This is a portion of a DVD Beaver frame capture from the new Arrow Bluray of Robert Altman‘s The Long Goodbye (’73). So $5000 bills (last printed in 1934) were actually kicking around in the early ’70s? Printed money doesn’t gain in value as the years roll on, of course, but the U.S. Labor Department inflation counter says the purchasing power of $5 grand in ’73 was/is equal to around $26 grand today. So finding a $5000 bill “in a box of Crackerjacks,” as Elliot Gould‘s Phillip Marlowe explained to Mark Rydell‘s Marty Augustine, was quite a discovery.
At age 81, the great Peter O’Toole has shuffled off this mortal coil. A legendary lover of drink, a magnificent royalist, a classical actor for the ages with one of the most beautiful speaking voices ever heard. Fire in the blood and diction to die for. O’Toole was a legendary personality (he could be great on talk shows), the half-mad blonde beauty of Lawrence of Arabia, an inhabitor of King Henry II (twice), the wonderfully spirited fellow who rebounded with The Stunt Man, the voice of the gourmand in Ratatouille…a brilliant man in so many respects. In private he could be a bit of snob (or at least with the occasional journalist) but when he chose to be “on” O’Toole snapped and crackled like lightning.
He had five peak periods in his career — the first three years (’61 to ’64) starting with his being hired to play T.E. Lawrence and then making the film and exploding onto the scene when Lawrence of Arabia opened in late ’62, and then following up with his best performance ever as King Henry II in Peter Glenville‘s Becket. He lost “it” for a period in the mid ’60s but then got it back as Henry redux in Anthony Harvey‘s The Lion in Winter (’68). Then he returned again with that hilarious performance as a hippie-ish paranoid schizophrenic in The Ruling Class (’72). The fourth rebound happened between ’80 and ’82 with his performances in The Stunt Man, the TV epic Masada and My Favorite Year. The fifth and final rebound happened in the mid aughts with Troy, Venus and his voicing role in Ratatouille.
A friend invited me to an event party last night on Willoughby, about a block south of the Formosa Cafe. I was immediately concerned when she said it was open to the public and that all I had to do was rsvp on Facebook. I’ll walk into any dive bar in any down-at-the-heels scumbag neighborhood in the world but I haven’t attended a Facebook-rsvp event in my life — it sounded horrible. When the door guy (heavy-set, African-American…what else?) said “show me your ID” I scowled and turned and walked back to the car. Okay, I’m spoiled. I’ve been getting invited to elite media events for 30-plus years. I’m easily unimpressed.
I honestly feel that West Hollywood’s Astro Burger is one of the most attractively designed commercial establishments in all of Los Angeles. This is what Vegan/health food restaurants lack — that sparkly, 1950s-era American Graffiti drive-in vibe.
I asked the guy in the Santa suit what he and his girlfriends were doing in the Santa suits and he said, “Uhhm…celebrating the holiday?” And I said, “Really…on your own volition?” And I asked to take their photo. This happened last night around 8:45 pm in a Ralph’s on La Brea.
If there was a God, The Wolf of Wall Street and 12 Years A Slave would be the big neck-and-neck competitors for the Best Picture Oscar with everyone except for the harumphs going “yes, of course…are you kidding me?” But we live in a Godless and narcotized realm with the Slave resistance and the over-65 default crowd still running the conversation. But if Gravity continues to slowly deflate (Sandra Bullock‘s quote about how it was “supposed to be an amusement ride” let some air out of the balloon), there’s a growing chance that American Hustle, which everyone really admires and which has opened very strongly this weekend, could slide in for a win. It’s possible. I would be content with this. Saving Mr. Banks may not be finished as a nominee but it certainly can’t win. Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis, Jean Marc Vallee‘s Dallas Buyer’s Club, Spike Jonze‘s Her — these are the films that deserve the highest consideration alongside Wolf and Slave, but those damn softies (i.e., the crowd that voted for Argo, The Artist and The King’s Speech) won’t get with the program.
Posted on 8.21
Cecil B. DeMille was a pious hypocrite. The theme of his Biblical-era films was spiritual salvation through the Bible, but no other studio-era filmmaker shovelled sex, female flesh, big muscles, debauchery and blood with more relish. On top of which he was a Republican who believed in the blacklisting practices of the late ’40s and early ’50s. But he had a fairly decent eye for balance and composition — almost as good as John Ford‘s. He knew how to fill the frame, and his films were handsomely dressed and designed. Samson and Delilah (’49) is swill, of course. The dialogue by Jesse L. Lasky, Jr. and Fredric M. Frank is agony. But George Barnes’ Technicolor cinematography is ripe and richly toned. The Bluray streets in early March.
New York snowfalls never last. The weather is constantly shifting and mooding out. A snowfall always turns to slush within a day or less. It’s 27 degrees now but the melting will begin tomorrow when the temperature hits 35, and then Sunday’s rain will wash it all away.
The Dissolve is running a “psychedelic” poster inspired by Spring Breakers. It was designed by Sam Smith. My first thought was “this conveys nothing of what the film actually is or feels like…nothing about it from the rosey greenish tones to the suggestion of familial bonding and the sublime, settled-down feeling that a sunset shares…Harmony Korine‘s film has so little of these elements that it’s barely worth commenting upon. Oh, I get it…Smith was tripping when he created it?”
Two nights ago I watched the Criterion Bluray of Robert Altman‘s Nashville (’75). And guess what? It doesn’t hold up. It’s earnestly dislikable. I wanted to shut it off after the first half-hour.
It’s a typical Altmanesque grab-bag of this and that, but it’s mainly a social criticism piece about Middle-American politics, patriotism, pettiness and celebrity. The specific focus is the banal eccentricities and pretensions of the country-music industry, but for the most part the film is snide and misanthropic. Sorry, but I’m removing it from my Altman pantheon. I loved it in ’75 but I’m pretty sure I’ll never watch Nashville again. It’s failed the test of time.
In basic construction terms Nashville is about a troupe of eccentric, improvising actor-hipsters leaning on their default Left Coast impressions of Nashville’s sophisticated-hick culture and dispensing variations on a single dismissive theme: “These people are small and petty and lame and delusional.”
The late Gwen Welles plays a short-order waitress and a completely untalented would-be singer. I’ve known a few mediocre performers in my life (actors, singers…I was one myself when I tried to be a drummer) and the common characteristic is that they’re somewhat talented but not talented enough. But Welles’ bad singing is a patronizing “bit” — an actress pretending to be God-awful. In actuality a singer with a voice this tone-deaf wouldn’t dream of trying to become a performer. But try she does.
Welles’ big scene arrives when she tries singing at a club and fails so miserably that the crowd hurls cruel taunts and insults. Welles is so deflated by the response that she goes numb. Her eyes space out and she starts disrobing because some drunken asshole has yelled “show us yer tits!” or something in that vein. She ends up naked and humiliated, but I, sitting in my living room 38 years later, was appalled. I felt sick. I haven’t watched a scene this ugly in a long, long time.
David O. Russell‘s American Hustle opened in six theatres yesterday to the tune of $211,000, and now’s the time for the HE community to weigh in. It’s one of the year’s best but…where do I start? I’m from New Jersey and the Jersey-based characters in American Hustle aren’t from my gene pool. I felt for Jeremy Renner‘s Elvis-pompadoured mayor of Camden but even he’s not right for me — too ethnic, too many kids, too much food at the table. Yeah, I got a kick out of Jennifer Lawrence‘s spunky, braying housewife but I avoid women like her when I see them in real life. They’re nice deep down but they’re horrible to deal with on practical matters.
(l. to r.) Adams, Cooper, Renner, Bale, Lawrence.
Hustle is improvisationally alive and crackling and knowingly tacky, but for all the enjoyment it gave me and all the award-season action it’s getting, it doesn’t quite…what? Deliver my kind of emotional through-line? I didn’t quite see myself in this thing, not really. I’m one of the few New Jersey guys who writes a daily movie column that movie stars read so don’t tell me. But it’s a good film. Better than good. It’s nervy and anxious and always up to something. It might be better than I realize.
My first thought as I clicked on this teaser for Christopher Nolan‘s Interstellar? I’m a bit tired of Matthew McConaughey starring or costarring in everything. (The first stirrings of this began with that Martin Scorsese Dolce & Gabbana ad that he costarred in with Scarlett Johansson.) My second reaction was that his accent bothers me — “To break bayhhrriers, to reach for the stahhhrrs.” My third & final thought: What the eff is McConaughey saying at the very end? I’ve listened five times on earphones and this is what I’m hearing: “Our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us…’cause ahh guessee…ayhs bahss.”
I suspect that Saving Mr. Banks might have trouble landing an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Maybe. It certainly can’t win at this stage. But Hollywood Reporter award-season analyst Scott Feinberg believes it might still be a contender for a nomination. Maybe he’s right. A seasoned industry guy told me this afternoon that “it might squeak in.” But here’s what I wrote Feinberg earlier today:
“Your post boils down to a line that says ‘since 2001, 17 of the 240 acting Oscar nominees — or 7 percent — received neither a SAG nor Globe nom en route to the Big Show.’ In other words, since ’01 less than 10% of Oscar nominees weren’t first nominated by SAG or HFPA. But more more than 90% of the time, people who weren’t nominated by SAG or HFOA didn’t land an Oscar nomination. Correct?
“Are you going to sit there and tell me that Saving Mr. Banks is doing fine as a Best Picture nominee? It’s been a bit of a weak sister all along, and after the shut-out by SAG and HFPA plus that Amy Nicholson slam piece in the L.A. Weekly, I think it’s dead. Thompson and Hanks are fine as acting contenders, but the movie is finished. It might barely earn a nomination but…
Nobody believes the official explanation of the death of publicist Ronni Chasen…nobody. The Beverly Hills fuzz decided that a no-account African-American felon named Harold Martin Smith had pedalled seven miles on a bicycle, all the way from a flophouse on the 5600 block of Santa Monica Blvd. to the corner of Sunset Blvd, and Whittier Drive in Beverly Hills, where he allegedly shot Chasen, who was driving her black Mercedes, with four bullets. On a bicycle? As part of an alleged robbery attempt? What idiot believes he could successfully rob a person who’s locked in a car while he’s sitting on or pedalling a bicycle?
(l.) The late Ronni Chasen; (r.) the late Harold Martin Smith.
Deadline‘s Anita Busch has written an intelligent analysis of the Chasen investigation in lieu of a just-released LA County Coroner’s report. It says that a police officer reported that an “unknown vehicle” had pulled up alongside Chasen’s car [before] “someone fired approximately four gunshots into her vehicle.” The eyebrow-raiser is that the “unknown vehicle” may refer to something other than Smith’s bicycle.
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