Brief Encounter

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My five-year-old Macbook Air froze up during a meeting in Burbank, and so 90 minutes later I was sitting inside Stan’s Tech Garage, a laptop repair shop at Fairfax & Santa Monica Blvd. And in walks this tall, leggy, dishy-looking lass — mid 30s, nice smile, dressed in denim shorts and sneakers, there to pick up a device. My eyes recognized her but the name wouldn’t come. Me to self: You’re a movie columnist and you can’t place her?…c’mon!

It finally hit me: Leelee Sobieski. Her acting career peaked 18 years ago when she played (a) a teenaged girl debauched by a pair of middle-aged Japanese guys (and with her father’s consent) in Stanley Kubrick‘s Eyes Wide Shut (’99), and (b) a costarring role with Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed (ditto). Her roles got weaker and the opportunities dwindled. (Her last decent vehicle was Public Enemies, but she had a really small part.) She’s more or less retired from acting. She became engaged to NYC-based fashion designer Adam Kimmel in ’09. They have two kids, Louisiana Ray, 7, and Martin, 2.


Fashion design designer Adam Kimmel, wife Leelee Sobieski six or seven years ago.

Foiled Again

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From a European critic friend: “I’ve just seen Alien: Covenant, and I’m afraid you won’t get to see what you’re hoping for. Katherine Waterston is the lead (and very good and even, well, sexy), Michael Fassbender has a dual role (and a pretty great scene with himself), Billy Crudup is not the first one to bite the dust, and Danny McBride… well, dreams die hard.”

The sand is draining out of my hourglass as we speak.

“It’s a prequel to the first Alien, yes, but much more a sequel to Prometheus, delving very much into the same themes as that 2012 film and also going into the origins of the alien, creation being very much on the movie’s mind. Certain parts are quite perfunctory and going through the motions, as if [director Ridley] Scott couldn’t be bothered with all the boring exposition. But in others you can sense Scott was really involved emotionally and intellectually, and these are outstanding.

“Scott is turning 80 this year. He’s already shooting his next film in Rome and is prepping The Cartel for a January start. Pretty amazing. He just told me he wants to do at least one more alien film and that the script is begin written right now.”

Safe Side

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I was always losing combs as a teen and 20something, and I never liked those too-large and brittle ones they sold in drug stores. Everything changed last year when I discovered that Terner’s Liquor (right next to Viper Room) sells bags of small, pliable combs in bulk. Is it neurotic to own 35 combs? Yes, but on the other hand I feel reassured.

When Demme Was One of The Lion Kings

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I’m crestfallen about the passing of the great Jonathan Demme, who was one of the leading hot-shit directors of the ’80s and early ’90s (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild, The Silence of The Lambs, Philadelphia). Demme died this morning in New York City from esophageal cancer and complications from heart disease. The cancer hit him in 2010, recurred two years ago, and then advanced in force over the last few weeks.

I knew Demme casually or slightly in a non-interview context. A run-in here, a party chat there. Once through the late Stuart Byron, the ex-Village Voice columnist who was friendly with him, and with whom I ran a consultancy business called re:visions. Demme seemed to be all about spirit, mirth, excitement. He was approachable, unpretentious. He loved Caribbean culture. If he was a worry wart behind closed doors, I never saw it.

The last time I spoke to Demme was at the Gotham Awards in December ’08. He was hanging with Jenny Lumet, who had written the screenplay for what would later be regarded as Demme’s last hurrah as a top-ranked auteur — Rachel Getting Married. The forthcoming inauguration of Barack Obama came up. I asked if he thought it was a good idea to self-identify as “Barack Hussein Obama,” given recently voiced concerns about a U.S. President sharing a name with Saddam of Iraq. “The yokels won’t like that,” I said. Demme’s response: “Fuck ’em!”

Born in February 1944 (too late for the Baby Bust generation but not a boomer either), Demme had four distinct career phases:

#1: A low-budget, exploitation-tinged, Roger Corman-affiliated chapter (writing and/or producing Angels Hard as They Come, The Hot Box and Black Mama White Mama, and then directing Caged Heat, Crazy Mama and Fighting Mad). This was followed by a dicey period noir-thriller, Last Embrace (’79), which I re-watched four or five years ago and found wanting.

#2: His peak period as an assured, studio-supported mainstream director of seven films — Melvin and Howard (’80), Swing Shift (’84), Stop Making Sense (’84), Something Wild (’86), an inspired detour with Swimming to Cambodia (’87), the not-so-hot Married to the Mob (’88) and then his two greatest successes — The Silence of the Lambs (’91) and Philadelphia (’93).

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Alien in Manhattan

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Ridley Scott‘s Alien Covenant opens stateside on Friday, 5.19, or 7 days after the 5.12 debut in England. The French opening is on Wednesday, 5.10. The first U.S. media screening I’ve been told about happens in LA and NYC on the evening of Friday, 5.5. My red-eye flight arrives in NYC that morning. Straight up to Fairfield, unpack the bags, a two-hour nap, a little filing and then drive back to Manhattan around 4 pm. That’s a lot of trouble and mileage in order to savor the death of Danny McBride, but I so want to see this. Why is the U.S. among the last countries to see this thing?

Japanese Dogs

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Wes Anderson‘s Isle of Dogs (Fox Searchlight, 4.20.18) “follows a boy’s odyssey in search of his dog.” Pic is shooting in England but will be set in Japan. This Japanese poster was released today by FS. Bryan Cranston, Liev Schrieber, Greta Gerwig and Yoko Ono teaming with Anderson regulars Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton, Courtney B. Vance, Frances McDormand, Bob Balaban and Harvey Keitel.

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Anticipation of Pain

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20th Century Fox will open Matthew Vaughn‘s Kingsman: The Golden Circle on Friday, 9.22. The sight of Taron Egerton…don’t ask. Costarring Colin Firth, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges, Pedro Pascal, Sophie Cookson, Mark Strong, Michael Gambon and (best wishes for a speedy recovery) Elton John.

From my 2.12.15 review of Kingsman: The Secret Service: “Many of the geekboy genre zombies who didn’t approve of Steven Soderbergh‘s Haywire are giving a pass to the cynically disconnected, utterly rancid Kingsman: The Secret Service (20th Century Fox, 2.13). I get what the scheme is but it’s not funny, exciting or the least bit intriguing…a waste of my time and a ton of money down the well…why?

“The point of Matthew Vaughn‘s 007 genre spoof, in the tradition of many God-awful action flicks made over the last 20-plus years, is to levitate outside itself and in fact outside the trust or belief system that all good cinema depends upon, and to deliver cretinous action cartoon riffs. Kingsman, trust me, is pitched to the absolute lowest caste of fanboy plebians, and is incidentally delighted by the many ways that adversaries as well as bystanders can be sliced, hatcheted, drilled, shot, bludgeoned, stabbed and vivisected. Oh, right…that’s part of the attitude humor. Marvellous stuff!

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Beware of Will Smith Vote In Any Context

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The 2017 Cannes Film Festival jury was announced this morning. By my count it contains five serious filmmakers who can probably be counted upon to choose wisely and well — jury president Pedro Almodovar, Toni Erdmann director Maren Ade, actress and socially-attuned twitter maven Jessica Chastain, South Korean helmer Park Chan-wook (I’m not a big fan of his films but he knows his stuff) and Italian director and visual maestro Paolo Sorrentino.

In the middle you have director, screenwriter, actress and singer Agnes Jaoui (The Taste of Others).

And then you have a pair of softies who are probably inclined to vote for the emotional, humanist, warm-hug element in whatever film they see — actor, ex-Scientologist, onetime bulletproof superstar and up-viber Will Smith and Chinese superstar actress and producer Fan Bingbing. And finally you have another emotional fellow — composter Gabriel Yared — who may or may not side with the Smith contingent.

So basically you’re looking at a 6-3 majority in favor of cultured cineaste attitudes and aesthetics. Maybe. All I know is that when you invite Smith into the room, the conversation will most likely become more emotional and gut-driven, and less intellectually acute. I’m sorry but I feel like I know the guy pretty well at this stage.

“A Criminally Weak Sister”

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I own a razor-sharp HD-streaming version of John Frankenheimer‘s Seven Days in May (’64), and I really don’t see how the Warner Archive Bluray can look much better. It’s a nicely done A-minus film, but it only has one great scene — i.e., when Kirk Douglas (Col. Jiggs Casey) first informs Fredric March (President Jordan Lyman) and Martin Balsam (Paul Girard) that a military plot to overthrow the government may be underway. It’s all dialogue, but the late-night atmosphere and just-right performances seethe with tension.

There’s only one big problem. Every scene that features or alludes to Ava Gardner‘s Eleanor Holbrook character, the vaguely alcoholic ex-mistress of Burt Lancaster‘s General Scott, is weak. The movie tells us that a few steamy letters about their affair might compromise Scott’s standing with the public. However prudish or naive American culture might have been 53 years ago, this is a huge subplot sinkhole today. Sexual dalliances can harm the reputation of a politician running for office, but who could care about a little wick-dipping when it comes to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? So what if a Curtis LeMay-like figure has been playing “poke-her”?

Boxy Allegiance

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I ignored Acorn’s Smiley’s People Bluray when it popped in August ’13. I’d watched it two or three times on DVD, and I figured that high-def resolution wasn’t worth the candle. But I’ve just bought it for two reasons: (a) the price is down to $26 and change, and (b) I realized that Acorn hadn’t cleavered it down to conform to the aspect-ratio fascism of 16 x 9 screens — they actually stuck with the original 4 x 3 boxy shape, which was de rigeur when this legendary miniseries premiered in ’82. My heart warmed over. I couldn’t help myself.