Joe Biden is calling Orange Plague‘s refusal to sign the pandemic economic relief bill an “abdication of responsibility”, and is demanding that Trump sign the damn thing today to prevent “devastating consequences.”

Biden: “It’s the day after Christmas, and millions of families don’t know if they’ll be able to make ends meet because of President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign an economic relief bill approved by Congress with an overwhelming and bipartisan majority.

“This abdication of responsibility has devastating consequences. This bill is critical. It needs to be signed into law now.”

Trump has tweeted that he “simply want[s] to get our great people $2000, rather than the measly $600 that is now in the bill.”

Last week the Washington Post‘s Eliza Goren, Shefali S. Kulkarni and Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn posted a survey piece about the horror of Covid. They had asked readers for one-word or ultra-brief descriptions of what living through the pandemic has been like.

The most oft-repeated responses are posted below, but HE’s favorite term…well, it depends.

I’ve most often called it “suffocating” or “draining.” Because I feel as if I’ve been living and working without the ability to inhale any real oxygen into my lungs. “Neverending melancholy” is good. Ditto “widespread depression”, “novocaine” and “low tide.”

I’ve been telling myself in recent months that Jimi Hendrix‘s “I Don’t Live Today” sums it up nicely, especially “there ain’t no life nowhere.” Which is true — there ain’t.

Washington Post responses in order of popularity: (1) Exhausting, (2) Lost, (3) Chaotic, (4) Relentless, (5) Surreal, (6) Groundhog Day, (7) Heartbreaking, (8) What fresh hell is this?, (9) Nightmare, (10) Stifling.

Here’s an example of real actual life…a video taken five years ago from a Key West hotel room during a rainshower…a red bicycle for riding around…bars and restaurants there for the sampling…crowds of people milling about with the wild roosters…listen to that rain drenching those palm and banana trees…God, I miss it.

This morning I read another pro-Showgirls article (“All About Eve With Strippers?”). An Air Mail q & a with casting director Johanna Ray, who began casting Showgirls 26 years ago. Dated 12.26 and written by Lili Anolik, it claims that Showgirls is beyond criticism now, that it’s iconic, maybe even a misunderstood masterpiece, etc.

For years I’ve been saying “no, the film really does suck eggs but it wasn’t Elizabeth Berkley‘s fault.” Way back in ’95 I wrote a semi-sympathetic piece in my L.A. Times Syndicate Hollywood column. I insisted that Berkley had delivered a respectably feisty performance, and that the catastrophic response to the film shouldn’t be draped around her shoulders.

Berkley got in touch soon after and thanked me for the words of support. A year later we met up at the Sundance Film Festival and exchanged a hug. In ’05 Berkley threw me a couple of ducats to an off-Broadway NYC revival of David Rabe‘s Hurlyburly, in which she costarred with Ethan Hawke. A few years later we ran into each other at Telluride — hey-hey.

Filed from the 2015 Key West Film Festival: “Last night I re-watched a good portion of Paul Verhoeven‘s Showgirls at the Key West Theatre & Community Stage. Adam Nayman’s revisionist book about this reviled cult film (which was selling at the KWTCS and at Key West Island Books) tries to resurrect the rep a la F.X. Feeney going to bat for Heaven’s Gate.

I haven’t even seen Jeffrey McHale‘s You Don’t Nomi, a Showgirls doc currently streaming on Amazon Prime….apologies.

Two noteworthy comments from HE readers: (1) “Has anyone ever mentioned about how much better Showgirls plays when you watch the DVD with the French audio track and subtitles? As a ‘French film’ mocking the Las Vegas lifestyle, it’s brilliant.” — Joe Corey; (2) “The only truly big sin of the film was that MGM spent $50 million on it. If Gaspar Noé remade it for $500K it would be hailed as ‘so out there it’s cool.'” — The Hey

For the sixth or seventh time, my old story about watching Showgirls at Robert Evans‘ place with Jack Nicholson, Bryan Singer, Chris McQuarrie, et. al.

Has anyone read Variety’s recently tacked-on apology for Dennis Harvey’s disparaging remarks about Carey Mulligan in a Promising Young Woman review that was written 11 months ago?

Harvey filed the review during last January’s Sundance Film Festival, but the apology coda didn’t appear until Mulligan complained to the N.Y. Times‘ Kyle Buchanan in a 12.23 profile, referencing Harvey’s 1.26.20 review.

“I read the Variety review because I’m a weak person,” Mulligan told Buchanan. “And I took issue with it. It felt like it was basically saying that I wasn’t hot enough to pull off this kind of ruse.”

Variety‘s apology, tacked on to Dennis Harvey’s 1.26.20 review after Carey Mulligan’s complaint to N.Y Times profiler Kyle Buchanan in a 12.23 article.

Harvey excerpt: “Mulligan, a fine actress, seems a bit of an odd choice as this admittedly many-layered apparent femme fatale. Margot Robbie is a producer [of Promising Young Woman], and one can (perhaps too easily) imagine the role might once have been intended for her. Whereas with this star, Cassie wears her pickup-bait gear like bad drag; even her long blonde hair seems a put-on.”

I don’t agree at all with Harvey’s opinion of Mulligan. I’ve always found her fetching, for one thing. And young male party animals looking to take advantage of a seemingly drunk woman is not a syndrome triggered by exceptional Margot Robbie-level attractiveness. It’s basically a heartless predatory thing, whether the woman is a 9.5 or a 7 or whatever.

On top of which Harvey’s remark slipped right through Variety‘s editors 11 months ago and nobody said boo.

And it was reasonable to suppose that Harvey’s remark, however insensitive, might find a certain resonance in the general culture when PYW opens. He was basically saying that as far as the popcorn crowd was concerned, Carey’s casting as a femme fatale might not have been the most arresting choice from a commercial perspective.

I strongly disagree — Mulligan is one of our greatest actresses not just because of her Streep-level chops (did anyone else see her in Skylight on Broadway?), but she has a sadness about her, a weight-of-the-world aura. She carries the ache of the world in her eyes, in the slightly downturned corners of her mouth, and most certainly upon her shoulders.

Read the wording of Variety’s apology — they’ve completely washed their hands of Harvey in this instance and have more or less thrown him under the bus.

If I were a senior Variety editor I’d offer Harvey a chance to explain his remark in greater depth, or to amend his gut reaction or expand upon it or whatever. I’d say that “while Variety editors and senior staff don’t share Harvey’s opinion and feel he missed what the film was saying and/or expressed himself somewhat insensitively, we’ve respected his skills and perceptions as a film critic for years, and we will continue to do so.”

The Common Core standards seemed to spell the end of the writing style in 2010 when they dropped requirements that the skill be taught in public elementary schools, but about two dozen states have reintroduced the practice since then.” — Written by Emily Rueb and posted in the N.Y Times on 4.13.19.

I’ve noted before that even those who were taught cursive in grade school have more or less lost the discipline. Here’s a muddy photo of an autobiographical essay I wrote when I was ten or eleven. Apart from the appalling prose style it’s worth noting how clear and legible my handwriting was. My handwriting is pathetic these days. That’s what being on a keyboard all this time will do. I presume this is the case all around.

I’m very sorry to pass along the death of Variety‘s Dave McNary, 69, who “tirelessly covered the film and labor beats for more than 20 years,” per Variety‘s obit. I didn’t exactly “know” Dave, but he always struck me as as decent, kindly soul. A Pasadena resident, Dave had suffered a stroke a few days before Christmas. He died Saturday. Before starting with Variety in ’99, McNary worked for UPI, the Los Angeles Daily News and the Pasadena Star-News.

Variety‘s Dave McNary