When do boys start routinely discussing infidelity or impulsive assignations among their parents’ friends? I wouldn’t know but I remember flipping through the pages of a nudie mag when I was 8 or 9.

I distinctly recall a chat during a third-grade recess. I didn’t actually say anything — I just listened.

Kid #1: “I was at Hornbeck’s last Sunday and his mom’s hair is brown and his dad’s hair is kinda sandy. So how come Hornbeck’s hair is red?”

Kid #2: “Red-haired milkman.”

This dates me, of course. I can’t precisely recall when milk delivery guys began to disappear but they were certainly gone by the time of “Bringing It All Back Home.”

My class visited a milk bottling plant when I was 10 or 11. It was during this excursion that I first realized that each and every cow ends up being slaughtered. Nice feeling. Welcome to the world. little calf! When the time comes you’re going to be murdered. Same with pigs and sheep.

[Something has gone really screwy with WordPress coding. The first two words of the next sentence are supposed to read William Holden and not just William, but the coding won’t cooperate.]

William Holden didn’t have to end up dead in Gloria Swanson‘s swimming pool. And he really didn’t have to submit to self-loathing when he began to fall in love with Nancy Olson’s Betty Schaefer, a fellow screenwriter.

Don’t forget that the second half of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard was largely driven by self-revulsion — a young male screenwriter (Holden’s Joseph C. Gillis) feeling morally sickened by his willingness to sexually satisfy a 50 year-old former silent-era star (Swanson’s Norma Desmond) in exchange for a swanky lifestyle.

1950 was one sexually uptight year, you bet. It saw both the release of Sunset Boulevard and the widespread condemnation of Ingrid Bergman for having had Roberto Rossellini’s baby outside of wedlock. In the eyes of the general public there was nothing more odious than unsavory sexual behavior…any kind of hanky panky outside the usual proper, middle-class boundaries.

But Gillis could have have just laid his cards on the table as he explained to Schaefer, “Look, I was broke…the finance company was about to take my car away. I’m not evil…I’ve simply been using Desmond and living off her largesse while I figure out my next move.

“Plus I did what I could to finesse her awful Salome script. What’s so terrible about that? Okay, so I’ve been to bed with her a few times. I’ve laid there while she rides me like a stallion…big deal.”

Schaefer: “Don’t worry about it, Joe. You did what you had to do in order to survive. Now pack your things. You’re moving in with me.”

Gillis: “But we haven’t even been intimate yet. And what about your devoted fiancé, nice-guy Artie (Jack Webb)?”

Schaefer: “I don’t love him, not really. Largely because he’s too possessive plus he’s not from the creative side, and writing is my lifeblood. We’re not a great match. I’ve submitted to his sexual advances on occasion but he doesn’t turn me on. I’ve never once blown him and I’m sorry but that means something. This may sound cold but all’s fair in love and war.”

Jenna Ortega Says Everybody in Hollywood Wants to Be 'Politically Correct' but That 'Lacks Honesty' and Makes Us 'Lose a Lot of Our Humanity and Integrity' https://t.co/8tliSWibW0

— Variety (@Variety) August 8, 2024

Rachel Zegler a year ago: “It’s no longer 1937. [My] Snow White is not gonna be saved by the prince. She won’t be dreaming about true love, but about becoming the leader she knows she can be.”

Just suddenly occurred to me, I’m gonna have to remove him from my Best Actor predictions. No matter how good his performance is, the industry will not want to reward him after walking out on the Haynes film and leaving all those people out of work. pic.twitter.com/ljLzBDy5ag

— Matt Neglia (@NextBestPicture) August 10, 2024

The other day I equated Jon Watts‘ Wolfs with a warm plate of waffles, served in a friendly roadside diner. A thin slice or two of melted butter and a light pouring of Maple Syrup. Maybe a pinch or two of cinnamon. It may be pleasurable to eat or, heh-heh, wolf down — I would be hugely surprised if it doesn’t satisfy the usual expectations — but at the end of the meal it’s still waffles.

Dale Launer replied on Facebook: “I’m not sure what you mean because I fucking love waffles. I could eat them three times a day. Pancakes too. Especially the crispy ones at Chez Ma Tante in Brooklyn. Tio which I replied, “Yeah, Dale, but they’re still waffles.”

This led me to equate The Friends of Eddie Coyle to a plate of corned-beef hash with a raw egg on top, and a beer-shot on the side.

And that opened the floodgates.

William Wyler‘s The Best Years of Our Lives is a plate of piping hot meat loaf, mashed potatoes and steamed green beans, followed by a hunk of apple pie and maybe a cuppa joe.

The Departed is a serving of fried, heavily battered shrimp, greasy french fries and a glass of cranberry juice, no ice.

The Shape of Water…sorry but I don’t want to associate that film with food. It kills my appetite. No offense to Guillermo.

Everything Everywhere All At Once is a plate of lukewarm seaweed dumplings, little or no flavor. Feed it to the dog.

Parasite is a bowl of Korean Gochujang stir-fried vegetables.

The Last Picture Show is a full plate of chicken-fried steak and grits. No vegetables.

Quentin Tarantino‘s Pulp Fiction is a Buddy Holly burger, bloody, with a vanilla milk shake.

North by Northwest is a serving of brook trout and wild rice, best savored with a Gibson.

Full Metal Jacket ie a tin of C-rations….no bananas, no vegetables, just cans of human dog food.

Beetlejuice ie a plate of chocolate-covered insects.

Ordinary People is a breakfast of cold French toast, quickly shoved into the garbage disposal.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a heap of baked beans on a tin plate.

I’ve lost count of all the “subtitled Hitler rants in the bunker” videos I’ve posted over the last 15 years, but I’ve always posted their embed codes. I don’t know why I can’t find a workable, size-adjustable e.c. for this recent “Hitler rants about J.D. Vance” video, but I can’t. I’m sorry but it’s funny.

You can have your little top-ten lists and champion your life-long favorites, but cinema is always shape-shifting…an impermanent feast…and the seas are always surging and receding, not to mention our mood pockets. And if anyone knew that it was Stanley Kubrick.

On top of which All That Jazz hasn’t aged well. It’s slick and cynical and very inside-baseball, but aimed at the none-too-brights…heavy handed, over-underlined. The “On Broadway” audition sequence is levitational but there’s too much “acting” going on in the second and third acts. Bob Fosse’s ironic points wear you down.

Depending on the stress and alienation and fantasy levels in my head, which I’ve been grappling with since I was three. I’m not always day-dreaming about something or some place else, but I often am. I hear songs (both transcendent and banal), listen to movie dialogue, recall emotional pit-of-the-stomach moments, sometimes weep inexpressively, etc. Every now and then I’ll shake myself by the shoulders and scold the dreamer: “Will you stop this, please? You’re here right now…this is real…you’re not watching a screen…eyes on the road.”

No two-headed frog, I.