Jeffrey Wells Roman Polanski haters have kept English-subtitled Blurays of An Officer and a Spy (aka J’Accuse) off the market for the last four-plus years, and no English-sub streaming options have surfaced in the U.S. or Europe either (except via pirate sites). And yet a beautiful all–format Russian Bluray with English subs has been kicking around on eBay for a year or two. It took me a long time to wake up to this. I’m now a proud owner.
…for everything, all of it. Especially delighted that I finally own an English-subtitled Bluray of Polanski’s J’Accuse. Heartbroken that the hooligan bad guys are about to take charge and that the degradation of so much is about to kick in.
Otherwise I’m grateful for the hundreds of small pleasures and comforts and nourishments that constitute daily life…I could write a book. Good wishes and heartfelt greetings to everyone, even my comment-thread enemies…even those I’ve wished cancer upon.
Friendo:
I’d forgotten that before Clint’s Dave Garver slugs Jessica Walter’s knife-wielding Evelyn Draper — pow! — and sends her plunging to a rocky seaside death, Walter gives Donna Mills’ Tobie Williams a severe haircut.
That has to be one of the ugliest and creepiest things a cinematic serial killer has ever done to a victim — “Before I stab you to death I’m going to chop off half of your Jane Fonda-in-Klute hair.”
Clint was a young-looking 40 when he directed and starred; Walter was 29, Mills was 30 or 31, and John Larch, who played the amiable, well-dressed, Martin Balsam-like detective, was in his late 50s.
Evelyn and Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest are birds of a feather. Evelyn is a bit more manic and unhinged —almost an AIP horror film character — but they both slash their wrists in Act Two and threaten the hero’s significant domestic other during the climax.
The sexual ethos of Play Misty For Me (‘71) presents Dave, a KRML deejay who drives an Austin Healy and lives in a cliffside bungalow, as an innocent libertine. By 2024 standards mellow Dave is almost the bad guy — a handsome, low-key hound who gets laid whenever and with whomever (pick of the litter!) with a general understanding that casual, no-big-deal affairs are part of the no-strings nookie game of the Nixon era. No internet or social media spears or frowning feminist currents — an exotic world as different from our own as Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
…that I feel compelled to forgive its primarily structural, non-lethal shortcomings. I certainly felt an urge to brush them aside while chatting late last night with a smattering of the cool kidz (including the Hoboken-residing twin Oscar Expert bruhs) outside theatre #7 within Manhattan’s Lincoln Square complex. No review until 12.10 but in the meantime…
The tail end of the final sentence should read “so much of Unknown is spot–on, the real thing, a bell ringer. I was sorta kinda emotionally melting during the first half hour or so — literally on the verge of tears. Yes, I’ve been deeply invested in Dylan my entire life so I’m especially susceptible but still…
Last week writer Vincenzo Barney revealed in a Vanity Fair article that Cormac McCarthy, the late author of Blood Meridien and No Country for Old Men, indulged in a years-long affair with a teenaged be-bop baby.
The woman in question is the now 64-year-old Augusta Britt, whom the celebrated author first met in ’76 or thereabouts, when she was 16 and he was 42.
McCarthy and Britt consummated the deal a year later. She was his “single secret muse”, etc. McCarthy died last year at age 89.
Conventional wokeism naturally asserts McCarthy groomed and exploited a presumably naive young woman, but Britt has insisted otherwise.
McCarthy from heaven: “Condemn all you want but as America was celebrating its Centennial and beyond, it was a be-bop baby for me-hee…a be-bop baby for me.”
…and he doesn’t even mention the twin identity campaigns of Lily Gladstone, who ran as a lead after clearly playing a supporting role in Killers of the Flower Moon, and Emilia Perez’s Karla Sofia Gascon, whose titular character is a strong presence but not a lead — Zoe Saldana has that honor.
Why did Wilson omit even a mention of these two? I’ll tell you why. Because he’s chicken, or because his editors are.
But as this photo was Facebook-posted yesterday (The Far Side) and then commented on by over 400 persons, my honest response is as follows:
I’m down with immodest beach garb as a rule, but there comes a time when nature doesn’t encourage modesty — it demands it. Not only should this headstrong, free-spirited woman not wear a bikini on a beach, but she shouldn’t even glance in the bathroom mirror when she’s toweling off from a shower.
Sorry, no offense.
