The famous animal bone sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey lasts one minute and 54 seconds. It shows the moment in which Moonwatcher (DanRichter) discovers a certain killer instinct that will save his tribe from extinction.
My favorite part is the final six seconds, starting at 1:48. This is when Moonwatcher says “okay, that was cool, I now understand how to kill prey for food…and now that I’ve figured this out I’m going to throw the fucking bone in the air and forget about it.”
Which he does. And then he runs his fingers through the sand and starts…whatever, daydreaming.
I love this part…”fuck it, fuck the bone, I’m not doing this all day, I’m taking a break.”
The legendary Mr. Richter recently merging with Mozart:
But it’s nice to wade into the good old days when Nicholas Wending Refn had a good grip on things (i.e., before he went crazy or, you know, became excessive), and way before Ryan Gosling had submitted to the Barbie vaccine. Gosling was around 30 at the time; Carey Mulligan was 25 or thereabouts.
I knew right away, of course — it’s Heather Graham, who turned 53 eight months ago (i.e., 9.29.23). Alabaster complexion, white-ish blonde hair, zero makeup, aging gracefully.
BREAKING: The Philadelphia PD has just released this footage from a store in Northeast Philly called Richard & Son.
These actions can NEVER be justified, and I think it's fair to say that the vast, vast majority of Americans agree that this type of behavior should be dealt… pic.twitter.com/F1IzK7pgXS
Posted on 9.1.23: “I’ve just come out of Emerald Fennell‘s Saltburn, and it’s all about diseased psychologies and relentlessly dislikable people except for the delectably good-looking Jacob Elordi.
“It reeks of class hatred, oddness, perversity, arch upper-crust attitudes, callousness and class resentment, the slurping of dirty bath water, a nude Greek satyr finale featuring a fairly sizable schlongola, ‘wrong time of the month’ fingering + cunnilingus, high-impact visual punctuation for the sake of high-impact visual punctuation.
“Or, if you will, bold style amounting to absolutely nothing except bold style.
“Yeah, it’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, all right — Barry Keoghan, owner of the most famous and obtrusive bee-stung nose I’ve ever been forced to contemplate in film after film, is Matt Damon, and the incredibly beautiful Jacob Elordi is Jude Law, and Keoghan-the-interloper is one slinky, clumsy, weird-ass sociopath who hates himself, his parents, rich people, all people….he loves only Elordi except he’s not gay as much as (quoting Alison Oliver‘s Venetia character) a moth…a moth attracted to a glittery, super-wealthy flame.
“Saltburn is deeply divisive [among Telluriders], inspiring intense like-hate reactions…fans so far include Matt Neglia, Erik Anderson, Clayton Davis, Greg Ellwood. Haters include myself, DavidEhrlich, PeterDebruge, DavidRooney.
“I despised it so much that I took a 10-minute lobby break around the 70-minute mark.
“TheWrap‘s Tomris Laffly: ‘Saltburn works as a distinct and wildly entertaining probe into familiar waters of privilege, rather than the definite word on it.” Except it’s not a ‘distinct and wildly entertaining’ anything unless you have some kind of incurable aesthetic cancer festering inside you.”
There’s a trilogy of intensely charismatic, cameo-level, award-worthy performances — intense burn-throughs that rang the proverbial bell in 20 or 16 or even five minutes and 40 seconds. And they all happened during the second half of the 20th Century.
The longest of these was the least heralded — Jackie Gleason‘s Minnesota Fats in The Hustler (’61). His performance occupied only 20 minutes of screen time, but Gleason was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (along with costar George C. Scott).
In The Silence of the Lambs (’90) Anthony Hopkins‘ Hannibal Lecter had only 16 minutes of screen time, but it was sufficient to snag a Best Actor Oscar.
The shortest was Beatrice Straight‘s barn burner of a cameo in Network, technically just under six minutes but actually closer to four and three-quarters — that’s how long that marital argument scene she had with William Holden lasted. It won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, of course.
What 21st Century quickies qualify? Have there been any? I’m asking.
Wait, one more: Christopher Plummer‘s Mike Wallace in The Insider (’99), which — I’m just guessing — isn’t much longer than 25 minutes. Okay, possibly 30.
Last night I re-watched my Bluray of J. Lee Thompson‘s Cape Fear (’62), which costarred Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, Martin Balsam, Telly Savalas and, as Peck and Bergen’s Tinkerbell-sized daughter, Lori Martin.
The Martin casting side, I’m a much bigger fan of Thompson’s version than Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake, which costarred Nick Nolte, Robert De Niro, Jessica Lange, Joe Don Baker and, as Nolte and Lange’s daughter, Juliette Lewis.
The Martin casting made no sense because she was way too tiny to be the daughter of the 6’3″ Peck and the 5’5″ Bergen. And I don’t want to hear any bullshit about how normal it is for the daughter of an exceptionally tall father and an average-sized mom to look like the daughter of Mickey Rooney or Truman Capote. Don’t even try it.
Martin was 14 during filming in ’61 and is clearly pubescent, but she’s roughly the size of a seven- or-eight-year-old. The publicity photo wth Peck shows she was at least 18″ shorter, or roughly 4’10”. Most teenage girls reach their full height by age 15 so don’t try that crap either.
Will you look at that photo of Martin sitting next to Bergen? Martin looks like Howdy Doody.
Thompson reportedly wanted to cast Hayley Mills in the daughter role, and was unhappy about being more or less forced to cast Martin.
I’m very sorry to report that Martin died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 4, 2010, two weeks before her 63rd birthday. Her Wiki page says she had “struggled with mental illness (bipolar schizophrenia) and illicit drug use in the decade after her husband died.”
It was almost exactly 62 years ago when Robert Shelton’s N.Y. Times article about Bob Dylan, a then-unknown 20 year-old folk singer who was performing nightly at Gerde’s Folk City (11 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012), appeared in the 9.29.61 edition.
The author of the Times article was a respected chronicler of the folk music scene.
The Chicago-born Shelton was 35 when he wrote the 9.29.61 Dylan review. His Dylan biography, “No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan“, was published in 1986. Shelton died in 1995 at age 69.
From Jon Pareles’ Times obit of Shelton, dated 12.15.95: “During the McCarthy era, Shelton was subpoenaed by a Senate subcommittee that had intended to subpoena a man named Willard Shelton, a nationally known columnist. Even though he was summoned in error, [the music critic] refused to answer any questions and was convicted of contempt of Congress.”
Wiki follow-up: “In 1955, Shelton was one of 30 New York Times staffers subpoenaed by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, who were informed by Times counsel Louis M. Loeb that they would be fired if they took the Fifth Amendment.
“Because he did not plead the Fifth, Shelton was allowed to continue working at the Times but was transferred away from the news department onto the less sensitive entertainment desk, where he became a music critic. Convicted and sentenced to six months in prison, he appealed his conviction and had it reversed on a technicality, only to be indicted, retried, convicted, and have the conviction overturned on a technicality again.
“After several years of appeals in which he was represented by noted civil liberties lawyer Joseph L. Rauh, Jr. the case was finally dropped in the mid-1960s.”
