Jeffrey Wells Closely followed by (and in this order) The Insider, Network, Broadcast News, She Said, The Post, Ace in the Hole, Almost Famous, Zodiac, Between The Lines, Jack Webb ‘s –30-, Good Night and Good Luck, His Girl Friday, Nightcrawler, Truth, Frost Nixon, Sweet Smell of Success, Veronica Guerin, The Day The Earth Caught Fire, The Paper…21 so far. Which others?
It started with this. Stand-alone features only so The Wire doesn’t count.
6:24 pm: I’m in my seat (E9) for a 6 pm showing of Wakanda Forever…God help me. I intend to tough it out no matter what.
Trailers put a deep scowl on my face. Movies for ADD morons. Nobody hates animation and those highly paid digital animators more than myself. If the ghosts of John Calley, Irving Thalberg, Daryl F. Zanuck or Dore Schary were sitting beside me and watching this shit…words fail.
I’m clutching my leather computer bag to my chest for warmth — November jacket weather outside and the AMC guys have the a.c. on.
9:50 pm: I lasted with Wakanda Forever for 90 minutes. I. Could. Not. Stand. Another. Minute.
I started to disengage when it got into the backstory of the Yucatán aquatic blue people. I knew I had another hour-plus to go. I just couldn’t do it.
Friendo #1: “The blue Yucatán people is the worst part. They should have lost it. The whole movie is obviously too long.”
Friendo #2: If you bailed at the 90-minute mark, you missed the best part.”
HE: “Good! Fine!”
I accepted the death of Matt Damon‘s “Colin Sullivan” in The Departed, but I wanted Leo DiCaprio‘s “Billy Costigan” to live. Up to no good and loyal to Jack Nicholson‘s demonic “Frank Costello,” Sullivan earned that bullet in the head. But Costigan had performed cunningly and bravely — he deserved to live. Plus William Monahan‘s screenplay got that famous Chinese laundry saying wrong — in the film Costello says “no tickee, no laundry” but the actual line is “no tickee, no washee.”
I don’t mean this literally, of course. There are always exceptions to the rule. But I do regard Millennial- and Zoomer-aged critics askance. Too many of them have bought into the bullshit. Too few of them think and write like men, and I mean that in the Robert Ryan / “Deke Thornton” sense of that term (i.e., “We’re after men, and I wish to God I was with them”).
…that anyone who buys a 4K Bluray of Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey (‘99) is, to put it as mildly as possible, hardcore. I know this film backwards and forwards and have watched it at least 10 or 12 times, and I can’t imagine that any kind of 4K “bump” will be apparent. I just wanted the 4K to have and to hold —- a keepsake. I’ll watch it later this evening.
I thought that Rep. Lauren Boebert, the Trump-embracing, pistol-packing Colorado reptile, was down for the count. Alas, she might squeak through.
From Vox’s Li Zhou, posted on 11.9:
The dreaded red wave simply didn’t materialize.
In race after race and to everyone’s surprise (including Bill Maher‘s), Democratic candidates held on, eeked out victories and even triumphed in some instances.
John Fetterman beat the Trump–supported Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, and Georgia’s Raphael Warnock will probably wind up defeating Herschel “nutcase” Walker in a 12.6 runoff. It appeared this morning that Colorado Rep. Lauren “wackazoid” Boebert may lose her race. Also this morning Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari “wackjob” Lake, a Trump fave and a Big Lie proponent, appears headed for defeat.
The red wave narrative turned out to be bullshit, bullshit…a crock of steaming rightwing go-along media-concocted horseshit.
Republicans will probably have a slight House Majority at the end of the day, yes, but the bottom line is that in many states and territories voters rejected many MAGA crazies, and while it may take until early December to determine which side will control the Senate, it’s feasible that Dems might hold on to their thin majority.
I suspected that Ohio’s Trump-aligned U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance would prevail against Democratic candidate Tim Ryan, so I wasn’t floored when this happened. But so many wowser, fascinating things happened, and very few of them encouraging to the MAGA lions.
There’s no way you can’t call Donald Trump a diminished figure this morning.
Morbid obesity is just another way of living, eating, enduring, being, suffering. Revolutionary, balls-to-the-wall cinematic maestro Darren Aronofsky opened my heart, showed me the way. (Digital Fraser-esque makeover by “Zak.”)
