Take a gander at this Democracy Corps/Greenberg-Quinlan-Rosner report and tell me the election isn’t all but settled now in Obama’s favor. Note: A little more than 24 years ago my ex-wife Maggie and I (then married) went around West Hollywood and West LA and wild-posted Robbie Conal‘s anti-G.H.W. Bush “It Can’t Happen Here” art sheet.
On 8.30 the Venice Film Festival will honor director-screenwriter-producer Michael Cimino with a Persol Award, and then screen a digitally restored edition of Heaven’s Gate (’80). In a statement, festival director Alberto Barbera called the ceremony “a belated but long overdue acknowledgment of the greatness of a visionary filmmaker” who was “gradually reduced to silence after the box-office flop of a masterpiece to which the film producers contributed with senseless cuts.”
Nope, that’s not accurate. Heaven’s Gate has always been and absolutely always will be a stunningly bad film, very handsomely composed, yes, but flaccid and showoffy but absolutely seething with directorial wanking and certainly without any narrative or thematic substance, at least as I define these. And yet Cimino kept his hand in after Heaven’s Gate and made four subsequent films — Year of the Dragon (’85), The Sicilian (’87), The Desperate Hours (’90) and Sunchaser (’96).
For those who haven’t read Steven Bach‘s “Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven’s Gate” (which was later retitled as “Final Cut: Art, Money and Ego in the Making of Heaven’s Gate“) or seen Michael Epstein‘s 2004 doc based on the book, please take the time. The entire Epstein documentary, lasting 78 minutes, is on YouTube in eight parts.
I hated Heaven’s Gate when I first saw it nearly 32 years ago, and I couldn’t stay with it when I tried it a second time at home about nine years ago. Should I try it a third time when Criterion puts out their Bluray version?
I attended the second critics screening at the Cinema I on November 17th or 18th of 1980, and stood at the bottom of the down escalator as those who’d seen the afternoon show were leaving. I asked everyone I knew what they thought on a scale of 1 to 10. I’ll never forget the deflated, zombie-like expression on the face of journalist Dan Yakir as he muttered “zero.”
Don’t buy the Criterion Bluray (if and when it appears), and don’t buy the bullshit. This whole “Heaven’s Gate is a misunderstood masterpiece” crap was started by F.X. Feeney way back when. I dearly love Feeney, one of the most impassioned and mountain-hearted film essayists around (and also a first-rate screenwriter) but I respectfully dispute this revisionist drool.
In a 7.25 Boston Phoenix piece about Somerville projectionist David Kornfeld (“David Kornfeld’s High Noon”), Chris Marstall passes along a couple of laments from the widely respected Chapin Cutler, co-founder of Boston Light & Sound.
Lament #1 is that Cutler “Cutler doesn’t go to movies in [Boston] any more because of widespread projection problems. The last time he went, he took his son to see True Grit. The picture was wildly out of focus, and hot-spotted in the middle. He talked to the manager about the problems, but they didn’t get fixed and he felt blown off.
Lament #2 is that “in terms of presentation quality, dimness is the big issue. Dimness can be caused by several factors, Cutler said. Bulbs pushed past their rated lifetime, bulbs that are underpowered for their room, bulb focus, dirty port glass, dirty lenses, dirty screens, damaged reflectors — all factors that apply to both film and digital projectors.
“The message I heard over and over again in speaking to projectionists and theater managers,” Marstall summarizes, “was [that] to avoid a steady degradation in quality, you have to invest in a program of monitoring and maintenance.”
Cutler is the resident projection guru at the Telluride Film Festival. Here’s a brief interview I did with him at the end of last year’s festival:
On August 9th screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin discussed the touchy issue of critical pans during their “Scriptnotes” podcast. These guys are intelligent and fun to listen to, but I’m mentioning this episode in particular because Mazin recalls a back-and-forth that happened (he says) between myself and Kevin Smith, and I regret to say he’s not remembering very clearly.
The exchange happened at a 2000 ComicCon panel called “Caught In The Net: Movie Webmasters on Hollywood, the Internet, and the Future of Their Bastard Child.” I asked a question, says Mazin, and Smith, he claims, looked at me and (I’m paraphrasing) said, “You’re Jeffrey Wells? Gee, you’ve written some nasty shit about me but now that I can see what you look like I don’t feel so bad.” Except I distinctly remember a moderate goodvibe feeling between myself and Smith that day. A couple of years later Smith hired me to write my column for his site so what does that suggest? I do recall Smith saying to someone “oh, you’re so-and-so?” but i don’t think it was me.
I’m not saying my memory is 100% bulletproof but I really don’t recall being Smith-dissed. Four years ago I wrote a looking-back piece about this panel, and I didn’t include any mention of Smith backhanding anyone.
Mazin is probably misremembering because I might have written something negative about Superhero (which he directed and wrote) or about Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4, which he wrote the screenplays for. I’m guessing he was transposing or substituting on some level.
The “Caught in the Web” panel, moderated by Den Shewman, featured David Poland, Film Threat‘s Chris Gore, Smith, Coming Attractions‘ Patrick Sauriol, CHUD’s Nick Nunziata, Ain’t It Cool News’ Harry Knowles, and X-Men producer Tom DeSanto.
This Dick Cavett Show clip was obviously taped sometime after Peter Bogdanovich‘s The Last Picture Show opened on 10.22.71. Things were never better for Bogdanovich that at this very moment. Anyway, Bogdanovich mentions something I’d never heard before, which is that John Schlesinger wanted to make Sunday Bloody Sunday (a 1.66 Criterion Bluray is coming on 10.23) in black-and-white, but his producers and financiers said no.
Mel Brooks, whose last film at the time was The Twelve Chairs (’70), says that “black and white could be an arty trick…unless it’s truly indigenous to the local and theme and the story…if it’s proper, it’s proper.” Three years later Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, shot in 1930s-style monochrome, would open nationwide. This would only be ten months after Brooks’ Blazing Saddles preemed on 2.7.74.
Robert Altman was also a guest, but his last film at the time — McCabe and Mrs. Miller — had opened on June 24, 1971 and there was no home video release at the time so what was he doing there? Not to talk about Images, which wouldn’t come out for another year or so. Different world back then.
It’s odd to watch Bogdanovich pull out a cigarette and pop it into his mouth — how radically times have changed.
There are two films opening five days hence — Friday, 8.17 — that are definitely worth seeing. And no, I don’t care and it doesn’t matter that ads for these two are currently adorning this site. One is Craig Zobel‘s Compliance (Magnolia, opening in NY with LA and other burghs to follow) and the other is Chris Kenneally and Keanu Reeves‘ Side by Side (Tribeca Films, LA only with more cities to follow).
David Cronenberg‘s Cosmopolis (Entertainment One) is toxic (or so I felt after seeing it in Cannes). I won’t see The Expendables 2 until later this week but what can you expect? Nor have I seen Paranorman, Focus Features’ stop-motion animation. And I haven’t seen Robot & Frank. And I wouldn’t see Sparkle with a knife at my back. I only know that Compliance and Side by Side are grabbers as you watch them and that they stay with you weeks and months later.
What’s up with Movie Geeks United’s Aaron Aradillas today posting a 15-month-old discussion with MSN’s Glenn Kenny about Stanley Kubrick, and particularly about Barry Lyndon? Aradillas apparently posted the mp3 today — Saturday, 8.26 (which is what the timestamp says) — and yet he and Kenny originally spoke before the conclusion of the great Barry Lyndon aspect-ratio debate between myself, Kenny and former Kubrick collaborator Leon Viatli.
I’m mentioning this because the Barry Lyndon debate ranged between 5.23.11 and 6.21.11. and this Movie Geeks United recording happened in the midst of it. Or, in other words, not long after I’d posted three or four argumentative pieces about the Barry Lyndon Bluray in late May, but before 6.21.11, which is when the whole matter was cleared up when Kenny posted that “smoking gun” letter from Jay Cocks and I ran my q & a with Vitali explaining “the confusion.”
I was saying all along that Barry Lyndon should have been presented at 1.66 to 1, and that Cocks letter proved that I was dead right. And yet at one point in the Movie Geeks United discussion Kenny is saying that the issue isn’t quite settled (which proves he was speaking before 6.21), and Aradillas says “well, maybe the lesson learned is not to listen to Jeff Wells” (or words very similar) and Kenny goes “no, no.”
So Aradillas has been in a Rip Van Winkle coma and didn’t realize that he’d lost 15 months and that ‘s why he only posted the May 2011 discussion today…is that it? In any event I want that line about “maybe the lesson learned is not to listen to Jeff Wells” taken out because it’s completely inaccurate and in fact slanderous in the context of this debate.
The Barry Lyndon aspect-ratio saga began with a posting I made on 4.24.10, or about a year before the Barry Lyndon Bluray came out. I wrote the following:
“Warner Home Video’s Ned Price and George Feltenstein would be well-advised to present the Barry Lyndon Blu-ray in a 1.66 to 1 aspect ratio…or else. No 1.85 to 1 crap for this masterpiece. My understanding is that Kubrick actually protected the framings for a 1.37 to 1 presentation on television, but the important thing to keep in mind is that 1.66 to 1 approximates the aspect ratio of many if not most 18th Century portraits and landscapes, which is precisely the effect that Kubrick was going for — a feeling that you were watching the Lyndon story through a prism of old paintings of the period.”
And then the Barry Lyndon Bluray came out with a 1.78 to 1 aspect ratio (a nose hair away from 1.85) and then the shitstorm began. Four HE articles resulted between 5.23 AND 5.26 — article #1, article #2, article #3 and article #4 — and then two more on 6.21.11 — “case closed” and “Vitali responds.”
And then I ran an epilogue piece when I went to to see Barry Lyndon in a theatre in Savannah, Georgia, and noticed it was projected at 1.37.
We’re looking at a Hitchcock-intensive Bluray period from Tuesday, 9.25 through Tuesday, 10.9 — the debut of Universal’s 14-film Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection on 9.25 (Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy. Family Plot) and then Blurays of Strangers on a Train and Dial M for Murder from Warner Home Video on 10.9. Two weeks, 16 films, a lot of quality assessment and no aspect-ratio laments except in the case of Dial M for Murder.
Which titles are high on the list, which are lesser priorities and which don’t really matter?
Vertigo and The Man Who Knew Too Much are the picks of the litter because they was shot in large-format VistaVision and will presumably deliver the most in the way of detail and color intensity. Vertigo will presumably look the best as it was nicely restored by Robert Harris and James Katz in the ’90s. I’ll be catching a Vertigo DCP in about two and a half weeks in a small theatre.
I’ve made no secret of my profound distaste for the fascist cleavering of Dial M for Murder on the part of Warner Home Video. What’s done is done and I may as well suck it in, but I hate it.
I can’t imagine WHV’s Strangers on a Train Bluray not looking sublime. I’ve loved Robert Burks‘ cinematography on this film all my life.
Nobody cares about having Blurays of Hitchcock’s five post-Birds disappointments or disposables — Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy and Family Plot. I don’t know if I can even stand to watch Marnie again, which I think is easily Hitchcock’s worst. Portions of Torn Curtain and Topaz are semi-intriguing — the kitchen-murder and the bus-escape scenes in Curtain, and the dialogue-free Topaz scene in which Roscoe Lee Browne persuades a red-bearded Cuban guy to allow him to snap pictures of secret documents. I tried re-watching Frenzy a couple of years ago and some of it is fine (“Mr. Rusk, you’re not wearing your tie”) but those scenes in which Alec McCowen is tortured by his wife’s bizarre “gourmet” dinners are just time-wasters.
Universal’s Bluray of The Birds will probably look luscious, although I suspect that some of the rear-projection and special-effects process shots will appear a bit more synthetic than they did in theatres 49 years ago. There’s an outdoor conversation scene in which Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren stand before a painted sound-stage backdrop — that’s going to look faker than ever.
The Psycho Bluray has already been released and is one of my all-time favorites, in part because it’s been beautifully DNR’ed and it allows you to see stuff that even first-run 1960 audiences missed, like Martin Balsam‘s facial makeup.
I’m especially excited about the other two monochromes — Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt — because black-and-white Blurays are the greatest.
Rear Window (presented at 1.66, Mr. Furmanek!) will also be special because the elements were restored by Harris-Katz. I’m not a huge fan of Rope or The Trouble With Harry, and I’m frankly wondering if I’ll have the discipline to watch them all the way through.
Universal’s Hitchcock package won’t be sent out until just after Labor Day, I’m told. I’ll be in Telluride and Toronto from 8.30 to 9.15 so viewings will have to wait.
HBO’s The Girl, a drama about the twisted relationship between Hitchcock and Hedren during the making of The Birds and Marnie, is coming out in October, although for some reason it’s not mentioned on HBO’s site.
The Criterion Bluray of Quadrophenia (out 8.28) “looks highly impressive,” says DVD Beaver’s Gary W. Tooze. “Dual-layered with a high bitrate, the textured grain is prominent and establishes a strong image quality through the 1080p. While there are some imperfections present on the source with speckles and very light damage, the contrast balances the visuals well. I can easily state that this is the best I have seen Quadrophenia look. There is no noise at all. Detail is solid. Sweet.”
“I first saw Quadropehnia at Manhattan’s 8th Street Playhouse, and then I showed it to the kids about ten years ago. The older I’ve gotten the more I’ve come to realize that this film — loosely based on the Who rock opera and basically the story of Jimmy Cooper (Phil Daniels) and his identity, friendship and girlfriend issues — belongs in the near-great category. Hands down one of the best recreations/capturings of mad generational fervor and ’60s mayhem.” — from a 6.17.12 HE posting.
Hope Springs will earn close to a somewhat respectable $20 million by Sunday night if you count Wednesday and Thursday. At least it’s not bombing. That’s not too bad for a film that’s “not half bad,” as I put it. Older audiences are always slow on the pickup. Note: You just need to brush past Charlie Rose‘s interview with the odious Henry Kissinger, which occupies the first half.
“Democrats are celebrating,” The Daily Beast‘s Michael Tomasky noted this morning. “{but] are they overdoing it?
“Paul Ryan is smart. He’ll hold his own on the trail. He’ll talk about the fiscal cliff coming at the end of the year, and he’ll probably make as credible a case as any conservative can make that Obama won’t make the ‘tough choices’ and Republicans will. And don’t forget that he has a grudge against Obama personally, ever since that George Washington University speech of Obama’s in April 2011 when he invited Ryan — and made the guy sit there and listen to the president of the United States trash him. That’s probably a motivator.
“And the Democrats might overplay their hand. That’s always a temptation when the target is as big and juicy as Ryan is.
“So Democrats will have to be smart. They should show respect for Ryan for being a serious guy, but then just explain to people, urgently but not over-heatedly, what he’s proposed. It’s just very hard to imagine that middle-of-the-road voters want harsh future cuts to Medicare, massive tax cuts for the rich, and huge reductions to domestic programs that most swing voters really don’t hate. Does this choice work in Florida, with all those old people? If Romney just sacrificed Florida, he’s lost the election already.
“And why? To placate a party that doesn’t even want him as its nominee anyway. It’s psycho-weird. But at least it will carry the benefit, if this ticket loses, of keeping conservatives from griping that they lost because their ticket was too moderate. Conservatism will share — will own — this loss.
“Is all that ‘daring’? Well, Thelma and Louise were ‘daring’ too, but they ended up at the bottom of a canyon. If the Democrats handle this situation properly, that’s where this ticket will end up too, and then the rest of us — the people who don’t want federal policy to be based on Atlas Shrugged — can finally and fully press the case to the right that America is not behind you, and please grow up.”
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