slider

Everyone knows that Gone Girl director David Fincher wanted Ben Affleck to wear a Yankee cap for an airport scene in the film, and that it was a big hassle to get Affleck, a devotional Boston Red Sox fan, to wear the damn thing instead of a Red Sox cap. But I’d somehow forgotten that Gone Girl was shut down for four days because of this stupid argument. What did it cost to keep everyone on salary and pay for all the stuff that a movie needs to pay for on a daily basis…how much did it cost while Affleck and Fincher were at loggerheads on this? The problem was finally solved with Affleck wearing a Mets cap instead a Yankee one.

Read more

It was a warm midsummer evening in the small town of Walton, New York, probably in ’81 or ’82. I was staying that weekend with my dad, Jim Wells, at his country cabin on River Road, right alongside the West Branch of the Delaware River. Jim was an avid fly fisherman, and when dusk fell all he had to do was put on the rubber waders and stroll into the waist-deep water, which was less than 100 feet away. I’m not exactly the Henry David Thoreau type, but I have to admit that the cabin and the surrounding woods and the other atmospheric trimmings (crickets, feeding fish, fireflies) was quite the combination as the sun was going down.

Alas, I was frisky back then and accustomed to prowling. As a Manhattanite and Upper West Sider (75th and Amsterdam) my evening routine would sometimes include a 7 pm screening and then hitting a bar or strolling around or whatever. The “whatever” would sometimes involve a date with a lady of the moment or maybe even getting lucky with a stranger. It all depended on which direction the night happened to tilt.

So there we were, my dad and I, finishing dinner (maybe some freshly-caught trout along with some steamed green beans and scalloped potatoes) and washing the dishes and whatnot, and I was thinking about hitting a local tavern. I wasn’t a “sitting on the front porch and watching the fireflies” type. I wanted to get out, sniff the air, sip bourbon, listen to music.

So I announced the idea of hitting T.A.’s Place or the Riverside Tavern and maybe ordering a Jack Daniels and ginger ale on the rocks. If I’d been a little more gracious I would’ve asked Jim to join, but we weren’t especially chummy back then. Our relationship was amiable enough, if a little on the cool and curt side. Plus the idea of Jim and I laying on the charm with some local lassie seemed horrific.

I wasn’t seriously entertaining some loony fantasy that I might meet someone and luck out, not in a little one-horse town like Walton, but then again who knew? It was the early ’80s, the ’70s were still with us in spirit, I was looking and feeling pretty good back then, the AIDS era hadn’t happened yet, etc.

You had to be there, I guess, but singles had just experienced (and were still experiencing to a certain degree) perhaps the greatest nookie era in world history since the days of ancient Rome. Plus you could still buy quaaludes at the Edlich Pharmacy on First Avenue. It sounds immature to say this, but life occasionally felt like a Radley Metzger film.

Jim apparently had thoughts along the same lines, as he quickly suggested that we do T.A.’s as a team. I immediately said “uhm, that’s okay,” as in “I’m thinking about going stag and you’ll only cramp my style.” I shouldn’t have said that, and if my father is listening I want him to know that I’m sorry. It was brusque and heartless to brush him off like that. To his credit, Jim was gracious enough to laugh it off. I heard him tell this story to friends a couple of times.

Jim had bought the River Road cabin from Pam Dawber, who was pushing 30 and costarring in Mork & Mindy at the time. It was located outside of town about three or four miles. My father would send her a check every month, and was very punctual about it. Walton was roughly a 100-minute drive from Manhattan.

Stanley Kubrick‘s A Clockwork Orange will celebrate its 50th birthday on 12.19.21. I don’t know if I’ll be able to summon fresh interest as I’ve seen this cynical, ice-cold film too many times, but the new 4K Ultra HD Bluray from Warner Home Video — a fresh harvest, sure to look better than the current Bluray version — is too appetizing to refuse. I bought it today on Amazon. The street date is 9.21.21.

Orange remains a chilly, dead-on capturing of Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel, and it seems doubly fascinating when you regard it as a portrait of the chilly, German-like social scientist that Pauline Kael imagined that Kubrick had become in ’71, and indeed the fellow that Kubrick had more or less evolved into since he made Dr. Strangelove seven or eight years earlier.

It’s still a crisp, clean, mesmerizing film, and I’ll never stop worshipping that final shot of those well-dressed 19th Century couples clapping approval as Alex and a scampy blond cavort in the snow. But man, it’s really cold and almost induces nausea from time to time. And yet at the same time it’s genuinely amusing here and there. Every line and gesture delivered by Michael Bates‘ chief prison guard is a hoot, and I chuckle every time I see that fat, middle-aged fuckface making kissy-face gestures at Malcolm McDowell‘s Alex in the prison chapel.

At the same time I can’t honestly say that I like A Clockwork Orange much any more. I was always more impressed with the scene-by-scene verve than what it all amounted to in the end. I still respect the visual energy and exquisite framings (John Alcott was the dp) and the Wendy Carlos meets Gene Kelly meets lovely lovely Ludwig Van musical score, and I still admire the ironic ruthlessness and even fiendishness, but I’m not even sure if I like McDowell’s performance any more. (I feel a much greater rapport these days with his Mick Travis character in Lindsay Anderson‘s If…) I respect Orange historically, of course, and I still love the stand-out moments from the flawless first act, but it hasn’t delighted me overall for years.

A Clockwork Orange was the first Kubrick film that felt truly misanthropic — a high-style show-off movie that sold audiences on the idea that Kubrick-stamped cruelty and brutality were palatable — that irony and arch acting styles somehow changed the game. But it was always more amoral than moral, and pretty much devoid of human compassion. Orange has 23 significant or otherwise noteworthy characters, and only one could be honestly described as decent or humane — Godfrey Quiqley‘s prison chaplain.

A Dickensian crime-and-punishment thing, Orange is composed of four acts or movements. The first act is about the wicked rush of sociopathic “fun”, but the second and third acts (applying the Luduvico technique + Alex suffering for his crimes after being released from prison) comprise a long and punishing slog. The film rebounds during its brief fourth act (the hospitalized Alex cuts a deal with Anthony Sharp‘s Minister of the Interior, and is restored to his old wicked self) and the ending shot, a sexual fantasy sequence, is the equal of Kubrick’s “We’ll Meet Again” finale in Dr. Strangelove.

Read more

Many of us look forward to films directed by or starring Clint Eastwood because we know (a) they’ll feel as if they were made in 1984 or ’89 or ’96…way back before the superhero era, (b) they’ll basically be meditative and character-driven, and will most likely be peppered with sardonic humor, and (c) they’ll focus on values and decency and Clint’s ornery old cuss being challenged or put through the ringer by a bad guy or two. It’s also a safe bet that an attractive older woman (40s or 50s) will give Clint’s character a wink.

The Cry Macho trailer seems to suggest Gran Torino meets The Mule in Mexico…something like that.

I think Cry Macho (Warner Bros./HBO Max, 9.17) should be bannered as a milestone film. How many legendary, brand-name, Oscar-winning actor-hyphenates have directed and starred in a film at age 91? Has this ever happened in Hollywood history? The Macho script has been around for three-plus decades. Clint almost made it in the late ’80s and then backed away. It has to have something pretty good going on or why did it get made after all this time?

This film appears to have some kind of resonant quality…something that may stick to the ribs…maybe.

Read more

Everything Amanda Knox has been saying about Stillwater is sensible and fair.

In admittedly using Knox’s conviction, imprisonment and acquittal on a murder charge in Italy as a jumping off point for an otherwise fictional story, director and co-writer Tom McCarthy has somewhat callously dredged up a lot of bad business and has re-implanted the idea that there’s something possibly sketchy and wanton about Knox herself. And Knox resents this. Who wouldn’t in her position? I can’t imagine anyone telling Knox that her complaints are unwarranted.

It’s odd, however, that in an 8.4 interview with Variety‘s Chris Willman Knox states that (a) she hasn’t seen Stillwater yet (it opened last Thursday night) and yet (b) she would “absolutely go see it, especially if they invited me…that would be nice.”

Knox tells Willman she’s been informed how the story unfolds (“I did some invest-imigating”), but if you were Knox and giving interviews to everyone about a completely valid complaint about a just-opened film, wouldn’t you take the time to pop into a megaplex and see the damn thing already? Doesn’t that make basic sense?

For one thing it’s conceivable that Abigail Breslin‘s performance as the vaguely-Knox-resembling Allison Baker might radiate certain emotional currents that Knox might be receptive to and which might influence her general thinking…no? Experiencing a film is essential.

Where exactly was the upside in Knox not slipping into a showing last weekend? I really don’t get this part.

In mentioning the hypothetical idea of Focus Features inviting her to see the film, Knox seems to imply that this is her due. (“Since we’re stirring your life up and sending you back into a decade-old nightmare, it’s the least we can do.”) She also seems to be suggesting that personally paying to see the film would be adding insult to injury.

I wouldn’t futz around with this stuff if I were Knox. I would have bought a ticket to one of the very first commercial showings last Thursday night — no ifs, ands or buts. If you have a beef with a movie, you have to watch it.

The great Marcia Nasatir, a brilliant, pioneering producer who nudged her way into the chauvinistic Hollywood culture of the ’70s and became, in ’74, the first female vp production at a major Hollywood studio (United Artists), has passed at age 95.

Nasatir’s proudest producing achievement, certainly the one for which she’s best known, was Lawrence Kasdan‘s The Big Chill (’83).

At UA Nasatir also had a hand in finessing and/or guiding along One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Carrie, Coming Home, Three Days of the Condor, Rocky and Carrie. She moved to Orion in ’78, and then to Carson Productions, where she exec produced The Big Chill. As an independent producer, Nasatir oversaw and otherwise nurtured Hamburger Hill, Ironweed and Vertical Limit.

I knew Marcia to shmooze with at parties in the ’90s and aughts — always gracious, always witty and wise. And I loved “The Real Geezers,” her video movie-review series with Lorenzo Semple that ran in the mid to late aughts.

Please consider watching Anne Goursaud‘s A Classy Broad: Marcia’s Adventures in Hollywood, a 2014 documentary.

Read more

Jeff and Tatiana in a brief discussion about Ridley Scott‘s House of Gucci (11.24, UA Releasing). A presumably sophisticated (and possibly darkly satiric) nest of vipers melodrama + a serving of Northern Italian wealth porn. Based on Sara Gay Forden‘s “The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed.” Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Jack Huston, Salma Hayek, Al Pacino, etc.

the #dontlookup teaser for anyone that missed (sorry for the quality) pic.twitter.com/gSaYCmaUeK

— ☁️ (@caladanarrakis) August 1, 2021

Tweeted two days ago by @GrahamB47 (with grammar improved by HE): “Name a director whom you went all in for at first but whom you’ve since moved past, either because they dropped the ball or your relationship to their work changed. NOT for ‘being a creep/criminal’ reasons.”

HE answer: Terrence Malick, hands down. And if I may interject the opposite, there’s one director who not only didn’t let me down but delivered one of his greatest-ever films at age 85 or thereabouts — Roman Polanski.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Officer_and_a_Spy_(film)

Jordan Ruimy: Oliver Stone, James Cameron, M. Night Shyamalan, Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton.

Instead they should gracefully complement or enhance. Bill Maher‘s new glasses (dark, thickish frames) are too domineering. They don’t work with his features — the glasses say “look at us first, and then Bill’s face.” One look and you’re thinking “uptight, stuffed-shirt, resident zoologist glasses.” Like the ones Cary Grant wore in Bringing Up Baby.

If you want thickish, distinctive frames you should go with cool colors — solid blue or red. And maybe go with adjustable amber- or gray-tinted lenses. Black frames, trust me, are too “Gig Young in the late ’50s.” They make Maher look bookish, and they add five or ten years.

Read more

About a decade ago I was friendly with a Southern conservative woman who never went anywhere without her loaded Glock. Always in her handbag or the glove compartment of her car. She loved how it made her feel — safe, protected — but was she actually ready to kill someone who might try to rob her or worse?

Imagine waking up each morning and thinking “this might be the day when some bad guy will try something and I’ll have no choice but to shoot his lights out.” Imagine carrying that idea in your head all the time.

Leaving aside the idea of homeowners keeping a loaded weapon in their bedroom closet to protect their families from whatever (which I understand), I suspect that pistol-packing conservatives are more turned on by the idea of “carrying” than anything else. Packing heat makes them feel like a secret Dirty Harry, and this feeling somehow completes them on some emotional level. Guns, I believe, have become a totem — a symbol of potency or a willingness to stand their ground should push ever come to shove. A gun makes an owner feel like a member of some kind of steady-as-she-goes, right-thinking fraternity..

How many weaponized righties are actually ready and willing to shoot a bad guy? Very few, I’m guessing, and probably fewer than that. For most of them the notion that they might use it, that they could if their hand was forced with no way out, is what soothes or satisfies.

I’ve been shoved from time to time, but I haven’t been in an actual fist fight since my late teens, and the odds of getting into any kind of altercation these days are close to nonexistent. I don’t drink or even “go out”, for one thing, and I can’t recall the last time I visited a Patrick Swayze tough-guy bar. Plus you never know how hair-trigger crazy a would-be opponent is, especially in these crazy times. Plus I wouldn’t want to risk getting my fingers snapped or swollen, as this would hinder my daily writing. Plus I’m not in good enough shape these days to fight anyone more than 15 or 20 seconds.

But I like the idea (and I mean the “idea”) of carrying a sandbag cosh. The kind, you know, that Tim Roth carried around in Stephen Frears‘ The Hit. As a totem, mind — a weapon I’d almost certainly never use but could theoretically use if, say, some kind of brute threat were to manifest. So yes, I’ll admit it — I like the idea of carrying one of these guys around. And it’s a far less crazy notion that carrying a loaded pistol.

Will I go so far as to actually buy one of these things? I’m mulling this over as we speak.

I’ve had this feeling all along that Pablo Larrain‘s Jackie, which is just about five years old now, somehow underserved the mystique of the great JFK mourning weekend (11.22.63 to 11.25.63). I was seriously impressed by Noah Oppenheim’s 2010 screenplay, which was originally going to be directed by Darren Aronofsky with Rachel Weisz playing Jackie Kennedy. Oppenheim told the story of what happened that weekend and pretty much how it went down a beat-for-beat, conversation-by-conversation basis,

At the time it seemed brash and brilliant for director Pablo Larrain, who took over the project sometime in ’15, to forsake the historical and sidestep that mass memory and not deliver a rote recap of what Mrs. Kennedy, only 34 at the time, went through that weekend, but to make a kind of art film — to give her portrait a kind of anxious, fevered, interior feeling.

Which is why I wrote that Jackie really is “the only docudrama about the Kennedy tragedy that can be truly called an art film…it feels somewhat removed from the way that the events of that weekend looked and felt a half-century ago…intimate, half-dreamlike and cerebral, but at the same time a persuasive and fascinating portrait of what Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (Natalie Portman) went through between the lunch-hour murder of her husband in Dallas and his burial at Arlington National Cemetery three days later.

But after re-watching Jackie a couple of weeks ago I went back and re-read a draft of Oppenheim’s script, which is a whole different bird than Larrain’s film. Pablo cut out a lot of characters and a lot of interplay and a general sense of “this is how it happened” realism, and focused almost entirely on Jackie’s interior saga.

And honestly? I discovered that I liked Oppenheim’s version of the tale a little more than Pablo’s.

The script is more of a realistic ensemble piece whereas Larrain’s film is about what it was like to be in Jackie’s head. I respect Larrain’s approach, mind, but I felt closer to the realm of Oppenheim’s script. I believed in the dialogue more. The interview scenes between Theodore H. White (played by Billy Crudup in the film) and Jackie felt, yes, more familiar but at the same time more realistic, more filled-in. I just felt closer to it. I knew this realm, these people.

Am I expressing a plebian viewpoint? Yes, I am. I’m saying I slightly prefer apparent realism, familiarity and emotion to Larrain’s arthouse aesthetic.