Apparently another “bit”, the partial idea being to trigger and enrage. But not altogether because he’s said more than once that “we’ll have to see.” In other words he’s serious. Anyone who says he’s just playing people like me haven’t been paying attention. Bill Maher has been talking about “what if Trump won’t leave?” for three years or so. And here we are.

Trailers have to sell the basic sizzle to the lowest common denominator. Naturally. Millions have to be briefed on what the Chicago 7 trial was all all about — who was who, what the Nixon administration was after, what the political currents were in ’68 and ’69. All to say that Aaron Sorkin’s film (limited theatrical on 9.25, Netflix release on 10.16) is much better than what this trailer indicates. Aces with room to spare. I knew this less than five minutes in.

I wish, by the way, that I could find a clip of that Bobby Seale courtroom bit in Woody Allen‘s Bananas (’71). Allen’s Fielding Mellish is prosecuted for treason or grossly un-American behavior, and, like Seale, is soon bound and gagged by the presiding judge (the resemblance to Judge Julius Hoffman being unmistakable), etc.

When Tenet stalled domestically, distributors large and small gulped. The writing on the wall was there for all to read, and many are deciding to cut bait for the time being. Certainly on Disney’s part. Black Widow, West Side Story, Deep Water…all bumped into ‘21. Who knows what major titles will open this year? I’m feeling very sorry for exhibitors — they must be in shock right now. What a horrendously unsettling era we’re all living through, and largely because of how Trump handled, or rather didn’t handle, the pandemic. Along with his lunatic followers and those with attitudes like Van Morrison‘s, plus the help of under-30 party animals. Three months ago we were all expecting that some kind of limited theatrical situation would be opening up by…October or early November? Certainly by the holidays. This is such a tough situation. It’s brutal.

Default fundamentals apply when a director assesses another director’s work. Political, fraternal, instinctual. If a deep-down reaction is, say, one of genuine if slightly muted admiration for the craft, theme and/or performances (or for all three), the director will always brush aside the “slightly muted” and amplify the love. Always accentuate the alpha — there could never be a reason not to. So we’re naturally obliged to regard all such testimonials with a grain of salt. That said, Aaron Sorkin‘s assessment of David Fincher‘s Mank is encouraging as hell.

What’s the big gripe against BLM wokester shitheads in Portland, Seattle, Chicago, D.C. and elsewhere? That the occasional looting, taunting, window-breaking and trashing of small businesses over the last three or four months have persuaded chubby, gray-haired hinterland types to think about voting for Trump.

The exact same complaint was being heard in the late ’60s, which was that the unruly appearance and behavior anti-establishment hippies and yippies were prompting Middle Americans to vote for Nixon and “lawnorder.”

There’s a discussion along these lines in Aaron Sorkin‘s The Trial of the Chicago 7. On one side are the rambunctious, frizzy-haired Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, and on another the pragmatic, moderate-minded activist Tom Hayden. Their attorney William Kuntsler is thinking about putting one of them on the witness stand, and they’re discussing who this might be.

Hayden: Maybe he thinks I won’t get the crowd worked up at all. Maybe he thinks there are jurors who rely on the safety of the police, and are put off when someone calls them pigs. Or maybe he wants a witness who dresses like a grown man.

Rubin: The cops in this city in the summer of ’60 were pigs.

Hayden: I wonder how many of them had kids in Vietnam.

Rubin to Hoffman, pointing at Hayden: “He‘s gonna take the stand, not you? And we’re okay with that? (beat) Abbie?

Hoffman (to Hayden): What did you mean, the last thing I want is to end the war?

Hayden: What?

Hoffman: Centuries ago when the trial started, you said, why did I come to Chicago? And I said, ‘To end the war.’ And then you turned to everyone and you said, ‘The last thing he wants is to end the war.’ What did you mean by that?

Hayden: That you’re making the most of your close-up.

Hoffman: Yeah?

Hayden: No more war, no more Abbie Hoffman.

Hoffman: What’s your problem with me?

Hayden: I wish people would stop asking me that.

Hoffman: Answer it. One time.

Hayden: All right. My problem is that for the next 50 years, when people think of progressive politics they’re gonna think of you. They’re gonna think of you and your idiot followers. Passing out daisies to soldiers and trying to levitate the Pentagon. So they’re not gonna think of equality or justice. They’re not gonna think of education or poverty or progress. They’re gonna think of a bunch of lost, stoned, disrespectful, foul-mouthed losers. And so we’ll lose elections.

The whole town’s gone apeshit over Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, which was press-screened on Netflix earlier this evening. No “reviews” until 9.24, but why not jump into the pool for a quick dip, so to speak?

How many idiots out there will accuse this new Black Narcissus miniseries of whitewashing after catching the first episode? Based on the same 1939 Rumer Godden novel that the 1947 Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger film was modelled upon, directed by Charlotte Bruus Christensen, exec produced and written by Amanda Coe, and starring Gemma Arterton, Alessandro Nivola, Aisling Franciosi, Diana Rigg and Jim Broadbent.

There are three distinct 21st Century nouveau riche approaches to interior design…three vomit-bag aesthetics favored by socially insecure people with too much money and no taste to speak of. A generally over-sized feeling, gold everything, too many drapes, questionable paintings, gaudy chandeliers, imitation ancient-Rome statues, huge windows, 14 foot tall ceilings, etc.

The offense-givers are (a) Kardashian Splendor (i.e., way too much conspicuous luxury, every nook and cranny designed and furnished like a luxury hotel, the exact opposite of distressed bohemian), (b) Uday and Qusay Hussein Palatial — Middle Eastern gold-and-marble kitsch, more conspicuous luxury, too many mounted 4K flat screens, large fountains and jacuzzis, and (c) Aggressive Putin, or the home stylings of an ostentatious Russian gangster — the main idea is to announce to the first-time visitor, “Look how much man money I have!…trust me, what I’ve spent on this place is only a fraction of my total holdings.”

The first and best known wrong-way freeway car chase happened in William Friedkin‘s To Live and Die in L.A. (’85). Another wrong-way-on-the-freeway happened in John Hughes‘ Planes, Trains & Automobiles (’88), but that was for comic effect. In his 9.3 Tenet review The New Yorker‘s Anthony Lane wrote that while Chris Nolan stages another such chase with panache, “heading the wrong way up a busy road is pretty much a daily commute” for Matt Damon‘s Jason Bourne. Except I’ve done some searching and while there’s no shortage of magnificent car-chase sequences in the five Bourne flicks, there’s no actual wrong-way-on-a-freeway. So thriller-wise there’ve really only been two — Live and Die plus Tenet. Right?

The Trump psychopath factor has led to a battleground-state tightening, although there’s little question that Biden is strongly favored as we speak. Especially with the new Democrat fervor in the wake of Justice Ginsburg‘s passing. Only pessimists and the proverbially panic-stricken are concerned.

Last week select junket journos were given a peek at Aaron Sorkin‘s The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix, 10.16). It’s also being press-streamed today. But of particular interest are the limited theatrical bookings starting on Thursday, 9.24 and continuing until Wednesday, 9.30. Chicago, Boston, Stamford, Greewniwhc, Hoboken, etc. HE regulars willing to brave an indoor theatre are requested to catch Chicago 7 and offer comments.

I’ve no idea how widespread the theatrical Chicago 7 opening will be, but a brief search has uncovered the following bookings: (1) Criterion Cinemas at Greenwich Plaza, Greenwich, CT; (2) Ultimate Majestic 6, Stamford, CT; (3) Bowtie Hoboken Cinemas, Hoboken, NJ; (4) Landmark’s Kendall Square Cinemas in Cambridge (starting on 9.25); and (5) Chicago’s Century Centre Cinema (also starting on 9.25).

Other bookings?

Yesterday I posted about an 85-minute doc, Meeting The Beatles in India. The piece was titled “I’ll Kill You, Lennon, You Bastard.” A comment from Variety‘s Chris Willman mentioned that a portion of the doc briefly dealt with allegations about sexual misbehavior on the part of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and yet Willman passed along observations from others that this portion may (emphasis on the “m” word) have been removed from the PPV version.

This morning I wrote a Facebook note to Paul Saltzman, director of Meeting The Beatles in India, which Gathr is now offering PPV streaming access to the film. I also wrote the film’s publicist, Maggie Begley.

“Paul — Greetings from Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere. On 9.9 Variety‘s music critic Chris Willman reviewed your Meet the Beatles in India doc. I riffed on the film yesterday, and here’s what Willman said in the HE comment section:

“‘When I reviewed the film, I made mention of a section toward the end that brings up the allegations against the Maharishi and then explains it away to sabotage by Magic Alex that spoiled a good thing.

“‘I then heard from people who watched the film upon its PPV opening that said this section I described was no longer in the film, and viewers were left thinking that everything ended happily. I’d be interested to hear from anyone else who saw the film which cut they saw.’

Willman is a totally reliable, first-rate journalist so I’m taking his word for this, or at least regarding what he says he’s been told. Have you in fact removed the referred-to portion of your doc? If so, do you have any comment or explanation as to why this was done?

Pertinent Willman paragraph, in 9.9.20 Variety review:

“The Maharishi is portrayed only in a positive light, although there’s a passing reference to the nasty song Lennon wrote about him immediately after the sojourn, ‘Sexy Sadie,’ before Saltzman fleetingly addresses the still hot-button topic of why some of the group members fell out with the guru, which had to do with the Maharishi allegedly making moves on women in the compound. The apologia offered by Saltzman and Lewisohn is that a peripheral figure in the Beatles’ entourage, ‘Magic Alex,’ spread false stories about the holy man, though [Alex] told a very different accounting of the fallout (and sued The New York Times over a description similar to the one offered here) before he died in 2017.”

And yet “Magic Alex (aka John Alexis Mardas, who passed in January 2017) denied all this in a February 2010 statement he sent to the N.Y. Times. Here are four paragraphs from said statement: