Month: June 2024

Since the ’50s and more particularly the advent of ironic, put-on cinema (which arguably began with John Huston‘s Beat The Devil), there have been two kinds of movies — (1) the just-described kind in which the viewer is repeatedly told that they’re watching a half-serious, half-goof-off enterprise “in quotes”…some kind of dry jape or half-real fantasy or alternate world wank-off that sophistos can certainly enjoy (we hope you do!) but which you’re not really expected to “believe” in, and (2) classically immersive stories that have been constructed and sold as “realism” within the usual cinematic boundaries.

Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, Michael Bay, the Russo Brothers and a whole battalion of like-minded filmmakers have never made a classically immersive movie in their lives, and they never will.

But throughout much of the 20th Century immersive realism was, for the most part, scrupulously adhered to up and down the line. With the exceptions, of course, of surreal fantasies (Disney, Alexander Korda, Michael Powell, Luis Bunuel) and animated features and adventure films with occasional applications of Hal Roach-styled physical humor (George Stevens‘ Gunga Din), it was the only game in town.

I’ve always responded more to immersive cinema than to jape movies, but I’m wondering what the general preference may be these days among movie fans.

When I sit down with a film I’m ready for whatever (really), but in my heart of hearts I mostly want to submit to a world that reminds me in a thousand different ways of the world that (I know this makes me sound old-fogeyish) actually exists outside the theatre doors, the one that I live and struggle in on a daily basis. Or at least a film that strongly echoes that world.

Which is why I’ve always tended to have a problem with films that defy basic rules or natural law to such a degree that it’s impossible to sink into them. (Even if they’re fantasies.)

I’m talking about superhero bullshit, of course, and family-friendly animation and supposedly realistic dramas or dramedies that are written with a tone of such ludicrousness that the characters don’t behave in any sort of semi-logical, reality-based manner, and especially robo-action films in which guys crash through windows, fall three or four stories, land on pavement, loudly groan but nonetheless get up, shake themselves off and run off to the next adventure.

It’s funny to consider that in 1946 Howard Hawks made one of the greatest immersive, super-realistic adventure films ever (i.e., Red River) and yet a mere 13 years later had completely tipped over into the realm of self-acknowledged fake-itude with 1959’s Rio Bravo, which basically said to audiences, “Okay, guys, it’s chill time…which means, of course, that you’re watching a laid-back movie and that we’re conversing with the aid of obviously scripted dialogue and also taking an occasional time-out for a musical number.”

Hawks went back to realism with Hatari! (’62) but went completely crazy with the sound-stage, wank-western aesthetic when he made El Dorado (’66) and Rio Lobo (’70).

From David Thomson‘s “The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies,” page 318:

Owning a pair of white Mickey Mouse gloves (three fingers and a thumb) used to be a cool thing, but no longer, I fear — not in this century.

Mickey Mouse was a seminal 20th Century cartoon character, but culturally he mattered for only about 40 or 50 years. He began with Steamboat Willie (’28), grew in stature with Fantasia (’40), peaked with the Mickey Mouse Club TV series and the building of Disneyland in ’55.

I was going to buy some Mickey gloves for Sutton, but I don’t think she’d “get it.”

I again feel compelled to discuss the passing of Chance Browne, a renowned cartoonist (“Hi and Lois“) and musician and painter…an all-around good fellow.

Chance died from pancreatic cancer a little more than three months ago (3.1.24). For nearly my entire life he was one of my dearest friends. We’d bonded in the mid ’60s and held fast friendship-wise through the many decades that followed. It’s unusual to hold onto amigos for this long — for one reason or another friendo fondness tends to fade or weaken or simply run out of spirit. But not when it came to Chance.

Me to Chance’s widow, Debbie, when I first heard: “Mike Connors told me the devastating news just now. I’m so sorry, Deb. I feel truly broken…state of shock…so sorry for you and the girls. Despite the horror of the woke plague and how that affected my relationship with poor Chance, we had over 50 good years together — warm years, bountiful years…so much hilarity and spirit. My heart is shattered. Please keep me in the loop regarding any memorials or gatherings. I’m soooo sorry. Doesn’t feel real.”

I’ve mentioned once or twice that Chance became an unregenerate woke scold sometime in mid ’21, and that he began accusing me of horrendous attitudes and behaviors that had no basis in fact, emotional or otherwise.

No exaggeration, it was the single most appalling episode of my emotional life. On 9.24.22 I tapped out a longish piece about a traumatic encounter I had with him inside Wilton’s Village Market.

During that stand-off Chance looked me right in the eye and called me a piece of shit, right to my face, literally shoving a knife into our half-century-old friendship.

When he passed I decided to try and focus on the good decades and let the woke insanity go. But now the shit-stirring is back slightly because the Browne family has invited old pals to drop by the homestead later this month and share memories and probably do a bit of hugging.

Given Chance’s decision in ’21 to turn into Donald Sutherland‘s character in the final scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (’78), I didn’t expect an invite. And that’s fine. Our shared past can’t be fiddled with or diminished. It lives.

And yet a guy I loved for over half a century is being remembered and toasted, but because I was kicked off the bus due to not being a card-carrying wokester…aahh, let it go.

Almost exactly 19 years ago…I snapped these muddy, verging-on-blurry shots with a small Canon camera…I tried uprezzing and sharpening the focus, but it didn’t help.

Tenement buildings between 5th and 6th streets on Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn — Sunday, 6.5.05, 6:10 pm.

Looking south down Seventh Avenue from northeast corner of 53rd Street, a half-hour or so before Monday evening’s Batman Begins screening at WB’s very covertly located screening room, which has a Sixth Avenue address but is actually about 75 feet to the east of 7th Avenue on 53rd Street.

Clean streets and sidewalks are an indicator of neighborhood pride and self-esteem. Clearly the residents of the Bedford district’s south side (near south 5th Street and Driggs Avenue) have a ways to go. If all this crap were lying on the sidewalk in front of my building I would get a Hefty plastic garbage bag and pick it up and throw it in the dumpster. Where is the dignity with these people?

Sherry Netherland hotel (older building, right) and Hotel Pierre to its left. Pic taken from area near the eastern entrance to the formerly alive and pulsing Plaza Hotel, which is being turned into condos for the grotesquely rich…terrific. Another pat on the back for George Bush and his efforts to restrict middle-class opportunity and let the super-rich go hog wild and turn the pricier sections of this country into a super-rich pigpen. And another big pat on the back for those red-state security moms who voted him in…very wise, ladies! Completely contrary to your own financial interests plus the 911 Commission guys are saying they don’t believe that the Bushies have done all they can about preventing another World Trade Center catastrophe…so voting for Bush just made loads of sense.

Looking west on 57th Street from Sixth Avenue, just as Monday afternoon’s rainstorm was about to begin — 6.7.05, 4:15 pm.

Sixth Avenue bus stop during Monday afternoon’s cloudburst — 6.6.05, 4:20 pm.

Taken from Sony corporate headquarter’s 7th floor after screening of Sony Classics’ Heights, which wasn’t half-bad — 6.5.05, 3:00 pm.

Sixth Avenue again, from entranceway to Starbucks during that same old rainstorm you’re now starting to get tired of hearing about — 6.6.05, 4:17 pm.

Approaching Marcy Street subway station in another enterprising but vaguely shitty area of Brooklyn. Just after taking this I was walking past some low-rent cheeseball hot-dog stand with my Canon camera in hand, and I must have looked like a tourist because a couple of guys who looked like close relations of R. Crumb’s Weasel J. Weisenheimer gave me a look that said, “Whoa…can we take this guy? We could get that camera.” I gave them a Dirty Harry look that said, “Go ahead, try it.”

There is rarely a work day (or any day, because I’m online every damn day no matter what, including holidays) when I don’t click on this photo and think about how the water would feel.

Yesterday I barely summoned the energy to catch a theatrical showing of Tony Goldwyn and Tony Spiradakis‘ Ezra…barely. Inner meditation: “Do I really want to wade through a family-conflict drama about an autistic lad in his mid teens? Really? I have to watch this fucking thing?”

But I did, and I have to admit that I found it somewhere between tolerable and decent, and at times even affecting. It’s a good, pro-level film as far as it goes. Did it bother me somewhat? Here and there, yeah, but not to a fatal degree.

The eccentric, bespectacled Ezra (played by William Fitzgerald, a real-life Asperger’s kid) exhibits all the usual Raymond Babbit traits — no touching, no eye contact, insightful, uncomfortable with emotional intensity. His divorced parents — Max (Bobby Cannavale), an excitable and immature aspiring comedian, and Jenna (Rose Byrne), a conservative, worry-wart mom — are arguing about whether Ezra needs to attend a special-needs school and maybe take suppressive medication.

Jenna and boyfriend Bruce (Goldwyn) lean towards regulation and meds while Max wants Ezra to be a free improvisational soul…the kind who wears loose shoes and thinks on his feet and even allows himself to be hugged.

There’s also Stan (Robert DeNiro), Max’s feisty dad who supports his son despite concerns about his hyper personality. (DeNiro looks better in the film, by the way. than he did at that recent lower Manhattan press conference in front of the Trump-vs.-Alvin Bragg courthouse.) There’s also Max’s friendly manager (Whoopi Goldberg), old friend Grace (Vera Farmiga), childhood pal Nick (Rainn Wilson, who’s really lost some hair and packed on the pounds), some FBI guys and even Jimmy Kimmel and Geraldo, who furtively appear in the third act.

I can’t fucking do this. It’s draining my soul as I try and summarize the anxious and busy plot, which of course involves a coast-to-coast road trip. I’m feeling weaker and weaker, I mean. The sand is running out of the hourglass.

But at least Ezra ends pleasantly, and I have to acknowledge that Cannavale, his face covered with Yasser Arafat salt-and-pepper whiskers, gives an affecting performance, even though he taxes your patience at times. HE to Cannavale: Will you please calm the fuck down? Asperger kids don’t like excessive emotionality, and neither do I.

Friendo: “Your ‘Wouldn’t It Be Amazing?‘ piece (Saturday, 6.1) was fucking great. Right on the money. And yet when you post this objectively true observation, the HE commentariat yawns and shits all over it.

“What most of them were saying, in essence, was that that films reflecting the experiences and yearnings of the vast majority of Americans are now passe. Old news. Stories that have been told enough. ‘Put a sock in it, white man!’

“Mutaman wrote that prior to 2010 ‘there were like a zillion movies like this and they all sucked.’ Right. The Graduate, Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, American Graffiti, Loving, I Love My Wife, Ordinary People, Risky Business, Falling Down, Blue Collar, Ghost World, Hardcore, Breaking Away, The Stepdad, Match Point, Parenthood, Juno, The Kids Are All Right, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Little Miss Sunshine, The Squid and the Whale, Heathers, Dead Poet’s Society, Up In The Air, Clueless, Dazed and Confused, A League of Their Own, Falling in Love, Kramer vs. Kramer, The Verdict, Slapshot, Manchester By The Sea, Boyhood, Thirteen, This Boy’s Life, Superbad, Napoleon Dynamite, Almost Famous, Rebel Without A Cause, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, No Down Payment, Hud, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Field of Dreams…none woked-up, all sucked ass.

“And if you want to watch films that aren’t driven by SJW agendas, you’ll be covered by the Hallmark Channel or explicitly religious filmmakers.

“This is madness. I’m not kidding. Some of your commenters are out of their fucking minds.

“Unfortunately, woke lunatics (including the HE variety) are having an outsized influence on the wider culture.

“You can see it in movies, TV, theatre, journalism…it’s nuts. And seriously depressing.”

…if a movie about a struggling family dealing with a life-is-no-picnic situation…wouldn’t it be amazing if such a film wasn’t named after or didn’t focus on a character with special needs or a special affliction? Or who wasn’t strugglng with his or her sexuality and wasn’t an immigrant or a person of color or an aspiring 10-year-old drag queen or a kid dealing with his queer parents’ unhappy marriage due to one of them being in transition and the other committed to his/her natural biological cards…?

Wouldn’t it be amazing, in short, if an occasional family- or community-related movie came along that wasn’t about any of this SJW-minded, attention-demanding, vaguely woke-driven bullshit and was just about…you know, an average kid dealing with normal difficult shit…difficult because nothing is easy for kids in their early to late teens and yet the problems are more or less par for the course?

Example: What if a family movie was about an average non-homophobic straight teenaged male whose parents are reasonably stable and decent types…and who (fasten your seat belts!) likes girls but whose grades aren’t very good and who lives a life of random distractions and daydreams but at the same time is a bit of a lady-killer, a bit of an Alfie…God in heaven!! Call out the Strelnikovs!!

That’s it…Furiosa is finished. It’ll almost certainly be streaming before the month is over, or on 6.25 — three and a half weeks hence. Garfield will rule the roost this weekend. Furiosa is whimpering, yelping, head down, tail between legs.

From jordan Ruimy’s World of Reel story…