Eight years ago Tom Hanks said a very bad thing, at least according to the HE commentariat. He said that his career “peaked in the ’90s” — a heinous statement by any standard but particularly egregious by HE commenter standards. All careers are glorious, and the use of the term “peaking” represents an obscene way of looking at them. Obviously this kind of dismissive thinking needed to be stamped out back then and it certainly needs to be stamped out now.

The Bad and the Beautiful‘s Harry Pebble: “Give me a picture that ends with a kiss and black ink on the books.”

Friendo: “Why oh why did they eliminate the kiss-at-the-airport finale?”

HE: “Because a kiss at the end isn’t a feminist progressive #MeToo ending. Lee Isaac Chung was adamant that Twisters is whatsername’s story…Daisy Edgar-Jones. He wanted to avoid the old romantic cliche finale, which of course is what the audience wanted. He also wanted to ‘gay it up’ on the fringe with Sasha Lane and Katy O’Brian.”

Friendo: “Okay, ‘gay it up’, fine. So why doesn’t the film have a trans character?”

HE: “It does! Glen Powell‘s Tyler Owens character is trans. He was born Tiki Owens and even had a couple of tornado-chasing, anally-obsessed boyfriends in her teens, but Tiki decided to become a non-binary they and she…sorry, “they” gradually decided to become an all-male, cocksure cowboy stud type.”

WHY DID THEY CUT THE KISS pic.twitter.com/is7XhI9iu9

— zara ️ TWISTERS SPOILERS (@seresinbradshaw) July 18, 2024

In the deeply loathed Forrest Gump, Robin Wright‘s Jenny, the tragically abused woman who became a selfish, impulse-driven hippie slut in the ’60s and ’70s, was quite the conversational topic.

Jenny’s dad sexually abused her as a child, and so she’s basically damaged goods all through Robert Zemeckis‘s bullshit fairy tale.

Here’s a 10.27.11 HE article titled “Reactionary Oscar-Winner“. It’s followed by two comments — a serious one from The Thing and a funny one from Lex. G.

BEWARE OF MILD SPOILERS: I didn’t hate Lee Isaac Chung‘s Twisters. It’s as empty and formulaic and jizz-whizzy as I feared, but more or less harmless. One swirling, cacophonous calamity after another. Nonstop destruction and disaster with a few deaths layered in. I shrugged, I chuckled, I got through it.

The ‘96 Twister is sooo much better. Much better dialogue (co-penned by Michael Crichton). I missed the His Girl Friday triangle dynamic — Helen Hunt as Cary Grant, Bill Paxton as Rosalind Russell, Jamie Gertz as Ralph Bellamy. I missed the eccentric Philip Seymour Hoffman character. (Poor Philly.) I missed Paxton. (Also dead.) I missed the old-fashioned, almost embarassing CG. I missed the exceptional widescreen lensing. I missed Lois Smith‘s “Aunt Meg.”

Twister’s drive-in movie destruction scene (The Shining is playing) is so much more effective than the indoor movie theatre’s destruction in Twisters. The theatre is located in a one-horse town in a rural Oklahoma region and James Whale’s original Frankenstein (’31) is playing to a full house in the daytime?

It’s interesting how Glen Powell’s Tyler Owens character, initially presented as a cocksure cowboy adrenalin junkie, doesn’t save the day at the end. He turns down the daredevil vibes, yes, and calms down in a soft, sensitive, nice-boyfriend way, but there’s no sex or even a make-out session with Daisy Edgar-Jones, the British actress with the bumpy, broken nose…

What was that airport finale about exactly? Kate (Edgar-Jones’ character) and Tyler are clearly attracted to each other and destined to hook up, but they don’t do anything except talk and confide. Unless I missed something, they don’t even hug or touch.

It’s like Chung was literally ordered to delete any serious chemistry or physical attraction stuff so as not to offend the woke lesbians in the audience. Studio execs to Chung: “We want a vaguely gay vibe here. We certainly don’t want a conventional hetero romantic thing like the old Twister had. Maybe we need a couple of tough lesbos.”

How exactly was Kate responsible for the tornado deaths of her boyfriend, played by Daryl McCormack (the sex worker in Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, that oddball Emma Thompson film about finally getting properly laid at age 60), as well as the blonde girl (Kiernan Shipka) and that oafish, chubby LatinX guy with the tennis-ball haircut and the flannel shirt?

Five years later Javi (Anthony Ramos) persuades Kate to return to Tornado Alley, but he’s also sweet on her. He’s clearly a bit jealous when she starts hanging out with Powell, but then he has an Act Three epiphany and decides to “help” people rather than dig into the tornado research. Strange character arc.

But there’s no villain…not really. David Corenswet‘s Scott, Javi’s business partner, is chilly but not villainous.

The theme of the film is “face your fears,” right? Kate does the brave thing alone at the end. Glen’s not really needed…he just watches!

Daisy sure as shit doesn’t look like the daughter of Maura Tierney. They didn’t even look like cousins.

Has anyone noticed that Katy O’Brian, Kristen Stewart’s lover in Love Lies Bleeding, plays a mechanic on Tyler’s “team”? Has anyone noticed Sasha Lane, the female lead in Andrea Arnold’s American Honey (16), is also part of Tyler’s crew? Lane and O’Brian are both openly gay.

Again — I didn’t hate Twisters. It just keeps coming at you. It’s all formula bullshit but I was chuckling here and there, and I loved the tornado death moments.

I have to at least say this privately, and that’s the irrefutable fact that pretty as she is, Edgar-Jones is no physical match for the muscular, buffed-up Powell. Glen has the pecs and the rugged arm muscles and flat abs, but Daisy — candor requires me to say this — doesn’t have that curvy, pear-shaped-ass thing going on. Sorry.

AOC says behind closed doors no one supports Kamala.

pic.twitter.com/1jvdizUQSy

— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) July 19, 2024

In March 1996 news reporter and anchor Dina Ruiz, 30, married Clint Eastwood, who at the time was 66.

During a subsequent interview Dina was asked if their difference in age bothered her. Clint quipped, “Hey, if she dies, she dies.” He and Ruiz divorced in 2013.

The following year the 84-year-old Eastwood began seeing Christina Sandera, then 51, whom he met while she was working as a hostess at the Mission Ranch Hotel in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. They were seen together at several events over the subsequent decade.

It was announced today that Sandera has passed at age 61. Eastwood is 94. No explanation has been offered about why she died.

The most appalling thing about Trump’s RNC speech was the idea that he had been saved from death by God. “God”, trust me, doesn’t give a damn who gets shot or speared or roasted in a brick oven, and had absolutely nothing to do with that bullet nicking Trump’s right ear…no moral or situational involvement in our petty little squabbles. Obviously just dumb luck.

I was also kind of appalled when Trump kissed the fire helmet of the murdered Corey Comperatore. Kissed the helmet, regarded the Comperatore mannequin with a tilted head, tapped the mannequin on the left shoulder….tap-tap, bye-bye.

The HE haters are all gone, all banished, bitchslapped, cut off at the knees….Clementine Kruczynski, Oaktown, Mojoryzen, Will Munny, Canyon Coyote. Today the Corleone family settled all family business…Carlo, Barzini, Tattaglia, Stracci, Cuneo. So don’t tell me you’re innocent. Because it insults my intelligence.

I’ve been relentlessly scolded over the years for my obituaries, and particularly for saying that this or that dear and departed enjoyed a peak period. Which every single person of serious fame or accomplishment has come to accept because it’s true, like it or not.

The great and widely beloved Bob Newhart was the first noteworthy WASP standup comic…respect! And a droll, soft-spoken guy who may have invented the classic, quietly subversive middle-class attitude that began to emerge in the 1950s.

Popular narrative notwithstanding, Newhart didn’t peak in the mid to late ’70s, which is when The Bob Newhart Show was on.

Newhart peaked for two or thee years in the early ’60s, particularly ’60 (“The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart“) through ’62, when he delivered one of the most tonally out-of-synch cameos in in a straight WWII film — Don Siegel‘s Hell is For Heroes (’62). The bit is mildly funny, but it stops the film in its tracks.

An ex-accountant who didn’t really connect as a comedian until he was 29 or thereabouts, the mild-mannered Newhart was, many felt, a magnificent cultural presence during the Kennedy era.

My WASPy adman father loved his skits, and brought home and relentlessly played a couple of his albums.

Born at the start of the Great Depression (9.5.29), Newhart passed earlier today at age 94. Hugs, condolences and endless respect.

Quote of the day: “[Drooling Joe’s] choice is to be one of history’s heroes, or to be sure of the fact that there’ll never be a Biden presidential library,” one of the president’s close friends has told Axios‘s Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen. “I pray that he does the right thing. He’s headed that way.”

“Glory, Glory Hallelujah!”

Reported earlier today by VandeHei and Allen:

“Several top Democrats privately tell us the rising pressure of party congressional leaders and close friends will persuade President Biden to decide to drop out of the presidential race, as soon as this weekend.

“The top leaders of his party, his friends and key donors believe he can’t win, can’t change public perceptions of his age and acuity, and can’t deliver congressional majorities.

“The president is being told that if he stays in, former President Trump could win in a landslide and wipe away Biden’s legacy and Democrats’ hopes in November.