I was waiting in my Salle Debussy seat for the 7 pm screening of Alice Rohrbacker‘s Le Meravaglie when my iPhone slipped off my lap and through the crack at the the rear of the seat. I realized it was missing a minute or two later and started searching around. I got down and reached around on the floor…nothing. Then I sat down again. I noticed my seat wasn’t collapsing all the way to a sitting position, and — genius engineer that I am — it didn’t occur to me that the missing phone, which was lying inside the seat-hinge mechanism, might be the cause. So like an idiot I flopped down on the seat and in so doing crushed my iPhone to death. I reached into the seat crack and pulled out the damaged remains. Lights off, inoperable, glass cracked, ruined Mophie charger — totally destroyed.
Now the same process that I went through in Germany last year begins again — buy a new iPhone for the maximum price in New York, have my son send it over via Fed Ex for God knows how much money…an instant death-hit of $1200 or more.
Until the new phone arrives I’ll just have to make calls on Skype. A pain but not that much of a problem — just expensive. It would be a howling nightmare if all this had happened, say, five or ten years ago. Synching issues are not the problem they used to be. It’s not that bad. Tonight so far this problem has eaten Le Meravaglie and the 9 pm screening of Abel Ferrara‘s Welcome to New York.
I’ve decided to once again blow off Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Winter Sleep, which screens today at the Salle du Soixantieme at 2:30 pm. I’ll get to it one of these days or weeks, but the dispiriting reviews (reactions from Hitfix‘s Guy Lodge and Indiewire‘s Jessica Kiang) that came out of yesterday’s debut showing are enough to persuade me to wait and see it down the road. I will always respect and admire Ceylan, but currently other obligations are opportunities are elbowing his latest aside.
My plan for today is to see the much-buzzed-about Wild Tales at 11:45 am, followed by the 2 pm Salle Debussy screening of Ned Benson‘s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, the 6:30 pm showing of the 150-minute-long Saint Laurent (perhaps only an hour or 90 minutes’ worth…we’ll see) and then, finally, Abel Ferrara‘s Welcome to New York at 9 pm, which will be followed at 11 pm by some kind of press schmoozer with Gerard Depardieu and Jacqueline Bisset.
The Hitfix Cannes guys (Gregory Ellwood, Guy Lodge, Drew McWeeny…wait, Ellwood is attending this year?) have listed and summarized 12 films that are on almost every high-priority list of every Cannes-attending journo-schmourno: Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher (the top of my list), Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Winter Sleep (a close second), Mike Leigh‘s Mr. Turner, Tommy Lee Jones‘ The Homesman, David Cronenberg‘s Maps to the Stars, David Michod‘s The Rover, Gabe Polsky‘s Red Army (co-lensed by HE pally Svetlana Cvetko), Olivier Assayas‘ Clouds of Sils Maria (mopey movie-industry women hanging out in a small Swiss town), Jean-Luc Godard‘s Adieu Au Langage (who outside of Godard-ophiles would be even half-interested in this if not for the 3D photography?), Ryan Gosling‘s “experimental” (read: probably somewhat dicey) Lost River, Asia ArgentoIncompresa (not on my list, pally) and Atom Egoyan‘s The Captive (nope). And yet they’ve left off Michel Hazanavicius‘s The Search, which could turn out to be one of the more distinctive and penetrating dramas of the lot. (Lodge ran a separate piece about it, but including Incompresa or The Captive at the expense of The Search seems…well, perverse.) And they totally overlooked Abel Ferrara‘s Welcome to New York. The festival (which kicks off five days hence, or four days if you count the annual La Pizza gathering as the kickoff event) still seems to me like the most underwhelming, Cote d’Azur-centric, self-regarding, not-necessarily-trailblazing-in-a-commercial-or-awards-context roster in a long, long time.
Ferenice Bejo, Maksim Emelyanov in Michel Hazanavicius’s The Search.
I’ve forgotten if it’s been previously rumored or half-assedly reported or whatever that Abel Ferrara’s Welcome to New York, a drama about the financial, political and sexual intrigues of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, will screen during the Cannes Film Festival. In any event it was announced today that a Cote d’Azur screening will happen at a private-level venue (i.e., outside the festival) on Saturday, 5.17. Costars Gerard Depardieu and Jacqueline Bisset will hobknob with selected press. Wild Bunch is orchestrating the event, handling sales, etc.
Abel Ferrara (second from left) directing Gerard Depardieu during filming of Welcome to New York
I’ve gotten used to presumptions about Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Birdman, Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher, David Cronenberg‘s Maps to the Stars, Tommy Lee Jones‘ The Homesman, the Dardennes brothers‘ Two Days, One Night, Michel Hazanavicius‘ The Search and Fatih Akin‘s The Cut playing at next month’s Cannes Film Festival. Now I’m warming to the idea of Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice (which has now been mentioned twice in Cannes projection pieces, most recently by Variety‘s Peter Debruge). Give me a week or two and I’ll be (a) completely invested in Vice‘s possible booking and (b) profoundly depressed if it doesn’t turn up.
Last weekend in Manhattan a smallish stone was thrown at the great Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man, Call Me By Your Name, Boardwalk Empire) but apparently it wasn't that big of a deal.
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Two days ago I was repulsed by the unwelcome (i.e., overly familiar) attention of an older, possibly alcoholic, seemingly unstable dude. It happened in the Wilton Library and it wasn’t cool. The man was sitting nearby and belching, for one thing. Every so often he got up and sauntered around like a drunk. He passed by my work station twice, and too slowly for my comfort.
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It’s definitely not welcome news that departing Los Angeles Times film critic Justin Chang is joining The New Yorker as its senior film critic, or at least as a co-senior bigmouth with Richard Brody (i.e., “the ArmondWhite of the far left”).
Chang is a brilliant, first-rate critic who has passed along many valuable judgments and perceptions over the years. But over the past six or seven annums he’s become a bit of a social justice warrior (at least in my eyes) and something of an identity ideologue. Example: Last October Chang pannedTheHoldovers over a single depiction of racist cruelty between two minor characters.
The Chang hire means two things, and both are breaking my heart.
One, The New Yorker film desk is now doubly woked-up and, in my opinion, half-fanatical. I’ve been an occasional fan of Brody’s essays, but there’s no forgetting that in his 10.13.22 Tar review he actually doubted the existence of wokeism and cancel culture. That, good sir, is fanaticism.
And two, NewYorker film critic Anthony Lane, hired by Tina Brown 31 years ago and one of my absolute favorite wordsmith smart-asses ever since, has been kickedupstairs by editor David Remnick.
Lane will be “expanding to writing [on] a wider range of topics,” Remnick has announced — a polite way of saying that Lane’s senior stripes have been torn off.
This is not the end of my online NewYorker subscription, but Remnick is downgrading and more or less humiliating one of the very few non-woke (or mostly non-woke) critics of a senior status. Not cool and rather shitty in fact.
Posted on 9.10.11: Christopher Plummer's beguiling performance in Mike Mills' Beginners (i.e., a 70ish dad who decides to come out and live his waning years as a gay man) has looked like a strong contender for Best Supporting Actor Oscar all along.
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Yesterday’s Oscar Poker chat (the details are posted below) was lively, stimulating, funzie, contentious.
Sorry for posting it late but I’ve been trying to find my big, fat elephant-hide wallet, which has everything in it — cash, passport, driver’s license, all the cards, receipts, you name it. I was certain it had somehow dropped out of my overcoat while I was watching Maestro on Friday, 11.3, but Bernie the projectionist says it’s not there.
My last hope are the guys at Joe and the Juice, where I paid for a cappuccino sometime around 3 pm on Friday. Do they answer their phone? Of course not. You have to dig through their corporate website and then fill out a customer form. If they had the wallet, would they check the driver’s license and maybe try and call? Or reach out on Facebook? Of course not.
Jeff and Sasha recap portions of his 11.3 Maestro screening, a total turn-on event. They also discuss the Incredible Weeping Guy plus the (hopefully temporary) loss of Jeff’s elephant-hide wallet. Plus Anatomy of a Fall, Best Supporting Actress contenders, a fight with an old friend, political chatter and a discussion about how the identity-focused politics of Hollywood has ruined storytelling.
Underlining for emphasis: Incredible Weeping Guy was just behaving like a human being when he succumbed to Maestro, and that there’s nothing the least bit “wrong” or unwelcome or out of bounds about a guy tearing up during a screening. I’ve done it a few times myself — I’m just not as demonstrative as a rule.
0:00:00 – Jeff’s fight with his childhood friend over politics.
0:13:00 – Politics stuff — Israel/Hamas briefly.
0:14:00 – Jeff’s cat meows.
016:00 – Joe Biden and Dean Phillips
0:18:00 – Trump Derangement Syndrome
0:26:18 – Jeff on Maestro
0:28:00 – A Star is Born
0:36:00 – Nyad
0:39:00 – Grading on a curve
0:40:00 – Jeff’s friend openly weeping during Maestro
0:43:00 – Why storytelling matters
0:44:00 – The Holdovers — Alexander Payne’s film about kids left over at boarding school over Christmas
0:48:00 – The Taste of Things – a French film starring Juliette Binoche.
0:48:47 – Jeff’s friend “gasping and weeping” – what makes us cry in movies.
0:56:20 – May December – Todd Haynes’ film starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore
1:00 – Anatomy of a Fall – a French movie starring Sandra Huller about whether or not she murdered her husband.
1:20 – Most searched sex positions in New York Post article.
1:21 – Sasha’s road trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving.
1:22 – Best Actress is heating up.
1:30 – Sex in Anatomy of a Fall?
1:33 – Supporting Actress – Da’Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers, Penelope Cruz for Ferarri, etc.
1:33 – Outro
If there's one must-to-avoid in terms of conversational observations about famous human beings, it's deciding who's "nice" and "not nice".
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2023 is one-third over, and so before Cannes begins and especially before the summer months bring their usual empty-gas-tank feeling, it’s time for HE’s list of the year’s finest and fullest films so far — The Covenant, Air, Close, Beau Is Afraid, The Lost King, Magic Mike’s Last Dance, Palm Trees and Power Lines and The Son.
Yes, I’ve chosen only eight — four or five that really make the grade and three or four that deserve to be called respectably sturdy.
The overall tally could actually be nine if I include Paul Schrader‘s reasonably decent Master Gardener, which I saw last September during the ’22 New York Film Festival. (I’ll post my review sometime before the end of next week.)
1. I’m surprised to be saying that HE’s choice for the most engaging film of 2023 is Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (MGM, 4.21), especially given my consistent, less-than-adoring opinion of Ritchie over the last 20-odd years, and especially given his descent into the slick hack realm after Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (’98). Here’s my Covenant review, posted only a couple of weeks ago.
2. My second favorite is Ben Affleck‘s Air (Amazon), which I reviewed on 3.22.23. Okay, I should’ve given it an 8 grade rather than an 8.5 or 9. I re-watched it a second time in a local theatre and was still satisfied. I’m planning to watch it again tonight with subtitles.
3. In my mind Lukas Dhont‘s Close, a masterfully finessed adolescent love tragedy, is a 2022 film, as I first saw it a year ago at the Cannes Film Festival. I reviewed it on 5.27.22. It technically opened on 1.27.23.
4. I caught Ari Aster‘s Beau Is Afraid (A24) on 4.12.23, and I came away convinced that it’s a loopy knockout — one of the most refreshingly surreal and Fellini-esque crazy films that anyone’s seen this century. I understand why some might hate the fact that Beau doesn’t reassure or fill in the gaps and motivations or explain itself much, but it’s definitely a serving of a goblet of fine madness. HE’s review ran on 4.12.23.
5. Stephen Frears‘ The Lost King (IFC, 3.24) was, for me, a delightful surprise, given the 78% Rotten Tomatoes score. It made me feel engaged, moderately aroused and well taken care of. My review ran on 3.24.23.
7. Jamie Dack‘s Palm Trees and Power Lines is one of bravest, chilliest and most carefully rendered sexual horror films I’ve ever seen. Not an easy sit but coldly riveting, especially during the second half. I first saw it in January ’22 under the aegis of that year’s Sundance Film Festival. HE’s review appeared on 3.2.23.
8. Florian Zeller‘s The Son (Sony Pictures Classics, 1.20.23) didn’t exactly knock me out or rattle my soul, and it certainly has a problematic ending, or so I decided as I was driving home. Directed and co-written by Zeller with Christopher Hampton. Hugh Jackman‘s brief scene with his cold bastard of a dad, played by Anthony Hopkins, is the standout. Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby, Zen McGrath, Hugh Quarshie.