I liked and respected the Broadway stage version of All The Way, but it didn’t knock me flat on my back. The trailer for Jay Roach’s HBO adaptation (debuting on 5.21), in which Bryan Cranston again plays Lyndon Johnson during his greatest historical hour, suggests it might be a bit more finessed and therefore a tad more engrossing. Some things work better when they don’t have be broadly performed and more or less shouted from a stage. Costarring Anthony Mackie (Martin Luther King), Melissa Leo (Lady Bird Johnson), Bradley Whitford (Hubert Humphrey), Stephen Root (J. Edgar Hoover), Todd Weeks (Walter Jenkins), Mo McRae (Stokely Carmichael), Spencer Garrett (Walter Reuther) and Frank Langella (Sen. Richard Russell).

In yesterday’s “Don’t Count Chickens” post, I said that Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation “might snag a Best Picture nomination, maybe, but it’ll be no duckwalk.” I was immediately chided by commenters who were certain I meant to say “cakewalk.” No, I didn’t. “Piece of cake”, fine, but what does “cakewalk” even mean? I’ve been using the term “duckwalk” since Al Pacino‘s Tony Montana used it in this scene from Scarface (’83). So that’ll be enough of that, thank you very much.

Yesterday Vulture‘s Mark Harris tweeted that perhaps the best thing that could happen to Terrence Malick would be if some producer or distributor of a vulgar bent were to get tough with him and demand at least a semblance of a well-shaped, thematically developed script and, one could add, adherence to at least some of the basic staples of narrative drama. And then Dave Kehr re-tweeted this. At which point yours truly, way the hell out of the loop in Hanoi, breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Because two noteworthy persons have finally gotten on-board with what I’ve been saying all along, which is that Malick needs another Bert Schneider to slap him around and save him from his worst tendencies. Glenn Kenny pooh-poohed this suggestion when I first brought it up two or three (more?) years ago. Ball’s in his court.

Yesterday was one long bike-riding orgasm through the streets of Hanoi. It was heaven. There’s something rhapsodic about being one of hundreds of scooter riders, bicyclers, car, bus and truck drivers making their way down a major boulevard. There are no bike lanes — you’re just pedaling your way through it all, everyone making it up as they go along, and I’m telling you it’s like you’re part of some glorious, brass-band holiday parade.

The difference here is that Hanoi pedestrians aren’t standing on the curbside and going “wow, look at that!” They’re just shrugging it off, the usual rumble of daily life. But to me (and, I’m sure, to Jett and Cait) it was like being part of a huge skilled orchestra playing a great improvised symphony, and being part of it yesterday was absolutely one of the most delightful experiences of my life.

Otherwise we had two culinary orgasm sit-downs — lunch at Bun Cha Dak Kim where I had the most delicious springs rolls of my life, spicy and greasy and bursting with flavor, and dinner at Pho Thin, where they only serve bowls of Tho — clear stock, boiled beef, rice noodles, herbs, green onions and garlic. They only charge a little less than $2 U.S. a bowl, but it’s one of the greatest bowls of anything you’ve ever eaten in your life.

Jett and Cait (left side of photo) in a park alongside Hoan Kiem, the smaller of two lakes in central Hanoi.

Garlic-flavored pho last night at Pho Thin.

Ear bugs happen. They leave after two or three days, four or five tops. “Monkey Man” slipped into my brain about two weeks ago, and the fact that it wouldn’t quit after about a week bothered me. Then it left…thank you! And then yesterday, as I was bicycling through the crowded, semi-chaotic streets of Hanoi in one of the most blissful moments of my life, “Monkey Man” returned. Obviously because…I don’t know why. I’ve always regarded it as 6.5 or a 7. I think whatever positive feelings I had for it were diminished by Martin Scorsese‘s decision to use it during the classic cocaine frenzy sequence in Goodfellas. Thereafter I associated the song with anxiety and paranoia. But I just can’t stop playing and re-playing those raunchy Keith Richards chords. I might as well face facts. God has put the “Monkey Man” bug back into my head as a way of wrestling me into submission. He/She wants me to man up and admit it’s a great song and that I do in fact really like it. Okay, I’m admitting that. Uncle.