I tried to explain yesterday why the notion of Cassidy Hutchinson lying to the Jan. 6th committee about that alleged altercation between Donald Trump and Secret Service guy Bobby Engel was highly unlikely. It turns out, in fact, that there are compelling reasons to doubt the alleged partial denial of this altercation by top Secret Service guy Tony Ornato.

Washington Post journalist and “Zero Fail” author Carol Leonnig speaking to Morning Joe‘s Joe Scarborough and Mika Breszinski: “Tony Ornato‘s situation is not so great. This is a person who worked as President Trump’s security detail leader…the #1 guy protecting the boss. Trump White House staffers and Secret Service agents have told me repeatedly [that Ornato] is a Trump acolyte, and [that he] will defend Trump to the end, and remains in contact with Trump world.

“Ornato has indicated that this story that Cassidy Hutchinson told didn’t happen. Well, Ornato has said a lot of things didn’t happen. As an additional remark, the Secret Service often tries to deny things that are unflattering. And then when the rubber hits the road, there’s a little bit more to it.

“[Trump] liked [Ornato] so much he installed him in a political White House job. That broke every Secret Service tradition in the book. [Ornato] stayed a Secret Service employee, but Trump had him directing the Secret Service…making sure that all of his campaign events, all of his photo ops…everything that he wanted to do to get re-elected went off without a hitch. That included campaign rallies that caused Covid surges [and] the forcible clearing of peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square. Tony Ornato was the secret hand behind all of that, and that’s what Trump wanted.”

HE hasn’t re-watched American Graffiti since…I forget but it’s been at least 20 or 25 years. And I don’t remember being that all blown away. I love Richard Dreyfuss‘s character and particularly his nocturnal adventure with The Pharoahs, but I was never in love with this film…sorry. It seemed to coast too much on ’50s pop tunes. I respect Graffiti but I’ve never been able to love it.

Posted on the New Beverly website:

“The sleeper success of American Graffiti kicked off the whole wave of ’50s nostalgia that threatened to overwhelm the entire decade, and yet Lucas’ film was set in ‘62. Even though on the outside the early ’60s just looked like The ’50s, Part 2, underneath changes were brewing. The big cities had all moved on. But small towns, like the one in American Graffiti, were able to exist in a bubble — at least until Kennedy was assassinated.

“While the movie has a great cast of girls, director Lucas makes it abundantly clear, when it comes to narrative, he’s only following the boys (Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Charles Martin Smith, Paul Le Mat).

“Best buddies Curt (Dreyfuss) and Steve (Howard) are leaving their small hometown of Modesto, California in the morning to fly to college back east. So the college that Curt and Steve are supposed to fly off to represents more than just a normal rite of passage for the two young men. The college represents the growing consciousness of the ’60s that exists beyond the Brigadoon-ish town they’re escaping.

“But Curt (who is Lucas’ stand-in — he wants to be a writer, and when he grows up he will write American Graffiti) is ambivalent about getting on the plane in the morning. He’s starting to think he might not even go.

“Of all the characters Curt is clearly the most intellectual, so then why is he hesitating going off to college? Usually the budding writer in these types of stories can’t leave their hometown fast enough. But Curt’s ambivalence suggests he’s a deeper sort than just a cocksure kid full of piss and gage who can’t wait to jump ship on his old hometown.

“Curt’s not really questioning going to college. He’s questioning the idea of leaving all the people he’s ever known. But even more than the humans he leaves behind, Curt’s questioning leaving the rituals of community that the young people of Modesto partake in.

“Like hanging out at Mel’s — the curb service diner that is the starting point of every youth in town’s weekend night. Mel’s where the burgers are juicy, the shakes are thick, the neon is pink and green, the music is rock and roll, and the fancy faced waitresses in colorful uniforms wiz back and forth on roller skates, balancing trays of burgers, fries, and milkshakes. Hanging out at high school dances, that even though he’s graduated, Curt could probably get away with for another year without looking creepy.

“What sets Dreyfuss’ Curt apart from his peers and the rest of the cast, is that he’s the only one who realizes how temporary these rituals are. Curt knows if he gets on that airplane tomorrow morning, everything that the film so nostalgically celebrates — he can kiss all that goodbye. The town and the life he leaves, won’t be the town and the life he returns to. If he even does return, which in all likelihood he won’t. Curt seems to know once he leaves he’s not coming back. Curt knows the boy who exists today will no longer exist even two years from now. That’s why he’s contemplating staying too long at the party.

“But Lucas balances Curt’s resistance with the cautionary example of Big John Milner (Paul LeMat). Milner is the guy who stayed too long at the sock hop. Milner acts and lives as if it’s 1958. He’s a few years older than the other boys. Big John chooses to hang out with kids who were probably freshmen in high school when he was the big-shot senior, instead of contemporaries from his old class. He continues to cruise the boulevard on cruise night and try to pick up high school girls. He continues to live off the reputation he created for himself in high school (the fastest drag racer in town).

“And Lucas gives him a dandy of a dilemma. A new guy in town, Harrison Ford’s Bob Falfa, who’s gunning to dethrone the king and take away the only thing Big John has left — his reputation. Milner’s situation is a neat twist on the high school football star who always planned on going pro but didn’t have the talent to go all the way, and lives in the glow of former gridiron glory.

Dave Itzkoff‘s N.Y. Times profile of Taika Watiti (Thor, Love and Thunder) is capable, readable and good natured. It also struck me as a tad obsequious.

Because Itzkoff barely mentions Watiti’s semi-controversial Next Goal Wins, a factual soccer drama (based on 2014 doc of the same name). It was shot two and a half years ago but is today regarded as kind of unreleased joke. Like Covid, Next Goal Wins has caught what could be called the Terrence Malick virus — it’s a movie that refuses to open. Or even produce a trailer.

Next Goal Wins and Malick’s The Way of the Wind are, in a sense, joined at the hip. They both began filming in 2019, and both are still hiding in the wings, shrouded in mystery. Itzkoff dodges the subject almost entirely, saying only that Watiti is still editing the damn thing.

Posted on 8.22.21: “Remember Next Goal Wins, the Taika Watiti-directed sports drama, based on the same-titled documentary from 2014, about Dutch-American football coach Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender) turning the low-rated American Samoa national team into groovers and hot-shots?

“Principal photography began in November 2019 (a year before the Trump-Biden election) and wrapped in January 2020 (ten months before same). Then the pandemic hit in March and the train ground to a halt. Then along came 2021 and the glorious vaccines, and the train still didn’t move. It now appears that Next Goal Wins will open sometime in ’22, probably in the late winter or spring.” Nope!

Next Goal Wins costars Elisabeth Moss and Will Arnett. Former costar Armie Hammer was “Plummered” last year after his b&d sex scandal blew up.

Cantankerous exes (George Clooney, Julia Roberts) fly to Bali for an almost shotgun-like wedding between their daughter Lili (Kaitlyn Dever) and some local smoothie (Lucas Bravo). Ol Parker‘s Ticket to Paradise is treading a familiar romcom path, but HE approves of Parker and Daniel Pipski‘s snippy, snappy dialogue.

Two months ago I noted how the shrimp-sized Dever (5’2″) is way too short to be the daughter of Clooney and Roberts (5’11 and 5’8″ respectively). I also pointed out that she doesn’t bear even the FAINTEST resemblance to her on-screen parents….not even a little bit. I’m sorry but tallish parents almost never produce Hobbitt-sized children. I’ve stood next to Clooney three or four times so don’t tell me…he’s at least 5’10 if not 5’11.

Whether or not President Donald Trump tried to grab the wheel of a Presidential SUV on 1.6.21 in an attempt to steer the vehicle toward the U.S. Capitol is a matter of…what’s the expression?…small potatoes. Ditto whether or not Trump grabbed “the clavicles” of Secret Service guy Bobby Engel, the head of his security detail. It’s an amusing story and obviously indicative, if true, of Trump being subject to angry, dopey, volatile behavior, which many people have observed and commented upon for years.

But over the last 24 hours Team Trump has focused on Cassidy Hutchinson‘s second-hand recollection of this episode as an attempt to call her credibility into question. There are some out there who actually believe that Hutchinson lied yesterday…”lied“! Soldiers in the pro-Trump attack machine are calling her “Amber Heard II” and “Jussie Smollett.” But there isn’t a hint of fanciful logic supporting the idea that Hutchinson made this up out of whole cloth.

Hutchinson was told this story, she said, on 1.6.21 in the White House office of Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato, and in the presence of Engel, who was “sitting in a chair, just looking somewhat discombobulated and a little lost,” Hutchinson said.

Here’s the pertinent transcript:

LIZ CHENEY: “And was Mr. Engel in the room as Mr. Ornato told you this story?”

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: “He was.”

LIZ CHENEY: “Did Mr. Engel correct or disagree with any part of this story from Mr. Ornato?”

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: “Mr. Engel did not correct or disagree with any part of the story.”

LIZ CHENEY: “Did Mr. Engel or Mr. Ornato ever after that tell you that what Mr. Ornato had just said was untrue?”

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: “Neither Mr. Ornato nor Mr. Engel told me ever that it was untrue.”

The N.Y. Times is reporting that “Secret Service officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, [have] said that both Mr. Engel and Mr. Ornato would dispute that Mr. Trump tried to grab the wheel of the car or that Mr. Engel was struck.”

Plus The Daily Beast is reporting that the Secret Service was never contacted by the Jan. 6 committee ahead of Hutchison’s testimony.

So what gives?

It would appear that either (a) Hutchinson is half-fibbing, or (b) Ornato and Engel are half-fibbing. But c’mon, no bullshit…what are the odds that Hutchinson would invent the SUV story?

Hutchinson said under oath that Ornato told her the particulars and that Engel was there listening and that Engel didn’t at that moment dispute Ornato’s account. If she was flat-out fabricating Hutchinson could be 100% certain that these guys would step up and say so. Does it make the slightest bit of sense that she would invent this story? To what possible end? She knew she would be immediately busted if she lied, and she’s not apparently the delusional or psychotic type so why would she invent this wild tale?

This is Rashomon, apparently. Check with the ghosts of Akira Kurosawa and/or Martin Ritt. Either Hutchinson is some kind of shifty, side-stepping liar in this instance, or she’s 100% dead certain that Ornato told her about Trump grabbing the wheel and then grabbing Engel’s throat, and has honorably passed this along to the best of her recollection.

Ornato and Engel…who knows? They’ve either persuaded themselves that this particular tale wasn’t passed along quite this way, or perhaps that it’s better for the sake of their own careers and/or the Secret Service’s reputation to dispute the story.

Salon‘s Igor Derysh, posted on 6.29: “Multiple officials who disputed parts of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson‘s testimony to the Jan. 6 committee were seen by some in the Trump administration as the president’s ‘yes men,’ according to Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig, who wrote a book about the agency last year.”

I know that it makes no sense at all for Hutchinson to have fabricated the story. What half-sane person would recite a FLAT-OUT LIE on national television, knowing full well that the guy she claimed had told her the story in the first place (plus the guy it happened to and who overheard the original telling) would step right up and call her bluff?

If you’re going to throw plates and food at the wall, you can’t be petty about it. You can’t do it like a three-year-old, pounding on your high chair and tearing your bib off. You have to do it like a gorilla, and the meaning behind it can’t be “whaaah….you’re not being loyal to me!” The meaning has to be “I’m throwing plates of food in order to assert my alpha dominance…Huey Long said ‘every man is a king’ and I’m the king around here.”

It also helps if the plate thrower is young and muscular and throbbing with brute sexuality. It isn’t quite the same if he’s fat and jowly and in his mid ’70s.

Incidentally: I’ve never done that “yanking a tablecloth” thing without disturbing the dishes and cups and cutlery atop it. One reason being that I never trusted my ability to pull it off. Nor have I ever seen it performed live.

If A24 was smart, they would screen Ari Aster‘s four-hour version of Disappointment Blvd. at Venice and Telluride two months hence, and then release two versions a few weeks later — i.e., the shorter version that A24 management allegedly prefers plus the four-hour cut. They could release the shorter version theatrically while releasing the longer version via streaming. Or vice versa or any which way. It would become a huge thing to see both and debate the differences.