Respect for the formidable Wilford Brimley, the flinty character actor who passed on 8.1.20 at age 85. His performances were always convincing and unaffected and touched by gruffness, but there were only two that I regard as serious standouts. Okay, maybe three.

I know I’m supposed to say that his baseball team manager in The Natural and the lovable old codger in Cocoon were his two best, but I don’t feel that way. Odd as it may sound, I thought his chunky, snarly villain in The Firm (’94) was his absolute finest moment (particularly that scene with Tom Cruise when Brimley shows him the sexy beach photos and says the line “oral and whatnot”). My second favorite was his performance as Betty Buckley‘s manager, “Harry”, in Tender Mercies (’83). He was also quite good in a relatively small role (Assistant U.S. Attorney General James A. Wells) in Absence of Malice.

Brimley began working in the mid ’70s on TV (The Waltons) and his last film was in ’16 — a 40-year run give or take. But his peak period lasted only 15 years or so, or roughly from The China Syndrome (’79) to The Firm. He was certainly noteworthy in The Electric Horseman, Brubaker, The Thing, High Road to China, Harry & Son, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Stone Boy, Terror in the Aisles and Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.

A lot of eyes will be on Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland when it plays the 2020 Venice Film Festival, and thereafter the all-virtual Toronto Film Festival plus the NY Film Festival. Based on Jessica Bruder‘s same-titled book and set in the aftermath of the 2009 recession, it’s about a sporadically employed, cash-strapped Frances McDormand roaming around the western regions in a camper. We’re familiar with Zhao’s style and inclinations based on The Rider (’17). Understatement + lethargy + melancholy. Downmarket protagonist of relatively few words in a tough spot, no easy way out of the mire, some kind of difficult decision has to be made, etc. And then a third-act climax that may feel more somber than wowser. Or perhaps not.

“By far the most qualified, least risky choice…”

Joe Biden‘s official announcement could happen this weekend, but more likely on Monday, 8.3. Right?

Bill Maher‘s Real Time discussion with Jim Carrey was a bit crazy. It reminded me of certain phoners I’ve done in which I’ve tried to steer the conversation in certain ways while the person I was interviewing was on planet Neptune. Carrey has always resided in his own realm. Can anyone recall any celebrity interview on Zoom in which the subject went close into the camera lens like Carrey does?

Originally posted on 4.2.08: 25 years ago Oliver Stone did me a great favor, and I’ve thanked him at least two if not three times since. In ’95 he and publicist Stephen Rivers arranged for me to pay a brief visit to the Nixon West Wing — Oval Office, cabinet room, hallways, various offices, etc.

Production designer Victor Kempster had built the amazingly detailed set (including an outdoor portion with grass and bushes) on a massive Sony sound stage.

I was allowed in just after Stone and his cast (including Anthony Hopkins) and crew had finished filming. It was sometime around February or March of ’95. I wrote up my impressions for an L.A. Times Syndicate piece. Nixon opened on 12.20.95.

The Nixon unit publicist (or somebody who worked for Rivers) escorted me onto the stage and left. Nobody was around; I had the place all to myself. I had a video camera with me and shot all the rooms, and took my time about it. I was seriously excited and grateful as hell for the opportunity because it was, in a sense, better than visiting the real Oval Office in the real White House, which I would have never been allowed to do even if I’d been best friends with someone in the Clinton administration.

Nixon’s oval office.

JFK’s subdued variation.

Every detail was Eric von Stroheim genuine. Wooden floors, real plaster, ceilings, rugs, moldings, early 1970s phones, bright gold French aristocracy drapes, china on the shelves and mantlepiece, etc.

Five years later I was granted a visit to a replica of Jack Kennedy‘s West Wing that had been used for the shooting of Roger Donaldson‘s Thirteen Days. It was around the same time of year — February or March of 2000, roughly nine or ten months before the movie’s release in December. The set had been built by production designer Dennis Washington inside a warehouse-type sound stage somewhere in southern Glendale or Eagle Rock.

The difference between the Nixon Oval Office decor — creamy beiges and bright golds, a bright blue rug, gilded bric a bracs on the shelves (which contributed to a kind of effete, faux-aristocratic atmosphere) — and the subdued greens, browns and navy blues of JFK’s office (which even had a replica of the coconut shell that Lt. Kennedy used to carve out a message during his PT 109 adventure) will always stay in my mind.

You can tell a lot about people from the decor in their homes and workplaces. Only an arrogant know-nothing would have chosen the nouveau-riche wooden floor that Bush had installed in ’05. The White House is a place of great history, echoes and ghosts, and it should look and feel like it’s been hanging in there for at least a century or so — stressed floors, old timber and dark varnish, like the early 20th Century and 19th Century homes that are found in the northeast.

These visits were as close as I’m ever going to get to the real Oval Office — they gave me a real organic window into recent history. Even if I’d been invited to the real White House I wouldn’t have had the chance to poke around and study everything at my leisure.

In Scott Feinberg’s intro to his THR podcast chat with “Chasing The Light” author Oliver Stone, he mentions an excerpt from a Guardian piece that churlishly described Stone as “a sort of latter-day Ernest Hemingway…an action man with a reputation for women and drugs.” That’s bullshit — Stone is actually one of the most nakedly honest and at the same time deeply vulnerable fellows out there. A spirited adventurer slash poet slash politician slash outsider eccentric. Fascinating to listen to. His chat with Feinberg is perhaps the most illuminating he’s done during the whole book tour so far. I wasn’t expecting much at first, but the interview just takes off.