Somewhere in these United States, 35 to 64 year-olds** have been invited to see Aaron Sorkin‘s Being The Ricardos later this week. Word around the campfire is that Javier Bardem‘s performance as Desi Arnaz is the standout element, and a likely contender for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The descriptive copy in the invitation is a bit windy, but here it is:

“Being the Ricardos, directed by Aaron Sorkin, charts the ups and downs of Hollywood legends Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) in creating their iconic I Love Lucy TV show, which both strengthened and destroyed them as a couple.

“Even though the series allowed them to play house and become people they weren’t in reality (but wished they could be), the movie examines how being the top pop icons of the day took a toll on both their personal and professional lives in an inventive and unique style, filled with kinetic energy.

“As Lucy and Desi prepare over the course of a single week to shoot an episode that will go down in history as having some of the funniest and most memorable scenes to grace television, we will be enthralled to peek into why despite all of that passion and success their world-famous relationship could never be.”

Cutting to the chase: Arnaz’s Cuban upbringing taught him that catting around outside the bonds of marriage was perfectly acceptable or at least workable.

Excerpt from Chicago Tribune interview with their daughter Lucie Arnaz: “My father loved women, and Latin American countries have a whole different code of ethics. There’s the home with the wife, and the house with the mistress. Each is highly respected by the other.

“Unfortunately, my mother was from upstate New York, and my father couldn’t get her to go along with that concept.”

A 1955 Confidential article alleged that the Cuban-born actor told a friend, “What’s she so upset about? I don’t take out other broads. I just take out hookers.” (Reported in an 8.13.20 Vanity Fair article, titled “Did Desi Really Love Lucy?“)

Obviously Arnaz was an inconsiderate sexist dog. If a husband is determined to run around to his heart’s content, he at least needs to keep it on the down-low. Out of respect for his wife’s honor, I mean. Never push it in her face. Allow her to think that things might be okay.

Not to take anything away from director-writer Paul Schrader or his recently released The Card Counter, but the thing that held my interest during the below Zoom interview between Schrader and Santa Barbara Film Festival honcho Roger Durling…the thing that really put the hook in as I watched and listened last night…what matters most right now are Durling’s magnificent Jack Nicholson-styled, red-mud-with-a-hint-of-amber reading glasses.

All my adult life I’ve wanted to own a pair, but I somehow never got around to it. Okay, I never pursued them because I suspected they were out of my price range. Durling informs that the manufacturer is Jacques Marie Mage, and that the basic price is $650 per pair. And that’s without the crafting and insertion of prescription lenses.  

Obvious question: Why doesn’t some enterprising second-tier designer create a knockoff version of Jacques Marie spectacles? Affordable by someone like myself? Glasses you could buy for, say, $150 or $200.

This enthusiasm in no way suggests that Durling’s Schrader interview is anything less than absorbing, intelligent, interesting. One of the most intriguing aspects is Schrader’s raspy voice. I remember interviewing him somewhere near the old Columbus Circle Paramount building at the time of American Gigolo (’80), and he was giving the exact same kind of answers back then.

From Owen Gleiberman’s Cry Macho review: “Even though he doesn’t rule physically anymore, the 91 year-old Clint Eastwood we see in Cry Macho is just as rooted in the domineering presence of his mystique as he ever was. He’s just quieter about it.

“The movie turns into a romance: When they’re at that ranch, the woman who runs the adjoining cantina cooks for them, and she and Clint strike up a flirtation so sly it kind of sneaks its way into the movie. The actress Natalia Traven has a face that seems to have lived, just like Clint’s, and it’s sweet to see them pair off. But it’s not more than sweet.”

HE to Gleiberman: A subtle, pleasing flirtation between Clint and Natalia…fine. She’s 40 years younger but that’s cool. Some years ago Terrence Stamp (now 83) was asked about love and relationships, and he said “I’ve fallen off that horse.” That probably goes double for a 91 year-old.

A trailer is only a trailer, but it appears as if Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story is going to be “more” than Robert Wise‘s 1961 Oscar-winning version — more vivid, more ethnically authentic, more alive, more fully felt, angrier, cooler, artier, more intense, more multi-shaded, less “Hollywood”-ized.

If the original Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents stage musical hadn’t opened at the Winter Garden in ’57, if Wise’s film hadn’t won all those Oscars four years later, if there hadn’t been so many revivals and re-interpretations over the years…if Spielberg’s film was a brand spanking new period musical, all pink and damp and fresh out of the nursery, it would be a huge wham-bammer. The Gold Derby whores would be calling it the presumptive Best Picture winner. But it’s not that.

West Side Story is an old chestnut that reflects a world that no longer exists…a capturing of urban racial tensions among poor Irish and Italians vs. poor Puerto Ricans during the mid-Eisenhower era, in a once-grubby part of Manhattan…it’s the umpteenth version of a musical that’s nearly 65 years old, and there’s just no getting around that.

The only shot I don’t like is the overhead view of the Jets and Sharks approaching each other with intense shadows merging in front of them — that’s Spielberg and Janusz Kaminski pushing the boundaries.

An adult all alone and on a phone, having to talk his or her way out of a tough, high-pressure situation. I don’t know how many times this set-up has been built into a compelling feature, but I’m thinking at least four**.

The very best is Steven Knight‘s Locke (’14), an 85-minute character study about a construction foreman (Tom Hardy) grappling with issues of personal vs. professional responsibility. Three years ago Gustav Möller‘s The Guilty, a gripping, Danish-made crime thriller that I just re-watched yesterday, delivered similar cards. Last weekend a same-titled remake, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, played at the Toronto Film Festival, and will debut theatrically on 9.24 before hitting Netflix.

And now there’s Phillip Noyce‘s Lakewood, which stars Naomi Watts as Amy, a widowed, small-town mom reacting not only to news of a Parkland-esque high school shooting, but to the possibility that her sullen and estranged son Noah (Colton Gobbo) may be involved in some way.

More than two-thirds of this 84-minute film (roughly 47 minutes) are focused solely on Amy and her iPhone in a remote wooded area. We’re talking about a torrent of smooth steadicam footage plus several overhead drone shots and some elegant editing (kudos to Lee Haugen), plus Watts stressing, emoting and hyperventilating her head off — a one-woman tour de force.

Right away I was thinking that Noah might be the shooter, and that, you bet, made me sit up and focus all the more. And that’s all I’ll discuss in this vein.

My second reaction was about Amy’s iPhone, and what an amazing reach it has. She’s in a woodsy area a few miles from town (I didn’t catch how many reception bars were showing) and yet she experiences only a couple of signal drop-outs, and she’s watching all kinds of video and whatnot without a hitch. I was also impressed by her iPhone’s battery — what power! (I never leave home without a back-up battery for my iPhone 12 Max Pro — I have too many active apps and the battery is always draining hand over fist.)

Despite all that’s going on at the high school and having to juggle all kinds of incoming info, Amy continues to jog during most of her phone marathon. If there’s one thing that all Lakewood viewers will be dead certain of, it’s that Watts will stumble and suffer an ankle injury. I was telepathically begging her not to. HE to Watts: “C’mon, stop…don’t…there are all kinds of obstacles on your forest path and you obviously need to focus so just start speed-walking”…down she goes!

The pace of Lakewood is very fast and cranked up, and Amy is nothing if not resourceful. She manages to persuade an auto mechanic whom she doesn’t know to supply crucial information about Noah’s whereabouts, as well as info about the possible shooter’s name and contact info. All kinds of conversations and complications ensue, and you’re always aware that Chris Sparling‘s script is determined to increase the stress and suspense factors.

Most of these efforts felt reasonable to me, or at least not overly challenging or irksome. Lakewood is a thriller. I didn’t fight it. I accepted the rules and requirements.

Jose Ferrer made it clear that he regarded his brief performance in Lawrence of Arabia as his best-ever screen work. Quote: “If I was to be judged by any one film performance, it would be my five minutes in Lawrence.” I can’t think of any other non-comedic, cameo-level performance as good as Ferrer’s — can anyone?

Sean Connery‘s cameo as King Richard the Lionheart at the end of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves wasn’t on Ferrer’s level. Connery was showboating, taking a bow.

Comedically speaking, Tom Cruise‘s Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder and Bill Murray‘s walk-on performance as a pretend zombie in Zombieland are obvious stand-outs. But it’s easy to be amusing in a quickie context.

Earlier today I mentioned the disastrous casting of 27 year-old Ben Platt as a sensitive high-school guy in Dear Evan Hansen — too old. In the comment thread “brenkilco” complained that Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci seemed too old to be playing their Goodfellas characters when young — not a problem, they passed muster. On the other hand James Stewart as Ransom Stoddard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and as Charles Lindbergh in The Spirit of St. Louis — definitely too old.

Anyway I decided to switch sides and try to recall actors who either (a) seemed too young for their roles or (b) more or less fit them even though they were actually younger that they appeared.

So far I can only come up with two actresses and no actors. 36 year-old Angela Lansbury as the 33-year-old Laurence Harvey‘s mother in The Manchurian Candidate (’62). And 31 year-old Rosemary DeCamp playing 42 year-old James Cagney‘s mom in Yankee Doodle Dandy.

It’s been said that Jessie Royce Landis‘s performance as the mother of Cary Grant‘s Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest doesn’t work because they were born only eight years part (Landis in 1896, Grant in 1904). But it does work. Grant was 54 when NXNW was shot but looked 45 or 46 while the 62 year-old Landis appeared a bit older. So it worked if you imagined that Landis was an under-aged mom (17 years old, say) when Roger came along.

Okay, I wanted to see or do other things when it was showing. I’ll catch it soon. The idea of Joaquin Pheonix playing a gentle, mild-mannered uncle seems odd. Most of us have come to accept that default Joaquin means being self-absorbed and caught up in the usual melancholy and smoking cigarettes, etc.