I keep getting this feeling that Don’t Worry Darling (Warner Bros., 9.23) is that train in The Greatest Show on Earth, hurtling towards those circus animal-filled freight cars…Lyle Bettger yelling “stohhhhpp!…stohhhhpp!…can’t you see the lights?“…and then kehr-SMASSH-bong-deedee-lamp-BONG-BAAHHRR-BANG-BOOM-rowr-screeeech-aaagghh.

And it’s not so much about the film as the Florence Pugh vs. Olivia Wilde catfight…what a shit show!

First it was Pugh strangely saying she somehow resented Wilde’s on-set affair with Harry Styles**. Then refusing to reciprocate Wilde’s positive Instagram posts. And then it became clear that Don’t Worry Darling would be ducking all stateside film festivals. And then Pugh, filming the Dune sequel in Budapest, refused to talk to Variety‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister for a Wilde profile piece. And now Shia Labeouf (originally cast in the Styles role) is claiming that he was not fired by Wilde, and that it partly boiled down to some kind of conflict with Pugh. (In a text/email Wilde alluded to unsettled vibes between LaBeouf and Pugh…“You know, I think this might be a bit of a wake-up call for Miss Flo“.)

Will the huffy Pugh show up for the Venice premiere, or will she again beg off over Dune 2 duties in Budapest?

There’s so much sturm und drang surrounding Don’t Worry Darling that it’s easy to assume…dammit, no assumptions, no coasting along on gossip. Is it fair or unfair to call it a hopelessly doomed film? Unfair, I’d say. Seriously, who’s actually seen it? And what have they said?

Could Olivia Wilde be the new Ida Lupino? I sorta kinda doubt it but maybe she is. We can all smell trouble but who knows? I know nothing.

Most of us understand that the negative advance buzz on Don’t Worry Darling has become so bad that the Venice Film Festival reviews might actually turn out to be kind, given that everyone is expecting a calamity.

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Friendo to HE: “3000 Years of Longing is a weird, strange, $60M art film with bits of Terry Gilliam tossed in. Too slow for the Joe and Jane Popcorn crowd. Some great art direction, costumes and visual FX but not for the mainstream. George Miller’s most self-indulgent film to date.”

From Manohla Dargis N.Y. Times review:

Files from Cannes on 5.20.22: You can’t say George Miller‘s Three Thousand Years of Longing isn’t trippy or eye-popping or CG-swamped or…okay, a bit florid.

But it also touches bottom with a poignant, imaginative and very adult current of romance, discovery and even transcendence.

Much of Miller’s film is invested in a 21st Century CG-meets-Michael Powell and The Thief of Baghdad aesthetic, but it’s framed by a highly unusual and touching love story between Tilda Swinton‘s English writer — whipsmart, spinsterish — and Idris Elba‘s hulking and thoughtful Djinn (i.e., magic genie).

I can’t say that Longing is a supreme G-spot experience — too much is submerged in the Djinn’s fantastical history, which is devoid of story tension — but the film has something of real emotional value while Swinton and Elba are holding the screen.

I was praying that the film wouldn’t stay inside the genie bottle and smother us with CG fantasy mush. But during the last 15% or 20% it leaves the CG palaver behind and focuses on the grown-up love story, which is one of the gentlest, most other-worldly and spiritually driven I’ve ever experienced.

Elba and Swinton are wonderful — seasoned, grounded, playing-for-keeps actors at the peak of their game. I was scared at first, but Longing turned out much better than I expected. A mixed bag with an intriguing beginning and a payoff that feels (or felt in my case) sublime.

Elba’s gentle and reflective genie reminded me, of course, of Rex Ingram‘s Djinn in The Thief of Baghdad (’40). What a contrast between this exuberant, rip-roaring, loin-clothed giant and Ingram’s quiet, tradition-minded “Tilney” — servant to Ronald Colman‘s Supreme Court nominee in George Stevens‘ The Talk of the Town (’42).

Friendo to HE: “I swear to God during one scene involving morbidly obese naked women I said to myself, ‘Oh boy, Jeff is gonna hate this scene. The Shirley Stoler seduction scene in Seven Beauties times ten.”

HE to Friendo: “I ignored the obesity out of politeness.”

…but it’s okay. It’s certainly a traditional-seeming, sparkly-sprinkly, old-mixed-with-new Tom Hanks-Robert Zemeckis-Ewan McGregor-Cynthia Erivo mish-mash of the basic elements. Disney+ on 9.8.

Due respect, HE is more closely aligned with the forthcoming Guillermo del Toro fascist Italy stop–motion version.

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…I think that forcing requiring all the entitled little Zoomer shits out there to perform one year of domestic service is a good idea. Seriously.

In this order: Phantom of the Paradise, Carrie, Sisters, Scarface, Greetings, Hi Mom!. Phantom tops the list because of Gerrit Graham‘s madhouse performance as “Beef.”

“…which means time stops.”

I’m very pleased that German actress Nina Hoss is playing the girlfriend or wife of Cate Blanchett‘s Berlin-residing conductor.

I’ve visited Berlin three or four times, and could go there each and every year for the rest of my life. I don’t approve of zoos, but I love the Berlin zoological garden. Kantstrasse is my favorite boulevard. Zoo Palast is still my favorite Berlin movie theatre. My favorite neighborhoods are Kreuzberg and Charlottenberg.

…stems from the fertile mind and affable personality of Steverino…seasoned perspectives and candid confessions by an exceptionally intelligent fellow who’d been around the block and then some…it’s pure music to me. I could listen to him all day and into the night.

Allen’s subject is mostly about how wealthy, career-obsessed patents (like himself) tended to screw their kids up, but also about how and why boomers (i.e., easily the greediest, most selfish and most generally destructive generation in American history) turned out the way they did.

Sometime around ’92 or ’93 I had a brief chat with Allen, whom I’d long worshipped for his ’50s and ’60s hot streak as the original Tonight Show host (’54 to ’56 — three years), the Sunday night Steve Allen Show on NBC, and the Hollywood-based, Westinghouse-produced Steve Allen Show.

Not to mention his having written more than 50 books plus his prowess as a composer-songwriter (over 8000 tunes). Easily the brightest guy of that generation (i.e., my dad’s) I’d ever spoken to.

My face-time session happened at the House of Blues. We only spoke for 15 minutes or so, but it was electric. (For me at least.). As I was thanking him and saying farewell I cried “schmock! schmock!” Allen laughed, patted me on the shoulder. [Originally posted on 6.23.19.]

“May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan.” — Don DeLillo passage from “White Noise,” published on 1.21.85.

The ’80s-set White Noise appears to be another brainy, quirky Noah Baumbach family flick a la Squid and the Whale. Whipsmart parents, precocious kids, a shattering event of some kind…”I want to know how scared I should be.”

I’m half scared and half fascinated by Greta Gerwig‘s’80s hair….that much I do know. Adam Driver‘s older-guy look (heavier, graying hair, pot belly) is also something to talk about.

Part of me wishes my days could be aimless, that the seasons could just drift by with little consequence and that I could live my days according to no particular plan. Another part of me doesn’t trust lazybone living, which only wealthy people can afford to even speculate about in the first place.

White Noise is debuting in Venice (cool) and will open the ’22 NY Film Festival (ditto). But Telluride passed. I’mw wondering why.

I’ve always been more of a fan of DeLillo’s “Libra” (’88) than “White Noise.” No offense, but I wish that a Libra adaptation by some Michael Haneke-like director was the film about to open.

…about the natural cover or camoflauging of ear issues provided by longer hair.

…couples were more chaste about this kind of thing. The tendency was to refrain during day games, or even restrict such activity to homes, hotel/motel rooms, cars or beaches after sunset. Imagine the baffled responses from Mel Allen or Phil Rizzuto (“holy cow!”) or Vin Scully. Find me one film clip or anecdotal news item about such a display at Ebetts Field in the ‘50s. I’m talking about cultural contrasts.

Until today I’d never once heard the term “funeral screenings,” but now that I have I love it…thank you, God or fate or happenstance, for brightening my worldview.