Day: September 28, 2021

“But George Wanted Jake”

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“The Unchosen One” is a curiously moving short doc (15:58), directed by Ben Proudfoot, about how feelings of loss and hurt have lingered inside ex-child actor Devon Michael, now 32. They resulted from Michael not being chosen by George Lucas to play Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace (’99).

Michael was one of three finalists for the role — himself, Almost Famous costar Michael Angarano and Jake Lloyd. Lloyd got the part, of course, and we all know how critics and fanboys responded.

Would things have turned out any better if Michael had been chosen? Perhaps not given the quality of Lucas’s film and the presence of Jar-Jar Binks, but my sense is that he probably would have been better than Lloyd, partly because of a certain curt intensity and directness of manner — guarded but watchful — and partly because almost anyone would’ve been an improvement over Lloyd. I’ve always presumed that Lucas chose Lloyd at least partly because of his cute looks.

I’m again recalling that moment when hundreds (including Paul Thomas Anderson) poured into Mann’s Village in Westwood to see the world premiere of the Phantom Menace trailer. It happened in the early afternoon of Thursday, 11.6.98. Every Los Angeles film fanatic with blood in his or her veins was there. The movie that nobody stayed for after the trailer was shown was Edward Zwick ‘s The Siege, which the crowd was mocking with a chant….”Siege! Siege! Siege!”

And then The Phantom Menace opened on 5.19.99, and the whole thing came tumbling down. It doesn’t matter how much money that mostly tedious film made. In the minds of many it destroyed the Star Wars theology. True believers were shattered, crestfallen.

White City

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According to Jay Lund‘s californiawaterblog.com, 2021 is the third driest year in more than 100 years of official tabulating. And 2020 was the 9th driest year. I can’t recall the last time Los Angelenos were seriously rain-soaked, and I doubt if anyone else can. But try to imagine heavy precipitation hitting Los Angeles for three days straight. Not a prayer, right? But it happened during the historic L.A. snowfall of January 1949. Excerpt: “Snow began falling on Los Angeles around noon on Monday, 1.10.49.** L.A.’s beaches were blanketed for the first time since January 1932, and the last time it snowed more in San Bernardino was 1882.”

** In ’90 I read a draft of Robert Towne‘s The Two Jakes, which, under Jack Nicholson‘s direction, lacked the haunting vibe of Chinatown and wasn’t much good in other respects. But the script ended beautifully with two or three shots of Raymond Chandler‘s mean streets covered in snow.

The Shrieking

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I despise spoiler whiners, especially when it concerns a huge, mindlessly insincere corporate franchise that has no bearing whatsoever on the reality of anything.

There’s no substantive difference between the crafting of certain corporate entertainments and mass servings of McDonald’s Sausage McMuffins. Talk to anyone who knows anything at all about life or movies or the art of creating fine narrative tension, and particularly those who respect the craft and submission and devotion that goes into making something (a real, actual movie, I mean) actually work.

It’s not the ending but the journey that matters. Any film lover over the age of 11 or 12 will tell you that, but I was so gobsmacked by an ending of a certain upcoming film that I couldn’t imagine that it would be kept a secret. It’s a huge, HUGE thing, and not just in terms of the film but in terms of a personified motion picture brand that has endured for nearly 60 years straight.

Because this ending isn’t about a decision to end a certain film but a decision to symbolically terminate a certain mindset or attitude or mentality or set of assumptions that lie at the heart of a character…a fictional attitude of (describe it however you like) solemn grit, ironic machismo, smug aloofness, wry amusement…a certain “heroic” male mindset mixed with blithe disregard that has been a cultural constant — a “thing” — since the JFK administration.

And…wait, hold on…the universal reaction to this decision is “mum’s the word?” Big news is big news. You can’t smother it, and yet many insisted it had to be. And they cried like babies.

If I had been the reader and not the writer, and had read what I wrote I would have been fascinated and looking forward to seeing how it plays out in story terms. I’m not an infant and I don’t care about the latest corporate hamburger product, or what kind of special sauce they’ve put on it. But a lot of people out there do.

What I know for sure is that what happened today is TRULY HISTORICAL, and by my way of thinking you don’t sit on something like this. It was a 7.5 earthquake and the community said, “Did you feel a slight tremor? Naah, probably nothing. And even if it was something, don’t say it happened.”

Pssst, did you hear about JFK? Somebody shot him in Dallas. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. I know some people will be upset to hear this but it’s better to keep it under wraps. At least for the next few days. But wow, what a thing.

Deranged Creative Parenting

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I realize that it’s not uncommon for some kids to gain an understanding of their own sexual leanings or gender identity as early as six or seven. I was definitely into photos of naked women when I was eight or thereabouts. Then again some kids don’t tap into this stuff until they hit puberty. 13, 14…that’s when it all comes alive. But I think it’s heinous and horrible to prod a toddler into thinking about his/her gender identity when they’re two or three years old.

Should little boys be urged to play with swords and Star Wars stun guns and wear tyke-sized football helmets? Or urged to consider wearing tights and maybe playing with dolls and watching movies about Rudolf Nureyev? My experience is that boys tend to reach for swords and stun guns on their own. (Mine certainly did.) Kids, I feel, should be graciously allowed to find their way into their own sexual feelings and gender identities at their own pace, and in their own way. Some get there sooner; others later.

But parents who try to gently muscle their tykes into considering non-binary identities and consider their possibly fluid sexuality are deranged. They’re doing so out of fear, out of not wanting to seem transphobic. But the parents and “woke” educators who are urging this are, no offense, soft-spoken monsters.

It’s stuff like this that may result in trouble for Democrats in next year’s midterms. Some voters focus more on cultural than political issues, and this is exactly the kind of thing that some people despise about progressive lefties.

Consider the perceptions of Abigail Shrier, author of “Irreversible Damage.”

How Many Of Us…?

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…have driven on a rural road and passed small families of unsupervised cattle strolling together on the shoulder? Until March 2016 I hadn’t driven by unsupervised cattle walking on a paved road anywhere, ever. Not in Switzerland. rural France, Vermont, upper New York State…nowhere on earth until I visited rural Vietnam.

Will Smith Is Rich Enough To Do Whatever

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The notion of seasoned people in their 40s and 50s undergoing identity crises and indulging in impulsive, unconventional behavior began with Sam Peckinpah‘s The Wild Bunch (’69), the main protagonists of which were all long-of-tooth. In the cultural blink of an eyelash, wildness was suddenly an older-person thing. The spiritual-sexual side of this syndrome was explored by Tom Wolfe in the early ’70s, aka “the Me Decade.” A minor signifier was Middle Age Crazy (’80), a totally disappeared dramedy with Bruce Dern and Ann-Margret.

But then teens have always been wild, and 20somethings have always lived lives of Fellini Satyricon. Hell, the only people living modest, carefully regimented lives these days are expectant parents (like Jett and Cait) — otherwise it’s hoo-hah time from 12 through 75.

Now comes a qualifier by way of Will Smith and Denzel Washington. Middle-age crazy is composed of two phases — the “funky 40s” and the “fuck-it 50s.”

Will Smith to GQ‘s Wesley Lowery: “Throughout the years, I would always call Denzel. He’s a real sage. I was probably 48 or something like that and I called Denzel. He said, ‘Listen. You’ve got to think of it as the funky 40s. Everybody’s 40s are funky. But just wait till you hit the fuck-it 50s.’

“And that’s exactly what happened,” Smith recalls. “[Soon after my life] just became the fuck-it 50s, and I gave myself the freedom to do whatever I wanted to do.”

Many of those things are detailed in “Will” (11.9.21), Smith’s semi-“autobiography” that was co-authored by Mark Manson (author of “Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope” and “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life”).

Smith: “I totally opened myself up to what, I think, was a fresh sampling of the fruits of the human experience.”

Lowery: “And so Smith set out on a journey to find himself, and find happiness. He rented a house in Utah and sat in solitude for 14 days. He traveled to Peru for more than a dozen rituals [involving the sipping of a plant-based psychedelic called ayahuasca], even though he’d never even smoked weed and barely drank. (‘This was my first tiny taste of freedom,’ Smith writes of his first experience. ‘In my fifty plus years on this planet, this is the unparalleled greatest feeling I’ve ever had.’) He opened a stand-up show for Dave Chappelle. He began traveling without security for the first time, showing up in foreign countries and working his way through the airport crowds unaccompanied.

The fact that Smith defines “exotic high” as flying commercial and working his way through airport crowds without a pair of security goons…this in itself tells you he’s an odd duck. What’s next…hitting a Rite-Aid at 11 pm all by his lonesome and buying some paper towels and maybe an ice cream cone?

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