There are three 20somethings bantering on my Fairfield-bound train.  They won’t stop giggling at almost every remark, and after a while you can’t ignore them any more.  You have to look up, give them a stink-eye and telepathically ask “what is fucking  wrong with you?” Some people have the serenity and the character to just listen and respond to others according to the funny-tude or intrigue levels or wisdom being shared.  If a laugh or a howl or a chortle is warranted, fine.  But when every other damn sentence is hyuck–hyuck hilarious, it’s an indication of a kind of social neurosis. I’m telling you it’s fucking exhausting to listen to these giggly dogs (two dudes and a girl).  I just zapped them with another stink-eye beam — ignored.  I just want you to hurt like I do.

Not to get all icky but some of us self-identify as female foot fans, and I thought I’d put this out there. Every woman on the face of the planet walks around in sandals during the summer but a very tiny fraction have feet that you could honestly describe as seriously arousing, astonishing or wowser. Most, I would say without malice, seem unfortunately shaped in one way or another. This is not “a problem” but it is, to be candid, a fact. Rather than sound all pervy by describing great-looking feet, here’s a shot that a girl I was friendly with four or five years ago sent me once. Her own, taken by herself. I’m sorry but this — this — is what world-class feet look like. Lean, trim, athletic with a perfect pedicure. Big toe not too long, little toe not too small.

Keep in mind that the “whee” in former Congressman Anthony Weiner‘s last name is spelled “wei” while Todd Solondz‘s just-opened black comedy, in line with the original German spelling of wienerschnitzel, goes with “ie.” Has anyone seen the Solondz? Were there any older women going “awwww” when the dachsund was on-screen? If so, what was their reaction to the finale? From my Sundance reaction: Todd Solondz‘s Weiner Dog is “a morose and depressive slog about a dachsund passing from owner to owner and bearing the sins of mankind. I’ve always hated Solondz and his dweeby, depressive attitude and particularly his attachment to depressive losers, so it was no surprise when I began hating this film early on. It was agony sitting through to the end, which I was determined to do no matter what. It’s about futility, fuck it, banality, depression, ennui, emptiness, death, Down Syndrome and cancer.”

Every time someone I like grows a moustache, something inside me dies a little. Or succumbs to a bad mood. When you grow a moustache, it’s like you’ve switched sides. Sign here on the dotted line…congrats, you look like a putz. Decades ago people believed that a moustache gave you a rakishly sexy vibe. That idea began, I suppose, when Clark Gable grew a pencil-line ‘stache in the mid ’30s. It peaked with Robert Redford‘s bushy squirrel in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It began to wither, I’ve come to believe, with the appearance of William Hurt‘s upper-lip growth in Body Heat. Example: I found Kirk Douglas‘s The Bad and the Beautiful character charismatic until he grew a moustache in Act Three. I could mention other instances. Just don’t grow the damn things.

A day or two ago Variety‘s Kris Tapley and Jenelle Riley posted a piece called “22 Deserving Oscar Contenders from the First Half of 2016.” I haven’t seen some of the films discussed. No excuses — I just didn’t or haven’t yet. But I feel highly enthused about two of their suggestions — Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s Weiner for Best Feature Doc (I’m ignoring the Best Picture idea) and Ralph Fiennes‘ giddy, motor-mouth performance in A Bigger Splash.

Kris and Jenelle don’t appear to be seriously suggesting that the others might actually score a nomination in their categories. They seem to be mostly saying “hey, at least keep some of these in mind for a Spirit Award.” Fine, but where they got the idea that Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman merit acting nominations for their performances in 10 Cloverfield Lane…fuhgedaboutit.

Best Picture: Kriegman and Steinberg’s Weiner. HE response: For a half-second I thought Tapley and Riley were cranked about Todd Solondz‘s Weiner Dog…whoaahhh! Kriegman and Steinberg’s doc about how “Carlos Danger” destroyed the career of former Rep. Anthony Weiner is a fascinating, appalling, sometimes amusing thing to sink into. On the other hand it’s about the suffocation of a guy’s life, an execution by media and twitter dogs, and who can laugh at this level of carnage? All the guy did was make an ass of himself online — no affair, no sexual harassment, no cruelty, just stupidity. But that’s all it takes.

Best Director: Jeremy Saulnier, Green Room. HE response: Uhhmm…haven’t seen it.

Best Actor: Ethan Hawke, Born to Be Blue. HE response: Missed it at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, haven’t had a chance since. Miles Ahead, another jazz biopic with a darkish tone, is already out on Bluray while Born To Be Blue, which is more or less a portrait of the late Chet Baker, is only on DVD plus it’s not streaming on Amazon or Vudu. Why?

Best Actress: Susan Sarandon, The Meddler. HE response: Missed this also. At least it’s streaming. Tapley-Riley are claiming Sarandon’s performance “is one of the most accurate portrayals of grief seen on film in recent years.” Bill Maher said it made him choke up. Sorry for the dereliction.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, Michael Herr, whose legendary 1977 novel “Dispatches” will always be the definitive grunt’s-eye, bong-hit chronicle of the Vietnam War — an Elements of Style-defying, darkly poetic, run-of-the-brain masterpiece — died Thursday at an upstate New York hospital, which may have been near his home in Delhi, where he lived for years. I was writing, packing and flying to New York that day (i.e., yesterday) so yeah, I was buried but I still feel a little badly that I didn’t catch the news until tonight. Michael Herr was the King of literary Vietnam, a guy who brought the shit home like no one had ever dared or imagined, who rock-and-rollicized the nightmare and the murdering and the war highs. To me Herr was also the guy who sculpted much of Martin Sheen‘s voiceover narration for Apocalypse Now, although who knows who wrote what on that film? He also did some pinch-hitting on Full Metal Jacket. Herr was 76.

“‘Quakin’ and shakin’, they called it, great balls of fire, contact. Then it was you and the ground: kiss it, eat it, fuck it, plow it through with your whole body, get as close to it as you can without being in it or of it, guess who’s flying around about an inch above your head? Pucker and submit, it’s the ground. Under Fire would take you out of your head and your body too. Amazing, unbelievable, guys who’d played a lot of hard sports said they’d never felt anything like it, the sudden drop and rocket rush of the hit, the reserves of adrenalin you could make available to yourself, pumping it up and putting it out until you were lost floating in it, not afraid, almost open to clear, orgasmic death-by-drowning in it, actually relaxed.

“Unless of course you’d shit your pants or were screaming or praying or giving anything at all to the hundred-channel panic that blew word salad all around you and sometimes clean through you. Maybe you couldn’t love the war and hate it at the same instant, but sometimes those feelings alternated so rapidly that they spun together in a strobic wheel rolling all the way up until you were literally High On War, like it said on all the helmet covers. Coming off a jag like that could really make a mess out of you.” — page 63 of a dog-eared 1978 paperback version of Michael Herr‘s “Dispatches.” — “Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam, We’ve All Been There,” posted 12.29.15.

A friend wrote this morning to remind me that Phillip Roth‘s “American Pastoral” (’97) is “a true masterpiece.” Which is neither here nor there as far as Ewan McGregor’s upcoming film version (Lionsgate, 10.21) is concerned. But the trailer is intriguing. It has me thinking that maybe, just maybe, the film might amount to something. It’s always prudent to adopt a “wait and see” attitude with a first-time director, but every so often a form of beginner’s luck can occur.

The plot is about parental anguish and ’60s terrorism; the theme has something to do with the fact that people (including your best friends and family members) can be obstinate, incomprehensible and disloyal.

Phillip Noyce (Rabbit Proof Fence, The Quiet American, Clear and Present Danger) began developing a script of American Pastoral with writer John Romano in ’03, and he tried to get it made for over a decade. Two years ago Noyce was hired by Lionsgate to direct a film adaptation with Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connolly and Dakota Fanning in the lead roles. But for whatever reason Noyce decided to bail on the project later that year, and in February ’15 it was announced that McGregor would direct instead. David Strathairn, Peter Riegert, Corey Stoll and Rupert Evans were added to the cast.

I’m guessing that Pastoral will play Telluride and/or Toronto before debuting in late October.

I found this footage (6 minutes, 11 seconds) of Blake Lively performing for the cameras during last year’s shooting of The Shallows more interesting than the film itself. Plus it has better (i.e., longer lasting) bikini footage. Just saying. Here’s my 6.23 review.

I’ve only begin to research yesterday’s allegedly calamitous decision by British voters to withdraw from the European Union. But many Brits who voted to leave the EU apparently did so (a) in a state of some ignorance about the consequences and (b) voted to “leave” more as a protest gesture than in wanting to force a literal withdrawal. To go by some reports, the “leave”-ers were not only surprised but sorry to discover this morning that the measure had passed. The “leave”-ers were mostly 50-plus rube xenophobes — the British equivalent of Trump voters. As with Trump voters, it’s suspected that their sentiments were fed by an element of racial-tribal resentment. I’m not entirely certain how this all fits together or to what extent the UK’s decision to leave the E.U. will impact the U.S. economy, but I read somewhere that Queen Elizabeth has the power to kibbosh the whole thing.

Christ alive.https://t.co/yhJfCfKO84

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) June 24, 2016

Any tough-minded director knows that a shot of a guy falling or swan-diving from a tall building or cliff always means that the film is at least somewhat mediocre. It was cool when Tim Burton‘s Batman started it almost 30 years ago, but it’s been a rancid cliche for a long while now. If, on the other hand, your drama or thriller avoids a fall shot, audience members will feel less guarded and may even open themselves up a bit. This is no crackpot theory. I’ve mentioned the falling curse several times. You’d think that Ron Howard would figure some other way for the bearded guy to kill himself. And what about the possibility of beardo hitting a random tourist down below?

There a moment in The Free State of Jones when a ruggedly-dressed, boot-wearing Matthew McConaughey is walking through a woodsy area, and he approaches a few mid-sized puddles. Instead of stepping around them, as any sane person would, he splashes right through, soaking his boots and almost certainly his socks and feet. “What did you do that for?” I muttered from my sixth-row seat. “Are you indifferent to your feet and socks getting soaked inside your boots? If you say yes you’re a liar.”

Nobody likes wearing soaked or soggy socks inside lace-up boots. I’ve been there. It’s really uncomfortable. If you’ve slipped into a puddle or a stream the only thing to do is to put fresh ones on and air your boots out in the sun for a couple of hours.

In real life nobody walks right into puddles or splashes through shallow streams with their boots on — nobody — unless they have no choice. Guys in wartime combat situations, etc. But guys in movies do this regardless of circumstances. Because, I’m guessing, (a) it makes them look rugged and manly to slosh through but (b) stepping around puddles or crossing streams by stepping on rocks makes them look like sissies.