In my limited white-guy mind rap and hip-hop didn't really ignite until the late '80s, mainly when NWA became popular in '87. Musical scholars will also tell you that rap & hip-hop are generally understood to have originated in New York City in the 1970s.
Login with Patreon to view this post
HE to Feinberg and especially the wokesters who beat him with the same stick that the Turks beat Peter O’Toole with in Lawrence to Arabia: It’s perfectly allowable to simultaneously walk and chew gum while discussing Harvey Weinstein. Pre-#MeToo and in private suites Harvey was a brutal, beastly rapist (proven, no question) but he was also a canny distributor with brilliant, go-getter instincts. If he wasn’t a deranged criminal and not behind bars and running Miramax and the Weinstein Co. like he did between the mid ’90s and mid teens, Harvey might have managed a very respectable sell of She Said.
Attorney Friend to HE: “Do you spend time with your family?”
HE to attorney friend: “Sure, I do.”
Attorney Friend to HE: “Good. Because a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.”
Jett and Sutton Wells, snapped early Sunday afternoon at Trader Joe’s in Millburn, New Jersey.
I'll watch almost anything in black-and-white Scope, which I happen to be queer for, but I draw the line at Billy Wilder's Kiss Me Stupid. I tried to re-watch it last night (again), and I couldn't do it, man. I just couldn't.
Login with Patreon to view this post
Sasha Stone on the theatrical death of She Said, a first-rate, totally approvable journalism drama: “Journalism changed completely in 2016, just like Hollywood did. The New York Times joined “the resistance” and lost its objectivity. Ditto high-minded Oscar fare. She Said tells the story as Hollywood always does, as though there is only one perspective on any of it. They just assume all of America agrees, or should because their word is the right one.
“Oscar movies aren’t bombing because they’re ‘woke,’ and many of them aren’t. The Banshees of Inisherin isn’t. It’s that Joe and Jane have been “’woked’ too many times, and so when a film comes along, they think ‘I’ll catch it on streaming.’ The last remaining group, to repeat, is likely staying home due to ongoing COVID fear. That isn’t everyone, but it’s enough to make a dent in the box office.
“I just got woked watching a movie recently that was kind of good overall. But its ultimate message was meant to make me, the viewer, feel bad about myself and my world because that is what they want you to feel. They want you to feel guilty and bad because they, the filmmakers, are noble and holy and are on the other side of it.
“I know lots of white people like this — or I used to, I should say. People who go around carping about ‘systemic racism’ and ‘white privilege’ as white people. That puts them on the other side and makes them seem “good” and “woke.” It gives them a sense of higher purpose.
“But the end result of this is always the same story. It’s like Christian Rock — no matter how good it is at the end of the day, it is always going to be about just that one thing. This movie I was watching, like almost every movie or advertising you see, was reminding me yet again of the hierarchy of race. White people are bad; everyone else is good.
“How can you ever expect actors of color — Black, Hispanic, Asian — to have any sort of chance to tell great stories if they’re trapped in the cocoon of white guilt and must always be portrayed as noble saints compared to the white heathens? Meanwhile, White people get all of the good parts because they are allowed to be imperfect, flawed, and corrupt. And ONLY THEM.
“I think personally that it betrays one’s sense of superiority ultimately, as does equity in Hollywood and the Oscars. They’re saying women and people of color can never be as good as white males, so they have to be ‘helped’ to win. But that robs them of their worth in the end because all it does is reward the whites who are giving it to them in the first place. See how good we are? See how ‘woke’ we are?
“Most people are sick of it, though hardly anyone will write about it because they will be slammed online.”
I’ll catch an occasional film at a nearby AMC plex, but I never seem to remember to arrive 20 to 25 minutes late so I can avoid the torture of watching bubbly, extra perky Noovie personalities Maria Menounos and Perri Nemiroff, not to mention Nicole Kidman’s “we come to this place” AMC movie spot. Aaaagghh!
Each and every time these three lightweights and their respective shpiels send me into a pit of total depression.
It makes you wonder which paying customers out there are shallow and stupid enough to feel even faintly amused by this crap?
Pet Kidman peeve: “That indescribable feeling we all get when the lights begin to dim…” Indescribable on what planet? It’s easily describable. It’s the feeling of illogical, stupidly hopeful anticipation. Most of us know or at least strongly suspect that whAt we’re about to see will be an overlong, submental piece of shit, but when the lights go down we still revert to our seven-year-old selves and think “maybe…maybe.”
Friendo: “I’m surprised that you bought into this narrative about The Menu‘s box-office performance. The Menu isn’t a horror film. It’s a sophisticated satire of foodie culture with elements of horror sprinkled in — totally a movie for adults. That means that its box-office gross this weekend, which will be close to $10 million, is a triumph. In a single weekend, in one fell swoop, it has beat all the other adult dramas of the fall.
“How is this a case of ‘hasn’t sold all that many tickets’? It’s going to be one of the only relatively small-scale hits of the fall. And I personally think it’s a terrific movie that, for once, has sold all those tickets for the right reasons.
HE to friendo:: “I was going by an assessment by Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro. He wrote that “with an estimated $30M production cost and $8.87M opening, possibly $9M, The Menu is not a bomb, bomb, bomb — but nothing spectacular.”
Friendo to HE: “Inaccurate. It did cost more than your average adult drama, but it’s not like its total gross is $9 million. This is the opening weekend. Right now it looks on track to gross somewhere in the neighborhood of at least $25-30 million domestic. And it has a major international appeal. This means that I think it will emerge, in the end, as a success for Searchlight. It’s certainly no bomb.
“But my point about the numbers isn’t simply related to whether it ultimately makes money for its studio or not. Maybe it will (I think it will), maybe it won’t. My point is: Here’s a movie for adults that people want to see.”
HE to friendo: “I thought it was actually pretty great for that reason.”
Friendo to HE: “I wasn’t sure how much you liked/didn’t like it. I think it’s tons more fun than anything Michael Haneke ever made. And with respectful disagreement: I think it’s a very funny movie. The horror stuff, you’re right, is just horror (though with a wild edge that you could certainly argue has a black-comic frisson), but the satire is delicious. It’s the rare movie that gave me honest laughs. At the end, when Ralph Fiennes called the smore “a fucking monstrosity,” I just about busted a gut.”
HE to friendo: “It’s essentially about malice and hate and unfettered loathing. Dryly or darkly satiric, okay, but not ‘funny.'”
At age 37, William Holden was too old to play Hal Carter, a youngish drifter, in Joshua Logan's film adaptation of William Inge's Picnic. A few weeks after Picnic opened on 12.7.55, Holden appeared on the cover of Time -- a semi-official proclamation that he was peaking as a big-time movie star. Except the painting of Holden that Time used made him appear no younger than 45, which was really too old to play a guy who hadn't yet figured out what to do with his life.
Login with Patreon to view this post
Login with Patreon to view this post
Sex, nude scenes, great wealth, naked ambition -- Daniel Petrie and Harold Robbins' The Betsy ('78) is one of the most hilariously offensive groaners in the sub-genre of hothouse soap opera.
Login with Patreon to view this post
Login with Patreon to view this post
I understand, I think, why The Menu (Searchlight, 11.18) hasn’t sold all that many tickets over the last couple of days. I saw it Friday, and immediately warmed to the cold, pared-to-the-bone discipline aspect. It’s basically Michael Haneke‘s Funny Games transposed to the realm of high-end gourmet dining.
It’s essentially about contempt for the one-percenters — a contempt especially felt by creatively gifted types. As well as a general all-round contempt that some of us have deep-down for ourselves.
I would actually call The Menu dry-ice cold rather than just boilerplate ice-cube cold.
The Menu‘s Wiki page calls it “an American black comedy thriller.” That’s misleading. It’s a dry, pitch-black chamber piece — archly-written and performed with a chilly, darkly ironic attitude — but it’s certainly not comedic. It’s about 12 financially flush diners squirming over the distinct prospect of possibly being killed in some horrible way, and if you find this kind of squirming comedic there’s really and truly something wrong with you.
“We’re Gonna Die,” posted on 8.11.22: “Obviously The Menu is a black social satire. The focus is on the repulsion that some gifted artists feel for consumers, including the rich elite. The idea, apparently, is that Ralph Fiennes‘ Slowik, the celebrity chef behind an exclusive restaurant called Hawthorne, is a sociopath. He’s probably a variation of Leslie Banks‘ “Count Zaroff” in The Most Dangerous Game (’32).”
The fact that Adam McKay and Will Ferrell produced The Menu (along with Betsy Koch)…this fact should tell you something. None-too-brights have interpreted this to mean that The Menu is a kind of comedy. In fact it’s a misanthropic fuck-you satire.
Original screenwriter Will Tracy “came up with the idea of the story while visiting Bergen, Norway, when he took a boat to a fancy restaurant on a nearby private island and realized they were stuck (or trapped) on the island until the meal was done.”
IMDB trivia: “In 2019, Emma Stone was attached to play the lead role with Alexander Payne directing. In 2021, Anya Taylor-Joy replaced Stone and Mark Mylod stepped in for Payne.”
Playing in 3211 situations, The Menu has earned $3,600,000 so far, or $1121 per screen.
<div style="background:#fff;padding:7px;"><a href="https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/category/reviews/"><img src=
"https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/reviews.jpg"></a></div>
- 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 »
<div style="background:#fff;padding:7px;"><a href="https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/category/classic/"><img src="https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/heclassic-1-e1492633312403.jpg"></div>
- 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 »