Rahm Emanuel is understandably antsy about defying the fanatical Stalinist wokeys by saying a man can’t be a woman, but you know what? I for one understand and believe that certain men can and do become “women”, so to speak. Because of what they feel in their hearts. They just can’t compete against biofemales in sporting events, and no prompting or goading minors to take hormones or have bottom surgeries….not until they’re 18 or better still 21. And if some of them feel depressed or anguished, say, because they’re stuck in the wrong body…well, poor baby. Man up and tough it out.
Rahm doesn’t have that special X-factor charisma that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have or at least had in their prime….true. But he’s obviously sensible, tough and brilliant, and he understands the importance of good educational basics and ditching all the fucking woke pronoun bullshit, and he believes that wokeys are essentially an insane cult…that they’re the reason Average Joes and Janes despise the Democratic party these days.
Given an academic choice between Emanuel and that authoritarian sociopathic blowhard in the White House, are you telling me that most Americans would prefer Trump over Emanuel? Or that they’d rather elect Vance to succeed Trump rather than elect a sensible, practical-minded Democrat like Rahm or Gavin or Pete?
Presuming that the WSJ has 100% confirmed that Donald Trump drew this, Trump obviously has a thing for women with nice boobs, zaftig bods, no “innie” navels and well-trimmed pubic hair.
His pubic hair signature tells us he’s into oral, because this is actually fairly well drawn…it has a certain professional flair, a certain facility. Some people can’t doodle at all — Trump isn’t half bad.
All hail the 2025 Venice Film Festival (Wednesday, 8.27 thru Saturday, 9.6) for having decided to not show Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet, which will probably debut at Telluride before hitting TIFF….spared from another Paul Mescal endurance meditation!
But I’m also genuinely sorry that Scott Cooper‘s Bruce Sringsteen biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere, won’t have its premiere screening on the Lido. Ditto Edward Berger‘s Ballad of a Small Player. The latter two, I’m guessing, will probably also debut in Telluride.
And seven or eight years after completing principal photography, when oh when will Terrence Malick‘s The Way of the Wind finally peek out? What an indecisive coward-flake.
Otherwise HE is pleased and gratified by most of the official Venice selections (29 HE standouts), which popped early this morning and almost all of which were forecast by HE on 7.17:
Competition faves: (a) The Wizard of the Kremlin (d: Olivier Assayas), (b) Jay Kelly (d: Noah Baumbach), (c) A House of Dynamite (d: Kathryn Bigelow), (d) In the Hand of Dante (d: Julian Schnabel), (e) The Testament of Ann Lee (d: Mona Fastvold), (f) Father Mother Sister Brother (d: Jim Jarmusch…shockingly turned down by Cannes), (g) Bugonia (d: Yorgos Lanthimos…cuidado…bald Emma Stone), (h) Orphan, (d: László Nemes), (i) No Other Choice (d: Park Chan-wook…HE is no fan of this guy, who is almost all DePalma hat and not much cattle), (j) Sotto Le Nuvole (d: Gianfranco Rosi); (k) The Smashing Machine (d: Benny Safdie). (11)
Competition sans any particular interest or excitement: Frankenstein (d: Guillermo del Toro…no offense but how many times can we go to this same damn well?), L’Étranger (d: François Ozon); and La grazia (d: Paolo Sorrentino) (3)
Sans competition faves (fiction): (a) After the Hunt (d: Luca Guadagnino), (b) The Last Viking (d: Anders Thomas Jensen), (c) Dead Man’s Wire (d: Gus Van Sant). (3)
Sans compettion faves (documentaries): Cover-Up (d: Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus); Kabul, Between Prayers (d: Aboozar Amini),(b) Marc by Sofia (d: Sofia Coppola), (c) Ghost Elephants (d: Werner Herzog), (d) Nuestra Tierra (d: Lucrecia Martel); (e) Kim Novak’s Vertigo (d: Alexandre Philippe), (f) Broken English (d: Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth), (g) Notes of a True Criminal (d: Alexander Rodnyansky and Andriy Alferov); (h) Director’s Diary (d: Aleksander Sokurov. (8)
Sans competition faves (shorts): How to Shoot a Ghost (d: Charlie Kaufman). (1)
Horizons faves: (a) Rose of Nevada (d: Mark Jenkin), (b) Late Fame (d: Kent Jones); (c) Human Resource (d: Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit). (3)
Presumably a fair percentage of the HE chorus saw Ari Aster‘s Eddington yesterday. I’m presuming that many are agreeing with my judgment from last May’s Cannes Film Festival, which is that it’s a strange, mildly interesting civil war drama that, boiled down, is a dull horror sinkhole laced with political satire…a pandemic atmosphere downer dive.
I should probably bend over backwards by re-watching it this weekend, but I really, really didn’t derive much enjoyment, much less any sense of cinematic satori, two months ago.
I’ve jumbled up some previous comments and thrown them out on the floor like Mia Farrow playing scrabble in Rosemary’s Baby…
Bingo #1: I’ll admit to feeling aroused or at least awoken during the last 45 when Eddington abandons all sense of restraint and it becomes The Wild Bunch on steroids.
Bingo #2: Yes, this is a smart and aggressive political satire of sorts, but it’s basically just a narrative version of the same X-treme left vs. X-treme right insanity that we’ve all been living with since the start of the pandemic, if not 2018 or ’19…
Bingo #3: I’m not calling it a “bad” or ineffective film or anything, but it’s basically unexciting and kind of drab and sloppy and not much fun, really. And the chaos is…well, certainly predictable. It has some bizarre surreal humor at times, but mostly it’s a fastball thrown wide of the batter’s box.
Bingo #4: Joaquin Phoenix‘s performance as Joe Cross, the rightwing-ish, initally not-too-crazy, anti-mask sheriff of Eddington, New Mexico…Joaquin’s performance is fairly weak…it’s almost like he’s playing Napoleon again, and that’s not even taking his thigh-slapping schlong prosthetic into account. I simply didn’t like hanging with the guy. There’s something flaccid and fumbling about him. He’s not “entertaining”.
Bingo #5: A smart, increasingly intense, ultimately surreal reflection of the stark raving madness of the COVID years. If you remove the over-the-top violence, it’s basically a movie about the same polarizing rhetorical shit we’ve all been living with since 2020 (or, in my head at least, since 2018). JUST YOUR BASIC AMERICAN POLARIZED MADNESS. Take away the bullets and the brain matter and it reminded me of the comment threads from Hollywood Elsewhere over the last five or six years.
Bingo #6: Pedro Pascal‘s performance as Ted Garcia, the sensibly-liberal mayor of Eddington, is much more grounded and appealing than Joaquin’s.
Bingo #7: The thing Eddington was selling never plugged in, never spoke to me beyond the obvious. It’s all about X-treme left bonker types vs. gun-toting, righty-right over-reactions.
Connie Francis had a beautiful singing voice…smooth and silky pipes. She knew how to sell a song…she knew how to phrase and breathe just so.
But for the most part, her hit tunes ( “Who’s Sorry Now?”, “Where The Boys Are”, ““Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool”, “Where The Boys Are”) sounded square and swoony.
Born on 12.12.37 and reared by a conservative Italian family in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn and then Belleville, New Jersey, Francis never said, did or sang anything that sounded like anyone’s idea of “hip.”
In 1968 she actually recorded a theme song for Richard Nixon‘s presidential campaign. Not cool! Meanwhile her ex-boyfriend Bobby Darin was hanging out with Robert F. Kennedy during his ’68 primary campaigns.
But Francis popped out of that straightjacket one time, at least, when she recorded Howard Greenfield and Neil Sedaka‘s “Stupid Cupid” (’58), a plastic pop tune that sold pretty well. Because it was about a young woman confessing to being more or less powerless in the grip of sexual attraction.
The way she sang “and I like it fine” made it clear she was a scamp who really liked making out and whatnot. “I like it fine” meant that when the right guy came along, the blouse was soon unbuttoned.
As noted, the Venice Film Festival will announce its slate on Tuesday, 7.22. I’ve updated my Venice Film Festival spitball by killing certain titles like Roofman, One Battle After Another, etc. Here’s my take on 26 all but certain, likely, hopeful or potential inclusions:
HE LEGEND: ++ = extra-positive HE expectations. + = mostly positive expectations. X = meh or negative. XX = dread.
1. After the Hunt (d: Luca Guadagnino) Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny. / ++
2. A House of Dynamite (d: Kathryn Bigelow) / ++
3. Jay Kelly (d: Noah Baumbach) George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Billy Crudup, Laura Dern, Grace Edwards, Stacy Keach, Riley Keough. Emily Mortimer. / ++
4. The Way of the Wind (d: Terrence Malick) / X
5. Bugonia (d: Yorgos Lanthimos) / Neutral
11. The Ballad of a Small Player (d:Edward Berger) Synopsis: When his past and debts start to catch up, a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau encounters a kindred spirit who might hold the key to his salvation.” Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton, Fala Chen. / ++
12. Couture (d: Alice Winocour) +. Angelina Jolie, Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf, Garance Marillier, Anyier Anei, Finnegan Oldfield. / Neutral.
13. The Cry of the Guards (d: Claire Denis)
14. Chocobar (d: Lucrecia Martel)
15. Sacrifice (d: Romain Gavras)
16. In the Hands of Dante (d: Julian Schnabel) Synopsis of Nick Tosches‘ same-titled 2002 book: “An interweaving of two separate stories, one set in the 14th century in Italy and Sicily and featuring Dante Alighieri, and another set in the autumn of 2001 and featuring a fictionalized version of Tosches as the protagonist. The historical and modern stories alternate as Dante tries to finish writing his magnum opus and goes on a journey for mystical knowledge in Sicily.” Oscar Isaac as Nick Tosches / Dante Alighieri, w/ Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, Gal Gadot, Sabrina Impacciatore, Franco Nero, Martin Scorsese. ++
17. Ann Lee (d: Mona Fastvold). Amanda Seyfried, Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Christopher Abbott, Tim Blake Nelson, Stacy Martin. / +
18. La Grazia (d: Paolo Sorrentino)
19. An Affair (d: Arnaud Desplechin)
20. Below the Clouds (d: Gianfranco Rosi)
21. Duse (d: Pietro Marcello)
22. Frankenstein (d: Guillermo del Toro) / X
To the preceding I would add “what’s wrong with the following?” and “why not?”
23. Scott Cooper‘s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (20th Century, sometime in the fall). Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in another boomer nostalgia pic, focusing on the recording of Nebraska (’82). Costarring Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Paul Walter Hauser, Gaby Hoffmann, Johnny Cannizzaro, Harrison Gilbertson, Marc Maron.
24. Chloe Zhao‘s Hamnet (Focus Features, no date) — Fictional tale about Mr. and Mrs. William Shakespeare coping with the death of their son. Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal (!), Joe Alwyn, Emily Watson.
Imagine if James Gunn had decided that instead of David Corenswet‘s Superman getting badly beaten up every seven or eight minutes….imagine if Gunn had decided instead to have Corenswet attend a golden superhero award ceremony every seven or eight minutes and be handed a gleaming Oscar-sized trophy…imagine how repetitve and punishing this would be over a two-and-a-half-hour period. But this is what Superman actually does by having Corenswet get walloped this frequently. It drives you crazy. The repetition is insane.
I thought the whole MAGA belief system was that they didn’t care about Trump being a sociopath and a morally derelict scalawag…that they accepted him as the bully-boy taker and user that he’s always been…so why is the right so cranked up about the Epstein files?
Scott Galloway: “It’s so intellectually or morally inconsistent. If Jeffrey Epstein had invited a bunch of migrant workers to his island, we would have nuked it. But as long as it was just pedophiles? This notion that we’re shocked that a man found liable of sexual abuse, which is rape…that this man [Trump] might be on a list compiled by a powerful man [Epstein] inviting people down to an island with underage women? That’s supposed to be a big shocker? Trump could not be acting more guilty.”
Good Sex Wiki synopsis: 40 year old couples therapist Ally (NataliePortman), after spending a decade in failed relationships, reluctantly dips back into the New York dating scene.
Costarring Mark Ruffalo, Tucker Pillsbury, Meg Ryan, Rashida Jones and Tramell Tillman. Directed and written by Lena Dunham. Due for Neflix streaming sometime next year.
This, in my view, is Martin Scorsese‘s best short-burst performance since his psychotically jealous husband-slash-voyeur in Taxi Driver (’76). Which we’re not allowed to mention these days because of the ugly racist current.
What happens between Marty and Seth Rogen in The Studio is lightweight and surface-skimmy, of course, but at the same time…well, it has something because it alludes, at least, to betrayal and soullessness.
The only Primetime Emmy nominations that accelerated my blood today were the 13 noms for The Pitt, and particularly a Best Drama Series nom for the show itself as well as a Best Actor in a Drama nom for Noah Wyle, who also exec produces.
I loved the opening episode of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg‘s The Studio (especially Martin Scorsese‘s cameo performance as himself) as well as “The Oner”, but I lost interest after the obsequious, one-note Ron Howard episode.
I think it’s a totally sick and disgusting joke that the most recently aired The White Lotus season (#3), which was horribly written and utterly devoid of dramatic tension, has been nominated for anything.
I’m down with The Penguin as far as it goes, but I’m also sick to death of Severance, Hacks, The Bear and The Last of Us being nominated for anything, much less winning this or that trophy…get outta my life.
Variety‘s Naman Ramachandran (7.15.25): “Gregg Wallace‘s co-host John Torode has been fired from BBC‘s MasterChef following an investigation that substantiated an allegation [that] he used racist language in the workplace.”
I’ve read that some of Torode’s offending utterances were overheard back in ’18, but maybe there’s more to it.
So what did Torode say exactly? One presumes he wasn’t vulgar or stupid enough to use flagrantly racist language or epithets, but I’d love to know what his verbal offenses actually were.
They were probably remarks that skirted the line between familiar, no-big-deal racial shorthand (i.e., referring to a light-skinned African American as cappuccino or cafe au lait, let’s say) and casual conversation, but who knows?
I would never dream today of saying “spade cat” (it’s a ’60s and ’70s street term), but I was all but burned at the stake a couple of years ago for insisting that back in the day and in the realm of the street “spade cat” was a term of respect. It alluded to a POC who was hip and Zen-cool and subterranean and perhaps even “experienced” in the Jimi Hendrix sense of that term.
Another term I wouldn’t dare verbalize today is “bloods,” but this was also a term of cultural acknowledgment and respect. It certainly wasn’t informed by racist spite. It refers to a close familial fraternity among POCs…trust, recognition, shared heritage, history. Someone told me it came from a phrase in Sly Stone‘s “A Family Affair,” to wit: “blood’s thicker than the mud.”
When you consider some of the ugly racist terminology heard in M.A.S.H., the first two Godfather flicks, Karel Reisz‘s Who’ll Stop The Rain (“hold it there, tamale pie”), Mississippi Burning, several Quentin Tarantino films and even HBO’s The Sopranos, “spade cat” and “bloods” (not that anyone would be dumb enough to use them in any workplace) are decidedly vanilla. But they’d still get you fired.
We all understand that POCs are never admonished or whacked for using terms that belittle or diminish whites (“whitey”, “Wonderbread”, “whitebread”, “honky mofo”, “preppy cracker”, “trailer trash”, “yokel”) — it only works the other way around.
