“Operating Table,” initially posted on 8.15.13: “John Frankenheimer‘s Seconds is a black drag to sit through. A dark, creepy, chilly-hearted downer from start to finish. Mainly about malevolence and threats and intimidation and dread. ‘Interesting,’ yes, because of the creepy Orwellian (or do I mean Burroughsian?) tone and James Wong Howe‘s nightmarish black-and-white cinematography. But it’s mostly punishing.
“Seconds lasts 107 minutes and aside from the grape-stomping scene there isn’t even a 30-second passage that delivers anything that comes close to enjoyable. The movie makes you feel like there’s a needle in your neck the whole time.
“Rock Hudson spends pretty much the entire film looking over his shoulder and sucking in cigarette smoke and acting like one of the most haunted and miserable fucks who ever agreed to star in a film about a haunted, miserable fuck.
“The dweebs like Seconds because it’s a modern horror story about middle-class entrapment and corporate malevolence, and because some of James Wong Howe’s camerawork vaguely recalls the severe angles and surreal set design in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. But if you watch it from a gut Joe Popcorn level (i.e., without your honorary scholastic film lover cap on) it will send you into a tailspin of depression. It’s not ‘scary’ — it’s suffocating. It’s about ‘how much longer does this last?’ It’s about hitting the fast-forward button during the slow scenes.
“The fundamental thing that you can’t buy is that John Randolph could be transformed into Hudson through plastic surgery. It would have been ten times more interesting if Frankenheimer had just had Hudson wear lots of older-guy makeup with a putty nose and chin and neck wattle. Randolph is maybe 5’11 or six feet tall compared to Hudson’s six-foot-five, and it’s just ridiculous that plastic surgeons would be able to add five or six inches of height to his frame.
If Joe Biden had somehow become the 2016 Democratic candidate for president instead of Hillary Clinton, he almost certainly would have won. Because he’s more recognizably warm and human than Donald Trump, and the Bumblefucks who went for Trump would have said “Biden talks plain and straight and has a heart…let’s give him a shot.” But Biden is 74 now, and I don’t think people will be hugely comfortable with a 78 year-old becoming the nation’s Commander-in-chief. The cut-off is 75, or Bernie Sanders‘ age. But if Biden runs anyway, he has to take care of that awful turkey wattle. Which is nothing these days. Neck wattle surgery is less arduous than having an appendectomy, akin to having a wisdom tooth removed. Biden had hair-plug surgery back in the ’80s so he knows all about this stuff.
HE comment: Excellent keyboarding from a great, soulful composer, but I’m sorry to note that “Wichita Lineman” is beyond Jimmy Webb’s vocal grasp at this point in time. Maybe it always was. Webb was never a proper singer, of course. Bringing vocal justice to “is still on the line” was a tough one even for Glenn Campbell in his prime.
Plus I’d be lying if I said I’m not vaguely disturbed by the standard signs of aging (girth factor, bald spot, neck wattle). HE’s Prague guys could fix Webb right up, no prob.
I saw Webb perform at a special tribute show at the Wiltern in the early ‘90s. (Or was it sometime in the ‘80s?) Johnny Rivers, The Fifth Dimension, etc.
Plus driving all the way down to San Juan Capistrano on the hellish 405? If you do that drive at the wrong time of day it’s absolutely ghastly. What’s the right time of day? Anytime between 11 pm and 6 am.
It was the middle of March in 2012, and I was talking to Prague’s Esthe Plastika about having some touch-up work on my eyelids, eye bags and neck wattle. I explained what I wanted, and they asked me to take some close-ups of my face and neck area and send them along.
So I did, and when I looked at those horrific snaps I went into catatonic shock. I was looking at the features of a bloated, wine-drinking manatee.
The first thought that hit me was “okay, that’s it for the evening sips of Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc…I’m done.” The shock of those photos was so great that I stopped that very night. I haven’t touched a drop since.
My 12-year sober anniversary was celebrated on 3.20.24.
The other day Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary offhandedly announced the death of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton, the struggling, none-too-bright C-level actor who initially caught on with BountyLaw, slowly faded and then resurged in ‘69 after roasting Manson follower Susan Atkins (aka “Sadie Glutz”) with a flame thrower.
Retired since the late ‘80s, Dalton died in Hawaii at age 90.
I for one would have appreciated a photo of Dalton in his dotage (sparse snow-white hair, Gabby Hayes beard, drooping neck wattle), which would have been easy to compose with Photoshop or any decent manipulation software. Okay, perhaps Quentin and Roger didn’t have such a photo ready at the exact moment on 5.19, but why not since?
During Tom Cruise's 2002 Oscar speech, you could feel the eloquence and sense the confidence. In his physical prime, not quite 40. Planted, steady. He had the same settled, straight-from-the-shoulder quality during his big Producer's Guild speech (the night before last). But I couldn't stop looking at his somewhat somewhat smaller eyes, and especially those hints of Victor McLaglen** eye bags and the beginnings of a neck wattle. (He'll probably want to do something about this stuff before long.)
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“I am a brilliant, neurotic, judgmental little prick in need of some Prague neck-wattle work**, but the combination of my lacerating wit plus my spirited madman persona is killer and I know it, especially since I take the time to write good material before coming on the show.” — Martin Short muttering to himself between commercial breaks on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.
Slight objection: Short began with “James Thomas Fallon — my God, your name screams out diversity!” Translation: We’re both Irish — my dad was an Irish Catholic emigrant from Northern Ireland, and my mom comes from English and Irish stock — so in today’s woke realm we’re almost an endangered minority…would it help if we apologized for being white Irish guys?
Bottom line: Chiding Fallon for not being diverse isn’t funny — it’s actually kinda paranoid.
“And yet, of course, the age that I am makes [such a scene] extremely challenging because we aren’t used to seeing untreated bodies on the screen. To be truly honest, I will never ever be happy with my body. It will never happen. I was brainwashed too early on. I cannot undo those neural pathways.” — Good Luck To You, Leo Grande star Emma Thompsondiscussing her full-frontal nude scene with Cinema Cafe during Sundance 2022.
A few days later (1.26.22) I reviewedSophie Hyde’s “sex positive” two-hander. I basically agreed with everyone else’s favorable opinions while — concurrently! — agreeing with Thompson’s above statement, but phrased in my own way.
I was all but tarred and feathered for the latter…for mentioning the unmentionable by stating that (a) while the body positivity movement was well and good in terms of discouraging self-loathing tendencies among older or overweight women, at the same time it was (b) kind of off on its own lunar trajectory because most people don’t exactly relish the idea of watching nude scenes with fleshy women who are over, say, 40 or 45. (Or men for that matter.)
Several HE comment-thread scolds came after me with spears, swords, slander, slaps, handguns and grenades. I was all but vivisected. Such is the nature of your delightful spray-pissers on this site.
I describedLeo Grande — three sexual and very personal encounters in an English hotel room over 97 minutes, plus one in a hotel bar — as an intimate, occasionally amusing, open-hearted exploration of an older woman’s sexuality, and that it makes it very clear what a transformational thing good sex can be (nothing wrong with that!).
I also said that most of us have problems with older or overweight people performing nude scenes or sex scenes, and that I wouldn’t want to see a nude scene with anyone who’s too old or saggy or out of shape. And yet the idea of older women enjoying sex as much as any 17 or 22 or 38 or 46 year-old is lovely and delightful, and that conceptually speaking if an actress of Thompson’s age wants to do a full-frontal nude scene, fine.
And then came a statement that only a truly evil person would vocalize. I said that if a 45-plus actress wants to do a nude scene, she should do what she can to leapfrog or transcend the concerns that Thompson herself has admitted having about her own body, and to bite the bullet by paying for a nice, mild tummy tuck and a subtle but artful boob lift. (And maybe an ass lift.) You think Paulina Porizkova would argue against this?
I’ve had work done on my eye bags, eyelids, neck wattle and thinning hair, and believe me I look much, much better because of these modest measures. There’s nothing wrong with resorting to touch-ups when age, biology and gravity start to work against you.
Again — last January Thompson said that she “will never ever be happy” with her body, and a few days after that I said two things — (1) no moviegoer will ever he delighted about ogling a body that’s seen better days, and (2) Thompson has nothing to worry about if she just pays a visit to my Prague friendos — they’ll fix her right up and with no one the wiser. What is so fucking awful about that? We’re all going to wrinkle and wither and die anyway so you might as well face old age with a little Prague fortification.
A one-hour video of a director’s discussion, hosted by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Rebecca Keegan, popped this morning. Three of the films made by this group are damn near perfect — King Richard, Parallel Mothers and A Hero. I don’t admire these three films — I love them.
In no particular order the participants are (1) Belfast‘s Kenneth Branaugh (who should “do something” about the eyebags and maybe touch up the neck wattle — a very simple Prague procedure — and also grow his hair out a little bit), (2) King Richard‘s Reinaldo Marcus Green (brilliant fellow, smooth patter, good looking), (3) Parallel Mothers’ Pedro Almodovar, (4) A Hero‘s Asghar Farhadi, (5) The Power of the Dog‘s Jane Campion, and (6) Nightmare Alley‘s Guillermo del Toro.
I caught Stephen Karam‘s The Humans (A24, 11.24) early yesterday afternoon. It won’t open for another six or seven weeks, but it was reviewed out of Toronto so it’s fair to jump in.
This is a highly respectable, surprisingly “cinematic” adaptation of Karam’s 2016 play, which he’s filmed unconventionally by emphasizing distance and apartness and narrow hallways and deep shadows, with a particular emphasis on material rot inside the apartment walls and a general sense of architectural foreboding and claustrophobia.
All the performances are top-notch, especially Jane Houdyshell‘s. Her performance as the maritally betrayed, care-worn mother of two grown daughters (played by Beanie Feldstein and Amy Schumer) is almost Oscar-level. It needs an extra “acting” scene or two, but she’s very good.
As usual I had trouble understanding all of Feldstein’s dialogue, as she always seems to emphasize emotional tonality and a certain sing-song manner of speaking as opposed to adhering to the old-fashioned practice of (I know this is a bad word but I’m going to say it anyway) diction.
Oh, and I didn’t believe for a single millisecond that South Korean heartthrob Stephen Yeun would partner with Feldstein, a seriously overweight woman in her late 20s…a woman who is headed for serious health problems down the road if she doesn’t follow in her brother’s path and drop some serious pounds. Feldstein and Yeun just aren’t a match, not in the actual world that I’ve been living in for several decades, but along with “presentism” and color-blind casting it’s also become a “thing” to cast obese actors in this or that role and then require their fellow cast members to pretend that obesity is fine and normal and “who cares?”
Schumer is fine as the depressed older sister.
The warmest emotional moment comes when the murmuring, blank-faced, Alzheimer-afflicted June Squibb (as grandma) joins in and says grace. Twice. This plus the Thanksgiving “what we’re thankful for” moments at the table are the only emotional touchstones in the whole film.
Richard Jenkins, Houdyshell’s husband, confesses to having lost his job (and therefore — did I hear this wrong? — his pension and insurance) due to an apparently brief affair with a coworker. In short, after being with a company for X number of years, they decided to cut his head off and destroy his life because of a single workplace sexual episode. And then the two daughters, after hearing of this, have to lay their #MeToo-ish judgments on withered old dad, along with their natural resentment for his having hurt their mother’s feelings, etc.
May I say something? 74 year-old Jenkins is too old to have had an affair. The workout club manager he played in Burn After Reading, maybe, or the guy in The Visitor or the gay FBI agent in Flirting With Disaster but his Humans dad is way, way past it. Grey haired, paunchy, neck wattle…forget it. In movies as in life you’re allowed to have crazy extramarital affairs up until your early 60s (if you look good), but not beyond that.
Let’s be honest here — this is an “artfully” shot (oooh, look…80% of the time Karam keeps the camera a good 20 to 30 feet away from the actors!) but VERY morose film about some seriously depressed people whose lives are almost certainly on the way down with no hope of escape or redemption. It isn’t long before you feel stuck — imprisoned — in this apartment, and in Karam’s play. No tension, no gathering story strands….it’s just slow-paced conversational misery and confession and gloom.
The Humans is certainly not comedic. Yes, there’s an element of horror in the building itself — it’s a terrible, TERRIBLE place to have a Thanksgiving dinner in, much less reside in, what with the groanings and stompings and filthy windows and pus bubbles and canker sores on the walls. And it’s not just this family of seven that’s stuck in this horrible environment — we’re all stuck in it, and there’s no getting out.
Rob Lowe to Variety‘s Cynthia Littleton about achieving sobriety: “Nothing can make you get sober except you wanting to do it. The threat of losing a marriage, losing a job, incarceration — you name the threat, it will not be enough to do it. It’s got to be in you. The reason that people don’t get sober 100% of the time when they go into programs is that people aren’t ready when they go to use the tools.”
HE to Lowe: It’s true that no threat will make you get sober. You have to want it for yourself, for your very own reasons. But nothing will make you want to get sober like gazing at close-up photos of your own puffy face.
It was the middle of March in 2012, and I was talking to Prague’s Esthe Plastika about having some touch-up work on my eyelids, eye bags and neck wattle. I explained what I wanted, and they asked me to take some close-ups of my face and neck area and send them along. So I did, and when I looked at those horrific snaps I went into catatonic shock. I was looking at the features of a bloated wine-drinking manatee.
The first thought that hit me was ‘okay, that’s it for the evening sips of Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc…I’m done.’ The shock of those photos was so great that I stopped that very night. I haven’t touched a drop since.
My nine-year anniversary will be celebrated on 3.20.21.
If I were Kevin Spacey I would fly to Prague and attend to you-know-what. Okay, I’ll say it — upper eye lids, eye bags, neck wattle. Libor Kment at Esthe Plastica (Na Příkopě 1047/17, 110 00 Staré Město, Czechia). Plus a few hundred micro hair plugs as long as he’s over there. Trust me — Prague is a real Christmas-type place to be.
Spacey’s latest Xmas Eve video appears to have been shot in some kind of public park in…you tell me. Southern Florida? Santa Barbara? A bit of traffic noise in the background.