I could smell Venom from a long way off, and so could Tom Hardy when he said his favorite parts of the film didn’t make the final cut. So (and who could blame me?) I blew off last week’s all-media screening. Most of us understand the concept of “so bad it’s good” (which I have a place in my head for) but the critical consensus was mostly “it isn’t ludicrous enough to be enjoyable…it’s just garden-variety shitty….later.”

The Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes ratings are 35% and 30%, respectively. Seattle Times‘ critic Soren Andersen called it “perhaps the worst Marvel-derived origin story ever.” The Globe and Mail‘s Sarah-Tai Black said Venom “made me laugh so hard I started crying…a horribly scripted film so bad as to be enjoyable, but not bad enough to be good.” And so on.

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]

Before today’s Bryant Park Hotel interview with Cold War director-writer Pawel Pawlikowski and star Joanna Kulig, I was told I couldn’t take my own photos. Which I initially found irksome but whatever. So I asked the hired photographer, a guy with a really nice Canon camera named Andy Kropa, to shoot Pawel and Joanna using window-light only, and to shoot them together and then Joanna alone. Lo and behold, the photos turned out nicely…voila!

The interview was pleasant enough but only lasted 12 minutes, partly because my digital recorder wasn’t working at first. We covered six or seven topics, and indulged in a lot of chit-chatting and cross-jabbering. I’ll expand upon portions of our talk tomorrow.

I explained to Joanna that I’m the only Gold Derby “expert” who’s included her performance as a top five Best Actress contender, but (a) big things have small beginnings and (b) I know what I’m talking about. Here’s my Joanna riff, posted on 9.25.

A saga of a difficult, in-and-out love story in Poland and France of the ’50s and early ’60s, Cold War is a stone masterpiece. It deserves to win the Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar — hands down, no question. It earned a huge, sustained standing ovation at the end of last night’s New York Film Festival screening.

Cold War star & Best Actress contender Joanna Kulig — Tuesday, 10.9, 12:45 pm.

Cold War director-writer Pawel Pawlikowski

In Here and Now, Sarah Jessica Parker plays a singer named Vivienne who’s told early on that has inoperable brain cancer with a year or so to live. The film is about Vivienne grappling with the whole magillah of her life over the next 24 hours. Fabien Constant‘s homage to Cleo From 5 to 7 costars Simon Baker, Common, Jacqueline Bisset, Taylor Kinney and Renee Zellweger. Paramount will open pic in select theaters plus VOD on 11.9.

The “Michael Keaton with cancer movie” was called My Life. Directed and written by Bruce Joel Rubin, it’s about a youngish husband afflicted with terminal =cancer and at the same time expecting a child with his wife (Nicole Kidman). It ends with a gray-faced Keaton staring into the camera as he breathes his last…over and out. My Life was released nearly 25 years ago by Mark Canton’s Sony Pictures.

Up until yesterday there was some concern that traditional American loyalist types might be cool to Damian Chazelle‘s First Man (Universal, 10.12) because it doesn’t show the American-flag-planting moment on the surface of the moon.

But now that National Review critic Kyle Smith is calling First Man “easily the best film I’ve seen so far in 2018, a standout in everything from the acting to the sound effects,” has this concern about right-wingers dissipated? You might be excused for thinking so. Smith foresees it “earning something like eleven Oscar nominations next winter“…well, all right!

“First Man isn’t overtly a left-leaning or unpatriotic movie,” Smith writes, “but its reserved, interior quality (it actually ends with two people staring silently at each other) is consonant with the tastes of liberals, whose unease with flag-waving is richly rewarded by the film’s omission of the moment when Armstrong plants Old Glory on the Moon.

“Does that choice bother me? Not really. The movie’s focus is simply elsewhere, with overlooked aspects of the mission. Fresh, contrarian approaches to familiar material give First Man so much energy that despite its contemplative character, two hours and 20 minutes pass briskly.”

But hold up there. There are also signs of trouble from certain pockets of left-wing Hollywood culture. First Man isn’t emotional enough, some are saying.

I’m starting to fear, in fact, that despite film festival raves, First Man might do a fast commercial fade with Joe and Jane Popcorn.

A critic friend says “the H-word seems operative here. I know a number of people who say they ‘hate’ it. And I find that beyond baffling, because leaving aside the fact that I love the movie, what’s there to ‘hate’ about First Man?”

All I can figure is that Chazellle’s film operates so closely to the personality of the low-key Neil Armstrong that to some it feels chilly and remote-feeling and a little too tech-heady.

This isn’t a problem for me at all. One thing I really like about First Man is Chazelle’s refusal to do the Ron Howard thing by cutting to wide or establishing shots for standard perspective’s sake. Instead Chazelle keeps us inside the cockpit seat alongside Neil almost the whole time,. All I can figure is that this strategy has made certain viewers feel claustrophobic or something.

Why do these new Suspiria posters suggest to the HE readership? I’ll tell you what they suggest to me. They suggest domination and discipline from a coven of ballet-dancing witches with powerful thigh and calf muscles…tough, tyrannical witches who would just as soon break your back and make arterial blood gush out of your nose as look at you….tough bitches, tough witches, and several stitches when they’re through with you.

You have a nifty job as the United Sates Ambassador to the United Nations. Stimulating work, pretty decent salary ($180K), nice New York apartment, etc. You’ve been at the job since 1.25.17, and yet 21 months later you announce that you’re quitting. Why? Who bails on a plum prestige gig less than two years after starting? The Trump administration has another two years and three months left.

If you scroll down to paragraphs #14 and #15 in Maggie Haberman’s N.Y. Times story about Nikki Haley resigning as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, there’s a hint of an explanation.

“Ms. Haley’s advisers have long tended to her political image, and stepping away now could be a logical end point if she wants to preserve her own political future.” In other words, she’s stepping away from the Trump administration now before the Mueller report is issued…?

“But in the short term, people familiar with her thinking said that she is likely to work in the private sector and make some money. After nearly eight years in government — six years as governor of South Carolina in addition to her time at the United Nations — her 2018 financial disclosure report shows Ms. Haley has at least $1.5 million in debts, including more than $1 million for her mortgage.”

Imagine being a late-teen or 20something Tennessee resident who can’t be bothered to register to vote in the midterms. Which strikes me as a fairly despicable attitude, all things considered. Now imagine this same person deciding to suddenly register to vote because of Taylor Swift announcing her support of Democratic candidates Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper, who are respectively running for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.

Imagine being that vacuous, that indifferent, that uninterested in the realities of Trumpism and how the world works. Imagine turning yourself around like that because Taylor effing Swift suggested it.

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” — Winston Churchill.

From a 10.9 Guardian story by Laura Snapes: “Of the 5,183 voter registrations in Tennessee this month, at least 2,144 occurred after Swift posted her statement to Instagram on Sunday, said Guthrie. The state’s deadline for voter registration is today, 9 October, which may also have contributed to the rush. There were 2,811 new Tennessee voter registrations in September.”

President Trump claimed today that Christine Blasey Ford‘s allegation of aggressive sexual misconduct by a teenaged Brett Kavanaugh, among other similar testimonies and recollections, was “all made up,” “fabricated“, “a hoax” and “a disgrace.”

“Bridge Burner,” posted on 4.22.18: This morning I happened to read a great making-of-a-disaster article called “My Battles With Jon and Barbra,” a blow-by-blow account of the making of the 1976 version of A Star Is Born.

It was apparently written in a state of seething frustration by director and screenplay co-author Frank Pierson. Pierson, who passed in 2012, was arguably a better screenwriter (Cool Hand Luke, Dog Day Afternoon, Haywire, Presumed Innocent, Mad Men) than a director, but he certainly knew the realm.

I found Pierson’s piece on the Barbara [Streisand] Archives website. Launched in ’03, it’s been written, designed, created and maintained all along by Matt Howe of Washington, D.C.

Howe’s intro: “This is the infamous article, written by the director of A Star is Born and published shortly before the film had its premiere. Streisand and Jon Peters begged Pierson not to hurt their film by publishing it. The article was a betrayal to Streisand — a public airing of behind-the-scenes battles that, traditionally, were always kept private between director and star. It is included here so readers can understand why Streisand is so private and wary of the press.

“A different edit of the piece also ran in the November 15, 1976 issue of New York magazine. I’ve incorporated several of the excised sentences here, as well as scans of some of the photos that appeared in that magazine.

“In 1983, Barbra told journalist Geraldo Rivera: “Pierson’s article was so immoral, so unethical, so unprofessional, so undignified, with no integrity, totally dishonest, injurious. If anyone believes it, without examining who that person is, to try to put a black cloud over a piece of work before it’s even released: that’s the most important indication of who that person was.”

Karina Longworth‘s take on the Star Is Born debacle, “You Must Remember This,” episode #21, posted on 11.4.14.

Again, the article itself.

The governing principle behind the shooting and cutting of all Park Chan-wook films is “look at me, look at me…look at what a brilliant director I am.” He’s admired or at least respected, of course, by nearly everyone. I for one haven’t been won over. Too show-offy, gets in the way. Yes, I agree –the 1984 George Roy Hill-Diane Keaton version didn’t work, and yet Sami Frey was quite good as Kahlil, the Palestinian terrorist.

Arnold Kopelson, a smart, scrappy film producer who knew the ropes and worked them hard, has passed at age 83. Condolences to all concerned but especially Arnold’s family (particularly Anne, his wife and producing partner) and friends.

The Brooklyn-born Kopelson produced 29 movies, and hit the jackpot three times within a nine-year period (’86 to ’95). His first grand slam was Platoon, directed and written by Oliver Stone and winner of the 1987 Best Picture Oscar. Six and a half years later came The Fugitive (’93) with Harrison Ford — cost $44 million to shoot, made $368 million domestic. Kopelson’s third biggie was David Fincher‘s Se7en (’95), which rewrote the serial killer genre and delivered one of the most stunning endings in motion-picture history.

I caught Platoon on opening night (12.19.86) at a theatre on La Brea just south of Melrose. I came out of the 7 pm show and spotted Kopelson standing under the marquee, alone. I went over, introduced myself and told him it’s an absolute hit and a near-certain Oscar nominee, etc. He presumably knew that but I wanted to tell him anyway. That film made me feel so great, so connected to everyone and everything. Historic.