Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, both in their 50s, are too old to play Lucille Ball in her early 40s and Desi Arnaz in his mid 30s in Aaron Sorkin‘s Being The Ricardos (Amazon, sometime in late December). I’m sorry but they are. Human biology and all that.

Kidman and Bardem can be de-aged with makeup and CG, of course, but will the audience buy it? Or will I be the only one carping and nitpicking while everyone else says “whatever”?

It’s one thing for an actress in her mid 50s to play 15 years younger, which is what Kidman will be doing when she portrays Ball in the early 1950s, when I Love Lucy was hitting its stride and she was in her early 40s. That’s presumably doable with makeup and careful lighting.

But a couple of days ago Sorkin mentioned to TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz that the film will include a scene of rehearsing for Too Many Girls, the 1940 George Abbott musical that Ball and Arnaz costarred in. (And which occasioned their first meeting, which led to their marriage later that year.) That will require the 52 year-old Bardem to play 30 years younger, as Arnaz was 22 or 23 when Girls was shot. Likewise Kidman will have to attempt to look 29 for this section of the film.

From EW summary of Sorkin-Mankiewicz interview: “Sorkin [reveals] that the film focuses on three points of ‘friction’ between Ball and Arnaz that really occurred but that Sorkin has condensed into the timeline of a single week.”

To the best of my knowledge there was one point of friction between Ball and Arnaz — Desi’s infidelity.

“Unregenerate Desilu Hound,” posted on 9.20.21: “As Lucy and Desi prepare over the course of a single week to shoot an episode that will go down in history as having some of the funniest and most memorable scenes to grace television, we will be enthralled to peek into why despite all of that passion and success their world-famous relationship could never be.”

“Cutting to the chase: Arnaz’s Cuban upbringing taught him that catting around outside the bonds of marriage was perfectly acceptable or at least workable.

I don’t know what I doing on the night of Friday, 6.25.93, but I was probably drinking my second or third vodka and lemonade of the evening and watching a laser disc movie in my living room. Maybe the kids were visiting that weekend….can’t remember. But for damn sure I wasn’t watching the final airing of Late Night with David Letterman — Dave’s last night on NBC before moving over to The Late Show on CBS.

It’s been 28 years, and all this time I’ve never watched this clip of Bruce Springsteen, teamed with Paul Shaffer & The World’s Most Dangerous Band, playing fucking “Glory Days.” That might be the best rock performance I’ve ever seen on a regular TV show, including Saturday Night Live.

Otherwise it’s the same grim, shadowy, rain-soaked, Gotham City noir shit…the same bowl of foreboding, the same Batman ghoulash…re-heated and re-served and re-garnished for brawny, strapping, grown-up Zoomers and clinging-to-youth Millennials, who are gradually panicking about approaching middle age and desperate to hang on to classic mythologies.

Q: “Who are you under there?” A “I’m vengeance.” Yeah, we figured that out over 30 years ago, back in the good old dawning days of 1989. And now it’s 32 years later and we’re wading through the same marsh.

Absolute respect and admiration for Matt Reeves, whose films HE has admired going back to Let Me In (’10). I just don’t get this one. I don’t see the need. I dont think anyone does. I think it’s just a cash grab. And I say that with full props for Reeves. He went for the money, and there’s nothing “wrong” with that.

Randy Newman said it 20 years ago: “I have nothin’ more to say / I’m gonna say it anyway.”

Two weeks shy of Halloween and it’s beach weather — 85 degrees in West Hollywood. People in easy moods, shuffling around in T-shirts and flip-flops, basking in the warmth and no loud, coarse workmen singing their hearts out to ranchero music. And the cloudless sky is a pure bright blue.

Why am I seemingly the only person in WeHo wearing a high-thread-count T-shirt, faded slim jeans and Beatle boots? I can’t answer that, but I can state without hesitancy that it’s 68 degrees in Manhattan, 49 degrees in Paris and 67 degrees in Hanoi. Life is good if you turn your mind off and float downstream and forget about people like LexG and Glenn Kenny.