Catholicism and the Pope are concepts that millions still cling to worldwide. Because they offer a feeling of steadiness and security in a tumbling, tumultuous world. Included among the faithful, one presumes, are thousands of movie-worshipping Catholics, and so Fernando Meirelles and Anthony McCarten‘s The Two Popes (Netflix, 11.27) is, not surprisingly, faring well as a potential Best Picture nominee. The fact that it won the Audience Award at the 2019 Middleburg Film Festival is an indication of this.

I saw The Two Popes for the second time last night, and I felt slightly more charmed and moved than I did during my initial viewing in Telluride.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for the film, and particularly for McCarten’s script (which is based on McCarten’s 2017 play, The Pope). In my humble opinion McCarten should definitely be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. And it seems increasingly likely that Jonathan Pryce‘s performance as the future Pope Francis (aka Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio) will be Best Actor-nominated as well.

But honestly? I still feel emotionally removed from The Two Popes (as I wrote in my 9.1.19 Telluride review). Because I don’t feel any sort of kinship, much less a profound one, with the Catholic Church. I never have and I never will.

I don’t believe in holiness. I don’t believe in the Vatican carnival. I don’t believe in robes. I don’t believe in red shoes. I believe in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes and in Charlton Heston‘s performance in The Agony and the Ecstasy, but I haven’t the slightest belief in those Vatican City guard uniforms or the mitre or the scepter of any of the theatrical trappings. I believe in humanity and simplicity. I’m not exactly saying that I believe in Pope Lenny more than Pope Francis, but in a way I kind of do. Almost.

I don’t believe in the Bible…not really. I certainly don’t believe in celibacy for priests, and I despise the thousands of priests who’ve molested children worldwide and the countless bishops and cardinals who’ve protected them from the consequences. I believe that women should definitely be admitted into the priesthood. And while I understand and respect the fact that millions believe in the Catholic mission and its hierarchy, I myself don’t. Catholicism is more against things than for them.

“Robe, Mitre, Scepter,” posted from Telluride on 9.1.19:

Fernando Meirelles‘ The Two Popes is an interesting, mildly appealing two-hander as far as it goes. I had serious trouble with the refrigator temps as I watched, but I probably would have felt…well, somewhere between faintly underwhelmed and respectfully attentive even under the best of conditions.

It’s a wise, intelligent, non-preachy examination of conservative vs progressive mindsets (focused on an imagined, drawn-out discussion between Anthony Hopkins‘ Pope Benedict and Jonathan Pryce‘s Pope Francis a few years back) in a rapidly convulsing world, and I could tell from the get-go that Anthony McCarten‘s script is choicely phrased and nicely honed. But I couldn’t feel much arousal. I sat, listened and pondered, but nothing ignited. Well, not much.

Possibly on some level because I’ve never felt the slightest rapport with the Catholic church, and because for the last 20 or 30 years I’ve thought of it in Spotlight terms, for the most part.

I love that Pope Francis (formerly or fundamentally Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina) is a humanist and a humanitarian with simple tastes, and I was delighted when he jerked his hand away when Donald Trump tried to initiate a touchy-flicky thing a couple of years ago. And I’m certainly down with any film in which two senior religious heavyweights discuss the Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby” and Abbey Road, etc.

“I’d rather be remembered than rich.” — the late Robert Evans in a 1977 interview.

There’s something terribly somber and sobering in the idea of the churning Evans dynamo being silent and still, above and beyond the fact of a life having run its course and come to a natural end. I don’t like finality as a rule. I prefer the idea of fluidity, of a beating pulse and the constant search for action and opportunity. I don’t like it when a store closes and is all emptied out and boarded up with “for lease” signs pasted on the windows. Keep it going, sweep the floors, stock the shelves, pay the bills. All things must pass, of course, but not now…later.

The last time Evans and I saw each other was over dinner at the Palm in ’02, sometime around the release of Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen‘s The Kid Stays in the Picture. Evans covered the meal, but they never brought him a check. I didn’t ask and he didn’t explain. Some kind of gratis deal he had with management — Evans arrives, orders, eats, leaves a generous tip and leaves.

In the published view of director Peter Bogdanovich, Evans “was good Hollywood, not bad Hollywood.”

When Evans broke in as a producer in the mid ’60s “he brought a fresh kind of attitude to the movies,” Bogdanovich says. “He had very good taste and he produced movies of his own that were damn good.

“He was a movie fan too. It’s rare to have executives that really like movies. Not all executives are like that. He was really enthusiastic, and he encouraged talent. I loved Bob. He was friendly and amiable and charming.”

In a 10.28 tribute piece Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman wrote that “you can see why they thought Evans would be a movie star in the late ’50s. Evans was gleamingly handsome, yet he always had a touch of the geek about him. With his toothy grin and beautiful slick coif, he looked like a cross between Tom Cruise and the young Donald Trump, and as his career as an actor fizzled, the role of producer became the perfect fit for him. He was born not to tell a story but to sell it.”

Bogdanovich agrees: “Bob was the last of a breed. He connected to the Hollywood of the ’50s. They made fun of him because he was an actor who became a studio head. But why not? He played the part very well.”

But Glieberman and Bogdanovich disagree about Evans’ vision of a genetically Italian Godfather.

“The Godfather was the most important film of the decade, and it wouldn’t have been made the way it was without Robert Evans,” Gleiberman notes. “In hiring Francis Ford Coppola to direct, Evans grasped that the then-moribund gangster genre needed a major helping of ethnic authenticity; as much as that, he saw that it needed to be epic. The result was a new benchmark in operatic Hollywood realism.”

“Oh, yeah?” Bogdanovich more or less replies. “Evans offered me The Godfather right after The Last Picture Show. [But] I just wasn’t interested in doing a mob picture.” Not to mention the fact that Bogdanovich’s Serbian-Austrian heritage wasn’t exactly an ideal perspective for understanding and conveying the saga of the Corleone crime family.

What this means, of course, is that Evans only gradually came to understand that The Godfather had to be directed by a guy who understood Italian culture — the music, food, expressions, traditions, flavorings. Evans was’t a perfect genius but when the right idea came to him, he knew it.

“The evil that men do lives after them…the good is oft interred with their bones.” Not in Evans’ case. He was never my idea of even a half-evil guy, but he had his flawed aspects. But nobody’s talking about that stuff now. Only the good, only the glorious. That’s what friends are for.

What do Alan Parker‘s Angel Heart and Richard Donner‘s Lethal Weapon have in common, apart from having been released on the same day — 3.6.87? They both advanced what was then a radical new idea in movies — i.e., “the good guy did it.”

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Two lean descriptions of Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman (Netflix, 11.1 theatrical), and both absorbed within the last two days. The first is from New Yorker critic Anthony Lane: “Wild Strawberries with handguns.” The second is from Broadcast Film Critics Association honcho John DeSimio: “A film that is steadily, consistently and masterfully under the top.”

“I’ve just watched Todd Haynes‘ Dark Waters (Focus Features, 11.22). A true story, as you know, about a corporate attorney, a guy who made his living defending chemical companies, going after DuPont for polluting the water used by thousands of people in West Virginia. In some ways a familiar Erin Brockovich thing, but Haynes’ direction is first class, and Mark Ruffalo is excellent as the obsessive barrister. Keep your eyes peeled — it’s a good one.”

Having been a West Hollywood person since ’91, I know a lot of the local history and architectural lore, etc. I especially love visiting the homes and apartments of long-gone residents. But until last night I’d never visited the final home of F. Scott Fitzgerald at 1403 No. Laurel Ave. It’s a 90 year-old apartment building with peaked roofs, high ceilings in each unit, and a quiet, lulling vibe outside.

Fitzgerald lived on the second floor, but died of a heart attack at the nearby apartment of columnist girlfriend Sheila Graham, at 1443 Hayworth Ave. It happened on 12.21.40. Dude was only 44.

25 years of steady boozing and smoking won’t necessarily kill you, but they played a part in Fitzgerald’s case. He reportedly had a weak ticker to begin with. Five or six weeks prior to his death, Scott suffered a non-fatal heart attack at Schwab’s, reportedly while waiting to buy smokes.

Scott and Sheila had been together and more or less cohabiting since ’37. Legend has it that Fitzgerald’s next-door neighbors at the Laurel building were the unmarried Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

No, I’ve never seen Beloved Infidel (’59), partly because it doesn’t exactly have an exalted reputation but also because I’ve always found alcoholic characters dull and frustrating. This prejudice partially explains my longstanding dislike of John Huston‘s Under The Volcano. The one exception to HE’s alky rule is Mike Figgis‘s Leaving Las Vegas.

Word of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy believes that by simply reacting honestly to a question about superhero flicks, Martin Scorsese sparked a pushback movement that will continue to be felt for weeks, months and years to come. It was a kind of flashpoint Stonewall moment, Ruimy feels, and I for one was deeply impressed when I read this 10.26 riff.

HE respects and agrees with Ruimy’s essay. Plus it’s expressed through good, clean, non-fussy writing. Straight from the shoulder, heart and head simultaneously.

“Everything now is so politically correct. So boring. So expected. And everyone is so scared of what will happen if they go too far. A few tweets and it’s done…their career is over.” — Charlotte Gainsbourg speaking to the Guardian‘s Arwa Mahdawi, in a piece posted last weekend.

So far the critical consensus on Apple’s The Morning Show is that it’s a bust.

Not a disaster or a wipeout, mind, but when your Rotten Tomatoes + Metacritic average is 61%, you’re talking about a failing grade. On top of which it’s hard to feel enthused about a two-season show (10 episodes each) that cost $300 million to make. That’s not a typo — $300 million or $15 million per episode. The instant I read these figures, I said to myself “naahh.”

I also decided early on I didn’t want to watch Jennifer Aniston playing a defensive, huffy, arched-back, pissed-off co-host of a Today-like show…later.

The basic beef seems to be that The Morning Show has been written by a #MeToo committee.

Variety: “[Tries] to sell all sides of its story without committing to telling a single one well…not a human worth caring about in sight.” Indiewire: “[It’s] a bit like watching The Big Short, except nothing is said straight-to-camera and nearly everything is boring.” Chicago Tribune: “The Morning Show pushes one excellent actor after another into misjudged shrillness and Big Moment fireworks, giving the various crises and machinations nowhere to go but sideways. The inconsistencies and false notes pile up.”

I’d better shake off the lethargy and start watching this puppy right away. The first three episodes begin streaming on Friday, and then the remaining seven on a weekly basis.

Boilerplate: “Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) runs The Morning Show, a popular news program broadcast from Manhattan that has excellent TV ratings and is perceived to have changed the face of American television. After her partner of 15 years, Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), is fired amidst a sexual misconduct scandal, Alex fights to retain her job as top newsreader while sparking a rivalry with Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon), an aspiring journalist who seeks to take Alex’s place.”

The spirit of the great Robert Evans has left the earth and risen into the clouds. A fascinating character, a kind of rap artist, a kind of gangsta poet bullshit artist, a magnificent politician, a libertine in his heyday and a solemn mensch (i.e., a guy you could really trust).

For a period in the mid ’90s (mid ’94 to mid ’96), when I was an occasional visitor at his French chateau home on Woodland Drive, I regarded Evans as an actual near-friend. I was his temporary journalist pally, you see, and there’s nothing like that first blush of a relationship defined and propelled by mutual self-interest, especially when combined with currents of real affection.

There are relatively few human beings in this business, but Evans was one of them.

You’re supposed to know that Evans was a legendary studio exec and producer in the ’60s and ’70s (The Godfather, Chinatown, Marathon Man) who suffered a personal and career crisis in the ’80s only to resurge in the early ’90s as a Paramount-based producer and author (“The Kid Stays in the Picture”) while reinventing himself as a kind of iconic-ironic pop figure as the quintessential old-school Hollywood smoothie.

From my perspective (and, I’m sure, from the perspective of hundreds of others), Evans was a touchingly vulnerable human being. He was very canny and clever and sometimes could be fleetingly moody and mercurial, but he had a soul. He wanted, he needed, he craved, he climbed, he attained…he carved his own name in stone.

The Evans legend is forever. It sprawls across the Los Angeles skies and sprinkles down like rain. Late 20th Century Hollywood lore is inseparable from the Evans saga — the glorious ups of the late ’60s and ’70s and downs of the mid ’80s, the hits and flops and the constant dreaming, striving, scheming, reminiscing and sharing of that gentle, wistful Evans philosophy.

He was an authentic Republican, which is to say a believer in the endeavors of small businessmen and the government not making it too tough on them.

Rundown of Paramount studio chief and hotshot producer output during the Hollywood glory days of the late ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s — (at Paramount) Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, Harold and Maude, The Godfather, Serpico, Save The Tiger, The Conversation; (as stand-alone producer) Chinatown, Marathon Man, Black Sunday, Urban Cowboy, Popeye, The Cotton Club, Sliver, Jade, The Phantom, etc.

Not to mention “The Kid Stays in the Picture” (best-selling book and documentary) and, of course, Kid Notorious. Not to mention Dustin Hoffman‘s Evans-based producer character in Wag the Dog.

And you absolutely must read Michael Daly‘s “The Making of The Cotton Club,” a New York magazine article that ran 22 pages including art (pgs. 41 thru 63) and hit the stands on 5.7.84.

President Trump was booed loudly by the fans at Nats Park when he was shown on the big screen.
Then came a loud chant: “Lock him up.” @wusa9 pic.twitter.com/LBbgSAHd6k

— Adam Longo (@adamlongoTV) October 28, 2019

There’s a scene in Dolemite Is My Name in which Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy) and a friend have a hard time watching Billy Wilder‘s The Front Page (’74). The white audience is laughing, but it’s not funny to Rudy.

Trust me — Wilder’s remake of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s 1928 play wasn’t funny to anyone.

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