I’m sorry but this is the only Dwayne Johnson skit from last night’s SNL that I really laughed at. I would’ve responded earlier but I only caught the show this morning, and I was only half-watching anyway. SNL is so white noisey these days. Oh, and if they made a feature-length movie out of this (i.e., fuck the hunters), I would definitely buy a ticket.

The great Czech-born cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek, whose career began with ’60s Czech New Wave films including Milos Forman‘s The Firemen’s Ball and The Loves of a Blonde and who later shot Forman’s Taking Off, Hair, Ragtime and Amadeus, has died at age 80. Ondricek also shot Lindsay Anderson‘s If… and O Lucky Man!, Mike Nichols‘ Silkwood and George Roy Hill‘s Slaughterhouse-Five (i.e., “Schlachthaus-fünf”). He also dp’ed Penny Marshall‘s A League of Their Own. Salutes, sadness, condolences. One of the great ones. Ondricek’s work on Ragtime and Amadeus was Oscar-nominated for Best Cinematography but he didn’t win. I’ll take it very badly of the Academy if they don’t include this legendary artist in next year’s death reel.

Celebrated cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek

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In a 3.29 post, Deadline‘s Anita Busch has given some attention to a testimony-based play about the Ferguson tragedy by journalist and documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer. The “staged reading,” based on grand-jury witness testimony from the Darren Wilson-Michael Brown shooting investigation, will be presented for four nights next month at L.A.’s Odyssey theatre. After the show ends “the audience will…judge whether Ferguson officer Darren Wilson should have been indicted,” Busch writes.

Excuse me? The last time I looked the Wilson-Brown incident had been thoroughly investigated in a fair and judicious fashion, and — I hope what I’m about to say doesn’t disturb anyone — the consensus is that Wilson is in the clear and that Brown would be breathing fresh air today if he didn’t act like an aggressive asshole when Wilson confronted him on Canfield Drive. On 3.4.15 Eric Holder‘s Department of Justice delivered an 86-page report about the 8.9.14 shooting, and concluded in no uncertain terms to Wilson acted reasonably and with justification.

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So what’s the verdict on the Get Hard outrage? Some HE regulars must have seen it last night. Is saying “take it easy, this is way overblown” a semi-legitimate view or not? Does the politically correct anger seem excessive or more or less appropriate? Is Get Hard a rough equivalent of Eddie Murphy‘s “Mr. T in a gay bar” joke?

“I’m sadly very familiar with the aesthetic that drives this film. Hollywood will always pay lip service to the gay community but when it comes down to the bottom line, they are still going to dredge up those old derogatory tropes and stereotypes. Gay panic is one thing and rape jokes are another and to put these two things together is especially pathetic on the part of the studio.

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My first thought was that (a) Marina Caregivers is an assisted living facility for elderly folks, and (b) it seemed a little bizarre to have blondie, who looks like a love doll, try to lure fresh customers from the corner of Washington Blvd. and Glencoe Avenue. Then I looked them up and realized they’re selling different strains of cannabis sativa. I don’t know how long blondie has been flashing their sign but what kind of fiend comes along and tears her arm off?

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In a 2008 More Intelligent Life piece about Bill Forstyh‘s Local Hero (’83), star Peter Riegert is quoted by Jasper Rees as follows: “Bill [Forsyth] understood that moviegoers are not interested in what the actors are feeling. They’re interested in what they’re feeling.”

Precisely! This is a perfect distillation of the entire Hollywood Elsewhere approach to reviewing movies and performances. This is the sine qua non, the emerald, the whole magillah, the words in passing from Peter Reigert, speaking six and a half years ago, that give the game away.

I’m always perfectly aware of the feelings that an actor is attempting to generate with his or her personality or application of technique or whatever, but all I care about is what I’m feeling as I sit slumped in my seat, tripping happily on the film or the performance or trying to make heads or tails of either one. I might “respect” what a filmmaker has tried to accomplish with this or that approach, but all I care about and all I’m going to write about at the end of the day is if this approach works for me. For I am King Solomon…the ultimate arbiter, the one-man jury, inspector of the final product, giver or denier of the FDA seal of approval.

A performance or a movie, in other words, is not about the idea or theme or cultural undercurrent propelling the filmmakers, but about how I fucking feel as I contemplate the finality of it
.

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I’m a teeny bit nervous about the trailer for Rob Garver‘s What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, which is currently filming and expected to open at the end of the year. It’s just a trailer on the fly, but the dependence on stills and tag lines feels substandard. There’s a general aura of caution and a lack of funds. A doc about the most influential film critic of the 20th Century should be dynamic, vividly visual, bothered, manic, flourishy and to some degree reflective of the rhythms and brushstrokes of some of the mid-century filmmakers Kael deeply admired. It should move and seduce and agitate. It should deliver, in short, a facsimile of the colloquial style and obsessive energy of Kael’s writing. The trailer doesn’t begin to suggest that it will do that. Here’s hoping everything works out regardless. [Note: Ignore the idiotic “sorry — because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here” message and just click on “watch on Vimeo” button.]

I am Steve Coogan‘s character here, and he is me. Except I’m less testy with a somewhat more positive outlook. It should be noted that Happyish (Showtime, debuting on 4.26) was primarily developed by Shalom Auslander, an American author and essayist whose writing style is “notable for its Jewish perspective and determinedly negative outlook.” It should also be noted that Ken Kwapis, a lightweight, Catholic-raised sitcom guy who directed the pilot and “most” of the first season’s episodes, directed The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and He’s Just Not That Into You.

The first words you hear in this teaser for Spectre (MGM/Columbia, 11.5) are out of the mouth of Naomi Harris‘s Miss Moneypenny: “Frehnsic finelee relees’d this.” Listen to it a couple of more times and you finally realize she’s saying “forensics finally released this.” Then she informs Daniel Craig‘s 007 that “you’ve got a secret…something you can’t tell anyone because you don’t trust anyone.” Is James Bond is about to learn that his father is Darth Vader? At the end it says “coming soon”…29 or 30 weeks from now is “soon”? It’s opening on 11.6.

Rupert Goold‘s True Story (Fox Searchlight, 4.17) is very well made — clean, assured, well-ordered — to relatively little effect. It’s basically a chilly procedural, based on Michael Finkel‘s real-life account (“True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa“), about a couple of guys who couldn’t be more different, a journalist (Jonah Hill) and a murderer (James Franco), who nonetheless share a sociopathic nature. They’ve both done things that are self-destructive and inexplicable, Finkel (Hill) having gotten fired from the N.Y. Times for inaccurate or falsified reporting and Christian Longo (Franco) having murdered his family and then used Finkel’s name while on the lam in Mexico.

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Earlier today I mentioned that the basic plot of Woody Allen‘s Irrational Man (Sony Pictures Classics, 7.24), about a 40ish college professor (Joaquin Phoenix) having it off with one of his students (Emma Stone), is sure to reactivate discussions about Allen’s personal history. The subject is actually reactivated now with an excerpt from Mariel Hemingway‘s new book, “Out Came The Sun,” being kicked around. Hemingway was 16 when she played Allen’s 17 year-old girlfriend in Manhattan (’79), but when she was 18, she writes, the 44 year-old Allen invited her to come to Paris with him.

Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone in Woody Allen’s Irrational Man (Sony Pictures Classics, 7.24)

Woody Allen, Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan (’79).

That was a bit on the sleazy side, agreed, but it wasn’t that bad as Allen made the offer with the full knowledge of her parents, who “lightly” encouraged her to go. If a middle-aged guy wants to make a play for a significantly younger woman, the decent thing, I feel, is to wait until she’s 21 or 22. Then again Woody and Mariel had a certain levitational bond over having brought their very best game to Manhattan, and Woody, I’m assuming, was probably channeling the usual X-factor rationale about exceptional people living by their own rules.

Yesterday’s Salon contributor Erin Keane wrote that Hemingway’s revelation “demands we look unflinchingly at the reality that Manhattan so artfully disguised as art, and see it for what it truly is. Woody Allen is a genius. Woody Allen is a predator. He put those two sides of himself together, hand in hand, and dared us to applaud.”

Doesn’t “predator” allude to a compulsive behavior pattern, or certainly something more than a one-off? Keane also says that the idea of an 18 year-old being romantically entwined with a 40-something boss is “theoretically disgusting.” Well, okay, but not entirely. It was unseemly for the 44 year-old Allen to try and get something going, I agree, and yet the 18 year-old Hemingway was of legal age. As it happened she said no and everyone moved on.

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