one cooler in the cool tribe than Nick Cave. HE: Bill Maher’s “cancel Jesus when he returns” has my attention at the moment. Friendo: Nobody in the cool tribe cares about Maher. Cave will shame them. To them Maher is an angry man yelling at clouds. The MSM won’t touch the Cave thing. Social media doesn’t touch anything that doesn’t align so you will at least amplify his message. Better than posting about Pink’s Hot Dogs. HE: I happened to visit Pink’s late yesterday and decided to post photos on the spot. Plus Pink’s is an important, much beloved cultural landmark in this town. And age-ism is just as stupid and ugly and rancid as racism. Friendo: Cave’s piece is a pie in the face for all of those assholes on your site who say there is no problem here. His entire essay on it is a beautiful thing. I should not have to be convincing you to do this. HE: Okay, but there is no greater HE asshole commenter than “Jimmy Porter.” You can smell the dogshit on his shoes.
On this, the 121st anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock‘s birth, my revised list of his 12 most enjoyable and finely crafted films: (1) Notorious, (2) Vertigo, (3) North by Northwest, (4) Psycho, (5) Strangers on a Train, (6) Rear Window, (7) Lifeboat (propelled by Tallulah Bankhead and Walter Slezak), (8) To Catch A Thief, (9) The Man Who Knew Too Much (’56 version, and despite the agonizing, overly emotional performance by Doris Day), (10) Shadow of a Doubt, (11) I Confess and (12) Foreign Correspondent.
I couldn’t include The Birds (despite my love for the Bodega Bay diner scene) because of the ghastly performances by those awful school kids. I’m sorry but Suspicion (horrible ending), The 39 Steps and Rope have also been wilting on the vine.
And don’t even mention Marnie — The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody and a few equally perverse fans of this 1964 film had their fun a few years ago, but that vogue is over.
One of the greatest HE thread comments of all time, from “brenkilco”, stated that Brody’s determined fraternity of admirers is “insidious and frightening…they’re just like ISIS except instead of beheading people they like Marnie.”
The three hottest attractions of the forthcoming, COVID-threatened NY Film Festival (Friday, 9.25 thru Sunday, 10.11) aren’t exactly award-season rocket fuel — be honest.
The opening night attraction is Steve McQueen‘s Lover’s Rock, an ’80s-era film about a blend of young lovers (Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, Michael Ward) and music at a blues party…whatever that suggests or amounts to.
Lover’s Rock (apparently the strange apostrophe placement is correct) was cowritten by McQueen and Courttia Newland. Rock is one of three films from McQueen’s SmallAxe anthology that will screen at NYFF. The other two are Mangrove, about an actual 1970 clash between black activists and London fuzz, and Red, White, and Blue, based on the story of Leroy Logan (John Boyega) who joined the police force after seeing his father assaulted by cops.
The centerpiece attraction, as previously reported, is Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland, a sad-eyed-lady-of-the-highway film with Frances McDormand.
The closing-night attraction is Azazel Jacobs‘ French Exit, an allegedly surreal comedy about “a close-to-penniless widow moving to Paris with her son and cat, who also happens to be her reincarnated husband.” Michelle Pfeiffer, Lucas Hedges, Tracy Letts, Danielle Macdonald and Imogen Poots costar.
I haven’t received my Kindle review copy of Glenn Kenny‘s “Made Men” (Hanover Square Press, 9.15.20), a 400-page history of the making of Martin Scorsese‘s Goodfellas (’90).
Critic and book author Shawn Levy (“Rat Pack Confidential”, “The Castle on Sunset”), whom I’ve known for years, has called Kenny’s book “impeccably researched, fluently written, and infused with insight, wit and mastery…exactly what you want from a making-of-your-favorite-movie book. From mob stories to the nuts-and-bolts business of crafting a masterpiece, it’s all here…you’d have to be a real schnook not to read it.”
I don’t want to make a big deal about this but I was little perplexed about the book’s front cover, which shows the rear half of a bullet-riddled pink Cadillac.
The allusion, of course, is to the pink Caddy bought by Frank Pellegrino‘s Johnny Dio (aka “Johnny Roastbeef”) with a wad of stolen Lufthansa loot. Robert De Niro‘s Jimmy Conway, the Lufthansa heist ringleader, is infuriated that Johnny bought the damn thing after being warned not to spend money on anything flashy.
Johnny tries to explain it away (“It’s in my mother’s name”), offers a soft apology (“Sorry, Jimmy”), etc. Nonetheless three or four scenes later he and his blonde wife end up whacked in the front seat of the Caddy.
The problem is that Johnny Roastbeef’s pink Caddy is a 1979 model with a white top, and the caddy on the book cover is a ’63 or ’64 model with mild fins and no white top. Plus the color of movie version is ripe and loud while the book-cover version is pinkish beige.
This is not a capital crime on the part of the book-cover designer, but why not use the caddy we all saw in the movie? Obviously it’s an easy get — a no-brainer. I’m just not understanding the ’63 or ’64. The snafu doesn’t hurt anyone or get in the way of the actual content (i.e., Kenny’s research, reporting and seductive prose style) but again…why?
Rear section of a 1963 or ’64 pink Cadillac.
Johnny Roastbeef’s 1979 pink Caddy as shown in Goodfellas.
So an early-ish cut of Andrew Dominik’s Blonde (Netflix), a fictionalized version of Marilyn Monroe’s life by way of Joyce Carol Oates’ book, has been seen and praised by Oates.
It was announced last May that Blonde, which stars Ana de Armas, had been bumped into ‘21 due to pandemic pressures. But the 2020 Oscar calendar has also been extended into 2.28.21, which is six and a half months hence.
For a film that began shooting a year ago and has now, according to Oates, been assembled into a striking, satisfying whole, what could be the problem with releasing it before the late February deadline?
In the long history of movie moustaches, only four have seriously enhanced an actor’s aura — Clark Gable‘s pencil-thin, career-long ‘stache (a 27-year stretch from ’33 to ’60), Robert Redford‘s in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (’69), Burt Reynolds‘ “Smokey” ‘stache and Billy Crudup‘s upper-lip growth in Almost Famous.
I guess I could bend over backwards and admit that Billy De Williams‘ Lando moustache in Episode #5 and #6 of the Star Wars saga was cool. And okay, Sam Elliott‘s handlebar in The Big Lebowski had a certain folksy authenticity. I’ll also allow that Daniel Day Lewis‘s Bill the Butcher ‘stache completed the satanic aura. Plus [thanks to HE commenters] David Niven, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Jr., Ronald Colman, William Powell, Errol Flynn, Lee Van Cleef, Vincent Price, Groucho Marx and Ernie Kovacs.
But otherwise moustaches are generally annoying and almost always a mistake. Certainly in a present-day context. And not just on-screen.
Moustaches are a machismo thing, of course. We’ve all read about rock stars stuffing toilet paper into their underwear before going on stage. I’m not saying each and every wearer of a moustache is coming from the same place, but they’re definitely looking to flaunt their masculinity.
It’s my personal theory that the moustaches worn by Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty in Mike Nichols‘ The Fortune caused that film to tank, or were certainly a decisive factor in that regard.
From Gunfighter Wiki page: “20th Century Fox hated Gregory Peck‘s authentic period mustache in The Gunfighter (’50). In fact, the head of production at Fox, Spyros P. Skouras, was out of town when production began. By the time he got back, so much of the film had been shot that it was too late to order Peck to shave it off and re-shoot. After the film did not do well at the box-office, Skouras ran into Peck and reportedly said, ‘That mustache cost us millions.'”
