As a Cannon publicity staffer and press-kit writer, I visited the Culver City set of Masters of the Universe sometime around…oh, probably the late fall of ’86. I seem to recall interviewing director Gary Goddard and screenwriter David Odell, although I may not have. I don’t recall speaking with Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, Courteney Cox and other cast members, although I may have.

It was a difficult write as I was totally disheartened and certainly not into the Mattel sword and sorcery-themed franchise. The general presumption during filming was that Cannon had bitten off more than it could chew, and that the $22 million budget was probably insufficient. Masters opened on 8.7.87, was creamed by critics and wound up making $17.3 million.

And yet, very curiously, it has a modest cult following today.

“No Sudden Move (HBO Max, 7.1) is an ambitious, light-spirited, high-twist modernist noir in the tradition of Devil in a Blue Dress and Steven Soderbergh’s own Out of Sight.

“Soderbergh, who shot and edited the film, works with a knack for the drama of amorality: the off-kilter camera angles, the lean mean mood of hardboiled misanthropy, the relish that great actors can take in playing crumbum hoods. The movie is clever and blithely vicious, it keeps you guessing, and it invites you to share Soderbergh’s joy in filmmaking.

“And yet: Just when the movie’s interlocking treacheries should be catching fire, you feel them wilt a bit.

“Soderbergh doesn’t make any obvious wrong moves, but the plot isn’t quite the tightly hot-wired tale of descent and payback we’ve been geared to expect. It’s more like watching an enormous, slightly abstract jigsaw puzzle of corruption come together.

“There is, it turns out, a Larger Theme at work, one that hinges on a Mr. Big played with graying omnipotence by Matt Damon. And while this kind of late-in-the-game revelation is fair game, the film is a little too pleased with its corporate conspiracy-theory dimension. You watch it and think: We’ve been here before, lots of times.

“For all its pleasures, No Sudden Move doesn’t quite make the old seem new again.” — from Owen Gleiberman‘s 6.18 Variety review.

I should have watched something here-and-now last night (Bo Burnham Inside, Hacks, The Sons of Sam) but like a jackass I streamed the 4K version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I’d heard looks extra sharp and luscious. Well, it looks good, sure, but calm down. I loved Raiders when it first popped in June of ’81, which led to my seeing it too many times. But now? Again? For the ninth or tenth time?

Ten minutes into last night’s viewing I was muttering four things: (1) “I really can’t watch this any more…I’m sick of it,” (2) “All of the jokes and bits and tricks that seemed so cool 40 years ago have been over-mined and over-imitated, and have lost their pizazz,” (3) “The idea was to make thrill comedy out of the conventions of old Saturday matinee serials, but so much of the action choreography seems silly now…Harrison Ford chased through the jungle by 15 or 20 natives with bows-and-arrows and poison dart blowguns, and he doesn’t get tagged once, even when he’s swimming towards the plane?…slender Karen Allen drinking an overweight Tibetan guy under the table?…the cute little monkey who alerts the Nazis to Allen’s hiding place inside a large woven basket (bad!) is the same critter who pretends to moan and cry when Ford is moping over her apparent death…the film is jam-packed with little irritations like this”, and (4) “Allen’s constant shrieking of ‘Indiiieeee!’ is enough to drive you nuts.”

The only bit that still works (it actually made me laugh out loud, and I’m a total LQTM type) is when Ford casually pulls out a pistol and shoots the scary North African guy with a huge sword. And this film would be almost nothing without John Williams‘ rousing, haunting, at times even spooky score…seriously, none of the big moments would work without the music.

My favorite Raiders film remains Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade…it’s funnier and spritzier that the original.

Quick — name some Spielberg films that have aged really well. Answer: There aren’t that many. Schindler’s List, of course. Minority Report, E.T. Saving Private Ryan except for the awful bookends, Duel, and two portions from Close Encounters — the silent opening-credits followed by the crash-crescendo of the Sonoran desert plus the air-traffic controller sequence. For the most part early Spielberg flicks are sugary soft drinks. Very soothing and satisfying if you’re hot and thirsty, but most of them don’t linger. They’re not really intended to. He has a great cinematic eye and a fine sense of strategic choreography, but he’s not what anyone would call a deep, moody, meditative filmmaker.

Based on Theodore Dreiser‘s “An American Tragedy“, A Place In The Sun exerts an alluring, magnetic pull because of the beauty of Montgomery Clift, who was 30 when this 1951 George Stevens film was shot, and certainly his performance as the doomed George Eastman, a soft-spoken, socially anxious young man who seals his fate when he half-accidentally, half-deliberately causes the death of Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), a young factory worker he’s been casually seeing and has unintentionally impregnated.

The fact that George has not only been two-timing Alice but fallen head-over-heels for the wealthy and beautiful Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor, 18 during filming) is the reason he wants Alice out of the way, and the basis, of course, for the tragedy that results.

I’m presuming that Paramount Presents’ forthcoming Bluray of George Stevens‘ A Place In The Sun (due on 8.10.21), remastered from a 4K transfer, is the same version released on 9.4.20 by Imprint.

I’ve always wanted to see an exquisitely rendered 1080p version of this Oscar-winning film, but a review by DVD Beaver’s Gary Tooze indicates otherwise:

“How does it look? Frequently not great. It’s another of those instances where it advances beyond SD (DVD) but either the source condition or other factors inhibit it from achieving the type of dynamic appearance we’ve come to expect from this HD format.

“Now, it does have instances where it looks very strong with depth, grain and fine detail. [But] these are more the exception. It does lean to the black levels having some degree of being crushed. Contrast is not premium. This presentation does have nice film-like textures — better exposed than SD, but only comparing it to another 1080P will further observations reveal the adeptness of this transfer. I’m not overly displeased and sort of expected it [to look] mostly flat and a bit video-y. The DVD was no prize in terms of visual appeal either, and it may just be one of those films that doesn’t translate well to digital. Perhaps this is the reason it has not been released on Bluray until now.”

It’s conceivable, of course, that the Paramount version will somehow look “better” than the Imprint. Maybe a Paramount engineer will tweak or finesse it in some way. Maybe an application of some tasteful DNR.

Owen Wilson and I go back to the summer of ’94, which is when he and Wes Anderson moved to Los Angeles. We were never friends, but the term “good acquaintances” definitely applied. Our relationship was agreeably in and out throughout the mid to late ’90s. Owen and I haven’t shared face-time since a random run-in in San Francisco 14 years ago (he was with Kate Hudson at a North Beach cafe), but I regard him as a good fellow with all kinds of fascinating impulses, side-pocket shots and clear-light moments.

So I was naturally intrigued by Isaac Butler‘s “The Many Contradictions of Owen Wilson” (Slate, 6.16), which focuses on Wilson’s Mobius M. Mobius character in Loki, the Disney+ series, and mentions Bliss, the bizarre cyber-dreamscape thing with Salma Hayek. Here’s an excerpt:

“Wilson’s careful deployment of his inherent sadness has always been a sign that he’s a far more interesting, intelligent, and idiosyncratic actor than he is usually credited for being. Some of our underestimation of him is his own fault — he’s only made a small handful of good films and is too often happy to glide by on his natural, laid-back charisma. But there is a thing Wilson can do better than almost any other actor alive: embody an eccentric, wide-eyed innocence, and then find underneath it a knowing darkness.

“A gleeful embrace of absurdity is key to Wilson’s performances, reinforced by his soft Texan drawl, eyes that seem lit by their own flame, and habit of declaring things to be ‘crazier than a road lizard.’ His affable charm can make it easy to overlook how much detail and nuance he brings to his performances when he cares to.

“Like Robert Redford before him, Wilson at his best is a minimalist. His gestures are simple, compact, and he only moves when necessary. His face is exactly as expressive as it needs to be so you can track what his characters are thinking and feeling, but no more. Instead of trying to transcend the limitations of his limited vocal range, he’s embraced them to such an extent that he appears to have found a thousand ways to say the word wow.”

HE jotting from 8.29.07: “Owen is far too complex and interesting and whimsical to be a leading man. He’s a flaky poet dreamer, a brilliant space-case…a witty intellectual adolescent whom women might find charming for a night or two, but he’s the very antithesis of a Clark Gable oak tree. He’s the kind of guy women can spot in a second as undependable because his basic nature is to go wherever his whims or dreams or ambitions may lead at a given moment. His true inner whatever has always been hidden, and he doesn’t wear his passion on his sleeve.

“Bad People in Guatemala” (posted on 6.17) was about an Airbnb issue that went wrong. Naturally a good portion of the HE commenters dismissed the facts and blamed us for screwing up on some level. Their consideration is/was deeply appreciated.

Airbnb Support support just messaged the following (1:09 pm): “Hi Jeffrey, [name] here again. Sorry for the delayed response as I just got the approval for you. I have issued the refund in full amounting to $194 and you can get the refund timeline here.

“Jeffrey, I am truly grateful to you for choosing us as your travel platform and giving us the opportunity to turn things around for you. If you have further questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

“I hope you have a good day ahead and thanks for being part of our wonderful community here at Airbnb.”

He’s gone — I deep-sixed him last night. I couldn’t stand his ass. Every single thing he posted accused me not being woke enough or being deficient or indifferent. The straws accumulated and accumulated and finally the camel’s back snapped. Sure, he might return under a new comment-thread avatar, and if he does I’ll cross that bridge and assess the situation.

One of my most on-target riffs about the woke scourge stated that “there’s a historical precedent for what’s going on right now, and that it’s nicely recounted on page 30 and 31 of Tom Wolfe‘s ‘The Painted Word’.”

I noted that “today’s upscale, sensitive-person, social-reflection dramas have fallen under the influence of a new form of ’30s social realism and are arguing against social ills that wokesters regard as evil and diseased. The result has been a new form of enlightened propaganda cinema.

“It’s almost astonishing to read Wolfe’s description of the ‘social realism’ movement of the ’30s because the same damn thing is happening right now.”

In response to which “seasonalaffleckdisorder” wrote that “[my] tinfoil hat is slipping…the rays are getting in…the gulf between the races…metastasizing into every organ of the body politic. You’re not paranoid if they are really coming to get you! Get all the Klassiks indoors where it’s safe from the people of color and the womenfolk.”

I won’t tolerate this kind of lunacy and derangement. I was obviously making a fair and referenced point.

On 6.15 the Ringer podcast (Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey) mentioned a post I did about the old Billy Crystal-Bruno Kirby feud (“When Billy Screwed Bruno,” 8.24.06). The post appeared ten days after Kirby‘s death from lukemia on 8.14.06.

Here’s the original post, which was basically a riff on an article by New York-based journalist Nicholas Stix. I’ve also re-posted a response to Mark Evanier‘s POV Online discussion (dead link) of the Stix article.

Here it is: This article by New York journalist Nicholas Stix (posted on Tuesday and updated today) could have been called “When Billy Shafted Bruno.” It’s not mentioned in the lead graph or the second or third graph, but the heart of the story provides indications and quotes supporting a thesis that Billy Crystal “made” the career of the late Bruno Kirby, who died last week, and then he un-made him.

Or so the indicators indicate. Crystal certainly seems to have had an indirect hand in limiting Kirby’s acting opportunities and may have been, in a sense, a “career- killing ogre” as far as Kirby was concerned. By all means read Stix’s article, but in a nutshell it says the following:

(a) “Kirby, whose first big role was young Clemenza in The Godfather, Part II, was one of the hottest character actors in Hollywood in the late 1980s, through 1991. Kirby’s high point was Rob Reiner‘s When Harry Met Sally (1989), in which Kirby played the male second banana as the sportswriter-best friend of Crystal’s character. Sally would prove to be one of the greatest romantic comedies ever made, and the high point in the career of everyone involved in the production.”

(b) “In 1991, Kirby had an even more substantial role in City Slickers as Crystal’s character’s macho friend,. That same year, Kirby also won acclaim on Broadway, replacing Kevin Spacey as the male lead, playing the smallest of small-timers, would-be gangster ‘Uncle Louie’ in Neil Simon’s memory play, Lost in Yonkers which won four Tony awards.”

(c) “At that point, Kirby was one of the top character actors in the business, his career on a trajectory that was leading inexorably to Oscar nominations, and perhaps even a golden statuette. And then his career tanked. Following City Slickers, the names of most of the pictures he was in were so forgettable — obscure, direct-to-video duds that I had never even heard of — that I instantly forgot them.”

(d) “During or shortly after the making of City Slickers, Kirby and Crystal had a falling out, and not only would Crystal no longer work with Kirby, but neither would any of the many producers and directors associated with Crystal. As a result, while Kirby continued to work, he was cast in fewer movies and the ones he was cast in were, well … take a look for yourself: Golden Gate (1994), Heavenzapoppin’! (1996), A Slipping-Down Life (1999), History Is Made at Night (1999), One Eyed King (2001).

I’ve no idea why the Powerhouse/Indicator Bluray of Ishtar has been cancelled, but I do know this is the second time that the release of an Ishtar Bluray has been blocked, as the same thing happened in 2012.

Tatiana and I are embroiled in an argument about a requested Airbnb refund for a booked-and-paid-for lakeside “villa” on Lake Peten in Guatemala. We didn’t flake out and change our minds on a whim — we were unable to visit Guatemala at all because of an idiotic, Covid-related decision by the Belizean border authorities that stated tourists with a rental car could enter Guatemala but not return to Belize.

We obviously couldn’t enter Guatemala under this condition, although we’d been told that the border situation was in flux and that we might somehow be able to wriggle through and visit Guatamela anyway, especially given that Tatiana and I are double-vaxxed. So we didn’t formally cancel until the last minute.

We’d been corresponding all along with our Airbnb hostess, Amabely, who was nothing but polite and considerate. We told her early on (i.e., last month) about the ridiculous Belizean regulation and that it would prevent our staying in her rental if the situation didn’t change. In one of her letters to us, Amabely said that under these circumstances (a) “I understand your hesitance to travel” and that (b) “you may cancel your reservation if you desire, now or last minute.”

The original reservation dates were for Sunday, June 6th and Monday, June 7. Early on (before we arrived in Belize on June 1st) we asked Amabely if we could shift the dates to Monday, June 7, and Tuesday, June 8. She told us this was not a problem at all.

We waited and waited on formally canceling because we were told in Belize that the Belize-Guatemala border situation was opening up and that Belize might soon relax their restrictive policy. And so we waited because we wanted very much to visit Guatemala, Flores, Lake Peten and Tikal. We wrote several times to Amabely about this frustrating situation. She was entirely understanding of the particulars and fully sympathetic in every message she sent us.

It was our fault for not FORMALLY changing the dates of our reservation via Airbnb software, but we knew that Amabely understood the problem and would roll with the situation if we were forced to cancel due to the bizarre Belize-Guatamela border policy. Again — she had told us “you may cancel your reservation if you desire, now or last minute.”

And then, all of a sudden and out of the friggin’ blue, Amabely and her husband Oswaldo decided to stiff us, using an Airbnb reservation timing technicality to do so. But why, we asked ourselves, would Amabely abruptly reverse herself after being so kind and understanding about our travel uncertainty for many weeks? We could only conclude that Oswaldo had stepped in and was declining the refund out of pure greed.

If NPR’s Terry Gross is nominally on-board with the Wuhan lab-leak theory, you know that other cautious liberal types are giving it serious consideration.

Gross has interviewed Katherine Eban, author of a 6.3.21 Vanity Fair piece titled “The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins.”

Yesterday Joe Rogan discussed a related issue. The episode is titled “Fauci, Gain-of-Function Research, and Wuhan Lab Funding.”