I’m staying at the Island Guest House, a homey b & b on Long Beach Island. Except the wifi really sucks here. Pages are taking forever to load (even email is a pain) and it took me three to four minutes to obtain the embed code for this trailer. I hate it. I’m not going to let this ruin my day but I don’t want to post stuff any more. It’s too depressing. I’m going for a walk and then I’ll rent a bicycle and then hit the beach around 2 or 3 pm. Why would a b & b owner want to provide less than lightning-fast wifi? What’s the point in half-assing it?
Family That Bashes Together
Thing about it — a mafia family mixing it up with (and in some cases go up against) the locals in France is hilarious material. But the implied savagery in this trailer suggests that director-writer Luc Besson and co-screenwriters Tonino Benacquista and Michael Caleo went at it with a reductive, mafia-default, one-track mind. The Family opens on 9.13.13.
Butler Be Mine
It was reported late yesterday that the MPAA has partially overturned its Butler ruling and will no longer prevent the Weinstein Company from using the word “butler” in the title of the forthcoming Lee Daniels film about a long-serving White House servant. The apparent intention is to call it Lee Daniels’ The Butler. I wouldn’t do that. I would want to suppress all awareness of who directed it. To me the auteur who brought you Shadowboxer (which wasn’t very good), Precious (which I found torturous due to Mo’Nique‘s performance) and The Paperboy (howlingly bad) is no drawing card. If I were Harvey I would call it The Bee. Seriously.
Just Like Me
For me, President Obama‘s off-the-cuff, highly personal remarks about the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case were close to spellbinding. I watched his 18-minute talk twice last night, and again this morning. It reminded me of listening to Howard Zinn riff during a Boston University lecture. No more teleprompter jokes for the rest of Obama’s term.
Short Term-ers
Destin Daniel Cretton‘s Short Term 12 (Cinedigm, 8.23) is the kind of little, hand-made film that I, a grumpy, CG-hating, Ryan Reynolds-averse seeker of au natural, character-driven dramas, hope and live for. It’s gotten a lot of hype from others who cherish indie-level films of this sort, and deservedly so. Special HE salutations for Brie Larson‘s lead performance as Grace, a low-key, secretly damaged, straight-talking supervisor at a facility for hostile, anti-social, self-destructive teens who’ve had scrapes with the law. The film plays out patiently and openly and yet efficiently, and without any attempts at forced manipulation. It’s a respectably solid piece and well worth a look-see.
Brie Larson at NeueHouse, 110 East 25th Street — Thursday, 7.18, 1:55 pm.
“Worst Money-Grubbing Place In The World”
What are the great Las Vegas films (i.e., ones shot there and having to do with some aspect of the industry and culture of L.V.)? For me the top four are Mike Figgis‘s Leaving Las Vegas, the 1960 Ocean’s 11 (not a great or even an especially high-calibre caper film but a timepiece that lets you savor what Las Vegas looked and felt like back in the good old Rat Pack days), Barry Levinson‘s Bugsy and Albert Brooks‘ Lost In America. Sidenote: Of all the places in the world to enjoy your last spiritual and sensual hurrah before dying, could there be an uglier setting than this plastic palatial hell-hole?
Great Performances That Acknowledge Their Own Corruption
Even five-year-olds know that RIPD is a pre-ordained dead duck, or at least that it will be beaten handily by The Conjuring, which I saw a couple of nights ago and is “scary” but not that great, let me tell you, and which certainly ends on a phony upbeat note. But in the view of Variety‘s Scott Foundas RIPD can at least boast of a noteworthy fuck-all performance from Jeff Bridges. “Like Johnny Depp’s work in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, it’s a performance that seems to say, ‘Look, I’m here for the payday. You know it. I know it. But as long as I’m here, I’m going to make things interesting for myself.’
The Herd
Over the last dozen or so years I’ve gone from being disinterested in ComicCon to being somewhat intrigued to being an occasionally pleased and amused observer and a Hall H marathon seat-holder to being disdainful and then really disdainful and finally to where and what I am today — an outright hater. The tastes and appetites of the ComicCon faithful have always been valid in and of themselves, and I love guys like Ed Douglas, Devin Faraci and Peter Sciretta, etc. Plus I’ve repeatedly recognized and stated that when any kind of mythical-fantasy film works, it pays off in ways that reality-driven films can’t spiritually touch. But as a voting bloc or commercial force Comicconers have encouraged if not directly brought about the inane “ooh wow cool!” dumbing-down of mainstream megaplex cinema and turned a once-majestic art form into a form of low-rent amusement park jizz-whiz.
You Had To Be There
1976 was a great year to be alive in many respects. I’ll just leave it at that. On top of which there are few things hotter than getting lucky with a nurse when you’ve been admitted to a hospital for some ailment. Those white stockings and white hospital shoes. That aside…done this before but can’t hurt to reiterate…Ron Howard and Peter Morgan‘s Rush (Universal, 9.27) is about the rivalry between drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl).
Enchanted Evenings
There are at least two versions of Dick Powell‘s response upon being told that Alan Ladd had fallen in love with June Allyson, Powell’s wife, during the filming of The McConnell Story (’55). The story is that Ladd and Allyson fell hard but they never “did it,” which sounds like Allyson’s bullshit story to Powell. It seems inconceivable that Ladd would leave his wife, Sue Carol, over his Allyson entanglement without dipping his wick. Version #1 has Ladd calling Powell and saying “I’m in love with your wife,” and Powell replies “everyone is in love with my wife.” Version #2 (which comes from Allyson’s autobiography) has Carol calling Powell and asking “do you know Alan is in love with your wife, June?,” and Powell replies “isn’t everyone?”
Homework Assignment
I spoke to Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn at last night’s The Entrepeneur screening, and we agreed…okay, I said and Kohn went “yeah, I suppose”…that it’s highly likely that J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost, which I fell 100% in love with at the Cannes Film Festival, will be one of the U.S. premieres at this year’s Telluride Film Festival (which begins on 8.29). An absolute natural for that gathering. Kohn also believes/suspects (as do I) that Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis and Abdellatif Kechiche‘s Blue Is The Warmest Color will be shown. But what major fall-holiday films? Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips? My brain won’t function.
