Should have put this up earlier today. Speaks for itself. Newman the Great.
Monthly Archives: September 2008
Best 9.30 Line
“This looks to be the Citizen Kane of Gen-X marital strife porn.” — HE reader James O. Incandenza wildly speculating about Sam Mendes‘ Revolutionary Road.
Read More »A New Beginning
Kim Voynar, late of Cinematical, has signed up with Movie City News as a writer-columnist-editor. Everything Voynar thinks, does, feels, believes in, dreams about, eats, breathes, longs for politically, wants to say and is looking to make happen is henceforth owned by MCN — lock, stock and barrel.
Read More »Props for Elsa
“Loved you writing about Kristin Scott Thomas, I’ve Loved You So Long and her Best Actress shot,” writes HE reader and Santa Barbara Film Festival director Roger Durling. “[But] how come there’s no love for Elsa Zylberstein, a Best Supporting Actress nominee if I ever saw one? Zylberstein is quite a terrific foil to Thomas. It’s through her eyes that we embrace Thomas’ character and stick with her. If this soulful sibling is willing to shelter and care for her, so are we. All the doubts the audience has about Thomas, Elsa believably faces and deals with, and finally she takes us where we dare not go. I think credit is due.”
Read More »Cut Down to Size
I don’t know who wrote this originally, but the spirit and the
attitude are quite likable. And it makes sense to impose such terms
in any Wall Street bailout deal. Thanks to HE reader
Brendan for passing this along:
“Dear Wall Street,
“I’m speaking on behalf of a group called The Taxpayers of the
United States. Now that we’ve rejected the first bailout plan, I’m
sure that in the spirit of tough, free market capitalism and
spirited negotiations, you’ll consider our second offer. Here are
some terms that we trust you’ll find reasonable:
“(1) We are willing to loan you money at a very low, introductory
rate of 8.9%. If you are even one nanosecond late on your payment,
your rate will go from 8.9% to 32.9% — instantly. You will have
no right to appeal this. The interest rate
increase will be retroactive. And none of this ‘but I mailed it out
Friday’ stuff. We...
Back and Forth
“I’m hearing schmaltzy,” a guy told me this morning about Joe Wright‘s The Soloist. That’s all you can share? I wrote back. How schmaltzy? Does it manifest right away, or does it…you know, hold off until Act Two or Three or what? I’m sensing a certain actorishness from Jamie Foxxin the trailer — is that a problem? Don’t tell me Robert Downey, Jr. isn’t good in this because Downey is on a roll and can’t fail.
Read More »Attitude Glow
Jonathan Demme‘s Rachel Getting Married (Sony Classics, 10.3) “is endlessly sociable, with people crowding the camera as if in a documentary, yet sometimes you want that camera to draw back and watch them from a distance — to see how they mill around in the frame rather than shifting the frame itself.

“The wedding party is the ultimate guide to Demme’s
benign vision: the groom is black, the bride is white, she
and her bridesmaids are dressed in saris, nobody so much as
mentions race, and the officiating priest is played by
Demme’s cousin, Father Robert Castle, about whom
he made a fine film, Cousin Bobby, in 1992. I
“I don’t know if there were any Republican voters involved in this
movie, but, if so, it...
Scary Scary
The New Yorker‘s Ben Greenman has
listed his five scariest movies of all time — Jonathan
Demme‘s Silence of the Lambs, Charles
Laughton‘s The Night of the Hunter, Wes Craven’s
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Robert
Wise‘s The Body Snatcher and David
Lynch‘s Mulholland Drive.
These are all gripping portraits of inferno worlds, but big-time
scary is always about triggering repressed fears with what you
don’t show — with what you set loose in people’s souls by
implying the presence of demons.
There was a time when I thought that Wise’s The Haunting
(’63), which shows nothing, was perhaps the scariest of all time.
I’m not sure now. When I was a kid I used to...
Hee-Haw
According to polling data on Yahoo Dashboard, Utah voters prefer John McCain to Barack Obama by 62.7 to 23.3. Red staters believe what they believe and their boots are dug in, but what’s up with that lopsided margin? Utah’s McCain support is much stronger than it is in states known for their adamant shitkicker sensibilities (Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky). Oklahoma is another fierce red state — McCain over Obama, 61.3 to 29.3. What do these guys sprinkle on their eggs every morning?
Read More »Devolution
NBC’s Tom Brokaw is sounding more and more like
a cautious milquetoast place-holder with an excessively
deferential, go-along attitude. Good old avuncular, seen-it-all
Tom, nostalgic sentimentalist and author of “The Greatest
Generation.” But where is the honor in lobbying to put a lid on two
respected MSNBC colleagues (Keith Olbermann, Chris
Matthews) who have a passion for cutting through the bull,
and in accomodating the disreputable liars and smoke-blowers in the
McCain campaign?
Two days ago Brokaw (a) reportedly cited
false disparaging poll data about Barack Obama, (b) recently
conducted some
shuttle diplomacy between NBC and the McCain campaign, seeking
to assure the candidate’s aides that...
Say You Want It
This high-def version of the new trailer for Sam Mendes‘ Revolutionary Road (Paramount Vantage, 12.26) tells you pretty much what the film is without the particulars or the last two beats. Miserable, lost and sinking in surburbia. Richard Yates, John Cheever, John Updike, etc.

I understand the whole flight-to-the-suburbs mentality of the ’50s as well as the female nesting instinct, but why would Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Frank Wheeler, a guy who says he loves Paris because “the people are...
Read More »Tiny Dancers
“A filthy-rich fantasy for these cash-strapped
times, Beverly Hills Chihuahua features the voices of
Drew Barrymore and much of the industry’s top
Latino talent in a live-action talking-dog lark that should please
young pups. At the same time, it peddles tacky
stereotypes in thick Hispanic accents, effectively ceding
whatever dignity the breed regained since the ‘Yo quiero Taco Bell’
campaign went off the air. One thing’s for sure: The Mouse House
will realize a fine balance of trade on this one.” — from
Peter DeBruge‘s
9.29 Variety review.
Comfort Zones
The map on the Yahoo Political Dashboard has the most accessible state-by-state poll numbers, and I’m pleased, naturally, with the electoral vote projections favoring Obama over McCain, 278 to 227. But I’ve come to expect greater comfort and assurance from the guys at fivethirtyeight.com. They have Ohio and Virginia as lean Obama states, and an electoral vote projection of 329 to 208. Why the discrepancy? Split the two and Obama is projected to win just over 300 to McCain’s 217.
Friend from High School
Another Jamie Stuart short about the New York Film Festival has been posted on the Filmmaker website. Per custom it hasn’t much to do with the Lincoln Center happenings. It’s another dry surreal thing. The term that comes to mind is “Bunuelian wackjob.” It contains a clip of Che director Steven Soderbergh defining what a political film is, but is mostly about strange noirish dreams in Stuart’s head. I watched it the first time with my amplified speaker system attached, and couldn’t hear most of the dialogue because of a bass guitar going “thwong, thwong, thwong, thwong.” And what does “this one’s for Matilda” mean?
Read More »On The Field
“After I spent 2 1/2 hours laying on a stretcher, not being able to breathe, I thought to myself — what a waste. I’ve got a ton of money in the bank, I’ve got this hotshot job at DreamWorks and it’s all meaningless. I’ve just been living through my ego. From that minute, I promised myself that if I managed to survive, I’d live the life I wanted to live, not the way I thought other people wanted me to live.
“And however well I end up doing as a writer, whether I just eke out a living or win a bunch of awards someday, I’ll be happy because, to use the sports analogy, I’d feel like I left it on the field.” — Eagle Eye screenwriter Dan McDermott relating thoughts after almost dying from heart failure (caused by nitrogen poisoning from a scuba diving excursion), posted four days ago in Patrick Goldstein‘s “The Big Picture” bloggy-blog.
Bang Blam Boom
What can you say about a tough-minded, hard-nosed political drama that tells the truth, doesn’t mince words or pull punches, rekindles the viral excitement of a bygone era, offers several gripping performances and leaves you with a taste of ashes in your soul?

Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek
This is the reality of The
Baader Meinhof Complex — Uli Edel‘s
149-minute drama about the famed German radical leftist group. I
caught it last Friday night at the Aero along with L.A.
Times guy Mark Olsen, The Envelope‘s
Pete Hammond and two or three publicist pals who
may be working on the film’s Academy campaign for Best Foreign
Language Feature Oscar, as it was recently named as Germany’s
official entry.
It’s a strong but...
I’ve Loved You So Long
In the remarkable, deeply penetrating I’ve Loved You
So Long (Sony Classics, 10.24) , Kristin Scott
Thomas gives an immensely sad but highly sensitive and
attuned performance that you just know, minutes into it, will be
with you the rest of your life. She draws you in like some sad-eyed
lady of the lowlands, but she never sells anything. Start to
finish, she dwells in this fascinating zen-grief space that just
“is.” She owns it…and from the moment the film begins, owns
you.
Warning to first-time viewers:...
Bank Vibe
I was just depositing some cash into a Washington Mutual account an hour ago, and the atmosphere was unmistakably edgy. A long line of people, anxious looks on some of the faces, a vaguely nervous undercurrent of one form or another. Washington Mutual went under a few days ago and was bought up by JP Morgan Chase on 9.26. There was a fat guy jabbering excitedly to a friend and making no attempt to hide his anger at bank employees behind the glass who were sitting at desks and not at teller windows. The vibe was on the sullen side. No jokes, no smiles, no chit-chat.
Read More »Early Envelope Calls
The Envelope’s Buzzmeter software is currently being overhauled and redesigned, so in the meantime The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil has tallied some 2008 Oscar predictions. Nobody agrees on anything…too early for that. The contributors are O’Neil, Anthony Breznican (USA Today), Edward Douglas (Comingsoon.net), Scott Feinberg (AndTheWinnerIs, The Feinberg Files at The Envelope), Pete Hammond (The Envelope), Dave Karger (Entertainment Weekly) and myself.
Read More »Thieves Like Us
“The biggest robbery in the history of this
country is taking place as you read this,” Michael
Moore wrote
today. “Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are
being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half
trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering
backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their
fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just
the last two years, Bush and his cronies — who must soon vacate the
White House — are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar
they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware
as they can on their way out the door.
“This so-called ‘collapse’ was triggered by the massive defaulting
and foreclosures going on with people’s home mortgages. Do you know
why so many Americans...
Palin, Nukes, 24
McCain Wounded Again
“To a certain extent, I think John gets hurt by this,” said CNN contributor Ed Rollins about the failure of the bailout bill to pass the House earlier today. “He obviously, at the end of the day, said he was for it. But more important than that, he said he was the one who would bring them to the table and to a certain extent he will be viewed now as not being able to do that.
“McCain is our nominee and [congressional Republicans] will do everything they can to help him, but they are not going to go over the cliff for him. I think the reality is, he made a big show coming in and at the end of the day it really wasn’t realistic for him.”
Change Me, Transform Me
One frequent reason why high-quality films are chosen as Best Picture finalists is because of the resonance and universality of their themes. And the themes that always seem to register more than others are contained in personal journey movies about growth, redemption and transformation. They say something with a measure of eloquence that people recognize as fundamentally true based on their own life experience, and if they don’t jerk the audience around with too much shallow diversion or emotional manipulation, they tend to shine through — even if they end sadly or tragically.

You will see change/grow/transform themes lurking within most
Best Picture winners or nominees going back to the ’50s, at least.
Not with every last contender, of course, but they turn up a
lot.
Based on this criteria, four of the 2008 Best...
Intriguing, Mostly Perplexing
N.Y. Times reporter Michael Cieply has
an Oscar season piece out this morning. It mainly focuses on
Paramount’s intention to push The Curious Case of Benjamin
Button big-time. The most interesting line comes from
marketing chief Megan Colligan, who says the not
quite finished slogan for the film is something along the lines of
“you must live your life forward, but it can only be understood
backward.”
A portion of the Cieply piece raised an eyebrow. “Some publicists
who specialize in Oscar campaigns,” he wrote, “are privately
predicting a year-end shootout between Button and
Frost/Nixon, a planned December release from Universal
Pictures, directed by Ron Howard and with
Michael Sheen and Frank Langella
in the title roles. The films have been seen by few, but the
campaign machinery is already lining up behind...
“My God…What Have I Done?”
This David Byrne/”Once in a Lifetime”-themed trailer for Oliver Stone‘s W. is, make no mistake, brilliant — an award-level advertisement if I ever saw one. Is this a Tim Palin original or did an outside agency throw it together? TV junket press saw W. last weekend. Print/online showings will almost certainly be this week.
Australia Ramp-up
Here’s last summer’s trailer for Baz Luhrman‘s Australia (20th Century Fox, 11.26), and a newer, just-released version.

Luhrman is a fever-pitch, headstrong, first-rate director — one of the dependable visionaries in this business. The finely crafted script tells a rousing, big-canvas, primary-colors story that’s set in the World War II era. And the movie is clearly looking to deliver an eye-filling, epic-sized experience with a mostly realistic (i.e.,...
Read More »Givin’ It Up
I hate it when trailers tell you everything about a movie except
the final beat, so you’d think I’d be receptive to the plot
vagueness in this recently posted trailer for Seven
Pounds, the Will Smith movie coming out on
12.19. But it bothered me. “What’s going on here?” I was saying to
myself. I got the part about Smith being shattered by something he
did and wanting to help others in a kind of Pay It Forward
vein, but what’s the shot?
You have to search around on the Seven Pounds IMDB page —
among the reader comments, I mean — to...
“You Can’t Fight In Here!”
Production designer Ken Adam talking to the Telegraph‘s Horatia Harrod about the war room set he designed for Stanley Kubrick‘s Dr. Strangelove some 45 years ago.
Debate in 60 Seconds
Edited by the 23/6 guys, and not a bad job of it.
Bedrock
L.A. Times reporter Steven Braun reported yesterday that “soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska” — in 1997 — “she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago.”