Marilyn Monroe‘s debut appearance on live TV happened on The Jack Benny Program on 9.13.53. This was roughly two months after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes opened theatrically and roughly two months before the opening of How To Marry a Millionaire. Monroe’s payment for the Benny gig was a 1954 black Cadillac convertible.
Early on in John McNaughton and Richard Price‘s Mad Dog and Glory (3.5.93), Robert De Niro‘s Wayne “Mad Dog” Dobie, a forensic examiner, defuses a potentially lethal robbery situation in a small Chicago convenience store. He comfort-talks the robber like a therapist and convinces him to split while the splitting is good. De Niro feels badly the next day, though, because he didn’t handle the situation in a commanding alpha-male, tough-cop style. He’s confesses this to his detective friend Mike (David Caruso), and Mike, looking to raise Mad Dog’s spirits, leans over and says, “That was balls-up what you did last night…don’t kid yourself.”
I was re-watching Ellen Barkin‘s testimony during the 2022 Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial, and really loving it.
Barkin is balls-up here. Her words and delivery are so real and plain and unaffected, but I was telling myself it was almost a kind of “performance” because she really knows how to sell. I believed all of it.
I was asking myself what the vibe might be if Angelina Jolie were to take another, similar-type stand and answer questions about her years-long relationship with Brad Pitt.
And you know what? Jolie couldn’t do what Barkin did three years ago. She doesn’t have the character to just tell it straight without posturing or performing. She’s so wrapped up in her turbulent emotional past that she can’t see the forest for the trees.
Jolie is beautiful and personable (I once chatted with her on a film set, and again during a brief junket interview) but off-balance, or so I came to believe.
The bottom line is that Jolie lacks conviction and steady hands while Barkin is made of sterner stuff.
Originally posted on 5.19.22:In her Thursday (5.19) testimony in the Depp–Heard defamation lawsuit trial, Ellen Barkin was persuasive in recollections about her “sexual” relationship with Depp (she said she preferred that term to “romantic”), which began sometime in ‘94 and lasted for maybe “five or six months”, give or take.
But they had a friendly relationship, both pre- and post-sexual, for roughly ten years, she said. Things were platonic at first, Barkin said, but then Depp “switched the buttons.”
Things were largely defined by Depp almost always being drunk (i.e., “red wine”) or ripped or high in some way, Barkin said. In addition Depp was a “controlling, jealous man,” she testified.
Depp was nine years younger than Barkin (31 to her 40) when their relationship first became carnal during the second year of the Clinton administration. They later costarred in ‘98’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Barkin’s snow-white hair, cut short as if she was playing an anti-Nazi freedom fighter in a Sidney Lumet or Michael Mann film, is striking. Ditto her “I have nothing to prove one way or the other” no-bullshit street vibe, and that wonderfully raspy New York accent.
Barkin was married to Gabriel Byrne between ‘88 and ‘99: she subsequently married billionaire Ron Pearlman, who divorced her in ‘06. Barkin reportedly emerged from that union with a $20 million settlement plus $20.3 million in a Christie-supervised jewelry auction.
I don’t have the time now to write anything about my talk earlier this afternoon with Another Happy Day star-producer Ellen Barkin and director-screenwriter Sam Levinson, or even to post an mp3…later. But the time just flew. The conversation was mostly on-point but digressions happened from time to time. Barkin and I reminisced about early ’80s Manhattan, sharing anecdotes in particular about the Hellfire Club and the old Edlich Pharmacy on 1st Avenue. Don’t ask.
Another Happy Day star-producer Ellen Barkin, director-writer Sam Levinson — Thursday, 11.10, 2:55 pm, Sunset Tower hotel. …due to job demands, here’s a reaction from HE’s own “bentrane”:
“I know you’re not a fan of High and Low, which I think is easily one of Akira Kurosawa‘s best films. That said, Spike Lee’s version has some pluses, but overall, it’s just okay.
“Although I was never bored, it’s too long, and it takes too much time to get to the main story.
“It also lacks the moral clarity of the original. In this version Denzel seems to put up the kidnap money for his chauffeur’s son not because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, but more because he’s afraid of what social media will say about him if he doesn’t ante up.
“The film also doesn’t know when to end. Like the original, Highest2Lowest has a scene in which Denzel meets the kidnapper in jail, and their respective social standings and issues come to the fore. That was the end of High and Low, and it was a powerful one.
“But instead of ending it there, Spike had to add a totally unnecessary audition sequence in his apartment, which adds nothing to the film.
“Pluses: the cinematography; the soundtrack; the subway sequence; the very New York feel; the acting. But they’re not enough to overcome a bloated running time and a messy script.
“I’m giving it 2 1/2 stars out of four.
“And the wonderful State Farm joke, which had the audience roaring with laughter, won’t be understood by anyone outside the U.S.”
I firmly believe that John Clifford White‘s musical theme for Romper Stomper is one of the best of its kind, ever. Because you can immediately sense the downhead mood of racist skinheads, and because the instrumentation is incredibly spare and economical.
It’s just as effective in terms of vibe-summoning as Max Steiner‘s Skull Island music is for King Kong.
It proves that White is just as gifted of a film composer as any of the classic-era greats. He’s certainly just as talented as Bill Conti, whose Broadcast News theme summons the vibe of that whipsmart James L. Brooks film in a perfect, spot-on way.
Nearly everyone agrees that rich assholes who pay big fees to kill African lions are despicable. I certainly feel this way. I also feel that Wilton deer hunters are cruel sadistic scum.
Two years ago 110 deer were killed in Wilton. Out of a total population of how many? Deer vibes are blessings…the mere sight of these gentle creatures ushers calm, grace and beauty into our souls.
According to Connecticut officials, 76 local deer were killed in ’23 by archery, 20 by shotgun or rifle, 10 by muzzleloader, three by cropkill and one via roadkill.
Does anyone recall the feeling in their hearts when Bambi’s mother was killed?
I would really and truly love it if two or three bow-and-arrow hunters from Wilton could be hunted down by some wealthy, Count Zaroff-type eccentric….see how you like it, fuckers.
An 8.12 Variety story by Jazz Tangcay reported that Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (‘98) was the first battle film to use an accidental shot with small globs of splattered blood on the camera lens in the finished film.
I’m not disputing this claim, but I’ve watched Ryan at least four or five times (twice theatrically, two or three times on Bluray) and I don’t remember any such globs or blood splatters sticking to the lens.
The first time I noticed this kind of unintended effect was in Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men (‘06).
At first I figured I had forgotten the Saving Private Ryan lens splatter, but I went searching for either a YouTube clip or a frame capture of same, and found nothing…zip.
Does anyone recall such a moment in Spielberg’s film, and if so can the splatter effect be specifically described? And have they seen a video clip or frame capture that proves it actually happened?
Australian film critic David Stratton, justly admired for being a devotional Film Catholic and a Roger Ebert-like TV critic and (occasional) evangelist, has died at age 85.
Stratton was best known for the Australian film review show, At The Movies, which he co-hosted with Margaret Pomeranz for 28 years. He also reviewed for The Weekend Australian for over 30 years.
Did Stratton fully deserve Geoffrey Wright’s wine splash in the face at the Venice Film Festival for panning Romper Stomper? In my opinion, yes. Stratton didn’t even rate Wright’s film, citing pic’s depiction of racist violence and its potential to incite further unrest….what a pedestrian!
In their just-published Esquire chit-chat (8.13), which is about promoting One Battle After Another (Warner Bros., 9.25), Leonardo DiCaprio says this to director Paul Thomas Anderson: “You’re considered a very art-house director. Would you call it that? What do you call it?”
Anderson: “Well, there’s no need to be insulting.”
DiCaprio: “No, what’s the term? You don’t do incredibly commercial movies, let’s put it that way. You are a writer, director. You have your own vision. What’s the term?”
Anderson: “Box-office challenged?”
HE translation: “Let’s face it — since Inherent Vice I’ve been red ink. Especially now in the case of One Battle After Another, which has dodged Venice and Telluride and is expected to more or less flop when it opens in late September. It cost a big pile of dough and, die-hard PTA mavens aside, nobody’s especially interested. Jordan Ruimy has declared it all but D.O.A. You can smell the lethargy in the social media chat threads.”
Anderson also delivers the best quote, which addresses the film’s theme as well as a general observation about getting older:
They also descend into nostalgia about beepers.
