It wasn’t flat-out sexual assault, but certainly a show of aggressive sexual whateverism…if you feel it, do it….joyful Oscar humiliation…it happened 19 years ago (3.23.93) but the time has come to bring this insufferable cad to justice…right? That Times Square-sailor-kissing-the-nurse guy died some years ago so Brody’s the only famous impulse-kisser left. Yes, I’m being facetious.
I know EYE said no more slap-related discourse but I just remembered the time Adrien Brody kissed Halle Berry when accepting his award (for The Pianist, directed by Roman Polanski). That was literally sexual assault on stage & there was no anger. Here's Halle talking about it pic.twitter.com/mZ9JTJT6hZ
For what it’s worth, I never had a grade-school teacher who shared anything about his or her personal life (sexual orientation, who they were married to or were living with, where they went camping the previous weekend)…nothing. It seems to me that this Florida teacher wants his students to know that he’s gay and has a partner in order to (a) bring them into his world and thereby (b) normalize gay lifestyles and coupledom so as to discourage any homophobic thoughts that might arise down the road.
HE to Florida teacher: Try sticking to the cirriculum and keeping your private life in a private box. If a student asks what a “partner” is, say a close friend and let it go at that. Or say “ask your parents.”
Teacher on MSNBC worries he can't discuss his love life with kindergarteners anymore: "It scares me that I am not going to be able to have these conversations with my children…I don’t want to have to hide that my partner and I went paddle boarding this weekend." pic.twitter.com/YJperIlzJB
HE to readership: In his remarks this morning to CBS Mornings‘ Gayle King, Jim Carrey said that Chris Rock should sue Will Smith for $200 million because “that insult is going to last forever…it’s going to be ubiquitous.”
If you were Rock, would you sue? You know he’d have an excellent case in civil court. He’d definitely be able to hurt Smith in a nine-figure way, or at least an eight-figure one.
Carrey: “[The slapping incident] cast a pall over everybody’s shining moment last night. A lot of people worked very hard to get to that place, and to have their moment in the sun…it is no mean fear with all the stuff you have to go through when you’re nominated for an Oscar…it’s a gauntlet of devotion that you have to do…and [what happened] was just a selfish moment that cast a pall over the whole thing.”
From Judy Kurtz-authored The Hill story, posted this afternoon: “Maine rallied the most around Rock, with a whopping 98.2 percent of tweets tallied from the state cheering on the comic.”
I guess I’m sorta kinda wondering why Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, John Wayne, James Cagney…why did we never hear about these guys occasionally bitch-slapping each other during the Oscar ceremonies of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s?
Probably because their testosterone levels were too low, I’m guessing. They resultantly lacked sufficient manliness — unlike Will Smith, they simply didn’t have the nerve to occasionally throw down and “straighten” each other out.
I had a couple of issues with the 4K “restoration” of The Godfather — issues, not arguments. I was/am of two minds. My primary allegiance is with the 2008 Robert Harris-Gordon Willis restoration, but I also loved what the tasteful DNR-ing (or de-graining) achieved. On the other hand I didn’t care for the lack of warm colors in most of the indoor scenes (i.e., the paler, pinkish faces).
But last night I watched the new 4K The Godfather, Part II — all 200 minutes of it — and was completelyblownaway. Yes, it’s also been DNR’ed but with more restraint, it seemed, than the 1972 original. It looks ravishing, and yet it doesn’t mess with Willis’sstoried, burnished, yesteryearcolorscheme during the young Vito sections. The 1958 footage looks cleaner, sharper and more vivid (especially the daytime outdoor stuff), but not to any problematic extent.
I’ve never seen this 1974 Oscar-winner look so good — it’s delightful.
On the other hand there’s nothing “normal” about wearing a zebra-skin toga or bathrobe, a sartorial statement coordinated with a white bull terrier and a black panther-like dog in the doorway.
Originally posted on 2.1.22, then immediately paywalled: I’ve said from the beginning that casting of The Offer (4.28), the Paramount + series about the making of The Godfather, would be extra difficult because everyone knows the players so well — faces, voices, mannerisms. Each and every performance would have to deliver a masterful impersonation for the film to really work. The new trailer makes it clear this aspect was a bridge too far.
I’ll tell you right now that Dan Fogler portraying Francis Coppola in The Offer…any Fogler casting in anything is a problem as he always seems to play slovenly, dregs-of-the-gene-pool types, but casting him as Coppola is a jape, an insult. For one thing Coppola has a certain voice that Fogler doesn’t even come close to imitating, plus Coppola was a bit stocky but not a fatass.
I knew that the instant I heard Fogler-as-Coppola speak the famous line “I believe in America”…I knew right away that Fogler was the wrong guy to hire.
My second reaction was “good God, what’s happened to poor Giovanni Ribisi?” He’s turned into a beach ball! This is almost as upsetting as the Bridget Fonda thing. If he wanted to bulk up to play Joe Colombo, he could have gone with a fat suit, no?
As for Miles Teller as Godfather producer Albert Ruddy…well, he doesn’t look anything like early ’70s Ruddy, a 40ish Canadian Jew with graying hair. The 34 year-old Teller, who stepped into the role when Armie Hammer was deep-sixed and soon after caused on-set worries when he refused to be vaccinated, has dark, thick hair and seems closer to his early 30s than early 40s.
Matthew Goode as Robert Evans might be okay.
The one possibly hopeful note is that Michel Tolkin is the screenwriter. The director is Dexter Fletcher (Rocketman).
