Wells to Universal: “Please hint that you’re thinking about maybe platforming Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Hail Caesar! sometime in December before the wide break in February? Just for the fun of it? I’ve read the script and it’s a peach, this thing. It’ll be great to have a Coen Bros. knucklehead comedy to put on my Ten Best of 2015 list.” By the way: If you look at the cast list on the Hail, Casear! Wikipedia Page you’ll notice that Patrick Fischler, David Krumholtz and Fisher Stevens portray “Communist screenwriter[s]” and that Dolph Lundgren plays “a Soviet submarine commander.” Do the math. Wouldn’t it be a kick, hypothetically speaking, if an early ’50s Hollywood farce was predicated on the notion that HUAC, John Wayne, Cecil B. Demille, Robert Taylor, Adolphe Menjou, Gary Cooper and all the other witch-hunters were right? And that there was, in fact, a cabal of Hollywood commie screenwriters in league with Stalinist Russia, and that they were plotting to undermine American Democratic values and maybe even take over? New Beverly double-bill in July 2016: Hail Caesar! and Jay Roach‘s Trumbo.
Be-Bop Mumbletone
I’ve watched this Miles Ahead teaser three times — nice vibe, feels authentic. But I’ve been listening with good headphones, and I’m telling you I can’t understand anything that Don Cheadle is saying except when he says “can we record this?” and a couple of times when he says “yeah.” His Miles voice is a little too raspy and mumbly. If this persists in the watching of the actual film in a theatre or screening room, it’ll be a problem.
Vanity Fair Fade
Now this is one fetching Cuban cover. It looks like dessert or afternoon sex. The hot red letters, Rihanna’s intense red hair, the chipped-paint wall of beige-tan with just a touch of mustard, the almost teal-green classic car, the faded green of her outfit…beautiful. I’ll be buying this new issue of Vanity Fair today or tomorrow, and I’ll plop it down on my aged wooden chest in front of my big blue couch, and if recent tradition is any guide I’ll probably never get around to reading it. I always buy it intending to read the whole thing front to back, but somehow I never do.
I’ve been buying Vanity Fair for 30 years now. I can’t precisely pinpoint when I stopped reading it, but sometime within the last couple of years. Mainly because I’m always checking twitter or writing when I sit down at home. I used to read Vanity Fair on coast-to-coast flights but now I spend all my time online, writing or researching column stories.
On top of which the articles have began to seem a little less substantial with more of an emphasis on girly, frothy, fashiony stuff. Or people I can’t stand to look at. I know that I hate the all-fashion issue. I’m not saying VF has become a kind of lah-lah magazine that celebrates (or tries to instill a fascination with) wealth and fashion and loaded people who are spending their money on increasingly peculiar or arcane things. But it feels like it’s kinda going in that direction. More and more jaded crap.
Major Spartacus Bump: Restored Bluray More Finely Detailed Than 1960 Epic Has Ever Looked, In Any Medium
I’ve seen Stanley Kubrick and Kirk Douglas‘s Spartacus at least 15 if not 20 times, and in all kind of formats — big-screen celluloid projection, broadcast, VHS, Criterion laser disc, DVD and the discredited 2010 “shiny” Bluray that Universal issued five years ago. (And which I somewhat shamefully half-approved of for the simple reason that it looked much better than the 480p Criterion DVD.) Two days ago Universal’s new restored Bluray arrived in the mail, and I swear to God it’s never looked this needle-sharp and natural. It’s a digital knockout, and clean as a hound’s tooth. The difference between this newbie and the 2010 version is analogous to the difference between a run-of-the-mill DVD and a Bluray of anything. It really pops. I felt as if I was watching something almost “new.”
I’m told that every frame has a full measure of grain but I can’t see so much as a single Egyptian mosquito. We all know what grainstorms can look like, and this puppy has none of that. Plus there is extra information on all four sides, and the skin tones and shades of everything look completely natural and unforced. This is the Spartacus of the Gods — robust and radiant and more wowser, I’ll bet, than it’s ever looked, even when Douglas, Kubrick and producer Edward Lewis had a final looksee before the New York premiere in November 1960.
Moochie Reunited With Uncle Walt, Old Yeller
Respect and farewell to Kevin Corcoran, the pint-sized actor in various Walt Disney flicks and serials — Toby Tyler, Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson, Pollyanna, Adventures in Dairyland, Savage Sam — who went on to work behind the camera in various capacities. Corcorcan, 66, died two days ago from colorectal cancer in Burbank. Tough break. “Every day above ground is a good day.” — Mel Bernstein (Harris Yulin) in Brian DePalma‘s Scarface.
Now This Is A Sad Ending
I know that young girl, or I knew her, I should say. Because she was me. Like Marcello Mastroianni, I left her standing on the beach a long time ago. We all do this sooner or later. Obviously not an occasion for celebration. Resignation is more like it.
Listen to This Guy
As much as I enjoyed last night’s Academy discussion between Guillermo del Toro and Kerry Brougher, I enjoyed listening to these clips of GDT’s remarks from a visit to YouTube Space LA three weeks ago even more. Del Toro sat with Tony Valenzuela (I’m soprry but I have a problem with anyone who wear mandals) to discuss…well, the topics in sequential order are (a) dealing with limitations, (b) comment-thread haters and (c) assholes on the set.
95 Minutes of Spiritual Communion
“For many of us going to movies is like going to church. We go over and over and most of the time you don’t get very much, but it’s all worth it when a movie delivers the great beauty and the transcendence and the kiss of God, like from a great sermon. And that single ectstatic episode — that fix — is enough to keep us going back for years to come.”
(l. to r.) Michael Mann, Guillermo Del Toro and director of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Kerry Brougher prior to lastnight’s event — “In The Labyrinth: A Conversation with Guillermo Del Toro.”
This was the Guillermo del Toro quote that stayed with me as I shuffled out of last night’s discussion between the legendary director and interviewer Kerry Brougher at the AMPAS auditorium (i.e., the Samuel Goldwyn theatre).
The talk started out problematically with Brougher kissing Del Toro’s ass over and over, but eventually he let GDT have the floor and after that everything was fine. There is really no one more articulate, perceptive and spiritually imbued than Mr. Del Toro on the subject of film. Or any any subject. But we all know this. The discussion last for just over 90 minutes, and that was exactly right.
I saw GDT’s latest, Crimson Peak (Universal, 10.16), several weeks ago and will post my reaction next week sometime. It’s one of the most exquisitely painted and meticulously composed grand guignol orgies I’ve ever experienced, and I say that as someone who…well, who’s not as much into grand guignol orgies as others. Quite red, quite mad, quite sumptuous.
Can Through-The-Roof Joy Reactions Be Trusted?
I’m sure that David O. Russell‘s Joy was research-screened tonight in Los Angeles, but beyond that I don’t know a thing. I can say that the response so far…let’s see, how to put this…is it okay if I say the response from…what, two or three guys is encouraging? I don’t know anyone. It’s obviously wiser to just wait and cool my jets, but here’s one Awards Watch guy (and please take this with a grain): “OMFG CRYING ON THE STREET! Career-best work from DOR and JLAW. Larson who? JLAW was giving Winter’s Bone-level intensity x1000, nothing like Rosalyn or Tiffany so bye h8ers and naysayers! She carried [the] film like a motherfucking champ, IMHO. It’s such a director’s film and I think a culmination of everything from DOR’s career so far plus more. IMHO majority of it is drama (not sure if that’s how they’ll campaign it), but my God…like it almost didn’t seem like a DOR film but at the same time, it’s so much so his film. It’s very weird. It wasn’t the final cut so a lot of sound mixing still needs to be done. But wowza indeed. Bob was good, Isabella was good, Ladd was ok (like Jackie Weaver SLP ok), Ramirez was good. Madsen was great, I thought.”
10:20 Update: A summary post from Award Watch‘s Eric Anderson — take it with a grain.
Horsey Sundance
Thanks to Obscured Pictures‘ R.J. Millard for inviting Hollywood Elsewhere to attend the 2015 Middleburg Film Festival (10.22 thru 10.25). I’m going for three reasons. One, I haven’t visited rural Virginia in eons. Two, Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday tells me the festival is a “really nice hang.” And three, the films (including Spotlight, Meg Ryan‘s Ithaca, Son of Saul, Carol, Truth, 45 Years, Anomalisa) have been well chosen. They’re the consensus movies that anyone of taste and discretion who hasn’t attended the big fall festivals (Venice, Telluride, Toronto) would want to see. Yes, I’ve seen most of them but still.
A 10.27.13 Washington Post piece by Jen Chaney called Middleburg “a festival with the vibe of a hyper-miniature, horse country Park City, Utah…a really itty-bitty Cannes brightened by fall foliage instead of the glistening French Riviera.”
Why Middleburg? Because BET co-founder and billionaire Sheila Crump Johnson wants attention for the Salamander Resort, which she owns and which is located just outside of town. Hosting a bunch of film people (including journalist freeloaders like myself) is a good way of attracting business by selling people on the idea of Middleburg being a moneyed, honeyed, cultured, quasi-hip destination for people who can, you know, afford it.