[Filed from Cannes 11 months ago] Thomas Ngojil‘s Untamable (Quinzaine des Realisateurs / Director’s Fortnight) is aces. Ngojil directs and stars in a solid, tight, straightforward ensemble drama about Billong, a strictly moral, highly intelligent and demanding detective who not only plays it rough, tough and judgmental on the job, but also at home with his wife and five or six kids.
It’s basically a character study with a murder investigation (a fellow investigator shot in the back) driving the narrative.
Don Siegel‘s Dirty Harry aside, I never much cared for the Harry Callahan films. Simplistic plotting, crudely written characters, pulp foolery. But now I love this scene from Magnum Force (’73). I love the moral clarity aspect. I just wish the hijackers in this 1973 sequence were more believable. They look and behave like third-rate TV series villains. I don’t believe that their dialogue was written by John Milius and Michael Cimino. I think it was half-improvised.
Malcom in the Middle creator Linwood Boomer, 70, has been married to Tracy Katsky since…I’m not sure but a few decades, probably since the ’80s or certainly the early ’90s. They have four cbildren, three of whom have announced as queer.
Best blended comment of the bunch: “Three queer kids out of four? Influenced by something none of us had never even heard of ten years ago? The majority of people don’t want to see this shit or have it shoved down their throat. If this was happening with fish, environmentalists would be asking questions about chemicals in the river water.”
Sometimes bad (i.e., amoral, corrupt, predatory) people are instrumental in bringing about good things in a roundabout way, and sometimes not so roundabout.
Before watching this “New Rules” riff I honestly didn’t know that Saudi Arabian ruler Mohammed bin Salman, who enforces repressive authoritarianism and has abused human rights activists and women’s rights activists…before watching this I had never considered the apparent fact that MBS is not a total monster, and that he’s liberalized things to a certain degree. Life is complex and certainly not binary in terms of good and bad actions. Complex mixtures are often the general rule.
I have no way of knowing how valid or invalid the sexual assault allegations against Rep. Eric Swalwell may be, but his admission that he’s not perfect and may be responsible for errors of judgement indicates at the very least that Swalwell is a randy fellow who may have grappled with impulse control on certain boozy occasions.
It’s very, very hard to believe that a major Democratic legislator of Swalwell’s stature, a guy who’s inescapably attuned to the continuing power of the #MeToo movement and therefore knows how quickly and easily the professional life of a potential assaulter can be destroyed by accusers at the drop of a hat…it’s very hard to believe that Swalwell would be stupid enough to behave like a coarse Hungarian rapist.
It seems possible that the alleged liberties that Swalwell may have taken with his four female accusers were uncool but not strictly “criminal”, certainly not in a classic pre-#MeToo sense.
Forgive me for sounding like Ronald Colman‘s Professor Lightcap in The Talk of the Town, but back in the old days “sexual assault” literally involved physical assault and brute attempts to physically overpower a victim. That’s not the deal these days. Today’s definitions are much broader.
It sounds as if Swalwell may have behaved more or less like JFK did in the early ’60s with Fiddle (Priscilla Wear) and Faddle (Jill Cowen) and Mimi Alford and all the others.
Many Washington legislators who’ve had affairs and girlfriends on the side (i.e., guys like Gary Hart) have probably said to themselves “JFK did this and got away with it so why can’t I?”
Two days ago I forgot to post about the official 2026 Cannes Film Festival slate. In truth I couldn’t find the energy or intrigue. I kept telling myself “I need to tap out something about this” but since I’d re-posted Jordan Ruimy’s mostly accurate projections two or three times over the past couple of months, I couldn’t think of anything fresh to say. I tried but couldn’t get it up.
On one hand I feel fine about the lack of big American marquee names and a coarse, time-wasting American megaplex title or two. The cowardly Chris Nolan has always ducked Cannes, and we all know for a nearly certifiable fact that if shown on the Croisette, The Odyssey would encounter critical resistance (and perhaps even Tomahawk missiles). Likewise Steven Spielberg‘s alien flick, Disclosure Day…nuff said.
On the other hand Sasha Stone recently joked that Cannes ‘26 feels like an honorary Guy Lodge & David Ehrlich International Film Festival. A critic friend says “I agree with Sasha…for once.”
I honestly don’t feel this way. At the very least I’m very, VERY high on some of the obvious big ones, the top five being Cristian Mungiu‘s Fjord (although I have a problem with Sebastian Stan‘s shaved bald head), Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Fatherland, Asghar Farhadi‘s Parallel Tales, Pedro Almodovar‘s Bitter Christmas and Andrej Zvyagintsev‘s Minotaur. Take these five to the bank!
Laszlo Nemes‘ Moulin is going to be a grueling WWII Nazi torture drama. Read the synopsis…pure stomach acid. Lars Eidinger as Klaus Barbie? Say no more.
It has long been my view that director Ira Sachs lacks a certain decisive, snap-crackle-ish, go-for-broke quality. I’m not calling him weak tea — I’m calling him mild sauce. I know that The Man I Love, a Rami Malek-led musical set in 1980s New York against the enfolding of the AIDS crisis, is going to be a tough sit. Okay, I don’t know this but I fear it.
Jane Schoenbrun‘s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Gillian Anderson, Hannah Einbinder)…sure, fine, let’s go.
What could Steven Soderbergh possibly say that isn’t lamentably familiar and over-saturated with John Lennon: The Last Interview?
Ron Howard‘s Avedon doc…fine.
I’m wondering which Director’s Fortnight films will wow everyone in Cannes (gloriously received!) only to fizzle upon opening in the States. What Quinzaine des cinéastes title will be this year’s The President’s Cake, which wasn’t even nominated for Best Int’l Feature and thereafter died theatrically…totally failed to catch on. (It’s now streaming.)
Whatever happened to Thomas Ngojil’s first-rate Untamable, which also played at Director’s Fortnight last year?
I’m wondering which titles are going to be the most difficult to endure. Which feminist male-hating endurance test will be this year’s SoundofFalling? If and when such a film turns up, you can bet Guy Lodge will drop to his knees with gushing, rhapsodic praise.
Which Asian film will make me feel as if my soul particles are leaking out of my Wizard of Oz hourglass? Top contender: Ryusuke Hamaguchi‘s All of a Sudden, which has an official runtime of 3 hours and 16 minutes. Will the incessant smoking of Parliament cigarettes be a prominent feature in this fresh effort from the helmer of Drive My Car? I can already feel my aching ass muscles. I don’t want to die while watching this film…please.
I’m disappointed, of course, about the absence of James Gray’s Paper Tiger (a possible last minute inclusion?), not to mention Ruben Ostlund’s The Entertainment System Is Down. Shot between January and May of last year, Ostlund has been preparing and talking about this film since ‘22 but he can’t finish the editing in time? Something is wrong.
I’m not looking forward to the inevitable freeze-outs. Being told, I mean, that a certain highly coveted title is “complet” at the stroke of 7 am (i.e., sign-in time). I really hate that.
I was infuriated by the difficulties I encountered in trying and finally failing to see Scarlett Johansson’s Eleanor the Great (the June Squibb film that pretty much fizzled) last May. I took an Uber all the way to Cannes le Bocca to see Spike Lee’s Highest to Lowest…couldn’t get in. Not to mention Kristen Stewart’s The Shape of Water, which I still haven’t seen. (Because I don’t want to…be honest.) Hell, I’ve never even gotten around to streaming the Johansson.
Primeiro teaser de ‘All of a Sudden’, dirigido por Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) e estrelado por Virginie Efira e Tao Okamoto.
The most ghost-haunted city that I’ve ever visited is Savannah…hands down. You can almost see the transparent banshees swirling around the limbs of moss-covered trees in the wee hours, and there’s no ducking the lingering vibes of the Civil War past. Not to mention the wonderfully humid air in the various city parks on late summer evenings.
The second most haunted is Dallas or more precisely Dealey Plaza, which I visited back in the mid ’80s.
New Orleans has wonderful flavor, of course, and fantastic architecture, but I never walked through any cold spots or sensed any ectoplasm.
The Fish Jelly guys (i.er., self-described “gay homosexuals Nick and Joseph“) are my new favorite film reviewing duo, largely because their reviews seem to spoil plot points. Or they have, at least, in their review of Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers, which HE will be seeing on Tuesday.
Unlike the HE whiner brigade, I love spoilers because a film plot isn’t the thing — it’s how the plot is conveyed that matters. I love watching a film fully armed with a plot rundown — that way I can concentrate on the film artistry…the mise-en-scene stuff.
No offense but Michaela Coel, Ian McKellen‘s costar in the film, has funny-looking alien eyes. It’s like they were created by Carlo Rimbaldi.
Of the 16 main-title sequences that Maurice Binder created for the James Bond films, the one created for Dr. No feels the freshest and most primal. Why? It’s the least sexist (no silhouettes of female hotbods floating around) and the most atmospherically attuned as it teems with Jamaican flavor.
Binder’s throughly sexist work on For Your Eyes Only (’81) is the second best.
The third best is the one for Goldfinger (’64), which Binder didn’t handle. Robert Brownjohn did that one.
Binder died in 1991 from lung cancer. Daniel Kleinman became the new title designer for GoldenEye (’95).
By my sights Apple TV has given Jonah Hill‘s Outcome, a totally original, phenomenal, way-ahead-of-the-curve black comedy by way of Herman Hesse‘s “Siddhartha“, the bum’s rush.
The Apple marketing team obviously doesn’t believe in it, no promotion to speak of, no advance build-up…oh, ye of little faith! And they couldn’t be more wrong.
An 84-minute industry-centric journey of self-discovery with wickedly funny segments here and there, Outcome is about a 50-something Hollywood superstar and former heroin addict named Reef Hawk (Keanu Reeves, giving a truly in-there, scaldingly honest, low-key performance for the ages) trying to apologize his way out of a potential career scandal.
Things begin with Hawk’s crisis attorney Ira Slitz (Hill) announcing that an extortionist is looking to destroy Hawk’s rep with some kind of weird sex tape or something. The tape will go online unless the angry whomever is paid $15 million in exchange for going away and destroying all copies.
Slitz urges Hawk to contact everyone he’s ever known who might hate or strongly resent him and apologize, 12-steps-style, for whatever harm or pain he might have brought into their lives.
And so Hawk, who is occasionally capable of behaving like an egoistic asshole but who isn’t that bad if you step back and cut him a little slack, begins the apology tour with visits to (a) a former manager-agent (Martin Scorsese‘s Richie “Red” Rodriguez, now running a bowling alley), (b) a resentful ex-girlfriend (Welker White), (c) his mother Dinah (Susan Lucci) who’s now starring in a reality series, and, most importantly, (d) his two best friends going all the way back to childhood — Cameron Diaz‘s Kyle and Matt Bomer‘s Xander.
Apple’s URL announces that Outcome is a “comedy”…wrong! It couldn’t be less about hah-hah, have-a-giggly-good-time doofus humor…it’s about digging into the past and admitting shortcomings and trying to break though to the simple, elemental truth of things. Obviously not a premise for a “comedy”, but Apple marketers aren’t smart enough to grasp that.
All I can say is that I watched Outcome last night starting around 12:15 am, and I started audibly cackling and chuckling right away, and I don’t do that as a rule. (I’m an LQTM-er, for the most part.)
Quick message to Jonah Hill, sent at 2:15 am or thereabouts:
“I just finished watching it, bruh. I LOVED the Siddhartha-level humor. I was laughing my ass off at first, and then it shifts into a sadder, more earnest or melancholy vein and I loved that you didn’t feel obliged to keep the humor ball in the air.
“Fuck those stupid dumbass critics saying that it’s not funny enough.”
HE To critics: “It’s not a tee-hee-hee comedy, jerkweeds!…it’s a satirical examination of a kind of malignancy of the Malibu soul…a subdued, darkly amusing thing about a form of online cancer that we’re all dealing with today. But it’s also really funny when it wants to be.”
Outcome was brilliantly written by Hill and Ezra Woods, and the handsome, fairy-tale-ish, CG-infused cinematography is by Benoit Debie.
Diaz has been absent for years but her skills are undiminished, and she looks great, by the way. She’s now 53…52 when Outcome was filmed.
Two wonderfully hilarious cameos from Van Jones and Drew Barrymore.
