Because of his knockout direction of Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos, which Cameron Crowe remade as Vanilla Sky), The Others and The Sea Inside, Alejandro Amenabar deserves everyone’s respect and attention. Ditto his latest film Regression (Weinstein Co. 8.28), a psychological thriller costarring Ethan Hawke, Emma Watson and David Thewlis. It’s obvious where the tale will take us. Amenabar directed and wrote. Grim up.
My respect and admiration for Amy Adams is considerable, but I can’t see her inhabiting the deep-down aspects of Janis Joplin in the forthcoming Jean-Marc Vallee-directed biopic. Adams has been excellent at conveying quiet fortitude, determination and resolve (Margaret Keane in Big Eyes, con artist in American Hustle, wife of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Master, concerned nun in Doubt). But Joplin was about a combination of delicate vulnerabilty and scrappy, blues-wailing, whisky-drinking sass, and I just can’t imagine Adams really diving into that. Her speaking voice lacks that raspy, cackly-laugh quality, and she has a generally demure Southern-belle vibe that argues with the way Joplin behaved on-stage — that spunky but hurting soul-woman thing. I only know that when I heard Adams had been firmly cast as Joplin, a voice inside me said “really?”
All along I’ve been saying — insisting — that among 2014’s Best Picture contenders, Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s Birdman is the only ecstatic, drop-dead brilliant contender. And all along a majority of the online know-it-alls (Gold Derby, Gurus of Gold, Steve Pond, Sasha Stone, Mark Harris, et. al.) have been saying the Best Picture Oscar will nonetheless go to Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood. And all along I’ve said that would be (a) a personal disappointment but (b) a fine, supportable decision because Boyhood is an inspired, spirit-lifting landmark of sorts — a stunt film with soul, finesse and an engaging scheme.
And then last night the roof fell in with chunks of sheetrock and ceiling styrofoam on the floor and all the Boyhood supporters stumbling around and rubbing plaster dust out of their eyes and going “what happened?” For Birdman won the Producers Guild of America’s Best Picture equivalent trophy, i.e., the Darryl F. Zanuck Award. Boom.
All across Oscarland and particularly among the prognosticators, wise guys are figuring ways to spin this so it seems as if they half-knew and half-expected this to happen all along. Hilarious.
Needless to add there is nothing but joy and elation up in Park City. If I wasn’t a sober guy I would have bought a bottle of champagne and guzzled it. For the first time since the triumph of Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Hurt Locker, which I had pushed from its first screening at the ’09 Toronto Film Festival, HE’s personal Best Picture pony appears to be surging and within reach of a big win.
Maybe. Don’t count your chickens. There could always be a backlash. (Sasha Stone tweet: “When Birdman becomes the frontrunner people will start to hate it too. Like clockwork.” Did she say “start” to hate it?) But this feels awfully good, I must say.
Hollywood Elsewhere departs for the 2015 Sundance Film Festival (1.22 thru 2.1) this coming Wednesday, or a day early. I like to get all set up and settled in before it begins. Here, in any event, is a boilerplate rundown of the films everyone else is talking about. I’ve just average, common too — I’m just like him and the same as you. If there’s something I should add to this list of 25, please advise. I never seem to fit in more than 25 films over my usual eight-day period (I return around noon on Friday, 1.30). I’m posting these films roughly in order of personal interest:
Last Days in the Desert (dir: Rodrigo García — cast: Ewan McGregor) — Yeshua, plumbing the depths of his soul in the Judean desert, runs into a mirror-image Stan. Shot by the legendary Emmanuel Lubezki (Birdman, Gravity, Children of Men).
Mississippi Grind (dir. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, cast: Ryan Reynolds, Ben Mendelsohn) — Shrewd poker guy and a less-focused drifter gamble their way across the States to a legendary high-stakes game in New Orleans. James Toback told me last March this is a loose reimagining of Robert Altman‘s California Split. Toback performed a cameo in which he belts Mendelsohn. Grind also stars Sienna Miller, Analeigh Tipton and Alfre Woodard.
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon (dir: Douglas Tirola) — Based on the 2010 Rick Meyerowitz book, charting the entire arc of the National Lampoon. Presumably featuring stories about and recollections of NatLamp all-stars Doug Kenney, Henry Beard, Michael O’Donoghue, Tony Hendra, Sam Gross, Sean Kelly, Anne Beatts, Chris Miller, Gerry Sussman, P.J. O’Rourke, Bruce McCall, Stan Mack, M.K. Brown, Shary Flenniken, et. al.
D-Train (d: Jarrad Paul, Andrew Mogel, cast: Jack Black, James Marsden) — Said to be a “dark” comedy about an ex-geek (Black) attending 20th anniversary high school reunion and hooking up with one of the popular high school hot shots of yore (Marsden). Wild night is fallin’.
A Walk in the Woods (d: Ken Kwapis, cast: Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson) — All opening-gala films need to be regarded with caution. (No prejudice — just speaking from experience.) Based on travel writer Bill Bryson‘s true-life account, it’s about sturn und drang as three friends hump it along the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail.
True Story (d: Rupert Goold, cast: Jonah Hill, James Franco) — Based on real-life tale about a imprisoned killer (Franco) attempting to steal the identity of a discredited New York Times reporter (Hill). There’s something about this film that feels subdued. Can’t put my finger on it.
Mistress America (d: Noah Baumbach, cast: Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke). Manhattan relationship shake about a college freshman (Kirke) hanging and galavanting about with her soon-to-be stepsister (Gerwig). Formerly known as “Untitled Public School Film” something or other; been in the can forever.
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (d: Brett Morgen) — Authorized doc on late Kurt Cobain from his early days in to his success with Nirvana and the downfall from smack. Featuring Cobain, Courtney Love, Dave Grohl.
A few days ago Awards Daily contributor Ryan Adams created a cool Photoshopped Birdman image of myself and Michael Keaton that I really liked, and so I wrote him and said so and he responded with a thanks. The guy had been a belligerent punk and a salivating attack dog ever since hooking up with Sasha but all of a sudden he was being nice and I was saying to myself, “Okay…maybe he’s not 100% bad…maybe there’s a tolerable human side to this guy after all.” But last night he, Craig Kennedy and Sasha Stone trashed me a couple of times on their Awards Daily Oscar podcast when they discussed the LBJ/Selma thing. Boiled down they more or less said that if you side with the LBJ advocates you’re either (a) a “dinosaur” like Peter Bart or (b) a closet racist who can’t stand the idea of having to share control of the culture and the film industry with non-whites, and that (c) it’s cool for African American filmmakers to do a little distortion of their own in order to balance the scales.
And then towards the end Adams said a particularly rash thing:
“…[like people who] got behind their favorite and they’ve already bought in and laid their money down on the movie they like the best. Like Jeff Wells. With Birdman. He’s been the Birdman guy all year along. Any movie now that comes along and potentially, even remotely poses a threat to Birdman, he’s not gonna like. He’s not gonna like any movie that’s not Birdman. He’s gonna damn it with faint praise and he’s gonna slur it and slam it any way he can think of. And it’s a sleazy way to cover movies, I think.”
It’s “sleazy” to have a favorite and to be enthused about that? If you have a favorite film you’re only allowed to…what, say this two or three times, mildly and somewhat mushily, and then you have to shut up until Oscar season ends? I’ve never put other films down in order to build Birdman up…never. Over the course of 2014 I went apeshit for at least 27 films, and every review is easily findable on HE. I happen to like Birdman more than Boyhood, okay, but that doesn’t mean I don’t admire and respect Boyhood, and that I wouldn’t be totally fine if it wins the Best Picture Oscar.
I was going to politely and respectfully ignore the passing of Donna Douglas, 82, who became world famous when she began playing Elly May Clampett on CBS’s The Beverly Hillbillies, which ran from ’62 to ’71. I’m sorry but I don’t feel much enthusiasm for stars of TV series from the “vast wasteland” days of the ’50s and ’60s. Except, of course, for actors who appeared on The Twilight Zone. And then I remembered it was Douglas who played the “ugly” patient whose face is revealed at the end of “The Eye of the Beholder,” the famed episode that aired in ’60. Almost all of her dialogue was voiced by Maxine Stuart, who had one of those husky, Tallulah Bankhead-like voices (the kind women used to get from drinking whisky and smoking unfiltered cigarettes). This didn’t match Douglas’s milk-fed farmer’s daughter looks, of course, and is therefore one of that episode’s few stand-out flaws. Born in the worst days of the Depression in September 1932, Douglas was no spring chicken when The Beverly Hillbillies began — she was just turning 30, which is no big deal today but in the paternalistic early ’60s being 30 was almost regarded as “put out to pasture” time for dishy blondes. Douglas died of pancreatic cancer. Here’s the N.Y. Times obit.
Donna Douglas as she appeared in the final minutes of the legendary Twilight Zone episode, “The Eye of the Beholder.”
I’ve seen Into The Woods (Disney, 12.25) twice — once three and a half weeks ago (on Monday, 11.24 — the night of the Ferguson Grand Jury announcement) and a second time on a DVD screener a week or so ago. I’d nearly forgotten about it with everything else going on, but then the reviews broke today…of course! My reaction was and is basically positive — this is easily the best film ever directed by the not-tremendously-respected, more-or-less-regarded-as-a-hack Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine, Memoirs of a Geisha). He hasn’t gotten in the way or otherwise fucked up the spirited ingredients that made the original 1987 Stephen Sondheim stage musical such a triumph, and has actually enhanced the material in a reverent and respectable fashion. It may not be gloriously or rapturously inspired, but Into The Woods has spunk and smarts and more or less gets it right. It’s an intelligent, thoughtful musical that actually says something about storybook fantasy vs. reality, and it does so with rigor and discipline and a mesmerizing, high-Hollywood style. The tweener idiots might be shifting around in their seats (“Hey, we want more escapism!”) but the over-25s will get what’s going on and enjoy it as fully as they should.
Before The Interview premiere at downtown L.A.’s Ace Hotel theatre, I dropped by a cocktail party for Rory Kennedy‘s Last Days in Vietnam at the Chateau Marmont. I spoke briefly to Rory and her husband Mark Bailey, who co-wrote this excellent doc. My sense is that the Best Feature Documentary race has boiled down to a Last Days in Vietnam vs. Citizenfour stand-off. It’s also hit me that these docs are coming from similar places, and yet hold different views about this country. Both are about the defiance of rules for the sake of a greater good, and both focus on callous, ignoble behavior on the part of senior U.S. officials. Vietnam is about Americans stationed in Vietnam ignoring orders not to assist South Vietnamese to evacuate prior to the April 1975 takeover of Saigon by the North Vietnamese and in so doing putting their careers in jeopardy. Citizenfour is about Edward Snowden heroically or self-sacrificingly ignoring the law in order to tell his countrymen and the world about the extent of NSA monitoring of U.S. citizens, which has led to an exiled life in Russia. The difference is that Vietnam spreads the heroism around — it’s about a small community of people who stood up and did the right, risky thing. In a sense it exudes a somewhat more positive view of human nature.
Last Days in Vietnam director-producer Rory Kennedy, husband and cowriter Mark Bailey during last night’s Chateau Marmont gathering.
“And what’s with Michael Keaton‘s non-stop running around with white Fruit of the Loom underwear, at least as far as this trailer is concerned? In my eyes Fruit of the Loom is pretty close to gold-toe socks in terms of aesthetic offense. The world of men’s underwear is pretty cool these days. I personally lean toward slim boxer underwear with a button-snap fly. Nobody with a shred of taste or self-respect wears Fruit of the Loom briefs, least of all anyone allowing for the possibility that they might wear them in public.” — from a 7.31.14 HE riff on a Birdman trailer.
“When it came to shooting a scene in which Keaton must walk (or rather, run) through Times Square in his underwear, costume designer Albert Wolsky put his foot down. ‘Michael would have preferred boxer shorts, but I felt very strongly that they had to be old-fashioned jockey shorts or BVDs,’ he said. ‘Otherwise he’s not vulnerable enough.'” — from 12.2 N.Y. Times “Carpetbagger” posting by Rachel Lee Harris.
I’ve expanded my “pure as the driven snow” Best of 2014 list (originally posted on 11.20) to 27, having added Rob Marshall‘s Into The Woods, Hany Abu-Assad‘s Omar and Charlie McDowell‘s The One I Love to the second-tier 13-to-26 list. Adding Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Ida (which I’ve always regarded as a 2013 film although I understand that most see it as a 2014 release) and you’ve got 27. I’ll update once again after seeing Unbroken on Sunday night, 11.30, followed by Big Eyes and Exodus two or three days later. (I’m currently halfway through an online screener of Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Winter Sleep.)
Top Twelve: 1. Birdman (d: Alejandro G. Inarritu); 2. Citizen Four (d: Laura Poitras); 3. Leviathan (d: Andrey Zvyagintsev); 4. Gone Girl (d: David Fincher, who took a film with an airport-lounge plot and made it into something much more resonant); 5. Boyhood (d: Richard Linklater); 6. A Most Violent Year (d: J.C. Chandor); 7. Wild Tales (d: Damian Szifron); 8. A Most Wanted Man (d: Anton Corbijn); 9. The Babadook (d: Jennifer Kent); 10. Locke (d: Steven Knight); 11. Nightcrawler (d: Dan Gilroy); 12. The Drop (d: Michael R. Roskam).
Forget the award-season bunker mentality, forget the odds, forget handicapping and definitely forget the passions of Joe Popcorn. For herewith is my almost final list of 2014’s finest films, totalling 23 and compiled with a focus on world-class coolness, aesthetic exceptionalism and serious envelope-pushing originality. Obviously I’ll update after seeing Unbroken, Into The Woods, Winter Sleep and Big Eyes. These are the personal bests that I’ll be happy to own in some high-def form (Bluray, Vudu HDX, whatever) and will be watching from time to time in years to come. It’s funny how the movies you’re supposed to like or are obliged to publicly support kind of fall away when you take yourself into a purist frame of mind. I’m not 100% locked into this order but it’s close to this:
Top Twelve: 1. Birdman (d: Alejandro G. Inarritu); 2. Citizen Four (d: Laura Poitras); 3. Leviathan (d: Andrey Zvyagintsev); 4. Gone Girl (d: David Fincher, who took a film with an airport-lounge plot and made it into something much more resonant); 5. Boyhood (d: Richard Linklater); 6. A Most Violent Year (d: J.C. Chandor); 7. Wild Tales (d: Damian Szifron); 8. A Most Wanted Man (d: Anton Corbijn); 9. The Babadook (d: Jennifer Kent); 10. Locke (d: Steven Knight); 11. Nightcrawler (d: Dan Gilroy); 12. The Drop (d: Michael R. Roskam).
Second-Tier Top Twelve: 13. Whiplash (d: Damian Chazelle), 14. The Theory of Everything (d: James Marsh); 15. The Imitation Game (d: Morten Tyldum); 16. The Grand Budapest Hotel (d: Wes Anderson); 17. Selma (d: Ava DuVernay); 18. Omar (d: Hany Abu-Assad); 19. Last Days in Vietnam (d: Rory Kennedy); 20. Life Itself (d: Steve James); 21. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (d: Matt Reeves); 22. Red Army, (d: Gabe Polsky); 22. Foxcatcher (d: Bennett Miller); 23. Edge of Tomorrow (d: Doug Liman); 24. The One I Love (d: Charlie McDowell).
People tend to think of cats as generally contented as long as they have plenty to eat and get their usual 18 hours of daily shut-eye. But half the time Zak, my seven-month-old ragdoll, tells me that he’s bored stiff and wants to go out and look at the sky and smell the air and run around. He looks at me several times a day with an expression that says, “Are you kidding me? You’re serious? This is my life, just sitting around and plotzing?” And so we go out. A lot. We’ve been to a certain Indian restaurant on La Brea a couple of times. Zak is like a dog with a fairly high IQ. He’s totally cool sitting in a moving car — he actually likes staring out the rear window as we buzz around. Sometimes I’ll take him with me while shopping at Pavillions or getting gas or whatever. Last weekend I took him to an afternoon lunch at a friend’s place and he spent a couple of hours roaming around a huge back yard. Loud cars freak him out but he loves staring at people and generally absorbing new aromas and environments. He really, really doesn’t like sitting around. Like me his philosophy is “life is short.” He doesn’t need to intellectually know that — he just instinctually knows this is the only attitude worth having. A regular “go for the gusto” type.
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