slider

Here are two riffs from Owen Gleiberman‘s review of Rob Garver‘s What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael. Why the review is appearing now after premiering five and a half months ago at Telluride is a head-scratcher, but it’s one of Gleiberman’s most assured, best-written raves. Plus he really knows what he’s talking about:

Excerpt #1: “We hear an excerpt from one of the Bay Area radio broadcasts that won Kael her first real following. The review, of Hiroshima Mon Amour, is captivating in its balloon-puncturing derision, but what’s priceless is the voice: honey-smooth and insinuating, with an echo of Hollywood’s wisecracking broads of the ’30s, her silky enunciation used as a weapon, all held together by Kael’s conspicuous joy at turning film reviewing into a performance.

Excerpt #2: “That’s what Kael made criticism — a prose version of performance art, a song of the self. And why not? The movies themselves demanded nothing less.”

Excerpt #3: “What She Said captures the unique intersection of a fearless critic, a movie renaissance, and a time when a mainstream writer could seduce and challenge her audience by operating with supreme freedom. That was the glory of Pauline, the unhinged liberation of every idea and feeling she shared. Reading her, what you got addicted to was her freedom of thought. That was Kael’s art, and “What She Said does a fantastic job of channeling it.”

HE review from Telluride, posted on 9.2.18: “I was hoping that Rob Garver‘s What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, which I saw three nights ago, would deliver some degree of enjoyment.

“It’s much better than that. I found it wonderfully alive and attuned, electric, bracingly intelligent, well-honed and about as spot-on as a doc of this sort can be.

Read more

Over the last 45 days I somehow overlooked or forgot that Twilight Time’s Beat The Devil Bluray is available for purchase.

Restored three or four years ago by Sony’s Grover Crisp, and four and a half minutes longer (93 minutes and 50 seconds) than the flashback-narrated version we’ve all been watching for decades. And of course it’s told chronologically, start to finish and no wry commentary from Humphrey Bogart‘s Billy Danreuther. And the monochrome palette is reportedly darker than previous versions. $20 if you order direct from TT; $30 through Amazon.

“I’m sure the newbie is an upgrade over The Film Detective’s 2016 Bluray, which I’m fairly happy with.

Posted on 10.27.18: “The newbie played at Manhattan’s Film Forum in February 2017, and then a couple of months later at the 2017 TCM Classic Film Festival. Why have we waited two and a half years for an announcement about the Bluray version, and why is Twilight Time releasing it and not Sony? Because Sony doesn’t appear to give a damn about restored classic films. At the very least they’re indifferent and drag-assy. Crisp did a beautiful job of restoring From Here To Eternity in 2009, and Sony didn’t put a Bluray version out until 2013.

“The Twilight Time Bluray is great news for the 1250 to 1300 classic film fanatics worldwide who are sure to buy a copy.

“To be perfectly honest I’ve never loved Oswald Morris‘ lensing of this 1953 film — it’s too sun-filled, too bleachy. It should have been shot in color with the Amalfi Coast settings and all.”

Read more

In a 2.8 interview with Yahoo Movies UK contributor Sam Ashurst, Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker, known primarily for her decades-long association with Martin Scorsese, offered two stand-out remarks about Scorsese’s The Irishman. One confused me; the other led to vague despair.

I’m not talking about Schoonmaker discussing the strategy of de-aging the actors (Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci), which has been known for some time.

“We’re youthifying the actors in the first half of the movie,” she said. “And then the second half of the movie they play their own age. We’ve only been able to screen for very few people, [but] nobody minds watching them play young, because they’re gripped. The characters are so strong, it doesn’t matter — it’s really funny. [But] I don’t know what it’s going to be like when we get it all — that’s the risk.”

What confused me was Schoonmaker saying that Scorsese’s The Irishman is “episodic” but not “narrative.”

Schoonmaker: “It’s a different kind of movie — it’s episodic, it’s not narrative. When you do a narrative film, you’re always saying, ‘Oh well, you know, we could slim that down, we could move the shot, maybe we should integrate that, maybe we should flashback with that.’ That’s not the way this movie is. It’s very different. You will see. It’s extremely different and it really works, which is very exciting.”

Could it be “episodic” in the vein of The Godfather, Part II? That 1974 film didn’t use anyone’s idea of a conventional narrative either as it kept hopping back and forth between the late ’50s and the late teens and early ’20s.

Thelma seems to be sidestepping an observation I’ve recently read, which is that The Irishman is an old man’s film….an “end of the road” movie about looking back with melancholy and reflecting on mistakes and lost opportunities.

The Schoonmaker quote that upset me: “The Irishman is not Goodfellas. And that’s what they think it’s going to be. It’s not. It is not Goodfellas. It’s completely different. It’s wonderful. They’re going to love it. But please don’t think it’s gonna be Goodfellas, because it isn’t.”

When Thelma says “not Goodfellas“, she presumably means an absence of the usual boppituh-beep. Nefarious wise guys committing crimes and wearing over-emphatic clothing and betraying their wives and each other and storing mink coats in the freezer and whacking each other in the back seats of cars…right?

But how in the name of St. Christopher could Scorsese make a movie about the guy who killed Jimmy Hoffa (De Niro’s Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran) and which is wall-to-wall with Italian mob characters whose names end in vowels (Russell Bufalino, Felix “Skinny Razor” DiTullio, Joe “Crazy Joe” Gallo, Bill Bufalino, Angelo Bruno, Tony Provenzano, Anthony Salerno)…how could a movie like this not resemble Goodfellas? I’ve seen set photos of a dark-haired DeNiro pistol-whipping and kicking the shit out of guys so Thelma is obviously avoiding certain aspects.

So what does she mean, that it’s not going to have that familiar Scorsese goombah gangster flavor? No baked ziti, no sliced garlic, no Italian sausage, no girlfriends or wives with borough accents, quirky personalities and too much eye makeup?

Shawn Levy‘s “The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont” won’t be out until early May. But it can’t hurt to remind everyone of the contrast between today’s Chateau and the the way things were during a low-rider period in the ’70s.

The storied hotel has 63 rooms and suites that run from from $575 to $3,000 per night. (It began as an apartment building in 1929, but became a hotel in ’31.) But as recently as the mid-’70s, it was possible to get a single room at the Chateau for $12 per night (about $55 today) and a suite for a little more than twice that.

And those were the published rates. Many of the longtime residents negotiated far better prices. After buying the place in ’75, Ray Sarlot was stunned to learn that he had a fully-booked hotel that was actually losing money.

Anecdote #2: During World War II, the hotel was bought by a German banker named Edwin Brettauer who had helped finance a number of classic films back home, including M and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. In Hollywood, in addition to real estate deals, he funded several films by Douglas Sirk and Fritz Lang (including Hangmen Also Die!).

During Brettauer’s reign, which lasted until 1963, he built the hotel swimming pool and the modern bungalows on the northeast corner of the hotel grounds and, more impressively, he integrated the place. At his insistance, the Chateau Marmont became the first Hollywood / Beverly Hills showbiz hotel to host black guests.

The first time the hotel was ever mentioned in the N.Y. Times was when Sidney Poitier was forced to stay there while making A Raisin in the Sun because nobody in Beverly Hills would rent a home to a black family, even if the paterfamilias was a movie star.”

Those were the Chateau’s proud days. It was a pretty great place also in the ’90s and aughts. Then, of course, managing director Philip Pavel left to run the NoMad hotel in downtown Los Angeles. And then some people with snooty, dicky attitudes took over, and eventually this policy collided with Hollywood Elsewhere in late July of 2017.

Read more

Tonight Hollywood Elsewhere will be attending a Michael B. Jordan tribute at the 2019 Santa Barbara Film Festival. The almost 32-year-old actor (his birthday is on 2.9) is being presented with the Cinema Vanguard award, which went last year to The Florida Project‘s Willem Dafoe.

Jordan broke out six years ago as the doomed Oscar Grant in Ryan Coogler‘s Fruitvale Station. His second big slam was the titular lead in Coogler’s Creed (’15), which costarred Tessa Thompson and Sylvester Stallone. His third high-impact role was Erik “Killmonger” Stevens in Coogler’s hugely popular Black Panther, which opened on 2.16.18. His next major role is real-life attorney Bryan Stevenson in the biographical drama Just Mercy (Warner Bros., 1.17.20), which costars Jamie Foxx.

I’ll be driving back to West Hollywood when the show ends at 9:30 pm. Thanks to festival honcho Roger Durling and all the staffers, publicists (principally Sunshine Sachs) and volunteers. I had a thrilling if demanding time, but that’s how we like it. It was somewhat chilly and rainy during at least half of the festival, although right now it’s 56 degrees and sunny. The weather had to wait until my final day to improve.

It was just over a year ago when Woody Allen offered his most recent denial of Dylan Farrow‘s accusation of his having allegedly molested her in August 1992. I seem to recall his also asserting, sometime within the last year or two, that he wouldn’t be denying the charge again, as all the evidence is behind him and that the #MeToo community will never consider the facts of the case even-handedly so what’s the point?

Well, that particular posture has been left at the wayside. Around 9 am this morning it was reported that Allen has filed a $68 million suit against Amazon Studios, alleging that the distributor has backed out of a four-picture deal due to “a 25-year-old, baseless allegation.” In fact Dylan’s charge was first aired a day or two after the alleged incident took place on 8.4.92, which was 26 and 1/2 years ago.

Allen is alleging that Amazon has refused to release A Rainy Day in New York, “though it has been complete for more than six months.” The suit states that Amazon “has given only vague reasons for dropping the project, and for reneging on a promise to produce three other movies.”

We all know why Amazon is reneging on the Allen deal. It’s because they’re terrified of angering the #MeToo community, and the facts and history of the Dylan Farrow investigation be damned.

Lawsuit excerpt: “Amazon has tried to excuse its action by referencing a 25-year-old, baseless allegation against Mr. Allen, but that allegation was already well known to Amazon (and the public) before Amazon entered into four separate deals with Mr. Allen — and, in any event it does not provide a basis for Amazon to terminate the contract. There simply was no legitimate ground for Amazon to renege on its promises.”

Indeed, there is no evidence to support Dylan’s claim. But there’s a fair amount of evidence and ample indications that an enraged Mia Farrow made it all up to “get” Woody during an early ’90s custody battle, and as part of this determination coached Dylan to make the claims that she did. I happen to personally believe this scenario. There’s simply no rational, even-handed way to side with the “I believe Dylan Farrow” camp.

If after reading Moses Farrow’s 5.23.18 essay (“A Son Speaks Out“) as well as Robert Weide’s “Q & A with Dylan Farrow” (12.13.17) and Daphne Merkin’s 9.16.18 Soon-Yi Previn interview…if after reading these personal testimonies along with the Wikipedia summary of the case you’re still an unmitigated Dylan ally…if you haven’t at least concluded there’s a highly significant amount of ambiguity and uncertainty in this whole mishegoss, then I don’t know what to say to you. There’s probably nothing that can be said to you.

Amazon will almost certainly settle this case out of court, as there is virtually no evidence to support Allen’s alleged guilt in the Dylan Farrow matter, and therefore any reluctance on Amazon’s part to fulfill the Allen deal. In the unlikely event that they decide to argue the case in court, the proceedings will be an absolute humdinger with every last scintilla of evidence regarding the original 1992 allegation examined and cross-examined ad infinitum. But who believes this will happen?

Read more

Three or four days ago director Rod Lurie (The Outpost) stated on Facebook that his love for Warren Beatty, Buck Henry and Elaine May‘s Heaven Can Wait (’78) hasn’t faded. Lurie saw it at age 16, and said that no other film since has made him feel so good.

He’s referring, of course, to the last 20 or 25 minutes. Specifically from the moment that Jack Warden‘s Max Corkle bolts out of the Leo Farnsworth mansion for the Super Bowl game at the USC coliseum, and until Beatty (playing Rams’ quarterback Joe Pendleton as well as billionaire Leo Farnsworth, so to speak) and Julie Christie (i.e., Betty Logan) walk off to share a cup of coffee.

Before those final 20 or 25 Heaven Can Wait is diverting as far as it goes. The applicable terms are “chuckly, pretty good, deft, likable, lively remake,” etc. It’s an amusing, vaguely meta thing by way of a reincarnation plot. And not especially deep or mystical at that. The humor is dry and deadpan. Beatty, Christie, Jack Warden plus Charles Grodin, Dyan Cannon, James Mason, Vincent Gardenia and everyone else — the schtick they’re working with is turned way down.

But there is a scheme in mind, and you just have to wait for the payoff.

The first 75 minutes of Heaven Can Wait are, of course, a set-up for the final 25. And during that final 25 HCW sells the audience on two great notions — (1) people who’ve fallen for a certain someone in actuality can somehow sense or recognize them in a subsequent incarnation, and (2) there’s a celestial system in place, and rule #1 is that nobody really dies, or certainly not in the sense that most of us recognize it (i.e., eternal lights-out without dreams).

Read more

Yesterday, from a friend: “Did you read this? The author Dan Mallory (aka A.J. Finn), author of “The Woman in the Window” (the Joe Wright-directed film version is opening on 10.4.19) has been exposed by Ian Parker as a shameless fantasist and sociopath.

“The 20,000-word article goes on and on, but basically Mallory invented two fake ph’ds, fake executive jobs, fake brain cancer, his parents fake death, his brother’s fake suicide plus he scammed the entire NYC publishing industry into buying his first novel, which they promoted to number one on the bestseller list, only to discover that it might be plagiarized.”

HE to friend, sent this morning: “The article is initially fascinating. Then it gradually starts to feel a bit complex, and then labrynthian and exhausting, and then it continues and continues. I’d love to read the shorter version.

“A talented writer, Mallory is a lying, fabricating, fantasizing bullshitter in his personal and business relationships. He’s a relentless spinner of creative tales — a genetic brethren of former TNR writer Stephen Glass or N.Y. Times reporter Jayson Blair. The bullshit climbs, compounds itself, swirls, reaches for the sky. Mallory is Tom Ripley, a smooth criminal, a sociopath extraordinaire.”

Mallory has admitted to the Telegraph‘s Ben Riley-Smith that he’s been bullshitting for 15 years or so, and that he’s been coping with a severe bipolar disorder and so on.

Read more

Public candor about private failings is not a wise policy in our current situation. You can’t say “I once succumbed to an urge to practice witchcraft back in the ’70s.” To the Cotton Mather crowd that’s like saying you might put a hex on someone tomorrow.

But actors have emotionally expansive, compulsively honest natures, and so poor, impetuous Liam Neeson is going to have to face suspicions and charges of witchcraft for the rest of his life. Hell, they might come for him today and haul his ass over to the nearest lake and dunk him a few times.

Neeson has admitted that 40 years ago, when he was in his mid to late 20s, he experienced an illogical, enraged, tribal reaction to a friend having been raped by a person of color. He told an interviewer that he would have felt the same gut-level animosity “if she had said an Irish or a Scot or a Brit or a Lithuanian [had raped her]…[it] would have had the same effect. I was trying to show honor, to stand up for my dear friend in this terribly medieval fashion.”

Neeson offered the recollection during an interview that was posted yesterday in The Independent. He was promoting Cold Pursuit (Summit, 2.8), his latest revenge thriller. On a certain level Neeson was brave to admit that he was briefly seized by an ugly and bigoted impulse in his presumably intemperate, immoderate youth, but look at what’s happened.

This morning he attempted some damage control in a chat with ABC’s Robin Roberts. “We all pretend we’re all politically correct in this country…in mine, too,” Neeson said. “You sometimes just scratch the surface and you discover this racism and bigotry, and it’s there.”

I’ve mentioned witch-dunking in a satiric vein, but maybe this is actually the best way to handle the Neeson thing. Put him into a burlap bag, drive him out to Malibu pier, dunk him in the Pacific a few times. If he’s still breathing after the fifth or sixth submersion, he’ll be forgiven and allowed to work again. If he doesn’t make it, then at least the world will have one less suspected witch to deal with.

I’ve finally watched Tatyana Antropova‘s televised acting debut. She appears in a protestors-and-placards scene in The Rookie (season 1, episode 11, titled “Redwood“). She’s observed chanting, holding up a sign, being told to disperse, reacting with disgust when a protestor throws up, etc. Shot in downtown Los Angeles on 11.5.18. No biggie but noteworthy.

She’s also performed in episodes of For All Mankind, Veronica Mars, Lethal Weapon, Criminal Minds, The Affair, Games Divas Play (in an S & M club scene) and This Is Us.

Update: I would have said “HE’s own Tatyana Antropova” but it made the sentence structure feel awkward — i.e., possessive of a possessive.

Passerby to Tatyana: “Whaddaya protestin’, blondie?” Tatyana to passerby: “Whaddaya got?”

Julie Adams, the Creature From The Black Lagoon scream queen, has passed at age 92. Adams was 26 or 27 when the Universal cheapie was shot in mid or late 1953. It was released in early ’54.

Adams’ best role was opposite James Stewart in Anthony Mann‘s Bend of the River (’52), but after that she was stuck in mostly B movies — The Lawless Breed, The Mississippi Gambler, The Man from the Alamo, The Private War of Major Benson, The Gun. She also costarred in Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (’57), a semi-respectable, late-period film noir with Richard Egan.

Last August I saw Dennis Hopper‘s The Last Movie (’71) at the Metrograph, and lo and behold there was Adams, playing some sort of lady of leisure whom Hopper hits on.

I realize that red is often used as a design element in black-and-white films as it photographs well, but Gill Man looks fairly ridiculous with bright red lips.

Hollywood Elsewhere readers are requested to read a Hollywood Reporter piece titled “Critics’ Debate: What Is a ‘Sundance Movie’? 2019 Edition Broadens the Picture.”

It’s a discussion forum in which Todd McCarthy, David Rooney, Leslie Felperin, Jon Frosch and Beandrea July consider a few Sundance ’19 offerings.

Their comments frequently allude to the Sundance comintern platform — representation, diversity, political correctness, emerging female voices, LGBTQs, etc. They also cast subtle side-eyes in the direction of white-male filmmakers, who’ve been stinking up the joint for too many years.

Reaction from a journalist friend: “McCarthy reads like he doesn’t want to offend anybody. I understand his position, but that’s the thing about wokesters. Despite barely having any experience in writing, let alone cinema-watching, Beandrea’s resume is scant and only dates as far back as 2016 on Google, and yet she believes she has the authority to dictate what is right and wrong to veterans like McCarthy.

“Imagine if McCarthy, who’s been in the game since the ’60s and who made the definitive doc on cinematography (Visions of Light), spoke back to Beandrea about her opinions? She doesn’t care if he’s a film historian. He’s white and older and so she will set him straight.”

HE response: My impression is that McCarthy, Frosch, Felperin and Rooney sound like they’ve got loaded guns pointed at their heads. You can say what you think, fellas, as long as you don’t say the wrong things. McCarthy and friends are like that terrified family in that Twilight Zone episode, It’s A Good Life. Beandra and the wokesters are Anthony Fremont, and McCarthy, Rooney, Frosch and Felperin are the elders who are afraid to step outside the “happy” arena.

Rod Serling: “This particular monster can read minds, you see. He knows every thought, he can feel every emotion. His name is Anthony Fremont. He’s six years old, with a cute little-boy face and blue, guileless eyes. But when those eyes look at you, you’d better start thinking happy thoughts, because the mind behind them is absolutely in charge. For this is the Twilight Zone.”

Journalist friend again: “Throughout the fest I wanted journalists to be honest with me about why they thought this year’s program was lackluster, at least in terms of the narrative features. Almost all of them mentioned the fact that Sundance’s adamant stance on inclusivity was to blame. You won’t get these critics admitting this in print, of course, but many personally confessed that was a problem.”

Read more