Month: April 2022

Glimpsed during Monday night’s Jimmy Kimmel monologue..

I’ve just finished watching episode #1 of David Simon and Reinaldo Marcus Green’s We Own This City, and it is so believable, so genuine, so densely (but not turgidly) plotted and so well-threaded…all I can say is “wow.”

And that’s all I have right now. I’ll elaborate tomorrow. Right now [9:55 pm] I have to pedal over to Pavilions for strong floor cleaner and a bottle of Pine Sol in order to eliminate the odor of kitten pee.

I was surprised by the first episode of Robbie Pickering‘s Gaslit (Starz) last night. Surprised because I hadn’t realized the tone of this five-part limited series would be…well, vaguely farcical. I wouldn’t call it a comedy series (except for the Gordon Liddy portions), but it certainly seems to highlight the dopey or absurdist aspects of this tale of Watergate cloak-and-dagger foolery.

Gaslit is a fairly vigorous ensemble piece (John and Mo Dean are prominently featured) and therefore not just the story of the colorful Martha Mitchell (Julia Roberts), the flamboyant wife of RIchard Nixon‘s Attorney General John Mitchell (Sean Penn).

Mitchell was renowned as a Southern belle chatterbox (“the mouth from the South”) who had repeatedly been warned about sharing Watergate suspicions with journalists, and yet she refused to zip it. She paid the price for that.

What is Gaslit saying? It’s saying “if you’re married to a taciturn, pipe-smoking Richard Nixon loyalist and you have no inherited wealth or marketable skills above and beyond your relationship with this guy, you’d be wise to shut the fuck up about your Watergate suspicions. Because if you start shooting your mouth off life will become quite difficult for you. So don’t be a truth bomb…it’ll bring you nothing but grief.”

Roberts’ Mitchell performance is fully charged and 100% immersive; Penn’s Mitchell (covered under pounds of latex) is a hoot.

One thing that hit me the wrong way was Dan Stevens‘ portrayal of White House attorney and Watergate snitch John Dean. I’ve never liked Stevens anyway (he tends to play assholes, weird guys and also-rans) but he doesn’t look much like Dean, and he plays him as some kind of smarmy, simpering, run-at-the-mouth opportunist. Dean (whom I’ve spoken to once or twice) wasn’t like that — he speaks with a dry, laid-back, matter-of-fact attitude.

Betty Gilpin‘s performance as Dean’s wife (Mo or Maureen) has the most pizazz; Mo is wise and frank — the sharpest and best written character.

I have nothing more to say.

…all bets are off. He really, really can’t let Donald Trump return to Twitter. I’m not kidding. There are some manifestations of evil that absolutely can’t be tolerated — that would just be too injurious to the social fabric. Trump on Twitter would be CATASTROPHIC.

Forbes: “After rebuffing Elon Musk’s initial overtures, Twitter’s board on Monday said it will take Musk’s $44 billion offer for the company, ending a weeks-long saga over whether the company would accept his unsolicited bid.

“’The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing,’ Twitter chairman Bret Taylor said in a statement. ‘The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.'”

I recognize some aspects of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard dysfunction. If you’re with a person given to periodic black moods (either naturally or due to substance abuse), the good lovin’ vibes evaporate sooner or later. At which point you’re just struggling to keep things on a respectful even keel, and it’s not easy (no marriage or live-in relationship is) to do that…even keels require a lot of work, patience and spiritual generosity.

And then, bit by bit, you can feel yourself slipping or weakening…slowly sliding down into a vortex of some kind, and at some point you realize that “respectful” and “even keel” are ships that have sailed.

And then it’s a matter of “how do I get out of this?” and “can I get out of this? Or am I doomed to live in this bread-and-water dungeon until I die?” You start thinking about permanent misery, permanent rage, financial ruin…a virus of despair floods your system. Then you start sleeping more than before…sleep as a way of escaping the horror. And you start to wonder if this will ever bottom out…if living with less anguish is even possible. Because (who knows?) you might be stuck here forever.

News account: “Johnny Depp was back on the stand Monday in his $100 million defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard. The court heard a number of audio recordings of Depp and Heard arguing during cross examination by Heard’s lawyer Benjamin Rottenborn. In one audio clip, Depp tells Heard: ‘Walking away is necessary, is necessary, especially between you and I. It’s of [the] utmost importance.'”

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I know from experience that mid-April Boston weather can be on the brisk side. When Tom Holland and Zendaya were strolling around Beantown yesterday (i.e., Sunday) temps were in the low 60s.

Appropriately Zendaya wore a light green turtleneck sweater; other strollers in the photo were wearing jackets and windbreakers. One photo shows Zendaya’s hand in Holland’s left pocket, and the caption reads “Tom proved to be ever the gentleman as he put his and Zendaya’s hand in his pocket to keep warm.” And yet Holland was wearing a loose-flowing, light-violet-colored T-shirt. No jacket, no flannel shirt, no scarf. What about when the sun goes down and the mercury drops into the ’50s or lower?

I genuinely, earnestly hate it when Millennials and Zoomers under-dress. One of the most repulsive memories I have of the Sundance Film Festival is noticing a volunteer at the Holiday Cinemas wearing a white T-shirt, shorts and slip-ons while the weather was in the low 30s. I gave that guy an HE stink-eye like you wouldn’t believe.

Pound for pound, Nicole Kidman’s brief, intense performance in The Northman, which amounts to three or four scenes (more?), is easily more rousing than her Lucille Ball lead performance in Being The Ricardos. Just saying…

From David Poland’s Substack today:

From HE’s Northman review:

“The Northman is not a good movie, but it’s a failure made with chops. It’s made, in an odd way, without enough true drama to get in the way of the chops. The film doesn’t so much skimp on emotional resonance as slaughter it. It’s just numb enough to mark the kickoff of a whole new career.” — from Owen Gleiberman‘s “Is The Northman a Failed Art Film, or Is It Robert Eggers’ Stolidly Successful Blockbuster Audition?” (posted today).

This morning a friend sent an excerp Xxxx t of Paul Benedict Rowan‘s “Making Ryan’s Daughter: The Myths, Madness and Mastery” (New Island, 7.1.20). It had appeared in a 7.19.20 issue of The Independent.

What’s wrong with Ryan’s Daughter? Lean’s decision to cast the over-rated Christopher Jones, whom he impulsively decided upon after failing to sign Marlon Brando for the role.

Jones played a British Army officer (Major Randolph Doryan) whom Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles) has a torrid affair with while married to a local school teacher, Charles Shaughnessy (Robert Mitchum).

I have always felt that Ryan’s Daughter is beautifully made and altogether half of a very good film. It is one-quarter spoiled, unfortunately, by Jones’ lifeless performance and one-quarter spoiled by John Mills‘ village idiot.

Summary: Jones’ performance and general professional manner was so stiff and unresponsive that Lean, Miles and Mitchum decided that drugging him with valium was the only way to solve matters.

Mitchum had hashish parties and imported women for what sounded like orgies. Miles became infatuated with the married Mitchum and eventually chased him back to Los Angeles, breaking up her marriage to the multiple Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Bolt.

And all this after Lean lost Marlon Brando at the last minute to play the lead and cast Jones instead, who had a nervous breakdown during production, not knowing he was being drugged. Post-filming Jones returned to LA and promptly quit acting.

Jones was living in Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski’s guest house on their rented Cielo Drive property. and claimed to have had an affair with Tate. She was murdered by Charles Manson followers during filming, which devastated Jones.

Miles and Jones grew to dislike one another, leading to trouble when filming the love scenes. Jones was engaged to Olivia Hussey, and said he was not attracted to Miles. He even refused to rehearse the forest love scene with her, which prompted Miles to conspire with Lean and Mitchum on the valium thing.

It was Mitchum who settled on the idea of drugging Jones by sprinkling an unspecified substance daily on his cereal. Mitchum overdosed Jones, however, and the actor was nearly catatonic during the love scene.

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Last night Warren Beatty did a half-hour q & a with TCM Classic Film Festival host Ben Mankiewicz following a 6:30 pm screening of Heaven Can Wait (’78), which WB co-directed with Buck Henry.

Beatty was sharp and playful and half-evasive, as always. If he wanted to (if he had the herculean will), Beatty could write perhaps the greatest American history novel and first-hand confessional of all time, as he was right smack dab in the middle of things from 1959 on…he was friendly with everyone who ever mattered (including all the big politicians and corporate tycoons), did everything, swaggered around, had affairs with dozens of accomplished women…a first-hand witness to and participant in the last great period of American history…what a life! And having been out of the game since Rules Don’t Apply, the wokester Stalinists never came for him,

If you turn the volume all the way and listen on headphones, you just make out what they’re saying. Barely.

Remember: Beatty is the only person to have been nominated for acting in, directing, writing, and producing the same film, and he did so twice: first for Heaven Can Wait and three years later with Reds.

Joe Biden had already wished everyone a “happy, happy Easter” and had also said “all right” (as in “okay, that’s enough of that shit”). So it’s not like he forgot to wave. Maybe he was saying to himself “look, I’m here, I wished everyone well, I smiled, I applauded the easter bunny, I was careful not to mention anything religious …why do I have to fucking wave on top of everything else?”