Orly touchdown around 12:20 pm. The after-dusk air feels October-ish, even chilly. Something called for silence. That plus the usual fatigue. 11 pm now, and every last table…every seat at Sancerre filled with beaming, jovial slap-happies.

Jordan Ruimy’s best films of the ‘60s critics poll has concluded, and the winners are HAL, Moonwatcher the bone-tosser, Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Andrei Smyslov and the hugely disappointing Jupiter (a gas planet that you can’t even land on in the first place).

I’d just come through security and was collecting all my stuff — leather computer bag, jacket, elephant hide wallet, two laptops, shoes, scarf, belt, pocket combs. In my haste I unthinkingly scooped up what I thought was my black iPhone 12 (Max Pro).

Ten minutes later I was sitting near gate 53, and discovered I had two black iPhones in my inside vest pocket. I ran back to security and promptly found the distraught guy (gray-haired, blue T-shirt) whose phone had strangely vanished. “Sorry, man…stupid mistake…sorry,” I told him as I restored his life and sanity. He was euphoric, levitating.

James Cagney: “You’re furious after I’ve just gotten you out of jail?”

Horst Buccholz: “You got me into jail!”

Cagney: “So we’re even.”

Five years after and in the cold light of day, it must be acknowledged that Spike Lee‘s BlacKkKlansman was never that persuasive and is, in fact, pretty much unbelievable in dramatic situational terms.

You could even apply the term “goofily plotted.”

The Focus Features release received a euphoric (i.e., over-hyped by shill critics) response when it premiered on 5.14.18 at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

I called it “Lee’s strongest since Inside Man, and before that The 25th Hour, and easily his most impassioned, hard-hitting film about the racial state of things in the U.S. of A. since Malcom X.”

The excitement was mainly due to the film’s final five minutes when Lee recalled the venality of 2017’s “Unite the Right” really in Charlottesville, which ended with the death of protestor Heather Meyer. It reminded viewers that Donald Trump‘s “very fine people on both sides” remark showed who and what he is, and made for a seriously pumped-up finale.

It opened on 8.10.18, and some of the reviews were almost laughable in their over-praise. Read A.O. Scott‘s 8.9.18 review and try not to smirk.

The truth, which I tapped out in my 5.14.18 review, is that BlacKkKlansman, despite being fact-based, is flimsy and hard to swallow. I’m not questioning the facts; I’m saying the action doesn’t “play” from an audience perspective.

“[Praising the finale] doesn’t change the fact that BlacKkKlansman is basically a police undercover caper film, based on Ron Stallworth‘s 2014 novel (“Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime”).

“Nor the fact that tonally it sometimes feels like Starsky and Hutch, or even to some extent like John Badham‘s Stakeout, especially as it involves the main cop protagonist falling in love with a girl (in this case an Afro’ed black activist, played by Laura Harrier) who shouldn’t know what he’s up to, but whom he eventually confesses to.

In this sense John David Washington‘s Stallworth is Richard Dreyfuss in the Badham film, and Adam Driver, as partner Flip Zimmerman, is Emilio Estevez.

“At times the film also reminds you of some Clarence Williams III‘s scenes from The Mod Squad.

“Set in 1972, pic isn’t literally about Stallworth joining the Ku Klux Klan but a stealthy undercover investigation of the Klan, initiated when he was the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department.

“After initial correspondence with the Klan, Stallworth received a call in which he was asked if he wants to ‘join our cause.’ Stallworth answered affirmatively, and in so doing launched an audacious, fraught-with-peril undercover inquiry.

Right away you’re telling yourself, “Yes, I know this actually happened and that Lee is using the facts in Stallworth’s book, but it made no sense for Fallworth to be heavily involved in this operation.” And it just feels crazy as you’re watching one silly incident after another.

Problem #1 is that throughout the film Stallworth talks to KKK members on the phone (including wizard David Duke, played by Topher Grace) and so Zimmerman, pretending to be the Real McCoy, has to sound like Stallworth as much as possible.

“Except this is a dicey game that’s unlikely to fool anyone. Early on a local KKK leader tells Stallworth that his voice sounds different, as it obviously is.

“If I was Stallworth’s supervisor I would tell him he’ll make a mistake sooner or later and that he’s too much of red flag, and that the smart move is for Zimmerman to carry the ball alone.

“Problem #2 comes when a KKK member spots ‘a black guy’ (i.e., Stallworth) behind the wheel of a car that’s following as he drives with Zimmerman. Brilliant tactical maneuvering, Stallworth!

“Problem #3 happens when Zimmerman is told by a suspicious klan member to submit to a lie-detector test, and so Stallworth, knowing that Zimmerman’s in a tough spot, runs up to the KKK member’s house and throws a rock through a window. It just seems nuts for Stallworth to have done that, given the likelihood that the klan might wonder why a black guy happened to be nearby.

“Problem #4 occurs when the same looney-tunes KKK member looks up Stallworth’s address in the phone book and pays him a visit. Stallworth answers the door and invents a falsehood, but for a couple of minutes he and the KKK member eyeball each other.

“Problem #5 happens when a Colorado Springs police supervisor insanely orders Stallworth to provide security for David Duke during a visit to their city. Before you know it Stallworth is in the same room as the same KKK member who knocked on his door, his identity protected only by a pair of shades. And then he takes them off before posing for a Polaroid photo. It’s just crazy — no undercover cop would behave this way.

“All this aside, BlacKkKlansman is semi-edgy and half-involving as far as it goes, and occasionally quite funny from time to time. It’s a reasonably good film, and I love that Lee shoots Trump between the eyes at the end, but people calling it ‘great’ need to calm down.”

A crackpot is a person whose views and philosophy are regarded as way too eccentric or fantastical to be taken seriously. A crankpot, according to Manhattan gadfly and all-around smartass Bill McCuddy, is a fellow who’s regarded as overly influenced by a skeptical sourpuss attitude about life and movies and whatever else — i.e., too Andy Rooney-ish.

Which, of course, is nowhere close to being a fair description of yours truly. For years I have claimed with a certain degree of sincerity to be a 21st Century incarnation of Klaus Kinski’s anti-Bolshevik in Dr. Zhivago — “the only free man on this train.” Okay, perhaps that’s putting it too strongly but it’s a reasonably close assessment, especially considering the general fanaticism out there.

Posted on Facebook late this afternoon, the subject being Pauline Kael’s 1965 review in McCall’s:

I don’t agree that I need to explain to that little woke-ass weenie (i.e., Byrne) that the cultural atmosphere of 1965 (Dr. Zhivago, Cat Ballou, Darling, the Voting Rights Act, the aggressive escalation of the Vietnam War, Rubber Soul) was, like, a teeny bit different from the current Stalinoid terror climate of 2023. And that people who were smart and crackling and flexing their biceps in ‘65 couldn’t possibly be expected to anticipate the state of mental identity derangement that we’re currently experiencing.

One ballsy boomer against AMPAS Stalinoids.

Steve McQueen and Paul Newman saved as many lives and as much of the day as they could. Bill Holden played a corrupt contractor in a terrible maroon tuxedo jacket, but…I can’t actually recall if he survived the water tank explosion. (Update: He did.) O.J. Simpson played a cool security guard, but did he survive? (Update: Yes.) I know for sure that Faye Dunaway survived — at the very end she was sitting on those marble steps outside the half-destroyed skyscraper, chatting with Newman and McQueen. And the heartbroken Fred Astaire made it out okay.

But weep anew for poor Robert Wagner (seared and blackened like a marshmallow) and his poor screaming blonde girlfriend, played by Susan Flannery (burned and splattered). And don’t forget Jennifer Jones (fell out of glass elevator, became a ruptured guts balloon when she hit the ground), Robert Vaughn (fell 135 stories, exploded into raw hamburger) and Richard Chamberlain (screamed the loudest as he fell alongside Vaughn).

…that the HE flame hasn’t burned brightly over the last 18 and 2/3 years. HE’s 20th anniversary will be celebrated on or about 8.20.24. If you include the old Mr. Showbiz, Hollywood Confidential and Movie Poop Shoot columns (and how could they not be taken into account?), the 25th anniversary of the launch of my online bang-bang will be champagne-corked in early October. The Mr. Showbiz launch happened sometime around 10.15.98.

Two observations about this morning’s coronation of Charles III and Camilla as the King and Queen of England.

(1) In the clip below you’ll notice at the 6:04 mark that Charles, royal sceptres in both hands, had to be helped to his feet by a pair of senior Church of England fellows, who then escorted him down the main aisle of Westminster Cathedral…slowly, slowly. If I’d been Charles, I would have spent many weeks strengthening my leg muscles and practicing getting to my feet without assistance, even while holding two sceptres and wearing a heavy bejeweled crown. The symbolism of a long-of-tooth fellow being helped to his feet is devastating.

(2) As they flanked their newly crowned monarch, it was immediately apparent that Charles (allegedly 5′ 10″) was significantly shorter than either of his attendants. Which made him appear less than commanding. It’s unbecoming for a king to appear frail and a bit shrunken, but that’s what we saw.

Royal Windsor men should stand straight and tall without assistance. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was six feet tall. And let’s not forget the medieval Edward I, who stood 6’2″.

The sum visual effect was that ruddy, pink-eyed, wrinkly-faced Charles, 74, is well past his prime. And yet, given the age of his mother and father at the the time of their respective deaths (96 and 99), Charles will most likely reign for a good 20 years or so, or, barring some unforeseen complication, until sometime in the early to mid 2040s. At which time William, Prince of Wales (born 6.21.82), will ascend to the throne, probably between the ages of 60 and 65.

“Well, what was your latest ‘preneur’”

“She threw up in her mask. Now cut the bullshit, please. Just say it. She threw up in her mask.”

“Don’t be vulgar, Jean. Let us be crooked, but never common.”

“Now, very simply, is he there or is he not fucking there?”

“I’m Shiva, the god of death.”

“There’s nothing like a love song to give you a good laugh.”

“”You don’t understand. There’s nothing…there’s nothing there. There’s nothing there.”

“You’re greedy, unfeeling, inept, indifferent, self-inflating and unconscionably profitable. Besides that, I have nothing against you. I’m sure you play a helluva game of golf.”

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