I respectfully disagree with half of what this “Lesson From The Screenplay” essay is saying, which is that the theme of David Fincher‘s Se7en is “ultimately optimistic in nature.” Not so. It ends, in fact, with a philosophical sop that argues with the pitch–black finale. Morgan Freeman reads an Ernest Hemingway quote about “the world [being] a fine place and worth fighting for.” In the essay Michael, the narrator, rephrases Hemingway, saying that “the world is not a fine place…it is filled with inescapable pain and terrible people, but there is also good, and at the end of the day it is worth fighting for.”  

Maybe so, but the reason Se7en is a classic is because it arranges things so that evil wins, and therefore ends on a note of despair and devastation — the life of a hot-tempered young cop ruined, an older cop stunned and shattered, and a bitter scheme fulfilled. A bad guy has kicked the law’s ass and guess what else? Kevin Spacey‘s John Doe, an impassioned serial killer, has a point about social ugliness running rampant. This is precisely what Brad Pitt said on a Criterion laser disc commentary track back in the ’90s, which is that as malevolent as John Doe may be, his observations about the ugly, self-loathing strains in our culture are not completely without merit.

Now that David Michod and Brad Pitt‘s War Machine has been streaming for nearly a month, is there anyone out there who felt moderately impressed and more pleased than not?

My main observations were that (a) “Pitt‘s oddly one-note, gruff-voiced performance may feel like a stumbling block to some, but he was trying to convey something about rigid thinking, about living in the prison of can-do military machismo,” and (b) “though didactic, War Machine unfolds in a rational way…it’s not forced or turgid or hard to get…it’s a surface-y thing, yes, but it does have an element of sadness and regret in the third act…it’s a condemnation of myopic mentalities, and of American arrogance and bureaucratic cluelessness.”

From Peter Maass’s 6.17 Intercept piece:

“There is one particular group of people who love the film, and we should pay more attention to them, because in the matter of war movies they are the experts who matter the most: soldiers.

“Helene Cooper, a military correspondent for The New York Times, noted in a podcast the other day that ‘everybody at the Pentagon is talking about’ War Machine, and, she added, ‘the guys who you think would be offended by it, love it.’ Retired Gen. David Barno wrote with co-author Nora Bensahel that it ‘should be must-see TV for our current generals and all those who aspire to wear stars.’

“I’ve met the kinds of officers and diplomats depicted so scathingly in War Machine, and while exaggerated in the movie, they are real. They probably mean well but they fail or refuse to see what everyone around them can see, and must pay for in blood. Our delusional leaders finally have the movie their insanity deserves.”

Legendary documentarian Errol Morris on Donald Trump, as quoted in a 6.17.17 piece by The Daily Beast‘s Nick Schrager:

“I can’t even stand people trying to make sense out of [Trump’s bullshit],” Morris says. “There’s no point in trying. There’s a scene I’ve always loved in Dr. Strangelove, where General Turgidson (George C. Scott) is reading his letter from General Ripper (Sterling Hayden) in the Pentagon war room, and Ripper is going on and on about precious bodily fluids. Peter Sellers’ president says ‘Give me that’, looks at the letter, and suddenly says, ‘It’s obvious this person is insane!'”

Wells correction: No argument about Trump, but Morris is misremembering. As the end of Ripper’s letter there’s a passage about “God willing, we will prevail, in peace and freedom from fear, and in true health through the purity and essence of our natural…fluids.” Turgidson reads this deadpan, and then adds, “Uh, we’re…still trying to figure out the meaning of that last phrase, sir.” To which Sellers replies, “There’s nothing to figure out, General Turgidson. This man is obviously a psychotic.”

I wanted to see MSNBC’s “All The President’s Men Revisited” doc last night, but Tatyana and I were riding around Santa Monica on bicycles and couldn’t get home in time due to the slow-as-molasses 704 bus (Santa Monica to downtown on S.M. Blvd.). Why can’t I find information about rebroadcastings or at least ways to stream it? What is this, 2003?

I was rumbling around the WeHo Pavilions parking lot on the two-wheeler, looking for a spot. Five or six car lengths ahead I saw a little red Mercedes pull out so I gunned it, drove around an idling SUV and pulled in. I was stowing away the helmet when I heard this wailing sound coming from behind me. It was some 40ish guy going “haaayyy!” He was frowning from behind the wheel of his white four-door something or other and whining, “I was waiting for that spot…Jesus! I was waiting for it!” As if to say, “S’matter with you? Have you ever heard of parking lot manners?”

Law of the jungle, pal. Okay, if I’d seen you “waiting” for the spot I might not have taken it. I would actually rather not occupy any parking spot as I don’t really need one. But I didn’t see you so I took the spot and that’s that. You chose to go bigger and slower with four wheels and I chose smaller with two wheels, and look who has the spot, asshole!

There’s a scene in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre that applies. Bearded Humphrey Bogart is dead broke and on the bum in Tampico. He’s walking down a cobblestoned street when he sees a smoking, half-gone cigarillo that’s been tossed into the gutter. Bogart wants to grab it but he hesitates out of pride. Fred C. Dobbs doesn’t drop to his knees for a few puffs of tobacco…too late! A little Mexican kid grabs the cigarillo and saunters down the street, puffing away, cock of the walk. Bogart is seething. I wanted that damn cigarillo and…okay, I hesitated but then I decided, and now some kid is enjoying it instead of me! Life sucks.

The pissed-off Pavilions parking-lot guy in the white four-door was Humphrey Bogart, and I was the little kid with the lightning reflexes. Life is like that from time to time. Unfair, I mean, but I didn’t rig it.