Last night Quentin Tarantino, who divides his time between Tel Aviv and the U.S. of A about “60-40,” talked about his 30-month-old son Leo with Jimmy Kimmel, and called him “the audience member I’ve waited for my entire life.” Great stuff. Tarantino was plugging his next book, “Cinema Speculation,” which pops on 11.1
After debuting last May in Cannes and hitting several film festivals and opening worldwide over the last three or four months, Marie Kreutzer‘s Corsage (IFC Films) will open stateside on 12.23 — one of the last significant commercial bookings.
Third to last actually. The historical drama opens in England on 12.30.22, and in France on 1.25.23.
“Royally Uninterested,” posted on 5.20.l22: “I regret reporting that Corsage, which screened at 11 am this morning, didn’t sit well. I found it flat, boring, listless.
“The Austrian empress Elizabeth (Vicky Krieps) is bored with her royal life, and the director spares no effort in persuading the audience to feel the same way.
“Krieps plays up the indifference, irreverence and existential who-gives-a-shit?.
“Somewhere during Act Two a royal physician recommends heroin as a remedy for her spiritual troubles, and of course she develops a habit. I was immediately thinking what a pleasure it would be to snort horse along with her, or at least during the screening.
“Corsage is unfortunately akin to Pablo Larrain‘s Spencer and Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette — stories of women of title and privilege who feel alienated and unhappy and at a general loss. I’m sorry but this movie suffocates the soul.
“In actuality Empress Elizabeth was assassinated in 1898, at age 51. For some reason Kreutzer has chosen to end the life of Krieps’ Elizabeth at a younger point in her life, and due to a different misfortune.
“This is one of the most deflating and depressing films I’ve ever seen.”
On 2.6.18, I stated a bedrock emotional truth that few others would cop to, which was that white critics were afraid to not praise Black Panther. Ryan Coogler’s 2018 Marvel blockbuster is being celebrated right now as a better film than Wakanda Forever, but don’t forget that the first 75 minutes of Black Panther weren’t all that great, and the final hour was the only part worth writing home about.
My article was titled “Critics Are Tip Toe-ing Around Black Panther Truth“:
On 1.31 I posted a qualified capsule rave of Ryan Coogler‘s Black Panther (Disney, 2.16). More precisely I raved about the final hour while lamenting that the first 75 minutes are largely lacking in narrative tension and are mostly about set-up, diversion, pageantry and obligatory battle and car-chase action sequences for their own sakes. All through the first hour-plus I was worried. I was asking myself “when is this film going to get it together and start moving purposefully in a direction that we all want it to go in?”
And then it finally does that, and it’s all exuberant, pedal-to-the-metal, forward-motion engagement. But you’ll need to scrutinize the recently-posted Black Panther reviews with a fine tooth comb to find even a hint of acknowledgment that it waits and waits and waits to really rev up the T-bird and put the rubber to the road.
All hail the truth-telling, no-holds-barred, non-ass-kissing Scott Mantz…a movie-obsessed Colossus of Rhodes among men!
Mantz #1: “WAKANDA FOREVER isn’t as good as BLACK PANTHER (I mean, how could it be?), but even so, it’s still a mixed bag. The first half is slow, hard to follow and lacks focus, but it gets better as it goes [along], and the last 30 minutes are great with an emotional payoff.”
Mantz gave WAKANDA a B grade but we all know what that probably means, given the usual “let’s be polite since we were invited to the premiere” factor — it means C for “not bad but sorta kinda faintly blows except for the ending.”
Scott Mendelson, Forbes: “WAKANDA FOREVER entertains but spends way too much time setting up future MCU projects and coping with its non-fiction tragedy. It also often feels like a mix-and-match of prior (frankly inferior) Marvel movies. Works best when it’s just allowed to be Black Panther 2”
I’d like to ask the HE faithful a question, and while I understand that wokesters are incapable of actual honesty, I’d really appreciate honest answers from the East Berlin truth-tellers. Are you sincerely interested in hauling your blubbery asses down to a megaplex so you can immerse yourself in “a beautiful study of grief” that lasts 161 minutes?
I was terrified that Pennsylvania’s Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate would make some sort of grammatical mistake or lose his train of thought or something. He stumbled once or twice but he did…well, okay. (Except for the fracking answer.) Anyone who would vote against John Fetterman because he isn’t fully recovered from his stroke has no heart or compassion for those who’ve had to cope with a serious but temnporary medical condition. Fetterman is a soul man and a much better human being than Mehmet Oz, who said last night that he would support Trump in the ’24 election if nominated.
