The Presidency of John F. Kennedy was far from radiant. He had his shortcomings and hesitations. He wasn’t always the bravest or the wisest. But he was sane and sensible and rhetorically progressive, and if he was around today he would almost certainly regard Donald Trump as a “bullshitter”, as President Obama privately muttered last year, if not worse.

I’m not a JFK sentimentalist, but I am a 21st Century surrealist. Ever since Trump’s election (almost eight months ago) and particularly since he took office I’ve occasionally been shook by this rocked-back feeling, a face-slap realization anchored in ghastly darkness. It’s like agents managed to pour massive amounts of brown acid concentrate into the nation’s water supply, and now even the best of us are enveloped a kind of brown-acid mentality or psychosis.

We are stuck in a kind of quicksand — in the midst of the most grotesquely vile Presidency in the history of this nation, a seeming throwback to the psychotic Roman reign of Caligula.

Which is why this 100th anniversary of JFK tribute reel (posted on 5.24.17) seems so moving and yet strange. There’s no sense from listening to Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and her kids — Rose, Tatiana and Jack — that the spirit of the JFK era is dead and gone, that the kind of country this used to be isn’t even a memory any more. They seem to actually believe that those old JFK vibes can make some kind of return. Nor is there even an allusion to the fact that the same office occupied by JFK 55 years ago is now occupied not by a Republican or a man who thinks differently than JFK did or would today, but by a stone sociopath — a lying, salivating, pot-bellied beast.

In the early ’70s Tom Wolfe wrote about the cultural “grim slide” that seemed to be happening. He was more right than perhaps even he realized. We have slid right down since. These are the bad times.

Hollywood Elsewhere salutes Jonah Hill on his latest weight loss. That’s it — that’s all I have to say. An image is worth a thousand words. Seriously.

(l.) Re-svelted, slim-again Jonah Hill; (r.) A fat Ken doll as envisioned by fans looking to see a more realistic reflection of the world we live in today.

A recent, anonymously-written Den of Geek report reminds that Season 2 of HBO and Jonathan Nolan‘s Westworld won’t happen until ’18, and perhaps not until the fall. Take your time, guys! I began as a fascinated viewer — hell, I was nearly a fan — but by the time season #1 ended I had moved beyond concerns about narrative enervation. I was just plain sick of it.

“I hate this series with a passion for just layering on the layers, for plotzing, diddly-fucking, detouring, belly-stabbing, meandering and puzzleboxing to its heart’s content,” I wrote on 12.5.16 (“Westworld Hate Will Continue To Spread”).’

“You know Westworld is just going to be keep being Westworld for God knows how many damn seasons until the beleagured audience, like the hosts, stands up and says “Enough, Jonathan Nolan…you and your never-ending longform sprawl, your endless teasings and knife-stabbings and shallow sex scenes, your slowly-germinating metaphysical character arcs and parallel timelines…you’re just spreading your winding narrative double-back bullshit to see how long you can keep it going…two, three, four seasons. If it weren’t for the nudity we probably would have revolted four or five episodes ago.”

The Den of Geek piece got me thinking in one respect. Through most of Westworld S1 I was wondering when the hell are the robots finally going to revolt and start murdering the guests en masse?

“If one views Nolan’s Westworld as a series to be a long, loose, and convoluted retelling of its 1973 source material’s narrative, then season 1 was essentially the first act,” the piece supposed. “The park was in proper use until it wasn’t. Now, the fences are down, the Tyrannosaurus Rex has a Jeep in its mouth, and Dennis Nedry still hasn’t even reached the Dilophosaurus paddock. Hence, season 2 could quickly evolve into a kind of war between the guests and the hosts.

“It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that 10 episodes in season 2 could stretch out a week of the survivors’ dire circumstances just as liberally as how season 1 stretched out William and Logan’s two-week vacation over nine episodes.”

More stretch-out? If I was a guest looking to survive the slaughter I would get the hell out of the park as soon as possible. How big is Westworld, square-acre-wise? Is it as big as, say, eight Disney Worlds or the city of Winslow? Trust me, it wouldn’t take me any more than a day or two to rescue myself. I would hide behind rocks, travelling only at night, killing as I go. It’s going to be fascinating (not) to watch Nolan shovel the endless meandering bullshit as he endeavors to keep the guests from escaping for weeks on end.

On last night’s Real Time with Bill Maher, British activist and former Islamist Maajid Nawaz, whom Maher described as the founder of the “world’s first counter-extremism think tank”, showed up to chat. Nawaz estimated that 23,000 jihadists live in Britain along with 60K-something Islamists, whom Nawaz described as supportive of Jihadism but unwilling to drive cars into crowds of London pedestrians or, you know, blow themselves up or whatever. Again — 23,000 Jihadist nutters in England. I would be disturbed if that number was 2300.

Filed by Vanity Fair‘s Richard Lawson on 9.16.16: “Holly Hunter stars as an administrator at a southern university who, still mourning her son seven years after his death, sets off on something of a fact-finding mission to discover what exactly happened to him the night that he died, and how his grad-school business plan for a hot-dog restaurant (yup) ended up in the hands of a school friend, who’s now a successful hot-dog entrepreneur.

“Strange Weather is overwritten, with characters speaking in a stilted, presentational style oddly reminiscent of early Dawson’s Creek. But when it’s good, the script has an admirable frankness — it’s refreshingly not coy about its emotions and intents.

“Hunter is earthy and immediate as a mother whose grief has hardened into a paralyzing, everyday anger — often masked by good cheer and a cigarette, but suddenly erupting out of her with the arrival of new information. Hunter’s road-trip pal is the terrific Carrie Coon, and the two have a lively rapport, particularly in one long, bruising scene in which some old secrets are laid bare. Strange Weather maintains its mellow, southern-slowed vibe even through the most emotional stuff, but by the end the film has crept up and delivered a sudden, unexpected punch.”

Why pay to see a film theatrically when you own a first-rate Bluray of same? Or when an HD version is easily streamable? I’ll tell you why. I don’t know why. Okay, to get out of the house. And, I suppose, to savor well-amplified music. In the case of Franc Roddam‘s Quadrophenia, which is showing this evening at the Aero, that would be The Who’s “Quadrophenia” album. Which I saw performed by the actual Who, Keith Moon and all, at the L.A. Forum on 11.23.73.

The ultimate reason is that Quadrophenia, a 1979 release that uses the 1964 Mod vs. Rocker mania as a backdrop, is an unqualified masterpiece. Call me eccentric, but every now and then I feel obliged to pay respect to such films by watching them from the fifth or sixth row with a container of salted popcorn.

“I’ve said this two or three times, but the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve come to realize that this film — loosely based on the Who rock opera and basically the story of Jimmy Cooper (Phil Daniels) and his identity, friendship and girlfriend issues — belongs in the near-great category. Hands down it delivers one of the craziest, most live-wire recreations of mad generational fervor and ’60s mayhem.” — from a 6.17.12 HE posting.

Excerpts from “Quadrophenia: Jimmy vs. World” by Howard Hampton:

“Quadrophenia is the closest thing England has produced to its own Mean Streets, but its most invigorating aspect is the way it systematically upends expectations. It shares Mean Streets’ dedication to emotional veracity, but its midsixties streets are meaner, more inhospitable — far from the sensual precincts of Little Italy (and from the madding elites of Swinging London). Period songs aren’t given Scorsese’s seductive, exhilarating sheen; these kids aren’t all right, and they’re too wired on pills to really take pleasure in anything but human-pinball aggression.

“Using the Who’s heavyweight score primarily in flashes and spurts, for aural color or outbursts of blocked feeling, the film subtly distances itself from its own soundtrack, holding the music at a certain remove.

All day yesterday I was looking at this video of a happy, groovin’ gorilla — twirling around in a small pool, spirits flying, ecstatic splasharoonie. But on Twitter I kept reading what a terrible thing this was, how the poor beast had been humiliated, that his dignity had been robbed by 21st Century asshats whose default attitude is to regard him as some kind of clown. The people lamenting this were sensitive animal-lover types, whom I’ve always felt a strong kinship with. But c’mon, man…this guy is obviously having a good time. Either animal-rights guys are SJWs who don’t know joy when they see it, or they do recognize it and feel an instinctual revulsion.

A rambling report about the firing of Han Solo spinoff helmers Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, posted yesterday (6.22) on Starwarsnewsnet.com, basically says that concerns about Lord and Miller’s “screwball comedy” approach were first voiced by none other than Han Solo himself — i.e., the beady-eyed, relentlessly sullen Alden Ehrenreich. Rather than summarize this epic-lengthed saga, I’ll just post excerpts with the snow boiled out:

Excerpt #1: “Several weeks into production, there were concerns that in spite of the good work that Lord & Miller were doing with their movie, something was decidedly off about the way that their signature approach was taking the project, and that the bickering between them and the powers that be (i.e., Kathy Kennedy, Lawrence Kasdan) continued off and on. But the first person who [expressed concern] about these worries wasn’t Kasdan or Kennedy. It was fucking Ehrenreich.” [HE explanation: The last four words were written entirely by me — I just liked the way they sounded.]

Alden Ehrenreich, allegedly the guy who first voiced concerns about Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s screwball approach to the Han Solo spinoff flick.

Excerpt #2: “Ehrenreich…started to worry that Lord & Miller’s screwball comedy angle was starting to interfere with what the character of Han Solo is really about, [given that Lord and Miller’s Solo] was a younger, more reckless take on the character than the one we met in that Cantina on Tatooine. One source described it as being oddly comparable to Jim Carrey’s performance in Ace Ventura at times. Ehrenreich let his concerns be known to one of the producers, who then told Kennedy about it, which led to her decision to look over the existing footage.”

Excerpt #3: “People close to the project have positively described…several isolated scenes [directed by Lord and Miller]. However, once an assembly cut actually started to come together, Kennedy and Kasdan — as well as the other people reporting to them — started to get deeply concerned. There was something of a ‘zany’ tone to more scenes than they would have liked — in part due to some of the improv — and I get the feeling that fans might take more of an issue with this than they would have if the film had been left unfixed.

Excerpt #4: “At some point in production, some kind of hiatus took place, and this is where they reviewed the footage and told Lord & Miller that they’d need to overhaul the movie with reshoots when they worked on it later. Lord & Miller…were pretty rebellious [about this], their response being an ultimatum — i.e., either let us handle the reshoots our way or we’re out. And [so] they were shown the door.”

The Papers is the official title of Steven Spielberg‘s currently shooting Oscar-bait film that will pop on 12.22.17 via 20th Century Fox. Working from a script by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, the drama is about how Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) and editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) grappled with a decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in June 1971.

Tom Hanks as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, Meryl Streep as Post editor Katherine Graham in Steven Spielberg’s The Papers.

One question: Has anyone ever heard or read of the Pentagon Papers being casually referred to “the papers” by anyone, ever? I haven’t. When I first saw the updated Wiki page I thought of Jimmy Two-Times in Goodfellas saying “I’m gonna get the papers, get the papers.”

I reviewed Hannah’s solo-authored script (which was called The Post) on 3.17.17. I said it was about how Graham, who initially saw herself as less than ideally suited to the task and was little more than a blandly embedded figure in Washington social circles, gradually grew some courage and a sense of journalistic purpose during the Pentagon Papers episode, which transpired over a 17-day period in June 1971.”

Ron Howard will reportedly begin directing the remainder of the Han Solo spinoff flick on July 10th in the wake of Kathy Kennedy‘s firing of original directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, who had overseen roughly two-thirds (more?) of the planned photography.

How will the final directing credits be worked out? “Directed by Ron Howard, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller“? “Directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller with some last-minute finessing by Ron Howard“? “Directed by Ron Howard — Initial, Tonally Unsatisfying Footage Captured by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller“?

It seems to me that Howard should just come in like a pro, finish the job and forget about any credit. It would be beneath him to say “those other guys didn’t get along with Kathy so I want credit for bringing this film home.” Howard is a highly respected, first-rate director who doesn’t need to grab any credit when in fact he’s been brought in as a high-class janitor — a clean-up guy. 

Remember Dustin Hoffman taking Robert Redford‘s copy and “polishing” it in All The President’s Men? Roughly the same deal here. 

Perhaps some reshoots will happen, but the fact remains that most of the shooting has already happened, and the scenes that have been shot can only be edited or finessed in certain ways. Right?

Woody Allen on Donald Trump, quoted by Screen Daily: “I still don’t know why he wanted the job. I never felt it was up his alley. It never occurred to me that he would win the presidency or that he was even interested in politics. There was never any hint of that.” Wells to Allen: He wanted the job in order to commercially re-vitalize or reinvigorate the Trump brand, which had never fully recovered from the stigma of four bankruptcies.

Most of Edgar Wright‘s Baby Driver (TriStar, 6.28) is inspired — one of the most strikingly conceived, purely enjoyable fast-car crime flicks I’ve ever seen. With Ansel Elgort as a Ryan Gosling-level getaway driver who needs the right kind of song playing in his ear buds in order to make it all come together, Baby Driver is essentially a kind of action musical — cray-cray car chases and ferocious gunplay synchronized with the sounds and vice versa. To some extent it reminded me of Drive, and at times of Thief, Gone In Sixty Seconds, Bullitt….that line of country.

The four or five car chases in the film are exhilarating nutso stuff, but at the same time the action is undisciplined and show-offy and actually quite mad — Wright going for the gusto without regard to probability or (that horrid word) reality, but at the same time delivering the best squealing-rubber thrills since Gosling and Nicholas Winding Refn pooled forces, and absolutely leaving the bullshit fantasy realm of the Furious franchise in the dust.

But then Wright decides to send Baby Driver flying off the freeway around…oh, the 90-minute mark. And the last 15 or so minutes are flat-out insane and then infuriating. I was sitting there with my face contorted as I silently screamed, “What the fuck are you doing?…you fucking asshole! You really had something going there, but now you’re ruining the movie…you’re making it into some kind of bullshit Vin Diesel cum milkshake with a pop-fantasy ending made of dingleberries and drooling saliva. Why? Do you have a creative death wish?”

HE to director friend this morning: “I just saw Baby Driver last night….a wowser, near-great action musical for the first 80% or 85% followed by a ridiculously absurd, overly violent, catastrophically stupid finale that all but destroys the current and the vibe. A friend said ‘the wheels come off at the end‘ but they come off because Wright got under the car and loosened the lug nuts. Rarely have I seen a popcorn film as inspired and well-made as Baby Driver just blow itself up and shatter into pieces at the very end…a shame and a tragedy.”

I am nonetheless recommending Baby Driver for those first 90 or so minutes. But at the same time I’m telling you that any critic who’s written a gushing pass without mentioning that it destroys itself over the last 15 minutes or so…anyone who ignores this DEAD OBVIOUS FACT is a lying, jizz-whizzing whore who can never be fully trusted ever again.