I’m personally heartbroken by David O. Russell‘s Amsterdam (20th Century, 10.7) I was so perplexed and confounded, I was almost in tears. How could a movie by a brilliant A-level director turn out this heebie-jeebie and wackadoodle?

I’m sorry but Amsterdam is pretty close to a disaster — a very busy and antsy period movie about an arcane, who-cares? bumblebee plot (something to do with ascendant U.S. fascism in the early 1930s) that won’t stop lurching to and fro and buzzing all around, and is totally irksome for that.

It’s all plot and exposition, plot and exposition, plot and exposition…jabber jabber, talk talk…over and over and over. No subtext, no heart, no downshifting, no “things that are there but not said.” I was having serious trouble trying to understand who was who and what was happening for the first hour. Only when Robert DeNiro‘s character (“General Gil Dillenbeck”) comes along at the 100-minute mark does the rubber begin to meet the road.

Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington are pallie-wallies who first get together in the wake of World War I, and who reconvene in 1933 Manhattan.

Bale’s scarred, glass-eyed face struck me as an odd, meaningless distraction. Washington and Robbie share a deep attraction to each other but it goes nowhere and amounts to zero. For whatever reason Russell doesn’t show them being the slightest bit intimate. The reticence is strange.

There’s no question in my mind that Russell is a gifted madman, a firecracker, a genius. But something went horribly wrong this time. Seriously, this struck me as one of the worst films from a major director that I’ve ever seen in my life. Right up there with Michael Cimino‘s Heaven’s Gate, Brian DePalma‘s The Black Dahlia and Francis Coppola‘s Twixt.

Russell was on fire between Flirting With Disaster, Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees, The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook — call it 16 or 17 years. I wasn’t as much of a fan of American Hustle but we’ll let that go. All I know is that the spirit gods seem to have flown away and Russell hasn’t gotten airborne in nearly a decade. Shattering.

I feel so badly for the guy. I’m beside myself with grief. The reviews are mostly awful and this thing is going to sink like a stone when Joe and Jane Popcorn get a taste.

Russell needs to go simpler, smaller. A crazy family movie of some kind. No more films about greed and conniving and big evil shadowy plots.

I’m very, very sorry. I don’t know what else to say except when you fall down you need to pick yourself up and get back on the horse. Better inspiration next time.

Several weeks ago I was chatting with a Westport hairdresser. An Asian woman in her mid to late 40s. I suspected she might be Vietnamese (I’ve been to Vietnam three times) but I didn’t want to sound like a dumb Anglo who doesn’t know the difference between people from Vietnam, China, Japan, Burma, Malaysia or Korea.

But I took a risk anyway and asked if she was from Vietnam. Bingo! Born near the end of the Vietnam War, she had grown up near Saigon and emigrated to this country around 1990, she said. So let’s allow that I might have a certain ability to recognize people from certain regions, or at least that I got lucky that one time.

Yesterday around lunch hour I was speaking to a Latina counter waitress in her early 20s. There was something in her features that suggested…I couldn’t be sure. Possibly lower Mexico or perhaps Guatamela. She vaguely reminded me of Yalitza Aparicio, who played the housekeeper Cleo in Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma, only a bit prettier.

I had no real idea, in short, but I took a wild stab and asked, “Have you ever been to Belize?”

Waitress: Where?
HE: Belize.
Waitress: No, I…I don’t know that. Where is that?
HE: South of Mexico. You know…the Yucatan Peninsula. Caribbean coast.
Waitress: Near Mexico?
HE: Actually closer to Guatemala.
Waitress: Huh.
HE: Mostly English speaking.
Waitress: Huh.

I’m not judging, mind. I recognize that we all have our own journeys and that we reach enlightenment at different times in our lives, and that includes me. But this woman had never heard of Belize until that moment. She may not have even heard of Guatemala.

What does this say about the teaching of geography in Fairfield County high schools? When I was 21 I had at least heard of all the countries in Central and South America, and about most of the Caribbean islands.

13 and 2/3 years ago a desecrated version of The French Connection — grubby, splotchy, desaturated — was released on Bluray, and fans hit the roof. It was a bizarre experimental remastering from director William Friedkin that everyone (including director of photpgraphy Owen Roizman) hated. A much more palatable version was released on 2012, and the complaints stopped.

I may be mistaken but I seem to recall that the only person in the world of critics and columnists who gave a thumbs-up to the 2009 version was David Poland. From that point on the term “Poland Curse” applied to every which way.

Now another Bluray debacle is upon us, and it took me six damn weeks to pay attention. The new 4K Heat Bluray, approved by Michael Mann and released by Disney’s 20th Century video division, is covered or more precisely smothered in needless shadow and murk, like a black scrim thrown over everything.

I watched the 4K version last night, and right away I knew something was wrong. “Why is everything darker?’, I asked myself. We naturally expect 4K to deliver some degree of enhancement — a noticable “bump” or upgrade of the film’s well-known visual quality. Well, the 4K does not deliver a noticable uptick. In fact it’s another desecration. It’s Heat with the lights turned down and a heavier emphasis on blue-gray. It’s Heat covered with a black stocking. It’s basically a vandalizing.

I was so pissed off by the 4K disc tHat I took it out and popped in the 1080p Bluray version. The Bluray is much, much more pleasing to the eye./

We’re all conscious of a Best Actress campaign underway for Ana de Armas‘ Marilyn Monroe performance in Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde (Netflix, streaming on 9.28).

For what it’s worth I think de Armas has done an excellent job of bringing Dominik’s version of Monroe (wounded, broken, extremely vulnerable) to life. She gives it her all, and I would have no argument with her being nominated for Best Actress. Nobody would.

I wrote a while back that Blonde is “artful torture porn.” Because it is.

I also agreed that her performance as the relentlessly brutalized and victimized Monroe is analogous to Martin Scorsese‘s The Last Temptation of Christ. Excerpt: “I’m thinking not just of the incessant dismissals and degradations and spiritual uncertainties, but the anguished and agonized relationship between the main protagonist and the elusive ‘father.’”

Variety‘s Clayton Davis believes, with at least some sincerity, that de Armas is Netflix’s strongest acting contender and that her performance has the “best shot for Latina Oscar attention.” (Should Best Latina Performance become a new Oscar category? If Clayton wasn’t a Variety columnist he could become a top-tier Oscar strategist and lobbyist on behalf of BIPOC contenders.)

But let’s be honest — Dominik’s honest but demeaning remarks about Monroe in a 9.27 Sight & Sound interview by Christina Newland have hurt the film’s Oscar chances, and possibly even damaged de Armas’s campaign.

Actually it’s not so much the interview itself as Twitter-ized outtakes from her Zoom chat with Dominik that have caused all the trouble.

Fascinating Dominik quote: “Blonde is supposed to leave you shaking. Like an orphaned rhesus monkey in the snow. It’s a howl or pain or rage.”

Consider the following and post whatever reactions that may come to mind:

Out of 40something films he’s made since the mid ‘80s, Tom Hanks has said that only four cut the mustard. And that doesn’t even mean that the un-named four are great or A-level films — Hanks is only allowing that they’re “pretty good.”

Which films could he be referring to? I’m guessing Big, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump and Saving Private Ryan.

“Road to Perdition Was Hanks’ Last Big Serious Score,” posted on 4.23.16: I would say that Hanks peaked from Splash (’84) to Road to Perdition (’02), or a run of 18 years. Okay, 14 years if you feel that Hanks’ career really took off with Big in ’88.

And yes, I would say that since Perdition luck was not really been with him except in the case of Charlie Wilson’s War (’07) and Captain Phillips (’13).

Once your cards have gone cold, it’s awfully hard to heat them up again. There’s nothing more humiliating than for a man who once held mountains in the palm of his hands having to push his own cart around the supermarket as he buys his own groceries and then, insult to injury, has to wait in line at the checkout counter. Then again he’s stinking rich.

Hanks’ finest early-career-building films: Splash (’84), Dragnet (’87), Big (’88), Punchline (’88).

Hanks’ amazing six-year, nothing-but-pure-gold period: A League of Their Own (’92), Sleepless in Seattle (’93), Philadelphia (’93), Forrest Gump (’94), Apollo 13 (’95), Toy Story (’95), Saving Private Ryan (’98), You’ve Got Mail (’98), Toy Story 2 (’99).

Hanks’ first big-time stinker — a movie I’ll hate with every fibre of my being for the rest of my life: The Green Mile (’99).

Commendable:  Cast Away (’00)

Hanks’ last, best serious role after his ’90s kissed-by-God period: Road to Perdition (’02).

I was walking back to the car after visiting a shoe repair place on Van Sant Street in East Norwalk when all of a sudden this ruddy-faced, shaved-head guy wearing long baggy shorts is right next to me and saying the following in quick succession, like a Gatling gun: (1) “Whassup, Elvis? “, (2) “I like your shoes” and “put it there.”

A voice told me not to shake his hand, and I knew I’d made the right call when he said a second later, “Don’t wanna be friends, huh?”

I’ll shake hands with a stranger over a point of mutual agreement (i.e., “You don’t want a trans person with monster elephant boobs teaching your five-year-old? Put it there, pardner”) but I’ll never shake hands just to shake hands, especially with a skeezy guy.

This really actually happened around 3:15 pm today.

** He didn’t actually say what I said he said. He actually said “whass goin’ on there, Elvis?” I didn’t like how that looked as a headline so I shortened it. Then the lie began to burn through my soul.

Since glimpsing this college film-course chart, I’ve been reading about the influential Dziga Vertov. who was very close to Vladimir Lenin. But before this morning I had never heard of the guy. At least I’m willing to admit it.