Of all the first-run films playing in various uptown Manhattan theatres on 12.14.57, The Bridge on the River Kwai is the only one regarded as essential viewing among 2021 film buffs (talk about a degraded term!). Boomers and GenXers, I mean, as I doubt it has any currency among Millennials and Zoomers.

Confession: Even though it was the first film shot in Camera 65 (large format, 2.76 to 1), I’ve never once watched Edward Dmytryk‘s Raintree County, partly because it runs 182 minutes. I might give it a looksee if the rights owner would issue a decent Bluray or a digital HD rental, but right now it’s only viewable as a DVD.

12 years ago my younger brother Tony died from a mixture of Oxycontin and alcohol. A similar lethal combo (oxymorphone with alcohol) killed director George Hickenlooper, whom I regarded as an actual friend, the following year (2010). Oxy has contributed to the accidental deaths of 500,000 persons before and since. It’s obviously a harmful substance, and we all know that some in the pharmaceutical industry pushed it like any streetcorner heroin dealer.

And yet I’m more of a libertarian than a scold about this issue. In a perfect world no one would drink or take drugs, but if someone is truly miserable (as my brother was) and wants to live inside an Oxy cocoon as a means of pain management…I think they should be allowed to go there, at least for a limited period. And if they accidentally die from this, it’ll be sad and tragic but the responsiblity would be theirs.

God knows alcohol is a worse scourge, especially in the realm of driving deaths. An estimated 95,000 people die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third-leading preventable cause of death in the United States. And yet no one is hysterically hot and bothered about the alcohol industry.

From Owen Gleiberman‘s Variety review of Alex Gibney‘s Crime of the Century (HBO, 5.10 — 231 minutes): “’Pain relief’ sounds like an innocuous phrase out of an old Bayer aspirin commercial, but Gibney captures how the elimination of pain has been elevated, by the pharmaceutical-medical establishment, into a false American cult of wellness.

“It’s no accident that the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, advanced this way of thinking. It was more or less invented in the early ’60s by Dr. Arthur Sackler, who brought drugs into the age of advertising with the marketing of Valium. OxyContin was sold as a quality-of-life drug, which is how it hooked thousands. And that marked a paradigm shift: From this point on, you could basically walk into a doctor’s office and ask for pain relief. The Crime of the Century is a full-scale vision of how America, addicted to pain relief, embraced the corruption of legalized drug pushing.”

19 year-old Billie Eilish embraces a shaggy-ass, anti-glam, dressed-down look for the most part. Now she’s doing an icy Mae West by way of mid ’50s Jayne Mansfield on the cover of Vogue. Okay…so? Have they passed a law that guys like me need to be followers? Eilish has been happening for five or six years, but I didn’t pay attention until her “No Time to Die” single (from the still-not-released James Bond flick, due on 10.8.21) popped on YouTube.

Friendo #1: “I’m certainly curious about West Side Story, but I can’t imagine it will be all that different from the original, except more muted visually. Two people who’ve seen In the Heights tell me it’s terrific and will go through the roof with audiences — and it will win all comparisons to the Spielberg.”

Jett and I saw the 2009 West Side Story revival at the Palace (B’way and 47th), where Judgment at Nuremberg and The Bridge on the River Kwai played reserved seat engagements in ’61 and ’57, respectively. I had never seen it onstage, and my basic responses were (a) “Well, I’ve finally seen it performed on stage!’, (b) “Very professional enterprise, and obviously more authentically ethnic in terms of Puerto Rican characters and dialogue,” (c) “I was impressed but not blown away,” (d) “Who was that little twerpy guy playing the imaginary son of Tony and Maria?”

Friendo #2: “I have high hopes pinned on In The Heights and West Side Story, although I’ve long regarded the latter as a weak piece of storytelling with great songs, and I’m not sure if Tony Kushner is going to be able to fix that. What put West Side Story over, when it first emerged in the paleolithic era of Elvis Presley and Dwight D. Eisenhower, was that exotic concept — switchblade-wielding street gangs, modern-dance mode, Romeo and Juliet. But exotic concept does not automatically = interesting or well-told story.”

Six weeks ago: “For months I’ve been thinking that Quiara Alegría Hude and Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s In The Heights (HBO Max, 6.18) may be a better, more rousing thing than Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story (20th Century, 12.10), which I’ve been secretly scared of for a long time.”

“The original West Side Story B’way musical is over 63 years old, having came out of the Upper West Side tenement jungle of the early to mid ’50s. In The Heights is based on a 2007 Off-B’way show, and is therefore at least part of this century.”

A friend says he’s heard “mixed” responses. Like what? Too pop-fizzy? Too synthetic? “All of that,” he replied. “Overlong, poorly paced, fails at character development.”

In a 3.7.19 clip of Vincent D’Onofrio on the Rich Eisen Show (3.7.19), he recounts a making of Full Metal Jacket story that I’d never heard before today. It starts at 5:10, lasts for just under two minutes, and is definitely worth your time.

We all understand that Mickey Rourke‘s golden movie-star period spanned from ’81 to ’88 — Body Heat, Diner, Rumble Fish, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Year of the Dragon (“mood hair”), 9 1/2 Weeks, Barfly, Angel Heart, A Prayer for the Dying (“yes, fah’uhr”) and the respected, under-seen Homeboy.

The boxing period started sometime in the late ’80s, and then came the cheek implants and other facial tough-ups. Rourke began to look like a different person — that Diner guy hadn’t aged as much as suffered a transformation into something mottled and re-sculpted.

Then come a series of not-good-enough flicks — Johnny Handsome, Wild Orchid, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Michael Cimino‘s Desperate Hours, White Sands, etc. Rourke briefly “came back” with his Oscar-nominated performance in Darren Aronofsky‘s The Wrestler (’08). My favorite Rourke moments of the last decade came from his YouTube putdowns of Donald Trump.

Rourke was exquisite in Body Heat — the right age, a perfect look, authentic street attitude, a gentleness. When I think of classic Rourke I think of the triumvirate of Body Heat, Diner and Angel Heart.

Pauline Kael on early Rourke: ‘He has an edge and a magnetism and a pure, sweet smile that surprises you.”

Bob Dylan on Homeboy: “[Rourke] could break your heart with a look. The movie traveled to the moon every time he came onto the screen. Nobody could hold a candle to him. He was just there, didn’t have to say hello or good-bye.”

Welcome back to Marvel Children’s Day Camp…a place for family, fables, hugs, caresses and reassuring fantasies…a Shangri-La for open-hearted saps and simpletons who want need simulations of magic and wonder in their lives. That craggy-voice narrator sounds a bit like Hyman Roth, but it’s Stan Lee, of course.

Actual YouTube comments: (a) “That was beautiful. The fact that the MCU started over a decade ago and yet we’re still glued to the screen is a feat in itself. Honestly wishing I wouldn’t die until I’m like 80 only if to see how it all unfolds”; (b) “I teared up when Black Panther: Wakanda Forever showed up. WHAT A F**KING GOOD TRAILER THIS WAS!”; (c) “I cried hearing Stan Lee talk…the man helped create a movement”; (d) “Did anybody else have the shivers for 3 minutes and 22 seconds like me?! MISS YOU, STAN THE MAN”; (e) “When I saw the title Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, I couldn’t hold back the tears.”

Judging strictly by certain vague and misty auras (promise, potential), the most intriguing films of 2021 seem to be In The Heights, House of Gucci, Canterbury Glass, Annette, Cyrano, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Cry Macho, Soggy Bottom, Being The Ricardos, The Card Counter, Don’t Look Up, West Side Story, The Many Saints of Newark, The French Dispatch (13).

The ’21 and early ’22 Oscar season begins four months hence. Roughly 40 films to keep an eye on, give or take. The order is random. Bring on the corrections!

1. Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Soggy Bottom

2. Aaron Sorkin’s Being The Ricardos

3. Joel Coen‘s The Tragedy of Macbeth

4. Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch

5. Guillermo del Toro‘s Nightmare Alley

6. Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde

7. David O’Russell‘s Canterbury Glass

8. Adam McKay‘s Don’t Look Up

9. Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune

10. Sean Baker‘s Red Rocket

11. Edgar Wright‘s Last Night in Soho

12. Robert Eggers‘ The Northman

13. Leos Carax‘s Annette

14. Joe Wright‘s Cyrano

15. James Gray‘s Armageddon Time

16. Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog

17. Ridley Scott‘s The Last Duel

18. Terrence Malick‘s The Way Of The Wind

19. Paul Schrader‘s The Card Counter

20. Clint Eastwood‘s Cry Macho

21. Paul Verhoeven‘s Benedetta

22. Mike Mills‘ C’mon C’mon

23. Taika Waititi‘s Next Goal Wins

24. Celine Sciamma‘s Petite Maman

25. Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story

26. Mia Hansen-Løve‘s Bergman Island

27. Tom McCarthy‘s Stillwater

28. Alan Taylor‘s The Many Saints of Newark

29. Jeremy Saulnier‘s Rebel Ridge

30. Kogonada‘s After Yang

31. Ruben Ostlund‘s Triangle of Sadness

32. Steven Soderbergh‘s No Sudden Move

33. Ridley Scott‘s House of Gucci

34. Jon Chu‘s In The Heights

35. Lin Manuel Miranda’s Tick, Tick…Boom!

36. Pablo Larrain‘s Spencer

37. Joe Wright‘s Cyrano

38. Olivia Wilde‘s Don’t Worry, Darling

39. Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s The Lost Daughter

40. Steve Chbosky‘s Dear Evan Hansen

This is nearly two weeks old (4.22) but worth highlighting anyway.

It’s Paul Schrader (The Card Counter, First Reformed) speaking to The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody, and if you’re the type of person who wishes that serious theatrical adult-angled features will somehow rebound when theatres come back, what Schrader says is, of course, hugely depressing. But what else is new?

Schrader: “I see four venues for theatrical. (1) Extreme spectacle, which is like 4DX—or like that van Gogh immersive experience that’s coming. That you have to go out of the house for. That’s a reason to go out of the house; (2) Children’s movies, of course, because you want to see your kids laugh with other kids, and that’s really for the parents more than the kids; (3) Date-night movies, which is horror and a certain kind of teen comedy, and there’ll still be a place for that. And (4) what we now call Club Cinema, which is where you have a membership. This is like the Burns or the Metrograph or the Film Forum or Angelika.

“They’re all event-based. And I think those places will come back. But the normal mall cinema or multi-cinema, I think that’s a real struggle.

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“They say that 50% of New York restaurants won’t reopen. That’s certainly true, also, of the movie theatres. And so we are rethinking that whole concept, and it’s a rethinking going across the board, because it’s also happening to the Oscars. What do the Oscars mean anymore? Does anybody care anymore? Will the festivals have the strength that they used to have?

“And this idea of the two-hour serious movie, which evolved in many ways as a reaction to television, where the film companies all had agents in New York looking for the new serious book…From Here to Eternity, we’re going to do that.” And that’s gone now. Nobody’s looking for the new serious book. And to make a movie today, a quality movie, let’s say a movie like Hud or The Hustler, that movie’s just not being made. Now, there is quality long-form but I think the serious two-hour film [is a commercially shaky proposition].

“I have a film that’s opening [The Card Counter], which fits in that mold. And I’ve been thinking of writing a new script after that, and I just find myself wondering, ‘Who will make such a film?’

I almost always get up early (between 6 and 7 am), and that’s usually after having gotten five or six hours of sleep. Even though it’s better for people (especially those with demanding, stressful jobs) to get 7 or 8 hours my eyes are almost always open in the quiet morning hours, when things outside are mostly still and semi-shadowed to some extent.

Sometimes I’ll even awaken at 4 or 5 am. There’s no point in trying to go back to sleep so I just turn the phone on and start the usual chores — editing and refining the material I wrote the day before, responding to commenters, figuring what to write about next.

But after doing this for two or three hours, or around 8 am, that sleepy John Lennon feeling returns and I’ll go under again for an hour or so. My body tells me this without fail — “You need this…do it until 8:45 or 9 am.”

The homework period is always blissful, and I’m so grateful that I get to settle in and experience this portion of peace and security every morning.

I for one didn’t revisit Fatal Attraction on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, which happened three and a half years ago (9.16.17). But others have in the interim, and the #MeToo view is basically that even though Glenn Close‘s Alex Forrest was damaged and unstable and jumped the gun as far as Michael Douglas‘s Dan Gallagher was concerned, she was coming from a no-bullshit emotional place, and she had a point.

Gallagher, a married attorney, saw an opportunity for some hot recreational sex (the kind that married people generally don’t have as a rule) and a brief revisiting of his hormonal hound-dog past with an enticing woman while his wife was out of town, and he went for it.

But almost right out of the gate Forrest began asking him why he was cheating. In some corners the new thinking is “was Alex really so wrong to want something real from the guy? She wasn’t some predatory psycho — she was hurting and off-balance, agreed, but it was the mid ’80s, she was 36 years old and she didn’t want to be treated like a sex poodle. She was simply putting her cards on the table.”

Hollywood Elsewhere re-watched Fatal Attraction two or three nights ago, and here’s the basic deal, #MeToo or not.

Forrest was way out line to even fantasize that a weekend (36 hours, give or take) of great sex and spaghetti and opera and more sex plus a suicide attempt…she was way out of line to think that there was even a slight basis for a serious extra-marital affair between herself and Gallagher.

The rules are the rules, and everyone knows that the first night or two of sex between consenting adults is strictly about sensual abandon and intoxication…under the best of circumstances and with the right person the initial stages of a sexual escapade can be a glorious and ecstatic escape from the regular grind of living and working and carrying the weight of it all.

And this rule goes double if not triple if one of the parties is married. In such a situation there’s always an assumption that this is strictly a one-timer or a one-weekender…all sane adults understand this.

If, on the other hand, the affair continues and the married man or woman becomes more and more attached to the non-married lover or vice versa, then it’s cool for the unattached person to ask “what are we doing exactly? Because I’m not into recreational, gymnastic sex for its own sake…I’m interested in having a real-deal relationship with someone I truly care for so where are we exactly?”

That kind of conservation is completely normal and par-for-the-course after the affair has been going on a while. But you can’t broach the subject after only a night or two. That’s crazy — totally bonkers.

Which is why Gallagher froze and said “oh, shit” to himself at the 42-second mark in the above scene, or right when Forrest said “so what are you doing here?”

Today is technically the tenth anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, as the infamous al-Qaeda mass murderer breathed his last at 1 am Abbottobad time on 5.2.11. The choppers bearing the Navy Seals took off a couple of hours earlier in Afghanistan. President Obama announced the killing on 5.10 from Washington, D.C., which is twelve hours behind Abbottabad.

This is as good a reason as any to re-submit to Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s Zero Dark Thirty (’12), one of the finest films of this century and probably the greatest military-intel drama ever made.

For the sin of honestly telling the story of how Bin laden’s hideout was discovered (omitting CIA-sanctioned torture of suspected Al-Qaeda and bin Laden confidantes would have been a lie) Bigelow’s film was savaged by a cabal of Academy lefties (including many in the press), and so it lost the Best Picture Oscar to Ben Affleck‘s Argo, which, due respect, was a far less accomplished film and full of inventions and falsehoods.