I wasn’t paying much attention when Chuck Todd’s MTP Daily, a daily spinoff of Meet The Press, popped last September. But editors of NewscastStudio, a trade publication for creative pros working in television, were, and I’m genuinely surprised that they didn’t acknowledge that the Capitol building logo design is a direct lift from Saul Bass‘s art for Otto Preminger‘s Advise and Consent (’62). NewscastStudo quote, posted on 9.28.15: “The show uses a very animated style for its graphics, likening it to ‘Schoolhouse Rock!’ The look, a vast departure from the Sunday show, brings a fun and playful patriotism to MTP Daily.”

If there was a semblance of a mature, grown-up attitude within Donald Trump and particularly his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, the March 8th arm-grabbing incident between Lewandowski and former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields would have gone away weeks ago. All Lewandowski had to do was (a) apologize for being overzealous in trying to shield Trump and (b) offer to cover Fields’ medical costs and traumatic discomfort expenses — which is almost a silly notion considering that all Fields received was a very slight arm bruise. But Trump/Melandowski weren’t mature and sensible in their responses to the incident, denying and dismissing and downplaying, and now Melandowski has been arrested in Jupiter, Florida, for battery. The new video tells the tale. Melandowski responded to Fields grabbing Trump’s arm like a thuggish bodyguard with an alcohol problem. Trump said today that he’s standing by Melandowski because he doesn’t want the guy’s life to be “destroyed” by this incident, which I understand on a certain level. But immature blustery behavior creates and perpetrates its own karma.

If you have any kind of half-decent film on your hands, the standard approach is to start screening it for elite critic-journos a few weeks beforehand, and then show it to the all-media crowd nine or ten days in advance of the commercial opening. For whatever reason Paramount dismissed this strategy when it came to Richard Linklater‘s Everybody Wants Some, which opens tomorrow (3.30) but technically starts showing tonight for Landmark ticket-buyers. The Everybody all-media also happens tonight at the Paramount lot, and before this there was only the South by Southwest debut. The usual routine of showing it to choice critical elites didn’t happen here. (A friend who always gets early-bird invites was only invited to tonight’s all-media.)

This morning a producer friend told me about how Jack Nicholson saved Jim Harrison‘s financial ass in 1978 with a loan of $15K. The late author-poet (whose recent death prompted yesterday’s post) became friendly with Nicholson through novelist and screenwriter Thomas McGuane, who had written The Missouri Breaks (’76) . McGuane and Harrison had met from their mutual base of Livingston, Montana. Harrison published three books in the early to mid ’70s — “Wolf: A False Memoir” (’71), “A Good Day to Die” (’73) and “Farmer” (’76), but the income from these works was negligible and by ’78 he was “broke and all but starving,” the producer relates. Harrison was working on “Legends of the Fall” (which was actually three novellas — “Revenge,” “The Man Who Gave Up His Name” and “Legends of the Fall”) and so Nicholson, advised by McGuane of Harrison’s desperate situation, stepped in with the $15K, which gave Harrison enough breathing room to finish. “Fall” was published in ’79. It became Harrison’s biggest success of his life at the time, and he lived more or less comfortably after that. Here, by the way, is a nice Outside piece on Harrison (“The Last Lion,” published on 8.31.11) by Tom Bissell. Curious milestone: 13 months from now Nicholson will turn 80. Salud!

Los Angeles-based actors whose careers have briefly surged and then receded based on the impact of their film and TV work know what it’s like to have had a fairly glorious peak period and then more or less treaded water (i.e., struggled, hung in there, did the dog paddle) for the rest of their lives. But at least they had that peak period, which few of us have tasted, to look back upon with pride and to some extent dine out on for decades. Not a bad life, all in all. And in the late Patty Duke‘s case, a robust and healthy one as far as it went.

I’m not saying Duke flatlined after the one-two surge of (a) playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (both on Broadway and in the 1962 film version opposite Anne Bancroft‘s Annie Sullivan, and both times under director Arthur Penn) and (b) playing plucky twins on ABC’s The Patty Duke Show (September ’63 to April ’66). But after that period her career never caught the big wind again. And yet those seven years (’59 to ’66) were phenomenal.

Duke, who died this morning from a ruptured intestine, was a lifelong bipolar sufferer/grappler, and she was ruled, abused and financially exploited as a teenager by unscrupulous talent managers John and Ethel Ross until she turned 18 in December ’64. She wasn’t diagnosed and specifically treated for her illness until 1982. Duke became the first celebrity to go public with her bipolar disorder diagnosis, largely through her autobiography, Call Me Anna, which popped in ’87.

The general view is that Duke’s campy performance as the addicted and trampy Neely O’Hara in Valley of the Dolls (’67) was a temporary career killer at the time. Her Wiki bio says she also did herself no favors four years later when she rambled and slurred her words while accepting an Emmy award for her performance in a made-for-TV movie, My Sweet Charlie.

As a longtime, fully confirmed Zak Snyder hater, I attended a Monday night 3D screening of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice at the Grove with negative expectations. I expected to experience irritation, pain, pique, torment and physical nausea all through it. And most of the film delivered on this stuff, for sure. It’s a tedious, dirge-like thing. The brownish-downish mood from start to finish is really like a virus of some kind. But a few moments struck me favorably, believe it or not, and one in particular — the scene in which Henry Cavill‘s Superman saves the little Mexican girl and is then surrounded and worshipped by a crowd, some wearing Day of the Dead facial makeup — actually melted me down. I was reminded of that scene in Treasure of Sierra Madre when Walter Huston is worshipped for having saved a little boy’s life. There’s another shot of a stranded woman reaching upwards toward a levitating Superman — a shot that reminded me of The Leftovers — that added to a feeling about Superman being a kind of religious figure, which other Superman flicks have run with but never matching the effect that Snyder delivers here.

And I was again won over by Cavill — something about his vibe, even in a role as simplistic as this one, is just easy and embracable. And it’s true — Gal Gadot really does steal her scenes and generally wake the film up. And there’s a passage or two when Hans Zimmer‘s heavy score really turned me around and rocked my ribcage. The Doomsday monster was just another ridiculous Hulk-like Extremo…get the fuck outta here.  But Jesse Eisenberg‘s Lex Luthor is quite spirited and a bit of fun (I was relieved that he doesn’t shave his head until the very end), and Jeremy Irons‘ Alfred is a lot cooler than Michael Caine‘s, no offense. And I have to admit that Snyder really knows how to stage a funeral scene…actually a double funeral. But the last shot in the film — bits of dirt briefly levitating on top of a plain wood coffin — is shameless. If you’re going to kill someone off and bring his long arc to an end, stick to it already. Don’t waffle, don’t fiddle-faddle — play your death card straight.

This is a dated topic, but I just got back into things today. Early this morning I wrote the following about Bernie Sanders and the little bird on Facebook: “I honestly believe that the little Bernie bird was ‘a sign from God.’ Do I believe in a moralistic rooting-for-humanity God? No, of course not. So what am I saying? I’m saying that no matter what you believe or don’t believe in, that little bird was some kind of a spirit vessel or symbol of goodness, compassion, serendipity and bonne chance. I think the bird sensed the right kind of vibes. There’s zero chance this would’ve happened at a Trump or Cruz rally. Here’s the Facebook thread.

Criterion’s Odd Man Out Bluray popped last April. “This is one of the saddest and most tragic noirs of all time. I saw it a couple of times on laser disc in the mid ’90s, and I have indelible memories of a sweating, barely conscious James Mason (as IRA combatant Johnny McQueen) and of constantly falling snow in a darkened Belfast. The exquisite photography is by Robert Krasker, who also shot Reed’s The Third Man. The harbor finale with Mason and Kathleen Ryan leaning against the iron fence with the cops slowly approaching in the snow…wow. And Robert Newton‘s performance as the gesticulating alcoholic painter…forget about it.” — from a 5.22.12 HE post.

Odd Man Out was Mason’s breakout film. What isn’t widely known is that he’d been acting since 1933 or thereabouts, when he turned 24. He was 37 — no spring chicken — when Reed’s film was shot in mid ’46.

Almost exactly 20 years ago I hung for two or three hours with novelist-poet Jim Harrison, who at the time was 58 and in the absolute prime of his life, or so it seemed to me. The occasion was the Century City premiere of Bruno Barreto‘s Carried Away, which was based on Harrison’s “Farmer.” I had arranged with a Fine Line publicist to speak with him. 40 minutes before the film began I approached the marquee area and saw Harrison standing outside with some admirer or whomever, and I went up and introduced myself. He sensed my smart-ass attitude fairly quickly and we were fine from then on. Most of the talking happened at the after-party. A great fellow. He had this elegant, heavy-cat way of speaking (he would say “I think not” rather than “I don’t agree”) and had that slightly weird false eye and always with the lit cigarette…I just felt honored to share space with the guy. I so loved those Russell Chatham watercolors that always adorned  the covers of the trade paperback editions of his books. Harrison was and still is one of my all-time favorite writers and a major stylistic influence (the others being Milan Kundera, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, William Faulkner, Norman Mailer, William Safire, Russell Baker). His prose can be so clean and clear and monumentally beautiful. I remember a line from “Dalva” about some none-too-bright guy being so in love with a woman that “he sometimes felt as if her ass was aimed at him, like some people from the lower end of the gene pool believe that TV shows are made for them personally.” I filed an L.A. Times Syndicate piece called “Riffing with Jim Harrison: The Brawny Poet-Novelist on Hollywood and Carried Away.” And now Harrison is dead of a heart attack at age 78. I can’t think of anything more to say except that he had a great 40-year run. It would have been nice to chat with him one more time but that Century City encounter was pretty special. Cheers.

Huffpost‘s Cole Delbyck is asserting that a deleted Batman v Superman scene (titled “Communion”) that appeared on YouTube today “might help clear up some confusion.” Does it? I still haven’t seen this Godforsaken thing so I wouldn’t know, but now that I’m back in Los Angeles I intend to man up and submit early this evening. God help me. This is like dreading a visit to the dentist x 1000. Incidentally: Batman v Superman rated a B from CinemaScore, which is more or less a failing grade. So that assertion by Variety‘s Brent Lang that BvS‘s opening $166 million domestic haul ($420 million worldwide) is some kind of stinging rebuke to critics is bunk. “When people want to pay to see a reputed piece of shit, you can’t stop ’em.” — Samuel Goldwyn. Besides, as noted in Forbes, Batman v Superman “set a new record [last weekend] for the worst Friday-to-Sunday drop for a superhero movie release in modern North American box office history.” Plus the public has agreed that it’s not very good or they wouldn’t have given it a Cinemascore B.

I got three hours’ sleep on yesterday’s Seoul-to-Los Angeles flight. I felt more or less okay when I got home around 5 pm, but my Hanoi body clock thought the time might be 7 am the next day. I was up until 1 am last night and then awoke at 3 am (5 pm Hanoi time) and then crashed again until just before 12 noon. Then I discovered that the sound-synch issues that have bedeviled me for weeks still haven’t gone away, even with the new Sony 65″ 4K which arrived two days before I left (on 3.14). An actor says “cat” or “culpable” or “have a glass of wine,” and his/her lips are just a little bit behind of the voice. (Or ahead of it.) It’s just half a beat but once you notice this problem you can’t do anything else but study lips. Infuriating. Digital sound synch wasn’t a problem for decades — it’s only manifested within the last five or six years.

These are two reasons why I haven’t filed anything. In Vietnam I wasn’t thinking about this crap at all. Now I’m in back in it. This is my life.