I can handle cold temps in the 40s and 30s, but forget the 20s and don’t even mention the teens. And no wind, for God’s sake. Half the time I dream about living in Key West or, better yet, Cuba or Belize or Turks and Caicos. I hate windy cold.
Gaudy, Intravenous Feminist Trash
From Owen Gleiberman‘s obliging, carefully phrased review of Paul Feig‘s The Housemaid (Lionsgate, 12.19):
“The Housemaid [is] a movie of diabolical developments, and that’s what’s captivating about it. That, and Elizabeth Perkins’ droll performance as a mother-in-law from WASP hell, and the fact that in following the ins and outs that made the novel such a hit, the film creates an ideology of male-female relationships that’s at once timely, glibly mythological, and born to be milked by a Hollywood thriller.
“There’s a note of pop sadism at work in the material; The Housemaid features scenes of people terrorizing each other in violently gaudy ways. Yet the scenes don’t feel exploitative, because they express the characters’ drives, and the audience is hanging on the outcome. In the thick of awards season, when those of us in the media are busy nattering on about prestige films, this is the kind of stylishly tricky high-trash movie that can steal some of the limelight.
“Wealthy White Husband Is A Shithead….Shocker!“, posted on 3.22.25:
Indications are that Paul Feig‘s The Housemaid (Lionsgate, 12.19), based on Freida McFadden‘s three-year-old novel, a feminist potboiler that has since grown into a multi-book franchise, is going to be a bit of a groaner…perhaps even a forehead-slapper.
All feminist airport fiction is based upon a single premise, which is that the principal male character is a toxic piece of shit who has made his own bed and deserves all the bad karma that’s sure to come his way.
It certainly seems unlikely that Feig’s film will deliver the intrigue and complexity of Im Sang-soo‘s The Housemaid (’10), which I recall as being half-decent.
Both versions have vaguely similar plots with the husband banging (or at least looking to bang) the housemaid, and the wife freaking out and the usual blowback kicking in.
The Housemaid costars Sydney Sweeney as the titular character; Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar (the bearded, nice-guy suitor in It Ends With Us) are her wealthy employers.
Reiner’s Decade-Long Hot Streak
In the wake of Rob and Michele Reiner‘s horrifying murder last Saturday night, the emotional climate is such that I can’t post an honest career assessment piece about Rob without getting kicked, beaten and spat upon.
But from HE’s personal perspective Reiner certainly delivered four unqualified, adult-level, middle-class humdingers over a period of six years — When Harry Met Sally… (’89), Misery (’90), A Few Good Men (’92) and The American President (’95).
His peak period basically ran from the mid ’80s to the mid ’90s, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Reiner leapt upon a fast thoroughbred, and he just rode the whirlwind and grabbed a few brass rings and good on him for managing this hall-of-fame achievement.
This Is Spinal Tap (’84) was funny-nervy and a good break-out film. I found The Sure Thing (’85) shallow, formulaic, sophmoric. I hated Stand By Me (’86), and I never felt all that charmed by The Princess Bride (’87). The unbeatable trio (Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men) was glorious, and then along came the rank embarassment that was North (’94). Reiner rebounded with The American President, and then he lost the magic mojo and hung on with this and that middling feature over the next 30 years. Okay, The Bucket List (’07) wasn’t too bad.
More Shyamalan Than Spielberg
No TV weather woman would freeze up like this, and the news show floor techs wouldn’t just stand there like frozen zombies. Seized by some kind of invisible force and not knowing why or how or anything, Emily Blunt would do her best to pretend that everything’s okay. She would improvise a little blah-blah, air some bullshit, etc.
Where are the UFOs, and where’s Carlo Rimbaldi when we really need him?
The Courage To Act Without A Driver At The Wheel
Jessie Buckley: “It’s chaos. But that’s our job.”
Colin Farrell: “To be in the mess. To lean into the mystery.”
Buckley: “The more I do this, the more I realize the job is to become more human. Take your hands off the steering wheel. How do you…?”
Farrell: “Drive hands-free? Foot on the gas.”
Buckley: “Waymo.”
Farrell: “Every time I see one of those…oh my God. Well done, humans! There’ll be 50,000 drivers unemployed within the next two years. Well done.”
— from Variety‘s latest “Actors on Actors,” 10.16.25.
The “In The Bedroom” Solution
Sources have told People that Nick Reiner was allegedly acting erratically with guests at Conan O’Brien‘s Christmas party last Saturday night. Source: “Nick was freaking everyone out, acting crazy, kept asking people if they were famous.”
Us Weekly was told that the 32 year-old drug-susceptible asshole behaved “creepily” at O’Brien’s soiree, while a third insider told TMZ that Nick looked out of place at the party, wearing a hoodie when the dress code was formal.
And yet the prevailing view among comment-thread predators in yesterday’s “Odious Aftermath” discussion was that if an obviously disturbed youth is fated to kill his or her parents, it’s better for the parents to just say “okay, we accept this…bring it on”.
I was in a not-great, probably-going-nowhere place for a certain period in my early to mid 20s, but writing and journalism gradually lifted me out of that hole. Maybe a three-year period, give or take. Okay, call it four years. Hell, make it five.
I just barely crawled out of that attitude, that downward swirl kind of life, but while I was “under the weather” I could feel the weight of my vague gloom getting a bit worse each succeeding year.
Yes, I was drinking and drugging back then (pot, speed, Coors beer and Jack Daniels-and-ginger-ale were my constant companions, my beloved hermanos) but not — or so I’ve long told myself — to the point of any kind of insane self-destructive addiction. Thank God I had a certain inner decency or resolution of some kind within…some kind of fortunate spiritual inheritance, probably from my mother’s side of the family. Call it luck or God’s grace.
But to have lived in this kind of sinkhole for 17 years like Nick Reiner apparently has?….for more than half of a 32-year span of life? Forget it. You’re sunk. I’ve seen and felt that downhead vibe in others who never found their way out of the pit…some who just couldn’t turn things around and make something good or half-promising happen.
After 17 or so years of anguish Nick Reiner has finally found his catharsis. He’s murdered the people who brought him into this world and loved and nurtured him as best they could but ironically (or in Nick’s all-screwed-up head at least) never stopped making him feel depressed and enraged. He’s clearly a self-hater of epic proportions…a demonic figure.
Another Slip-On-The-Ice-and-Fall Episode…Spared!
Earlier today I slipped on a small patch of ice, my calves and ankles went flying and I came crashing down…whummp…whooof! But I bounced right back. No aching rib cage, no sprained wrists, no bruised elbows, no aching knees or snapped bones…nothing. My resilience amazes me, I’m branded on my feet, etc.
What saved me? I didn’t fall on hard frozen ground or asphalt or gravel or rocks, but upon a soft mound of snow.
I wasn’t so lucky in mid-February 2019 when I slipped and fell on an icy slope in the Sierras. Nothing was broken but my ribs ached like a sonuvabitch for a good two or three weeks.
“Tarsem Singh’s ‘The Fall‘”, posted on 1.19.13:
I experienced a bulletproof moment last night. Fairly amazing. I fell on some ice and came crashing down on my right elbow, and nothing happened. I got right up and kept walking. My glasses were destroyed but no aches or scrapes, no bruises, no morning-after stiffness, no Advils…nothing. I could have theoretically busted my arm. A great feeling.
It was vaguely akin to that Pulp Fiction moment when John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson are shot several times by a kid who bursts out of the bathroom and yet none of them are hit — all the bullet holes are in the wall behind them. This led Jackson to want to quit being a hitman and just “walk the earth” like Caine in Kung Fu, “meet all kinds of people, get into adventures.”
Odious Aftermath
Three information bullets about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, which happened either yesterday morning or afternoon (Sunday) or late Saturday night.
Bullet #1: Nick, the alleged murderer, was living in a guest home at his parents’ sprawling Brentwood estate. Bullet #2: On Saturday night (12.13) Rob, Nick and Michelle reportedly got into a howling argument at a Christmas party at Conan O’Brien‘s Amalfi Drive home. Although Rob and Michele left the gathering soon after the blowout, one presumes that whatever the fight was about (what kind of parents bring their troubled, volatile son to a lah-lah industry soiree?) it continued at their home. Bullet #3: Rob and Michele weren’t stabbed to death Julius Caesar-style, or at least not conclusively — apparently their lives ended due to their throats being slit.
A 32 year-old dude grappling with raging, sputtering anger and major drug issues for 16 or 17 years (over half his life, endless rehab stints) is almost certainly not going to heal or fix himself. The odds are obviously against it. Some people are so stricken or cursed or generally miserable there’s just no basis for hope.
This is Monday-morning quarterbacking, of course, but if I’d been in Reiner’s shoes and clairvoyant besides, I might have tried to figure some way to ease poor miserable Nick off this mortal coil. Gently. Compassionately. Kevorkian-style. I might be anrrested and prosecuted, but I would be totally at peace with what I did. Because I could at least have spared my beloved wife from being murdered by this vile fuck, not to mention myself.
The Eyes Never Lie
When you gain weight, grow a beard and shear your hair off, you’re saying something about your mental-emotional condition or world-view. Nothing good. Hollywood kids have it rough, so to speak. A crushing blessing-slash-burden.
Frothing At The Mouth
Talk about psychotic and deranged behavior…President Trump has posted that “anger” triggered by the elder Reiner’s intense, years-long criticism of Trump’s policies and impulsive style of governing was somehow a factor in his killing.
Variety ‘s Todd Spangler:
Grotesque, Shocking, Ghastly
Rob Reiner…good God. Murdered. Late Sunday afternoon the famed director, 78, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, 68, were found stabbed to death in their flush Brentwood home on South Chadbourne Ave. (south of Sunset).
Reiner’s 32 year-old son Nick, who co-wrote Being Charlie, a decade-old, well-intentioned family melodrama, directed by the elder Reiner and based on Nick’s own teenaged struggle with drugs and homelessness, has been identified as the assailant. Being Charlie premiered at TIFF in September ‘15. Nobody saw it, a critical bust. streaming on Fandango.
YouTube link…this is getting more and more surreal.
10:45 am Monday: Talk about psychotic and deranged behavior…President Trump has posted that “anger” triggered by the elder Reiner’s intense, years-long criticism of Trump’s policies and impulsive style of governing was somehow a factor in his killing.
Song Bird Up on Mulholland
Two full hours of digging into Shampoo with The Rewatchables‘ Bill Simmons and Sean Fennessey, joined by special guest visitor Cameron Crowe…excellent stuff.
A Cameron Crowe nugget (or “easter egg”, as he puts it) about the making of Shampoo, starting at 10:38: “Paul Simon was, like, the hottest guy around, at that time, as far as doing a song for a movie. So Warren Beatty was really looking for a song to end Shampoo with, but he’s also looking for a score from Paul Simon. I gather it was quite a dance to get the new song from Simon or the new score. But ultimately all Simon came up with was ‘doo-dah-dooo-yeaaahh-yeah-yeah”, which plays through the movie in every possible way. It’s very strange.
“So meanwhile, I guess, Beatty is dating or about to date Joni Mitchell, and he asks Joni for a song. And she writes a song called ‘Sweet Bird’, as in ‘Sweet Bird of Youth.’ And it kind of references the iconography of Beatty and Splender on the Grass….it’a seriously insightful song about the Beatty persona and the George Roundy character, and Beatty heard the song and he’s like ‘uhn-uh, nah-nah, no-no….great song but not great for this movie.
“And if you listen to the song, and think about what the power of a song would have been over the last scene, it’s not about the proverbial bumbling guy [whom Beatty was playing in Shampoo and whom he seemed to be actuality, socially and sexually and whatnot, back then]. The movie would have conveyed that this was a persona, under which was incredible insecurity and doubt, but Beatty was like ‘no, no…don’t need that song in the movie.’ I’d rather have Simon’s ‘doo-dee-dooooo.'”