I was amazed how cranked and excited I was by yesterday’s Super Bowl duel. I haven’t felt so crazily absorbed by a game of any kind, ever.
And — this is an Adam Carolla thing — I was reminded again about how wonderfully un-woke the sporting world is…no equity, no race bullshit, no DEI, no POCs complaining about not being shown the proper deference or accusing whiteys of fucking them over.
The players last night were on the field because they were good, period. They had proven their worth during the just-concluded season and were totally trusted by their coaches to perform well and to their utmost, and that’s all anyone cared about.
What’sthatexpressionagain? Oh, yeah, right — “merit over equity.”
Another thing about sporting competitions is that everyone accepts is that one team or another (or one golfer or tennis player or whomever) is going to lose, and that’sthat. Life is hard, competition is demanding and certain competitors are going to feel gutted when they lose. But that’s life.
Imagine if Hollywood and the Oscars were to operate with this attitude. Talent matters! Only the best! Industry politics and high school popularity sentiments have always been a thing but equity standards are a whole different game —- an obstruction, a corrective.
Ayo Edebiri to Nikki Haley: “I was just curious, what would you say was the main cause of the Civil War? And do you think it starts with an S and ends with a lavery?”
Haley to Edebiri: “Yep, I probably should have said that the first time.”
I’m furious at Megyn Kelly for her friendly coverage of Donald Trump, but I feel complete relaxation with Adam Carolla and I don’t care how the HE commentariat responds to this.
Key quote #1: “All roads lead to narcissism.” Key analogy: Passion fruit iced tea vs. regular iced tea.
MaxMartin‘s “&Juliet” delivers an upfront queer trans makeover and sell-job and not a mere gay subplot along these lines.
A pro-level B’way entertainment, of course, but at the same time a kind of spirited cultural indoctrination session for the tourist rube audience by way of a “join us in celebrating who and what we are” Tin Pan Alley progressive (LGBTQ) agenda, which goes hand in hand, incidentally, with the current “Some Like It Hot” musical.
Billy Wilder’s 1959 screen comedy, ahead of its time in terms of acknowledging cross-dressing and gender behaviors while being strictly hetero, was hetero Broadway musicalized as “Sugar” back in ‘72 — now the same story has been converted into an ecstatic celebration of gender fluidity and queer identity and yaddah yaddah.
https://somelikeithotmusical.com/
Harvey Fierstein’s “Kinky Boots,” which I caught 11 years ago, sold a roughly similar bill of goods.
…for HE to post regular recollections of what the film business looked, sounded, felt and tasted like beforetheterror — i.e., before 2017 but mostly focused on the glorious ‘90s (the indierevolution), the aughts (last stabs before superhero plague) and the early to mid teens (ZeroDarkThirty, 12Years A Slave, Drive, TheSocialNetwork, Moneyball, Carol, ManchesterByTheSea).
Inotherwords: rather than overdose on cursing and condemning the present darkness (although I will never abandon this hard but necessary duty) it might be better to invest more energy into shining a light upon the above-mentioned goodtimes (‘90 to ‘17 or just shy of three decades) and thereby possibly inspire a longing for films that aspire to more than just delivering “content” as well as persuading at least some of the fiercely progressive descendants of Maximilian Robespierre and Josef Stalin to possibly ease up on their social justice crusades and just…you know, try to make good movies that are less “instructive”?
Then again I wouldn’t want to descend into the pit of too-much-nostalgia…all right, fuck it, I’m not changing the game.
Oscar Poker had been moribund for two weekends, sidelined by tech issues and whatnot. Obviously time to record again, and so Jeff and Sasha went to town on a rainy Sunday afternoon. And here it is.
Points hit:
How the Oscars lost their brand.
All hail Adam Carolla’s spot-on analysis about sports vs. award season and politics.
Leave the World Behind – a Netflix movie exec produced by the Obamas, and whether or not that’s creatively upfront of agenda-driven.
Having freedom of mind as opposed to being “in the bubble.”
Complimenting Jeff for not being an Oscar whore.
Jeff’s ongoing annoyances with Lily Gladstone and Barry Keoghan.
The Best Picture standouts, according to Jeff — Poor Things, Maestro, The Holdovers
The Boys in the Boat is an “old-fashioned” but very well-made and deeply likable film.
How Barbenheimer signified the return of “traditionalism”.
The 4K Titanic Bluray is great.
Was Joan Baez molested by her dad? What is she trying to say?
Therapy is ruining everything.
How erasing boundaries led to helicotper parenting in the 90s, which led to “safetyism.”
Why is Todd Haynes’ May December so popular with woke-bubble critics?
The romantic intrigue in Phillip Noyce's Fast Charlie (Vertical, 10.8) is the thing. The blam-blam is fine the laid-back, settled-down relationship drama between Pierce Brosnan‘s Charlie, a civilized, soft-drawl hitman who loves fine cooking, and Morena Baccarin‘s Marcie, a taxidermist with a world-weary, Thelma Ritter-ish attitude about things...that's what holds you. Is he too old for her? (Call it a quarter-century age gap.) Does it matter if he is somewhat? Nobody makes any overt moves, but you can feel the simmering.
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This almost felt like a fitting crescendo as the film was widely regarded as a crisis itself, albeit a “what the hell happened?” kind. The final production tab was $27 million, or roughly $275 million in 2023 dollars — a startling level of exorbitance.
Bounty had been shooting for two years, partly under the directorial command of Sir Carol Reed but mostly Lewis Milestone, who didn’t get along wih star Marlon Brando and vice versa. A few months earlier the film had been publicized as a cost-overrun disaster, particularly by a June 1962 Saturday Evening Post cover story, written by Bill Davidson, that identified Brando as the principal culprit.
Production was marked by constant tempest (Reed either quit or was let go, and Milestone, his successor, also left under turbulent circumstances), largely, according to Davidson, due to Brando’s egoistic big-star behavior. Brando sued the Post for $5 million over claims that the article had wrongfully damaged his professional reputation. It did, in fact, do that.
Filming was almost as prolonged and costly as the $31 million Cleopatra, which would open seven months later in June 1963.
I wouldn’t call Mutiny on the Bounty a flawed film as much as a “good but not quite there” one. It’s actually a well-written, handsomeiy produced, eye-filling wow for the first 70% or 75%, and Bronislau Kaper‘s score is inescapably rousing in a crash-boom-bang sense.
I would give it an 8.5 grade up until and including the mutiny sequence. But the tension flies out the window after the mutiny, and the remainder of the film is just okay. And Brando’s (i.e., Fletcher Christian‘s) high-minded urging that he and the crew should return to England to plead their case? Totally absurd. Tantamount to suicide. I agree with the decision by Richard Harris‘s Mills and other crew members to burn the ship after Brando suggests this hair-brained notion.
The act that ignites the mutiny scene as Brando’s Fletcher Christian tries to give fresh H20 to a thirsty seaman, and Howard’s Cpt. Bligh expresses his opposition.
Say what you will about Bounty‘s problems — historical inaccuracies and inventions, Brando’s affected performance as Christian, the floundering final act. The fact remains that this viscerally enjoyable, critically-dissed costumer is one of the the most handsome, lavishly-produced and beautifully scored films made during Hollywood’s fabled 70mm era, which lasted from the mid ’50s to the late ’60s.
It has a flamboyant “look at all the money we’re spending” quality that’s half-overbaked and half-absorbing. It’s pushing a certain pounding, big-studio swagger.
There’s a way to half-excuse Bounty for doing this. It was made, after all, at a time when self-important bigness was regarded as a kind of aesthetic attribute unto itself, with large casts, extended running times, dynamic musical scores (overtures, entr’actes, exit music) and intermissions all par for the course. And there’s no denying that a lot of skilled craftsmanship and precision went into this manifestation.
Bounty definitely has first-rate dialogue and editing, and three or four scenes that absolutely get the pulse going (leaving Portsmouth, rounding Cape Horn, the mutiny, the burning ship). And I happen to like and respect Brando’s performance — it gets darker and sadder as the film goes along — and you can’t say Trevor Howard‘s Captain Bligh doesn’t crack like a bullwhip. (Bosley Crowther‘s review said his emoting was imbued with “wire and scrap iron”, and that Brando’s came from “tinsel and cold cream”.) And Richard Harris and Hugh Griffith are fairly right-on. And everybody likes the topless Tahitian girls.
I’d forgotten how foppy and buffoonish Brando’s Fletcher Christian character is, and how frequently his contentious relationship with Trevor Howard‘s Captain Bligh is played for easy laughs during the first 100 minutes.
The extremely wide 2.76 to 1 Ultra Panavision image, shot by Robert Surtees and derived from the original 70mm elements, is really quite beautiful, and the colors are full and luscious.
My difficulties with the jokey humor aside, I have to acknowledge the “make love to that damn daughter of his” scene between Howard and Brando, and pay my respects to the way Brando pauses ever so slightly before and after he says the word “fight”. It’s the film’s wittiest moment — the only line that still makes me laugh out loud.
The decision not to offer a “making of” documentary on the Bounty Bluray was unfortunate, given that Mutiny on the Bounty‘s production history was one of the most expensive and out-of-control in Hollywood history, and therefore worth recounting for history.
Fox Home Video included an ambitious making-of-Cleopatra doc along with their Cleopatra disc, and it’s a far more engaging thing to watch than the film itself. Too bad Warner Home Video didn’t follow suit. Laurent Bouzereau or someone on his level could’ve really gone to town with it.
Director-screenwriter friendo: “Biden somewhat reminds me of when Playboy magazine, competing with FHM and Maxim, tried to make Hugh Hefner relevant to a younger demographic and couldn’t. He came off to young guys as a licentious old man.
“Dr. Caroline Heldman is someone I’d seen on CNN a few times, occasionally billed as a Democratic advisor, but what struck me is to see on her social media accounts that she also moonlights as a rock singer. She’s a liberal Buckaroo Banzai.
“This collision of politics and show business, as well as a generational gap, underscores how Biden, aside from being old, also doesn’t have any sort of dynamic personality that can negate age. Trump’s bombast is immature and grotesque, and yet it makes him seem bizarrely energetic.
“Gavin Newsom would perfectly dovetail into the sensibilities of Heldman’s era.”
I explained that Martin Scorcese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon looked professionally illuminated when I saw it last May during the Cannes Film Festival, but when I saw it at the Westport Royale 6 a couple of weeks ago the images were “noticably subdued, a bit muddy, murky…like the sun was behind the clouds.”
I stated that the SMPTE requires that foot lamberts levels be between 14 and 16, and asked whether proper SMPTE-recommended illumination was represented upon her theatre’s screens.
Ross responded last night, and here’s the the heart of her letter: “I have talked to my head of projectors who does checks on our projectors every quarter to make sure lighting and sound is up to par. He has said that all lighting levels are set to each movie.
“The other issue might be just that our projectors are so old, but when he does his [assessments and tune-ups] everything is set correctly. I have never had a complaint or issue about our lighting levels since we do have them looked at every quarter.”
I wrote back immediately. After greeting Caroline and thanking her for replying, I got down to it:
“So let me get this straight — your head of projectors checks your ‘old’ projectors every quarter, or every three months? Right away I wondered why the projectors are allowed to collect dust for 90 days between check-ups. A monthly or bi-monthly check-up seems like a more appropriate regimen given that they’re ‘old’ and possibly in need of more upkeep or fine-tuning…no?
Evan Roberts and Jack Guild settle in at the AMC Royale 6 on Westport Avenue in Norwalk, Conn. (Norwalk Hour photo taken six years ago.)
“Your projector guy also told you that ‘all lighting levels are set to each movie.’ But how could he possibly do that if he only checks the projection standards every three months? Movies arrive and depart all the time. Some last a couple of weeks; others for a month or so.
“What you seem to be saying is that your head of projectors drops in four times a year to check things, but that he doesn’t really focus on light levels. Are you saying that he wings it or improvises to some extent? My general impression, according to what you’re telling me, is that SMPTE foot lambert standards are not really a standard that the AMC Westport Royale plex adheres to.
“Trying again and with all due respect — do you guys have any interest in adhering to SMPTE light standards? Do you generally project at levels of 14 or 16 or…what, 10 or 12 or something lower? What are your exact foot lambert standards? Where are you coming from as exhibition professionals?
“You also haven’t told me if you or your head of projectors use the kind of standard light meter that measures foot lambert levels. Do you?
“You’ve said that when your head of projectors ‘does his checks everything is set correctly.’ But what does ‘correctly’ mean in this regard? I’m sorry but you’re not being specific.
“May I please speak to your head of projectors? Would you ask him to please call or write?
“You’ve said that you’ve ‘never had a complaint or issue about our lighting levels since we do have them looked at every quarter.’ Well, that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean very much as no ticket buyer ever seems to complain about anything in terms of projection. I’ve been a devoted movie fan and an occasional complainer about light and sound for decades, and I’ve found that people are generally sheep when it comes to issues of this kind.
“Only film-industry professionals and hardcore tough nuts like myself complain about sound and light levels.
“Repeating: I saw the world premiere of Killers of the Flower Moon in Cannes last May, and I am telling you straight and true that the AMC Westport version of Killers doesn’t look anywhere near as good as it did at the Salle Debussy on the Cote d’Azur.
“What would you imagine the response would be from Killers of the Flower Moon director Martin Scorsese, or the film’s director of cinematography, Rodrigo Prieto…what would you imagine they would think or say if they were told that the people showing their film at a Westport/Norwalk plex don’t really address projecting issues in terms of foot lamberts? And that an AMC tech guy only tunes up the projectors once every three months?
“Please ask your head of projectors to get in touch. Thanks for responding.”
Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere
Note to AMC management: Please don’t penalize poor Caroline for sending me an honest reply. She’s a very polite and considerate professional, and is a credit to your theatre chain outside of the technical stuff.
DATE: 11.8.23
FROM: Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere
TO: Caroline Ross, general manager, AMC Royale 6 in Westport, CT.
RE: Screen illumination levels
Caroline,
I’m Jeffrey Wells of www.hollywood-elsewhere.com, and I’m writing to convey concern about the screen light levels (or foot lambert levels) at the AMC Westport Royale plex, which, I’ve been told, you’re the general manager of.
I’ve been attending the Cannes Film Festival for 23 years, and when I saw Killers of the Flower Moon at the Sally Debussy last May the images were fully rendered and totally satisfactory.
When I saw Killers at the Westport Royale 6 a couple of weeks ago the images were noticably subdued, a bit muddy, murky…clearly being presented at lower-than-intended light levels. Like the sun was behind the clouds.
I had the exact same impression when I watched Priscilla there a few days ago. It was as if the story was happening inside a barely illiuminated closet or a shadowy shoebox of some kind. The images made me feel trapped. Depressed even. No one’s life has ever been this dark, not even Priscilla Presley‘s during her perverse marriage to Elvis.
In order to check this you need to own a light meter, and with this device you have to check the light levels without a movie playing — you have to check with just pure light being thrown on to a blank screen.
Do you own a proper light meter? Have you checked the light levels on all your screens? If so, what are the foot lambert readings? Do they meet SMPTE’s recommendations? I’d be greatly surprised if they’re between 14 and 16. As noted, the Westport Royale images are definitely subdued.
I say this knowing that AMC hasn’t employed projectionists for many years — it’s all done through some kind of soul-less computerized system.