Jeffrey Wells Wanting to become a Catholic deacon is “better” than wanting to become a heroin addict or an Islamic terrorist, but in the realm of Shia LeBeouf it’s the same basic dynamic — an inability to trust his own mystical realm and an urge to submit to a stronger external current.
Meanwhile we all want to see Abel Ferrara’s Padre Pio…seriously.
Otherwise all I can say is that (a) Zac Efron sure looks better without the buffed-up wrestler bod and that godawful Prince Valiant hair, and (b) award–wise Colman Domingo, due respect, isn’t happening,
When the 58-year-old Gene Tierney sat for a chat on The Mike Douglas Show in 1979, she bore little resemblance to the beautiful, tres elegant femme fatale she played in Otto Preminger ‘s Laura (‘44).
The Douglas interview was 35 years later, of course, so why the shade? Because Tierney seemed altered by more than time.
She looked and sounded Lucille Ball-ish, to be honest — like someone who’d been smoking unfiltered cigarettes for decades and enjoying her nightly cocktails.
And she spoke with a slightly coarse accent that didn’t exactly scream “finishing school,” which was how she sounded in Laura. She pronounced “awards” as “awauhds”, Warner Bros. as Wauhnuh Brothuhs” and father as “fahthuh”.
Plus Tierney had sadly been grappling with mental issues off and on since the ‘50s, and given my own younger sister’s decades of battling schizophrenia I know what that shit looked like.
All to say that for those who’ve been blessed with good genes and have revelled in their youth and the fair-weather life that often results when people can’t stop talking about how ravishing your green eyes are, they don’t know what they’ve got ‘til it’s gone.
Tierney and her well-to-do family (her father, Howard Sherwood Tierney, was a flush insurance broker) began living in nearby Westport in the mid 1930s. Their home was in the Greens Farms region, and is located at 2 Tierney Lane, presumably christened in honor of her dad. (I’m wondering if Howard’s middle name was somehow connected in a family way to nearby Sherwood Island.)
I’ve been meaning to visit the Tierney homestead since moving here in the spring of ‘22. One of these days.
Gene Tierney made it to age 70. She died on 11.6.91.
Don’t come back.
…the painting of common objects, starting with Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and moving on down the line. Hence my own lowbrow interest in wanting to visit the Ed Ruscha MOMA exhibit before Jan. 15.
Frank Gehry on Ed Ruscha on MOMA platform:
All Hollywood hiring practices are “performative.”
The primary goal has always been to make money, of course, and in the case of Barbie it didn’t seem unusually risky to tap into the mythology of a 60-year-old doll franchise and then give it a sassy progressive spin.
That said, nothing will weaken your standing or get you fired faster than your rivals sensing you’re trying to do something other than make money.
Ask yourself this: if you were the progressive-minded senior editor of a sweeping USC–funded study of Hollywood hiring practices regarding women and persons of color, and particularly if your report was created under the imprimatur of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, would you be inclined to be (a) critical or admonishing or punitive or (b) less so in that regard?
Three Fundamental Hollywood Laws: (a) nobody knows anything, (b) nobody wants to stand out by making bold creative decisions of any kind, and (c) you don’t need a conspiracy of cowardice given that cowardice is so deeply embedded in our DNA.
…you think first and foremost of a kind of gentle but vaguely flinty mindset (intelligence, insight, sensitivity). Then you think of drink-and-dial Miles Raymond in Alexander Payne’s Sideways (‘04). The current focus, of course, is Barton Academy’s ancient history professor Paul Hunham in The Holdovers (Payne + David Hemingson), but in a certain light Miles lingers because of what happened…a grievous wrong that must be addressed and corrected at long last.
…is not Bugsy Malone (‘76), for heaven’s sake. It’s Evita (‘96)…c’mon! I agree, however, that Albert Brooks’ greatest film is Lost in America (‘85).
A year ago Robert Eggers and HE agreed (almost) on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (’48):
Answer: Nobody.
170 formerly anonymous associates of the late Jeffrey Epstein will be mildly embarrassed when names are made public tomorrow in a “doc dump” connected to a Virginia Giuffre court maneuver of some kind.
The bottom line is that the nation’s 42nd President is “not expected to be implicated in any illegal activity,” according to an ABC News report.
The media shorthand equation is that if a person had even a slight social relationship with Epstein, they are automatically evil ogres who deserve to be shunned or cancelled. It’s certainly unwelcome to be associated with a notoriously perverse figure, but does this necessarily add up to deplorable behavior?
Obviously my love for Bradley Cooper’s Maestro has become a minority viewpoint. Obviously the tide of public opinion has turned against it. I was completely swept up by Cooper’s stylistic audacity and particularly by Carey Mulligan’s performance as Felicia Montealegre, but you can’t fight City Hall or at least you can’t instruct or badger people into broadening their aesthetic horizons. All I can say is that I’m very sorry.
Partly because it sounds like woke gobbledygook, I suppose. Because it suggests that the simple bedrock concept of gender (as in primarily two, as in male/female) has been imposed by a foreign power to establish political control over a native culture. Which is bullshit, of course.
Thank you, God, for sparing me from the burden of such terminology throughout most of my life. Thank you for that blessing.
At the same time I felt curiously charmed by the “Little Horse” character in Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man (‘70), and I loved Chief Dan George’s “Old Lodge Skins” character (a performance that was Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor) and his “live and let live” approach to life.
But can we be honest? Yes? Among those who know who Shecky Greene is/was, most didn’t know he was still with us. No disrespect intended. Remember that nightclub comic in Raging Bull? Greene was better than that guy, but his act was vaguely similar. Or so I recall.
