Downward Slope

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N.Y. Times columnist Thomas Friedman, speaking to MSNBC’s Ari Melber before last week’s impeachment vote: “We basically have today the ability to create an entire alternative epistemological universe. When you simply live in a completely different set of facts…to get most of your information online from Facebook, and [information that] is targeted to reenforce your biases. And if you watch only one particular network, and you put all those together…uhm, there’s no Walter Cronkite out there, someone [from] whom everyone is sharing the same information.

“And I think it’s one of the most frightening things. Our democracy is based upon two pillars — truth and trust. If we don’t share truth we can’t possibly face the big challenges — climate change, cyber wars, education. We can’t possibly agree to do anything if we don’t share the same truth. And if we don’t trust each other, we can’t possibly do anything big and hard together. Ad all the challenges facing us now are big and hard.”

Poor Man’s De-Aging

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Every honest critic and comment-threader has said he/she was aware of CG de-aging manipulation in the early stages of The Irishman, but that they gradually forgot about it. Or accepted it the way we all accept performances in which an actor wears a wig (Jack Nicholson in Prizzi’s Honor) or a fake nose (Nicole Kidman in The Hours) or what-have-you.

I don’t know how many millions were spent on Irishman CG but honestly? On my 15″ Macbook Air the iFake version looks better. It’s a lower resolution version and it screams CG finessing, of course, but given what it is, it looks better.

What kind of money do you suspect that the iFake guy spent compared to what Scorsese and Netflix spent? When I first heard of the intention to de-age De Niro, I was expecting to see a version of his Vito Corleone from The Godfather, Part II. I didn’t, of course. The iFake versions look like CG, of course, but DeNiro and Pacino look younger, smoother, etc. If I was willing to accept the uncanny valley thing that Scorsese delivered, how much more difficult would be to accept the iFake version?

Youtube comment (Mr. Coatsworth): “This looks really good for freeware, but it won’t hold up on a cinema screen or 4K television. I saw The Irishman in the theater and, while there were moments where the CGI on De Niro and Pesci was obvious, Al Pacino never looked the least bit fake, in my opinion. It was amazing. Your Al Pacino de-aging looks very obviously like the face is just pasted in. All in all yours look very blurry, but of course for the amount of time and money you spent, excellent work!”

Over The Waterfall

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Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil to Hollywood Elsewhere: “Hi, Jeff — happy holidays! Do you really believe that Parasite won’t even be nominated for Best Picture?”

HE to O’Neil: “Happy holidays to you also, Tom. I’ve fixed my Best Picture prediction chart. I believe Parasite will be Best Picture nominated, of course. Too many critics, critics groups and prognosticators have chugged the Bong Joon-ho Kool-Aid, and there’s no stopping it now. I realize that. I guess I’ve just been living in denial. Because while the Bong chorus has been saying one thing over and over, reality has been saying something different and just as consistently.

Parasite is without question Bong’s best film, and he’ll certainly win the Best International Feature Oscar on 2.9.20. But (and I mean this with the greatest respect) it’s plotted way too clumsily and sloppily to win the Best Picture Oscar, for reasons I’ve explained time and again.

Whatever should or shouldn’t happen with Parasite, the current in the water is too strong at this stage. So I’ve washed my hands of it and am hoping for the best, or more specifically for the least. If and when Parasite should win the Best Picture Oscar, which is certainly conceivable but God forbid …if this happens there will be only one word to say, and that word is “really?”

Family Way

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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker director and co-writer J.J. Abrams explaining the brief surge of sexual-romantic ardor between Rey and Kylo Ren: “There is as much of a brother-sister thing between Rey and Kylo Ren as there is a romantic thing. So it’s not like literally a sexual, romantic thing, but it’s more like they’re bound together in this movie in a crazy, spiritual way that, again, felt romantic to me.”

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Hurts To Hurt Someone

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This is probably a minority opinion, but speaking as a guy who’s been dropped cold or given the casual brush-off by many fetching women during my hound-dog heyday (mid ’70s through late ’90s, not counting my four-year marriage from ’87 to ’91), it’s a bit more painful to dump than to get dumped.

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]

Back Of The Bus

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Is it unfair to presume that the budding romance between John Boyega‘s Finn and Kelly Marie Tran‘s Rose Tico, which ignited in The Last Jedi, was squelched because old-school fanboys attacked Tran online for this and that, to such an extent that she quit Instagram? We all know that’s what happened, on top of which Rose has significantly fewer lines and screen time in The Rise of Skywalker so what else are we to think? I’m open to interpretations.

Already Gone?

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The Knockturnal’s Farah Idrees reported today that A24’s Uncut Gems pop-up (76 West 47th Street) opened two days ago (Friday, 12.20) and closes today (Sunday, 12.22).

“A two-story establishment, smack dab in the heart of the diamond district…on the ground floor you could buy some jewelry, get your jewelry cleaned, buy the film’s official VINYL, and they even had some mini-furbies on display that’ll be sold online come January. There was an official Uncut Gems x A24 Magazine that was being given out that includes some interesting stories/images,” etc.

This is A24 for you — they’ll spend God knows how many thousands on a diamond district pop-up that will maybe catch the attention of some schmuck tourists, but they won’t spring for a Phase One HE advertorial or straight ad buy for a lousy $5K or $8K.

Judi Dench’s “The Hand”

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Director Tom Hooper hadn’t fully finished Cats when it was time to duplicate prints, so he completed the job a few days later. And now Universal is sending out DCPs and satellite feeds of the corrected version (i.e., one in which Judi Dench has cat paws instead of human hands) to theatres.

“An unheard-of move for a finished film already in release,” THR‘s Pamela McClintock derisively snorted. But if you were in Hooper’s shoes wouldn’t you do the same?

I stayed awake throughout last week’s all-media screening of Cats, and I didn’t notice Dench’s naked hand, much less her wedding ring. Or maybe I noticed it and shrugged it off. (HE in 12th row at Chinese plex: “Dench has a human hand…aahh, whatevs.”)

Many films haven’t really been finished (at least in the minds of their directors) until after their commercial opening. Steven Spielberg‘s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Oliver Stone‘s Alexander, etc.

Enveloping Holiday Blahs

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The Christmas downshift began two days ago, and won’t end until Thursday, January 3rd, or 12 days from now. The twitter conversation is certainly slowing to a crawl. I wish I was in Manhattan now because at least I’d have that rumbling energy to draw upon. I always love roaming around in the days before Christmas, particularly in the stores and during walks around town in the late afternoon and especially at night. But the post-Christmas doldrums, a seven-day period that will begin on Thursday, 12.26, and end seven days later are hell. Okay, not “hell” but it always feels glorious when they’re over. The one thing that made me smile yesterday? The below black-and-white N.Y. Times pic of an angry Donald Trump.

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The Day The ’70s Died

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I’m trying to recall my first viewing of A New Hope, back when it was called Star Wars and nobody knew any better. I was a Westport, Connecticut lad at the time, and I’m fairly sure I attended a Manhattan showing right after the opening on 5.25.77, probably at Loew’s Astor Plaza.

Seeing a film like Star Wars in some dinky Fairfield County venue was unthinkable. Only the finest big-city venues had truly tip-top projection and sound back then. Dolby stereo sound had only been introduced a couple of years previously, the first-out-of-the-gate test case being Robert Altman‘s Nashville.

You can immediately feel the grip and the pull from these clips. There’s something vital going on, and the great Alec Guinness lent a veneer of class. I liked Star Wars but within its genre arena; in my eyes it wasn’t its own thing but a winking homage to Flash Gordon-style space adventures.

Two or three weeks later I saw William Friedkin‘s Sorcerer, and immediately told my friends “this is it…easily the best film of the year!” Maybe it was, but the infantilization of mainstream cinema had taken hold, and films like Sorcerer no longer had the mojo. Little did I know at the time…

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Before Driver’s “Being Alive”

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The look of contempt that Poe Dameron gives Kylo Ren at the 33-second mark is perfect. His eyes say three things: (1) “Is this cowboy-hatted dude…whatever he thinks he’s doing is lame”; (2) “Did he used to sing with the Jordinaires?”; (3) “And he’s recording with us?” I laughed at Oscar Isaac‘s disdain when I first saw Inside Llewyn Davis six and a half years ago, and I bought it all over again when I re-watched it last night. A 100% genuine moment, one human being to another. I’m sorry but it sank in more deeply than any single moment in The Rise of Skywalker. Plus the instrumentation sounds extra-great with headphones, especially with the stand-up bass.

Nine films were nominated for 2013 Best Picture Oscar, and Inside Llewyn Davis wasn’t one of them? Seriously? The Best Picture winner, 12 Years A Slave, is a masterpiece, but who re-watches the other eight nominees and to what extent?

I will never, ever watch Gravity again. (Sandra Bullock going “aagghh!” in a haunted house, and space is the ghost.) Nor will I ever watch David O. Russell‘s American Hustle again. (But I’ll watch Silver Linings Playbook any day of the week and twice on Sundays.) Captain Phillips was over-rated. Dallas Buyers Club is a good film — I’d watch it again. Spike Jonze‘s Her is also special, but I haven’t re-viewed. The best thing about Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska was that song, “Their Pie.” Dernsy screwed himself out of an Oscar by insisting that his grouchy old cuss was a Best Actor thang. Inside Llewyn Davis should have been nominated instead of Philomena. Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street is the 2013 Best Picture nominee that people will be re-watching 50 years hence.