Thought #1: Since Avatar opened in late ’09 or 13 years ago, I’ve regarded it as a very filling, four-course meal — a complete, nourishing and fulfilling grand slam in all respects. And so I’ve never understood the need or the hunger, even, for any Avatar sequels. Other than the fact that they would make money, of course, but shouldn’t films of any kind (sequels or stand-alones) be willed into existence for reasons other than the mere earning of shekels?

Thought #2: I’m not all that enthused, frankly, about a film in which significant portions take place under waiter, given my own personal inability to breathe in that environment. I’m not a fish and I don’t have gills and the Navi aren’t wearing air tanks or mouthpieces so…

Thought #3: My understanding is that the Navi are, like humans, oxygen-breathing beings with lungs. So how do they manage to stay underwater for long periods of time with relative ease, as if they’re naturally aquatic? Director-writer James Cameron has an answer, of course, but right I’m scratching my head.

In a 3.21.14 piece called “Don’t Forget What’s Happening,” I wrote that “fanboy flicks are a profitable malignancy. They are well on the way to kicking real, adult-level movies out of mainstream cinemas and into VOD, streaming and other home viewing options altogether.”

That’s exactly what happened over the next eight years. Except now the plague has two heads — fanboy shit plus streaming content that numbs the soul.

“Super-amped fanboy flicks are the latest manifestation of the corporate influences which Pauline Kael lamented in 1980. They are flagships of a trend that are coming closer and closer to suffocating a mainstream movie culture that used to at least occasionally be about mirroring or capturing who we were (our values, needs, hopes) and how we lived. Every now and then theatres were the equivalent of community churches (i.e, places for inner communion and contemplation), but fanboy flicks are turning them into the spiritual equivalent of roller rinks and amusement parks.

“Fanboy flicks are a metaphor for the overall devolution of art and culture, not just in this country but all across Europe and Asia. They are injections of corporate heroin and Hollywood is the dealer. They are not pathways into our common histories and values and deep-down places. They are things we shoot into our minds and souls, but they are obviously inorganic. They’re not herbal tea or pot or peyote. They aren’t even Valium or Xanax. They’re Demerol.”

I’m going to watch RRR tonight, and I feel as if I’m about to have a tooth extracted without anasthesia. I don’t know for a fact that I’m going to hate it (how could I?), but I strongly suspect that I will. I’ve watched a few low-rent Indian schlock films in Indian restaurants; maybe if I watched it while eating…

My primary motivation in posting this was the exquisite lighting used for the Jean Harlow fireplace pic, which was snapped in 1935 by George Hurrell. Then I happened to walk by the Britney Spencer photo inside the Sono Collection. And then Claudia Cardinale came to mind, followed by Paulina Porizkova.

Cate Blanchett and Todd Field are brilliant, grade-A visionaries…film elites at the top of their game. But they haven’t the first clue about what it means to love movies in a Joe or Jane Popcorn way. Field especially. Listen to him go “oohh” and “aahh” over Mikhail Kalatozov‘s The Cranes Are Flying.

This is why Tar is a bust with the Joe and Jane crowd, and why it’s only made a lousy $2,516,138 so far. It is what it is, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t at least respect Tar. We all understand that Blanchett is favored to win the Best Actress Oscar, and that the film itself hasn’t a prayer. Because Field refuses to spread the mustard and relish on the hot dog.

To me a perfect film understands itself perfectly, embraces the virtues of self-discipline and doesn’t mess around.

It tells the truth (or at least its own truth), throws nothing but strikes, allows no opposing hits and leaves no dangling threads.

It’s always a step or two ahead of the average audience, but not too far ahead. It’s smart and perceptive, and yet it never bores even the dumbest audience member, and it understands pacing and story tension and how to deal the right cards in the right way, and at the right time.

It knows, in short, what beginnings, middles and ends are supposed to achieve, and it follows through like a pro. It presents a spherical, recognizable world that adds up no matter how you slice it.

In his new book “Cinema Speculation“, Quentin Tarantino lists seven 20th Century films that he regards as perfect:

I’m not disagreeing with Quentin’s choices exactly. I certainly agree with five of them, but if I was forced to select my own seven perfectos I definitely wouldn’t include Hi-Ho Steverino‘s Jaws (a very satisfying and finely crafted summer popcorn film but saddled with a few problems) and I certainly wouldn’t choose Tobe Hooper‘s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre…please.

Here are more perfect or near-perfect films…50 of them….the top third from “HE’s 160 Greatest Films of All Time” (posted on 7.24.15). I believe with all my heart that these 50 are just as perfectly assembled as Quentin’s seven. There’s no way to make a convincing case that Quentin’s seven are more perfect than any of HE’s 50, whatever that could possibly mean. Everything is arbitrary, personal…there’s no formula.

HE’s Top Ten Greatest American Films: (1) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, (2) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, (3 & 4) The Godfather & The Godfather, Part II (5) The Graduate, (6) Election, (7) Zodiac, (8) Rushmore, (9) Pulp Fiction, (10) Some Like It Hot.

Greatest American Films (11 to 20): (11) North By Northwest, (12) Notorious, (13) On The Waterfront, (14) Groundhog Day, (15) Goodfellas, (16) Out Of The Past, (17) Paths of Glory, (18) Psycho, (19) Raging Bull, (20) 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Greatest American Films (21 to 30): (21) Annie Hall, (22) Apocalypse Now, (23) Strangers on a Train, (24) East of Eden, (25) Bringing Up Baby, (26) The African Queen, (27) All About Eve, (28) The Wizard of Oz, (29) Zero Dark Thirty, (30) Only Angels Have Wings.

Greatest American Films (31 to 40): (31) Repo Man, (32) Heat, (33) Red River, (34) Drums Along the Mohawk, (35) Gone With The Wind, (36) Rebel Without a Cause, (37) Ben-Hur (38) The Best Years of Our Lives, (39) The Big Sleep, (40) Shane.

Greatest American Films (41 to 50): (41) Rear Window, (42) Bonnie And Clyde, (43) The Bridge On The River Kwai, (44) Casablanca, (45) Chinatown, (46) Citizen Kane (47) One-Eyed Jacks, (48) King Kong, (49) 12 Angry Men (50) The Informer.

HE’s choice for Best Celebrity Halloween Costume…seriously. Hats off to Heidi Klum and the people who helped her become (no slight intended) a perfect slithery worm. Imagine the feeling of confinement. It must be suffocating under all that latex crap. Hats off.

[Posted on 5.25.20] “For the first time in 17 or 18 years, I got rip-roaring stoned last night. By way of a single cannabis gummy bear, manufactured by CAMINO. It was a steady. bump-free high, but my God, the strength of it! It was like I was suddenly atop a galloping racehorse, but the horse knew the realm and was fairly cool about it.

“And it was like I’d been shot…shot with a diamond bullet, right through my forehead. (Kidding.) Seriously, I was scared that it might be too much for my psyche to handle, and I think this may have been why I decided to drop a Tapentadol to mellow things down.

“All I know is that my senses and my free-associating mind and especially my imagination became more and more alive and attuned, and yet I was concurrently sensing how frail and delicate everyone is, myself included. I was doing everything I could to speak as softly and gently as possible. Music, colors, aromas, our Siamese cat…everything suddenly had an extra quality. If you’ve ever galloped on a horse, you know that it’s all about becoming one with the charging steed and not fretting about falling off…you have to be fearless and go with it.

“Last night I was half-fearless and half ‘uh-oh’, at least until the Tapentadol kicked in.

“I’m basically saying that the THC in my system felt, from my vantage point at least, very, VERY strong for a while. I was half amazed that I’d allowed myself to get this ripped (which was actually Tatiana’s fault — she popped one of the candies into my mouth and I meekly went along with it), and half intrigued that this kind of cannabis high was a lot smoother and stronger than the pot I used to suck down in the ‘70s. It was quite the ride — lemme tell ya.”