Not Even One Zvyagintsev?

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Yesterday BBC Culture posted a list of the 100 best foreign-language films of all time, based on a poll of 209 snooty, stodgy critics. At once well chosen and at the same time rote and droopy. The majority of the 209 are probably composed of two overlapping groups — (a) dweebs and (b) crusty, know-it-all types who are beholden to standard group-default thinking as well as their own pasts, prejudices and peculiarities and blah, blah. Don’t expect me to drop to my knees when they pass by.

All you can really say is that 209 knowledgable but flawed people chose their personal foreign-language favorites because they don’t want their colleagues to think they don’t respect the classics or that they’re knee-jerk revisionists or in some way unseasoned or scholastically incorrect, so they played it safe.

Asghar Farhadi‘s A Separation is in 21st place, fine, but where the hell is Andrey Zvagintsev‘s Leviathan? Akira Kurosawa‘s Seven Samurai is #1, but I’ve never found it that wonderful. (I’ve always preferred John Sturges 1960 remake, to be honest. And I don’t care what anyone thinks of this preference either, and if they don’t like it they can blow me.) Jules Dassin‘s note-perfect Rififi is only the 91st most popular? Seems to me it deserves to be among the top 25 or 30. Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou made the list? I popped in the Bluray a couple of years ago and couldn’t get through it.

The 209 know what they know and believe what they believe, but they aren’t kings or princes or even poets. I’ll bet a good portion of them are underpaid and vaguely pissed off. I’ll bet they wear glasses and baggy pants, and have neck wattles and don’t work out that much. I’ll bet they always go to the discount section when they visit the local Barnes and Noble.

Tell ‘Em, Alan

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There’s something true and straight and inarguable about a 96 year-old guy just laying it down and saying “c’mon, Americans…what is this?”

The title of this post refers to Carl Reiner having created and written The Dick Van Dyke Show, which is about a comedy writer (Van Dyke) who worked for “Alan Brady,” the Sid Caesar-like star of The Alan Brady Show. Reiner worked as a writer for Ceasar’s Your Show of Shows (’50 to ’54) and Caesar’s Hour (’54 to ’57).

Sound-Alike, Look-Alike

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I’m sorry but the first thing I thought of when I saw the new Avatar logo was the white TriStar horse with the big wings. Two flying horse-shaped beasts. They not only look alike but they both end in an “ahhr” sound. What was so awful about the Avatar sanskrit logo?

I can’t believe Jim Cameron is intending to deliver four Avatar sequels…four! The effort will consume him for at least the next seven years, not counting promotion. Why? So he can make more billions and…what, sink the dough into more underwater research?? The decent thing would have been to make two more sequels — no more.

Wikiboilerplate: “Two sequels to Avatar were initially confirmed after the success of the first film; this number was subsequently expanded to four. Their respective release dates are currently December 18, 2020, December 17, 2021, December 20, 2024, and December 19, 2025.

“Cameron is directing, producing and co-writing all four; Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver and Shane Salerno all took a part in the writing process of all of the sequels before being assigned to finish the separate scripts, making the eventual writing credits for each film unclear.”

“Lady & The Tramp” Wrapping Soon in Savannah

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A live-action CG-hybrid version of Lady and the Tramp was shooting in the Chippewa Square region of Savannah yesterday. The Disney production, which is calling itself Goodbye Stranger for some reason, had de-aged the area with the surrounding streets covered in soil. I noticed a dog-catcher wagon parked near the northern fence. Filming began on 9.10 and is expected to end on 11.7, or a week from today. The voice actors are Tessa Thompson (Lady), Justin Theroux (Tramp), Janelle Monae, Ashley Jensen, Benedict Wong, Sam Elliott, Kiersey Clemons.

HE to a couple of heavyish, middle-aged production guys standing around: “What’s the show? Is it…?”
Employee #1: “It’s not a show — it’s a movie.”
Employee #2: “An animated movie.”
HE: “Well, whenever something is shooting in New York or Los Angeles they call it a ‘show.'”
Employee #2: “It’s called Goodbye Stranger.”
HE: “I heard it was Lady and the Tramp.”
Employee #1: “For now it’s Goodbye Stranger.”
HE: “Okay.”

Final Comparison

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Despite clear evidence to the contrary, a couple of readers were still insisting a couple of days ago that WHE’s forthcoming 4K 2001: A Space Odyssey Bluray (11.20) is based upon the unrestored Chris Nolan nostalgia version that played in theatres last summer. That dog doesn’t hunt any more. Because it’s really, obviously not.

I agree that the Nolan authorship seemed apparent last June when WHE publicists told the world that the 4K version had been “built on the work done for the new 70mm prints” (i.e., Nolan’s yellow and teal-tinted version that premiered in Cannes). Then they double-confirmed this by releasing a 4K disc trailer that contained the dreaded yellowish-teal tinting. But somewhere along the road WHE honcho Ned Price got cold feet and decided to deliver a 4K Bluray that would present Stanley Kubrick‘s classic as it actually looked when it opened in 1968. Go figure.

The evidence is indisputable in these Discovery-tunnel comparison shots — one from the Nolan, the other from the 4K.


“Yellow peril” Nolan version.

From Bill Hunt’s pixel-capturing of 4K disc.

Bring The Ugly

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Make no mistake — President Trump is just as responsible for last weekend’s synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh as if he pulled the trigger himself. He might have similarly licked the stamps for Cesar Sayoc as he prepared his manila MAGAbomb envelopes for the post office. Six days ago Trump more or less goaded Gregory Bush to try and shoot up a predominantly black Louisville church — when Bush couldn’t get in he shot and killed two African Americans at a supermarket.

There’s simply no way to credibly deny that Trump isn’t the orchestrator, ringleader and rank spiritual father of all this hate and horror. And I guess given this state of affairs, I’m a little disappointed that only a thousand people gathered this afternoon near the Tree of Life synagogue as Donald, Melania, Ivanka and Jared visited the synagogue to pay their respects and blah blah. Seems like an insufficient response to an obviously odious political charade.

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Hollywood Halloween

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Below is a shot of Indiewire film honcho Eric Kohn (black suit, shades) and a group of Halloween revelers in standard Kubrick-tribute garb (The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, Full Metal Jacket, etc.). I’m more into jack-o-lantern minimalism — for the last couple of years I’ve worn a simple leather face mask that I bought in Venice, Italy.

But if I wanted to wear a serious Kubrick-inspired outfit and if I had the time and the extra scratch, I would waltz around Savannah as either (a) Peter Sellers‘ President Merkin Muffley in Dr. Strangelove (bald head cap, glasses, gray suit and tie with three-pointed handkerchief), (b) Sellers’ Dr. Strangelove himself (wheelchair, glasses, light brown upswept hair, shiny black glove on right hand) or (c) Kirk Douglas‘ Colonel Dax in Paths of Glory (French officer military outfits, steel helmet, knee-high boots, metal whistle around neck).


Kohn and the gang.

Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove

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Full Submission, Same Deal

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Last night I saw all of Karyn Kusama‘s Destroyer (Annapurna, 12.25) — the whole 123-minute package. And I felt just as dismayed and under-nourished as I did after catching the first 90 minutes worth in Telluride (“Pains of Hell,” 9.1.18).

I was kicked, beaten up, spat upon and slapped around for walking out before my Telluride screening ended, but my assessment this morning is exactly the same. It’s still a nihilistic, dispiriting renegade-cop noir that is mainly about how Nicole Kidman‘s burnt-out-zombie makeup.

It’s stylistically impressive — Kusama does well by the rules and expectations of the urban cop genre — but pretentious and labored, and at least 20 minutes too long.

Kidman plays Erin Bell, a wasted, walking-dead Los Angeles detective trying to settle some bad business and save her daughter from a life of crime and misery. And I’m sorry but the verdict is the same — she gives a fully-invested performance but at least 75% of Kidman’s dialogue disappears into the ether because she whispers it in a kind of raspy, breathy, throat-cancer tone of voice.

Every so often I would hear a word or make out a phrase, but the only way I’m going to fully understand what Bell was saying is when I watch Destroyer with subtitles. And no, it’s not my hearing. It’s Kusama telling Kidman “go ahead, do the raspy, whispery thing…I like it.”

Okay, the ending is reasonably satisfying — it ties the story together by linking back to the opening scene. I said to myself “okay, not bad…a decent way to wrap things up.”

Last night’s Savannah Film Festival screening happened at the SCAD Trustees theatre on Broughton. I left with a sense of completion and satisfaction. For I am perceptive enough to recognize a problematic film without seeing it all the way to the end. The 90 minutes that I experienced in Telluride were not and are not substantially different than the full-boat version that I saw last night.

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