Miley Cyrus and Melanie Safka singing “Look What They’ve Done To My Song.” Now, of course (and if you’re not aware that it’s “of course,” then now you know), Miley had already covered this song by herself in her great Backyard Sessions. Here, in a similar vein, she teams up with Melanie Safka, for the same song. Let’s hear it for the ladies. A cross-generational duet, a mutual respect/admiration society, with two similar voices (strong alto voices) blending together. The whole thing is so beautiful and simple. We are huge Miley Cyrus fans (she’s the real deal), and this is one of our favorites. As Mitchell said to me, “I think the kids are KILLING it now.” (In music.) I agree. Don’t listen to the Baby Boomers. (In general, don’t listen to them.) Miley, with all her cartoon tongue-wagging shenanigans, is having a BLAST, and the more people concern-troll her the more I hope she just keeps on keeping on. So far, she’s not a casualty of being famous so young (a la Lindsay Lohan, et al). I have high hopes for her, and can’t wait to see what she does next. This duet, and who she IS during the duet – not just her singing but her energy – is one of the reasons why.
Monologue about Justin Bieber
Similar to Miley Cyrus, the sneering at Justin Bieber not only seems motivated by a weird “Oh shit I’m old, I don’t ‘get it’ anymore” envy, but by bad-faith sneering at the tastes of little girls. There are a couple of reasons that I’m on Bieber’s side. #1. Any success he has was created by himself. He was not created, manufactured, and processed out. He was not “hired.” He put up Youtube videos of himself singing and playing the piano and here we are today. So, hats off. #2. Yes, he’s kind of an asshole. He is also BARELY an adult yet. Jesus Christ, people. Were you perfectly well-behaved when you were 21, 22 years old? If you say “yes,” then I would respond, “Well, then, that’s pretty sad for you.” OR I would say, “Well, imagine who you would be if you became that famous and that rich before you had even reached legal drinking age.” Oh, yes, of course, I’m sure you would have been a model of rectitude, and a good role model, and you would never have “acted out” ever. And if that’s the case, then I would say, “Well, then, no wonder you’re not a big star.” I’m not saying I think Justin Bieber is a nice person. A. I don’t KNOW the man. And B. Who cares? Lastly: anything that Tween girls love should be paid attention to, as opposed to scorned/dismissed. But alas, we live in a vicious little world where girls’ tastes are ignored and made fun of. But in the history of pop culture, what demographic has ALWAYS been the demographic who noticed cool shit early, and were early adopters of whatever HUGE thing that was going to take over and be THE thing? Yeah. It was teenage girls. Who thrilled to Sinatra, and Rudolph Valentino, and Elvis, and the Beatles, and on and on and fucking ON. So yeah, let’s just keep making fun of 14 year olds who love Taylor Swift. She’s one of the biggest stars in the world. Instead of making fun of teenage girls when they start screaming about something … we should be following that sound, curious about what girls are into now, because maybe – and PROBABLY – those girls are “onto” something. As long as we still live in a world where girls are punished for having sexual feelings (this occurs the SECOND they start HAVING sexual feelings at all), then girls will need to LET IT ALL OUT in a safe non-judgmental environment, like loving a pop star/teen movie star/etc. The power of sex drives pop culture. This is a given with boys. But the entire culture doesn’t rally to make fun of whatever it is that boys love. Maybe boys are concern-trolled when some asshole shoots up a school and has declared that he loves violent video games. But those are isolated incidents. Girls get it from all sides, always. Thankfully, the tweens don’t give a shit and just keep screaming and swooning to their hearts’ content, and buying into Twilight whole-heartedly, and then we get worried op-ed after op-ed (written mostly by women, sadly) about what it all MEANS and “what’s going on with girls” and “how sad it is that girls love such a fucked-up unenlightened love story as Twilight.” People, we’re talking about sexual fantasies. Would your sexual fantasies pass an “Appropriate” checklist? Good for you. But lots of people fantasize about some really fucked-up shit. More power to them. They’re FANTASIES. Girls love to feel their own emotions, love to emote and express – and not only is this NOT anything to be mocked, it represents the best parts of our human race, potentially the most healing – for girls AND boys – and we could use a little MORE of that, in general? Girls, too, are the most loyal fans on the planet. Go and stand in line at Graceland with the geriatric set, and you’ll see what I mean. Being annoyed at Justin Bieber or making fun of him or making fun of the 13-year-old fans who love him (remember: they’re 13 years old. In what civilized universe is it okay to make fun of CHILDREN on any kind of mass-numbers level?) while NOT once investigating his music, or even knowing any of his songs – is rude (and stupid) to the Nth degree. Enjoy your moral superiority over …. 13-year-old girls. Proud of yourself? 13-year-old girls gave us Elvis. I thought the documentary about Justin Bieber’s “Believe” tour was not very good, but I went into all of this in my review. He’s an adorable and enthusiastic performer: he loves his fans, and he gives them a good and happy time. He does not come off as a strutting cock-swinging rock star. He is, believe it or not, “age-appropriate” in his concerts. He also can sing. He also can dance. He doesn’t make fun of or mock his own audience. He gives them what they want. I mean, honestly, I see no problem.
Monologue over.
Mitchell and I were talking about how “the kids” were killing it. And he asked if I had heard Bieber’s new song. I haven’t, so Mitchell played it for me. And now I need to listen to it every day to get it out of my system. The song has that “hook,” the sound that gets in your brain, imprinting itself. The lyrics, too, are pretty great. Bitchy, but SMART. The song is in what I call the “Bad Sport Breakup Song” genre, one of my favorite genres. Most breakup songs are tear-filled mournful screams of loss. Or wistful nostalgic ballads like “ah, I remember the good times and I hope you are happy and well my dearly-loved old friend”. I love it when people are NOT “good sports” about breakups and become vicious childish bad sports, and turn their former loved-one into a villain, an asshole, screaming “I never liked you anyway.” Let’s hear it for NOT being gracious, for allowing yourself a season of Childishness, for refusing to accommodate and forgive. Sure, it might become a toxic attitude, but so might any number of other attitudes. Go for it. Be pissed. Be full of blame. (One of my favorite “bad sport breakup” songs comes from Pink, with the perfect title: “Why Did I Ever Like You?” And instead of castigating herself for her bad taste, she turns it into a diatribe about how awful he is. That’s as valid a catharsis as the other healing/growing/changing kind of catharsis – maybe even more so. Pink says: “It’s hard to believe I laughed at anything you said. Your jokes aren’t funny.”)
So Bieber’s lyrics in the song below are smart and observant, even in their “bad sport-ness”.
Best line is something that perhaps only a young man, closer to the cradle than the grave, would say, but no less true and insightful because of that:
My mama don’t like you
And she likes everyone.
Such a good line. And if you have that kind of relationship with your parents, then your “mama” not liking someone is red flag enough.
A movie like Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong shows just how difficult it really is to pull off something like The Clock, or Dogfight, or the Before trilogy by Richard Linklater. Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong wants to be like that, but isn’t.
We both love her so much. Our discussion about Roberta Flack involved: the Don McLean connection, of course, and how moving we found it. “I prayed that he would finish … but he just kept right on …” How piercing and perfect a description of what powerful art can do to us, or how it reveals to us our own pain. We also discussed the quality of her voice. It’s no-frills. It’s basically her speaking-voice, which is why it has that direct quality, nothing between it and her, or her and us.
We’ve been discussing The Pointer Sisters for the entirety of our friendship. Mitchell saw them perform multiple times in childhood at the legendary Warwick Tent (where he saw everyone), and they were a big favorite in college. I don’t think, in college, I was fully aware of their background, the atmosphere from which they sprung, AND, how truly BIZARRE they really were. (Bizarre as in: awesome, and “sui generis.”) Sisters. New Orleans jazz. Andrews Sisters. Southern girls. I mean, WATCH that performance above. It’s such a blend of influences, made their own, and sparked with the enthusiasm of siblings who have probably been imitating those influences, using hair-brushes as microphones, since they were kids. Mitchell said, “I mean, who thought that this would be a valid way to start a pop career?” (This is not criticism. It’s an acknowledgement of how “out there” they were, how MUCH they were themselves … the eccentricity and unique nature of what they were doing. Brilliant.) They were not packaged as a “sister act”, they were not a gimmick or a commodity. They burst out of the gate, showing us who they were and the kind of music they loved and listen: You cannot manufacture authenticity like that, the in-sync-ness of siblings, the enthusiasm that they bring. You either have it or you don’t. We watched, and Mitchell gave me brief bios on each sister, the blend of personalities/tastes that made up The Pointer Sisters.
That clip led us to this performance (same concert) of one of the country songs written by the sisters. Old-school country. You can hear the resistance of the audience to her question, “Do you love country music?” They’re like, “Uhm. No.” But into it she goes, and it’s a classic. It’s country music, straight-up, a country song sung by that voice, and it’s the culture from which she springs as well. There’s an integration in this, a bridging of the gap, in such an authentic and personal way. I’ll have more to say about this in a second, but first, watch the beautiful clip.
At one point, watching the clip, I started singing along. I didn’t realize I knew the words. I somehow had missed that this song was a Pointer Sisters song, and I racked my brains: How do I know this song? Who covered it? Because it’s through the COVER that I knew the song? Then I got it. Then I heard it. I told Mitchell, and he was like, “What?? He covered it?” (It’s always pleasing to me, in a semi-pathetic way, whenever I can tell Mitchell something he doesn’t know, especially about music.) So then we queued up HIS version. And it’s actually a favorite performance for me from him. He loved country music, no surprise there, but I love a couple things in his version: the ladies behind him (the Sweet Inspirations, including Cissy Houston), as well as his sexy and committed prosody and phrasing on “You used me … you deceived me … and you never seemed to need me … but I’ll BET … you won’t forget me when I go.” (It’s his commitment on “I’ll BET” that is electric. He’s PISSED.)
The mention of The Sweet Inspirations, one of Elvis’ back-up groups in the 70s also had a long storied career: Nothing like those church girls singing a pop song. THAT’S the sound that BECAME pop music. So we pulled up their cover of the Bee Gees song.
All roads lead to Barbra Streisand. Mitchell pulled up two clips from one of her TV specials. (We both miss TV specials so much.) Barbra, in her full and glamorous 70s beauty, does a series of numbers with Ray Charles (and his awesome Girl Back-up Group, so essential to his sex appeal and style and sound.) Barbra sang with everyone. She was SUCH a solo star, but the pairings she has done show her versatility, as well as the generosity of a certain kind of star. Pouring her attention and focus on someone who is equally fabulous. She’s self-consumed, as most gigantic stars/icons are (hello, Marlene Dietrich), but she also loves the excellence of others, and they love the excellence in her.
So maybe Ray and Babs make no sense on the face of it, but seeing them together … it makes PERFECT sense.
First up, Ray taking OFF into the stratosphere with his awesome “Look What They’ve Done To My Song.” He’s doing his thing, she’s doing her thing. She doesn’t alter her style or try to be someone that she’s not. Why should she? She’s Babs. BUT she’s also there as support staff to him, setting him up, continuously tossing the ball his way. The comments she throw in, in between his phrases … asking questions that he then answers in the next batch of lyrics … SO entertaining.
Also, she never takes her eyes off of him. Because one of her jobs is to keep herself totally in sync with him, because she can see him, and he can’t see her. So she reins it in (except on the sections where he plays support staff to her), and stares right at him … timing her own phrasing to PERFECTION to match up with his. That’s one of her jobs.
Also, she’s essentially singing back-up. When did Barbra EVER sing back-up? So she’s also timing herself up with the syncopations and off-beats of the back-up arrangement, being sung by the ladies who are placed BEHIND her. So watch Babs’ strange tapping on the piano, not quite in sync with Ray’s beat. She doesn’t need to keep in sync with Ray. She needs to keep in sync with that back-up beat. So the hand helps.
The whole thing is so right-brain-left-brain and it’s masterful.
And finally: watch how he goes OFF on his classic riffs at the end, going over and over and over the same section, improvising, building the tension … as the back-up singers hold strong behind him. Nobody knows when he will decide to end the riff and move on into the explosive ending … and everyone has to hold tight, doing their thing, sensing when he will switch it up. I love that kind of tight tight tight intuitive collaboration. And Barbra … holding strong, with her part in the back-up, never taking her eyes off Ray, knowing she has to be ready, at a moment’s notice, to launch into the next section. And he’s going to be the one to do it, he’s in charge … go with him, or be left in the dust.
After that, we moved on further into that pairing in the same TV special. “Crying’ Time” moving into “Sweet Inspiration”, two wildly different numbers, with wildly different vibes. Again: the glory of Babs harmonizing with a male voice. It’s so beautiful, so creamy-dreamy, the collaboration of two geniuses, blending their voices together. The song has so many pauses built into its melody, and again, Barbra has to keep her eye on Ray Charles, so that she lets go of notes at the same time he does, and picks up the next phrase at the identical moment.
And on to “Sweet Inspiration,” where Babs is, essentially, wearing the white pant suit from What’s Up, Doc?, showing off her superb figure … doing choreography (when did Babs ever do choreography?), in sync with the back-up ladies behind her. It’s so adorable.
And she’s a part of their dynamic, but she’s also the star, and she puts her own Babs-ish spin on those movements, and it’s goofy and charming and entertaining.
Bring back the TV special.
And singers/producers need to realize that if there are geniuses at work, you don’t need to add too much to it. Keep the camera angles simple, keep the lighting uniform … you don’t need to add huge attention-getting cues that take away from/pull focus from the dynamic between the two performers.
This is all we did on Wednesday. I didn’t get out of my pajamas. January has been pretty wretched, I don’t mind telling you, and my health has suffered because of the stress. I’m coming out of it now, but my resilience is compromised ANYway so I need to get myself back on track (and I am). But a day in my pajamas watching Youtube clips with one of my best friends worked wonders.
I’m in Chicago now, staying with my friend Mitchell. We’ve been friends since college. Then we were roommates in Chicago, and the adventures we had are legion. Here, we had come home from some night out. We were not drunk, or not wasted, let’s say that. And for whatever reason, my outfit, and the lighting in our little crappy hallway made Mitchell want to take some pictures, with my cool camera. He said, “You look like some complete wastrel member of a defunct monarchy.” Like, what? He elaborated: “You know, like you’re a princess in the Hapsburg or Romanov line, and you have no throne to sit on anymore because your monarchy no longer exists, and so instead you spend your time drinking and doing coke and making scenes in Biarritz or Monte Carlo, dating criminals and compulsive gamblers and international asshole playboys, and your only ‘throne’ now is the tabloids who cover your drunken exploits.”
And I took it from there. Because isn’t that an evocative image? Wouldn’t you “know what to do”, too, if someone presented that image? “Okay, act like this.” “Oh yes. I know exactly who that person is. Here we go.”
Mitchell and I are (much) older now but we still do shit like this, merely for our own entertainment. Also, who else but Mitchell would look at a woman in a biker’s jacket on a cold wintry Chicago night, and say, “You look like a member of the lost Romanov clan”? I ask you, who.
That’s the official poster. Boring. I like this one much better.
In comparison to Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail, Caesar! has an outlook on humanity that is damn near sunny. Inside Llewyn Davis’ was a well-observed portrayal of the coffee-house folk-music scene pre-Dylan, suffused with an existential bleak mood. (I loved it.)
Hail, Caesar! is not exactly a “well-observed portrayal” of Hollywood post-WWII (a mix of the 40s and 50s). It’s not a documentary, although real people – or versions of them – predominate. It’s not a straight satire or a spoof either. It’s a bizarre mix of heart, corniness, and satire. It covers a lot of things familiar to people who know the history of Hollywood: how the big studios operated, including their patriarchal control over their stable of stars. The power of gossip columnists like Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, fearsome women wearing gigantic hats who made studio heads tremble. The screenwriters who went to Community Party meetings which then would come back and bite them in the ass during the Blacklist years. (In the Coens’ re-imagining of that dark era, those people made up a true Communist cell, taking their orders from the Soviets, sneaking Commie propaganda into Hollywood movies.) The kinds of movies made by certain studios, mass-entertainment, musicals and Biblical epics. Movies “we” may be ashamed of now (speaking generally), but which were the bread-and-butter of a different era.
But Hail, Caesar! does not approach its environment with cynicism. It’s not slick. It also doesn’t treat Hollywood with contempt, nor is it mean-spirited about an industry devoted to make-believe. It has an almost gentle view of all of the characters, one of the biggest surprises about it, as ridiculous as many of them are. Hollywood is made up of hard-working people who have weird useless gifts (lassoing, horse riding, swimming, dancing with bananas on your head) that have brought them an immense amount of luck and good fortune. There isn’t one Diva actor on the lot in the film. I appreciated that so much. In my experience working in theatre, Divas are rare. Divas stand out in your memory. For the most part, actors are hard workers, humble (they really want to please the director and do a good job, even the stars feel that way), and, yeah, somewhat silly, because who would have ever thought that an ability to twirl two guns into your two-sided holster could make you Box Office Gold? It’s insane, it’s play-acting, and actors feel very very fortunate if they get to the point where they can make a living at it at all. People who see actors as egotistical idiotic maniacs probably don’t know many of them personally. The Divas get all the press. The nose-to-the-grindstone people do their work and go home.
I’ve read that some people don’t find the film “laugh out loud funny,” but I laughed out loud throughout. Your mileage may vary.
George Clooney plays Baird Whitlock, a dim-witted good-hearted alcoholic/womanizer movie star who spends the entire movie in Roman dress with a Caesar haircut. As strange as this might be to believe, he barely looks attractive at times. It’s hilarious. At one point, Josh Brolin (who plays Eddie Mannix, head of production at the fictional Capitol Pictures – based on the real-life Eddie Mannix – sort of) slaps Clooney across the face multiple times (there are a couple of 1940s movie-slaps in the film), and in between one of the slaps, Clooney stares up at Brolin in such horror and surprise that his mouth is open in a perfect circle, eyes bugged out of his head. I guffawed.
Scarlett Johansson plays DeeAnna Moran, an “aquatic” star along the lines of Esther Williams, but with throwbacks to the 1930s Busby Berkeley years, with grandiose synchronized swimming numbers, filmed from the ceiling, so human figures in the water start to look kaleidoscopic and abstract, creating different illusions.
The “By the Waterfall” number in Busby Berkeley’s 1933 film “Footlight Parade”. Those are human beings. Here’s the full clip:
Esther Williams, “Dangerous When Wet” (1953)
Johansson’s voice in Hail, Caesar! is a brassy sassy New York accent (perfection), reminiscent of Jean Harlow’s voice: the tough-girl, the working-class New York girl, nobody’s fool, a gun moll voice. The first time you see DeeAnna Moran, she rises from the surface of the pool, engulfed in a spout of water from a pretend-whale beneath the waves. Dressed in a skintight green mermaid outfit, she does a high-dive into the center of the synchronized swimmers, and then, once the cameras stop rolling, swims off, her tail flapping in the waves, annoyed because the damn thing is too tight. “Did you have gas again?” asks an assistant on set, and she scoffs, “Did I have gas again … come on.” Turns out DeeAnna Moran is pregnant, doesn’t know who the father is, although she thinks she might be sure, and Eddie Mannix has come to propose a quickie-marriage to an appropriate gentleman, just to avoid the scandal.
Tilda Swinton plays twin-sister gossip-columnists named Thora Thacker / Thessaly Thacker, both based on Hedda Hopper. The hats Swinton wears, with deadly-looking feathers jutting off to the side, are not an exaggeration.
Hedda Hopper
Thora (or Thessaly) stalk after Eddie Mannix across the Capitol lawns, threatening to reveal sketchy stories from Whitlock’s past if she doesn’t get an exclusive. The sisters are in ferocious competition with one another for scoops.
Ralph Fiennes plays a director named, hilariously, Laurence Laurentz (and nobody in the film can get the stresses right on either of his names). Laurentz is an elegant man with a British accent who seems to make drawing-room comedies along the lines of William Wyler or a low-rent George Cukor, with a palatial set of a parlor, and a fancy-schmancy family sitting around having cocktails.
Channing Tatum plays Burt Gurney, the song-and-dance man star of the lot, modeled mostly on Gene Kelly, who brought a man-of-the-people athleticism to his dancing, so different from the elegant Fred Astaire. Comparisons are odious. They were two very different dancers. Gene Kelly dressed in sailor’s middies, or the classic khakis/jeans rolled up and loafers. Very different from tux and tails.
Vera Ellen and Gene Kelly, “On the Town” (1949)
Channing Tatum is not the dancer Gene Kelly was (who is?), but he’s charismatic, compelling, and yes, he can dance. Tap-dance, waltz, athletic leaps, fancy foot-work, the whole nine yards, he can do it. The first time we see Burt Gurney he is in a sort of On the Town type picture, shooting a frankly homoerotic number with a bunch of male soldiers in white sailors’ uniforms, bemoaning the fact (in song) that they have no dames. It ends with all of them dancing around with each other. I mean …
Burt Gurney is another humble star, eager to do his best. But Burt is more complex than meets the eye. Oh, Channing. How I love that I get to live in the moment where I get to watch this improbable and fearlessly-old-school entertaining career develop and take wing.
Josh Brolin, quickly becoming one of my favorite leading men/character actors (his performance in Inherent Vice is now a favorite), even though he’s been around forever, plays Eddie Mannix. Yes, he’s a tough-talking guy, strutting around keeping his artists in line. But he’s also so tormented by guilt he goes to confession once a day: Priest: “How long has it been since your last confession?” Eddie checks his watch. “18 hours, Father.” Tired sigh from the other side of the grille: “My son, that is too soon …” The touching part of this is that Eddie Mannix is not an overt sinner, no more than the rest of us. The biggest thing on his conscience is that he promised his wife he would quit smoking, and he snuck a few cigarettes and he feels genuinely bad about it. He is good at his job, but he is also being courted – heavily – by Lockheed, and Lockheed’s representative characterizes Eddie’s industry as silly, frivolous, a waste of time for such a talented man. If Eddie came to work for Lockheed, he would be set for life, in stock options, bonuses, salary, and he wouldn’t have to work until 11 o’clock at night. He wouldn’t miss his kid’s debut as shortstop on the baseball team. He wouldn’t think he was wasting his life in Make-Believe-Land. Mannix is torn. But he can’t stay torn for long, because he believes in the movies he’s making, he really does, and he also has to race around trying to find Baird Whitlock who has mysteriously disappeared from the set, calm down Laurence Laurentz, find a quickie husband for DeeAnna Moran, and a host of other problems that seem extremely urgent, absurd though they may be.
Brolin is extremely touching in this role. Very unexpected. Very well-written part.
And finally, because, for me, he is the big surprise of Hail, Caesar!, and one of the main reasons to see it (outside of the Coen Brothers, that is).
Alden Ehrenreich as Hobie Doyle, the singing cowboy star, who came out of the rodeo racket because of his horse skills, and found himself a movie star. With a real “brand.” I’ve seen him characterized as some hokey-Okie, but that could not be farther from the truth. Yes, his accent is thick-as-tobacco-chew. Yes, he wears chaps, and barely ever sets foot in the studio because “his” movies are filmed out in the desert. Yes, he has a kind of wide-eyed openness that seems “innocent.” But watch closely. And watch what Ehrenreich does. Again, it’s a very well-written part. This isn’t an element that Ehrenreich has added on his own. It’s there to begin with, and he brings it out with such deep-down gut-level understanding of who Hobie is, and not only that but more importantly: what the role requires in order to tell the story the Coen Brothers want to tell. This is what team-playing actor-craft looks like. It also is an example of genius casting. Honestly, watching this relative newcomer you are seeing a Master at work. (Supernatural fans will probably not recognize him from “Wendigo,” he was one of the kids. Another Supernatural alum is wonderful character actor Robert Picardo who played the evil leprechaun in “Clap Your Hands” and plays the rabbi here, called in by Mannix with a bunch of other theologians to weigh in on the portrayal of Jesus in the upcoming Biblical epic. Ricardo provides one of the first laughs in the film, referencing the other religious guys at the table: “These guys are screwballs.”)
Alden Ehrenreich is so good he almost takes over the movie (and he’s not even featured in the poster!). His quiet charisma, and his quiet take-over (you keep waiting for him to come back – not that the film lags when he’s not onscreen, but his presence is felt always) is good and right, because the character’s trajectory shows the absurdity of what can happen in Hollywood, the beautiful convergence of strange-ness mixed with desperate measures that can alter someone’s life forever. It shows what happens when a so-called rube gets in front of the camera. There’s a scene with Hobie that reminds me of John Garfield in Michael Curtiz’ Four Daughters (1938), a somewhat genteel family drama that John Garfield, as “bad boy outsider”, strolls into and walks away with because he makes everyone else seem like cardboard cutouts.
Our very first glimpse of John Garfield in “Four Daughters”. Hubba hubba.
Four Daughters was Garfield’s debut but you watch him (and he disappears halfway through) and think, “It is inevitable that that guy will become a huge star.” His performance pre-dates Brando by 10 years, but it predicts Brando. It opens up the way.
Watch, in Hail, Caesar! how Ehrenreich says the line, “It’s complicated.” He – and Hobie – KILL. IT.
Ehrenreich and Ralph Fiennes have one bit that is so funny I have no conception of how long it actually lasted, because I was laughing too hard. I’ll have to see it again to clock it. But it was so well done and so funny, on both sides, that I could have watched it for 5 minutes more.
There are surprises throughout. The adorable Veronica Osorio plays Carlotta Valdez, a Carmen Miranda-type, known for doing sexy dances with bananas balanced on her head. She and Hobie are set up for a date by the studio, and she accompanies him to the premiere of his new cowboy movie. They don’t know each other and what on earth could those two people have in common? But they have fun together, are both sweet, doing their best to be entertaining to one another, and also have a good time on this totally manufactured date, that they actually connect. It’s beautiful. Who knows, they might decide all on their own to go on a second date.
Frances McDormand has one killer scene. (Almost literally). She plays a chain-smoking film editor who hangs out in a dark room, splicing together the dailies, nearly setting the whole celluloid-filled room on fire, but flipping switches and cutting and re-rolling the film in an assembly-line automatic way that shows you this is all she does. All day. Every day.
Jonah Hill shows up as a notary, a go-to guy when the studio is in trouble and needs someone to 1. rush through divorce papers at the 11th hour 2. go to JAIL in some cases, “taking the fall” for a movie star in trouble 3. pose as a foster parent. Whatever. He’s on call 24 hours a day. Hill is so deadpan that he seems to be barely there, but that’s what’s so funny about it.
There is a “study group” of show-business Communists holed up in a house in Malibu, discussing the dialectics of history, economics, the “means of production” and how Hollywood plays into it. How they are involved in the story you’ll just have to find out for yourself.
Hail, Caesar! takes place in the space of a manic 24 hours; the timeline is compressed and urgent. Yet there’s an ease to the tone and rhythm overall. Scenes are allowed to breathe, behavior given space to flourish. It’s not manic for the sake of being manic. There’s a deliberate hand behind it (or … two pairs of hands), letting us get to know these people – not so much by seeing their hearts and minds – but by watching them work, watching them do what they are good at doing. Produce. Edit. Act. Swim. Write. Sing. Because that’s really all that matters to them.
I’ve quoted this Stella Adler gem before and it applies:
It is not that important to know who you are. It is important to know what you DO, and then do it like Hercules.
Every character onscreen is doing their thing, whatever it is, like Hercules.
There have been a lot of lists “ranking” the Coen Brothers’ film. Ranking is not my thing. It creates a hierarchy of accomplishments as opposed to a sense of a still-unfolding career. What we are seeing – and have been seeing since the Coen Brothers arrived – is an extraordinary joint career developing over time, film after film after film, each one unique, some more successful than others … but that’s what Art is about. You don’t hit a home run every time you’re up at bat, and artists, even when doing their best, understand that better than most.
Hail, Caesar is not so much an homage to old Hollywood (although you can feel the directors’ love of those old forms, the Busby Berkeley stuff, the Gene Kelly stuff, the cowboy stuff) as a “spin” on some of those old familiar themes. The story reads as a “tall tale,” in a lot of respects. Show business is full of those. Read the gossip columns of Hedda Hopper, et al. They are creating the truth, and then that “truth” is passed on down. Hail, Caesar! has the feeling of gossip, passed down through the ages, clarity lost in the game of telephone. “Remember when Baird Whitlock was kidnapped? Did that actually happen that way?” “Remember Hobie’s first day of shooting that Laurentz picture? Were you there? I know someone who knew someone whose brother worked in the costume department, and he has some great stories.” “Remember DeeAnna Moran’s aquatic movies and what a huge a star she was? I wonder what ever happened to her …”
The film is not drenched in nostalgia, it’s too sharp for that. Its sharpness gives it its unique tone, both funny and fond, as well as its humor and absurdity. The pace never stops. The movies made at Capitol Pictures are made fun of – a little bit – but not entirely. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it is a condescending attitude towards films of the past, and the audiences who loved them. For example, in Hail, Caesar: you can totally understand why Hobie is a star when you watch him in a scene in one of his movies, sitting on the porch of a frontier shack, staring at the moon, strumming his guitar and singing. He’s riveting, and the scene is gentle, quiet, and archetypal in a way that is totally out of style now but you realize how essential it is, how difficult it is to achieve, when you watch it done really really well. You can understand why audiences would flock to see DeeAnna swim towards the camera in a mermaid dress, or Carlotta dancing around with fruit balanced on her head. If these people have one thing in common, it’s that they love what they do. Sugar-coated view of the industry? Not really. It’s closer to reality than you think.
Hail, Caesar‘s ultimate and unexpected gentleness means that you do not feel like you are spending two hours in the company of familiar stock types “play-acting” at being movie stars of a bygone age.
Instead, you feel privileged and grateful to get to hang out with that wacko sincere gang of hard-working screwballs.
So I hesitated to even post this because it turned into a monster personal essay, but what the hell. I also hesitated to post all those Christopher Hitchens excerpts too, and they generated some awesome discussions. I don’t write about the culture wars here, or politics, or controversial topics. Or, I do, but it’s woven into other things. The Supernatural posts. The book excerpts. I have no desire to write about current events or hot controversial topics here. I like to talk about things I enjoy, not things that piss me off.
Below is an exchange from the documentary “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” a celebration of Sam Phillips and Sun Records, featuring interviews with many of the Sun artists (Rufus Thomas, Billy Lee Riley, Scotty Moore, Sonny Burgess). The “gimmick” of it was that current artists (Robert Plant, Rob Thomas, Paul McCartney, Third Eye Blind) recorded songs made famous by the artists at Sun. So Paul McCartney recorded Elvis’ first song “That’s All Right.” Robert Plant recorded “My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It,” and on and on.
Ben Folds chose Carl Perkins’ great song “Honey, Don’t.” “Honey Don’t” was written by Carl Perkins, and first recorded by him in 1955 – clip above – and, later, the Beatles performed it quite a bit in their earlier years.
In the exchange below, Ben Folds talks to Jack Clement, the Sun Records engineer, about why he wanted to record this particular song. It had to do with one chord change, a chord change seen as so weird at the time of its first recording that people were actually afraid of it. What did the chord change mean? Could you just … do that?
Jack Clement, Sun Engineer: I like that song. I was at Sun when ol’ Carl [Perkins] cut that. Sam [Phillips] was running the board. I hadn’t been there all that long. But I was there and I remember that song real well. I always liked that funny chord change in it.
Ben Folds: Yeah.
Jack: What key is that it in?
Ben: It’s in E. It goes from E to a C.
Jack: It goes to C. Right.
[Ben Folds demonstrates the chord change from E to C.]
Jack: That’s an ear-grabber, you know? I do remember everybody was excited about that song and they all liked that change from E to C.
Ben: That’s basically why I wanted to play it. It was kind of unusual for that time, I think. That’s a strange … It’s weird for now. Cool chords.
Robert Sledge, standup bass player: It’s an awesome song.
Ben Folds: Yeah, it’s a great song.
[Robert Sledge demonstrates the chord change in question.]
Robert: In an interview I heard that [Carl’s] guitar player said, ‘Man, you can’t do that. It’s just not right.” And Carl said, “I can do it.” The guitar player said, “It’s just not right. I don’t know if I want to play that.” And he did it anyway and made history. And it just goes to show you you’ve got to take some chances.
1. He cooked me goulash involving beets. We listened to NPR and didn’t talk for over an hour. Calm cave-like silence broken only by the wash of cold rain on the window.
2. “God, that’s so weird. I just mentioned that song to you – and now it’s playing on the radio! Isn’t that so weird??” “Not weird at all. Sheer coincidence.” “Thanks for the sunshine, pal.” “Who loves ya, baby.”
3. We went to the famed Ear Inn, drank beer, and played hangman on the white-paper tablecloths. He drew me a cartoon explaining the Masons’ journey across the sea. He drew little boats on sharp little waves. Irish musicians played jigs in the corner.
4. He rolled his eyes when I tripped on a curb. I got dressed up for Easter and it confused him. When I cut up peppers for dinner, he would intervene impatiently and show me how to do it.
5. I lay in a hot bath, face puffy from crying. He sat on the toilet seat and read out loud to me from Peter Manso’s sneering biography of Marlon Brando. He got so angry when I looked both ways before crossing an empty street. “Sheila, take risks, goddammit. Your caution is holding you back.” I yelled, “Leave me ALONE.” Then we went and had some Ben & Jerry’s. Years later, after no contact for 3 years, out of the blue he left a message on my answering machine. “I just came out of a John Cassavetes movie. Why aren’t you here with me. Will you marry me? Call me back with your answer.” Click.
6. He used to be a Chippendale’s dancer. He did an imitation of one of his routines on our first date, and I nearly fell over laughing.
7. He took a nap during his brother’s wedding reception. I knew no one else there. I barely knew him. I went up to see how he was doing. He lay on a couch in his tuxedo, so asleep he seemed dead. He was tall, black-haired, green-eyed, gorgeous in an overblown Italian way. The party raged downstairs. I put my hand on his forehead. It was burning hot.
8. He walked me back to my house in Ranelagh, outside Dublin, where the Edwardian black iron gates gleamed in the rain. It was my birthday. We had met 5 days before in a pub outside Glendalough. We had spent the last couple of hours in a disco, talking about Sweden, police states, and the EU. Because that’s what you do in a disco. We turned onto my block, and he said, “Aw, aren’t these gates lovely?” I said, “They remind me of ‘The Dead’.” He stopped in his tracks, and said, “You. You understand us.” “Nah. I just read ‘The Dead.'”
9. We walked through the bird sanctuary during a snowstorm. His cheeks glowed with the cold. We held hands as we walked through the icy patches, and leaned against a wooden fence, staring out into the snow drifts. The next day in school, he acted as though none of it had happened.
10. We lay on our backs on the motel room bed. The sunset light was so molten-gold it was like liquid amber. We didn’t speak or touch. “Doesn’t this whole thing feel like a dream?” he said.
I wonder what the critical consensus will be on Tumbledown. Will it be divided? Will some sniff at it, or think it too obvious, or reject Jason Sudeikis as a sincere leading man? Its obvious-ness and Jason Sudeikis is one of the reasons why I liked it. It works stealthily, this film, and is not an expected “rom com”. Ignore the poster. It’s actually about one of my favorite topics: Narrative. Who owns a narrative? Who “gets” to write any given narrative? Is there such a thing as objective truth? Who says what that truth is?
I liked it. Also, it was a pleasure to loop Ted Hughes into the review, because if anyone knew how hard it was to “craft a narrative” out of an imperfect record amongst the howling voices of others who think they OWNED the narrative, it was Hughes. .
, by Camille Paglia.
