All along I’ve felt that Penny should have shown more caution in trying to restrain Neely. I don’t think he intended to kill this allegedly threatening, mentally unstable guy. I think the situation just got away from Penny, and before he knew it (five minutes — three minutes captured on video) Neely was dead.
It’s very easy to make Monday morning armchair judgments, and it’s a different thing altogether when you’re in a tough situation in the heat of the moment. Neely was, by all accounts, sounding and acting like a dangerous asshole, and if I had been in that subway car a voice is telling me I wouldn’t have had any objection to Penny holding him down.
There are people, of course, who will accuse me of coming from a racist place — me and and others holding a similar opinion. I don’t agree, of course. If you start shit by scaring people and acting like a dangerous asshole, you’re obviously asking for trouble. What happened wasn’t entirely Neely’s fault but it was mostly his.
That said, Penny should have shown more caution as Neely didn’t deserve to die. Then again it’s very easy to say whatever from the comfort of a home or an office.
Here are 12 bullet points about the recently discovered removal of a brief, first-act passage in William Friedkin‘s The French Connection (’71), or more precisely in the CriterionChannel’sstreaming of same.
1. The absence of this sequence can be confirmed by anyone who streams the Criterion Channel’s version of the Oscar-winning feature. The messed-with sequence begins at the 9:42 mark, during the film’s first act. Gene Hackman‘s Popeye Doyle enters the brightly-lighted main lobby of the police station. He drops off paperwork, puts on his overcoat, walks over to the main door and flexes his hand. Roy Scheider‘s Cloudy follows but at exactly 10:05 a passage that used to be part of the film is no longer there.
2. It’s a bit between Doyle and Cloudy, who’s nursing a wounded arm after being stabbed by a drug dealer. Doyle: “You dumb guinea.” Cloudy: “How the hell did I know he had a knife?” Doyle: “Never trust a [ethnic slur].” Cloudy: “He coulda been white.” Doyle: “Never trust anyone.”
3a. The nine-second sequence (:52 to :59 in the below video) was obviously censored over Doyle’s racially offensive dialogue, specifically the N-word.
3b. It is presumed that the sequence was removed by Disney, which bought the film’s original owner, 20th Century Fox, on 3.20.19, and not The Criterion Channel.
4. The absence of said passage was also reportedly evident when The French Connection was screened at the American Cinematheque’s Aero theatre on Friday, 5.12.23. HE commenter identified as “The Connection”: “I don’t know if anyone else complained. I should have said something to the manager as I was leaving, but I sent them an email the next day asking who changed it (themselves? the studio? the filmmaker?) and [that] in the future they [should] at least advertise that they’re showing an altered version. Since Criterion is now showing the same version, I’m assuming it was the studio, and I wonder if the Aero was even aware of the change.”
5. HE commenter “Gus Petch” (posted Sunday night): “I have multiple recordings of the movie on my DVR. The versions recorded off TCM 4 and 2 months ago are both the censored versions, but the versions recorded off FXM (Fox Movies) 8 months ago are uncensored. Also FWIW, the TCM versions did not have the title screen in front that you often see that the film has been modified for presentation on TV.”
6. HE commenter “Ken Koc” (posted Sunday night): “That [nine-second sequence] is also gone from my purchased copy of The French Connection on iTunes.”
7. It is nonetheless astonishing that the Criterion Channel is running this version of Friedkin’s Oscar-winning film (Best Picture, Hackman for Best Actor, Friedkin for Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay) without an explanation of some sort. This deletion seriously harms the Criterion brand, which has always been about honoring and representing the original artistic intentions of filmmakers. They need to address this issue ASAP.
8. If in fact Disney is responsible for deleting the nine seconds of footage, they owe an explanation to the film’s fans as well as the industry at large why this was done, and whether or not they consulted Friedkin before doing so, and if they intend to delete other portions of other films that feature the N-word.
9. Over the last couple of days I’ve sent emails to various directors and producers, asking them to please forward yesterday’s HE story about the French Connection censorship to Friedkin. I’m presuming that Friedkin would hit the ceiling when he learns of this, and will post some kind of protest statement or perhaps even a video.
I never know how to react to showbiz hagiography docs, which always seem to explore and celebrate the life of a famous person in the same way. They all say "this person didn't lead an easy life and endured his/her share of challenges, sorrows and setbacks, but he/she was nonetheless fascinating and lovable and certainly admirable, hence this tribute doc about what an vivid and nourishing life he/she led...nourishing for all of us, really."
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Kenneth was born on 8.12.98, and was therefore, believe it or not, 29 when this photo was taken.
Kenneth reportedly gave Astor a new Packard as a wedding gift. They soon moved to a home on Lookout Mountain in Laurel Canyon. Less than two years later he was dead.
Initially a writer, editor and supervisor at Fox Films Corporation, Kenneth began directing films for Fox in ’29 — a year or so after his marriage. On 1.2.30, the 31-year-old was traumatically killed while directing aerial scenes for Such Men Are Dangerous. He and nine others were instantly destroyed following a mid-air plane crash over the Pacific Ocean. The planes that smashed into each other were identical Stinson SM-1F Detroiters. Sun glare was listed as probable cause.
My final Cannes ’23 screening will be Alice Rohrwacher‘s La Chimera, which screens at the Grand Lumiere at 3:30 pm.
Pic costars Josh O’Connor and Isabella Rossellini. Filming began in Tuscany roughly 15 months ago. Dictionary definitions of “chimera” seem elusive: (a) “A fire-breathing female monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail,” and (b) “a thing which is hoped for but is illusory or impossible to achieve.”
Packing and cleaning up this evening, and then catching a train back to Paris at 11:24 am.
Repeating: One way or another JLaw needs to save herself from what’s been happening to her career for the last seven or eight years. No Hard Feelings might do the job. The new trailer (which isn’t the least bit offensive) can only be watched on YouTube
“Rendezvous with Quentin Tarantino”, a special event at Theatre Croisette (home of the Directors Fortnight program), began at 4:22 pm. QT was introduced, stepped on stage to vigorous applause, and announced that John Flynn’s RollingThunder (‘77) would be the secret screening — a 35mm print, he proudly announced — and that a fun discussion would follow.
The film began at 4:35, and I’m sorry but it looked and sounded like shit. A faded, half-pink print. Smothered in dirt and scratch marks during the first two or three minutes and never looking or sounding all that clean. To me the dialogue was weak and whispery and barely audible, especially with the soundtrack humming and popping and crackling.
I hadn’t seen RollingThunder in 45 or 46 years, and if it hadn’t been for the French subtitles (which helped here and there) I would’ve been totally lost about some of the plot particulars.
You’d expect that for an event like this Tarantino would’ve gotten hold of a decent print, or relaxed his purist 35mm aesthetic (I know…heresy!) and shown a DCP. I’m sorry but I haven’t watched a film in this kind of ghastly condition in ages. We’re all accustomed to old films being restored or upgraded these days. RollingThunder is streaming on AmazonPrime.
QT’s affection for this Vietnam War-era revenge film is genuine, and the last thing I want to do is rain on his parade. I was really looking forward to a Thunder session but if you can’t hear a good portion of the dialogue what’s the point?
HE’s hand-held iPhone footage, captured around 10:15 pm on a Saturday evening (1.23.16) at Park City’s Eccles Theatre — the Sundance Film Festival launch of Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester By The Sea.
Casey Affleck was asked by an audience member how playing Lee Chandler had affected him personally, and one of his first reactions was “that’s a good question” — which meant he was unsure about how to best answer it.
Amazon/Roadside wouldn’t open the film for another ten months (11.18.16), but when you’ve got an absolute winner nobody worries about starting too early. Everyone knows it works, and they can’t wait to share it.
Manchester opened a year before the first stirrings of the woke plague, and today, seven and one-third years later, early ’16 seems like such a tranquil or even a magical moment. We didn’t know what we had until it all began to slip away.
Early this morning a friend sent along his “top ten films of the 1960s” list, and it’s certainly a decent roster for the most part. Okay, better than decent. But he put The Guns of Navarone (’61) in his third-place slot, and that, I replied, is a definite no-go.
The first 45-50 minutes of J. Lee Thompson‘s WWII adventure thriller are terrific (the main title sequence + Dimitri Tiomkin’s score are bull’s-eye), but after the commandos reach the top of the cliff the film becomes rote and lazy and even silly.
How many Germans do they kill? Four or five hundred?
Two scenes are top-notch during the second half — (a) the S.S./gestapo interrogation scene with Anthony Quinn moaning and rolling around all over the floor and (b) the killing of Gia Scala for treachery. But the believability factor is out the window.
The more I watch this film, the more I’ve resented Anthony Quayle‘s “Roy” and his idiotic broken leg. Mission-wise Roy is a total stopper — an albatross around everyone’s neck. I don’t agree with Quinn’s assessment — “One bullet now…better for him, better for us” — but I almost do.
And the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve become sick of David Niven‘s demolition expert, who’s mainly an effete selfish weenie and a huge pain in the ass. Gregory Peck: “And what about the men on Keros?” Niven: “I don’t know the men on Keros but I do know Roy!” God, what an asshole!
From HE’s paywalled review, “Do Bears Shit In the Woods?“, posted on 5.22.22: The meaning of the title of R.M.N., the latest film by the great Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu, is never revealed, or it wasn’t to me during last night’s Salle Debussy screening.
The Wiki page says that Mungiu “named the film after an acronym for rezonanța magnetica nucleara ** (‘nuclear magnetic resonance’) as the film is ‘an investigation of the brain, a brain scan trying to detect things below the surface.'”
So the film is basically about scanning the small-town minds of the residents of Recia***, a commune located in Transylvania, which most of us still associate with Dracula.
But the underlying focus isn’t vampires but racist xenophobes who fear Middle Eastern immigrants and more specifically two gentle fellows from Sri Lanka who’ve been hired to work at a local bakery.
It takes a while for the racism to emerge front and center, but a metaphorical representation is the nub of it — a phantom that lurks in the surrounding woods and more particularly within.
The phantom manifests three times — (a) in the opening scene in which the small son of Matthias (Marin Grigore), an unemployed slaughterhouse worker, is spooked by its off-screen presence while walking in the woods, (b) in the third act when a significant characters hangs himself (also in the woods), and (c) at the very end when four or five bears are spotted by Matthias after nightfall (ditto).
R.M.N. is a meditative slow-burn parable that you’ll either get or you won’t, but there’s no missing the brilliance of a one-shot town hall meeting in which the locals are demanding that the Sri Lankans be expelled from the community.
The shot lasts for roughly 17 minutes, and it’s all fast, bickering dialogue, simultaneously burrowing into the ignorance of the townies while building and deepening and man-oh-man…it’s so fucking great that I said to myself “this is it…this is what my Cristian Mungiu fixes are all about, and thank the Lords of Cannes for allowing me, a traveller from the states, to absorb this in my well-cushioned theatre seat.
The build-up narrative is about Matthias and his mute son Rudi (Mark Blenyesi), his resentful ex-wife Ana (Macrina Bârlădeanu) and Csilla, a passionate, kind-hearted bakery manager and cello player (Judith State) whom Matthias has an undefined sexual relationship with. He never says he actually “loves” her although he keeps returning to her home for solace and whatnot.
Secondary characters include the bakery owner, Mrs. Denes (Orsolya Moldován), and the local priest, Papa Otto (Andrei Finți), and a sizable gathering of anxious, agitated citizens who are basically the local reps of the Mississippi Burning club.
One of the finest observations I've ever read about Brian Wilson is contained in a review of LoveandMercy, written bv Los Angeles magazine's Steve Erickson. Two sentences in particular. One in which Erickson describes Wilson's post-Pet Sounds, Smile-era comedown in which "the celestial sounds in his head turned on him, and became the screams of angels falling from heaven." The second alludes to Wilson's music-creating process: "Great artists create in circles, not lines, in the ever-bending curl of the wave rather than in its rush to the shore’s conclusion." Great writing!
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