I’ve always loved Larry Cohen‘s Q, The Winged Serpent (’82), which is out on Bluray on 8.27. I love the jazzy hipster attitude, the flagrantly insincere tone and especially the cheesy special effects. Michael Moriarty‘s performance as a scat-singing eccentric is surreal at times, and let’s not forget the great David Carradine. I’d been an admirer of Cohen’s stuff (God Told Me To and It’s Alive were my favorites) but Q is the film that finally allowed me to understand and embrace the term “Cohen-heads.”
Is it fair to refer to Deadline‘s Nikki Finke and TheWrap‘s Sharon Waxman as “traders in gossip”? Whether or not N.Y. Times reporter David Carr created this headline or not, he’s written the following about Finke is a piece that went up last night (6.9): “A spectral figure rarely seen in public, [Finke] makes up for it on the phone and in print. She sees herself as a Jeremiah, a scold and a truth-teller in a business that trades in illusion and lies.
A.O. Scott‘s observation that the second films in a franchise (The Dark Knight, The Empire Strikes Back, Spiderman 2) tend to be the best ones is true, I think. David Carr: “Is there any chance that Hangover 3 will by any good?” Otherwise they’re performing a kind of superficial forced joviality in quotes. What else are they gonna do? Let it all out and just hate on the whole corporate summer avalanche? No — lighthearted chuckles.
In this “ask Joe and Jane Schmoe about the Oscars” bit, Hollywood Reporter award-season columnist Scott Feinberg wisely avoids questions that would point out public apathy about the Academy Awards, as former “Carpetbagger” David Carr used to do in Times Square. Instead he gets them to act out famous lines from Best Picture nominees.
The only funny part? When they repeat a line from Michael Haneke‘s Amour: “I want to die.”
But is this a line from Amour? Or is it a line that people think they’ve heard spoken by Emmanuelle Riva‘s character? In other words, is Amour‘s alleged “I want to die” line analogous to Casablanca‘s “Play It Again, Sam”…which also was never said?
“What this year was greatly missing was any kind of strong critical voices. Stu Van Airsdale left his post at Movieline and Mark Harris left Grantland for the year and that left us with objective Oscar coverage and advocacy. We still have the Carpetbagger [and] David Poland, but Jeff Wells has turned into a one-man take-down machine which has rendered his voice as useless as my own.” — from Sasha Stone’s latest Awards Daily Oscar-race-assessment piece, dated 2.15.
Response: I reviewed all the major films last year with as much soul and passion and exactitude as I was able to find or bring, and I was very pro-Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, Anna Karenina and No, of course, and also, after my initial encounter in Cannes, Amour. Not to mention dozens of other films I liked or found worthy in this or that way. I got into everything and what I ended up really liking, I ended up really liking. I respected Lincoln after a fashion but I found it laborious and tiresome in some respects and certainly over-praised, and while I felt very strongly, as always, about Spielberg industry kowtowing manifesting as Best Picture hoo-hah…ahh, I’ve said all this before.
But I am hardly “a one-man takedown machine.” That is grossly unfair. I try to absorb and wrestle with the whole realm, with everything, every day and doubly on weekends. Awful movies, cool movies, classics, Blurays…all of it. Not to mention every film festival I can squeeze in or afford to visit. Every significant or semi-significant or interesting looking film that comes out (including those on HBO, AMC, Netflix and Showtime), I see and settle into and grapple with. You really have to get off my case and stop bashing me just because everyone (apart from people like myself and David Carr) liked or respected poor Lincoln but didn’t sincerely love it. Your dream dog made money but it didn’t have the stamina or the horses to score in the awards race. Let it go and stop slapping me around for this.
I wanted the portentous Lincoln to lose, yes. The idea of another Spielberg coronation with films like War Horse, Tintin, Always, Amistad and The Color Purple under his belt seemed intolerable. And yes, I pushed this viewpoint with a compulsive vigor but that shouldn’t be a damning or libelous offense. What about the haters (of which you were one) who ganged up on poor Silver Linings Playbook like African wild dogs tackling an antelope? And what about the Soviet apparatchik assassins of Zero Dark Thirty? Now, those were takedown campaigns!
SLP is one of the most nimble witted and emotionally rooted romantic dramedies ever made, obviously not a film of epic scope or classic dramatic gravitas but a confection of real beauty and a kind of transcendence even, and look what happened — elbowed out of consideration as a possible winner by the handicappers and now even poor Jennifer Lawrence is on the ropes. You and yours (and the relentless commentariat on HE and elsewhere) helped to kill its Best Picture chances as surely as you’re reading this letter, and you’re calling me a takedown machine?
Sasha is nonetheless spot-on with this: “The Oscar race is all over but the shouting. History will be made one way or another. [But] history had already been made once the Academy pushed their [nomination] ballot deadline to occur before the big guilds announced. That one little move forever altered the race, throwing it into complete chaos.”
“The Vegas odds will tell you exactly what the Gold Derby odds are telling you,” Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone wrote earlier today. “There is no difference because they’re all drawing from the same thought pool. The way things are going now, though, I wonder if there will ever be any surprises again.
“I don’t think a movie like The Godfather or The Godfather Part II could run the gauntlet today and win [Best Picture]. It couldn’t overcome the giant guilds picking what they Facebook-liked over a masterpiece. Nor the nastiness we saw in this year’s race. Can you imagine?”
Translation: Sasha is still crestfallen about her eloquent and masterful Lincoln having lost in this year’s race, and about the takedown jabs (including what seemed to me like a crucial anti-Lincoln Sweet Spot observation from N.Y. Times columnist David Carr) that might have had some marginal effect. But I wonder if either of the Godfather flicks might indeed have trouble winning in today’s environment. Thoughts?
N.Y. Times columnist David Carr gave me hope this morning that the lazy-default voters might not go for the slow, talky, rotely portentous aspects of Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln, and that something else might take the Best Picture Oscar. I really love that there is no one dominant favorite this year. Whatever wins, much howling and gnashing of teeth are assured when the Big Moment comes.
Why did Feinberg ignore the SLP hate brigade when he tapped this out? One presumes that Glenn Kenny and others in his camp would like an answer.
The absolute best film of 2012 is Zero Dark Thirty, I feel, but my emotional favorite is Silver Linings Playbook (which is in no small measure beautifully written, acted, timed and sculpted). The bravest, ballsiest contender of the year is Anna Karenina. Lincoln is dutiful and dreary and a paper tiger. Argo is well-crafted and widely admired but it lacks a thematic undertow. Les Miserables has an extremely passionate fan base, but it has also worn a lot of people down. Life of Pi has attracted huzzahs and respect, but not that much elation. The Master will live on, but it’s a film for critics and cineastes (i.e., guys like myself) and it has a vague, inconclusive and (be honest) somewhat frustrating finish.
N.Y. Times columnist David Carr on Lincoln: “I spent a week watching Lincoln last night…[it’s] unfaithful to the job of entertaining a movie audience…everybody gets into a room and just starts talking, for the whole movie…it ticks off all the boxes, a lot of great performances about an important story…it was 2 and 1/2 hours…it ended five times, or four…I lost count.”
“I’ve got a Spielberg issue because he’s a bit of a gasbag…[the fllm] sounds so exciting…but any time he gets involved in history, the portend overwhelms everything….Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, all this endless signalling…for crying out loud.”
The 11.16 N.Y. Times “Sweet Spot” (i.e., A.O. Scott and David Carr chit-chatting and sometimes interviewing Times staffers) is about guilty non-pleasures — art forms and entertainments that you’re supposed to like but you just can’t. And the most persistent non-pleasure of the Times newsroom? Lincoln. Scott admits this in so many words. Here‘s the mp3. See what I mean, Glenn Kenny? DDL is in good shape award-wise, but problems with Times staffers indicate trouble with like-minded Academy members.
“Nothing quite rivals the election…[it’s] the season finale of the biggest primetime reality show…I’m not trivializing it, but there’s nothing in pop culture…there’s no song, no TV show, no blockbuster movie that quite rivals it for suspense and saturation…it’s a buddy movie with a twist…the uptight white guy and the cool black guy [who], whatever you think of them ideologically or politically, are pretty interesting characters.” — N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott speaking during 11.2 “Sweet Spot.”
Sweet Spot guys David Carr, A.O. Scott.
Yesterday CNN political research director Robert Yoon reported that Robert Downey, Jr. has donated $40 grand to Barack Obama ‘s campaign. On top of which he dropped a big amount attending George Clooney’s fundraising party for Obama a couple of months ago.
I’m trying to figure how this squares with my December 2011 piece about Downey allegedly being a conservative and a philosophical ally of Mel Gibson. I stand by what I wrote and certainly by what Downey told N.Y. Times reporter David Carr four years ago. Maybe Downey is just one of those guys who is large and contains multitudes or harbors a split personality or…whatever, compartmentalizes various philosophies or something.
Bill Maher has give $1 million to Obama’s campaign, of course, and so has Morgan Freeman.
Other flush Obama contributors (if you want to call a $40,000 or $50,000 donation the sign of a flush bank account) include Bette Midler ($50,000 in June, $60,000 to date), Midler’s actor husband Martin Von Haselberg ($50,000), Billy Crystal ($40,000), Kirk Douglas ($40,000), Eddie Murphy ($40,000), Tom Hanks ($35,800 in May), Rita Wilson ($35,800 in May) and Anne Hathaway ($25,000).
Lesser Hollywood contributors include Jamie Lee Curtis ($2000 in June, $14,000 to date), Bridget Fonda ($600 in June, $2000 to date), Jason Sudeikis ($500), Sam Waterston ($2250 in June, $5000 to date), Olivia Wilde ($2500), Maria Bello ($2500), Topher Grace ($500) and Bernadette Peters ($250).
It’s worth noting that producer Jerry Bruckheimer has given Mitt Romney‘s campaign $40,000. Remember that when you’re forking over your $15 bucks to see The Lone Ranger.
N.Y. Times “Sweet Spot” guys David Carr and A.O. Scott discuss Aaron Sorkin‘s The Newsroom + the myths about journalism promulgated by films like Ace In The Hole, Deadline U.S.A. and All The President’s Men. Slight Problem: Times exec editor Jill Abramson has a curious conversational tonality in her larynx. I’m sorry but she almost sounds like a brilliant Kim Kardashian, or a brilliant K.K. as voiced by Saturday Night Live‘s Nasim Petrad.
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