Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
There are so many exciting events happening in Los Angeles this weekend, folks will face some inevitable hard decisions about scheduling, travel times, ticketing, etc. But it will also be a hearty reminder of why Los Angeles, for all its issues, is still such a vibrant, vital place to live and/or visit.
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is celebrating its 30th edition on Saturday and Sunday at the USC campus. Among the many events and guests, I will be hosting a panel on Saturday titled “Hollywood in the Golden Age: Sex, Scandal and the Making of an Industry” with authors Kenneth Turan, Claire Hoffman and Mallory O’Meara
There are many other events of interest for film fans, including a panel of Times journalists Ryan Faughnder, Vanessa Franko, Meg James and Stacy Perman discussing “Is Hollywood Poised for a Comeback?” Elsewhere, a panel about covering the Oscars and other award shows will feature Matt Brennan, Nicolas Ducassi, Glenn Whipp and Mary McNamara.
Authors Griffin Dunne and Matthew Spektor will be in conversation with David Ulin about their books on growing up around Hollywood. “Wicked” director John M. Chu will discussing his new book with The Times’ Ashley Lee. Patt Morrison will lead a conversation with Lili Anolik, Alissa Wilkinson and Katherine Bucknell on Hollywood-adjacent literary figures Joan Didion, Eve Babitz and Christopher Isherwood.
Mark Hamill in the movie “Star Wars : The Empire Strikes Back.”
(Lucasfilm Ltd.)
Already underway, having launched on Thursday with a 45th anniversary screening of “The Empire Strikes Back” with writer-director George Lucas in attendance, the TCM Classic Film Festival will bring many top titles, rare prints and special guests to Hollywood over the weekend, proving there is still new life in old movies. Also on Thursday was 1933’s “Moonlight and Pretzels,” which may be one of my new favorite titles for a movie.
Among the highlights of this year’s festival are a series of prints from the British Film Institute to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the BFI National Archive, including a nitrate print of 1945’s “Mildred Pierce,” the premiere of a newly restored 35mm print of 1933’s “The Private Life of Henry VIII” and a rare 1975 Technicolor dye-transfer release print of “Jaws.”
Other highlights include a conversation with director Michael Schultz followed by a screening of “Car Wash,” a 35mm screening of Josef von Sternberg’s “Morocco,” a world premiere 4K restoration of Sidney Lumet’s “The Wiz,” a world premiere restoration of Herbert Brenon’s “Beau Geste” with live musical accompaniment and a 30th anniversary screening of “Heat” with filmmaker Michael Mann and actor Al Pacino.
Plus, the Criterion Mobile Closet will make its L.A. debut with the first of two upcoming local stops, appearing outside Vidiots on Saturday and Sunday. The truck celebrating physical media and film history will also be at the Aero Theatre on June 6 and 7 for the American Cinematheque’s “Bleak Week” festival.
When the truck appeared in New York City last fall and at South by Southwest in March, the lines to get in were many hours long, with fans waiting patiently for their three minutes to browse the selection of Criterion Collection titles. (They’re being sold at 40% off.) I spent some time hanging around the truck and talking to people in line in Austin, Texas, during SXSW and it was such a positive and inspiring experience soaking up the energy of people so jazzed about movies.
Lily Wachowski presents ‘Bound’
Gina Gershon, left, and Jennifer Tilly in the movie “Bound.”
(Randy Tepper / Gramercy Pictures)
Filmmaker Lily Wachowski will be at Vidiots on Saturday for a Q&A after a screening of 1996’s “Bound,” a first feature made with sibling Lana Wachowski before their career-defining success just a few years later with “The Matrix.” Lily Wachowski will also be introducing a 9:45 p.m. screening of 2006’s “V for Vendetta” on Saturday.
Similar in a way to the relationship between Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction,” the Wachowski’s “Bound” set the stage for much of what was to come with “The Matrix,” displaying the roots of an exuberant visual style, a playful attitude toward genre storytelling and a complex relationship to depictions of identity. In the film, Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly play Corky and Violet, two women who become entangled in an illicit, erotic affair that becomes even more complicated when Violet introduces a plan to steal $2 million from her gangster boyfriend, Caesar (Joe Pantoliano).
In his review Kevin Thomas called the film a “zesty, gratifying little picture.” He referenced films such as the Coen brothers’ “Blood Simple” and John Dahl’s “Red Rock West,” adding, “Above all, it’s a good thing that the Wachowskis are as darkly hilarious as they are because they go in for the Quentin Tarantino-style, in-your-face brutality. ‘Bound’ is not for the faint of heart. In short, ‘Bound’ is admittedly derivative, but it’s such an amusing low-down entertainment it really doesn’t matter.”
‘Sullivan’s Travels’ in 35mm
Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea in the 1941 movie “Sullivan’s Travels.”
(Paramount Pictures)
Written and directed by Preston Sturges, “Sullivan’s Travels” is both a satire of Hollywood and an earnest exploration of the human spirit, as one man attempts to find meaning in his life. The film is showing at the Academy Museum in 35mm on Wednesday.
Successful Hollywood film director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), having grown dissatisfied with making moves such as “Ants in Your Plants of 1939,” wants to make a serious picture about the human condition, to be titled “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” As research, he heads out on the road dressed as a hobo and experiences much more than he bargained for.
Writing about the film in 1942, Richard Griffith said, “It is, in fact, the most serious, earnest and convincing representation of Hollywood, of moviemaking and the motives behind it that we have ever had.”
Griffith added that if anyone thinks Hollywood is only good for making superficial entertainment, “‘Sullivan’s Travels’ is in itself a refutation of that tiresome theory. It is serious enough to move a philosopher and entertaining enough to reach the most superficial. Realistic, touching, hilariously amusing by turns, it make the spectator live in its world and experience the adventures of its characters.”
Writing about the film before a single screening in 1974 at LACMA’s Bing Theater, Kevin Thomas said, “It’s hard to recall a film that makes more drastic shifts in tone — a film that manages with complete success to have it both ways, as a sparkling madcap comedy part of the way and a stinging social satire the rest.”
In other news
‘Sinners’ box office reactions
Miles Caton in the movie “Sinners.”
(Warner Bros. Entertainment)
Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” opened last week to overwhelmingly positive reviews and a strong showing at the domestic box office, bringing in $48 million. Yet some of the coverage of the film’s robust take took an unexpectedly sour view, citing international box office, marketing costs, the specifics of Coogler’s deal with Warner Bros. for the movie and other factors to dampen any growing enthusiasm.
Conversely, Ryan Faughnder noted that following the success of “A Minecraft Movie,” this was particularly good news not just for embattled Warners studio heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy but potentially for the industry at large.
As Faughnder wrote, “It’s a bright spot for an industry that has been struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, even as Broadway and concerts bounce back. ‘Sinners’ has stellar reviews, an ‘A’ CinemaScore (the first for a horror movie) and viral momentum online, so it should have a long and healthy run.”
Stepping back to look at a broader picture, Faughnder added, “If franchise-type films like ‘Minecraft,’ ‘Superman’ and ‘The Batman’ keep working, it gives De Luca and Abdy the ability to take more chances on filmmaker-driven projects. You know, the types of films everyone complains that Hollywood doesn’t make anymore.”
A note from filmmaker Ryan Coogler about the successful opening of “Sinners.”
(Proximity Media)
Coogler himself celebrated the film’s success with an open letter expressing his “eternal gratitude” to those who bought tickets to the movie.
Coogler’s letter added, “I believe in cinema. I believe in the theatrical experience. I believe it is a necessary pillar of society. It’s why me and so many of my colleages have dedicated our lives to the craft. We don’t get to do what we do if you don’t show up.”
The letter concluded, “Every time you show up to theaters you allow us to come back and do it again. And together maybe we can expand the definition of what a blockbuster is, what a horror movie is, and of what an IMAX audience looks like. I’ll see you at the movies, popcorn bucket in hand!”
Coogler’s letter also included a list of cinematic influences that would itself make for a dazzling film education, “including but not limited to Spike Lee, John Singleton, Ernie Barnes, Steve McQueen, Ava Duvernay, Euzhan Palcy, Eudora Welty, Oscar Micheaux, Robert Rodriguez, Barry Jenkins, Quentin Tarantino, Nicolas Roeg, Andrea Arnold, Jeremy Saulnier, Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel and Ethan Coen, Bill Gunn, Jordan Peele, John Carpenter, Boots Reilly, Shaka King, Nia Dacosta, Terence Nance, Rian Johnson, Bradford Young, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Chris Nolan, Emma Thomas, Theodore Witcher, Francis Coppola, Julie Dash, Steven Spielberg, Kahlil Joseph, Mati Diop, Ben and Josh Safdie, Stephen King, Robert Palmer, Amiri Baraka, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Walter Mosley, Stephen Graham Jones, Joel Crawford, Wes Craven, and many others.”
Honestly, that is just the kind of expansive, inclusive, international and generation-spanning cinematic worldview we try to encourage and follow with the recommendations that come from this newsletter. And it is stirring to see those names all laid out together.
