Day: April 17, 2022

The key thing when you dine at a place like Osteria Mamma is not to anger your waiter. Don’t send too many things back, I mean. I sent back a puree-like green soup because it wasn’t exciting enough. Then I added insult to injury by asking the waiter to please re-heat the potatoes. So I was pushing it.

For a half-second I saw the waiter looking at me sideways and I knew…I didn’t think it was likely that he would spit in my one of my dishes, but the thought occured to me that if I don’t stop sending stuff back something like that might happen.

That said, he was a very nice and polite guy, and he spoke with a genuine Italian accent. The bill was split in half and we (i.e., attorney friend Mark and myself) tipped him 20% each. I know, I know…some waiters might seethe and mutter to themselves “fuck you…why didn’t you tip me 25%?” But I took a chance with 20%.

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Here’s a West Side Story riff from last November, paywalled from the get-go. The basic point was that while the rooftop “America” song was the highlight of Robert Wise’s 1961 version, the same number in the 2021 Steven Spielberg version is arguably the least transporting and most bothersome. Here’s how I explained it:

In Robert Wise’s 1961 West Side Story as well as innumerable stage versions performed over the decades, the dance scenes are never acknowledged by passersby, much less performed for them. In fact, passersby barely exist.

The basic West Side Story rule is that each dance number happens in the hearts and minds of the Jets or Sharks. And one other thing about the Wise version: Except for the opening sequence (i.e., ballet-like daytime street fighting), the dancing happens in a restricted space of some kind (dance hall, tenement rooftop, back alley, dress shop, drug store, rumble under a highway), and always among Jets or Sharks and their immediate kin or sympathizers.

The dancing, in short, is restricted to the immediate “family.” Neighborhood civilians never notice or acknowledge that any carefully choreographed activity is going on. The dancing is rigorously intimate — members only.

Which is why Spielberg’s “America” scene with Ariana DeBose (Anita), David Alvarez (Bernardo) and friends in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story is all wrong. Because sidewalk neighborhood residents are clearly watching Anita and Bernardo and their friends “cut a Latin rug”, so to speak. And, one presumes, are enjoying the “show.”

The problem is that according to the rules, there is no “show”. Not as far as casual neighborhood residents are concerned. If Spielberg had decided to have the entire neighborhood sing along with Anita and Bernado, fine. But he didn’t. He just had them stand and watch and chuckle…”why, they’re dancing in the street, and with such professional aplomb!”

Again: Neighbors watching the singing and dancing of “America” is a violation of a basic West Side Story rule.

Roughly nine months ago I explained the basic ground rules when it came to flirtatious older guys and younger women in the year 2021. It’s now 2022 and things haven’t changed. I explained it as carefully as the English language allows, and in only three paragraphs. It was completely free (not a paywall post) and easy to find. And what happened?

Frank Langella completely ignored it, and now he’s been fired from Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher. The rules are the rules, and he couldn’t bothered to follow them, and now people are saying his career might be over.

Here’s what I said last July: “Some older white guys — the stupid, clumsy ones, I mean — don’t seem to realize that they’re deer, and that it’s deer hunting season out there right now. Because a decent percentage of urban progressive women (teens to mid 30s and perhaps beyond) would just as soon explode their lives into smithereens as look at them. If old guys want to be dead all they have to do is give the ‘hunters’ a reason to get out their high-powered social media rifles and fire at them.”

Here’s what Langella did wrong, according to TMZ: “As for what exactly happened, a source close to production tells us the 84-year-old actor allegedly made an inappropriate joke that was sexual in nature. Our sources also say in the context of his performance, possibly during rehearsal, he touched the leg of a female costar, and further drew attention to the action when he jokingly said something like ‘Did you like that?'”

Posted three days ago by Alex Simon on Facebook: “First, I’m glad there was an actual investigation, as opposed to Trial by Twitter. That’s how it’s done if things are run by grown-ups.

“Second, I think what we’re seeing isn’t another Harvey Weinstein-level predator. Langella was known for decades as a Warren Beatty-level ladies man. He never engaged in Weinstein-like behavior because, let’s face it, he was a gorgeous dude who didn’t have to. He loved women and he loved getting laid. And did. Among his conquests was an off-and-on relationship with Jackie O. for a number of years, a lady who was renowned for not being attracted to ‘nice guys.’

“This is my point about how this brand of guy, from the Mad Men era, was rewarded for their behavior. ‘Swaggering alpha male who goes after what he wants’ equaled ‘self-confident, strong man,’ and this behavior was rewarded by society and the world’s most spectacular women alike through my generation. It’s how things were, whether you feel it was “right,” or not.

“[Langella’s] ‘inappropriate touching’ might not have been viewed as such 20 or 30 years ago, prior to his being an old man. It might’ve been welcomed. Perhaps the real issue is [that] Frank [has] never came to terms with the fact that he’s gotten old. If his career truly is over, I shall miss him. He was always a fascinating actor to watch weave his magic.”

Friendo to HE: “When are you planning to engage with Tokyo Vice?”

HE to friendo: “I tried but couldn’t get past episode #1. I didn’t ‘dislike’ it but I found it chilly, and the characters curt and brusque. And yet I believed it. It feels authentic. It emphasizes what a grueling ordeal it is for a young American to understand and merge with Tokyo culture and gain admittance to a top-tier Tokyo newspaper in the ‘90s.

“My basic reaction was ‘yes, this is interesting and obviously exotic and the narrative is necessarily complex and labrynthian, but do I really want to be here?’ The honest answer was ‘not really.’

“I’ll keep trying with subsequent episodes but so far I’m feeling conflicted, to put it mildly.

“I thought Ansel Elgort’s performance as Jake Adelstein, the real-life reporter whose same-titled book is the basis of this limited series, was fine. I believed him, felt good about his company.

“I really liked the pretty Anglo blonde (Rachel Keller) he talks to in the bar but then he can’t afford her. But all those cold faces, those scowling and disapproving faces, that sullen feeling of gradually becoming a part of a complex, shut-off culture but at what cost? It feels like a place for suppression and stifling, almost a form of hell.

“Have you ever been to Tokyo? I spent 36 hours there in 2012, did some walking around, sampled some of the food, etc.. Absurd as this sounds, I found it boring and even numbing, certainly from an architectural perspective. Huge and sprawling and lemme-outta-here. Many different neighborhoods and districts. But destroyed during WWII and very little sense of history remains. Has the same kind of urban corporate personality as Seoul or Shanghai or Dubai or Atlanta.

Posted on 11.28.12:

Last night an old friend gave me a bum steer. He persuaded me to watch All The Old Knives (Amazon), a poor man’s spy drama that made me feel resentful (as in “why didn’t I just stop watching after the first 15 minutes?”) and sullen. I could sense the mediocrity early on — I knew it would pollute my system but I stayed with it.

Starring Chris Pine and Thandiwe (formerly Thandie) Newton and costarring the infinitely depressing Larry Fishburne, Knives is basically third-rate “find the mole” John le Carre stuff + a glass of poisoned wine + a predictable third-act twist borrowed from Angel Heart. HE to old friend: “I blame the filmmakers, of course, but I also blame you for speaking well of it.”

At least it reminded me of a much better film that also stars Newton: God’s Country, which I caught during last January’s Sundance Film Festival. I’m presuming it’ll surface sometime this year. It’s basically about an angry feminist Newton vs. three Montana bumblefucks. Here’s what I wrote three months ago:

This in turn led me to read all about a seemingly ridiculous but nonetheless intense argument that allegedly happened three or four days ago between Newton and Channing Tatum on the London set of Magic Mike’s Last Dance. A dispute about the Will Smith + Jada Smith + Chris Rock Oscar contretemps actually led to an enraged Tatum, the film’s producer-star, canning Newton and replacing her with Salma Hayek.

Who fires someone off a movie set over differing opinions about the Will Smith slapdown? If this really happened we can probably assume that Newton voiced a certain allegiance with Jada and that Tatum, whose right-leaning opinions were suggested by Dog, probably expressed a general disapproval of this whole déclassé spectacle. Woke feminist defiance vs. conservative white-guy values…something in that realm.

Insect antennae vibrations are telling me Newton’s emotional composure has recently been on the ragged edge, what with her recent marital split-up and all. Altogether a very strange episode.