Month: August 2023

The classy, movingly scored new teaser for Bradley Cooper‘s Maestro (Netflix, 11.22 theatrical) tells us quite plainly that the film is less about the legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and more about the 27-year marriage between Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Bernstein (Carey Mulligan).

The emphasis, in fact, seems to be 60/40 in favor of Felicia. The trailer suggests, in fact, if it wasn’t called Maestro Cooper could have gone with something like Duet or The Two of Us. They were very comfortable with each other, the footage says…they vibed quite nicely.

While the mixed footage (color and monochrome) and choice editing allude to a difficult, imperfect relationship when Lenny and Felicia hit middle age (there are brief bits in which (a) Lenny hair-strokes a young hawk-nosed dude at a party and (b) Felicia catches Lenny making a pass at the same guy in a hallway) but Lenny being gay…well, it’s there but a trailer can’t delve into the fact that their marriage was based on a sensible and civilized arrangement — i.e., “wealthy famous gay guy married to beard wife for the purposes of public image, not to mention the kids.”

If anything the teaser is suggesting Lenny was bi. (He wasn’t.) That plus “their relationship was fraught and strained but always musical.”

And of course, the teaser doesn’t contain the briefest flickering reference to the Bernsteins’ Black Panther party (Tom Wolfe‘s “that party at Lenny’s“).

As noted, Maestro will hit theatres on 11.22.23 (i.e., JFK day), and will thereby go head to head with Ridley Scott‘s Napoleon. Can someone come up with a Barbenheimer moniker that blends the two? Okay, I’ve got one: Maestroleon.

Seriously — can someone please get to work on a Maestroleon poster concept?

Maestro will begin streaming on Netflix on 12.20.23. It will probably be given a special premiere showing at the 2023 New York Film Festival…maybe.

The odd thing is, the red sports car almost looks like a toy by today’s standards. Look at those awful thin seats! But the buyer doing nose candy in the salesman’s office is just right. YouTube’s decision to hide the video is mystifying. It’s mainly wall-to-wall comedy. All that happens violence-wise is the bouncer getting shot in the stomach, and then the salesman and the buyer. What’s so awful about that?

Vivek Ramaswany‘s hostility to the defense of Ukraine aside (and that’s a huge issue to relegate to the sidelines), I sincerely agree with his “tyranny of a minority” riff. The respectful exchange happened yesterday at the Iowa State Fair.

.@VivekGRamaswamy: What's your opinion on same-sex couples and the LGBTQ+ community?

"I don't have a negative view of same-sex couples, but I do have a negative view of the tyranny of the minority. In the name of protecting against the tyranny of the majority, we have now… pic.twitter.com/gw6OZ0Md5V

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) August 14, 2023

“All great black leaders get killed.” — quote from Warren Beatty‘s Bulworth (’98).

As it turns out Beatty’s Senator Jay Bulworth, one of the blackest white politicians who ever served in a fictional feature, gets killed also — shot by an insurance industry villain played by Paul Sorvino.

Bulworth is a Democrat from California and a total liberal establishment guy with all the usual noble sentiments and allegiances (photos of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King on his office wall) that have never amounted to much.

The film begins with Bulworth in deep despair and sick of all the bullshit. The film is basically about Bulworth saying “fuck it” and and just stating plain and straight how things really are, and hang the freakin’ consequences.

Friendo: “Last night I rewatched Bulworth for the first time since it came out in 1998 — a quarter-century ago. Very funny, totally outrageous, sometimes cringe-worthy and…oh, yeah, Halle Berry was totally hot.

“I got to thinking how this film would be received today. I know you’re gonna say the wokesters would go off on it, but maybe, just maybe, they’d see it for the satire it is. And maybe they’d understand that it asks the question ‘What would happen if a politician finally told the honest truth about our political system?’

“On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 76% approval rating, but not one of the critics listed is black. So how did black critics (outside of Elvis Mitchell) view it? How many influential black critics were even around back then?

“I know that black audiences didn’t attend screenings of Bulworth in droves, despite its focus upon black culture and featuring quite a few black characters. Maybe they felt vaguely alienated by Bulworth’s remarks about black behaviors (‘If you don’t put down the malt liquor and chicken wings and get behind someone other than a running back who stabs his wife, you’re never gonna get rid of someone like me!’). Or maybe not.

“Either way Bulworth, which cost round $30 million to produce, ended up with a relative slender gross of $29 million. It obviously didn’t connect with certain segments of the public for certain reasons. The only segment that seemed to support it were white, well-educated urban liberals.

“Bulworth has to be one of the most audacious mainstream films ever made. I think it deserves a reassessment.”

Read more

Michael Lewis‘s “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game” (’06) is partly about how Michael Oher, an under-educated offensive tackle who was nurtured and purportedly adopted by Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy. He gradually went on to become a football star, first in college and then with the NFL for eight years.

Lewis’s book was adapted into a 2009 film, John Lee Hancock‘s The Blind Side. The movie was hugely successful at the box-office, and Sandra Bullock wound up winning a Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Lee Anne.

That was 15 years ago, however, and things have changed. White people are now regarded with suspicion and distrust by almost everyone (including white liberals!), and Oher, now 37 and retired from pro football, has joined the accusational chorus.

Oher has stated in an 8.14 Shelby County court filing that the Tuohys “did not, in fact, adopt him and lied about doing so in order to enrich themselves.”

ESPN’s Michael Fletcher: “[Oher] alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, who took Oher into their home as a high school student, never adopted him. Instead, less than three months after Oher turned 18 in 2004, the petition says, the couple tricked him into signing a document making them his conservators, which gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name.

“The petition further alleges that the Tuohys used their power as conservators to strike a deal that paid them and their two birth children millions of dollars in royalties from an Oscar-winning film that earned more than $300 million, while Oher got nothing for a story ‘that would not have existed without him.'”

In other words the Tuohys are shifty and slippery, baby, and Oher wants a cut of that money, honey.

In 2017 the 31-year-old Oher was “released” from The Carolina Panthers — his last pro-football gig. Six years later he’s after some of that Tuohy dough. Oher was probably talked into this by some smart attorney. Oher and the Tuohys will doubtless end up settling.

I’m sure there’s absolutely no other side to this story, and that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy are nothing but reprehensible serpents and con artists

Update: Sean Tuohy responds.

Friendo: “My wife and I thought Barbie’s opening riff on 2001‘s ‘Dawn of Man’ sequence was hilarious. We guffawed all through it, and yet we might have been the only ones in the audience who seemed to get it. Everyone else was stone-faced, no chuckling or tittering of any kind.

“I’ve since spoken to two well-educated women in their early 40s (one is a cardiologist) who’ve both seen Barbie, and they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned that scene.

“One has seen 2001 but has forgotten all about the opening scene (apes in the desert, animal bones, the black monolith); the other had never even heard of Stanley Kubrick‘s 1968 groundbreaker.

“What does this say about the average person’s film literacy?”

HE to friendo: Anyone who’s been educated at a good college or university should know at least a little something about everything, and hopefully everything about something.

I would say that your second well-educated woman (not the cardiologist) was either (a) cutting a lot of classes or (b) decided to stop educating herself after she graduated. I’m guessing it’s probably the latter.

And how the cardiologist could have possibly seen 2001 and not remembered the “Dawn of Man” sequence…she’s either lying about having seen it or was in the bathroom for the first ten minutes.

On a fine Sunday afternoon (i.e., yesterday or 8.13), Jeff and Sasha hopped around from topic to topic like Br’er Rabbit —- hippity-hop, hippity-hop. It’s a little early to call any Oscars, but (a) white male filmmakers will once again face an uphill challenge and (b) how does Greta Gerwig not land a Best Director Oscar EARLY next year? Plus a short riff on Jules, the white-skinned, black-eyed alien who befriends Ben Kingsley while sharing a move from David Cronenberg’s Scanners.

Again, the link.

HE shares in the widespread sorrow and empathy for the God-knows-how-many-victims of the Maui (mostly Lahaina) inferno.

Everyone is asking themselves this question: “If I only had 10 or 15 minutes before my house is fully engulfed in flames, what would I try and save, family members and pets aside?”

I would first see if someone nearby was in trouble and needed my help, including any stray dogs or cats who might be wandering around.

I would not risk my life to save a neighbor’s aquarium or wall paintings or 4K flatscreens, and certainly no furniture unless it’s an heirloom or a valued antique.

This may sound small-minded but it’s not really. I would grab my iPhone and two computers plus chargers, connecting cords, computer bags, podcast hardware, etc. Plus as much of my wardrobe as I could save (finest T-shirts, Kooples shirts, favorite jeans, three or four Italian lace-ups, favorite boots.

There were 93 confirmed Maui firestorm deaths as of 8.12.23, “and at least 1,000 other residents of Lahainā unaccounted for.”

The below comment exchange appeared Sunday evening (8.13) in “Mexican Obeisance Before Power,” otherwise known as the post in which Patton Oswalt settled the Barbie misandry dispute with one fell swoop…settled it with two drillbit words that will resonate throughout the known universe between now and the 2024 Oscar telecast — “manosphere piss–nado.”

“Sometimes there’s God, so quickly!!” — Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

I was asked why joyful reactions to certain audience-friendly films seem to rub me the wrong way.

“I’m not sure I want to be rubbed by you at all, young lady” — from Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra (Rex Harrison to Elizabeth Taylor).

The look of endearment between the young Mexican couple as they munch on a single kernel of popcorn…that magical sparkle as their unexceptional clothing suddenly turns pink…and when they realize they’re actually sitting next to the great Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and America Ferrara…well! That little wink from Margot is so…what’s the word?…sisterly.

HE to Patton Oswalt: I hear ya, bro…loved it too!

No, not literally the snarly Clint Eastwood detective of 40 or 50 years ago. No .357 Magnum action, no “do ya feel lucky, punk?”. But if you’re telling me you’re not fantasizing about a team of uniformed security guys stepping into this Nordstrom mob theft incident and tackling the bad guys and maybe busting them up a bit…if you’re telling me you’re totally cool with this shit, you’re either a wokester or a liar.

This retail theft mob happened at a Nordstrom in California today. Because of broken state laws, these crimes are considered “non-serious” and “non-violent” and nobody will go to state prison, even if caught and convicted. State laws need to be fixed and YES, many people need to… pic.twitter.com/nESaJSxj4p

— Jeff Reisig (@jeffreisig) August 13, 2023