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
HE to Tar director-screenwriter-producer Todd Field:
“That Tar teaser I just watched is one of the best movie teasers I’ve ever seen IN MY FUCKING LIFE…no lie, straight cards, on my knees.
“It’s so good that I wonder if or how the film itself can live up to the promise, but let’s be optimistic and presume as much. But it really is the shit, man…I LOVE THIS EARTH-SHAKING TEASER.
“I fully expect to see Tar in Telluride…caaannn’t wait.”
Roughly ten months after the airing of Women of the Movement, a six-part ABC miniseries about the horrific 1955 murder of Emmett Till and the relentless pursuit of justice by his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, Chinonye Chukwu’s Till (Orion, 10.7), a theatrical feature that apparently tells a similar story, will debut at the 60th New York Film Festival.
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Will Joyce Carol Oates follow the example of James Patterson in the end? Will she humbly apologize for calling out woke terror in the publishing world?
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Wait…they gave The Black Phone, which is absolutely substandard, a B-plus? They gave the abysmal Jurassic World Dominion an A-minus? Do they ever give anything a C or a D, or at least a B-minus?
The late Bob Rafelson's finest directing achievement will always be Five Easy Pieces ('70). He will also be remembered for seven other films he helped to produce as a partner in BBS Productions (an acronym standing for himself, Bert Schneider and Steve Blauner) -- Easy Rider, The Last Picture Show, The King of Marvin Gardens, Head, A Safe Place and Drive, He Said.
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Last night I managed to stream Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Notre Dame On Fire, which opened in France last March and in England two days ago, and will apparently play on U.S. IMAX screens before long.
The first half is pretty good as far as this kind of thing goes (the blending of recreated moments along with genuine footage is perfect), and the second half — when things got heavy and scary and a few heroic firemen had to step in and save the day within a 15-minute window — is excellent. Seriously, the last half-hour is worth the price of admission in itself.
I’m thinking I’d like to see it again in IMAX — last night’s viewing was on the 65″ Sony, and in 720p.
There’s a little too much sentimental attention paid to the cathedral’s spiritual aura as well as rescuing priceless artifacts (including, we’re told, the original crown of thorns worn by Jesus on his day of crucifixion and even a vial of his blood) and there are infuriating passages when key players are stuck in Paris traffic (get out of the car and hop on a motorcycle) but this is life when tragedy strikes — mistakes are made, banal stuff gets in the way, etc.
In some ways it’s similar to John Guillermin and Irwin Allen‘s The Towering Inferno (’74). There’s no Richard Chamberlain villain who creates conditions that lead to disaster, but the fire is initially ignored by way of carelessness and laziness, as it is in Inferno. No characters are emotionally conflicted and no one (thank fortune) falls to their deaths, but there’s a kind of Paul Newman-type architect character who knows the cathedral and saves the crown of thorns, and there’s definitely a couple of Steve McQueen-type firemen heroes who climb up and into the twin bell towers and manage to finally put the fire out with only a few minutes to spare. Which is what McQueen and Newman accomplished in the final stretch of Inferno.
Plus there’s footage of French president Emmanuel Macron, not speaking but obviously “playing” himself.
Donald Trump is made fun of for tweeting that helicopters should dump water on the burning church from the air, but that’s exactly what I was thinking when it happened. Vacuum water from the Seine into tanks, and then fly over the cathedral and releases dozens or even hundreds of gallons at a pop. Perhaps that kind of drenching might have threatened the Notre Dame structure, but it seemed to make sense at the time.
HE’s Top Ten Greatest Films (and I hate doing this because when you make a greatest-ever list all you think about are the films that you didn't mention): (1) Paths of Glory, (2) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, (3 & 4) The Godfather & The Godfather, Part II, (5) Blow-Up, (6) The Graduate, (7) Zodiac, (8) On The Waterfront, (9) The Best Years of Our Lives, (10) Shane.
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Herewith films that have always made me seethe with hatred, twitch with revulsion and convulse with contempt. I’m naturally excluding films that are merely dull or excessive or appalling…or so bad they’re funny (Irwin Allen‘s The Swarm).
The closest competitors are Charlie Meadows (aka “Madman Mundt”) in Barton Fink (’91) and, of course, Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski (’98). But the heroin-addicted Roland Turner in Inside Llewyn Davis (’13) is nastier and snarlier, and therefore funnier.
Goodman: “Well, if you make a livin’ at it, more power to ya. (beat) Solo act?” Isaac: “Yeah, now.” Goodman: “Now? Used to…what? Work with a cat? Every time you played a C-major he’d puke a hairball?” Isaac: “Used to have a partner.” Goodman: “What happened?” Isaac: “Killed himself off the George Washington Bridge.” Goodman: (beat) “Well, shit, I don’t blame him. I couldn’t take it either, havin’ to play Jimmy Crack Corn every night. Uh, pardon me for saying so but that’s pretty fuckin’ stupid, isn’t it? George Washington Bridge? You throw yourself off the Brooklyn Bridge…traditionally. George Washington Bridge? Who does that? What was he, a dumbbell?” Isaac: “Not really.”
...as Elvis Presley. A sweatin', hard-workin' performance start to finish. No one will deny this. I said that from the get-go.
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