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Which Elvis, Baz?

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“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.

Family Resemblance

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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.

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Fassbender Resurgence?

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Most anyone will tell you that Michael Fassbender started to slip into some kind of career withdrawal or even eclipse mode around three years ago, give or take. Whatever happened to Next Goal Wins, the Taika Watiti flick in which Fassy plays Thomas Rongen, a real-life soccer coach? I only know that he was hot for a few years (‘08 to ‘13), and then I went cold on him and the candle flickered, and now he’s shooting David Fincher’s The Killer in Paris. Maybe it’s comeback time.

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B’day Greeting From Dan Richter

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Of all the Facebook-software-generated birthday greetings that came in today, I was especially moved by one from Dan Richter, who played “Moonwatcher” in 2001 A Space Odyssey.

I haven’t spoken to Dan face-to-face for a full 28 years, but we’ve kept up the correspondence. Of all the famous people I’ve met and regard on friendly terms, I suspect that 100 years from now more people will be familiar with Richter (or at least his legendary performance) than any present-day Hollywood hotshot you could name.

Be honest — how many people in the year 2121 will know or care who Chris Pratt was? Or Dwayne Johnson? Or any other quarter-of-an-inch-deep actor of note? How many people will recall who Ed Sheeran was? Paul McCartney or Mick Jagger, okay, but Sheeran?

Here’s an L.A. Times Calendar piece that I wrote in ’93 about Dan Richter, the ’60-era mime who played the bone-tossing Moonwatcher in Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The last time I linked to this piece was in July ’08. Here are three scans of the original article — #1, #2 and #3.

My father met Dan at a Connecticut AA meeting in ’92 or thereabouts, and at my dad’s suggestion I called a while later and visited Dan at this home in Sierra Madre for an interview. I remember he was dealing with chemotherapy at the time. He’s still with us and doing fine .

In 2012 Richter published a memoir — “The Dream Is Over” — mainly about a four-year period that he spent with John Lennon and Yoko One (’69 to ’73).

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PTA’s Frustrated Valley Dude

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Set in the early ‘70s, Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Licorice Pizza is not some San Fernando Valley teenaged horndog flick. It’s an anecdotal, stand-offish, gentle-hearted episodic about a spiritual, emotional connection between an unlikely, age-inappropriate couple who keep eyeballing each other.

And here are the PTA whores.

Approving Guillermo & Kim

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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.

Honest Reactions Sought

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All along I’ve been fretting that even with the “work” she’s had done, Nicole Kidman (who turned 54 last June) will look too old to play Lucille Ball in her early 40s. But the Being The Ricardos trailer that popped earlier today alleviates all such concerns.

I don’t know how it was done (not through prosthetics, I’m told) but Kidman looks much younger here. Like she did in Eyes Wide Shut, I’d say. My first presumption is that the same kind of digital finessing that de-aged Robert De Niro in The Irishman was used here. That or Kidman has had some fresh work done, and of a very high order.

Aaron Sorkin‘s Being The Ricardos happens over a dramatically compressed one-week period in the early ’50s that actually spanned four years — the launch of I Love Lucy in 51, the “Lucy once registered as a Commie” thing in ’53, the January ’55 Confidential cover story that asked “Does Desi Really Love Lucy?,” etc.

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I’m No Commoner

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In 2011, after serving half of her 26-year sentence for conspiring to murder her husband Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) was given a chance to get out of prison if she would submit to a work-release program. According to La Stampa, Reggiani said “I’ve never worked in my life, [and] I’m certainly not going to start now.”

C’mon, that’s a great, self-defining line! Easily as good as “no wire hangers!” or “don’t fuck with me, fellas!” or “Christina, get the axe!” But unless I was snoozing and somehow missed it, Gaga never says this line in House of Gucci and the quote doesn’t appear in an epilogue crawl. What does that tell you about where Ridley Scott‘s film is coming from? I’ll tell you where it’s coming from. It’s trying to cut Patrizia a break.

Reggiani was paroled in 2016.

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Bellbottoms Must Be Stopped

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It’s not Maggie Gyllenhaal and Dakota Johnson‘s “fault” — tens of thousands of fashion-conscious women blindly follow the dictates of avant-garde designers. And now, unfortunately bell-bottoms (aka ’70s-retro flares) have caught on. Two of the perpetrators are Gucci and Ganni Plissé-Georgette.

HE to Gyllenhaal, Johnson: Please don’t — they look awful. Not to mention Johnson’s ghastly super-wide jacket lapels.

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One Big Question

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…that no one and I mean no one will have the nerve to ask during this evening’s post-screening q & a.

Thanks There’s no disputing that Beanie Feldstein‘s performance as Monica Lewinsky (particularly that look of shock and intimidation and primal fear) is fully present, and obviously skillful and affecting.

But for a miniseries in which the makeup department used every trick in the book to make the actors look as much as possible like the character they were playing (especially in the matter of Sarah Paulson‘s Linda Tripp), they were given a hopeless task when it came to Beanie. I’ve seen all seven episodes thus far, and her lack of resemblance has thrown me each and every time. Why then?

The apparent idea was to emphasize Beanie/Monica’s victim status…the huge gulf between mousey little Beanie and Clive Owen‘s silky Bill Clinton…doubling-down on Clinton’s opportunism and sexual exploitation. But if a gifted actor with at least a slight physical resemblance to Lewinsky had been cast, the miniseries would have been that much better.