Meryl Streep to Nicole Kidman: “Whadaya call that? Foreplay?”

Later: “I’m worried about the boys. Because you seem unwell, erratic. You hit me. You snapped. I think you need to take some real time to heal, and while you do that, I think Max and Josh should reside with me. You’re a mess, Celeste. And until you’re better, we need to think about protecting the well-being of our boys. They’re at risk here. They’re at risk in your care.”

Although Streep’s Mary Louise character is being presented as a needling, malevolent presence (which she is as far as the fate of the “Monterey Five” is concerned), she’s the only character on Big Little Lies whose company I enjoy.

In Bilge Ebiri‘s 6.27 Vulture piece about the Eyes Wide Shut orgy scene, Leon Vitali reveals that Cate Blanchett looped the dialogue of Amanda Good, who played the “mysterious masked woman” at the orgy. Remember her voice? She defended Tom Cruise during the ceremonial interrogation scene by shouting, “Let him go! I’m ready to redeem him!”

That voice, according to Vitali, belonged to Blanchett. Except Good didn’t play “Mandy”, the woman whom Cruise treats for a “speedball” overdose in an upstairs salon inside Sydney Pollack‘s home during that black-tie party scene. According to an 8.27.99 Independent piece by Charlotte O’Sullivan (as well as Google), that role was played by Julienne Davis.

Who played the naked and dead Mandy in the morgue scene, Davis or Good? I’ve read Ebiri and O’Sullivan’s articles twice, and they don’t say. (That or I need a nap.) I’ve found some links and captions that claim Davis played “morgue Mandy” so let’s go with that.

What convinced O’Sullivan that “speedball Mandy” and the “mysterious masked woman” were different actresses? Excerpt from fourth paragraph from O’Sullivan’s piece: “Sight and Sound editor Nick James knew the Mandy we see at the beginning of the film was not the same woman as that at the orgy. How? ‘Because they had different pubic hair‘.”

HE insert: Is there some way that p.c. investigators can track down the 20-years-older James and prosecute him after the fact for being a sexist scumbag? Who notices such things? We need to threaten this guy with career death in order to correct his behavior.

O’Sullivan to Davis: “Did Abigail take over from [you]?” Davis to O’Sullivan in an outraged tone of voice: “No — it’s all me. Abigail Good was just an extra. And anyway, she’s English.” (HE: The mysterious woman has an American accent — Blanchett’s!). Davis: “It’s hilarious. It happens a lot, people try to take credit for things they haven’t done”.

Good to Ebiri: “When all the other girls left, I was in this amazing position of being able to work with two incredible artists. I was on the set with Tom and Stanley, finding things on our own. Stanley asked my opinion a lot. Me and Tom were among the last people he ever filmed. Stanley died before the dubbing was done. And I always wondered before the film came out whether they were going to dub me, because I didn’t have an American accent.”

Vitali to Ebiri: “It was Cate Blanchett…that was her voice. We wanted something warm and sensual but that at the same time could be a part of a ritual. Stanley had talked about finding this voice and this quality that we needed. After he’d died, I was looking for someone. It was actually Tom and Nicole who came up with the idea of Cate. She was in England at the time, so she came into Pinewood and recorded the lines.”

BTW: Despite the assertions in several articles posted yesterday and today, Blanchett’s looping of Good didn’t constitute a “cameo” — and it still doesn’t. A cameo is when an actor briefly appears in a film (doing or saying something of momentary consequence) and then disappears. Looping someone is not a “cameo” or vice versa.

Four and 1/3 years ago Criterion released a digitally restored Bluray (1080p but sourced from a 4K scan) of Nicolas Roeg‘s Don’t Look Now. It was approved by the late director Nicolas Roeg (who died last November) and featured an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. By the digital standards of 2015, it was the finest, richest rendering of this spooky classic ever seen.

But it’s not good enough any more! Because on 7.29 Studio Canal will issue a brand new 4K restoration of Roeg’s film on an actual 4K UHD disc. It’ll be part of a 4-disc Collector’s Edition with both a UHD and Bluray version, plus a Bluray bonus disc with brand-new extras “and the original haunting Pino Donnagio CD soundtrack.”

Boilerplate: StudioCanal tecchies “went back to the original camera negative which was scanned at 4K resolution in 16bit and created the following: 4K DCP, UHD version and a new HD version which were produced with the same high technological standards as today’s biggest international film releases. The restoration and new UHD version was colour-graded and approved in London by the BAFTA Award-winning cinematographer, Anthony B Richmond.”

I’m getting an Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close vibe from this trailer for John Crowley‘s The Goldfinch (Warner Bros., 9.13). I tend to have difficulty with trauma-recovery dramas, especially those involving terrorism. And I have to be honest — I don’t like sensitive little boys who wear glasses. I’m just saying.

Based on Donna Tartt’s 2013 novel, and set for release during the Toronto Film Festival. Ansel Elgort, Oakes Fegley, Aneurin Barnard, Finn Wolfhard, Sarah Paulson, Luke Wilson, Jeffrey Wright, Nicole Kidman. The semi-official description is a “coming-of-age, character-driven drama,” but that’s obviously too vague.

“…to take a break from their conscience. That’s what I see when I look at Trump’s rallies, his spewing lies at [those] people and [those] people saying ‘I gotta believe in somethin” and he said he’d bring my manufacturing job back and she didn’t, and I’m all in.

“But at the end of the day, aside from ‘I don’t wanna pay taxes’, it’s race. It’s race. This is about the Republican party, or a wing of it, going ‘this is our last chance to save the party’. And the only way they could do that was to tape the race button and say ‘go ahead, it’s okay.'” — To Kill A Mockingbird star Jeff Daniels on or about 5.20, speaking to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace.

I watched a portion of this during the Cannes Film Festival, didn’t have time to focus in until this morning.

HE’s personal preference list of Cannes ’19 films comes to 27, and that’s not counting the Cannes Classics roster (Loves of a Blonde, Easy Rider, The Shining, Seven Beauties, Moulin Rouge, the Bunuel trio). 27 to 30 films in 11 days, and that’s leaving out a lot. Which films should I downgrade and which omissions should I include? Tell me this isn’t one of the most exciting Cannes rosters in years, at least on paper.

Top Ten: (1) Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, (2) Abdellatif Kechiche‘s Intermezzo, (3) Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse, (4) Jim Jarmusch‘s The Dead Don’t Die, (5) Pedro Almódovar‘s Pain & Glory, (5) Marco Bellocchio‘s The Traitor, (6) Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne‘s Young Ahmed, (7) Terrence Malick‘s A Hidden Life, (8) Ken Loach‘s Sorry We Missed You, (9) Dexter Fletcher‘s Rocketman (out of competition), (10) Kantemir Balagov‘s Beanpole.

Second Group: (11) Asif Kapadia‘s Diego Maradona, (12) Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Too Old To Die Young – North Of Hollywood, West Of Hell, (13) Nicolas Bedos‘ La Belle Epoque, (14) Jessica Hausner‘s Little Joe, (15) Corneliu Porumboiu‘s The Whistlers, (16) Ira Sachs‘ Frankie, (17) Xavier Dolan‘s Matthias And Maxime, (18) Arnaud Desplechin‘s Oh Mercy, (19) Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles‘ Bacurau, (20) Gaspar Noé’s Lux Aeterna.

Third Group: (21) Larissa Sadilova’s Odnazhdy v Trubchevske, (22) Gael García Bernal’s Chicuarotes, (23) Luca Guadagnino‘s short film The Staggering Girl, (24) Leila Conners’ Ice on Fire, (25) Dan Krauss’s 5B, (26) Bong Joon-ho‘s Parasite, (27) Diao Yinan‘s The Wild Goose Lake.

These days all Cannes Classics selections are recently restored in 4K — that’s pretty much a given. So which 2019 selections seem especially enticing?

A 4K restored version of Dennis Hopper‘s Easy Rider will be shown on the 50th anniversary of the film’s Cannes debut. HE factor: Great news about the 4K upgrade but I for one never had the slightest problem with the previous Bluray versions so I’m having trouble feeling worked up. Peter Fonda, 79, will attend the screening.

A 4K remaster of Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining will be shown (a midnight screening) with a special introduction from Alfonso Cuaron. The 4K remastering used a new 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. The mastering was done at Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging. The color grading was done by Janet Wilson with supervision from Kubrick’s former personal assistant Leon Vitali. HE factor: Can’t get worked up over this either. The Bluray has always looked fine.

You know what would turn me on? A boxy (1.37:1) Bluray version. Remember how Kubrick was into boxy aspect ratios, and that a boxy Shining was in fact released on DVD 15 or 16 years ago (or something in that realm)?

Three restored Luis Bunuel films will be shown this year: Los Olvidados (restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project at L’Immagine Ritrovata in collaboration with Fundación Televisa, Cineteca Nacional Mexico, and Filmoteca de la UNAM), Nazarín (3K Scan and 3K Digital Restoration from the original 35mm image negative, mastered in 2K for Digital Projection) and L’Âge d’or (4K restoration by la Cinemathèque française and le Centre Pompidou, using the original nitrate negative, original sound and safety elements). HE factor: I would love to watch a mint-condition L’Age d’Or.

A restored version of Lina Wertmüller‘s Seven Beauties (’75). Wertmuller, 90, will introduce with star Giancarlo Giannini in attendance. HE factor: If it all possible, I’ll be attending.

Vittorio De Sica‘s Miracle in Milan (’51) will be screened. 4K Scan and Digital Restoration from the original 35mm camera negative and a vintage dupe positive. Color grading supervised by dp Luca Bigazzi. HE factor: Later.

A 4K digital restoration of Milos Forman‘s Loves of a Blonde (’65) will be shown. Restored in partnership with the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and the Czech Film Fund. A doc about Forman’s career, Forman vs. Forman, will also be shown. HE factor: I’ve always worshipped Loves of a Blonde. Very interested.

Even though Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood wasn’t announced as a Cannes Film Festival selection this morning, Hollywood Elsewhere is confident it’ll be included. (A well-positioned little bird has told me not to sweat it.) What I’d like to know is, what the hell happened to Pablo Larrain‘s Ema, which also wasn’t announced? Was it deep-sixed, as rumored, because of an alleged Netflix acquisition?

As expected, Pedro Almodovar,’s Pain and Glory and Terrence Malick‘s A Hidden Life were also announced, in addition to Dexter Fletcher‘s out-of-competition Rocketman and Jim Jarmusch‘s previously confirmed The Dead Don’t Die (competition), which will open the festival on Tuesday, 5.15.

HE is all hopped up about Marco Bellocchio‘s The Traitor, allegedly some kind of Godfather-ish crime and betrayal flick.

I’m also regarding Nicolas Winding Refn‘s non-competitive Too Old to Die Young — North of Hollywood, West of Hell warily, but with a muted excitement. It’s not a feature but a segment or two from an Amazon crime drama series, starring Miles Teller and Billy Baldwin, that’s slated to pop on 6.14.19.

HE regrets to confirm that Xavier Dolan‘s Matthias & Maxime is now an official competition selection, as Dolan has almost always infuriated me, the exception being Mommy, which I was half-okay with despite hating the lead performance.

Ditto Bong Joon Ho‘s Parasite (competition), as HE had enormous problems with the grotesque, family-friendly Okja (“A well-directed megaplex movie for kids, and cliche-ridden like a sonuvabtich”). I respected but didn’t exactly surge with pleasure over Snowpiercer and The Host, but…well, BJH just rubs me the wrong way. Always has, always will.

Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne‘s The Young Ahmed will also play in competition….the respectably relentless Dardennes! Not to mention Ken Loach‘s Sorry We Missed You…Loach! And Ira Sachs‘ Frankie.

I’m not down on my knees but what happened to Benedict Andrews‘ Against All Enemies, the Jean Seberg movie with Kristen Stewart?

From Cineuropa‘s Fabien Lemercier by way of World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy about next month’s Cannes Film Festival: “Jay Roach‘s Fair and Balanced (Lionsgate, 12.20) rumored to premiere out-of-competition; ditto Armando Iannucci‘s The Personal History of David Copperfield.”

It would be highly unusual (if not unheard of) for a December release to debut in Cannes, but maybe the Lionsgate guys are thinking “we have to somehow out-splash The Loudest Voice,” the Showtime version of the Roger Ailes story that pops on 6.30. It costars Russell Crowe, Naomi Watts, Seth MacFarlane and Sienna Miller.

Fair and Balanced costars John Lithgow as Ailes, Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson, Margot Robbie as a fictional Fox News employee, plus Allison Janney, Kate McKinnon, Mark Duplass and Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Murdoch.

Lemercier is also claiming Pablo Larrain‘s Ema has been bought by Netflix but that the deal has yet to be finalized. Either way Cannes is a no-go, he’s reporting. (My understanding is that the Netflix story is smoke, but what do I know?)

Ruimy: “A major find for American cinema will be director Danielle Lesowitz‘ debut Port Authority, which is rumored to be in Un Certain Regard section. I’m hearing that Cristi Puiu‘s French-language Manor House is 199 minutes. Marco Bellocchio‘s The Traitor has major Godfather vibes.”

How many have seen Walt Disney‘s original 1941 Dumbo? I did when I was seven or eight, something like that. That endearing scene in which tearful little Dumbo longs for his mom’s embrace after she’s been locked up for being a “mad” elephant…right? Then came my second immersion when I saw Steven Spielberg‘s 1941, which opened (good God) almost 40 years ago. That scene, I mean, when Robert Stack’s General Stillwell weeps while watching the locked-up-mom scene in a Hollywood Blvd. theatre.

Disney’s almost 80-year-old animation may seem a little crude by present-day standards, and the film only runs 64 minutes, but the original Dumbo (overseen by Walt and “supervising director” Ben Sharpsteen) emotionally works.

Dumbo‘s basic theme (first articulated in Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl‘s Dumbo, the Flying Elephant, a 1938 children’s book) is that young oddballs — anyone or anything perceived as “different” — are doomed to suffer at the hands of selfish, short-sighted humans. But if the little fella has some kind of inner gift or aptitude (like flying, say) and can somehow express it, the ugliness can be stilled to some extent. Or he can at least snuggle up with mom.

Tim Burton‘s big, over-produced, annoyingly simple-minded remake sticks to the same basic idea — i.e., oddballs can find light at the end of the tunnel if they can show a little moxie.

Burton takes a small, mostly sad little story — a big-eared baby elephant that can fly is separated from his mom, and has to learn to fend for himself — and basically throws money at it while adding nearly 50 minutes to the running time — 112 minutes vs. the original’s 64.

Okay, money and a really nice compositional eye, at least during the first half. The first 55 or 60 minutes of Dumbo are largely about old-worldish production design (by Rick Heinrichs, who worked with Burton on Sleepy Hollow) and Ben Davis‘s cinematography, which is really quite handsome. Within the first hour every shot is an exquisite, carefully lighted painting.

We’re talking about a small-scaled, old-fashioned, Toby Tyler-ish realm, owned and operated by the hucksterish but good-hearted Max Medici (Danny DeVito). A big canvas circus tent, wooden bleachers, peanuts and popcorn, lions and lion tamers, strong men and fat ladies…the kind of operation celebrated in Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Greatest Show on Earth (’52) and in Samuel Bronston‘s Circus World (’64).

But the second half — or when poor Dumbo’s life is darkened by Michael Keaton‘s V. A. Vandevere, a P.T. Barnum-meets-Beetlejuice figure who represents all kinds of venality, corporate greed and the seven circles of hell — the second half is just awful. The scale of Keaton’s super-circus (a Dante-esque amusement park called Dreamland) is oppressive. Watching this portion is a combination of (a) “villainy! vulgarity! greed!”, (b) “turn off the stupid spigots,” (b) “who wrote this godawful dialogue?” (answer: Ehren Kruger) and (d) “please burn it all down.”

Brie Larson’s Unicorn Store (Netflix, 4.5) “is about unicorns, but only obliquely. Mostly, it’s about a unicorn-obsessed young art student named Kit (Larson) who needs some sort of life lesson, although what this [might be] exactly remains maddeningly unclear at the end.

“In order for this pixie-dusted contemporary fable to make its point, the movie erects a magical pop-up shop just for Kit, complete with world’s most flamboyant salesman (Samuel L. Jackson, wearing tablecloth-print suits and tinsel in his afro, a la Beyonce), where Kit can arrange to adopt her very own unicorn.

“What if Kit’s childhood wish came true? Would it be the best thing that ever happened? Or in some cases, is giving a girl a pony the worst possible present? Perhaps there’s some wisdom to that, but wouldn’t it be great to find out?

“Unicorn Store spends so much time focused on Kit’s mostly-average, mostly-boring pre-unicorn life that it’s hard to understand what the universe (or the movie, at least) is trying to teach her — something about not being selfish, or the importance of not throwing bratty tantrums in your 20s, or (and this is a direct quotation, albeit one whose meaning is muddled) “we’re all looking for happiness and maybe if we’re lucky we can just buy it in a store.” — from Peter Debruge’s 9.11.17 Variety review.

Yesterday Variety‘s Matt Donnelly reported some particulars about what a lousy year 2018 was for Megan Ellison‘s Annapurna. Three wipeouts and a total loss of around $37 million, give or take.

Why? Because Ellison is famously into quality for its own sake, and doesn’t (or didn’t, at least) believe in greenlighting possible commercial successes as much as smart, sensitive, upmarket films that will delight film festival crowds along with her enlightened, SJW, politically correct hipster colleagues and feminist friendos.

Barry Jenkins‘ If Beale Street Could Talk earned $14 million and change, but lost between $8 million and $10 million, Donnelly reports. Karyn Kusama‘s Destroyer didn’t earn squat domestically ($1,527,853) and lost around $7 million.

The biggest calamity was Adam McKay‘s Vice, which cost $65 million to make but lost between $15 and $20 million.

Be honest — you’re the final “yes or no” person at Annapurna, and certain voices want you to greenlight an adaptation of a 1974 James Baldwin novel that, despite Jenkins’ intention to bathe it in Wong Kar Wai-styled lighting, others regard as a serious downer. It’s basically about a young black couple in Harlem who are totally in love with each other, but then the young husband gets jailed for a rape he didn’t commit and he winds up staying in the clink for the rest of the film, in part because his wife’s mother is unable to persuade a Puerto Rican woman who misidentified the husband as the culprit to recant her testimony.

In all honesty, would you greenlight Beale Street?

And would you greenlight a hardboiled police thriller with Nicole Kidman as a gray-faced zombie cop who goes from one encounter to another speaking in an affected, raspy-voiced, all-but-unintelligible Clint Eastwood whisper? A movie that was shot in order to prove that a crusty, hard-boiled undercover woman detective can be just as existentially blighted and inwardly destroyed as any male badass cop — would you say “yeah, sounds like a winner”?