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 Rabbit Run) 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).

Caan’s most eloquent scene, arguably, is the Dostoevsky classroom lecture in The Gambler.

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).

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.

From Johnson’s resignation statement:

“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.

Superficial reaction to trailer for David O. Russell’s Amsterdam: This is a manic, half-truthful 1930s yarn — a weaving of fact and fiction that seems, at first glance, both intricate and confusing. Amsterdam is a kind of farcical crime comedy about three close friends — a pair of ex-soldiers played by Christian Twitchy-Face Bale and John David Washington, and an ex-nurse portrayed by Margot Robbie –— “who find themselves at the center of one of the most shocking secret plots in American history.” Except nobody wants to mention what the “secret plot” might be vaguely related to.

Slightly deeper analysis: I’ve watched the trailer three times, and all I can say is that Amsterdam feels to me like a hot mess. Whatever it’s actually about, Russell is (a) determined to hide the pertinent plot details, and (b) seems to have committed himself to a hyper hellzapoppin’ that involves juggling several plot threads and several characters. Has Russell bitten off more than he could chew? No idea but the trailer suggests that. It’s going to be fast and eccentric and mannered and wacky. Crazy plot, several affected characters, antsy energy and I swear to God I’ve NO FUCKING IDEA what it’s actually about.

Emmanuel Lubezski‘s warm, amber-brownish cinematography strikes me as pretty (it reminds me of Milos Forman‘s Ragtime) but a tad affected. I’m intrigued, of course, and obviously the dynamite cast will generate all kinds of pleasant distractions. (Talented people always do.) But it doesn’t feel right. Bo honest — the trailer is confusing.

What’s up with Chris Rock acting alarmed about a white guy corpse in a coffin without a top? What’s the issue? No clue. We have three woke musketeers (Bale, Robbie, Washington), fast friends whose history goes back to WWI…friends to the end in the midst of an almost totally segregated society of the 1930s, having formed a “pact” (committed to what or in search of what?).

Is the drop-dead beautiful Robbie sexual with either of them or both or none? Is there a little bit of Lubitsch’s Design for Living going on here, or not at all?

Frizzy-haired Bale says, “Do me a favor…try to be optimistic.” Okay, but optimistic about what? When Robbie says “Amsterdam,” it means what? Obviously not the Dutch city. Manhattan used to be called Amsterdam in the early days of this country, but what did it signify in the 1930s?

The trio is falsely accused of murdering somebody — the same friend of Robert DeNiro’s who was iced after witnessing something horrible. “Cuckoo”? All I know is that the trailer made me feel as if bees were buzzing around inside my head.

Question: Is this in fact the second film in which Bale has to find his false eye on the floor? A Reddit guy says the first time this happened was in The Big Short

The vulnerable-golden-hero mythology in The Natural is like maple syrup, so thick and gloopy it damn nears smothers everything. And I’m saying this as a devoted admirer of Field of Dreams. I want to see the hero prevail as much as the next guy, but not in fantasyland — his/her struggle has to happen in a shifty, scrappy, serious adult world. And I hate it when when grossly sentimental films of this sort push every button they can think of.

When Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) broke his Wonderboy bat, when the chubby bat boy gave him a newbie, when the camera saw that his abdomen was bleeding, I said to myself “this is bullshit.” When Roy slams the game-winning homer into the ballpark lights and triggers a fireworks show with lightning bolts crackling in the night sky and that triumphant bullshit Randy Newman music filling the soundtrack, I was disgusted. I was saying to myself “my God, I thought Barry Levinson was the Diner guy, but he’s made a whorish, shameless, audience-pandering piece of crap.”

I was astonished by the reactions when I first saw The Natural 39 years ago. I said to friends “you bought into this shit? The modest, all-American innocent good guy…a masculine angel from the heartland…plus the film is a total perversion of the 1952 Bernard Malamud novel.” Ten years later Forrest Gump came along and touched the hearts of this same hokey crowd.

I appreciated The Natural, but the old Paul Douglas baseball comedy, Angels in the Outfield, touched me in a more genuine place.

Keep in mind that while The Natural was popular, it wasn’t a massive hit. It cost $28 million to shoot, and earned a relatively modest $48 million.

The original theatrical version ran 138 minutes. I never saw Levinson’s 144-minute “Director’s Cut.” Did anyone? Was it significantly better?