Jeff Wells After watching this, I now think less of Glenn Powell.
And I’m still holding to my general policy of dismissing any award-winner with a twangy yokel accent (like Lainey Wilson, say) who thanks “my Lord and savior Jesus Christ” for helping to make her success complete. Wilson’s speech immediately reminded of Ronee Blakley‘s “Barbara Jean” character in Robert Altman‘s Nashville (’75).
That said, Wilson’s black cowboy hat is much nicer than mine.
Yulia Navalnaya: “In killing Aleksei Navalny, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul. But I have another half left and it is telling me I have no right to give up. [This is] the only way for his unthinkable sacrifice not to be in vain.”
I don’t mind being relatively poor these days as it means fewer distractions and more of a focus on writing. But I do miss the travel.
I’ve secured HE’s beautiful old 19th Century apartment in Cannes for next May (7 rue Jean Mero, third-floor walkup…the place Ann Hornaday and I shared for a few years) but I’m not entirely sure I even want to do Cannes this year. It doesn’t seem like much of a lineup, but then I haven’t really studied the situation. Telluride is the only keeper, the only essential.
Between the early ’90s and late 20-teens and especially from the early aughts onward I was always going somewhere. Starting in ’00 I flew each May to Europe (Paris, Cannes, Prague, London, Berlin, Munich, Tuscany, Rome), and over the last 13 or 14 years (starting in 2010) to Telluride each and every year.
Along with occasional journeys to NYC, Key West, Virginia and Washington, D.C., Vietnam (2012, 2013 and 2016), Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Morocco, San Francisco, Seattle, Hawaii, Mexico, Monument Valley, Park City, etc. Plus a terrific one-off to Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata in Argentina.
Not to mention random long-hauls and hiking trips in California (Palm Srings, Sierras, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Death Valley, Santa Barbara, Los Olivos, Big Sur, Mill Valley, Guerneville, Mendocino) when the mood struck.
Living with a constant sense of expectation and adventure does wonders for the soul. Keeps you going, keeps you alive. I realize that I sound entitled and spoiled to a certain extent. How many people have travelled this much over two or three decades and experienced this much intrigue and arousal? I only know that I’ve adored this feast of living, this seemingly endless banquet…course after course and episode after episode for such a long and wondrous time…and that I’m very sorry that I can no longer afford to live this way any longer. But at least the memories are many.
The bottom line is that I’m deeply grateful that I had what I had when I had it.
Do you think it’s some kind of coincidence that Al Pacino‘s hot-tempered, early ’80s Miami drug dealer and the jovial, family-friendly Bengal tiger who’s represented Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes for God knows how many decades…do you think it’s a coincidence that they share the same first name?
The instant I glanced at the cover of Glenn Kenny‘s “The World Is Yours: The Story of Scarface” (Hanover Square Press, May 7) I totally guffawed. I said to myself, “Now that‘s a great cover for a Scarface book!”
Amazon copy: “With brand-new interviews and untold stories of the film’s production, longtime film critic Glenn Kenny takes us on an unparalleled journey through the making of American depictions of crime. ‘The World Is Yours’ highlights the influential characters and themes within Scarface, reflecting on how its storied legacy played such a major role in American culture.”
…if he wakes up and faces that gnarly-ass bugger called reality.
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 2.15.24: “If Biden steps aside, he’ll be a hero to his party. If he stays, his legacy may well be a second Trump term.”
Woody Allen‘s Steve Allen Show monologue happened almost exactly 60 years and three months ago.
It happened at the home of the syndicated version of The Steve Allen Show, known informally as the Westinghouse Show. 1228 No. Vine Street (east side), south of Fountain and north of DeLongpre. The show ran from June 1962 to October 1964.
I love the way Allen pronounces divorce — “divauhhsss.”
“[And] it feels as if almost all masculinity [itself] is considered toxic, and so I think that many young men may not feel welcome.
“It’s not so much of a pull by guys like Andrew Tate as much as a push. Like if you show up and just wanna be, like, a regular guy’s guy, you may not be eating enough kale and doing enough yoga to fit in on the left.” — Van Jones duuring last night’s Real Time Overtime segment.
Last night’s Eras Tour show happened in Melbourne. 90 thousand women attended. Two more nights there, and then on to Sydney.
Friendo: “You know what I think this is really about? White women starved for representation.”
Translation: Where oh where are all the black chicks at Taylor Swift concerts? I’ve read that a small percentage of her fans are black, but I never see them at concerts.
@aprilfrancesc This moment!!! #erastour #taylorswift #night1 #melbourne #MCG #fearless #fyp #fyp #speaknow #taytay #missamericana @Lily ♬ original sound – April & Lily
The footage starts around the 6:30 mark, give or take.
John Clifford Floyd III is a criminal defense attorney who raised Fani Willis in both California and Washington, D.C.
AJC.com excerpt: “Floyd took part in sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in 1965 in Memphis, Tennessee. After a sneering white man spit tobacco juice on top of his head, he decided to take a more confrontational stance. He joined a faction of the Black Panther movement in 1967 in Los Angeles. He renounced violence and enrolled at UCLA to study law after two Panthers, Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, were shot and killed in an altercation at a Black Student Union meeting.”
I suspected there would be an angry crowd in front of Manhattan’s Russian Embassy (9 east 91st Street), but for whatever reason I couldn’t find advance confirmation.
Strong principled words, and yet he can’t help muttering and slurring and slightly spacing out…he just can’t do it with command and vigor. But good for Joe calling a spade a spade.
Three prognosticating know-it-alls — Jeff Sneider, Scott Feinberg and Clayton Davis— are predicting that Lily Gladstone will take the Best Actress Oscar after all.
May I ask what happened to the Emma Stone wave? Stone is an absolute total knockout in Poor Things, and it’s an actual lead performance as opposed to Gladstone’s supporting, half-somnambulant, less-is-less performance as Mollie Burkhart.
I’m not saying that anything has necessarily “happened” to Stone’s support, but I’ve been sensing that Stone and her people seem afraid to campaign with serious vigor, apparently out of fear that they might be seen as anti-Gladstone or anti-Native American or something in that realm, which is ridiculous.
Do I have to say this again? Enough with the damn DEI campaigns. The world is quaking, the woke thing is receding (just ask Bob Iger), and we all have to turn the cultural corner and get back to honoring performances based upon actual acting merit.
Yes, other political factors have always gone into wins but ethnicity has become too much of a thing, and it’s time to cut that idea down to size.
Gladstone has had a great bountiful time over the last several months (or since last May if you count the Cannes debut of Killers of the Flower Moon) and has derived a huge career boost. It’s been a happy chapter all around, and she’ll be completely fine in the years to come.
Enough with the ethnic-identity-warrants-awards mindset. We did that between ’17 and ’23, and now it’s over. Move past it, get with the new program, enough. We are here to go.
