Remember when House of Cards was something everyone had to see? Delicious, cunning. I did a weekend binge-watch of season #1 and season #2, but when season #3 began I said to myself “yeah, I know, good show and all but when will it end? Because I see a series that’s continuing so that the creators and actors can continue to earn dough.” Now we’re facing season #5. Will Kevin Spacey‘s Frank Underwood finally go down or will this thing just keep trudging on and on and on? It pops on 5.30.17.

Sidenote: Spacey deserves respect for saying “twenty-sixteen, twenty-twenty, twenty-twentyfour,” etc. We’re 17 years into the 21st Century and a sizable chorus of newcasters and politicians are still referring to the year as “two-thousand-something.” I’ve been reminding the realm for 15 years that it’s wrong. Everyone said “two thousand” when 1999 was over, of course, but after that I blame the template of Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I presumed people would get past the absurdity and start saying “twenty-something” within a few years or certainly by 2010, but they didn’t.

Name three semi-respected films that are really worth seeing for their first and second acts, but which collapse and sink when their third act kicks in. I could assemble a list but the ’62 Mutiny on the Bounty would be at the top of it. It’s pretty good all through Part One and up to the mutiny in Part Two. But the film turns anemic when Trevor Howard and his allies are put into the long boat, and then it completely dies when Marlon Brando and the mutineers reach Pitcairn Island.

Please name others. There must be hundreds. I would try to think of more but I have to drive out to IKEA again.

Posted on 7.12.11: “Say what you will about the ’62 Bounty — historical inaccuracies and inventions, Marlon Brando‘s affected performance as Fletcher Christian, the weak final act. The fact remains that this viscerally enjoyable, critically-dissed costumer is one of the the most handsome, lavishly-produced and beautifully scored films made during Hollywood’s fabled 70mm era, which lasted from the mid ’50s to the late ’60s.

Once you start wandering through the Burbank IKEA store, the best you can hope for in terms of finding what you want is to follow the arrows on the floor and pray to God that the sections will be numbered in sequence. But don’t fog out and just start wandering. I can say for sure that once you’re in the bowels of that store it’s not easy finding the checkout section or any kind of exit sign. I tried and tried and finally begged an employee to show me the way out. The owners of this store want you to stay in the maze. They want you to become a shopping zombie. Because they know that people who come to the store to purchase a certain thing will often succumb to impulse buys.

I saw Reservoir Dogs during my very first visit to the Cannes Film Festival, or in May 1992. I remember giving a “yo dude” to 29 year-old Quentin Tarantino a gathering for the film in the Majestic Hotel ballroom. Dogs played out of competition, not even under Un Certain Regard, which screened Abel Ferrara‘s Bad Lieutenant and Jonathan Demme‘s Cousin Bobby that year. The competition attractions included Basic Instinct, Howard’s End, Simple Men and The Player. I was on fire during the festival. Everything was new and exotic, but it all worked out perfectly. I figured it all out, brought a tuxedo with me, got into the right events. Billie August‘s The Best Intentions won the Palme d’Or.

“Jonathan Demme was a man for small towns and back roads. He liked those pockets of America where there was fun to be had, at a bargain price, and weakness to be gently laid bare. Hence his penchant for Melvin Dummar, a near-loser with a wish list of hopes, and for the tallness of Melvin’s tale. Whether the Howard he came across, that night in the desert, really was Howard Hughes, as legend insists, was not the sort of conundrum to bother Demme, and I doubt if he gave a damn whether the infamous ‘Mormon will’ — in which, years later, Hughes allegedly left more than a hundred and fifty million dollars to Melvin in gratitude for his Samaritan deed, like a mega-Magwitch rewarding Pip — was the genuine article or a fake.

“What Demme knew for certain, because his grip on our everyday fears and fancies was so secure, is that we want to believe Melvin, and that Melvin, the poor dope, wants to believe himself. The stories that we tell, in other words, may not always be true, and yet they are true of us, and that will have to do. The loss of Jonathan Demme is a sad surprise, for the films that he bequeaths to us remain, to an uncommon degree, the work of a good man.” — from Anthony Lane‘s “The Loss of Jonathan Demme,” 4.29.17, The New Yorker.

No Melvin and Howard Bluray as we speak, and no high-def streaming version either. Just a DVD, and who wants to watch a movie at 480p?

Yesterday’s Radio City Music Hall showing of the The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II, produced by the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, was undoubtedly a moment. Not to mention the post-screening discussion with Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire and Robert De Niro. I’ve watched these films repeatedly over the decades, 15 or 20 viewings each. Yes, it would have been exciting to walk into the RCMH and feel the tingly excitement as that Godfather trumpet theme is heard in the dark, but after that it would just be The Godfather again. It opened 45 years ago. I own it on Bluray. I know the dialogue by heart. I know every shot, every cut. Ditto The Godfather, Part II. I am Senator Pat Geary. I am Moe Green. I am Hyman Roth. I am Turnbull.

The 30th anniversary of John Badham and Jim Kouf‘s Stakeout arrives on 8.5.17. “Honey, I’m home!” Just a lightweight popcorn flick, but one that really pushed the right buttons. Call me gullible but I believed that Richard Dreyfuss was really in love with Madeline Stowe, and I was invested in seeing things work out for them. One of Emilio Estevez‘s best-ever roles and performances. I remember feeling delighted after seeing it at the Century City Plitt on weekend #1, and deciding then and there that Mr. Mister‘s “Is It Love” was a perfect song to hear over the end credits. I heard it at Trader Joe’s yesterday…”Stakeout!”

Anybody wanna buy a pair of diamond-studded, white-gold wedding bands?

Throughout Hollywood Elsewhere’s 13-year history I’ve riffed about everything in my life except the personal. I’ve always left that stuff alone. Okay, there was an allusion or two to an earth-shaking seven-month affair that happened in 2013, and a riff about a two-and-a-half-year affair with a married People journalist that happened between January ’98 and October 2000. But otherwise I’ve kept a lid on it.

But as I’ve recently written about a whirlwind romance with the SRO — domestic serenity, trips, hiking journeys, a strong partnership, wedding bands, a marriage ceremony planned for last Friday on La Piedra State Beach — it would be flat-out dishonest and inconsistent to lie about the current reality. I won’t perpetuate a fiction in order to save myself from looking like a fool. And man, do I ever feel like one.

Love affairs aren’t easy. Sometimes they can dwindle or detonate at the drop of a hat. When you’re caught up in strong emotions, which are always tied to deep-seated longings about what you’ve always wanted and what might be if fortune smiles…well, anything can happen.

What happened is that the SRO and I decided to get married two or three weeks ago. I explained it all in a 4.24 piece called “High Dive,” but the idea was a basic trade-off — I, having fallen, would provide and protect and do what I could in terms of easing her transition into U.S. society (marriage, green card, immigration) and I in turn would get a feeling of hope and order and vibrancy that would counterbalance the reality of the calendar, and what felt to me like a profound partnership with someone who’s smart, loyal, disciplined and very practical. I know a top-grade partner when I meet one. The SRO is as good as my ex-wife Maggie in many respects. Solid values, sensible, focused, a good heart.

Four days ago we went downtown to buy our wedding rings. We were two days from tying the knot on the beach. Marriage wasn’t necessary for me, but I was okay with it. And it didn’t scare me in the least. It felt right. Plus I figured I had done so much for her that if we ever divorced she wouldn’t dream of asking for spousal support. I’d been too generous for that. Plus she’s a seasoned, well-referenced sales executive in the prime of her life (only 42) who would most likely find her professional footing after obtaining her green card, certainly within a year or two, and that she might even match my income within two or three years.

Had I thought about some kind of pre-nup? Yes, but I kept putting it off because I sensed trouble. Earlier this week I was telling myself, “C’mon, you have to face up to this.” So I devised a dumb plan. Clueless as this sounds, I was thinking we could tap out a few terms and conditions a few hours before the wedding, and then get it notarized, sign it and be done. If Rock Hudson can marry Doris Day as she’s about to give birth in Lover Come Back (“Man, that’s what I call cutting it close“), why couldn’t we do the same with a pre-nup?

Yes, I live in my own realm. Most of the time it intersects with reality and things are fine, but sometimes it doesn’t.

I wanted to attend the People’s Climate March (starting at 11 am), but my attitude soured when I realized it would be happening in Banning Park, which is mired in the ugly, godforsaken town of Wilmington, just north of San Pedro. I realize, yes, that Wilmington was chosen because it harbors the third-largest oil field in the U.S., but…okay, I get it. I just don’t want to go down there. I hate the smell.

It’s not oil production per se that I’m against as much as the Trump administration’s blindness to scientific fact, heavy investment in fossil fuel industries and less than ardent interest in clean energy.

On top of which I have to drive out to Burbank IKEA and buy some velour curtains and curtain rods. Seven sections, 94.5″ tall and 46 inches wide. Olive drab. A guy is coming over to do most of the work. I’m fairly handy with carpentry and whatnot, but hanging curtains is a two-man job.

This newly released image shows Peter Parker (Tom Holland) channelling Leopold Stokowski or Seiji Ozawa — leaning back, arms outstretched, revelling in it. Looking up and giving thanks: “Bless you, Kevin Feige, Amy Pascal and Columbia Pictures…not just for rebooting the franchise for a second time but for allowing me to romp and fly through this formulaic, cool-as-shit Marvel realm. To be a shrimp but at the same a figure of great power!” The only thing Holland needs is a baton. 

For the 117th time: why is it spelled Spider-Man with a hyphen instead of just plain old Spiderman? Because Marvel believes in hyphens and the D.C. Comics guys don’t. No Bat-Man or Super-Man for them. If I had Feige’s job, I would obliterate those Marvel hyphens so fast your head would spin.

In her new book “This Fight Is Our Fight,” Sen Elizabeth Warren repeats an assessment that Robert Reich and Jacob Kornbluth made in their 2013 doc, Inequality For All. She explains that economically speaking, the American middle-class was in a steadily improving, much better place from 1935 through 1980, and has been in a gradually worsening condition ever since.

In short, as N.Y. Times columnist Paul Krugman explained in a legendary 5.31.09 column, “Reagan Did It.”

“The more one looks into the origins of the current disaster,” Krugman wrote, “the clearer it becomes that the key wrong turn — the turn that made crisis inevitable — took place in the early 1980s, during the Reagan years.

“Attacks on Reaganomics usually focus on rising inequality and fiscal irresponsibility. Indeed, Reagan ushered in an era in which a small minority grew vastly rich, while working families saw only meager gains. He also broke with longstanding rules of fiscal prudence.