Eccentric, Small-Realm, Cave-Dwelling Wizard

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Last weekend David Fincher visited South by Southwest to talk about Love, Death and Robots (Netflix, 3.15), an “anthology animated short series made by different artists from around the world” blah blah.

I’m a stone worshipper of Mindhunter, the 2017 series that Fincher produced and partly directed (and which will re-launch with a second season later this year), and I definitely enjoyed the Fincher-produced House of Cards for the first couple of seasons. But I wouldn’t watch Love, Death and Robots with a knife at my back. Because in my mind an “anthology animation short” series is Otto Ludwig Piffle…take-it-or-leave-it esoterica for animation oddballs and navel gazers and guys who avoid sunlight and regular pedicures, and who look and behave like Pete Davidson and wear skeleton-feet sneakers.

Remember the old David Fincher? The guy who was one of the most dynamic, innovative, forward-reaching directors of narrative features (on the level of Soderbergh, Cuaron, Inarritu and Kubrick) and who was slugging it out in the boxing ring and at least trying to make stuff that really mattered? That Fincher has now retreated into a kind of Netflix cave. He hasn’t made a theatrical feature in over four years, close to five. The good but vaguely underwhelming Gone Girl (’14) was his last theatrical effort.

If you ignore Alien 3 (which I advise everyone to do), Fincher was on the feature-film stick for 19 years, and made four world-class knockouts — Seven (’95), Fight Club (’99), Zodiac (’07) and The Social Network (’10). He also made four above-average, stylistically-striking popcorn films — The Game, Panic Room, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. I’m not calling The Curious Case of Benjamin Button a stinker, but I’ll never, ever watch it again.

Why is Fincher more or less hiding in his little Netflix cave? He’s following his heart and his muse, and I’m sure that’s a satisfying place to be, but what about the devout fan base (i.e., persons like myself?) It’s like Fincher has decided he can’t be “David Fincher” any more…like that was a phase and now he’s past it.

He obviously no longer believes in theatrical narratives. Because Hollywood itself no longer believes in same, and because the zombie executives won’t greenlight anything even remotely original, and because Fincher won’t make formulaic crap. And so he’s operating out of his own little creative bunker. He’s not even doing a Soderbergh — making modest but original features, working with Netflix but exploring new distribution schemes, shooting on iPhones, etc. He’s working and living in a realm that allows for creative freedom, but the absence of the old Fincher breaks my heart.

If Fincher is trying to get anything made in the realm of narrative features, I haven’t heard of it. Has he totally bailed or is there something he’s developing that might actually become something? I’m asking.

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Trembling Shuddering Mouse

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Woody Allen used to play wimpy guys like Casey Davies, except the temporary karate class remedy would be dispensed with in a first-act montage and then Allen would move on to the actual story. Now “the karate class” is the whole thing. You can feel the thin-ness, the micro-focus.

Directed and written by Riley Stearns, The Art of Self-Defense (Bleecker Street, 6.21) costars Jesse Eisenberg, Alessandro Nivola and Imogen Poots. No interest, zip, forget it. That look of intimidation of Eisenberg’s face = later.

No Way In Hell

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The slogan on those Long Shot posters reads “unlikely but not impossible.” Obviously the marketers behind this political-minded Seth Rogen-Charlize Theron romantic comedy (Lionsgate, 5.3) know they have a tough sell on their hands.

Theron plays Charlotte Field, a 40ish Secretary of State planning a run for the White House, and Rogen plays Fred Flarsky, a political journalist whom Theron hires to be her speechwriter, in part because she babysat for him “20 years earlier,” according to one review.

You think? In real life Rogen is 37 going on 55. He didn’t need a babysitter when he was 17 — Theron more likely babysat him 25 or 30 years ago, when he was 12 or 7. A quarter century ago Theron was 18 — a perfect babysitting age.

Long Shot screened last night at South by Southwest. Sight unseen, Hollywood Elsewhere agrees with Peter Debruge’s skepticism about this bizarre romantic pairing.

Debruge: “There are two high-concept male fantasies operating here: There’s the one in which a man-child finally gets to seduce the sexy babysitter, interwoven with another about the chances that the country’s most gorgeous/powerful woman — ‘I dreamed I was president in my Maidenform bra’ — might risk it all to be with someone like Flarsky.

“The odds? The movie’s new title says it all.

“More creepy than romantic, more chauvinist than empowered — and in all fairness, funnier and more entertaining than any comedy in months — Long Shot serves up the far-fetched wish-fulfillment fantasy of how, for one lucky underdog, pursuing your first love could wind up making you first man.

“Granted, society’s notion of what kind of romances are deemed acceptable is shifting awfully fast, so I could be wrong about this.. [But] there’s an alarming disconnect [in] whatever unconventional sex appeal Field sees in [Flarsky].

“If the sexes were reversed, Rogen would be the dumpy girl with curly hair and glasses waiting for his mid-movie makeover. But because Flarsky’s a dude, he doesn’t have to change at all; it’s Field who has to make all the concessions to be with him — which would surely be a point of contention in a properly engaged satire.”

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Davidson Still Has To Answer For Those Skeleton-Foot Sneakers

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I’ve been to the Musee Picasso twice in Paris, and while “Guernica” was hanging at MOMA I stood before it at least two or three times. How did I manage to enjoy these experiences, knowing what kind of a fuck Pablo Picasso was with his wives and lovers?

Simple — I put the bad stuff in a wooden box. It’s called compartmentalizing.

Same deal while watching Alfred Hitchcock films. How can I enjoy The Birds while knowing what Hitchcock put poor Tippi Hedren through during filming? Just shut it out. I’ve heard stories about others but I won’t go there. I can do this all night long.

History constantly reminds that a lot of famous, talented people have treated others cruelly, brusquely or otherwise brought pain or trauma into their lives. I wish it didn’t go with the territory but it seems to. Not always but often enough.

Instant Car Associations

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1966 dark green Mustang fastback (Steve McQueen, Bullitt); 1964 light-green Aston Martin (Sean Connery, Goldfinger); 1938 Plymouth DeLuxe (Humphrey Bogart, The Big Sleep and High Sierra); 1977 Pontiac Trans Am (Burt Reynolds, Smokey and the Bandit), 1963 Volkswagen Beetle (The Love Bug)…I don’t care about this. Not a big car guy. But I do hate the idea of Middle Eastern corporate architecture.

Maneater, May-September, etc.

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From N.Y. Post “Page Six” story by Derrick Bryson Taylor: Memes floating across social media show Kate Beckinsale, 45, and Pete Davidson, 25, engaged in some serious lip-locking while Queer Eye star Antoni Porowski awkwardly sits next to them. One meme shows Beckinsale in the middle with a caption over Davidson reading, ‘Guys with problems from childhood whom I can ‘fix.’” A caption over Poroswki reads, “Wholesome guys with good paying jobs who text back and have no baggage.” Beckinsale commented on it saying, “Antoni is gay, if that helps clarify at all #queereye.”

HE comment #1: The fact that Beckinsale openly (if very briefly) considered the idea of boning Porowski tells you she’s theoretically open to other potential boyfriends, which should give Davidson pause. HE comment #2: Davidson’s tattoos are appalling, absurd. (Especially that amateurish heart tattoo behind his ear.) And his fashion sense! Anyone who would wear skeleton sneakers with pink socks…forget it. I give this relationship another month or two, at most.

Beto Does SXSW

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David Modigliani‘s Running with Beto, a behind-the-scenes look at Beto O’Rourke‘s rise to political fame and Senatorial campaign against Ted Cruz, just had its big debut at South by Southwest. It’s a good film, apparently. O’Rourke (who is definitely taking his sweet-ass time about formally announcing his Presidential candidacy) showed up after it ended, answered questions, etc. Pic will debut on HBO on 5.28.

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Beware of SXSW Hosannas

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Yesterday Jordan Peele‘s Us (Universal, 3.22) was universally praised after debuting at South by Southwest. I’ve read three or four reviews and it definitely sounds good. However — and this is a big “however” — you can’t trust SXSW critics. They’re too genre-friendly, too geekboy, too determined to celebrate Austin world premieres, too invested in identity politics, too caught up in the under-40 hipster narrative. The only way you can be really sure is after Hollywood Elsewhere and other discerning types have had a looksee. Critics who know their stuff and never modify their views for political reasons. I’m not saying I won’t also be impressed by Us — I may well be — but hold your horses until the hardcores have had their say.

Dargis vs. “Triple Frontier”

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Triple Frontier, you’ll recall, is about five commando types robbing tens of millions from a South American drug dealer. I wrote…hell, everyone wrote that it doesn’t pay off until the second half, which is when things start to go badly and it becomes a grueling ordeal mixed with a Treasure of Sierre Madre-like parable about greed. That’s the all of it, the point of it — how greed leads to death and self-destruction.

In short without the second half Triple Frontier isn’t much — a sturdy if unexceptional heist film.

Manohla Dargis‘s N.Y. Times review doesn’t even allude to the second half. She describes the basic situation, the characters, the opening gun battle in a city in “South Americaville,” the reluctant process by which the five thieves (Oscar Isaac, Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, Pedro Pascal) agree to take part in the robbery, the dense and humid jungle atmosphere, etc.

But she doesn’t even cast a sidewqys glance at how it all pays off. She doesn’t even say “the story takes a downward turn later on,” etc. She was so unimpressed that she ignored the basic story strategy.

There’s a moment during the second half that I’ll never forget — when a section of a winding mountain path gives way and a donkey, loaded down with bags of loot, goes tumbling down a steep grade with the currency floating in the air and scattered to the four winds. I’ll never forget this scene for the rest of my life.

Does Triple Frontier stand up to the famous Howard Hawks standard — “three great scenes and no bad ones”? Perhaps not, but it has at least two great scenes (the chopper crash and the donkey), and that’s something.