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On 3.11.11 I ran a piece called “Taxi Driver‘s Brown Blood“. It was about (a) Grover Crisp and Martin Scorsese‘s Bluray restoration of Taxi Driver (4.5.11). and more particularly (b) a technical question asked of Crisp by The Digital Bits‘ Bill Hunt.

Hunt asked about the brownish, sepia-tone tinting of the climactic shoot-out scene, which had been imposed upon Scorsese by the MPAA ratings board. Scorsese had always intended this scene to be presented with a more-or-less natural color scheme, in harmony with the rest of the film. Hunt to Crisp: “Why didn’t you and Scorsese restore the originally shot, more colorful shoot-out scene?”

“There are a couple of answers to this,” Crisp replied. “One, which we discussed, was the goal of presenting the film as it was released, which is the version everyone basically knows. This comes up every now and then, but the director feels it best to leave the film as it is. That decision is fine with me.”

HE response: “There can be no legitimate claim of Taxi Driver having been restored without the original natural color (or at least a simulation of same) put back in. The film was shot with more or less natural colors, was intended to be shown this way, and — with the exception of the shoot-out scene — has been shown this way since it first opened in ’75.

“There’s nothing noble or sacred about the look of that final sequence. The fact that it was sepia-toned to get a more acceptable MPAA rating is, I feel, a stain upon the film’s legacy.”

Crisp explained that even if Scorsese wanted to present the natural color version, the original Taxi Driver negative is gone and there’s no way to “pump” the color back in.

Steven Gaydos 2011 comment: “Jeff’s right that it’s a shame a filmmaker had to alter his film in order for it to be seen in wide release, but according to my in-house expert (Monte Hellman, who oversaw the digital restoration/release of his 1971 film Two Lane Blacktop), if the negative is gone, as Crisp clearly says it is, then ‘you can put the color in but it will never look right, and certainly won’t look anything like the original footage.'”

And that was that.

But two or three years later I came upon this image of the wounded Travis Bickle, and damned if it doesn’t look like the original probably did before the MPAA stepped in.

I wondered right away where it came from, and I asked myself “if someone could satisfactorily manipulate a single frame from that shoot-out sequence to make it look right and natural, why couldn’t someone manage the same trick for the whole sequence?”

It would appear that Chris Nolan‘s Tenet is widely admired — 88% and…wait a minute, only 71% on Metacritic? Okay, it’s mostly admired. Three out of ten in the negative column.

When it comes to assessing the pros and cons of any heavy-duty blockbuster from a major distributor, at least 90% if not 95% of critics will strive for some kind of generosity if not positivity, even if the critic in question wasn’t completely knocked out. Somewhere between 5% and 10% will speak more honestly. That’s simply the way it works. Now and then that percentage can extent to 15% or 20%

The most trustworthy reviews in the world are when you run into a friend in a parking lot who’s just seen it, and he/she gives you 75 or 100 words of straight dope. This is what I’ve always aimed for — parking-lot candor, no time for bullshit, etc. I’ve dropped the ball two or three times in that regard, but to err is human.

Robert Pattinson, John David Washington.

Indiewire‘s Mike Cahill: “Where did it all go wrong? Deep in the film’s tangled DNA, there are traces of an effervescent, boundless, city-hopping romp. Turn time back! Reopen cinemas! Save the world!

“But there’s zero levity in “Tenet”: Nolan simply reverses time in an effort to bring dead ideas back to life. And if he couldn’t have envisioned Saturday-night moviegoing being among them, it feels doubly sorrowful that a film striving to lure us all outdoors should visit this many locations and not once allow us to feel sunlight or fresh air on our faces.

“Visually and spiritually grey, Tenet is too terse to have any fun with its premise; it’s a caper for shut-ins, which may not preclude it becoming a runaway smash.”

From Catherine Shoard’s review in The Guardian:

“It’s no wonder Christopher Nolan thinks Tenet can save cinema. That’s a doddle compared to the challenge faced in his film, which, we’re frequently reminded, is a proper whopper. Prevent world war three? Bigger. Avoid armageddon? Worse. To spell it out would be a spoiler, but think 9/11 times a hundred, to quote Team America: World Police, a film Tenet faintly resembles.

“Lucky, really, because Tenet is not a movie it’s worth the nervous braving a trip to the big screen to see, no matter how safe it is. I’m not even sure that, in five years’ time, it’d be worth staying up to catch on telly. To say so is sad, perhaps heretical. But for audiences to abandon their living rooms in the long term, the first carrot had better not leave a bad taste.

“For all Tenet’s technical ambition, the plot is rote and the furnishings tired.

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“I know, I know you’ll probably scream and cry that your little world won’t let you go…”

Last night Paul Schrader asked his Facebook pallies if he should maybe drop acid. “When I was in college I refused to take LSD because I was so full of suicidal anger, [and] I feared the drug would unleash self destruction,” he wrote. “That of course was media propaganda. But now at 74 with little left to lose I would like to take a trip. Is it safe at my age? Where can I safely access it?”

HE reply, filed this morning at six-something: “I wouldn’t, Paul. Unless you’ve developed a notion that you’re ready to accept the mystical, which means putting aside the rational and in some cases judgmental constructs that you’ve been assembling for so many decades — all of those structural towers of intellectual, influential, scholastic, explorational and experience-based building blocks of your identity.

“LSD is a potential passport to satori and clear light. It’s all there and quite the wonder-realm, but you can’t really enter the kingdom without letting all that other stuff go…all of that material you’ve been accumulating and evaluating and sifting through since your early teens. None of that stuff really matters in the realm of the mystical. If you think you might be down with this or at least open to the possibility, go with God. But it’s a lot easier to allow this kind of ‘letting go’ transformation to happen when you’re 19 or 22 and made of much softer clay.

“LSD is a key, a door ajar, a gateway into a whole ‘nother territory. It isn’t really about therapy or psychology (sorry, Cary) or this or that terra firma, furrowed-brow examination or rumination. It’s about stepping off a kind of misty, moss-covered cliff or, if you will, deciding that the rules, restrictions and governances that you’ve been living by are just obstructions, and that a blue-sky realm awaits.

“I’m just saying that most (i.e., obviously not all) older people have invested too many decades and sorted through too much stuff to accept this kind of clarity, this kind of spiritual cleansing and refreshment. Some people are better off living in safe, sensible worlds that have worked for them…familiarity, recognizable borders, trial and error.

“A good satori book by Alan Watts (such as “This Is It“) would be good to have around. The lyrics of ‘Are You Experienced?’ [see above] are proof that Jimi Hendrix really knew whereof he spoke…“not necessarily stoned but beautiful.”

“All due respect and serious admiration, Paul, but I suspect that you’ll find this kind of newspaper-taxi adventure and temptation more unsettling than transformative.

“If you intend to do this, fine, but at least do so with a good supply of come-down medicinals at the ready (Ocxycontin, Tapendatol, Dilaudid).”

The Tenet review embargo lifts tomorrow in England. Everyone (major US critics included) will jump in at noon Eastern, 9 am Pacific. In a way tomorrow’s dam break will constitute the second wave of reactions as the first reactions popped five days ago, courtesy of Jordan Ruimy.

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?

Until yesterday I never knew that Greta Garbo’s feet were enough of an issue to have warranted mention in a 6.20.93 letter to the editor of The New York Times.

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This is what I’ve been talking about. Last night (i.e., Sunday) some rowdies from the Portland BLM brigade, which has persisted night after night with The Street Protests That Peaked Over Two Months Ago and Everyone Is Sick To Death Of, punched and kicked a white guy who may have been driving his pickup truck aggressively near the crowd.

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 attacked a woman 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 begged for help, 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.

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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.

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It would be one thing if WHE’s forthcoming 4K UHD Bluray of Full Metal Jacket (out 9.21) offered the 1.37:1 boxy version as well as the standard 1.85. But it doesn’t.

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.

Same deal with Universal’s forthcoming 4K Psycho — no boxy version, no buy.

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I’ve been debating a text buddy as to which recent rant — Nick Cave decrying the “bad religion” of cancel culture and the Khmer Rouge or Bill Maher’s “cancel Jesus” riff — is more worthy of furrowed-brow contemplation.

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.

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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.”

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