Year: 2018

The entire issue of the next N.Y. Times Sunday Magazine (8.5) is devoted to the steadily losing war against climate change. Written by Nathaniel Rich and titled “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change,” the central thesis is that civilization could have arrested climate change if responsible meaures had been taken during the mid to late ’80s, or more precisely during the George H.W. Bush administration.

Alas, former New Hampshire governor John Sununu, Bush’s chief of staff, successfully argued against such measures, and so the opportunity was lost. Have tens of thousands aided and abetted, including President Trump? Of course, but Sununu stands alone — the satanic ogre who did more than any other single person in a position of power to block constructive measures against climate change during a key period, and who set forces in motion that will essentially doom millions to untold meteorological horrors.

From a 2.6.90 N.Y. Times story titled “Bush Asks Cautious Response To Threat of Global Warming“: “President Bush called today for a cautious response to the threat of global warming, pleasing those in his Administration who want a deliberate policy but disappointing many environmentalists.

“In a speech to an international environmental group, the President called for global action but warned against policies that would interfere with economic growth and the free market.

“Administration officials said the speech struck a middle ground between conflicting positions among Mr. Bush’s aides. His chief of staff, John H. Sununu, wanted to emphasize scientific uncertainties about global warming and to warn of economic dangers in rushing to act. Several agency heads, including William K. Reilly, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, pressed for a stronger message of America’s commitment to action.”

Sununu quote #1: “The global warming crisis is just the latest surrogate for an over-arching agenda of anti-growth and anti-development. This agenda grew and gathered support in the years following World War II.” Sununu quote #2: “Nature will eventually do what nature has always done. It will respond in a self-stabilizing manner over the long term with moderate variability over multi-decade periods and with occasional significant variability over the short term.”‘

Asked on PBS to summarize the conclusion of his lengthy N.Y. Times report, Rich said that “the simple political answer, a very narrow answer, which is that [in] the first George Bush administration…chief of staff John Sununu was an engineer [and] was very skeptical about the science of global warning, and he suspected that it would be used by a cabal of folks who wanted to suppress growth and economic advancement, and he managed to win an internal fight in that White House against action.”

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Just a sample of the sad scene we faced at the Trump rally in Tampa. I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt. We should not treat our fellow Americans this way. The press is not the enemy. pic.twitter.com/IhSRw5Ui3R

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 1, 2018

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If someone were to manufacture classic action figures made from 3D printing, I’d probably buy two or three. Cool characters like William Holden‘s Pike Bishop from The Wild Bunch, Tom Cruise‘s Vincent from Collateral, Jean Arthur‘s Bonnie Lee from Only Angels Have Wings, Lee Marvin‘s Walker from Point Blank, Joan Crawford’s Mildred Pierce, Cary Grant‘s Roger Thornhill from North by Northwest, James Cagney‘s Cody Jarret from White Heat, Gregory Peck‘s Tom Rath from The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Humphrey Bogart‘s Fred C. Dobbs from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Alan Ladd‘s Shane, Robert DeNiro‘s Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver or Neil McCauley from Heat, Marlon Brando‘s Rio from One-Eyed Jacks, etc.

Nothing tiny-sized, mind, but figures that stand a good eight or nine inches tall. Maybe even a foot. It’s a fairly common technology these days, but so far most of the manufacturers have aimed at the vanity/selfie market.

Since 2015, the Directors Guild of America has been handing an award for Outstanding Direction of a First-Time Feature Film. There can only be five nominees, but already there are seven names in apparent contention:

Bradley Cooper, almost certainly, for his direction of A Star Is Born. Ari Aster for Hereditary. Paul Dano for Wildlife. Josie Rourke for Mary, Queens of Scots. Bo Burnham for Eighth Grade. Jonah Hill for Mid90s, and Boots Riley, most likely, for Sorry To Bother You.

The quota people will insist on nominating Rourke and Riley for representation reasons, and that’ll leave three slots. I’m guessing they’ll be taken by Cooper, Aster and Hill. It’s possible Hill or Aster will be bumped by Burnham…who knows?

Get Out‘s Jordan Peele won the 2017 award. The other four nominees were Geremy Jasper (Patti Cake$), William Oldroyd (Lady Macbeth), Taylor Sheridan (Wind River) and Aaron Sorkin (Molly’s Game).

As far as I know or have heard, John Chu‘s Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Bros., 8.15) is the first major studio release with an all-Asian cast since 1993’s The Joy Luck Club. That in itself means that a certain portion of the critics will bend over backwards to give it a pass, given that representation is an important consideration these days. HE’s opinion — quality is quality, regardless of this or that stamp or attitude — remains unchanged. If a movie is great, it’s great. If it’s good, it’s good. And if it kinda sucks then it kinda sucks. The trailer makes it look like “Meet The Parents in Singapore,” with Constance Wu in the Ben Stiller role. A friend who’s seen it calls it a “very by-the-book romance. It didn’t feel like Meet the Parents but more like a very tame, politically correct version of Wedding Crashers. Nothing blazingly original except for the casting.”

There’s a link between Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds and “A Stop at Willoughby,” a noteworthy Twilight Zone episode that first aired on May 6, 1960. Patricia Donahue, who played Jane Williams, the cold-bitch wife of James Daly‘s Gart Williams, is a dead ringer for Tippi Hedren‘s Melanie Daniels, at least in terms of her business-appropriate apparel and hair style. On top of which Daniels and Williams have the same kind of dry, curt, somewhat chilly manner of speaking.

The reputation of Gone With The Wind began its decline a little more than three years ago. The campaign began with former N.Y Post critic Lou Lumenick calling its “undeniably racist” attitudes no longer tolerable in our current socio-political climate. This was reiterated last August when the Orpheum theatre in Memphis said it would no longer show Gone With The Wind after receiving complaints about the 1939 film being “insensitive”, etc.

Now a Reddit piece offers further proof of how yellowed and moth-eaten Gone With The Wind is by the current calendar. With Margaret Mitchell‘s story spanning the years 1861 to 1873, David O. Selznick‘s film is now slightly closer to the Civil War era it portrays than to the present day. The film opened 78 and 1/2 years ago (i.e., December 1939) while the timeline of the film (which begins in April 1861) began just shy of 79 years before that event.

The author of the eight-day-old Reddit piece, “u/RespectMyAuthoriteh,” goes on to explain in detail how phenomenal the popularity of Gone With The Wind was, considering the intense competition from other films. Example #1: “From the ’20s to mid ’50s seven major Hollywood studios were grinding out 25 to 40 movies per annum,” etc. Example #2: “Gone With The Wind finally left theaters in late 1941. But it was such a huge hit, it was already resurrected for a revival run in March 1942, just three or four months later. It ran on Broadway for two years straight. That’s why GWTW‘s run is so impressive. There has never been anything like it before or since, with the possible exception of Star Wars.”

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I was in a negative-attitude place with Robin Williams at the time of Joe Johnston’s Jumanji. I’d loved Williams’ genie in Aladdin but half-hated his overly precious acting in The Fisher King, and I really despised him in Hook, Toys and Mrs. Doubtfire. But man, I sure do miss that mid ’90s Williams now. He was around 43 when he made Jumanji, and had another seven years of good career traction ahead of him. Things started to go downhill after his performance in Chris Nolan‘s Insomnia (’02)

Last December’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a huge hit, of course — $404 million domestic, $962 million worldwide. I avoided it like the plague, mostly due to the presence of Dwayne Johnson. So I’m in no position to compare it to Johnston’s 1995 original, which brought in $100 million domestic and $262 million with overseas revenue. I can report, however, that Detroit News critic Adam Graham wrote last December that Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle “makes the original Jumanji look like a towering cinematic achievement.”

The general consensus was that Johnston’s film was (a) far from classic but (b) not too bad. I remember loving David Alan Grier‘s performance as an easily flustered local cop.

Upmarket screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson (The Girl on the Train, Men, Women & Children, Secretary) will pen a Paramount remake of Adrien Lyne‘s Indecent Proposal. Collider‘s Jeff Sneider reported it first.

The 1993 drama, adapted by Amy Holden Jones and costarring Robert Redford, Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson, was basically a chick flick that flirted with the double-edged fantasy of a woman being paid a million smackeroos for a single night of sex with a suave, good-looking billionaire. Lyne’s film won three Razzies (Worst Picture, Worst Supporting Actor, Worst Screenplay) but earned $266 million.

I saw Indecent Proposal once a quarter-century ago, and have never even flirted with a re-watch. I recall flinching in my theatre seat when Moore used the term “dream house” in a voice-over narration. But this clip is pleasing. The 81-year-old Redford was 55 during shooting, and seemed a good five years younger. Harrelson had hair back then, and looked around 24 or 25 — he was actually 31. The 30 year-old Moore was peaking (A Few Good Men, Disclosure), but her fortunes plummeted after Striptease (’96) and G.I. Jane (’97).

For the record, collusion means illegal cooperation and/or conspiracy. Keep moving those goal posts regardless.

Cary Fukanaga‘s Maniac costars Emma Stone and Jonah Hill as two strangers participating in a clinical trial for a new mind-altering drug. The “darkly comic” miniseries is based on a Norwegian show of the same name. Producer/writer Patrick Somerville (The Leftovers, The Bridge) wrote and created this, a Netflix version of the series. Premiering on 9.21. Sally Field and Justin Theroux costar.

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