Bedroom window, 6:05 am. No leaves, bare trees, slush, sleet, scarves and overcoats for at least the next four months. Come late January or February the usual dreams will kick in. Flying south to Key West or better yet Belize for one. Actually that’s pretty much it.
I really admire anyone willing to learn anything new after 40, and particularly if it’s dancing the tango, playing piano or learning how to become a decent preparer of Northern Italian dishes. Snapped three or four days ago in a Los Angeles dance hall. Tatiana’s partner (not a boyfriend) is too tall for her, but he seems a good sport.
I was under the impression that Raphael Warnock would defeat Herschel Walker by…I don’t know, 51% to 49%? Slightly better as it turned out. Warnock finished with 51.2% to Walker’s 48.8%. Think of it — 48.8% of Georgia voters wanted to send Walker, that clown, to the U.S. Senate.
Posted on Facebook by Daniel Cremer three hours ago. Key hypothetical sentence, as suggested by venerated critic Michael Sragow: “A specific outcome was desired by [the woke Stalinists] so they weighed the poll results to their liking.”
The first tingly, muscle-ache sensations of Covid were felt Friday morning. I went through it ayearago so I know the deal. Yesterday I took a Covid test…bingo.
It took me four days to get through it last December so I’ll probably be out of the woods by Monday evening.
Right now I feel so depleted that the mere thought of sitting up and writing something is exhausting.
12:25 am, Monday: I can feel the Covid starting to weaken, dissipate. The worst seems to be over.
9am, Monday: Digital temperature gauge reads 98.4.
This morning’s recovery made think of Keith’s “98.6.” I shouldn’t need to remind, of course, that it’s no longer acceptable to address or refer to a girlfriend as “baby.”
I was ready to move past the Jeanne Dielmann / Sight&Sound thing, but then I came upon a Todd Alcott Facebook riff that completely ignored the fact that the voting was largely political and that the system was almost certainly massaged and gamed.
Thisnotionwasarousedwhen Jordan Ruimypostedalink to Brian Jacobson’s L.A. ReviewofBookspiece about the S&S poll (12.2), which had a vague “smoking gun” feeling.
First Alcott, then me and then Alcott’s progressive female Facebook pallies, who seem to think that I hate Chantal Ackerman’s 1975 film (I’m not that much of a fan but I don’t hate it) or that I don’t get it because of my gender (Iunderstandexactly what it’s about and what the strategy is).
I’ve been working on launching a special industry-friendly film series at the renowned Bedford Playhouse, which is run by Dan Friedman. The program is called Bedford Marquee, and a 12.5 screening of Damien Chazelle’s Babylon will kick things off.
I’ll be offering a few observations (including some historical footnotes) a few minutes before the show begins at 7 pm.
Located within the Clive Davis Arts Center, the BP is one of the finest commercial screening facilities I’ve ever settled into — easily the technical equal of any upscale industry screening facility (including the Academy Museum theatre and/or the classic AMPAS theatre in Beverly Hills) in the U.S., Paris, Cannes or anywhere.
Esteemed restoration guru Robert Harris supervised the BP’s upgrade.
We’re also planning a special mid-January screening of the recently restored InvadersFromMars (‘53). The film was painstakingly restored by Scott MacQueen, who will present a master class about the film’s history and cultural influence.
Asprawling three-hour epic of 1920s Hollywood, Babylon opens nationwide on 12.23.
“The ‘OscarMovie’ IsDying,” an 11.28lament by WorldofReel’s Jordan Ruimy, was linked to yesterday (11.29) by Real Clear Politics — congrats.
Owen Gleiberman’s 11.29 review of the apparently loathsome ViolentNight (Universal, 12.2) acknowledges the same dynamic — on top of 2022 award-season films exuding a curious “meh” lethargy, Joe and Jane Popcorn (especially the 40-plus crowd) have mostly shined the notion of seeing these films in theatres:
One key reason is that there’s zero overlap between elite industry sensibilities and the generally coarse, cynical and fed-up attitudes of popcorn inhalers.
The introduction to that brilliant11.28videoessay on the Oscars’ 94 year history reminds that over the last decade award-season films have become theirownseparateandmyopicgenre — and with the pernicious SJW factor the vast majority has simply tuned them out.
The decisive gutshot bullet that killed the award-season brand (I’ve said this over and over) was fired on 4.25.21 by Steven Soderbergh, producer of the 93rdAcademyAwardtelecast.
From “Norma Desmond: It’s The Oscars That Got Small,” postedon9.30.21:
You can’t “update” EasyRider any more than you can reboot the half-century-old cultural elements (motorcycle-riding counterculture types, Jimi Hendrix & TheBand on the soundtrack, cruising across the Southwest only to be murdered by rural bumblefucks). That was then, this is now.
But the idea of Zoomer wokesters clashing with Lauren Boebert gun freaks in some rural setting…that could work. I just don’t know about the choppers and the greenbacks in the gas tank.
The 2.24.23 release of CocaineBear (Universal), a heartless, cruel-minded thriller if there ever was one (or so it would seem), is fast approaching.
Postedon8.1.22: In November 1985, a dead black bear was discovered in Chattahoochee National Forest. Nearby was a torn-open duffel bag that had apparently contained 75 pounds of Bolivian marching powder, and which had apparently fallen out of a smuggler’s plane. (Flown by Tom Cruise’s Barry Seal?) The clueless bear had eaten a good portion of the coke and overdosed.
The guy who found the bear’s ruined body didn’t alert authorities (one guess why) and it wasn’t until 12.20.85 when authorities discovered the carcass. A medical examiner at the Georgia State Crime Lab said that that the bear’s stomach was “literally packed to the brim with cocaine.”
Elizabeth Banks has directed a “character-driven thriller” about the poor bear’s misfortune as well as, one presumes, certain humans who quickly developed an interest in the free cocaine. It’s called Cocaine Bear (Universal, 2.24.23). The film costars Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and the late Ray Liotta.
The title alone suggests that Banks and her producers see the story as an opportunity for bear thrills, or at least partly that.
The body of this poor, poisoned animal eventually found its way to a taxidermist, and is now on display inside the Kentucky for Kentucky Fun Mall (720 Bryan Ave., Lexington, Kentucky). There’s a sign around the bear’s neck that refers to him as “Pablo Escobear.”
In short Kentucky bumblefucks regard the idea of a furry beast dying of a cocaine overdose as a hoot.
HE to Banks and Universal marketing: HE believes that the death of an innocent animal who died of cocaine ingestion is not in itself an opportunity to do “funny” or “thrilling”. It sounds to me like a metaphorical tale about our casual greed and cruelty and indifference to the natural order of things — about the fact that forest animals have a certain nobility while we have none.
