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
As noted several weeks ago, Matt Ross's Gaslit (STARZ, 4.24) is the story of the colorful Martha Mitchell, the wife of former Attorney General John Mitchell and a Southern belle blabbermouth who was told to shut up about what she suspected about Watergate and yet refused to zip it.
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Six episodes of that good David Simon Baltimore hardcore ghoulash that so many HE loyalists swore by in the form of The Wire. Plus come classic Serpico slash Prince of the City soul-searching action. Jon Bernthal (much slimmer), Treat Williams, Wunmi Mosaku, Jamie Hector, McKinley Belcher III, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Josh Charles, Dagmara Domińczyk, etc. Directed by King Richard‘s Reinaldo Marcus Green. Launches on 4.25.
Daniel Craig‘s James Bond doesn’t really defeat Dave Bautista‘s Mr. Hinx — he gets some much-needed help from Léa Seydoux‘s pistol-packing Madeleine Swann, and then Hinx is accidentally yanked out of the train by a rope and some barrels.
Sean Connery gets some assistance from an exploding talcum-powder briefcase and a small knife, but otherwise decisively defeats Robert Shaw‘s “Red” Grant.
The From Russia With Love battle lasts 3 minutes and 40 seconds, and yet it seems shorter than Spectre’s train fight, which lasts roughly two minutes and 45 seconds.
The six-day Oscar voting period begins tomorrow (Thursday, 3.17) and ends the following Tuesday (3.22) at 5 p.m. This. Is. It. And here's how the the Best Picture situation seems as we speak.
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A friend who attended last weekend’s Critics Choice awards says nooneseemedtotakespecialnotice of Jane Campion’s fauxpas about Venus and Serena Williams. No one gasped or shrieked either, and no one discussed it during the after-party.
But your Film Twitter wokey-wokes went ballistic.
Campion’s apology happened Monday morning (3.14). Shortly after The DailyBeast‘s KyndallCunningham, a Baltimore–basedfreelancer, claimed that the damage had been done and the bed irrevocably shat upon.
Maybe among your hair-trigger wackos but my guess — call it a hunch — is that Los Angeles- and New York-based industry voters secretlydespiseWokeTwitter, and may give their Best Picture vote to The Power of the Dog out of sympathy for Campion. Maybe.
Nonetheless the CODA ads appearing directly above Cunningham’s story were quite the visual accompaniment.
90 minutes ago I was pedaling south on La Cienega (I have a nice bicycle) when I noticed a block-long line of mostly teenage girls. Okay, 20somethings.
I pulled over, walked up to a 50ish dude standing by one of the girls (a dad, I presumed) and said, “May I ask what this is?” He gestured to his daughter and she said “oh, it’s for hair styles.”
“Hair styles?” I said. “People are having their hair done?”
“Hairy Styles,” she repeated, a little more clearly this time.
“Oh, Harry Styles…sure!” I quickly replied. “Dunkirk, dresses and pearl necklaces.”
It was the young girl’s fault. You don’t pronounce Styles’ first name so it rhymes with “hairy.” You pronounce it Hahrry. Like Harry Truman or HarryandtheHendersons or “a little touch of Harry in the night.” But she could have been thinking of Eugene O’Neill’s TheHairyApe. Not that she was.
I’m not questioning the Muslim identity thing, but her pipsqueak voice sounds so “Valley” — she has the vocal-fry speaking voice down cold. She could be any mousey, low-self-esteem teenager in any region of the country. Same manner, same vibe. In short, she’s done everything she can to blend in and assimilate with all the other vocal-fry girls.
Cruel perversity runs through Adrien Lyne's Deep Water (Hulu, 3.18). That's what you feel more than anything else....the cold-blooded cruelty.
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An Industry Professional Responding to Sunday’s “Normcore Bill at Le Petit Four“, which mentioned an ill-advised impulse to briefly greet Bill Maherintherestaurant’sbackroom:
“I vaguely know Bill [Maher]. I represented the writer-producer of [details redacted]. It seemed to me that Bill was exuding misanthropic vibes from time to time.
“He was standing next to me one evening about three years ago at the CAA valet after a reception for Julia Roberts, so I chatted him up. He was incredibly tense at first but relaxed when I praised his show as well as Politically Incorrect. I said ‘You seemed visibly nervous when I said hi…I bet a lot of crazy people come up to you?’ Maher relaxed and laughed and said “Yes, and they want to argue about something from the show. I never know what to expect. “
“He doesn’t like fans as a result. And he’s a bit of a grumpy guy to begin with.
“The unfortunate 21st century new rule is not to approach an on-camera celeb in public if they’re wearing a hat or are trying to obscure their face or hair etc. Unless they’re an old friend or someone you’ve worked with.
“You read Twitter. There are too many mean and crazy people out there.”
The ’22 Cannes Film Festival (5.17 to 5.28) has officially announced that both Tom Cruise and Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount, 5.27) and Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (Warner Bros,., 6.24) will have big splashy debuts on the Cote d’Azur. But then we suspected this weeks ago.
I have vague qualms about both. It can be safely presumed that neither will deliver serious heat. The possible competition titles that I’m most excited about are Alejandro G. Innaritu‘s Bardo, Cristian Mungiu‘s R.M.N., Ruben Ostlund‘s Triangle of Sadness, James Gray‘s Armageddon Time and Kantemir Balagov‘s Monica.
Posted on 3.4.22: World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy has compiled a list of (seemingly) likely titles for Cannes ’22.
Other possible out-of-competition titles: Bullet Train, Nope, Lightyear. Perhaps George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing (rumored to be something of a slog) will play OOC instead of competition.
As noted several weeks ago, Matt Ross's Gaslit (STARZ, 4.24) is the story of the colorful Martha Mitchell, the wife of former Attorney General John Mitchell and a Southern belle blabbermouth who was told to shut up about what she suspected about Watergate and yet refused to zip it.
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