Day: November 2, 2016

A little more than three years ago I described We’re The Millers as a “vulgar, sloppily written, oppressively unfunny road comedy. Plotwise it’s about a typical Middle-American family involved in a Mexican drug-smuggling charade, but thematically it’s a lampoon of suburban families and the hellish, self-loathing lives they presumably lead as they tow the normal line.

“There’s a scene in which Jason Sudeikis‘ character, a Denver pot dealer, is about to get a straight-arrow haircut so he’ll look like a stodgy family guy, and he goes into a longish riff about what a miserable thing it is to be Joe Schmoe with the kids and the mortgage and the temptation to put a gun in his mouth. And yet the movie is also about the nurturing effect of living this kind of life, and how even the most anti-straightlaced among us are drawn to it.”

An 11.1 N.Y. Times article by Dave Itzkoff mentions that Sudeikis is currently starring in a New York theatrical stage production of Dead Poet’s Society. (Classic Stage Company, 136 East 13th Street.)

It also reports that Sudeikis and fiance Olivia Wilde have two kids, the recently arrived Daisy and a two-year-old son named Otis. Speaking as a dad who (along with my ex-wife Maggie) gave a lot of thought to naming his two sons, Jett and Dylan, and speaking as a non-fan of Richard Donner‘s Superman (’78), in which Ned Beatty played a doofus named Otis, that name gives me pause. Suidekis and Wilde’s son will be fine — he’ll own it, make it his own. But if I was a kid I wouldn’t want to be called Otis. Just being honest.

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Last night I saw Raoul Peck‘s I Am Not Your Negro (Magnolia, 2.3.17), an absorbing, above-average doc about legendary writer and activist James Baldwin (1924-1987). Based on an unfinished Baldwin manuscript and narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, it won the Toronto Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award, Pic explores U.S. race relations through Baldwin’s recollections of his life and impressions of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr, et. al. I’m very glad I saw it.

I was bothered, however, by one historical detail. All my life I’ve believed that H. Rap Brown‘s famous late ’60s quote went as follows: “Violence is as American as apple pie.” In fact Brown said it was “as American as cherry pie.” Right away I said to myself “no, no…that’s not right.” The America that Brown spoke of used to be a kind of apple-pie country — apple pie being synonymous with Norman Rockwell, Joe Dimaggio, D.C. Comics, chocolate sundaes, saddle socks and penny loafers, Kansas wheat fields, the Brooklyn Dodgers and so on. Nobody eats cherry pie. I’ve never eaten so much as a single mouthful of the stuff, and I don’t expect to. When legend becomes truth, print the legend. Apples, not cherries.

Until 15 minutes ago you couldn’t find a clip of Oskar Werner‘s brilliantly phrased summation of his case against suspected double agent Peter Van Eyck in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Now you can, that’s all. Werner is one of the best actors who ever lived, but his heyday only lasted for six years or so, from Jules and Jim (’62) to The Shoes of the Fisherman (’68). He was an alcoholic, and he died too young (age 61) of a heart attack.

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Last night Mashable‘s Jeff Sneider tweeted that “if i was a big celeb I wouldn’t agree to host the 2017 Oscars unless I was 99.9% SURE it wouldn’t be another year of #OscarsSoWhite…no upside.”

That got me thinking: What would it take for another #OscarsSoWhite outrage to ignite? We all have a pretty good idea which black films and performances are expected to wind up in the nominees circle. I frankly don’t see another scandal in the cards because they’re all likely to prevail.

There isn’t a blogaroonie alive who will argue that Fences isn’t assured of a Best Picture nomination. Yes, it’s dicey to predict without having seen Denzel Washington‘s film (the big all-media debut is three nights hence in Westwood) but c’mon — Fences, based on a highly respected August Wilson play, has an all-but-bulletproof pedigree. Performances aside, all Denzel has to do is frame it decently.

And we all know Denzel and Viola Davis are locked for noms in their respective categories (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress)…right?

Everyone understands that The Birth of a Nation is a non-starter, but if Nate Parker‘s Penn State thing hadn’t surfaced would there have been a bit of an outraged “what?” If it hadn’t been Best Picture nominated? I never thought it was good enough but I wonder.

Those who caught the Hidden Figures product reel event in Toronto suspect that either Janelle Monae or Taraji P. Henson are probably good for noms, although in what category I can’t say.

And everyone is agreed that Mahershala Ali is good for a Best Supporting nom for his all-too-brief performance in Moonlight.

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You can’t stream Irving Pichel‘s They Won’t Believe Me, a 1947 noir in which Robert Young played a weak, disloyal, manipulative shit. I haven’t seen it in eons, but I vividly remember the final scene when Young, a wrongfully accused defendant in a murder trial, is shot dead by a cop when he tries to leap out of a courtroom window just before the verdict is read. Cut to close-up of the jury foreman reading the verdict: “Not guilty.”

Can anyone imagine a more noir-ish sounding title than They Won’t Believe Me? The world won’t cut me a break, won’t stop shitting on me, won’t trust me, won’t look inside to see who I really am, won’t give me a job or lend a helping hand, refuses to love me, etc. It’s the ultimate expression of despondency.

The only way you can see They Won’t Believe Me is on TMC and via a PAL DVD. No Amazon, no Netfix, no Vudu, no nothin’. On top of which a TCM commenter wrote 13 months ago that TCM “presented this great film noir in July and September from an abbreviated print running 80 or 81 minutes. Standard film databases list a 95 minute running time. I have a Turner Home Entertainment/Image laserdisc of this film that runs 94 minutes and 45 seconds, although the disc jacket says 91 minutes.”

I was taken by the film because Young was a consummate exuder of domestic serenity and middle-class assurance in two hit TV series, Father Knows Beast and Marcus Welby, M.D. In actuality Young was an unhappy, unsettled fellow who suffered from depression and alcoholism. In 1991, at the age of 84 or thereabouts, he tried to kill himself. And yet Young was candid about his personal issues and urged the public not to follow his example (i.e., boozing) and to seek professional help when so afflicted.

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The target of the famous 1964 “Daisy” ad was Barry Goldwater, of course, but C.C. Goldwater and Tani Cohen‘s Mr. Conservative (’06) persuaded me that while Goldwater’s aggressive foreign policy instincts were extreme and that he was definitely wrong about mid ’60s Civil Rights legislation, he was a genuine Libertarian and therefore not too bad in certain respects. Also: To bend over backwards towards fairness, Donald Trump exclaiming that he’ll want the option of seeming unpredictable regarding nuclear weapons is a carbon copy of Richard Nixon‘s “Madman theory.” And keep in mind how Machiavelli once argued that it can sometimes be “a very wise thing to simulate madness.”

It’s been six or seven weeks since plantar fasciitis (i.e., acute right heel pain) became a daily factor in my life. I’ve applied every remedy I can think of short of seeing a podiatrist and getting acupuncture (Dr. Scholl’s, tennis ball/rolling pin, walking with a cane) and over the last week or two the pain has ebbed somewhat, and last weekend I was actually walking around without limping. I’m starting to consider the possibility that this thing might go away altogether by December or early ’17. All I know is that it’s been awful. Every day I gaze at people who can walk and run around without issue and think to myself, “You guys are lucky…I so envy you.”

One of the things I hate about this problem is the expression of friendly colleagues and acquaintances as they offer sympathy and support. They look at you and say “sorry, man…hope it gets better and you’ll soon be back to normal” but what they’re really thinking deep down is “wow, I’m glad I’m not you.” I remember thinking the same thing about Village Voice columnist Arthur Bell (1939 – 1984) when he started walking around with a cane in ’82 or thereabouts, i.e., “He’s on the way down.” I will rebound like Fred Astaire if for no other reason than to wipe those looks of mixed compassion off their faces.