Tonight I happened upon a semi-famous episode on Boris Karloff‘s Thriller called “The Cheaters.” A creepy tale about hidden faces and agendas — about magic glasses that show what people are really thinking and feeling inside. It ends with an egotistic writer putting them on and seeing a monster in a mirror, and then howling and clawing his face.

Directed by John Braham, written by Donald Sanford and based on a story of the same name by Robert Bloch (author of the original “Psycho” novel), it first aired on 12.27.60.

Life is a constant series of games — fibs, feints, dodges, mild deceptions. Is anyone ever 100% honest about anything? Yes, your pets are. And, if you’re fortunate, a close friends or two. (At least sometimes.) Otherwise you’re on your own. People are always putting a gloss on what they think and really feel. Allusions, not declarations. Maybe that’s how it should be. If you can’t say anything nice, go on Twitter.

Yesterday’s box-office tallies for Rambo: Last Blood and Ad Astra aren’t far apart. Playing on 3618 screens, Rambo earned $7,170,000 while Ad Astra, on 3460 situations, brought in $7,161,000. But on CinemaScore, Ad Astra earned a lousy B-minus vs. Rambo‘s slightly better B. Which film is better in the eyes of the Movie Godz? You have to ask?

But the most telling measure is the contrast between critic and readers reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Rambo is doing great with the hoi polloi (84% positive) but not great with critics (30%); Ad Astra is supported by four out of five critics (82%) while the public has given it a failing grade (47%).

Here are links to actual RT reader comments for Rambo vs. Ad Astra.

I’ve had my differences with a few Twitter jackals (and I’m talking about people who deserve to be chained in medieval dungeons on bread-and-water diets), but they don’t understand who I am in the eyes of Anya. I am her lover, parent and care-giver, and she’s my brilliant daughter — as smart as any Jack Russell, fickle, curious, emotionally demanding and 24/7 affectionate.

Outside of family and my marriage to Tatyana, I’ve never been in a more emotionally open, nurturing and trustworthy relationship than the one I’ve had with Anya for the last two and a half years. I’m sure Tatyana feels the same way. The three of us.

Anya was born in a Playa del Rey home in May 2017, and may she remain with us until…well, sometime in the mid 2030s. Siamese cats are extra in all kinds of ways.

“American Dharma is certainly a story about a man who lives in a strange fantasy world. Early Christianity, John Ford movies, nationalist ideologies…an incoherent mess, in my opinion.” — — Errol Morris, director of American Dharma, an exploration of the mind and ideology of Steve Bannon, during a 2018 Toronto Film Festival q & a.

In other words, Morris is no admirer of former Trump administration svengali Steve Bannon, and so American Dharma casts significant doubt upon Bannon’s overthrow-the-deep-state, hooray-for-the-red-hats bullshit. But at the same time it does a curious thing — it presents Bannon as a half-mythical figure, a man of steel and conviction, tough-minded but thoughtful.

If you have a semi-developed brain and at least some analytical abilities, you’re going to recoil in quiet horror at what Bannon is advocating here, but at the same time you’re going to be half-impressed by the way he comes off as a cinematic figure, as a fellow who’s part of a fraternity of strong, square-jawed honey badgers (including Gregory Peck in Twelve O’Clock High, Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai) who don’t give a shit but are determined to get the job done.

Right-wingers may feel conflicted about American Dharma (as I do) but they’re not going to flat-out hate it. Because there’s something faintly (emphasis on the “f” word) attractive about the way Bannon is portrayed.

I agree almost entirely with Michael Moore‘s Fahrenheit 11/9, but American Dharma, troubling as it is, is a more transporting film, certainly in a visual sense.

HE’s 8.29.19 Telluride Film Festival review, and a 9.10.19 follow-up: