How can Georgians vote for Loeffler after a federal financial disclosure document showed last March that she and husband Jeffrey Sprecher, chairman and CEO of the Intercontinental Exchange (a corporation that owns the New York Stock Exchange), “sold stock in companies vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic with an aggregate value of several million dollars, and that they began selling stocks on 1.24.20, the same day Loeffler attended a private briefing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions on the spread of the disease”?
Warnock is clearly, obviously a better human being. Loeffler, whose personal worth is in the hundreds of millions, is obviously in it for the money.
I posted my admiring review of Thomas Bezhucha‘s Let Him Go on 11.3.20. I described it as “a kind of period western, set 50 or 60 years ago, about family, horses, children, continuity, guns, axes and fingers…so well composed, so exacting, so nicely honed.”
In short I was totally thumbs up for all aspects of this Kevin Costner-Diane Lane drama, except for one or two that I couldn’t discuss.
SPOILER WARNING: That was over a month ago. Let Him Go has been streaming since 11.6.20. So I’m posting a discussion I had with a friend about it on 11.2.20. If you’d rather not read, please don’t but either way SPOILERS await.
HE to friendo: “I’m loving Let Him Go…loving the mood, tone, cinematography, muted behaviors. But Lesley Manville and her scurvy yokel sons just chopped Kevin Costner’s fingers off and I really, REALLY didn’t like that. You don’t chop off the fingers of the laconic, tough-as-nails hero….you don’t do that!”
Friendo to HE: “[The finger-chop scene is] one of my favorite things in the film. You’re right — you don’t do that. It’s not done. And that ‘rule’ makes our hero feel implicitly protected. So that rule-breaking moment raised the stakes. It said: These people are THAT dangerous — the hero isn’t going to be protected by the usual hero mythology.
“I thought the horror of that event made what followed more suspenseful, as well as placing George on a path toward martyrdom (though we don’t know that yet).”
HE to friendo: “Kayli Carter is the villain of the piece. She had a good gentle husband (the son of Costner and Lane) and then, with a young son, she married a violent sociopath (Will Britain). She couldn’t sniff a whiff of trouble from that guy? Any half-intelligent adult could have. Especially with a three-year old to think about.
“Diane Lane was distant or less than embracing after her son died and so Kayli had no choice but to marry the first available psycho who came along? After all is said and done, that kid is going to be seriously traumatized for the rest of his life. Years of therapy.
“And of course Manville and her scurvy, white-trash, seed-of-Satan sons are cut from the same cloth that Trump supporters will come from 50 or 60 years hence. OF COURSE they are. Trump yokels + Deliverance + Australian crime family.
“And why did Kayli rat them out by telling Manville & Sons that Costner/Lane wanted her to move back with them? She knows that awful family is violent & territorial and yet she told on them?
Friendo to HE: “That plotting with the daughter is a weakness; it’s fuzzy. But I don’t think she’s villainous. The implication is that Donnie kept his true nature mostly hidden.
Vampire Rudy, 76, has tested positive for the coronavirus. But you knew that, of course, and we all know how this will turn out. Rudy will most likely be given the same super-medications that Trump was given during his brief bout with the disease, and will be more or less out of the woods within two or three weeks, if not sooner.
Who’s dying from the virus then? Those suffering from frail constitutions, obesity (although that didn’t stop former New Jersey governor Chris Christie), respiratory issues (cigarette smoking), a lack of Vitamin D, etc. And those with threadbare health insurance.
HE-posted a few weeks ago: “First and foremost Mank has been made by and for film monks — smartypants types, devotional cineastes, those with a general sense of X-factor sophistication, guys like Bob Strauss, etc. That probably leaves out a certain portion of the community who will bestow earnest praise for its technical accomplishments. We all know what that means.”
And then Mank began streaming on 12.4, and views of certain industry folk began to surface on Twitter and Facebook. This morning two Facebook threads this morning — one launched by Paul Schrader, another by Dale Launer — gave me pause.
Schrader complained that Mank “fails the first obligation of telling the story of a flawed protagonist — to convince the viewer that this character merits two hours of their time.” I replied that I initially felt this way, largely because Gary Oldman’s Herman Mankiewicz (20 years too old to be playing a 40something) to be mostly about being soused.
“But then, curiously, I began to like him more and more. Sappy as it may sound, he quipped and charmed his way into my heart.” And then Tesla executive Landon Johnson asked “how many times did you watch it before it charmed you?” And I replied “once” but at that very moment I knew Mank was in trouble with working industry types and related know-it-alls.
Mank will still be Best Picture-nominated, I suspect; ditto Fincher for directing and Eric Messerschmidt‘s black-and-white cinematography. But to go by almost everyone Amanda Seyfried‘s performance as Marion Davies is easily the most admired element — she’s the only real slam-dunk.
Consider Launer’s Facebook critique, which frankly made me go “hmmm.” A longtime seasoned screenwriter and a man of candid description and admission, he riffed on Mank in real time, and didn’t cut it much slack.
“I was going to have a nice evening by ordering in and watching Mank, which from the trailer looked stunning,” Launer begins. “But from the trailer, I wasn’t sure if it was a good movie or not. It is not.
“Annoying, pretentious dialogue dominates the movie. The writing has the feel of someone who went to an Ivy league school and want to show it off in their writing. Hence dialogue that sounds very ‘drawing room’ (or so it attempts) and is reaching for a sophisticated feel. This gives it a slightly ‘old timey’ feel — but not in a good way. A lot of ‘clever’ talk, but in statements rather than actual dialogue…witticisms but nothing that approaches reality. Superficially classy, but without elegance. Amateurish, like when a studio hires someone with a refined background and assumes they can write a compelling story. First with ‘exposition’ like someone saying ‘You remember when…’ instead of just showing us. I’d rather SEE the flashback.
“Then there’s a scene where there’s a writers room filled with east coast playwrights and journalists and they’re introduced as though the audience will be impressed. Best to impress us with their actions rather than their introduction. This is going to be a slog but to be fair, I’m only 28 minutes in and had to take a short break so my annoyance doesn’t turn out out and out anxiety. The first act is about to end (I think) and there should be a direction that takes off in an interesting way.
“The look, however is sensational. Shot on a digital black-and-white camera — production design, cinematography and the direction — all top notch.
