60 years ago Teenage Caveman, a Roger Corman-directed exploitation film starring Robert Vaughn, was released to the sub-runs. Vaughn once described the pic, originally shot under the title Prehistoric World, as “the worst film ever made.”

To go by Owen Gleiberman‘s Variety review, Albert Hughes‘ Alpha (Sony, 8.17), which apparently could be subtitled I Was a Teenage Paleolithic EMO Brah, is much better than Teenage Caveman. But in some ways it’s seemingly cut from the same cloth.

“A tale of a young hunter stranded in the wilderness who becomes best friends with a wolf, Alpha is “like a Disney adventure fueled by a higher octane of visual dazzle, with a gnarly texture wrought from elements like blood, excrement and maggots,” Gleiberman writes.

Maybe, but the blood and maggots are half-mitigated by the Late Stone Age hipster apparel worn by star Kodi Smit-McPhee. Look at those nice-fitting corduroy pants, those expensive Ugg boots, that cool animal-hide hoodie poncho pullover and not one but two shoulder-slung handbags. John Varvatos meets Gant Rugger meets Rag & Bone.

Darren Aronofsky also went a little wacko with garments worn in Noah. They were the work of costume supervisor Margret Einarsdottir. Russell Crowe wore animal-skin duds that were way too high-style and intricately woven for a guy living during the time of the Great Ancient Flood.

The 2018 Toronto Film Festival has announced a list of North American or World Premieres, none of which will be going to Telluride first. David Mackenzie‘s The Outlaw King…yay. Jonah Hill‘s Mid90s…ditto. Jeremy Saulnier‘s Hold the Dark…no comment. Peter Farrelly‘s Green Book…what about Bobby? Thomas Vinterberg‘s Kursk…son of Das Boot. Paolo Sorrentino‘s Loro…allegedly a problem, I’ve heard. Sebastian Lelio‘s Gloria w/ Julianne Moore. Nick Hamm‘s Driven…no comment. Paul Greengrass‘s 22 July…formerly Norway, allegedly a tough sit.

Mike Leigh‘s Peterloo is listed as a Canadian premiere, so it’s apparently going to Telluride.

A new Bluray of Federico Fellini‘s I Vitelloni, the grandfather of prolonged adolesence hang-out films, streets on 8.27. But for the grace of God I almost became an I Vitelloni guy, treading water and chasing girls in Fairfield County. I finally couldn’t stand it and moved into my first Manhattan pad on Sullivan Street. It took me two years to make it as a fringe-level film journalist, but I finally did.

Originally posted 12 years ago, on 7.6.06: “There’s a trend in movies about guys in their early to mid 30s having trouble growing up. Guys who can’t seem to get rolling with a career or commit to a serious relationship or even think about becoming productive, semi-responsible adults, and instead are working dead-end jobs, hanging with the guys all the time, watching ESPN 24/7, eating fritos, getting wasted and popping Vicodins.

“There have probably been at least 15 or 20 films that have come out over the last four or five years about 30ish guys finding it hard to get real.

“The 40 Year-Old Virgin was basically about a bunch of aging testosterone monkeys doing this same old dance (with Steve Carell’s character being a slightly more mature and/or sensitive variation). Virgin director-writer Judd Apatow has made a career out of mining this psychology. Simon Pegg’s obese layabout friend in Shaun of the Dead was another manifestation — a 245-pound Dupree.

“Prolonged adolescence is an age-old thing, of course. The difference these days is that practitioner-victims are getting older and older.

I’ve been reluctant to buy into Filmstruck / The Criterion Channel for a long time, but last night…all right, fine, fuck it, I bought a year’s subscription. Now I can finally watch a high-def streaming version of Ingmar Berman’s The Silence. And I can easily watch on my Macbook Pro 15-inch or via the Roku player or even on the (still not fully functional) iPhone.

But as long as I’m discussing Criterion, it’s necessary to re-state what a travesty and a desecration those Midnight Cowboy and Bull Durham Blurays are, and that Peter Becker and the Criterion team need to nip this horrific teal-tinted color tendency in the bud.

Speaking as one who (a) loathes the Christian community for its conservative political leanings, (b) feels mostly contempt for faith-based movies, (c) likes Brenton Thwaites and (d) genuinely admires the great David Strathairn, something in me shuddered when I watched this trailer for An Interview With God.

Don’t Thwaites and Straitharn realize what they’re doing to their brand by appearing in this thing?

HE to God: Cosmic design, unity and connectivity are obvious to anyone with half a brain, but as a beyond-intelligent entity do you and your only begotten son feel just a teeny bit responsible for the massive amounts of stupidity, ignorance and arrogance that are directly attributable to religious devotion? Which is partly responsible for destroying the earth as we speak? Are you good with all that?

Also: Do you agree or disagree with Tony Gilroy‘s assertion in Devil’s Advocate that you’re basically an absentee landlord? When I was a kid I thought you were that deep, slowed-down voice in Cecil B. Demille‘s The Ten Commandments; now you’re nothing more than a component in the ugliest political movement in U.S. history.

I barely remember Carl Reiner‘s Oh, God!. Probably better that way.

An Interview With God will be released in U.S. theaters for only “three nights” — August 20, 21 and 22. What, no matinees?

With Joel Edgerton‘s Boy Erased announced as a Toronto Film Festival “international premiere”, it can be presumed that this fact-based Focus Features release about gay conversion therapy will play Telluride first.

Which reminds me, by the way, that I’ve forgotten to review The Miseducation of Cameron Post, the other gay-conversion drama (premiered during Sundance ’18, opened on 8.3). It’s not a “bad” film, but a little underwhelming. It’s basically an ensemble piece set at a Christain conversion camp, and it’s a bit odd in that the titular character, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, is the least assertive or distinctive character of the lot. In scene after scene she expresses almost nothing, and certainly not verbally. She just wants to be left alone to love other women, but she’s a blank canvas. Far more interesting are costars Sasha Lane, Forrest Goodluck, John Gallagher, Jr. and Marin Ireland.

A couple of hours ago the N.Y. Times reported that “a highway bridge in the heart of Genoa, Italy, collapsed on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people as it dropped dozens of vehicles, and tons of concrete and steel, onto buildings, streets, vehicles and railroad tracks below.” The collapse reportedly happened during a violent rainstorm.

I’ve driven across it several times over the last couple of decades. It’s right in the heart of the city; tens of thousands cross it every day. What a horribly violent way to die, sailing into space inside your car, screaming as you plunge toward the ground or into the gray river, sheared and crunched metal, blood and cracked bones…I don’t want to think about it. But I could’ve been one of the “dozens.”

In honor of A24’s new Climax trailer, a re-appearance of my Cannes Film festival review, posted on 5.18.18: Gaspar Noe‘s Climax is basically two movies, both running about 45 minutes, both scored to relentlessly pounding EDM and both about dancing bodies going to extremes — agile, mad, writhing, flailing around. It’s highly charged at first, but goes nuts in the second half and thereby dwindles.

The first half is “wheee!…lovin’ it!” and the second half is “waagghhh, I’m gonna die!” But they’re both kind of shallow. Energetic, orgiastic, dullish. No dimensionality. But at the same time Climax is worth catching. The mad energy is too intense to ignore.

The first half, once it gets going after a 10- or 12-minute long video interview sequence, is far better. Climax is suddenly a wild, breathless, crazy-pump tribal dance flick — three (or four?) longish Steadicam shots of 20something dancers (Sofia Boutella is the only one I recognized), auditioning for a tour of some kind inside a modest-sized dance hall painted strawberry red (which half reminds you of the reddish gym-sized dance hall in Robert Wise‘s West Side Story), going gloriously wild, letting loose and kicking out.

You could almost describe it as the first-act audition sequence from All That Jazz minus the grace and the training but set to EDM and with all kinds of push-push improv, sweaty and hot and bursting with crazy legs and arms whirling like helicopter blades. None of it guided by a specific dance style, much less a theme or a structure of any kind, but it’s pleasing to just sink into the tribal throb and just, you know, go with it. Shallow but cool in a frenzied sort of way.

And then comes the second half, which is about the dancers reacting badly and in some cases horrifically to some LSD-spiked sangria.

The problem with this portion is that LSD is presented as some kind of evil-trigger drug, as a loosener of civilized behavior and a portal to hostility. It’s predatory, of course, to slip LSD into anyone’s drink without them knowing, and yes, it’s likely that most people, young or not, would react fearfully and perhaps even with panic. I get it.

But deep down LSD is not some kind of vicious-agitator substance. It’s a Godhead drug, and it struck me as unbelievable that each and every dancer goes a little bit nuts here. Nobody — not a single soul — connects with any form of inner divinity and blisses out. Nobody just stops with the crazy and walks outside barefoot and marvels at the night sky.

We’ve all considered the Candle in the Wind aspect of Marilyn Monroe‘s sad tale. Then again she knew how and why her career bread was buttered. It’s hard to recall episodes in Monroe’s life in which she didn’t generate flashes of eros and sexuality to stoke the fires. Especially during the making of Some Like It Hot, Let’s Make Love, The Misfits and Something’s Got To Give. Not to mention the photo sessions, including the famous 1962 one with Bert Stern at the Hotel Bel Air.

Yesterday it was reported that a brief, never-used nude scene from The Misfits was discovered many years ago by Curtice Taylor, the son of producer Frank Taylor, and that it might, you know, slip out somehow. This morning an odd piece in Vanity Fair by Yohana Desta, titled “Monroe Nude Scene Has Been Found — What Happens Now?,” suggested maybe it shouldn’t.

Desta says that because Monroe was sexually exploited throughout her career, it might be a good idea not to let anyone see the scene in question. Why re-boot that old cruel karma of ogling a naked but very sad movie star who died of an overdose at age 36?

Hollywood Elsewhere will understand if the scene never hits YouTube. Let it be, keep it in the drawer, etc. Then again why did Charles Casillo, author of “Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon,” mention the discovery if he wasn’t planning to leak it?

Monroe resented the public’s leering interest, of course, but in film after film she never stopped winking at it. She knew what she was doing, and there were suggestions and peeks aplenty in The Misfits. Okay, I’ll admit it — I want to see the scene. But I’ll survive if I can’t.

Originally posted on 3.18.12: “I was behind this couple at the Westside Pavillion a couple of nights ago. The excitement they were feeling when it was finally their turn to order from the counter guy was almost sexual. It was certainly infectious. I was imagining their delight as they sat down in their seats with a double-large popcorn tub with extra butter, an extra-large Red Twisters, two hot dogs with mustard, two half-gallon-sized cups of Coke. It was playtime. They were really happy.

Just as we know that Ryan Coogler‘s Black Panther will wind up winning the just-announced Best Achievement in Popular Film Oscar (a.k.a. the Popcorn-With-Extra-Butter Oscar for the Film That Knuckle-Draggers Like The Most), we also know which films will be nominated for this dubious award.

I’m presuming there will only be five nominees. Panther, of course, along with Crazy Rich Asians (representation counts, especially for the first mainstream release with an all-Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club) and John Krasinki‘s A Quiet Place (elevated horror, big dough). The other two will almost certainly be Mission: Impossible — Fallout and one of two Disney releases — Incredibles 2 and Mary Poppins Returns. Panther might manage a regular Best Picture nomination and that’s fine, but at the end of the night it’ll take the Extra Butter Popcorn Oscar. Done, finito.