A day or two later I watched a KL companion disc — a Bluray of Feldman’s In God We Tru$t, a 1980 anti-religion, anti-corporate satire that proved to be Feldman’s undoing.
The film contained a brief riff that insulted Universal/MCA by comparing it morally to the Ku Klux Klan. Feldman was told to remove the bit but he refused, contractually fortified as he was with final cut. In so doing he effectively terminated his five-film deal with Universal.
Plus InGodWeTru$t wasn’t very funny. Not a total wash (it’s an inventive effort and carefully assembled) but that mescaline-in-the-blood feeling was in low supply.
Spencer’s commentary is just as first-hand candid and knowledgable as his Beau Geste shpiel, but the God We Tru$t saga is basically a downer. I’m sorry but it’s hard to feel intrigued, much less turned on, by a story about a comic genius who simultaneously killed himself (Feldman smoked five to six packs of cigarettes per day) and deep-sixed his career at roughly the same time. It’s an emotional tale from Spencer’s perspective, but tinged with a wasteful residue.
Feldman died of a heart attack in a Mexico City hotel in 1982, while filming Yellowbeard.
Kilday is saying that 2020 (which includes early ’21) has been a dud movie year and a general downer for all concerned. Everyone knows this and wants to move on and return to normal. All hail gains by women and POC filmmakers but nobody really loves the wokester progressive surge except those who’ve directly benefited. (And don’t forget that wokesters are the Robespierre-like architects of cancel culture.) Everyone’s morose and bummed and nobody gives a shit about the ’20 and ’21 nightmare because it’s an asterisk and a tragedy — a gloomy movie year defined by streaming and domestic hibernation and the slow suffocation of our souls…half-dying under a grim cloud.
We all know that Hollywood Reporter contributor Gregg Kilday is really saying about the current Oscar nominees, and in particular those for Best Picture: He’s saying that 2020 (which includes early ’21) has been a dud movie year and a general downer for all concerned.
Everyone knows this and wants to move on and return to normal. All hail gains by women and POC filmmakers but nobody really loves the wokester progressive surge except those who’ve directly benefited. (And don’t forget that wokesters are the Robespierre-like architects of cancel culture.) Everyone’s morose and bummed and nobody gives a shit about the ’20 and ’21 nightmare because it’s an asterisk and a tragedy — a gloomy movie year defined by streaming and domestic hibernation and the slow suffocation of our souls…half-dying under a grim cloud.
Joe and Jane Popcorn aren’t exactly caught up in the thrill of the Oscar race, to put it mildly. Even professional Oscar watchers are having trouble maintaining a semblance of enthusiasm.
Kilday has posted five or six mitigating quotes that basically say “oh, no, this is a great year and streaming makes everything more accessible and we’re living through a great time.”
He’s also posted one honest quote from Unbroken producer Matthew Baer: “The grand slam for the Oscar best picture is a popular movie with artistic ambitions fulfilled. But given theaters were closed, popularity is difficult to judge. It’s ironic that this year Nomadland is a leading candidate because the business itself became displaced. Also, given nothing else matters in comparison to recovering from COVID, while winning an Oscar is the ultimate victory for artists, it will have less meaning in American culture this year.”
If theatrical was alive and thriving, the leading Best Picture contenders…well, who knows? But we all suspect the same thing, which is that they wouldn’t have stirred much in the way of crowds.
Jordan Ruimy is finishing up his Best Films of the ’80s critics poll, which 200 critics have participated in. The #1 pick is no surprise but I’ll get into that when Jordan posts on Monday. He’s given me permission to discuss the film that occupies the #13 slot — Martin Scorsese‘s The King of Comedy (’83). Which Average Joes hated, of course. Critics are the only ones who truly love this deeply uncomfortable, hoi-polloi-loathing film. I adore three or four scenes (“His name is Pumpkin…you know a Pumpkin?” plus “you should get cancer!” are the top two) but mostly it’s a grueling sit. And yet, after a fashion, it’s a powerful look at celebrity wannabe-ism and the aggressive shallowing of American culture.
Scorsese had a tough time in the early to mid ’80s. Post-Raging Bull he thought about getting out of feature films, his health was up and down, The King of Comedy (’83) totally tanked, Paramount abandoned support of a higher-budgeted version of The Last Temptation of Christ (Aidan Quinn as Jesus, Sting as Pontius Pilate, etc.) and he was more or less forced to dive into the low-budget indie realm with the offbeat, comically perverse After Hours (’85).
But once the shooting and editing of After Hours were finished things began to look up. Scorsese took a director-for-hire gig on The Color of Money, which wasn’t all that great but had its moments. He finally assembled Last Temptation funding ($7 million) through Universal and began shooting it in Morocco in October ’87. And of course he’d begun developing and preparing Goodfellas by mid ’86 with Nic Pileggi‘s first-draft screenplay popping out sometime around November of ’86. By any measure Goodfellas was the crowning creative achievement of Scorcese’s ’80s period, even though it wasn’t released until the fall of ’90.
So basically the ’80s wasn’t a downer decade for Scorsese but his greatest if you step back and take it all in — the legendary Raging Bull, the fearlessly frank The King of Comedy and the weirdly burrowing After Hours, the occasionally interesting and commercially tolerable The Color of Money, the spiritually soaring and transcendent The Last Temptation of Christ (best Jesus movie + best death scene ever), and the mesmerizing gangster powerhouse that was Goodfellas. Three stone classics, two admirably offbeat digressions and one straight-down-the-middle star vehicle that isn’t too bad if you step back and ease up.
I was watching this live last night…Andy Cohen asking Snoop Dogg if he’s been high on CNN, at Martha Stewart‘s home, at the Obama White House, etc. Anderson Cooper was having puppies; I didn’t see the humor.
I stopped getting high so long ago that it didn’t matter what appropriate or inappropriate location it happened in because nobody cared.
I once tripped while playing drums with the Sludge Brothers at a club in Vermont — not a good idea. A girlfriend, also tripping, watched us play from the dance floor. During the first break she said with an astonished look on her face, “How are you doing this? How can you play drums?”
Back in the ’80s a cartoonist friend got ripped during a black-tie dinner in Manhattan. He had a tendency to succumb to “the fear” (LSD anxiety) but everything was okay until special guest Mike Wallace began speaking. My friend started to melt when Wallace, quoting FDR, said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” There was something extra-creepy about Wallace’s facial expression when this moment arrived, or so my friend had decided, and a barely controlled freak-out began to take hold.
It wasn’t my friend’s fault for getting stoned at a black-tie dinner, he told himself — it was Wallace’s fault.
What did my friend do with the spreading miasma? Simple — he told his wife he had to step out, and then left the banquet room, left the hotel, took all his clothes off on the sidewalk (except for his black dress shoes and black socks) and walked into moving traffic on Fifth Avenue like Kevin McCarthy at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and began to warn motorists that Mike Wallace (yes, that Mike Wallace) was only a block or so away, and that he might be the devil, or at the very least was spreading evil.
No, seriously — I don’t know what he did. I’ve been through “the fear” and the only remedy is to take a couple of strong downers. (Percocets, Thorazine.) The last time I experienced it was during a Cinevegas gathering in the late ’90s or early aughts. There were no downers around so I had to drink half a fifth of Jack Daniels.
Today feels like Saturday. Or like Friday, 12.25, will probably feel. What’s the difference? There are no weekends, no holidays…life is an eternal flatline. Okay, sorry, too downerish…it’s not an eternal flatline. Life is a festival of joy. Seriously, at least Orange Plague is history.
1. Steve McQueen‘s Mangrove — despite Amazon aiming it at the Emmys, it’s the best dramatic feature of 2020.
2. (tied for 2nd place) Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland and David Fincher‘s Mank.
3. Roman Polanski‘s J’Accuse (An Officer and a Spy) — Ignoring this brilliant film is cowardly and shameful on the part of distributors and everyone else who has looked away in fear.
4. Florian Zeller‘s The Father
5. Aaron Sorkin‘s The Trial of the Chicago 7
6. Emerald Fennell‘s Promising Young Woman
7. Rod Lurie‘s The Outpost
8. Judd Apatow‘s The King of Staten Island
9. Lee Isaac Chung‘s Minari
10. Ryan Murphy‘s The Prom — Not a fan of the first 50 to 60 minutes, but I love how it ends. Made me choke up, in fact.
HE Honorable Mention: Chris Nolan‘s Tenet, Kornel Muncruczo‘s Pieces of a Woman, Charlie Kaufman‘s I’m Thinking About Ending Things, Michael Winterbottom‘s The Trip to Greece, Cory Finley and Mike Makowski‘s Bad Education, Kelly Reichardt‘s First Cow, George C. Wolfe‘s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Regina King‘s One Night in Miami, Spike Lee‘s Da 5 Bloods. (9)
The simplest and easiest way to see a good-looking HD version of Buster Keaton‘s The General (’26) is to stream it on Amazon. And yet I’m ashamed to admit that I found this colorized-with-sound-effects version somewhat engaging and perhaps even a bit more. I watched the whole 75-minute film earlier today. Heresy, I know.
The genius-level Keaton starred, produced and co-directed. He was 31 at the time. 24 years later Keaton performed a cameo (more or less playing himself) in Billy Wilder‘s Sunset Boulevard. The poor guy looked 65 if a day.
The General was inspired by the Great Locomotive Chase of 1862. The story was adapted from William Pittenger‘s 1889 memoir “The Great Locomotive Chase.”
A less inventive, non-comedic but respectably sturdy retelling of the tale arrived with Walt Disney’s The Great Locomotive Chase (’56), costarring Fess Parker and Jeffrey Hunter. It was shot by Charles Boyle with a 2.39:1 aspect ratio.
The Disney film didn’t do as well commercially as hoped, probably due to the fact that it went with a downer ending. Parker’s character, Union spy and train hijacker James J. Andrews, ends up captured and hanged.
Originally posted on 8.8.10: I’ve been a Paddy Chayefsky fanatic for as long as I can remember, but I waited until ’08 to see Middle of the Night (’59), a melancholy May-December romantic drama. Directed by Delbert Mann, it costarred Fredric March and Kim Novak with Albert Dekker, Martin Balsam and Lee Grant supporting.
Chayefsky adapted it from his 1954 Philco-Goodyear live-TV drama, which costarred E.G. Marshall and Eva Marie Saint in the March-Novak roles. It was also presented in ’56 on the Broadway stage with Edward G. Robinson and Gena Rowlands.
Middle of the Night is a dirge — the kind of movie that you can easily respect but otherwise requires a certain effort to get through. Right away I was telling myself “this is good but I’m not enjoying it, but I’m determined to stay with it to the end because it’s a Chayefsky thing and is obviously well acted, especially by March and Novak and Albert Dekker, and because it has some fascinating 1959 footage of midtown Manhattan and yaddah-yaddah.”
It’s about Jerry (March), a recently widowed 56 year-old who runs a Manhattan clothing business, having an affair with Betty (Novak), an insecure 24 year-old divorcee. It’s a grim, grim film — even the off-screen sex feels like a vague downer of some kind. But it also feels honest and even courageous in the sense that relatively few 1950s films painted frank portraits of big-city despair and depression.
When I say “well-acted” I mean according to the mode and style of 1950s acting, which tended to be on the formalistic, speechifying, straight-laced side. (Which is why the internalized styles of Brando, Clift and Dean were seen as huge breakthoughs.) I found myself wishing that Mann had asked everyone to tone it down a bit. Nobody mutters or stammers or speaks softly, or struggles with a thought.
Middle of the Night is about loneliness and guilt and fear of social judgment that you’re not behaving as you should (or as your family wants you to behave), and the opposing notion that you may as well lunge at whatever shot at temporary happiness that comes along because life basically sucks and no one gets out alive.
It feels cleansing to come upon an Eisenhower-era drama that admits that a fair percentage of people are miserable (even or perhaps especially those who are married) and explores this situation in some detail, and with the usual blunt eloquence that you get from any Chayefsky work.
Everyone in the cast (including Lee Grant and Martin Balsam as March’s daughter and son-in-law) walks around with a certain melancholy under their collar, unhappy or at least frustrated but committed to keeping up “appearances.” God, what a self-torturing way to live!
Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking Of Ending Things (Netflix, 9.4) is a quietly surreal and spooky relationship film between…well, that’s the question. Nominally between withdrawn 30something “Jake” (Jesse Plemons) and his perceptive but unnamed girlfriend (Jessie Buckley), but also involving Jake’s oddball parents (Toni Collette, David Thewlis) and the rural Oklahoma town and farmhouse where Jake grew up.
More eerie than scary and captured in bluish gray hues by ColdWar dp Lukasz Zal, it goes from oddly unnerving and “wait a minute” to “wait, what?” And not incidentally because of an allegiance with Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein‘s “Oklahoma!“, and without a single shock cut.
I was going to describe it as a macabre Meet The Parents but naahh. Kaufman’s film isn’t really “like” anything but itself and the same-titled 2016 Iain Reid book it’s based upon. But if you insist Buckley has the Ben Stiller role.
It’s well constructed and pays off with a twist, but for me I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a subdued horror fantasy aboutthegraynessanddrudgeryof downish, diminished lives in gothic Middle America…propelled by inventive, oddly compelling performances from the four leads…a relationship flick that has nowhere to go but into the cellar of despair and “the pit of man’s fears” a la Rod Serling.
For me, this is a film that asks “how much did you hate the tortures of high school and your dreary upbringing? And can you ever escape those influences?” On one level Thewlis and Collette could be horror-film characters but on another they’re everyone’s mom-and-dad nightmare, everything you want to escape from but at the same time are drawn to or at least stuck with.
Have I mentioned that Kaufman applies his low-key surrealism with remarkable confidence? But it doesn’t give in to that. It builds into something else.
Being somewhat familiar with Reid’s novel, I was aware going in that “something else” alludes to the realm of unreliable narration and characters having the same thoughts and in fact being even closer than the reader might first imagine, etc. But to me this aspect seemed more distracting than illuminating, and so I chose to more or less ignore it.
Does the film deliver too much in the way of Kaufman-esque downerism? Not this time. The same currents of resignation and despair and self-loathing that permeated (to varying degrees) Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Synecdoche and Anomalilsa? Yes, but this time with an extra dimension.
I’m talking about a surreal third-act blending with the lore of “Oklahoma!” and particularly the dream sequences and Agnes de Mille’s choreography and how it all meshes into a final mind-bending whole with a snow-covered car and frozen sheep, a dead pig or two and a sad 70something high-school janitor…that’s all I’m saying.
I felt disturbed, transported, creeped out and yet oddly amazed. How many films are this unusual, this creepy, this what-the-fuck and yet strangely harmonized?
It’s a melancholy dreamscape piece that goes for broke and swings for the fences and pulls off an amazing synthesis.
In the view of Vanity Fair contributor Mark Harris, the Gold Derby pundits have made this year’s Best Actress race into a racially stacked deck. Partly or mostly because they’re currently favoring four white actors and one Asian actor — Judy‘s Renée Zellweger, Marriage Story‘s Scarlett Johansson, Little Women‘s Saoirse Ronan, Bombshell‘s Charlize Theron and The Farewell‘s Awkwafina. But more specifically because they’re relegated Harriet‘s Cynthia Erivo, Clemency‘s Alfre Woodard and Us‘s Lupita Nyong’o to slots #6, #7 and #8.
“This is how a narrative gets entrenched,” Harris complains. “There are those who are in, and those who are fighting to get in, and the implicit notion of a quota — the idea that there is one spot for ‘diversity’ — becomes a way of not looking at the performances.”
Here’s another factor to consider. Some would say it’s the dominant factor when it comes to acting nominations.
A noteworthy performance is a noteworthy performance, but the movie in which it lives and breathes is the springboard. If a film is great, excellent or very good, the standout performance in that film stands a very good chance of being celebrated in the usual ways. But if the movie is generally regarded as merely good, half-decent, downish, grim, so-so or stinky, the standout performance is less likely to poll well with the Gold Derby know-it-alls, critics groups, guild and Academy members.
My Gold Derby actress picks are Zellweger, Theron, Johansson, Ronan and Awkwafina.
I haven’t seen Clemency because I loathe the idea of watching another film about capital punishment. I’ll get around to it but I shudder. Then again Woodard might shoot to the top of my list after I catch it.
I haven’t seen Harriet because absolutely everyone on the circuit (African American critics included) has told me itstinks.
And in my opinion Jordan Peele‘s Us is an unusual, mildly spooky but minor horror film, and that Lupita Nypng’o delivers a sturdy double performance (predator and prey) but calm down — it’s primarily a Jamie Lee Curtis terrified-victim performance with a doppleganger side order.
Why the hesitancy about Chinonye Chukwu‘s Clemency, especially given the 97% Rotten Tomatoes rating and the fact that everyone’s been raving about Woodard’s performance as a guilt-ridden warden? Because no matter the angle it’s still a downerish flick about state-administered executions, and it’s just human nature to go “yeah, well, okay, I guess I’ll get around to see it one of these days.” I know that I count suffering through The Green Mile as one of the worst moviegoing experiences of my life.
Oscar Tea Leaf Reader: I’m telling you right now The Irishman is too much of a downer to win Best Picture. Just put that out of your head. Hollywood Elsewhere: It’s not a downer — it’s an epic art film that ends with a meditation on aging, dying and the importance of family by showing its absence — by showing the end of a life without a trace of family involved. In its own way, it’s a very pro-family film. Oscar Tea Leaf Reader: It’s a downer, man. Hollywood Elsewhere: It’s not! It’s a profound statement…it’s saying “watch out, don’t let your life end like this.” Oscar Tea Leaf Reader: Most people aren’t gonna get that. Hollywood Elsewhere: And people don’t measure films by the standards of “upper” or “downer.” What audiences care about is whether or not a sense of justice has prevailed…whether the main character has earned or forsaken a chance at happiness or fulfillment, or has gotten what he or she deserved. The Godfather, Part II ended with a sense of justice…Michael Corleone alone in his Lake Tahoe mansion, shrouded in shadows, only his goons to keep him company. People accepted that as a fair ending. Oscar Tea Leaf Reader: Not to mention the Netflix thing. Hollywood Elsewhere: The Irishman never would have happened without Netflix! Academy members need to wake up. Streaming is happening everywhere. All the majors are doing it. Get over yourselves! It’ll never be 1975 again. Oscar Tea Leaf Reader: Plus Marty’s already won a Best Picture Oscar and Quentin never has. Hollywood Elsewhere: Maybe that’ll be a factor. And maybe 1917 will sweep in later this month and push everyone aside. Oscar Tea Leaf Reader: Yeah, maybe, who knows.