The FortyElephants may have been an all-female London crime syndicate in 1880s London, but they weren’t so much an underworld criminal gang as a fleet-fingered shopliftingoperation, which sounds a lot less malicious than, say, a female Dead Rabbits.
I haven’t yet sunk into Steven Knight’s AThousandBlows (Hulu) but being a scruffy 19th Century thing it’s obviously not related to the cinematic visions of the late Francois Truffaut and his 66-year-old debut film, The400Blows, which excited the imaginations of the young Harvey and Bob Weinstein. (I doubt they were the only young lads with thoughts of an oral-sex marathon.) Not that this has anything to do with the Forty Elephants…wait, I’ve lost the thread.
Warner Bros. will release Maggie Gyllenhaal’s TheBride (which reportedly contains “big dance numbers”) on 9.26.25. Here’s the Wikisynopsis:
Jessie Buckley’s “bride” naturally has to exact revenge upon her malevolent murderer…totally necessary, dramatically required. But my blood ran cold and my skin turned to alabaster when I read the words “sparking radical social change”….aaagghh!
…for what I’m feeling right now…I know in my gut that whatawaitsme later this afternoon will not be pleasant, much less transporting…I’m about to enter a celestial snow colony by way of a futuristic Bong hellscape…creepers! Which RPatz’s lead protagonist feels compassion for. Two hours and 17 minutes of this…God.
In any other city a cannabis store might call itself High Society, and that would be fine. But on Ludlow Street just south of Houston (a few doors down from Katz’s Quaking Orgasm Performance Deli). a different spelling is required.
I deplored the stealth woke-ism and mediocrity of Kamala Harris, and yet I voted for her last November because she’s a relatively sane and sensible type…a steady-at-the-helm administrator who wouldn’t fuck things up too badly.
Alas, DonaldTrump got elected for the most part because wokeysoverplayedtheirhand (DEI oppressions, 1619 Project historical revisions, George Floyd riots & lootings, punitive #MeToo corrections and cancellations, trans intimidation in public schools + bottom surgeries for minors, free-for-all Mexican border policies, men in women’s sports, trashing the reputation of Abraham Lincoln, Kathy Kennedy destroying Star Wars franchise). They did this to themselves, and have no one but themselves to blame. Thanks, Joe!
And so, despite my loathing of Trump’s scoundrel-ish demagoguery and lying criminality, my heart fluttered last night when I heard the words “wokenolonger!” The dream I’ve been holding in my heart since 2018 — that wokesters would one day be on the run and searching for tall grass — has finally come to pass.
I hate what Trump is doing on so many other fronts (Ukraine in particular) but lashing wokesters to the whipping post is a good and glorious thing.
…who has flaming carrot-colored hair and several hundred freckles and who doesn’t even look like a distant cousin, and who also looks like fucking Carrot Top meets Eric Stoltz?
I’m sorry but all my life I’ve been living with a certain idea of what “twin” means. Silly me — forgive my ignorance.
From this end it feels pretty great to be living a Hollywood Elsewhere-type life — no “barbecues and ball games” or any of that onerous, sword-of-Damocles stuff but…
It is part of my burden, yes, to have to face the daily threat of slimy, slithering reptiles and hissing dragons** who radiate seething hostility at every turn, but as Pike Bishop once said, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
No sublime morning-coffee company with a Porizkova or an Antropova, true, and no THC gummies or slurps of lime-and-guave-flavored beer but I gots my George Gershwin rhythm…physically fit, mentally sharp, no bald spots or jiggling neck wattles, Italian-made black loafers, Zara T-shirts, etc.
And Lordy Lordy the profound gift of a three-year-old granddaughter who constantly radiates joyful discovery and intrigue….
Not to mention daily postings drawn from my inner well…a life of constant discipline, 4K Blurays and travel and film festivals, Cialis and Prevagen and choice Indian restaurants in London and Paris and even Westport, cinematic intrigue and occasional satori transcendence, Bhagavad Gita meditations, a bottomless chest of fond Henry Miller-ish memories and occasional secretions of Socratic wisdom…spiritual nourishment savored in dribs and drabs.
I could go on and on but it feels like a huge relief not having to please or placate or charm or dazzle a high-maintenance woman of Porizkova’scharacter***…no offense.
Sri Krishna, Henry Miller, Pike Bishop, Socrates or Marcus Aurelius (either or both), George Gershwin, Sutton Wells…quite the cocktail.
** Life forms who seem to actually get off on spewing alien acid blood.
Three years ago I recalled how the shooting script of CrimsonTide wasn’t so much structurally influenced or character-enriched as significantlyflavored by three celebrated pinch-hitters — Robert Towne, Quentin Tarantino and Steve Zallian.
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to name other successful big-budget films whose producers tapped into the talents of prominent screenwriters who were able to inject (take your pick) edgy attitude, thoughtful meditations, humor, personality, cultural hors d’eouvres, etc.
It’s not just that CynthiaErivo and ArianaGrande are the height of eight or nine year-olds (at most), but their heads are 50% smaller than those of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Experiments created by Dr. SeptimusPretorius, tall girls of Munchkinland, etc.
As I scan the early ‘25 cinema horizon, there is nothing that even comes close to depressing me as much as my inevitable submission to Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey17 (Warner Bros., 3.7). I hate this sight-unseen film so much that dark green ooze is seeping out of my ears.
On the plus side, there’s no film I’m more excited about seeing right now than Michel Franco’s Dreams, which recently premiered at the Berlinale. I knew it would be a must-see when the woked-up Jessica Chastain said she was uncomfortable about playing the wealthy but conflicted lead character.
No distributor has been announced, and I’ve been unable to find a press-screening link.
