Denzel Washington‘s Creasy in Man on Fire made a big impression on me. Released in 2004 and probably hatched in ’02, it was basically a metaphorical 9/11 payback film — a violent conservative fantasia about a no-bullshit ex-CIA badass going after “the other” (i.e., third-world gangstas, creeps, monsters) and making them howl before killing them with impugnity. I’m a fair-minded, violence-averse, somewhat egotistical lefty humanist in Urban Outfitters socks but I’ve wanted more Creasy ever since. Now, finally, The Equalizer is bringing it all back home.

I caught Rory Kennedy‘s Last Days In Vietnam a couple of months ago at the L.A. Film Festival. It held me, got to me, melted me down. It’ll air next April on PBS’s American Experience but please, please see it theatrically when it opens around the country in September and October (New York’s Sunshine and Lincoln Plazas on 9.5, L.A.’s Nuart on 9.19, the S.F. Bay Area on 9.19). Trust me — it’s a truly exceptional doc. My only beef is that Kennedy should have spoken to some former North Vietnamese combatants and government guys and gotten their perspective.

“I felt profoundly moved and even close to choking up a couple of times while watching Last Days in Vietnam yesterday at the Los Angeles Film Festival,” I wrote on 6.13. “The waging of the Vietnam War by U.S forces was one of the most tragic and devastating miscalculations of the 20th Century, but what happened in Saigon during the last few days and particularly the last few hours of the war on 4.30.75 wasn’t about policy. For some Saigon-based Americans it was simply about taking care of friends and saving as many lives as possible. It was about good people bravely risking the possibility of career suicide by acknowledging a basic duty to stand by their Vietnamese friends and loved ones (even if these natives were on the ‘wrong’ or corrupted side of that conflict) and do the right moral thing.

Yesterday a knowing, insightful and very well-written piece about Robin Williams was HuffPost-ed by screenwriter Jerry Leichtling (Peggy Sue Got Married, Blue Sky) who knew Williams as a friend for many years: “In the last two days people have said repeatedly ‘I feel like I knew him.’ My answer was ‘you did know him.’ Whenever I saw him as an actor, I always felt ‘Oh, that’s Robin.’ Christian Bale, Daniel Day Lewis — Robin wasn’t a transformer like them.” Exactly, and relatively few actors are when you get right down to it. Are you listening, Bob Strauss?

The trouble in Ferguson last night — violence, fires, looting — was apparently a reaction to the release of that security-cam video of Michael Brown shoplifting cigars and shoving a midget storekeeper just before he was shot. The local fuzz released it, and this was seen by some in the community as an attempt by racist cops to indict Brown post-mortem. His family called the video “character assassination.” But look at the video. The guy was obviously angry, a thief, a sociopath, a wrong one. Did he deserve to die because he was an asshole? Of course not. Did he deserve to get shot? Of course not. But listen to the commentary by Da News. Stop for a minute and listen. The guy makes basic sense. Tell me he’s wrong.

I was watching CNN this morning and nobody — anchors, guests, reporters — even flirted with what Da News says here. They were afraid to get within 100 feet of it. Cowards.