I’ve never known my film critic pals to be anything but sharp, knowledgeable, inquisitive, highly charged. But Francois Truffaut was on to something when he suggested during one of the “Hitchcock-Truffaut” discussions that imagination might not be among their strong suits. Paradoxically or not so paradoxically, my imagination got in my way when I was trying to launch myself as a film critic back in the late ’70s. I tried to sound like a “film critic”, but deep down I always had something more free-form and fuck-offish in mind. It took me a long time to find the brass to just be myself. My reactions were always more along the lines of “it would be better if…” rather than “it doesn’t work and here’s why.” In my early struggling years it was my imagination that blocked me, got in the way. Then I embraced it, and then everything started to come together.

Another 4th of July holiday. Blue skies, hot outside, a.c. on, computers humming, the Oppo playing Criterion’s new Straw Dogs Bluray (slight improvement over the 2011 MGM Bluray). On top of which I have a party to attend around 5 pm. Translation: I don’t feel like cranking out fresh material today.

But I feel slightly guilty. I’ve re-examined some 4th of July favorites this morning and they’re all good stuff so why not? Submission #1: “Money Talks,” posted on 10.14.13:

“I never think about what big-name actors and filmmakers are worth. I know most of them are loaded but I don’t care. I’ll read an occasional Forbes article about who’s the richest or highest paid, but you know me — I try to focus on the purely creative and spiritual, what’s going on inside. At least to the extent that external aesthetic choices are often metaphors for “internal affairs,” so to speak.

“Even during my 2009 battle with the legendary Hispanic Party Elephant, the guy who lived upstairs from my place in North Bergen, it was essentially about sensitivity and spiritualism or rather the lack of as that guy was toxic — he was fucking nowhere. I know that if I sense that a woman I’ve met is inordinately impressed by financial splendor, I immediately write her off. The important thing is to do what you love and then live with the rewards of that, whatever they may be. Which is what I’m doing, and I’m reasonably happy as a result. Especially since ’06 or thereabouts.

To me, the heartache of Aura’s sudden passing meant getting another kitten right away. I’ll never stop feeling sad about Aura’s cruel fate (she died after only eight years and a couple of weeks) but you have to get back on the horse. This morning I bought a five-week-old bluepoint Siamese kitten, whom we quickly named Anya. She’s a baby — being fed special young-kitten formula out of a bottle, crying a lot, likes to be constantly held or to sit next to a warm human body. But she’s smart and spirited and very emotionally responsive, like all Siamese. Yes, I know that kittens should stay with their mom until eight or ten weeks of age, but the guy was selling and she only cost $250 so I wasn’t about to school him or look a gift-horse in the mouth.

I don’t expect much from Janus Metz Pedersen‘s Borg vs. McEnroe as a whole, but I want to see it. The hot-tempered, possibly wackadoodle Shia Labeouf playing John McEnroe, the ’70s and ’80s tennis champ known for his emotional tirades and disputes with judges…perfect. Plus I always liked the way McEnroe would emit that combination cry-groan thing with every serve. I expect a classic expletive performance. Hair-trigger McEnroe was beaten by the cool and dispassionate Bjorn Borg at the conclusion of the 1980 Wimbledon Men’s Singles final, but he had his revenge two months later, beating Borg in the five-set final of the 1980 U.S. Open.

It’s such a boring day that I’m writing a piece that will put people to sleep. Last March an extended trailer for Alex Garland‘s Annihilation was shown at Cinemacon. It wowed a lot of journos (myself among them) and exhibs. I’d also been reading online that at the very least it has an absolute killer ending. But despite the Cinemacon presentation, Paramount announced it would come out in early ’18.

For whatever reason Paramount just research-screened Annihilation the other night. Why, I’m wondering, would they test-screen a film in late June 2017 when it’s reputedly going to open ten months hence, or in March ’18? If I didn’t know better I’d say Paramount is possibly re-thinking things and may change their minds and open it at the end of the year after all. Maybe.

I’m presuming Paramount is sticking to the ’18 plan, but it sure would be nice to see this dark Garland fantasia, based on Jeff Vandermeer’s 2014 novel, pop in November or December.

Natalie Portman (last woman standing), Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Oscar Isaac, David Gyasi and Sonoya Mizuno.

From a 7.14.15 Gizmodo interview with Garland, posted by Charlie Jane Anders:

Garland: “What I’d say is, that I’ve worked on different kinds of adaptations in the past. One of them was called Never Let Me Go, which was based on a book by Kazuo Ishiguro. Relatively speaking, what that film did was it kind of held up a mirror to the book. It was a slightly distorting mirror, in some respects, but basically it’s holding up a mirror…a sort of movie mirror, I guess.”

For the last few weeks Woody Allen has been sussing casting picks for his 2018 film, which is some kind of late=teen or early-20something relationship film. I’ve known the name of the male lead for a while now, but the drag-ass agents don’t want anything announced until solid offers have gone out, etc. Suffice that every hot-shit actress around 19 or 20 has been eyeballed or seriously discussed or whatever. Not so long ago one of these candidates, I’ve been told, was Hailee Steinfeld. But at roughly the same time (i.e., mid to late May?) Steinfeld was offered Paramount and Travis Knight‘s Bumblebee movie, a Transformers spin-off thing. I’m not sure what the strategy was or wasn’t on the Woody side, but word around the campfire is that Steinfeld’s agent told her she couldn’t afford to do a Woody, that after the lousy $18 million earned worldwide by Kelly Fremon Craig‘s Edge of Seventeen (which I mostly hated) she needed to to go for the green, and so she said yes to the fucking Bumblebee.

Don’t look now, but Chris Nolan‘s Dunkirk opens in less than three weeks. Given my very special relationship with Warner Bros. publicity, I’ll probably be among the last to see it. That’s okay — I’ll just process the fawning reactions of the Nolan geeks, and then come in at the last minute like Mr. Truth Squad (i.e., “the kiss-assery stops here”).

Meanwhile Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich has ranked Nolan’s previous nine films, worst to best.

The worst is The Dark Knight Rises, Ehrlich says, and the best is The Prestige. What?

Not only do I not agree about Nolan’s 2006 magician film, I can’t even remember much about it. I remember I felt a wee bit trapped as I watched it. I recall the dandy duds and grim expressions of Hugh Jackman (i.e., The Great Danton) and the obsessive pisshead manner of Christian Bale (Alfred Borden) and the downish, lemme-outta-here vibes and Wally Pfister‘s gaslamp cinematography. For some reason my most vivid recollection is David Bowie‘s cameo-sized performance as Nikola Tesla, although I recall thinking “Jesus, Bowie really doesn’t look like The Thin White Duke anymore.”

I’d not ranking The Prestige at the bottom of Nolan’s films. I’m not even ranking it because it never rustled my curtains. I’m not saying I don’t respect it. I’m saying I didn’t give that much of a shit when it opened ten and a half years ago, no offense, and I care even less now.

Ehrlich’s bottom to top: 9. The Dark Knight Returns, 8. Following, 7. Insomnia, 6. Batman Begins, 5. The Dark Knight, 4. Interstellar (great merciful bloodstained Gods, Ehrlich!), 3. Inception, 2. Memento, 1. The Prestige.

HE’s bottom to top: 9. The Prestige (not last but floating, inconclusive, a phantom flick), 8. Interstellar (bored and infuriated by the story, double-hated Nolan’s sound design), 7. Inception (cool concept, too long, nice FX, too underlined and drawn out at the end, couldn’t understand Ken Watanebe to save my life), 6. The Dark Knight Rises, 5. Following (which I didn’t see until 2015), 4. Insomnia, 3. Batman Begins, 2. The Dark Knight, 1. Memento.

This is strictly second-hand but I heard something today that upset my apple cart. It comes from the periphery of the Woody Allen camp.  The talk (and please understand this is just “talk” as in “not necessarily bankable”) is that Woody, who will be 82 in December, has muttered something along the lines of “the movie I make in 2019 might be my last.” He’s currently casting his 2018 film, which he’ll shoot either later this year or early next year, and then see to the promotion and publicity, and then he’ll make his 2019 film. And once that’s done it may be “adios muchachos.” Because, I’ve been told, Woody suspects he may not have any juice left after the ’19 flick, that he’ll be “done.”

Wells response: Here are my definitions of Allen being “done.” One, he’s just dropped dead on Fifth Avenue while directing his latest film. Two, he’s been found been slumped over in bed, his yellow writing pad at his side. Or three, he’s become one of those guys with saliva dribbling out of his mouth who might wander into a cafeteria with a shopping bag, screaming about socialism.

Even if Allen recently did mutter something about hanging it up, a new good idea could change everything in an instant…right? What would Woody do with himself if he stopped writing and directing? True, he’ll turn 84 in ’19, which would mean that over half of his life will have gone by. By the Clint Eastwood standard (i.e., 87 and is still cranking ’em out), Woody is far from done.

President Trump actually tweeted this CG-created wrestling clip this morning. On one level a primitive macho fantasy about schooling CNN but also an encouragement to loyalists to rough up journalists. What. An. Asshole.

From a Boston reader this morning: “I’ve been seeing advertising for Andy Serkis and Andrew Garfield‘s Breathe (Bleecker Street/Participant, 10.13) and am wondering how it might perform, both commercially and critically, in the wake of David Gordon Green and Jake Gyllenhaal‘s Stronger (Lionsgate/Roadside, 9.22), which will open three weeks earlier. Both are about men, driven by a woman’s love, overcoming great physical challenges and odds against a long, full life. Three factors: (a) close release-date proximity, (b) the commonality of plot, and (c) the Andrew vs. Jake thing. Whaddaya think?”

My response: “Spiritual uplift dramas about average folks slammed by tragedy and misfortune but refusing to accept a grim fate or a curtailed lifespan have, of course, constituted a dramatic genre for the last three decades. Life threw a curve or buried them in suffering but they wouldn’t buckle. Spirit, perseverance, grit. The support of families, wives, co-workers, etc.

Breathe and Stronger are kin of all kinds of films in this realm. Ben Lewin‘s The Sessions, in which the life of polio victim John Hawkes was spiritually opened up by Helen Hunt‘s sex surrogate, is similar to Breathe as they both deal with guys paralyzed from the neck down. The total paralysis enveloping Mathieu Amalric in Julian Schnabel‘s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (’07) is even more extreme.

Stronger is about real-life Boston bombing victim Jeff Bauman (Gyllenhaal) overcoming the loss of his legs, obviously a less daunting challenge than the one facing Garfield but still a tough haul.

Expand the pain parameters and you could include The King’s Speech (royal stuttering), all kinds of concentration camp dramas (Angelina Jolie‘s relatively recent Unbroken, Robert Young‘s Triumph of the Spirit, Joseph Sargent and Arthur Miller‘s Playing For Time), Jim Sheridan and Daniel Day Lewis‘s My Left Foot (a seminal physical-malady film, released in ’89), innumerable disease-of-the-week TV dramas from the ’80s, etc.

Thanks to Alejandro G. Inarritu and Katie Calhoon for allowing Tatyana and I to attend the LACMA installation of Carne y Arena at the last minute. We went late yesterday morning; it opens today. Intense, jolting, emotional, essential. The whole run (ending sometime in September) is sold out. Here, again, is my piece about visiting the Cannes film Festival installation (posted on 5.18.17). And here’s a nicely descriptive 6.29 L.A. Times piece by Carolina Miranda. I was studying the particulars a bit more this time; I could do this another few times easy. But I’ll never park inside the L.A. County Museum garage ever again. $16 for 66 minutes, kiss my ass. Which is another reason why I’m mostly a two-wheel man. I never pay anything for parking the bike (I just weave around the gates), and no one ever gives me a ticket.