Last week an HE tipster caught a research screening of George Clooney‘s Suburbicon at the Sherman Oaks Arclight, and he says it’s quite good — a dry Fargo-esque noir comedy set in ’50s suburbia. The stars are Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac and young Noah Jupe.

He’s actually calling it Clooney’s best-directed film ever…more bell-ringy than The Ides of March, Monuments Men, Good Night and Good Luck, Leatherheads and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Paramount will presumably release Suburbicon sometime this fall.

Put another way, this guy has seen four unreleased films over the past few weeks (the other three were Trey Edward Shults‘ It Comes At Night, Jason Reitman‘s Tully and Destin Daniel Cretton‘s The Glass Castle), and he says Suburbicon is the best of the lot.

Suburbicon star Julianne Moore, director George Clooney during shooting last fall.

Suburbicon was shot in the Los Angeles area last October and November.

Joel and Ethan Coen‘s mid ’80s script was reworked by Clooney and Grant Heslov — they all share an even-steven “written by” credit (presumably pre-WGA review).

The other film Suburbicon resembles besides Fargo, he says, is Martin McDonagh‘s unreleased Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Fox Searchlight, sometime in the fall).

I’ll skip over the plot particulars, but it involves deceit, murder and hired hitmen a la Fargo with a pinch or two of Double Indemnity. Speaking of that 1944 Billy Wilder film, Oscar Isaac, portraying an insurance investigator, has a great interrogation scene towards the end in the tradition of Edward G. Robinson‘s Barton Keyes character.

Suburbicon‘s hired bad guys are vaguely similar to Fargo‘s Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare — i.e., a skinny guy and a bruiser type.

TheWrap‘s Sam Frago has written that Edgar Wright‘s Baby Driver “exists in this dreamlike state of ecstasy for nearly 70 minutes, [buth] then there’s a peculiar pivot into conventionality.” And while Variety‘s Peter Debruge has called it “a blast, featuring wall-to-wall music and a surfeit of inspired ideas,” he said “it’s also something of a mess.” How do reviews like this result in a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating? Obviously something stinks in Denmark.

I reported on 4.5.16 that Netflix had been negotiating “for months” to acquire distribution rights to Orson Welles‘ The Other Side of the Wind, and that the approval of Oja Kodar, Welles’ longtime partner and a key rights holder, was necessary to finalize things. I was told nonetheless that Kodar had “continued to block progress in her usual grasping way.”

But now this odious and grotesque situation has finally come to an end. It was announced today that Netflix has sealed the deal, which can only mean they coughed a lot more dough for Kodar than she was getting before.

I wrote last April that “Oja the Terrible is reportedly still refusing to allow the film elements (which are apparently still stored somewhere in the outskirts of Paris) to be inspected and is demanding even greater financial renumeration now that Netflix is involved.”

This pathetic psychodrama and restoration saga has been going on for a long time, but the first indication that Kodar might be willing to show at least a little consideration for her ex-boyfriend’s legacy came when Doreen Carvajal‘s N.Y. Times story, titled “Orson Welles’s Last Film May Finally Be Released,” popped on 10.28.14.

The piece reported that Kodar, the chief stopper in this situation along with Welles’ daughter Beatrice, had agreed to embrace a certain amount of trust and allow the film to be assembled and restored in good faith. Not really. Oja’s behavior for the last two and half years reportedly veered between the realm of unreasonableness and that of possible psychosis.

Brooklyn-based Jett says the blizzard that blew through the northeast today was “mild in the city — storms always die over NYC.” Almost always, he meant. I love snowstorms, rainstorms…any disturbance will do. Even though today’s was a bit of a letdown I would’ve loved to have been in midtown Manhattan in my overcoat and cowboy hat.

I don’t like these gun-at-your-head quizzes. Choosing a favorite tune out of dozens or hundreds means you’ll soon hate it from over-listening — great scheme! But for some reason I answered Ty Burr’s quiz yesterday: “Don’t Bother Me.” And if that doesn’t work, I’m partial to “Long, Long, Long,” “For No One” and “I’m A Loser.”

I saw Cristian Mungiu‘s Graduation (Sundance Selects, 4.8) in Cannes about ten months ago. The great Mungiu, who shared the Best Director prize last May with Personal Shopper‘s Olivier Assayas, won’t be doing face-time interviews in Los Angeles. (Maybe phoners, I’m told.) My memory’s gone a little stale so I’m catching it again tonight at 7:30 pm.

But I’d see it again under any circumstance. All Mungiu films gain with repeated viewings. I’ve seen Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days four or five times, and I could watch it again right now.

“Conversation With A Master“, posted from Cannes on 5.20.16:

I spoke this afternoon with renowned Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, whose ethical drama Graduation (a.k.a. Bacalaureat) was universally praised after screening yesterday morning. I called it “a fascinating slow-build drama about ethics, parental love, compromised values and what most of us would call soft corruption.”

We discussed the film’s view of things, which is basically how capitulating to soft corruption can seem at first like nothing but that it can slightly weaken your fibre and make you susceptible to harder forms down the road.

Accepting and living with a certain amount of soft corruption is par for the course in my realm. It greases the wheels in this and that way. If you’re at all involved with the hurly burly, you know the truth of this. “This world is so full of crap you’re going to get into it whether you’re careful or not” — a quote from what film?

I mentioned a story I passed along yesterday about my father having persuaded a Rutgers professor to give him a passing grade despite having failed a final exam, which was definitely a soft ethical lapse. Mungiu smiled and said, “Life is complicated.”

“When I’m around black people, I’m made to feel ‘other’ because I’m dark-skinned. I’ve had to wrestle with that, with people going ‘You’re too black.’ Then I come to America, and they say, ‘You’re not black enough.’ I go to Uganda, I can’t speak the language. In India, I’m black. In the black community, I’m dark-skinned. In America, I’m British. Bro!” — Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya to GQ‘s Shakeil Greeley in just-posted interview.

Hmmm…what am I allowed to say about shades or degrees of blackness these days? A voice within my system is saying “stop!…don’t say anything at all!” But I can at least say a couple of mild things.

Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya.

If I’m reading the above quote correctly, Kaluuya has had to “wrestle” with black people calling him “too black.” What’s he supposed to say to that? What could he possibly say? What matters to actors is whether casting directors have decided that they’ve “got it” (charisma, relatableness, a steady centered quality) and whether the media regards them as good-looking or not. Kaluuya has nothing to worry about on either score.

Most whiteys understand and respect standard rhetorical limits. They can say “everybody’s everything, baby” but they can’t say “after many decades of life in this country I’ve come to regard American blackness as either a medium-shade deal a la Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington or Chris Rock or a steamed cappuccino thing…Spike Lee, Barack Obama, Jimi Hendrix. So Swiss dark-chocolate guys like Kaluuya…well, they seem less familiar.”

I’m not saying this, mind. I’m not even thinking it. I’m just saying that blacks can say whatever to other blacks, but whiteys have to zip it. If they don’t, the SJW hyenas will rush in and tear them to shreds.

American Media tabloids have always been toxic — you’ll literally feel sick if you actually buy the Enquirer or the Globe as opposed to the usual checkout line flip-through. For the last few months they’ve been pushing hard on the “Trump is doing God’s work by cleaning house” narrative — mother’s milk for the dumbfucks. I felt the usual disgust when I glanced at these covers last night inside WeHo Pavilions, but also amusement — they’re still working the “evil Hillary” thing?

L.A. Times forecaster Glenn Whipp has posted a list of ten 2017 films that might become Best Picture favorites among the Gurus of Gold and Gold Derby-ites (and therefore among Academy and guild members) nine or ten months hence. I’ve had most of the same films posted in HE’s Oscar Balloon since last January, but let’s review Whipp’s choices before reconsidering my own:

1. Michael Showalter‘s The Big Sick (Amazon/Lionsgate, 6.23). Cast: Kumail Nanjiani, Ray Romano, Holly Hunter, Zoe Kazan. Whipp’s rationale: Romcoms generally don’t end up as Best Picture nominees, but this one is smarter, hipper and more cross-pollinating with Nanjiani co-writing as well as playing himself. Plus L.A. Times critic Justin Chang wet himself when he saw it at Sundance so it must be a Best Picture hottie.

Wells verdict: Sick was the second best film I saw at Sundance (Call Me By Your Name was #1) but it’s looking at an uphill struggle as a Best Picture contender. Not because it isn’t good, but because (a) no one will ever remember Nanjiani’s name much less how to spell it, and (b) Kazan’s character, based on Nanjiani’s wife and co-writer Emily Gordon, gets too angry at him for too long a period — she freezes Nanjiani out for nearly two-thirds of the running time, and mostly because he doesn’t stand up to his dictatorial Pakistani mom by confessing that he has a white, non-Muslim girlfriend. Even after Kazan forgives him at the finale you’re thinking, “What happens when he fucks up the next time? Will she freeze him out for a year or divorce him or hire a couple of goons to beat him up?” Kazan is too much of a hard-ass. The audience is kept in limbo for too long.

2. Chris Nolan‘s Dunkirk (Warner Bros., 7.21). Cast: Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Harry Styles, Fionn Whitehead. Whipp’s rationale: Dunkirk will probably resonate with boomer-aged Academy members (whose parents were the vanguard of the WWII generation) and Nolan will knock it out of the park scale-wise, verisimilitude-wise, IMAX-wise…expect him to “capture every inch of the rescue’s horror and triumph,” especially with Hoyte van Hoytema shooting and Hans Zimmer scoring.

Wells verdict: The late July release obviously won’t help, and the movie may only register as a logistical or technical triumph if it doesn’t have character arcs and performances that stick to the ribs. Nolan wrote the script so these aspects will be on him. Then again this is his first stab at history and realism, and it therefore might be interesting. Will Dunkirk make the cut? Let’s say “maybe” for now. If Warner Bros. decides against previewing it in Cannes, the know-it-alls will begin to whisper that they don’t quite have the goods.

3. Kathryn Bigelow‘s Untitled Detroit Riots Project (Annapurna, 8.4). Cast: John Boyega, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, Ben O’Toole, Hannah Murray, Anthony Mackie. Whipp’s rationale: For the last six or seven years (i.e., since The Hurt Locker) the rep of director Kathryn Bigelow and producer-screenwriter Mark Boal is that they make nervy, drill-bitty Oscar flicks. Fait accompli. Garlands for the conquerors.

Wells verdict: The Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker put Bigelow & Boal into that presumptive winner category six years ago. If you ask me Zero Dark Thirty should have won Best Picture instead of Argo. The problem is that August 4th release date, which seems to send a signal to the blogaroos that Untitled Detroit Riots might not be an Oscar Derby-type film. But maybe it is. On the Bigelow-Boal brand alone, I’m calling it a Best Picture nominee. (I used to call them Biggy-Boal but no more; can’t think of another snappy term to replace it.) Still, that release date worries me.

4. Joe Wright‘s Darkest Hour (Focus features, 11.24). Cast: Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, Ben Mendelsohn as a sweating, grim-faced, Marlboro-inhaling King George VI, John Hurt as Neville Chamberlain, Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine Churchill. An obvious tour de force opportunity for Oldman in his portrayal of the legendary Prime Minister who weathered the Dunkirk disaster, toughened British resolve during Nazi bombings, presided over the D-Day invasion and soldiered through to Gemany’s defeat in ’45.

Wells verdict: An almost certain Best Picture contender unless, you know, it sucks. Wright is a truly brilliant director when he has the right material. I haven’t read Anthony McCarten‘s script, although I’m a little bit afraid of this kind of multi-character saga being compressed into a two-hour film.  It would probably work better as an eight-hour miniseries.

From “Trumpcare Is a Historic Social Calamity That Would Deprive 24 Million of Insurance,” by New York‘s Jonathan Chait: “The American Health Care Act — i.e., Trumpcare — would deprive 14 million American citizens of their health insurance next year, a number that would rise to 24 million by the end of the decade. It is a proposal that could only be enacted by a party in the grips of an combination of ideological and partisan fanaticism unfathomable to most of the world, and even to most Americans.

“The changes Trumpcare would impose upon the health-care system are easy to understand. It is, quite simply, a redistribution bill. It would reduce taxes on the rich, and thus reduce the amount of subsidies for coverage for people who can’t obtain it through their job or Medicare. Poor, sick, and old customers would get enormous cuts in their subsidy levels. An analysis quoted in today’s Wall Street Journal finds that, in one Nebraska county, a 62-year-old who earns $18,000 a year, who currently pays $760 a year for insurance, would have to pay $20,000 a year under the Republican plan. Which is to say, that person would not be able to obtain insurance, since the cost of care would exceed his entire salary.

I’ve said that I won’t even flirt with the idea of buying a 4K Bluray player until the distributors start issuing 4K discs of classic or quality-level films instead of bullshit CG fantasy flotsam.

But I’m open to streaming. Last December I was more than pleased by the micro-detail in a 4K streaming version of Lawrence of Arabia that I bought on Amazon, even though it wasn’t real-deal 4K due to intense compressing. I’ve been told this version is probably delivering between 2K and 4K, but that the physical 4K Lawrence Bluray, due later this year, will be the real prize.

Five or six weeks ago I streamed a 4K Brownfellas, but I found it too lentil-soupy — too dark, too many red faces, too inky.

Last night I watched a 4K streaming version of The Bridge on the River Kwai, and I have to say that while 15% or 20% of it looked like 1080p with the color cranked up, 80% or 85% looked phenomenally sharp and vivid. From a certain purist perspective the detail and general vibrancy are almost too much as I’m certain that reserved-seat audiences at the RKO Palace in 1957 didn’t see images this clean and needle-sharp. I’m not complaining, mind — this new Kwai stream delivers an unmistakable 4K bump. 

Hell, I liked it so much that I bought it lock, stock and barrel, as I did the 4K Lawrence stream three months ago.

I’m also noticing that a UHD Bluray of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven will pop on 5.23.17.