Month: April 2022

Will You Look At This?

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Imagine driving through your own neighborhood and seeing all these dead bodies lying on the road, one after another. This is a common sight over there, I realize, but for some reason this video hit me extra hard.

Squirreled Away

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Peter Bogdanovich‘s Squirrels To The Nuts is screening at Manhattan’s MOMA theatre through April 5th. Eight years ago I saw an earlier, much shorter version of this Ernst Lubitsch-meets-Leo McCarey farce, called She’s Funny That Way. That version ran 94 minutes; the retitled Squirrels to the Nuts runs 123 minutes — nearly a half-hour longer.

Squirrels To The Nuts is said to be a much better film than She’s Funny That Way. (“In its full, free-floating form, Squirrels recovers Bogdanovich’s elegance, airiness, and ability to smoothly manage a large cast of characters,” according to the MOMA notes.) I didn’t care for She’s Funny That Way, but I’d love to see Squirrels. Perhaps it’ll screen at one of the American Cinematheque houses down the road.

But may I say something? Squirrels to the Nuts has to be one of the worst-sounding movie titles I’ve ever heard in my entire life. I’m not talking about the content of the film; I’m talking about an awful feeling that sinks in when you read or say aloud that title. The title doesn’t just make you feel anxious and uncertain; it pretty much screams in your ear “DON’T SEE THIS FILM!…in fact, run in the opposite direction.”

HE is asking for other terrible titles — titles so bad that they instantly kill any potential interest.

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Two Sides of Odd Comic Coin

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Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to provide examples of two kinds of “comic” performances. The first kind is a performance that’s intended to be comic within a comedic film, but in fact isn’t the least bit funny or even chuckle-worthy. The second kind is a performance that is, in fact, quite funny if not hilarious but in a weird, perverse way — a performance that you cant help but be tickled by even though it unfolds in a film that in no way presents itself as a comedy.

HE’s example of the first kind is Mindy Kaling‘s comedy-writer character in Nisha Ganatra‘s Late Night, a 2019 feminist relationship comedy. Kaling’s “Molly Patel” is hired to write jokes for Emma Thompson‘s (“Katherine Newbury’s”) late-night talk show, but (a) she isn’t the least bit funny, (b) she hasn’t the personality or attitude of a good (i.e., brilliant) comedy writer, and (c) she doesn’t deliver a single funny line. All Molly cares about is being respected in the work environment and not being treated as a token POC hire, which of course she is.

Why is it a struggle to believe that Molly (who has never before written professional-grade comedy and has mostly been hired because she’s a woman of color) is a comedy writer worth her salt? Because most jokes that “land” and actually make people laugh are always a little cutting and sometimes flirt with cruelty. A certain pointed irreverence is essential. Molly has none of that.

HE’s best example of the second kind of “comic” performance is Ben Kingsley‘s in Sexy Beast (’01). During a Four Seasons interview I told Kingsley that I regarded his “Don Logan” as one of the funniest I’ve ever seen in a film that obviously wasn’t a comedy, and he got it — he was delighted that I understood what he was going for.

I’m guessing that maybe 5% of those who saw Sexy Beast found Kingsley’s performance “funny,” if that. But that was partly the point — you had to have a perverse attitude about that kind of psychotic gangster character in the first place. Ian McShane‘s “Teddy Bass” wasn’t the least bit amusing, of course — he was an ice-old sociopath start to finish. As was Don Logan, except Kingsley went for something more — he pushed the energy and absurdity of that enraged character so that you couldn’t help but at least snicker. Especially in the very last scene, which is one of the “funniest” ever in this vein.

Other examples of either kind?

Candy-Ass Ankle

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I was pedaling rather heavily on the bicycle last night. Standing up on the pedals and leaning into them to maintain a decent speed as I went uphill. It felt good to resist the G forces and push on with my formidable leg muscles.

The result, of course, is that my left ankle aches this morning. A bit stiff and sensitive and fuck me. This never happened when I was 47. I’m very fucking disappointed with that sore ankle now. I’m looking at it with disdain and muttering “are you a man or a mouse”?

“A Significant Achievement”

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Matt Walsh to the recently voiced complaint by race hustler Lisa Bond that “white men have had 400 years to do something about racism”, but haven’t done zip:

“Who exactly was fighting against racism 400 years ago? [Bond] says ‘400 years ago’ because she’s a mindless disciple of the 1619 Project, and [apparently] believes that racism was invented around that time, that it was white people who invented it, and only white people have ever engaged in it.

“In reality, of course, racism has existed in the human species, everywhere on earth and in every population since the dawn of civilization.

“Racism is just one form of tribalism — a form of tribalism that still exists today and can be found in much more virulent and violent forms in the parts of the world where white people are least present. It’s not just that there’s racial and ethnic tribalism in Africa and Asia too — it’s that there’s a helluva lot more of it in those regions of the world, and it comes in a far more brutal package.

“Nobody was fighting against racism 400 years ago. Not a soul on earth back in those days. The idea that all people should be treated equally regardless of how they look or where they’re from…[that idea] simply did not exist anywhere in the world 400 years ago. That idea had to be thought of and codified into law…and guess who thought of it? White men.

“Granted, the white people who came up with the concept did not apply it consistently because when it came down to it, they shared the flaws that were ubiquitous in almost all human beings on earth at the time. But they certainly set the stage for racial equality under the law. They put the framework in place. I’d say that’s a pretty significant achievement.”