Excellent Richard Donner Story!

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True story from a critic friend, edited by the author so as to obscure his/her identity:

I know it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead. But I so enjoy telling this story.

Let me start like this: Any job description in a help-wanted ad seeking to hire a critic should include these words: “Must be a bit of a dick.”

The ads never say that. But they should. Because, no matter how nicely you do it, some people don’t take criticism well. Inevitably, you will have to say something negative in a public forum about the creative expression of another human being. Whether you mean to be or not, they’ll think you’re a dick.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes, it’s really enjoyable to be as witty and as nasty as you can when you’re writing a review. Because you’re being a dick, which is, by definition, fun.

I knew early on that I had the ability to provoke and the willingness to do so (along with a shocking inability to foresee possible consequences of my
actions). I take a certain pride in a well-turned phrase and an irreverent sense of humor.

But while I’d experienced the immediate reactions of local artists — actors, directors, musicians — to my reviews in the early years of my career, I’d
rarely had the sense that, when I wrote a movie review or a review of a rock concert, the people I was writing about ever actually saw what I wrote.

Which brings me to my point about being a dick, and my Richard Donner story.

In 1994, during a moment when there was a microburst of interest in westerns because of the success of Unforgiven and Dances With Wolves, I’d been assigned one of those trend stories that editors love: the return of the Western. So I started making calls.

One of those went to a publicist at Warner Bros., which was a few months away from releasing Richard Donner’s remake of the 1950s TV hit, Maverick, starring Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster ands James Garner. Could I get a few minutes on the phone with Donner, I asked, to talk about westerns?

Donner was a director and producer of commercially successful middlebrow (or worse) films starting in the 1960s, including Superman with Christopher Reeve, The Goonies (most overrated kids film of all time), The Omen and the Lethal Weapon films, which, to my mind, had ruined action movies.

In those days before cell phones and e-mail, the reply came with surprising swiftness. I got a call back the same day from the Warners’ publicist, telling
me, no, Richard Donner would not speak to me about westerns — or anything else, apparently.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Did you write a review of his film Radio Flyer“, the publicist asked.

It had been two years, but I knew exactly what he was talking about: I believe I called it “a feel-good film about child abuse.”

“Yeah, well, that was apparently a very personal film for him, so he’s not going to talk to you,” the publicist said.

Until that point — 1994, in a career that started officially when I turned pro in 1973 — I had no sense of anyone reading my reviews other than the
people within the immediate circulation area of my newspaper. I forwarded them to the film publicists in New York, and knew they were syndicated.
But I simply didn’t imagine filmmakers themselves actually taking the time.

Now, however, I knew I had Richard Donner’s attention.

So when Maverick came out in 1994 and I reviewed it, I referred to him on first reference as “Richard Donner, who directed Radio Flyer, a feel-good film about child abuse.”

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Clarity Or More Mucky-Muck?

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I’m sorry but I don’t wholly disagree with the sixth paragraph in a 7.5 USA Today op-ed piece. It pains me to acknowledge that it was written by Christopher F. Rufo, a conservative Millennial who’s buddied up with Tucker Carlson and the vile Mark Meadows. I hate Trump-allied righties for the most part, but the sixth paragraph has validity.

Here’s Rufo in the 6.18 New Yorker:

“‘Political correctness’ is a dated term and, more importantly, doesn’t apply anymore. It’s not that elites are enforcing a set of manners and cultural limits — they’re seeking to reengineer the foundation of human psychology and social institutions through the new politics of race. It’s much more invasive than mere ‘correctness,’ which is a mechanism of social control, but not the heart of what’s happening.

“The other frames are wrong, too: ‘cancel culture’ is a vacuous term and doesn’t translate into a political program; ‘woke’ is a good epithet, but it’s too broad, too terminal, too easily brushed aside. ‘Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain. Its connotations are all negative to most middle-class Americans, including racial minorities, who see the world as ‘creative’ rather than ‘critical,’ ‘individual’ rather than ‘racial,’ ‘practical’ rather than ‘theoretical.’

“Strung together, the phrase ‘critical race theory’ connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American.And it’s not an externally applied pejorative. Instead, it’s the label the critical race theorists chose themselves.”

The nub of Rufo’s rebuttal begin at 6:45, and they partly stem from Anastasia Higginbotham‘s “Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness“, the controversial children’s book.

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Nothing Happens The First Night

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The word is out on Annette, and everyone has adjusted their expectations. Look at all those opening-nighters sitting standing right next to each other! Jodie Foster‘s fluent French is attractive.

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Even With The Renovation…

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You’d think that movie distributors would want to mount garish billboards on the Carlton hotel’s facade, in keeping with decades upon decades of tradition. What is the Cannes Film Festival without vulgar signage along the Croisette? Except 2021 is a sleepy-ass year, and movie promos are few and far between.

Feinberg Oversight

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Regarding Scott Feinberg‘s 7.5.21 THR story, “Cannes: Which Fest Films Could Become Oscar Contenders?“, and the opening paragraph in particular:

Wells to Feinberg: “You can’t just mention Palme d’Or winners Marty and Parasite in your opening paragraph and ignore No Country for Old Men, which launched in Cannes in May ‘07 and went on to win the Best Picture Oscar the following February or March. To hell with the Palme d’Or distinction — Cannes launched NCFOM and that’s what counts.

“In the 14 years since have award-season publicists and marketing strategists decided that Cannes is generally too risky (contrarian critics) and too early in the season, and that it isn’t worth the trouble and expense? Has a consensus emerged that award season launches at the major fall festivals make MUCH more sense? Yes.

“But you can’t ignore the No Country precedent. That was a very big deal at the time.”

Donner’s Rundown

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Hugs and condolences for the family, friends, colleagues and fans of director Richard Donner, who was born on 4.24.30 and passed earlier today at age 91. Donner was no visionary auteur but an amiable, well-liked, good-guy journeyman — he behaved like a human being, always got the job done, kept his cool, smoked cigarettes, etc.

Hollywood Elsewhere is an unqualified fan of two things Donner directed — “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” the 1963 Twilight Zone episode in which an airborne William Shatner grappled with the sight of a gremlin on the wing, and the original Lethal Weapon (’87), an anarchic, crazy-violent, occasionally funny cop thriller that helped launch a new idea in action films– i.e., the cop who was crazier than the criminals. (Angel Heart, which opened concurrent with Lethal Weapon, advanced the same notion.)

Be honest — the first Lethal Weapon was the only decent one, and it represented the only time in Donner’s career when he was truly the king of the hill and totally on top of the zeitgiest curve.

I was mezzo mezzo on Superman — didn’t care for the scenes with fat, white-haired Marlon Brando, hated the Jeff East casting as young Chris Reeve, loathed the North Pole ice palace, etc. But I loved Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty‘s interplay (“Otisburg?”).

I’m sorry but I had problems with every other Donner-directed film — The Omen (silly, stupid, annoying), Superman II, The Toy, The Goonies, Ladyhawke, Scrooged, Lethal Weapon 2, Radio Flyer, Lethal Weapon 3, Maverick (a friend called it “a $75 million dollar Elvis Presley film“), Assassins, Conspiracy Theory, Lethal Weapon 4, Tales from the Crypt: Ritual, Timeline, 16 Blocks.

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Nina, Benny and Kevin

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Nobody cares about In The Heights any more, but if they did there’d be one more thing for wokesters to gripe about.

The last grenade thrown at Jon Chu and Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s musical (a mostly faithful adaptation of LMM’s 2005 stage musical) was the colorism thing — the film had ignored the presence of Afro-Latinos in Washington Heights and therefore was, after a fashion, guilty of a form of discrimination — i.e., colorism.

I never saw the stage play but a friend of Jordan Ruimy‘s did, and he reports that the film version “cut the plot line about Kevin Rosario, the Puerto Rican dad” — Jimmy Smits in the film — “not wanting his daughter Nina to date Benny” over an ethnic disparity issue. (In the film Nina and Benny are played by Leslie Grace and Corey Hawkins.)

A blunt way of explaining Kevin’s “ethnic disparity” problem is that he doesn’t want his daughter dating a guy who isn’t from their tribe and who doesn’t speak Spanish. A blunter way of putting it is that Kevin may have a problem with his daughter dating a black dude,.

Here’s a portion of the Act 2 play synopsis from Wikipedia’s In The Heights page:

“Nina and Benny spend the night together in Benny’s apartment as Kevin frantically searches for her all night; Benny worries about what Kevin will say about their relationship but is happy to finally be with her (‘Sunrise’). Nina eventually returns home to find her parents worried sick about her, and Kevin grows furious when he learns she was with Benny, disapproving of their relationship due to Benny not being Latino.”

A 6.10.21 Elle piece by Madison Feller discussed several differences between the stage and film versions. Feller didn’t mention Kevin’s problem with Benny in the stage version.

Oh, To Be A Spotter Again

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One of my all-time favorite jobs was working as a celebrity-spotter at Cannon Film premieres and after-parties. I had this responsibility was in late ’86 and ’87. I would rank it right below driving for Checker Cab in Boston. It was so easy and so satisfying. All I had to was stand at the door of film premieres and after-parties and make sure that no one of any importance was turned away.

No system is perfect, and every now and then a celebrity will show up uninvited or without a ticket, or with an entourage that he/she hadn’t mentioned when rsvping. I was there to make sure no famous or semi-famous person would ever receive a hard time.

When I was spotting I felt right in my element. I knew exactly how to play it. For I recognized everyone, every old-time actor whose time had passed, every supporting actor who wasn’t working much any more, every well-connected friend, every fringe player, every European actor who most Americans might not recognize, etc. And they all loved me for waving them through, and for knowing their names and their credits.

Remember actress Helena Kallianiotes (Five Easy Pieces, Kansas City Bomber), the vaguely butchy, Greek-born friend of Jack Nicholson‘s? In the mid to late ’80s she ran Helena’s, a super-exclusive celebrity supper club in the Silver Lake area. In October ’87 Helena attended the Barfly premiere with a friend, and for a few seconds the Cannon door girls were giving her shit. I swooped in like Prince Valiant. “It’s okay, she’s cool,” I told the girls. “Hi, Helena…come on in.”

Jesus, Jim and Tammy Faye

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Go to the 36-second mark in this scene from Martin Scorsese‘s The Last Temptation of Christ, and particularly the moment when Willem Dafoe‘s Yeshua, sitting on the edge of a rocky cliff, says “I know what God wants…he wants to push me over!”

The question is, what did God say — what kind of taunt or message or challenge did he convey to 21-year-old James Orsen Bakker and his 19-year-old wife Tammy Faye Bakker (formerly LaValley) when they first decided to leave college and become “itinerant” evangelists back in ’61 or thereabouts?

How did God express Himself? What exactly did He say? “Jim and Tammy…we know I am about love and only love, but you can’t spread my message if you’re poor…no one will listen unless you’re flamboyantly wealthy so that’s what you need to do…make money hand over fist…become synonymous with wealth and then and only then with the people listen…”

Ebert, O’Casey, “Blowup”

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21 and 1/2 years ago Ronan O’Casey, an uncredited but pivotal Blowup costar, wrote to Roger Ebert to explain some of the odd particulars behind the shooting of Michelangelo Antonioni‘s 1966 London-based classic. Worth reading if you’re any kind of Blowup fan. Here’s the original Ebert posting:

O’Casey to Ebert, dated 2.10.99: A friend recently sent me your column in the Nov. 8, 1998 Denver Post about the movie Blowup. As I actually played the [murder victim] in that fine movie, I thought you might enjoy knowing the behind-the-scenes story of how the film was made (or not made, in fact). Your column proclaims it to be a great film, and I am not trying to discredit that opinion. But it is nonetheless an unfinished work, and it raises the fascinating question of how much of the “art” of a final film is intentional — or accidental.

My name is Ronan O’Casey, and I played Vanessa Redgrave‘s gray-haired lover in the film. The screenplay, by Antonioni, Tonio Guerra, and Edward Bond, told the story of a planned murder. But the scenes depicting the planning of the murder and its aftermath — scenes with Vanessa, Sarah Miles and Jeremy Glover, Vanessa’s new young lover who plots with her to murder me — were never shot because the film went seriously over budget.

The intended story was as follows: the young lover, armed with a pistol, was to precede Vanessa and me to Maryon Park in London, conceal himself in the bushes and await our arrival. I pick up Vanessa in a nice new dark green Jaguar and we drive through London — giving Antonioni a chance to film that swinging, trendy, sixties city of the Beatles, Mary Quant, the Rolling Stones, and Carnaby Street. We stop and I buy Vanessa a man’s watch, which she wears throughout the rest of the film. We then saunter hand in hand into the park, stopping now and then to kiss (lucky me). In the centre of the park, Vanessa gives me a passionate embrace and prolonged kiss, and glances at the spot where her new lover is hiding. He shoots me (unlucky me), and the two leave the park intending to drive away. Their plans goes awry when she notices Hemmings with his camera and fears that Hemmings has photos of her. As it turns out, he has.

None of this was ever shot. There were other scenes, such as those between Miles and Glover, that also went unrealized. (Sarah tried to get her name off the film because she ended up with so little screen time.) Some of the scenes that were shot pertaining to the murder plot ended up in the film, but are completely puzzling to the audience.

You stated in your article that Antonioni must have been happy while he was making this film. Well, yes, he was, at least while he was overspending his budget lavishly. The crew once spent days making the surfaces of the road a darker gray. And then there’s the famous slow pan along a row of houses and up to an enigmatic, oddly shaped neon sign (designed and built by the art department) on top of the hill. The houses were real inhabited ones, but Antonioni did not like their colors. He had them all repainted, much to their owners’ delight and the producer’s chagrin.

The producer was Carlo Ponti, and he had been supervising another production which delayed his arrival in London. When he got there, he was furious. “Basta, Michelangelo, finito, we are done!” Shooting stopped and the crew went back to Italy. Antonioni took the bits and pieces of the film that had been shot and wove them together in a film since hailed for its “mystery” and “enigma.” Of course it was mysterious — it was never finished!

It is entirely possible that Antonioni could have filmed his entire screenplay and still cut and edited it the same way. Incomplete as it was, it reflects Antonioni’s penchant for toying with illusion and reality. At the time, though, it sure felt that he had put one over on his audiences and critics, who raved about the movie.

There was one exception to the rule in Der Spiegel. A reporter from the magazine interviewed me for an article they called “The Dead Man Speaks.” He kept saying, “But this movie makes no sense — no narrative thread, no plot line!” No Teutonic realism. Totally illogical.

By the way, here is another interesting bit of gossip for you about the movie. You’ll remember the scene in which Hemmings photographs the two models playing around with large rolls of brightly colored paper. This shot predated by some 30 years the famous snatch-shot of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Jane Birkin, one of the models, was wearing no knickers and there is a brief glimpse of her unadorned pudenda. In 1969 this scene generated an enormous amount of publicity. All over America, men and boys lined up to get a glimpse of this sexually explicit shot.

Years later I bumped into Ponti inside Cinecitta, and he told me wryly that when all of the 200-some prints were returned, every one was a few feet shorter than it ought to have been. In every print, Jane Birkin’s pussy had been neatly trimmed by the projectionist. So all the males who were being turned on by that quick glimpse of alleged nudity were seeing it only in their imaginations.

I was thrilled to be offered a part in this film, opposite Vanessa and directed by Antonioni, even if I ended up as a kiss and a corpse. But this letter is not meant to be a vintage whine by a dissatisfied actor. Rather, it is a reflection on how difficult it is to be precise about the meaning of art and the intentions of the artist. Truth is multifaceted, particularly at 24 frames a second. Antonioni was a great director and you are probably right about the greatness of Blowup — I certainly hope nobody ever finishes it.

Postscript: Born in 1922, the prematurely gray O’Casey was only 43 or 44 when Blowup was shot in the fall of ’65. He died in 2012 at age 89.

Tarantino vs. Mainstream Exhibitors

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Quentin Tarantino‘s negative opinions about mainstream exhibition, posted earlier today by the Armchair Expert podcast, are, I feel, slightly misplaced.

“Some of these exhibitors who are going, they fucking deserve to go,” Tarantino said. “They have taken all the specialness out of movies anyway. Some of these chains [are] showing commercials all through it, [plus] they don’t turn the lights down [and] everything is stadium seating…plastic shit.”

Whoa, wait…what’s wrong with stadium seating? I hated those old-fashioned, slight-grade theatres in which you’d routinely have to cope with some guy’s big fat head blocking your view.

Tarantino presumably believes, as do I, that movie theatres, at their highest iteration, are churches and cathedrals — places of spiritual communion and emotional uplift. But of course, mainstream movies are no longer in the “touch your soul and persuade viewers to contemplate the deeper, finer or sometimes crazier things in life” business. That idea began to wither and die 10 or 15 years ago. (The death process really began in the ’90s and the rise of guys like Jan De Bont, but we’ll let that go for now.)

Over the last 10 or 15 years theatres have been catering more and more to your low-rent, T-shirt and flip-flop animals who’re mostly into gamer-type action fare — not to your cultivated, somewhat educated cineastes (an all but entombed culture) but to the lowest-common-denominator LexG crowd. Bottom-of-the-barrel types who love F9…bottom feeders, toads, pigs at the trough.

Paul Schrader in November 2018: “There are people who talk about the American cinema of the ‘70s as some halcyon period. It was to a degree but not because there were any more talented filmmakers. There’s probably, in fact, more talented filmmakers today than there was in the ‘70s. What there was in the ‘70s was better audiences.”

Exhibitors have simply tried to adapt to the downscale ball–scratch mongrelization of movie culture.

Tarantino: “They have been writing their own epitaph for a long time, but they assumed the business would take you along. It’s been crazy throughout my career to see how the film experience is lessened for the viewer like every five years. However, I do think boutique cinemas actually will thrive in this time. And I am not talking about the La-Z-Boy, order nachos and margaritas…I actually like the Alamo Drafthouse a lot. But I have a living room, [and sometimes] I want to go to the theater.”

Tarantino is right, however, about exhibitors who never turn the lights down all the way. I really hate that. Movies need to be absorbed in complete darkness.