MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > OT Potpourri: New Matt Weiner Show; Se...

OT Potpourri: New Matt Weiner Show; Sequel of Mary Poppins; Remake of Dumbo

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
37 replies | jump to latest

I'm starting to see trailers and promos turn up for the months ahead. Some interesting items:

Matt Weiner, who created and wrote and show ran "Mad Men," is back with a show called "The Romanoffs." Coming in October. Big cast, with a few Mad Men regulars , including two of my favorites, John Slattery and Christina Hendricks. But also Aaron Eckhardt and Diane Lane and some other "names." It seems to be an anthology of separate stories about people who think they are related to the royal Romanoffs (evidently a famed Hollywood restauranteur used to say that about himself , and was lying, and Weiner took this as the launching point for his intriguing series.)

I wonder how long The Romanoffs is meant to run. I don't sense it is "series" material, more of a mini-series. In any event, good to see Matt Weiner up and running again -- David Chase has been little active since he ended The Sopranos so horribly(making a lot of enemies to go with the lovers of that ending.) But I hear some sort of "prequel" movie to The Sopranos is being set up -- about Tony's dad Johnny Boy and his brother, Uncle Junior, in the sixties.

I've also read that most of the cast of Deadwood (including Timothy Olyphant, who made Justified and various other series since Deadwood went off the air) have been reassembled to film a movie that will properly end the series' story. (For broadcast on HBO?)

----

Disney is underway with an ambitious program to drive us remake debaters(not haters) nuts, with a series of remakes. Some have been(Jungle Book) and will be(Aladdin, Dumbo) remakes of ANIMATED films.

But Mary Poppins Returns is set up as a sequel -- we are meant to accept Emily Blunt as Julie Andrews, "ageless and un-aged" and come to help the now-grown children of the original. The "Hamilton" guy Lin-Manuel Miranda, is out to banish the memory of Dick Van Dyke's allegedly horrible Cockney accent(hey , I grew up on it, it was OK by me ) AND -- Van Dyke is in the movie, playing that role of the "really old banker" but now ACTUALLY the age of the banker. Amazing. (Julie's not in the trailer; but maybe she'll be a surprise.)

This: Both Mary Poppins Returns and Dumbo have been given "teaser trailers" that play almost exactly the same way -- a way-slowed-down version of a famous tune from the originals quietly and suspensefully "teases" what's coming soon.

Except now Mary Poppins Returns has a full trailer too and, well -- I expect it will be a billion dollar hit, but there's no sense of any great songs and what was once landmark(Disney's use of animation and live action) is now yawnable CGI. (Its exactly what I think will happen if The Birds is ever remade in CGI -- too easy now.)

BTW, Mary Poppins returns has roles for Meryl Streep and Colin Firth so -- well, more stars available these days, I guess. (December, 2018.)

Meanwhile: Dumbo. C'mon now. A tearjerker of our youth, and the teaser trailer teases those tears(with a slowed down version of "Baby Mine" or whatever its called.) The director: Tim Burton, who may be passe but is about to make another billion dollar movie. Better still: Dumbo has Batman and the Penguin in it -- Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito, reuniting with Burton yet again. And the very sexy Eva Green, whom Burton uses often. I'm there(March 2019.)

I recommend a watch of the teaser trailers for Mary Poppins and Dumbo, and of the full trailer for Mary Poppins. With our recent discussions of remakes and sequels -- they look inevitable. And The Romanoffs trailer is out there, too.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

1. Romanoffs. An anthology series with a twee premise (people who think they're descended from Russian Royalty) if I've ever heard one. It might be fun... but, honestly, *this* is the thing in the world that's most interesting to you now, Mr Weiner? I guess you have to give Weiner some credit for attempting something with no real precedent, no genre anchors. Very high degree of difficulty involved in making this either good or a hit I'd say.

---

Agreed on all points. But certainly, the incredible originality of the idea makes for some sort of positive. We've been talking about remakes and sequels and prequels. Here's an original. Exactly WHY Weiner is electing to use his clout on this topic -- well, I'll be interested.

---
2. Dumbo. I'm broadly in favor of a remake - the original is sorely dated with all sorts of ethnic and WW2/service humor and un-biological content (storks delivering babies!) that's unintelligible to modern kids and embarrassing to all concerned. Trailer looks OK, not great.

---

Well, its a teaser trailer -- pretty much a match in tone and "nothingness" for the Mary Poppins teaser -- which has now been followed by a full-scale trailer.

I trail around my Tim Burton fanship of decades now -- I suppose he is like QT in that they got me early on and I'm sticking by them, and that in different ways, they are at least somewhat derivative of Hitchcock(the Goth fancifulness of Burton -- and his Batman films were Hitchcock homages in part; the resolute emphasis on crime and murder (even if in a Western setting) in QT.) To see both Keaton(a villain?) and DeVito(a good guy?) working for Burton again is quite nostalgic.

I wonder how they will re-invent the crow-singing song to update the African-American aspects in a positive way. Its do-able, I suppose with hip hop or some such.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

3. Mary Poppins. Trailer looks good.

---

Yes. And it "powers out" at the end with the music for the cast members. Generates excitement. Reminds me of why I go to the movies -- or why they trick me into going in.

---

Sequel premise - children are now adults - reminds one of Spielberg's awful Hook. Worrisome.

---

Hook WAS horrible -- I know that Robin Williams is a tragic loss, but in his heyday, I had real issues with how he approached his movie roles. But Hook wasn't all his fault. I blame Spielberg.

Some wag once wrote of a coming Spielberg movie: "From the director who gave you 1941, Always, and Hook!" Point being that Mr. Spielberg sure did miss the mark a few times. (I would add in his segment of The Twilight Zone, most of Indy and the Temple of Doom, and The Terminal as real misfires, juvenile and amateur. He doesn't get my fanship as Mr. H did. Like he cares.)

---
I like Blunt but can she sing her ass off to be a satisfactory Andrews replacement? Why didn't they go with a proper Broadway Baby?

---

Beats me. Also: they've got a lot of great songs to live up to from the original. Every kid of my generation knew them, as did many adults.

I'm in accord with the idea that maybe remakes are fine if only in order to bring fine old stories up to date with casts and technology to whom new modern audiences can relate.

But we're running into a problem here. If most movie years consist of remakes and sequels -- and nothing original of a MAJOR nature is made -- we will have no original films of 2018 to remake 20 years from now. Are we to understand that "all the originals have been made"(Star Wars, Batman, King Kong, Godzilla, Mary Poppins, Dumbo, Dracula, Psycho) and they will just be remade and remade again and remade again through time?

Its hard for me to determine how many major originals we've had in the last 25 years. Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal Lecter? Farther back than 25 years. The Hunger Games, maybe.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Its hard for me to determine how many major originals we've had in the last 25 years. Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal Lecter? Farther back than 25 years. The Hunger Games, maybe.

There have been a fair few original big hits over the past decade but *most* of those are sfx spectacles or animations, e.g., Gravity, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Avatar, The Martian, Inside Out, Up, Frozen, Zootopia, Despicable Me, Live of Pi, How To Train Your Dragon.

Actor and writing vehicles are still made at the end of each year but, honestly, they're seen by fewer people (have a lower cultural profile) than the better quality stuff on TV/streaming now, hence the flood of top talent to the latter. Gone Girl from a big hit novel is the sort of movie that was Hollywood's bread and butter since the 1930s. It feels like a complete unicorn these days and even since it was made it feels like that sort of thing has shifted much more to TV.

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

The MP sequel takes place many years after the original, and Van Dyke actually plays the son of the old banker he played in the original. In fact, the old banker died right after his laughing fit brought on by the wooden leg joke in the original. Still, should be fun to see him play the role without the makeup this time.

Dumbo must have been considered second tier by Walt back in the day since he allowed it to be shown on TV (ditto Alice in WOnderland) but IMO they're up there with the classics that were revived successfully in theaters every few years.

Star is Born I don't have a good feeling about. SIB 2 in 1954 followed pretty much the story of the 1930s original, and SIB 4 seems to be following 3 from 1976, which moved from Hollywood to the music scene and was inferior to the first two in large part to the shift. But 4 does seem to have a lot of buzz.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The MP sequel takes place many years after the original, and Van Dyke actually plays the son of the old banker he played in the original.

---

Oh, wow. Of course, the old banker died in the original -- and that benefitted the family.

--

In fact, the old banker died right after his laughing fit brought on by the wooden leg joke in the original. Still, should be fun to see him play the role without the makeup this time.

---

Dick Van Dyke was playing old in those Night at the Museum movies a few years back and now...he's older.

One thing: Van Dyke confessed to some years of alcoholism, which supposedly harms your body. And yet he's lived to 90. Go figure.

--

Dumbo must have been considered second tier by Walt back in the day since he allowed it to be shown on TV (ditto Alice in WOnderland) but IMO they're up there with the classics that were revived successfully in theaters every few years.

---

I first saw Dumbo in first grade or something. The teacher showed it on a 16 mm projector -- why we got to see it, I can't remember.

I remembered being enthralled by the triumphant climax. And I liked the jokiness of the crow's song.

If we are about to get 20 Disney remakes, we might as well get some of them by Tim Burton with Michael Keaton(wasn't Burton's Alice in Wonderland an official Disney version remake?)

---

Star is Born I don't have a good feeling about. SIB 2 in 1954 followed pretty much the story of the 1930s original, and SIB 4 seems to be following 3 from 1976, which moved from Hollywood to the music scene and was inferior to the first two in large part to the shift. But 4 does seem to have a lot of buzz.

---

I forgot that only in the Streisand one did music become the background.

I went to a concert last week, and A Star is Born posters were plastered every where. Promote a show about concert performers...at a concert.

I'll probably see it. I like both leads. Bradley Cooper is ALMOST a star...

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Matt Zoller Seitz's review of the first 3 eps of The Romanoffs:
http://www.vulture.com/2018/10/matthew-weiner-the-romanoffs-tv-review.html
Marthe Keller, fondly remembered by movie buffs from Black Sunday & Marathon Man, has a major role in ep. 1!

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Matt Zoller Seitz's review

---

MZS is pretty much my favorite reviewer of "today" (going back at least to his 2011 praise of "The Lone Ranger," which I also liked very much.) Like the best of them, his writing style is as much a draw as his opinion. And he reviews movies AND cable series AND TV episodes.

---

of the first 3 eps of The Romanoffs:
http://www.vulture.com/2018/10/matthew-weiner-the-romanoffs-tv-review.html

---

Well it certainly sounds highbrow and offbeat enough. Only the man who scored with Mad Men could possibly sell this concept and get the actors he got. (Well, only that man and about 20 other showrunners. They're superstars.)

---

Marthe Keller, fondly remembered by movie buffs from Black Sunday & Marathon Man, has a major role in ep. 1!

---

Nifty. Its been over 40 years since those two(which came out only about 8 months apart in 1976 and 1977.) Paramount mogul turned producer Robert Evans produced both Marathon Man and Black Sunday -- I expect he was at least professionally smitten with Keller, who suddenly arrived outta nowhere as a star in these major films, Tippi Hedren like.

Keller then did a car racer movie with Al Pacino called "Bobby Deerfield," and became one of his many, many co-star affairs.

I'll be tracking down The Romanoffs. With perhaps special attention to the episodes with Mad Men alums John Slattery and Christina Hendricks.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Star is Born I don't have a good feeling about. SIB 2 in 1954 followed pretty much the story of the 1930s original, and SIB 4 seems to be following 3 from 1976, which moved from Hollywood to the music scene and was inferior to the first two in large part to the shift. But 4 does seem to have a lot of buzz.

---

Well, I have seen the new one. Its sort of weird. I feel very, very familiar with the story -- if anything, from Carol Burnett's spoof of the Garland/Mason one -- and yet I've only seen the '54 and the '76 once each, and my memories of each are very vague. From the Garland, I have great regard for "The Man Who Got Away"; that's the kind of smooth, emotional Great American Song that I grew up on(from my parents) even as I loved my rock and roll.

Which is a segue to: its the songs in the new one that don't much send me. Garland had The Man Who Got Away; Streisand had Evergreen -- I'm waiting to see if Gaga gets a big one outta this one.

Bradley Cooper gets a signature soulful country-rock tune(meant to be his character's "signature" tune), but it just didn't feel like hit song material. It sounded like a "fake rock song written for a movie, not for real listeners."

With the Gaga songs, I simply don't know -- are they are good as her own singles and video work? For me personally, none of the songs worked. Nothing left the theater with me. But I simply may be divorced from enjoying these kinds of songs. I made it a distance -- from Sinatra to the Beatles to Led Zep to The Rolling Stones to James Taylor to the Eagles to Madonna to Springsteen - but eventually I lost touch with music.

I will avoid spoilers here, but I was curious to see how they would handle the big moments from the originals: the husband's appearance on stage as his wife picks up her award; how the husband implements his final decision. I will say that I was intrigued -- and pleased -- by the new way both scenes were handled. Wish I could discuss them here.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I was intrigued by a sequence showing Gaga's big breakthrough being a performance on "Saturday Night Live." The sequence is filmed on the SNL set, which looks impossibly small and claustrophobic on film. They have Alec Baldwin introduce Gaga -- "Ladies and Gentlemen....Ally." They have brothers Bradley Cooper and Sam Elliott having an argument in the confines of the SNL backstage. Its a good sequence, demonstrating the weight that SNL likely has in the music industry, and how tiny and confined the area is that broadcasts out that famous show to millions.

The support casting was good. Surprisingly good, in one case -- Andrew Dice Clay as Gaga's Sinatra-copying failed lounge singer of a loving father. Its odd to see Clay gray-haired and balding, but he's a very fit big man who looks good in Sinatra suit threads, and his old Brooklyn-flavored speaking voice is fun to hear in older age. (So sue me, but I actually thought the guy was funny in that Ford Fairlane movie of decades ago; I have vivid memories of watching it with some friends on TV and laughing pretty much all the way through.)

Sam Elliott is white haired and gangly now, but still has charisma, and it is a joke that turns very serious that Cooper's character has "stolen Elliott's voice" to make his singing career. In other words, Bradly Cooper does a Sam Elliott impression in scenes WITH Sam Elliott.

And Dave Chapelle shows up sympathetically as an old musician friend of Cooper's who sees the end coming and desperately tries to change Cooper's course.

Cooper, in beard and growly Western mode(who, one wonders, is his character supposed to BE? A country star? A James Taylor throwback? A hard rocker) is fine...yes, he is a movie star now.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Which leaves Lady Gaga. She worked for me. She does the first half of the movie with her natural hair and natural face and you can see the pretty but facially flawed natural woman. She does the second half of the movie with dyed hair and flasy outfits and you can see...Lady Gaga. And her voice is dynamic.

I wonder if Gaga wants or will have a movie career after this. I was reminded of Liza Minnelli, who won the Oscar for Cabaret but didn't go very much farther(Lucky Lady with Hackman and Reynolds was her Waterloo; Hitchcock turned her down for Madame Blanche in Family Plot, over Universal's objections.) Gaga seems a bit out of her element in a big movie. Kudos: she does a little nudity, always an interesting choice for a debuting actress (I've read she needed heavy make-up to cover up tattoos.) She's in good, supple shape. Did any of the female leads in the other ones do THIS? I don't think so.

I do wonder if A Star is Born works that well as a tale of pop rock singers. Neither the Streisand movie nor this one really suggest REAL concert talent, even with stars like Streisand and Gaga. Something about the songs, something about the divas in question not being believable as "little people" up front.

I liked A Star is Born, but it was not really made for me. Garland and Mason (a few years before his NXNW villainy -- he was a STAR) are my choices.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And now(for another telling), my personal "Star is Born" story of 1976.

I lived in LA then, and I liked to traipse over to "Westwood Village," a small sector with several big old venerable movie theaters, near UCLA, to stand on the street and watch the stars show up for movie premieres.

They did "A Star is Born" at the Village Theater. Streisand and Kris Kristofferson and Streisand's hairdresser/producer boyfriend Jon Peters, and songwriter Paul Williams(a favorite) were all dressed in white tuxedos; the whole stage at the front of the theater was in silver and white. And a new song -- "Evergreen" -- played on loudspeakers, over and over and over and over again. By the time I left the premiere, I had learned that new Stresiand number by heart, and I liked it.

I was maybe a short block away from the theater watching all of this, and I noticed a tall, shaggy man to my right. He had a shorter, moustache-wearing man standing with him.

I did a double take. The tall man was: Elliott Gould. Then a fading star, but still a star(MASH). And, of course, the ex-husband of Barbra Streisand.

I didn't bother Mr. Gould, but I heard this exchange:

Smaller man: You know, you could go up there, she'll let you be on the stage with her. You could go in.
Gould:(After thinking a bit.) No. No, I don't think I'll do that. Let's go.

I was intrigued that Elliott Gould had taken the time and effort to bring himself this close to his ex-wife, without interacting with her.

Funny: in real life, Gould and Streisand were almost "A Star is Born" in reverse. SHE was the big star first(Funny Girl, an Oscar) and then(after their divorce) HE became very big(MASH, The Long Goodbye, and like 10 movies in 2 years). But she stayed a star, and he did not.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

They ran a trailer before "A Star is Born" that is kinda historic, and the movie also stars Bradley Cooper:

It's "The Mule." Starring 88-year old Clint Eastwood top-billed above the title. That's historic.

And surprising. I had heard of The Mule as a POSSIBLE project for Eastwood, but I had no idea its been filmed. Shot. Done. For December release.

There's some debate out there as to whether or not Eastwood's last leading role on screen was in Gran Torino(2008) or Trouble with the Curve(2011.) I say Curve, though others say he was in support of Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake in that one. Gran Torino was the bigger hit and more memorable movie.

Here, Eastwood plays a very old man who worked as a drug "mule" for the cartels. Cooper is the cop who is chasing him. Cooper was the star of Eastwood's "American Sniper," I expect he is doing a favor for Eastwood here -- and giving the movie a young marquee star. For his part, Eastwood looks very thin and very frail; but he's still got his "old man Eastwood" voice to convey some star quality.

Eastwood's been directing a lot in recent years. Often to little effect -- he sometimes rivals Woody Allen for most production with least relevance in his later years. But Eastwood had a giant hit with American Sniper and a modest hit with Sully -- so he's still relevant.

Its good -- but a little unnerving -- to see Old Frail Clint headlining a movie. Still, he's only one year and change away from 90 -- I can see him coming back to make more history in a role in his 90s.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

OK, I've seen ASIB (2018) now.... and was seriously underwhelmed. I wasn't grabbed by either Cooper or Gaga's performances and direction was undistinguished. If it wins Oscars in any of those categories let alone Best Picture... well I just give up. Last Movie Star is better performed and directed in my view as is Hereditary and First Reformed just to name three.

As for the music... it was just OK. No real killer songs, as you mention, no 'Man who got away', but also nothing as good or catchy as 'This Is Me' from tepid old Greatest Showman. Almost all of Gaga's songs felt like rehashes of her pseudo-Springsteen/Journey pop-hits such as 'Edge of Glory' and 'Marry The Night' which I disliked the first time around. I got more out of the rapturous dance scene set to 'It's too Late To Turn Back Now' in Black KKKlansman than out of any of ASIB's numbers.

I dunno, maybe this film just wasn't for me, but I confess that I've never been a *huge* fan of the 1954 version either. There's something about this story that's too obvious for me (in any version you figure out early what the trajectories are going to be and it's always a little like the stations of the cross after that). I *love* a lot of cynical insider tales from the '50s - Sunset Blvd started something great! - but I'd always choose to watch Sunset or Bad and the Beautiful or Love Me or Leave Me or Face in the Crowd or Sweet Smell over ASIB. They're less predictable and just better I think.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Rewatching key bits of ASIB (1954).... deep down there's just a lot more pleasure to be had with those songbook songs and the film-world setting (and the lush scoring that fittingly accompanies everything)... at least for me. The rock/pop world and its behind the scenes just don't lead to the overwhelming visuals that Cukor can showcase.

ASIB (1954)'s cinemascope distortions really jump out after seeing the 2018 version. Garland is out of focus for large chunks of the Awards Show meltdown sequence for example, and, for another example, Norman Maine ripples and distorts as he enters the beach at the end from frame left. I'm not sure why no one seems to hold these tech problems against the 1954 version. Seven Brides from the same year seems miles ahead in wide-screen technicals.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Also, Mason's silky voice and Garland singing Arlen/Gershwin tunes establishes a baseline of pleasure for anyone, whereas mileage will vary over Cooper's comical growl and Gaga's hard emotin'.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

OK, I've seen ASIB (2018) now.... and was seriously underwhelmed.

--

I saw it a few months ago, and I have to say...I've pretty much forgotten the experience.

Which I don't think is how the 1954 version played with audiences...and I KNOW the 1976 version was a bigger deal than this one, too.

Perhaps the issue is that Lady Gaga isn't really at the level of public stardom that either Streisand in her time or Garland in her time, were. But I may be way off about that. I'm not up on HOW modern stars like Gaga maintain their stardom.

And the first one yielded "The Man Who Got Away" and the second one yielded "Evergreen." Did not one or both of those songs win the Oscar?

---

I wasn't grabbed by either Cooper or Gaga's performances and direction was undistinguished.

---

Which was Cooper's direction. I keep wondering if Cooper is quite the star he's being made out to be. It is so hard to maintain a movie star career these days. His breakout hits were The Hangover(where he was the "handsome cool guy" amongst three jerks) and American Sniper(a mega-blockbuster which seemed to be as much about the real sniper as Cooper; though he certainly beefed up for the role.) He was good in Silver Linings Playbook(but overshadowed by J-Law.) I guess he'll keep going. Its just not a good time for movie stars.

I just flashed on the all-star male cast for A Bridge Too Far(1977), and while the men lined up had careers of different magnitude or duration than the others, look at these rich pickins back then: Robert Redford, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, James Caan, Michael Caine, Elliott Gould, Ryan O'Neal. Do we have quite that variety today?

---

If it wins Oscars in any of those categories let alone Best Picture... well I just give up.

---

Last Movie Star is better performed and directed in my view as is Hereditary and First Reformed just to name three.

---

Over here in "Mainstream Man" land -- where I see few movies and not necessarily the Oscar ones -- The Last Movie Star is holding the slot for my possible "personal favorite of 2018." It rather tracks with The Shootist as the last hurrah of a great true star(if less durable than Wayne) and tracks with The Dark Knight in that the actor is now passed away. (Wayne lived another three years after The Shootist.)

The only possible competish I see between now and the end of the year is....Mary Poppins Returns. I'm rather captivated by the trailer(how the music swells on Lin-Manuel Miranda's credit is so old-time Ben-Hur--ish to me), and the 1964 original is a strong favorite from a strong year("Dr. Strangelove" beats it as my favorite of 1964, but some days I'm not so sure that the pure emotion of Mary Poppins, and its great songs, means more for my heart than the cold and hilarious Strangelove. Also, I liked that "Hitchcock"-like making-of movie about Mary Poppins with Tom Hanks as Disney.)

I'm figuring , btw, that QT will again be my winner next year for 2019 because he always turns out a movie I like better than anything else in its year. And that will take care of the 2010's, thus

2010: True Grit
2011: Moneyball
2012: Django Unchained
2013: The Wolf of Wall Street
2014: John Wick
2015: The Hateful Eight
2016: The Magnificent Seven
2017: Molly's Game
2018: The Last Movie Star OR Mary Poppins Returns OR something else
2019: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood OR something else

Note: QT didn't rack up automatic Number 1s in earlier years on my personal list. The competition was too strong(not something that has happened in the 2010's). Jackie Brown should be a Number One, but it came in the year of LA Confidential. Pulp Fiction is a Number One(1994.) I liked Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill 1 and 2, Death Proof(and the QT scripted True Romance and From Dusk Til Dawn),but there's not a Number One there.

I think is is San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle who saw a rather sudden maturity in QT from Inglorious Basterds on; there is something rather great-looking and starry about the last three films. And they are hilarious in parts(the "holes in the KKK masks" scene in Django, for instance.) Still, I see Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown as his best.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

As for the music... it was just OK. No real killer songs, as you mention, no 'Man who got away', but also nothing as good or catchy as 'This Is Me' from tepid old Greatest Showman.

---

I liked "This is Me" from Showman...and the trailer that was cut to the song (unlike the Mary Poppins Returns and Hail Caesar trailers, here was a trailer that featured music IN the movie.)

---

Almost all of Gaga's songs felt like rehashes of her pseudo-Springsteen/Journey pop-hits such as 'Edge of Glory' and 'Marry The Night' which I disliked the first time around.

---

I just don't know Lady Gaga's music that way. It dealt me out of the movie.

Honestly, I think I found Andrew Dice Clay and Sam Elliott the two draws of the movie. Iconic guys, both of them.

---

I got more out of the rapturous dance scene set to 'It's too Late To Turn Back Now' in Black KKKlansman than out of any of ASIB's numbers.

---

Recommendation taken.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I dunno, maybe this film just wasn't for me, but I confess that I've never been a *huge* fan of the 1954 version either. There's something about this story that's too obvious for me (in any version you figure out early what the trajectories are going to be and it's always a little like the stations of the cross after that). I *love* a lot of cynical insider tales from the '50s - Sunset Blvd started something great! - but I'd always choose to watch Sunset or Bad and the Beautiful or Love Me or Leave Me or Face in the Crowd or Sweet Smell over ASIB. They're less predictable and just better I think.

---

TCM showed the original 1954(I know there are earlier versions too) the week after the Cooper/Gaga one came out. I agree that a movie studio setting made more sense(with Jack Carson interesting as the PR guy who just HATES Mason, but has to carry him) than the music world(particulary when neither Streisand's movie or Gaga's movie felt like the REAL music world -- most of the songs just weren't good enough in either of them.) But the story is rather contrived. In the Garland/Mason one, I thought it was interesting that while Garland's character is a "multi-tasker" (she's a great singer first, then an actress), Mason is basically just an aging costume drama star....she's got that "next level" of stardom(musical) that very few stars have (Garland, Sinatra, Dino, Day, Stresiand.)

I can't say its a BIG distraction, but James Mason in A Star is Born is basically Vandamm on the Skids, to me. Really hard to subtract NXNW out -- which is not so with various Mason films he made AFTER NXNW, as he aged and got stout and mustachioed.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Cooper, in beard and growly Western mode(who, one wonders, is his character supposed to BE? A country star? A James Taylor throwback? A hard rocker)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

From the clips I've seen his character has some of the musical background of '70s guys like Neil Young and Springsteen (but we're also not supposed to believe he ever quite got *that* big or important) but he's ages with '90s hard rock singers like Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell who got famous with their bands but do solo acoustic tours sometimes.... There are also lots of solid country solo male acts that sold zillions in the '90s without ever really breaking through to the pop charts called things like Vince, Ricky, Wade, Garth, Blake.... those probably have the right age and profile, first name-i-ness but not-quite true super-stardom that Cooper's Jackson Maine seems to have.

--

Before we get to the "right on " answer per your update, it does seem like Cooper had quite a range of "type" of star to draw from. All close, no cigar in terms of feeling "exactly right" as a match. I might add that Kris Kristofferson had the same problem in '76 -- Kristofferson himself was a music star, but not that big, and bigger as a movie star at the time. It was hard to reconcile him with anyone. Though Streisand offered the role first to Elvis and then to James Taylor.

Think about it. Elvis was out of things for awhile, but he came back and the somewhat overweight Elvis who died young of drugs was still able to fill houses at the time of his death. So he didn't fit the story. James Taylor had a "Star is Born" year when wife Carly Simon hit with the mega single "You're So Vain" and it best-selling album hit the same time as a new Taylor album ("One Man Dog") struggled. I bought both albums, I liked both albums...but James looked the Norman Maine for awhile. Eventually, they divorced, both careers cooled down...and Taylor survived as a concert artist with lots of hits. Carly's OK. No Star is Born here.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Update: According to this article:
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/09/bradley-cooper-a-star-is-born-musician
Cooper based his character on Eddie Vedder, and spent several days quizzing and following solo Vedder around to help nail his performance.

===

Well, there you go. I'm more familiar with Veder and Pearl Jam on paper than on "record" -- but I looked up some photos and -- yeah. Of course, Vedder needs to feel self-confident in the face of the fictional failure played by Cooper. I expect he does.

TCM showed the Garland/Mason Star is Born the day after I saw the new one; Cooper hosted it with a TCM host. It was somewhat daring to make the comparison, for the 54 one sure seemed bigger and more overall tragic than the new one. Hollywood is a tough town with a toughness all its own, different from the music biz(actors are inherently missing the special talent of musical people) and in the 54 version, you became aware that while Garland's talent was multi-dimensional(she sings! she dances!), Mason was tethered to male adventure and drama roles -- he seemed less "special" than his wife to begin with. I'm afraid a few Hollywood careers crumbled under the weight of days missed over drugs and drinking -- Marilyn Monroe, Gig Young....George Segal, James Caan. Segal and Caan were survivors, came back...Segal is on a very popular sitcom right now.

--

Neither Gaga's voice (too technique-y, too much effort involved) nor her songwriting aside from a few early monster hits has really worked for me. This role (Ally) seems made for Gaga since her musical career has dawdled and dabbled for at least the past 5 years.

---

I've liked a few of her songs (not in this movie, before then), I sense the Madonna Wannabee aspects, I can't say the new movie makes her much more of a star than she already is. I think I was most surprised by her fresh-faced, blue jeans look in the first hour. Its like this regular gal has been hiding inside Lady Gaga all along.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

On Weiner's The Romanoffs:

Rather than releasing the episodes all at once for "binging", Amazon Prime is releasing The Romanoffs one episode at a time. There have been three. I passed on the first two(for now) and went straight to the third..because it stars the beauteous Christina Hendricks, "Joan" from Mad Men.

Interesting: on "Mad Men," Joan rarely got much screen time for an entire episode; here Hendricks is the star, on camera pretty much all the time, the center of attention. Interesting: on "Mad Men," Joan was pretty much a villain for at least half the series run: a reactionary woman in support of men running the world and beautiful women marrying them. Joan got woke as the series went on, but never lost her "arrogance of beauty."

Well, here, Hendricks is playing a movie star(TV star? Streaming star?) and from her first scene we get to study (yet again)...what makes a movie star tick? We see her being driven to a remote backwoods Austrian location to meet the female director of a mini-series on "The Romanoffs"(the actual history, not THIS series. Meta.) We see the male driver being overly friendly to her, eventually asking for, and getting a selfie with her(and immediately getting fired by the female director.) We see how Hendricks expects to be TREATED as a star, and ends up angry and dissatisfied -- calling her agent, Paul Reiser, time zone hours away to say..."There were no flowers or fruit basket waiting in the room for me! And its a horrible room!"

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

This star stuff is always fascinating to me...as is the "method" misbehavior of the actor assigned to play Rasputin(he improvises a rape attack on Hendrick during one scene that she ends by slapping him on camera and ending the scene; yet goes to his room for sex later), and the bumbling of another actor who seems too callow for his role as a Romanoff. All under the guidance of a cruel, unfocussed female actress turned director (Isabelle Huppert -- remember HER? Heaven's Gate!) who turns the whole shoot into an edge of madness experience for Hendrick's leading lady (who, we note, has been called in to replace ANOTHER actress who quit under mysterious circumstances.)

I watched this "Romanoffs" episode not knowing a thing about the plot, just going with it ..and watching it go every which way -- supernatural? dreaming? hallucinations? Real or not?

I wasn't confused by it, I "got" the ending...but I didn't know if it was any good. I checked some internet reviews this morning and it seems a split decision: "It was great...it was awful." I agree with whoever called it a "long Twilight Zone episode."

One sequence interested me, reminded me of The Shining:

Hendricks in her hotel room gets a call from the female director to "meet me in the hotel bar." At night. Hendricks goes down and talks to the female desk clerk:

"Where is your hotel bar?"
"We have no hotel bar."

So Hendricks goes back to her room. The next night, while in the hotel lobby, Hendricks hears distant music in the building follows it to...a big BAR. And the bartender is the female night clerk.

Hendricks: You told me there was no hotel bar.
Clerk/bartender says nothing.
Hendricks: But not only is there a f'ing bar, you're the f'ing bartender!
Clerk/bartender says nothing.

And Hendricks looks across the bar and sees...her female director and co-stars. Have they been here every night without Hendricks?

Mysterious, no? That's the kind of episode Matt Weiner has co-written here. The Twilight Zone meets The Shining.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

On balance, I liked this episode, and Christina Hendricks is easy to watch for 90 minutes straight. But without the 60's period trappings of Mad Men, and without "investment" in series-long characters(though I've been complaining recently that I LIKE stand alone shows)....something seems to be missing. Weiner has come close to achieving his old standing, but not close enough. Probably a smart move on his part to limit The Romanoffs to 8 stand alones and done.

I like the credits sequence, BTW: Ye Olde Classical Russian orchestration gives way to Tom Petty's "Refugee" blasting out over shots of the Romanoff family being blasted and bayoneted to bloody pieces and then to some modern day footage of NYC. Its a gorier variation on the mysterious Mad Men opening.

And that Romanoff family execution scene anchors the Hendricks episode. Her actress is doig a historical miniseries about the Romanoffs and is told "we're filming the end of the series first...so you get to do the murders right away!"

I've always read that film crews LOVE to watch murder scenes being filmed.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Some lines I liked in the Christina Hendricks Romanoffs:

After she has sex with her co-star in his room, Hendricks says "You realize this is all location-dependent, right?" and walks out.

Entering the room of the actor playing Rasputin to see it festooned with Rasputin portraits and knick knacks, Hendricks mumbles: "It puts the lotion on its skin..." (Get the movie reference?)

Hollywood agent Paul Reiser(great in the role, by long distance phone, he keeps forcing Hendricks to stay on set, to stay in the nightmare) relates what he told Meryl Streep: "Acting is easy. All you have to do is know your lines, hit your marks...and diet." (Says I: its that third one that's hard work.)

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

That's the kind of episode Matt Weiner has co-written here. The Twilight Zone meets The Shining.

Sounds wild and not especially character-driven. Does this play to Weiner's strengths?

The inclusion of La Huppert reminds me that the Romanoffs ep. you've described sounds a little like the quite off-beat film she did in the US in the year of Pulp Fiction, Amateur. Here's its cool/off-putting, audience-self-selecting original trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLhu37ozFx8
and here's its great opening/titles sequence (music by the director under a different name):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRTLGga5eQg
Maybe The Romanoffs is really a series of Hal Hartley indie films!

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Sounds wild and not especially character-driven. Does this play to Weiner's strengths?

---

I'm not sure, myself. The other two episodes are supposedly less thriller-ish and borderline occult. (I've since read that this Hendricks episode has references to Suspira -- which is soon coming in remake form -- giallo, and Hitchcock. Though I saw The Shining, mainly.)

What the show can't do, thus far, is summon up that "Mad Men" feeling. One realizes that the hooks of that show were very specific -- the 60s(as we waited for each big event to affect the characters, knowing it was coming, like JFK blown away); the advertising world(very specific); and, says I, the "dog eat dog" nature of capitalism at is most rich-making and terrifying -- poof, your company's gone, poof, poof, your client's gone...poof, your job's gone. The Mad Men crew would escape job death dilmemmas like Jason Batemen escapes Mexican cartel/hillbilly Mafia REAL death traps on "Ozark."

None of that in the Hendricks episode of The Romanoffs. More of a foreign/indie film feel...filmed in Romania playing Austria, though very expensive looking(Amazon Prime has paid $70 million for this short series -- money goes where?)

In short, boy is Weiner indulging his personal tastes, here. These films -- from the summaries -- also seem very much like high end short stories to me. Much as Cheever inspired Mad Men, SOMEBODY is inspiring The Romanoffs.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The inclusion of La Huppert reminds me that the Romanoffs ep. you've described sounds a little like the quite off-beat film she did in the US in the year of Pulp Fiction, Amateur. Here's its cool/off-putting, audience-self-selecting original trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLhu37ozFx8
and here's its great opening/titles sequence (music by the director under a different name):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRTLGga5eQg
Maybe The Romanoffs is really a series of Hal Hartley indie films!

---

Your breadth of knowledge emerges, swanstep, and I'll take a look. We can figure if Weiner is casting Huppert(who is great in her role here), he knows her work.

Here's a leap: I'm reminded of Hitchcock casting Topaz with Piccoli and Noiret and Claude Jade and a Bergman actor as the Russian defector. Hitch(or his casting director) was familiar with Godard and Truffaut and Bergman...but didn't quite make a movie with them that "fit" their talents.

I wonder if Weiner knows Hal Hartley films. This: he's had three years to kill time since Mad Men. Maybe he was in a screening room.

PS. In trying to promote The Romanoffs, Weiner has had to confront some Me Too claims from one female writer(who he fired), and one supportive woman of the other's claims. Weiner claims he can't remember saying such sexual things as charged; but his larger cover is: "I was a mean, demanding perfectionist boss to EVERYONE, and I'm sorry. I'm not sure what I said to anyone." Evidently, the mercurial Huppert director in this Romanoffs is based partly on him.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Another Romanoff's episode this week: the one with John Slattery(Roger Sterling) from Mad Men.

Weiner was smart to run his Christina Hendricks episode back to back with his Slattery episode, though there is a twist.

Evidently, Slattery (as the same character as in this episode) did a one or two scene cameo in one of the first two episodes of The Romanoffs, and I haven't watched those yet.

Slattery is ALMOST at full serving here, but not quite. He's not the lead of this episode, as Christina Hendricks was of hers. His billing is "And John Slattery."

But he's in this episode a lot, and though the star is Amanda Peet(more on her in a moment), Slattery roughly figures here as he did on Mad Man -- the "second lead" who is more compelling and fun to watch than the lead....a classic "supporting character who steals the show." Maybe Slattery is doomed to this kind of career.

John Slattery as Roger Sterling was my favorite character on Mad Men, and I found myself rather desperately missing Roger in this new piece; the voice and mannerisms are the same, as is that trademark white hair, but the character just doesn't quite match Roger(other than "scene stealing support."). This story wasn't written by Matt Weiner(who directed), but it was written by an old Mad Men hand, and I felt that occasionally Slattery got to peel off a Roger Sterling zinger here and there. Music to my ears (as Madame Blanche once said.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The plot finds a very rich, very tempermental, very aggravating Amanda Peet confronting a host of family issues in one day: her daughter's upcoming childbirth(the young woman is near-bursting and overdue and won't induce labor; the in-laws flying in to NYC to be there for the birth(with Peet having to pick them up at the airport and entertain them), the loving but distracted lawyer husband...and...John Slattery, as the best friend of Peet's husband and the REAL father of the pregnant daughter.

Mad Men buffs will recognize this plot line as one that was given Roger Sterling late in that series -- he was the father of Joan's son even as she was married to a thankless Army doctor who thought the kid was his. The pain is the same for the Slattery character in both stories -- unable to declare his fatherhood and (in the new one) having to watch another man(his lifelong BEST FRIEND) BE the father to the daughter. (With the added pain of not being able to welcome the new grandchild.)

Its rather soap opera-ish stuff, saved by a New Yorker short story-ish prestige that also comes off as snobby (though this episode EXAMINES snobbiness, in all its forms.)

The Romanoffs connection: Slattery's character has written a book about the Romanoffs that , he tells Peet, has just been sold "to make into a six part mini-series in Europe." That would be the series starring Christina Hendricks we saw being filmed last week. Also, Peet's lawyer husband is the Romanoff descendant in this one.(This remains an odd, inconsequential anchor for this anthology series.)

Amanda Peet. I thought she was long gone from movies and TV, but I'm sure that IMdb would show me otherwise. when she "broke out" as a young actress 20 or so years ago, I thought she was rather odd-looking: thick eyebrows, an overbite, a slightly mannish face. And yet, for a few years, she got some romantic roles(The Whole Nine Yards, As Good As it Gets.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Well, Peet is back in this piece. I found her looks to have deteriorated further from her youth, until I realized she was being lit harshly with no make-up to make sure that she seemed old enough to be Slattery's ex-lover and the mother of a 20-something.

As with Christina Hendricks last week, this "Romanoffs" is about a woman, not about a man. Slattery and the others are in support. So you better be an Amanda Peet fan to go the distance. I'm not...but I went the distance anyway. I found this well-produced and insightful, but not...enough. I see some critics are jumping on this series for the same reason. One realizes that Weiner and the other writers simply can't produce "great stories" every week -- but this is how the Golden Fifties Age of TV was , too. Anthology series. Good stories but not great stories. And the occasional small screen masterpiece(Marty, 12 Angry Men) that was immortalized as a movie with movie stars.

I've now seen the Hendricks and Slattery Romanoffs(though I need to go catch Slattery's cameo in that one episode.) Am I done with the Romanoffs? Maybe. Though I think a coupla lesser Mad Men people are still coming - the one who played Elizabeth Moss's final boyfriend, for instance.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In a week's time, I have seen Christina Hendricks and John Slattery on "The Romanoffs" and Jon Hamm in "Bad Times at the El Royale." I've determined that Hamm, Slattery and Hendricks WERE the most starry stars to come out of Mad Men, in the old time glamour star tradition. And yet mousy Elizabeth Moss seems to have the biggest career. I'm also partial to Vincent Kartheiser the guy who played weasel-gone-good Pete Campbell; I'd like to see him again. (I'm amused that the pixie-ish beauty who played his pert and elegant wife, Alison Brie, is now playing a made-tough fake lady wrestler on the GLOW Netflix series. That's why they call it acting.)

And poor January Jones, the not-so-great actress who captured a not-so-great person in Betty Draper and seems to have triumphed and failed at the same time-- Jones WAS nuanced and moving as Betty, but nobody liked her in the part. Whatever happened to her?

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

I just got around to seeing Personal Shopper (2016) [w/ Kristen Stewart in her second film in France with writer-director Assayas, whose Irma Vep back in the '90s - about a film star played by Maggie Cheung coming to Paris to make an arty vampire flick; weirdness ensues -is one of the most obvious antecedents for Weiner's ep.]. Like Romanoffs ep. 3, PS becomes increasingly ambiguous as it goes along then after a certain point effectively films and intercuts a couple of different end stories without ever telling you for sure that that's what it's doing. Maybe this is *the* cool new form of modern ambiguity. If so, I'm not sure I like or respect it that much.

PS irritated before it, as it were, hit the quantum superposition switch. After 40 minutes of indie meandering we got 20 minutes of Kristen Stewart texting on her iPhone. The latter is about the *last* thing I want to see in a film. I've read reviews that describe PS as Hitchcockian but that only applies to about 15 minutes of the film when [spoiler]a murder plot kicks in[/spoiler] and before the end quantums out. I wish PS were a whole lot more Hitchcockian. That said, PS won the director prize at Cannes. My response: boy people are easily impressed these days! Including perhaps Matthew Weiner.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

OK, I've seen the Hendricks/Huppert Romanoff's ep.. It struck me as twisty and heavily meta- kind of for its own sake and without any real point. There are *lots* of big precedents for this kind of story: from Contempt and 8&1/2 and The Stuntman to more recent (90s & after),

---

I think there is always some interest in seeing "how a movie is made." On location at least. With Hendricks staying in an isolated hotel and having to traipse to the location in a van stuffed with crew who have been waiting for her. (Actually, this hotel was a bit luxurious; I've read of casts and crews making Westerns where they had to stay in a Motel Six when not shooting.)

And the dynamic between Hendricks, as a star, with her actress director, and two types of male co-leads: too shallow and too deep. All trying to make the movie "work."

---

obscure and experimental things like The Baby of Macon and Irma Vep and Berberian Sound Studio.

---

Ya got me, there. I've only heard of Irma Vep, and I don't know what its about.

---

Weiner's ep. felt to me like a kind of high-velocity equivocation between a bunch of these better-formed reality/illusion tales.

---

Perhaps he was inspired but just couldn't match his muses.

---

I enjoyed all the performances and especially Hendricks & Huppert but by the end I just felt jerked around by the story

---
This is the bane of mediocre TV. It always comes down to the script. Actors and actresses of talent and good looks can hold our attention -- but the story has to pay off. That the script is this case was by Matt Weiner(and/or some of his old Mad Men collaborators) made it seem particularly disappointing.

Not that this script was "stupid." Intelligent writers have written intelligent lines here, and staged some mysterious sequences, and the whole thing feels rather highbrow.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

But Weiner is getting his licks in the press, and I think I know why. None of these episodes have been special enough yet. Mad Men never needed to try so hard or had much expectation on it. Episodes could drift week to week in quality because we always had "the sixties" to watch, and a compelling series of dramatic arcs(like the long journey to the firing and suicide of Lane Pryce -- a man who made a career of firing people.)

Weiner says he wants to treat audiences to "self contained stories" and to get them away from the agony of years-long serial storytelling(like Mad Men.) Bully for him -- I could use it. Someday I will start watching a multi-year mini-series and not live to see the end! But thus far, these self-contained stories haven't been special enough -- or grounded enough in history -- to really matter much emotionally.