slider

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.

Read more

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.

Read more

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.

A year or two from now a large, rectangular, 12-storied, glass-walled building (business + residential) will arise on the south side of the Sunset Strip — 8850 Sunset Blvd.. Right across from Panini, an Italian pizza take-out place that I’ve been going to for decades, and bordered by Larabee on the eastern side and San Vicente Blvd. on the west.

No, they’re not destroying the Viper Room…well, they are but they’re re-launching or reconstituting it as a kind of corporate lounge rock-music club, or so it seems. The VR’s glowing shamrock green color (a trademark thing) will frame the entrance.

This morning a couple of older guys with a notepad and printed reading materials dropped by to solicit opinions about the forthcoming structure. I shared a few thoughts, using the words “soul-less” and “rancid” and “corporate-feeling”, etc.

After they left I posted the following on the 8850 website:

“The proposed (and almost certainly forthcoming) 8850 Sunset Blvd. structure will be, to go by your illustrations, another moderately ugly and soul-less office building that will (what else?) degrade the aesthetic atmosphere of the Strip. All of that glass looks so synthetic, so humdrum, so similar to tens of thousands of other office + residential buildings all over the world.

“Imagine if, say, Frank Gehry had been hired to design it. Or a disciple of Gehry’s. I have no ideas myself, but a less conventional Gehry-ish design would probably feel a bit more fitting, given the uptown vibe and all.

“It’s L.A. buildings like these that make visiting the historical sections of London, Paris, Rome, Florence and Prague such transporting experiences. Over there they respect history and classic architecture and keeping in touch with the past. Then again this part of the Strip hasn’t been anything to architecturally shout about for decades.

“The upside is that the building will offer affordable housing to a certain number of low-income citizens (less than $40K or $45K annually), and that’s a good thing. Plus they’re going to include a space for the Viper Room, which unfortunately will lose the coal-black exterior and a ton of other atmospheric touches, but at least will still ‘exist’, so to speak.”

Follow-up: If I were calling the shots I’d insert a kind of Hollywood Walk of Fame marble sidewalk square that commemorates River Pheonix, who died in front of the Viper Room on 10.31.93.

For the usual expedient reasons the people behind this project are pretending to be interested in what average WeHo residents think about it. I don’t know why I just wrote this. The fix is in. What’s next, the destruction of Book Soup?

Read more

Variety‘s Clayton Davis has never been to Europe much less to the Cannes Film Festival, but that’s about to change next month. Congrats and safe travels.

HE to Davis: Your tickets are already purchased, you’ve said, but I’m hoping that you’ve arranged to schedule a brief stop-over in Paris (which you’ve also never visited) on the way back. After every Cannes Film Festival I’ve attended (my first was in ’92) I’ve always downshifted in Paris, Rome, Prague, Berlin, Barcelona, Lauterbrunnen, London, Ireland, etc. It would be almost sinful, I feel, to ignore this post-Cannes opportunity. But that’s me.

Sam Elliott has apparently been told by his agent to walk back his Power of the Dog diss for political reasons. I don’t know for a fact that industry Robespierres have decided that Elliott is anti-progressive or sexist or something in that vein, but many probably have. And as a result they might’ve diminished Elliott’s appeal as an actor-for-hire. Maybe.

Apologizing for a previously expressed opinion is Elliott’s right, of course, but we all know what the shot is here.

Deep down Elliott is almost certainly saying “c’mon, man…I can’t express an opinion that you don’t like because my career will be hurt if I don’t walk it back? And you think…what, that it’s a good thing that incorrect opinions, as you see them, are being squelched in urban blue environments by wokesters? Okay, guys — I get it. You guys are HUAC-style wolves dressed in humanist-diverse clothing, but I’m nonetheless ‘sorry’ for my transgression. And in the meantime, perhaps some of you might to watch Ken Russell‘s The Devils.”

I’m posting this out of respect for Elliott, of course, and partly from my own experience last year.

Sam Elliott apologizes for his controversial comments he previously made about ‘The Power of the Dog’ #DeadlineContenders pic.twitter.com/XZ86wCAXmL

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) April 10, 2022

Maher: “I need to stick up for my tribe. This war on jokes must end. So let’s Zapruder this thing…”

Many relationships and marriages work out, sometimes for decades. They survive as long as the candle burns, fate warrants and patience persists; others wind down after four or five years. Or sooner. And that’s fine.

No, I’m not about to air some dirty Jeff-and-Tatiana laundry. It would be extremely gauche to do that. Neither Tatiana nor I are perfect, but our private stuff is not column fodder. Because I will not be that middle-aged married woman drunkenly hissing at her husband and angrily exposing her breasts during a party scene in John Schlesinger‘s Sunday Bloody Sunday (’71).

Over the past several weeks, however, I’ve been wincing over Tatiana’s respect and allegiance for Vladimir Putin, and especially her views about the ongoing Russian terror and genocide in Ukraine (which Vladimir Zelensky will discuss on 60 Minutes two days hence). I’ve kept my distance for the most part. It’s her deal, her background (born and raised in Edinet), her culture, her convictions.

Given these recent opinions, Tatiana is a serious fan of Oliver Stone. His 2017 Putin interviews rang her bell and then some. Two days ago he achieved the same by posting a Facebook essay that that was highly skeptical of all the Russia-and-Putin bashing in the media.

Stone’s end quote: “All this anti-Russian propaganda, sweeping in its Western unity, smells bad — literally like Orwell’s ‘1984.’”

Tatiana loved Stone’s essay, and so she tapped out a cheering response to that effect. This led to thoughts about luck, love and the ways of surprising discoveries. If only she and Stone had somehow managed to meet a few years ago, and had kept in occasional touch and perhaps had gradually formed a bond that was about something more than just social-media rapport. I’m not saying what I seem to be saying. I’m saying Tatiana and Oliver almost seem, right now, like two peas in a pod — coming from a very similar place in terms of Ukraine-related perceptions and convictions.

Who develops admiration and affection for someone based on their cultural and political views? Well, all relationships start somewhere. And so much in life is about luck, timing and kismet. I do think Tatiana, whose views about the Ukraine War have drawn a lot of flak on this site, would feel more “heard” and respected right now if things had worked out for her in a different way. I for one would be fine with that. I am also cool — accepting — about our five years together, and in many some ways I am thankful. I’m committed to living in the now.

Read more

Jurors in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case today acquitted two militant rightwing Michigan bumblefucks — Brandon Caserta and Daniel Harris — and said they were deadlocked on charges against two others, Barry Croft and Adam Fox.

The jurors seemed to be saying that these low-rent assholes were just rattling their online sabres, and that they didn’t actually intend to kidnap Whitmer. Not really.

All four had been accused of plotting to snatch Whitmer, Michigan’s Democratic governor, from her vacation home in 2020. You could also presume that the jurors felt a greater cultural kinship with these four louts than with Whitmer.

The bottom line, I suspect, is that the jurors knew these guys were (a) fairly serious about wanting to kidnap Whitmer, however half-assed and goon squad their plans and strategies might have been, and (b) that they’re definitely sociopaths — the same kind of rightwing animals who stormed the U.S. Capitol on 1.6.21.

And so, naturally, the jurors had problems with finding them guilty.

Thoughts?