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I don’t expect much from Janus Metz Pedersen‘s Borg vs. McEnroe as a whole, but I want to see it. The hot-tempered, possibly wackadoodle Shia Labeouf playing John McEnroe, the ’70s and ’80s tennis champ known for his emotional tirades and disputes with judges…perfect. Plus I always liked the way McEnroe would emit that combination cry-groan thing with every serve. I expect a classic expletive performance. Hair-trigger McEnroe was beaten by the cool and dispassionate Bjorn Borg at the conclusion of the 1980 Wimbledon Men’s Singles final, but he had his revenge two months later, beating Borg in the five-set final of the 1980 U.S. Open.

This is strictly second-hand but I heard something today that upset my apple cart. It comes from the periphery of the Woody Allen camp.  The talk (and please understand this is just “talk” as in “not necessarily bankable”) is that Woody, who will be 82 in December, has muttered something along the lines of “the movie I make in 2019 might be my last.” He’s currently casting his 2018 film, which he’ll shoot either later this year or early next year, and then see to the promotion and publicity, and then he’ll make his 2019 film. And once that’s done it may be “adios muchachos.” Because, I’ve been told, Woody suspects he may not have any juice left after the ’19 flick, that he’ll be “done.”

Wells response: Here are my definitions of Allen being “done.” One, he’s just dropped dead on Fifth Avenue while directing his latest film. Two, he’s been found been slumped over in bed, his yellow writing pad at his side. Or three, he’s become one of those guys with saliva dribbling out of his mouth who might wander into a cafeteria with a shopping bag, screaming about socialism.

Even if Allen recently did mutter something about hanging it up, a new good idea could change everything in an instant…right? What would Woody do with himself if he stopped writing and directing? True, he’ll turn 84 in ’19, which would mean that over half of his life will have gone by. By the Clint Eastwood standard (i.e., 87 and is still cranking ’em out), Woody is far from done.

I hate the hyphen, for one thing. I hate that they’re rebooting Spider-Man for the second damn time. I hate the idea of paying to see a film that is entirely about drooling corporate hunger. I hate the obliging whore instinct that played a part in the current 94% RT score. What’s in it for me to sit through this thing? Maybe a little amusement or diversion, but how long is this Marvel Comic Universe shit going to continue? You know the answer. Until people start saying “Fuck Kevin Feige…I’m bored and I’m done.” I just don’t want to see Spider-Man: Homecoming. I really, really don’t. Who’s with me? That was a joke. The studios crank out another and the herd comes right over and starts slurping. I’ve loved a few Marvel flicks but c’mon, man…enough. Okay, I’ll come back for Ant Man 2 if Peyton Reed directs, and for Black Panther. But you know even Black Panther is gonna be more or less the same old slop in the trough.

Weddings are often described as joyous, touching, festive, life-affirming and maybe a bit nerve-wracking, at least in terms of pre-ceremonial jitters. But yesterday’s ceremony at La Piedra state beach — Tatyana, myself and wedding maestro Chris Robinson of oficiantguy.com — was mostly peaceful. We just did it, no prob. Smiles and serenity. The sea, blue skies, bright sun and mild breezes cooperated perfectly. We didn’t actually do the deed until 4 pm. Traffic from Sunset and PCH to central Malibu was beyond ridiculous, and the way down to the beach wasn’t a path as much as a challenge for mountain goats. But man, it was perfect. The post-nuptial celebration (including my son Jett, Svetlana and David, longtime attorney pally Mark Kane) happened at The Little Door.

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The Greatest Showman (20th Century Fox, 12.25), a traditionally-styled musical biopic of P.T. Barnum, obviously isn’t attempting to deliver anything close to historical realism. It’s clearly a big, brassy, up-spirited musical — aimed at the ticket-buyers, full of feeling, going for the gold and the glory.

In a 6.28 Playlist piece, Greg Ellwood floated several 2017 Best Picture candidates, breaking them down into likely contenders vs. potential nominees. Here’s a fast assessment of the first category with some titles dismissed because of some hair-trigger, highly subjective, highly personal rationale or perception. 22 films are assessed here; Ellwood has more on his lists:

Ellwood’s Likely Contenders (alphabetical order):

1. Denis Villenueve‘s Blade Runner 2049 / HE says nope — high-end sci-fi stuff walks — that test-screening report about Harrison Ford not showing up until the very end doesn’t help matters.
2. Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name / HE says you bet your booty.
3. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon‘s The Current War / HE says nope — smells dicey — Benedict Cumberbatch delivering another eccentric genius scientist performance in the wake of The Imitation Game? — Ben-Hur director Timur Bekmambetov having produced (along with Basil Iwanyk and Steven Zaillian) implies trouble.
4. Joe Wright‘s Darkest Hour / Gary Oldman will obviously compete for the Best Actor Oscar, but no one has a line on the film itself.
5. Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s Detroit / HE says you bet your booty, especially with those raised eyebrows over that August 4th release date having recently been lowered.
6. Alexander Payne‘s Downsizing / HE says probably, most likely …remember that Payne’s Cinemacon product reel sold everyone on this puppy…darkly funny while delivering an allegory that the dumbest popcorn-muncher will get…audacious concept, first-rate VFX, etc.
7. Christopher Nolan‘s Dunkirk / HE says senses uncertainty at this stage…post-production rumblings about it being more of a grand technical exercise than anything else….curious history lesson (“they got their asses kicked but they did it together, as a nation!”) mixed with knockout IMAX visuals.
8. Sean Baker‘s The Florida Project / HE says strictly Gotham and Spirit Awards.
9. Jordan Peele‘s Get Out / HE has been saying all along that this clever, racially attuned horror comedy, the kind of thing that John Carpenter might have directed in the ’70s or ’80s, has been way overhyped. Will this stop Academy members from nominating it for Best Picture? If you have to ask this, you don’t know the Academy kowtows.

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Yesterday Page Six reported that Daniel Day Lewis‘s post-Phantom Thread game plan is to become a dressmaker or, you know, possibly a dress designer of some sort. The 60 year-old actor fell for the art of making women’s dresses while researching haute couture fashion in preparation for playing the legendary Charles James. James is the focus of Paul Thomas Anderson’s film, which Focus Features will open on 12.25. It’s about James’ high-time career in the ’50s. While James operated out of New York City during that decade, Phantom Thread is strangely set in London.

DDL’s career-switch decision makes perfect sense, of course. Instead of building upon a brilliant body of work as a universally admired actor of unquestioned genius, he will henceforth devote himself to dressmaking, a notoriously fickle and demanding profession that only a relative few have truly excelled at, and as a journeyman at that.

Question: From my moron perspective I’m presuming that dressmaking is more or less about literally constructing dresses on your hands and knees with sewing needles between your teeth, and that dress designing is where the inspirational part comes in…right? And that DDL has opted to be a grunt who handles the material and thread and whatnot? Or is he looking to design dresses as James did? I’m presuming he’s intending to primarily design but also roll up his sleeves when the occasion demands and literally cut and stitch the damn things together. I don’t know anything. I love high-end men’s fashion (particularly shoes) but I never cared about women’s stuff. What straight guy does?

Who said Lewis is particularly gifted as a designer? Who has told him “you have promise, young man…you should develop your skills!” Where are DDL’s original designs so we, the popcorn-munching audience, can assess whether he’s just as talented in this new calling as he is at acting? I respect Lewis’s willingness to explore new terrain at an advanced age, but c’mon, dude…what are the odds that you’re the new Yves Saint Laurent or Christian Dior or Stella McCartney?

John Malkovich has a suit-designing business.

Boil it down and this is the latest what-the-fuck?, should-he-stay-with-the-same-medication-or-see-a new-doctor? move from an actor known for his mercurial eccentricity.

Remember that Lewis quit acting for five years in the 1990s to become a Florence-based shoemaker under the tutelage of Stefano Bemer.

From Kim Masters’ 6.26 Hollywood Reporter story about the ongoing Han Solo calamity (“Star Wars Firing Reveals a Disturbance in the Franchise“): “Matters were coming to a head in May as the production moved from London to the Canary Islands. Lucasfilm replaced editor Chris Dickens (Macbeth) with Oscar-winner Pietro Scalia, a veteran of Ridley Scott films including Alien: Covenant and The Martian. And, not entirely satisfied with the performance that the directors were eliciting from Rules Don’t Apply star Alden Ehrenreich, Lucasfilm decided to bring in an acting coach. (Hiring a coach is not unusual; hiring one that late in production is.) Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller suggested writer-director Maggie Kiley, who had worked with them on 21 Jump Street.”

Alden Ehrenreich, the anti-Han Solo.

Did I just read this?

Han Solo producer Kathy Kennedy and her creative consigliere, Lawrence Kasdan, could have chosen anyone to play the brave, reckless, somewhat rascally commander of the Millenium Falcon. How many name-brand 20something actors could have easily slipped into the role, guys with the natural insouciance and underlying gravitas of a young Harrison Ford? More than a few, I’m imagining. They had to choose a guy who could be at least faintly believable as a young Ford, which would have meant conveying a certain Hanitude — a mixture of Anglo Saxon cock-of-the-walk confidence, selfish mercenary cunning and shoulder-shrugging heroism.

And yet they chose a mopey, modestly proportioned, beady-eyed guy with the air of a rabbinical student — Alden Ehrenreich. Say hello, Star Wars fans, to the new Solo — a seemingly joyless, small-shouldered guy who lacks a sense of physical dominance (Aldenreich is five inches shorter than the 6’2″ Ford) and whose stock-in-trade is a kind of glum, screwed-down seriousness. A perfect candidate to play a solemn neurotic in one of Woody Allen‘s New York-based dramedies, but as Han Solo, not so much.

You’ll never guess what happened next. After three-plus months of shooting (early February to early May) or more than halfway through principal, it dawned upon Kennedy and Kasdan that Ehrenreich wasn’t working out like they’d hoped. They were presumably expecting that he’d shed his naturally morose manner and magically morph into a devil-may-care adventurer, but, to Kennedy and Kasdan’s astonishment, this didn’t happen.

“I really don’t get it,” Kasdan might have said to Kennedy. “There was absolutely no reason to presume that a frowning Jewish downhead couldn’t easily assume the manner and moxie of a grinning frat-boy scoundrel type.” To which Kennedy might have responded, “Yes, Larry, I know…it’s quite puzzling.” And so, at the suggestion of Han Solo directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, they hired an indie-level female director to try and…what? Instruct Ehrenreich on the basics of big-screen machismo? Teach him a few Harrison Ford mannerisms?

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Excerpt from Geoff Berkshire’s Variety review: “In Kogonada’s Columbus (Sundance Institute, 8.4), the protagonists write, talk, bicker, and dance about an extraordinary collection of modernist structures in the unassuming Midwest town of Columbus, Indiana. The hypnotically paced drama, carried by the serendipitous odd-couple pairing of John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson, is lovely and tender, marking Kogonada as an auteur to watch.”

Sidelight #1: Cho is 45; Richardson is 22. 23 years is a significant gap when you’re looking at a romantic pairing, no? It’s mitigated, yes, by the slim and healthy Cho looking like 35 or so. But remember that a potential romantic relationship between 35 year-old Josh Radnor and 19 year-old Elizabeth Olsen (i.e., a mere 16 years between them) was treated as a dicey thing in Radnor’s Liberal Arts (’12).

Sidelight #2: Richardson (Haley Steinfeld‘s best friend in The Edge of Seventeen) appears to be catching on. I can’t be specific but I’m told she’s being circled by a major director as we speak.

Why pay to see a film theatrically when you own a first-rate Bluray of same? Or when an HD version is easily streamable? I’ll tell you why. I don’t know why. Okay, to get out of the house. And, I suppose, to savor well-amplified music.

In the case of Franc Roddam‘s Quadrophenia, which is showing this evening at the Aero, that would be The Who’s “Quadrophenia” album. Which I saw performed by the actual Who, Keith Moon and all, at the L.A. Forum on 11.23.73.

The ultimate reason is that Quadrophenia, a 1979 release that uses the 1964 Mod vs. Rocker mania as a backdrop, is an unqualified masterpiece.

Call me eccentric, but every now and then I feel obliged to pay respect to such films by watching them from the fifth or sixth row with a container of salted popcorn.

I’ve said this two or three times, but the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve come to realize that this film — loosely based on the Who rock opera and basically the story of Jimmy Cooper (Phil Daniels) and his identity, friendship and girlfriend issues — belongs in the near-great category.

“Hands down it delivers one of the craziest, most live-wire recreations of mad generational fervor and ’60s mayhem.” — from a 6.17.12 HE posting.

Excerpts from “Quadrophenia: Jimmy vs. World” by Howard Hampton:

“Quadrophenia is the closest thing England has produced to its own Mean Streets, but its most invigorating aspect is the way it systematically upends expectations. It shares Mean Streets’ dedication to emotional veracity, but its midsixties streets are meaner, more inhospitable — far from the sensual precincts of Little Italy (and from the madding elites of Swinging London).

“Period songs aren’t given Scorsese’s seductive, exhilarating sheen; these kids aren’t all right, and they’re too wired on pills to really take pleasure in anything but human-pinball aggression.

“Using the Who’s heavyweight score primarily in flashes and spurts, for aural color or outbursts of blocked feeling, the film subtly distances itself from its own soundtrack, holding the music at a certain remove.

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The Papers is the official title of Steven Spielberg‘s currently shooting Oscar-bait film that will pop on 12.22.17 via 20th Century Fox. Working from a script by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, the drama is about how Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) and editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) grappled with a decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in June 1971.

Tom Hanks as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, Meryl Streep as Post editor Katherine Graham in Steven Spielberg’s The Papers.

One question: Has anyone ever heard or read of the Pentagon Papers being casually referred to “the papers” by anyone, ever? I haven’t. When I first saw the updated Wiki page I thought of Jimmy Two-Times in Goodfellas saying “I’m gonna get the papers, get the papers.”

I reviewed Hannah’s solo-authored script (which was called The Post) on 3.17.17. I said it was about how Graham, who initially saw herself as less than ideally suited to the task and was little more than a blandly embedded figure in Washington social circles, gradually grew some courage and a sense of journalistic purpose during the Pentagon Papers episode, which transpired over a 17-day period in June 1971.”

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