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Speaking of ethnic defamations a la Lady and the Tramp, is it fair to throw the famous “mamma, mia, that’s a spicy meatball!” Alka Seltzer commercial into the same racist dustbin? It flaunted a crude ethnic stereotype (i.e., the old-world “moustache Pete” Italian husband being served spaghetti by a fat Mama Corleone) for comic effect, and in so doing painted Italian-American culture with the broad brush of cliche.

And yet neither the Italian American Anti-Defamation League nor the Italian-American Civil Rights League made a peep when the commercial aired in 1969. A half-century ago their mission was to pressure the film and TV industry from constantly depicting Italian Americans as gangsters and street hoods.

Give the Alka-Seltzer guys credit for coming up with a handful of great slogans and commercials from the late ’60s to mid ’70s. The top three are “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” “spicy meatball” and “plop plop fizz fizz.” I can’t recall the last time I used Alka Seltzer, but it was a long time ago. I still use Pepto-Bismol

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A Variety report by Matt Donnelly and Chris Willman assures that Disney’s forthcoming Lady And The Tramp reboot (not “animated” but a blend of CG and live action) will be scrubbed clean of politically incorrect inferences and foul racist stereotyping.

I’n alluding to the notorious Siamese cat song, sung by the Asian-accented “Si” and “Am” (i.e., Peggy Lee) in the original 1955 animated feature (“We are Siamese if you please, we are Siamese if you don’t please”), and Disney’s decision to give it a p.c. makeover.

The tune is being rewritten by Janelle Monae, and the cats in the new version are “not Siamese,” according to the Variety story. That way progressive Asians (including those who made and celebrated the immaculately tasteful Crazy Rich Asians) won’t feel offended.

To explain p.c. objections to this 64-year-old song, Donnelly and Willman reference an influential Flavorwire essay titled “The Code Behind the Kitty: Unpacking the Racist Myth of the Siamese Cat.” The article was posted by Marcus Hunter on 6.13.13.

The piece noted that Si and Am are among “the most racist cartoon characters ever depicted on film,” and described them as “jaundiced and sly, slick and feral [and] domesticated, though nevertheless propelled by their mischievous, impish nature to deceive and intimidate.”

In other words, Si and Am denigrate Asians. They could also be regarded, I suppose, as animated cousins of Mickey Rooney’s Asian landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany’s as well as characterizations of what Secretary of State Dean Rusk once called “the yellow peril.”

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Tweeting with an apparently sincere intent, Donald Trump implied earlier today that Rev. Jerry Falwell had a good point when he tweeted last night that Trump deserves “reparations” by way of an extra two years added to his term. With the Mueller investigation having given his administration a clean bill of ethical health (or so they believe), Trump is asserting that his first two years were squandered by the Democrats’ “corrupt failed coup,” and he should therefore be given a two-year “gimme” to make up for this.

Trump is spouting this lunacy to entertain his supporters, of course, but he’s also conveying a half-serious, sociopathic indifference to U.S. Constitutional law and procedure. The man is undeniably sick — easily the most unstable, least rational, foaming-at-the-mouth President this country has ever had, and 35% (possibly less, possibly more) of the country supports his fat ass.

“I, Donald J. Trump, do solemnly swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.”

Four days ago a guy named “r/ProRevenge” posted the following revenge saga on Reddit: “So about a year ago, I made a post on Instagram about how excited I was to see Infinity War, and I foolishly used the hashtag “Thanosdemandsyoursilence” As you may know, you can look up hashtags on Instagram and browse through posts using that hashtag.

“After I made the post, a random guy (whom I assume was browsing the hashtag to find people who used it) randomly targeted me, and commented on my post [with] a full list of everyone who died. I hadn’t seen the movie [at that time], and this guy did spoil it for me.

“But by that time, Endgame was confirmed (just not the name) and it was then that my master plan was born. I messaged the guy and told him that I had already seen the movie, but that was a good prank. It was then that we became ‘friends’, so for about 7 months, he and I messaged each other, texted memes, talked about movies, and stuff like that. (Keep in mind the friendship was fake — I was just trying to get his trust and make him comfortable with me.)

“Skip forward to about last week. I bought my Endgame tickets for opening night. I asked him if he was going on opening night and he said no, which was great news. He said he was going next week (this week.) So I saw Endgame, and while I was in the theater, I took PLENTY of pictures. I took pictures of [all the heavy stuff that happens in the third act].

“When I got out, I almost thought of not doing it. I don’t like to spoil movies, but I reassured myself that this guy deserves it. So I texted him that I saw it, he asked how it was and I told him it was great. He told me not to spoil it, and I said ‘Oh, like how you didn’t spoil Infinity War?’ Then he switched moods and was all like ‘Hey man, that was a long time ago, we’re friends now,’ stuff like that.

“Then, in one glorious action, I sent all the pictures as fast as I could, messaging plot points along with the pictures. It was all over in like 30 seconds, but he definitely saw it all. He cursed me out, saying I was a horrible person and stuff. Then he said ‘why would you do that, we’re such good friends?’

“And I texted back, ‘We’re not friends! A year ago you picked me out of a crowd of thousands and ruined a movie that I had been wanting to see for months. Since then I’ve been lying to you, deceiving you and gaining your trust all for this moment. You are not my friend, just a person who got what they deserve.’ Then he cursed me out some more, and I haven’t talked to him since.”

My heart skipped a beat when I read a Variety story about Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York, which Amazon is refusing to distribute out of fear and cowardice, having arranged for distribution in Italy via distributor Lucky Red. Nick Vivarelli is reporting that “other European territories [are] also believed to have closed local distribution deals”…yes!

Right away I was imagining renting a car in Cannes and driving to San Remo, Italy (roughly a half-hour drive) and catching Rainy Day at one of the plexes there.

Then I read the words “in the fall.” Oh. This suggests that Rainy Day may premiere four months hence at the Venice Film Festival.

Vivarelli’s story indicates that Rainy Day hasn’t sold to each and every European or Middle-Eastern territory. It logically follows that there might be a market screening or two during the Cannes Film Festival. It would certainly be an opportune occasion to the film’s reps to seal the deal. I’m going to see if I can discreetly wangle my way into one of these showings.

“As loud as Twitter can be if you pay attention to it, it’s hard to bear in mind that the screaming voices there are not a microcosm of anything except itself: a statistically insignificant number of people — with a large overrepresentation of media employees — who likely have a difficult time getting people to listen to them anywhere else. In the early days of The Reckoning, corporations built up a hair-trigger cave-in mechanism set off by any flurry of bluster on the social media platform. But more and more are finding that the best way to deal with Twitter is just to log out of Twitter, and life in the rest of the world can, amazingly, still proceed in something resembling normalcy.” — from Richard Rushfield‘s latest Ankler column, titled “Who Lost (And Won) April 2019?”.

The big New York publishers are reportedly uninterested in publishing a Woody Allen autobiography or “memwhah.” Because they’re afraid of offending the kneejerk “we believe Dylan and therefore Woody’s career must be killed” brigade. But Joe McBride‘s idea of Allen self-publishing is a sound and shrewd one. It would become an instant best-seller, all the reviewers would weigh in, etc. The odds that it wouldn’t become a hot-button must-read are almost nil. He just has to do it.

I don’t know whether to feel guilty or just accept that I’m a kind of 4K HDR peon, but lately I’ve been watching movies (1080p and 4K Bluray, HD streaming, DVDs) with the Sony XBR65X900F picture mode set to animation.

Animation doesn’t deliver any kind of motion-smoothing as far as I can tell. It certainly doesn’t deliver “motion-smoothing” as I’ve seen it before. But it does seem to add a certain extra-clear quality and a bit more smoothness in the action. It looks like a half-hearted cousin of motion smoothing while allowing a movie to retain a (polished) celluloid texture.

All I know that I recently watched my Bluray of Double Indemnity on my 4K Samsung Bluray and app player (which in itself delivers a 4K uprez effect), and I’ve never seen Billy Wilder‘s 1944 classic look this sockaroonie. I’ve seen it 15 or 20 times, and what I saw looked celluloid-based and natural as far as that 20th Century look goes, but the image also delivered a certain bumped-up clarity.

Posted on 9.12.18: “I’ve never watched a single film on my Sony 65″ HDR 4K TV with the ‘aid’ of motion-smoothing, which makes everything look overly fluid and video-tapey and generally removes the scrim-texture of film. But as appalling and repellent as motion-smoothing is, I’m strangely attracted to using it when watching old black-and-white films.

“There’s something hypnotic about watching, say, William Wellman‘s The Public Enemy, which I’ve seen several times since I was a kid, with the motion-smoothing effect. Shot 87 years ago, this rickety-feeling James Cagney gangster flick is a formally framed, somewhat squawky-sounding film for the most part, but with motion smoothing it feels (and I know I’m not supposed to say this) cleaner, fresher and less antiquated.”

Hollywood Elsewhere humbly apologizes to Long Shot co-writer Liz Hannah for posting a crude and over-emphatic dismissal of this Seth Rogen-Jonathan Levine film yesterday. I’m not a fan of the film, but I expressed myself indelicately. I just blurted it out (which occasionally happens when the spigot is turned on 24/7) but within an hour I felt badly and deleted the tweet. Then I wrote a letter of apology to Hannah last night. I’m very sorry. As I noted yesterday, I greatly respect Hannah and Josh Singer’s work on The Post.

And thanks, by the way, to the shrieking scolds and fang-toothed twitter jackals who tried to make hay out of this. You’re all such wonderful fellows, in part because you’ve never once made a mistake. Salud!