On last night’s Real Time with Bill Maher, British activist and former Islamist Maajid Nawaz, whom Maher described as the founder of the “world’s first counter-extremism think tank”, showed up to chat. Nawaz estimated that 23,000 jihadists live in Britain along with 60K-something Islamists, whom Nawaz described as supportive of Jihadism but unwilling to drive cars into crowds of London pedestrians or, you know, blow themselves up or whatever. Again — 23,000 Jihadist nutters in England. I would be disturbed if that number was 2300.

Filed by Vanity Fair‘s Richard Lawson on 9.16.16: “Holly Hunter stars as an administrator at a southern university who, still mourning her son seven years after his death, sets off on something of a fact-finding mission to discover what exactly happened to him the night that he died, and how his grad-school business plan for a hot-dog restaurant (yup) ended up in the hands of a school friend, who’s now a successful hot-dog entrepreneur.

“Strange Weather is overwritten, with characters speaking in a stilted, presentational style oddly reminiscent of early Dawson’s Creek. But when it’s good, the script has an admirable frankness — it’s refreshingly not coy about its emotions and intents.

“Hunter is earthy and immediate as a mother whose grief has hardened into a paralyzing, everyday anger — often masked by good cheer and a cigarette, but suddenly erupting out of her with the arrival of new information. Hunter’s road-trip pal is the terrific Carrie Coon, and the two have a lively rapport, particularly in one long, bruising scene in which some old secrets are laid bare. Strange Weather maintains its mellow, southern-slowed vibe even through the most emotional stuff, but by the end the film has crept up and delivered a sudden, unexpected punch.”

Why pay to see a film theatrically when you own a first-rate Bluray of same? Or when an HD version is easily streamable? I’ll tell you why. I don’t know why. Okay, to get out of the house. And, I suppose, to savor well-amplified music. In the case of Franc Roddam‘s Quadrophenia, which is showing this evening at the Aero, that would be The Who’s “Quadrophenia” album. Which I saw performed by the actual Who, Keith Moon and all, at the L.A. Forum on 11.23.73.

The ultimate reason is that Quadrophenia, a 1979 release that uses the 1964 Mod vs. Rocker mania as a backdrop, is an unqualified masterpiece. Call me eccentric, but every now and then I feel obliged to pay respect to such films by watching them from the fifth or sixth row with a container of salted popcorn.

“I’ve said this two or three times, but the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve come to realize that this film — loosely based on the Who rock opera and basically the story of Jimmy Cooper (Phil Daniels) and his identity, friendship and girlfriend issues — belongs in the near-great category. Hands down it delivers one of the craziest, most live-wire recreations of mad generational fervor and ’60s mayhem.” — from a 6.17.12 HE posting.

Excerpts from “Quadrophenia: Jimmy vs. World” by Howard Hampton:

“Quadrophenia is the closest thing England has produced to its own Mean Streets, but its most invigorating aspect is the way it systematically upends expectations. It shares Mean Streets’ dedication to emotional veracity, but its midsixties streets are meaner, more inhospitable — far from the sensual precincts of Little Italy (and from the madding elites of Swinging London). Period songs aren’t given Scorsese’s seductive, exhilarating sheen; these kids aren’t all right, and they’re too wired on pills to really take pleasure in anything but human-pinball aggression.

“Using the Who’s heavyweight score primarily in flashes and spurts, for aural color or outbursts of blocked feeling, the film subtly distances itself from its own soundtrack, holding the music at a certain remove.

All day yesterday I was looking at this video of a happy, groovin’ gorilla — twirling around in a small pool, spirits flying, ecstatic splasharoonie. But on Twitter I kept reading what a terrible thing this was, how the poor beast had been humiliated, that his dignity had been robbed by 21st Century asshats whose default attitude is to regard him as some kind of clown. The people lamenting this were sensitive animal-lover types, whom I’ve always felt a strong kinship with. But c’mon, man…this guy is obviously having a good time. Either animal-rights guys are SJWs who don’t know joy when they see it, or they do recognize it and feel an instinctual revulsion.

A rambling report about the firing of Han Solo spinoff helmers Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, posted yesterday (6.22) on Starwarsnewsnet.com, basically says that concerns about Lord and Miller’s “screwball comedy” approach were first voiced by none other than Han Solo himself — i.e., the beady-eyed, relentlessly sullen Alden Ehrenreich. Rather than summarize this epic-lengthed saga, I’ll just post excerpts with the snow boiled out:

Excerpt #1: “Several weeks into production, there were concerns that in spite of the good work that Lord & Miller were doing with their movie, something was decidedly off about the way that their signature approach was taking the project, and that the bickering between them and the powers that be (i.e., Kathy Kennedy, Lawrence Kasdan) continued off and on. But the first person who [expressed concern] about these worries wasn’t Kasdan or Kennedy. It was fucking Ehrenreich.” [HE explanation: The last four words were written entirely by me — I just liked the way they sounded.]

Alden Ehrenreich, allegedly the guy who first voiced concerns about Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s screwball approach to the Han Solo spinoff flick.

Excerpt #2: “Ehrenreich…started to worry that Lord & Miller’s screwball comedy angle was starting to interfere with what the character of Han Solo is really about, [given that Lord and Miller’s Solo] was a younger, more reckless take on the character than the one we met in that Cantina on Tatooine. One source described it as being oddly comparable to Jim Carrey’s performance in Ace Ventura at times. Ehrenreich let his concerns be known to one of the producers, who then told Kennedy about it, which led to her decision to look over the existing footage.”

Excerpt #3: “People close to the project have positively described…several isolated scenes [directed by Lord and Miller]. However, once an assembly cut actually started to come together, Kennedy and Kasdan — as well as the other people reporting to them — started to get deeply concerned. There was something of a ‘zany’ tone to more scenes than they would have liked — in part due to some of the improv — and I get the feeling that fans might take more of an issue with this than they would have if the film had been left unfixed.

Excerpt #4: “At some point in production, some kind of hiatus took place, and this is where they reviewed the footage and told Lord & Miller that they’d need to overhaul the movie with reshoots when they worked on it later. Lord & Miller…were pretty rebellious [about this], their response being an ultimatum — i.e., either let us handle the reshoots our way or we’re out. And [so] they were shown the door.”

The Papers is the official title of Steven Spielberg‘s currently shooting Oscar-bait film that will pop on 12.22.17 via 20th Century Fox. Working from a script by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, the drama is about how Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) and editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) grappled with a decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in June 1971.

Tom Hanks as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, Meryl Streep as Post editor Katherine Graham in Steven Spielberg’s The Papers.

One question: Has anyone ever heard or read of the Pentagon Papers being casually referred to “the papers” by anyone, ever? I haven’t. When I first saw the updated Wiki page I thought of Jimmy Two-Times in Goodfellas saying “I’m gonna get the papers, get the papers.”

I reviewed Hannah’s solo-authored script (which was called The Post) on 3.17.17. I said it was about how Graham, who initially saw herself as less than ideally suited to the task and was little more than a blandly embedded figure in Washington social circles, gradually grew some courage and a sense of journalistic purpose during the Pentagon Papers episode, which transpired over a 17-day period in June 1971.”

Ron Howard will reportedly begin directing the remainder of the Han Solo spinoff flick on July 10th in the wake of Kathy Kennedy‘s firing of original directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, who had overseen roughly two-thirds (more?) of the planned photography.

How will the final directing credits be worked out? “Directed by Ron Howard, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller“? “Directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller with some last-minute finessing by Ron Howard“? “Directed by Ron Howard — Initial, Tonally Unsatisfying Footage Captured by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller“?

It seems to me that Howard should just come in like a pro, finish the job and forget about any credit. It would be beneath him to say “those other guys didn’t get along with Kathy so I want credit for bringing this film home.” Howard is a highly respected, first-rate director who doesn’t need to grab any credit when in fact he’s been brought in as a high-class janitor — a clean-up guy. 

Remember Dustin Hoffman taking Robert Redford‘s copy and “polishing” it in All The President’s Men? Roughly the same deal here. 

Perhaps some reshoots will happen, but the fact remains that most of the shooting has already happened, and the scenes that have been shot can only be edited or finessed in certain ways. Right?

Woody Allen on Donald Trump, quoted by Screen Daily: “I still don’t know why he wanted the job. I never felt it was up his alley. It never occurred to me that he would win the presidency or that he was even interested in politics. There was never any hint of that.” Wells to Allen: He wanted the job in order to commercially re-vitalize or reinvigorate the Trump brand, which had never fully recovered from the stigma of four bankruptcies.

Most of Edgar Wright‘s Baby Driver (TriStar, 6.28) is inspired — one of the most strikingly conceived, purely enjoyable fast-car crime flicks I’ve ever seen. With Ansel Elgort as a Ryan Gosling-level getaway driver who needs the right kind of song playing in his ear buds in order to make it all come together, Baby Driver is essentially a kind of action musical — cray-cray car chases and ferocious gunplay synchronized with the sounds and vice versa. To some extent it reminded me of Drive, and at times of Thief, Gone In Sixty Seconds, Bullitt….that line of country.

The four or five car chases in the film are exhilarating nutso stuff, but at the same time the action is undisciplined and show-offy and actually quite mad — Wright going for the gusto without regard to probability or (that horrid word) reality, but at the same time delivering the best squealing-rubber thrills since Gosling and Nicholas Winding Refn pooled forces, and absolutely leaving the bullshit fantasy realm of the Furious franchise in the dust.

But then Wright decides to send Baby Driver flying off the freeway around…oh, the 90-minute mark. And the last 15 or so minutes are flat-out insane and then infuriating. I was sitting there with my face contorted as I silently screamed, “What the fuck are you doing?…you fucking asshole! You really had something going there, but now you’re ruining the movie…you’re making it into some kind of bullshit Vin Diesel cum milkshake with a pop-fantasy ending made of dingleberries and drooling saliva. Why? Do you have a creative death wish?”

HE to director friend this morning: “I just saw Baby Driver last night….a wowser, near-great action musical for the first 80% or 85% followed by a ridiculously absurd, overly violent, catastrophically stupid finale that all but destroys the current and the vibe. A friend said ‘the wheels come off at the end‘ but they come off because Wright got under the car and loosened the lug nuts. Rarely have I seen a popcorn film as inspired and well-made as Baby Driver just blow itself up and shatter into pieces at the very end…a shame and a tragedy.”

I am nonetheless recommending Baby Driver for those first 90 or so minutes. But at the same time I’m telling you that any critic who’s written a gushing pass without mentioning that it destroys itself over the last 15 minutes or so…anyone who ignores this DEAD OBVIOUS FACT is a lying, jizz-whizzing whore who can never be fully trusted ever again.

Five weeks ago I raved about the first trailer for Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris‘s Battle of the Sexes (Fox Searchlight, 9.22), and particularly a hunch that Steve Carrell‘s performance as tennis blowhard Bobby Riggs “is going to get most of the award-season action” with Emma Stone having won a Best Actress Oscar earlier this year. This was met with instant derision by the comment thread know-it-alls. (“No Oscar nom…Carrell in Anchorman mode…better in The Big Short,” etc.) This new trailer highlights another strong contributor — screenwriter Simon Beaufoy. If you can’t sense from the trailer that Battle of the Sexes is well written, you can at least presume that the top-notch quality of Beaufoy’s previous screenplays will manifest again — The Full Monty, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Everest, etc.

I’ve always loved this photo of WNBC newsman Gabe Pressman listening to the Beatles during their first-ever U.S. press conference, minutes after they landed at JFK airport on 2.7.64. Here, in a nutshell, is the great hair gulf between generations — the 39 year-old Pressman, a WWII veteran and very much a Brylcream man, pondering a new wave of longish, non-Brylcreamed hair as the world turns and a new chapter begins. Anyone who grew up in the tri-state area in the ’60s and ’70s remembers Pressman — hard-nut TV street reporter, always with the mike, more than 60 years on the beat. He began in the mid ’50s and never retired. Wiki excerpt: “Until the very end, Pressman worked part-time at WNBC, mostly as a blog writer about New York City news on the station’s website. He was [also] active on Twitter. In 2014, he stated that an arthritic knee kept him from chasing stories like he used to. A few months before his death, Pressman covered the annual Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in New York.”

I just got an auto-response email that says “I am currently out of the office with no access to emails.” I get the message — “please converse with my associates while I re-charge” — but if it were me, I would say the following: “Of course, naturally, I’m receiving your emails. I’m not dead or in a coma or hibernating in a deep, dark cave or stranded on a Himalayan mountain peak or camel-ing across the Jordanian desert. I’m hearing you, reading you. I’m just doing that soul-nourishing, plant-watering thing that we all need to do from time to time. No biggie. Talk to you soon.”