So it’s been semi-confirmed that the slightly more risque version of Psycho (half-glimpse of Janet Leigh side boob, extra stabbings of Martin Balsam) will be included in Universal Home Video’s forthcoming 4K UHD Alfred Hitchcock box set. Terrific, but it’s not enough. As I explained a couple of weeks ago, the only thing that will deliver serious tumescence will be the boxy (1.37:1) version of Psycho — a version that was shown on TV and pay cable tens of thousands of times during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. It was only in the mid aughts, or when the influence of Bob Furmanek and the 1.85 fascist cabal began to hold sway, that the idea of only showing a cleavered version of Hitchcock’s 1960 classic became the default go-to. HE believes that aspect ratio crimes should be prosecuted in the Hague, and that Furmanek, no offense, should be defendant #1 in the dock.
Initially posted on 10.5.11: I saw the first half of Martin Scorsese‘s 208-minute George Harrison doc during the [2011] Telluride Film Festival, and was only somewhat impressed. It covered the first 23 or 24 years of Harrison’s life, or ’43 to ’69…and I felt I knew all that going in. But the second half, which I finally saw at a New York Film Festival screening, is highly nourishing and affecting and well worth anyone’s time.
Yes, even for guys like LexG who are sick to death of boomer-age filmmakers and film executives endlessly making movies about their youth. It’s reasonable to feel this way because boomers have been commercially fetishizing their ’60s and ’70s glory days for a long time. But George Harrison: Living In The Material World is nonetheless a very good film. Particularly Part Two.
Because it’s about a journey that anyone who’s done any living at all can relate to, and about a guy who lived a genuinely vibrant spiritual life, and who never self-polluted or self-destructed in the usual rock-star ways.
Well, that’s not true, is it? At age 58 Harrison died of lung cancer, which he attributed to being a heavy smoker from the mid ’50s to late ’80s. And he wasn’t exactly the perfect boyfriend or husband. (There were a few infidelities during his marriage to Olivia Harrison.) And he wasn’t the perfect spiritual man either, despite all the songs and talk about chanting and clarity and oneness with Krishna. He had his bacchanalian periods. And he did so with the wonderful luxury of having many, many millions in the bank. It’s not like Harrison was struggling through awful moments of doubt and pain in the Garden of Gethsemane.
But this journey is something to take and share.
Part Two, as you might presume, is about Harrison’s solo career. It starts with the Beatles breakup, the making of All Things Must Pass, the 1971 Concert for Bangla Desh, etc. And then settles into the mid to late ’70s and ’80s, “So Sad”, “Crackerbox Palace,” Handmade Films, “Dark Horse,” the Travelling Willburys, the stabbing incident and so on.
The film is entirely worth seeing for a single sequence, in fact. One that’ll make you laugh out loud and break your heart a little. It’s a story that Ringo Starr tells about a chat he had with Harrison in Switzerland two or three months before his death in November ’01. I won’t explain any more than this.
Scorsese’s doc has no title cards, no narration, no through-line interview as Bob Dylan: No Direction Home had. As noted, I found Part One a little slipshod and patchworky at times. The editor is David Tedeschi, who also cut No Direction Home as well as Scorsese’s Public Speaking, the Fran Lebowitz doc, and Shine a Light, the 2008 Rolling Stones’ concert doc.
From my “Harrison of Liverpool” piece which ran on 7.17:
“Beatle lore-wise, Harrison was regarded early on as the solemn one, the deep spiritual cat (i.e., the last one to leave Maharishi Mahesh Yogi‘s ashram in Indian in late ’67) and to some extent the political commentator and satirist (the lyrics of “Piggies” and “Savoy Truffle“, ‘the Pope owns 51% of General Motors,’ etc.).
“Read this account of George and Patti Boyd Harrison’s brief August 1967 visit to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashubry district, which by that time was the pits.
From “The Maoist Nature of the New War on Wrongthink,” posted by The Dispatch‘s Jonah Goldberg on 6.26.20:
Alden Ehrenreich was riding high after his amusing performance as Hobie Doyle in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Hail Caesar (’16). But his next three films delivered a triple-whammy effect, and the godz turned on him.
Ehrenreich’s amiable performance as Howard Hughes‘ chauffeur in Warren Beatty‘s Rules Don’t Apply (late ’16) did him no favors after the film bombed. He was wounded again when The Yellow Birds, in which Ehrenreich played the lead role, opened at Sundance ’17 and flatlined. Then came the final hammer blow with his underwhelming performance as young Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story (’18), which opened roughly two years ago.
Ehrenreich dropped out of sight to lick his wounds and reassess the landscape. I was no fan of Solo or Yellow Birds, but I felt sorry for the guy.
Now AE is back as the lead in Brave New World (7.15, Peacock), a dystopian sci-fi drama (vague shades of THX-1138) based on the 1932 Aldous Huxley novel. Exec produced by David Wiener, co-written by Wiener, Grant Morrison and Brian Taylor. Gut reactions?
Aldous Huxley picked the wrong day to die from cancer — 11.22.63. He was tripping his brains out on LSD when he passed into eternity.
One of the most interesting insights into John F. Kennedy‘s insatiable sexual appetite was conveyed by historian Margaret Coit, whom JFK once tried to seduce in the spring of ’53. Coit’s account appeared in Thomas Maier‘s “When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys,” and was excerpted in an 11.2.14 Salon piece:
“After meeting in his office, Coit and Kennedy walked through the empty corridors of the Senate Office Building and got into Jack’s open convertible with its faded blue paint and fair share of dents. They drove wildly through the Washington streets until they reached the rooming house where Coit was staying. She invited him in, thinking he might want to rest for a moment.
“Inside, Jack collapsed on the living room sofa, and then tried to drag Coit down beside him. ‘Don’t be so grabby,’ she said, moving away. ‘This is only our first date. We have plenty of time.’
“Kennedy lifted his head and, for a moment, stared at her with his penetrating gray eyes. ‘But I can’t wait,’ Kennedy insisted. “You see, I haven’t any time.’”
A note that Coit later wrote to Kennedy said the following: “I believe you do have the drive to be President — and the dignity, on occasion — and the brains, and these will provide the mømentum. But who knows where the wild horse will run? There is more in luck and fate than we think, and we can do no more than turn it loose.”
JFK’s attitude was explored and elaborated upon in Thurston Clarke‘s “JFK’s Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President.” Four passages [the final three are after the jump] are about as good as it gets in this realm:
In a Vulture interview with Rachel Handler, actress Alia Skawkat, known for her heavily freckled face, bee-stung nose and short curly hair, has welcomely dismissed speculation that she and Brad Pitt, whom she’s been randomly photographed with for several months, are doing the hunka-chunka. They are, she says, nothing more than pally-wallies.
Handler #1: “The publicity resulting from the Pitt photos was annoying for Shawkat, [although] the whole thing was ultimately positive from an image perspective, the sort of publicity many a celebrity has quite literally paid for. But the second round of public attention — a video of her with heavy stakes — was painful, especially for a queer woman of color (Shawkat is half-Iraqi).”
Handler #2: “The stories that [pushed] the dating narrative seemed perplexed by the whole thing — the word quirky was used more than once to describe Shawkat. ‘To them it’s like, ‘We don’t get it! This girl is weird! She’s so different! Why are they hanging out?’, [Shawkat] says about the tabloids, laughing. ‘You get too close to the prom king, and all of a sudden, everyone’s like, ‘Well, who is this bitch?’”
Originally posted on 7.5.09: The Toronto Star‘s Peter Howell has listed his ten favorite road movies. Here’s his list coupled with my critiques/reactions, followed by my own top ten:
Howell: 1. It Happened One Night (Wells reaction: Moderately appealing but Frank Capra is thoroughly over by any reasonable 21st Century standard); 2. One Week (Wells reaction: What?); 3. Two-Lane Blacktop (Wells reaction: I bought the Criterion DVD only to realize what a meandering and enervated thing it is, and seriously lacking in visual intrigue); 4. Y tu mama tambien (Wells reaction: perhaps not a top-tenner but a very fine film); 5. Thelma & Louise (Wells reaction: Driving your car over a cliff is a romantic-nihilist-crap finale, but if you’re going to use this don’t gussy it up with slow-mo photography and a personality clip reel); 6. Easy Rider (Wells reaction: definitely a top-tenner); 7. The Sure Thing (Wells reaction: A likable tits-and-zits ’80s movie, nothing more); 8. The Motorcycle Diaries (Wells reaction: 100% agreement); 9. Duel (Wells reaction: Not sprawling or meditative enough to qualify as real road movie); 10. The Cannonball Run (Wells reaction: pure garbage — a choice that insults and degrades the genre).
From Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries.
Wells: 1. The Grapes of Wrath (first because of the compassion and humanity and assertive political current); 2. The Wizard of Oz (the great grandfather of all road movies); 3. Sideways (“I’m not drinkin’ fuckin’ Merlot!” — the kind of line that the Cannonball Run creators didn’t have the creative edge to even consider using); 4. Badlands (“This is the last time I get together with the hell-bent type”); 5. The Last Detail (again — compassion for sympathetic trapped characters + humor + melancholy resolution); 6. Apocalypse Now (a river is a road and vice versa). 7. Little Miss Sunshine (greatest 21st Century road movie thus far); 8. Easy Rider; 9. The Motorcycle Diaires. 10. Rain Man. Honorable Mentions: Planes Trains and Automobiles, Midnight Run, Five Easy Pieces, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Y tu mama tambien, Road Trip, The Straight Story, Fandango.
The generic road-movie definition calls them stories that happen over the course of a journey. As Howell writes, “The characters in transit have to experience some change to their attitudes and outlook, or else the trip is wasted. They have to not just go somewhere, but more importantly, they have to arrive.” Agreed.
Howell’s kicker — “And if they can do it with a smile, all the better” — is where he and I differ. To hell with smiles as ends in themselves. Remember those smiley buttons from the ’80s? The face of emotional fascism. Smirks and frowns are far more trustworthy.
On 6.20 (only five days ago!) Paul Schrader wrote on Facebook that he’s “troubled by the double standard. We encourage multiracial casting — black Romeos with white Juliets, a female Lear, etc. Yet when a non-Jew plays Shylock or a white plays Othello, this is considered outre and unacceptable.”
HE reply: “Whites may no longer portray non-whites” is fuck-you payback for all the decades (early to mid 20th Century) when whites portrayed other tribes and races with impugnity in films. No one mentions Marlon Brando as Sakini, a native Okinawan, in Teahouse of the August Moon, or Katharine Hepburn as Jade in Dragon Seed, but whitewashing was once par for the course.
Not out of inherently venal reasons, but banal ones. Because Hollywood producers believed that non-white actors would, in many circumstances, diminish box-office returns and that white actors would enhance them.
Don’t forget, however, that as recently as ’07 Angelina Jolie played Mariane Pearl, a French-born woman of Afro-Cuban descent, in A Mighty Heart, and nobody said boo.
How was this different than Mickey Rooney‘s Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Alec Guinness‘ Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia, Ricardo Montalban‘s Japanese Kabuki actor in Sayonara, Natalie Wood‘s Maria in West Side Story, Kurt Jurgens‘ “Captain Lin Nan” in Inn of the Sixth Happiness and Jennifer Jones‘ half-Native American in Duel in the Sun? Should wokesters retroactively cancel Jolie? Should they at least take her to task on Twitter?
In a tribal sense, whites are regarded as deeply flawed and generally problematic. Certainly by the standards of cancel-culture and BLM wokesters. Perhaps not the root of all evil, but the N.Y. Times‘ “1619 Project” made a case that European-descended white-person culture represents a profoundly diseased and guilty heritage, certainly as far as African Americans and Native Americans are concerned.
White actors can therefore not play persons of color for this reason. They must sit on the sidelines and meditate on their basic nature, and perhaps eventually evolve into something better down the road.
Given the alleged racism on the part of John Wayne, the ultimate conservative swaggering white man, I wouldn’t be surprised if Wayne’s horse-riding statue (at the corner of Wilshire and La Cienega) is someday pulled down or defaced by demonstrators. I’m serious — in a world in which a statue of George Washington was defaced and statues of Ulysses S. Grant and Francis Scott Key have been toppled, Wayne should be easy pickings.
Director-screenwriter Lewis John Carlino enjoyed a 15-year peak career period, starting with his screenplay for John Frankenheimer‘s Seconds (’66 — an adaptation of David Ely‘s same-titled novel) and more or less ending with the widely acclaimed The Great Santini (’79), which Carlino adapted and directed and which starred Robert Duvall.
In between were screenplays for The Fox (’67), The Brotherhood (’68), The Mechanic (’72), Crazy Joe (’74), The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (’76, which Carlino also directed), and screenplays for I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (’77) and Resurrection (’80).
Carlino passed six days ago at age 88.
Putting aside matters of taste and sensitivity, Jimmy Kimmel felt free to do blackface skits 20-plus years ago (Comedy Central’s The Man Show, a song from a 1996 comedy Christmas album) because he thought they were reasonably funny and nobody would say boo. Which is what happened until recently. The same calculation and risk assessment was made by Robert Downey, Jr and Ben Stiller when they made Tropic Thunder. And then the culture changed and now everyone who attempted this kind of risque comedy has to apologize. Not a biggie and certainly not an indication of toxic essence. The goal posts have simply been moved. Burt Lancaster wore black-guy makeup in Scorpio, a 1973 Michael Winner spy film. Big deal.
HE agrees that Jon Stewart‘s Irresistable (Focus Features, streaming on 6.26) is bit too mild-mannered for its own good. It lacks provocation, nerve, now-ness. It’s not just that this rural political-spin comedy is set in ’17 or thereabouts, but the film itself seems to be have been made two or three years ago. Or 10 or 15. And yes, I agree that it’s not especially funny. It is, however, mildly amusing in an LQTM sort of way. And it’s a smooth package by any fair standard — nicely shot, performed, paced, edited.
So I don’t see the big problem. It’s something to stream (or not) this weekend if you’ve nothing better to do. You and your wife or girlfriend or pallies sit on the couch, pay the money, etc. And yet the critics have ganged up and beaten the shit out of this poor, harmless little film. The Rotten Tomatoes gang has rendered a 39% rating, and the Metacritics have given it a lousy 50% score. People will watch what they want to watch, of course, but score-wise this puppy is basically D.O.A.
I would only repeat that it’s not a criminal offense to be a tepid, mildly diverting chuckler or, you know, a nice, meh-level, ripple-free distraction. You know what I mean. It’s not a bother to watch it. It doesn’t irritate or piss you off. It just does the old soft shoe and wraps things up (credits included) within 102 minutes.
Set in some small town in rural farm country (Wisconsin? Iowa? does it matter?), it’s about an election for mayor of said town that becomes, for curious reasons, a wildly expensive, nationally hyped super-show.
Steve Carell and Rose Byrne are hot-shot political operators (Democrat and Republican respectively) who descend upon this small hamlet and stir things up. Chris Cooper is the soft-spoken candidate you want to see win, etc.
Stewart’s script was “partially inspired by the 2017 special election for Georgia’s 6th congressional district, where the Democratic and Republican parties and groups supporting them spent more than 55 million dollars combined — the most expensive House Congressional election in U.S. history.”
Agreed — watching Carell deliver another variation on his standard screen persona (a neurotic, intensely focused, clenched-fist fussbudget with a spoiled, effete attitude) has felt old or at least over-deployed for some time. I still think his peak moment happened in Little Miss Sunshine (14 years ago!) and that his last well-grounded, fully-charged performance happened in The Big Short (’15). But I didn’t mind him in Irresistable. I was just “okay, here we go again, not bad, whatever.”
And the film does deliver a hidden-card ending that’s…well, somewhat unexpected. At least it’s not Welcome to Mooseport.
Remember Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear“, which happened on the Washington mall in October 2010? (And which I attended.) The focus was on politics as usual, and the idea was more or less that “we, the people are better than all the left-right rancor so let’s calm down and listen to each pther.” Or something like that. Irresistable is drawn from a similar well.
The Irresistable supporting players — Byrne, Cooper, Mackenzie Davis, Topher Grace, Natasha Lyonne, Will Sasso, et. al. — are fine. Bobby Bukowski‘s cinematography and Bryce Dessner‘s score are fine. It’s all fine. It was partly filmed in Rockmart, Georgia, which is roughly 30 miles northwest of Atlanta.
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