From Maureen Dowd’s 2.11 N.Y.Times column, “Trump’s Gold Lining”: “Donald Trump has indeed already made some of America Great Again. Just not the aspects he intended. He has breathed new zest into a wide range of things: feminism, liberalism, student activism, newspapers, cable news, protesters, bartenders, shrinks, Twitter, the A.C.L.U., S.N.L., town halls, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Hannah Arendt, Stephen Colbert, Nordstrom, the Federalist Papers, separation of powers, division of church and state, athletes and coaches taking political stands and Frederick Douglass.

“As Trump blusters about repealing Obamacare, many Americans have come to appreciate the benefits of the law more. Lena Dunham credited the ‘soul-crushing pain and devastation and hopelessness‘ of Trump with helping her get a svelte new figure. Trump may even have pierced the millennial malaise, as we see more millennials showing interest in running for office.

“Every time our daft new president tweets about the ‘failing’ New York Times, our digital subscriptions and stock price jump, driven by readers eager for help negotiating the disorienting Trumpeana Oceana Upside Down dimension rife with gaslighting, trolling, leaking, lying and conflicts.

“Similarly, whenever Trump rants about Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of him and tweets that Saturday Night Live is ‘not funny,’ ‘always a complete hit job’ and ‘really bad television!,’ the show’s ratings go up. They’re now at a 20-year high.

In addition to the reported disappearances and deaths of Sergei Mikhailov, Ruslan Stoyanov and Oleg Erovinkin, which I summarized in a 1.29 post, I’m wondering about the fates of the poor Russian prostitutes who may or may not have performed a urination show for Donald Trump four years ago in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. I don’t know if any of this is true, but if it happened and the Russians do have a Trump pee-pee tape, those poor women have probably been “disappeared.” If you were Vladimir Putin and you wanted the alleged pee-pee episodes kept under wraps, wouldn’t you order the murder of the women involved, just to be safe?

What a drag it was last night to catch a 10 pm screening of John Wick, Chapter 2 at the Fiesta plex.  Me and roughly 25 or 30 wage-earning lowlifes. Baggy pants, hoodies, etc. “What a way to live and think!”, I muttered as I sank into my seat. With all the wonder and excitement of life outside, we few have chosen to watch a shitty Keanu Reeves action flick in a crummy megaplex on a rainy Friday night…welcome to the dungeon!

I was half-okay with the original John Wick but this thing…God. There’s a cool, efficient way to assemble programmers of this sort, but the evidence suggests that director Chad Stahelski, a former stunt man, and screenwriter Derek Kolstad just don’t have the skill or the smarts to improve upon the 2014 start-up. There’s a vapor cloud of stupidity hanging over the film at every turn. The fairly applied adjectives include “dull, poorly written, lazily acted, predictably plotted,” etc.

Reeves brings nothing spry or special to his performance — his line readings make Clint Eastwood‘s Dirty Harry inflections seem almost on the level of Alec Guinness performance in Smiley’s People, and his eyes are dark and dead. Even the minimally talented Jason Statham is better at this sort of thing.

The big villain in Anthony and Joe Russo‘s Avengers: Infinity War (Marvel/Disney, 5.4.18) is an enraged purple-hued ayehole named Thanos (Josh Brolin). Marvel honcho Kevin Feige has described Thanos as “the biggest, the best, and the baddest villain we ever had, and the most frightening villain the Avengers have ever faced.” That is just horseshit — every snarly superpowered villain in every superhero movie ever made has been designed to be the most vicious and terrible ever, and at the end of the day there are only so many feet in a roll of rope. Nobody gives a shit — it’s the same old dance, the same old scheme and we’ve got so many dues to pay. Infinity War is being touted as the culmination of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, which began with the original Iron Man (’08). In a pig’s eye — one way or another Feige will dream up something bigger, grander, more awesome and holy-shitty (at least in his own eyes).

The anti-Trump Resistance is the new Tea Party, only from the left…right? But to hear it from Piers Morgan, the wisest way for progressive lefties to play their cards is to calm down, accept Trump policies (revival of Jim Crow racism, pro-fossil fuel, homophobia, anti-immigrant instincts, hooray for Putin), somberly acknowledge the fact that Donald Trump managed an electoral (if not a nationwide vote-count) majority and speak only when called upon after raising their hands. That’s Australian comedian Jim Jefferies ripping into Morgan and flipping the bird.

Tupac Shakur, who lived to the ripe old age of 25, has finally biopic-ed, and it seems as if fate and/or circumstance caused the filmmakers to wait until Tupac dead-ringer Demetrius Shipp Jr. came along. Directed by music video maestro Benny Boom, this could be the next Straight Outta Compton….maybe. Pic will be released on Friday, 6.16 — Tupac’s birthday.

CNN reported today that US investigators have corroborated some of the communications detailed in Christopher Steele’s 35-page dossier on Donald Trump. No, not the hooker pee-pee stuff, but “intercepted conversations” have proven that “some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier, according to the officials [who spoke to CNN].” As portions of Steele’s information have been confirmed as rock solid, this suggests that where there’s smoke, there might be hooker pee-pee.

Two or three hours ago Michelle Johnson, who peaked 33 years ago with her bodacious tata performance in Stanley Donen‘s Blame It On Rio, lamented on Facebook that she’s been unfriended for being an apparent Trump supporter. As well she should be, in my humble view.

“Let me be clear [that] I have one support in my heart, and that is [for] God!,” Johnson explained. “Now if you are against God then okay, you will not know my heart, but I will still love you…for someone to actually say to me ‘we can’t be friends because you support Trump’ is ludicrous to me! We live on the same planet. Let’s find a way to make this work with love in our hearts…I say that without mush…xoxoxo.”

In other words, as Johnson didn’t refute suspicions that she’s a Trump girl, she’s become a kind of political Satan-worshipper, or at the very least an apparent devotee of the closest thing we’ve ever had in American political life to an Antichrist figure — fuming toddler, orange tyrant, destroyer of worlds.

Wells reply to Johnson: “Christian beliefs = likely rightwing ideology = probable Trump supporter. That’s the usual nine-times-out-of-ten equation. I despise rightwing Christians to begin with, and so would Yeshua of Nazareth if he were to return. Donald Trump is the closest thing we’ve had to an Antichrist and you, a woman who touched my heart and, yes, stirred my loins in Blame It On Rio, have evolved into an arch-conservative Bible thumper and Trump wink-winker? Seriously?”

Johnson replied with two statements: (a) “I agree” and (b) “I am…. we can ALL say that!” To which I responded, “You agree about what? ‘We can all say that’….meaning what?” Johnson didn’t reply. A voice is telling me this is probably mostly due to an insufficient brain cell count.

No more Santa Barbara Film Festival tributes — last night’s Jeff Bridges celebration was the last. Today and tomorrow are for screenings, walk-arounds, bike rides, naps, a dinner or two and the usual daily column filings. I’ll be driving back to Los Angeles late Sunday morning, but with no particular haste or aggression.

The legendary Jeff Bridges, honored last night by SBIFF, with Hell or High Water costar Gil Birmingham during tribute finale.

SBIFF exec director Roger Durling and dedicated volunteer Helen Cornell, who began donating her time to the festival 32 years ago (i.e., ’85).