I’m no one to talk with today’s Joaquin Pheonix-Brian Dennehy comparison, but this Vanity Fair cover argues that there may be such a thing as too rich and too thin. Kate Winslet had her own thing and Angelina Jolie had hers. Now, here, they’re nearly the same. I had to look twice at this photo before realizing it’s Kate “weighs-a-lot” (i.e., her alleged Jim Cameron nickname during the shooting of Titanic).
My favorite James Bond moment of all time was about cold-blooded murder. It happened in Dr. No when Sean Connery looked at Anthony Dawson‘s Professor Dent, told him that the weapon he’s just tried to dispatch Connery with “is a Smith and Wesson, and you’ve had your six.” And then thunk! And then once more for good measure, in Dawson’s back….thunk! Cold as ice, and rather enjoying it.
This is the 007 I’ve wanted to hang with with ever since, but who’s never once re-appeared. Not really. Except, I suppose, mildly speaking, in the finale of Casino Royale. A guy who has a license to be an heartless killing bastard and get away with it.
This is in response to Matthew Oshinsky‘s 11.3 Daily Beast piece, “Has Bond Lost His Balls?”
“The new Bond is unmistakably a hero of the 21st century, when his baggage sells tickets. Some have compared him with Jason Bourne, the amnesiac contract assassin who made Matt Damon a household name. Like Bond, Bourne kills his way to the truth. But the better parallel is found in the rejuvenated Batman series, which has stripped its central character of his outdated penthouse charm (a la Adam West and Michael Keaton, neither of whom appeared out of uniform without arm candy), and focused morbid attention on his self-esteem.
These are dark and lonely times for our action stars. Much like Bruce Wayne, James Bond is accustomed to having a lot more sex.
“When the first Bond film, Dr. No, was released in 1962, the superagent’s masculinity was measured as much by his domination of women as by pistol skills. Nearly 50 years later, it is measured by the cuts on his face and the scars in his soul. Of course, the character is more difficult to pin down now — thanks to the rejiggering of the series’ chronology, he is at once younger than he was in Dr. No, yet fighting eco-terrorists in 2008. In Quantum of Solace, Bond is still inexperienced, unaware of himself, and about as romantic as a rottweiler. Maybe he just needs time to blossom into the man who seduced the globe in the seamy ’60s.
“Or is this dispassionate killer the one Fleming first envisioned? The author, a notorious womanizer who had served in the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty, once called his creation a ‘highly romanticized version of a true spy.’ But most agree that Fleming based Bond on himself, infusing the character with both the cold ferocity and the magnetism that he did not fully possess.
“Initially, studios rejected the idea of adapting Bond for the screen not on account of his immodest sexuality, not is bloodlust. But the immediate success of Dr. No with male and female viewers alike showed that belly dancers and unsheathed innuendos would be essential elements in any tale of espionage told in the 1960s. After Fleming died in 1964, the cold war thawed, the counterculture evolved, and Bond’s libido became his defining characteristic. But by the 1990s, Brosnan smirked his way into sexual parody and invisible missile-loaded cars received top billing.
“The version of Bond that Hollywood has offered over the span of 22 movies has always been decided by the prevailing desires of the era. This Bond is joining us in an uncertain time — heartbroken, confused, vengeful, and chugging his martinis rather than just sipping them.”
The Courage Campaign has put together a list of recommendations on the various Callifornia ballot initiatives (or state measures) that everyone will be voting upon tomorrow. No to Prop. 8!
I’m a serious white guy. English and German heritage. I grew up in white-bread towns (Westfield, NJ and Wilton, CT) and began life with white-bread tastes, attitudes and core beliefs. And yet now, looking at all those defensive-looking white people cheering on John McCain at his rallies, I feel pity and alienation. I shake my head and ask myself, “Who are these jerks?” To be an over-40 white middle-classer these days is, by the standard of the political polls I’ve been reading, to be a little bit sad and scared. Half of them, I mean, or a bit more than half. Culturally reactionary, behind-the-curve, hanging on to the past.
To go by this just-released trailer, The Reader, it would seem, is a reasonably strong acting-honors thing for Kate Winslet because she plays someone who sharply defines herself in terms of emotional need (i.e., an affair with a younger guy) and by being a good Nazi guard. Whereas in Revolutionary Road she’s playing a ’50s surburban wife beset by Cheeverish ennui and struggling with despair. It’s the difference between declaration and guilt vs. aspiration and lament.
I’ve been thinking off and on about Joaquin Phoenix‘s annnounced retirement from acting, the news of which broke three or so days ago. I don’t care what he says — this is a Frank Sinatra/Daniel Day Lewis retirement. Two to three years and then back in it. But when he returns, “Joaq” might want to be a few pounds thinner. He’s been looking a little chunky lately. A little bit of a Brian Dennehy thing going on.
I think his decision is mainly a reaction to his having acted in three critical and commercial duds in a row — We Own The Night, Reservation Road and Two Lovers. (I’ve seen Two Lovers and can foresee its box-office fate.) Plus the fact that everyone ignored Ladder 49.
On top of the apparent fact that Pheonix likes to appear in movies that are (a) emotionally straightforward and unambiguous, (b) blue-collar-ish (i.e., films about lugs who feel weighed down by family expectations and who haven’t had an elegant education) and (b) offbeat indie-ish. And the fact that audiences have been shrugging their shoulders at such films. He doesn’t see where he fits in, and so he’s getting out…for now.
Variety‘s Todd McCarthy is calling Gus Van Sant‘s Milk “a fluent return to the relative mainstream” and “an adroitly and tenderly observed account of the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man voted into significant U.S. public office. Smartly handled study of the San Francisco politician’s powerful effect on individuals and society accurately catches a moment in American political life three decades ago, but is most notable for the surprising and entirely winning performance by Sean Penn in the leading role.
“Made to more closely resemble Milk via an elongated nose, which also makes his face look narrower, the actor socks over his characterization of a man he’s made to seem, above all, a really sweet guy, but who crucially possessed the fearlessness and toughness to be a highly successful political motivator, agitator and, ultimately, figurehead of a movement.
“Penn’s Harvey is a man with a ready laugh, alive to the moment, open to life regardless of neuroses and past tragedies, and acutely aware of one’s limited time on Earth. The explosive anger and fury often summoned by Penn in his work is nowhere to be seen, replaced by a geniality that is as welcome as it is unexpected.
“Penn is also an ideal conduit for a characteristic shrewdly underlined in Black’s writing, that being Harvey’s talent for gently but firmly nudging people out of routine or complacent attitudes. Harvey knows how to tweak others with lightly provocative or stimulating comments that break the ice, and Penn lays on just the right amount of casual innuendo to make this crucial personality trait convincing.”
The trailer indicates that Keanu Reeves‘ alien space ship lands at night in The Day The Earth Stood Still (20th Century Fox, 12.12). That’s because night landings look cooler than day landings with those standard bullshit intense lights piercing through all the fog and smoke. But aren’t we getting sick of alien night landings (E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Invaders From Mars)?
I would have preferred one in broad daylight under blue skies, like the one from Klaatu in the original 1951 version. Because it would have been different. Because it would have created its own kind of cool. Because aliens don’t care if their landings look cool. They just want to land safely, and to do that you don’t want to load solely by instruments. You want to be able to see where you’re landing, and for that you need sunlight. Simple.
It’s probably a good idea to get out the wooden paddles, cricket bats and cat ‘o’ nine tails in case the Generation of Shame lives up to its reputation and doesn’t turn out in record numbers — i.e., votes at roughly the same levels they did in ’04. I’ve read two early-vote estimates that the under-25s have been turning out in much lower numbers than expected. So get ready. I’m hoping for the best like everyone else, but if these guys slack off the wrath of Daniel Plainview will have nothing on me.
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