Year: 2020

Breaking: Every summer it gets a little hotter. Caused by a little thing called “climate change,” which doesn’t exist in the minds of Trump supporters. Two weeks ago many areas of Europe were besieged by temperatures around 40 centigrade, or just over 100 degrees fahrenheit. Some Parisians are saying it hasn’t been this bad since the heat wave of ’03, which, by the way, the boys and I experienced personally.

Talk about a summer of swelter. Jett had recently turned 15; Dylan was 13 and 1/2. We got through it, but barely. We had a third-floor walkup on rue Tourlaque, a block from the Cimitiere de Montmartre. A couple of days before the heat began, I slipped into a Castorama near Place de Clichy and bought three sizable fans. They restored our souls. If I hadn’t pounced when I did the fans might’ve been sold out, and we would’ve surely died.

To escape the jungle-like Paris air we decided to attend 2003 Locarno Film Festival. It began on Wednesday, 8.7.03, and closed ten days later. A smart, elegant, sophisticated gathering. Locarno is in southern Switzerland, of course, but it’s northern Italy in almost every tangible sense — culturally, atmospherically, architecturally. The gelato stands were a daily blessing.

I remember Roger Ebert‘s face being all pink and sweat-beady during an outdoor discussion panel. The guys and I were constantly soaked, of course. Every afternoon around 3 or 4 we took an hour-long dip in Lake Maggiore.

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Late yesterday afternoon I waited 40 minutes in a line at the Beverly Blvd. post office. Two or three people ahead of me were angry and complaining about bad service. When it was finally my turn, I asked the woman at the window if this is happening every day. Yes, she sighed. “Have you lost some personnel?” Yes, she said. “I’m sorry,” I said.

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Linda Manz, Richard Gere‘s spunky younger sister in Days of Heaven, has died of lung cancer at age 58.

15 year-old Manz gave one of the 20th Century’s most indelible supporting performances in Terrence Malick‘s 1978 classic. Reciting Malick’s narration with that glorious New York street accent, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, yanking feathers out of a dead chicken, laughing, lost in thought aboard a westbound freight train or on a boat cruising down a Texas river…perfection.

Manz played the lead role in Dennis Hopper‘s Out Of The Blue (’80), which I’ve only seen once. She was also in Phillip Kaufman‘s The Wanderers (’79) and Harmony Korine‘s Gummo (’97).

Manz’s final Days of Heaven line: “This girl, she didn’t know where she was gonna go or what she was gonna do. Maybe she’d meet up with a charactuh. I was really hopin’ things would work out for huh. She was a good frenna mine.”

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Mustard, onions, light on the chili…extra napkins, please? Cooks and wait staff wearing plastic face masks, etc. (Photo taken today at 5:28 pm.)

…if Cheech Marin was the star rather than a supporting player.

All you need to know is that The War With Grandpa (101 Studios, 10.9) was directed by Tim Hill (The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On The Run, Alvin and the Chipmunks). That tells you absolutely everything.

HE to Edward Snowden, Oliver Stone (email sent a couple of hours ago): Edward & Oliver — Can you guys give me a quote about this just-breaking Trump/Snowden story, which hints that a pardon may be in the offing? Would a pardon from an obese sociopathic crime boss make it any less of a desirable thing from your perspectives?

A filmmaker friend sent me into a funk this morning. He managed this feat by declaring that he loves Alfred Hitchcock‘s Marnie, and insisting that it’s a “fantastic” film. My first reaction was “dear God.” My second reaction was to send him the following:

“No one is more passionate about film and other things than yourself, but Marnie? Please name one aspect of Marnie that truly and consistently works, in your view. Name one aspect that you regard as truly ‘fantastic.’

“Tippi Hedren delivered the brittle and repressed, but she couldn’t deliver the eros — it just wasn’t there. Hitchcock never admitted this in so many words, but he was looking to turn audiences on with Marnie. It’s a film about repression, constipation and memory panic, but he wanted Hedren to deliver ‘the volcano’, as he once said. But she couldn’t.

“Grace Kelly, whom Hitch had originally cast, might have succeeded in this regard.

“Those stilted scenes with her deranged mother (Louise Latham), that deadly on-the-nose dialogue, those absurd flashes of red, those awful process shots when Hedren is riding her horse, those almost comically fake backdrop paintings by Albert Whitlock, etc.

“You’re basically stuck with a lead actress who can never be healthy, never trust anyone, never have great sex, never breathe easy.

“I like Sean Connery’s performance, the Bernard Herrmann score, the suspenseful Act One robbery sequence.

“I appreciate that Marnie is as much about Hitchcock self-portraiture as Vertigo was. In actuality Hitch was basically Connery’s “Mark Rutland” character, an authority figure using power and pressure to get Marnie/Hedren to sleep with him. Rutland and Vertigo‘s Scotty Ferguson are both rooted in a pervy, twisted psychology. And their respective lead females are liars, fakers and unreliable narrators.

“The bottom line? Hitch adored his ice queens (‘There are hills in that thar gold’) but at the end of the day his main erotic fixation was upon food.”

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First of all, how is it Friday already? I thought today was Thursday or possibly even Wednesday.

Secondly, in a podcast released today President Barack Obama told former campaign manager David Plouffe that Orange Plague is trying to “actively kneecap” the postal service” to affect mail-in voting in the 2020 election.

Third, Trump said yesterday that he’s against an emergency bailout for the U.S. Postal Service because “he wants to restrict how many Americans can vote by mail, putting at risk the nation’s ability to administer the Nov. 3 elections,” per an 8.13 Washington Post story.

And fourth, the Post story also stated that the Trump campaign and RNC “are reportedly working on a comprehensive legal strategy to challenge the election after Nov. 3.”

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On this, the occasion of Steve Martin‘s 75th birthday, I’m declaring that among my five favorite Martin performances only one could be called “broad” or “silly” — the All Of Me attorney with the split personality. The other four are the ill-fated loser in Herbert Ross‘s Pennies From Heaven (’81), the Larry Gordon-ish film producer in Lawrence Kasdan‘s Grand Canyon, “Neal Page” in John Hughes‘ Planes, Trains and Automobiles and the low-key con man in David Mamet‘s The Spanish Prisoner,

Honestly? I think his Spanish Prisoner guy might be my all-time favorite. Because I’ve always believed each and very word he says in that film, and yet the character is lying all the time. I’m sorry but I don’t like his silly stuff for the most part, and I don’t care that much for the domestic family comedies. I don’t know why I can’t remember much from Roxanne but I can’t.

Martin in Prisoner: “One thing my father taught me about business. Always do business as if the person you’re doing business with is trying to screw you. Because most likely they are. And if they’re not, you can be pleasantly surprised”

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