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Let me assure everyone that Pope Francis is not, as we speak, in the grip of any kind of quietly humming life force…any kind of buzzing, soothing, gently crackling cosmic consciousness, at least as living life forms (humans, aquatics, animals, insects) know the term.

Pope Francis is not presently on that kind of Dave Bowman flotation ride. He’s not riding anything, in fact. Because he no longer exists, although a certain tingly residue may remain on some level. Maybe a sound or a whisper of some kind. A raindrop hitting the surface of a pond.

Whatever this residue may or may not amount to, it is almost certainly enveloped by or resting upon a kind of perfect, peaceful soft mattress of serenity…something that’s well beyond trustworthy….simultaneously everything and nothing. No worries or uncertainties or concerns of any kind. Flatline chill. Stanley Kubrick has been in this same kind of perfect suspension for…what, 26 years and change? And it may as well be seconds as far as Stanley’s residue is concerned. Or, you know, forget any calibration at all.

A little more than 18 years ago, Vanity Fair photographer Art Streiber and Seth Rogen, 26 going on 48, reenacted the North by Northwest cropduster scene. I remember flipping through the issue and going “what….why?” The gray suit was okay and the biplane looked fine, but the first thing I noticed, of course, was Rogen’s gelatinous gut spilling over his belt. Which reminded anyone out there who knew anything about the 54 year old Cary Grant, who filmed the actual scene up in Wasco in the summer of ’58…if there was one thing Grant was never in the least bit burdened by, it was an overhang. So the joke was what?…look at how galumphy and slothful our movie-star culture has become? Something in this vein?

HE respects bussdownsathiana. She prefaces her Sinners review by acknowledging that a lot of Zoomer social-media fanatics “are going to get mad at me,” etc. But at least she has the stones to lay it down straight, which is more than you can say for most of the over-the-top nutters and suck-ups who are praising Ryan Coogler‘s vampire flick to the heavens…hook, line and sinker.

@bussdownsathiana dr. umar would love this though #sinnersmovie #filmtok #movietok #ryancoogler #moviereview ♬ original sound – sathbabii

@tmoneyy456 95% is a huge exaggeration lol Someone please explain it to me. It wasn’t good. Not liking a movie truly isn’t that deep #sinners ♬ original sound – Tmoneyy

THIS RIFF CONTAINS A SPOILER if you live in a deep, dark, wifi-free cave…:

I explained a few days ago that I’d pretty much decided to shine The Last of Us, largely because I’m flat-out repelled by Bella Ramsey’s “Ellie”…feral eyes, frosty “they/them” vibes, bunned hair. “Pretty much” meant there was, at most, a one-in-five chance I might watch it again. But now that Pedro Pascal’s Joel has been shot, golf-clubbed and stabbed to death, we’re stuck with Ellie as the lead character and that, to me, is death. I really hate this show, and if Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann…okay, I won’t say it. But I’m definitely flushing it. Get outta my life.

Speaking as a skeptical non-Catholic and, of course, a 2025 cinephile, HE’s easiest and most immediate understanding of the inner finaglings and political struggles of Vatican politics stems, of course, from Edward Berger’s Conclave (‘24), which ended with the choosing of a kind of woke Pope, aka the intersex, Mexican-born Cardinal Benitez, who chose to be called Pope Innocente, played by Carlos Diehz.

And yet the 88 year-old Pope Francis, who suddenly passed last night in Rome, was a bit of an anomaly — a compassionate progressive who had reached out to gay Catholics and, in Conclave terms, was staunchly opposed to the strict conservative dogma of Serge Castellito’s Cardinal Tedesco. Nonetheless Francis spoke out against woke fanaticism and cancel culture, and in so doing presented himself as a fair-minded and well-principled fellow.

A Jesuit from Argentina, the kindly Jorge Mario Bergoglio was, it seemed to some of us, a real-life version of Benitez, minus a certain physical characteristic.

I knew Francis was a good egg when Sarah Palin frowned and harrumphed when he was chosen to be Pope in March 2013.

And now, in a manner of speaking, Ralph Fiennes’ Cardinal Lawrence will once again be summoning cardinals to Vatican City to select a new pontiff. Who will be Papa Francesco’s successor? Another Benitez or…who knows?…Stanley Tucci’s Cardinal Bellini, Castellito’s Tedesco, John Lithgow’s Cardinal Tremblay, Lucian Msamati’s Cardinal Adeyemi, or perhaps even Lawrence himself?

If I was running the show, I would urge the choosing of a contemporary Pope Joan.

Did anyone even see Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups? Barack Obama was still in the White house when it opened. I reviewed it (“King of Flakes“)during the 2016 Santa Barbara Film Festival.

What I wrote: Last night I sat through Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups (Broad Green, 3.4) at Santa Barbara’s Arlington theatre.

I didn’t watch or absorb it — I “sat through” it like I was waiting for an overdue bus. It’s about warm climes and lassitude and a truly profound lack of effort by everyone involved, particularly Malick.

What a tragic journey he’s been on since The Tree of Life. Self-wanking, anal-cavity-residing…the man is so lost it looks like home to him. And it is a kind of home, I gather, that producers Sarah Green and Nicholas Gonda have seemingly created for the guy. Take your time, Terry…take your sweet-ass time.

Once regarded as one of Hollywood’s great auteurist kings (Badlands, Days of Heaven) but more recently renowned for his whispery mood-trip films (a tendency that began with The Thin Red Line) and for indulging in meditative reveries to a point that the reveries become the whole effing movie, Malick, free to operate within his own cloistered realm, lives to “paint” and dither and go all doodly-doo and mystical and digressive when the mood strikes, which is apparently all the time when he’s shooting and cetainly when he’s editing.

40 years ago I was convinced Malick had seen the burning bush and was passing along God’s-eye visions, and now look at him.

Knight of Cups is To The Wonder Goes To Southern California with a lot more dough and a greater variety of hot women. They could re-title it Terrence Malick’s Wide, Wide World of Delectable, Half-Dressed, Model-Thin Fuck Bunnies.

They could also retitle it Terrence Malick’s Beaches…boy, does Christian Bale love going to the beach at magic hour and sloshing barefoot through the tides! This meandering dream-doze movie is all beaches, all deserts, all swanky condos and office towers and absurdly arrogant McMansions. And all half-captured moods and fall-away moments and conversational snippets.

Who am I? Why am I so damn lazy? Can I do anything besides wander around and gaze at stuff? Either Bale is on Percocets or I need to drop a Percocet the next time I watch this.

The most attention-getting thing that happens in Knight of Cups is a semi-serious earthquake (lasts around ten seconds, feels like a 7 or 7.5). The second is a home robbery by a couple of shaved-head Latinos. The third is a nude blonde standing on an outdoor balcony (possibly Bale’s). The rest is spiritual ether and vapor and kicking sand.

If you know Los Angeles you know Malick is hitting all the visually arresting spots within a 100-mile range — the beaches, downtown LA, Venice, Malibu, LAX, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree rock formations, etc. Malick’s Los Angeles is like Woody Allen‘s Manhattan — all affluent eye candy. I’ve wandered around all these places and looked up at the sky and have channelled the same moods and thoughts that Christian Bale‘s Rick seems to be having. I’ve done it over and over. I know this realm up and down.

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But the more I kick it around, the more I think “the ’60s” actually began on 5.29.63 — the day that Martin Ritt‘s Hud opened commercially. That was the real beginning of boomer anti-authoritarianism, of “whatever the WWII generation tried to teach us was wrong or at the very least hollow as fuck.”

…from the guy who got lucky, once, by impressing a racial stamp upon a certain Ira Levin novel.

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Except for Cailee Spaeny‘s pain-in-the-ass “look at my shell-shocked reactions” acting style, that is. Otherwise it’s great. Why hasn’t some CG wizard taken this clip and expertly switched out Nick Offerman‘s face for Donald Trump‘s?