I know that disconnecting is a path to a better, more spiritual life, but I can’t do that. More to the point, I honestly don’t want to. What am I gonna do with “time off”? This is the happiest period of my life, and all due to my daily 14-hour enslavement to Hollywood Elsewhere. HE is the fountain that brings joy and security and washes all wounds. You can call that a no-life life, but it doesn’t feel that way. Really. And it’s not like I never disengage. I have hiking time, hanging-with-friends time, cat love at odd hours, weekend biking, Pavillions time, West Hollywood Wonton-slurping time, evening screening time, Bluray time, motorcycling-along-Mulholland time plus the travel, the festivals, New York, Europe, Vietnam, etc. Plus I get lucky once in a while. Sorry.
Ben Sweat
I was kidding, of course, about Ben Mendelsohn breaking out the Marlboros and working up a good, greasy sweat for his Rogue One performance as the cruel but brilliant Orson Krennic, an Imperial Military Director obsessed with the completion of the Death Star project. I know the scheme — Imperial villains are always cool, crisp fellows, and only members of the rebellion are allowed to perspire. But Mendelsohn needs to sweat and chain smoke. It’s who he is, what keeps him going. If fortune smiles Mendelsohn will one day be cast in an HBO miniseries as Ben Sweat, a pervy Southern plantation owner and the grand-nephew of Ben Quick, the Long Hot Summer barn-burner played by Paul Newman.
Before Malick Ate Himself
Criterion’s Bluray of Terrence Malick‘s The New World pops on 7.26. My copy arrived yesterday. Three versions — a 172-minute extended cut, the 150-minute “first cut” (which I saw in a New Line screening room and which was given a brief theatrical run) and the 135-minute theatrical version that New Line insisted upon because the 150 struck some as overly ponderous. I’ll be doing the 172, of course. A serious commitment.
Posted on 8.26.09: “I never felt that the story told by Terrence Malick‘s The New World really worked, particularly the last third, but I’ve always been in love with the primeval splendor of the thing. During those first two thirds, The New World is a truly rare animal and movie like no other…a feast of intuitive wow-level naturalism that feels as fresh and vitally alive as newly-sprouted flora.
“Despite the disappointing last-third The New World is one of the greatest dive-in-and-live-in-the-realm movies of all time. A movie clearly uninterested for the most part in telling a gripping story but one that atmospherically mesmerizes in such a way that it feels like someone put mescaline in your tea.
The Racket
Here’s the shakedown on the missing headphone jack on the bottom of the iPhone 7, which a just-leaked video has apparently revealed. Apple is looking to force iPhone users to buy its special new headphones, which will plug into the traditional charging receptacle at the phone’s bottom-center. Everyone knew some kind of (probably pricey) Apple headphones would be coming when they bought Dr. Dre’s Beats headphones in May 2014. So that’s the plan — eliminate the jack, force millions to buy special Apple headphones. Third-party entrepeneurs will sidestep this, of course.
“A New Argentina”
The Turkish military coup collapsed yesterday (or last night), and followers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took to the streets to celebrate, but not in the usual rowdy, haphazard, catch-as-catch-can way but almost theatrically. Their slogan-chanting reminded me of the pro-Peron crowds marching through the streets of Buenos Aires in Alan Parker‘s Evita. In the beginning and end of this video, I mean.
From 7.16 N.Y. Times editorial about the downish after-effects of Erdogan’s victory:
“It was ironic that, as members of the military launched a coup against him on Friday night, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey resorted to guerrilla media tactics — broadcasting via the FaceTime app on his cellphone — to urge Turks to oppose the plotters. Mr. Erdogan has been no friend to free expression, ruthlessly asserting control over the media and restricting human rights and free speech. Yet thousands responded to his appeal, turning back the rebels and demonstrating that they still value democracy even if Mr. Erdogan has eroded its meaning.
Go Easy on Jagger
Mick Jagger, 72, and 29-year-old American girlfriend Melanie Hamrick will be welcoming a child next year. A 7.15 piece by The Telegraph‘s Patrick Foster reports that “friends of the star said yesterday that he is unlikely to move in with Hamrick, whose pregnancy was said to have been unplanned.”
If this pregnancy was “unplanned” I’m a monkey’s uncle. I’m presuming one of two possibilities: (1) Hamrick, possibly sensing a lull in the relationship and wanting to fortify things, “accidentally” got pregnant and subsequently declared it was time for motherhood, or (2) sensing the same lull, she told Jagger that things can’t just drift along and that she wanted something joyous and lasting out of their union or else, in response to which Jagger, after a couple of attempts at avoidance, relented.
Haven’t Worn Pajamas Since Early Childhood
People aren’t that different, that particular. They tend to fall into groups, genres, patterns, familiar behaviors. The only times I’ve been taken aback by people with truly unexpected or surprising “never heard that before” viewpoints is when I’m talking to (a) people in pajamas who’ve recently escaped from insane asylums or (b) brilliant iconoclasts, fickle neurotics, spirited crazies, X-factor creatives, etc. Most of whom tend to live in the same cities and even hang with each other at the same bars and cafes.
A Life In Hell
Produced in part by James L. Brooks (whose name used to mean a hell of a lot in the ’90s), The Edge of Seventeen (STX, 9.30) seems sharper and more angsty than your typical “miserable 17 year old girl trying to find a semblance of peace or satisfaction” dramedy. Directed and written by Kelly Fremon, pic costars Hailee Steinfeld (who’s now actually 19!), Haley Lu Richardson, Blake Jenner, Woody Harrelson and Kyra Sedgwick. Harrelson’s teacher character telling Steinfeld’s that “you need to watch out for run-on sentences” is what sold me.
Another Strong Poster
It’s no secret I wasn’t much of a fan of The Birth of a Nation when I saw it at Sundance. But I do think it’s strong and compelling enough to become a hot conversational topic and most likely be Best Picture nominated and make a lot of dough all through award season and up to the Oscar telecast in late February. I may not be down on my knees in religious worship, but I recognize that Nate Parker‘s film is presenting a very strong narrative/myth, and that the mix of it and the present-day climate might prove highly combustible in the coming months.
Fast Food Discount
There’s a belief out there that John Lee Hancock‘s The Founder (Weinstein Co., 12.16) was made for a mere $7 million. (Forbes‘ Scott Mendelson reported this figure last May, possibly after checking with the IMDB). That sounds low but maybe. I’ve always heard that ’50s period films (old cars, settings, wardrobe) tend to be pricey, not to mention the services of an established helmer like Hancock plus the hotshit, whambam, marquee-flasharoonie Michael Keaton plus respected, well-known costars Laura Dern, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Patrick Wilson, et. al.
A $7 million budget is good news for a film that, to go by Robert Siegel‘s script, is basically a downish portrait of dog-eat-dog entrepenurial capitalism — a movie that basically says “sometimes it takes a manipulative shithead to orchestrate a big success.”
Good low-budget films get made all the time — Jeff Nichols‘ Take Shelter ($1 million), Garden State ($2.5 million), Sofia Coppola‘s Lost in Translation ($4 milllon), Animal Kingdom ($5 million), Jason Reitman‘s Juno ($7.5 millon), Dope ($700,000), Steven Soderbergh‘s Magic Mike ($7 million). But none of these were “period”. If the $7 million figure is correct everyone must have worked for scale. I’m told that Keaton only got a lousy $250K for Spotlight. The services of Dern, Offerman, Lynch and Wilson aren’t that costly, I gather.
Pic was co-financed last year by The Weinstein Co. (which has domestic distrib rights) and Film Nation. Film Nation handled international sales. The Combine apparently managed the hands-on producing. I double-checked with the Weinstein Co. about the $7 million figure — no response so far.
Exceptional, Brilliant
This day-old anti-Donald Trump spot, created by the Hillary Clinton campaign, is easily the most artful, skillfully assembled political ad since Bernie’s “Looking for America” piece, which floored everyone, tapped right into the bloodstream. Trump-supporting dumbshits won’t get it, of course, any more than they understood that restricting the sale of automatic weapons was vital in the wake of the Newtown massacre.
Rogue Jihadist or Garden-Variety Psychopath?
Is there anyone who wasn’t presuming in the immediate aftermath of the Nice tragedy that the late killer wasn’t some kind of Islamic nutter? Was anyone wondering if he/she was Swedish? The fact that the truck-driving fiend has been revealed to have been Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old, divorced, Tunisian-born father of three…well, no surprise.
But he may not have been any kind of radical, jihad-minded, ISIS-following terrorist. Not as we tend to imagine this kind of pathology, at least. More like a raging loser, a rogue who exploded, closer to the Orlando killer than those behind the Paris, Brussels or San Bernardino slayings.
A N.Y. Times story reports that Bouhlel, a delivery guy, “had a history of petty crime, including theft, going back to 2010, and he received a six-month suspended sentence in March for assaulting a driver during an altercation in January.” To my knowledge no terrorist organization or website has allied itself with Bouhlel or cheered his despicable act.