I don’t know how many comedies or half-comedies have resorted to a certain overworked bit, but many dozens have done so.

I’m talking about two or three or four characters realizing that something awful or calamitous or mortifying has just happened, and their uniform response is to scream “aaaaagggghhhhhh!”

If I’ve seen this once I’ve seen it 80 or 90 times, maybe more. And I’ve never laughed, not once.

If a bearded wizard were to come up and say “if you want, I can erase every last ‘aaaagggghhhhhh!’ scene that’s ever been used” I would say “yes…please!”

Question: Four or five decades ago some director invented an “aaaaggggghhhhh!” scene. It must have gotten a huge laugh the first two or three times or people wouldn’t still be drawing from that well.

So what film was the first? Was Bob Clark the responsible party?

I got started on this because there are at least two “aaaggghhh!” moments in Barbie apparently, at least according to a couple of trailers I’ve seen.

“Aaaaggghhh” almost certainly started in the early 1940s black-and-white era with (a) Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, (b) the Three Stooges and (c) Joan Davis in Hold That Ghost! (’41), arguably the all-time greatest Abbott and Costello comedy.

A friend says that Our Gang‘s Alfalfa (Carl Switzer) let go with a few “aaaggghhh!” screams in his day; ditto Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall in one or two Bowery Boys shorts.

But “aaaggghhh!” didn’t become a repeated, profoundly irksome cliche until much later.

Inner voices had been telling me that “aaaggghhh!” was launched around the dawn of the early ‘80s hormonal sex comedies, otherwise known as the tits ‘n” zits genre which began with Risky Business (‘83), which wasn’t itself tits ‘n’ zits but actually an urbane and sophisticated adult comedy.

But “no, wait, hold on,” a more probing voice recalled.

The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that “aaaaggghhhh!” actually began sometime in the mid to late ‘70s.

Someone has mentioned an early incarnation in Steven Spielberg’s 1941 (‘79), particularly from the bellowing larynx of Ned Beatty.

Then it hit me there were at least one or two big “aaaggghhh!” moments in I Want To Hold Your Hand, a 1978 slapstick screwball comedyabout the Beatles’ first U.S. arrival in February ‘64, directed by a young eager-beaver Spielberg protege named Robert Zemeckis. The under-appreciated cult film and box-office whiff costarred Nancy Allen and the always reliably hyper Eddie Deezen.

There were also a couple of full-throated “aaaggghhh!” moments in Zemeckis’s Used Cars (‘80), most memorably from the late, great Frank McRae (who passed in ’21) and the legendary Gerrit Graham.

I’m not 100% sure but I seem to recall (although I may be mistaken) a Gerrit Graham “aaaggghhh!” in Brian DePalma’s Phantom of the Paradise (‘74).

Boiled down, the principal responsible parties are most likely Zemeckis, DePalma, Graham, McCrae and Deezen. But mainly Zemeckis.

The most egregious and agonizingly unfunny “aaaggghhh!” moment (as in “will you assholes please shut the fuck up?”) is in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Raising Arizona — a moment shared by twin beefalos John Goodman and William Forsythe.

“Pleasure Of His Perversity,” posted on 11.22.11: “I had a brief sitdown last Friday afternoon with A Dangerous Method director David Cronenberg. We had about twelve minutes, if that. Our last interview was a little over 30 years ago (’81) when the subject was Scanners.

“I still remember the intensity of that discussion and saying to myself as Cronenberg delivered his points, ‘Whoa, this guy doesn’t fool around…no digressions, no bullshit.’

“There’s always some kind of twisted perversity in Cronenberg’s films. Which is what most of us, I gather, look forward to when a new one is about to be shown. It’s there in A Dangerous Method, for sure, but in a spotty, paint-dabby fashion.

“Keira Knightley definitely ‘brings it’ in those shrieking, belt-whipping scenes with Michael Fassbender, but the film, it must be said, is somewhat dryer and more cerebral than anything Cronenberg had made before, and this requires, I feel, an adjustment of expectations.

“A Dangerous Method is well-acted but extremely cool, aloof, studied and intellectually driven to a fare-thee-well. You just have to be ready for that, and saying this is not a criticism.
The talkiness plays better the second time. You go in knowing what it is and accepting that, and you settle into Christopher Hampton‘s script like an easy chair.

“My strongest feelings are still about about Knightley’s highly agitated, face-twitching performance., which is fascinating but hard to roll with at times, particularly during the first 20 minutes to half-hour.

“Cronenberg told her to go for it in terms of facial tics and flaring nostrils and muscular spasms, etc. She does a jaw-jutting thing that hasn’t been seen since John Barrymore played Dr. Jekyll in the 1920 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. At the same time Knightley brings a thrilling sexual intensity to the all-too-brief fucking and belt-whipping scenes with Fassbender.

“All in all Knightley is quite a handful — she throws you and pulls you in at the same time. It’s a high-wire, risk-taking thing, and Method really needs to be seen for this alone.”

The headline of Clayton Davis‘s 7.13 Variety story about the effect of the SAG-AFTRA strike upon the early fall festivals gets it wrong.

The paparazzi-enhanced Venice and Toronto film festivals might be “fucked,” as Davis’s headline states, due to the absence of actors on the red carpet, but the Telluride Film Festival is totally fine.

Telluride is much more about movies than movie stars. Make that “almost entirely.” The worst thing that will happen to Telluride if the strike isn’t settled by the Labor Day weekend will be (a) no actors at the Patron’s Brunch and (b) no actors taking part in post-screening q & a’s.

Davis’s story, in fact, includes the following passage:

“Of all the upcoming festivals, Telluride may be the least impacted by the SAG and WGA strikes. That’s because there are no press conferences and lavish step-and-repeats outside of the various venues around town.

“You could, in theory, find an A-list star walking around town and attending any of the selected movies — as long as they aren’t technically promoting them. However, per SAG-AFTRA rules shared during a call with publicists earlier this week, the studios can not foot the bill to send them to the expensive film festival, nor can actors attend studio-sponsored parties.

“Of course, the actor would not be able to introduce or participate in any of the Q&As or receive any of the three festival tributes they bestow yearly. Traditionally, the fest has favored filmmakers rather than stars for their honorees. Paid tributes in 2022 were directors Sarah Polley (“Women Talking”) and Mark Cousins, along with actress Cate Blanchett (“TÁR”).

“’Telluride will be mostly unaffected,’ one studio executive tells Variety. ‘I can’t say the same for the others.'”

No mystery why Universal has released a five-minute trailer for Chris Nolan‘s Oppenheimer — it opens only a week hence. But why oh why is it shown in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio when 70mm IMAX viewers will see a major portion of the film within (a) a standard IMAX 1.43:1 a.r. while non-IMAX viewers will view an image within (b) a 1.9:1 a.r., or one that’s fairly close to the Vittorio Storaro 2:1 standard.

So why are Uni marketers telling viewers they’ll be seeing a 2.39:1 experience?

@umamialex make sure you don't pick the wrong theater for #oppenheimer if you have the right kind of #imax nearby! #film #movies #cinematography ♬ original sound – Umami Alex 🎬 ♥️ 🎥

Imagine Gavin Newsom challenging President Joe Biden. Or, better yet, Biden deciding that American voters would almost certainly feel better about putting a younger, seasoned, much more lucid moderate Democrat than himself into the White House, and gracefully and honorably bowing out.

Forget righties or independents — very few Democrats are enthusiastic about a second Biden administration. We all know this. He’s obviously too old for the job (81 at the start of his second term, 85 at its conclusion) and can barely converse with interviewers…he gurgles and mutters and can’t even remember “LGBTQ”.

It would be different if he was the Joe Biden of 2008 or even ’12. But he’s not. And who wants Kamala Harris stepping in if, God forbid, something bad were to happen?

I respect and admire many things about Biden except for his blind, blanket approval of trans stuff and other woke initiatives. But I would feel much, MUCH better about Newsom running against Trump than Trump vs. Biden. Who wouldn’t?

I realize that very few will actually watch this interview, by which I mean actually listen to Newsom’s mannner and verbal agility and debating skills.

He’s obviously not that different than Biden politically and philosophically. Biden is as spry and disciplined and mentally focused as his 80-year-old constitution allows, but I really think it’s time for him to accept or at least acknowledge biological reality and admit that he’s past the point of true vigor and mental acuity and all-around effectiveness.

It’s not a felony to be too old for a very demanding job —- just a fact

Initially posted on 7.5.15: My young life was shaped or defined by three events or more precisely adventures. They happened when I was two, eight and sixteen years old.

Event #1: It was a late summer evening, and my now-departed mother (her name was Nancy) and I were roaming up and down the more-than-a-century-old boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey. One of the evening’s highlights (in my mind at least) was the famous Asbury Park merry-go-round.

After going on a ride and eating some cotton candy we made our way south (or was it north?). At least a mile, maybe two. Then I somehow slipped my mother’s grasp and disappeared. Gone.

For the first time in my life I had decided that it would be more exciting and fulfilling to go on a solo boardwalk adventure rather than stay with mom.

Nancy freaked, of course. She found a couple of uniformed cops and asked for their help. They all looked, searched, asked all the merchants…no luck. The trio finally made their way back to the merry-go-round and there I was — staring, bedazzled.

This incident put the fear of God into both my parents. From then on they decided I had to be kept on a short leash and monitored extra carefully. The result is that I began to feel that my life was being lived in a gulag, a police state. Rules, repression, “no”, time to go to bed at dusk, “because I said so,” “you’re too young,” etc.

Event #2: A vaguely similar incident happened six years later. In no way traumatic but it confirmed a pattern.

It was a hot Saturday morning when I convinced my seven year-old girlfriend, also named Nancy, to go on a little adventure. The idea was to stroll from Harrison Avenue in Westfield, New Jersey (our homes were 100 feet apart) to my paternal grandparents’ home in Rahway — a distance of roughly six miles. I’d never walked it before but had a rough idea of how to get there.

We arrived at my grandparents’ home on West Meadow Avenue three or four hours later. My surprised grandmother made us a sandwich and called my parents; my mom or dad (I forget which) drove over, took us back.

If I’d been the parent I would have said to myself, “Well, my son is obviously fearless or at least not intimidated by the unknown, and doesn’t lack for initiative or a sense of adventure…qualities that will almost certainly serve him well later in life. I’ll have to tell him to be more careful, of course, but he mainly needs to be hugged and approved of and encouraged to climb new mountains.”

Instead…gulag!

Event #3: In eleventh grade I began tapping out a one-page, two-sided satirical news sheet and passing it around among my friends. Silly, sophomoric, sometimes off-color stuff about school episodes, relationships and sexual stirrings. Definitely juvenile but enterprising. One of the news sheets was snagged by a vice-principal at the school, and a day or two my father and I were hauled into his office and warned about the horrors of my having passed around pornographic material.

An enlightened, forward-thinking reaction from my father would have been something along the lines of “well, that newsletter was pretty crude and immature, but my son’s urge to publish a newsletter and be heard is obviously strong. I just need to encourage him to channel this in a legit way. Maybe urge him to try for a journalism degree.”

Instead…shame, anger, storm clouds.