Day: April 28, 2018

Look at these jowly, bearded, T-shirt-wearing lowlifes…here they are, the joyful, good-natured fanboys whose appetites have helped to degrade if not destroy the commerciality of adult-angled, quality-aspiring theatrical cinema over the last decade or so. You know…movies about actual human beings and their lives…stories that don’t involve CG or super-powers or flying around or destroying cities?

You can chuckle or shrug your shoulders and say “whatever” about the 31-hour Marvel movie marathon that began four days ago at Manhattan’s AMC 25, and ended Thursday evening with a screening of Avengers: Infinity War. Justa buncha goobers having a good time, right? Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger (my second favorite Marvel flick after Ant-Man), The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Spider Man: Homecoming and Black Panther. Sleeping bags, energy bars, spare iPhone batteries, water bottles.

But these are the bad guys — slap-happy geeks whose tastes and ticket-buying power have re-shaped and all but poisoned the theatrical realm, congregating at a kind of ground zero movie temple. Yes, HE-favored films still play at the plexes between October and December. Yes, civilized cinema can still be found here and there. And when that doesn’t work, it’s simply a matter of flopping onto the couch and watching cable and streaming in this, a golden era for home-viewing.

About the marathon itself, here’s (a) a 4.27 N.Y. Times piece by Jason Bailey and (b) a David Ehrlich Indiewire piece about the same, also posted on 4.27.

Obviously built on dismissive racial stereotypes, this Mel Blanc-Jack Benny routine was regarded as hilarious back in the day. If I were to really let my guard down I’d admit that it’s still half-funny now, albeit in a lame, stupid-ass way. Four years ago a YouTube commenter named Armando Vertti said “I’m Mexican, and I find this SO FUCKING FUNNY!” It shows how different American attitudes were back in the Eisenhower-Kennedy days. (The sombrero-wearing guy was Mel Blanc, who voiced all the big WB cartoon characters — Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, etc.) The tide turned in the mid to late ’60s, of course. Bill Dana dropped his Jose Jimenez routine in 1970. Will I get into trouble for posting this? I’m just saying “this is how it was.”

Words can’t express the joy, rapture and ecstasy I’m feeling over the huge success of Avengers: Infinity War. Knowing that Marvel fans and general moviegoers will be parting with roughly $245 million by Sunday night…well, it just tickles my soul and lifts me out of my seat. The second largest all-time domestic debut, second only to the $247 million earned by Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Hell, Infinity could even beat Force.

Four questions for anyone who saw it yesterday or earlier today: (1) Did you see any kinds “bawling” about the deaths of certain Marvel characters?, (2) Leaving aside the digital disintegration deaths (which of course are certain to be reneged upon in the next and final installment), do you feel that enough Marvel characters died?, and (3) Did anyone notice any audience members expressing surprise or dissatisfaction about the ending? Did anyone say “what?” when the film cut to black?

After he lost his afternoon show on MSNBC three years ago, I wondered what Ronan Farrow‘s next move might be. Late last year I found out. The 30-year-old son of Mia Farrow published a devastating Harvey Weinstein expose in The New Yorker, and then, earlier this month, he won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for public service, sharing the award with the authors of the first chapter-and-verse Weinstein article, which ran in the N.Y. Times.

He’s also authored a new and respected book on American foreign policy, “War on Peace.”

Like everyone else, I strongly suspect that the late Frank Sinatra, not Woody Allen, is Farrow’s biological dad. And there’s something else that I think is fair to mention, given that he tried his hand at a visual medium. Obviously brilliant and well-educated, Farrow is nonetheless an odd physical specimen. His head seems too big for what seems like an adolescent frame — slight, slender, boyish shoulders. Then again he reportedly stands 5′ 10″, or two inches taller than Sinatra.