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A group of lonely, self-loathing, women-hating incel wackos have committed mass murders (or pledged to do so) over the last five years. A relatively new phenomenon — began with late Obama, has moved big-time into late Trump.

In 2014 Elliot Rodger, 22, stabbed three people near his Isla Vista apartment, and then shot 11 people near the UCSB campus, sending three to God, before killing himself.

From Jennifer Mascia’s Trace article, 5.23.19: “The Isla Vista gunman has been hailed as a “saint” and a hero by other incels, and several American mass shooters have cited him as inspiration.

“The 40-year-old self-proclaimed misogynist who shot six women, two of them fatally, at a Tallahassee yoga studio last year name-checked the Isla Vista gunman in one of his final online posts. The 21-year-old who fatally shot two students and himself at his former high school in Aztec, New Mexico, in 2017 used the Isla Vista shooter’s name as an online pseudonym and called him a “supreme gentleman.” The man who carried out the 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon, which left nine people dead and eight others wounded, wrote in an online manifesto that he was a virgin with “no friends, no job, no girlfriend,” and said that he and others like him — including the Isla Vista gunman — ‘stand with the gods.'”

This is not new, much less startling, news to anyone who’s been paying the least amount of attention. And it was surely on the minds of all those Venice Film Festival-attending critics who suggested that Joker might be received as some kind of incel anthem flick.

Cut to Robbie Collin’s 9.20 Telegraph article in which he describes a hotel room interview with Joker star Joaquin Phoenix that went briefly wrong:

“Unlike Heath Ledger’s inscrutable take on the character in 2008’s The Dark Knight, Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck, a failed comedian who still lives with his elderly mother, is the horribly familiar enemy within. If the film hadn’t been set in the ’80s he could easily be the latest online message-board extremist to take his grievances murderously viral.

“[And] yet Phoenix doesn’t seem to have considered this kind of question at all. So when I put it to him — ‘Aren’t you worried that this film might perversely end up inspiring exactly the kind of people it’s about, with potentially tragic results?’ — a fight-or-flight response kicked in.

“‘Why?’ Phoenix eventually muttered, his lip curling up at one side. ‘Why would you…? No…no.’ Then he stood up, shuffled towards me, clasped my hands between his, and walked out the door.”

This provides a peek into Phoenix’s mind. The man obviously lives in his own isolation tank. He was right smack in the middle of the Venice and Toronto Joker hoopla with everyone saying “incel wacko weirdo” blah blah…possible echoes and stirring of portents of real-life malice. And yet the whole conversation flew right around Phoenix’s head and into the ether.

Collin has described the Phoenix incident as “my most hair-raising interview yet.”

A research screening of Sam Mendes‘ 1917 happened this evening (Wednesday, 8.18) at the AMC Garden State in Paramus, New Jersey, and one guy (whom I know but have had only sporadic contact with) is claiming it’s grade-A and then some.

“It’s much better than Dunkirk,” the guy claims, “and is basically as if the opening battle of Saving Private Ryan was a whole movie. Young British soldiers are trying to relay a message regarding a German ambush, and we follow their mission and race against the clock. It’s not just a gimmick or experience. It actually has character development and first-rate dialogue. Surprisingly emotional since the soldiers have personal family ties. Elements of irony and dark comedy. It’s filmed like Birdman with long takes hidden and disguised as one shot. Brutally graphic, shocking and bloody, lots of dodging of bombs, hiding in caves. Hard R.”

Accept the word “masterpiece” or not, but that’s the term being used this evening. The running time is a little less than two hours — 110 minutes. Most of the film has a professional completed veneer…nearly done. Occasionally funny in an unexpected way. Uses magic-trick editing to make it look like it was shot in a single take. Easily dp Roger Deakins‘ best work.

The next reaction will be from someone claiming that 1917 is not as good as all this — trust me.

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In the previous post I mentioned a certain forehead-slapper in James Gray‘s Ad Astra (Fox/Disney, 9.20). But it’s not the only one. There are actually three. The first, which has been spoiled all over the place, is a Mad Max-like dune-buggy car chase on the moon. Then comes the curious biological presence thing. Then comes another lunar moment in which Brad Pitt attempts to surreptitiously board a Mars-bound space vehicle…all right, forget it.

There’s a lot to “admire” in Ad Astra. I didn’t believe a frame of it, but I approved (and still do approve) of the adult-friendly attitude. I appreciated the effort that Gray made in this regard.

Okay, portions were made for the intellectually stunted or disengaged, but otherwise it’s a reasonably tidy, pro-level, not excessively long (124 minutes) space drama with some very cool VFX. All through it I was feeling a certain amount of respect mixed with a certain indifference. It didn’t turn me on but it’s not a flagrant burn.

Ad Astra is basically about how an emotionally brusque, middle-aged astronaut (Brad Pitt) travels all the way to Neptune to find his presumed-dead-but-actually-alive astronaut dad (Tommy Lee Jones) way the hell out at the edge of the solar system. And thereafter settle or solve some important matters.

Dad has been missing or at least out of contact for 30 years, and, we eventually discover, is living aboard a massive Neptune-orbiting space craft. The voyage he launched three decades earlier was called the Lima Project (pronounced like the city in Peru, not the bean). Pitt’s primary goal is to somehow stop the generating of destructive energy surges (or pulses) that have been causing terrible havoc and killing thousands on earth. I didn’t get the science of it and didn’t really care, to be honest, but the surges have originated from Neptune so maybe Jones is somehow culpable.

Pitt to TLJ: “C’mon, dad, cut the shit. You’re hurting people and really fucking things up.”

By the conclusion Brad seems to have partially resolved some paternal issues he’s been carrying around for decades. Stuff like “okay, you tutored me in math and we watched black-and-white movies together, but otherwise why were you such an aloof workaholic prick, dad, and why did you abandon our family? Why didn’t we take more walks, have more catches on the front lawn, watch more football games, go on camping trips?”

My basic thought as I left the theatre last week was “not a bad film…annoying and stupid, yes, but not fatally so…and certainly satisfying from a VFX standpoint. But my God, what an awful long way to go (not to mention the spending of untold billions if not trillions) just to allow a guy to come to terms with his complex feelings about his father and perhaps achieve some kind of closure.”

This in turn would allow Brad to henceforth build a warmer, more trusting relationship with his wife, Eve, once he returns to earth. Eve is represented more than “played” by Liv Tyler, as she doesn’t say a word. Or not as I recall.

It took Voyager 2 about 12 years to reach Neptune (launched on 8.20.77, arrived in Neptune orbit on 8.24.89). The return trip to earth would presumably take another 12 years, for a grand total of 24 or 25. And so Pitt, who’s supposed to be in his mid 40s as the film begins, would be pushing 70. He’d be Rip Van Winkle with a white beard. But in the movie he’s not noticably older when he returns. The only difference is that he now has a moderate-length beard, but it’s not gray or white. (It might be salt and pepper-ish.)

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Brad Pitt to Entertainment Weekly‘s Leah Greenblatt about campaigning on behalf of his Cliff Booth performance in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, which is pretty much a lock for a Best Supporting Actor nomination:

“Oh, man. I’m gonna abstain. I mean, you never know, and it’s really nice when your number comes up. But the goal is for the film to land, to speak to someone, whether it’s now or a decade from now. I find chasing it actually a disservice to the purity of your telling a story, and a shackling thing to focus on.”

Translation: “If I campaign I’m gonna have to spend three to four months answering cloying questions about my contentious divorce from Angie and my relationship with Maddox and who I’m going out with and stuff like that, and life is short, you know? I don’t want to become a talking sock puppet, repeating the same answers to the same pain-in-the-ass, Access Hollywood questions.

“Roman Polanski didn’t compaign for The Pianist, but he won anyway, right? I’m gonna follow his lead. If I win, great. And if Tom Hanks takes it for playing Fred Rogers, fine.”

I only just got around to a 9.4 Vulture oral history piece about how Hustlers was assembled and shot in a relatively short time frame. Written by Rachel Handler, it’s titled “The Hustle Behind Hustlers.” The piece is cool, clean and well ordered, but a certain quote from producer Jessica Elbaum, founder of Gloria Sanchez Productions, stood out.

Elbaum: “We were prepping by February, we [began shooting] the movie in March, we wrapped it in May, and the movie’s coming out in September, which is insane.” By which Elbaum presumably meant “this is way faster than the usual.” She’s not wrong.

Wikipedia says Hustlers began principal photography on 3.22.19 in New York City, with the shoot lasting 29 days. Final production wrapped on May 3. Hustlers premiered at the Toronto Film Festival almost exactly four months later — 9.7.19. It opened last Friday (9.13.19).

A four-month turnaround from the conclusion of lensing to a film festival opening is very fast work, but — I almost hate to point this out — it wasn’t totally insane. At least three films did it faster.

Oliver Stone‘s W. opened only three months and one week after the finish of principal photography, but of course it was shown to press at least a couple of weeks prior (I know because I attended the junket at the Four Seasons) so it was actually finished and screenable less than three months after shooting stopped. Filming began on 5.12.08, and completed on 7.11.08. It opened in theatres on 10.17.08.

I can’t remember or even discover the exact details, but Floyd Mutrux‘s American Hot Wax (’78), a biopic of rock ‘n’ roll disk jockey and promoter Alan Freed, managed an extremely quick turnaround. I interviewed Mutrux at a Manhattan junket a couple of weeks prior to the 3.17 opening, and as I recall the Paramount-produced film had wrapped as recently as the previous December or possibly even January. I wrote director Cameron Crowe, who performed a brief cameo, to see if he could recall any details — he hasn’t responded. I’m pretty sure the film wrapped less than 12 weeks before opening day, and possibly less than ten.

But the Big Daddy of fast Hollywood turnarounds is still Otto Preminger‘s Anatomy of a Murder (’59). Liner notes for a Columbia/TriStar DVD of the film claim that principal photography in Michigan began on 3.23.59 and ended on 5.15.59. The Anatomy Wiki page says it previewed on 6.18.59, or 33 days after wrapping. The first public screening happened at the Butler Theater in Ishpeming and the Nordic Theater in Marquette on 6.29.59. The world premiere for the 160-minute film was either held on 7.1.59 (according to Wikipedia) or 7.2.59 (according to the DVD), at the United Artists Theater in Detroit.

Most of my responses to Josh and Benny Safdie‘s Uncut Gems were about irritation and frustration. Because, in my judgment, Sandler’s Howard Ratner, a total gambling junkie, isn’t interesting. Not because Sandler isn’t good in the role — he’s actually brilliant — but because the film has no interest in looking or reaching beyond the hustling mood-rush aspects of his wildly self-destructive addiction.

That’s not a putdown of Sandler’s performance. Within the realm that the Safdies have created, he’s completely authentic. We all know what Sandler’s screen persona has been for the last 25 years — droll, laid-back, quippy, sarcastic smart-ass. Howard Ratner is different. Sandler has never given himself to a character like this before. I just want to make that clear. You could say that Sandler is better than the film. I completely respect what he’s done here. In fact, I’ve just visited Gold Derby and upped his standing to fourth place (right behind Adam Driver, Joaquin Phoenix and Robert De Niro).

I know that American Beauty was a whole ‘nother thing before it was pruned and whittled down to just the right elements. I’ve always wanted to see the courtroom scene and all the other stuff that was cut, just for curiosity’s sake.

Some parts of the final released version don’t work so well by today’s standards, but you know what still works perfectly? Kevin Spacey‘s performance. A current of trepidation just went through me after writing that, but you know what? One should really be allowed to say this, despite what’s happened since. Spacey was also great in Swimming With Sharks, The Usual Suspects and Glengarry Glen Ross. He was great all through the ’90s.

Another thing that made American Beauty really come together, I felt from the get-go, is Thomas Newman’s score.

American Beauty isn’t as good as Michael Mann‘s The Insider, which was also nominated for 1999’s Best Picture Oscar, but American Beauty‘s values were deemed richer and more resonant than The Insider‘s, which not only wasn’t emotional enough for most voters — it wasn’t emotional at all.

I remember when DreamWorks publicity was just beginning to allow journalists to see American Beauty, which later won the Best Picture Oscar. It was in the late summer of ’99, and I was detecting feelings of caution if not concern, or at least a form of uncertainty. I had to beg and beg to persuade the Dreamworks guys to let me see it. Their reluctance was such that it was hard not to suspect that something about Sam Mendes‘ film might be problematic.

After I finally saw American Beauty at Skywalker Sound on Olympic Blvd., After it ended I immediately phoned Mitch Kreindel, who worked right under Dreamworks marketing/publicity honcho Terry Press, and said, “Are you kidding me? This film is extra. It got right inside me. The plastic paper bag and the ending melted me down. It could go all the way.”

But until that consensus began to build up and sink in, some people in upper DreamWorks management (and I’m not saying Press was necessarily one of them) didn’t know what they had. Or at least they weren’t sure. If they did know what they had, they sure gave a good impression to the contrary.

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A couple of days ago Paul Schrader suggested the idea of a movie-themed hotel. Some kind of flush establishment, he meant, that would offer exact duplicates of famous hotel rooms from classic films — the climatic 2001 hotel suite, The Shining‘s room 237, the bare-bones Phoenix hotel room where Marion Crane and Sam Loomis met for a lunch-hour quickie, “cabin” 1 at the Bates Motel, Eve Kendall‘s room at Chicago’s Ambassador East, etc.

A cool notion, Schrader concluded. Then he mentioned that he googled it and found that “someone else already had the same idea.”

Overlook Hotel’s room 237.

Actually, not quite. The movie-themed hotel suites profiled in Claire Trageser‘s 2.14.18 Travel & Leisure article (“These Movie-themed Hotel Rooms Will Bring Your Favorite Fantasy to Life“) were actually created for the rube tourist crowd. She describes rooms inspired by Talledega Nights, Star Trek and Spongebob Squarepants. She also describes some Harry Potter wizard chambers and Lord Vader‘s quarters (with a kid’s bunk bed?). You wouldn’t have to be an Okie from Muskogee to enjoy one of these abodes, but it would probably help.

In short, a serious film-theme hotel doesn’t exist.

If and when it ever happens, it should be located in the Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Ave. area. Hollywood Elsewhere would gladly consult on the particulars for a reasonable month-to-month fee. But it probably won’t happen because while the boobs may like movie-themed rooms, their prime concern is staying somewhere slick and swanky, and sometimes the concept would argue with that.

Which would mean no Touch of Evil motel room (i.e., the one in which poor Janet Leigh is taunted and almost raped by gang members) and no Psycho rooms (either the Bates motel or the Phoenix flophouse). And no replica of the cheap Times Square hotel where Jon Voight stayed until his money ran out. And no Judy Barton hotel room from Vertigo with green neon glaring through the window. Only deluxe accommodations!

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Filed at 12:41 pm by Variety‘s Gene Maddaus: “Felicity Huffman was sentenced on Friday to 14 days in prison for the crime of paying $15,000 to boost her daughter’s SAT score. Judge Indira Talwani also ordered her to serve 250 hours of community service and a year of probation, and pay a $30,000 fine.

“’Trying to be a good mother doesn’t excuse this,’ Talwani said in issuing her verdict. ‘The outrage in this case is a system that is already so distorted by money and privilege in the first place…you took the step of having one more advantage to put your child ahead.’

“Huffman was ordered to report to prison on October 25.”

In order to prepare for the terrible trauma of serving a 14-day sentence, Huffman will submit to a special program of psychological boosting and positive-aura counselling. She’ll also take a crash course in defensive martial arts techniques in order to protect herself from vicious inmates. She’ll also watch several 1930s prison dramas starring James Cagney, George Raft, Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy; she’ll also watch several babes-behind-bars exploitation films, including Jonathan Demme‘s Caged Heat. She’s also exploring writing a book about the ghastly horror of a two-week jail term. Her publisher has already inquired about promotional appearances on The View and The Ellen Show, and a possible endorsement by Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club.

Robert Mitchum to Felicity Huffman: “The prosecutors originally wanted you behind bars for two or three months, right? And then they dropped their recommendation to 30 days, and yet somehow your lawyer persuaded the judge to give you 14 days. And you’re crying? Back in ’48 I did 60 days in county for smoking a joint, and I did the time like water off a duck’s ass. Hell, I could’ve done 14 days while doing yoga handstands. I know that was 70 years ago and that admonitions like ‘be a man’ don’t fit into the 21st Century sensibility, but the more you just chill and take your medicine, the better you’ll look in the long run.”

Even though the teaser suggests otherwise, it’s generally understood that Sam Mendes‘ 1917 (Universal 12.25) will be presented in a single unbroken take a la Birdman. But until this morning, I didn’t realize that the film will also occur in “real time” — the running time corresponding more or less precisely to the time span of the depicted action.

I realized this when a friend sent me a 4.26.18 PDF draft of the script, co-written by Menzes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, and I saw the following on page 3:

1917 is therefore joining a small fraternity of distinguished real-time films. Here’s a list of the best known, starting with the most highly regarded and working down. I’ve thrown in an estimate of the stopwatch accuracy of each:

1. Fred Zinneman‘s High Noon (’52) — The action doesn’t occur in actual, real-deal, stop-watch time, but it comes close. Will Kane and Amy Fowler’s marriage ceremony ends at around 10:35 am on a Sunday, and the telegram notifying Kane about the pardoning of Frank Miller is delivered at 10:40 am. The climactic shoot-out happens right after the arrival of the noon train, and by my calculations Kane throws his star into the dust about 12 minutes later. Add the opening-credits footage of the Miller gang meeting up and riding into town (roughly 140 seconds) and High Noon should last a minimum of 102 minutes, give or take. And yet it only runs 85 minutes.

2. Sidney Lumet‘s 12 Angry Men (’57) — The judge reads instructions to the jury sometime in the late afternoon, the jury retires to the deliberation room, and after some small talk and bathroom time they get down to business about 10 minutes later. They deliberate long enough for the sun to go down, for a rainstorm to hit and pass, for a discussion about ordering dinner, and for Jack Warden to miss out on his early-evening ball game. By my calculations this would take a minimum of two hours if not three, and yet the film runs 96 minutes.

3. Paul Greengrass‘s United 93 (’06) — In actuality the flight of United 93 from Newark Airport to Shanksville, Pennsylvania lasted 81 minutes — departure at 8:42 am, ground-slam at 10:03 am. The film lasts 110 minutes but that covers the hijackers saying early-morning prayers, the passengers waiting in the lounge and being seated, and the flight being delayed before takeoff. If you forget about the morning prayers the real-time count is fairly precise and on the money.

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On 6.30.16, or just before the opening of Justin Lin and J.J. Abrams‘ Star Trek Beyond, I posted an imaginary chat between Abrams and Albert Brooks about who and what Lin really was. (The dialogue was mostly stolen from a scene between Brooks and Holly Hunter in Broadcast News.) I’m mentioning this because I’ve taken a fresh look at Lin’s track record since his brilliant 2002 break-out film, Better Luck Tomorrow, and over the course of 17 years he’s either directed or is set to direct seven (7) fast-car movies…seven! In other words, with one or two exceptions Lin has almost always gone for the high-octane, bucks-up jizz whizz. If I was harsh or mean-spirited I would conclude that such a fellow is spiritually lacking on some level, but I wouldn’t want to sound too on-the-nose.

Strangely, curiously, some Toronto-attending journos have suggested that critically shellacked JoJo Rabbit might somehow become an Oscar hottie. The reason, apparently, is because it takes a bold stand against hate!

This is demented, of course. So many critics these days are willfully forsaking considered critical judgment in favor of yea/nay responses about whether or not a film is saying the right thing according to preferred political currents. And it’s nuts. We’re living through such derangement.

Most sage observers (i.e., myself among them) are sensing that Jojo Rabbit is probably finished as a potential awards nominee. Not with an aggregate Metacritic rating of 50…no way. A potential hit with younger viewers? Maybe.

THR‘s Scott Feinberg: “For some potential viewers, Waititi’s association with Jojo Rabbit is enough to get them to show up to see and, in some cases, to gush over the film, as many certainly did at its world premiere, where it was very warmly received.

“But the next day it clocked in at a terrible 55 percent on Rotten Tomatoes (not helped by the fact that all of the characters seem to speak with different accents), a range from which very few films have ever emerged to receive major Oscar recognition (it is now up to 75 percent, which is better but still not great). There are certainly aspects of the film that are strong — Sam Rockwell‘s crazy performance and Thomasin McKenzie‘s quiet one, the colorful production design, etc.

“But at the end of the day, I just cannot see Academy members gravitating to the film itself in large numbers.”