“Jungle Cruise” vs. “African Queen” Issues

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It’s been obvious to anyone with eyes, ears and half a brain that Jaume Collet-Serra‘s Jungle Cruise (Disney, 7.30) is both an homage and an insult to the lore of John Huston‘s The African Queen (’51).

Jungle Cruise costars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt have made no secret of the fact that their respective characters, “Skipper” Frank Wolff and Dr. Lily Houghton, are roughly modelled on Charlie Allnut and Rose Sayer, the Queen characters played 70-odd years ago by Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. And of course the basic set-ups are similar.

Of course, Serra and Cruise cowriters Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa never had the slightest intention in making the soon-to-open Disney release into any kind of African Queen companion piece. They intended, in fact, to lampoon (i.e., fool around with) the 1951 original, and thereby cheapen it to some extent.

Jungle Cruise is obviously adhering to a classic formula — a flawed male alpha figure in the front-and-center position with a spirited woman of refinement and sensitivity who steps in and gradually ups his game.

Jungle Cruise boilerplate: “Frank, a boat captain, takes his sister and her brother on a mission into a jungle to find a tree believed to possess healing powers. All the while, the trio must fight against dangerous wild animals and a competing German expedition.”

I’ve said this before, but the trailers have made it clear that Jungle Cruise is exactly the kind of ultra-synthetic, X-treme adventure, CG overload, Indiana Jones-aspiring, family-friendly megaplex film that, in my mind, is killing the idea of conveying real big-screen adventure. And no one gives a damn.

A couple of weeks ago Yahoo Entertainment’s Ethan Alter interviewed Humphrey Bogart’s son, Stephen Bogart. The piece was about his father’s legacy and particularly that of The African Queen.

“I never really thought of it as a comedy,” Bogart tells Alter. “[My dad’s] relationship with Katie is funny, even if they don’t play it as funny.” Actually Hepburn and Bogart do play it for the amusement factor as far as that goes, and they do what they can to stoke the unusual romantic current that develops between them.

As you might expect, Alter gets into the p.c. factor — could The African Queen (which is set German East Africa in 1914) be remade today? By today’s standards, he notes, the most notable omission in Huston’s film “is the lack of any Black characters in significant roles.”

Alter declines to mention that Jungle Cruise, also set around the same time period (i.e., “early 20th Century”), has no major Black characters either — the costars are Jack Whitehall, Édgar Ramírez, Jesse Plemons and Paul Giamatti.

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McCuddy Greaseburger

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The other day HE commenter Bill McCuddy said he wants Patreon paywall posts to make him hard and wet. For $5 a month McCuddy wants thrills, backrubs, shocks, surprises, accelerations, sugar highs. He wants these posts to be the equivalent of visiting a water park in mid July or riding a pogo stick in the West Village or getting a Las Vegas strip club lap dance…okay, forget the lap dance as Bill is happily married. But certainly the HE equivalent of eating the most delicious greaseburger ever prepared in human history…a sizzling hot McCuddy burger, medium rare, covered in sautéed red onions, gently smeared with a dab of Russian dressing, red leaf lettuce, warm sesame seed bun…mouth watering, lip-smacking, blackened by flame!

McCuddy wants complimentary neck-wattle surgery, thrills, excitement, heavy breathing, face lifts…a feeling of being throttled into space or on some riveting journalistic adventure. He wants dance numbers, surfing contests, big waves, fast cars and motorcycles that rumble and grumble and go tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-TUK-TUK! McCuddy wants HE Patreon posts to make him feel like sticking his head out of the passenger window at 85 mph like Al Pacino and going “hoo-hahhh!”

McCuddy also wants HE Patreon posts to give him a perfect neck massage plus a combination manicure-and-pedicure, but at a discount. He also wants HE Patreon posts to shift the cultural tectonic plates…he wanrs them to be an in-depth N.Y. Times Magazine piece about climate change, or a Michael Wolff Times piece about the likelihood of Donald Trump running again in ’24. McCuddy wants value, emotion, intrigue, suspense.

And he doesn’t want any old-hat stuff…no memories or reflections about things or trends that happened 10 or 20 years ago or eternal truisms about whatever…he wants THE NEXT BIG THING, and right now…he wants dry cleaning, expensive socks, stock tips, stock options, car tune-ups, limo rides, flights to Belize and Switzerland and Dubai…and he wouldn’t mind special discounted deals on high-end Bruno Magli shoes.

No Compliments for the Waitress

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Yesterday Paul Schrader wrote about admiring a waitress with “radiant” cafe au lait skin, and so he said “you have beautiful skin.” Paul’s wife and son were with him, and Paul’s not exactly a young buck on the prowl so he figured “I’m harmless so where’s the harm in sharing a discreet compliment?”

I’ll tell him where the harm is. The harm is in the fact that he’s an older white guy, and a decent percentage of urban progressive women (teens to mid 30s and perhaps beyond) would just as soon explode his life into smithereens as look at him. I’m not kidding. Guys like Paul Schrader are deer, and it’s deer hunting season everywhere right now, and if the Schraders of the world want to be dead all they have to do is give the “hunters” a reason to get out their high-powered social media rifles and fire at them.

There are only two options in your potential dealings with younger attractive women in any professional environment (including restaurants or bars), and that’s to (a) treat them with the utmost politeness and respect, and (b) think of them as overweight male Armenian garbage collectors who haven’t bathed in a couple of days.

Get this into your stupid thick head and keep it there: There are no attractive women out there — they don’t exist — and if you ignore this rule there’s a good chance you’ll be bruised, wounded or killed sooner or later. For if you convey the slightest appreciation of some aspect of their physical allure you are asking for trouble, and I mean potentially big trouble.

Tatiana says that complimenting a woman on her skin is too intimate if you’ve only just met her. Saying she has lovely skin isn’t quite like saying she has a great ass or nice breasts, but it’s in that vicinity. You can compliment a waitress on what she’s wearing — ring, bracelet, necklace, perfume — but no comments about her physicality. You can compliment a female relative or the wife of a friend on having nice skin, but not a waitress.

There’s only one safe way to tell a waitress that you approve of her, and that’s to leave her a large tip. Any other expression of approval will leave you open for Twitter assassination, Facebook sniping, TikTok takedowns, lawsuits, screaming fights in the parking lot and whatnot. Just shut up and order the food and that’s all. Remember — she’s an Armenian garbage collector, she’s wearing stained work overalls and lace-up work boots, and she weighs 285 pounds. Oh, wait…sorry!

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No Tearful Tributes for Late Jackie Mason

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If Sean Hannity offers tribute when a showbiz figure passes on, it’s fair to at least presume that the dear and departed might’ve been a rightwing dick.

Jackie Mason wasn’t always in that camp — in his ‘60s and ‘70s heyday Mason, a blunt-spoken Borscht belt comedian with a grim view of human nature and a rat-a-tat-tat patter, was a fairly funny guy. He hurt his career when he apparently gave the finger to Ed Sullivan in March ‘64, but Mason hung in there. To each his own voice and style.

But came the 21st Century Mason became an Obama hater, hence the Hannity allegiance. Finding that view horrid, that’s when I cut him loose. Mason was 93.

Like Visiting The Dentist…

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I’ve been watching Leos Carax‘s Annette for a while…two hours and 19 minutes all in…but now I have to hit the Apple store. Update: Okay, it’s fixed.

Honest initial impression: As they (Driver, Cotillard, Sparks guys, Carax, singers) were striding down the street at night while singing “May We Start?”, I wanted to see them attacked and eaten by snarling wolves. No, changed my mind — I wouldn’t want the wolves to hurt the kids or the female singers, and certainly not Cotillard. But definitely Russell and Ron Mael…that smug little half-smile that Russell wears and the way he folds his scarf around his neck as they leave the studio and stride out of the building and down the sidewalk, and especially director Leos Carax…the orchestrator of the whole thing. You might say I felt an instant animal dislike for this film.

Raw, Sad, Almost Too Real

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Val Kilmer — haggard and roughed up by cancer but spiritually persistent as far as it goes. He was Mr. Hot Shit in the Reagan, Poppy Bush and Clinton eras (Top Gun, Batman Forever, The Doors, Tombstone, Heat, The Saint), but now he’s the semi-tragic star and cinematographer of Val. I saw this absorbing, dig-down portrait of the 61 year-old actor and onetime superstar yesterday afternoon, and for a while I didn’t know what to think except “uhm, well…”

Be honest — it’s a melancholy sit.

Edited by Leo Scott and Ting Poo, Val is all catch-as-catch-can video footage — stuff that Kilmer shot over the last 40 years, ’80s and ’90s VHS and onward into digital and 1080p. Some of it is just faces and moments and time-grabs, and some of it is steady and gentle and poignant, and after a while it gets you…it’s a serious doc about a serious, intense guy…haunting, intimate and often (how could it not be?) quite sad at times.

“I think of myself as a sensitive, intelligent human being with the soul of a clown…”

You can sense that whomever and whatever Kilmer might have been when he was young and pugnacious and humming with hormones in the ’80s and ’90s, age and cancer have definitely taken him aside and whispered in his ear “time to turn that shit off, bruh…those chapters are over.”

Kilmer has not only modified what and who he is inside but age and disease have molded him into a different physical being — he now looks a bit like Will Sampson from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest only older and grayer. Imagine if Cary Grant had aged into William Hickey in Prizzi’s Honor or Oskar Homolka — it’s on that level.

And everyone had to wonder why Kilmer didn’t show up in Cannes a week or two ago for the Val premiere. It was easily the biggest moment of his life and career this century, and yet for some reason…

You know what Val tells you? I’ll tell you what Val tells you. It tells you that when you grow older, life does not fuck around. Especially when cancer comes along and says “hey man…are you ready for some serious shit in your life? Because I’m about to fuck you up but good.”

There were four…no, five standout moments for me. But before I mention them I should share an opinion, which is that Val would have been a better package if it had devoted, say, 35% or 40% of its running time to professional-grade video interviews with, say, eight or ten talking heads — friends, colleagues, agents, producers, journalists…people with a little perspective outside of KilmerDome.

For me the five most affecting moments are (a) Kilmer arguing with director John Frankenheimer on the set of Island of Dr. Moreau (“Will you turn the video camera off, please?”), (b) Kilmer sitting by a fireplace and cutting off hunks of his long hair with a knife (this was the one sequence that made me think of getting up and leaving), (c) Kilmer and his son Jack dressed in mid ’60s Batman and Robin costumes, (d) a weary Kilmer telling an assistant that he needs to take a break from autograph-signing and fan-greeting, due to some physical ailment, and (e) Kilmer driving through his childhood neighborhood of Chatsworth and muttering “this place is hell…pure hell…I hate it.” (Or words to that effect.)

Paraphrasing a line from a 5.6.20 Taffy Brodesser Akner N.Y. Times piece about Kilmer: We still need to believe that all our efforts weren’t for nothing, that we could — we will — survive a dark moment in our history and that when that happens, we won’t be left without the things that made those moments decipherable and meaningful and therefore tolerable.”

Repeating: what Val finally tells you is that life doesn’t fuck around.

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Bad Device

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My iPhone 12 Pro Max, bought only six weeks ago (June 11), stopped working this morning. Total freeze-out, won’t let me sign in. Tried the usual YouTube tutorials…nothing. I now have a Genius Bar appointment for 7 pm this evening. If a relatively new iPhone doesn’t even reboot there’s something fundamentally wrong — I definitely have grounds to demand a new one.

Remember the old solution to start-up problems or otherwise frozen iPhones? You’d use a paper clip to push the hole in the side of the phone for a “soft” reset…remember? That’s been eliminated in the newer models — no more hole or paper clips. Now the soft reset solution is to briefly hit the up and down volume button, and then press the power button down and wait. Even that procedure doesn’t work with my newbie.

I didn’t do anything to the phone…no accidental liquids. Okay, I dropped it a day or two ago but that’s part for the course. Plus I have a plastic shock-absorber cover.

No “Old” Specifics But…

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I just saw M. Night Shyamalan’s Old. It delivers a hooky premise (wealthy tourists are unable to leave a cliffside cove in which the laws of time and biology are bizarrely suspended) but without much rhyme or consistency.

It’s interesting and trippy and semi-spooky — I was certainly never bored — but there are all kinds of loose ends and head-scratchy developments that don’t line up or unify. And yet despite the haphazard plotting it feels oddly intriguing.

In other words, the fact that the low-key horror elements don’t make sense or build into a cohesive whole strangely works in Old‘s favor. It feels like a first draft of an experimental creeper, written by someone new to the game who doesn’t care about following the usual rules. I was saying to myself “this is kinda sloppy but at least it’s different, and I’ve no idea where it’s going.”

And then during the final 15 minutes Old suddenly loses its nerve and turns logical — it tries to impose order by making sense of things (villains, conspiracy, arrival of law), and in so doing it betrays and destroys itself. A complete collapse.

As I left the theatre a guy booed. But without the imposition of logic and rationality during the finale, I’m betting that the booing guy would have been more accepting and perhaps even won over.

Additional Shooting

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I’ve never felt that the term “re-shoots” is a fair one, as it suggests that a film in question hasn’t worked out in editing, and that it’s been re-thought, re-written and re-shot because what was shot before wasn’t good enough. That’s not what re-shoots typically means. Re-shoots mostly means that new material been shot. Perhaps a scene or two will be re-shot, and that’s rare. And so what if that happens? Every writer working on anything of any size or scope always rewrites, re-thinks, re-shuffles and re-shapes. Filmmakers also, and it’s all to the good.