Bourdain’s Song

by

Morgan Neville‘s Roadrunner, a doc about the late Anthony Bourdain, will open in theatres on 7.16. The world premiere happens on June 11 at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Posted on 6.8.18: “I am stunned and appalled that Anthony Bourdain, a sensualist and an adventurer whom I admired like few others, a guy who adored sitting on a plastic stool and eating Bun Cha in Hanoi as well as scootering through rural Vietnam as much I have, a late bloomer who’d lived a druggy, dissolute life in the ’70s and ’80s but had built himself into great shape and had led a rich and robust life in so many respects…I am absolutely floored that Bourdain has done himself in.

“Bourdain was right at the top of my spitball list of famous fellows who would never, ever kill themselves because he seemed so imbued with the sensual joy of living, who had found so much happiness and fulfillment in so many foods and kitchens, in so many sights and sounds and aromas and atmospheres, travelling and roaming around 250 days per year and inhaling the seismic wonder of it all.

“Bourdain apparently suffered from depression, or so it’s being said this morning. He was 61, and by all indications was at the absolute peak of his personal journey. Like me, Bourdain’s life didn’t really take off until the late ’90s, when he was in his early 40s. But when everything finally fell into place and he became famous and semi-wealthy, he seemed to revel in the feast but without losing his head. He always kept his sanity and sense of modesty.

“In a perfect world Donald Trump would hang himself in his White House bedroom and Bourdain would go on living and travelling and taping episodes of Parts Unknown until he was 98 and perhaps beyond.

Read more

Mitigated Cannes

by

Hollywood Elsewhere is cool with not attending the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Okay, I can’t afford it this year but I probably wouldn’t be going anyway if I was flush. Even for fully-vaxed, all-but-bulletproof types like myself the pandemic situation still seems a bit dicey and sketchy. For myself and many others, the only 2021 festival that will really count is Telluride, and I for one can’t wait for that puppy.

Other than Leos Carax‘s Annette, Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch, Asghar Farhadi‘s A Hero, Paul Verhoeven‘s Benedetta, Mia Hansen-Løve‘s Bergman Island, Sean Penn‘s Flag Day and Tom McCarthy‘s out-of-competition Stillwater, which will surface stateside before long, the only Cannes title I’m a little bit sorry about missing the debut of is Sean Baker‘s Red Rocket, a Vancouver-set drama about a porn star attempting to reconnect with his estranged family.

Cannes will debut four promising-sound docs — Oliver Stone’s JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, Todd Haynes‘ Velvet Underground, Charlotte Gainsbourg‘s Jane by Birkin and Val, a career-recapping portrait of Val Kilmer. All will pop through soon enough.

I realize this reads like an overly brief assessment, but the Cannes voltage is low this year…face it. The pandemic timetable was stacked against it.

Roaring Dominance

by

No comment about Amazon’s $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM, which has been a nothing brand for decades. Nor was I particularly stirred by Cynthia Littleton’s assessment of the situation. All I care about is whether or not we’ll soon be hearing the Trump tapes that MGM TV honcho Mark Burnett has been sitting on since ’16 or thereabouts. The rest of the questions will sort themselves out.

What I’m most impressed by right now is the Jeff Bezos roaring lion art by Variety‘s Cheyne Gateley.

Battling Bickersons

by

Hollywood Elsewhere is unhappy with Angelina Jolie being unhappy with a court’s recent decision to temporarily award Brad Pitt joint custody of their children, according to reporting by Us magazine’s Eliza Thompson.

The 45-year-old star of Those Who Wish Me Dead and the forthcoming The Eternals is “bitterly disappointed” after Judge John Ouderkirk ruled in favor of her ex-husband, 57, earlier this month. The former couple — engaged in 2012, married in 2014, separated since September 2016 — have been fighting over custody of their six kids for nearly five damn years.

Jolie “will never forgive” Pitt over this, a source has told Thompson. The source claims that Jolie will use “everything she’s got” to appeal the arrangement. “She maintains it’s far from over and still believes that justice will prevail.”

Who fights custody particulars year after year after year? I’ve been divorced with young kids hanging in the balance. The best thing is to think of the kids’ emotional interests, period. Whatever your nagging arguments may be against your ex, you let it go.

Jolie, who lives high on the hog with the kids in her Los Feliz mansion, reportedly wants Pitt to cough up more in the way of child support. They’re both multi-millionaires, and the kids have obviously been living lives of lavish privilege all along. On top of which they’re almost certainly all wokesters.

Podcast Slutshaming? Either Way Men Are Dogs

by

From Judith Newman’s 5.18.21 N.Y. Times review of Nancy Jo Sales‘ “NOTHING PERSONAL: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno“:

“In less plague-y times, I loved taking in a midnight horror movie in Times Square. It’s great to be in a community of like-minded people shouting advice to imperiled B actors onscreen: Do NOT go into that basement. Unfortunately, reading Nancy Jo Sales’s latest, a fascinating but harrowing account of our relationship to dating apps, does not offer the same pleasure.

“Because this is real life — and worse, this is the author’s real life. I’ve just spent four hours staring at my Kindle, murmuring to no one in particular: Nancy, don’t text him, Nancy, honey, don’t do it, be strong, resist this one time, Nancy…NOOOOOOO.

“’Nothing Personal,’ which is very very personal, explores what Sales calls ‘the corporate takeover of dating.’ Apps like Tinder, Grindr, Bumble and OKCupid have facilitated or exploited (depending on how you look at it) the most basic of human needs: the desire to connect.

“Or do they? Because that is the startling premise of this book: that apps are actually designed to keep us hooked, and hooking up, while preventing us from finding lasting love. The swiping, the likes, the pressure to have sex combined with the pressure not to appear needy — all are making us unhappy. This buffet of humanity spread out on our little screens is precisely what dehumanizes us: Even when we’re full, we keep eating.”

Does Exhibition Believe In Good Movies?

by

HE is attending Cinemacon 2021 (8.23 — 8.26) for sentimental-emotional reasons, whichever matters most.

Because my investment in the theatrical experience, which has been my spiritual lifeblood since I was 5 or 6, has never before felt so shaky or tentative, and I want to somehow support the continuation of exhibition along with the idea of movie theatres as spiritual churches in any way I can, despite the ironic fact that the exhibition industry long ago abandoned the spiritual element.

I’ve attended three or four Cinemacon gatherings in Las Vegas, and they always remind you of what exhibitors value — not the spiritual or transporting nectar of great moviemaking, but the lowest common-denominator-animal stimuli…the slam-wham-BAM-THROMP-CHONK-CHUNK-KAPOW-SPLAT popcorn jizz-whiz distractions that are mother’s milk for the ADD-afflicted.

Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson: “Five major studios will be at CinemaCon ’21: Warner Bros. Discovery, Universal and Focus, Disney with Marvel and Lucasfilm, Paramount, and Sony. Lionsgate will also be present, as well as the pending Amazon acquisition MGM/UA.

“On the docket: Showing love to the exhibitors beat up by pandemic shut-downs — and in some cases, the studio’s own screening policies.

“While the studios [have] held back their most commercial titles for theaters, it’s a starkly different summer landscape. Memorial Day had a hit with A Quiet Place Part 2 (Paramount), which will be followed by overseas smash F9 (Universal). Meanwhile, Disney’s recent opener Cruella, like Black Widow and Jungle Cruise, is available day and date to Disney+ subscribers for an additional charge. This is the tough reality exhibitors must swallow.”

Let me explain something very clearly so there’s no misunderstanding. A Quiet Place 2 is a decently made (if less than riveting or necessary-feeling) sequel, but the promotional signals from the others all spell high-gloss CG formulaic d-o-g-s-h-i-t.

Hot Fun, Baking Sand

by

I’d join Tatiana under the gazebo pier, a perfect shaded haven from the bright Belizean sunshine with a soothing view of the Caribbean, but I’m too busy posting about Cinemacon 2021, General Flynn and Marilyn Monroe‘s visit to Korea in February 1954. Later.

I’ve posted a shot of my yellow surfer trunks to prove that I’m not Clark Griswold on the beach, but I absolutely, categorically refuse to pose in said trunks. And no fucking flip-flops ever…ever.

We’ll be hopping on the bikes for a visit to Chief Kareem’s unBelizean lunch stand around noon or 12:30 pm.

Oh, and by the way — we’ve just been told of a new Guatamelan ordinance that says auto rentals aren’t allowed into Guatamela and that tourists may only enter on a bus, so there goes Tikal. Stay loose, re-think it, improvise.

Read more

Monroe in Korea

by

Until this morning in Caye Caulker, sitting before a fan in our little teal and mustard-colored cabana, I had never read Liesel Banner’s detailed account of Marilyn Monroe’s four-day visit to Korea in February 1954. Nicely written, well researched. It was posted on history.net in the winter of 2020, whatever that actually means.

Yes, the Korean armistice had been signed in July 1953 but there were still tens of thousands of U.S. troops policing the situation and (be honest) getting loaded on 3.2 beer and visiting brothels. 36,000 Americans died in action in Korea; more than 100,000 were wounded.

Excerpt: “Monroe’s tour in Korea had been an unqualified success, even though she came down with a bad case of bronchial pneumonia from her exposure to the icy conditions there.

“Those four carefree days not only lifted the spirits of the thousands of homesick young soldiers who saw her but also gave Monroe the genuine outpouring of love she had always craved. Her one-woman performances revealed her true talents and warm personality. ‘I never really felt like a star,’ she told her acting coach, Lotte Goslar, after she returned to the States. ‘Not really, not in my heart. I felt like one in Korea. It was so wonderful to look down and see all those young fellows smiling up at me. It made me feel wanted.”

Read more