He’s such a happy skeleton. Joyous, really. “I love you…I really do.” And all the smiling suck-ups and fair-weather androids on the rehearsal set are right in step with the sassy “oooh!” vibe. “Michael has a depth to him that people don’t really know,” one is heard saying. In other words, Jackson, who never missed a trick marketing-wise, did a brilliant job of convincing people otherwise for the previous 30 years? Life is
ecstatic…oooh!
It really does say something about the spiritual life of the American Eloi that tickets to this film (which opens on 10.28) are selling like hotcakes. Photographers who are into American grotesques will want to show up on opening night and take shots of the crowds coming out, or going in. I plan to be there, at least.
Everyone hated Arthur Penn‘s The Missouri Breaks when it first came out in May 1976 — it was a critical and commercial wipeout — and nobody I know or read talks about it with any particular affection today, and to my knowledge no big-hearted F.X. Feeney type has come along to try and rescue its reputation. And yet it has seemed to linger in the shared consciousness of serious movie fandom.
I personally think of it as a half-good film. It doesn’t tell anything close to an intriguing story, or even one that adds up. At best it’s about interesting dabs of paint rather than the canvas as a whole. And yet every so often I watch it and for whatever reason, stay with it to the end. Why is that?
Jack Nicholson‘s performance is subdued and affected and close to dull, and Marlon Brando‘s Lee Clayton is solely about acting for a paycheck, boredom on the set and brazen showboating — he’s not really in the film. (“Here‘s an interesting little scene in which their characters first meet.) And I depise that harmonica cue signalling that the climax of the train-robbery sequence is supposed to be funny.
And yet The Missouri Breaks has a decent amount of flavor and aroma, ironically, in part, due to Brando’s half-fascinating, half-infuritating locoweed behavior. And due to those two hanging scenes, that Nicholson-Brando “I just slit your throat” scene, that quick scene when John Ryan meets the farmer’s wife behind the barn after dinner for a quickie, that horse-rustling scene in Canada and so on.
After one horse drowned and several others were injured, including one by an American Humane Association-prohibited tripwire, The Missouri Breaks was placed on the AHA’s “unacceptable” list.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
“By now there have been quite enough zombie comedies to constitute a little subgenre of their own. If Zombieland doesn’t grade at the head of its class — the valedictorian still being Shaun of the Dead — this lively splatstick item is nonetheless way above the remedial likes of Zombie Strippers, to name one among many recent lower-budgeters. Benefiting from the very different but very appealing comedy styles of Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg even when the script’s wit runs thin, this should be catnip to jaded genre fans, with decent niche theatrical returns and solid long-term ancillary biz signaled.” — from Dennis Harvey‘s 9.27 Variety review.
At a press conference earlier today, the Zurich Film Festival jury wore red “Free Polanski” buttons and accused Switzerland of “philistine collusion” in arresting Polanski. “We hope today this latest order will be dropped [as] it is based on a three-decade-old case that is all but dead but for minor technicalities,” said jury president Debra Winger. “We stand by and wait for his release and his next masterwork.”
Festival de Cannes president Gilles Jacob, Italian star Monica Bellucci and directors Costa-Gavras, Wong Kar Wai and Bertrand Tavernier are among the signatures on a petition demanding Polanski’s immediate release. Harvey Weinstein also lent his support to the cause after being approached by Fremaux. It’s expected the Weinstein Co. boss will head up a Hollywood lobby fighting the extradition.
Didja hear that, HE tubthumpers? Time to rip into Winger for her delusional views and set her straight. And let the others know what for while you’re at it. Don’t allow twisted Hollywood mores to go unchallenged.
Of the nine up-and-comers featured in Vanity Fair‘s April 2000 Hollywood issue, only one — Penelope Cruz — has really made it in a truly stellar, top-of-the-heap way. Selma Blair has hung on visibility-wise with the Hellboy flicks and Paul Walker has done decent work here and there (like in ’06’s Running Scared). But Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Marley Shelton, Chris Klein and Jordana Brewster all seem to be swimming upstream and not really doing it. I had to go to the IMDB for find Sarah Wynter, who’s mostly been a TV actress for the last nine years.
(l. to r.) Penelope Cruz, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Marley Shelton, Chris Klein, Selma Blair, Jordana Brewster and Sarah Wynter.
I can’t imagine why any movie fan would give two hoots about Johnny Depp having said he won’t play Cpt. Jack Sparrow in the fifth and sixth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean. But that’s the big hot exclusive news delivered earlier today by Cinemablend‘s Katey Rich. I mean, who wanted to suffer through parts two or three to begin with? Who in their right mind would want to see part four, which Depp is apparently willing (or thinking about being willing) to star in?
Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribbean.
“The news that Disney exec Dick Cook was leaving the company was important to the people who work in the studio itself,” Rich begins, “but the part that got movie fans concerned was Johnny Depp‘s suggestion that Cook’s absence might make him less enthusiastic to come back for a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean.
“Our regular tipster is saying that even if he makes the fourth film, he definitely won’t be back for a fifth or sixth. Given that the Pirates franchise is the only live-action property making any money for the studio, Disney execs could reach deep in their pockets to keep Depp on for #4, but they’re also preparing to replace Captain Jack with a entirely new character if he refuses a fifth and sixth film.
Depp “is well aware the second two movies sucked,” Rich writes. (How could he not be?) “That didn’t stop him from signing on for a fourth film, of course, but based on his comments last week it seems that his faith in Cook was a lot of what was keeping him on board.” Deep had faith in Cook to do what exactly? The last two Pirate movies were bullshit. Profitable, yes, but they degraded his brand.
“What this seems to mean for moviegoers is that there will be a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiations to keep Depp happy for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tides, but there probably isn’t any amount of money that will convince him to stick around after that. Sounds similar to what Tobey Maguire is planning for Spider-Man 4, and probably the only appropriate thing for a guy as busy as Depp to do. But if they decide to replace Jack Sparrow for the fifth and sixth film, I predict they’d have something resembling a fan mutiny on their hands.”
In a discussion of the Polanski case, Vanity Fair‘s Julian Sancton notes that “the French, in particular, are constantly baffled at the puritanical fervor with which the United States pursue men they admire, from Woody Allen to Bill Clinton. Sexual deviance, they seem to believe, is a natural and acceptable side-effect of greatness.”
Which isn’t putting it fairly. The French may have a comme ci comme ca attitude about world-class artists and powerful politicians having certain perverse or flamboyant tendencies in their private moments, but that’s not the same thing as calling such appetites (particularly those involving minors) acceptable. Because they not.
Rich and powerful go-getter types are different from Average Joes and Janes in two respects. One, they dream bigger, think bigger and are consumed by much stronger desires to get somewhere in life (or, in some cases, to get to the very top). And two, once they’ve risen to the upper stations of whatever profession or social network they’re operating in, they’re basically told in a hundred different ways that the Average Joe, lower- or middle-station rules about what you can or can’t get away with are no longer quite as demanding and unchallengable and black-and-white as before.
Rich and powerful people tend to believe they can get away with more, and so they tend to step over the line more because life tells them they can. It really is that simple.
In a 9.28 piece called “Why Arrest Roman Polanski Now? Revenge,” Newser‘s Michael Wolff says that last weekend’s Zurich airport bust was “about the LA prosecutor’s office’s public relations.” But it really happened, he feels, because the office felt goaded by Marina Zenovich‘s 2008 documentary about Polanski, called Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.
“Prosecutors ignored Polanski for 30 years because it was a terrible case in which the prosecutor’s office and the sitting judge, in the interest of getting publicity for themselves, had conducted themselves in all variety of dubious ways,” Wolff explains. “But then, last year, a documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, came out detailing all this dubiousness. So the first motivation for going after Polanski now, as it so often is with prosecutors, is revenge — Polanski and this film makes the DA look bad.
“The second is that the documentary reminded everybody that the LA prosecutor must be turning a blind eye to Polanski, wandering freely in Europe — hence the arrest now is the prosecutor covering his ass.
“The third is — and it’s curiously the success of the documentary that made the LA prosecutor’s office realize the brand name significance of the case — press. The headlines now sweeping the world are the prosecutor’s ultimate benefit. Many careers are suddenly advanced.
“It could tell us quite a lot about the real motivations and real interest in Roman Polanski in the LA prosecutor’s office, about the sudden enthusiasm for Polanski’s capture and the convenient timing of it, if we just got the date and time — Polanski’s lawyers can certainly get this information through discovery requests — when they began to Google him, and when they set up the first alert.
“Among all media whores, there is none so greedy and mendacious as a prosecutor.”
I’m pleased to have been invited to visit London a couple of weeks hence for a 20th Century Fox/Fantastic Mr. Fox junket, so why didn’t I get invited to the now-concluded Universal/Couples Retreat junket in Bora Bora that happened over the weekend? I’ll tell you why — somebody in Universal publicity doesn’t think I’m whorey enough. I sorta faintly resent this. I can bend over as readily and willingly as the next guy.
Matira Beach in Bora Bora
Okay, my Bora Bora posts might have included zaps at this and that, but that’s what makes Hollywood Elsewhere a cool read…right? Plus I would have taken excellent photos. Couples Retreat will open on 10.9.
If you were an independent DVD retailer, would you have gone into the store yesterday and put up a special Roman Polanski standee-display near the front? Like, you know, the way stores put up special displays whenever a major actor dies? When the iron is hot, strike it. And speaking of irons, this clip from a certain Polanski film carries an echo of what’s in the air right now.
- Really Nice Ride
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall‘s Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year’s Telluride...
More » - Live-Blogging “Bad Boys: Ride or Die”
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when...
More » - One of the Better Apes Franchise Flicks
It took me a full month to see Wes Ball and Josh Friedman‘s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes...
More »
- The Pull of Exceptional History
The Kamala surge is, I believe, mainly about two things — (a) people feeling lit up or joyful about being...
More » - If I Was Costner, I’d Probably Throw In The Towel
Unless Part Two of Kevin Costner‘s Horizon (Warner Bros., 8.16) somehow improves upon the sluggish initial installment and delivers something...
More » - Delicious, Demonic Otto Gross
For me, A Dangerous Method (2011) is David Cronenberg‘s tastiest and wickedest film — intense, sexually upfront and occasionally arousing...
More »