Day: December 31, 2024

“Clown Cried” (27 minute version)

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Eight years ago I watched roughly a half-hour’s worth of footage from Jerry Lewis‘s The Day The Clown Cried. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

Poasted on 6.16.16: “The Day The Clown Crieed is a kind of ghost cult film, one that’s been written about and discussed and derided in absentia by film sophistos for several decades.

“It’s a fascinating piece. I’m glad I saw what I saw. I now have a rough idea of how TDTCC plays and feels emotionally. It may not be anyone’s idea of a great or profound film, but it’s nowhere near as bad as I’d heard it was for so many years.

“Yes, the basic scheme is labored. One could call it grotesque in its attempt to whip up emotions via the cold-blooded mass murder of an isolated group of small children. But it’s a bit more measured and shaded than I expected — not absurdly over the top but delivered in smoky, grayish tones, and crafted with a feeling of noirish, downbeat gradualism.

“The ultimate consensus may be that it’s not a profoundly effective film, but nor is it the gaudy wipeout I had expected. It’s somewhere in between.”

Oliver, Why Have You Switched Sides?

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How could the celebrated director of Platoon, JFK, Salvador, Born on the 4th of July, Wall Street, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, Any Given Sunday and W.….how could Oliver Stone drop to his knees in praise of effing Wicked, of all the ‘24 films he could have singled out?

Wicked is a fine, well-produced musical but it obviously doesn’t represent the values that Oliver has put forth since the mid ’80s. Why then has he praised it above and beyond the obviously superior Anora, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, A Real Pain, etc.?

Team Baldoni Files $250 Million Lawsuit Against N.Y. Times…Team Lively Countersues Bigtime in Federal Court…Guns Blazing, We Will Bring Pain To Your Doorstep…Grenades, Rifle Fire, Claymore Mines!

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The bottom line is that henceforth the idea of hiring or otherwise working with Blake “I Love Trouble” Lively and Justin “We Will Bury You” Baldoni on a movie or limited series…the mere thought of this is generating heebie–jeebie shockwaves among producers and studio execs worldwide.

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Talk About Temerity, Obstinacy

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Bill McCuddy recently had the absolute gall to celebrate Skywalkers: A Love Story as his #1 film of the year.

I responded as follows:

Not to mention that below-the-title slogan — “What will they risk to touch the sky?” Words fail.

I should be more open-minded, I realize, in part due to Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman having put Skywalkers on his ten-best list. But that title is so repulsive that I really don’t want to see this film, ever. My life will not be even slightly diminished by my avoiding it.

Skywalkers opened last summer and nobody jumped up and down. Not in my orbit, they didn’t. Flatline flatline flatline. And then all of a sudden McCuddy and Gleiberman perform last-minute cartwheels.

Jolie, Pitt Finally Lay Down The Sword

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Seven months ago Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, 18, filed legal papers to change her name to a Pitt-less Shiloh Jolie. The basic idea was to publicly proclaim that she regards her dad, Brad Pitt, as some kind of living embodiment of Satan and therefore wanted the Pitt struck from her last name.

Angelina Jolie, Shiloh’s deeply neurotic mother, was the engine and the propellant behind that legal initiative, trust me.

6.1.24: “Why is the divorce initiated by Angelina Jolie against William Bradley Pitt still ongoing and unresolved eight years later? Sane exes don’t behave this way as a rule.

“I’m not the first person on planet earth to rhetorically ask ‘what exactly is Angelina’s basic psychological malfunction?’

Then again I may be thinking too narrowly. Perhaps Pitt is the devil incarnate, and therefore deserves to be hunted down with clubs and spears and burned like Joan of Arc or Oliver Reed’s Father Grandier from Ken Russell’s The Devils….right?

Flash forward to 12.31.24: It was announced at 1:08 am today that Pitt and Jolie have finally settled their divorce after eight ridiculous years of acrimony.

Statement to People magazine from Jolie’s attorney James Simon:

“More than eight years ago, Angelina filed for divorce from Mr. Pitt. She and the children left all of the properties they had shared with Mr. Pitt, and since that time she has focused on finding peace and healing for their family. This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago. Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over.”

Still-Vivid Pyrennes Moment From ‘76

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I’ve travelled through the Pyrenees mountains twice. The first time (June of ‘76) I was hitchhiking with girlfriend Sophie; the second time was during a France-to-Spain journey in a rental car, sometime in the late aughts.

My “Bernstein on the Staten Island ferry” moment happened the first time around. We were strolling (or were we sitting in the back seat of a car?) along a narrow Pyrenees blacktop and looking up at a huge, very steep, grass-covered mountainous foothill and being struck by the sight of a distant herd of sheep about, oh, a third of a mile away but way up there…high, high, all the way to the sky.

They were so far off you couldn’t hear those little cowbells that shepherds loop around the baahers’ woolen necks. But it was such a magnificent sight…awed by the enormity of that emerald-green Pyrenees slope, and the serenity that came with that.

Bad Look

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There were six media-eyeball events that hurt poor President Carter during his administration.

The first five inflicted different kinds of wounds. Most damaging was the failed, politically crushing attempt to rescue Iranian hostages. Then came Ted Kennedy’s 1980 primary challenge. Three, that silly story about the hissing rabbit allegedly attacking Carter’s fishing boat. Four, that “lust in my heart” quote from that Playboy interview. Five, being half–ignored by TV sports reporters when he visited the Pittsburgh Pirates clubhouse following their 1979 World Series triumph.

But the sixth was the most damaging of all — collapsing from heat exhaustion during a six-mile marathon on 9.15.79. If you’re going to compete in a marathon, do so like a serious athlete or not at all. And never, ever exhibit physical weakness.