Early today I was reading Owen Gleiberman’s 11.30 essay about the late John Simon. An honest assessment, if on the unkind side. I was thinking how we’re not allowed to be kind to guys like Simon in death, lest we be cast into the pit and stoned to death ourselves. We’re not even allowed to be fair-minded, for the most part. Then again there’s a money quote in Gleiberman’s piece, and when I read it I thought “Jesus, Simon actually said that?” I’m sure he thought better of that remark the next day, but God, what a horrific aspect of his personality. An erudite, dapperly dressed, old-world Hungarian vampire with a certain taste for derision and at times dismissive cruelty. He could have done with less of that, obviously, but then again that was Simon, warts and all. His venom truly was his brand. Take that away, and you have a smart but rather stuffy middlebrow critic who we wouldn’t even be talking about today.

I’ve been visiting Malibu’s Paradise Cove cafe since the ’80s. It’s never been a sophisticated place, but I’ve always liked the ramshackle vibe. For decades it’s been serving basic blue-collar meals to Joe Schmoe family types. There are always kids running around, and almost everything you order comes with an animal-sized pile of fries. Apart from the pleasant beachside setting, the upside has always been that the food prices were generally tolerable.

Well, no longer. Now it’s an overpriced ripoff (or my idea of one). It’s still the same noisy, schlubby restaurant, but now you have to pay at least $10 or $12 more per plate than they used to charge a decade ago, and on top of that you have to pay through the nose for parking.

Earlier this evening Tatyana and I dropped by Paradise Cove for a fish-and-chips plate plus a Coke. (It was actually me doing the ordering — Tatyana refused to order out of a general distaste for the atmosphere.) When all was said and done the bill was $43 ($38 for the grub + taxes + $5 tip). And then we had to pay $10 for parking, and that was with a validated ticket — it would have been $15 if we hadn’t ordered.

53 bills to eat an oily fish-and-chips plate at a no-great-shakes, down-at-the-heels meathead restaurant with sand on the floor? There’s no way I paid that much when I last visited here, sometime around a decade ago. Right now everything on the menu costs at least $10 or $12 more than it should. Tonight’s tab should have been $30 or $35, all in.

I don’t mind paying top dollar for an elegant eating experience at a place like Angelini Osteria on Beverly or Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica Canyon, but I expect lower pricing at a mongrel family joint like the Paradise Cove cafe.

The profit-hungry parties are Paradise Cove owners Bob and Kerry Morris.

Posted on 11.29.19:

This may sound like some kind of needlessly harsh, extreme prejudice dismissal, but it’s not intended to be that. I’m just honestly confessing that my primary reaction as I watched this Rise of Skywalker trailer this morning was “again?” How many more fierce light-saber duels am I going to have to watch? How many more scenes of evil Kylo, intense Rey, grumpy Luke, dutiful Finn, heroic Poe Dameron, demonic Palpatine, chubby Rose Tico, gender-fluid Lando Calrissian, etc.?

I’ve had it with this whole thing. I just don’t feel it anymore, and I was feeling it somewhat with The Force Awakens and to a slightly greater extent with The Last Jedi. But I’m all tapped out, man. My heart is spent. The legend has run out of gas.

I think it was that idiotic Last Jedi finale when Luke hoodwinks Kylo Ren with some of kind of projected film-flammery. At that moment something snapped inside. Or collapsed. I think I said from my seat in the Chinese, “Ahhh, fuck this noise.”

The big media-screening day is on Tuesday, 12.17. The commercial opening is on Thursday, 12.19.

There is “easy listening” music (generally derided, in some quarters spat upon) and then there’s your tart but gentle Sunday morning playlist. I’m talking about a certain kind of adult-minded song, simply sung and accompanied by low-key, non-strenuous instrumentation, one that’s best appreciated around 9:30 am on a Sunday morning, preferably at a mid-range volume and over your first cup of strong coffee.

Backstreet Girl is definitely one of these. Partly because the song isn’t describing a mellow, kindly, “life is beautiful” situation. It’s basically about cruel discipline. A song that says “restrain your emotions and stay in your place.” Or, more concisely, “don’t push it.”

The Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning” and “Carolina In My Mind” are nice Sunday morning-ers also, agreed, and they also sound great when you’re driving late at night on the 405. But they don’t have that Rolling Stones-y edge. Without that this post would make me sound like a gelatinous softie.

In his annual N.Y. Times Thanksgiving column, Kevin Dowd — Maureen Dowd‘s gray-haired, devotedly Catholic, liberal-despising, Trump-tolerating brother — assesses the Democratic field:

“Warren/Sanders: If you combine the support of the two billionaire-bashing socialists, they lead the field. You might consider vacationing in Venezuela before committing to them or they could run together as the End of Days ticket.

Biden/Bloomberg: Like Bloomberg, Biden has been forced to grovel and renounce all past career accomplishments on crime prevention.

Harris/Booker: They’re having trouble lighting the spark, even with some black voters.

Klobuchar/Buttigieg: They are the two least crazy people in the field, which means they have absolutely no chance.”

Kevin doesn’t hate Pete!

This is what’s known as an “obiter dicta” — words in passing that give the game away. Amy hasn’t a prayer so Kevin is basically saying Pete is the only credible Democratic contender who doesn’t make him throw up. Being called one of the “two least crazy people in the field” is another way of saying “Pete isn’t my guy but he has certain half-tolerable qualities, including a respect for people of faith.” You could take Kevin’s expression of limited support and turn it into “I guess if Pete won the Presidency, it wouldn’t be an absolute catastrophe.”

This implies that tens of thousands of other conflicted Trump fans out there might feel the same way. Think about that.

I’ll always be flummoxed by how a guy who had this kind of ruggedly mystical, two-steps-back, accepting-the-complex-wonder-of-it-all view of life, not to mention a guy with one of the most glorious and enviable gigs imaginable (touring the globe in search of great food, wise and wonderful people and organic, non-corporate culture)…how does a guy with this much access to the sublime joy of so much varied and nourishing experience (not to mention being well paid) hang himself in a bathroom?

Al Pacino’s Jimmy Hoffa is a strong supporting role — he doesn’t appear in The Irishman until the second hour, and there’s about 35 minutes’ of movie left after he departs. Agreed, Pacino’s performance feels like a co-lead but he’s not the main protagonist — Robert DeNiro’s Frank Sheeran has that burden.

Same deal with Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. He’s more cool-cat charismatic than Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton, but he’s still the best friend, still bunking in that grubby trailer, still the guy driving his boss’s car, etc. Almost a co-lead, granted, but not the lead either. And that’s cool.

Willem Dafoe is definitely a co-lead with RBatz in The Lighthouse.

Jonathan Pryce is unquestionably playing the lead protagonist in The Two Popes — he and Anthony Hopkins are not co-leads.

Tom Hanks’ Fred Rogers obviously has more gravity and personality than Matthew Rhys’ Lloyd Vogel in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and if Sony had chosen to run him as a lead, they could have sold it. But they decided against that.

I suspect that what Billy Dee Williams meant when he said he identifies as “non-binary” was that he doesn’t give a fuck who fucks who. He was basically saying “I’m easy.” But even if he meant that he’s indulged his womanly side in this or that way, I don’t think it matters all that much given his age. He’s past his sell-by date. If Lando Calrissian had offhandedly mentioned in 1980 or ‘83 that he’s had a little non-binary action, then we’d be talking headlines. But who cares when an 82 year-old guy says this?

On 9.20.18 The Guardian‘s Alex Godfrey reported that director Cary Fukunaga was “still working with playwright David Auburn on an adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s unmade Napoleon film as a Steven Spielberg-produced miniseries for HBO.”

But of course, the Napoleon project was put aside when Fukanaga was hired to direct Bond #25 or No Time To Die, which will open stateside on 4.8.20. Fukunaga will no doubt be 007-ing until the very last minute, and then there’s the long promotional trail.

If he’s still into the Napoleon project he and Auburn could begin again in the early summer, and then, if HBO is still passionately engaged, perhaps begin shooting sometime in late ’20 or ’21.

The Napoleon-Spielberg-Fukanaga project was first reported in May 2016. The logistical likelihood of shooting not beginning for roughly another nine months to a year and perhaps into ’21…well, do the math. Four to five years of planning, writing, strategizing and whatnot — this is one of those elephantine undertakings that doesn’t seem likely to actually go before cameras. Too costly, too laborious…a sprawling, elephant-sized epic.

Honestly? I’ll be deeply surprised if it happens.

From my 5.20.16 piece on the project: “It needs to be understood that in various ways (tonally, stylistically, attitude-wise) we’ve already seen Kubrick’s Napoleon. It’s called Barry Lyndon.

“A reading of the 9.29.69 screenplay makes it fairly obvious that Napoleon would have had the same vibe as Barry Lyndon, and been spoken the same way and framed and paced the same way. Okay, the lead character would be a determined egomaniacal genius instead of an amoral Irish lout and Napoleon would have more than one battle scene, but beyond these and other distinctions we’re talking the same line of country. Everything Kubrick desperately wanted to accomplish or put into Napoleon he put into Lyndon — simple.”

From Godfrey’s article:

“It’s no surprise then that Fukunaga is an enormous [Kubrick] fan. After True Detective aired, he was hired to adapt and direct Kubrick’s unmade Napoleon film as a Steven Spielberg-produced mini-series for HBO, under the guidance of Kubrick’s long-time executive producer Jan Harlan. ‘We want to carry the torch in a way that embodies the spirit of what he was trying to achieve,’ says Fukunaga, visibly excited. In a couple of weeks he will head to the library in Kubrick’s St. Albans home to continue work with Harlan.

“’I’ve been there once before,’ he says. ‘You can become jaded, working in this industry for so long, but there are moments like, ‘Holy fuck. I’m on holy, holy ground.’” Well, quite: Kubrick is buried there in the garden. He nods. ‘Jan brought me to his grave and introduced me to him,’ he says, awed. ‘That was a momentous occasion.” No need for the psychotropics.”

Irishman composer Robbie Robertson sat down for a few recent interviews, and the ones I’ve read have all reported that he’s created a “non-traditional” score. Well, yeah — that’s one way to put it.

A franker description is that most of Robertson’s “score” wasn’t composed but curated, at least according to the 20-track soundtrack album. 19 out of 20 cuts are dusty ’50s standards and odd curios (“Still of the Night”, “I Hear You Knockin'”, etc.).

So what did Robertson actually compose? A single, stand-alone track called “The Theme for The Irishman“, lasting 4:36.

But what a composition! “The Theme for The Irishman” is a dirge of resignation, a death march — a drums, harmonica and cello thing that kicks in during the final half-hour or so, a downish anthem in Frank Sheeran‘s head…music to be played and played on the way to the grave.

If you’ve seen The Irishman, you know what I’m on about. As you watch Sheeran and Russell Buffalino and “Fat Tony” Salerno get older and sicker, Robertson’s music says over and over “this is it, man…karma is a bitch and nobody gets out of life alive…no salvation or cure.”

I tried to record it off the film itself, but I couldn’t find a passage that didn’t have Sheeran’s (Robert De Niro‘s) narration.

Late yesterday afternoon Tatyana and I did our Franklin Canyon hike**, which is roughly five and a half miles, at least half of it uphill***. I hate the ache in my legs during the second half, but after it’s over and done with I always feel good about having toughed out that horrible, winding, never-ending trail. The city was dark and gleaming and on the chilly side (48 degrees) when we returned to the car around…oh, 6:10 pm or so.

All during the tough part of the hike I was playing Robbie Robertson‘s “Theme For The Irishman” (his only original composition on the soundtrack album) in my head. I was half myself and half Frank Sheeran, slightly bent over and gasping for breath and half-fantasizing about lying down on the side of the mud trail and dying. Tatyana was Superwoman, of course — never so much as breaking a sweat, occasionally looking back and asking “are you okay?” and adding at one point “you’re out of shape…you should hike more.”

Friday, 11.29, 4:55 pm.

*** Tatyana doesn’t consider our Franklin Canyon route a “hike” as much as a walk, apparently because the first half is on uphill pavement. Trust me, it’s a hike — a damn hike. My aching leg muscles and panting breath patterns have attested to this ordeal each and every time.

** Starting at Coldwater Canyon Park, north on Beverly Drive to Franklin Canyon Drive, hit the peak and then down the hill, sharp right on Lake Drive, and then up a long, winding uphill dirt trail that goes on forever and ever, and then over an iron fence that’s not easy to scale and down Royalton Drive to Coldwater, and then south back to the park.