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.
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?
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. Timesreported 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.
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.
Hollywood Elsewhere presumes that a Starsky and Hutch version of a BlacKKKlansman poster was created to inform “conservative” rural types that Spike Lee‘s film is a salt-and-pepper two-hander. I only noticed this poster last weekend — created for the British market.
Last night Showbiz 411‘s Roger Freidmanbroke the sad news about the imminent passing of Aretha Franklin. The 76 year-old soul singer has been grappling with cancer for some time now, and is reportedly not far from walking across the footbridge. I’m very sorry. HE hugs and heartfelt condolences to family, friends and fans.
It’s not the time to discuss business matters, but down the road it would be wonderful to finally see Sydney Pollack‘s Amazing Grace, a never-released 1972 doc about Aretha Franklin performing gospel tunes inside a Los Angeles church. The doc almost appeared at the 2015 Telluride Film Festival, but the showing was blocked by an injunction filed by Franklin’s attorney. Some mucky-muck about rights or revenue sharing or something in that realm.
Franklin’s gospel concert, performed inside L.A.’s New Temple Missionary Baptist Church (So. Broadway near 87th Place), happened 46 and 2/3 years ago. Pollack shot over 20 hours of 16mm footage and had hoped to put the film out in concert with Franklin’s Amazing Grace album. But a release never happened due to music rights issues or some other monetary hangup.
Franklin’s performances happened on Thursday, 1.13.72 and Friday, 1.14.72. A double platinum album was released about six months later. Amazing Grace is still Franklin’s biggest seller ever.
Had it not been for a recent Steven Gaydos tweet, I never would’ve even considered re-watching The First Deadly Sin, which I recall being a doleful, partly unbelievable detective-hunts-serial-killer flick. An above-average Frank Sinatra performance — his last starring role and a kind of companion piece to his New York cop role in The Detective (’68).
“Sinatra who plays this role close to his chest, and who looks and acts very touchingly like a tired old cop on the threshold of retirement,” Roger Ebert wrote on 10.30.80. “We can empathize with him, and that’s partly because he resists any temptation to give us a reprise of those wisecracking wiseasses he played in the 1960s. This is a new performance, built from the ground up.”
There’s no First Deadly Sin Bluray or HD streaming option, but there’s a 480p version streaming from Amazon, and in a 1.37 aspect ratio. Boxy Sinatra is beautiful.
I have about six or seven umbrellas in the WeHo pad, but I rarely get to use them. Serious rainstorms don’t happen much in Los Angeles, and so my mantra has always been “I love it when it rains…good for the city, good for the reservoirs and everything smells good when it ends.” The northeast corridor, on the other hand, has been waterlogged for the last three weeks or so, and I’m starting to get really sick of it, sick of it, sick of it. The current forecast is that another monsoon has begun, and that it won’t clear until mid-week. The after-aroma smells better in this woodsy environment than it does in West Hollywood, but I’ve had enough.
