Day: February 6, 2025

It’s nearly 8 pm on Thursday, 2.6, and the Ojai-Santa Barbara area has been radiating awful, rain-soaked misery all day long. Dampness at the break of noon, eclipses of both the sun and moon.

As a result I’m in a mostly foul, wrapped-scarf, huddled mood right now, but at least I have a third-row seat at the grand Arlington Theatre, and the big hoo-hah Ralph Fiennes tribute show is about to begin.

I did an interview with Fiennes for the N.Y. Daily News back in early ‘94 (or was it late ‘93?). The focus was his Oscar-touted performance as concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (‘93).

The title of my article was “The Reich Stuff”. Other journos have used the same expression, but my use of it was the first, I think.

Sitting on-stage with Scott Feinberg, Fiennes looks a tiny bit schlumpy…charmingly, I mean…legs crossed at the ankles, thick-soled comfort shoes, projecting a certain modesty but explicityly not trying to sell the theatrical conceit that he’s chatting with Feinberg in the least. Nearly every moment Fiennes, leaning forward intently, is addressing the Arlington audience.

Best Fiennes quote of the night (as of 9:07 pm): “I liked Julia Roberts [when we met around the time of Shakespeare in Love] — I don’t think she liked me.”

Would that even be, like, allowed? You can’t eat Mahershala Ali — it’s just not done.

Friendo: “Wow, that Jurassic Park Rebirth trailer looks…kinda bad. They even repeat the scene from the first one when Sam Neill yells ‘Ian, freeze!’ at Jeff Goldblum when the big dino is behind him.

“I’m guessing Ali gets consumed. I know, I know, but he seems to have the Janet Leigh-in-Psycho role. Prominent but not too prominent. If he gets eaten the audience will go ‘Oh my God, the dino just ate an Oscar winner! Is anyone safe?!’ Plus ScarJo looks a bit ragged.”

The mainstream media will do everything it can, trust me, to steer the national conversation away from indications of a lack of sound judgment or sufficient skill on the part of Cpt. Rebecca Lobach, who was piloting the Blackhawk helicopter. Cut her a break at all costs — that’s the basic mindset as we speak.

The below video is related to “What the Black Hawk Pilots Could See, Just Before the Crash” (2.5.25), reported by Helmuth Rosales, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Mika Gröndahl and John Ismay. “A 3-D model created by The Times visualizes the helicopter pilots’ field of view minutes before a fatal crash with a jet in Washington=,” etc.

And none of the finest films of 2024 can begin to compete with it, quality-wise. The wild and woolly outdoors, and shot on a Warner Bros. soundstage yet! The dp was Ted McCord (Young Man with a Horn, East of Eden, The Sound of Music). Razor-sharp focus. The lighting was/is as good as it gets.

…due to a re-watch of The Brutalist. If I were to run into Brady Corbet on the streets of Ojai I wouldn’t take a poke at him — I’m a civilized human being — but I would probably give him a dirty look. Okay, I wouldn’t do that either — I would smile and go “hey!” and schmooze and whatnot. But I would hate myself for doing so.

Go to any wealthy or plain old middle-class bedroom community and you’ll never, ever see junker cars from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s parked on residential streets. But there are all kinds of decades-old beaters in laid-back, nestled-away Ojai, which is a hugely expensive place to live and quiet as fuck — you can hear a pin drop on Main Street.