Unless you suffer from insomnia, a good night’s sleep is like experiencing “a little slice of death.” We all know what sleep and death are, and neither are all that big of a deal. If you’ve lived a relatively healthy and robust and crackling 76 years, as Richard Lewis did, it’s not a hugely devastating tragedy to submit to long slumber. The loss of a beloved person of value is always a sad event, of course, but the key determination is quality of life, not quantity of days. (Unless, that is, you have an especially good thing going with a young grandchild or two, in which case it is a bit of a tragedy — terribly sorry if that was the case.) At least Lewis was active and enjoying his life until a sudden heart attack got him. We’re all gonna get there. When your number’s up, Mr. Death doesn’t know from negotiations.

I love the idea of Sam Mendes shooting four Beatles movies next year with a plan to release all four in ’27….bing, bang, boom, pow.

Each film will reportedly adopt the POV of a separate member, but I can’t envision Mendes focusing on the same portion of their story with four separate viewpoints — that would be oppressive.

Let’s assume the four films (which haven’t even been written yet) will cover separate chapters in the band’s grand saga — 7 years, 7 months, and 24 days, 1962 to 1970.

Chapter 1: Screaming Beatlemania — ignition, liftoff, orbit (’63 and ’64). Chapter 2: Musical maturation, experimentation and early psychedelic journeys (’65 and ’66, Rubber Soul and Revolver). Chapter 3: The gush of Sgt. Pepper creation (early to mid ’67), the death of Brian Epstein, the failure of Magical Mystery Tour, succumbing to gradual lethargy and uncertainty (late ’67 and ’68). Chapter 4: The disharmony of the White Album and the plague of Yoko Ono, followed by the low tide of the Get Back sessions and concluding with the high of recording Abbey Road (’69).

But it can’t really work unless the casting is other-worldly, and no casting decisions can be that. Nobody and I mean nobody can “play” John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. No matter who Mendes chooses to hire, it simply won’t work. Their faces and voices are too deeply embedded in every corner of our minds to convincingly replicate or even half-replicate in a narrative format.

The only way I would buy it would be if Mendes decided to rotoscope their story….shoot it with actors but alter the animated faces in such a way that audiences could accept that they’re watching a reasonable fascimile of the Real McCoys. Otherwise it can’t work. It just can’t.

The financial success of Super Mario Bros, Oppenheimer and Barbie aside…

Critical Drinker: “Last year was a bit of a turning point for all this stuff in Hollywood. We’re going to see more of it, for sure…[woke-injection bullshit] isn’t going to go away overnight, but it’s definitely reached a point where it’s no longer financially viable. Certainly in the superhero realm. Superhero fatigue, oversaturation of the market, declining quality, spreading themselves too thin, perhaps hiring people to direct and write for reasons other than merit. Plus the political dimension of it has become tiresome.”

Posted on 12.1.23

Two days ago Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted to having read the proverbial writing on the wall and more or less bullhorned the following “whoa, Nellie!” message to Disney wokesters, which I’ve conveyed here in HE-styled rhetoric:

“All right, enough, dammit…we have to face facts…the Critical Drinker has been right all along and we have to acknowledge the state of things, or at least I do…the new Disney law is “no more woke propaganda in our movies”

“We’ve clearly alienated Joe and Jane Popcorn in the parenting community and we really have to get back to being good old family–friendly Disney, and in case you’re not reading me, we’ll henceforth be re-assessing the advisability of using LGBTQIA and maybe even progressive femme-bot material in our animated features. We’ll be taking it one step at a time.”

Oh, you make me mellow / Oh, I make you mellow / Wrecking the sheets real fine / Heaven knows what you sent me, Lord / But God, this is a mellow time

Posted on 11.13.16: I don’t celebrate being one year closer to death as a rule, but it was nice to hear from all those software-prompted Facebook friends who wished me all the best (seriously, thanks) and it was extra-nice to be treated to grass-fed beef sliders, cole slaw and chocolate cake by HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko and editor-producer David Scott Smith.

It all happened at Mel’s on Sunset — an honest restaurant serving honest,’70s-era food.

The only problem was that the a.c. made the indoor climate feel like 45 or 50 degrees.

HE to waitress: “Wow, it’s nice and chilly here…good thing you guys are being considerate to your customers because it’s like 95 degrees outside, like Palm Springs in July.”

Waitress: “Oh, thank you. We aim to please!”

HE: “Uhm…I’m kidding? It’s 60 degrees outside, and it feels like a refrigerator in here? Does it have to be this cold?”

Waitress: “Oh, hah-hah…got it! I don’t call the shots, the manager does.”

HE: “Would you mind asking the manager to turn up the thermostat?”

Waitress: “I’ll ask her.”

HE: “And if she refuses, do you have some blankets?”

With HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko, just before blowing out the candle.

This Brett Ellis-Quentin Tarantino conversation was posted on 12.3.23, so I’m two months late. But this is real soul food, and I’m very glad that I finally got around to it.

Here’s Ellis’s intro riff, ending just prior to starting the conversation with Quentin. I’m not stealing anything as it’s mostly Ellis reading from “Cinema Speculation.”