15 Feature-Length Documentaries were short-listed today. There are, in alphabetical order, Art and Craft, The Case against 8, Citizen Koch, Citizenfour, Finding Vivian Maier, The Internet’s Own Boy, Jodorowsky’s Dune, Keep On Keepin’ On, The Kill Team, Last Days in Vietnam, Life Itself, The Overnighters, The Salt of the Earth, Tales of the Grim Sleeper and Virunga.
The final five, I’m guessing, will be Citizenfour, Finding Vivian Maier, Life Itself, Last Days in Vietnam and The Salt of the Earth.
Significant blowoffs include Gabe Polsky‘s Red Army (a shocker), Chiemi Kurosawa‘s Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Claude Lanzmann‘s The Last of the Unjust, Iain Forsyth‘s 20,000 Days on Earth, Ryan McGarry‘s Code Black, Mark Levinson‘s Particle Fever, Joe Berlinger‘s Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger, Alex Gibney‘s Finding Fela and Andrew Rossi‘s Ivory Tower.
Where would the movie realm be right now if Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert had never dreamt and maneuvered their way into a certain A24 orbit that has strangely transformed itself into a Millennial consciousness brand that is darkening many more brows than just my own?
Hard to say but boy, my heart is not only bleeding right now but staining the wood floors and certainly the carpets. And for some reason a lyric from a mediocre Jimmy Webb song is filling my head…”I don’t think that I can take it ‘cause it took so long to bake it, and we’ll never have that recipe again.” The bad guys are winning!
There are few events presently unfolding on the global stage that deliver more in the way of moral clarity than Ukrainians fighting tooth and nail against the rank evil of Vladimir Putin. If you can’t or won’t put aside peripheral matters and grasp which side is with the angels in this conflict, I don’t know what to say to you. Except that a certain moral fiber or awareness is clearly missing deep down — that your sense of humanity is minus an essential component.
Either you understand that Everything Everywhere All At Once represents not just an aesthetic pestilence but a terribleforcedbanality…a film that’s a good deal less about verse-jumping and spiritual dreamscapes and a lot more about pulpMarvelism and the relentless drumbeat of identity politics (Asian + queer), or you don’t. Or you do get this and you don’t care, in which case we’re all fucked anyway.
We all understand, sadly, that a certain either-or mindset, born of a certain malevolent social-media logic, has settled into award-season consciousness.
Last year at this time a fundamental shift of allegiance among the Academy middle-grounders happened…a moment when it became clear that a weird 1920swestern about repressed queer desire and a refusal to bathe and an anthrax murder scenario just couldn’t be the Best Picture standard bearer, and that a generally decent but underwhelming family fable about singing, destiny and deafness had to replace it…my God, what a totallymyopic, solitaryconfinementprison–cellchoice that was!
But it happened, sadly, and what were we left with at the end? Nothing…nothing but a feeling of being surrounded and enveloped by mediocre minds (i.e., the degraded identity-politics principles that flooded the delta when SAG became SAG-AFTRA).
And this year and right now, we’re back in that samedankprisoncell with a choice between a multiversian IRS audit-meets-queer politics Marvel film that has stymied and suffocated people of taste and perspective in every corner of the globe and certainly among the storied 45-plus community…a choice between a film by the makers of a metaphysical fart movie called SwissArmyMan and a smart, crafty, populist-pleasure machine that saved the film industry’s ass (in the view of no less a personage than Steven Spielberg).
God help us but the SAG-AFTRA philistines have apparently decided to choose, for the fifth time since the 2017 Oscar ceremony, identity politics symbolism over otherconsiderations…again. Moonlight, Parasite, Nomadland, CODA, EEAAO.
Talk about TheBitterTearsofPetravonKant or TheBitterTeaofGeneralYen. Or, you know, anything using the word bitter.
What’swrongwithRyan’s Daughter? Lean’s decision to cast the over-rated Christopher Jones, whom he impulsively decided upon after failing to sign Marlon Brando for the role.
Jones played a British Army officer (Major Randolph Doryan) whom Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles) has a torrid affair with while married to a local school teacher, Charles Shaughnessy (Robert Mitchum).
I have always felt that Ryan’s Daughter is beautifully made and altogether half of a very good film. It is one-quarter spoiled, unfortunately, by Jones’ lifeless performance and one-quarter spoiled by John Mills‘ village idiot.
Summary: Jones’ performance and general professional manner was so stiff and unresponsive that Lean, Miles and Mitchum decided that drugging him with valium was the only way to solve matters.
Mitchum had hashish parties and imported women for what sounded like orgies. Miles became infatuated with the married Mitchum and eventually chased him back to Los Angeles, breaking up her marriage to the multiple Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Bolt.
And all this after Lean lost Marlon Brando at the last minute to play the lead and cast Jones instead, who had a nervous breakdown during production, not knowing he was being drugged. Post-filming Jones returned to LA and promptly quit acting.
Jones was living in Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski’s guest house on their rented Cielo Drive property. and claimed to have had an affair with Tate. She was murdered by Charles Manson followers during filming, which devastated Jones.
Miles and Jones grew to dislike one another, leading to trouble when filming the love scenes. Jones was engaged to Olivia Hussey, and said he was not attracted to Miles. He even refused to rehearse the forest love scene with her, which prompted Miles to conspire with Lean and Mitchum on the valium thing.
It was Mitchum who settled on the idea of drugging Jones by sprinkling an unspecified substance daily on his cereal. Mitchum overdosed Jones, however, and the actor was nearly catatonic during the love scene.
There are two versions of John Huston and dp Oswald Morris‘s Reflections in a Golden Eye (’67) — the repellent gold-and-pink-tinted version that was used for the initial release in October 1967, and a follow-up wide release version that used regular color.
I saw the original version at the Carnegie Hall Cinema or Bleecker Street Cinema sometime in ’79 or ’80, and as much as I’d respected the previous experimental color schemes of Huston and Morris (the rose-tinted color palette of Moulin Rouge, the misty grayish tones of Moby Dick), I despised the sicklygoldenpalette (monochrome flooded with gold) in Reflections. It literally made me feel nauseous, and I distinctly recall that this feeling stayed with me the rest of the day and into the evening.
I didn’t “dislike” Huston’s film. I seriously hated it, and was really and truly sorry that I’d submitted. I knew (and still understand) that it was a serious film that was trying to address (i.e., deplore) emotional and sexual repression, but that didn’t help.
Not to mention the vile content of the damn thing — Marlon Brando‘s rigidly closeted Army major, Elizabeth Taylor‘s acidic bitch of a wife, Robert Forster‘s object of erotic desire, Brian Keith‘s easy-going Lieutenant Colonel who’s having it off with Taylor beyond Brando’s gaze, Julie Harris‘s Alison Langdon (Keith’s disturbed wife who’s cut off her nipples with a pair of gardening shears). Talk about your gallery of grotesques!
Audiences felt pretty much the same way about the gold version, which is why Warner Bros. withdrew it and sent out regular-color prints for the wide release in early ’68.
Until this morning I’d never realized that John Ford‘s The Informer played at the Radio City Music Hall. An odd venue for such a film. The Informer is a arthouse film for adults, but I guess back then there was no such term. (To the best of my recollection “smarthouse” wasn’t a term until five or ten years ago.) The RKO Radio Pictures ad department tried to make The Informer seem like a relationship thing between a brawny, alarmed fellow who’s been under a sunlamp and a foxy blonde (Heather Angel or Margot Grahame?) with a lit cigarette.
Ken Osmond, otherwise known as Eddie Haskell, the Leave It To Beaver king of flagrantly insincere teenage suckuptitude, has bitten the dust. He was only 76 but we’re all specks of dust in the cosmic sprawl of backyard leaves, and when God comes along with a rake…scratch that. When your number’s up, it’s up.
No history of 1950s and early ’60s sitcoms would be complete without raising a glass to Haskell, a one-note but essential superstar character who was easily on par with Bob Denver‘s Maynard G. Krebs, Fess Parker‘s Davy Crockett and George Reeves‘ Superman.
Haskell became an iconic figure because every high-school sufferer knew and recognized him. Because high schools of the Eisenhower and JFK eras were unfortunately punctuated with Eddie Haskells…completely devious weasels, totally consumed with showing deference to authority figures with the most revolting kiss-ass phrases and kowtowings.**
What happened to Eddie Haskell when psychedelic substances took hold in the mid ’60s and everyone had to reckon with them one way or the other? What happened to him when he smoked DMT in his mid 20s? I’ll tell you what happened to him. He started rubbing his cordouroy-covered thighs and then stared at the ground beneath his feet, going “uh-oh…uh-ooohhhh”. And then he looked up at the night sky like Anthony Quinn‘s Zampano at the end of La Strada and said something like “aacckk-aacckk-aacckk!”
Osmond had a tough time finding new work because of the Haskell typecasting. He called it “a death sentence,” and he presumably knew whereof he spoke. He joined the LAPD in ’69, growing a moustache in order to hide the Haskell. On 9.20.80 Osmond was shot five times by a suspected car thief, but four bullets were absorbed by a bullet-proof vest and the fifth hit his belt buckle. He was placed on disability and eventually retired from the force in ’88 at the age of 45.
Two Osmond rumors went around in the 70s. One was that he was actually Alice Cooper, the other that he’d become porn star John Holmes, aka “Johnny Wadd.”
Wikiexcerpt: “Osmond returned to acting in 1983, reprising his role as Eddie Haskell in the CBS made-for-television movie StilltheBeaver, which followed the adult Cleaver boys, their friends, and their families. This led to the revival comedy series TheNewLeaveIttoBeaver, which premiered the following year and ran for four seasons — ’84 to ’89.
He continued to make television appearances throughout the ’80s and ’90s on Happy Days, Rags to Riches, and in the TV movie High School U.S.A. He also had a bit part in the 2016 indie movie Characterz. In 2011 Osmond began appearing as a celebrity spokesman for St. Joseph aspirin.
Osmond died earlier today. No cause of death revealed. Hugs and condolences to all concerned.
Journo pally: “I distrust the influence of Wes Anderson. Because it seems to be everywhere, and it’s fascinating. One of my colleagues has been teaching film classes at college level, and the #1 filmmaker all the seniors want to be is Wes. Ari Aster is a case in point. He’s got the worst of Wes’s fussiness but none of his narrative gifts, and is just as ham-handed with his performances. Midsommar, though, is not as badly acted as Hereditary.”
Comment from HE reader “JD”, posted 12 years ago: “His movies have a child-like surface because that makes for a more potent, dynamic juxtaposition with the films’ darker undercurrents. His films are subversive for precisely this reason: the characters (like Anderson himself…and possibly his audience) are trying to hide from their very real, adult pain in the surface comforts and curiosities of childhood…but it doesn’t work. In all of his films, Anderson calls himself on his love of all things innocent and youthful, creating a conflict of substance and style that’s tremendously rich and rewarding.
“In essence, he makes children’s movies and/or fairy tales for adults with an interest in art films, literature, and rock ‘n’ roll. If you ask me, that’s an incredibly bold and original approach and one that is certainly worth revisiting in different genres/narrative contexts.”
What if Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis hadn’t been released five-plus years ago and instead a couple of months ago? Would it be a more formidable Oscar contender than it was in actuality, when it managed only two nominations (cinematography, sound mixing) and no wins?
Few Coen films have aged better than Llewyn Davis. Every time I re-watch ILD (I’ve seen it at least nine or ten times) it gets a little funnier, a little craftier and more perverse.
Fargo, Miller’s Crossing, No Country For Old Men and Burn After Reading are maxed out — they are what they brilliantly are, preserved in a kind of Coenesque amber. But Llewyn Davis never stops breathing and expanding and rolling its eyes.
It was one of the most critically celebrated and heavily awarded films of ’13, but the Academy slowboats brushed it off. Why? Because in their eyes it was too glum, too downbeat, too grayish-brown, too resigned. Because the misty desaturated color scheme did something to their souls that they just didn’t like.
Suzanne Vega: “I feel that the Coens took a vibrant, crackling, competitive, romantic, communal, crazy, drunken, brawling scene [i.e., early ’60s folk music in Manhattan’s West Village] and crumpled it into a slow brown sad movie.”
For me it’s one of the most consistently amusing Coen flicks ever made. In a downish, contemplating-suicide sort of way. I’d like to watch it again right now. Hell, I want to see a 4K version.
The 2016 Gotham Awards will start livestreaming from Cipriani Wall Street around…what, 8 pm Eastern? I’m still banking on Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea winning four of the awards — Best Feature, Best Actor (Casey Affleck), Best Screenplay (Lonergan) and Breakthrough Actor (Lucas Hedges).
Here are the nominations — HE’s predicted wins are in boldface caps:
Best Feature: Certain Women (d: Kelly Reichardt, IFC Films); Everybody Wants Some! (d: Richard Linklater, Paramount Pictures); MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (d: Kenneth Lonergan, Amazon/Roadside); Moonlight (d: Barry Jenkins, A24); Paterson (d: Jim Jarmusch, Amazon).
Best Documentary: Cameraperson (d: Kirsten Johnson, Janus Films); I Am Not Your Negro (d: Raoul Peck, Magnolia Pictures); O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA (d: Ezra Edelman, director, ESPN Films); Tower (D: Keith Maitland, Kino Lorber, Independent Lens); Weiner (d: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg, Sundance Selects and Showtime Documentary Films). QUALIFIER: If Edelman’s doc doesn’t win, Weiner might take it.
Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award: ROBERT EGGERS for The Witch (A24); Anna Rose Holmer for The Fits (Oscilloscope Laboratories); Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert for Swiss Army Man (A24); Trey Edward Shults for Krisha (A24); Richard Tanne for Southside with You (Roadside Attractions/Miramax). QUALIFIER: If Eggers doesn’t win, the Swiss Army guys might.
Best Screenplay: Hell or High Water, Taylor Sheridan (CBS Films); Love & Friendship, Whit Stillman (Amazon Studios); Manchester by the Sea, KENNETH LONERGAN (Amazon); Moonlight, Story by Tarell Alvin McCraney; Screenplay by Barry Jenkins (A24); Paterson, Jim Jarmusch (Amazon Studios). QUALIFIER: Lonergan’s screenplay could lose to Sheridan’s Hell or High Water.
In the wake of any domestic terror incident (shooting, bombing) you’re not allowed to say what you think, which is that the perpetrator was probably of Swedish, Danish or Norweigan descent. 24 to 48 hours pass and lo and behold, the perp is identified as a guy of Middle-Eastern (in this instance Afghanistan) descent. There goes my theory about the Swedes, the Danes or the Norweigans! Authorities are seeking 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami in connection with not just the Chelsea bombing (will the motive turn out to be similar to that of the Orlando shooter?) but also one in Seaside Park, N.J. Incidentally: The leader of the Ecumenical Liberation Army in Paddy Chayefsky‘s Network was “the Great Ahmet Khan.” Close but no cigar.
I’m struggling to tap out a half-assed review of Jeff Nichols‘ Midnight Special (Warner Bros., 3.18), which I saw on the Warner Bros. lot yesterday afternoon. Struggling because my flight to Seoul is leaving pretty soon. I’m as much of a fan of Nichols and his two standout films, Take Shelter and Mud, as the next guy, but Midnight Special (Warner Bros., 3.18) definitely underwhelms.
It’s a grim, grubby paranoid road-chase thing — a kind of shitkicker film about peeling rubber and hiding out in shitty motels and dodging the authorities — mixed in with doses of Starman, E.T. and Close Encounters.
It doesn’t tell you very much but bit by bit you gradually piece it together, but for my money it felt like too much work for too little payoff. I actually found Nichols’ story irritating. When it ended I was muttering to myself, “That’s it?” As I driving back over the hill I was saying to myself, “You can’t hit a homer every time at bat.”
Nichols’ script is about an eight-year-old alien (Jaeden Lieberher) who’s trying to reunite with an alien community that’s been keeping tabs on our affairs and behavior. Like the Trafalmadoreans did in Slaughterhouse Five and Michael Rennie‘s alien fellows did in The Day The Earth Stood Still.
The action is about the kid’s father (Michael Shannon), mother (Kirsten Dunst) and the father’s friend/accomplice (Joel Edgerton) trying like hell to deliver the kid to a rendezvous point somewhere in a rural southern backwater. Naturally there’s an army of government guys trying to catch them. With the exception, that is, of a sympathetic good-guy scientist (Adam Driver) who gradually decides he wants to help, etc.
I respected Nichols’ small-scale, minimal-tech approach but overall the film is really not all that interesting. It’s one of those films that make you ask “is something cool going to happen here or what?” I began to lose patience around the 45-minute mark. It has one good scene (a kind of meteoric bombardment of a gas-station complex) but it’s basically telling an annoying, one-note story. But critics like Nichols and so nearly everyone has given this thing a pass. I’m telling you straight that it’s pretty much a moderate burn. An interesting, indie-styled burn but a burn nonetheless.
One of the biggest self-congratulatory circle jerks and politically correct wank-offs in the history of the Sundance Film Festival happened late this afternoon when Nate Parker‘s heartfelt but sentimental and oppressively sanctimonious The Birth of a Nation ended and the entire audience rose to its feet and began cheering wildly, even ecstatically.
This is a sentimental, briefly stirring, Braveheart-like attempt to deify a brave African-American hero — Nat Turner, the leader of a Virginia slave rebellion in August 1831. But a black Braveheart or Spartacus this is not. Nor is it, by my sights, an award-quality thing.
It will almost certainly be nominated, of course, because it delivers a myth that many out there will want to see and cheer, but don’t kid yourself about how good and satisfying this film is. It’s mostly a mediocre exercise in deification and sanctimony. I loved the rebellion as much as the next guy but it takes way too long to arrive — 90 minutes.
Parker, the director, writer and star, sank seven years of his life into this film, and invested as much heart, love and spiritual light into the narrative as he could. But the bottom line is that he’s more into making sure that the audience reveres the halo around Turner’s head and less into crafting a movie that really grabs and gets you, or at least pulls you in with the harsh realism, riveting performances and narrative, atmospheric discipline that made Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave an undisputed masterpiece.
As noted, Parker doesn’t seem to even respect the fact that he needs to deliver the historic rebellion (i.e., horribly oppressed African-Americans hatcheting white slave-owners to our considerable satisfaction) within a reasonable time frame, which would be 45 minutes to an hour, tops. Kirk Douglas and his fellows broke out of Peter Ustinov‘s gladiator training school around the 45-minute mark.