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No prolonged illness, no visible weakness, no cane, no hospital stays, no fatness, no indications of slow diminishment, no sudden surgeries.

And yet his heart gave out for some mysterious reason. Poppers?

Right now I’m feeling so bummed out by the Odyssey whore raves**. I fully expect that it’ll turn out to be thoughtful, eye-filling and stylistically assured (Chris Nolan is nothing if not skilled) but I’d feel so much better if someone who’s seen it could give me reason to hope for some honest measure of negativity.

If there’s no way to legitimately slam or at least belittle The Odyssey, fine. I’ll survive. Life will go on. But ever since the loathsome Interstellar (‘14) I’ve been hoping with all my heart that somewhere down the road Nolan will somehow fail or even fall on his face. At least in the eyes and souls of X–factor soreheads like myself or even (surely we’re allowed to dream?) Joe and Jane Popcorn.

** Blind–love Nolan cultists have long constituted, I feel, a kind of blight upon cinema culture. Plus I really and truly hate the Odyssey wokeys and their relentless accusations of bigotry and transphobing on the part of sensible Average Joes.

Earlier today I was feeling very gratified that these guys came out more or less on top, healthy, and relatively unblemished, and that the toxic, poisonous, bad-to-the-bone Blake Lively didn’t fare all that well. She started it all, and look what happened. What goes around, comes around. Just desserts.

Remember that whipsmart, snap-crackle-pop Mick Jagger (7.26.43) is only seven months younger than droolin’, shuffling-along, bent-over, hoarse-voiced Joe Biden (11.20.42).

“If in my youth I had realized that the sustaining splendor of beauty would one day flood back into my heart, there to ignite a flame that would torture me without end, how gladly would I have put out the light in my eyes.” — Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564).

Re-phrased: “Looks-wise, life affords us a relatively short window.”

There’s one thing you can pretty much depend upon when it comes to movie reviews, and it’s this: The vast majority of critics will never announce that a film in question was shot within a 1.66:1 aspect ratio.

Olivia Wilde and Adam Newport-Berra‘s The Invite uses this a.r., and I may be the only critic or columnist who’s even mentioned this, much less written some sort of riff about it. Not absolutely but quite possibly.

Most regular critics don’t even notice 1.66:1, and those that do don’t feel it’s worth a toss.

Hollywood’s standard aspect ratios, of course, are 1.85:1 and 2.39:1. Step outside of these and some critics might take notice. But in this regard they’re generally a lazy-ass bunch.

Some will mention that a film has been shot within an Ultra Panavison 70 a.r. (2.76:1) because it’s fairly unusual and certainly calls attention to itself, one 21st Century example being Quentin Tarantino‘s The Hateful Eight.

Others may mention that a film has been shot in a very rare Movietone ratio (1.19:1), such as Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse.

But 1.66:1 gets no respect and zero salutes. Too subtle or something.

I for one adore this aspect ratio.

HE-posted on 7.14.16: Several months after the all-too-brief release of James Bridges‘ Mike’s Murder on 3.9.84, a short review by New Yorker critic Pauline Kael was published. Here’s a portion of it:

“A few days after seeing the newly manufactured, disposable Legal Eagles, I noticed that Debra Winger‘s last picture to be released, Mike’s Murder, was listed for Showtime in the New York Times TV schedule, and that the Times‘ advice was ‘Skip it.’

“Please, don’t skip it next time it comes around. Or, if you can, rent it.

“I wasn’t able to see this film during its unheralded, minuscule New York run in 1984, but I caught up with it on HBO last year. It has two superb performances — a full-scale starring one by Winger, and a brief intense one by Paul Winfield.

“She’s a radiantly sane young bank teller who has an affair with Mike (Mark Keyloun). She likes him — you can see her eagerness, even though she knows how to be cool and bantering with him.

“Winger has thick, long, loose hair and a deep, sensual beauty in this movie. Bridges wrote the role for her after directing her in Urban Cowboy, and you feel the heroine’s expanding awareness in Winger’s scenes with Keyloun and her scenes with Winfield. It’s a performance that suggests what Antonioni seemed to be trying to get from Jeanne Moreau in La Notte, only it really works with Winger — maybe because there’s nothing sullen or closed about her. We feel the play of the girl’s intelligence, and her openness and curiousity are part of her earthiness, her sanity.

“There’s a marvellous sequence in which Mike calls her after an interval of three months and wants her to come to him right that minute. She says, ‘How about tomorrow night?’ He says, ‘You know I can’t plan that far in advance,’ and gets her to talk to him while he masturbates. He says he loves her voice, and though we don’t see him, we hear a callow sweetness in his tone; he wants to give her satisfaction, too.

“I don’t know of anyone besides Winger who could play a scene like this so simply. She’s a major reason to go on seeing movies in the ’80s — but not in Legal Eagles.”

Rahm Emanuel: “In the 2028 campaign you’re going to have 31 flavors, and if I decide to do it, I’m gonna be Rocky Road.”

I’m still a steadfast Gavin Newsom guy, and if somehow Gavin doesn’t pan out (unlikely — voters want a killer) I’ll go with Rahm or Pete.

But you know what? If Zohran Mamdani was able to run (his having been born in Kampala disqualifies) and if he decided to launch his campaign for President sometime in mid ’27, he would surge to the front of the pack very quickly.

Because he’s got it. Kamala Harris wouldn’t have a chance against him. It’s a pipe dream, as noted, but a U.S.-born Mamdani could get there. People really like him. They believe that he cares about working schlubs.

Fixed / updated on 7.19.26, 7:45 am: I’ve half-hated a huge amount of films released in 1984, including several of the year’s most popular — Beverly Hills Cop (blah), Ghostbusters (loathed the absurd, over-produced ending), Gremlins (sorry, Joe!), The Karate Kid, Police Academy, Footloose (loathed it from the get-go) and Romancing The Stone. They all strike me as faint, quarter-inch-deep formulaic flotsam.

I don’t even feel lasting passion (i.e., have never even thought about re-watching over the last 35 years) for some of the worthy ones — Amadeus, The Natural, A Soldier’s Story, Once Upon A Time in America, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Purple Rain, The Bostonians, Iceman, Moscow on the Hudson, Falling in Love, The Hotel New Hampshire (10). All are good or at the very least decent, but with little in the way of lingering sparks in our diminished here-and-now.

By HE’s measuring stick here, in this order, are 1984’s top seven…canonical cred, unmistakable resonance, the most in the way of follow-through current and zero blemishes:

1. Alex Cox‘s Repo Man

2. Stephen Frears‘ The Hit

3. James Bridges‘ Mike’s Murder

4. Robert Benton‘s Places in the Heart

5. James Cameron‘s The Terminator

6. Rob Epstein‘s The Times of Harvey Milk

7. Woody Allen‘s Broadway Danny Rose

Here are HE’s #8 through #14:

8. Joel & Ethan Coen‘s Blood Simple

9. Roger Donaldson‘s The Bounty

10. Robert Bresson‘s L’Argent

11. John Milius‘s Red Dawn

12. Carl Reiner‘s All Of Me

13. Roland Joffe‘s The Killing Fields

14. David Lean‘s A Passage to India

Lupita Nyong’o is 43, not “46.” She was born on 3.1.83, and is simply not ravishing enough to trigger a war. At best she’s a MILF. She’s certainly no Rosanna Podesta.

This horse has to be whipped flayed BEATEN to death.

@undertheduvet.pod Do you like the casting decision of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey? #lupitanyongo #christophernolan #theodyssey #helenoftroy #podcastshow ♬ original sound – Under the Duvet

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