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New York weather was moist and cool when I arrived yesterday morning. Then it got a bit colder, and then a heavy rainstorm hit. It was suddenly early March. I was wearing two jackets and a scarf. My train arrived in Fairfield at 11:30 am, but I had to return to Manhattan on a 2:30 pm train to catch Alien: Covenant, and under near-typhoon conditions. Then the rain stopped and it was strangely warm again. Today it’s cool and sunny, but who knows what meteorological upheavals await? On top of which it’s cold and rainy in Paris (where both Jett and HE’s own Svetlana Cvetko and David Scott Smith are currently bunking).

I’m staying in Connecticut until early Monday morning, and then I’ll have three and three-quarter days in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Dropping my bags at a Murray Street pad and then catching a 10 am screening. Three more screenings follow plus a Tuesday interview with Long Strange Trip‘s Amir Bar Lev, along with some Jett and Cait hang time. It all concludes with a JFK-to-CDG flight late Thursday night (i.e., 11:30 pm).

One way or another, New York City’s subway system always manages to try my patience. I’m not even mentioning the aromas, and don’t get me started on the people. I thought hyena giggling was bad in Los Angeles cafes and bars — it’s worse on the A train.

I can’t post my reactions to Alien: Covenant (20th Century Fox, 5.19), which I saw last night at Leows’ Lincoln Square. But I’ve already passed along a view from a European movie-critic pal: “It’s a prequel to the first Alien, yes, but much more a sequel to Prometheus, delving very much into the same themes and also going into the creation of the alien, creation being very much on the movie’s mind.”

I can at least say that if you hated Prometheus, as I did, you’ll have an opportunity to savor the same stomach-acid sensations while watching Alien Covenant. So while waiting for the embargo to end…

Posted on 10.5.12: “Prometheus happened so long ago it doesn’t even feel like it came out this year. I saw it in Prague on a rainy afternoon. Mostly I remember the humidity and how warm it was in the lobby as all the journos and media people stood around and waited for the doors to open. And how I was sweating under my baseball cap and shades. And then wondering why the projectionist was showing it in 1.85 and not 2.35. And then trying to make sense of it…and failing.

Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus “is impressively composed and colder than a witch’s boob in Siberia,” I wrote on 6.1. “It’s visually striking, spiritually frigid, emotionally unengaging, at times intriguing but never fascinating. It’s technically impressive, of course — what else would you expect from an expensive Scott sci-fier? And the ‘scary’ stuff takes hold in the final third. But it delivers an unsatisfying story that leaves you…uhm, cold.

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Dunkirk director Chris Nolan presented a longish highlight reel during last month’s Cinemacon. It was visually commanding and certainly gripping as far as it went, but this extended trailer, released today, has more sizzle, or should I say drizzle? I’m not detecting any implications of a story or thematic arc here. I’m sensing a carefully composed, super-costly IMAX variation on The Longest Day, or at least a similar espirit de corps feeling — a war movie that’s not so much about victory or defeat or a grotesque misjudgment (which is what A Bridge Too Far tried for) as much as brotherly love.

Here we are in the beginning of May, which is usually about blossoms and sunshine and light jackets or sweaters when you’re visiting Fairfield County, and yet the weather couldn’t be more miserable. Raw, rainy, chilly, blustery — it’s like early March. On top of which I have to train back to the city around 3 pm in order to catch a 5:30 screening of Ridley Scott‘s Alien: Covenant. Raincoats, umbrellas, scarves…thanks, Connecticut!

Vanessa Gould‘s Obit, a doc about the lives and aspirations of a team of N.Y. Times obituary writers (editor William McDonald + Bruce Weber, Margalit Fox, William Grimes, Douglas Martin, Paul Vitello), has been playing in New York and Los Angeles. It’s not about death but life, perception and celebration, but then you’ve probably read that. It’s also about humor, perspective, devotion and the art of clean, concise writing.

When Bert Stern died on 6.26.13 I was the one who informed the Times obit guys, and then supplied contact info for Shannah Laumeister, Stern’s wife and director of Bert Stern: Original Madman. It was a sad moment, of course, but I remember thinking “hmm, this is intriguing…I’m delivering historical news to the Times obit guys, contributing to an obit that everyone will read.”

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Ten years ago Joel and Ethan Coen‘s No Country For Old Men premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and mister, what a moment that was. A No Country press luncheon happened a day or two after that first screening, and at one point I had a brief chat with Ethan about…well, read it. The whiners tried to beat me up for having spoiled the “final fate” of Josh Brolin‘s character, but I didn’t spoil jack diddly squat.

HE to Ethan Coen: “The only speed bump for mainstream audiences in No Country for Old Men, as you know, is your decision to not allow audiences to share in Josh Brolin‘s final fate, as it were.”

Coen to HE: “And that’s a perverse decision, isn’t it?”

No Country for Old Men co-director and co-writer Ethan Coen at Miramax press luncheon — Sunday, 5.20.07, 1:55 pm.

HE: “That’s one of the things that give the film artistic authority and distinction, and it either makes people respect it or…”

Cohen: “Or dislike it.”

HE: “Well, we all know that there’s a certain expectation [out there], that when you’ve spent the entire movie with a guy, you wanna…but for me, this is what makes the film extra-special.”

Coen: “And for us too. I mean, it’s just from the novel and [garbled]. But when you get to this point you say, ‘Okay, the movie’s not ultimately about this guy…so what is it about?'”

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Before debuting June 9th on Showtime, Mark Kidel‘s Becoming Cary Grant will screen at the Cannes Film Festival. The title suggests a look at how the legendary film star found his professional footing or, you know, how he developed his on-screen persona. But the trailer indicates it’ll largely be about how Grant grew past his personal demons, and particularly how his LSD trips of the late ’50s and early ’60s changed his life entirely. 

In short, it appears to be a documentary version of “Cary In The Sky With Diamonds“, the July 2010 Vanity Fair piece by Carl Beauchamp and Judy Balaban that covered the same turf.

I am definitely catching this in Cannes. Because I know all about those lysergic acid realms.

From “Nirvana Flow-Through“, posted a year ago: “I would always describe what LSD did to my brain as a kind of blissful washover that freed me from everything I’d learned in school and thereby delivered radiant truths. The usual mental associations and thought patterns were rescrambled by my senses turning all tingly and Technicolored — an elevator-in-the-brain-hotel sensation leading to heightened sensitivity. Which led to the opening of Dr. Huxley‘s doors of perception and the gates of prana.”

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My rough understanding is that the House repeal of Obamacare, enacted today by a slim majority of Republican assholes, (a) will not survive the Senate, and (b) may trigger a decisive backlash that will cost a lot of Republican Congresspersons their seats. Hell, it may even cost those fuckers their House majority and thereby pave the way for an eventual Trump impeachment.

From N.Y. Times account: Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic Senate leader, called the bill a “breathtakingly irresponsible piece of legislation that would endanger the health of tens of millions of Americans.”

“Members have been asked to vote for a bill that is particularly treacherous, that is going nowhere in the Senate,” said Representative Charlie Dent, the Pennsylvania Republican who has led the opposition among moderates. “This legislation will be gutted and we will have voted for a bill that will never become law. Will it cause headaches for people? Absolutely.”

“The upside for Republicans is that they can return to their districts and tell G.O.P. voters that they acted on a campaign promise,” said Nathan Gonzales, the editor of Inside Elections. “The downside is that the alternative may not go far enough for base Republicans, may go too far for moderate voters, and create a backlash that puts the House majority at risk in 2018.”

Morning Joe‘s Joe Scarborough and Mika Breszinki got engaged last weekend at the Hotel du Cap. Page Six‘s Emily Smith broke the news in the wee hours — Vanity Fair‘s Emily Jane Fox posted an exclusive interview piece at 9 am.

Morning Joe began in ’07, at which point the co-hosts were married to other people. At some point something began to happen, Scarborough divorced his second wife in ’13, and then Brzezinski divorced her husband in ’15. (Although it was first reported in June ’16.) Fox reports that Joe and Mika “are adamant that there was no impropriety in their relationship, that their marriages ended of natural causes.”

I’m sorry but that’s almost certainly bullshit. I’m not saying Joe and Mika did the deed before their divorces were finalized, but extra-marital wanderings are often decisive factors in any marriage headed for dissolution. Marriages almost never end without some degree of subterfuge and/or dishonesty about what’s really going on. Nobody gets a divorce and then embraces the next romantic partner in this sequence — things almost always happen the other way around, and more often than not in an untidy way.

It usually goes like this: (a) destined-to-be romantic partners feel the chemistry, strike a match, throw a little kindling on, (b) extra-marital currents get stronger and stronger, and then it’s suddenly a “thing,” (c) the infidel frets about how to break the news, and then frets and frets some more, (d) the infidel’s divided feelings are sensed, of course, by his/her partner, (e) eventually arguments ignite and the woundings increase, and (f) a divorce finally happens, especially if the extra-marital thing is any kind of bonfire.

Yesterday afternoon I wrote that I was crestfallen over an aspect of HE 2.0, which uses a wider column (640 pixels) than classic HE (460 pixels). It broke my heart that thousands of photos posted over the last 13 years (August 2004 to early May 2017) would henceforth be sitting flush left with a big dumb white space sitting to the right. Well, right after that Louisville-based WordPress specialist Dominic Eardley suggested a CSS solution, and 90 minutes later the great Sasha Stone figured out a fix. All classic HE photos will now be centered when HE 2.0 steps out of the cage, which may be later today. Or tomorrow. Playing it by ear.

Barack Obama‘s video endorsement of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron popped a few hours ago. Good call, but here’s the passage that got me: “I have admired the campaign that Emmannuel Macron has run…he has stood up for liberal values.” Does anyone remember Obama celebrating liberal values at any time during his eight-year presidency? I recall his avoiding the “l” word like the plague. Am I wrong? It’s nice, in any event, to hear him acknowledge the badge.

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