The “Puerto Rico is a floating island of garbage” meme from the MSG Trump rally + yesterday’s ABC News / Ipsos poll (51% Harris vs. 47% Trump among likely voters) has relaxed me somewhat…I’m no longer hyperventilating or breathing into a brown paper bag.

“The less attention paid to this picture, the better for the simple dignity of the human race.”

So wrote N.Y. Times critic Bosley Crowther in his 3.10.62 review of Vincente Minnelli‘s The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.

The fact that The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse hasn’t been remastered for HD streaming or issued on Bluray — that should tell you something.

The rest of Crowther’s review is pretty good also:

“As different from Rudolph Valentino as Glenn Ford depressingly is — and, believe us, it’s more than just the difference between a guy who did the tango and one who does not — there is that much (and more) between the impressiveness of the filmed The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, in which Valentino leaped to fame, and the one with Mr. Ford as its hero, which dragged its great sluggish bulk into Loew’s State yesterday.

“In the first place, this latest film endeavor to bear the name of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez‘ popular novel of World War I has no more resemblance to the novel — or, indeed, to the 1921 Rudolf Valentino film — than may be found in the similarity of names of characters and in a couple of cut-ins of ghostly horsemen riding in clouds of surging smoke across the screen.

“This one tells a slow and vapid story of a colorless Argentine sport (Glenn Ford), caught with his father, mother and sister in Occupied Paris during World War II, who takes up with the wife of a French journalist and, finally, when down to his last dress suit, joins the Resistance movement and carries messages in folded magazines. It is a pompous and idiotic fiction, and it is staged by Vincente Minnelli in an incredibly fustian ‘Hollywood’ style.

“Although some of it smacks of actual Paris and the country regions of France, most of it reeks of the sound stages and the painted sets of a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio…shot on wide screen in color and lighted like a musical show, it conveye no more illusion of actuality than did Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

“The second thing is the way it is played — or isn’t played — by a cast of the most non-Argentine and non-French seeming people you’ve ever seen. Mr. Ford as the gay hidalgo from the pampas who hits the boulevards wearing a gray fedora, black gloves and swinging an ebony cane is about as convincingly Argentine and possessed of urbanity as a high-school football coach from Kansas who has never been out of the state. And in his romantic scenes with Ingrid Thulin, who plays the wayward wife, he is aggressively flat and solemn. In short, he is just plain dull.

“Miss Thulin is beautiful and graceful, in her svelte Scandinavian way, but she is made to act a very shallow woman — and her voice and lip movements do not match. Charles Boyer is drab as the father who had been living in Argentina since his youth and still talks with such a thick French accent that all the other Frenchmen sound like hicks alongside him.

“Yvette Mimieux plays Mr. Ford’s young sister who gets in with a Paris student crowd that swings into the Resistance movement with all the fervor and frenzy of high-school rooters at a football game. Paul Henreid as the journalist whose wife deceives him and Paul Lukas as the Germanic uncle of Mr. Ford who becomes a top Nazi general in the Occupation dutifully go along. The less said of Karl Boehm as a Germanic cousin and Lee J. Cobb as the Argentine grandfather whose anti-Hitler sentiments in 1938 are as fiery as those of a Jewish character in Exodus, the better for all concerned.”

You might presume that dismissive reactions like Crowther’s helped to diminish Ford’s career, as he soon after stopped appearing in grade-A productions. And yet on 4.13.62, only a month after Apocalypse opened, one of Ford’s best films ever, Blake Edwards‘ Experiment in Terror, premiered to excellent reviews and better-than-decent business. Ford’s performance as an emotionally somber San Francisco detective was one of his best ever.

Seriously. Iconic.

The truly legendary Paul Morrissey, world-renowned for his Andy Warhol-associated films and whatnot, has died at age 86.

Posted on 2.3.22: “Sometime in 2009 or ’10 I was seated next to Morrissey at a Peggy Siegal luncheon in some plush Manhattan eatery. I recognized him right away, but even if I hadn’t I would’ve felt instantly at home with the sardonic attitude and the seen-it-all, slightly pained facial expressions.

“I love guys like this. They’ve lived long enough and have met enough people of consequence to know that much of what constitutes modern life (even in a first-class town like New York City) is distasteful or disappointing or phony. And yet they soldier on with their squinty smiles and witty asides.”

If there’s one serving of advice I have consistently rejected and in fact despised all my life, it’s “invest in love rather than disdain,” “glass half full rather than half-empty,” “always look on the bright side,” etc.

Do you think Mark Twain or George Orwell or Paul Morrissey ever bought into that happy-faced crap?

I’ve always looked at things as they are or seem to be, and free of vibes of forced smiley-face happiness or rose-colored glasses or any of that jazz. Life is not Disneyland.

Yesterday’s world of the streets of the Lower East Side — warmer than warm, in some ways bland, shade-less, somewhat sticky and certainly dreary — was what it fucking was. It was certainly no cultural blessing to be there, I can tell you. The architecture mostly lacked intrigue and character, certainly compared to the nabes of Paris, Rome, Prague, Bern, Barcelona, Cefalu, San Francisco, etc.

Manhattan has always been a must-to-avoid on summer days. Stay the hell out of town until after Labor Day. They’ve all said that for decades. Nothing cranky about it — just the way it is.

I wrote about the Lower East Side yesterday with exactly the same spirit and attitude with which I wrote about Buenos Aires 18 years ago, in March 2005.

Earlier today I felt honestly unclear about Karla Sofia Gascon’s situation. I asked around but no one gave me any answers of any kind. So I searched around on my own.

In Emilia Perez, Karla’s titular character submits to full-on surgical transitioning including, one gathers, the removal of male genitalia. I realize that a specific question to Karla Sofia’s reps along these lines is considered gauche or insensitive in certain circles, but here goes anyway: has Karla Sofia Gascon submitted to the same Emilia Perez-type procedure? Or is she walking around with a package?

I know questions of this type sound disrespectful to wokesters, but Gascon’s Best Acress Oscar campaign is far more identity-driven than performance-based, so why can’t we just lay it out on the kitchen table?

Karla Sofia began life as a man, and has worked as an actor/actress for quite a while. Her dead name is Juan Carlos Gascon, which she went by until 2018.

I honestly think that Juan Carlos Gascon, with his once-slender face, blonde-ish hair and bro whiskers, looks more fetching in his original biological state than Karla Sofia Gascon does as a woman now. Karla’s face is rounder. She seems larger somehow.

Karla was born 52 years ago in Alcobendas, Spain, but since 2009 has been a resident of what I’m presuming is Mexico City. A shamelessly softball profile of Gascon by Deadline‘s Antonia Blyth, posted this morning, only says that she lives “in Mexico.” If Blyth were to run an interview with Angelina Jolie, would she report that Jolie lives in the United States?

It would appear that Karla Sofia is, after a fashion, “straight.” Gascón is married to Marisa Gutierrez. They met at a nightclub in Alcobendas when Juan Carlos was 19, or in 1991. Together they have a daughter, who was born in 2011. It’s not my place to speculate about Karla Sofia and Marisa’s marriage, but if they were to split up Karla would presumably still be into women as a rule. Her trans sexual behavior is apparently the same as Lana Wachowski‘s…she enjoys being a lesbian.

If I’m wrong about any of this, please inform.

The first time in my life that I heard the term “fascist rally” was during my first viewing of The Manchurian Candidate, sometime in the early ’70s. I seem to recall it being shown at the Leo S. Bing theatre at the L.A. County Museum of Art, which was quite a score by Ron Haver as John Frankenheimer‘s 1962 thriller had been commercially withdrawn for some years at that point.

The term was used hy John McGiver, portraying the ultra-liberal Senator Thomas Jordan. He was speaking to James Gregory, who was playing Senator John Yerkes Iselin, a reactionary conservative who was modelled on the real-life Senator Joseph McCarthy.

The scene happens at a loud, raucous party at Iselin’s vacation home…a party to celebrate the engagement of Laurence Harvey‘s Raymond Shaw and Jordan’s daughter, Jocelyn (played by Leslie Parrish).

Iselin: “Tom! Tom, boy! So great you could come!”
Jordan: “I am here at this fascist rally because my daughter has assured me that it was important to her that I come. There is no other reason.”
Iselin: “Good old Tom!”

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I’ve just purchased a Trivial Pursuit “Silver Screen” edition, which is only for older hardcore film buffs — Millennials and Zoomers will have a very tough time with it, and even younger GenXers may be stumped for the most part.

The questions were written in ‘85 or thereabouts so unless you’re up on the careers of William S. Hart, Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, Ben Hecht, Brian Donlevy, Edmond O’Brien, Ann Sheridan, Gregg Toland, Andy Devine, David O. Selznick (a racist, sexist, pep-pill-popping scumbag!), Joan Blondell, Myrna Loy, Pat O’Brien, Rudolph Valentino, etc.

It makes me sick to go through online movie trivia games that have obviously been written by (or are aimed at) clueless under-40s.

I wish for the sake of Thanksgiving gatherings that a 1984-to-2024 edition could be made available. Way back when I always aced the ‘85 questions, and I’d manage the same, of course, with my imagined Silver Screen 2. Maybe there is such a board game — maybe I’m overlooking something.

Last Friday (10.25) I posted a Nightmare on Elm Street election–anxiety freak–out piece so I can’t go there again — it’s only been 72 hours. My waiting-to-be-electrocuted feelings are only going to intensify between now and 11.5 — eight days!! — so medicating is almost certainly on the rise.

Ari Emanuel to Puck’s Matthew Belloni:

“[It’s] going to come down to 120,000 votes. You probably have 60 percent of the male vote for Trump, and the female vote is 60-40 for Kamala.” Wait — 40% of registered women voters are going for The Beast? Ari: “It’s a jump ball. We’re going to find out who wants this more — men or women.”

From Molly Ball’s 10.27 Wall Street Journal report, “America Is Having a Panic Attack”:

Here’s my favorite paragraph:

HE for one believes in the sleeping-male–Kamala–supporter theory…thank you! Okay, not really but I’d like to believe in it.

As I confessed last Friday…

Aaron Schimberg‘s A Different Man opened around five weeks ago and promptly bombed. I can’t imagine why. If there was ever a dark comedy made for Joe and Jane Popcorn…a film that’s partly about a pretty, sexy theatre director (Renate Reinsve) falling in love with a modern-day Elephant Man (i.e., a guy afflicted with neurofibramitosis, played by Adam Pearson)…talk about a date movie!

The theme, as you might presume if you’ve seen the trailer, is basically “you are what you are inside” or, if you will, “ignore the physical in order to concentrate on the interiors.”

I was initially resigned to watching it last month, but at the end of the day I couldn’t go there. I wimped out.

A majority of critics, possibly fearful of being labelled as brusque or cruel or insensitive by shrieking neurofibromatosis wokies, bestowed thumbs-up reviews (92% Rotten Tomatoes, 78% Metacritic).

I didn’t want to see it for obvious reasons (one of them being that I didn’t want to be reminded of nature’s random cruelty), but now that I’ve read the Wiki synopsis I’m stunned to learn that Renate’s character enters into a full-on, fucking-and-fellatio relationship with Pearson’s Oswald character.

On top of which before hooking up with Oswald, Renate’s Ingrid is sexually involved with Sebastian Stan‘s Edward, another victim of neurofibromatosis who is magically transformed into a normal-looking fellow through surgery.

A friend explains that A Different Man is presented as a tongue-in-cheek fable or fairy tale. I don’t care whose tongue is in what cheek…there’s no buying Renate Reinsve fucking a charming Elephant Man…no!

We all understand the necessity of expressing kindness and compassion in our lives, but I’m not sure I can do this…cue the neurofibromatosis wokies…”you slithering bastard…you need to commit suicide!”

A Better Man will begin streaming on Tuesday, September 5.

…when using non-attributable quotes for a serious state-of-things piece was considered journalistic malpractice? Or at least it was 26 years ago. In the minds of David Poland and Peter Bart, I mean.

In an Indiewire piece posted earlier today, producer, industry consultant and former Fine Line production executive Liz Manne outed herself as a major anonymous source for a controversial, once-heavily-criticized 1998 Premiere story that described a culture of sexual harassment at New Line Cinema, which at the time was run by Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne.  

The article, written by John Connolly and fact-checked by Premiere staffers (including then-editor Jim Meigs and senior film editor Glenn Kenny), was called “Flirting With Disaster.”

The article asserted that all kinds of nasty shenanigans (drinking, drugs, sexual harassment) were happening at New Line, and that Shaye and Lynne ran the place “like a college dorm,” according to a producer who spoke anonymously to Connolly. The piece began with a story about a boozy New Line party that happened the year before (1992) at a lodge in Snowmass, Colorado, and about how Lynne made an aggressive sexual pass at an unnamed female executive. 

That executive, according to Manne’s Indiewire piece, was Manne herself. As noted, she flat-out admits to having been one of Connolly’s anonymous sources.

In hindsight, the Connolly piece can be appreciated as a tough expose that described a predatory climate that sounds all too familiar by today’s understandings. But because it depended on anonymous sources (when she left the company Manne signed an exit agreement that forbade her from talking to anyone about anything in any context) the article was strongly attacked as an example of reckless or irresponsible journalism.

Two of the attackers were Movie City News’ David Poland and Variety‘s Peter Bart. Coincidentally, there was also a “Reverse Angle” article on page 51 in that same issue of Premiere, written by Harvey Weinstein of all people, that complained about “the reckless use of unnamed sources.”

From Poland’s 6.17.98 MCN article: “Can you say ‘hatchet job?’ I know for sure that Premiere magazine can. It had to be the phrase of the day when it decided to print its story, ‘Flirting With Disaster’” on alleged sexual and drug-related misconduct at New Line Cinema. I am often disgusted with the state of entertainment journalism, but usually it’s because we throw softballs in exchange for access to the talent that sells magazines, newspapers and TV shows. (And yes, some Web sites.) This time, it’s the opposite. 

“What was Premiere thinking when it ran the results of John Connolly‘s eight-month ‘investigation’ which added up to little more than a handful of gossipy accusations by unnamed sources that any reporter working this beat on a regular basis could have come up with over a three-day weekend?”