Once In A Lifetime

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From Todd McCarthy‘s Venice Film Festival review of Alexander Payne‘s Downsizing: “[This] is a wonderfully outsized movie for these times if there ever was one. Alexander Payne has taken a conceit heretofore used for gag-oriented sci-fi and comedy, that of shrinking human beings down to the size of a finger, and breathtakingly transformed it into a way of addressing the planet’s overriding long-term issue.

“Captivating, funny and possessed of a surprise-filled zig-zag structure that makes it impossible to anticipate where it’s headed, this is a deeply humane film that, like the best Hollywood classics, feels both entirely of its moment and timeless. It was a risky roll of the dice, but one that hits the creative jackpot.

“The rare director who has never made a bad film, Payne has now arguably created his best one with a work that easily accommodates many moods, flavors, intentions and ambitions.

“At its core, Downsizing grapples head-on with the long-term viability of humanity’s existence on this planet, but with no pretension or preachiness at all, while on a moment-to-moment basis it’s a human comedy dominated by personal foibles and people just trying to get by in life. It’s also a science-fiction film that not for a second looks or feels like one.

“As such, this is a unique undertaking, one centered on an unexceptional Everyman character who unwittingly embarks upon an exceptional life journey; in that sense, Matt Damon’s Paul Safranek is like the hero of a Frank Capra or Preston Sturges film of 75 years ago, an ordinary man who has a certain sort of greatness thrust upon him. At the same time, the movie is a highly sophisticated creation that, due to its off-hand, underplayed presentation of the future, essentially seems to be taking place in the present day.

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Pulled Back In

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Yesterday a planned Los Angeles premiere of Jeepers Creepers 3, an insignificant-sounding horror film directed by Victor Salva, was cancelled. It had been slated to screen at the TCL Chinese on Monday, 11.13, under the auspices of some kind of horror aficionado screening program organized by moviedude18, aka Kory Davis. The screening was cancelled over fears of negative protests and social-media agitation. The provocation is Salva’s criminal past, and more specifically a 1988 incident of child molestation that resulted in time. Salva did 15 months for this, and then laid low for a few years. But his notoriety blew up again when Powder, which wasn’t half bad, was released in ’95. In fact, I wrote an Entertainment Weekly story (11.10.95) about it.

What if Zinneman’s Jackal Was New?

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Fred Zinnemann’s The Day of the Jackal is one of my favorite comfort flicks. I’ll watch it maybe once a year, and when I do it never fails to engage. What other respected thrillers have been about “how and when will the lead protagonist be stopped from carrying out an evil deed?” and with such impressive finesse? (I can’t think of a single one.) Jackal is so crisp and concise, so well disciplined. And I loved Michael Lonsdale‘s inspector, and Edward Fox was such an attractive and well-behaved sociopath. And so nicely dressed.

It’s been nearly 20 years since the 1997 remake with Bruce Willis and Richard Gere, and I don’t even remember it. It did pretty well financially ($159 million) so it must have done something right, but I haven’t the slightest interest in seeing it again.

What if Zinneman’s version and the remake had never been made, and what if, say, Steven Soderbergh had recently directed a just-as-good-as-the-Zinneman version with Ryan Gosling in the lead role, and it was about to be seen and praised at the Venice Film Festival and then open stateside a few weeks later? How would today’s popcorn inhalers respond to it?

“Fred Zinnemann’s The Day of the Jackal is one hell of an exciting movie. I wasn’t prepared for how good it really is: it’s not just a suspense classic, but a beautifully executed example of filmmaking. It’s put together like a fine watch. The screenplay meticulously assembles an incredible array of material, and then Zinnemann choreographs it so that the story — complicated as it is — unfolds in almost documentary starkness.

“The Day of the Jackal is two and a half hours long, and seems over in about fifteen minutes. There are some words you hesitate to use in a review, because they sound so much like advertising copy, but in this case I can truthfully say that the movie is spellbinding.” — from Roger Ebert‘s Chicago Sun Times review, 7.30.73.

Nobody Tells Us What To Do

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I’ve heard a couple of genuinely positive responses to Our Souls At Night, the Robert Redford-Jane Fonda romantic drama that Netflix will debut on 9.29. Both tipsters have said it’s a really nice film with very winning performances. The Venice Film Festival reviews (expected to pop sometime late Friday) will tell the tale, of course. Why isn’t it showing at the Toronto Film Festival? I mean, why wouldn’t it? It’s not a bust — the film is somewhere between good and pretty good — so where’s the downside?

Excerpt from Amazon reader review of same-titled Kent Haruf book: “I don’t want to spoil the ending of this book. It takes an unexpected twist and isn’t all happiness. But the overwhelming impression this book leaves in your mind is of simple friendship that moves into love, and of two old people who discover they’re still able to learn and grow. It’s beautiful. There are no verbal fireworks, no peeking inside characters’ heads. Everything is observed from the outside. It’s simple, clean, human.”

 
Publicity shot for Barefoot In The Park, which opened on 5.25.68. Fonda was 29 at the time; Redford was 31.
 
Sydney Pollack‘s Electric Horseman, released on 12.21.79.

Vince Vaughn as Mr. Clean

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The title of Craig Zahler‘s Brawl in Cell Block 99, a prison drama about a mechanic (Vince Vaughn) sentenced to prison for smuggling guns, obviously alludes to Don Siegel‘s Riot in Cell Block 11 (’54). The trailer suggests it’s not so much about a brawl as an adjustment on the part of Vaughn’s good-guy character. It appears, in short, to have a couple of things in common with HBO’s The Night Of. Playing out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, and then a few days later at the Toronto Film Festival. Limited theatrical debut on 10.6, followed by VOD release on 10.13. I’m sensing this might be half-decent. Zahler’s last film was Bone Tomahawk.

Clueless, Worthless

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Melania Trump as she was deciding what to wear for this morning’s trip to besieged Houston area: “Obviously visiting flooded areas and offering support and comfort to Harvey victims won’t be a glammy photo-op thing. Even I realize that. Nonetheless I need to dress as if I haven’t the slightest interest in wading through water. Why should I pretend to be anything more than what I am — a pampered trophy wife who doesn’t want to know about life on the lower levels, much less get close to or reflect upon same? Stiletto heels reflect this mindset. I can’t be a hypocrite. My husband can pretend that he’s willing to rough it with his tan hiking boots, but not me…sorry.”

Moi Aussi

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For me, good movies deliver the steady current, the bedrock reality of life. Year in and year out, there is always a cosmic pulse, rhyme and rhythm in the realm of the top 5% of films (i.e., not your sludge- or superhero-level flicks but real-deal serious films). They deliver the fundamental things that apply. Raggedy day-to-day life constantly dilutes and compromises these truths, or certainly makes them less evident. It is therefore better to live “in” movies with occasional detours into real life, rather than vice versa. I owe my sanity to movies, and will always be grateful for the joy and wisdom they’ve provided.

Gilroy’s Roman Israel, Esq. Heading For Toronto

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A friend has been told that Dan Gilroy‘s Roman Israel, Esq. (Columbia, 11.3) is going to premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. I’ve also heard from a reliable source, and he didn’t deny it. Apparently TIFF accidentally posted their announcement about Roman Israel, Esq. earlier today, and then quickly deleted it. The addition, if true, will be officially announced…uhm, on Wednesday? For whatever reason they didn’t today, but TIFF moves in mysterious ways.

Roman Israel, Esq. is an awards-baity, Verdict-resembling legal drama with Denzel Washington as an ambulance-chasing attorney going through a crisis of character and professional ethics. It costars Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo, Joseph David-Jones and Andrew T. Lee.

If the information is true, it would obviously speak volumes about the confidence that Gilroy, the film’s director-writer, as well as Sony/Columbia execs may have in the film. Gilroy also directed and wrote Nightcrawler, of course.

“If is the middle word in life” was spoken by Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now. Robert Mitchum also said it in some late ’40s or early ’50s noir.

Wells to source: “If the story is bullshit, could you indicate so by not hanging up the phone as I count to 10? And if it’s not true, don’t say ‘are we straight, man?…got it?…everything clear?’ just before hanging up.  Anything but that.”

But the story probably isn’t bullshit.   I’ve just been told something that makes me comfortable with it.

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Harington Is On The List

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Kit Harington is dead to me. I don’t like his looks, and he’s too short. If you say to me “but he plays Jon Snow, a major cultural figure via Game of Thrones“, I would say “yes, exactly — he has to be punished for going along with Jon Snow’s fake death.”  I hate movies and cable longforms that don’t respect the fact that death happens sooner or later to everyone, and who lack the stones to kill their leading characters with finality.  (I respected James Cameron enormously for killing Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.) Plus I didn’t care for Harington‘s presence in Pompeii or Testament of Youth, and I hated both of these films anyway on their own terms.

Garage Freak

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Give credit to Liam Neeson for his svelte appearance in Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House. He may be the King of Hollywood Paycheck Performers, but he’s taken care of himself. Pic, playing in Toronto and opening on 9.29, was directed and written by Peter Landesman. Based on the true events about FBI agent Mark Felt, who, pissed that he wasn’t given J. Edgar Hoover‘s job, became a major anonymous source for Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernsteinon Watergate. (And was later portrayed by Hal Holbrook in All The President’s Men.) Costarring Diane Lane, Tony Goldwyn, Richard Molina and Maika Monroe.

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