If you could somehow magically migrate yourself into The Brutalist…if you could somehow penetrate that membrane and suddenly find yourself actually hanging with Adrien Brody‘s Laszlo Toth and all the rest of those miserable characters…if you could push a button that would allow you to actually gain entry to and live in their world…would you?
Answer: Of course you wouldn’t because (a) theirs is a grim, grief-stricken world…a morose “lemme outta here” underland if there ever was one, and (b) the characters aren’t “real” (by which I mean relatable in a recognizable, everyday, human being sense) but Brady Corbet constructs.
Living inside The Brutalist would be, in fact, hellish. That’s precisely how I felt as I watched it…trapped in a cold hell cave.
An HE commenter claimed a week or two ago that I had ranked Emilia Perez among my top five films of ’24. Not true — in my final 12.21.24 wrap-up I ranked it in 15th place.
7:35 pm: HE will drive back to Ojai this evening following the Timothee Chalamet interview/tribute (8 pm to 10 pm). I’ve enjoyed a warm, nourishing, profoundly soothing six days in Santa Barbara — thanks to HE’s own RogerDurling for the gracious and generous hospitality!
11:20 pm update — HE to guest moderator Josh Brolin: “The Brolin-Chalamet show was the greatest SBIFF interview hang EVER…hilarious, honest, surreal, liberating.
“James Mangold called it ‘the Phil Donahue show’. I for one laughed and whooped my ass off. You were brilliant!! Your repeated jokes about Timothee’s green floral-print shirt were perfect, and when he left to take a leak…”that is art”…I almost fell out of my seat.
“In a way Mangold kind of brought everyone down with his par-for-the-course praisings. He was fine and eloquent, but you and Timmy were on a whole ‘nother level. You were on mescaline!”
Brolin replies to HE: “Jeffrey! So glad you had a nice time. I knew Timmy and I would [enjoy some] nice, real (if not quite mescaline-infused) banter. I was honored to do it.”
HE back to Brolin: “Not to mention Timmy lamenting the ticking of the clock at age 29 and the career pressure that comes with his being on the cusp of old guy-hood. Which will kick in, you remarked, when Timmy turns 31.’.
”This prompted you, of course, to joshingly imply resentment at this while announcing that your 57th birthday is imminent (actually today!…happy birthday!). Followed by Timmy and the entire Arlington audience singing the proverbial song…a truly joyful moment.
”The audience and I didn’t have a ‘nice’ time — we had a euphoric time. Last night will live in the SBIFF annals.
”I absolutely love that you sent your reply to my initial euphoric email at 4:10 am.
”Forgive me for not having not read ‘From Under The Truck’ yet. I meant to buy it after watching you talk about it on Joe Rogan.”
Scowly-faced Kris Tapley is basically asking “if Anora is locked in for Best Picture, why on earth would Mikey Madison not win the Best Actress Oscar?”
HE answer: I’ve said this two or three times but it has to be drilled in. Demi Moore is apparently going to win because SAG and AMPAS members have all accepted the narrative voiced by Moore after winning a Best Comedy/Musical Actress Golden Globe award five weeks ago (i.e., January 5th).
“Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a ‘popcorn actress,’ and at that time, I [took] that to mean that…I could do movies that were successful and made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged, and I bought in and I believed that,” Moore said. “That corroded me over time, to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it, maybe I was complete, maybe I had done what I was supposed to do.
“And [just] as I was at kind of a low point, I had this magical, bold, courageous, out-of-the-box, absolutely bonkers script come across my desk called The Substance. And the universe told me that ‘you’re not done.’”
For the sixth or seventh time, Moore’s narrative is dishonest. She was not forced into a popcorn box by mean old Hollywood executives. She walked right into that box of her own volition, and she totally reaped the spoils (mainstream fame, huge paychecks, flush lifestyle) until she aged out. And then she pivoted into a body horror flick just like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford pivoted into hag horror in the early ’60s.
In the ’80s and ’90s Moore went for big, attention-getting, high-paying roles in mainstream films, and she became rich and famous from this. She chose this path while the choosing was good.
I’ve never read or heard that Moore tried to prove her arthouse mettle by appearing in edgy Sundance films, and she never tried to be in a critically-approved, Cannes-worthy, outside-the-box feminist statement film, and certainly not in a body-horror film.
She only took the lead in The Substance when she calculated that she’d aged out (duhhh) and a role like this was her only likely shot at revitalizing her career.
Everyone knows by now that TheBrutalist and Brady Corbet are finished as far as the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars are concerned…nice try, you’re not winning, maybe next time.
What this portends, unfortunately, is that the remaining Brutalist sympathizers will be voting to hand the Best Actor Oscar to Adrien Brody as a make-up.
This is a really misguided idea, of course, as the lead performances by Conclave’s Ralph Fiennes and ACompleteUnknownTimothee Chalamet are far more transporting than Brody’s…please, c’mon.
In my book, Brody’s boo-hoo weeping scene at the bus station with Alessandro Nivola…this scene alone requires instant Oscar disqualification.
Sean Baker (1:04 mark): “Writing is the hardest [part of the process] for me. I think it’s…when you’re alone and you’re just breaking [into] a story and you don’t know if it’s something that’ll work…it’s torture, absolute torture.”
And I, the beast of Hollywood Elsewhere burden, endure a form of this torture (obviously not the same as Baker’s but somewhat similar) every damn day. If you don’t think that takes a spiritual toll, think again.
This Scott Feinberg-moderated discussion happened last night in Santa Barbara’s Arlington theatre. The event was called the Outstanding Directors Award Group Discussion & Awards Presentation. Baker, Jacques Audiard, James Mangold, Brady Corbet, Coraline Fergeat.
On the other hand, Jennifer Lawrence (aka J-Law) was on a fairly hot roll for three years, starting with Winter’s Bone (’10) and cresting with her Oscar-winning performance in the phenomenally on-target and commercially successful Silver Linings Playbook (’12), written and directed by David O. Russell.
But that was it — a charmed career path that lasted three years.
From 2013 onward or over the last 12 years, Lawrence has been more or less plotzing…treading water, in-and-out, hit-and-miss. She’s been in two or three good films, but the lucky-streak period ended with Playbook, her last big critical and commercial hit. She’s been doing “okay” but the career has kinda been poking and lurching along.
The three Hunger Games films were commercially successful but critically loathed. Russell’s American Hustle enjoyed critical and commercial approval but lacked that special euphoric spark. Lawrence’s X-Men films…give me a break. Susanne Bier‘s Serena (’14) was a bust. Russell’s Joy (’15) felt like a miss or even a semi-fizzle. And then along came Morten Tyldum‘s Passengers (’16), which succeeded commercially but was hated by people with taste…a critical Hindenburg.
Darren Aronofsky‘s mother! (’17) was a powerful art-horror film (heartily approved by HE) but almost everyone hated it. Red Sparrow (’18) was a modest hit and a critical flop. Dark Phoenix…later. Adam McKay‘s Don’t Look Up (Netflix) was critically applauded but failed to really catch on culturally or awards-wise. Lila Neugebauer‘s Causeway (’18 — Lawrence’s wokey, low-rent New Orleans film) was critically upvoted but otherwise felt like a whiff.
In my book Gene Stupnitsky‘s No Hard Feelings (’23) was Lawrence’s best comedy since Silver Linings Playbook. Her next film is Lynne Ramsay‘s Die, My Love, a dark comedy.
It’s been 13 years since Silver Linings Playbook connected across-the-board. If she wants to maintain her Lawrence-ness, J-Law needs to hit another homer or at least a triple. She can’t just star in movies that are semi-liked or which perform fairly well. She needs to really tag one.
I’ve noted before that most name-brand directors, producers and actors enjoy 12-year streaks when everything is cooking and breaking their way. Some directors and actors are lucky enough to last 15 or 20 years or even longer.
Dustin Hoffman is an exception to this general rule in that (a) he enjoyed a serious 15-year hot streak from The Graduate (’67) to Tootsie (’82), and then (b) he kept things going on an in-and-out-basis for another 10 years if you ignore Ishtar (’87) and start with Rain Man (’88) and finish with Wag the Dog (’97).
So if you want to be liberal or forgiving by erasing Ishtar, Hoffman actually revelled in a 25-year hot streak, which puts him alongside Meryl Streep (40 years), Martin Scorsese (half-century), Alfred Hitchcock (23 years), Steven Soderbergh (23 years), John Ford (27 years) and John Wayne(37 years).
You also have to give Hoffman credit for delivering a pair of ace performances in 2004’s I Heart Huckabees and Meet the Fockers.
Hoffman’s initial golden streak contained 11 or 12 really good films: The Graduate (’67), Midnight Cowboy (’69), Little Big Man (’70), Straw Dogs (’71), Papillon (’73), Lenny (’74), All the President’s Men (’76), Marathon Man (’76), Straight Time (’78), Agatha (’79…decent, not great), Kramer vs. Kramer (’79), Tootsie (’82).
The mixed second streak (10 years) contained nine films: Rain Man (’88), Dick Tracy (’90), Billy Bathgate (’91), Hook (’91…REALLY BAD), Hero (’92…problematic), Outbreak (’96), Sleepers (’96), American Buffalo (’96), Mad City (’96) and Wag the Dog (’97)
For what it’s worth this 190-minute western feels a tad more engaging than Horizon: Chapter 1, which I caught in Cannes last May. But it’s more or less the same bowl of scenic, big-swing lethargy soup, and that ain’t cause for joyful celebration. I’m sorry but it’s just not.
Seven months ago (i.e., early last July) I wrote that unless Horizon 2 significantly improves upon the sprawling and sluggish initial installment and delivers something that feels whole and alluring and thematically fulfilling, he should probably forget about Parts 3 and 4.
Alas, Chapter 2 makes the same kind of mistakes that Chapter 1 did — it kinda moseys around and half-assedly hopscotches and fritters away story tension. Too damn slow, too clop-cloppy, almost zero urgency in terms making it all come together.
Chapter 2 is mostly about the women — it’s a rough-and-tumble film about open-range feminism. Sienna Miller‘s Frances Kittredge, Ella Hunt‘s Juliette Chesney, Isabelle Fuhrman‘s Diamond Kittredge, Abbey Lee‘s Marigold, Kathleen Quinlan‘s Annie Pine…but for God’s sake don’t ask me to recount their disparate storylines. I don’t want to think about them, talk about them, write about them…leave me alone. It’s taken too damn long to sit through these two films, and I’m damn sure not going to invest even more hours trying to neatly summarize them on the Macbook.
It really and truly breaks my heart to say all this. I love Costner as a man of character, consequence and sincerity, and I truly worship some of the films he’s directed and starred in. Open Range especially.
In my original Cannes review, I wrote that I was so bummed after seeing the first installment that “if a friend had offered a couple of snorts of Vietnamese heroin, I would have followed him right into the bathroom.”
Serious cinema in the classic western mode, especially when you’re talking about two movies running three hours each, is about delivering a solid, well-strategized, self-contained story with emotional currents. It needs to deliver a beginning, a middle and hopefully a bull’s-eye ending. Horizon Chapter 1 didn’t do that, and neither has Chapter 2. They both mainly plant seeds by introducing characters along with the beginnings or continuings of six or seven story lines. In so doing they refuse to deliver a serious, nutritional, stand-alone meal…the kind of thing most of us want to see.
Think of the huge, sprawling, emotional story that Red River told, and it did so in 133 minutes
Costner said last May that Horizon “is a journey…it’s not a plot movie.”
