Martin Scorsese‘s Shine a Light opened only three and a half months ago. I’d convinced my significant other to come see the IMAX version with me, and she had half-convinced her daughter to come with us. But it didn’t happen and the film left the IMAX theatres and now the opportunity is gone for the rest of our lives on this planet. Next Tuesday’s arrival of the Shine a Light Blu-ray disc reminded me of that.
“Everything Is Cinema is important because it is an honest, intelligent and often eloquent treatment of a major motion picture artist [i.e., Jean-Luc Godard]. Sometimes reading it is a bit like riding a train that is chugging dutifully up a hill; at other times it’s a roller coaster of exciting ideas. Either way, like a Godard film, the journey turns out to be worth it.” — from Jeanine Basinger‘s 7.23 N.Y. Times review. Wait…the book came out two months ago (on 5.13)?
Vandamm: Let me go, Professor, and I’ll tell you a secret you’ll really want to know.
Professor: Talk first, Vandamm, and we’ll see.
Vandamm: (whispering) Leonard gave better head than Miss Kendall.
Professor: Oh, that I already knew. Take him away, boys! And don’t spare the rubber hoses!
(copied from 7.7.08 IMDB posting by Bilwick1.)
The best documentary of the year so far, hands down. One of the best of the century, no lie. Plays like a suspense thriller and a poem at the same time.
A Robocop-era outtake of Gene Siskel and Rogert Ebert, to wit: “He asked the McDonald’s girls if he could have apple pie with his order before they asked him! Wants some salad with your apple pie? They worked through the whole fucking menu! He ordered every fucking thing they have!” (YouTube clip stolen/copied from Patrick Goldstein‘s bloggy-blog…I think. I still can’t tell the difference between the blog and the weekly dead-tree “Big Picture” column because those lazy-ass Times designer guys can’t be bothered to create a real stylistic distinction.)
An unnamed major film critic recently asked a journalist friend about “that Kevin Costner baseball movie.” Baseball movie? “Yeah,” the critic said. “It’s Costner doing the usual jowly working-class schlub thing…what, it’s not a baseball movie?” No, he was told. My friend then said to the critic, “You know, if someone like you — a film critic who ostensibly keeps up — isn’t getting what this movie is about, the marketing for Swing State is doing something wrong.” I’m sorry — Swing Vote!
Hours-old comment by Time‘s Joe Klein that McCain’s remark yesterday about Obama being willing to lose a war in order to win a campaign is the “most scurrilous” he’s ever heard in all his years of covering campaigns.
After months of shadowing, it would appear that those tenacious big-game hunters from Lantana, Florida, finally cornered their prized North Carolinian leopard in the Beverly Hills hotel this morning and threw a net over him. Or so it would seem. This is the scenario that some (like Slate‘s Mickey Kaus, having heard the stories) predicted would happen sooner or later. The running-up-and-down-the-stairs and into-the-cellar part sounds so humiliating. We live in a diseased and predatory culture.
It turns out that Dark Knight star Christian Bale has been charged by London police only with “verbal assault” in last Sunday night’s incident between himself, his mother Jenny and his sister Sharon. In London verbal assault can be classified as a Class 4 or 5, with Class 4 being aggravated with “an intent to cause alarm.”
In other words, Bale was popped for the domestic American custom known as “arguing,” possibly with a loud and/or threatening tone of voice. By this curious standard Jeremy Piven‘s “Ari” character would be doing 10 years without parole, easy, if he lived in London.
I for one would love to read James Vanderbilt‘s forthcoming screen adaptation of “Truth And Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power,” the 2005 book by former CBS News producer Mary Mapes about the big 60 Minutes II brouhaha that hurt CBS news anchor Dan Rather when he and Mapes produced a story four years ago about President George W. Bush‘s…er, activities in the Texas Air National Guard. It eventually led to Mapes getting bounced from the network and Rather taking an early retirement.
“This was a corporate, political, and public relations operation,” Mapes has been quoted saying by the N.Y. Observer, “designed to take the heat off and allow Viacom to walk away unscathed, unencumbered by lingering anger from the White House or the various Republican-dominated committees that the corporation lobbied constantly.”
The price of drinks over the last ten or so years has risen to obscene levels at almost all nightspots. At many places you can easily drop $40 or $50 bucks on three or four glasses of wine, with tip and all. Even beer is ridiculous. Forget mixed drinks. So imagine my shock when I happened to wander into Barney’s Beanery last night and ordered a Miller Chill and the bartender held two fingers up. “Two dollars?,” I said. “Two,” she said. Astonishing.
Peter Coyote has written a statement to all name actors regarding the possible SAG strike. Its has been posted on Nikki Finke‘s Deadline Hollywood Daily. The gist is an appeal to the multimillionaire set to join in solidarity with the working stiffs.
“Once an actor reaches the six or ten million dollar mark for several months work, they are financially secure for life unless they are morons or have extremely bad habits,” he writes. “By the time they’re earning 15 to 20 million, some measurable percentage of those earnings is meaningless. A major star on a film we were doing together once told me, √¢‚Ǩ≈ìHey there’s no difference between 17 and 18 million to me! My agent tells me so-and-so gets it and so should I.√¢‚Ǩ¬ù
“That ‘no difference money’ is the difference between earning a living or not for most of the rest of us. A modest return to insure the health of the entire community (the principle behind income taxes) hardly seems excessive. While this would not solve all the problems of our community, it would certainly remove much of the desperation and rancor from negotiations and make earning a living once again possible for far more of the membership. It cannot be legislated by law, only by custom, but as a custom it would lend a definite grace to our industry, and perhaps set a model that might inspire others. (Why do the words ‘corporate executives’ leap to mind?)
“You cannot grow roses without mulch. While stars represent the beautiful blooms of the industry, the soil of the industry, the medium of growth supplied by all those who surround you, is being starved for nourishment. Eventually, this lack of payback to the medium supporting all the growth will kill, if not the plant itself, at least its quality and vitality. Our industry is not secure while the majority of its players are not. To change the situation requires consciousness, solidarity, and power. We have the consciousness and solidarity. We appeal to you for help with the power.”
