“Max, He’s Wearing A Dress”
A 1.6.06 N.Y. Times Fashion & Style piece by Unbuttoned columnist Vanessa Friedman highlighted a striking Louis Vuitton women’s wear ad featuring three female models and 17 year-old Jaden Smith, all of them wearing skirts and blouses and whatnot. Feel Jaden’s fluidity! The once-promising actor son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith had a nascent career that crested with The Karate Kid (’10), only to be killed in 2013 by M. Night Shyamalan‘s After Earth. Now he’s an avant garde, non-binary fashionista.
Friedman writes that “it is possible to see this as sheer sensationalism…there has been speculation that Mr. Smith, who has been wearing various bits of women’s clothes for a while now — a white skirt and black tux to a prom; a flowered T-shirt dress to Coachella and making statements such as ‘I like wearing super drapey things so I can feel as though I’m a super hero’ (in an interview in GQ) — has done it mostly as a canny play for attention, or to promote the idea of himself as a new thought leader (‘Went To TopShop To Buy Some Girl Clothes, I Mean ‘Clothes,’’ he Instagrammed last year).”
Nicolas Ghesquiere, the artistic director of Louis Vuitton, has adopted a more admiring if not solemn opinion of Jaden’s fashion sense. Smith “represents a generation that has assimilated the codes of true freedom, one that is free of manifestoes and questions about gender,” Mr. Ghesquière told Friedman. “Wearing a skirt comes as naturally to him as it would to a woman who, long ago, granted herself permission to wear a man’s trench or a tuxedo.”
Friedman: “Translation: This is the natural end stage of the fashion revolution started in the 1960s and ’70s when women took off their aprons and girdles and appropriated jeans. This posits millennials as the real heirs to the Me Generation, though it’s questionable whether many of Mr. Smith’s 2.4 million Instagram followers are also actual Vuitton customers.
“It’s not unisex. It’s not gender neutral or gender bending or gender free or any of the other expressions we’ve been using to describe the current clothes-fluid moment, because it is, in fact, entirely gendered, at least going by traditional definitions of men’s versus women’s clothing. The clothes and their conceptual allegiance have not changed at all. The person wearing them has.”
Netflix Insult Party
Netflix content honcho Ted Sarandos is quite the hotshot these days. Three years ago Time magazine listed him as one of the top 100 most influential people in the world so you have to figure he’s even more formidable today. Last night I attended what was described in the invite as a “VIP celebration at the private residence of Ted Sarandos,” which is located in swanky Hancock Park. My invite said the gathering would begin at 8:30 pm, but when I got there at 8:40 pm it was obvious the event had begun well before. The party was packed to the gills and quite noisy — you could hear the wallah-wallah of the crowd from a good distance away. Perplexed, I asked a security guy and he told me the party had actually begun at 7:30 pm. And I saw red. You don’t want to be part of the first wave of soldiers attacking Omaha Beach, but being categorized as a second-waver by Netflix publicists is a highly specific and pointed social insult. On top of which the party wasn’t happening “at the private residence of Ted Sarandos” but in a big impersonal plastic party tent outside his home. And it was mostly packed with nobodies. (Okay, I saw Beasts of No Nation director Cary Fukunaga but that was it.) My instant reaction was “good God, lemme outta here.” If you’re going to invite people to a party at your home, have the party inside your home or not at all. And don’t invite the world — keep it smallish and select. I bolted after four or five minutes. As I was walking down the driveway David Poland (obviously another second waver) was coming in. I was so pissed that I only managed only a scowl and a muffled “hey.” Poland: “Hello, Jeffrey…goodbye, Jeffrey.”
BAFTA Noms Fortify The Big Short-vs.-Spotlight Narrative
The big BAFTA news this morning, if you want to call it that, is that the Big Short momentum we’ve all been sensing (insect antennae vibrations, tingling neck hair) is looking real, and as a result the Spotlight guys might have reason to start biting their nails. Maybe. Or maybe not. Adam McKay‘s wonky housing-mortgage dramedy landed five BAFTA nominations, including Best Film and Best Director, while Tom McCarthy‘s journalism drama snagged just three — Best Film, Best Original Screenplay and a Best Supporting Actor nom for Mark Ruffalo. Then again N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick tweeted this morning that The Big Short “is the new Wolf of Wall Street — lots of noms but won’t close the deal.”
The Spotlight and The Big Short teams are also competing with a pair of pre-Golden Globe parties this weekend only a night apart — a Spotlight dinner this evening in Beverly Hills vs. The Big Short‘s Saturday night soiree at the Chateau Marmont. And you know who will be at these parties? The same journos and Academy members who’ve been attending all the award-season events over the last couple of months. Journo: “What…you again? I just saw you at that Bryan Cranston party.” Academy member: “My thoughts exactly, pal. No offense but have you ever considered doing something with your evenings besides schmoozing at parties and jostling for celebrity face-time?” Journo: “Same to ya, fella….oh, wait…ooh! ooh! There’s Steve Carell!”
Carol landed nine nominations, as did Bridge of Spies — a completely decent, middle-ground espionage drama that no one will be watching or talking about six months or a year from now, much less five or ten years hence. The Revenant landed eight noms. The Martian‘s Ridley Scott — “Sir Ridders” — got his gold-watch nomination for Best Director, and Matt Damon was nominated for Best Actor along with The Revenant‘s Leonardo DiCaprio (pretty much locked to win), Steve Jobs‘ Michael Fassbender, The Danish Girl‘s Eddie Redmayne (anybody with a smidgen of taste hates this movie but the none-too-brights are impressed with Redmayne’s open-hearted transgendering) and Trumbo‘s Bryan Cranston.
Mad Max: Fury Road and director George Miller got the shaft — no major noms, just tech stuff.
The BAFTAs blew off Charlotte Rampling! The 45 Years star is much more in the conversation than Lady In The Van‘s Maggie Smith but they nominated Smith and not Rampling? This is bullshit.
“What Are You Doing In There”?”
Set in the shag-ruggy ’70s and based on J.G. Ballard’s novel, Ben Wheatley‘s High-Rise is a creepy thinking man’s comedy that you don’t exactly “laugh” at. Call it a perverse social dreamscape, a nightmarish macrocosm of the things that afflict anyone with a hunger for the usual empty comforts. Oddly humorous, bizarre, fetishy. It reminded me of Lindsay Anderson‘s Brittania Hospital (’82) in some respects. I caught it last September in Toronto; it opens in England on 3.18. Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, James Purefoy.
What Surprises, If Any, Will BAFTA Noms Deliver?
The BAFTA nominations pop tonight just after 11:35 pm Pacific (i.e., tomorrow morning in London at 7:35 am. The lastwordonearth guys are tipping the following: (a) “The big local players are 45 Years and Brooklyn” — shocker, (b) Charlotte Rampling, Saoirse Ronan and Maggie Smith will nab Best Actress nominations, (c) The Fucking Martian‘s Matt Damon will go head to head with Leonardo DiCaprio but lose in the end, even if no one really loves The Revenant, and Ridley Scott (a.k.a. “Sir Ridders”) is in the lead position in BAFTA’s Best Director competish, (d) Alicia Vikander will land a Best Supporting Actress nom for The Danish Girl, which no one loves, (e) Bridge of Spies‘ Mark Rylance has the Best Supporting Actor award in the bag; (e) Lenny Abrahamson‘s Room “isn’t being discussed much around the scene” (it’s dying everywhere), (f) reactions to The Big Short have been “muted, (g) Kate Winslet is a “lock” for Best Supporting in Steve Jobs with Carol‘s Rooney Mara her toughest competitor, etc. I’m sorry but the BAFTAs have never accelerated my pulse rate.
Royals Again
Ten years ago I felt suitably stirred by Stephen Frears‘ The Queen and particularly by Helen Mirren‘s Oscar-winning performance as Elizabeth. The royals returned four years later with The King’s Speech and four more Oscars were claimed, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Colin Firth). Now they’re back again via Netflix’s The Crown — six seasons worth at ten one-hour episodes per season, each spanning a decade in Elizabeth’s 62-years-and-counting reign. Budgeted at $165 million, created/written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Daldry. (All 60 episodes?) Claire Foy as Princess Elizabeth, Matt Smith as Philip Mountbatten, John Lithgow as Winston Churchill, Greg Wise as Lord Louis Mountbatten, Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret (great lookalike), Jared Harris as George VI, etc. Best wishes to Netflix and the team. Quite a commitment.
Third Time’s The Charm
In a sense my late mom has treated Jett, Cait and myself to a 10-day Vietnam visit in late March. Bicycles, scooters, street food, earthy aromas, exotic atmospheres, helmet GoPro, etc. Hanoi, Dong Hoi and Paradise Cave, Hue, Hoi An, My Son. Anthony Bourdain will be…well, one of our spiritual guides.
Hubba Hubba
Nine business days before everyone leaves for Sundance and there are still no screening opportunities to see Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Hail Caesar! (Universal, 2.5). Or at least none I’ve heard about. Everyone returns from Park City by the weekend of 1.29 to 1.31, leaving only five days before the opening. Here’s hoping for a screening next week or at least on Monday, 1.18 or Tuesday, 1.19. Yes, I’m being repetitious, even tedious.
All-Time Highs
Two days ago W Magazine and The Film Stage posted a series of video clips in which several award-season headliners — Cate Blanchett, Paul Dano, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jake Gyllenhaal, Alicia Vikander, Rooney Mara, Bryan Cranston, Benicio del Toro, et. al. — describe their favorite all-time sex scenes. HE’s favorite sensual intimacy scene is mentioned by Dano — that Notorious classic between a standing-and-fully-dressed Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman when they’re more or less glued and never stop kissing and nuzzling. HE’s all-time favorite sex scene is the one between Tom Cruise (by anyone’s measure an unlikely participant in this realm) and Rebecca DeMornay in Risky Business. It’s perfect because like any transcendent sexual encounter it feels levitational — orchestrated, finely tuned, rhythmic, musical. It multiplies and compounds the sexual train metaphor that Alfred Hitchcock created in that last shot in North by Northwest, and it ends with that perfect (i.e., very subtle) electric train-track spark.
Relativity Refreshed, But Why?
I’m as amused as the next guy by the news about Trigger Street partners Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti being tapped to run the new, restructured, post-chapter 11 Relativity Media. We all love the idea of Buddy Ackerman actually running a real movie company, etc. But can I ask a question? Why is Relativity even in business? Who cares? The company went totally bust last year under Ryan Cavanaugh, trapped in a muddy, 75-foot-deep sinkhole and finally forced to face reality. Nothing against Spacey and Brunetti but what magic, exactly, are they expected to create? I know as much as they do, my gut instincts are just as well attuned and I’m more free-form and fuck-all in my thinking. You know what I would do if I ran Relativity? I would hire LexG as vp creative affairs. (I would greenlight films with a potential to compete during award season and Lex would advise about which stupid movies to make.) Over the last year has anyone said to anyone else over a drink, “You know, I’m really upset that Relativity went bankrupt…I know if they could just hire the right people to run things correctly that Relativity could really make a difference to the average moviegoer…I hope they get it together….we need companies like Relativity to brighten and enrich our moviegoing lives.” Newsflash: Nobody gives a shit. But with Wells and LexG calling the shots, electric bolts of excitement would be pulsing through the Hollywood bloodstream.