Producerfriend: “AdamDriver joined the Marines after 9/11 and served three years before breaking his sternum in a dirt bike accident and being discharged.
”He got into Julliard after being rejected on his first try, and graduated after four years. He was 26 before he even started to make a living at acting, mostly in small NYC theatres for many years. So at age 34, he’s been acting professionally for only 8 years.
“And he’s worked for Jarmusch, Soderbergh, Scorsese, Eastwood, the Coens, Spielberg, Baumbach, Gilliam and Spike Lee. He’s also been nominated for an Oscar, a Tony and three Emmys. And you think he works too much?”
HEtoproducerfriend: “No, but he’s in everything.”
Producerfriend: “Good for him. He’s committed. What’s wrong with that? It’s not like he picks bad projects. And Jarmusch and Spike and Leos Carax all approached him.
“Watch an interview with him. When asked by Colbert if he was livin’ the dream, he said ‘oh no! I’m just trying to hang on. And understand what’s happening.’
“He also talks about going to ComicCon for the first time. When his hosts asked what he wanted to do in the morning he said ‘Oh, I don’t know. Get some coffee nearby. Then have a run.’ And they said ‘No! you can’t do that. You’ll get mobbed.’ It was the first time he realized that he’d lost his privacy. And he was horrified.
“He’ll get nominated for MarriageStory. And he’s five beats away from winning an Oscar. Mark my words.”
Last night I watched a 4K UHD version of Chinatown on Vudu. I could tell right away it’s not a fresh re-harvesting from the best celluloid elements. JackNicholson’s hair looks too inky at times. And the bandage on his nose looks too white, too bleachy.
But it’s quite beautiful for the most part. It certainly looks better than the most recent Chinatown Bluray. The sharpness, the textures, the stronger colors. But then I’m a plebe about this stuff.
HE to restoration guy: “I’m presuming you’re not impressed. Because it’s probably just a tweaking of the last harvest. But maybe I’m wrong. Know anything about it?” I then sent him the below attached photos for samples.
Restoration guy to HE: “This is pretty bad. It’s all about data throughout. And this doesn’t seem to have it. I watched a 4K DCP Chinatown last Tuesday. It’s gorgeous. The studio did a terrific job, especially with color, which is warm. And it looked nothing like these images.”
HE to restoration guy: “Wait…you watched a 4K Chinatown DCP? It was shown to ticket buyers? Why did they create this? They must be intending to issue a 4K Bluray in 2024, to celebrate the 50th anniversary. Just like Sony’s intention to wait until 2022 to issue a 4K Lawrence of Arabia Bluray, even though Grover Crisp’s 8K scan was harvested…what, back in ‘15 or thereabouts?”
HE to restoration guy: “I’m nonetheless telling you that as much as you may disapprove of Vudu’s 4K version of Chinatown, it really does feel like an improvement over the 1080p Bluray. It delivers a bump effect…’wow, this looks better in some respects.’ True, the images look waxy and Jack’s dark hair looks inky. It looks superficially enhanced, yes, but it’s a nice cheap high.”
Here’s a small but curious oddity in Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman‘s Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, which will open just after Labor Day.
The film begins with footage of Ronstadt, 73, visiting the Mexican town of Banamichi, where her grandfather was born, and listening to a music festival. A significant portion of the doc is about Linda’s ethnic as well as musical identity. The last 25% is about Ronstadt’s decision to musically celebrate her Mexican heritage with 1987’s “Canciones de Mi Padre” as well as “Mas Canciones” (’91) and “Frenesi” (’92).
The film conveys a clear sense of Ronstadt having found spiritual fulfillment and completion by way of embracing her family’s history and traditions.
Except all through the ’60s, ’70s (her biggest commercial decade) and most of the ’80s nobody knew Ronstadt was of Mexican descent. For the simple and obvious reason that she has a German last name. In the doc media mogul David Geffen and fellow troubador Jackson Browne both say they didn’t know about Ronstadt’s Latin ancestry. Nobody did until she went ethnic in the late ’80s. All fine and good, but that’s a significant cultural-identity issue — German last name vs. Mexican heritage — so you’d think that Epstein and Friedman would include a line or two of explanation. But they don’t.
In a statement provided to Hollywood Elsewhere, the filmmakers said that “we only went back as far as her grandfather, the generation she would have personally been acquainted with. Otherwise it was just too much backstory to work in, and didn’t seem relevant to her musical story, which was our focus.”
I understand this answer, but ignoring where “Ronstadt” comes from still seems a bit odd. The Wiki fact is that Linda’s great-grandfather, graduate engineer Friedrich August Ronstadt (who went by Federico Augusto Ronstadt) “immigrated to the Southwest in the 1840s from Hanover, Germany, and married a Mexican citizen, eventually settling in Tucson.”
It’s a minor omission and unimportant in the greater scheme of Ronstadt’s musical life, but the decision to avoid mentioning Friedrich or Federico is still a head-scratcher.
So here’s a theory or, if you will, a suspicion. The reason Linda’s great-grandfather is completely ignored is because it would have been politically incorrect to have mentioned him. [Full disclosure: My mother’s family, named Grube, was half-German.] The arc of the last third of Linda’s life was about reconnecting with her Mexican family roots. The movie, as mentioned, is all over this aspect, but no one wants to hear about some knockwurst-and-sauerkraut guy from Hanover, Germany who came to this country 175 years ago. Even if a brief mention of same would have explained the basics.
Because whiteness, let’s be honest, isn’t especially cool these days. Certainly by the standards of the progressive community. The basic agreement in media circles is that white culture (whether descended from England, Germany, France, Russia or the Nordic countries) can be acknowledged but is better off ignored. Because we’re living in an era of positive progressive redefining in which non-white cultures are experiencing a significant upsurge, media-recognition- and ethnic-celebration-wise.
During the first two-thirds of a 39-minute “Awards Chatter” interview, Hollywood Reporter columnist and podcaster Scott Feinberg and legendary rock star David Crosby seem to hit it off. But then Crosby starts to lose patience with Feinberg’s questions, which he regards as overly generic, simplistic and boilerplate.
Crosby seems particularly irked by Feinberg’s questions about Joni Mitchell, whom Crosby has known for over 50 years, first as a musical admirer, then a lover, then a creative partner, and then as an off-and-on friend. Crosby visited Mitchell after her 2015 stroke and was the first person to say anything substantive about her condition, or so I recall.
Things begin to go wrong around the 26 and 1/2 minute mark. And then during the last three or four minutes Crosby shifts into outright hostility, calling Feinberg “a dumb guy,” “an asshole”, a “dipshit”, an “idiot” and so on. Feinberg understandably wasn’t at all charmed by this. He also understands, I’m sure, that you can’t win ’em all. All interviewers try to get along with charm and intelligence, dealing the usual cards (upfront, polite, deferential), but some people are like oil and vinegar. You just have to shrug it off when this happens.
I think this was was actually a fascinating interview. Hundreds upon hundreds of podcast chats are posted on a regular basis these days, and for the first 25 or so minutes Feinberg vs. Crosby was just another amiable discussion that was ostensibly about promoting a film (i.e., David Crosby: Remember My Name). And then came the thorns and abrasions.
The first stirring of trouble happens at the 26:55 mark when Feinberg begins asking particulars of Crosby’s relationship with Joni Mitchell, which began in late ’67 or early ’68 (or something like that). Here are some roughly transcribed portions of the discussion — words and phrases are omitted but the gist of the interview is, I feel, fairly represented.
Crosby: I have to ask…are we going to go through my entire history, week by week? Feinberg: No, no, no… Crosby: Tell me what we’re doing here. Feinberg: Well, what would you like to do? Crosby: I’d like to talk about the last four records in a row that I just made. Feinberg: Well, we have an hour so… Crosby: Okay, we’re creeping along here. Uhm, I had already been living in Laurel Canyon. Feinberg: Everybody knows retroactively what Laurel Canyon scene was about, but at the time was it known as a kind of artists’ community? Crosby: No, hell no. We just trying to get above the smog. I had lived in L.A. and knew how bad the smog was. I had already been living in Laurel Canyon when I came back from Florida with Joni. We were just trying to get above the smog. You go up into the hills and there’s a smog line. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, could’t afford Beverly Hills, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to live downtown so… Feinberg: It’s just that there are such differing recollections about you three guys initially got together. Crosby (under his breath): Oh, God. Feinberg: What [unintelligible]?
From “President Donald Trump’s poor mental health is grounds for impeachment,” a 5.31 USA Today opinion piece by John Gartner (psychologist and former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School), Dr. David Reiss (practicing psychiatrist for more than 30 years, specializing in fitness evaluations), and Dr. Steven Buser (clinical psychiatrist practicing in Asheville, North Carolina, and a former Air Force psychiatrist. Gartner and Buser are editors of “Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness and the Mind of Donald Trump“:
If you want a fast-and-hard assessment of Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, which I attempted to convey two or three hours ago, it goes like this: Four-fifths of this half-century-old Hollywood fantasy is lightly amusing, in and out, yes and no, decent and diverting as far as it goes. But the final fifth is payoff time — a taut, time-clocky, here-we-go, edge-of-the-seat finale that is absolutely insane, exuberant, take-charge and fucking-ass nuts.
I could boil it all down and simply call the last half-hour a “happy” ending, except the craziness is so balls-out unhinged…I’m obviously having trouble describing it. I have my tastes and standards and you all have yours, but by the measuring stick of Hollywood Elsewhere the finale is really, really great. As in laugh-out-loud, hard-thigh-slap, whoo-whoo satisfying. Do I dare use the term good-vibey? And the very end (as in the last two minutes) is…naahh, that’ll do.
But most of the film (the aforementioned 80%) is what most of us would call an okay, good-enough, sometimes sluggish, oddly digressive, highly restrictive wallow in the world of B-level Hollywood at the dawn of the Nixon administration.
By which I mean OUATIH is pretty much tension-free and not all that juicy except for two brawny-fisticuff scenes involving Brad Pitt‘s Cliff Booth, a laid-back, muscle-bound, serenely cool stunt man. Take no notice of any critic who claims Pitt isn’t the star of this baby and then some. Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Rick Dalton, a late-30ish actor stuck in a career slide and freaking badly, is all nerves and anxiety, a smoker of too many cigarettes and a slurper of way too much alcohol.
Who are these guys? And how will Dalton, a fading TV actor with a backpack full of fear and trepidation, find a way out of the thicket? And what role, if any, will Booth, Rick’s sidekick, stunt man and best bruh, play in turning things around, if in fact that is in the cards?
And what about those motley, zombie-like hippie weirdos encamped at the dusty Spahn Movie Ranch out in Chatsworth, whom Cliff immediately recognizes as bad ones? And how, if at all, will Rick ever break into A-level movies and thereby rub shoulders with the likes of Roman Polanski, aka Mr. Rosemary’s Baby, and his dishy wife Sharon Tate?
I wasn’t irritated or put off by the first four-fifths but I was waiting, waiting, waiting. I was fine with it being a relatively decent, often wise-assed, sometimes hugely enjoyable attitude and atmosphere smorgasbord of period aroma, jokes, flip humor, character-building, asides and “those were the days.”
But with the exception of those two hugely enjoyable stand-up-and-kick-ass scenes (Cliff vs. Bruce Lee on a movie set, Cliff vs. the mostly-female Manson family at the Spahn ranch), all I was feeling was a kind of second-gear sensation…an “okay, okay, okay but where’s the tension, what’s with all the digressions and when the hell is this movie going to step up and kick into third if not fourth gear?”
It’s not really Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, of course, but Once Upon A Time in Quentin’s Non-Historical Hollywood Memory Kit Bag.
HE to readership: Before reading this article, you may want to read two reviews of Avengers: Endgame — Anthony Lane‘s New Yorker assessment and another by The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw. Consider their descriptions of Chris Hemsworth‘s currently-conceived Thor, and consider that if these guys are going there then so are hundreds of others. In other words, Hollywood Elsewhere isn’t guilty of spoiling anything. Once you’ve done this and thought things through, feel free to read on.
Beginning of “Fat Thor” essay: Positively or questionably, healthily or otherwise, films and TV shows have been doing their part to normalize obesity over the last…oh, decade or so. Shrugging it off, Jabbas are no biggie, they deserve dignity like anyone else.
In the old days Hollywood would cast portly types in order to nudge the funny bone. (In Michael Curtiz‘s Robin Hood there’s a whole scene devoted to Errol Flynn and his band of Sherwood Forest rascals making fun of the overfed physique of Alan Hale, who was merely stocky at the time.) But over the last decade the message has been “no judgment, no shaming, all sizes are cool and obesity is just…well, just another way of living and being.”
The first time I noticed Hollywood’s fat-friendly mindset was the appearance of “Russell,” the obese Asian-American boy scout in Pete Doctor‘s Up (’09).
Four years later Nebraska‘s Alexander Payne did his part by having Will Forte‘s David ask a plus-sized ex-girlfriend (Missy Doty, who also played the tons-of-fun waitress whom Thomas Hayden Church seduces in Sideways) if they can have sex.
In 2014 Mark Duplass played Melissa McCarthy‘s flirtatious love interest in Tammy.
The same year I took note of Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed‘s Feast, which is basically a charming corporate advertisement for the joys of junk food.
Not to mention the obvious conveyances from Amy Schumer‘s performance in I Feel Pretty, Danielle Macdonald‘s in Patti Cake$, Chrissy Metz‘s mom in Breakthrough, Rebel Wilson in Isn’t It Romantic, etc.
SPOILER: So it means something, I think, that Avengers: Endgame has (a) decided to have a few laughs by making Thor into a beer-drinking lardbucket with a walrus belly, but also (b) delivered a concurrent message that reckless eating and drinking habits aren’t all that cool, and that in the actual world putting on 40 or 50 pounds is a definite indication of depression, loser-tude and sloth.
In other words, directors Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely are saying to the fatasses watching their film with large tubs of buttered popcorn in their laps…they’re saying “yo, we’re talking about you, bruh!” (At my Disney lot screening there were three or four fanboys who were much bigger than Thor.)
In short, Endgame is not only going against the Hollywood narrative of the last ten years but risking the wrath of plus-sized advocates.
I’ve only seen three of the eight episodes that constitute Fosse/Verdon (FX, 4.9) so I’m obliged to restrain myself. But I know it when all the main elements (editing/montage, screenwriting, pitch-perfect performances, exactly the right rhythm and tone, cinematography) have come together in just the right away.
I’m telling you that Fosse/Verdon — the decades-spanning story of legendary director, choreogrqpher and more-than-slightly-flawed human being Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell) and his longtime wife, lover, best friend and trusted creative colleague Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams) — is really, really top-drawer.
I actually think it’s masterful.
In All That Jazz, Roy Scheider‘s Joe Gideon was all this and more. The difference between Jazz, which presented a Verdon-like character (played by Ann Reinking) as a peripheral figure, and Fosse/Verdon is that Verdon is just as essential and deeply-dug-in as Fosse, if not more so. This may be the best performance Williams has ever given. Seriously.
Largely directed by Keaton Kail (five of the eight episodes) and written by Steven Levenson (and based upon Sam Wasson‘s “Fosse“), this is one pizazzy, well-seasoned, theatrically-staged saga of a louche genius who was touched by the dancing godz and who also knew how to direct films, and a wonderfully gifted, spirited and emotionally buoyant dancer-singer who put up with a ton of shit until she left him (even though they never divorced), and the truly great stuff they created for the Broadway stage (as well as their collaboration on the Oscar-winning Cabaret).
In the comment thread of my 4.24 Long Shot review, “AuggieBenDoggie” noted the basic premise — dorky, blunt-spoken journalist (Seth Rogen) falls for a dishy Secretary of State (Charlize Theron) who’s way, way out of his league — and asked if it isn’t the same basic idea behind Continental Divide (’81), in which John Belushi played a stocky reporter who tumbled for Blair Brown‘s Rocky Mountain scientist.
In both films the women reciprocate the feelings of the male journalists and actually invite them into their beds. Except that the Belushi-Brown pairing is a lot less of a stretch than the Rogen-Theron romance, which has struck some as fairly ridiculous.
HE reply: Yes, there’s a rough similarity between Long Shot and Continental Divide, but the latter — directed by Michael Apted, written by Lawrence Kasdan — is a much more grown-up, more emotionally earnest comedy — a galaxy apart from Long Shot. As in “actually tethered to a semblance of the real world.” Compared to Long Shot, Continental Divide is a Lubitsch film. And Belushi isn’t half bad as the tough, Mike Royko-like Chicago journalist.
By the way: Here’s a striking photo of Belushi’s sheet-wrapped body being rolled out of the Chateau Marmont in front of a journalist wolf-pack. It kind of reminds me of the last moments of Sunset Boulevard — the same mix of pity, sadness and lurid headlines. The photo is part of a Hollywood Reporter excerpt from Shawn Levy‘s “The Castle on Sunset” (Doubleday, 5.7), which I’ve read and highly approve of.
Only days before next weekend’s Tribeca Film Festival showing of the 4K Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, the running time has been changed on the TFF website. Before this turnaround the length of this restored version of Francis Coppola‘s 1979 war classic was listed as 147 minutes; now it’s 183 minutes. Yeah!
TFF spokesperson Tammie Rosen informs that “we had the wrong time on the site, but once we received the final forms we updated. No different than any other film. Simple as that.”
The bad guy in this misadventure is Coppola’s archivist James Mockowski, whom I reached out to last month upon the advice of Telluride Film festival founder Tom Luddy. I asked Mockowski twice — once in March, again in early April — if he could please tell me what the Final Cut running time is, or if it’s just a tech upgrade thing. Silencio. Nine years ago I asked Mockowski for help on a technical matter regarding George Hickenlooper‘s Hearts of Darkness — same result. The man is a hider, an obfuscater, a mouse.
A trusted industry friend told me a while back that according to his understanding Final Cut was an in-betweener — a split-the-difference version that lies between the pit of man’s fears…no, that lies between the original 147-minute version and the 202-minute Redux version. 183 minutes means Final Cut is 19 minutes shorter than the 202-minute Redux and 36 minutes longer than the original 70mm Ziegfeld version that ran 147 minutes. So Final Cut will include the French plantation sequence — just not as much. And the rescuing the Playboy bunnies sequence — just not as much. And so on.
Rosen emphasizes that the bad information wasn’t deliberate, and that this kind of thing happens all the time. The apparent bottom line is that Mockowski and Coppola live in their own solar system, and that somebody finally pointed out to them, “Hey, guys…the Tribeca Film Festival website is saying that Final Cut runs 147 minutes, or 36 minutes shorter than the actual length. Don’t you think you should wise them up?”
Rosen reminds that all along TFF has emphasized the Final Cut title, but if you read their copy there was never a mention of a longer running time. In fact, TFF’s primary descriptive emphasis was on technical restoration upgrades:
Consider: “Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now will celebrate its 40th Anniversary at the Festival with a screening of a new, never-before-seen restored version of the film, entitled Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, remastered from the original negative in 4K Ultra HD.” HE interpretation: In other words, no one has ever seen this 4K restored version, even though it’s just a remastering of the original negative that produced the original 147-minute 70mm version.
More TFF: “The Beacon Theatre will be outfitted for this exclusive occasion with Meyer Sound VLFC (Very Low Frequency Control), a ground-breaking loudspeaker system engineered to output audio frequencies below the limits of human hearing, giving the audience a truly visceral experience. In addition, the film has been enhanced with Dolby Vision®, delivering spectacular colors and highlights that are up to 40 times brighter and blacks that are 10 times darker, and Dolby Atmos, producing moving audio that flows all around you with breathtaking realism.” HE interpretation: Tech, tech, tech, tech, tech.
Four years ago I made a case for 1971 being one of the best movie years of all time. In June ’07 I presented a similar argument for 1962, which is easily at par with 1939. One could make an equally strong case for 2007. All to say that 1999 films, great and nourishing as they always will be, have been a tad overhyped over the last decade or so.
My 1999 roster — Election, The Matrix, Fight Club, American Beauty, The Limey, The Sixth Sense, Magnolia, The Straight Story, The Cradle Will Rock, Run Lola Run, Any Given Sunday, The Hurricane, Three Kings, The Insider, Being John Malkovich, The Thin Red Line, Eyes Wide Shut, The Blair Witch Project, October Sky, Abrej Los Ojos and The Lovers on the Bridge — comes to 21, which is obviously stellar and significant.
But there are 25 films on my 2007 list — American Gangster, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, No Country for Old Men, Once, Superbad, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, Things We Lost in the Fire, Zodiac, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Atonement, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, I’m Not There, Sicko, Eastern Promises, The Bourne Ultimatum, Control, The Orphanage, 28 Weeks Later, In The Valley of Elah, Ratatouille, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Darjeeling Limited, Knocked Up and Sweeney Todd. Just as strong as ’99, and perhaps a touch better.
Posted on 10.3.14: Abel Ferrara‘s Pasolini, screening this evening at the New York Film Festival, is about the last day or so in the life of the noted visionary Italian filmmaker — a brilliant writer and impassioned artist, upscale and refined, incredibly hard-working, the maker of one of the most rancid and perverse films of all time…and a guy with a thing for low-class, curly-haired boys. And an inclination on some level to flirt with danger.
Ferrara is obviously in awe of Pasolini’s artistic bravery (or obstinacy) and has captured some of his visions and dreams by depicting portions of Pasolini’s “Petrolio,” a meandering unfinished book he was writing, and has depicted his violent death with a certain raw power but…how to best say this?…I was faintly bored by some of it. Not dead bored — it’s an intelligent, earnestly presented film about an interesting man — but my fingers were tapping on the tabletop. Too many shots are murky or underlit…not Gordon Willis dark but “you can’t see shit” dark.
I actually loved Ferrara’s capturing of three scenes from Porno-Teo-Kolossal, a film Pasolini intended to make as a follow-up to Salo, The 120 Days of Sodom. And Willem Dafoe‘s performance as Pasolini is arresting — he obviously looks the part, and for whatever reason I didn’t mind that Dafoe and almost everyone else speaks English the entire time. And I love the way he pronounces “bourgeoisie” as “BOOJHwahzEE.”
But it’s finally a mercurial film aimed at Pasolini devotees. I agree with Variety‘s Peter Debruge that “it’s not fair to require audiences to know Pasolini’s ‘Petrolio'” — if you haven’t done your homework some portions of Ferrara’s film will throw you blind. But it’s lively and unfamiliar and anything but sedate. It’s not so bad to be faintly bored; it also means that you’re somewhat engaged. I’m glad that I saw it. It has portions that work. My vistas have been somewhat broadened.