Endnotes and digressions from the latest show:
* On Tuesday’s micro episode, Sonny mentioned a monster New Yorker profile of Sam Shepard. This is it.
* And here’s the scene from The Right Stuff where Shepard’s Chuck Yeager breaks the altitude record before having to eject.
* During our conversation about Luc Besson, I discussed my pal Richard Rushfield’s fantastic Vanity Fair piece on Besson. You can read it here. (And if you’re not already, you should subscribe to Rushfield’s fantastic email newsletter on Hollywood, the Ankler. It’s free!)
* So about the Chinese buffet. I love Chinese food. I have never seen a Chinese buffet. And after Vic and Sonny’s ranking, I’m simultaneously drawn and repelled by the prospect of seeking one out.
* And on the subject of Cara Delevigne versus Milla Jovovich, it’s not even close. Delevigne may turn out to be a nice actor down the road. She certainly has moments in Valerian and you can understand by Besson cast her.
But in The Fifth Element Jovovich simply dominates every scene she’s in. Her facility with her made-up language, her ability to act with reaction, the way she’s able to convey both vulnerability and super-human strength simultaneously, and the way she held the screen opposite Bruce Willis marked her as a major star.
It was clear from the first minute of that movie that Jovovich had all the makings of a leading actor. Have a look for yourself.
* And in a final bit of Dunkirk cleanup, for those people who didn’t like Dunkirk because they wanted a film about Churchill, boy, do I have a movie for you.
There’s a trailer out for Darkest Hour, which is the story of Britain right around the time of the Dunkirk disaster, told through the perspective of Churchill. It stars an unrecognizable Gary Oldman as Churchill and it looks pretty fantastic.
* We’ll be back next week with Atomic Blonde and an in-depth discussion of just how terrible 3-D is.
