6 pm update: Scott Roxborough’s original THR article described Parasite as “odd“. The words “downright weird” were also used to describe offbeat international films. Both terms were recently deep-sixed by THR editors.

Earlier: For 15 or 16 months Hollywood Elsewhere has stood alone in claiming that Bong Joon-ho‘s Parasite is half very good and half looney-tunes. The latter portion starts around the halfway mark when the drunken con-artist family lets the maid in during the rainstorm. I’ve said this 36 or 37 times.

You think it’s fun or easy standing up to the woke Oscar mob? Well, this is a moment of rejoicing because someone, finally, has stood up and called Parasite an “odd” film also.

THR‘s Scott Roxborough: “Parasite has blown open the doors of the international feature category, long thought to be the purview of ‘serious message movies,’ to the experimental and the strange.

“If a movie about a family of South Korean con artists — one that shifts in tone among thriller, horror and straight-out farce — can win the highfalutin’ international feature Oscar, than even the weirdest overseas films have a shot this awards season.”

Posted on 7.23.20: “Parasite obviously won because a sufficient number of voters agreed with the blunt-social-assessment aspect (life is unfair for the poor) plus the wokesters loved the idea of choosing a well-made film by a filmmaker of color, and one that didn’t fit the usual definition of a Best Picture winner. Plus Bong Joon-ho worked the town like a locomotive.

“The first half of Parasite is very good (it goes off the rails when they let the fired maid in during the rainstorm) but it won because of identity (i.e., non-white) politics. Don’t argue, don’t lie, that’s why.”

Earlier version of THR headline and subhead:

Current, changed (i.e., tamer) headline and subhead:

Twitter suspended president Donald Trump’s account permanently https://t.co/AnR5pCQqmN

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) January 8, 2021

There are three or four versions of John Lennon‘s “Across The Universe” out there, but this version — messy and rehearsal-ish but full of brash spirit — is easily the best I’ve ever heard, and largely for two reasons. One, Paul McCartney singing harmony in the main verses, and two, Lennon’s improvisational asides. (Example: “Nothing’s gonna change my world” followed by John’s “I wish it fuckin’ would!”). Recorded at Twickenham during the Get Back sessions. It’s been sitting on YouTube for two and 3/4 years. Sorry!

N.Y. Post‘s Ebony Bowden: “An articles of impeachment accusing President Trump of ‘inciting an insurrection‘ have been drafted by House Democrats in the wake of the deadly Capitol siege and will be formally introduced on Monday, according to reports.

“The document, which has over 150 sponsors, accuses Trump of violating his Constitutional duty by encouraging a crowd of his supporters to fight the vote to certify Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

“In all of this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States government. He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transfer of power, and imperiled a coordinate branch of government,” the document reads.

It is the second time that Congress has moved to impeach Trump. He was impeached by acquitted at trial by the Senate last year after he was accused of improperly pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden.

“No president has ever been impeached twice.”

Let’s change this question to “which director had the hottest run of any length…who enjoyed the greatest cavalcade of grand-slam films, whether it was four or six or even ten?”

The answer in this instance would be Howard Hawks and his nine-year, nine-film run of one bull’s-eye after another…it began in 1938 with Bringing Up Baby and ended in 1946 with Red River (even if that classic western wasn’t released until ’48).

The rundown: Bringing Up Baby (’38), Only Angels Have Wings (’39), His Girl Friday (’40), Sergeant York (’41), Ball of Fire (’41), Air Force (’43), To Have and Have Not (’45), The Big Sleep (’45 and ’46) and Red River (shot in ’46, released in ’48).

If you want to be strict and keep it to four, I would say that Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory (’57), Spartacus (’60), Lolita (’62) and Dr. Strangelove (’64) was an extraordinary run.

It would appear that Ashli Babbitt, who was killed two days ago while trying to climb through a smashed Capitol Hill window during the big riot…it would seem she overdid the zeal. Babbitt was a rightwing fanatic who bought Trump’s stolen-election bullshit hook, line and sinker. In the sense of “those who live by the sword, die by the sword,” Babbitt died unluckily but, in a sense, appropriately. By her own hand, I mean.

I certainly have no sympathy for her — a married resident of Ocean Beach, an ex-Air Force veteran and the CEO of Fowler’s Poll Service & Supply, an allegedly struggling outfit based in Spring Valley. Babbitt died a true believer in rightwing horseshit. She may have been a decent person to know and work with, but she walked right in and reaped the whirlwind, and now she sleeps with the fishes. Hollywood Elsewhere sheds not a tear.

Babbitt had a complex history and had coped with her share of detours and speedbumps. She wasn’t always a Trump nutbag, for example. She was reportedly an Obama supporter before switching her loyalty to Trump in ’16 because she hated Hillary Clinton so much. Plus she was possessive and had a temper. And her corresponding intensity led to embracing unambiguous attitudes and beliefs.

Two occupiers enjoying temporary triumph — Richard “Bigo” Barnett, 60, of Gravette, Arkansas sitting at Nancy Pelosi‘s desk during Wednesday’s Capitol hill riot, and poet David Shapiro smoking a cigar at the desk of Columbia University president Grayson Kirk during a student takeover on 4.30.68. Shapiro went on to teach at Columbia. What kind of a future will Barnett encounter, I wonder? Besides death, I mean.

Richard “Bigo” Barnett at Nancy Pelosi’s desk.

David Shapiro sitting at desk of Columbia University president Grayson Kirk.

There was this late-night robbery scene in a Sopranos episode. Christopher Moltisanti was one of the burglars, and he explained to the other guy that they needed to leave a brown torpedo on the rug as a kind of calling card.

I remember thinking to myself “gee, Frank Sinatra and the Ocean’s 11 guys didn’t do this when they knocked off those five casinos.”

Probably the all-time worst Dept. of Education secretary in U.S history, not to mention one of the least knowledgable during the confirmation hearing. And now Betsy Devos has resigned over Trump’s instigation of yesterday’s chaos. DeVos to Trump: “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation.”

“Blue Hands,” the title of an L.M. Kit Carson screenplay, is one of my all-time favorites. The sound of it, I mean. The attitude is so cool and just right.

The script was some kind of hipster crime thing with a surreal edge. (It ended inside a department store with several circus animals running around loose.) The hands of Riggers, the main protagonist, were robin’s egg blue. I can’t recall if it was a birth defect or tattoo, but it was just a bit that Carson threw in — the plot didn’t turn on his hands and no other characters made a big deal out of them.

I read “Blue Hands” in ’87 or thereabouts. Over the last three decades and change I’ve been hoping the title would be used by some other film or TV series or whatever…nope.

Please share other great movie titles for films that were never made.

Speaking of hands I’ve always been grateful to my parents and grandparents that mine were never clammy or sweaty. Okay, they were occasionally moist or damp during my early childhood, I’ll admit, but now in my mid-autumnal years they’re always bone dry. Few things are more unwelcome than shaking or holding a clammy hand.

During my young-buck days I also used to have trouble with women who had pink or orange toes (or heels). I would say to myself “wow, she’s really pretty and nice but what’s with the toes?” Not their fault, of course, but I always found this to be a hurdle. I would never admit this to the woman in question, of course.

Over the last couple of years we’ve all seen some fairly amazing film stock transformations on YouTube. Rickety old silent films shot at 18 fps uprezzed to an almost video-like clarity via 4K 60fps HDR with motion interpolation and added sound.

It’s obvious that uprezzing and colorization techniques have vastly improved over the last two or three years. I really wouldn’t mind re-watching a few 20s classics if they were properly uprezzed. Like Metropolis was a year or two ago.

I’ve said this before (and I realize it’s a deeply unpopular opinion in film-dweeb circles) but I would definitely rent 60fps versions of classic studio-era films from the’30s, ’40s and ’50s. (I might even buy them.) I’m not certain that a 60fps version of Only Angels Have Wings would be the same thing as a 60fps with motion interpolation (or motion flow) but even if it is, I like how faster frame rates make old films look. You suddenly don’t feel as if you’re looking at films that were shot 80 or 100 or 120 years ago. They feel more immediate.

Do I watch older films with motion flow on my own TV? No — TV motion-flow technology is too primitive and fake-looking. But I’m persuaded that there’s an intriguing middle ground between the 24 fps original and what could be rendered with a proper 60 fps uprez treatment.

Kayleigh McEnany‘s White House statement about yesterday’s Capitol Hill invasion reeked of lies and hypocrisy. The after-stench was suffocating.

Wednesday’s violence, she said, was “appalling, reprehensible and antithetical to the American way. What we saw…was a group of violent rioters undermining the legitimate First Amendment rights of the many thousands who came to peacefully have their voices heard in our nation’s capital. Those who violently besieged our capital are the opposite of everything this administration stands for”….full stop.

Trump inspired and orchestrated yesterday’s chaos. The Capitol marauders exactly and precisely carried out what Trump wanted to see happen. In his video message he called the rioters “very special” and said “[I] love you.”

Final KM line: “Those who are working in this building are working to ensure an orderly transition of power.” Starting today, she meant. Biden had clearly won the election by 11.6 or thereabouts. Trump called it a fraudulent non-win from the get-go, and is still calling it that.

McEnany and her homies don’t show up until 2:40. Listen to the cacophony of questions starting at 4:40…hilarious.

Robotic teleprompter bullshit:

pic.twitter.com/csX07ZVWGe

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021