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In his New Yorker review of The Northman, Anthony Lane notes that “the period detail is unstinting,” adding that “scholars of Old Norse who were unconvinced by Tony Curtis’s miniskirt, banded with chevrons, in The Vikings (1958), will be reassured by Eggers’s dedication.”

But for the rest of us, The Northman is not reassuring in terms of emotional involvement. You just don’t give a damn about anyone except for Anya Taylor Joy‘s “Olga”, except she’s kept on a short leash.

Hence this view of Eggers from a producer who’s seen The Northman: “In another era, Eggers would be a landscape painter, but never a portrait painter — unwilling or unable to capture the soul of his subject, and only the technical details of their environment. He might paint one of those massive battlefield canvases where hundreds of warriors gouge each other’s vital organs out, but end up as stick figures of glory against a barren emotional terrain.”

Though clunky and unsubtle, Richard Fleischer‘s The Vikings does not present a barren emotional terrain. Obviously inauthentic by today’s standards, it gives you emotional material to chew on.

[Posted two or three times]: “One thing that still works in The Vikings‘ favor is the film’s refusal to dramatically amplify the fact that Kirk Douglas‘s Einar and Tony Curtis‘s Eric, mortal enemies throughout the film, are in fact brothers, having both been sired by Ernest Borgnine‘s Ragnar.

“Ten minutes from the conclusion Janet Leigh‘s Princess Morgana begs Douglas to consider this fraternity, and he angrily brushes her off. But when his sword is raised above a defenseless Curtis at the very end, Douglas hesitates. And then Curtis stabs Douglas in the stomach with a shard of a broken sword, and Douglas is finished.

“The way he leans back, screams ‘Odin!’ and then rolls over dead is pretty hammy, but that earlier moment of hesitation is spellbinding — one of the most touching pieces of acting Douglas ever delivered.

“I’m not trying to build The Vikings up beyond what it was — a primitive sex-and-swordfight film for Eisenhower-era Eloi. But it did invest in that submerged through-line of ‘brothers not realizing they’re brothers while despising each other’, and the subtlety does pay off.” — originally posted on 3.27.06, on the occasion of Richard Fleischer‘s passing.

So who voiced the complaint against Bill Murray that resulted in the suspension of Aziz Ansari‘s Being Mortal? Nobody’s saying and nobody knows (myself included), but four days ago 28 year-old Being Mortal costar Keke Palmer (aka “Millennial Diva“) posted an Instagram riff about professional behavior, and how “it can lower your rate when people don’t like the experience of working with you.”

One could obviously interpret this post (initially flagged by Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman) as a commentary on the Murray brouhaha, whether Palmer was directly involved or not. You tell me….who knows?

Palmer: “It’s not always about how good you are at the actual job. It’s about how you show up to the job. Are you on time? Do you have a good attitude? Are you efficient? Are you flexible? Are you calm under fire? Do you represent yourself and the employer well? Are you a good communicator?

“These are the things people sometimes don’t think matters, especially those who work in fields that come natural to them. It can double your rate in any field if you create an enjoyable EXPERIENCE for the client. And it can lower your rate when people don’t like the experience of working with you, no matter the outcome of the actual task.

“I’m talented but I’m not arrogant enough to believe that there aren’t many talented people. However, not every talented person is a professional and people PAY for PROFESSIONALISM.”

Creative HE translation: “Being talented and charismatic is all well and good, but Millennials like myself value safe spaces and cheerful attitudes and being cool and professional on the set, especially in the matter of creative conflicts and whatnot. If you think you can ignore Millennial social behavior rules because you’re popular and world-famous, you’d better think again, pops.”

Radical idea #1: If there was personal conflict on the Being Mortal set (possibly between Murray and Palmer or somebody else…who knows?)…but if there was conflict on the set, why didn’t the producers and a Searchlight rep or two simply step in and ask everyone to be a professional, put a lid on the bad vibes, put on a happy face and finish the damn movie? Why suspend shooting on a film because someone got offended? Couldn’t they have simply have had a cast-and-crew sitdown to settle things?

Radical idea #2: Before the movie began filming, the complainer’s manager or agent takes him or her aside and says, “Beware of Bill Murray…he can be difficult but he doesn’t have to be. He’s moody at times so play it smart, give him a wide berth, try to turn the other cheek, pretend he’s an 800-pound gorilla who might hurt you and don’t start any fights. Whatever happens, just let it go. He’s been this way before and nothing is going to change. Just get through it, and hopefully this’ll turn into a good film.”

Radical idea #3: During pre-production Murray’s agent or manager or best friend takes him aside and says the following (which is half-copied from my 4.17.22 riff on Frank Langella): “You’ve been in this racket for over 40 years and you’re not gonna change, but listen to me, bruh…don’t fuck with Millennial safe-space fanatics. Especially Millennial women. You’re an older white guy, and you have to understand that you’re a deer, and that it’s deer hunting season out there right now. Because a decent percentage of urban progressive women (teens to mid 30s and perhaps beyond) are ready and willing to murder the careers of older white guys who say or do the wrong thing. So don’t be dumb — play it smart and careful. Because there are some Millennial women out there who will do what they can to kill you if you give them half a reason…they will turn your life in a raging social-media sea.”

I’ve been struggling in this town for nearly 40 years, and perfect days are rare. Climate-wise, I mean. Flooded with sunshine, warm but not too warm, deep blue skies, magnificent white clouds, a gentle breeze in the air. Today is a perfect day, and about an hour ago I did something very unusual. I stood on a street corner and stared up at the sky and went “wow,” and then took a couple of snaps.

If Los Angeles were like this half or even one-third of the time, people would feel differently about it. I would honestly say that this kind of day happens maybe two or three times per month in the mid-to-late spring, but no more than that.

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I was a tad irked by Johnny Depp‘s testimony today. Not by what he said but that he spoke so slowly, at times haltingly. He certainly wasn’t loquacious. He seemed to struggle to remember stuff or to find the right words, although he eventually pulled it together.

Depp on the arc of his relationship with Amber Heard: “From what I recall, what I remember, she was too good to be true. She was attentive, she was loving, she was smart, she was kind, she was funny, she was understanding. We had many things in common”, and for the first 12 to 18 months Heard was”wonderful…it was amazing. And then things just started to change — or things started to reveal themselves, is a better way to put it. She became another person, almost.”

When you fall in love and move in with someone, you always put on your best face at first. But within the first year or so, the real inner person always comes out. Sometimes it emerges within three or four months; it depends. But sooner or later, the “act” falls away.

This is a nice Cannes Film Festival poster, but Peter Weir‘s The Truman Show (’98) is no masterpiece. I disliked it from the get-go. Jim Carrey‘s “Truman Burbank” is unaware that he’s living inside a corporate-funded, hermetically-sealed reality TV dome. This is what modern life feels like to tens of millions of actual Americans, of course, so we all get the metaphor. But I found the premise impossible. Complete disengagement.

I’ve posted the following two or three times over the last decade, but here goes again: Despite the impossible-to-swallow premise, The Truman Show could have saved itself if it had gone with a darkly ironic ending.

Weir’s film ends with Truman escaping from the dome and finally about to experience the blessings and pitfalls of real life…hallelujah! A far more satisfying ending would have been for Truman to escape into the real world and then, after a few difficult weeks or months, returning to the dome because he can’t hack the difficulty of real life — too much anxiety, trauma and heartbreak.

The final scene would show Truman embracing Ed Harris‘s “Cristof” and Laura Linney‘s “Hannah Gill” and shedding tears of joy at being able to return to the shelter of Fake World — a realm that tens of millions of actual Americans live in today.

I’ve been looking for this hilarious story on YouTube for ages. It’s from George Stevens A Filmmakers’ Journey (’85), and nobody’s ever posted it. It’s funny because it reminds us that no matter how divine the inspiration and how arduous and exacting the effort to make the movie turn out right, the last guy on the delivery food chain can still screw it up. From Shane to Bonnie and Clyde to a projectionist’s booth inside London’s Warner cinema.

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George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey (’84), an illuminating study of the legendary director of Gunga Din, A Place in The Sun, Shane, Giant and The Diary of Anne Frank, is one of my all-time favorite biographical documentaries.

Directed by Stevens’ illustrious son George Stevens Jr., a long-time pillar of the Hollywood community who recently celebrated his 90th birthday, the 110-minute doc teems with familial warmth, first-hand recollections and classic Hollywood bon ami.

I first saw it at an Academy screening in March of ’85. (Or so I recall.) It was a huge moment for me personally in that I was able to shake hands with Cary Grant during the after-party. Grant had starred in three Stevens films — Penny Serenade (’39), Gunga Din (’39) and The Talk of the Town (’42). And yet, oddly, the doc had skipped over the latter effort, a pro-labor, anti-ownership political comedy that costarred Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman.

During my 25 or 30 seconds of Grant time I started to mention my disappointment and slight puzzlement about The Talk of the Town‘s absence in the doc, but them someone else butted in and I lost the moment.

Flash forward 37 years to last night, when I read a little less than half of Stevens, Jr.’s “My Place In The Sun” (University Press of Kentucky, 5.17.22), a memoir and TV a first-hand witnessing of so many fascinating and legendary Hollywood moments.

I had hoped that, being a book and all, it would provide the kind of microscopic observational detail that George Stevens: A Filmmakers Journey had been obliged to leave out.

As a longtime fan of The Talk of the Town, I was especially hoping to read something fresh or novel about the dynamic between his dad, Grant, Colman and Arthur. Any intimate details about the making of this Oscar-nominated Columbia release would have sufficed. But George barely mentions it.

Here’s what he says:

It’s fair to say that between omitting any mention of The Talk of the Town in his 1984 documentary and giving it a lousy 48 words in his new memoir, George Stevens, Jr. is not a huge fan.

I would say, in fact, that “My Place In The Sun” is not what anyone would call an exacting, deep-drill, no-holds-barred memoir. It’s very well written and heartfelt at just the right pitch, but also tidy and proper — it’s the story George wants to tell but perhaps not (all of) the story that actually went down, warts and all. But it’s fine.

It seemed obvious from the style and tone of the book that Stevens would never in a million years mention The Great Shane Aspect Ratio Bluray Skirmish of 2013 — a conflict that happened between March and April of that year, and which the honorable Joseph McBride lent his support to and which Woody Allen probably decided when he allowed me to post his views on the matter.

A friend who’s read the entire book says that the Shane aspect-ratio episode isn’t mentioned. Which makes sense. Leave well enough alone.

By any measure it was a bizarre chapter in which Stevens, Jr. advocated (or at least defended) the issuing of Warner Home Video’s Shane Bluray with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio, which the film was not shot in during the late summer and fall of 1951.

Many of us were appalled by the 1.66 thing — a cleavering that would have unmistakably compromised Loyal Griggs‘ original compositions. As we all recall, Warner Home Video ultimately folded and decided to issue the Shane Bluray in the original 1.37:1 aspect ratio. All’s well that ends well.

The red poster (flesh + blood) for David Cronenberg‘s Crimes of the Future seems to be referencing the Bluray jacket for David Lynch‘s Blue Velvet.

The murky, twilight-of-death, Tomb of Ligeia-like alternate one=sheet seems almost designed to repel interest.

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The Edge (’97) is a rugged Alaskan wilderness survival drama, and more precisely about three two men vs. one badass Kodiak bear who wants to maul and eat them.

Initially it’s about three guys who’ve crash-landed in a remote Alaskan lake — aloof billionaire Charles (Anthony Hopkins), smart-ass photographer Bob (Alec Baldwin) who’s been secretly schtupping Charles’ wife Mickey (Elle MacPherson), and Bob’s assistant Steve (Harold Perrineau).

But Steve gets killed by the bear early on (25 years ago non-white supporting players always died first in action films), and then it’s down to Hopkins vs. Baldwin and the jealousy-cuckold-greed dynamic.

The film is therefore propelled by two major conflicts — (a) the bear vs. Charles and Bob, and (b) Charles vs. Bob over Mickey, and more particularly Bob in Act Three wanting to kill Charles so he can marry Mickey and live like a rich guy.

But here’s the thing: Charles and Bob may dislike or even hate each other during a good part of the film, but they also go through a series of what you might call “survivalist epiphanies.”

What transpires between them in terms of trust, selflessness and fighting the bear together is far more profound, they realize at the end, than Baldwin wanting to continue fucking MacPherson and perhaps living off Charles’ money if and when he dies.

The Edge, in short, should have been about Baldwin’s abrasive, greedy asshole photographer learning that there are greater and more transformative things than great MacPherson sex and loads of dough. Bob and Charles should have ended the film as brothers who are much closer to each other than either one has ever been to MacPherson.

There should have been a scene in which Baldwin admits to Hopkins that he’s boning MacPherson, but adding “are you gonna stay with her after all this? I wouldn’t. I mean, I didn’t betray you, Charles…she did. You and I are fine. She’s the problem.”

The Edge premiered at the 1997 Toronto Film Festival. Director Lee Tamahori, screenwriter David Mamet and producer Art Linson all gave interviews. I can’t recall if I interviewed Mamet then or at some later point, but I definitely recall explaining my alternate Edge ending.

The best part in the whole film is when Hopkins mentions how some people who’ve become accidentally stranded in the wilderness wind up “dying of shame.”

If The Edge was made today, Perrineau’s character would be the strapping boyfriend of MacPherson as well as the one who survives to threaten Hopkins life at the end. Baldwin, a disposable white guy with an alcohol problem, would be killed by the bear early on.

IMDB: “In his memoirs, Alec Baldwin put much of the blame of the movie underwhelming performance at the feet of director Lee Tamahori, who he believes watered down David Mamet’s script and was more interested in action than character.”

This morning I mentioned The Godfather‘s second-act beating scene in which Sonny Corleone (James Caan) laughably air-punches Carlo (Gianni Russo). There’s no missing the mistake (between 2:05 and 2:10) because the shot is perfectly positioned to catch it — a nice clean side-angle. And it’s so distinct that it takes you right out of the film.

Not long after HE regular DTHXC_1138 fixed it, and he did so within a minute or two. An hour ago he uploaded it to YouTube. Excellent job! Now it looks right — Sonny is actually punching Carlo now.

The original air-punch is in the second YouTube clip, of course — the one that runs for 3:11. DTHXC_1138’s digital correction (four seconds) is clickable on top.

The monumental Gilbert Gottfried, a comic surrealist of the highest order and a onetime Hollywood Elsewhere follower (back in ’05, that is, when I was writing with great fervor about Gilbert’s astounding telling of the Aristocrats joke) has passed after a long illness.

The poor guy, whose stock in trade was elevating manic-bawdy tastelessness into a Picasso-level art form, was only 67.

The wokesters will never admit it, but they’re almost certainly delighted that Gottfried’s voice has been stilled. Gottfried in his heyday represented the kind of rude, ridiculous, no-holds-barred and totally brilliant humor that wokesters live to despise and suppress.

Posted on 9.14.17: The idea in this Gilbert Gottfried doc is that you can present an agreeable, relatively mellow front with your friends, pets, neighbors and family members, and then become (i.e., revert to) a somewhat more pointed and aggressive personality when you’re “on” — performing, writing, acting or what-have-you. To some extent all writers and/or performers understand this dynamic.

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Respect for the late Kathy Lamkin, the No Country for Old Men trailer park manager who took no shit from Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh. Joel and Ethan Coen wrote and directed this classic scene, of course, but Lamkin’s tough steely demeanor made it work. The 74 year old actress, a resident of Pearland, Texas, passed on April 4th.

Side note: Autocorrect just suggested that the last name of Bardem’s character should be changed from Chigurh to Chihuahua — Anton Chihuahua.