When I speak of the Great Francis Betrayal, I refer to the fact that in almost every Francis film the mule’s ability to speak (and in English yet!) is revealed to an outsider or two, and in Francis Goes To The Races (’51) to an entire courtroom of witnesses. Which in real life would eventually mean worldwide celebrity for Francis and great wealth for Donald O’Connor‘s “Peter Stirling” character.

This never happens, of course — no one ever says boo about Francis’s talking ability. The legend never grows. Once the next film comes out it is completely forgotten and the basic situation reverts to a private rapport between Francis and Peter.

If the Francis screenwriters had been a little more daring, they could have had a much bigger franchise. Francis could have become a TV star, an adviser to the U.S. President, the leader of a Pacific Island nation, a game-show contestant, a mule-poet looking for his own mule-soul…the sky was the limit.

“Francis the Talking Mule: 7 Film Bluray Collection” will be released by KL Studio Classics on 5.3.22.

…pops sometime in May. No trailer yet but in the meantime…

George Carlin’s American Dream, directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio, chronicles the life and work of the legendary comedian.

Carlin’s career spanned half a century during which he headlined 14 HBO comedy specials and appeared on The Tonight Show over 130 times, constantly evolving with the times and staying sharply resonant up until his death in 2008 and beyond. The documentary examines a cultural chameleon who is remembered as one of the most influential stand-up comics of all time.

The two-part documentary tracks Carlin’s rise to fame and opens an intimate window into Carlin’s personal life, including his childhood in New York City, his long struggle with drugs that took its toll on his health, his brushes with the law, his loving relationship with Brenda, his wife of 36 years, and his second marriage to Sally Wade.

Intimate interviews with Carlin and Brenda’s daughter, Kelly Carlin, offer unique insight into her family’s story and her parents enduring love and partnership.

Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Patton Oswalt, Stephen Colbert, Bill Burr, Bette Midler, W. Kamau Bell, Sam Jay, Judy Gold and Jon “demonic white people” Stewart are among those interviewed for the project.

Zelensky’s Grammy speech was rather good — morally urgent, concisely written, well delivered, presumably rehearsed. Did the Oscars blow him off? If so, they shouldn’t have.

The Focus marketing team sat down and decided that the title doesn’t mean much — no one will remember it, they’re thinking, certainly when it comes to NYC subway riders — it’s the Viking vibe, the beards, the long hair, the axes, the wounds, the grayness and grimness.

I have this idea that “Pretty Ballerina” is kind of timeless. Okay, maybe not but it feels like a close relation of a 21st Century Emo song. If it had never been recorded and released several decades ago but if someone current had recorded it in precisely this baroque way, would it fit right in or would your music cognoscenti go “the fuck?”

HE to Jett: “If this song was released today, would it fit in as a kind of EMO thing?”
Jett to HE: “It would be more indie pop-rock. Not really Emo by today’s standards.”
HE to Jett: “What is it missing Emo-wise? I thought EMO was defined by a kind of whiny feeling…a soft emotional core.”
Jett to HE: “Emo is just more over-the-top these days, lyrically and production-wise.”
HE to Jett “Ballerina has strings, a falsetto singing voice, a feeling of longing.”
Jett to HE: “That’s fine but Emo is a subculture that’s completely detached from this.”
HE to Jett: “Detached from what? Good lyric writing?”
Jett to HE: “I’m not saying Pretty Ballerina is bad. It’s just not Emo. Today’s Emo is hyper-pop. You’d hate it.”

From The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody: “During the New York press junket for the film Morituri, in 1965, its star, Marlon Brando, received a series of journalists for brief interviews at a table in the Hampshire House hotel and toyed with them gleefully and mercilessly.

“This 1966 documentary, by Albert and David Maysles, captures Brando’s transformation of the setup, through the sheer force of his personality, into a grandly ironic variety of performance art.

“Brando brazenly flirts with several female journalists, complimenting them on their appearance, and aggressively questions male interviewers about their looks, too (with particular attention to their fingernails and their clothing). Challenging the interviewers’ readiness to act as ‘hucksters,’ Brando mocks the blatantly promotional conversations with sly or flamboyant sarcasm and disarmingly sincere reflections.

“In a streetside interview, Brando speaks French with a French interviewer, and in response to a political question about the circumstances of black people in the United States, he beckons to a black woman who’s passing by and poses the question to her. The resulting portrait of Brando — sexual, intellectual, aggressive, vulnerable, seductive, rebellious — shows him creating a greater character than any ever written for him: himself.”