Technically Sopwith Camel‘s “Hello Hello” was released in January ’67, but it was written and recorded in ’66 so it’s fair to lump it in with the other two.

There’s something in this trio that feels shared, settled, planted. Not to mention low-key, contented, self-charmed. Obviously not ambitious or anxious; they don’t dig down or reach for anything deep or searing or crash-bang.

Keith’s one-hit wonder is a smooth, schmaltzy thing, and therefore a good contrast with the cool “whoo-whoo” contentment of “Mellow Yellow”. Okay, “Hello Hello” is a little dopey-sounding but I love the lead (only) vocal and the bridge.

What was it about ’66 that fed into this mood? I used to have a thing about being lightly stoned and not seriously ripped. That’s what these songs are about.

It was obviously unwise of ABC News on-air correspondent Terry Moran to have tweeted a widely shared observation about chief White House rattlesnake Stephen Miller. Alas, cowardly ABC execs, fearful of being on the bad side of the Trump administration, have zotzed his ass. They could have suspended him for a month without pay…something like that. But that would’ve required balls.

Legend has it that Sly Stone was totally absorbed in drug abuse when he appeared on Late Night with David Letterman (2.21.83). Impulsive behavior, arriving late to gigs or not even showing up, walking off. He never fixed the problem. But he was good-looking and lucid and performing pretty well that night so who knew?

I also loved Sly’s trumpet player, Cynthia Robinson (1955-2015), who really kicked it out on-stage. I really adored these two.

When federal tanks and troops are suppressing on the streets, a nation is clearly in decline…

Chris Cuomo: “[Troops against crazy lefties] is not a need….it’s a want on Trump’s part. This is a great look for him….the left is giving Trump what he wants.”

Skip past the blah-blah bullshit during the first five minutes,

C’mon, really…turn the other cheek and give it a shot when it opens in mid-July.

The just-popped Eddington trailer is above average, I’d say. It’s certainly effective as far as selling this strange, mildly interesting film is concerned. Ari Aster‘s latest is a horrific pandemic atmosphere downer dive, if you ask me. Dull horror sinkhole laced with political satire.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you it’s a dark comedy. It’s kind of a nihilist soporific…a glum attitude thing. Because if Joaquin Phoenix is starring in a film, it’s glum….trust me. But it’s quirky, at least. “Dull horror” refers to the milieu, not the execution.

[Posted on 5.25.25] All through Ari Aster‘s Eddington (A24, 7.18) I was saying to myself, “This is a smart and aggressive political satire of sorts…a crazy relationship-driven thing…a pronounced antagonism film but this small-town ‘western’ set in May 2020 is basically just a narrative version of the same X-treme left vs. X-treme right insanity that we’ve all been living with since the start of the pandemic, if not 2018 or ’19…

I appreciate the vigor and the pacing and the increasingly lunatic tone, but it’s a miss, I’m afraid…it’s just not happening…I’m not hating it or looking at my watch, but I’m not caught up in it either. I felt detached and distanced…I was in my seat and Eddington was up on the screen….different realms.

Until, that is, Eddington abandons all sense of restraint and it becomes The Wild Bunch on steroids.

Friendo to HE during the Cannes Film Festival (5.1625): “How was Eddington?”

HE: “It’s a very smart, increasingly intense, ultimately surreal reflection of the stark raving madness of the COVID years. If you remove the over-the-top violence of the last 45 or so, it’s basically a movie about the same polarizing rhetorical shit we’ve all been living with since 2020 (or, in my head at least, since 2018). JUST YOUR BASIC AMERICAN POLARIZED MADNESS. Take away the bullets and the brain matter and it reminded me of the comment threads from Hollywood Elsewhere over the last five or six years.”

One reason I didn’t fall for it or kind of resisted the vibe is that Joaquin Phoenix‘s performance as Joe Cross, the rightwing-ish, initally not-too-crazy, anti-mask sheriff of Eddington, New Mexico…Joaquin’s performance is fairly weak…it’s almost like he’s playing Napoleon again…I understood and had no argument with the arc of Cross’s journey and all, but I simply didn’t like hanging with the guy. There’s something flaccid and fumbling and inwardly uncertain about him. He’s not ‘entertaining’.

Pedro Pascal‘s performance as Ted Garcia, the sensibly-liberal mayor of Eddington, is much more grounded and appealing. Emma Stone is pretty much wasted.

Another reason I didn’t feel all that charmed or aroused is that Eddington doesn’t have any big keeper scenes or any dialogue that I would call signature-level in the manner of Scarface (“You fucked up too, Mel…The only thing in this world that gives orders is balls”) or Heat (“Because she’s got a….great ass!”) or Tony Gilroy‘s Devil’s Advocate (“He’s an absentee landlord!”)…

I’m not calling it a “bad” or ineffective film or anything, but it’s basically unexciting and kind of drab and sloppy and not much fun, really. And the chaos is…well, certainly predictable. It has some bizarre surreal humor at times, but mostly it’s a fastball thrown wide of the batter’s box.

The thing Eddington was selling never plugged in, never spoke to me beyond the obvious. It’s all about X-treme left bonker types vs. gun-toting, righty-right over-reactions. Okay, I felt taken when it became a bloody bullet ballet during the third act.

For five and a half years U.S. distributors have been terrified of the mere thought of releasing (even on a streaming-only basis) Roman Polanski’s utterly brilliant An Officer and a Spy (aka J’Accuse), his Grand Prix-winning Belle Epoque drama about the heinous Alfred Dreyfus case.

Distribs feared running afoul of #MeToo activists who might have made a lot of noise about Polanski’s sullied reputation due to two or three allegations of sexual assault in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

On 4.2.20, a rep from Playtime, the film’s French distributor and rights holder, explained the Officer and a Spy situation as follows (his English being a bit lumpy):

Well, somehow or in some way a brave soldier or two has managed to arrange a two–week booking of this 2019 masterpiece at Manhattan’s Film Forum, starting on August 8th.

Although I’ve seen An Officer and a Spy three times (I own an English-subtitled Russian Bluray version), I will nonetheless proudly and excitedly attend one of the Film Forum showings, and perhaps even a second. This is a very big deal for me.

And what about select smarthouse bookings in other major cities? And a down-the-road streaming release? And a Bluray?

An Officer and a Spy is gloriously assembled and altogether glowing with genius — a perfectly realized, sharply written capturing of institutional, anti-Semitic Belle Epoque mobthink, not to mention an exquisitely composed timepiece revisiting of a bygone era, and a film that wholly respects the intelligence of (some) viewers. It is easily among the finest films of the 21st Century.

And the subtly shaded, steady-at-the-helm lead performance by Jean Dujardin is masterful — perhaps his all-time finest.

People of some experience with a semblance of wisdom understand that artists (yes, Polanski was apparently or at least to some minor extent a selfish sexual beast in the ‘70s and ‘80s) and the art they produce belong in two separate boxes. In the realm of cinema you can’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Great cinematic art is too rare of a commodity to be treated politically, carelessly or callously.