Todd Haynes

yes, beyonce. what a terrible idea. it is a pointless, and obscene, gimmick.

(but if you swap sirk for glam, and VG for FFH, i wd probably be defendin it, so maybe it's just that i'm not really THAT big on sirk myself)

the person i wz with - unrepentent sexual pirate and general tomboy activist - knew nothing abt sirk or sirk theory and wz emotionally overwhelmed, except in a bad way: we had to go straight to a gay bar after and have several drinks

I'd rather he get Venus Williams (or Lisa Leslie) than Beyonce though!

If it were Todd Solondz behind the camera, I'd agree with you. (Actually, wait, doesn't his new film Palindromes do the whole multiple-actors-playing-the-same-character thing, too? That's weird.) But Haynes truly does have the ability to transcend his conceits. That combination of intellectual cleverness and genuine, overwhelming emotion is why Far From Heaven and Eternal Sunshine are two of my favorite films of this decade.

i think the conceit is sort of similar, but haynes's film was much more imaginative in its reworking of the source materials and much more rigorous in its evocation/replication of the style of said materials.

i don't know, i think van sant is gifted but not very smart, honestly. haynes could not be accused of not being smart, i suspect.

i guess the most interesting part about "elephant" was the degree of human sympathy it elicited for characters not often seen in films (NOT the killers, but some of the students introduced in the first half ), but that was ultimately sort of incidental to the film and its main reason for being. i've written about this on an "elephant"-specific thread.

what's funny is that haynes seems such an unlikely person to be obsessed with bob dylan. in the sense that dylan's legacy has been "owned," or rather leased, of late by the sort of rock critics who emphasize his folk roots and so on. to the point where there isn't a pervasive sense of dylan as a pop persona, as a modernist figure. so i'm very interested to see where haynes goes with this. (i mean, it's hard to imagine haynes making a movie that concerns itself with, uh, different versions of "st james infirmary," simply because that's a strain of american culture the celebration of which takes on a certain role that seems anathema to haynes's own self-fashioned role in the culture. if that makes sense.)

xp

eg the gap between dylan (in toto) and glam (in toto) is smaller than dave van ronk wants it to be

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0306814072/qid=1111779776/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/102-1769521-6410552?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[i]http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0306814072.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg[/i]

i agree, i was trying to say (i think i failed) that the reigining dylan paradigm doesn't really involve much glam and doesn't really evoke anything that haynes has previously been known to be interested in. that doesn't mean that dylan himself, or his music or pop persona, doesn't have affinities with what haynes has previously been known to be interested in.

I can't think of a single thread/discussion/reaction that I've ever found more interesting than the film it's discussing.

This movie is so exquisitely awkward

Yeah, between this and Showing Up it was a good year for awkward.

Showing Up is awkward, and is a remarkable film about a small local community of people (an arts community in Portland OR) trying to navigate the world, with all of the frustrations and divided feelings that come with it. It is my favorite movie so far from this year.

May December is also a favorite film this year, but it seems very slippery and knowing and almost conniving, and is almost the opposite of awkward to me, although there are some moments in it that are cringy

In a surprising move to just about everyone involved in the project, Joaquin Phoenix abruptly walked away from starring in the untitled Todd Haynes film that he's been developing with the director for years just five days before filming commenced in Mexico, sources tell Entertainment Weekly.

Reps for Haynes and indie production company Killer Films declined to comment, while Phoenix's reps did not immediately respond to EW's requests for comment. IndieWire was the first to report the news.

Phoenix, who will be seen on screen this year in Joker: Folie à Deux, was set to star in the lead role of the movie, described as an explicit gay romance set in 1930s Los Angeles and Mexico. Danny Ramirez of Top Gun: Maverick and Captain America: Brave New World had been cast in a supporting role. Based on Haynes' previous comments to the press, the story revolved around a corrupt L.A. cop and a Native American who are forced to flee Los Angeles for Mexico......

.....This film would have marked Phoenix's first gay role on screen. Haynes was open about making the sex scenes as explicit as possible. "Joaquin was pushing me further and going, 'No, let’s go further,'” the filmmaker told IndieWire in May 2023. “This will be an NC-17 film." He then told the same outlet later last year, "The whole experience was prompted by Joaquin. It was prompted by his daring, his desire to push through barriers and to really get into the uncomfortable places about this relationship. And yet it felt like a very organic process."

Could Colin Farrell be subbed in for the now-uninsurable Joaquin Phoenix? He’s fearless. He’s a total pro. They’re almost the same age. And Farrell’s already done publicity for “The Penguin,” which starts streaming in a month, so he might be able to do it.

— Janet Maslin (@JanetMaslin) August 9, 2024

Stunned. Really sucks, I hope it isn't too damaging to the project.

Have a trial Apple subscription, so I rewatched the VU documentary. The other time was from a digital file my friend got hold of somehow when it came out--one thing I remember was that the speaker's names got cut off. I carped about a couple of minor things at the time; can't find the post and can't remember what they were (one was Mary Woronov's East Coast snobbishness).

Anyway, really loved it this time. The ending, when all those deaths are noted within a few seconds, and then moving into the '70s clip of Reed/Cale/Nico performing "Heroin," is so moving. One thing I noticed this time was how perfect the assemblage of interviewees is; there's not a single person of the 20+ where you wonder why that person is there (i.e., no Bono, no Johnny Depp, etc.). And with the exception of maybe Gerard Malanga, still alive at 82, if Haynes missed somebody important who he could have conceivably spoken to, I don't know who that would have been.

Some good news it seems..

EXCLUSIVE: Todd Haynes’ gay romance ‘De Noche,’ which shut down about a year ago, is being revived, with Pedro Pascal circling.

This is a great ray of sunshine for a production which was long considered kaput after Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix left the production.

Pascal would… pic.twitter.com/PvCPrkZD5s

— Deadline (@DEADLINE) August 27, 2025

Joaquin and Pedro seems pretty much interchangeable, right? Pop out the old one, plug in the spare, and you're good to go!

"Pascal would show more"