Amusing Stalin Falls Short of Hah-Hah Funny

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I’ve been missing screenings of Armando Ianucci‘s The Death of Stalin (IFC Films, 3.9) for the last six months, but I finally saw it last night. I’ve no argument with the critics who are doing handstands and cartwheels except for the fact that it’s more LQTM funny than the laugh-out-loud kind. There’s nothing wrong with LQTM humor, which I’ve also described as no-laugh funny — you just have to get past the idea of expecting to go “hah-hah, ho-ho, hee-hee” because that never happens.

Iannucci’s script is about top-tier, real-life Communist scumbags (Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, Georgy Zhukov, Vyacheslav Molotov, Svetlana Stalina) scrambling for position and power in the wake of Joseph Stalin‘s death in March 1953. It’s based on Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin‘s graphic novel “The Death Of Stalin.”

Last August I wrote “who cares what a demimonde of paranoid Russian assholes were up to 64 years ago, stabbing each other in the back and shooting innocent suspects and whatnot?” Now that I’ve seen this 107-minute film, the answer is “you can’t care…you can’t care about anyone.” But you don’t hate anyone either because of the comic attitude or…you know, that sprinkled pixie-dust feeling that all would-be comedies have.

The idea is to generate humor in the midst of political terror and random bullets in the head, and I have to say that the two elements don’t mix all that well. At best, The Death of Stalin is occasionally heh-heh funny. But I’m being sincere in insisting how smart and fleet this thing is. All the way through I was telling myself “I like this” and “this is fast and crafty as shit” so not laughing didn’t bother me very much. Well, I guess I would have had a bit more fun if it was “hah-hah” funny but I understand the concept of comedies that are only supposed to make you smirk and chortle, if that.

I have to say two other things that may not sound like recommendations, but they’re not huge problems. One, The Death of Stalin doesn’t really find its comic footing in the beginning. I was saying to myself “Jesus, this isn’t even LQTM” but that’s only for the first…oh, eight or ten minutes. And two, it doesn’t really have what you might call a climax or a third-act crescendo. The Death of Stalin lasts 107 minutes, but when it came to an abrupt end I said to myself “wait…they’re ending it with the brutal execution of Beria and the ascension of Khrushchev and….that’s it?”

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Rap Their Knuckles

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I should have mentioned this yesterday, but the decision by Oscar telecast producers Mike DeLuca and Jennifer Todd to omit Oscar-winner Dorothy Malone from the death reel was a stunner. Malone was iconic in the ’50s and ’60s — what were they thinking? Even if she hadn’t won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as a sexual compulsive in Douglas Sirk‘s Written on the Wind (’57), Malone’s book-store scene with Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (’46) would have more than sufficed.

These plus her performances in Sirk’s The Tarnished Angels (’57), Andrew Stone‘s The Last Voyage, Robert Aldrich‘s The Last Sunset (’61) and her Constance MacKenzie character on ABC’s Peyton Place series from ’64 to ’69….c’mon.

Why are some Hollywood luminaries included in the death reel and others ignored? The process seems haphazard and arbitrary.

Deluca and Todd could have made up this year for excluding Bill Paxton (who passed on 2.25.17) in last year’s death reel, but naahhh.

They also blew off Powers Boothe, Adam West, Glen Campbell, Robert Guillaume, David Cassidy, Fats Domino (although they included Chuck Berry), Hugh Hefner and Jim Nabors.

They included Jeanne Moreau but without a dialogue clip or brief image montage. On both sides of the Atlantic Moreau was a thriving legend in the ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s. Orson Welles (yeah, I know…who?) once called her “the greatest actress in the world,” and her sepia-toned image appeared for less than two effing seconds?

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Bloody, Bothered and Necessary

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My first profoundly negative response to the physical and spiritual being known as Joaquin Phoenix happened three and a half years ago, during a New York Film Festival screening of Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice (’14). I decided right away that his (or more precisely author ThomasPynchon‘s) Larry “Doc” Sportello, a mutton-chopped, sandal-wearing private detective, was mostly a lazy collection of slumbering mannerisms — slurry speech, lackadaisical manner, etc.

Then came Phoenix’s pot-bellied New England professor in Woody Allen‘s Irrational Man (’15) and again I said to myself, “I don’t like this guy…this is another Phoenix-playing-Phoenix performance…do I really have to hang with him?”

And then in Garth Davis‘s Mary Magdelene, Pheonix played the first graybeard, seen-better-days Jesus in motion picture history — a Nazarene who looks at least 47 or 48 years old, or roughly 15 years older than the Real McCoy was when he died on Calvary — and again I went “Oh, Jesus effing Christ…here we go again.”

So it really means something when I say that Phoenix’s sullen, barely verbal performance as a graybeard dadbod in Lynne Ramsay‘s You Were Never Really Here (Amazon, 4.6) didn’t bother me that much. Because the film is so good.

You Were Never Really Here wasn’t just the strongest film I saw in Park City — half narrative, half fever-dream — but the first intensely distinctive, high-style art film to open in 2018.

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Tully Approaching

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“Theron Rules in Slight Tully,” filed from Sundance Film Festival on 1.26.18: “Tully is a much better film than Reitman’s underwhelming Labor Day and his disastrously received Men, Women & Children, so it’s an image-burnisher to some degree. But it’s also on the slight side.

“Cody’s script is amusingly sharp and sardonic, and Theron’s portrayal of Marlo, a stressed suburban mom coping with pregnancy and child care, is her boldest since playing an alcoholic writer in Reitman and Cody’s Young Adult (’11) and her most Raging Bull-ish performance since Monster (’03), lumbering around Tully with her Aileen Wournos bod.

“Theron’s performance is angry, open-hearted, prickly, lived-in.

“Tully (Focus Features, 4.20) is partly a family-unit sitcom and partly a tricky psychological drama. It mostly takes place in a New York-area suburban home occupied by Marlo, her husband Drew (Ron Livingston) and their three kids — a special-needs six year-old boy, a slightly younger girl and a just-born infant.

“It’s one of those stories that (a) portrays a problem and then (b) introduces an outsider who not only makes things better but becomes a kind of magic healer. The question is how this agreeable situation will pan out in the long run.

“With Drew barely paying attention to the kid-rearing situation, focusing on his job during the day and playing video games at night, pregnant Marlo is exhausted — whipped — by maternal responsibilities. And then the baby arrives and the burden is even more crushing with middle-of-the-night feedings and wailings and whatnot.

“So Marlo’s rich brother (Mark Duplass) tries to persuade her to accept the gratis services of a night nanny — a younger woman who will drop by in the evening and take care of the baby so that Marlo can get some much-needed shut-eye.

“Marlo initially resists the idea (even with Duplass offering to cover costs) but eventually she succumbs.

“A night or two later the slightly eccentric Tully (Mackenzie Davis) knocks on the door. Marlo finds her a bit weird at first and a little young for the job, but Tully, a seasoned nanny, gradually gains her trust, and then her friendship and affection.

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Chekhovian Puzzler

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Principal photography on Michael Mayer‘s The Seagull (Sony Pictures Classics, 5.11) began on 6.29.15. I love anything and everything written by Anton Chekhov, but something obviously didn’t pan out with this puppy or it would’ve opened sometime in ’16 or at least ’17. How could watching Saoirse Ronan, Annette Bening, Corey Stoll, Billy Howle and Elisabeth Moss performing Chekhov’s greatest play…how could that not be a keeper? I last saw The Seagull on the B’way stage in ’08 (Kristin Scott Thomas, Peter Sarsgaard, Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, etc.). before that I saw at the Public Theatre in ’80 with Chris Walken as Trigorin.

Likeliest ’18 Best Picture Contenders

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I’ve been spitballing 2018 releases for several weeks, but now I’m attempting to focus on films that will probably stand out in terms of great reviews, Best Picture nominations and award campaigns.

It’s now March 6th — less than six months away from the start of the ’18/’19 award season. And right now (stop me if you’ve read this before) eight films are the leading Best Picture hotties — Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, Adam McKay‘s Back Seat, Damien Chazelle‘s First Man, Barry Jenkins‘ If Beale Street Could Talk, Bryan Singer‘s Bohemian Rhapsody, Bjorn Runge‘s The Wife, Mimi Leder‘s On The Basis of Sex, and Josie Rourke and Beau Willimon‘s Mary, Queen of Scots. (8)

Tell me which others should be included….please. Richard Linklater‘s Where’d You Go, Bernadatte? Terrence Malick‘s Radegund? Jason Reitman‘s The Front Runner? Felix von Groeningen‘s Beautiful Boy? Yorgos Lanthimos‘ The Favourite (reign of Queen Anne in early 17th Century)? Joel Edgerton‘s Boy Erased starring Lucas Hedges? (6)


Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman (Netflix).

Saoirse Ronan in Mary, Queen of Scots.

Director Barry Jenkins (l.) during filming of If Beale Street Could Talk.

Felicity Jones (l.), Armie Hammer (r.) during filming of Mimi Leder’s On The Basis of Sex.

Upmarket Genre: 1. Luca Guadagnino‘s Suspiria (Dakota Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth); 2..Steve McQueen‘s Widows (Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Andre Holland, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell); 3. Ron Howard‘s Solo — A Star Wars Story (Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton); 4. Lynne Ramsay‘s You Were Never Really Here; 5. 20. Stefania Solluima‘s Soldado (Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Catherine Keener — Columbia, 6.29.18).; 6. Steven Spielberg‘s Ready Player One (Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T. J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance); 7. Jennifer Kent‘s The Nightingale (19th Century Australian revenge saga) w/ Aisling Franciosi, Baykali Ganambarr, Sam Claflin, Damon Herriman, Ewen Leslie. (8)

Likeliest Best Foreign Language Feature Contenders: Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma (Marina de Tavira, Marco Graf, Yalitza Aparicio, Daniela Demesa, Enoc Leaño, Daniel Valtierra); Asghar Farhadi‘s Todos lo saben (Spanish-language drama w/ Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Barbara Lennie, Ricardo Darin, Inma Cuesta, Eduard Fernandez Javier Camara);Laszlo Nemes‘ Sunset (a young girl grows up to become a strong and fearless woman in Budapest before World War I), w/ Susanne Wuest, Vlad Ivanov, Björn Freiberg; Paolo Sorrentino‘s Loro (life of Silvio Berlusconi); Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s The Wild Pear Tree, and Olivier Assayas‘ E-book. (6)

Possible Strongos: Jacques Audiard‘s The Sisters Brothers (Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix, Rutger Hauer, Riz Ahmed, John C. Reilly); Felix von Groeningen‘s Beautiful Boy with Steve Carell and Timothy Chalamet; Xavier Dolan‘s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (Kit Harington, Natalie Portman, Jessica Chastain, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates); Spike Lee‘s Black Klansman (John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Corey Hawkins — Focus Features). (4)

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Hawks’ Thing HD Surprise

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There’s one reason why there’s no decent Bluray of Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby‘s The Thing From Another World (’51), and that’s because 97% of those who support the Bluray/streaming market care only about John Carpenter’s 1982 version. The Carpenter is cool but I’ve seen it twice in my entire life (partly because the physical effects suck), and I’ve watched the Hawks/Nyby at least 15 or 20 times. I think this many have something to do with the latter’s social-political undercurrent (early ’50s paranoia about commies and flying saucers) plus that wonderful overlapping Hawks dialogue.

In any event I was about to complain again about the absence of a Hawks/Nyby Bluray (don’t even mention the discredited Japanese disc) when lo and lo and behold I discovered that an HD streaming version of the ’51 version (and running a full 86 minutes) is now available to rent or buy. In my book that’s as good as a Bluray — problem solved.

3:20 pm update: Forget it! I’ve just looked at the Amazon high-def version and some ignorant asshole decided to crop this 1.37 film at 16 x 9. Amazon occasionally sells/rents films with the wrong a.r. and this is one such occasion.

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Uncentered, Indecisive Pig

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I can’t believe I lowered myself into the steaming booger vat of The Bachelor last night. Arie Luyendyk, Jr. struck me as an unregenerate hound who masks this tendency with sensitive tearful conveyances and EMO moments. And I really hate it when someone takes forever to lower the boom on a significant other with a clean and declarative “we’re done for now”, especially when they convey exactly what’s on their mind with an endless series of non-verbal signals. The payoff line is Becca’s “are you fucking kidding me?” and the editors bleeped it?

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Decent Production Values

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I can’t express sincere enthusiasm about a film directed by Rob Marshall, who has given me so much pain over the years. And I’m already having trouble with the idea of the Puerto Rican-descended Lin-Manuel Miranda playing a “lamplighter” (and apprentice to Dick Van Dyke‘s “Bert” from the original 1964 version) in 1930s London. But I love watching Emily Blunt‘s Mary Poppins descend from 5,000 feet in the foggy overhead, and I admire the damp outdoorsy atmosphere conveyed by John Myhre‘s production design and Dion Beebe‘s cinematography. So there’s hope.