Social media mavens who’ve seen Peter Jackson‘s Get Back doc have expressed boundless delight over Paul McCartney roughing out a semi-primitive version of “Get Back,” and Michael Lindsay Hogg‘s cameras capturing the moment of creation.
It’s fascinating, yes, but let’s not get too excited because “Get Back” is basically just a rhythmic chugga-chugger about dead fucking nothing. The lyrics are on the level of “Old McDonald had a farm, eeyii-eeyii-yo” — nonsense hokum about returning to your roots and beginnings. This is not on the level of McCartney’s “For No One” or “Eleanor Rigby” or Stephen Sondheim creating “Move On” from Sunday in the Park with George. The clip is cool but calm down.
Oh, it’s just Paul McCartney composing GET BACK out of thin air at 26 years old. He takes a few minutes but then when he hits it, the other Beatles spontaneously start playing, too. Incredible. https://t.co/n0iVjE0TPB
Daily Beast update, posted at 5:22 pm: “The shooter who allegedly killed four students and injured seven, including a teacher, at Michigan’s Oxford High School on Tuesday was previously flagged by administrators for ‘behavior in the classroom that they felt was concerning,’ Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said Wednesday.
“Authorities have identified the suspect as 15-year-old sophomore Ethan Crumbley. His parents had been brought into the school the morning of the shooting for a face-to-face meeting about their son’s behavior, according to Bouchard. He wouldn’t say what the behavior was, and police weren’t informed about any potential issues prior to the tragic event.”
Previously: Fact #1: Tuesday’s high-school shooting in Michigan is the 28th school shooting of 2021. Repeating: over the last 11 months similar high-school shootings have happened in this country 28 effing times. What does that tell you?
Fact #2: It’s also the 651st incident this year in which at least four people were shot, whether fatally or not, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks mass shootings. What does this tell you?
Likely presumption #1: The assailant was almost certainly motivated by some form of acute angst and probable hatred for the cool kids. Most (all?) high-school shootings are about gun-toting nerds, creeps, loners and outsiders taking revenge upon the popular smoothies who galavant around and bully and/or look down their nose at their social lessers.
Fact #4: Bouchard reportedly said “the suspect’s father bought the gun [last] Friday” and that “the suspect appeared to post images of the gun online days before the shooting.” The father buys the SigSauer, and then the kid uses it to kill his fellow students four days later? What does this tell you, HE readers?
Question #1: So far the media isn’t reporting diddly squat about the kid’s identity — no last name, no social media info, nothing at all. Apart from the fact that he’s a minor, the reason for all the secrecy is what again?
Fact #5: “Undersheriff Michael McCabeacknowledged there were rumors about warning signs and said that they were being investigated. At least one parent told the Associated Press that her son was not in school over fears something could happen. “He was not in school today,” Robin Redding, who has a 12th-grade son, told the Associated Press. “He just said that ‘Ma, I don’t feel comfortable. None of the kids that we go to school with are going today.'”
George Stephanopoulos: “It wasn’t in the script for the trigger to be pulled.” Alec Baldwin: “The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger.” Stephanopoulos: “So you never pulled the trigger?” Baldwin: “No no no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger. Never.”
Asked by @GStephanopoulos how a real bullet got on the "Rust" set, Alec Baldwin says: “I have no idea. Someone put a live bullet in a gun. A bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property.”
“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...
