From Thomas L. Friedman‘s 10.1 N.Y. Times article, titled “The First Volleys of a Ballistic Missile War in the Mideast” and posted last night between 8 and 9 pm:

“We may be about to enter what could be the most dangerous moment in the history of the modern Middle East: a ballistic missile war between Iran and Israel, which would almost certainly bring in the United States on Israel’s side and could culminate in a full-blown U.S.-Israeli effort to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.”

Good Marrakech paragraph, posted on 12.6.10: “Everyone you run into in Marrackech is polite and calm and gentle to a fault. There’s apparently no such thing as an impolite Marrakech resident.

“Okay, I did run into a couple of ruffians on a bike on Saturday night who tried to assault me and steal my wallet — I later named them Dick and Perry — but I pushed one of them in the chest and told them both to fuck off and then ran in the opposite direction and they were good enough not to follow, so even the thieves and the roughnecks are…well, not exactly polite but accommodating.

“And there’s no indoor smoking ban. And there are no helmet laws so you can scooter down the street with the wind blowing through your hair. And the food is wonderful. And the energy in the main old-town square (Jemaa el Fnaa) is so exciting and heavenly.

“And there are horse carts all over the city, and sometimes as you’re scootering down the street you can smell horseshit, and that is a very good thing. The older you get and the more plastic and corporate the world becomes, the better horseshit smells.”

“The sickest I’ve ever been happened in Marrakech in the summer of ’76. It came after eating a dish of Couscous at a rooftop medina restaurant. I awoke around 1 ayem, weak and whimpering. I spent the next twelve hours ‘making love to the toilet,’ as my girlfriend of the time put it.

“But there was nothing jolting or spasm-like going on within. Those twelve hours of agony were more about laying down and surrendering to the void. Around 3 or 4 am I said to myself, ‘Okay, this might be it…I might die. But at least when I depart this awful nausea will stop, and I can merge with the infinite in peace.’”

I spoke a couple of times to Herbert Ross when I was a Cannon press kit writer. It was in the fall of 1987 when his Mikhail Baryshnikov film, Dancers, was being prepared for release. During our second chat I was asking him about something I wanted to put into the Dancers press kit, and somehow I miscommunicated my intention. Ross got the idea I was trying to debate him.

“Look, this isn’t that kind of conversation!,” he said sternly, almost shouting. I immediately backpedaled and grovelled. “No, no, Mr. Ross…I apologize, that’s not what I meant,” etc. I cooled him down but after I hung up, I said to myself, “Jesus God, that is one fierce hombre! He was ready to take my head off!”

Of course, any director who’s elbowed his or her way into mainstream Hollywood and maintained power in that realm over any period of time has to be tough as nails.

“All strong directors are sons of bitches,” John Ford allegedly said to screenwriter Nunnally Johnson sometime in the late ’40s or early ’50s. His point was that Johnson, in Ford’s view, was too much of a nice, thoughtful, fair-minded guy to cut it as a director. Directors basically can’t be too mellow or gentle or accommodating. They need to try and be reasonable and constructive about the usual problems, but they also need to be tough, pugnacious and manipulative mo’fos in order to get what they want. And if they’re too deferential, they won’t last.”

Contrast my Ross anecdote with his analysis of The Last of Sheila (’73), which he produced and directed between early ’72 and early ’73: “If you have a group of people on a ship, the ship becomes a metaphor for existence,” he said. “You can’t help it. It’s not a symbol one strives for, but it does happen. It’s not a picture about film people, it’s about people…I’ll tell you what this picture is about. It’s about civilization and barbarism. You cannot make up for the absence of civilization.”

Set on a yacht off the Cote d’Azur, Sheila is about venal, barbaric behavior, sure, but “not about film people”? Not about talented but necessarily opportunistic scrappers who are invaruably shrewd, manipulative, gregarious, clever, hungry and deceptive? Of course it is!James Coburn‘s producer character certainly meets the standard. The whole film, really, radiates the way things felt back then (pre-Watergate Nixon administration)…a certain jaded, opportunistic, defiantly anti-spiritual mindset.

Sheila is a darkly playful parlor game about seven dodgy, flinty, cynical people playing ruthless mind games with each other. It’s a glamorous vacation film, quite cynical and entirely cerebral. There’s no trusting the emotional moments, of course, because the players are such gifted liars so it doesn’t exactly radiate depth. But thanks to Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, it’s very sharply written.

The irony for me is that a character who seems like the least malicious and easily the most mild-mannered, sensible-sounding fellow on board — Richard Benjamin‘s Tom Parkman, a screenwriter — turns out to be the worst of them.

On-screen, I mean. Off-screen, the worst may have been costar Raquel Welch.

According to an 11.12.72 Chicago Tribune piece titled “Raquel Plans Suit Against Director”, there were also complaints about Welch’s behavior.

Welch announced she was suing director Herbert Ross for assault and battery as a result of an incident in her dressing room. She claimed she had to flee to London during the shoot “to escape physical harm”. Warner Bros. later issued a statement supporting Ross and criticizing Welch for her “public utterances”.

Excerpt: “Shooting the monastery sequence just off Cannes proved to be troublesome for Welch. Gale force winds and rain disrupted the night shoot, and Welch was reluctant to leave her Venice hotel for fear of getting stuck in the storm.”

Mason said that Welch “was the most selfish, ill-mannered, inconsiderate actress that I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with”.

McShane: “Raquel Welch isn’t the most friendly creature. She seems to set out with the impression that no one is going to like her.”

From an AFI catalogue: “An 11.22.72 Variety article reported that the film was made for a little over $2,000,000.

“During production actress Raquel Welch, who portrayed ‘Alice Wood,’ took a brief leave from the film to promote her 1972 film Kansas City Bomber. As her absence necessitated a change in the shooting schedule, according to the article, James Mason reportedly called her departure ‘inconsiderate.’ Her public rebuttal and subsequent criticism of the film, as well as Warner Bros.’ disapproval of her comments, were widely reported in the press.

“An 11.15.72 Variety news item reported that production was temporarily shut down due to threats by Black September, the Palestinian terrorist organization, which took offense at the number of participants in the film who were Jewish.”

Repeating: Halina Reijn‘s Babygirl (A24, 12.25) is reportedly a B & D variation on the “Type-A cougar has it off with a hot young dude” genre.

Friendo #1: “Actors will love it. Nicole is raw and great (as always) and it is HER show…she’s stunning, but whether it goes beyond that Oscar-wise remains to be seen. I also loved Antonio Banderas as her husband. Weird story…kinda Last Tango-ish with clothes mostly kept on, or 9 1/2 Weeks in some ways. Not at all romantic.”

Friendo #2: “Pic will gather multiple noms — Best Actress (Kidman), Best Actor (Harris Dickinson), Best Direction and Writing (Reijn).”

Honestly? People have been remarking for quite a while about a look of stretched tightness in Nicole Kidman‘s facial features, and in particular around her eyes. For whatever reason I never shared this reaction. But when I saw this Babygirl trailer, my first thought was “whoa, her face looks tight as a drum.”

Friendo who’d seen Babygirl the night before, quoted on 9.16.24: “A groundbreaking investigation of female sexuality by a female writer-director.”

And the gut reaction from the HE community…?

I’ll give you a gut reaction. Nicholas Hoult‘s Justin Kemp character has to come clean and face the music, and if he doesn’t audiences will hate this movie. Plain and simple.

Juror #2 (aka Juror No. 2) will premiere at L.A.’s AFI Fest on Sunday, 10.27, and then open commercially on Friday, 11.1.

Late to this…sorry…posted on 9.22.24.

Last weekend the Three Amigos (Alejandro G. Innaritu, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro) had dinner at KOL, a trendy Mexican-British fusion restaurant in London’s Marylebone restaurant (9 Seymour Street), with Tom Cruise, who’s currently collaborating with Inarritu on a mystery project that Cruise is starring in and producing. The costars in the Cruise-Inarritu are Sandra Huller, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Sophie Wilde and Riz Ahmed.

The blonde is HE’s own Kim Morgan, GDT’s wife and screenwriting collaborator; the guy on the right is KOL chef Santiago Lastra. Guillermo was with a cane because he’d broken a toe.

You’ll notice that with the exception of Lastra they’re all wearing thick-soled, leather lace-up boots. Even Morgan is wearing Doc Martin lace-ups. Was it because damp weather was expected or something? Because otherwise I don’t get it. If I had been there I would’ve eiher worn my brown suede Beatle boots or my suede, Italian-made hush puppies. I believe in sleek, unobtrusive footwear. Mostly the kind of dapper shoes that Cary Grant or Fred Astaire would’ve worn. Boots are klumpy things. They’re about dominance, power, alpha-male attitude.

So it’s reasonable to presume that some kind of feisty slap-around might happen from time to time. Presumably Walz has prepared some zingers a la Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle (“Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy”), and I mean something more here-and-now than just calling Vance “weird.” Vance will lie his ass off, of course.

Barring a limo trip to JFK or LGA, HE expects to live-blog this evening’s 9 pm debate, airing on CBS and coming from the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street (between 10th and 11th avenues).

(More…)

HE friendo Bill McCuddy sent this problematic man-ped photo from his high-security, five-star fortress in…he didn’t say but most likely Fez or Marrakech. (The last time I visited Casablanca it was a sprawling industrial hell hole.)

HE reply: “Swimming pool, palm trees and flip flops. You could be in Palm Springs or Acapulco.  

“I’m presuming you’re in Marrakech but with a strict avoidance attitude — no conversations with locals, no roaming through the Medina, no snake charmers, no exotic Moroccan cuisine, no posing with camels, no camping out in the desert, no horse-drawn carts, no Dar el Bacha Palace, no visiting the Man Who Knew Too Much shooting locations (La Mamounia hotel), no conversing with French-accented Louis Bernard types, none of that.

“Please correct if I’m wrong but you seem to be enjoying a well-protected Kardashian experience. At least you’re not wearing Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves curled-toe slippers.”

McCuddy message accompanying photo: “Hope you didn’t just eat.”