Day: March 31, 2023

This Lady Gaga incident “happened” four or five days ago during filming of Todd Phillips‘ Joker: Folie a Deux (Warner Bros., 10.4.24). Some kind of uptight conservative Christian woman carrying a Folie a Deux prop (a tabloid newspaper) shouted “you’re going to hell!” (You can barely hear her.) LG stopped, turned around, put her hands around the woman’s face, gave her a big kiss and said “you’re going with me!”

It was all scripted, of course, but during my first viewing of a captioned version I thought for a brief moment the confrontation had happened for real, and under that impression I was momentarily filled with huge admiration for Lady Gaga, the person. If it had just happened, it would’ve been the kind of thing that only the young Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dali might’ve performed.

But of course, it was all written by Phillips and Scott Silver.

Hal Holbrook‘s “Deep Throat” in All The President’s Men: “The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”

Sight unseen, HE is pretty much down with the dry comedic slant of White House Plumbers (HBO Max, 5.1). The absurdist deadpan tone feels like it might be…well, perhaps not quite Dr. Strangelove-ian but in that general ballpark.

Created and written by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck; directed by David Mandell (exec producer and showrunner of Veep, exec producer and director of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld).

Instead of using the term “tiresome fanatical woke asshole,” use “super-sensitive word monk.”

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From David Remnick’s “An American Tragedy, Act III,” posted in the New Yorker on 3.30.23:

It’s been confirmed by Variety’s Elsa Keslassy that Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon will not only play the ‘23 Cannes Film Festival but debut on Saturday, 5.20, and will thereby avoid the dreaded opening-night slot.

It tends to be bad business all around for a serious film to open the festival. Occupying that berth usually means there’s something a tiny bit flabby and less than snap-crackle-pop about the film in question. Thank God Flower Moon has chosen to avoid that signage.

Keslassy reports that the festival hasn’t specified whether or not Scorsese’s film will play in or out of competition. Wouldn’t it seem odd if a decision is made to screen it out of competition? Just asking.

In the wake of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Park City victory against Terry Sanderson, the usual pests and trolls tried to characterize my anti-Paltrow stance as deranged or jaundiced on some level. Here’s how I responded this morning:

Their stories wildly diverged, and I was fairly astonished by the apparent fact that either Gwyneth or Sanderson were flat–out lying. We all understand that ski slope accidents occasionally happen. I just couldn’t figure it. Why sue if you don’t firmly believe you’re in the right, and can present a strongly compelling case to that effect?

Sanderson waited three years to file the lawsuit, obviously having loads of time to ponder the situation and calculate the odds and cost. Why file if there was a reasonable chance that an impartial jury might hold with Paltrow? Why go through all of that time and effort and expense if there was any half-reasonable likelihood that the jury might decide that it was a toss-up about who slammed into whom?

Sanderson is allegedly wealthy — why would he go through all that? Because he was bored and needed a little drama in his life?

And what about that fat friend of his who was near the scene and testified that he was convinced that Sanderson was completely in the right?

It didn’t make basic sense to me that Sanderson would just file on a whim. He knew Paltow’s attorneys would point to all the travel and adventure that he’s enjoyed since the accident. Why file if he didn’t at least have a better-than-decent shot at winning? Why file what might be seen as a frivolous nuisance lawsuit? It didn’t make basic sense to me.