It happened yesterday (midday by the Pacific clock). Tail-end wrap-up sequence. Carolla’s sardonic, regular-guy skepticism plus his standard-issue loathing of woke derangement syndrome meshes well with Sasha’s traumatic saga of ‘24 (incoming missiles launched by THR’s Rebecca Keegan led to a significant award-season income plummet) and her continuing discomfort with left-instructional content (i.e., all women, … Read more
Schneider: “Not that the Oscars count anyway. It used to be 100 million [viewers]…remember when they were really the Academy Awards? Barbara Walters interviewing Sean Connery or whomever was nominated that year and you’d watch with your parents and it was like ‘this is amazing!’ “And now the Academy is saying you have to have … Read more
I took this video inside the Cannes press conference salon on 5.17.15. Call it a period of relative calm before the storm. The #MeToo movement would launch two years and five months later, and over the following year the first stirrings of the woke Robespierre plague began to be felt. Peak terror was felt during … Read more
Just arrived today, and with two removable air filters.
So Michael Avenatti’s as-yet unnamed client, a woman who was “both” a witness and a victim of Kavanaugh’s who “had a number of security clearances issued by the federal government over a number of years,” will come forward…what, later today? Certainly by tomorrow. A friend predicted yesterday that when the “third woman” comes forward, Kavanaugh … Read more
Todd Haynes‘ Carol may have been, for me, the most emotionally affecting relationship film of 2015. I’m not going to rehash all the praise-worthy elements (Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara‘s fully felt performances, Ed Lachman‘s 16mm cinematography, the early ’50s vibe of repression and propriety). It so perfectly captured, for me, what it feels like … Read more
A Carol cabal almost totally dominated the New York Film Critics Circle today, resulting in wins for Best Picture, Best Director (Todd Haynes), Best Screenplay (Phyllis Nagy) and Best Cinematography (Ed Lachman). We all love Carol & sincere congratultations to these four, but boy, that Carol cabal!…they really strong-armed this normally eclectic, spread-the-wealth-around group into … Read more
Can you imagine how hot it would be if a digitally reanimated Marlene Dietrich and Gene Tierney could somehow be cloned into playing Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara‘s roles, respectively, in Todd Haynes‘ Carol? No complaints about Blanchett-Mara whatsoever, but I felt a slight hormonal surge when I saw this side-by-side of Dietrich and Tierney … Read more
Middleburg Film Festival attendees were seriously into catching yesterday’s 5pm screening of Meg Ryan‘s Ithaca…long lines, hopped-up chatter. They wanted to see Meg, of course, but this transferred into what seemed to be serious interest in the film. And then Ithaca played and the aftermath was “uhm, okay…ssshhh, keep it down, she’s right over there.” … Read more
My experience with Danny Boyle‘s Steve Jobs (Universal 10.9) has been both a charge and a puzzlement. I fell in love with Aaron Sorkin‘s jackhammer script when I read it last summer, but I didn’t like Boyle’s version as much when I saw it in Telluride. Sorkin’s dialogue had flown off the page and sunk … Read more
There are press & industry screenings Thursday afternoon at the Scotiabank plex — 45 Years (which I couldn’t get around to at Telluride), Jawar Panahi‘s Taxi, the uncut German bank robbery flick Victoria, etc. And then comes the opening-night double-header at the Princes of Wales — Jean Marc Vallee‘s Demolition and Michael Moore‘s Where To … Read more
Three days ago I reiterated what feels to me like an absolute certainty, which is that Greta Gerwig — star, producer and co-writer (with director and boyfriend Noah Baumbach) of Mistress America (Fox Searchlight, 8.14) — is radiating a fairly unique comic attitude, which led me to describe her as “a 21st Century Carole Lombard.” … Read more