Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach for Best Adapted Screenplay. America Ferrrara for Best Supporting Actress.
Without Movies
…life wouldn’t have a great deal of meaning. Okay, it would obviously deliver a certain amount on its own weight and steam, but movies bring it all into focus, if you catch my drift.
This may be the greatest George Lucas quote I’ve ever read. It makes me even more sorry that he’s worn so many godawful flannel shirts.
From Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson’s “Hollywood: The Oral History” (‘22).
I’m Sorry
…but this is an interesting photo, and saying this doesn’t make me a terrible person. And look at those hands.
Where Were We In 2009? And What’s Missing Today?
Herewith the latest Oscar Poker, which alternated between agreeably plodding along and finding an occasional good groove…
How were things looking in early ’09, a time in the evolution of the species when Barack Obama was just settling into the Oval Office, MySpace was still a bigger thing than the five-year-old Facebook, Twitter hadn’t yet become an unavoidable big deal and the ensemble cast for this glide-along, critically scorned romcom included youngish, good-looking actors like Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson and Justin Long.
Yes, the same Bradley Cooper (born in ’75) who would begin work on Maestro less than a decade later.
Mindsets and general attitudes naturally had to be challenged, broadened or deepened by the advancement of time and the eruption of disruptive social-media lava, and so films like He’s Just Not That Into You (produced by New Line, exec produced by Barrymore, described by Manohla Dargis as “a grotesque representation of female desire”) had to gradually go away.
IMDB review: “My girlfriend and I, late 40ish or just beyond, saw this in a theater that was absolutely filled with high-school girls. Which surprised me actually, given that that most of the costars are either mid 30ish or nudging 40 (the 25 year-old Johansson is the youngest). But the teens, like the rest of the audience, seemed to really enjoy this film, as did we. (Pic ended with a worldwide gross of $178 million.)
“The relationships were nicely intertwined without being contrived (Crash anyone?), and unlike the similar Love Actually, nothing portrayed was too outlandish. The convention of adding comments by ‘real’ people to introduce story lines was well done and amusing. All of the guys are presented as having relationship issues or as being total boneheads. Hopefully there are more ‘nice guys’ interspersed in society than what this film might lead you to believe this (although I must say that the attitudes presented are definitely not inaccurate).
“Overall a very nice film with 2-hour-plus running time goes by rather quickly. If you’ve ever been in or tried to be in a relationship, you’ll probably enjoy this movie.”
Again, the link.
Done With “Night Country”
I’m watching episode 3 of True Detective: Night Country, and despite my attachment to the legend of Jodie Foster I really am done with it. Just not for me, bruh. It’s too dark, too buried, too “lemme outta here”, too labrynthian, too snowy, too grimy, too scowling, too complex and drawn out…too much of a nativist celebrationist thing, too chanty, too indigenous, too face-painty, too cheek-studdy, too “all the men except one good-looking young cop are appalling or fleshy or ugly rednecks or deep-down diseased”…too rank-smelling, too unattractive, too downish, too frostbitten, too sullen, too grubby, too “ya wanna fuck?”, too haunted and too many hoodie parkas…angry women, bruised women, resentful women, horrified women, dead women, hell-bent women…fine, good, you can have it…later.
Walker Never Wore Red
I just discovered this five minutes ago. A first-time experience. All but ruined because of the red sweater. The font or calligraphy is completely wrong. I don’t know what the blue urban background is but it’s nothing. But there’s something in the eyes.
“Madame Web”, I Fear, Is A No-Go
I would hate Madame Web (Sony, 2.14) even if it was good. Which doesn’t appear likely. I’ve been sensing trouble all along with this puppy. In the words of California Charlie, it’s “a wrong one.”
Consider this mid-November riff from The Guardian‘s Stuart Heritage:
Here’s The Thing
Channelling William Goldman: I don’t like the idea of Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan being a couple, and so, naturally, I’m not at all interested in a story about whether or not they work through their troubles and get back together. With or without the help of a third party. That’s the nub of it.
Wiki synopsis: “Sent on a mission to the edge of the solar system, an astronaut encounters a creature that helps him put his earthly problems back together.”
“Cat’s Cradle” Doesn’t Get It
What has happened to our culture over the last 15 years….hell, over the last seven or eight years…has been seismic. Obviously, inescapably.
And yet there are bright people like “Cat’s Cradle” out there…tens if not hundreds of thousands of them…who will listen to what I’ve just said, think about it for three or four seconds, look me in the eye, shrug their shoulders and go “naah, don’t think so…you’re living in your own world, man…life moves on, things change.”
Fellows like Cat’s Cradle aren’t blind as much as they don’t want to see. Because seeing would make them feel antsy or threatened. It’s a stone cold fact that over the last seven or eight the monsters have not only infiltrated Maple Street but are pretty much running the show, at least by way of changing the language and introducing a new form of puritanism, not to mention political terror.
Edit: I meant to say “the difference betweeen 2009 and 2024 has been seismic.”
