Day: May 2, 2025

If Oliver Hermanus and Ben Shattuck‘s The History of Sound, a period queer romance bound for Cannes, turns out to be as good as Luca Guadagnino‘s Queer, I’ll be a satisfied viewer. But the Queer bar is a high one.

Paul Mescal‘s Lionel is the lead character (his POV dominates the narrative) with Josh O’Connor‘s David being secondary. 73 year-old Chris Cooper, of all people, plays an older version of Lionel. An odd call. The last time I checked Cooper didn’t have a hawk nose or a pointy chin.

I wasn’t thrown by the Queer sex scenes (even the chowing-down ones) because I really loved the performances by Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, and because their intimate scenes were about delicacy, ambiguity and, now and then, open-hearted longing that I couldn’t help but believe and even relate to.

Vanity Fair‘s David Canfield: “[Mescal and O’Connor] sell a romantic connection that extends well beyond the bedroom. ‘There is a kind of real sense of companionship, and the joy and loss that comes with the presence and absence of that,’ Mescal says. ‘It’s not just about sex and the intensity of falling in love. It’s deeper than that.’

“In fact,” writes Canfield, “there isn’t much sex at all in The History of Sound” — honest sigh of relief! — “although the film carries a romantic sweep beginning to end.

Hermanus: “I didn’t want the sex of it to be the transgression, or the big idea, like, ‘Oh, it’s 1917, and these two men are taking the risk of being sexual’. Ben wrote it in a way where there was no hesitation, no moment of fear.

“For me, the sex scene” — just one? — “is when Lionel is walking around David’s apartment the morning after [their first encounter], and he’s smelling everything and sitting everywhere. He’s absorbing the energy of this person.”

The broadly mocked all-female Blue Origin flight (Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen, Gayle King, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn and Lauren Sánchez) happened on 4.14.25, a.k.a. “the Empty Coke Bottle flight”. It reached a height between 62 and 65 kilometers, or just above the Kármán line.

The satirical Blonde Origin flight (three right-leaning women — Megyn Kelly, Megan Callahan, Sara Clemente) wasn’t a zero-gravity thing but a reduced gravity parabolic flight. Not on a rocket but aboard a Zero G jet flight, which took off on this particular day from LaGuardia airport.

The flight lasted 90 to 100 minutes and consisted of 15 parabolas, each of which simulates about 30 seconds of reduced gravity: one that simulates Martian gravity (one-third of Earth’s), two that simulate Lunar gravity (one-sixth of Earth’s), and 12 that simulate weightlessness. Each parabola begins with the aircraft climbing at a 45-degree angle at approximately 23,000 feet (7,000 m), peaks at 32,000 ft (9,800 m), and ends with the aircraft pointed down at a 30-degree angle.

As of three years ago, the price of a ZeroG flight for a single passenger began at $8,200.

Extended, real-deal zero gravity conditions begin at 160 kilometers above the earth’s surface.

I had this idea that playing celebrity name anagrams isn’t (or needn’t be) that hard. The idea is that you don’t just scramble letters around to spell something else — the something else has to offer some sort of comment about the character or the personality of the celebrity in question.

And I was wrong — it’s very hard to come up with a good one. Or at least one as good as that amusing Oscar Wilde anagram that Dick Cavett assembled decades ago — “O, I Screw A Lad.”

Let me tell you — it’s hard to come up with an anagram that adds up to anything, much less one that reflects a personal habit or profession or character trait.

I couldn’t scramble my own name (Jeffrey Wells) into anything clever. “Jeffy Sweller” alludes to having a big ego, but isn’t much. While positive-minded, “Swell Jeffrey” is also barely an anagram. Then I came up with “Yes, We Fell” but couldn’t figure what to do with “jfr.”

Let’s try another name — Barack Obama. I can’t manage anything better than Mack A. Barbora…meaningless.

Name anagrams are a bitch. I’ll settle at this point for any anagram that amounts to anything at all. Roman Castevet = Steven Marcato….something in that vein.

An HE reader suffering from acute spiritual toxicity as well as cancer of the anus wrote this morning with the following message: “The name of Lynn Ramsay ‘s 2011 psychodrama wasn’t Let’s Talk About Kevin but We Need To Talk About Kevin, you dementia-riddled jackass.”

HE reply: “Thanks, fixed.

“Dementia issues aside, We Need to Talk About Kevin is just too damn shit-piss long.  

“My gut reaction when I first heard the title 14 years ago was ‘well, you may feel it’s important to talk about Kevin but I sure as shit don’t, especially with Lynne Ramsay at the helm and especially with that clearly demonic, warlock-eyed psycho, Ezra Miller, playing the titular character. So why don’t you and Kevin and everyone else in Kevin’s circle…why don’t you all go fuck yourselves?’

“Most movies with six-word titles tend to fail with Average Joes because six words (or five even) seem to indicate that the viewer will be in for a slog —a difficult or needlessly complex sit.  

“One of the very few six-word-title movies to succeed was Close Encounters of the Third Kind, although nine out of ten people just called it Close Encounters.

“How many people, honestly, even toyed with the idea of seeing Ramsay’s emotional torture flick, much less calling it something shorter?  ‘Hey, honey, ya wanna see that psychotic fuckhead Kevin movie tonight?’

“How about seven words?  Back in ‘65 nobody called Richard Lester’s latest The Knack (and How To Get It) — they just called it The Knack.

“My favorite seven-word-title flick?  Hands down, The Loneliness of the Long–Distance Runner. Now, that was an intriguing long title! I’ve seen Tony Richardson’s 1962 film at least four or five times and have always enjoyed it much more than Wim Wenders‘ The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick.”

Sent this morning: “Scott — I read your Cannes ‘25 projection piece yesterday, and have two questions

“(1) You wrote that Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme is “said to be Anderson’s strongest work since The Grand Budapest Hotel”. Good to hear! And yet it’s commonly understood that Anderson films are always primarily about the visual style and signature that I call “WesWorld.” Which basically means dry, ironic scenarios about aloof characters with a minimum of emotionalism.

“The Grand Budapest Hotel connected because it conveyed an emotional lament about declining old-world Europe and the falling away of tradition. What, pray tell, is The Pheonician Scheme actually about thematically?  A rich guy’s (Benicio del Toro) regret about not being a better dad to his daughter?

“(2) You described Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) as ‘egregiously’ snubbed or overlooked in terms of award-season accolades.  Well, in my view it was righteously snubbed. That movie was beautifully shot but FUCKING RANCID inside. I called Ezra Miller’s titular performance and in fact the entire film ‘emotional rat poison.’

”It’s good to hear that J–Law has scored with a strong performance in Ramsay’s Die, My Love, but how can I trust your aesthetic if we’re so far apart on Kevin?”

Feinberg: