Posted from Telluride ’23: “Aki Kaurismäki‘s Fallen Leaves, a Chaplinesque, slightly glum relationship comedy-drama. Costars Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen deliver quietly touching performances. Several weeks ago a somewhat dismissive Cannes review of Kaurismaki‘s film lowered my want-to-see. But at the urging of SBIFF kingpin Roger Durling I caught it yesterday afternoon, and was glad that I did. It’s a simple but pleasing romantic fable — bare bones, wholly believable, well acted and genuinely touching.”
“Every Hamas Terrorist Is A Dead Man”
The most devastating part of the second video (i.e, Irish father shares the details of his daughter’s death) are those reaction shots of Clarissa Ward. She’s frozen her expression in order to keep it all in.
We’re all feeling the horror and revulsion from the murders of Israeli adults and children in Israel and Gaza, but I’m imagining it’s hitting parents of young children harder. It’s hitting me very hard.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday evening: “We will wipe out this thing called Hamas. Hamas — the Islamic State of Gaza — will be wiped from the face of the earth. It will not continue to exist. There will be no situation in which Israeli children are murdered and we all go about our business.”
Strange Submission
Friendo: “I’m confused.”
HE: “I’m catching it this evening at 6 pm. If Paul Schrader can find it in his heart, maybe I can too.”
Friendo: “Why on earth would you bother?”
HE: “It’s a cultural event. Like Barbie. I can’t ignore it. I can’t live in a cocoon. I have to open myself up to it.”
Friendo: “Do U like Taylor Swift? Ur gonna be crazy bored watching a concert movie in a theater.”
I Could Name A Few
But I don’t mean that figuratively. I’ll really keep it to just a few. But before I do anything I need to say something really important, which is that anyone who claims that either Parasite or Moonlight or Jojo Rabbit are 21st Century masterpieces is really fucked up in the head and needs…I don’t know what they need but they need to unscrew their heads and then screw them back on correctly.
1. No Country for Old Men, 2. Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days, 3. Zodiac, 4. A Separation, 5. 12 Years A Slave, 6. Sideways, 7. Adaptation, 8. Superbad, 9. A Serious Man, 10. J’Accuse (An Officer and a Spy), 11. Manchester By The Sea, 12. The Social Network, 13. Zero Dark Thirty, 14. The Wolf of Wall Street, 15. Leviathan, 16. The Square, 17. Moneyball.
Is there anyone out there who hasn’t seen Cristian Mingiu‘s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (’07)? Or who doesn’t agree with the general consensus that it’s absolutely a genius-level, world-class drama that’s about much more than a couple of women trying to obtain an illegal abortion in socialist Romania in the late ’80s? (Although it certainly is that for starters.) The Criterion Bluray pops on 1.22.19
Go Figure
I’ve seen the Rolling Stones perform live three times…Madison Square Garden in ’75, Paris in June of ’76 (“les Rolling Stones aux Abattoir!“) and at the SoFi stadium on 10.17.21.
Plus I caught a live Mick Jagger performance at the El Rey in ’01 (“God Give Me Everything I Want“).
All four were “Jagger hopping around like a rooster on acid” performances. But if you ask me Jagger’s performing style was more oddly arresting in the early to mid ’60s, back when he more or less just stood there and twirled his arms and legs in a rather conservative fashion.
This performance of “19th Nervous Breakdown” happened on 2.13.66 — their first-ever appearance in color on US television. The Ed Sullivan Show, of course.
John Carpenter Cuts To The Chase
Roughly ten days ago I presented a case for Barbie and Poor Things being more or less the same film, the difference being that Poor Things is sexier, crazier, loopier, trippier…more Alice in Wonderland meets Terry Gilliam‘s Frankenstein in a hard-R kinda way.
Poor Things, in short, is a much hipper film…more apple-cart-upsetting, more subterranean, more wild-ass unhinged…almost in a Radley Metzger sense.
And yet if the Best Picture race comes down to these two being the finalists, the proverbial mob (i.e., those who are far less hip than they think they are) wants the Oscar to go to Barbie. Why? Because it became a huge cultural event and made tons and tons of money, and they loved that glorious affirmation of urban girlitude and pinkitude. It was quite the national moment.
Filed on 7.20.23 — one of the first things I wrote after my late afternoon show of Barbie ended:
Key 7.20.23 passage: “I have to give Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach credit for having created a fleet, zippy, self-acknowledging, hall-of-mirrors Barbie universe that mostly works.
“If you don’t mind the relentless humiliation that is heaped upon the stupid, self-deluding Ken men, the film holds together. It’s fully realized and precisely thought through and is quite the pink creation, quite the work of imagination…
“Even though it regards men as pathetic and immature and basically seven- and eight-year-olds…the Barbie women are the wise and the strong and way, WAY more commanding and visionary and competent….the Ken men are foolish, emotionally stunted infants, and women know SO much more and are SO much wiser and more mature and they, henceforth, will lead the way. And are destined, it is fully implied, to run the real world once the men are fully deballed and schooled and feminized…”
“No Clint Eastwood or Lee Marvin types allowed! And no Cary Grants or Jack Lemmons either! Only buff-bod gay guys who are pretending to be straight, or at least aren’t identified as queer.”
But honestly? The more I think about Barbie, the less interested I am in seeing it again. If it has to be one of these, I’m definitely more in the Poor Things camp.
Darn Tootin’
Lawmen: Bass Reeves is a new western series (Paramount +, 11.5) about a tough, well-respected lawman in the Arkansas and Oklahoma Indian territories during the post-Civil War Years.
The series was created by showrunner Chad Feehan, executive produced by Taylor Sheridan, and stars David Oyelowo (who also produced). Costarring Dennis Quaid, Forrest Goodluck, Lauren E. Banks, Barry Pepper, Grantham Coleman, Demi Singleton.
I don’t know how many episodes are in store but the writers won’t need to invent much as Reeves lived quite a life. The trailer makes it feel Deadwood-y.
What I haven’t figured is why the first word in the title is Lawmen.
Wiki excerpt: “Reeves worked for 32 years as a federal peace officer in the Indian Territory, brought in some of the most dangerous fugitives of the time, and was never wounded despite having his hat and belt shot off on separate occasions.
“In addition to being a marksman with a rifle and revolver, Reeves developed superior detective skills during his long career. When he retired in 1907, Reeves had on his record thousands of arrests of felons, some accounts claiming over 3000. According to his obituary, he killed 14 outlaws to defend his life.”
Reeves was portrayed by Delroy Lindo in The Harder They Fall (’21).
“It’s Not Safe…Nothing Is Safe”
Please go to 2:25 in the below video report from England’s Channel 4 — “Inside the Gaza siege – an eyewitness report.”
Torpedo Slams Into Hull
Kamala Harris! What a wounded showhorse of a vice-president, not to mention the target of a devastating profile that will almost certainly make things worse all around. The N.Y. Times reporter, Astead W. Herndon, is a sharp-minded dude of color who doesn’t miss a trick, and he clearly has issues with her.
Five words: Herndon’s portrait is not flattering.
Kamala is basically seen as mostly a recipient of good luck and fortunate timing — a beneficiary of racial-political largesse, a diversity hire with nothing especially dynamic under the hood, a blah and brittle vp with no defining visionary issue apart from the usual incremental wonky talking points, and no personal charisma or rhetorical pizazz. A soporific, eyes-glazed-over spouter of “word salads.” A testy, defensive tactician whom no one outside of one key demographic and identity group — black females — really likes.
Plus she’s an absolutely dreadful public speaker with a weak, whiny voice and no sense of musical rhythm in her phrasings. Plus she’s quite short (5’2”) — the word is actually elfin. Plus there’s no ignoring the fact that aside from that one moment when she attacked Joe Biden over busing, Kamala never began to connect as a presidential candidate in ‘19 and early ‘20. Plus she sheds senior staffers left and right. Plus there’s that cackle. Plus she reportedly devotes huge blocks of time to her hair. (Okay, that’s a cheap shot.)
She’s basically a drip-drip, slow-motion, can’t-sell-it implosion who terrifies many democrats and is obviously an easy target for righties.
Great Acrimonious Interview
Most question-and-answer transcripts are sufficient but nothing to write home about. Some are underwhelming; most are just okay.
David Marchese’s N.Y. Times interview with Pigeon Tunnel director Errol Morris is a very rare bird. An interviewer and an interview subject who fence with each other and throw darts and suspicion and actually argue with each other….it’s terrific! Please read it.
Morris’s doc is a richly visual, beautifully scored, endlessly fascinating film about the late and great John le Carre…an enveloping and rather dazzling exploration of an amazing fellow…”open” but dodgy at times.