slider

I could smell Venom from a long way off, and so could Tom Hardy when he said his favorite parts of the film didn’t make the final cut. So (and who could blame me?) I blew off last week’s all-media screening. Most of us understand the concept of “so bad it’s good” (which I have a place in my head for) but the critical consensus was mostly “it isn’t ludicrous enough to be enjoyable…it’s just garden-variety shitty….later.”

The Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes ratings are 35% and 30%, respectively. Seattle Times‘ critic Soren Andersen called it “perhaps the worst Marvel-derived origin story ever.” The Globe and Mail‘s Sarah-Tai Black said Venom “made me laugh so hard I started crying…a horribly scripted film so bad as to be enjoyable, but not bad enough to be good.” And so on.

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]

“Bridge Burner,” posted on 4.22.18: This morning I happened to read a great making-of-a-disaster article called “My Battles With Jon and Barbra,” a blow-by-blow account of the making of the 1976 version of A Star Is Born.

It was apparently written in a state of seething frustration by director and screenplay co-author Frank Pierson. Pierson, who passed in 2012, was arguably a better screenwriter (Cool Hand Luke, Dog Day Afternoon, Haywire, Presumed Innocent, Mad Men) than a director, but he certainly knew the realm.

I found Pierson’s piece on the Barbara [Streisand] Archives website. Launched in ’03, it’s been written, designed, created and maintained all along by Matt Howe of Washington, D.C.

Howe’s intro: “This is the infamous article, written by the director of A Star is Born and published shortly before the film had its premiere. Streisand and Jon Peters begged Pierson not to hurt their film by publishing it. The article was a betrayal to Streisand — a public airing of behind-the-scenes battles that, traditionally, were always kept private between director and star. It is included here so readers can understand why Streisand is so private and wary of the press.

“A different edit of the piece also ran in the November 15, 1976 issue of New York magazine. I’ve incorporated several of the excised sentences here, as well as scans of some of the photos that appeared in that magazine.

“In 1983, Barbra told journalist Geraldo Rivera: “Pierson’s article was so immoral, so unethical, so unprofessional, so undignified, with no integrity, totally dishonest, injurious. If anyone believes it, without examining who that person is, to try to put a black cloud over a piece of work before it’s even released: that’s the most important indication of who that person was.”

Karina Longworth‘s take on the Star Is Born debacle, “You Must Remember This,” episode #21, posted on 11.4.14.

Again, the article itself.

Arnold Kopelson, a smart, scrappy film producer who knew the ropes and worked them hard, has passed at age 83. Condolences to all concerned but especially Arnold’s family (particularly Anne, his wife and producing partner) and friends.

The Brooklyn-born Kopelson produced 29 movies, and hit the jackpot three times within a nine-year period (’86 to ’95). His first grand slam was Platoon, directed and written by Oliver Stone and winner of the 1987 Best Picture Oscar. Six and a half years later came The Fugitive (’93) with Harrison Ford — cost $44 million to shoot, made $368 million domestic. Kopelson’s third biggie was David Fincher‘s Se7en (’95), which rewrote the serial killer genre and delivered one of the most stunning endings in motion-picture history.

I caught Platoon on opening night (12.19.86) at a theatre on La Brea just south of Melrose. I came out of the 7 pm show and spotted Kopelson standing under the marquee, alone. I went over, introduced myself and told him it’s an absolute hit and a near-certain Oscar nominee, etc. He presumably knew that but I wanted to tell him anyway. That film made me feel so great, so connected to everyone and everything. Historic.

The well-heeled South Coast region of eastern Long Island (from Hampton Bays to East Hampton) is open and leafy with a nice settled vibe. Huge trees and big lawns, wealthy and low-key, no one out to prove anything. Route 27 or the Montauk highway is swamped with traffic 24/7, but as you drive along you’ll run into several food and fruit stands and every little town, it seems, has an old-fashioned, non-corporate ice-cream stand with a neon sign or some kind of mom-and-pop signage from the Leave It To Beaver era.

And then you leave Hampton Bays and drive in a northwesterly direction up 24 toward Riverhead. Five or so miles past Riverhead and you’ve crossed the Mason-Dixon line, and you’re suddenly in the general North Shore region with the whole vibe having turned corporate and the old-timey, family-run business vibe gone with the fucking wind. It’s really quite unattractive. The story of two Americas — the balmy, laid-back one that used to be and is preserved in the South Coast region, and the chilly, corporatized present-tense America as represented by the North Shore region.

Two Americas — one on the south coast, another in the northern region.

For the first time in eight or nine years, Hollywood Elsewhere is hitting the Hamptons Film Festival (10.4 thru 10.8). Leaving at 8:45 am or 30 minutes hence. To avoid the horrible LIE traffic I’ll be taking the New London ferry to Orient Point and then motoring down to East Hampton. And I’ll be staying in the cheapest, most bare-bones, nickle-and-dimey Tobacco Road motel in the region (Wainscott’s 380 Inn).

The final Senate vote on Judge Kavanaguh will presumably begin around 3 pm. I’m not a dreamer — I know what’s going to happen. The reprehensible Susan Collins and Jeff Flake are going to vote for the guy, and that’s all she wrote.

The HIFF films will include the usual award-season suspects — First Man, Roma, Green Book, Boy Erased, Cold War, Can You Ever Forgive Me, The Hate U Give, Capernaum, The Panama Papers, Ben Is Back, Everybody Knows, A Private War and Paul Dano‘s depressingly perverse Wildlife. The Hamptons fest “holds the distinction of being the only East Coast film festival to have screened the eventual Best Picture winner at the Oscars for the past eight years.”

I won’t be able to return to Manhattan in time for Sunday evening’s Bohemian Rhapsody screening in Union Square so I’ll have to catch it on Thursday, 10.11. Los Angeles journos will be seeing Bryan Singer‘s film tomorrow night.

Earlier today I attended a New York Film Festival press screening of Joel and Ethan Coen‘s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. A western anthology thing for Netflix. Diverting, amusing, first-rate chops, 132 minutes, good but “minor,” etc. I’m calling it the Coen’s “death film” as quite a few characters get killed in it, and many with the same exact wound. At 4 pm I did a brief interview with Studio 54 director Matt Tyrnauer in the library-like bar at the NoMad hotel (27th and Broadway).

Following press screening of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (l. to r.): Bill Heck, Tim Blake Nelson, Zoe Kazan, Ethan Coen, Joel Cohen, Kent Jones.

NoMad hotel, 27th and Brodway.

NoMad bar.

Read more

Could the title of Clint Eastwood‘s The Mule (Warner Bros., 12.14) allude to something besides a guy who smuggles drugs? Could it also allude to, say, stubbornness or obstinacy? Right now we’re all saying the same thing to ourselves — we might as lay it on the table. Variety‘s Kris Tapley” believes that Eastwood might wangle a Best Actor nomination — partly for his performance, partly as a Redford-like gold watch tribute. When Tapley muses, the world takes note.

In a recent post about leading Best Actor contenders, I mentioned Christian Bale as Dick Cheney in Adam McKay‘s Vice. My only remark was that “you don’t get nominated for putting on weight and wearing great make up.” A fellow journalist and award-season handicapper replied, “Since WHEN? Don’t bet against him.” HE to handicapper: I only meant that appearance and make-up are icing on the cake, and that a noteworthy performance has to come from the innards of an actor or it be not at all.”

Posted around noon by Vanity Fair‘s Julie Miller.

Sasha Stone‘s Oscar Season Rule #1 states that serious Best Picture contenders have to launch at Venice, Telluride and/or Toronto and then open in October or November, but never December.

[Correction: Sasha’s rule has only applied since the Academy pushed their date back one month, which they did in 2003. Before that late December was when films were released and considered for Best Picture. Now it all happens so fast that a December release can’t build the momentum it needs to win.]

But that sure wasn’t the case in 1979 when Kramer vs. Kramer opened on December 19th and wound up winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman) and Best Supporting Actress (Meryl Streep).

I’m just popping this in as a reminder of how good Hoffman was in his prime. He’s living in an apparent state of seclusion since the #MeToo Robespierres put his name on their Black List after he was nailed for being a little too feely or exploitively gropey-grope back in the ’80s, and I know he’s long had a general rep for being too self-possessed and caught up in his own mythology, but he was worth his weight in gold during the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.

What was Hoffman’s last really good film? Meet The Fockers, right? And before that Wag The Dog. He shouldn’t have done Family Business or Hook. His last really, really big movie/performance was Rain Man, and that was 30-ass years ago.

Will Hollywood Elsewhere attend the Hugh Jackman celebration in Santa Barbara on 11.19.18? I’d like to but we’ll see. The star of Jason Reitman‘s The Front Runner (Columbia, 11.6) will be the recipient of the 13th annual annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film, which will be held as usual at the Ritz Carlton Bacara.

Some of us are aware of the moralistic undertow in Jackman’s performance as Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart, and the fact that The Front Runner is a highly unusual film for its decision to present a canny, opportunistic infidel as a symbol of ethical decency — a politician with the usual egoistic flaws who nonetheless believes in governmental ideas and visions while keeping libidinal diversions in a box off to the side.

It also portrays the Miami Herald reporters and editors who made hay out of Hart’s mostly meaningless affair with campaign volunteer Donna Rice as…well, fellows who weren’t exactly advancing the cause of first-rate journalism.

It’s a movie that says “yeah, Gary cheated on his wife and so what? Because the real embarassment and the real mud came from what those journalistic bottom-feeders did to Hart and American political culture in the bargain.”

Out of 22 Gold Derby spitballers, why am I the only one who’s listed Jackman’s performance as one of the five most nominatable? I don’t know, but I can tell you for sure that most of the Gold Derby-ites are just following the pack mentality. On top of which a good portion of them probably haven’t seen The Front Runner…who knows?

Read more