REVIEWS AND OTHERWISE on two types of movie sequels

 Comparing the move-the-story-forward success of A QUIET PLACE PART II to the often sluggish retreading of THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT https://anchor.fm/terry-mccarty/episodes/SEQUELITIS-THE-CONJURING-THE-DEVIL-MADE-ME-DO-IT-VS-A-QUIET-PLACE-PART-II-e1271un

The pre-Academy Awards post.

1. Mary McNamara, in the LOS ANGELES TIMES, refers to Chris Rock as a cultural arbiter expected to explain #OscarsSoWhite to the national and international viewing audience tonight.  And, apparently, explain it just enough and make enough pointed jokes to make viewers welcome the "carry on as usual" traditional ceremony without having troubling subtextual thoughts.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-critics-notebook-oscars-20160225-column.html

2. Margaret Avery (nominated as a Supporting Actress for playing a lesbian in Steven Spielberg's blanded-out THE COLOR PURPLE, a 1985 release), was interviewed in today's Calendar section of the LA TIMES.  I'm old enough to remember Ms. Avery paying for her own campaign ads and being mocked for their content.
www.altfg.com/film/margaret-avery-dear-god-the-color-purple-22987

Now vs. then: film critics/reviewers/watchdogs on the far edge of PG-13 violence.

"Even allowing that TLR's weirdness is "interesting" -- and I think it's just an overstuffed train wreck of multiple agendas, myself -- there is such a thing as a movie's implied compact with its audience, particularly when it's a supposed kiddie flick. I've read about droves of parents exiting with their tykes as soon as [SPOILER ALERT] one character cuts out and eats another one's heart. I'm with them, and remember: that's one hefty chunk of change for parents to burn off at the multiplex all of 1/2 hour in."--Tom Carson, veteran of publications such as L.A. WEEKLY and ESQUIRE, commenting on Glenn Kenny's MSN.com review of THE LONE RANGER.

"The film betrays no human impulse higher than that of a ten-year-old boy trying to gross out his baby sister by dangling a dead worm in her face."--Dave Kehr on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, which had a heart-removal scene and caused the creation of the PG-13 rating midway through the summer of 1984.

And here's Ed Grant of Common Sense Media doing a years-after-the-fact assessment of Tim Burton's 1992 BATMAN RETURNS:
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/batman-returns

Critical tut-tuts, audience squeamishness in certain cases--and more broad-audience-friendly sequels with the latter two films.  Given the response to THE LONE RANGER (though the film has its critical defenders), it's not likely to get that far.

HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE commenter "Kit" does post-mortem on LINCOLN's Oscar impoverishment.

Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner's LINCOLN has, if I'm recalling correctly at this late hour, brought in more money at the North American box office than either SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK or ARGO (which won Sunday's Best Picture Academy Award--and, ironically, had a touch of the more brash, less Prestigious 70s/early 80s Spielberg).  And it wasn't treated with consensus disdain like 2011's Spielberg prestige, preordained-Oscar film WAR HORSE (which I haven't seen).

But now the what-went-wrong-with-LINCOLN articles seem to be starting; the Hollywood Elsewhere site has a link to a piece in THE NEW YORK TIMES.

And now, I'm turning the floor over to HE commenter "Kit" and his-or-her appraisal as to why Spielberg, Kushner and LINCOLN went home Oscarless:
Spielberg's problem is he still believes, as he always has, that winning the Oscar is the ultimate goal for any movie. He grew up with Oscar and worshipping the system. This year he absolutely tried too hard to win, and made it ridiculously obvious how much he wanted Oscar recognition again. There was no subtlety in the campaigning, and it Killed Lincoln (to borrow from Bill O'Reilly). 10 reasons why Lincoln lost:
1. The Premise = engineered for Oscar - romanticized historical time period and iconic American figure meet acclaimed director and Time Magazine's "World Greatest Actor"; Spielberg's proclaimed "passion project," chasing DDL for years
2. Endless TV spots (to country music, which mischaracterized the movie and boosted box office---box office doesn't mean everyone liked the movie), very intimate 60 minutes coverage with Spielberg's parents and how he doesn't want to do any more mindless action movies (riiiiiiiight), 1.5-hour Oprah-lovefest
3. Going to Washington to get government support and approval of the movie, when Zero Dark Thirty had none. While not making himself as accessible to voters: the Santa Barbara Film Festival example. Affleck schmoozed with everyone, while the next night DDL and co. kept themselves isolated on the second floor.
4. OVERPACKAGED Lincoln screener: bound script, beautiful photographs with historical context, John Williams' soundtrack = this film is important, VOTE FOR ME. This cannot be overemphasized. And, of course, the simple fact the film didn't play nearly as well on screener than in front of an audience.
5. TAKING the role of Goliath over David: NOT establishing the film as an underdog AT ALL, constantly promoting the across the board "Oscar-winning" cast and crew rather than positioning the film in a way that would inspire voters.
6. INTENTIONALLY putting Robopocalypse "on hold" just before the awards to not take away from his "prestige," important filmmaking.
7. Spielberg is snubbed for BAFTA, but his main frontrunner competition Kathryn Bigelow and Ben Affleck magically disappeared in the Best Director category...hmmm...were some directors lobbied or paid off Harvey Weinstein-style?? I wouldn't be surprised to learn Spielberg's team played dirty this season, like Affleck's and Harvey's....but of course when Spielberg does it it turns off voters.
8. BRINGING Bill Clinton to the Golden Globes to present how IMPORTANT and TIMELY Lincoln is. One of the Killing Blows, and a clear example of Spielberg abusing his power to influence and manipulate voters
9. 60 Minutes: taking a second feature slot that was utterly unnecessary and contributed nothing new on the movie, 3 months after it came out
10. And finally, his misguided belief that the important movie about American history and one of our most significant figures DESERVED to win since it could teach all the people and the kiddies the history (and how self-important his film was). This does not a great film make.

It's really sad for me that this man has no conception that the great films, the ones considered masterpieces that hold up for many many years are NOT the films that win at the Academy Awards. Steven Spielberg: winning another directing Oscar will not make you the greatest director ever. Can someone get it in his head that some of the strongest filmmakers NEVER won Oscars?? Interviewers like Barbara Walters were telling him this before he finally won. You have played to the Hollywood system YOUR ENTIRE CAREER, and lost your own, singular voice as an artist in the process of engineering films for box office and manipulating audiences. You have been chasing Oscar FOR YEARS(!!!) after E.T. lost (which he has admitted utterly burned him), with Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler's List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, War Horse, and now Lincoln---and in every single instance your film came up short in one way or another, often ravaging the original source material. I know that it ABSOLUTELY burns Spielberg that Martin Scorsese is more revered and called America's greatest living filmmaker, and that NONE OF HIS FILMS were cited in Sight and Sound's top 100 greatest films. I would love to see him tackle a genre or subject that WOULD challenge him. Submit a film to a festival again, go after the Palm D'Or even if you come up short. Do something vastly different that will surprise film circles in a good way. Another thriller. AND NO MORE IMPORTANT HISTORY MOVIES.

A few observations re what did/didn't win the 2013 Academy Awards.

1. Steven Spielberg, with LINCOLN, headed further into his desired elder-statesman-classicist phase--with a palpable desire to be the William Wyler/George Stevens/Fred Zinnemann of his generation.  But Ang Lee deserved the win for LIFE OF PI because the task of marrying 3-D/CGI technologies to humanistic storytelling is a more challenging achievement than making historical re-enactment epics (even those with Tony Kushner screenplays)--and Lee pulled it off quite well.

2. Emmanuelle Riva's mixture of physical detail (declining health due to multiple strokes) and emotional clarity in AMOUR was no match for the Movie Star likability of Jennifer Lawrence in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK.  It may be good that Ms. Lawrence is choosing to work on multiple projects with David O. Russell--because her acting can be variable (witness her flatness in the getting-to-love-you cave scene with Josh Hutcherson in THE HUNGER GAMES) depending on what her directors can pull from her.

3. Daniel Day-Lewis deserved his third win for LINCOLN.  But it's a shame that Jean-Louis Trintingant was unrecognized by the Academy voters for his totally convincing performance as the devoted/despairing husband in AMOUR.

4. Yes, ARGO was entertaining.  But future generations of movie-watchers may wonder why it received Best Picture.  After the duofecta of THE TOWN/ARGO, it's obvious Ben Affleck is an accomplished mainstream director addicted to directing himself in none-too-complex flawed-but-good-guy leading roles.  Whether he'll ever color outside the lines (of what studios want in their idea of Serious Films) as an actor/director is yet to be seen.

SUMMARY OF THE 2013 ACADEMY AWARDS

Regarding Steven Spielberg during the run-up to LINCOLN's release.

Found this on Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE site's comments section (after a thread discussing Steven Spielberg being interviewed by Lesley Stahl on 60 MINUTES); it's a commenter named "cinefan" responding to a Wells remark (partially quoted):
"He's basically in love with the mystique of being a working journeyman -- a guy who loves to make movies in order to make more movies. He loves the joy of crafting more than the finality of art that comes from the heart. He is more enterprising than thoughtful or deep."
The funny thing is I agree with everything you say here but still love his films and him as a filmmaker. For me, he's simply a virtuoso filmmaker who makes entertaining and intelligent adult films (action and otherwise). No one has ever directed action sequences more elegantly or skillfully. If a Spielberg film lacks the philophical depth or complexity of, say, a Kubrick or Malick film, then so be it. Each filmmaker is unique and should not be denigrated based on the style of filmmaking he or she excels at.

New critical trend--judging Steven Spielberg (fairly or not) as passe.

http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/the_completist/2012/01/steven_spielberg_a_ranking_of_all_of_his_movies.html

Haven't seen WAR HORSE, but I'm willing to buck the prevailing tide and say that Steven Spielberg's work as hired-hand director on the Peter Jackson-produced motion-capture-animated THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN is as good as a lot of the Spielberg-in-his-prime entertainments.

A few assessments of random Spielberg films that I've seen:
CLASSICS-E.T., JAWS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (77 version), RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, SCHINDLER'S LIST
GOOD-TO-VERY GOOD: MUNICH (first two-thirds), WAR OF THE WORLDS, EMPIRE OF THE SUN, POLTERGEIST (apparently overseen by Spielberg although Tobe Hooper got directorial credit), THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS, JURASSIC PARK, THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
OVERBLOWN: 1941 (theatrical version), HOOK, THE COLOR PURPLE
UNEVEN: ALWAYS, AMISTAD, A.I., MINORITY REPORT
MUCH OVERRATED: SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
FLAT-OUT LAZY: THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK.

METHOD TO THE MADNESS: Jerry Lewis reshapes his career arc and talks shop about comedy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/method-to-the-madness-of-jerry-lewis-with-all-the-unhappy-stuff-left-out/2011/12/13/gIQAT69BzO_story.html
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-1217-jerry-lewis-review-20111217,0,6647783.story

I remember a date I had with a fellow drama student in 1974, when we were both in our mid-teens.  We both realized we didn't have a lot in common--and one of those unsympatico things was Jerry Lewis.  She (bringing up the example of 1968's now-mostly-forgotten DON'T RAISE THE BRIDGE...LOWER THE RIVER, directed by Jerry Paris) found him unfunny; I begged to differ.

And, to be honest, Jerry Lewis directing Jerry Lewis could often fit the description of the Woody Allen-written WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT? found in one of Leonard Maltin's MOVIES ON TV books: "....one sits through a lot of misfired gags to get to a few undeniable gems."

At least the new Encore channel documentary METHOD TO THE MADNESS manages to highlight some of Jerry's better moments of auteurism (THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, THE BELLBOY, THE ERRAND BOY), as well as some priceless clips from the Martin and Lewis era.

Unfortunately, the commissioned-by-Jerry director Gregg Barson didn't seem to be able to get Lewis to acknowledge the directors who either helped shape the "zany idiot" persona or showed it to its best advantage on film.  To watch METHOD TO THE MADNESS, you might be led to think it was all Jerry--and people like George Marshall, Norman Taurog and (especially) Frank Tashlin never existed.

Time for me to be blasphemous and say that a lot of the best Jerry Lewis on film was when he allowed Frank Tashlin (someone who started in cartoons and knew a lot about physical comedy) to direct--ARTISTS AND MODELS, HOLLYWOOD OR BUST, IT'S ONLY MONEY, THE DISORDERLY ORDERLY, etc.

But there's a lot of commissioned documentaries going around these days.  Rock bands, deceased former Beatles, comedians (i.e. the recent Woody Allen tribute on PBS) all wanting to be portrayed in sunshine more than shadows.

And given today's allergy to actually reading detailed knowledge (both positive and negative) on someone's life and times, it's a given that future generations will only be able to know/evaluate certain celebrities solely by reverent hagiographies on film/video.

Shia LaBeouf told by Steven Spielberg to follow the "example" of Tom Cruise.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-shia-labeouf-20110626,0,3619473.story

Key passage from Rebecca Keegan's article on Shia LaBeouf:
The same impulsiveness that inspired LaBeouf to ball his fists [recently in a fight with a heckler in a Sherman Oaks bar] has also driven him to say some professionally reckless things, including telling reporters at the Cannes International Film Festival last year that he was unhappy with the fourth "Indiana Jones" movie.

LaBeouf says he has been warned by people he respects — including Spielberg — to watch his words in public and smooth some of his rough edges.

"The way Steven described it to me was, 'When Tom Cruise walks outside his house, he doesn't pick his nose. From the minute he leaves his door to the minute he comes back home, he doesn't pick his nose.' Now that's a certain way to live your life that I have no ambitions toward."


As an example of what Gore Vidal calls "The United States of Amnesia", Spielberg apparently forgot whatever dismay and anger he likely had when Cruise jumped up-and-down Oprah Winfrey's couch and rumbled with Matt Lauer on the TODAY show.


All of this occurred when Cruise was doing the media circuit to promote his starring role in Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS remake.


But at least it wasn't literal nose-picking.

Steven Spielberg needs more of the public's love--so he's remaking HARVEY.

The 1950 comedy/fantasy film HARVEY, from the Mary Chase play, isn't all that familiar to today's audiences (I don't think I've seen anything but clips). But it had James Stewart as a lovable alcohol-challenged man who alone saw a six-foot-tall rabbit named Harvey--and the film became a hit in its day.

Now Steven Spielberg plans to remake HARVEY for his next film as a director:
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/08/dusty_rabbit_ea.php
http://www.movieline.com/2009/08/is-there-any-actor-who-could-make-spielbergs-harvey-remake-interesting.php
And it's safe to conjecture that Elwood P. Dowd (the protagonist of HARVEY) will be sober.

Here's a spot-on quote from Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE column linked above:
"Spielberg almost always puts on the waders and sloshes right into the swamp. He's always looking to touch or melt hearts, even when the film would be better off without this. He'll never know from subtlety."

Literal-minded listserve post re passing of J.G. Ballard.

From the "You can't make this stuff up" department. Here's a post on USENET re the passing of writer J.G. Ballard (CRASH, EMPIRE OF THE SUN):
"I see the young British artists of the past ten years or so from a different perspective. They find themselves in a world totally dominated by advertising, by a corrupt politics carried out as a branch of advertising, and by a reality that is a total fiction controlled by manufacturers, PR firms, and vast entertainment and media corporations. Nothing is real, everything is fake. Bizarrely, most people like it that way..."--JGB
media corporations. Nothing is real, everything is fake. Bizarrely, most people like it that way.
[And here's the response from the USENET poster]
Good grief! Do people really think that way? Out here in flyover country, reality is still pretty real. We work (those of us who still have jobs), raise our children, and have pretty satisfying lives. What the hell is with artists?

When movie actors declare they're quitting movies.

From what I've been reading, Casey Affleck and allegedly-retiring-from-acting Joaquin Phoenix are filming a Sacha Baron Cohen/Andy Kaufman put-on documentary that includes, among other things, Phoenix' less-than-acclaimed Las Vegas debut as a hip-hop artist. And apparently towards that end, Phoenix appeared on LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN last night to plug his allegedly-final film TWO LOVERS: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/02/why_did_he_come.php

The appearance (or at least the clips I watched on THE VIEW this morning) contained a giant dollop of bored, monotonal "I hate doing talk shows" attitude a la Kristen Stewart's drop-by on LETTERMAN to plug TWILIGHT (which can be found here at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVjoXMJ7j3E).

And, since the media attention span is quite small, no one recalls Phoenix's discomfort on THE TONIGHT SHOW in 2000 around the release of GLADIATOR--and the peevish response from Jay Leno. No documentary film crew on the set then.

About a decade ago, Liam Neeson (suffering burnout from doing back-to-back escapist, CGI-dependent fare such as STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE and the now semi-forgotten remake of THE HAUNTING) made similar threats to retire from film acting.

Thankfully, Neeson changed his mind (and may be on the verge of giving a potential career-highpoint performance as Abraham Lincoln for Steven Spielberg). And maybe Phoenix, after a year or two away from the inanities of mainstream show business, will consider doing the same.

Diablo Cody's latest: THE THREE FACES OF EVE meets LARS AND THE REAL GIRL.

I confess to still liking JUNO, but after sitting through one episode of Diablo Cody's Showtime comedy/drama series THE UNITED STATES OF TARA, I'm thinking that the mediocrity-and-waste-of-talent (including Toni Collette and Rosemarie DeWitt) on display will put a lot of pressure on Cody and her colleagues on the film JENNIFER'S BODY (a horror comedy with current It Girl Megan Fox) to deliver JUNO-esque box office numbers to at least commercially re-establish Cody's finger-on-the-zeigeist-pulse-plus-ornately-wacky-dialogue rep.

Here are a couple of takes on TARA; the first is SLATE.com's Troy Patterson's middling view:
http://www.slate.com/id/2208767/

And this is NEW YORKER television columnist Nancy Franklin's more upbeat take:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2009/01/19/090119crte_television_franklin

My issue with the series is that Collette is bascially being asked to impersonate Tracey Ullman in her too-broadly-played-and-defined multiple personalities. Not to forget Cody's swiping the motif of mental disorder as a form of lovable eccentricity uniformly tolerated by a whole town from LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (where Kelli Garner, as the lovelorn officemate of Ryan Gosling, handily outacted Gosling's overpraised SNL-sketch-level performance).

Starting this Sunday, viewers can judge for themselves as to whether or not TARA will be the new quirky cable comedy hit.

I'm giving it one season, possibly two. But no more than that.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone can't quit their hate-on for Lucas/Spielberg.

I'm one of the few people who thought INDIANA JONES AND THE CRYSTAL SKULL was a decent-enough coda to the 80s action-adventure trilogy. And I hope George Lucas and Steven Spielberg leave well enough alone and not try for a rumored fifth entry to the series--unless it's a spinoff with Shia LaBoeuf's Mutt Williams character as the lead.

But, regardless of the general lack of true love for INDY 4 and George Lucas' recent CLONE WARS pilot-as-big-screen-movie (which I didn't see), it's rather pathetic to see Trey Parker (of the ginormous ego--someone who should never be allowed around interviewers) and copilot Matt Stone do a SOUTH PARK episode featuring Indiana Jones being....let's say, physically violated...by Spielberg and Lucas (didn't see the entire episode, but saw the scene in question--edited in a way recalling the trimmed-for-ABC-on-first-network-broadcast version of Ned Beatty being assaulted in DELIVERANCE).

Admittedly, Lucas (parodied before by SOUTH PARK) and Spielberg are plutocrats who don't always make the best decisions in terms of what they offer as art and/or commerce. But this is just mortifyingly stupid (rape, regardless of parody/metaphor, just isn't all that funny) and crass of Parker/Stone--and safe safe safe from any retaliation as well since Spielberg and DreamWorks (with David Geffen apparently leaving the company to Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg) are leaving the Paramount lot.

Irony alert: Spielberg helped to bring about the current DVD restoration of THE GODFATHER I and II--which, in one making-of documentary, features, among others--Trey Parker.

Recommended reading and viewing when ill.

Having spent the week suffering from upper respitory infection, I've been coping with homeboundness by reading and watching small-screen offerings that are as noninfectuous as possible.

Here's a list;
CARY GRANT by Marc Eliot--although not deep in analysis of Grant's films, a reasonably comprehensive and honest-but-non-sensational account of his life.
WARNER BROTHERS: YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS--Richard Schickel's recent PBS miniseries about the legendary studio (narrated by Clint Eastwood), offering generous archival interview footage and clips from various classic and less-classic films.
THE GODFATHER (Blu-Ray)--Overall, this umpteenth restoration of Coppola's 1972 breakout film lives up to its "definitive" status. Kudos to Robert Harris (involved in the restorations of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and VERTIGO) and Steven Spielberg (making good use of his time as a major supplier of product to the current Paramount) for making the hopefully-definitive restorations of GODFATHER I and II a reality. Now, if the Blu-Ray treatment can be applied to Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW....
A CAPOTE READER by Truman Capote--A Penguin Books compilation of short stories, essays, the novellas THE GRASS HARP and BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S and the notorious 1957 profile of Marlon Brando ("The Duke in His Domain") for THE NEW YORKER.