Oh, Stop It…She’s Okay in “OBAA” But Only That
January 13, 2026
Timelessness of Divinity?
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I Still Say Stacy Martin Is Too Hot To Portray A Sex-Averse Religious Zealot
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What this Bluray seems to provide, based on frame captures, is another lovingly restored grainstorm experience — a hazy, soft-focused relation of Criterion’s Bluray of The Awful Truth (released on 4.7.18). Borzage’s 1937 film probably looks as good as it ever will on Bluray, agreed, but it’s certainly not the stuff of profound visual transportation. Not in my book, it isn’t.
So I asked Levine what exactly is so “great” about the Criterion Bluray in question. Not only did he decline to reply, but he blocked me.
If I was Levine I would’ve manned up and said something like “this is the most lusciously rendered version of this classic Borzage film ever savored in HD…the heavy-mosquito-swamp atmosphere is not a problem but a beautifully detailed, other-worldly immersion…Jean Arthur, Charles Boyer and Colin Clive covered in hundreds of trillions of micro-mosquitoes…it’s glorious!”
There’s always been a Grand Canyon-sized gulf between the cinematic preferences of press + industry sophistos who attend the Cannes Film Festival vs. the locals and tourists who occasionally attend a festival beach screening.
There’s nothing particularly “wrong” with the latter preferring the simple, oafish, completely free pleasures of F9 outdoors to, say, trying to score tickets to one of the indoor festival screenings, many if not most of which would probably rub your hoi polloi types the wrong way.
Consider nonetheless this report about last night’s F9 screening by Variety‘s Manori Ravindran, and more particularly the last seven words in the opening paragraph: “F9 may not have been the planetary blockbuster anyone expected at Cannes, but amid the randy nuns, self-indulgent musicals and bovine documentaries, it was the planetary blockbuster we needed.”
Remember that Mad magazine bit when the alarmed Lone Ranger shouts “Indians everywhere, Tonto!…we’re surrounded!” and the faintly grinning Tonto says “what you mean ‘we’?”
In the same spirit, HE asks Revindran “what do you mean F9 was what ‘we‘ needed”?
Given the all-but-universal understanding that the Fast & Furious franchise is soul cancer for the chumps and that some of us could be forgiven for assuming that F9 producers are in league with satanic forces, are you, a London-based Variety staffer, saying that you…what, identify with the rabble? Or are you suggesting that F9 is a pleasure to sit through?
Ravindran notes that soon after F9 was unveiled in early June as a high-profile beach freebie, it was “instantly mocked by some who balked at Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto putting the pedal to the metal in highbrow Cannes.
“But come Monday evening, hundreds of people — [mostly] holiday makers — lined up along the Croisette hoping to score a striped deckchair or sandy spot to watch the latest chapter in Universal’s 20-year-old franchise.
“Cannes’ July dates, as opposed to the usual May affair, meant many were at the film festival for the first time in their lives, and rather than struggle to navigate a finicky ticketing system for an auteur movie they might not even like, the familiarity of another Fast and the Furious movie promised an evening of guaranteed thrills.”
HE to Paul Schrader a few minutes ago: “Great news about The Card Counter (Focus, 9.10.21) allegedly going to Venice and Telluride. I don’t know this for a fact, but Jordan Ruimy alleges from Cannes that you spilled the beans during a recent q & a, stating that The Card Counter will in fact be premiering on the Lido and, two or three days later, in the happy hamlet of Telluride.”
Boilerplate synopsis: A gambler called William Tell (Oscar Isaac) attempts to give guidance to a young guy named Virk (Tye Sheridan) who is out for revenge against a mutual enemy (presumably a character named “Major John Gordo”, played by Willem Dafoe). Tiffany Haddish plays a character named “La Linda.” (Do I have this right?)
HE to Focus marketing: The Venice and Telluride debuts are roughly six weeks off — isn’t it time for a trailer? Not to mention the 9.10.21 commercial debut.
Schrader to L.A. Times guy Mark Olsen on 9.11.20: “I don’t want to get too deeply involved in the plot, but what I will say is [that] over the years I’ve kind of developed my own little genre of films. And they usually involve a man alone in a room, wearing a mask, and the mask is his occupation.
“So it could be a taxi driver, a drug dealer, a gigolo, a reverend, whatever. And I take that character and run it alongside a larger problem, personal or social. It could be debilitating loneliness like in Taxi Driver. It could be a midlife crisis [as] in Light Sleeper. It could be an environmental crisis like in First Reformed.
“So now I have a character and he’s in his room, he’s alone. And he has a mask on. And the mask he wears is a professional poker player. And the problem that runs alongside him is that he’s a former torturer for the U.S. government. So it’s a mix of the World Series of Poker and Abu Ghraib.”
“I always admired Josephson as a performer,” Brody said, “[but] this anecdote made me revere him as a human being as well.”
HE response: “Your last line isn’t 100% sincere, but your trademark toxicity is showing. I’ve been around enough actors at parties to know that when some get drunk they become silly or gleeful or morose (i.e., like anyone else). And some turn bloodthirsty. Sober Josephson may have been one thing, but you can always spot a prick when they pick on someone of a lesser status, especially when the victim doesn’t speak the prick’s language.
“Josephson with a buzz-on wasn’t mean — he was sadistic. But then you relate to that, don’t you?”
Full disclosure: During my peak drinking days (early to mid ’90s plus my longish wine-sipping period in the aughts) I was not a happy or silly type after I’d downed two or three — I became snappy and acrid. (Which is precisely what my alcoholic dad used to do.) I didn’t lay into people with a will and a whip, but I would throw stingers. Thank God that part of my life is over and done with.
HE to community, whether you drink or not: What happens when you’ve bent the elbow a bit — do you turn goofy, sentimental, snippy and ascerbic, or wicked and withering?
Hollywood Elsewhere congratulates Alex Castro, Variety‘s vp of video, for the impressive production values (especially the title graphics) that are the best part of “The Take“, a new showbiz chit-chat show (lasting 7:40) that popped on 7.9.21.
The co-hosts are Variety‘s senior correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister and awards editor Clayton Davis, who completely cemented their woke reps last April when they openly lamented Anthony Hopkins winning the Best Actor Oscar, and, more precisely, the late Chadwick Boseman not taking it instead. Total “hooray for our side” cheerleaders.
The tone and attitude of The Take is completely vapid, of course — a showbiz Live With Regis and Kathy Lee minus the wit. But it feels first-rate, or at the very least looks slick and polished.
I wrote, in fact, that Anderson “has a much more interesting face (indications of emotional complexity, soulful eyes) than Johansson and costar Florence Pugh combined.”
Instead of a “muscular hardcase sisters against their violent pursuers” action thriller, Black Widow would’ve been far more intriguing if Anderson had been made ScarJo’s costar (instead of Pugh), and the story had been some kind of time-warp mother-daughter thing in which ScarJo’s Natasha and her younger self (Anderson) are paired, and the basic dynamic would’ve been been Natasha protecting and schooling her younger self.
Not everyone has “it,” but Anderson definitely does.
I’m always irked when moviegoers react in an overly charitable, overly emotional way to something that’s obviously only so-so.
Example #1: During a screening of Paddington in mid-January 2015, a friend of a name-brand critic wouldn’t stop laughing at the klutzy-bear-causes-physical-chaos jokes (oops, another disaster!). The laughter was so unwarranted and so relentless I almost turned around and glared.
Example #2: There was an older, overweight woman sitting behind me during a 12.8.11 screening of Stephen Daldry‘s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close at LACMA. I distinctly recall how she moaned a couple of times when the film summoned echoes of the 9.11.01 disaster, and how she stood up and cheered when the film ended. I wasn’t a huge fan of this Warner Bros. release, but that woman persuaded me to take an even more negative tack.
Example #3: On 12.5.19 a loud Al Pacino fan ruined a THR “Awards Chat” interview at the DGA with the Irishman costar. (The interviewer was Scott Feinberg.) The guy had to cheer and laugh too loudly and go “ahhh!” and “whoo-whoo!” every time Al shared a funny line or whenever a well-regarded Pacino classic was mentioned. It was awful.
But I hate it even more when audience members are having a rollicking good time while watching a formulaic piece of shit. This happened last night as I watched an 8pm show of Black Widow inside the Century City AMC plex (theatre #10).
I was sitting in the handicapped row, and there were two or three Marvel fans right behind me, and once the comic-relief stuff started (all Marvel films begin to dispense snappy, smart-ass humor starting around the 30-minute mark and then return to it at regular intervals) these guys were laughing too enthusiastically. They were giggling and whooping at damn near everything. Any little quip or side-remark or smart-ass bit, and these guys were all but rolling in the aisles. They squealed with delight when Florence Pugh‘s Yelena asked ScarJo‘s Natasha why she always poses in the middle of a fight, landing close to the ground and flipping her head back.
Mind — these guys were the only ones in the theatre who were laughing loudly, and they were making a difficult experience even worse for everyone, or so I imagined. Did I turn around and glare? No, but I stole a quick glance.
Goldfinger had just ended and the author was on his way up the lobby stairs to the men’s room when he heard a young guy complaining to his girlfriend about how slow and boring Goldfinger was. The submissive girlfriend asked if they’d be staying for Thunderball and the guy replied “hell no!”
This young sophisticate had apparently been persuaded that the ’60s James Bond / Sean Connery films delivered action highs along 21st Century lines (the idiotic Kingsman flicks, the Fast and Furious franchise, etc.). I recognize how the pacing of Goldfinger could seem, to a cinematic knuckle-dragger, a bit slow and steady, and that this 1964 Guy Hamilton film (my third favorite Connery after From Russia With Love and Dr. No) is more invested in character and dialogue than your average teenager or 20something of today is used to.
Nonetheless I found this anecdote hugely depressing.
There are tens of millions of sensible left-center moderates like myself who despise cancel culture, and certainly no one who loathes it more than myself. I am nonetheless sickened and disgusted by Mel Gibson having apparently saluted Donald Trump as he arrived at an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC 264) event two nights ago.
From Todd McCarthy’s Deadline pan, posted on 7.12: “Breathing in the air that the master breathed, staying in his home and becoming saturated with all manner of first-hand Bergman-iana has in no way qualified Bergman Island writer-director Mia Hansen-Love to be mentioned in the same breath as the late Swedish master Ingmar Bergman, much less make a film about his aura and legacy.
“This story of a filmmaking couple — Tony (Tim Roth) and Chris (Vicky Krieps) — who make a pilgrimage to Faro Island to soak in the man’s influence, is a very poor excuse for an homage except as a travelogue. When Woody Allendid it, it was both sincere and very funny.”
In a phrase: “Lazy, unimaginative and incapable of expressing admiration for Bergman in any meaningful way.”
“The first 20 minutes of Bergman Island hold a certain interest simply on a touristic basis. It’s hard to think of any other filmmaker whose home, like those of certain presidents, has become a travel destination. Still, I once made a pilgrimage to Yasujiro Ozu’s grave in Japan; on his tombstone is simply inscribed the word ‘mu,’ which means ‘everything and nothing.’
“’How can I sit here and not feel like a loser?,’ cries Chris in despair as she sizes up Bergman’s body of work, which not only consists of 30-odd scripts and films but also plays and books. Well, you probably can’t, but Chris has to find out the hard way by getting down to work with Tony on a script she’s been thinking about.
“She figures that sitting in Ingmar’s chair and just existing in his lingering aura might be enough to inspire them to unprecedented heights of creativity on their next project. Ahhh, how presumptuous mere creative mortals can be.”
Serious question to Cannes-based Jordan Ruimy: “Given the mostly encouraging reviews for Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch so far (an 88% Metacritic rating) and no other film doing as well with the critics so far, is it fair to suggest that Dispatch seems likely to emerge as a prime contender for the Palme d’Or?
The five biggies (and correct me if I’m wrong) are The French Dispatch, Drive My Car, Benedetta, Compartment #9 and Val.”
Ruimy to HE: “Dispatch is minor Anderson.”
HE to Ruimy: “Not as good as Grand Budapest Hotel?”
Ruimy to HE: “Hell no.”
The scene in Cannes as the end-credits wrap following the world premiere of THE FRENCH DISPATCH, as Wes Anderson-y a movie as any… pic.twitter.com/qmShSnzqfc
— Scott Feinberg @ Cannes (@ScottFeinberg) July 12, 2021
HE to Ruimy: “Okay.”
Ruimy to HE: “[David] Ehrlich didn’t even like it.”
HE to Ruimy: “I was influenced by Peter Debruge‘s Variety rave…so he’s just capitulating to the underlying desire to praise films because it feels good or something?”
Ruimy to HE: “I think a lot of critics are doing that. Cannes ’21 is being celebrated as the reemergence of cinema. There’s a celebratory mood in the air here.”
HE to Ruimy: “So there are no real HOTTIES so far…not really. No big consensus films.”
Ruimy to HE: “Benedetta is too shocking for [some]. I guess Dispatch is the de facto Oscar movie here so far, but it’s very minor. The photography is stunning, but the anthology aspect of it does a major disservice to Anderson’s style. He works better with a large tableaux and a two-hour narrative.”
I’m sorry my Black Widow review is so late in arriving. I only saw it last night, and I’m not even sure I can write anything that won’t bore everyone silly. It opened last Friday and everyone has already moved on, and it was so dreadful to sit through…really. This morning Jordan Ruimy called Black Widow “unwatchable.” He’s not wrong.
It has, at least, a fairly obvious feminist metaphor. Black Widows are a worldwide network of ruthless female assassins, trained in a Russian-organized “red room” program run by Ray Winstone‘s “General Dreykov” with their minds totally controlled in some kind of zombie-ish fashion. The film’s basic focus is on a pair of Black Widow sisters — Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson) and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) — whose younger selves we first meet in a 1995 flashback prelude. But the key thing is the discovery of an antidote that can potentially free the Widow army from Dreykov’s chemical control and allow them to self-determine.
So that’s the basic MacGuffin — an elusive but sought-after antidote that allows an army of female warriors to throw off the yoke of male oppression. But of course, Black Widow is about a lot more than that central idea. Unfortunately.
I knew I would suffer through this godawful thing. I knew it would pound and narcotize me to death and suffocate what’s left of my soul, and boy, did it ever. It was serious formulaic torture, but I had to watch it, I felt, and in front of a big-ass screen with a suitably loud WHOMP-THROMP-EERURRP sound system. Once again I sat in the handicapped row, and before the 8 pm show began I was already weakened by 20 minutes of trailer pulp…idiot-level action movies designed to make you vomit and scream. And then, finally…
Directed by Cate Shortland and running 134 minutes, Black Widow begins quietly — that flashback sequence in suburban Ohio. A brief acquaintance with Russian undercover agents Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) and Melina Vostokoff (a digitally de-aged Rachel Weisz) and their “surrogate” daughters Natasha (Ever Anderson) and Yelena (Violet McGraw).
I was immediately intrigued by the 13 year-old Anderson, who has a much more interesting face (indications of emotional complexity, soulful eyes) than Johansson and Pugh combined. I was thinking to myself, “Okay, maybe…”
And then Black Widow loses its mind. The family is suddenly armed and loaded and on the run, being chased by weaponized bad guys (U.S. authorities?). They jump on a private plane…or three of them do while Harbour shoots it out — recklessly, absurdly — with the pursuers on the tarmac. Then he ridiculously leaps into the plane wing as he continues to fire, and of course no one gets hit with a bullet as the plane ascends into the darkness…right away I was muttering “this is so infuriating, so friggin’ stupid.”
Marvel is all formula, all pandering, all the time. Except for Avengers: Endgame, Ant Man and Joe Johnston‘s Captain America and maybe one or two others, Marvel films are almost always a gruesome experience. Aimed at American none-too-brights, Marvel films “charm” and “thrill” like hooded executioners. They oppress and suffocate the soul. Head-pounding aggression. Sardonic attitudes.
Poor Ray Winstone, I was thinking…stuck playing another Mr. Big goon. And what’s happened to poor William Hurt? He looks too thin, barely resembles himself.
My head was spinning, screaming. Can I take another 100 minutes of this shit?
