Sting is the big star, loose and cool and playing at a private party in Figline Valdarno, a leafy Tuscan hamlet about 25 km south of Firenze. And having a good old time with “An Englishman in New York,” a 1987 tune that everyone knows and loves. So he has the ears and hearts of the crowd, but alas, not their visual attention. Sting may not be aware of what’s going on, but the woman behind him, trust me, is revelling in the moment. [Performance recorded sometime in the summer of ’20.]
This is my part of Tuscany — Greve, Panzano, Volpaia, San Donato. I’ve driven and scootered all over this region.
Karel Reisz, James Toback and James Caan‘s The Gambler (’74) is at least ten or fifteen times better than Rupert Wyatt and William Monahan‘s 2014 remake. But at least the latter allowed costar John Goodman to deliver a magnificent riff about “fuck you” stability.
We're all familiar with David O. Russell's reputation for being high-strung and occasionally abusive on film sets, and I wish it were otherwise. And I can't for the life of me understand how or why the 2011 feel-up incident with his transgender niece Nicole Peloquin occured, or why it resulted in Peloquin filing a police report. (A fair-minded person would at least consider Russell's statement to the police that Peloquin was "acting very provocative toward him" and invited him to feel her breasts.)
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Down-on-my-knees respect for the legendary James Caan, who has sadly moved on to greener pastures at age 82.
Born in 1940 (three years younger than Warren Beatty and Robert Redford), Caan delivered fine performances in the ’60s and very early ’70s (especially in El Dorado, The Rain People, Brian’s Song and RabbitRun) but didn’t hit the jackpot until he played Sonny Corleone in The Godfather (’72).
For the rest of the ’70s and into the early ’80s it was smooth sailing and mostly glory glory glory for this Bronx-born son of German-Jewish immigrants.
Caan made 15 films during an eight-year hot streak — Slither, Cinderella Liberty, The Gambler, Freebie and the Bean, The Godfather Part II, Funny Lady, Rollerball, The Killer Elite, Harry and Walter Go to New York, A Bridge Too Far, Another Man, Another Chance, Comes a Horseman, Chapter Two, Hide in Plain Sight and Thief.
All but four or five were either grade-A or B-plus, and fully respectable.
Caan’s greatest performances, hands down and in this order: Axel Freed in The Gambler (’74), Frank in Thief (’81) and Sonny in The Godfather I & II (’72 and ’74).
He rebounded in Rob Reiner‘s Misery (’90), of course, and did commendable work in Honeymoon in Vegas (’92), as a senior-aged wise guy in Wes Anderson‘s Bottle Rocket (’95), in James Gray‘s The Yards (’00) and in Lars von Trier‘s Dogville (’03).
"Good times create weak people. Weak people create bad times. Bad times create strong people. Strong people create good times. That's the history of the world, over and over and over again." --- from a piano-scored Tony Robbins interview, posted four or five months ago."
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Fuck does that mean, “do I like him”? How likable or admirable can a formerly dashing, once-good looking, go-for-the-gusto Australian pussy hound and wild man be? Especially one who wound up looking like sagging, creased leather and dying from drink at age 50, a landmark that Tom Cruise hit ten years ago?
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After succeeding Theresa May as Prime Minister nearly three years ago (7.24.19), Boris Johnson was quickly understood by those relatively few Americans who pay attention to British politics as a Donald Trump-like figure — brash, conservative, weird blond hair, a bullshitter, an elitist, swaggering, amoral, supported by low-information rurals, deeply loathed by the British left, etc.
And yet from an American perspective Johnson never seemed as utterly foul and rancid and sociopathic as Trump. As arrogant and entitled and indifferent to conventional political behaviors as he was and presumably still is, Johnson has at least, faced with the end of his party’s support and cornered on all sides, finally faced reality and submitted to the rules of the game. Plus he was and is well-educated, well-spoken, occasionally witty and amusing, etc. A woolly mammoth living and conniving by his own rules, if you will, but far more civilized and respectful of the system than Trump ever was or will be.
“As we’ve seen recently in Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful. And when the herd moves, it moves. In politics, no one is remotely indispensable. And [so] our brilliant and Darwinian system will produce another leader, equally committed to taking this country forward. I know that there will be many people who are relieved and perhaps quite a few will also be disappointed. And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world. But them’s the breaks.”
The Criterion Channel is currently running a boxing series — Champion, The Harder They Fall, Raging Bull, Gentleman Jim, The Set-Up, Requiem For A Heavyweight, Somebody Up There Likes Me, etc. Because of some rights hassle they aren’t including the Rocky films, of which at least two are pretty good.
HE’s top six boxing (or mixed martial arts) movies: (1) Gavin O’Connor‘s Warrior (’11) with Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton; (2) Leon Gast‘s When We Were Kings (’96); (3) Karyn Kusama‘s Girlfight (’00) with Michelle Rodriguez; (4) Mark Robson and Stanley Kramer‘s Champion (’49) with Kirk Douglas; (5) Robson and Phillip Yordan‘s The Harder They Fall (’56) with Humphrey Bogart, and (6) John Avildsen and Sylvester Stallone‘s Rocky (’76).
If I want a good, fast boxing high I’ll just re-watch the Ali-Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle“…eight rounds, great fight, great finale.
