Brushed Him Off His Shoulder Like A Piece of Lint

by

A day ago Drew McWeeny said in an HE comment thread that the notion about Bill Hader having ignited Nick Reiner’s rage is “fucking deranged”.

“It’s not deranged,” I replied. “Hader’s response to Nick’s ‘are you famous?’ taunt was one of curt dismissal. He basically meant ‘you’re obviously being hostile and I absolutely don’t want to talk to you, chubbypants, not to mention to anyone wearing a ridiculous hoodie outfit…piss off.’

“Hader, in short, gave Nick a brief reality bullet. The alleged fact that Nick took this badly — he reportedly responded with a silent Manson lamps glare that lasted several seconds — tells us that Hader had given him a taste of blunt real-world disdain, which is something that he almost certainly never got from his soft-touch parents. Hader’s dismissal was almost certainly triggering. A few hours later Nick exploded with homicidal rage.

“’Hader did it’ is too simplistic, of course, but he almost certainly agitated or ignited the demons in Nick’s head.

“For what it’s worth, if I had been at Conan’s and if Nick had asked me if I was famous, I would have said “that’s not a sincere question…it’s a provocation. And I’m not going to be provoked. Bother someone else.”

Totally Worth Reading

by

The basic message of Jacob Savage’s The Lost Generation is that DEI didn’t hurt while-male boomers or GenXers, but it really messed with the careers of white-male Millennial screenwriters, journalists and academics, to name but three professional categories.

Great quote: “It’s a lot better to actually know you’re about to get hit by car than to not know.”

HE to McCuddy: Sometimes Liking or Not Liking A Movie Character is Very Bourgeois

by

Bill McCuddy to HE: If the movie is all tap dancing and bullshitty, who do you even care for? It’s not a film — it’s a series of sketches about a very unlikeable guy. And you can calm down about O’Leary who is just playing himself.

HE to McCuddy: Have you seen Marty Supreme? It’s the bolt and the buzz and the sheer fuckoff-edness, but Chalamet is not channelling Don Logan….he’s not playing a malicious psychopath but a pushy, charming pogo stick…a user, taker, grifter and tap-dancer. (Who plays a great game of ping-pong.) He’s a crazy artist, an obsessive believer, a go-go guy on the make.

Life is struggle, y’see. And Marty isn’t just an irrepressible life-force — he’s a metaphor. We all have to claw, climb, hustle, push, goad, seduce, charm. All he needs to do is acquire kindness, a conscience, a sense of decency. Which he begins to do at the end.

Safdie, as noted, ignores the ’50s period trappings and atmosphere by using ’80s music on the soundtrack, but you know what he should’ve also used, and for the closing credits in particular? “Hungry,” that mid ’60s Paul Revere and the Raiders song. Because the lyrics sorta kinda sum up the Marty ethos or attitude. Not exactly but somewhat.

“Girl, you got this need to know what I’m all about
And that there’s something that you dig
You can’t figure out

“Well, you wanna know what moves my soul
And what ticks inside of my brain
Well, I’ve got this need, I just can’t control
And now it’s, it’s drivin’ me insane

“Girl, I’m gonna have it all someday
If you’ll just hang on to my hand
And if I break some rules along the way
Girl, you gotta understand

“It’s my way of gettin’ what I want now
‘Cause I’m hungry”

“Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity”

by

Rob Reiner to Conan O’Brien on 12.13 (two or three hours prior to the start of Conan’s Christmas party): “My son Nick is really whacked out now, Conan. So whacked that I’m spending tens of thousands each month to have him professionally watched and cared for, but he’s also seething and fuming all the time and I’m afraid that if Michele and I leave him home in order to come to your party this evening, he might…Jesus, maybe whack out and destroy something or maybe even burn our house down….who knows?

“So is it cool if we bring Nick with us? He might agitate a few guests and he won’t be dressed appropriately and he might even pull his dick out and urinate on the plants, but we’re afraid of leaving him alone. I love my son, Conan, but he’s a fucking nutbag. On top of which he’s an ape…6’3″ and kinda fat.”

Nick Reiner to Bill Hader at Conan’s party: “Are you famous?”

Hader to Nick Reiner: “This is a private conversation”, which translates into “get away from me, fat babycakes…you’re obviously trying to piss people off by asking hostile questions, and you’re obviously not worth talking to.”

Nick Reiner to self: “That’s it…I’m just been figuratively spat upon by one of my father’s famous friends. That makes me very angry, and I might…well, who knows but I might want to strike back…return the pain that’s just been injected into my system.”

Don’t Tell Me To Calm Down

by

I know what I saw. I know what I felt. I know what Marty Supreme is on the surface as well as deep down. It’s an all tap-dancing, all bullshitting, antsy, ping-pong-driven bop-shoo-wop hellzapoppin’. It’s the bolt and the buzz. It got me off in ways that never even occurred to Paul Thomas Anderson when he was making OBAA. It isn’t a “story” or a “saga” as much a nervy, insistent, wild-ass heebie-jeebie ride in a stolen (okay, borrowed) car. I LOVE the early (70-year-old) Scorsese New Yorky vibe. I love that Chalamet is more or less aping or paying sustained tribute to Robert DeNiro’s “Johnny Boy” in Mean Streets. I love the plunging bathtub scene. I love that it’s set in the early ‘50s and uses ‘80s pop music (Tears For Fears) on the soundtrack. I love that scrappy, raspy-voiced Abel Ferrara plays a stand-out supporting role. I love that Gwyneth Paltrow is the ground-zero, cut-the-bullshit, shower-sex center of it all. Kevin O’Leary totally owns and occupies the adversarial but at the same time flabbergasted role of Paltrow’s ornery pen millionaire hubby. I loved the mouthy, pushy, emotionally open-hearted Odessa A’zion. I loved the Central Park necklace-cops-and-cunnilingus scene. I need to see it again right away.

Slick, Stupid, Vile

by

The Housemaid (suffered through during dinner hour) is worse than I feared — phony, empty, ludicrous junk…stunningly hollow, reality-averse, filled with derangement…pure suburban schlock…wealthy-male-despising poison.

Capsule review by Kirk Douglas’ “Colonel Dax”: “Gentlemen of the court, there are times when I’m ashamed to be a member of the human race, and this is one such occasion.”

Divine Hyper Hustler Madness

by

I’ve only a half-hour before my dreaded 5:15 pm AMC Lincoln Square screening of The Housemaid (okay, 50 or 55 minutes if you count the disgusting shitbox trailers, which I’ve no intention of sitting through) but I recently emerged from a 1:30 pm showing of Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme and it’s way, way better, not just inventively and cinematically but in basic holy-shit-this-film-is-really-crazy terms, than One Battle After Another…way the fuck better! Not to mention at least 10 if not 15 times better than Uncut Gems — it’s a primal knockout thing.

It’s entirely driven by Timothee Chalamet’s amoral, selfish, thoughtless, greedy-as-fuck young guy (but greedy for juice, triumph, acclaim and glory rather than money) who’s a serious go-getter, prick, thief, pusher and hustler, not to mention a gifted ping-pong athlete…a guy who never stops and never hesitates…okay, he acquires a little character and a couple of twinges of self-doubt toward the end, but ladies and germs and all the ships at sea…this is world–class cinema!…an alive, contentious and heavy-chugging run-around and hop-around fever dream that never lets you know what’ll happen next.

Chalamet constantly, compulsively, deplorably and always half-charmingly lies, takes, deceives, uses, goads, wounds, gives head, impregnates, insults, boasts, bullshits…and it’s not about morality or “story” or even who wins the big climactic ping-pong match in Japan, this thing…well, it’s finally about shards of decency and morality toward the end, but Marty Supreme is primarily and gloriously about character…and that’s what’s exciting about it. Character, values (or lack of), choices. Coming aggressively from the gut.

Needless Takedown Attempt

by

Okay, so Kristen Stewart is no longer a box-office powerhouse, but that’s hardly a felonious offense. Now 35, she’s an indie-brand hyphenate — actress, director, outspoken cultural provocateur — who will undoubtedly…okay, probably keep plugging and choo-chooing for many decades hence. So what’s the problem? Critical Drinker’s critical-rant video doesn’t even mention The Chronology of Water. Or the forthcoming The Wrong Girls.