From Friendo #5: There actually is something of a history of foreign/international “TV movies” being released as theatrical features in the U.S. and then going on to Oscar success. I did some research on this a few years ago so here goes.

Ingmar Bergman did this several times (i.e. SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE, FANNY AND ALEXANDER), where a made-for-Swedish-TV “series” was cut down into an internationally released “theatrical” feature. Stephen Frears’ MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE was originally made for Channel 4 in the U.K., but was so acclaimed in its early festival appearances that it went on to garner a theatrical release even there (and, eventually, an Oscar nom for Best Original Screenplay). ENCHANTED APRIL was also made and released as a TV film in the UK but shown theatrically in other territories, and it wound up with three Oscar noms. And I’m sure there are more.

The catch, in all cases, is that these movies were released theatrically in the U.S. before they were shown on television or any other medium there (what happened internationally didn’t matter). The Academy has a longstanding rule about this. This year, the rule was supposed to be altered due to COVID. You were supposed to be able to qualify with a streaming-only release IF the movie in question was ORIGINALLY intended for theatrical release. The Academy then further modified those rules in October to state as follows:

“With the gradual re-opening of theaters, there are two methods of qualification for awards consideration in Best Picture and general entry categories through the remainder of the 93rd Academy Awards year (February 28, 2021):

“(1) Films which are intended for theatrical release, but are initially made available through commercial streaming, VOD service or other broadcast may qualify under these provisions; that the film be made available on the secure Academy Screening Room member site within 60 days of the film’s streaming/VOD release or broadcast; or that it meets all other eligibility requirements”

OR

“(2) Films that open in theaters in at least one of the six qualifying U.S. cities, depending on theater availability, may qualify under these provisions; that the film completes a qualifying run of at least seven consecutive days in the same commercial venue, during which period screenings must occur at least three times daily, with at least one screening beginning between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. daily; that it meets all other eligibility requirements; Six qualifying U.S. cities include: Los Angeles County; City of New York [Five Boroughs]; the Bay Area [counties of San Francisco, Marin, Alameda, San Mateo and Contra Costa]; Chicago [Cook County, Illinois]; Miami [Miami-Dade County, Florida]; and Atlanta [Fulton County, Georgia]; Drive-in theaters are included as a qualifying commercial venue in the above cities; an Academy Screening Room would be optional.”

Given that Amazon never intended the Small Axe McQueen movies for theatrical release AND failed to do a qualifying run as described above prior to (or on the same day as) launching the movies online, I really don’t see how the cat can be put back in the bag at this point. But perhaps Clayton Davis understands these rules differently.”

I’ve been reading for years about monogrammed Red River belt buckles. An elite few (director Howard Hawks, John Wayne, screenwriter Borden Chase, et. al.) received personalized belt buckles as keepsakes after the 1948 western (actually lensed in ’46) finished shooting. Nine years ago Michael Cieply wrote about the matter of three missing Red River belt buckles in the N.Y. Times.

I’ve always wanted to see or better yet hold one of these real-deal belt buckles, which are about 4 x 3 inches. Knowing that to be impossible and fool that I am, I decided earlier today to buy a poor man’s version of one of the originals. Yes, I know — too shiny and brightly colored, but I’m figuring I can lacquer or grime it up when it arrives.

One thing I’ve always loved about Hanoi (which I’ve visited three times) is that it has its very own Red River flowing just north of the city.

An allegedly original Red River belt buckle.

Piece-of-shit Tijuana border crossing version.

Knockoff of Howard Hawks’ (HWH) RR belt buckle.

The fourth and final appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show was taped on Saturday, 8.14.65. Rehearsals took place from 11 am to 2 pm, as the lads were unhappy with the initial sound balance; they tinkered until it was right. A dress rehearsal took place at 2.30 pm in front of a studio audience of 700. The show itself began recording at 8:30 pm.

The initial plan was for that episode to be color. That summer had been spent converting the studio into color, the goal being that the Beatles would be the stars of Ed’s first color episode. But tech issues interfered. Sullivan had no choice but to tape the show in black and white.

Sometime in the late morning or early afternoon of Saturday, 8.14.65.

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Selma Dell’Olio‘s Fellini of the Spirits will stream on 1.2.21 via the San Diego Italian Film Festival. The doc honors the 100th anniversary of Fellini’s birth — the 101st is less than 20 days off.

I’ve watched three movies on acid — Fellini Satyricon, Sidney Pollack‘s Castle Keep and William Wyler‘s Funny Girl. Talk about melted and mesmerized.

A friend and I watched Satyricon together. We didn’t talk back to the screen, didn’t trade notes, didn’t chuckle…just sat there like marble statues. But when it ended, we looked at each other for two or three seconds before erupting in gales of laughter. Joyful, ecstatic laughter…all those grotesque Fellini faces, the impressions spilling over, all the perversity and phantasmagoria, etc. It was glorious.

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Craig Brewer‘s Coming 2 America (Amazon, 3.5.21) seems to have more on its mind than just a cash grab by way of Zamunda wealth porn. I have this idea — call it a conviction — that Brewer (Dolomite Is My Name, Hustle & Flow) is a lot more than just an Eddie Murphy “house” director, and that he knows how to spin this kind of material. Great cast — Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Jermaine Fowler, KiKi Layne, Leslie Jones, Shari Headley, Tracy Morgan, Wesley Snipes, James Earl Jones, et. al.

In the last paragraph of his review of Ryan Murphy‘s The Prom, New Yorker critic Anthony Lane alludes to hinterland loathing of strident p.c. badgering, which we know was a factor that favored President Trump, particularly in the run-up to the 11.3 election.

My reaction to The Prom was mixed-positive. I was just as uncomfortable as Lane was about the

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as militant wokester instruction. And yet I melted toward the end because it plucked my parental heartstrings. Anyway…

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Three nights ago (Friday, 12.18), Orange Plague “discussed naming Sidney Powell, who as a lawyer for his campaign team unleashed conspiracy theories about a Venezuelan plot to rig voting machines in the United States, to be a special counsel overseeing an investigation of voter fraud, according to two people briefed on the discussion.” — from 12.19 N.Y. Times story by Maggie Haberman and Zolan Kanno-Youngs.

From Forbes‘ Nicholas Reimann: “On Thursday, [the pardoned] Michael Flynn said that Trump could deploy the military to swing states he lost to President-elect Joe Biden in order to “rerun” the presidential election.”

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Early this morning Variety‘s awards-handicapper Clayton Davis posted some thoughts about what pretty much everyone wants Amazon to do — i.e., enter Steve McQueen‘s Mangrove as a Best Picture contender and submit the other four as an Emmy award hopefuls. Because at 128 minutes, it happens to be 2020’s best feature-length drama.

Nobody will argue with a straight face that any of the other Small Axe films — Red White and Blue, Lovers Rock, Alex Wheatle and Education — have the horses to compete in the Best Picture race. But Mangrove (which I re-watched a night or two ago with Tatiana) clearly and obviously does. Everyone understands that McQueen is a masterful director working at the top of his game. Given the across-the-board praise for Mangrove, what Oscar strategist would insist that its proper place is with the Emmys?

Davis was responding, of course, to the LAFCA foodies yesterday giving the the entire Small Axe package their award for Best Picture.

As Davis notes, “Since LAFCA was established in 1975, no piece of art like McQueen’s has ever been awarded the top prize.” And no made-for-British-TV miniseries has ever been Oscar-nominated en masse. But this is a weird year, and there’s no clear dividing line between theatrical and streaming. There may be unmovable rulebook obstacles, but what a shame all around if so.

Davis has raised three questions — let’s cut to the chase.

1. Can Amazon make the pivot from Emmys to the Oscars?

Yes, if Amazon decides to. Davis: “Under the current guidelines, it looks as though Amazon would have to submit each of the five [Small Axe] films individually. A feature film only has to be at minimum 40 minutes, but that would mean McQueen would be competing against himself for five separate films. It’s hard enough to get AMPAS voters to choose between two films or performances released in the year by the same artist, and Amazon would have to build a consensus around one.” HE: Yes, they need to build a consensus around Mangrove.

2.. What was Small Axe intended for, and doesn’t that matter most?

No, it doesn’t matter. Small Axe was originally intended for British TV, yes, but things change. The pandemic has completely changed the rulebook. Mangrove began as one thing, and is now something else as a result of critical acclaim. It’s simply a matter of Amazon saying, “Okay, maybe the Mangrove fans have a point. Maybe we need to re-think and adapt rather than hold our ground, Alamo-style”

Davis: In January 2017, Variety reported that directors Joel Coen and Ethan Coen worked on their first-ever TV series with Annapurna Television. In August 2017, it was announced that Scruggs would debut on Netflix, and still, it was labeled as a ‘TV series.’ It wasn’t until July 2018, ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, that it was announced as a film and headed for the awards season. The film had six separate stories, with no narrative thread, with the film being named after the first segment. So is this just a marketing issue?”

3. Can you submit Small Axe as a single movie?

No — bad idea, can’t happen, won’t fly.

Nearly two years have passed since Peter Jackson announced his intention to make The Beatles: Get Back, a doc that draws from 55 hours of unused Let It Be footage that was originally shot by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. And yet, according to Jackson, he and his editors are only about half done. Covid interrupted everything, of course, but Jackson and his team couldn’t work remotely from home?

The forthcoming Disney release (due to stream on 8.27.21) will focus on the Twickenham Get Back sessions of very early ’69. Jackson has tried to convince prospective viewers that the Twickenham sessions were happy and jolly. Maybe they were in some respects. The clips in Jackson’s new teaser suggest that the Beatles, Billy Preston and George Martin were in good spirits (loose, playful), or at least when the cameras were on.

Jackson in January ’19: “The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us ensure this movie will be the ultimate ‘fly on the wall’ experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about. It’s like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together.”

Due respect but this sounds like hype and salesmanship. In no way, shape or form has the Let It Be album ever been “great.” The proof is always in the pudding, and anyone will tell you that the Beatles were obviously in a semi-shitty, dysfunctional place during the Let It Be sessions. Because — hello? — Let It Be is a mostly shitty (if randomly interesting) throwaway effort.

“Working on this project has been a joyous discovery,” Jackson has insisted. “I’ve been privileged to be a fly on the wall while the greatest band of all time works, plays and creates masterpieces. I’m thrilled that Disney has stepped up as our distributor. There’s no one better to have our movie seen by the greatest number of people.”

Any half-honest person will tell you that the Let It Be album is a sluggish, retro-lazy, downish, uninspired thing. Let It Be Naked has value, but the remixed Phil Spector version is arguably the worst album the Beatles ever issued.

The tracks are mostly underwhelming: “One After 909”, “Don’t Let Me Down”, “Dig a Pony”, “I’ve Got a Feeling”, “Get Back”, “Let It Be”, “I Me Mine,” “Two of Us”, “Maggie Mae”, “Dig It”, “The Long and Winding Road”…God! The only tracks I can stand are “For You Blue” and the original “Across the Universe.”

The Beatles got their mojo back, of course, when they recorded Abbey Road between March and August ’69. What I wouldn’t give for 55 hours of footage that covers that final period…one in which they seemingly created and performed as a band with a more or less unified spirit…or at least a simulated one with George Martin at the helm.

Or even better, how about a doc that covers their creative peak years in ’65, ’66 and ’67 — Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. Or one that covers that whole era of revolutionary change throughout the industry?

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The terrible plague of 2020 began last February and thereby launched the single worst year of our lives — a pandemic that will likely continue in a very real and suffocating sense for another four or six or (God help us) eight months or even (good God, please no) into the fall of ’21.

I just want it fully understood that there’s nothing the least bit funny about 2020. There can never be anything funny about 2020…ever ever ever. Not sardonically, bitterly, obliquely or ironically…2020 and the word “funny” will always be separated by vast oceans and deserts and mountain chains.

I thought I had it bad when I was a kid — little did I know. My despair and depression years began when I was six or thereabouts, or when I began attending Devil’s Island grade school. Junior and senior high were even worse.

Save for the fantasy release of TV and especially movies as well as books I actually wanted to read (Robert Benchley, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad) as opposed to ones I was forced to read in school, my life was a miserable gulag existence until I hit my early 20s, and even then it mildly sucked until I finally got going as a writer in my mid to late 20s.

The “happy” years, as they were, began sometime in the early ’80s, and then the kids came along in the late ’80s. And then the ’91 divorce and the in-and-out, up-and-down adventures of the ’90s, and then things dramatically improved when the column began in ’98, and then came the HE peak years — 2005 to 2017.

And then came the age of woke persecution and Khmer Rouge re-education, and the lugging of heavy sacks of salt and coal and trudging barefoot through the snow with nothing to keep me warm but the hot breath of the Cossacks.

Life will never be a walk in the park and will always be subject to the usual swings of luck and fate, but before last February I’d never begun to even imagine such profound feelings of stillborn lethargy and empty purgatory, such a paralyzing state of oddly levitating nothingness, as I came to know when the pandemic settled in big-time last March. My soul didn’t “die” exactly, but it stopped vibrating. Life, as I had known it for so many decades, stopped.

Nearly all of us feel the same way, I presume. What an awful draining thing to live through. Okay, not as bad as the Black Death that afflicted Europe for seven or eight years (1346 to 1353) but still…

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Steve McQueen‘s Small Axe has won LAFCA’s Best Picture prize, with Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland coming in second. Except Small Axe is not a film but a five-film miniseries made for British TV. What LAFCA really means is that some believe that the 128-minute Mangrove is the year’s finest feature, and others feel that the 68-minute Lovers Rock is the best.

In a perfect world Amazon would re-think their commitment to pushing Small Axe for Emmy awards, or at least separating Mangrove from the pack and pushing it for a Best Picture Oscar. They should definitely do this. There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind. Mangrove deserves the acclaim.