Post images without comment and hope for the best.

What forms of prospective hell might be wrought by this threat of protectionist economic brutality? This declaration of retribution? This is rash, mad–king stuff. 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 Sly Stallone).

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’ll never forget the delicious, almost adrenalized thrill I got out of reading “David McLintick‘s “Indecent Exposure: A True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street“, which was published 43 years ago…talk about a wayback machine.

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 got into trouble 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.

(a) “Tiffany hardware…a symbol of love’s transformative strength” or (b) “That’s becawwz yuh son’s a fuckin’ pussy”?

Straight from the director of Another Simple Favor (which I’m reluctant to watch because of the high-attitude vibes of Blake Lively) and The Housemaid (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, Annie Mumulo and Kristen Wiig’s Bridesmaids 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.

HE reply: 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 A Face in the Crowd (‘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 recall Keanu Reeves’ Siddartha sitting in the lotus position and offering a decent impression of a man experiencing satori. (I’ve known satori by way of LSD so don’t tell me.) But that’s all. I don’t recall the little blonde kid or Bridget Fonda or Chris Isaak…total blank. Due respect to the late Bernardo Bertolucci but Little Buddha played dodgeball with my perceptions.

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:

Talk about your powerhouse second-bananas! In one 1957 western just about every formidable mid ‘50s character actor appeared — Lyle Bettger, Frank Faylen (Dobie Gillis), Earl Holliman (“Where is Everybody?”), Dennis Hopper (Giant) Whit Bissell (foot and mouth disease guy in Hud), Martin Milner (Route 66), Kenneth Tobey (The Thing), Lee van Cleef (High Noon), Jack Elam…who didn’t they hire?

I was actually planning to post this yesterday (4.29) but odd thoughts and incidental crap interfered.