Received on 8.17 from journalist/critic Lewis Beale, who lives in North Carolina: “I know I’m late with this, but they just screened Hell and High Water here last night. Just terrific. Top-notch on every level: direction, screenplay, acting, sense of place. Great subtext about the economy and predator banks. Chris Pine [is] a real revelation … Read more
I was thinking this morning about Chris Nolan‘s Interstellar, which I gradually came to dislike more and more as the weeks and months rolled on. I hated, hated, hated the bassy, muddy sound mix. Now, 21 months after it opened wide on 11.5.14, I can say unequivocally that it’s one of my all-time shit list … Read more
While I’ve seen Steven Soderbergh‘s The Limey (’99) ten or twelve times, I’ve never once seen Ken Loach‘s Poor Cow (’67). Which I should have by now. Both films star Terrence Stamp (whom I chatted with a bit in Toronto when The Limey had its big premiere in ’99) as a criminal type — the … Read more
Hollywood Elsewhere supports the just-announced lawsuit filed by Oscar-winning screenwriter Marl Boal against the U.S. government. It was filed in response to a threat by a military prosecutor in Bowe Bergdahl‘s upcoming court martial to subpoena Boal’s taped interviews with the Army deserter and former Taliban P.O.W. prisoner of war. Boal has been writing a … Read more
Do you think the words “rules” and “apply” are mentioned often enough in this spritzy new trailer for Warren Beatty‘s Rules Don’t Apply (20th Century Fox, 11.23)? As well as “crazy”? It doesn’t feel so much like a “dramedy”, which is what Beatty has been calling it, as a restrained screwball comedy, like something Carole … Read more
I’ve been saying from the get-go that the quality of Peter Berg‘s Patriots Day — and the 12.21 platform release is a sign that Berg, star-producer Mark Wahlberg and the producers want it to be received as an exceptional, quality-level thing — will depend in part on how the perpetrators of the 2013 Boston marathon … Read more
Yesterday President Bill Clinton told jeering Bernie Sanders supporters at a campaign rally in Boyle Heights that they would be “toast” on Tuesday. “I don’t want to pick a fight but if I were them I’d be screaming, too, ’cause if you figured this out, they’re toast for Election Day,” Clinton said. “So have a … Read more
A 6.3 digital presentation of Woody Allen and Vittorio Storaro‘s Cafe Society at Cine Gear Expo has been described in mouth-watering terms by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Carolyn Giardina. “Storaro actually arrived hours earlier in the day to make sure the projection was just as he intended,” she writes. “The gorgeous imagery was, uniquely, screened from … Read more
Source: N.Y. Times. From Nate Cohn’s post-Indiana primary summary piece, dated 5.3: “What raises the possibility of a more decisive defeat for Mr. Trump is that he is struggling to reunite the voters who supported Mr. Romney — especially white women and white college-educated voters. “A recent ABC/Washington Post poll showed Mr. Trump with just … Read more
I was going to catch a 2:30 showing of Sir Carol Reed‘s Trapeze (’56) at the TCM Old Tourists Watching Old Films Festival, which kicked off last night. I saw part of this 1956 film on TV decades ago but never all the way through. But Bosley Crowther’s review gave me pause — “dismally obvious … Read more
The 2016 Cannes Film Festival jury was announced this morning. With director George Miller having been named jury president several weeks ago, the jurists (four actors, one producer, one director) are as follows: director Arnaud Desplechin (My Golden Days), Kirsten Dunst, Valeria Golino, Mads Mikkelsen, director Laszlo Nemes (Son of Saul), Iranian producer Katayoon Shahabi, … Read more
Since the beginning of 2010, or the start of the 21st Century’s second decade, roughly 54 films that are really, really good have opened commercially. Add to these HE’s best of the first decade, which number 42, and you have 96 films since the dawn of this century. If you haven’t seen all of these … Read more