Jason Kessler, the white nationalist behind the “Unite the Right” demonstration that sparked deadly violence in Charlottesville, was chased away from a brief outdoor press conference Sunday afternoon as an angry crowd jeered and attacked him. He scurried away like a bitch, but not before taking a punch and being tackled. Charlottesville cops stepped in to save his sorry ass.
Several…okay, a few critics are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Warren Beatty, Arthur Penn, David Newman and Robert Benton‘s Bonnie and Clyde. Except the real 50th anniversary was four months ago. This landmark, culture-changing film opened twice — half-heartedly on 4.14.67 (which resulted in Bosley Crowther‘s N.Y. Times pan) and then was re-released on 8.13.67. Remember also that Pauline Kael‘s legendary New Yorker praise piece appeared two months later, in an issue dated 10.21.67. Things sure moved a lot slower back then.
I’ve seen Bonnie and Clyde at least 10 or 12 times. I own the WHV Bluray, of course. Moments and images (the first motel shootout, half of Gene Hackman‘s head blown off, Michael J. Pollard weeping after screwing up the escape from the first bank job, the look on Gene Wilder‘s face when his fiance reveals her actual age) have been in my blood since my 20s. “Don’t sell that cow!”
I’ve always regarded the final machine-gun slaughter scene as not just an all-time shocker but (this is going to sound a little weird) strangely sexual. Yes, I still hate Estelle Parsons‘ performance as Blanche Barrow. (That awful scream, I mean. The real Blanche hated it too.) I chuckle every time Denver Pyle sneaks up behind a heavily-bandaged Parsons, leans down and says “Blanche Barrow!”
“Bonnie and Clyde‘s hero and heroine are not fighting injustice so much as they are having fun, enjoying the prerogatives of outlaw fame. They exist in a kind of anarchic utopia where the pursuit of kicks is imagined to be inherently political. In this universe the usual ethical justifications of violent action are stripped away, but the aura of righteousness somehow remains.”
Since he began starring almost exclusively in action thrillers, Tom Cruise has been the energizer bunny. Major muscular, toned and buffed, rough and ready. Well, yesterday the bunny slammed into a wall. It had to happen. This kind of accident could’ve occured 20 or 10 years ago, but Cruise is 55 now, and at that age…well, I’m sure he’ll be okay. I’ve been there. I fell off a moving scooter in Paris in ’03, banged my left leg up pretty badly. I hobbled, I groaned. The bruise on my left thigh was green and gray. Have I stopped riding scooters and motorcycles since? Of course not! Nonetheless, this was fate and biology sending Cruise a message.
What is wrong with the NewsTube guy who decided to overdub footage of yesterday’s Charlottesville car tragedy with a pathetic organ riff?
The driver of the Dodge Challenger that killed Heather D. Meyer and wounded 19 others yesterday is James Alex Fields, Jr. — 20 years old, hailing from Maumee, Ohio.
Has there ever been a mass-murderer or domestic terrorist who hasn’t been described in day-after reports as a “quiet” type who “kept to himself”?
From 8.13 N.Y. Times story: “Caitlin Robinson, who attended Ockerman Middle School in Florence, Ky., with Fields, suggested that his interest in far-right ideologies dated back years. She said Fields ‘mostly kept to himself’ and ‘didn’t start fights or try to fight,’ but she described him as ‘exceptionally odd and an outcast to be sure.'”
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed Real Time‘s Bill Maher last Friday night. Start at 1:35: “There is that part of the Democratic party that is plainly obnoxious, humorless, too politically correct. If you talk to Trump people, they’re not unaware of his flaws, but what they always say, what they love about him, is that he’s politically incorrect. As bad as he is in some ways, they would rather be on his team than those insufferable people on the left. That’s how [Trump supporters] think.
“And the puritanism of the politically correct is getting worse. I don’t know how long I’m going to last, really. It’s worse every year. The things that they go after people for now. Your colleague — I don’t agree with him — Jeffrey Lord, CNN got rid of him because he said ‘sieg heil’ on a tweet. It was a joke.
“This has got to stop, this idea that people have to go away if they’ve offended me even for one moment. How about just move on, turn the page, go to the next thing in your life? This idea that you cannot suffer one moment of pain. These are the kids, the millenials, who grew up yelling at their parents, something that never ever crossed my mind [when I was a kid] and parents negotiating everything, and this sense of entitlement, that I should never feel any pain, even the pain of someone disagreeing with me. There’s an alarming number of millenials who don’t even believe in free speech, because free speech could lead to hurt feelings.”
Presumably a few have seen Benny and Josh Safdie‘s Good Time. HE would be delighted to post whatever negative assessments you’d care to forward. (Okay, positive reviews are fine too.) And if anyone wants to shit on Marc Webb and Allan Loeb‘s The Only Living Boy in New York, feel free.
A well-written passage from A.O. Scott‘s N.Y. Times review of Good Time: “The Safdies are as clever and crafty as Robert Pattinson‘s Connie is inept and impulsive. Good Time moves smartly and propulsively to the stressed-out strains of Daniel Lopatin’s edge-of-a-heart-attack score. The smudgy, grimy urban landscape — emergency rooms, fast-food restaurants, blocks of modest, over-mortgaged, squeezed-together houses — is shot (by Sean Price Williams) with a fastidious avoidance of prettiness.
“The story doesn’t twist and turn so much as squirm and jump like an eel in the bottom of a rowboat. The biggest surprises confirm what an unbelievable slimeball Connie is. He’s about as hard to root for as any movie outlaw you can think of.”
Second reposting of my 5.26 17 Cannes review: “The Safdie brothers know how to whip action into a lather and keep the kettle boiling, and there’s no doubt that Good Time felt like the punchiest and craziest film to play during the festival, which is why so many critics, underwhelmed by a relatively weak lineup, responded with such fervor. But I can’t abide stupidity, and after 40 minutes of watching these simpletons hold up a bank and run around and ruthlessly use people to duck the heat I was praying that at least one of them would get shot or arrested. I can roll with scumbags and sociopaths, but I need a little something I can relate to or identify with. If the repulsion factor is too strong, I check out. And that’s what I did in this instance. And good riddance.”
Martin Guigui‘s 9/11 (Atlas, 9.8) might be an okay thriller (who knows?) but does anyone want to see it? Charlie Sheen has always been a professional-grade actor — presence, gravitas, good instincts — but of all the middle-aged males who could’ve starred in this thing, Sheen is…well, not the best choice. Honest admission (and please don’t take this the wrong way but this trailer implanted a thought): If Sheen himself had, God forbid, been a victim of the WTC attacks, he would be remembered today as the guy who’d starred or costarred in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Platoon, Wall Street, Eight Men Out, Major League, The Rookie, Hot Shots!, Hot Shots! Part Deux and Being John Malkovich. But post-9/11 he started to become someone else, and this second incarnation began to happen about 15 years ago, or beginning with his marriage to Denise Richards and his empowering eight-year run with Two and A Half Men. I’m basically saying that Guigi’s 9/11 film needed a star with less baggage…that’s all. The costars are Whoopi Goldberg, Gina Gershon, Luis Guzmán, Jacqueline Bisset.
In a follow-up statement on today’s racial violence in Charlottesville, which included an incident of vehicular assault that resulted in the death of at least one person, President Donald Trump put the blame “on many sides.” In other words, the counter-protestors were as much to blame as the scurvy racist scumbags who assembled the white-power rally in the first place. Trump naturally didn’t mention the motives behind the rally, but he did lament that “no child should ever be afraid to go outside and play or be with their parents and have a good time.” Then he pivoted and boasted about his administration’s accomplishments — “absolute record employment, unemployment the lowest its been in 17 years, companies pouring into our country…we have so many incredible things happening in our country, so when I watch Charlottesville to me it’s very, very sad.”
Videos showing Friday’s heated debate between Bounce TV’s Ed Gordon and Trump aide Omarosa Manigault, an alleged “advocate on issues concerning African-Americans” but clearly an ambitious woman seeking a career bump, are of terrible quality. Were they captured on iPhone 3GS devices? And most of them are vertically framed. You can’t tell me that the National Association of Black Journalists, which hosted the event, didn’t hire a professional videographer.
It would suggest one thing if the attacking vehicle was a Prius, but….
Video of car hitting anti-racist protestors. Let there be no confusion: this was deliberate terrorism. My prayers with victims. Stay home. pic.twitter.com/MUOZs71Pf4
What happened last night and today in Charlottesville (including the just-reported vehicular plow-through) was pretty much inspired by the “White Americans First” beliefs and policies of President Donald Trump. No question about that. Trump has been flashing coded green lights at the haters since the start of the ’16 campaign. White-trash American culture was alive and well before Trump began fanning the flames, but the Charlottesville discord bears his name and his brand. The message Trump tweeted this morning was a pallid, completely insincere bromide. Quoting a John August tweet: “These tiki torch assholes are your people, chanting your name.”
