I know going in that any film based on a YA novel is going to try my patience and generally give me a hard time. It’s not for nothing that I really hate those YA initials and every story-telling scheme and strategy they seem to stand for,

Sure enough, George Tillman, Jr.’s The Hate U Give (20th Century Fox, 10.5), based upon Angie Thomas‘s same-titled YA novel, put me through a kind of slow-drip hell. I watched, I waited, I approved of the sentiments, I grew sullen, I looked at my watch, I exhaled, I shifted in my seat, I checked my watch again, etc.

A Black Lives Matter saga about a high-school-age girl (Amandla Sternberg) enduring grief, trauma and social pressure after she witnesses a male childhood friend being shot to death by a patrolman after a routine pull-over, The Hate U Give says and feels and insists upon all the right things in the deeply unfortunate realm of hair-trigger cop brutality and racial pigeonholing.

It says, in short, what any semi-compassionate, half-aware 21st Century resident would agree with and hope for, and yet Tillman’s film is nonetheless mediocre (as almost all YA adaptations are) — plotted and cross-plotted and about as one-note as a drama like this can be, at least by my standards. And aimed at those who prefer their social-issue dramas neatly ordered and spoon-fed.

I’m talking about on-the-nose dialogue, “good” but overly telegraphed (and often way too emphatic) performances, too schematic, trite plotting, characterizations that feel too pat and tidy. A line or a scene connect every so often, but not enough to turn the tide.

Legendary screenwriter Robert Towne once said that people almost always avoid saying what they’re really thinking. They’ll look away or sidestep or talk around the elephant in the room. The finest dialogue is therefore often about the undercurrent — the things that are there and churning within but not directly mentioned or in some cases even referenced.

Everything in The Hate U Give is directly addressed. It has almost no undercurrent because everything is on the kitchen table, and that’s the basic problem.

Not for me…sorry. I didn’t hate it but I wanted to be somewhere else.

“It’s worth mentioning now and forever that the Oscar race has little to do with the reality of great movies. Well, sometimes the two realities converge but the Oscar race is mostly about a race to the middle. You’re looking for something that thousands of people can agree upon is great. We know this can’t possibly be true as Zero Dark Thirty and The Limey and Vertigo and Citizen Kane were ignored or under-valued by this consensus. As was Psycho and Jaws and most of the films I consider great. The Oscar race is what it is, but in too many instances it’s the last thing you want to rely upon for any kind of true measure of a film’s worth over the long haul. Fuck these people.” — sent by a journalist friend when I shared a disparaging view of a presumed Best Picture contender, written by a producer pal.

Yesterday a friend said A Star Is Born would’ve been much more interesting if the genders had been flipped — if the Jackson Maine character had been Sheryl Crowe with a drinking problem and if the ingenue had been some young guy (Shawn Mendes, Jaden Smith…someone in that realm). That way the plotline grooves wouldn’t seem so familiar and the whole vibe and atmosphere would’ve felt fresher and nervier.

I would have been delighted, in fact, if Bradley Cooper had instead directed Elyse Hollander‘s Blonde Ambition, the top-rated Black List script about Madonna‘s struggle to find success as a pop singer in early ’80s Manhattan.

It was reported last summer that Madonna is no fan of the script, and that she doesn’t want the film version to happen. They should make it anyway. If and when Blonde Ambition activates it’ll be a Universal thing. The producers will be RatPac Entertainment, Michael De Luca Productions and Bellevue Productions.

It was almost two years ago when I wrote that Ambition is going to be a good, hard-knocks industry drama — a blend of a scrappy, singing Evita with A Star Is Born mixed in. If the right actress plays Madonna the right way, she might wind up with a Best Actress Oscar nomination…maybe, who knows?

This is a flinty, unsentimental empowerment saga about a tough player who took no prisoners and was always out for #1. No hearts and flowers for this mama-san.

The success of Blonde Ambition will depend, of course, on who directs and how strong the costars are, particularly the guy who plays Madonna’s onetime-boyfriend John “Jellybean” Benitez, whose remix and producing of her self-named first album launched her career, as well as her Emmys bandmate and previous lover Dan Gilroy.

A Star Is Born‘s logline was basically “big star with a drinking problem falls for younger ingenue, she rises as he falls and finally commits suicide, leaving her with a broken heart.” Blonde Ambition is about a hungry, super-driven New York pop singer who, like Evita Peron, climbs to the top by forming alliances with this and that guy who helps her in some crucial way, and then moves on to the next partner or benefactor, but at no point in the journey is she fighting for anything other than her own success, and is no sentimentalist or sweetheart.

Hollywood Elsewhere is generally okay with the 380 Inn, which I mis-described yesterday as a nickle-and-dime Tobacco Road-level establishment. It’s actually fine for what it costs. Two complaints: (1) I hate the too-light plastic shower curtain because it billows into the tub area when you turn the hot water on, and (2) the racket from the nearby Montauk Highway is incessant. I recently noted that two regions I’ver visited, the Berkshires and Venice, Italy, are “dead-mouse quiet.” The traffic noise outside the 380 Inn is the opposite, and it never quits. Listen to it.

News flash: Republicans cheat, are ruthless, don’t give a shit.

We all know that Bradley Cooper‘s A Star Is Born is going to enjoy an historic opening weekend at the box-office, but what about the award-season payoff?

Will Hollywood indeed rename itself “Cooperstown” over the next four-plus months and offer him the ultimate coronation on Oscar night with a Kris Tapley-predicted win of one, two, three or even more Oscars?

Or will a significant sector of the cognoscenti settle into the emerging consensus view, which is that (a) the first half is quite good but not so much the second half and (b) at the end of the day five or six nominations plus strong revenue might be enough?

Is Lady Gaga a Best Actress lock or is she more like a good, spongey student who was smart and receptive enough to let Cooper take her into the right places? Is Cooper locked for a double Oscar noms, Best Director and Best Actor? Cooper and Tapley are waiting with bated breath for your thoughts and meditations.

I’m not trying to be a dick about this. I honestly liked a lot of what Cooper was selling — most of it, in fact. Lady Gaga really got to me. I’m just not Bobby Peru.

I’ve been a Hamptons Film Festival guy for about five hours now. I checked into Wainscott’s 380 Inn and then picked up the badge around 2:30 pm. There’s not much to report except that the air is agreeably fall-like with a hint of a slight nip. Jacket and scarf weather.

Tonight’s hot film is Yorgos Lanthomos‘ The Favourite, which I caught in Telluride. Loved the first two acts, not so much the third. No offense but I’m not quite in the mood to see it a second time.

I’m actually thinking of slipping into Kirill Serebrennikov‘s Leto (which I caught last May in Cannes). Review excerpt: “Set during the early ’80s Leningrad rock-music scene and focusing on a largely factual, less-than-ardent romantic triangle, Leto (Russian for summer) is a kind of monochrome dream trip — more about feeling the vibe than savoring the story. It’s something you need to sink into rather than judge and evaluate with a fine tooth comb.”

The price of almost everything in East Hampton is about 50% higher than in the real world. It’s like Switzerland here.

(More…)

Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) has announced she’ll vote in favor of Brett Kavanaugh‘s nomination to the Supreme Court. Here’s her explanation. The actual Senate vote isn’t until tomorrow, but Collins has made her bed and she’ll lie in it the rest of her life. A passage in her Wikipedia page describes Collins as “fiscally conservative but [with] socially moderate views.” That is no longer true, I’m afraid. She’s done a truly horrible thing.

Gold Derby experts are claiming that A Star Is Born‘s Bradley Cooper is currently “out front” among Best Actor contenders. Are you familiar with the term “meaningless“? As in “totally”? Cooper will be nominated, sure, but right now the Best Actor race is between Green Book‘s Viggo Mortensen and Vice‘s Christian Bale. And they both gained weight for their roles. It’s pretty much Viggo’s to lose. It’s his time, his moment. I haven’t seen Vice, but I’m presuming Viggo’s goombah guy is more likable than Bale’s Dick Cheney. Just a guess.

“It will happen this way. You will be on the New London ferry to Orient Point. A bright, sunny day with crisp fall weather. And a fellow passenger, probably overweight and atrociously dressed, will suddenly be next to you, chatting about the Hamptons Film Festival or whatnot. And then another passenger, perhaps someone you know, maybe even trust, will join the conversation. And he will smile, a becoming smile. And then you’ll feel something hard pressing into your ribs.”