Okay, that’s it, Paul Schraderoversold it and now the game is more or less over — Chris Nolan’s Oppenheimer (Universal, 7.21) has been given a respectful-but-no-Cuban-cigar review by Variety’s OwenGleiberman.
Even Nolan’s recreation of the Trinity explosion is a “letdown” Owen says…WHAT??
And then comes the funniest line in the whole review, a casual mention of “that damn Atomic Energy Commission hearing” which Nolan reportedly keeps cutting back to. As I chuckled I could see Gleiberman flinching in his seat: “God, man…enough with the damn AEC hearing already!”
And then Gleiberman really sticks the knife in by calling the second half “a doleful meditation” on atom-bomb morality and whatnot. Aaagghhh!! I’m melting…I’m melting!
Cillian Murphy’s titular performance will likely result in a lot of Best Actor talk, Gleiberman implies, but along with David Ehrlich’s backhandacross–the–chopsreaction (“Nolan’s first biopic feels like some sort of grandiose self-portrait”) you can probably forget any serious Best Picture Oscar headwind. Murphy and Robert Downey, Jr., fine, but that’s where it ends.
Honestly? It isn’t Nolan who’s taken the big hit here — it’s Schrader.
The dispute is over Barbie, of course. Ruimy first and then ZRB…
Bryant tweet-slammed Ruimy, but she seems to be aiming her slings and arrows at the generalanti–wokecommunityofsensible, fair–minded, Kool–Aid-averse centrists, myselfand Sasha Stone included.
Amy Taubin’s reaction to Barbie — petulant, enraged — misses the entire point, which is that for better or worse, Greta Gerwig’s film is infused with real–life21stCenturygirlbossfeminism.
One view is that Taubin is feisty; another is that she’s a snobby, short-tempered know-it-all.
“Barbie and Ken are a version of Eve and Adam, if Eve were God’s favorite and Adam acknowledged as the liability he was.
“After an unplanned detour separates her from Ken, Barbie makes her way back home [from the real world]. ready to restore perfection to her routine. But her homecoming is a dour one; Barbie returns to see that Ken, armed with his newfound knowledge of the patriarchy, has transformed Barbieland.”
Wait…a JOE POPCORN-ISH REACTION from a 30something guy who saw Barbie earlier this afternoon:
“You have absolutely no idea how anti-male Barbie is. Wait until you see it — it’s a landmine of outrage waiting to happen. There will be heated debate…some people are going to HATE it. I mean, there’s a trans Barbie…”
HE to 30something Guy: “Is Ryan Gosling’s Ken a kind of villain figure or…?”
30something Guy: “He turns into a villain, yes. An alpha male who realizes he doesn’t need Barbie in his life and that he can control women.”
HE to 30something guy: “Are you telling me he’s not gay in the film?”
30something Guy: “He loves Barbie.”
HE to 30something Guy: “WHAT? All the guys in the film obviously look and dress gay, but they’re straight? Every single trailer and photo of Ken says ‘this guy obviously isn’t straight.’ The Ken doll with the cock ring….obviously not straight….c’mon!”
From Peter Debruge‘s Variety review: “In the year 2023, it would be a shock (and box-office suicide) if Barbie arrived without some kind of female-empowerment message baked in.
“This one checks all the right boxes, while making Ryan Gosling’s dumb-dumb Ken the butt of most of its gender-equity jokes. Boasting fresh tracks from Billie Eilish and Lizzo, the result is a very funny kids’ movie with a freshman liberal arts student’s vocabulary that tosses around terms like ‘patriarchy’ and ‘appropriation’ — pretty much everything but ‘problematic,’ which the movie implies without actually calling Barbie’s legacy.”
Letterbox’d, A.A. Dowd: “Barbie is practically the textbook definition of corporate feminism, but it knows that too, of course, and is earnest in using the platform of a big-budget toy commercial to speak to the audience about the patriarchy; there’s a big speech that recalls the one Laura Dern delivers in Marriage Story, which makes me wonder if Baumbach counterintuitively wrote this one or if Gerwig helped him write that one.
“Even its lionization of the woman behind Barbie comes with an asterisk. The whole thing is animated by neurosis more than joy, which is what I found most interesting about it: Is there a little of Gerwig’s offscreen wrestling with the assignment in Barbie’s onscreen existential crisis? Wish it was a little funnier.”
On 12.2.15 I postedMatthew Morretini‘s version of the montage, which is more metronomically correct than the original 1952 version, which was assembled by editor Elmo Williams.
“The famous High Noon tick-tock sequence has always bothered me slightly,” I wrote. “It was edited to match Dimitri Tiomkin‘s music, and so every cut was supposed to happen at the precise instant of the final beat…except it doesn’t quite do that. Today editor Matthew Morettini wrote to say the reason for my slight irritation is that the picture is four frames ahead of the music.
“But now Morettini has fixed it.
“‘I’m a professional editor and had a few minutes on my hands today and re-synced the clip the way I always felt it should be,’ Morettini wrote. “And guess what? It’s better. Each and every picture edit was exactly four frames early.”
Compare the Morettini version (top) to the Elmo Williams version (below) — the proof is in the pudding.
Matthew Morettini 2015 version:
Elmo Williams 1952 version:
Boilerplate commentary: Rio Bravo (’59) and High Noon (’52) don’t share a “general genre” as much as they share a fairly specific plot/situation, which is an honest lawman (or lawmen) preparing to do battle with a gang of bad guys who will soon arrive in town and are out for blood revenge.
The films, in fact, are pretty much peas in a pod. Rio Bravo was in fact dreamt up as a response to what director Howard Hawks and star John Wayne saw as the pessimism and wimpishness of Will Kane, the resolute small-town sheriff played by Gary Cooper.
Both films are about a community’s response to the threat of lawnessness and violence, and about the lawman’s (or lawmen’s) code of honor and self-respect.
In Rio Bravo‘s case, the chief villain is Nathan Burdette. In the matter of High Noon, it’s a recently sprung prison convict named Frank Miller.
Rio Bravo is more optimistic or positive-minded in that the community (Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan, Angie Dickinson) bands together to fight the baddies; in High Noon the community hides or equivocates or otherwise declines to help Kane form a posse so they can meet Miller and his three gunnies head on. They all say no for their own reasons, and Kane is forced to stand up to the gang all alone.
Before clicking on this link, please understand that HE is profusely apologizing for posting it. I have no excuse except for this: I’m fascinated by AI’s ability to own and manipulate the voice of Barry Lyndon‘s narrator, Michael Hordern.
The below scene, of course, is the one that has killed most viewers’ interest in Barry Lyndon over the decades. Specifically Ryan O’Neal blowing smoke into Marisa Berenson‘s face. The instant this act of sociopathic callousness happened, I checked out. The scene completely nullifies all emotional engagement in the tale until the death of Barry and Lady Lyndon’s son Brian (David Morley), which is followed by the climactic duel between Barry and Lord Bullington (Leon Vitali).
Imagine how twisted and constipated a young hard-working banker would have to be to write the below confession. This sicko actually felt “uncomfortable” about being being given an early morning wake-up by his live-in-girlfriend, mainly because he hadn’t given prior “consent“, and so he “told her to stop” and then left their apartment without speaking, which led to the g.f. apologizing “countless times.”
Conclusion #1: Banker dude is beyond the reach of psychiatric therapy. Conclusion #2: The relationship is doomed.
I waited and thought about and generally settled into Jane Birkin’s passing, and I just couldn’t think of anything heartfelt to say other than I felt sorry for her family and friends. My only vivid imprint is the Blow–Up violet paper orgy scene (filmed when she was 19 or 20) and the very first glimpse of female pubic hair in a mainstream movie — a swingin’ Londön cultural benchmark if there ever was one.
