Respect and affection for the Oogum Boogum guy, Brenton Wood, who passed yesterday (1.3.25) at age 83. Three hit singles in ’67 –“The Oogum Boogum Song””, “Gimme Little Sign” and “Baby You Got It” — and that was it as far as the big-time was concerned.
I’d more or less forgotten about Wood** by the turn of the century, but then Cameron Crowe used “Oogum Boogum” for an early scene in Almost Famous, and I was back on the train.
Alternate title: What would former shoemaker Daniel Day Lewis say?
HE to Italian shoemaker, sent this morning: “My feet used to be size 12, but over the past eight to ten years I’ve had to wear size 13. I own two pairs of boots and several lace-up shoes that are size 13, and they’re all fine.
“Two or three months ago I ordered a pair of size 13 Bass Weejuns black loafers. They felt stiff and tight at first, but after wearing them a couple of times they’ve loosened up slightly. They’re not what I would call comfortable but they’re wearable.
“Your loafers are beautifully made and very attractive. But they feel a bit tighter than the Bass Weejuns. Last night I wore them indoors for an hour or so, and without socks. (I don’t think I could even put them on while wearing thin socks.) I really need to somehow loosen them up. I need to make the leather softer and more malleable, which only happens from wearing them and walking around.
“I could ask my local shoe repair guy to forcibly stretch them out but the leather has to be softer and more malleable to begin with, right?
“Your shoes only arrived yesterday but right now a voice is telling me they’ve been constructed a bit tighter and snugger than my other size 13 shoes. I’m really afraid that even after the leather has become looser and more relaxed, they’ll STILL feel too tight.
“I’m not saying I should be wearing a size 14 — my feet aren’t that big — but I’m thinking it might be better if I had a size 13 and 1/2. Would it be possible for you to send me a size 13 and 1/2 if I return the current shoes?
“Or should I just hope and pray that they’ll gradually become more wearable or perhaps even comfortable once the leather stretches out?
“I know all about cruel shoes and the suffering that goes along with this. But right now I don’t feel good about this. I’m a little worried.”
The natural, obvious presumption when a talented accomplished person takes his/her own life is that a great deal of unhappiness, frustration and probably depression preceded it. I’m very, very crushed about this. The proverbial black dog has claimed another victim. Poor Aubrey Plaza must be going through hell right now. Deeply sorry.
And this is as it should be. Because of the horrible wacko karma that Jolie created when she hatched and orchestrated the virulent anti-Brad Pitt discord within her own family. She did this, and now she owns it.
Cynthia O’Neal‘s performance as Cindy, a chilly, highly perceptive opportunist and she-wolf wearing the clothing of a sexy, high-toned girlfriend, was astonishing. Her manner was cool and cynical and altogether commanding.
The odds are highly against the possibility of audiences ever seeing another performance of this type, especially given that women these days aren’t allowed to play users or takers — only victims and revenge-getters.
Born in 1934, O’Neal was 36 in this scene. She’s still with us.
I hope it’s also understood that poisoned relationship argument scenes like this will never be seen again either…not in movie theatres, not on cable or streaming. Fucked-up sexist characters like Jack Nicholson‘s Jonathan Fuerst have been outlawed.
Let history note that when it came to sentencing Donald J. Trump for his Stormy Daniels felony convictions, Judge Juan M. Merchan wimped the hell out.
He decided on “a rare and lenient alternative to jail or probation“….shame….shame!
From N.Y. Times reporters Ben Protess and Kate Christobek:
1.4.25 update: I re-watched Moonstruck last night, and my basic feeling was that as effective as the performances and John Patrick Shanley‘s screenplay are, parts of it are a little too broad and on-the-nose. It’s a good film, but it could’ve been better if director Norman Jewison had toned things down somewhat.
1.3.25: Cher’s bulls-eye Moonstruck performance landed a Best Actress Oscar in ’88, and good for her. But the real reason she won was because of (a) the film’s dead-perfect poster, (b) a single line of dialogue that she said to costar Nic Cage — “Snap out of it!”, (c) a back-and-forth between Cher and Olympia Dukakis — OD: “Do ya love him, Loretta?” / Cher: “Ma, I love him awful” / OD: “Oh, God, that’s too bad”, and (d) the fact that Moonstruck‘s ensemble cast was spot-on to the nth degree.
So it was a group effort, really. Cher, Cage, Norman Jewison, John Patrick Shanley, Vincent Gardenia, Danny Aiello…they all won it together.
That’s Rob Camilletti, Cher’s 22 year-old “bagel boy” boyfriend, reacting to her win.
What exactly is a movie musical? Wikipedia defines it as “a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film’s themes or characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline.”
Therefore James Mangold‘s A Complete Unknown is obviously and unmistakably a movie musical. The songs aren’t personal-expression songs in a classic musical sense, and yet on another level they are, certainly in Bob Dylan‘s case. They also express themes and feelings that emanate from the social-political climate of the early to mid ’60s. It’s a magical mystical tour of that era.
The bottom line is that Mangold’s 141-minute film is wall-to-wall singing and performing. According to producer Fred Berger, Chalamet sings 40 Dylan songs in the film, and that’s obviously not counting the Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Johnny Cash songs that are also performed. (The Complete Unknown soundtack vinyl album contains 16 tracks; the CD version contains 23 tracks.)
Wicked is also a musical, of course, but a bit less of one in terms of the humber of stand-alone musical compositions. If you don’t count the orchestral opening and finale, 12 songs are performed by Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum and others.
And yet the insanely corrupt Golden Globe nominations have categorized Wicked as a musical but A Complete Unknown as a drama.
The Globe nominees for BEST MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY are Anora (sporadically hilarious but hardly a “comedy”), Challengers (doesn’t even flirt with being a comedy or a musical), Emilia Perez (obviously a musical), A Real Pain (contains amusing dialogue while while adhering to a light farcical tone), The Substance (an exploitation body-horror film) and Wicked (a full-on musical).
“A Wing and a Prayer,” posted on 9.23.12: If you’re driving your Lexus drunk your reaction time is slower than if you’re cold sober, and if you’re really stinko you’re definitely a menace to all humanity. But drunk or semi-drunk driving isn’t all bad, and sometimes it works. Or at least it did for me.
I know, I know — did I just say that? In today’s world DUI is a felony punishable by huge fines and jail time in some cases, and rightly so.
But in the ’70s tens of thousands of people drove from place to place every night with a buzz-on and in some cases plain shitfaced, and some awful things resulted, I’m sure. But quite often, probably the vast majority of times, drunks just drove home and parked their cars and watched a little TV and went to sleep on the couch. And then woke up at 3 am, undressed and flopped in their bedroom.
May God forgive me but in my early drinking days when I lived in Wilton and Westport, Connecticut, I drove late at night with several beers and/or Jack Daniels on the rocks in my system, and I just cruised on through, and I mean weekend after weekend after weekend after weekend. No accidents, no fender benders, nothing. Others plowed their cars into ponds and trees and guard-rails, but not me.
There were times, in fact, when I drove down those winding country roads at high speeds and I would focus like a motherfucker, and I was convinced at times that I was driving like Paul Newman at Lime Rock.
I started to tell myself, in fact, that I drove better when half-bombed because I was less intimidated by the possibility of something going wrong. I drove without fear, without hesitation. I took those hairpin turns like a champ.
Present tense: In short, if you’re as good a driver as I was and you’re not flat-out wasted, driving with booze in your system isn’t such a bad thing. Or at least it doesn’t need to be. Would I drive drunk now? Of course not. I stopped drinking 12 and 2/3 years ago (3.20.12) and I’m not an asshole. I’m just saying that I got away with it for years, and…well, I’ve said it.
The Penske Golden Globes are insanely corrupt. The most likely winners, it is widely presumed, will be the nominees backed by the deepest pockets….the price is right…if ya wanna slide, ya gotta grease…simple as that.
Which means, of course, that since poor little Neon can’t compete with Universal and Netflix in terms of Penske spending splurges (FYC Phase One ads in Deadline, Variety and THR, special facetime-luncheon whore events) that poor little Anora will probably get edged out, most likely by Wicked.
The second act of Anora is hilarious but it’s not really a comedy, and yet the Globes have categorized it as a musical or comedy. Wicked is obviously and emphatically a musical so it’ll probably win.
I’ve just submitted my Gatecrashers GG prediction ballot…see below…I know the deck is stacked against Anora but I can’t vote for Wicked…I just can’t.
From Richard Rushfield‘s Ankler piece about the Globes…”How to Watch a Second-Tier Awards Show“…essential reading:
“There’s something fitting about the timing of Sunday’s Golden Globes, [roughly] two weeks ahead of the second inauguration of Donald Trump. The gaudiness, the scandals, the obeisance to corrupt foreign powers, the random bit players elevated to high office — and Hollywood’s willingness to shrug and play along with the madness.
“That said, even amid an Attorney General’s probe into the legitimacy of the purchase (as I exclusively reported in November and which of course, was not covered in Variety, Deadline or THR), this ethics-challenged, anticipated-by-no-one awards show must go on.
“So if you’re the producer of an awards contender, does buying ads in a Penske publication help your shot at a nomination from the Globes? We don’t know that it does or doesn’t.
“The rules are on the site, of course, and they specify a voting body which includes the former HFPA members, but keeping the lines of church and state separate hasn’t exactly been a specialty of the Penske portfolio.
“If you have any question about how blurred the lines are, the fact that the Penske Big Three (Deadline, Variety, THR) have uniformly refused to so much as glance at the problems outlined above suggests the answer.”
30 years ago Kathleen Turner was hit with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that affects feet, joints and organs. It pretty much destroyed her career. The steroids and pain medication she took to treat the disease made her fat, and a few years later she developed a drinking problem. (Since arrested.) But how did she get that deep, raspy, rough-sandpaper voice?