Do The Right Thing -- Stand Up For Excellence
September 25, 2024
I Would Have Preferred A More Challenging...Okay, A More Insulting Tone
September 25, 2024
Opposite Peas in Polish Travel Pod
September 25, 2024
From HE's 9.4.22 Telluride review of Todd Field's TAR (Focus Features, 10.7): "The focus of this chilly but fascinating film is (a) the magnificent work and lifestyle of Cate Blanchett's Lydia Tar -- I wanted to move into this movie and live there and never come out -- but primarily (b) the fanatical determination of "Millennial robots" (as Lydia calls them) to destroy careers of people they see as cruel and abusive.
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We’re all conscious of a Best Actress campaign underway for Ana de Armas‘ Marilyn Monroe performance in Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde (Netflix, streaming on 9.28).
For what it’s worth I think de Armas has done an excellent job of bringing Dominik’s version of Monroe (wounded, broken, extremely vulnerable) to life. She gives it her all, and I would have no argument with her being nominated for Best Actress. Nobody would.
I wrote a while back that Blonde is “artful torture porn.” Because it is.
I also agreed that her performance as the relentlessly brutalized and victimized Monroe is analogous to Martin Scorsese‘s The Last Temptation of Christ. Excerpt: “I’m thinking not just of the incessant dismissals and degradations and spiritual uncertainties, but the anguished and agonized relationship between the main protagonist and the elusive ‘father.’”
Variety‘s Clayton Davisbelieves, with at least some sincerity, that de Armas is Netflix’s strongest acting contender and that her performance has the “best shot for Latina Oscar attention.” (Should Best Latina Performance become a new Oscar category? If Clayton wasn’t a Variety columnist he could become a top-tier Oscar strategist and lobbyist on behalf of BIPOC contenders.)
But let’s be honest — Dominik’s honest but demeaning remarks about Monroe in a 9.27 Sight & Sound interview by Christina Newland have hurt the film’s Oscar chances, and possibly even damaged de Armas’s campaign.
Actually it’s not so much the interview itself as Twitter-ized outtakes from her Zoom chat with Dominik that have caused all the trouble.
Fascinating Dominik quote: “Blonde is supposed to leave you shaking. Like an orphaned rhesus monkey in the snow. It’s a howl or pain or rage.”
Consider the following and post whatever reactions that may come to mind:
Out of 40something films he’s made since the mid ‘80s, Tom Hanks has said that onlyfourcutthemustard. And that doesn’t even mean that the un-named four are great or A-level films — Hanks is only allowing that they’re “prettygood.”
Which films could he be referring to? I’m guessing Big, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump and SavingPrivateRyan.
And yes, I would say that since Perdition luck was not really been with him except in the case of Charlie Wilson’s War (’07) and Captain Phillips (’13).
Once your cards have gone cold, it’s awfully hard to heat them up again. There’s nothing more humiliating than for a man who once held mountains in the palm of his hands having to push his own cart around the supermarket as he buys his own groceries and then, insult to injury, has to wait in line at the checkout counter. Then again he’s stinking rich.
Hanks’ amazing six-year, nothing-but-pure-gold period: A League of Their Own (’92), Sleepless in Seattle (’93), Philadelphia (’93), Forrest Gump (’94), Apollo 13 (’95), Toy Story (’95), Saving Private Ryan (’98), You’ve Got Mail (’98), Toy Story 2 (’99).
Hanks’ first big-time stinker — a movie I’ll hate with every fibre of my being for the rest of my life: The Green Mile (’99).
Commendable: CastAway (’00)
Hanks’ last, best serious role after his ’90s kissed-by-God period: Road to Perdition (’02).
Chloe Okuno's Watcher (IFC Midnight, 6.3.22) is a quietly unnerving Polanski-like thriller. Filmed on a modest budget in Bucharest in the early spring of '21, it has creepy undercurrents running beneath the standard urban-stalker plot. A meditation about feelings of isolation in an Eastern European city, about a cis relationship in trouble due to a lack of empathy on the man's part.
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I was walking back to the car after visiting a shoerepairplace on Van Sant Street in East Norwalk when all of a sudden this ruddy-faced, shaved-head guy wearing long baggy shorts is right next to me and saying the following in quick succession, like a Gatling gun: (1) “Whassup, Elvis? “, (2) “I like your shoes” and “put it there.”
A voice told me not to shake his hand, and I knew I’d made the right call when he said a second later, “Don’t wanna be friends, huh?”
I’ll shake hands with a stranger over a point of mutual agreement (i.e., “You don’t want a trans person with monster elephant boobs teaching your five-year-old? Put it there, pardner”) but I’ll never shake hands just to shake hands, especially with a skeezy guy.
This really actually happened around 3:15 pm today.
** He didn’t actually say what I said he said. He actually said “whass goin’ on there, Elvis?” I didn’t like how that looked as a headline so I shortened it. Then the lie began to burn through my soul.
Since glimpsing this college film-course chart, I’ve been reading about the influential DzigaVertov. who was very close to VladimirLenin. But before this morning I had never heard of the guy. At least I’m willing to admit it.
Eric Clapton and Van Morrison earned their disrepute for Covid-ignoring, mask-refusing obstinacy. But Roger Waters has outdone them by becoming a Putin admirer, or at least a supporter of Russki slaughter in Ukraine.
To me the Nuart has always been the West Los Angeles version of the CinemaVillage — a certain storied, neon-marquee, down-at-the-heels atmosphere but never a theatre to get excited about attending, much less write home about.
If you ask me it peaked in the ‘70s and ‘80s, which many regard as the summit of L.A.’s arthouse era (Fox Venice, Beverly Canon, LACMA’s Bing, the varied Laemmle westside showplaces).
From a presentational or impressionistic viewpoint, the Nuart has always been a bowling alley-slash-quonset hut with a smallish screen.
My last viewing at the Nuart was the restored Becket (Glenville + O’Toole + Burton). The quality difference between that subdued, somewhat murky-sounding presentation and what this 1964 film undoubtedly looked and sounded like in big-city, first-run bookings, not to mention the first-rate Bluray….forget it, man.
The best aspect of the vaguely grubby Nuart is still the pinkish-red neon marquee, and even that isn’t what anyone would call spectacular. Okay, maybe I’m being too harsh.
…posted by Mad Magazine in a June1969issue. I’ve never written about the flophouse “hit” scene in PeterYates’ Bullitt (‘68). A professional assassin, armed with a pump shotgun, nonsensically fails to do the job. Written by AlJaffee, drawn by MortDrucker .
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From HE's 9.4.22 Telluride review of Todd Field's TAR (Focus Features, 10.7): "The focus of this chilly but fascinating film is (a) the magnificent work and lifestyle of Cate Blanchett's Lydia Tar -- I wanted to move into this movie and live there and never come out -- but primarily (b) the fanatical determination of "Millennial robots" (as Lydia calls them) to destroy careers of people they see as cruel and abusive.
Login with Patreon to view this post