I really don’t care about this. I stopped re-watching E.T. decades ago. Too many viewings. The greatest aspect is John Williams’ score.


I really don’t care about this. I stopped re-watching E.T. decades ago. Too many viewings. The greatest aspect is John Williams’ score.


I caught a series of four or five short naps…five minutes, 20 minutes, five again… napping as I went along. I tried to keep the shut-eye to a minimum by catching a 15-minute snooze before it began, but the Denis Villeneuve “sandman” effect was too much to withstand.


Respect, hats off, proof of character.

And I’ll never want to grapple with any Viggo Mortensen specificity in this regard, and yet I’ve never been able to suppress the label of “Russian penis movie”…it is what it is. The likelihood of re-watching this thing isn’t likely.

I turn around and things that happened 20 or 30 years ago rise to the surface like air bubbles…they appear of their own volition…who am I to ignore that faint popping sound?



After visiting Jett, Cait and Sutton in West Orange last Sunday, the VW Passat suffered a seizure (call it a coughing fit) while driving back to Wilton. I was afraid of a painful financial gash, but the total tab (including an oil change) was only $418. I’ll be training down to New Rochelle Auto Care this morning to settle up and retrieve.

Friendo to HE: “If I buy you this shirt, will you wear it in Cannes?”
HE to friendo: “Absolutely! But I’d have to wear the jacket also.”
Seriously…if WB is selling the pink Barbie jacket in a men’s size I’ll snap it up in a second.

There’s absolutely no need or interest in another Magnificent Seven…zero. We’ve already had three — Akira Kurosawa‘s Seven Samurai (“54), John Sturges‘ The Magnificent Seven (’60) and Antoine Fuqua‘s mediocre remake of a remake from 2016. You know what I’d like to see remade? Howard Hawks‘ Red River (’46).






A young woman who addresses perfect cosmic unity and infinite design, regarded in certain primitive circles as “God”…let me start again. Anyone who addresses the grand altogether as some sort of nice fella or…whatever, as an all-pervasive, all-powerful emotional counselor with a kindly personality and the will to listen to and empathize with the plight of earthly humans…c’mon, man. That’s YA stuff.

In 1964 Alfred Hitchcock regarded this picturesque Baltimore seaport neighborhood as grim and down-at-the-heels. This is where Louise Latham’s Bernice, the emotionally constipated, man-hating mother of Tippi Hedren’s lead character, resided. By today’s standards, of course, it’s a prime location — red-brick row houses, great harbor view, sea air, cool cafes.

Yesterday some Facebook entity representing Joni Mitchell posted an attractive photo of the fabled singer-poet, taken in ‘83. The comments were adoring but shamelessly so — a torrent of rapt, falsetto-voiced religious worship. I tried to point this out, and of course my remarks drew scorn.





“Past Mitchell Capturings,” posted on 7.20.19:.