Shapiro is less funny than Chapelle, but he’s 100% accurate here. I’m sorry but he is. YouTube commenter: “I wish that person” — slender woman with glasses — “had answered what a woman is. The mental gymnastics would have been fascinating.”

HE intends to catch a recently restored 4K version of Dennis Hopper‘s under-appreciated Out Of The Blue (’80) at the Metrograph on Sunday, 11.28. The film’s star, Linda Manz, passed from lung cancer in August ’20. Hopper was substance abusing when he did publicity for Out of the Blue. I know because I tried to interview him at a Manhattan hotel sometime in April ’80, and he kept me waiting for over two hours — guess why? But at least now I can say I blew off a Dennis Hopper interview, etc. I have that memory. He came down to the lobby at the last minute as I was walking out, and I remember that hyper look in his eyes.

Philip Morris was an I Love Lucy sponsor for four years — ’51 to ’54. This wasn’t a magazine ad but a 1953 cardboard standee, promoting Christmas packaging for cartons of Philip Morris King Size cancer sticks. HE to Clayton Davis: Desi was Cuban, of course, but here he looks half-Spanish and half like Raymond Burr in Perry Mason….kinda like Javier Bardem looks in Being The Ricardos (Amazon, 12.10).

“Suspicious Minds“? Really? Released in ’69, that was a Vegas Elvis tune. And we don’t like the Vegas decline-and-fall years around here.

The real authentic Elvis reigned between ’54 and ’58, and sang “Blue Moon,” “All Shook Up,” “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Hound Dog,” “Reddy Teddy,” “Teddy Bear,” etc. That’s the Elvis everyone wants to hang with.

Does this mean that Baz Luhrman‘s Elvis (Warner Bros., 6.4.22) is going to focus on downslide Elvis, glitter jumpsuit Elvis, fat Elvis, Memphis Mafia Elvis, Graceland Elvis, keeling-over-on-the-toilet Elvis? Does this mean that Austin Butler will do a Robert De Niro in Raging Bull and wear a 40-pounds-heavier fat suit and look all puffy-faced and shit?

Young Elvis is the glorious first half of Lawrence of Arabia. Corpulent, drug-addled, peanut-butter-and-banana-sandwiches Elvis is a tragedy.

The 6.4.22 release date means it’ll probably play at next May’s Cannes Film Festival.

Elvis Monday⚡️

Made a little something to let you good people know we are taking care of business on June 24, 2022.#Elvis #TCB pic.twitter.com/grf8IGqfw9

— Baz Luhrmann (@bazluhrmann) November 15, 2021

As I began to read Peter Debruge’s Variety review of Licorice Pizza, I knew he’d be giving it a pass. Not just because 95% of the the critics are dropping into Paul Thomas Anderson‘s lap, and not just because it’s a half-decent film that doesn’t warrant dismissal. My own view is “good enough, not bad, great ending.” I can’t imagine anyone saying it’s no good.

The critics know they have to show love or the PTA fanatics will slag them on social media. And we know that they know. Because when it comes to certain major directors, the fix is pretty much in. (The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney is the only one who held back and gave it a mild, yes-and-no assessment.)

But I knew Debruge would go easy on it either way. First and foremost because you can’t pan a major auteurist director’s film unless it really fucking stinks. But the bottom line is that Debruge knows the Hollywood waterfront and all the ins and outs. He’s a very sage and seasoned critic. And there’s something in his basic nature that likes turning the other cheek. When push comes to shove he tends to lead in the direction of “noblesse oblige.”

So when a major award-season film has been screened and I see that Debruge (rather than the occasionally scrappy Owen Gleiberman) has written the Variety review, I have a pretty good idea of what’s coming. Which isn’t to say that Debruge doesn’t write the occasional pan. He’s no Scott Mantz, nor is there anything “wrong” in being mellow and mild-mannered and accepting, etc. What matters in the end is how good a writer you are, and Debruge certainly qualifies as one of the best.

It’s not the ignorance — that can always be corrected. It’s the casual presumption on the part of these women that the male version of perfume has the same spelling as the Panamanian seaport. Nobody googled it…brilliant.

In a recent discussion between Firing Line‘s Margaret Hoover and Chinese artist-activist Al Weiwei…

Hoover: “In your book, you describe the directive of Mao Zedung during the Great Cultural Revolution…that would be distributed publicly every night. And then you write — this is your quote — ‘these messages served a function similar to Donald Trump’s late-night tweets while in office. They were a director communication of a leader’s thoughts to his devoted followers, enhancing the sanctity of his authority.’ So do you see Donald Trump as an authoritarian?

Ai Weiwei: “Certainly [in] the United States, with today’s condition, you [could] easily have an authoritarian. In many ways, you are already in the authoritarian state. You just don’t know it.”

Hoover: “How so?”

Ai Weiwei: “Many things [are] happening today in the U.S. can be compared to to the Cultural Revolution in China.”

Hoover: “Like what?”

Ai Weiwei: “Like people trying to be unified in a certain political correctness. That is very dangerous.”

In other words, wokester terrorism is just as bad as any other oppresive mindfuck movement…that it’s the same thing that created the French Terror in 1793 and ’94.

"Certainly the United States, with today's condition, you can easily have an authoritarian," says artist and activist Ai Weiwei — @aiww — who challenged China and became a political prisoner.

"In many ways, you are already in the authoritarian state. You just don't know it." pic.twitter.com/TODgkHaolp

— Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (@FiringLineShow) November 12, 2021