From David Thomson‘s “New Biographical Dictionary of Film (Sixth Edition)“: “Sterling Hayden always looked shy of glossy stardom, more his own master than the smile-flexing Flynns and Powers. At his best, Hayden was solid, weathered and fatalistic: a taciturn, gangling John Hamilton, as calm as a Melville sailor who had seen great sights and was puzzled by the need to talk of them.

“Three times that placid strength was invoked: as the horse-loving perfectionist in The Asphalt Jungle (’50, John Huston); as the stranger in Johnny Guitar (’53, Nicholas Ray), deliberating over the operatic dialogue of that film; as the organizer in The Killing (’56, Stanley Kubrick), finally dismayed by the dollar bills winnowed in aircraft slipstream.”

Originally posted on 11.14.10: “A Wiltonian whom I came to know in the late ’70s, Hayden was a fascinating, hungry, obviously vulnerable fellow, insecure and ridden with guilt about naming names in the ’50s, jolly or surly depending on the time of day, very singular, a great contentious bear of a man, always the thinker, certainly a poet or a man trying all the time to be one, a man of the sea and a boy in some ways.

“There are the rote facts of life, the plain material truth of things, and then there are the currents within. The singing angels, the demons, the fireflies, the banshees, the echoes, the dreams…the vague sense of a continuing infinite scheme and how we fit into that.

Possibly the best sentence I’ve ever written: “We all define our lives as a constant mixing of these two aspects, but the charm and final value of a person, for me, is about how much he/she seems to be dealing with the interior world, and how much he/she comments and refers to those currents and laughs about them, and basically lives on the flow of that realm.

A day or two ago HE’s own Kim Morgan visited the two-story Kensington residence of Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville, at 153 Cromwell Road.

I wouldn’t live there myself — noisy traffic, too many hotels. I’m more of a Russell Square type of guy, or, if you want to be really precise, the corner building at 16 Bedford Way. Has anyone ever strolled around Russell Square on a moderately cool fall day? God lives there.

I would also be okay with living at George Smiley‘s townhouse at 9 Bywater Street in Chelsea.

If you were young when Reality Bites opened on 2.18.94, or exactly 24 years ago, you’re presumably aware that whatever qualities you had that were nervy and attuned and extra-potent in the early Clinton era…well, you know. Time is a killer or at least a diminisher. Everything fades, hairlines recede, midsections spread. The Millennials have already made way for Generation Z. You’ve presumably moved ahead in your field but biologically speaking you’re in the middle of the line, slightly ahead of GenX. Yeah, the boomers can go fuck themselves

Life is generally cruel but especially so in the film industry, and the brutal fact is that two of the principals in this scene are still kicking and thriving but a third is…well, doing okay.

Winona Ryder, who seemed to make a kind of comeback in Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan (’10), was around 22 when Reality Bites was filmed. She’d been a brand-name actress since Beetlejuice and Heathers popped in ’88 and early ’89, when she was 17 and 18. She was great opposite Daniel Day Lewis in Nicholas Hytner‘s The Crucible (’96) but things haven’t been the same since the ’01 shoplifting thing and the four-year-hiatus that followed. She’s doing fine today, but the peak years are memories in a jar.

Ethan Hawke, whose hair is now streaked with gray and whose physique has become pudgy, is my idea of a creatively thriving indie-god hyphenate. His most recent directorial effort was the Sundance ’18 hit Blaze. Hawke is a pusher and a puncher, and seemingly tireless. That final argument scene with Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater‘s Before Midnight (’13) was legendary. He was superb in in the 2004 off-Broadway stage production of David Rabe‘s Hurlyburly and staggering in the ’06 Lincoln Center production of Tom Stoppard‘s Coast of Utopia trilogy, which I saw with Santa Barbara Film festival honcho Roger Durling.

Hollywood Elsewhere will tramp, tramp, tramp and chant, chant, chant for the Los Angeles version of the nationwide MARCH FOR OUR LIVES demonstration on Saturday, 3.24. Local organizers haven’t gotten their act together yet — they haven’t even launched a Facebook page — while Sacramento and Santa Cruz are already up and rolling. Slackers.

One of the following four movie-related images doesn’t quite belong, quality-wise or stature-wise, with the other three. Oh, and the image that doesn’t fit probably (I’m not 100% certain) has something to do with a liking for Donald Trump and most definitely tennis-ball haircuts. Take a wild guess.

“Nobody played the role of movie star in the 1970s with more confidence than Burt Reynolds. Even as his choice of vehicles grew so indiscriminate as to gradually erode his box office appeal, he still radiated swagger, that ever-present smirk suggesting he — and we — knew it was all a put-on anyway.

“Perhaps the problem was that it was just too good an act: Burt Reynolds gave such excellent ‘Burt Reynolds’ on talk shows, in interviews and other forums that the public saw little point in continuing to fork out cash money to see him do the same thing in yet another mediocre, derivative big-screen comedy or thriller. He didn’t take enough risks, and the few times he did were misfires or weren’t appreciated enough. Few stars achieved such massive popularity while retaining a sense of unrealized potential.

“It’s a bittersweet legacy that writer-director Adam Rifkin aims to pay affectionate tribute to in The Last Movie Star (A24, 3.30) which has been retitled by U.S. distributor A24 after playing initial festival dates as Dog Years.

I always knew Marlon Brando indulged in same-sex intrigues from time to time (eons ago the late Dennis Wilson told me that Brando once suggested a little hotel-room action) but for some reason I can’t handle the idea of Brando doing Richard Pryor. It just hasn’t gone down well. I think it’s more about Pryor as a lust object than anything else. Or Pryor undressed, to be honest. It just doesn’t feel right. So I’ve been watching a series of Brando YouTube clips to try and, no offense, flush out certain images.

Hollywood Elsewhere is looking to expand its sales effort by hiring an enterprising, eager-beaver, bushy-tailed go-getter to augment off-season ad sales (mid-March to early October). But you’d have to know the theatrical-Bluray-streaming ad realm to some extent. You can’t be too wet behind the ears. Our first instinct would be to hire either N.Y. Times movie critic Glenn Kenny or former MTV movie guy Kurt Loder, as either one of these two gentlemen would bring a certain class and erudition to the task. Failing that, HE is serious about this opportunity for the right candidate. It’s a decent opportunity for a little extra dough on the side. Fire off an email to seanj048@gmail.com.

When I first learned to shoot pool I used the standard left-index-finger-over-the-cue-stick method. 90% or 95% of players do the same. Obviously because the left-finger wraparound keeps the stick steadier and the aim more precise. But somewhere along the way I decided to become a flathand player, mainly because I thought it looked cooler. I haven’t played with any regularity since my early 20s, but since I became a flathand guy my playing has been somewhere between mediocre and embarassing. I was a better pool player when I was 18 (I used to play with my friends all the time) than I am today. When I think of what I could’ve become…

Same thing with drawing. I used to be a half-decent sketch artist from age 8 or 9 until I was 15 or 16, but then I stopped developing. Today I’m no better at drawing faces or figures than I was in mid teens. If you’re half-decent at something when you’re fairly young (piano, dancing, acting, violin, gymnastics, painting), you have to stay with it in order to become better and better. Failing to do so is a shame. Hell, it’s a sin.

via GIPHY

I was going to title this post “Dunkirk‘s Last Stand” because in my heart of hearts, I believe that Chris Nolan‘s WWII epic is far superior to either Three Billboards or The Shape of Water, and that God would almost certainly step in and deliver a BAFTA win if he/she/it existed. And that’s not a dismissal of the grand visions of Martin McDonagh or Guillermo del Toro — just a statement of what I regard to be obvious artistic fact.

1:28 Pacific Update: Three Billboards has kicked gill-man’s ass to the ground by taking the BAFTA Best Film Award. What this means, I suspect, is that Martin McDonagh‘s hinterland drama will ride the BAFTA momentum into the Oscar voting, and will wind up winning the Academy Award for, at the very least, Best Original Screenplay. Which will leave the wildly overpraised Get Out high and dry. Three Billboards also won for Best Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell), Outstanding British Film and Best Original Screenplay.

We all know that Shape of Water is locked for the Best Picture and Best Director Oscar, and that’s fine. God is content with that outcome.

Sam Fuller‘s Hyman Roth was a little too warm, too kindly, too paternal. Lee Strasberg was a bit colder and snappier, and that’s what the part needed. Especially during that bare-chested “this is the business we’ve chosen!” speech in that Havana hotel room. Still, Fuller’s performance in this audition/read-through for The Godfather, Part II wasn’t half bad. (Posted six years ago by Heiko van der Scherm.)