Jeff Wells

If while profiling a non-binary person a writer fails to use the person’s correct pronouns, he/she could be (and most likely would be) attacked as some kind of bigot. So I realize that Melena Ryzik had no choice but to follow the proscribed form in her N.Y. Times profile of Emma Corrin.

But I still find these three paragraphs in Ryzik’s piece infuriating. I’m counting seven “they” pronouns contained in eight sentences. How many centuries were “he” and “she” the only pronouns in town among English-language speakers and writers? They (i.e., the two gender pronouns) apparently came into being sometime in the 12th century, and within the last…what, three or four years the pronoun game has gone insane.

A thousand years of the old way, and and now and for the foreseeable future we’re all doomed to reading paragraphs like these three below:

Ryzik doesn’t mention that Corrin came out as queer in April ’21, apparently because naming a person’s sexual preference is regarded as too invasive.

In July ’21 Corrin posted Instagram photos of herself wearing a homemade chest binder, which is a thing among certain younger queer women who want to avoid looking too womanly-curvy in the eyes of certain queer lovers or friendos, or something like that.

I find the idea of breast-binding (along with breast-flattening surgery for that matter) a little creepy. Partly because the basic notion of “binding” one’s natural biology…well, that was a heinous practice in pre-20th Century China, no? I also find it weird because my mother, self-conscious about her feet not being petite enough when she was in her early 20s, forced herself to wear too-small shoes when she was a working girl in NYC (BBC, NBC). Her feet were permanently disfigured the rest of her life.

Mika Brzezinski says it straight and plain [7:25 mark]: “[Donald Trump] is a danger to our country. These are dangerous statements. He’s telling you what he wants to do. Believe him…okay? Like, how much does this country have to go through, how much division, how much hatred…how much pressure on our system…how much law enforcement…the FBI, Department of Justice, police officers…anyone in Donald Trump’s sights…how much stress on our democracy do we need to endure before we see that this man is a fascist, and that he has very, very bad intentions. And Republicans…are helping him by not stepping up and manning up and saying what is right qnd [defining] who you are.”

There’s no point in selecting a pretend version of the S & S ten greatest, but here goes anyway:

(1) Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s Zero Dark Thirty, (2) Alex Cox‘s Repo Man, (3) Michael Mann‘s Heat, (4) Howard Hawks‘ Red River, (5) Stanley Kubrick‘s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, (6) Chantal Akerman‘s Jeanne Dielman…kidding! I meant to say The Godfather, Part II, (7) Alfred Hitchcock‘s North By Northwest, (8) Wim Wenders‘ The American Friend, (9) Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, (10) Joel and Egan Coen‘s Fargo. This feels silly…

This is a very, very bad indication of where James Cameron‘s Avatar 2 may (I say “may”) be coming from. I literally gasped when I read the headline quote. I’m genuinely scared now. Testosterone in and of itself is not evil or toxic — it’s grade-A rocket fuel that gets certain characters up the hill and onto victory. Cameron is talking a woke game now but God help us if he really means this. Please God, don’t let Avatar 2 be woke…please.

And I’d visit another five or ten times if I could.

Originally posted from Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland on 6.17.12: “Early yesterday afternoon I was expecting to meet Jett and Dylan at the modest Alpine-styled cabin we’re renting in Lauterbrunnen, but they weren’t there when I arrived. So I texted them and they said they were in town and would be along. The problem was that they had the only key to the place, and I was coping with a slight call of nature. But I figured I’d wait it out.

“The minutes dragged on and they didn’t show. The little devil on my left shoulder began to think about taking care of business behind the cabin. ‘No!,’ said the angel on my right shoulder, ‘don’t be an animal!’ But Jett and Dylan were taking their time.

“I looked around and noticed a narrow driveway behind the cabin — a possible problem. But nobody had driven by in quite a while. I also considered the fact that the rear of the cabin is sheltered from view by a hilly mound. Quiet, quiet, no cars, no cars. The devil won out and I stepped behind the cabin.

“Four or five seconds later a car drove up the driveway with a family in it, and with a three-year-old staring and pointing at me from the back-seat window. Five seconds after that another car drove by with a pretty girl at the wheel. She also checked me out.

“If I hadn’t stepped behind the cabin, those two cars would have never driven by.”

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From Quentin Tarantino‘s “Cinema Speculation“: “Steve McQueen as Frank Bullitt keeps moving forward while Peter Yates, the director, follows him here and there as we, the audience, sit back and let them do our thinking for us. As pure cinema, Bullitt is one of the best directed movies ever made.”

Dozens of families were out and wandering around in Wilton Center early last night. It was cold but not too cold. There were handing out free cups of steaming alcoholic cider and hot chocolate. I could smell the campfire smoke on my overcoat when we got home.

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Paul Schrader: “This year’s Sight & Sound poll reflects not a historical continuum, but a politically correct rejiggering.”

From HE’s”Sight & Sound Highbrows Lean Wokey,” posted on 12.1.22:

Todd Field‘s TAR was won the New York Film Critics Circle’s Best Film trophy — fine. But the Best Director prize has gone to RRR‘s S. S. Rajamouli, which is somewhere between a taunt and absolute lunacy.

Earlier: The sometimes nutty-as-a-fruitcake New York Film Critics Circle, the once-esteemed org that used to award each and every award based upon merit, has handed its Best Supporting Actress trophy to Nope‘s Keke Palmer**.

The Banshees of Inisherin‘s Kerry Condon is easily the most deserving contender in this category.

And the NYFCC’s Best Supporting Actor award has gone to Ke Huy Quan (aka “Short Round”) of Everything Everywhere All at Once. HE approves of the Best Cinematography award going to Claudio Miranda, the dp of Top Gun: Maverick. Martin McDonagh‘s The Banshees of Inisherin has won for Best Screenplay — HE approves of the dialogue but not the bloody finger stubs.

Breaking at 1 pm eastern: Colin Farrell has won the NYFCC’s Best Actor award, a decision that I’m totally fine with. And the brilliant Cate Blanchett has won Best Actress trophy for TAR. Okay, the NYFCC is awarding for merit after all, Palmer and Rajamouli aside.

** Not a single Gold Derby handicapper has even mentioned Palmer’s performance, which was basically about projecting her Millennial Diva personality.

[Initially posted on 6.20.12] Ever since seeing my first image of the Matterhorn when I was eight or nine I’ve wanted to stand in its shadow and just go “whoa.” So yesterday the guys and I drove the wrong way (i.e., four hours over winding mountain roads) from Lauterbrunnen to Zermatt, the affluent ski town that lies at the base of it.

The trip turned out to be mostly a disaster. Because of an innocent mistake I almost got slammed with a 350 Swiss franc traffic ticket — thank God I was able to talk my way out of it.

The signs on the long and winding approach to Zermatt fail to explicitly point out a basic fact — you can’t drive into town unless you’re a resident or a cab driver or a city worker. You have to park in Tasch, an ugly little settlement about six kilometers north of Zermatt, and take a train or a taxi in. Fine, no problem, but there are no signs that clearly say this, and certainly none in English.

When I see a sign that says “park here,” I say to myself, “Okay, that’s an option, fine. It’s not something I necessarily intend to do as I am the sole master of my fate, but it’s nice to know it’s there.”

HE suggestion to municipal Zermatt brainiacs: The words “Non-resident passenger vehicles are not allowed in Zermatt” would definitely be understood if you said as much on a road sign. Or how about an image of a car with a big red X or a circle slash across it?

A well-fed Zermatt cop in his 30s pulled me over and explained the rules. He asked how I could have missed the sign that explains about parking in Tasch and taking the train or a cab, etc.? I didn’t want to argue by telling him that the traffic-sign people are imbeciles so I just said I’d made an innocent mistake. “You have to pay a fine of 350 francs for this!,” he declared in English. I held myself in check, took a breath and said, “Well, I don’t think that’s very fair. I don’t read German very well and while I fully accept and respect the laws here, I just didn’t realize that driving into Zermatt was 100% verboten…really, honest mistake.”

The cop could have said “tough shit” and fined me anyway, but for some reason he took pity and let me skate…whew.

The guys and I felt so turned off this episode that we decided to just flush that awful town out of our systems and drive to Bern instead.