“It’s abundantly clear how most people view John Edwards: unforgivably hypocritical and falsely pious, the epitome of a terrible husband and father, and a dirty liar to boot,” The American Prospect‘s Ed Moser writes in a 6.4 piece. “Even before his stomach-turning trial began, Edwards’ approval rating was a rock-bottom three percent. Seeing those numbers, it was hard not to feel a little sorry for the guy –especially given the more-than-valid questions about the political motivations and validity of his ultimately unsuccessful prosecution.

“But any such emotions were extinguished on Thursday, after Edwards’ jury hung on five counts and acquitted him on the other.

“He came out of the courtroom a free man, looking like a million well-tanned bucks under the North Carolina sun, with his slick suit and his pasted-down hair and his overeager earnestness. Edwards could have stopped at thanking the jury and his attorneys and his family, and slinked away from the scene — far, far from the public eye, for good. Instead, he delivered a carefully crafted, well-rehearsed comeback speech. ‘I don’t think God’s through with me,’ he declared, saying that he wanted to get back to fighting poverty.

“And then he ensured that he’d be all over the gossip sites the next day by delivering an ode to his daughter by Hunter, ‘my precious Quinn,’ whom he’d never acknowledged in public before.

“The whole oration was vintage John Edwards — in other words, deeply mystifying. You didn’t know what to think: Was he sincerely trying to come honest after all those accumulated lies? Or was he (gulp!) trying to begin resetting public opinion of him so he could somehow revive his public career? Or — ye Gods — his political career?

“You can’t put it past him. You can imagine Edwards thinking: Hey, if Nixon could do it… It’s what the elephantine egos that become powerful politicians do. Once they’ve had your love, they want it back. They must have it. And some do regain favor after a fall. Bill Clinton, anyone?

“But Edwards is not Big Bill. The excesses of Clinton’s private life were part and parcel of what some already loved — and others already hated — about him. Edwards’ misdeeds, like Tiger Woods‘, wrecked his image because they seemed to give the lie to his public persona. He was supposed to be the loyal husband of an unglamorous wife with cancer, the mill-worker’s son who hadn’t forgotten the regular people, the weatherman-handsome young fellow with a brain, a heart, and a smile. It all seemed too good to be true — and then, slowly but surely, it became clear that it was.”

From a friend: “There needs to be a moratorium of these all-star gangbang send-ups of the proverbial Hollywood blockbuster. Jimmy Kimmel did the ultimate one some time ago and this one is particularly lame, don’t you think? And a Ransom joke instead of Taken?” HE reply: “Yeah, they should have either topped Kimmel’s or done something else.”

I’m bothered by Kristen Stewart‘s titular character in Snow White and the Huntsman being called “Snow” by characters within the film, and by critics. I realize there’s nothing else to call her, but her last name isn’t White as in Jack White. It’s an aptronym, and people in films should never have names that point to character or destiny or inner aura. It’s really cheesy — a theatrical conceit that harkens back to the horse-and-buggy days.

I remember thinking this years ago when I saw a Wilton Playshop production of a 1930s play called Pure As The Driven Snow, in which the lead female character was called Purity Dean. Even back then (i.e., the ’30s) it was meant as a parody.

Darth Vader is another one. Even if you didn’t know his name was Annakin, you wouldn’t call Lord Vader “Darth” if you happened to see him in a bar, and it wouldn’t be right if you ran into a mutual friend at a 7-11 and he said, “Hey, have you seen Darth around? Fucker was supposed to meet me here an hour ago.”

What if Goodfellas was about a family of likable, community-minded Queens mobsters (three brothers and a kid sister) whose last name was literally “Goodfella”? This would be no less tiresome than people running into Stewart in Snow White and the Huntsman and saying, “Hey, Snow, you ready for the big battle? Howdja get that big forest monster to back off like he did?” I guess I wouldn’t mind if someone ran into her and said, “Are you Snow White, the fairest maiden in the land?” That’s okay, but the diminutive is out.

Once you start linking names and fates (or vocations) there’s no end to it. I always hated the fact that Janet Jackson‘s character in Poetic Justice (’93) was a poet whose name was Justice…God! That’s almost like Clint Eastwood‘s character in Unforgiven being called “Un.”

Terry Pheto, the South African actress who was solemn and earnest in Phillip Noyce‘s Catch A Fire and Gavin Hood‘s Tsotsi (’05), is about to start work on Long Walk To Freedom, a South African-produced Nelson Mandela biopic with Idris Elba in the title role. And she’s currently on the cover of the June issue of the South African edition of Marie Claire.

I guess you could say I’ve become somewhat mesmerized on a personal level by her, as far as that sort of thing goes. What I mean is that I’ve met Pheto and hung with her a bit at a friend’s home in Los Angeles, and it’s like “wow, okay…I’m actually friendly with a hot and reputable actress outside the pretend friendliness of press junkets and parties.”

I never know what to do or say in the presence of really dishy women. I always feel outflanked or intimidated on some level. So I tend to parse my thoughts and feelings carefully lest I be exposed as a drooling admirer. I felt the same way when I met Abbie Cornish in a non-professional setting a few months ago.

Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) is directing the Mandela biopic, which is based on Mandela’s autobiography of the same name. The script is by William Nicholson.

HBO Go won’t let me watch Girls or Real Time with Bill Maher or anything over here. So I’m reduced to watching clips and reading plot summaries and…whatever, choice dialogue quotes from Scott Feinberg on Twitter. I know one thing: Adam Driver (who plays Hannah’s fuckbuddy Adam Sackler) is one of the most grotesque life forms I’ve ever encountered in any format, including real life.

One thing I almost never seem to get is a long night’s sleep. It’s almost always 12:30 or 1 am and then up at 6:30 or 7 am, night after night. Sometimes I only get five or five and a half hours. It never seems like a problem per se except that sometimes I nod off for ten or twenty during a screening, which is partly about sleep deprivation but mostly, I tell myself, due to the film being boring or tedious. I never nod off during a good film.

But last night I got ten hours and wow! What a difference! I feel alert, alive, crackling and hungry for whatever the world holds. I should probably do this more often. The problem is that when 11 pm or midnight rolls around and I could easily sink down and go under, a little man in my head who’s been with me since I was nine or ten says “wait, not yet!…you don’t want to miss anything.” But I feel amazing now. I need to tell that little guy to take it easy and otherwise shut up more often.

When The Dark Knight Rises was first announced, I said two things to myself: (a) “Another one?” and (b) “Shitty title.” Then the early-bird teasers and the Bane footage began to turn things around. Then that terrible “ohh, say can you see?” trailer happened and I felt negative again. Last night’s MTV Movie Awards trailer was/is the best one yet, but a part of me is muttering, “Is it me or is everyone kinda Batman-ed out? I feel soaked, saturated.”

Read more

Sunday, 6.3, 3:10 pm

6.3, 11:15 pm

6.3, 11:35 pm

Read more

Like several others, I thought Rupert Sanders‘ Snow White and the Huntsman was at the very least handsomely shot and not too bad as far as it goes. It’s an emotionally primitive CG goth fairy-tale smothering with sterling visual panache. It looks good, and at times even mesmerizing. So I wasn’t in pain, although I felt a bit bored during the middle section in the forest.

The method, I suppose, was to pay tribute to the Peter Jackson way of making mythical films of this sort (which Sanders does, in spades) and to make sure everyone gets wet and muddy and then throw in as many CG morphings and monsters as the narrative can stand, and then throw it all at the wall and hope most of it sticks.

It stuck this weekend, at least, mining bigger-than-expected box-office coin so nobody’s complaining that much and nobody’s embarassed.

I just can’t respond with any real passion to corporate carnivals like this, but at least Snow White holds to a certain grimness of mood and attitude, and that’s something, I suppose. Then again there’s an awful lot of showy, eye-catchy stuff that’s been thrown in because films like this are expected to be showy and eye-catchy. Very little feels thought through or truly felt. It’s really all about design.

Snow White and the Huntsman has been shot with discipline and formality, and with an attractively grim and grayish palette. So it feels solemn and “serious”, in a sense — no winks or self-regarding smirks or asides. But the tone of it is still so damn primitive and arranged along cliches and belief systems that are intensely black and white, good and reprehensible, oozy and beautiful and always “ooh, wow!” It’s a movie for kids with above-average chops.

I didn’t think Kristen Stewart‘s Snow White was too bad — in her usual moody and shirking way she makes “Snow” seem emotionally grounded and more than just a window-mannequin idea of a sweet lassie who’s been badly kicked around and has to learn how to stand up and beat the ogres. I agree with Dana Stevens and others that she loses her authority during the battle scene at the end. She’s too elfin to wear a breast plate and swing a sword in a way that even half-competes with Laurence Olivier in Henry V.

With her smallish face, upturned nose and her damp hair tied back, Stewart reminded me of a certain baby sitter who used to come over when I was seven and eight years old. Face facts — Jennifer Lawrence would have been better in the role.

Chris Hemsworth‘s Huntsman isn’t too bad. He holds his own and knows how to stand his ground and look others in the eye and say his lines with the right tonalities and inflections. And a tip of the hat to production designer Dominic Watkins and costume designer Colleen Atwood and the CGI team. The eight dwarves are…look, man, I can’t do this, all right? I really can’t get into the dwarves.

Charlize Theron‘s evil queen is a lounge act, not a performance — she’s completely vile and egoistic and cruel for the sake of cruelty because simple-dick movies require villains to be vile and egoistic and cruel for the sake of cruelty. For the 637th time, a villain isn’t worth spit unless he/she is (a) someone you know and (b) has something good or at least pitiable about them. If they’re only about extreme venality and monstrousness, my eyes glaze over.

I paid hard korunas to see this Universal release at the Cinema City on Na Prikope. Nice theatre, comfortable seats, good concession stand.