How many times will the HE congregation declare en masse that eccentric Millennial and Zoomer women who have totally bought into the Sinners theology (literally tomented by their whiteness, convinced they’re literally cultural vampires)…how many times will the HE chorus bury their heads in the sand by dismissing these women as unworthy nutters and outliers? They’re not.
A few months ago I was condemned for insisting that back in the ’70s “spade cat” was a term of respect on the street, but I would never use an “s” term that this woman uses…i won’t repeat it but she says it.
Jump into a time-machine tunnel back to 1968 or ’69. You and a friend are counter-culture buckaroos and fairly flush, having just moved a lot of cocaine, and so you hop on your hogs and leave Los Angeles for a long, un-hurried trip to New Orleans. You’re not middle-class vacationers but cool-cat road warriors, so you’ve both packed a sleeping bag. But what else?
If I was Peter Fonda‘s Wyatt I would bring (a) a two-man pup tent for when it rains, (b) an olive drab Army-Navy rain poncho, (c) the usual toiletries, (d) extra clean socks, underwear and T-shirts, (e) an extra pair of leather pants and a couple of clean shirts, (f) a nice little pillow, and (g) maybe a book or two (Herman Hesse‘s “Siddhartha”, Jack Kerouac‘s “Dharma Bums”, John Lennon‘s “In His Own Write”). Not a ton of gear but enough to fill a couple of pillow cases.
The rolled-up sleeping bag, tent and poncho could theoretically be tied to that vertical backrest on Wyatt’s American flag Harley. But where to stash the other stuff? Obviously you’d need a pair of fringe leather saddlebags, hanging off either side of the rear section. But of course, Wyatt has none. Look at the footage — sleeping bags aside, neither Wyatt nor Dennis Hopper‘s Billy (a scruffy, submental, cowboy-hat-wearing oaf) are packing a damn thing. Just the clothes they’re wearing.
And what kind of odorous bullshit is that? Unless they find a motel room that rents to hippies, within two or three days they’re going to stink to high heaven. Which wouldn’t go down too well with the New Mexico hippie chicks (Luana Anders, Sabrina Scharf) they pair up with. Not to mention the prosties (Karen Black, Toni Basil) they meet in that New Orleans cat house.
So why no saddlebags? Not realistic. Not even counter-culture bravehearts like to wear stinky, skidmark underwear or socks crawling with bacteria.
Half the appeal of Easy Rider is the title, which Terry Southern came up with. If Fonda and Hopper had stuck with The Loners, it wouldn’t have had that schwing.
Easy Rider still works pretty well, but without the great music tracks (“The Weight,” “If Six Was Nine”, “The Pusher”, “Born to be Wild”) it would have felt like a lot less. And Hopper’s performance, while certainly colorful, is hugely annoying. Billy is such a primitive, under-educated low-life.
The film was shot between early to mid ’68. Four-year-old Bridget Fonda (born on 1.27.64) can be glimpsed during the New Mexico commune segment.
What forms of prospective hell might be wrought by this threat of protectionist economic brutality? This declaration of retribution? This is rash, mad–kingstuff. What are the likely consequences? I’m asking.
An echo of Network s Arthur Jensen, thundering from the heavens: “You are threatening to meddle with the primal forces of nature, President Trump, and I won’t have it! Is that clear?
“An abrupt imposition of a 100% tariff on foreign-produced films and streaming content would not incentivize but brutalize…it would be punitive and authoritarian and therefore impose a radical disturbance of natural ebb and flow, of tidal gravity…of economic and ecological balance.”
THR’s Patrick Brzeski and Scott Roxborough are reporting that Trump’s threatened 100% tariff on foreign-produced features and streaming content is more or less the fault of Jon Voight, one of Trump’s Hollywood emissaries (along with Mel Gibson and SlyStallone).
Voight has taken several meetings, Brzeski and Roxborough have written, and has passed along a portrait of a besieged industry. Voight apparently hasn’t been urging tariffs, but with Bully Boy at the helm this is how it’s nonetheless shaking out.
I’d love to re-read “Indecent Exposure” on Kindle, but it doesn’t appear to be on Kindle…odd.
I did a phoner with David Begelman once, although I can’t recall what the topic was. It was sometime in the early ’90s, I think. I’ll never forget the theatrical charisma, the calculated smoothitude in his voice. That patented Begelman vibe, which arose out of many years of being an agent, was immediately soothing or at least placating…you felt you were talking to a very skilled salesman as well as a bon vivant.
The following excerpt is from Frank Langella‘s “Dropped Names” (2012). Quite the smoothie himself in his 20th Century heyday, Langella, a fellow Wiltonian, was represented by Begelman for a short period.
I needn’t remind that Langella gotintotrouble a while back for getting a tiny bit handsy with a female Millennial or Zoomer costar…”you touched my leg in a familiar fashion!!…eeeeeeee!”
Langella, now 87, is a skilled writer. “Dropped Names” is an easy and pleasurable read.
Straight from the director of AnotherSimpleFavor (which I’m reluctant to watch because of the high-attitude vibes of Blake Lively) and TheHousemaid (another “rich white males are inherently evil” flick, opening on 12.25)…”ya gotta make your film accessible to the none-too-brights.”
When Paul Feig, AnnieMumulo and Kristen Wiig’sBridesmaids opened almost exactly 14 years ago, it was widely believed that Feig was gifted with some kind of magical comedic touch. Then along came the calamity that was Ghostbusters (‘16).
Paycheck-wise the Feig brand is doing fine today, but he’ll never again be that Bridesmaids guy.
HEreply: If one could capture the subjective experience of Joe Biden over the last couple of years of his term…
Andy Griffith’s initially joyful or even imbued portrayal of Lonesome Rhodes in Elia Kazan’s AFaceintheCrowd (‘57).
In a certain light, Richard Burton’s performance as Thomas Becket in 1964’s Becket is an admiring portrait of a noble form of dementia.
The gradual falling away of practical, strategic, warts-and-all rationality on one hand, and on the other hand a gradual submission to a form of inner, self-deluding grandeur…the “holy” kind that we were all once taught to admire.
“Are you demented? You’re chancellor of England! You’re mine!” — Peter O’Toole’s Henry II to Burton’s Becket.
Otherwise Michael Haneke’s Amour, which I’ve always regarded as a kind of horror film, the kind that only a wife or a husband or a devoted caregiver can know on a daily, drip-drip basis.
I’ll admit that I’ve occasionally visited wikifeet.com because — yes, okay — I’m something of a foot guy, but I’m not fanatical about it.
It’s also a fact that if you’re searching around for casual portrait snaps of any actress or name-brand celebrity (anything informal or off-screen or between takes, and I mean as far back as the 1930s) there’s no website that has a bigger collection of candids than wikifeet.com.
Every famous glammy female over the last 90 years, it seems, has a library of at least 20 or 30 snap on this site, or more. It’s really quite the resource. Forget the foot aspect — it contains a gargantuan amount of photos, period.
Wiki excerpt: Wikifeet was founded in 2008 by Eli Ozer, an Israeli former computer programmer and animator who now runs the site full-time. According to an eight-year-old claim by Ozer, the site gets about 3 million views a month.
…why would you get engaged to a guy whose last name is Mezzenga?
In a recent episode of Love Is BlindSara Carton left Ben Mezzenga at the altar because his political values weren’t progressive enough, particularly regarding Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ+ rights and transies in particular.
Well, what did Sara expect from a guy whose last name ends with a vowel? I don’t mean to sound like a judgmental WASP asshole but isn’t that name at least a little bit of a red flag? Mezzenga sounds like the name of a mafia family out of Sicily. It almost rhymes with Johnny Carson‘s “Ungawa”, and absolutely rhymes with the last name of that older Cuban guy whom Al Pacino knifed to death in Scarface.
Carton is a blue-blood name (it’s almost Carlton!) and Mezzenga is an immigrant name…the last name of a bricklayer or a New Jersey sanitation guy or a goon who works for Lee J. Cobb‘s Johnny Friendly. Why didn’t she get engaged to a guy whose last name is Wilson or Hopkins or Grant or Weisleder or Weston?
I’ve just learned that the HE/World of Reel Cannes pad isn’t a one-bedroom deal (I was okay with sleeping on the couch) but a studio apartment…one room plus a bathroom!
Last year Jordan Ruimy and I stayed in my cherished rental in Old Town — 7 rue Jean Joseph Mero — where I’d bunked during the teens. Less than 5 minutes from the Palais. A Napoleonic era duplex with an upstairs bedroom, nice bathroom with a tub, downstairs living room with a bed, a nice little kitchen and an outdoor patio with a clothesline. We paid around 2000 euros for 10 or 11 days.
Two years ago we were in a sizable one-bedroom apartment that was way down at the tip of Palm Beach, or roughly a 25-minute hike from the Palais. But the rent was tolerable. The problem was that a sublet guy on the couch snored like a grizzly bear. (Hr was also the size of a grizzly.)
Now we’re paying 2500 euros for a one-room studio that looks like Robert Duvall‘s apartment in THX-1138. It’s located due north of the J.W. Marriott and two blocks north of the Voie Rapide — a 20-minute walk to the Palais. Magnifique, no?
HE to landlord: “Are you sure you’re charging enough? An 11-day stay in a one-room, one-bed studio located north of the Voie Rapide and straight out of THX-1138 should rent for $3K euros, no?”
My follow-up remarks: (a) “You’ll forgive my sarcasm.” (b) “I’m just surprised.” (c) “I guess I should be thankful that it has a bathroom.”
The Cannes greed factor has become more appalling than ever. I feel disgusted and humiliated. Places to stay during the Cannes Film Festival have never been a bargain. For two years I stayed in a little rat trap in Cannes la Bocca. I had to take buses and cabs every day. But the rental fees were always commensurate with the appeal of the place. Bottom line: The newbie is WAY too costly for what it is.
Okay, it’s a tolerable space situation — not much different than the alternate rue Jean Mero space (a studio) that we rented in ‘22. But that place, at least, was close to the Palais. The newbie is a hike — 20-plus minutes to the Palais.
Ruimy: “It’s not a ‘hike.’ Google Maps says it’s a 15-minute walk to the Palais.” HE: “15 minutes is okay. I just don’t think it is 15. Google Maps is very accurate on driving times, but I don’t trust their walk-time estimates.”
Landlord: “From the Cannes gare to the flat the walk is 20 to 25 minutes, but it takes only 13 if you know the shortcuts. Maybe less.”
…are so thick and identity-driven and so easily distracted by cheap bullshit that they wouldn’t even get the joke in this scene from Network. They wouldn’t even get it.
Plus they would attack this scene as racist because of their idea that Marlene Warfield and Arthur Burghardt‘s portrayals of Laureen Hobbs and The Great Ahmed Kahn as patronizing or buffoonish or otherwise unattractive.
“Greatest Rainstorms of My Life,” posted on 1.15.21: “Great gushing cloudbursts are few and far between in my neck of the woods. I’m not talking about simple drenchings, which happen every so often — I’m talking cats and dogs, the wild Parasite rainstorm, monsoon-level, The Rains of Ranchipur and how this never happens in WeHo.
“When you get right down to it I’ve experienced only five or six gully washers over the last 20 or 30 years, and almost all of them overseas. There was one serious soaking in Manhattan in the spring of ’81, when I was living on Bank Street. And a major cloudburst in Las Vegas back in the ’90s. But I wouldn’t describe either as super-exceptional.
“The greatest urban rainstorm happened in Paris in the summer of ’03. Dylan I were living on a hilly street in southwest Montmartre — 23 rue Tourlaque. It was coming down so hard that the gutters were swamped with charging rapids. And the cacophony (trillions of water bullets clattering on hundreds of clay-tile rooftops) was magnificent. And the crackling thunder before it started. The wrath of an angry Old Testament God from a Cecil B. DeMille film.
“The most exciting deluge in a forest primeval setting happened about 10 years later, in Vietnam. In a jungle-like area not far from the Mausoleum of Emperor Minh Mang, just south of Hue. We took shelter inside a kind of makeshift cafe — open air, plastic tables and chairs, a slanted wood-frame roof covered with palm fronds and banana leaves. The sheer energy of the downpour plus the overwhelming symphony of sound (half raging waterfall, half Noah’s Ark flood waters)…must have lasted a good 15 or 20 minutes.
23 rue Tourlaque, Paris.