I figured I’d re-watch Don’t Look Up, only this time with subtitles. Maybe it would kick up, I thought. I lasted about 35 or 40 minutes. Here’s how I explained it on Facebook this morning:

Exactly 14 years ago one of the greatest years for aspirational, middle-class, non-budget-busting, CG-averse, review-driven movies came to an end — 2007. Call it the last glorious year for this kind of film, for only 10 weeks later — on 3.14.08, to be be exact — Variety‘s Anne Thompson wrote about the imminent demise of this sort of fare.

Whatever vitality or opportunity that kind of theatrical film had going in ’07 (typified by Syriana, Munich, The Social Network, Babel, Proof of Life, Michael Clayton, Brokeback Mountain, American Gangster, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, No Country for Old Men, Superbad, There Will Be Blood, Zodiac), it would soon be squeezed and then gradually squelched by the Marvel / D.C. machine, and then by fucking Millennials, most of whom have never given a damn about middle-range theatrical dramas, and then by the gradual migration of such films and subject matter to cable and streaming, and then just to streaming.

And then came the first wave of wokester instructional dramas in ’17 or thereabouts. And then the final death blow — the pandemic that began almost two years ago (or around March 1, 2020).

It used to be that the movie year was composed of ten months of crap with a smattering of review-driven, award-seeking films opening between mid-October and mid December. Some of those would-be Oscar contenders would do good theatrical business or at least break even with profits to come from cable licensing and home video. But that’s finished now also. West Side Story died, King Richard died, etc. Only Spider-Man: No Way Home hit the jackpot.

The industry that I grew up with and measured my life against and thrived by until roughly four or five years ago…the movie industry of the late ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, aughts and the first half of the teens…that industry is more or less gone now. It was withering on the vine when the pandemic came along, and now it’s 90% dead, dead, fucking dead. Ditto the joy of life as I used to know it, in a sense…the joy of living by, for and through movies. I’m not saying that life is over, but the euphoric days will never return. Not in force, they won’t. Not like 2007.

There’s enough excitement and intrigue and discovery in new films to keep my pulse beating, so to speak, and there will always be the top-tier film festivals, of course, plus the HD streaming options today are miraculous. But the vibrancy of the movie-worshipping life I lived for so many decades…that wellspring of fresh nourishing water that I drank from so joyfully in theatres and at Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Telluride….I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the flush times for devotional cineastes like myself are pretty much…well, seriously diminished. Certainly in a theatrical sense. The game isn’t completely over and done with, of course, but it’s certainly on life support.

The pandemic didn’t kill everything, but it damn sure took the joy out of living.

“The Matrix: Regurgitations is a fucking ridiculous disaster of a film…that reads like a piece of clumsy fan fiction, written by a sweaty, overweight teenager from 2004…it accomplishes absolutely nothing….never should have been made.”

I was diagnosed with Omicron eight days ago and had more or less shed the effects of the virus by last Friday (12.24). The CDC says if I’m triple vaxxed and masked I’m good for roaming around and shopping, etc. I’m now triple bullet-proofed (three stabs + naturally enhanced post-Covid defenses + German genes) — less likely than ever to succumb.

Last night, feeling jazzed about rediscovering Taylor Hackford‘s Proof of Life and realizing it’s a lot better than I’d recalled, I rewatched another violent, crime-related Russell Crowe film from the aughts — Ridley Scott‘s American Gangster (’07).

It remains a sturdy, absorbing, culturally fascinating, Sidney Lumet-like depiction of the rise and fall of heroin importer Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and the scrappy, scrupulously honest detective, Richie Roberts (Crowe), who eventually busted and prosecuted Lucas in ’75 and ’76.

AG opened 14 years ago, and plays just as grippingly as ever — no diminishment, constantly engaging, stepped in the lore of Harlem and North Jersey. And my God, Denzel (52 during filming, now 67) looks so young! Younger, in fact, than he did in Spike Lee‘s Inside Man (’06). And what a murderer’s row of African American (or African British) players — Chiwetel Ejiofor, RZA, Cuba Gooding Jr., Joe Morton, Idris Elba, Common, the late Clarence Williams III, Ruby Dee, Roger Guenveur Smith, Malcolm Goodwin.

I was struck again by how satisfyingly well made this film is, as good in its own New York City way (the clutter and crap of the streets, high on those uptown fumes) as Lumet’s Prince of the City (’81).

One reason it plays so well, I was telling myself last night, is that big-studio movies, free from the influence of the superhero plague that was just around the corner in ’06, were generally a lot better in the aughts than they are now. 2007, remember, was one of the great all-time years.

Incidentally: I’ve never watched the 176-minute “Unrated Extended Edition” of American Gangster. Has anyone?

…for the coming Democratic Party apocalypse is the anti–meritocracy education thing (i.e., deliberately lowering standards to make things more accessible for students of color). Instructing students about the history of American racism is a vital and necessary thing, but telling parents of smart or otherwise gifted students that merit and scholastic aptitude have no value or place in today’s system because we need to give less advantaged kids more of a chance…this + “parents need to butt out of this as their concerns are imaginary plus professional educators know best”…that is a FUCKING DEATH BOMB.

An excerpt from a 12.28 Matt Taibbi article titled “The Democrats Education Lunacies Will Bring Back Trump”:

…and if he still cared about creating silk screens at age 93, he would have instantly recognized a couple of days ago that THIS (i.e.., the TMZ headline) is a 21st Century Andy Warhol silk screen classic if anyone ever saw one. Right up there with “Elvis Presley in Flaming Star.”

What, the ghost of George Floyd descends upon rural Pennsylvania?…the return of defund the police?…intrepid Kate gets to the bottom of a conspiracy among ugly racist cops? Terrific.

Hollywood Elsewhere was a thriving business and a happy workplace for roughly 13 or 14 years. After launching in August ’04 ad income …well, it was touch-and-go for a while but found its footing sometime in early ’06. And then it grew and grew…offering stability, adventure, intrigue, annual European travel and a thriving lifestyle.

The worm began to turn with the horrific election of Donald Trump in November ’16. From that point on and certainly by the end of ’17 and into early ’18, you could feel the first tremors of wokesterism, triggered by perceptions of obstinate patriarchal whiteness as represented by the various bad guys of the moment (the Trumpster mob, Harvey, Woody, Roman and all the other alleged ogres who were being called out, many deservedly so).

Before I knew it the furies were swirling all over the place…anything that smelled even vaguely of older-white-guy attitudes or viewpoints became a form of evil. HE’s ad income began to drop in ’17 and ’18. It’s been a hellish four years.

I was reviewing all this after stumbling upon a post about a private evening tour of the Louvre’s Egyptian exhibit. It happened on 5.13.17, or four and two-thirds years ago. Life is never a bowl of cherries, but things felt relatively happy and settled at this point. The calm before the storm. Here’s how it went…

HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko and David Scott Smith invited me to join them early Saturday evening at the Louvre. A connected friend of Svet’s escorted us inside to a restricted–access tour of the Egyptian exhibit. I had never before wandered through this world-renowned museum as an invitation-only cool cat. No crowds or lines to cope with. The Egyptian statues, sarcophagi, relics and artifacts were nothing to sneeze at either. The highlight was the 4000 year-old chapel of the tomb (or “mastaba”) of Akhethotep, a bigwig in the Old Kingdom who was close to the king. (Egyptian rulers weren’t called pharaohs until the New Kingdom.)

Svetlana Cvetko, David Scott Smith at Louvre cafe — Saturday, 5.13.17, 7:50 pm.