Has anything changed as far as the Best Picture Oscar death of Everything Everywhere All At Once is concerned? Since last Friday morning, I mean? Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think so. THR‘s Scott Feinberg killed its chances last Thursday (12.29) when he listed Top Gun: Maverick as the #1 likeliest winner. That was it, end of story, guillotine drop.
The following morning we hashed it all out. Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and myself, I mean. Here it is, all 43 minutes worth.
I have an idea for a special photo-driven app or website. For a fair fee I will use your photos to create a funeral home lying-in-state photo. I will dress you in a black suit-and-tie or Pope’s robes. Think about it — nobody ever contemplates their after-death appearance (i.e., how they’ll look when their friends come to pay their respects). Now they can!
The good part of Critical Drinker’s rant (the part that rejoices at the notion of Hollywood Stalinist wokesterism coming to an end) begins at 6:45. Key quote: “2022 will be remembered as the year that the woke Hollywood bubble finally burst.”
One of the funniest SNL routines from 1979 was “Bend Over, Chuck Berry,” a homophobic but somewhat funny spoof of disco and the Village People in which Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray and Garrett Morris, dressed in Village People garb, sang the satiric song.
I’ve tried to find a YouTube clip of this routine for several years, but it’s not accessible. In fact you can’t even buy an audio recording (“this song is not available for free download due to copyright or license restrictions“). It’s presumably been buried because of the anti-gay lampooning, which Lorne Michaels understandably doesn’t want circulating around.
I was beginning to think that Belushi’s hilarious mimicking of fat Liz Taylor choking on chicken bones had also been buried. SNL wouldn’t dare make fun of anyone today because of a weight issue. I found a clip on Reddit (taken from an 11.11.78 broadcast) but it won’t play.
I’m suddenly in the mood to watch some HD versions of those rude, gritty New York City flicks of the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. Klute, Panic in Needle Park, The French Connection Serpico, Death Wish, Mean Streets, Dog Day Afternoon, The Taking of Pelham 123, Dog Day Afternoon…that line of country. A version of New York City that no longer exists…gradually replaced starting around 30 years ago…a few remnants here and there but mostly wiped from the hard drive.
Manhattan hardly seemed glorious or heavenly when I first moved there in the late ’70s (“to live in this town you must be tough tough tough tough tough tough tough“), but at least hungry, determined, hand-to-mouth types like myself could afford to live there, and that made it a whole different place.
As the classically scrappy, Sidney Lumet-like depictions of 20th Century Manhattan (urgent, pugnacious, edgy, ethnic, pointed, blunt) are becoming more and more eroded and diluted and sanded down by corporatism and skyrocketing rents, the value of high-personality New York movies like Uncut Gems (which, don’t get me wrong, I found infuriating for its complete lack of interest in exploring anything but how it feels to ride on the back of a gambling edge-junkie tiger)…the ethnic, pushy atmosphere of such films is starting to seem more and more valuable as the social forces, aromas, attitudes and pulsebeats that fed into your classic 20th Century NYC culture are starting to lose more and more of their influence as the corporate, tourist-friendly strip-mall aesthetic creeps in and influences and even to some extent dictates the cultural tone of that town, certainly as far as Manhattan is concerned.
When was New York City really and truly a classic Lumet-like atmosphere? The peak era of feisty Manhattan movies ran from the late ‘40s to late ‘80s. The ‘80s were the last authentic gasp. The corporate clean-up began in the Mayor Giuliani era of the ‘90s.
What are my all-time favorite New York flavor movies? The top two are Lumet’s Prince of the City (’81) and William Friedkin‘s The French Connection (’71). Followed by (forgive the repeats) Sweet Smell of Success, Naked City, Midnight Cowboy, Do The Right Thing, Taxi Driver, Serpico, Manhattan, The Godfather, The King of New York, Dog Day Afternoon, Bad Lieutenant, Detective Story, On The Waterfront, Across 110th Street, Shaft, Patterns, Metropolitan, Saturday Night Fever, 12 Angry Men, Marathon Man, After Hours. But NOT West Side Story — too antiseptic and Robert Wise-y. And NOT Fame. And NOT Breakfast at Tiffany’s or The Devil Wears Prada.
Kicking off 2023 with grandly familiar 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s snaps…can’t hurt.
Over the last 40 years I’ve naturally assumed that The Verdict’s opening-credits scene was shot in some Boston-area bar. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I read this morning it was actually shot in 7A, a NYC East Village bar (109 Avenue A) that closed in 2014. Update / correction: The Verdict bar location is 7B (aka Horseshoe Bar) at the corner of 7th Street and Ave. B. Still open for business.
7B: A History in Motion Pictures from Flight Crash Companion on Vimeo.
Against my better judgment I offered to take Jody to an IMAX 3D showing of Avatar: The Way of Water. This evening, I mean. Not at HE’s preferred venue (Loews Lincoln Square, which has a full-sized IMAX screen) but at a cheeseball Cinemark gladiator plex in Milford (fake IMAX, crawling with families).
I suspected that Cinemark would subject viewers to the same 20 to 25 minutes of trailers that AMC does, but I wasn’t sure. So I asked an overweight Millennial ticket-taker (bad complexion, awful tennis-ball haircut) how long the “interminable trailer crap” would run for, and the little wuss became upset at the c-word and walked away. He went over to the manager (male, 40ish, balding) and asked him to deal with me because he felt unsafe speaking to a customer who hates watching trailers and uses mildly vulgar terminology.
I didn’t like the OMTT because I hate overly sensitive Millennials as a rule. All he had to do was spit out the trailer running time — i.e., 25 minutes. Alas, behaving like a man was beyond his ability. We exchanged dirty looks.
After I’d been informed by the manager that the trailer bombardment would indeed run 25 minutes, I walked toward the popcorn counter. Mr. Sensitive Weight Problem came over, pointing and shouting “don’t you ever talk that way to me again! I’ll have you thrown out!”
What? I didn’t vocally reply but I went into a brief theatrical simulation of being scared. “Okay, that’s it…throw him out!”, the fat ticket-taker barked at a security guard.
The guard was older, calmer. “You got a ticket?” I showed him my dinky toilet-paper pass for IMAX theatre #8. “Okay,” he said. “The theatre’s right over there.” But I don’t want to be in the theatre right now, I replied, as I hate watching bombastic trailers. “Okay, but just step away to the side until the fat ticket-taker calms down,” he said.
All right, the guard didn’t actually say “until the fat ticket-taker calms down” but that’s what he meant. I nodded and strolled away.
The bottom line is that Millennials don’t always act like professionals. Their sensitive feelings are what matter the most. Which is why I’m not a fan.
