Many most people have a fundamental inability to face potentially devastating threats to human existence. What matters most to them is hanging on to the conditions of life they know — the familiar, the banal — rather than dealing with whqt’s coming around the corner.
Five words — complacency by way of denial (or denial by way of complacency).
This is clearly the basic theme of Adam McKay‘s Don’t Look Up (12.10), which has been screening for a few and is screening for more than a few starting tomorrow.
Quick — name a significant 1963 film that dealt with roughly the same psychological response to imminent human extinction. Correct — Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds.
Bodega Bay was abounding with complacency and denial, and it all came to a bubble in that famous luncheonette scene in which recent bird attacks were discussed and the town drunk (Karl Swenson) occasionally proclaimed “it’s the end of the world!” He was right and nobody listened. Because drunks are only to be tolerated, if that.
In Don’t Look Up Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play astonomers who’ve detected an oncoming meteor that will most likely destroy the earth upon impact. They are also playing Swenson’s character.
Philip Morris was an I Love Lucy sponsor for four years — ’51 to ’54. This wasn’t a magazine ad but a 1953 cardboard standee, promoting Christmas packaging for cartons of Philip Morris King Size cancer sticks. HE to Clayton Davis: Desi was Cuban, of course, but here he looks half-Spanish and half like Raymond Burr in Perry Mason….kinda like Javier Bardem looks in Being The Ricardos (Amazon, 12.10).
“Suspicious Minds“? Really? Released in ’69, that was a Vegas Elvis tune. And we don’t like the Vegas decline-and-fall years around here.
The real authentic Elvis reigned between ’54 and ’58, and sang “Blue Moon,” “All Shook Up,” “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Hound Dog,” “Reddy Teddy,” “Teddy Bear,” etc. That’s the Elvis everyone wants to hang with.
Does this mean that Baz Luhrman‘s Elvis (Warner Bros., 6.4.22) is going to focus on downslide Elvis, glitter jumpsuit Elvis, fat Elvis, Memphis Mafia Elvis, Graceland Elvis, keeling-over-on-the-toilet Elvis? Does this mean that Austin Butler will do a Robert De Niro in Raging Bull and wear a 40-pounds-heavier fat suit and look all puffy-faced and shit?
Young Elvis is the glorious first half of Lawrence of Arabia. Corpulent, drug-addled, peanut-butter-and-banana-sandwiches Elvis is a tragedy.
The 6.4.22 release date means it’ll probably play at next May’s Cannes Film Festival.
Elvis Monday⚡️
Made a little something to let you good people know we are taking care of business on June 24, 2022.#Elvis #TCB pic.twitter.com/grf8IGqfw9
— Baz Luhrmann (@bazluhrmann) November 15, 2021
Yesterday afternoon I finally saw Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, the justifiably acclaimed Norwegian relationship drama that led to star Renate Reinsve winning the Best Actress trophy at last July’s Cannes Film Festival.
A side observation shared by Tatiana and myself was that Reinsve bears an unusual resemblance to HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko (Show Me What You Got, the forthcoming One Nation Under Earl). They’re of different generations, of course, but with Svetlana being a younger-looking ex-model type you might almost think “older sister-younger sister” if they were to stand side by side at a cocktail party.
Reinsve will be in town soon for interviews and industry schmoozers, and I’m determined to at least try and get the two of them to pose before HE’s iPhone 12 Max Pro.
Here are some comparison shots — one of the Reinsve snaps was taken during an accidental fire alarm intermission at the Soho House screening room; the others were taken in Cannes. The Svet shots (wearing a cap, accepting an award at the Messina Film Festival, etc.) speak for themselves.
On 11.12.17, a certain Call Me By Your Name clique — director Luca Guadagnino, myself, Tatiana, director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, Amazon’s Scott Foundas and one or two others — shared a nice big dinner at Matsuhisa. Little did we know that the scourge of woke terror was just around the corner…
Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan (whom I’ve personally known for several years and ran into at a Telluride brunch three or four years ago) have been travelling around for two or three years and working together on Nightmare Alley (they co-wrote the script), and now they’re married…cool. GDT was married for 20 years to Lorenza Newton, mother of his daughters Marisa and Mariana. They separated in early ’17. Morgan was previously married to Canadian highbrow director Guy Maddin for four years.
HE is looking forward to seeing Nightmare Alley sometime in early December.
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