Scott Galloway: “We all know women…I’m sure this happens to you all the time…really interesting, high-character, successful, attractive women…usually in their 30s, some into their 40s…who will say ‘I can’t find anyone to date.’ But it’s not that they can’t find anyone to date. It’s that they can’t find anyone they want to date.
“And there’s some dynamics here. Warren Buffet said that the key to a successful marriage is low expectations.
“A podcaster named Chris Williams…he calls it the high-heels effect. And that is that every year for the last 50 years [or since the mid ’70s] women have become better educated and are making more money. They’re also getting [physically] taller every year. 50% of women say they won’t date a guy who’s shorter than them, except that figure is probably more like 80%. Also women are getting ‘taller’ and men are getting ‘shorter’ metaphorically. The pool of viable men is shrinking every year. Women have been told they can have it all. What I’ve found is that you can’t have it all, or certainly not all at once.”
“A woman of average attractiveness can have a ‘relationship’, and when I say relationship that’s code for sex…[within the straight realm] they can have a relationship with [a man] who’s in the top ten percent. But that male individual is probably not going to establish a longterm relationship.
“The bottom line is that the top 10% of men” — financial stability, looks, apparent emotional stability — “are getting 80 or 80-plus percent of the opportunities for short-term relationships. So they can engage in what’s called Porsche polygamy. So the guys that most women want are the least likely to establish a longterm relationship.”
In other words: General reporting about Supreme Court righties having side-stepped and folded on Donald Trump‘s behalf was brief and unsustained, while college activists ignored this acquiescence in favor of strident and agitated pro-Gaza occupations. We’re just about cooked.
20 months hence the obviously lucid, thoughtful and charming Dick Van Dyke will turn 100.
Life is good on Tetiaroa! Only for fat-wallet players, but as Max Bialystock said in The Producers, “That’s it, baby..if you’ve got it, flaunt it!
I’m on location for TFH in French Polynesia on Marlon Brando’s beautiful island of Tetiaroa so I can spend the week talking about the 3 epic movie versions of Mutiny on the Bounty where all the action took place! First up — Brando’s 1962 extravaganza: https://t.co/kWhLH8dGEwpic.twitter.com/1fyRETJUFE
“This is the result of the extreme left and p.c. crap and people worrying so much about offending other people. When you write a script and it goes into four or five different hands, committee, groups…’here’s our thought about this joke’…well, that’s the end of your comedy.”
HE to psychotic, head-in-the-sand, comment-thread wokesters (“Radewart” and that ilk): Here’s your chance to bash on crazy, wackjobby Jerry Seinfeld and his baffling tendency to view everything with a preconceived bias against the progressive left.
Jerry Seinfeld: PC culture and fear of offending people is killing funny shows.
"When you write a script and it goes into four or five different hands, committee, groups—'here's our thought about this joke'—well that's the end of your comedy." pic.twitter.com/YZuWo5HlJu
HE comment #1: Dunaway’s career hit a kind of pothole when Mommie Dearest came out, agreed, but I just re-watched it a couple of weeks ago and certain portions are still a hoot. For my money the film is a hugely pleasurable serving of classic Hollywood Kabuki theatre.
I saw it with several gay guys at the old Columbus Circle Paramount screening room in late August of ’81, and on the down elevator they were all shrieking with laughter, and I don’t mean the derisive kind. They were in heaven…delighted.
Alas, Mommie Dearest has been called an “unintentional comedy” by none-too-brights for so long that it looks like up to me, and I’m sorry but that judgment is just as wrong today as it ever was.
The Mommie Dearest “comedy” is not unintentional. The film basically serves a form of hyper-realism with a campy edge. It’s extreme soap opera, at times overbaked but winkingly so with everyone in on the joke.
If director Frank Perry had modulated Dunaway’s performance, some of the great lines — ‘No wire hangers EVER!,’ ‘Don’t fuck with me, fellas!’ — wouldn’t have worked so well. Those lines are the stuff of Hollywood legend, right up there with Bette Davis saying “what a dump!” and Vivien Leigh saying “I’ll never be hungry again.”
HE comment #2: Dunaway has been a first-rate actress since the early ’60s, and at age 83 is still at it, of course. But her peak years were close to 15 — Bonnie and Clyde (’67) to Mommie Dearest (’81). Her other highlights include The Thomas Crown Affair (fellatio simulation with a chess piece), The Arrangement, Little Big Man, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, The Three Musketeers, Chinatown, The Towering Inferno (the second best ’70s disaster flick, right after Juggernaut), The Four Musketeers, Three Days of the Condor and Network (Best Actress Oscar…the absolute peak).
Please understand that while some superstars have enjoyed 20-year peaks (Cary Grant, James Stewart, George Clooney), 15 is far more common so there’s certainly nothing tragic or mortifying about Dunaway’s career cooling down in the early Reagan era. Remember also that she rebounded with her Barfly performance in ’87, and that she landed three Golden Globes in the ’80s and an Emmy in ’94.
Clark Gable’s hottest years numbered 13 — between ItHappenedOneNight (‘34) and The Hucksters (‘47). Humphrey Bogart happened between TheMalteseFalcon (‘41) and TheHarderTheyFall (‘56) — a 15-year run. Robert Redford peaked between Butch Cassidy (‘69) and Brubaker and OrdinaryPeople (‘80) — 11 to 12 years. Tony Curtis‘s hot streak was relatively brief — 1957 (Sweet Smell of Success) to 1968 (The Boston Strangler). Kirk Douglas also had about 15 years — Champion (’49) to Seven Days in May (’64).
Elizabeth Taylor had 15 years — 1950 (Father of the Bride) to 1966 (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf). Jean Arthur — mid ’30s to early ’50s (Shane) — call it 15 years. Katharine Hepburn — early ’30s to early ’80s (On Golden Pond). Meryl Streep — 1979 (The Seduction of Joe Tynan) to today…over 40 years and counting.
It’s a basic creative and biological law that only about 10% to 15% of your films are going to be regarded as serious cremedelacreme…if that. Most big stars (the smart ones) are given a window of a solid dozenyearsorso in which they have the power, agency and wherewithal to bring their game and show what they’re worth creatively. Dunaway certainly managed that and then some.
I'm sorry but my all-time favorite flamethrower scene is still the one in William Friedkin's Deal of the Century ('83)...the one in which Gregory Hines torches the enraged Latino guy's car. Because it's easily the most pleasurable.
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Kidman Tribute Friendo Commentary: “Nicole specifically named and thanked each and every director she’s ever worked with, and reminded the audience of her directors who’ve passed, including Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella.
“Thoughts from Meryl Streep and fellow Aussie Naomi Watts were exceptionally moving. Ditto a confessional from her husband, Keith Urban.
“‘Four months into our marriage, I’m in rehab for three months,’ Urban said, addressing Kidman and their two teenage daughters, who joined her on the red carpet for the first time. ‘Nic pushed [away] every negative voice, I’m sure even some of her own, and she chose love. And here we are 18 years later.’
“Cate Blanchett and Hugh Jackman tried a comedy routine via a prerecorded Zoom link with Jimmy Kimmel, but it was baffling and didn’t really come off.
“The audience seemed surprised that Mike Myers was an on-stage praiser of Nicole. His connection was never explained. But overall it was a room full of love and tributes, lapped up by a Hollywood-centric crowd seated at tables in the same theatre where the Academy Awards are presented.
“There was a Sunset Tower Hotel after-party that went on till the wee hours.
“AFI had sold tickets to Nicole’s fans from outside the business, and they filled the second-level balcony seats and got to watch the in crowd eating and drinking and toasting their Queen for the night.”
If only Joe Biden had decided to represent the executive branch in a sensible, forward-looking but moderately liberal way…if only he’d said “the woke stuff is fine and good, more power to them, but I’m trying to see to the interests of all the various groups that constitute this great nation of ours and not just the progressive wackos, and so I’m going to be a JFK-style, left-center President.”
If he’d done that Joe would be fine right now. But of course he chose not to, and that’s why that angry, beefy, working-class guy down below…just listen. He’s furious about hearing the same big-media narrative over and over….”white guys are bad news but all hail women, POCs and LGBTQs”…that’s why he’s saying what he’s saying.
"Can we just acknowledge how refreshing it is to see a President of the United States at an event that doesn't begin with a bailiff saying, 'All rise?'" jokes host Colin Jost at the 2024 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. pic.twitter.com/FyKMsNgPUn
“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...
