Day: August 21, 2020

In late May of ’82 I did an Us magazine group interview with E.T. costars Henry Thomas (who was 10), Drew Barrymore (all of seven years old) and Robert MacNaughton (then 15).

I remember being told by my Us editor, Stephen Schaefer, that a decision had been made by Universal publicists and magazine editors alike to concentrate on Henry and Drew and downplay poor Robert. “But he’s so good in the film!,” I replied, feeling a bit sorry for the guy. That may be true, I was told, but he’s too old and not cute enough — the story will be about Henry and Drew.

The piece was called “E.T.’s Tiny Heroes,” and it turned out to be a cover (my first). The issue date was 7.20.82.

Richard Attenborough‘s Gandhi won the 1982 Best Picture Oscar. Because it said something important and politically correct about social issues, human rights and whatnot. E.T. should have won for the simple, undisputed fact that it’s a much better film that Gandhi…much. Yes, some of it feels emotionally heavy-handed, but that’s sentiment for you. It doesn’t age well. Ask John Ford about that.

Henry Thomas will turn 50 on 9.9.21.

Read more

The voice of the FabTV interviewer of Charlie Kaufman, director and screenwriter** of I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Netflix, 9.4), is thin and reedy, and the speaking style is the usual 65% vocal fry + 35% sexy baby — par for the course for 20something women these days. (Just ask Lake Bell.) And she sounds as if she’s “reading” the questions, and that someone else may have written them. She could be a court stenographer reading back testimony.

Kaufman’s film opens two weeks from today.

** Kaufman adapted Iain Reed’s 2006 novel of the same name.

Read more

A friend forwarded an 8.16 Quillette piece called “The Challenge of Marxism.” The author, Yoram Hazony, seems to be saying that the SJW Robespierres, Khmer Rouge cadres and wokesters on Twitter + Bernie Bros (i.e., Robert “Kid Notorious” Evans) + BLM street protestors and “1619 Project” transformatives are the New Marxists.

And in their zeal to kill fair-minded, mild-mannered liberalism they represent a certain threat that will not play down the road, etc. Or words to that effect.

Excerpt: “[New Marxists] disorient their opponents by referring to their beliefs with a shifting vocabulary of terms, including ‘the Left’, ‘Progressivism’, ‘social justice,’ ‘anti-racism’, ‘Anti-Fascism’, ‘Black Lives Matter’, ‘Critical Race Theory’, ‘Identity Politics’, ‘Political Correctness’, ‘Wokeness’ and more. When liberals try to use these terms they often find themselves deplored for not using them correctly, and this itself becomes a weapon in the hands of those who wish to humiliate and ultimately destroy them.

“The best way to escape this trap is to recognize the movement presently seeking to overthrow liberalism for what it is: an updated version of Marxism. I do not say this to disparage anyone. I say this because it is true. And because recognizing this truth will help us understand what we are facing.”

Pally viewpoint: “He’s talking about the cult mentality of you’re-with-us-or-against-us…and also the former impulses of liberalism (social justice, compassion for the disadvantaged, etc.) hardening into rigid doctrinaire principles. That’s exactly what happened in academia, and it’s now spreading like a virus into the mainstream media.

“I think the essay is spot-on. Marxism is just what this is — not the strict economic definition of Marxism (i.e., class war) but the spiritual model of it. Everything ‘purified’, heretics tossed out, etc. The idea of ‘justice’ pushed to greater and greater extremes. And any view that holds out the idea of compromise must be vilified.

“Marxism, in a word, is leftist absolutism. It’s what happened in Cuba after Fidel Castro came to power; it’s the insanity wrought by Mao [during the Great Cultural Revolution]. And it’s certainly not what Joe Biden stands for.”

In Joshua Logan and William Inge‘s Picnic (’55), William Holden played a drifter named Hal Carter — former high school football star, failed Hollywood actor. Carter was supposed to be somewhere in his mid to late 20s, but Holden was 37 and looked it. By today’s standards he could easily be mistaken for a 45 year-old. Picnic was shot in Hutchinson, Kansas in the spring-summer of ’55. Holden was “reportedly nervous about his dancing for the ‘Moonglow’ scene. Logan took him to Kansas roadhouses where he practiced steps in front of jukeboxes with choreographer Miriam Nelson. Heavy thunderstorms with tornado warnings repeatedly interrupted shooting of the scene in Kansas, so it was completed on a backlot in Burbank, where Holden (according to some sources) was ‘dead drunk’ to calm his nerves.”

Hollywood Elsewhere is thinking about attending a community rally at the Bicentennial Station Post Office on Beverly Blvd. (between Curson and Stanley) on Sunday, 8.16 at 11am. Please stop by for a few minutes to support the USPS and postal employees and to show that we value this important civic institutions, etc. The demo will wind down around noon to avoid the worst of the heat.

Read more