…were the wokesters (i.e., those who feel that the celebration of this or that non-white or non-straight identity is more important than the cherishing of art and craft and soul from whichever contender).
Not lying. An observable fact. They were polite but there is no doubt that many people in the room wanted a different outcome. Be happy people are viciously attacking her, which is what I thought might happen. https://t.co/85MWDc157C
— Sasha Stone at Awards Daily (@AwardsDaily) March 12, 2024
John Cena‘s recent nude moment on the Oscar stage reminided me of something I’ve never mentioned and had almost forgotten about.
I’ve written before about having servied four days in L.A. County Jail, for the crime of having failed to pay 27 parking tickets. It happened sometime in the late spring or early summer of ’74, and it was during the initial processing (when they create your identity card, make you take a shower and give you the orange jumpsuit and your bedding) that I noticed that the Oscar streaker guy, Robert Opel, was also being processed.
Opel’s photo had been in the papers; he’d also been interviewed by local TV news shows so the recognition was instant. Did I go over and strike up a conversation? Nope — wimped out. But it was him, all right.
Opel was born in 1939 in East Orange, New Jersey. After graduating from a Pittsburgh-area college he allegedly worked as a speechwriter for California Governor Ronald Reagan.
Opel was teaching for the Los Angeles Unified School District at the time of the Oscar streaking incident, and was canned because of that.
Opel was mostly gay with a little bi action on the side. After moving from L.A. to San Francisco during the mid ’70s, he opened Fey-Way Studios, a gallery of gay male art, at 1287 Howard Street. The gallery helped bring such erotic gay artists as Tom of Finland and Robert Mapplethorpe to national attention. But in the mid ’79 he was in a relationship with Camille O’Grady.
At age 39 Opel was shot to death at his San Francisco studio — it happened on July 7, 1979. His killer was Maurice Keenan, a thief who is still doing time for the crime.
There’s a documentary about Opel on YouTube. It’s called Uncle Bob, directed by Opel’s nephew and namesake.
Robert Elswit‘s black-and-white lensing of Steven Zaillian‘s Ripley (Netflix, 4.4, eight episodes) is drop-dead beautiful — that much is certain.
Pic is based on Patricia Highsmith‘s “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (’55) and is obviously a handsomely stylish re-fresh of Anthony Minghella’s 1999 theatrical film version.
The Minghella was set in 1958 (i.e., two years before the release of Rene Clement‘s Purple Noon). The Zallian newbie is set in “the ’60s,” according to the Wiki page.
Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed is now close to 18 years old. Ranking ahead on the Scorsese hot list are Goodfellas, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Wolf of Wall Street and The Last Temptation of Christ.
So The Departed ranks seventh, and that ain’t hay.
A new 4K Bluray of The Departed pops on 4.23.
And I’ll repeat my argument with two Jack Nicholson/”Frank Costello” lines. One, Costello describing Rome as a place with “nicer wops” but “no pizza.” I’ve visited Rome five or six times and pizza joints are everywhere. And two, repeating that cliche about Chinese laundry guys saying “no tickee, no laundry.” Except the line is “no tickee, no washee.”
Given the widespread loathing and the massive flop rejection of Madame Web, Dakota Johnson naturally has to distance herself from it (“who, me?) and more or less throw the carcass under the bus. Hence her chat with Bustle‘s Charlotte Owen (3.5.24):
“[Making Madame Web] was definitely an experience for me. I had never done anything like it before. I probably will never do anything like it again, because I don’t make sense in that world.” [Translation: ‘Nobody believed I was supergirl material….I look too passive or spacey or something.”]
“And I know that now. But sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something, and it’s one thing and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing, and you’re like, ‘Wait, what?’ But it was a real learning experience, and of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand.
“It’s so hard to get movies made, and in these big movies that get made — and it’s even starting to happen with the little ones, which is what’s really freaking me out — decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee. Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms.
“My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullshit. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to fucking want to see those.”
I love the idea of Sam Mendes shooting four Beatles movies next year with a plan to release all four in ’27….bing, bang, boom, pow.
Each film will reportedly adopt the POV of a separate member, but I can’t envision Mendes focusing on the same portion of their story with four separate viewpoints — that would be oppressive.
Let’s assume the four films (which haven’t even been written yet) will cover separate chapters in the band’s grand saga — 7 years, 7 months, and 24 days, 1962 to 1970.
Chapter 1: Screaming Beatlemania — ignition, liftoff, orbit (’63 and ’64). Chapter 2: Musical maturation, experimentation and early psychedelic journeys (’65 and ’66, Rubber Soul and Revolver). Chapter 3: The gush of Sgt. Pepper creation (early to mid ’67), the death of Brian Epstein, the failure of Magical Mystery Tour, succumbing to gradual lethargy and uncertainty (late ’67 and ’68). Chapter 4: The disharmony of the White Album and the plague of Yoko Ono, followed by the low tide of the Get Back sessions and concluding with the high of recording Abbey Road (’69).
But it can’t really work unless the casting is other-worldly, and no casting decisions can be that. Nobody and I mean nobody can “play” John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. No matter who Mendes chooses to hire, it simply won’t work. Their faces and voices are too deeply embedded in every corner of our minds to convincingly replicate or even half-replicate in a narrative format.
The only way I would buy it would be if Mendes decided to rotoscope their story….shoot it with actors but alter the animated faces in such a way that audiences could accept that they’re watching a reasonable fascimile of the Real McCoys. Otherwise it can’t work. It just can’t.
It took me two full days to recover from some of the ghastly fashion choices I saw during last Saturday’s SAG awards telecast. I was literally groaning, shuddering in my seat, in some instances convulsing with disgust.
This, I told myself, is why 96% of the U.S.population (i.e., those who are straight hot-dog eaters and/or don’t work in the entertainment industry, and who don’t live in slavish obedience to the “suggestions” (i.e., commands) of eccentric fashion designers)…this is why average Americans loathe and despise effete male industry entertainers. Some at the SAG ceremony looked like permanent residents of Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. Actresses can do whatever but dude-wise people want real men, which is to say non-eccentric, stylish but sensible, tone down the fucking feathers and affectations, etc.
But before sampling the worst, here’s one of the evening’s best-looking outfits, worn by Taylor Zakhar Perez, who plays the gay son of the U.S.President in Red, White and Royal Blue (Amazon Prime).
And now the awful-awfuls…
Robert Downey Jr.s’ gray horrorsuit…bizarre jacket slits, flesh-colored shirt without tie, baggy-ass pants and heavy, shiny-brown clodhopper shoes with light-brown soles. General Mireau, the man behind the forthcoming firing-squad execution of three babygirls, would like to include Downey’s fashion adviser in the line of fire.
One of the most self-satirizing fashion calamities of the night was worn by Queer Eye‘s Tan France, known for his silver-white pompadour hair. The instant I saw his 18-inch wide chopstick bowtie during the pre-show red carpet sequence, I muttered to myself “you fucking pretentious asshole.”
Abbott Elementary‘s Chris Perfetti…the curly red hair and giant-sized ears blended with the suit’s light malted brown color, the black cumberband and the peaked black lapels…totally sickening, and those godawful, reprehensible baggy pants…yeesh.
Comedian Alok Vaid-Menon…yeah!!
Rustin‘s Colman Domingo in a light pink and black tux…an outfit that needlessly underlined his sexual identity and in so doing compromised his cred as an actor of a certain chameleon mystique.
The light powder-blue Martian pants worn by Abbott Elementary‘s Tyler James Williams…imagine some guy in Montpellier, Vermont, or Guerneville, California, or even in Austin, Texas wearing pants like this to some formal-ass event.
These two video clips were recorded late Sunday morning (2.25.24, 10:40 AM) at Jett, Cait and Sutton’s home in West Orange, New Jersey. They’re not newsworthy or topical or even amusing — they simply represent the happiest and most serene interlude I experienced all day. I was saying to myself “this is perfect…life can’t get any better than this.”
I left soon after recording these two clips and arrived back in Wilton around 1:15 pm or so. Less than two hours hence HE’s video Zoom capture of the debut episode of “The Misfits” (myself, Glenn Kenny, Kristi Coulter and Bill McCuddy) began — roughly 3:30 pm and ending at 5 pm, give or take.
Discussion topics included (a) “Exit Interview,” Coulter’s well-reviewed book about her 12 years at Amazon; (b) Alcoholism and addiction, and how a person feeling really and truly delighted about his/her life can be an excellent reason to start drinking again; (c) Successfully suppressing an urge to blow off 12 years of sobriety in the tragic wake of The Holdovers‘ Paul Giamatti losing SAG’s Best Actor trophy to Oppenheimer‘s Cillian Murphy, and especially KOTFM‘s Lily Gladstone elbowing aside Poor Things‘ Emma Stone to take SAG’s Best Actress award; (d) the straight-male intrigue factor (or lack thereof) in two new lesbian movies, Rose Glass‘s melodramatic and fleetingly surreal Love Lies Bleeding and Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke‘s Drive-Away Dolls, a mildly farcical sexual odyssey set in ’99 or thereabouts; (e) Kenny’s forthcoming Scarface book, “The World Is Yours,” and a casual reciting of several making-of anecdotes, etc.
I’m currently trying to figure out how to upload our lively “Misfits” discussion, which we were quite happy with. Okay, it ran a little bit long, which prompted me to think about editing it into two segments. I’m way too much of a douchenozzle to figure this stuff out quickly, but I might manage to upload something within an hour or two….who knows?
I don’t mind being relatively poor these days as it means fewer distractions and more of a focus on writing. But I do miss the travel.
I’ve secured HE’s beautiful old 19th Century apartment in Cannes for next May (7 rue Jean Mero, third-floor walkup…the place Ann Hornaday and I shared for a few years) but I’m not entirely sure I even want to do Cannes this year. It doesn’t seem like much of a lineup, but then I haven’t really studied the situation. Telluride is the only keeper, the only essential.
Between the early ’90s and late 20-teens and especially from the early aughts onward I was always going somewhere. Starting in ’00 I flew each May to Europe (Paris, Cannes, Prague, London, Berlin, Munich, Tuscany, Rome), and over the last 13 or 14 years (starting in 2010) to Telluride each and every year.
Along with occasional journeys to NYC, Key West, Virginia and Washington, D.C., Vietnam (2012, 2013 and 2016), Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Morocco, San Francisco, Seattle, Hawaii, Mexico, Monument Valley, Park City, etc. Plus a terrific one-off to Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata in Argentina.
Not to mention random long-hauls and hiking trips in California (Palm Srings, Sierras, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Death Valley, Santa Barbara, Los Olivos, Big Sur, Mill Valley, Guerneville, Mendocino) when the mood struck.
Living with a constant sense of expectation and adventure does wonders for the soul. Keeps you going, keeps you alive. I realize that I sound entitled and spoiled to a certain extent. How many people have travelled this much over two or three decades and experienced this much intrigue and arousal? I only know that I’ve adored this feast of living, this seemingly endless banquet…course after course and episode after episode for such a long and wondrous time…and that I’m very sorry that I can no longer afford to live this way any longer. But at least the memories are many.
The bottom line is that I’m deeply grateful that I had what I had when I had it.
Friendo: “Honest question about this Shampoo one-sheet, which presumably appeared on billboards and at bus stops, not to mention in newspapers and magazines:
“Is it in fact depicting what I think it’s depicting or at the very least suggesting, judging by the towel-draped woman in a kneeling, bent-over position?”
HE reply #1: If I answer your question I’ll be slagged by the HE scolding brigade so maybe I should sidestep this.
HE reply #2: The frankest and fullest answer I can think of is that the ‘70s were the greatest era for hetero nookie in U.S. history and were arguably the most breathtaking era in this regard since the heyday of ancient Rome, but you can’t even talk about it today without sounding like a pig dinosaur.
HE reply #3: There are two suggestive moments in Shampoo in which Warren Beatty’s George Roundy is blow-drying an attractive woman’s freshly-cut hair (at first a foxy 20something client in the Beverly Hills hair salon and later Julie Christie’s Jackie in her bathroom). Both times the women’s heads are not only facing but mere inches away from Beatty’s Sticky Fingers album cover.
Friendo reply: “Yeah, I know, but get a load of that one-sheet. Aren’t you surprised an ad like that would be appearing in newspapers — FAMILY newspapers — in 1975?”
HE response: Those were the’70s, dude! You had to be there. There’s certainly no explaining the social atmosphere of those days to effing Millennials and Zoomers.
Do you think it’s some kind of coincidence that Al Pacino‘s hot-tempered, early ’80s Miami drug dealer and the jovial, family-friendly Bengal tiger who’s represented Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes for God knows how many decades…do you think it’s a coincidence that they share the same first name?
The instant I glanced at the cover of Glenn Kenny‘s “The World Is Yours: The Story of Scarface” (Hanover Square Press, May 7) I totally guffawed. I said to myself, “Now that‘s a great cover for a Scarface book!”
Amazon copy: “With brand-new interviews and untold stories of the film’s production, longtime film critic Glenn Kenny takes us on an unparalleled journey through the making of American depictions of crime. ‘The World Is Yours’ highlights the influential characters and themes within Scarface, reflecting on how its storied legacy played such a major role in American culture.”
The Sasquatch makeup is pretty good, I have to say. I’m pretty sure I can spot Jesse Eisenberg under the stringy hair and prosthetics but I can’t identify Riley Keough. (Her name accompanies an image of one of the beasts, but I can’t “see” her.) The other two actors are Nathan Zellner and Christophe Zajac-Denek.
Sundance, Berlin, SXSW…Bleecker Street will release Sasquatch Sunset on April 12th.
Variety‘s Rebecca Rubin posted on 1.19.24:
