Late Thursday afternoon elite press and international distributors viewed the Weinstein Co. preview reel that unspools at the Cannes Film Festival every year. During pre-screening remarks honcho Harvey Weinstein indicated that Todd Haynes‘ Carol, the allegedly Brokeback Mountain-like, early-50s-era lesbian heartbreaker starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, may be the company’s hottest Oscar pony. Maybe. He also made a bold declaration about Southpaw star Jake Gyllenhaal being in line for a vigorous Best Actor campaign while lamenting that Jake should have been nominated last January for Nightcrawler. (Which is true — Jake totally deserved a nomination and had generated lots of heat but was edged out all the same.)
(l. to r.) Cannes Film Festival juror Jake Gyllenhaal, star of forthcoming Weinstein Co. release Southpaw; fellow juror Sienna Miller, costar of Weinstein Co’s Adam Jones; and Alicia Vikander, star of Weinstein Co’s Tulip Fever.
Weinstein stated that Southpaw had been selected for screening at Cannes, but it had to be withdrawn from competition after Gyllenhaal was announced as a jury member. Harvey also mentioned that a Southpaw screening will happen soon in Cannes but for buyers and not journalists
After the clip reel Gyllenhaal, Sienna Miller and Alicia Vikander came on stage and delivered some of the old soft sell. Miller is a costar of John Wells‘ Adam Jones (Weinstein Co., 10.2.15). Vikander is, of course, “Ava” in Ex Machina and the star of Justin Chadwick and Tom Stoppard‘s forthcoming Tulip Fever, which the Weinstein Co. has not decided when to release just yet.
Carol looks like a quality package, all right. This may sound weird coming from me but I admired the dated grainy look of it, due to Ed Lachman‘s having shot it in Super 16mm. Old-fashioned film grain is different than digital grainstorms, which are more specific and emphatic.
A producer friend tells me that Todd Haynes‘ Carol, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith‘s 1952 lesbian romance (i.e., initially published under a nom de plume and called “The Price of Salt“) is being called “the female Brokeback Mountain” by an industry crony or two and that “it’s going to get a lot of Oscar buzz early on.” She believes that Cate Blanchett, whose titular character endures most of the story’s heartache and anguish, will be a likely recipient for a Best Actress nomination. The drama will have its big debut next month at the Cannes Film Festival, and open in the fall, of course, with all the attendant Oscar hoopla. Harvey is back in the game!
Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett in Todd Haynes’ Carol, which some are allegedly calling a “female Brokeback Mountain.”
The Cannes reception will have a lot to do with it, of course, but if the script is as good as my friend claims Carol could well end up as a Best Picture contender, and Haynes, who’s been churning out a string of sublimely realized, indie-level films for many years (including the fascinating Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There), could benefit from Best Director chatter. It’s certainly conceivable that Rooney Mara, who plays Carol’s love interest Therese Belivet, might also lure some heat as a Best Supporting Actress contender. Maybe. I don’t know anything.
My pally read Phillis Nagy‘s script sometime back and “loved it. It’s Cate Blanchett’s next Oscar, or at least her next Best Actress nomination. I really think I’m going to be proved right on this one. It’s a great story of a woman in a cold, affluent, unhappy marriage who sleeps around with women and decides to seduce a young engaged shopgirl — and then falls hard for her.”
It’s commonly known that “The Price of Salt” was a kind of autobiographical novel by Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley). Producer pally: “Women just had to stay hidden in the closet back then and this was Highsmith’s love story.” Or one of them, at least.
Highsmith’s Wiki page notes that “The Price of Salt” was published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, and that “it garnered wide attention as a lesbian novel because of its rare happy ending. Highsmith didn’t publicly associate herself with this book until late in her life, probably because she had extensively mined her personal life for the book’s content.”
Principal photography on Carol began on 3.2.14 in Cincinnati and wrapped on 4.25.14.
Blanchett and Mara during Blanchett’s big night at the 2014 Santa Barbara Film Festival.
What possible reason would Lionsgate and Studio Canal have for putting out a new Bluray of Carol Reed‘s The Third Man if not to appeal to those who were turned off by Criterion’s grain-monk Bluray of this legendary 1949 film?
Joseph Cotten in Carol Reed’s The Third Man.
I realize that the Criterion version is out of print and all, but it only emerged 18 months ago (i.e., on 12.16.08) and I’m sure it was bought or at least sampled by most of the Reed freaks out there so it’s not like the market hasn’t been sated. So why else would this brand new Bluray be set for September release if someone wasn’t persuaded that numerous Bluray fanatics agree with my rants about Criterion’s grainstorm version?
Let’s hope that (a) the Lionsgate Studio Canal version is not going to be the same Criterion transfer and (b) that whoever re-masters it will use at least some restraint in finessing those hundreds of millions of sand pebbles that are currently smothering the faces and wardrobes of Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee, Wilfrid Hyde-White and the rest of that post-war Vienna gang. Not to mention those old Vienna locations and that ferris wheel and all those ants on the ground.
It seems that An American Carol director David Zucker is looking into a possible exhibitor conspiracy to switch tickets and pull other pranks in order to make it seem as if his film isn’t doing as well with ticket-buyers as it actually is. Not displaying Carol posters as prominently as they could be, misrepresenting the film’s rating (it’s PG-13, not R) , not giving it marquee space and so on.
“We have had heard” — the extra “had” is obviously a typo — “from numerous people across the country that there has been some ticket fraud when buying a ticket for An American Carol this past weekend,” says a special “fraud” page on the film’s official website.
“Please check your ticket,” the copy says. “If you were in fact one of those people that were ‘mistakenly’ sold a ticket for another movie please fill out the form below. Hold on to your ticket so we can have proof.
“If you have noticed other irregularities with the theatres in your area please let us know in the comment section below. For instance, Rated R film rating (when in fact we are rated PG-13), posters not being up, not being listed on the marquee, image or focus problems, sound issues, etc.”
The first ten minutes of David “Fredo” Zucker‘s An American Carol (opening today, not screened for critics) is viewable on the Moviefone site.
I’m a little embarassed to admit this, but I laughed three times at the Jack Benny-level Middle Eastern ethnic humor, even if the point is that (I’m going to use an appropriately crude term that fits the level of humor) terrorist towelheads are doofuses.
And while his performance may wear thin over 90 minutes, Robert Davi‘s terrorist is moderately funny — it may be the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever seen him do in a film. But when Davi calls out “Hussein!” and ten turbaned guys jump out behind rocks, are we supposed to think that Zucker didn’t throw this in as a dig at Barack Obama? It’s hard to believe he isn’t.
Here’s Frank Scheck‘s Hollywood Reporter review, out tdoay. The headline reads, “Proves once and for all that Democrats are simply funnier.”
Sir Carol Reed made three masterpieces in a row in the mid to late ’40s — The Fallen Idol, Odd Man Out and The Third Man And what does he win his Oscar for? Oliver (1968), a mediocre big-studio musical that seems a little less each time you reflect upon it. (Forwarded by reader Jeremy Fassler.)
HE’s 24-hour Manhattan sojourn included (a) a last-minute urge to attend a Friday afernoon press screening of Sasquatch Sunset, (b) a subsequent decision to bypass Sasquatch and stick to the original plan of catching a restored version of Claude Sautet‘s Classe tous risques (’60) at the Film Forum, (c) a realization that Sautet’s film, a somber, low-key depiction of a criminal sociopath (Lino Ventura) grappling with betrayal within a demimonde of old pals, is too talky for its own good, (d) a 7 pm Angelika press screening of Carol Doda Topless at the Condor, which was followed by a discussion session with co-directors Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker, and (e) the blustery, bone-chilling air causing a fair amount of discomfort and a firm conviction that the approach of spring really needs to get into gear.
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” — Victor Hugo
On 6.19.64, on the relatively small stage of the Condor Club in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, the wisdom of Hugo’s words came to pass. In this instance the idea was naked boob go-go dancing, and kudos to the woman who rode this sexually symbolic horse while launching, if you will, an act of revolutionary feminism or, if your view is less approving or charitable, a not-so-revolutionary submission to the male gaze.
The dancer was Carol Doda, 26, a not-especially-busty blonde from Vallejo who had been through a tough childhood and had worked as a cocktail waitress since she was 14 (way back in 1951) and had gradually become a Condor Club waitress and then dancer.
But the “idea”, technically, was “Big” Davy Rosenberg’s, the club’s publicist who had urged Doda to wear a Rudi Gernreich topless swimsuit — a monokini. Until this moment exposed nipples were a total nightclub no-no — nobody had ever done or seen this before.
The word got around and before ’64 was over and even before Barry Goldwater‘s Republican convention had begun at the Cow Palace in mid July…somehow an idea had gotten around that a new kind of cultural temblor was being felt in North Beach, and that the time for bouncing boobs had arrived, and with it the beginning of a new chapter in American life, at least as far as social and political mores were concerned.
Doda’s breasts were part of a whole big cultural turnover. So much seemed to happen, premonition- and trigger-wise, in ’64…the Beatles explosion, Another Side of Bob Dylan, Berkeley’s Free Speech movement, the tragic deception of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Dr. Strangelove, “freedom summer” and the murders of three civil rights activists — James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner — in Philadelphia, Mississippi…the year “the ’60s” kicked in.
Suffice that the ballsy spirit of the late, legendary Doda lives again in Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker‘s Carol Doda Topless at the Condor, which I saw last night at the Angelika on Houston.
It’s a reasonably decent watch (comprehensive, spunky, loads of clips and interview footage) and there’s no denying that Doda, who mainly just loved the spotlight and was looking to make a buck, deserves symbolic credit for being some kind of feminist mover and shaker.
But honestly? About halfway through this 100-minute doc I began to experience slight feelings of fatigue and disappointment.
For one thing it reminds you over and over that the North Beach culture of strip clubs wasn’t all that hip or deep. San Francisco began to develop of a fascinating subterranean stamp or signature in the late ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, a beatnik-hippie undercurrent that was transformative and radiant on a certain level. The storied City Lights bookstore was located only a block or two from the Condor Club, but spiritually these establishments lived on different planets. The guys who ran the Condor and other such establishments were all about low-rent hustling, titillation and gaudy razzle-dazzle, and after a while this starts to feel old.
I also found it curious that McKenzie and Parker chose to barely explore Doda’s first 20 years of life with any specificity. The film alludes to dysfunction, divorce, a mean mom, etc. It also reports that the emotionally wounded or shut-down Doda had two kids but doesn’t even discuss her apparent lack of interest in them, or their current identities or who their father was or any family particulars. Doda working as a cocktail waitress at age 14 (how did that happen?) obviously indicates tough terms and a generally unhealthy teenage existence. All kinds of questions arise but the filmmakers don’t go there for some reason. Odd.
Doda passed in 2015 at the age of 78. The weird stuff aside, HE’s respect and admiration are genuine.
I’ll soon be catching a 3.22 screening of Jonathan Parker and Marlo McKenzie‘s Carol Doda Topless At The Condor. Due respect to the life and legend of the late Carol Doda (i.e., the first-ever topless club dancer), but I’m mostly interested in the bizarre death of Condor Club manager Jimmy Ferrozzo. It happened right around Thanksgiving of 1983. The “beefy” 40-year-old Ferrozzo was crushed to death by a white, hydraulically-lifted piano while he was doing the deed with one of the club’s strippers, 23 year-old Theresa Hill.
HE wants Poor Things‘ Emma Stone to win the Best Actress Oscar on Sunday night, and if not Stone then Anatomy of a Fall‘s Sandra Huller…please.
I’m just looking forward to a day in which identity won’t count for that much in Oscar voting. If you dip into your soul and bring the stuff that matters, then you’re eligible to be nominated and perhaps even likely to win. Quality, quality, quality of delivery.
Academy members voting to reject commonplace prejudice or blanket dismissals in decades or centuries past is primarily about them and not the actor or performance in question. Wokesters have been playing this trendy little game for six or seven years now, and it’s time to shut it down.
When the day comes that quality is valued more than equity or virtue-signalling, actors like Lily Gladstone will have to sink or swim based on their own chops, instincts and abilities…whether or not they can bring the necessary craft, depth and soul…a performance constructed from deep within or not at all.
Does anyone think that Da’Vine Joy Randolph‘s locked-in Best Supporting Actress win has anything whatsoever to do with identity? Okay, maybe a little but she’s been winning all season long because of how good she is in Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers…period. I knew she was a slam-dunk Oscar nominee a half-hour after the film had begun screening in Telluride’s Werner Herzog theatre. I leaned over and muttered this to Sasha Stone.
Does anyone think that May December‘s Charles Melton was an early Best Supporting Actor favorite because he rode an identity horse (South Korean lineage + being a symbolic stand-in for underaged victims of sexual assault)? You’d better believe it, and thank God that nag gave out on him.
Does anyone believe that Sayonara‘s Miyoshi Umeki won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar over identity, way the hell back in 1958? She won because she played a selfless, devotional wife who died (along with Air Force husband Red Buttons**) due to racial prejudice. Plus her performance was significantly more affecting than the ones given by Carolyn Jones (The Bachelor Party), Elsa Lanchester (Witness for the Prosecution), Hope Lange (Peyton Place) and Diane Varsi (Peyton Place).
I realize that Gladstone’s identity campaign has stirred a sizable army of woke gladhanders and that the odds favor her winning, but this shit has to stop. It really does.
From Brian Rowe‘s “Five Reasons Why Emma Stone will still win Best Actress for Poor Things“, a Gold Derby articled dated 3.8.24.
Posted by World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy on 3.6.24: “Can Gladstone win the Oscar despite not being nominated by BAFTA and her role being a supporting turn? She appears in less than 1/3 of Killers runtime (56 minutes), whereas Stone is practically in every scene of Poor Things. If Gladstone had been campaigned in the Supporting category then she’d already have that Oscar in the bag.”
** Buttons’ performance resulted in a Best Supporting Actor win.
In HE’s judgment, 25 exceptional, high-quality films were released in 1959. (There were another 9 or 10 that were good, decent, not bad.) By today’s standards, here’s how the top 25 rank:
1. Billy Wlder‘s Some Like It Hot (released on 3.29.59)
2. Alfred Hitchcock‘s North by Northwest (released on 7.1.59)
3. John Ford‘s The Horse Soldiers (released on 6.12.59)
4. George Stevens‘ The Diary of Anne Frank (released 3.18.59)
5. Stanley Kramer‘s On The Beach (released on 12.17.59)
6. William Wyler‘s Ben-Hur (released on 11.18.59)
7. Alain Resnais‘s Hiroshima, Mon Amour (released in France on 6.10.59)
8. Lewis Milestone‘s Pork Chop Hill (released on 5.29.59)
9. Otto Preminger‘s Anatomy of a Murder (released on 7.2.59)
10. Francois Truffaut‘s The 400 Blows (released in France on 5.4.59)
11. Howard Hawks‘ Rio Bravo (released on 4.4.59)
12. Sidney Lumet‘s The Fugitive Kind (released on 4.14.59)
13. Tony Richardson‘s Look Back in Anger (released on 9.15.59)
14. Grigory Chukhray‘s Ballad of a Soldier (released on 12.1.59)
15. Robert Bresson‘s Pickpocket (released on 12.16.59)
16. Robert Wise‘s Odds Against Tomorrow (released on 10.15.59)
17. Delbert Mann‘s Middle of the Night (released on 6.17.59)
18. Robert Stevenson‘s Darby O’Gill and the Little People (released on 6.26.59)
19. Fred Zinnemann‘s The Nun’s Story (released on 6.18.59)
20. Guy Hamilton‘s The Devil’s Disciple (released on 8.20.59)
21. Roger Vadim‘s Les Liaisons Dangereuses (released on 9.9.59)
22. Richard Fleischer‘s Compulsion (released on 4.1.59)
23. Val Guest‘s Expresso Bongo (released on 12.11.59)
24. Carol Reed‘s Our Man in Havana (released in England on 12.30.59 / stateside on 1.27.60)
25. J. Lee Thompson‘s Tiger Bay (released in March 1959)
Bonus:
Charles Barton‘s The Shaggy Dog (released on 3.19.59).
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