The night before last a friend who had seen Ridley Scott‘s Napoleon and scratched his heasd over Joaquin Phoenix‘s lead performance, said “what is driving Napoleon?…what is he out to accomplish?” Scott’s film never lays the French general’s cards on the table, but another film did….

Napoleon: “I judge my conduct by my conscience, and my conscience is not troubled. Day by day I too gave my life for my country. I made war in order to secure peace. Not for a year but for a dozen centuries. I dreamed of the United States of Europe. Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, Poles, Russians and all the others. One law, one coin and one people. Was that so rash a dream?”

The screenwriter was Daniel Taradash (winner of Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for From Here to Eternity), the actor was Marlon Brando, and the film was Henry Koster‘s Desiree (’54). Could the dialogue have been more complex, or less staid and simplistic? Sure but at least it gives you an idea of where Taradash’s Napoleon was coming from.

The scene in question begins at the one hour and 45 minute mark…close to the end.

Do you want to look at those black, soul-dead eyes for four or eight years? Eyes that would fit right into a Blumhouse horror film? Forget it, man. Manchin doesn’t have it.

I’ve been waiting a long time for the “Princess Diana dies in Paris with Dodi Fayed” chapter of The Crown, and now it’s finally streaming with the towering Elizabeth Debicki in the title role. The first half of it, I mean. The final episodes stream in December.)

The fatal car crash in the tunnel can’t skirt what happened — it has to be real. The ending will presumably cover the same material as Stephen Frear‘s The Queen (’06….17 years ago!) but without Helen Mirren‘s elk moment.

I was working at People magazine when Diana began seeing Fayed in July 1997. Two or three of us were asked to make some calls and prepare a file on the guy. Within three or four hours I’d learned that Fayed was an irresponsible playboy, didn’t pay his bills on occasion, lacked vision and maturity and basically wasn’t a man. And yet Diana overlooked this or didn’t want to know. And that’s why she died. She orchestrated her demise by choosing a profligate immature asshole for a boyfriend.

Fayed was just foolish and insecure enough, jet-setting around with his father’s millions and looking to play the protective stud by saving Diana from the paparazzi, to put her in harm’s way. It all came to a head on that fateful night in Paris. Fayed told his drunken chauffeur to try and outrun a bunch of easily finessable scumbag photographers on scooters, and we all know the rest.

Over the decades I’ve experienced many dozens (hundreds?) of perfect moments that were so rich and serene and soul-settling — moments in which I said to myself “Jesus, this is perfect in every way.”

The dusky light and settled atmospheres, I mean…soothing meditations and moods of unusual quiet …solace and contentment…pause moments.

I’m thinking of the faint scent of sea water and the sound of crying gulls at 5 am in Cannes…the taste of a special moment after a super-heavy rainfall in Paris or during a hike in the Palm Desert outback below cloudy skies or a cappuccino detour in Venice’s Campo Santa Margherita in the late afternoon or standing on the deck of a tourist ferry as it approaches Napoli harbor just before dawn…

That feeling we’ve all tasted from time to time…the usual rock ‘n’ roll and hustle and bustle suddenly beating a temporary retreat as you say to yourself “I’d kinda like to hang onto this for an hour or two, or maybe even a couple of days or a week even…where would be the harm in that?”

These stop-the-world moments are so special when they drop in…”away from the maddening crowd,” as Dean Martin once sang in defiance of Thomas Hardy…like that 1982 moment when Rutger Hauer’s “Roy” went to sleep and the white doves fluttered and flew off…

I distinctly recall feeling this in the early fall of ‘88 when my ex-wife and I began to drive across those ancient brownish-green country landscapes in southwestern Ireland, and I said “man, I could die here” even though I was fairly young (decades away from my first Prague touch-up) and in the full vigor and prime of life with six-month-old Jett sleeping in the backseat.

11.16 update: Bradley Cooper’s Maestro will welcomely begin theatrical engagements at two first-rate Westchester County venues before going to streaming on Netflix on 12.20 — Pleasantville’s Jacob Burns Center on 11.30 (or eight days after its 11.22 theatrical debut in NYC and Stamford) and then at the Bedford Playhouse on Friday, 12.8.

Posted on 11.15: Maestro is Netflix’s crown jewel of the ‘23 Oscar season, and there are only three theatrical options in the NYC region between 12.22 and 12.20 — the Paris (cramped but fine), the mildly shitty Angelika plex on Houston (tolerable despite the occasional rumble of the subway underneath) and the storied but generally horrendous Avon theatre in Stamford — smallish screen, shitty sound, dim lamp. Definitely not a state-of-the-set facility.

For the sake of a friend I was hoping that Maestro might be playing at the first-rate Jacob Burns in Pleasantville, which is where The Killer was playing until recently. Alas,  it’s not booked there until 11.30.

I’m seen Maestro twice in two first-rate theatres over the last 10 days or so (Dolby 88 and last night at the DGA on 57th), but Netflix is essentially telling residents who live north of the city that they’re out of luck between 11.22 and 11.29. The Avon, trust me, is the pits. (I saw TAR there, and it was hell.)

Out of respect for the great Ridley Scott it would appear that Napoleon (Apple, 11.22) is finished as a would-be Oscar contender, and that Joaquin Phoenix‘s Best Actor chances are not just dead in the water but over the waterfall and banging against the rocks.

Pay no attention to the industry whores who are praising Scott’s film to the heavens. They’re just not being honest.  Half-and-half responses are okay however.

The film includes a height joke or two, but very little is made of Napoleon’s short stature (he was somewhere around 5’6″ or roughly Alan Ladd‘s size) or, for that matter, the psychology of the Napoleon complex (i.e., short guys aggressively trying to compensate). The fact that Phoenix stands around 5’8″ doesn’t seem to matter either way.

I’m still recommending that interested parties give Marlon Brando‘s Napoleon Bonaparte a whirl. Henry Koster‘s Desiree (’54) is a mediocre costume epic, yes, but in a certain laborious, stiff-necked way it’s almost more tolerable than Scott’s film.

Trailers for action thrillers have to tantalize genre fans with gunplay and whatnot. I understand that. But at the same time I regret that this new Fast Charlie trailer doesn’t convey more of what I liked about Phillip Noyce‘s film when I caught it during last May’s Cannes Film Festival.

Pierce Brosnan‘s cool-cat bayou enforcer plugging bad guys is fine, but viewers should understand that the actual Fast Charlie body count is four on-screen and eight guys total. I noted several weeks ago that Todd McCarthy’s Deadline review made the film sound like it was competitive with Sam Peckinpah‘s The Wild Bunch. 

It was my decision, no offense, to ignore the effing blam-blam while focusing instead on Brosnan’s low-flame relationship with costar Morena Baccarin. Because that’s where the soul and the nourishment are.

Fast Charlie (Vertical, 12.8) is half of a laid-back, settled-down relationship drama between Brosnan‘s Charlie, a civilized, soft-drawl hitman who loves fine cooking, and Baccarin‘s Marcie, a taxidermist with a world-weary, Thelma Ritter-ish attitude about things. And half of a compelling shoot-and-duck thriller.

There’s a suspense scene involving a hotel laundry chute that’s especially worth the price.

Nicely performed by Brosnan, Baccarin, Gbenga Akinnagbe and the late James Caan in his final performance, Fast Charlie is…if you’re willing to ignore the gunfire…a mature, unpretentious, character-driven, action-punctuated story of cunning and desire (not just romantic but epicurean) on the Mississippi bayou. Four adjectives plus gourmet servings.

The Brosnan-Baccarin thing reminds me of Robert Forster and Pam Grier in Jackie Brown. Sprinkled with a little Elmore Leonard dressing. One of those smooth older guy + middle-aged woman ease-and-compatibility deals.

Richard Wenk‘s screenplay, adapted from Victor Gischler‘s “Gun Monkeys,” is complemented by cinematography by Australian lenser Warwick Thornton (director of The New Boy).

From David Fear’s 11.8 Rolling Stone piece about David Fincher’s The Killer:

A case has already been made that David Fincher‘s The Killer is a stylistic and spiritual kin — a close kindred spirit — of certain other elite crime noirs — films whose basic situations could be described as “solitary hardcase dude not only does it his own way but is seriously effective in the matter of revenge and settling scores and turning the tables.”

The primary examples that come to mind are John Boorman‘s Point Blank, Mike Hodges’ Get Carter, Michael Mann‘s Thief, Jean-Pierre Melville‘s Le Samourai, John Flynn‘s The Outfit and Don Siegel‘s Charley Varrick — seven including the Fincher. Agreed?

I know it doesn’t matter to the denialists, but Jenna Ellis having testified that prior to 1.6.21 that a Trump attorney told her “the boss isn’t leaving [the White House and] we don’t care”…excellent.

…about the 2:1 aspect ratio connection between Jurassic Park (’93) and Barbie (’23). On top of which I’d never heard  until today that Jurassic Park was printed with a 2:1 aspect ratio. I’ve seen it twice theatrically and had presumed both times it was just 1.85 with possibly stringent masking.

I’ve been told by a veteran film guy that JP is, in fact, 1.85.  Very confusing.

Movie journalists I’ve spoken to don’t even know the difference between 1.66, 1.85 and 2.39…they just don’t notice it. It goes without saying that 98% of ticket buyers are clueless about this, and that they damn sure couldn’t spot the difference between 1.85:1 and 2.1…not if their lives depended on it.

…but it doesn’t really come together. I wouldn’t call it a bore or a bust, but it is a shortfaller, certainly in terms of what most of us might expect from a director as skilled and seasoned as Ridley Scott, who knows from battle scenes and 18th Century cultures and atmospheres. I’ll always be a huge fan of 1977’s The Duellists (Scott’s debut effort) and I guess I figured…aagghh, stop beating around the bush and spit it out.

Napoleon isn’t an outright failure but it certainly disappoints. It huffs and puffs but never really grabs hold or pays off, and a big part of the problem is that Joaquin Phoenix’s titular performance is too smug and sullen and oddball-glum. We’re looking at a clearly older guy (the nearly 50-year-old Phoenix is looking more than a bit lined and jowly) and he’s mumble-playing a famous fellow in his 30s and 40s, and it’s like “what’s going on here?” He’s playing one of the greatest genius generals in history like a teenager on mescaline, and it just feels off. Marlon Brando’s Napoleon in Desiree (‘54) was much, much better.

All I can tell you is that the general mood on the sidewalk outside the DGA theatre after the film ended was morose and uncertain. I mostly hemmed and hawed. One guy said he was flat-out bored during most of it. A friend suggested that the title of my review should be “sacre blows” but it’s not as bad as all that. It’s more of a scattershot thing. Yes, the battle scenes are definitely decent — the best are the depictions of the battles of Austerlitz and Waterloo. But even these felt a little so-what and “what’s the point again?”.

Text sent to a friend: “I don’t think it works all that well. Spotty. In and out. Moody and muttering Joaquin…’muh-muh-mum-mum-mum’…my general reaction was one of mild intrigue but with gradually diminishing returns, although Scott does give his all to the Battie of Waterloo. Subtitles will help when it starts streaming as I understood maybe a third of Vanessa Kirby’s dialogue, IF THAT. The colors are all drab grays and subdued greens and downish blues. My soul felt drab and gray.”

I didn’t nod out but I wasn’t riveted. Am I allowed to say I was vagueiy bored? No, that’s not fair — I was semi-engaged and stayed with it and kept hoping for more. But my mind was certainly wandering and somewhere around the one-hour mark I said to myself, “Face it, this isn’t doing the thing or drilling down…not really.”

Joaquin is such an oddball space-cadet Napoleon…impassive, “I’m not sure what to do so I’ll just sulk”…residing on his own stoner planet. And he really is too old.