Thelma Adams: Novelist, Critic, Oscar Expert

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John Waters on Why He Pays to See David Cronenberg Movies

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John Waters, raconteur, filmmaker, writer and voracious cultural consumer

John Waters, raconteur, filmmaker, writer and voracious cultural consumer

I’m with John. He pays to see Cronenberg movies for the same reason I buy my friends’ books when they come out. Because that’s how you show your support. Waters says go see the movie Friday night and pay. While I was in Provincetown, I bought a copy of Waters’ Carsick and am happy to report that not only did I support the local bookstore (which, OK, smelled heavily of cat pee), but I used my credit card to help put that book on the NYT bestseller list in my small way. And, then, when I opened the book and read his fantasy of getting picked up by a manly dude and invited to ride shotgun at a demolition derby, I was truly amazed that John had done it again: taken me to a place I’d never been before with a guide I trusted to both make me laugh and gross me out.

Here’s his introduction of David Cronenberg at the Provincetown Film Festival:

“David Cronenberg has been honored in this country, in Canada, and all over the world, yet Martin Scorsese commented that he was scared to actually meet him. I was drunk the first time I met him. It was at William Burroughs 70th birthday at The Limelight about 30 years ago. And God knows I have been his fan forever, and I have paid, even, to see every one of his movies. I go see them on the first Friday night when it counts….

“Some say he’s created his own genre, and the word Cronenberg-esque needs no explanation. I think he argues that, and truthfully, because some of his films are so different from the others, so maybe Cronenberg-esque just means great, which I think it does….”

John Waters and David Cronenberg Get Naked – ‘Naked Lunch’ – in Gay Mecca Provincetown

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Cronenberg, Winger, Waters at the Provincetown Film Festival (via capecodonline)

Cronenberg, Winger, Waters at the Provincetown Film Festival (via capecodonline)

Directors David Cronenberg and John Waters incite in me the excitement often reserved for teenage girls at the premiere of The Fault in Our Stars. The pair are the definition of sophisticated no bullshit, two men very much in touch with their obsessions and capable of drawing an audience along. Over the course of their wide-ranging discussion on the Provincetown Town Hall stage, their dialog trended toward Cronenberg’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs novel Naked Lunch.

When I’m asked about successful literary adaptations, Cronenberg’s 1991 hallucinogenic fantasy starring Peter Weller and Judy Davis is high on the list. Here’s a bit of the conversation between icons Cronenberg and Waters:

JOHN WATERS: Remember when we got to say, how did they ever make a movie out of Lolita? Well, I think with Naked Lunch you did a wonderful job, so how was Burroughs with you?

DAVID CRONENBERG:Burroughs was great. His public persona was very intimidating, and he was very sort of plastic and cynical, and kind of mean. But on personal time, he was really quite sweet, and very generous. He loved the concept. He loved the script that I had written. I did submit it to him but said, really, I don’t think I can make this movie just from your book. I don’t know if you’ve read the Naked Lunch, but it’s a difficult one to think of as a movie.

I said, I feel I need to incorporate a lot of stuff from your actual life…I understand if you don’t want me to, and in particular, I was talking to the fact that he shot his wife, which was a crucial moment, of course, in his life, but also as a writer. He said, I don’t separate my life and my art, and you can just go ahead….

JW: Did you do drugs with him?

DC: No. Actually, at that time I think he was just doing methadone.

JW: Oh, methadone. Got it. I smoked pot with him. Did you go to the bunker, or –

JC:: I didn’t, but I did go to Tangier with him.

JW:: Oh, wow.

DC: And met Paul Bowles, whom he hadn’t seen for seventeen years. I sat right down with the two of them, the authors of Naked Lunch and The Sheltering Sky, so there is a connection. [He looks out into the audience and sees Debra Winger, who starred in Bernardo Bertolucci’s film adaptation of Bowles’ classic novel set in North Africa.] Bizarre, but it is there.

Video: John Waters Makes us ‘Carsick’ on ‘The Colbert Report’

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I saw John Waters perform his hilarious and filthy Christmas spectacular at Poughkeepsie’s Bardavon Theater a year ago. Afterwards, my husband and I went backstage and bumped into Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz in the greenroom. Not quite Divine returned from the grave, but still.

Never underestimate how far and wide Waters’ appeal stretches. What I love about John is how funny and connected he is in the moment, and how widely read and culturally savvy. He now has a new book, a combination of fiction and travelogue about hitchhiking from Baltimore to San Francisco called Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America. Here he is with Stephen Colbert doing the dog-and-pony show and nailing it:

I’m betting the highlight of my summer culture calendar will occur when Waters interviews “Filmmaker on the Edge” David Cronenberg at the Provincetown Film Festival. I think Waters is a great interview but what I discovered at Provincetown on Cape Cod is that he was also a terrific interviewer.

Thelma Adams on Reel Women: What Does Cannes Have Against Women?

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Women directors, Woodstock Film Festival,Nancy Savoca,Mira Sorvino,Susan Seidelman, Debra Granik

Straight shooter Savoca

No one ever claimed that women had bridged the director’s-chair gender gap, but it’s a complete kick in the can that this year’s Cannes Film Festival has not a single female-directed film among the 23 in competition.

I love contenders like David Cronenberg, whose Cosmopolis — starring Robert Pattinson — has been welcomed into the competition, and who headed the Cannes jury in 1999. I was a champion of his cerebral period drama A Dangerous Method, which had a terrific star turn by Keira Knightley. But, really, not a single film by a woman? I’m just gobsmacked.

It is, however, a good year to be a North American male: In addition to Cronenberg, Lee Daniels (The Paperboy), Jeff Nichols (Mud), and Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom) will premiere at what is considered the most prestigious film festival on the planet. The other 51 percent be damned.

There won’t be any shortage of sexy female actresses in evening gowns to attract paparazzi — so why does the female-director shortage matter? To paraphrase: It’s the sexism, stupid. Despite some recent indications to the contrary, women have yet to gain substantial ground in cinema’s most powerful positions. And beyond its inherent prestige, Cannes is significant because it’s at the forefront of the awards season. Last year, for example, The Artist debuted at Cannes, where Jean Dujardin won best actor honors, and went on to sweep the Oscars.

Half-full thinkers can still hope that there will be a bounty of female-helmed movies at the early fall Toronto-Telluride-Venice nexus. Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow has her as-year-unfinished Osama bin Laden film, Zero Dark Thirty (horrible title alert!), slated for the holiday season.

And, in a pleasant surprise, the Tribeca Film Festival, which is currently in full swing, overflows with female-directed films of all stripes. Among the most prominent are Sarah Polley’s quirky dramedy Take This Waltz, featuring Michelle Williams as a straying Toronto wife; Julie Delpy’s shrewd kooky relationship comedy 2 Days in New York, which pairs the actress with Chris Rock; and Lynn Shelton’s sexy sibling rivalry drama with Emily Blunt, Your Sister’s Sister. While not all movies are Oscar-bait, Tribeca presents a bounty of promising women filmmakers, including Tanya Wexler (Hysteria), Malgorzata Szumowska (Elles), Julia Dyer (The Playroom), Sharon Bar-Ziv (Room 514), Lucy Malloy (Una Noche), Kat Cairo (While We Were Here), and Beth Murphy (The List).

It’s unconscionable that the Cannes selection committee, which received in the neighborhood of 1,800 movie submissions, considers this artistic bias a non-issue. It’s up to bold filmmakers who are part of the boys’ club — Cronenberg, Daniels, and Anderson among them — to squawk about the inequity. We love them; now it’s time for them to return the love.

This column first appeared on AMC Filmcritic.com, and was edited by Nina Hammerling Smith

Yahoo!: Who will be the Oscar contenders of 2012-13? Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio? Viola Davis or Keira Knightley? Steven Spielberg or Kathryn Bigelow?

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Brad Pitt

A slick Pitt returns for another date with Oscar in "Cogan's Trade"

 

Scan the upcoming 2012 movies and check out the gang’s-all-here vibe: Kathryn Bigelow, Viola Davis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Peter Jackson, Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg, Christoph Waltz — and even last year’s go-to girl, Jessica Chastain — all have projects in the pipeline. What should you be looking forward to amid the March box-office doldrums?

“Cogan’s Trade”
Consider 2011-12 Brad Pitt’s warm-up year. Pitt reteams with writer-director Andrew Dominik (“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford“) to play a mob enforcer dispatched to clean up after a heist at a high-stakes poker game. And Pitt might be competing against himself, as the star of Marc Forster’s zombie thriller “World War Z.”

“The Surrogate”
Man in an iron lung wants to lose his virginity. It was hard to tell whether the plot was a spoof or a tragedy, but at Sundance I discovered that this movie is all about John Hawkes (“Winter’s Bone“) lying around, being wry, amusing, horny, and handicapped. Oscar contender? Slam dunk. And an education in physically challenged erotica!

[Related: Conspiracy Theories and Meryl Streep’s Best-Actress Upset]

“Brave”
Pixar blew a tire with “Cars 2” and was never in the Oscar running. But the perennial animation favorite will be back with the story of a girl-powered archer-princess (voice of “Boardwalk Empire’s” Kelly McDonald) struggling to rid her kingdom of a horrible curse. This is the one to beat in the category.

“Untitled International Thriller,” aka “Kill Bin Laden”
Kathryn Bigelow’s first project since she won the historic best-director award for “The Hurt Locker” has Oscar written all over it. Set for a prime awards season December 19 release date, it’s about the hunt for and capture of the al-Qaida leader, with a great cast bound for acting noms, including Kyle Chandler, Joel Edgerton, Chris Platt, and Chastain.

“Anna Karenina”
For those who thought Keira Knightley was robbed when she wasn’t nominated for her central turn in David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method,” it’s payback time. She’s the title character in this oft-adapted Leo Tolstoy classic (Greta Garbo nailed the role in 1935), opposite Jude Law as her inattentive husband and Aaron Johnson as the love of her life, Count Vronsky. Expect a gallery of tortured, passionate looks and longing sighs. Toss in “Atonement” director Joe Wright and a script from the great playwright Tom Stoppard, and we have ourselves an Oscar party.

[Related: ‘The Hunger Games’ Exclusive Clip Gives First Look at Lenny Kravitz’s Role]

“The Great Gatsby”
The critics emitted a nearly universal groan at the thought of yet another “Gatsby” adaptation — enough already! But it seems that every generation wants its own GG, and this one is irresistible Oscar bait, with Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan and Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. With Australian Baz Luhrmann (“Moulin Rouge“) directing, expect this to be one passionate hothouse flower of a production — and a best-picture contender if he pulls it off.

“Lincoln”
So Steven Spielberg was snubbed this year, but wait until he pulls out this presidential biopic starring Daniel-Day Lewis as the lanky politician called the Great Emancipator. Oscar-winner Sally Field plays Mary Todd Lincoln and — spoiler alert — the North beat the South in the Civil War. Winning!

“Django Unchained”
Quentin Tarantino cooks up a spaghetti western with a Christmas 2012 release date that screams Oscar. Jamie Foxx plays a former slave turned bounty hunter who’s willing to break a few rules to reclaim his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Leonardo DiCaprio twirls his mustache as a villainous plantation owner, with Tarantino fave Christoph Waltz in a leading role as an established bounty hunter. Expect “Inglourious Basterds” on horseback with tumbleweeds and chains.

“Argo”
Ben Affleck (“The Town,” “Gone Baby Gone“) is back directing and co-starring with “Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston in this espionage thriller hooked on the Iranian hostage crisis (when 52 Americans were held in Tehran for 444 days from 1979 to 1981). As U.S.-Iranian diplomatic tensions intensify — again — this movie could not be timelier.

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
Director Peter Jackson is always good for a best-picture nomination when putting J.R.R. Tolkien’s little men with hairy feet on camera. It’s been long enough since the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (which took home 17 statuettes out of 30 Oscar nominations) that I’m actually hungering for a little Middle-earth magic. I doubt I’m alone.

Also potentially under consideration: David Cronenberg’s Robert Pattinson-starrer “Cosmopolis”; Viola Davis in “Won’t Back Down”; the George Clooney-Sandra Bullock thriller “Gravity”; “The Gangster Squad”; “Smashed”; “Les Miserables”; Derek Cianfrance’s “The Place Beyond the Pines”; and the Portuguese charmer, “Tabu.” Please chime in with movies that you think might join the list — and, remember, the 85th Academy Awards will be held in — eek! — early 2013.