Jason Kessler, the white nationalist behind the “Unite the Right” demonstration that sparked deadly violence in Charlottesville, was chased away from a brief outdoor press conference Sunday afternoon as an angry crowd jeered and attacked him. He scurried away like a bitch, but not before taking a punch and being tackled. Charlottesville cops stepped in to save his sorry ass.
Several…okay, a few critics are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Warren Beatty, Arthur Penn, David Newman and Robert Benton‘s Bonnie and Clyde. Except the real 50th anniversary was four months ago. This landmark, culture-changing film opened twice — half-heartedly on 4.14.67 (which resulted in Bosley Crowther‘s N.Y. Times pan) and then was re-released on 8.13.67. Remember also that Pauline Kael‘s legendary New Yorker praise piece appeared two months later, in an issue dated 10.21.67. Things sure moved a lot slower back then.
I’ve seen Bonnie and Clyde at least 10 or 12 times. I own the WHV Bluray, of course. Moments and images (the first motel shootout, half of Gene Hackman‘s head blown off, Michael J. Pollard weeping after screwing up the escape from the first bank job, the look on Gene Wilder‘s face when his fiance reveals her actual age) have been in my blood since my 20s. “Don’t sell that cow!”
I’ve always regarded the final machine-gun slaughter scene as not just an all-time shocker but (this is going to sound a little weird) strangely sexual. Yes, I still hate Estelle Parsons‘ performance as Blanche Barrow. (That awful scream, I mean. The real Blanche hated it too.) I chuckle every time Denver Pyle sneaks up behind a heavily-bandaged Parsons, leans down and says “Blanche Barrow!”
“Bonnie and Clyde‘s hero and heroine are not fighting injustice so much as they are having fun, enjoying the prerogatives of outlaw fame. They exist in a kind of anarchic utopia where the pursuit of kicks is imagined to be inherently political. In this universe the usual ethical justifications of violent action are stripped away, but the aura of righteousness somehow remains.”
Since he began starring almost exclusively in action thrillers, Tom Cruise has been the energizer bunny. Major muscular, toned and buffed, rough and ready. Well, yesterday the bunny slammed into a wall. It had to happen. This kind of accident could’ve occured 20 or 10 years ago, but Cruise is 55 now, and at that age…well, I’m sure he’ll be okay. I’ve been there. I fell off a moving scooter in Paris in ’03, banged my left leg up pretty badly. I hobbled, I groaned. The bruise on my left thigh was green and gray. Have I stopped riding scooters and motorcycles since? Of course not! Nonetheless, this was fate and biology sending Cruise a message.
What is wrong with the NewsTube guy who decided to overdub footage of yesterday’s Charlottesville car tragedy with a pathetic organ riff?
The driver of the Dodge Challenger that killed Heather D. Meyer and wounded 19 others yesterday is James Alex Fields, Jr. — 20 years old, hailing from Maumee, Ohio.
Has there ever been a mass-murderer or domestic terrorist who hasn’t been described in day-after reports as a “quiet” type who “kept to himself”?
From 8.13 N.Y. Times story: “Caitlin Robinson, who attended Ockerman Middle School in Florence, Ky., with Fields, suggested that his interest in far-right ideologies dated back years. She said Fields ‘mostly kept to himself’ and ‘didn’t start fights or try to fight,’ but she described him as ‘exceptionally odd and an outcast to be sure.'”
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed Real Time‘s Bill Maher last Friday night. Start at 1:35: “There is that part of the Democratic party that is plainly obnoxious, humorless, too politically correct. If you talk to Trump people, they’re not unaware of his flaws, but what they always say, what they love about him, is that he’s politically incorrect. As bad as he is in some ways, they would rather be on his team than those insufferable people on the left. That’s how [Trump supporters] think.
“And the puritanism of the politically correct is getting worse. I don’t know how long I’m going to last, really. It’s worse every year. The things that they go after people for now. Your colleague — I don’t agree with him — Jeffrey Lord, CNN got rid of him because he said ‘sieg heil’ on a tweet. It was a joke.
“This has got to stop, this idea that people have to go away if they’ve offended me even for one moment. How about just move on, turn the page, go to the next thing in your life? This idea that you cannot suffer one moment of pain. These are the kids, the millenials, who grew up yelling at their parents, something that never ever crossed my mind [when I was a kid] and parents negotiating everything, and this sense of entitlement, that I should never feel any pain, even the pain of someone disagreeing with me. There’s an alarming number of millenials who don’t even believe in free speech, because free speech could lead to hurt feelings.”
