Will you look at the guy (i.e., Josh Safdie) on the left? His eyes in particular and that Three Stooges Curly Joe nyuk-nyuk goofball expression? One glance tells you why Uncut Gems is the film that it is. One glance tells you Josh is emotionally and psychologically incapable of making a film that isn’t push push crazy-fuck pedal to the metal hyper somersault manic…yeaagghhhhh! Benny (beardless, two years younger) is presumably the more moderate and political personality between them, but together they form a single rollicking aesthetic, a single hormonal urgency…fast on the draw, never slow down, never calm down, drive Hollywood Elsewhere up the wall. They’re in their mid 30s. They might start making interesting films when they hit their 50s. It’s going to take at least 15 or 20 years for these guys to settle down. They have a brand now, and so many enablers. There’s no turning back.

I’ll tell you right now that the flaming bowling-ball metaphor doesn’t work. It looks Ed Wood-y.

Until last summer I hadn’t realized that John Turturro’s remake of Bertrand Blier‘s Going Places (’74) and The Jesus Rolls (Screen Media, 2.28) are one and the same. Screen Media will distribute Turturro’s three-year-old film (which has no real connection to The Big Lebowski) late next month.

Great title, but I’ve never understood how a flick about an older trio of “sexually depraved misfits” (played by Turturro, Bobby Cannavale and Audrey Tautou) could work. The French-made original was about reckless youth frolicking in counter-culture upheaval — a couple of amoral hooligans (Gerard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere) and the various adventures that befall them.

Substitute these guys with 40something actors in the 21st Century and it’s…I don’t know what but on some level it feels out of time. Especially with today’s #MeToo scrutiny. Pic costars Pete Davidson, Jon Hamm. Susan Sarandon (in the Jeanne Moreau role) and Sonia Braga.

You want it straight? Turturro, Cannavale and Tatou are simply too old to play Depardieu, Dewaere and Miou Miou. You have to be in your teens or 20s to play careless roustabouts. You can’t even get away with this kind of thing in your 30s.

Film critic pally: “This would seem to fit into your cultural Khmer Rouge narrative.”
HE: “In dumb person language, can you explain what this is about? Because I don’t get it. American Dirt is a sympathetic saga of an educated, middle-class Mexican mother and her son fleeing for their lives after her journalist husband has been murdered by a drug cartel. So what’s the rumpus?”
Film critic pally: “The Dirt haters are lefties who are accusing the book of cultural appropriation, and of basically using torture porn to dramatize the immigrant crisis. They are also objecting to the author, who, despite having a Puerto Rican grandmother, is a white woman by most classifications, and therefore, in some minds, incapable of grasping the nuances of the situation.”
HE: “Okay, check.”

“Citing ‘Peril,’ Flatiron Cancels ‘American Dirt’ Tour, Apologizes for ‘Serious Mistakes’“, posted by Claire Kirch for Publishers Weekly on 1.29.20:

“Flatiron Books, publisher of American Dirt, the much-hyped novel about a Mexican mother and her son trying to make their way to the U.S. to escape a drug cartel, announced today that it is canceling the rest of the 40-city national tour by the book’s author, Jeanine Cummins, which launched in Washington, D.C., on January 22.

“Cummins made only five stops, the last one on Saturday evening, before the tour was officially ended today. Besides Washington, D.C., the tour had already stopped in New York City, Boston, Madison, Conn. and Nashville.

“In a prepared statement announcing the tour’s cancelation, Bob Miller, Flatiron’s publisher, disclosed that the remainder of the tour was canceled due to ‘specific threats to booksellers and the author’ which in some cases included ‘threats of physical violence.’ Miller added that ‘we believe there exists real peril to their safety.'”

It hit me today that there are probably millions of Millennials and Zoomers who don’t know (or care) anything about who former Georgia governor Lester Maddox was or the origin of Randy Newman‘s “Rednecks.” Well, here’s a primer.

N.Y. Times, 12.19.70: “In a huff, Gov. Lester Maddox of Georgia walked out of a taping of the Dick Cavett Show last night after demanding that [Cavett] apologize for a remark about Maddox’s white supporters.

“Cavett was paraphrasing a question asked during a break in the show by Jim Brown, the black actor, who wanted to know if Governor Maddox had ‘any trouble with the white bigots because of all the things you did for blacks.’ On the air, Mr. Cavett substituted ‘admirers’ for ‘bigots.’

[HE interjection: Maddox’s rep was that of a staunch segregationist — there was absolutely no ambiguity about this.]

The Governor, saying the implication was that his supporters were bigots, demanded an apology.

“’If I called any of your admirers bigots who are not bigots, I apologize,’ Cavett said.

“Maddox rose and, after another exchange, left the stage with 10 minutes of the program remaining.”

“Dee Rees‘ adaptation of Joan Didion‘s novel is an incomprehensible slog that serves as an embarrassment for everyone involved.” — Collider‘s Matt Goldberg, filed on 1.28.

“An incoherent mess of the highest order. Rees is in over her head here with her narrative. Is it her fault? Not entirely. Some of the tracking shots she produces in this film are fantastic. No, the film’s flaws have actually more to do with the screenplay and editing, which isolate the viewer in trying to follow the Byzantine plot. The Last Thing He Wanted will be quickly forgotten after it premieres on Netflix February 3rd.” — World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy, ditto.

There are dozens of things to hate or feel irked by in this Birds of Prey trailer, but my principal objection is to Margot Robbie‘s extra-arch, super-meta, over-considered performing style. The tone of Cathy Yan’s film, “the first DCEU film and the second DC Films production to be rated R”, is obviously at odds with the downbeat noirish impressionism in Joker. Costarring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong and Ewan McGregor. Opens eight days hence, just around the corner.

Bernie Sanders’ recent poll surges have me worried and thinking something I never thought I’d admit to myself, much less post in this column. I’m deathly afraid of what might happen if the devotional blues, Bernie Bros and under-30s manage to enable Bernie to capture the Democratic nomination. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this but for all his gaffes, droolings, weaknesses and vulnerabilities I want Joe Biden to beat Bernie.

And I really don’t feel much enthusiasm for Joe. Does anyone?

I realize that my favorite guy, Pete Buttigieg, is done, but I’m furious that the race has come down to this. Neither of these geezers has that magic-wandy current. People don’t want a crusty Democratic socialist trying (and almost certainly failing) to push through Medicare For All — they just want a return to sanity and normality. Buttigieg could be that “normal” but he’s been gored so many times by African Americans and the progressive left that it’s a miracle he’s still standing.

I agree with Bernie for the most part. People want change. I would love to see this country turn into Finland. But I’m terrified of what’s happening now.

From “Democrats court doom by backing Bernie Sanders,” a 1./29 USA Today piece by Matt Bennett and Lanae Erickson:

Subhead: “[Sanders’] ideas are toxic outside blue America. He’s never won anything that really matters outside of Vermont, and all the available data shows his brand is a flop in red and purple states.

Excerpt: “Sanders has never won anything that really matters outside of Vermont, and all the available data shows that his ideas are politically toxic. Yet a week before primary voting begins, he is surging in Iowa, New Hampshire and California.

“Democrats now face a monumental choice. Deciding which presidential candidate should go head to head with Donald Trump is the paramount political calculation of our lifetimes.

“In the past, when Sanders has declared himself and his ideas to be ‘winners’ in red and purple areas, it has turned out to be demonstrably false. Democrats must not be fooled by him now.

Plus: “Don’t ignore reality: Democrats need to face facts about Bernie Sanders, his heart attack and his health.”

Rightwing outrage has gone viral about yesterday’s briefly hilarious CNN discussion between Don Lemon, Majahat Ali and Republican strategist and author Rick Wilson, which I also linked to yesterday.

Earth to rightwing asshats: Your stupid, self-destructive, bull-headed support of a sociopathic authoritarian crime-family president does confirm (or at the very least strongly signifies) an embrace of ignorance, idiocy and negative anti-urban, anti-awareness tribalism. You’re not wrong to loathe the politically correct Stalinist left but otherwise there is such a thing as bumblefuckery.

Yes, I’m confessing to somehow not paying sufficient attention to the ever-evolving, shape-shifting American vocabulary and thereby missing the emergence of “zoomer,” which is a much better term for GenZ-ers than GenZ. Freshly coined terms are almost always alive and pulsing before the Merriam Webster researchers get hold of them, but the following MW update was only posted six days ago. It also claims that “zoomer” dates back to 2016 so double my fine.

A 1.29 N.Y. Times report by Alison Krueger ranks high among the most synthetic capturings of the gutted spirit of the Sundance Film Festival. Over the last 30 years, I mean. Read it and gasp.

Krueger’s verse is about the profound emotional satisfaction that comes from wearing an exclusive Sundance ’20 limited edition “puffer” jacket. Manufactured by Canada Goose and worth roughly…oh, $850 or thereabouts, the gray-colored, Sundance-logo’ed jackets have been handed out to 400 directors and judges.

Krueger: “These filmmaker jackets are Sundance’s version of the Allen & Co. Sun Valley fleece, or the high school varsity jacket: a special badge of in-dom and status that advertises the wearer as part of a privileged group.

photo from Emily Pfeffer via Canada Goose and N.Y. Times.

“[It] turns out successful adults are as susceptible to the allure of free merchandise and what it signifies as any of us.

“’I am starting to see people who have one, and I know they are in the gang,’ said Erica Tremblay, a filmmaker who focuses on indigenous films. “I love being part of the group. We all understand what it took to get here and get the jacket.'”

All right, that’s it — Erica Tremblay‘s cred as a respected nativist filmmaker and documentarian lies in tatters. From here on when I hear her name I’m going to say “the salivating, in-crowd Sundance puffer woman?”

If I were in Park City right now I would be swollen with pride over the fact that I’m not wearing anything that even resembles a Sundance puffer. I would stride around town and ride the shuttle buses in my bulky leather motorcycle jacket atop an under-jacket with a big-ass scarf, black leather gloves and my black cowboy hat, and this outfit would essentially say…well, I’ve said it.

“Perhaps a poor, ill-favored thing, but mine own.” — William Shakespeare, “As You Like It.”

photo from Emily Pfeffer via Canada Goose and N.Y. Times.

“Quentin Tarantino’s best, bravest and most confrontationally impudent movie since Pulp Fiction.” — Nigel Andrews, Financial Times.

“I could boil it all down and simply call the last half-hour a ‘happy’ ending, but it’s something more than that. I have my tastes and standards and you all have yours, but by the measuring stick of Hollywood Elsewhere the finale is really, really great. As in laugh-out-loud, hard-thigh-slap, whoo-whoo satisfying. Do I dare use the term good-vibey? And the very end (as in the last two minutes) is…naahh, that’ll do.” — from “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood Is…”, posted from Cannes on 5.21.19.

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the work of a middle-aged director, one who looks back by looking forward, and who eschews the familiar for the new.” — Kirk Beard, Toronto Blade.

SPECIAL HE ADVERTORIAL:

“A compassionate Hollywood fable of yesteryear…a comfort flick for bruhs who buy Blurays at Amoeba after catching a show at the Hollywood Arclight.” — Joe Popcorn.

“Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt deliver the most emotionally vulnerable performances of their careers as soon-to-be has-beens in 1969 Hollywood” — Dare Daniel.

“If Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood winds up taking the Best Picture Oscar on 2.9.20, it’ll be for a simple, sensible reason. Everybody likes it. I haven’t spoken to anyone who’s had anything negative to say about it. Not the slightest, most insignificant thing…zip. I shared a few mild gripes after catching it during last May’s Cannes Film Festival, but they’ve all pretty much evaporated. I’ve seen it three or four times since. I’ve become a follower.” — from”Tarantino’s Oscar Moment Is Nigh,” posted on 1.1.20.

Go to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and ask yourself, “Who am I? What am I? Am I a person of passion and conviction — a heartfelt Movie Catholic whose life has meaning because of the industry I love and work for — or am I just a go-alonger whose primary longing in life is to swim with the other fishies and thereby feel safe and secure?”