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Just Another Fan In The 22nd Row

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I would never dispute that Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde isn’t a serious art film. It’s intensely dislikable but completely, paradoxically respectable. It can be accused of exaggerating the dark aspects in Norman Jean Baker‘s life, as Joyce Carol Oates’ 22 year-old source novel did, as well as inventing some out of whole cloth. But it was all of a piece — a pitch-black downer.

Will I ever watch Blonde again? I can say with absolute assurance that I will not. But I will gladly watch this clip of Marilyn Monroe‘s visit to The Jack Benny Show in September 1953. It sells the bullshit, of course, but she’s a total pleasure to watch and listen to. She wasn’t inwardly happy, of course, but she convinced the public otherwise. Look at her expression when the audience is loving her and laughing at the humor, etc. She was happy in a certain sense!

HE to Blonde spoiler whiners: This post discusses the August 1962 death of Marilyn Monroe, which is what Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde (Netflix streaming, 9.28.22) ends with.

HE to friendo #1: “Yesterday I slogged my way through Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde, which I regard as artful torture porn. And then I happened upon a Matt Lynch tweet that analogized Blonde and a landmark 1988 film, and the instant I read it I said ‘yes!'”

“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.’

“Just as Willem Dafoe sips a goblet of sacramental wine before submitting to his final fate, Norma Jean swallows alcohol and barbiturates before her final episode of passion at her Fifth Helena Drive abode (the delivery man, the fuzzy tiger, the shattering note). And like Dafoe’s Jesus, a spectral Marilyn smiles and separates from death, and greets the immortality that she still enjoys today a la Andrew Dominik.”

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The Weapon Is Indictments

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2023 is underway and rolling along, Donald Trump has been out of office for nearly two years, and there’s really no reason to delay or pussyfoot around any more. He has to be flattened like a pancake…like a raccoon run over by an 18-wheeler. Charges need to be filed no later than 3.21.23. Sooner would be better.

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Three Days Later

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Has anything changed as far as the Best Picture Oscar death of Everything Everywhere All At Once is concerned? Since last Friday morning, I mean? Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think so. THR‘s Scott Feinberg killed its chances last Thursday (12.29) when he listed Top Gun: Maverick as the #1 likeliest winner. That was it, end of story, guillotine drop.

The following morning we hashed it all out. Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and myself, I mean. Here it is, all 43 minutes worth.

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Sleeping Mummy

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I have an idea for a special photo-driven app or website. For a fair fee I will use your photos to create a funeral home lying-in-state photo. I will dress you in a black suit-and-tie or Pope’s robes. Think about it — nobody ever contemplates their after-death appearance (i.e., how they’ll look when their friends come to pay their respects). Now they can!

Politically Incorrect “SNL” Bits Under Wraps

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One of the funniest SNL routines from 1979 was “Bend Over, Chuck Berry,” a homophobic but somewhat funny spoof of disco and the Village People in which Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray and Garrett Morris, dressed in Village People garb, sang the satiric song.

I’ve tried to find a YouTube clip of this routine for several years, but it’s not accessible. In fact you can’t even buy an audio recording (“this song is not available for free download due to copyright or license restrictions“). It’s presumably been buried because of the anti-gay lampooning, which Lorne Michaels understandably doesn’t want circulating around.

I was beginning to think that Belushi’s hilarious mimicking of fat Liz Taylor choking on chicken bones had also been buried. SNL wouldn’t dare make fun of anyone today because of a weight issue. I found a clip on Reddit (taken from an 11.11.78 broadcast) but it won’t play.

Son of Movies That Ooze and Secrete Gritty Manhattan

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I’m suddenly in the mood to watch some HD versions of those rude, gritty New York City flicks of the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. Klute, Panic in Needle Park, The French Connection Serpico, Death Wish, Mean Streets, Dog Day Afternoon, The Taking of Pelham 123, Dog Day Afternoon…that line of country. A version of New York City that no longer exists…gradually replaced starting around 30 years ago…a few remnants here and there but mostly wiped from the hard drive.

Manhattan hardly seemed glorious or heavenly when I first moved there in the late ’70s (“to live in this town you must be tough tough tough tough tough tough tough“), but at least hungry, determined, hand-to-mouth types like myself could afford to live there, and that made it a whole different place.

As the classically scrappy, Sidney Lumet-like depictions of 20th Century Manhattan (urgent, pugnacious, edgy, ethnic, pointed, blunt) are becoming more and more eroded and diluted and sanded down by corporatism and skyrocketing rents, the value of high-personality New York movies like Uncut Gems (which, don’t get me wrong, I found infuriating for its complete lack of interest in exploring anything but how it feels to ride on the back of a gambling edge-junkie tiger)…the ethnic, pushy atmosphere of such films is starting to seem more and more valuable as the social forces, aromas, attitudes and pulsebeats that fed into your classic 20th Century NYC culture are starting to lose more and more of their influence as the corporate, tourist-friendly strip-mall aesthetic creeps in and influences and even to some extent dictates the cultural tone of that town, certainly as far as Manhattan is concerned.

When was New York City really and truly a classic Lumet-like atmosphere? The peak era of feisty Manhattan movies ran from the late ‘40s to late ‘80s. The ‘80s were the last authentic gasp. The corporate clean-up began in the Mayor Giuliani era of the ‘90s.

What are my all-time favorite New York flavor movies? The top two are Lumet’s Prince of the City (’81) and William Friedkin‘s The French Connection (’71). Followed by (forgive the repeats) Sweet Smell of Success, Naked City, Midnight Cowboy, Do The Right Thing, Taxi Driver, Serpico, Manhattan, The Godfather, The King of New York, Dog Day Afternoon, Bad Lieutenant, Detective Story, On The Waterfront, Across 110th Street, Shaft, Patterns, Metropolitan, Saturday Night Fever, 12 Angry Men, Marathon Man, After Hours. But NOT West Side Story — too antiseptic and Robert Wise-y. And NOT Fame. And NOT Breakfast at Tiffany’s or The Devil Wears Prada.

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Times Square Besties

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Kicking off 2023 with grandly familiar 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s snaps…can’t hurt.


Sometime early in the From Here To Eternity engagement, probably in September or October 1953.

If I remember correctly, Kirk Douglas never once takes his shirt off in Billy Wilder‘s Ace In The Hole (’51). He was well-known, of course, for displaying his brawny physique in Mark Robson‘s Champion (’49), which had made him a star two years earlier. So the Ace in the Hole billboard marketing guy said “fuck it, let’s try and sell this cynical, bitter film about heartless journalism as a Champion reboot.”

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Whiskey and Pinball

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Over the last 40 years I’ve naturally assumed that The Verdict’s opening-credits scene was shot in some Boston-area bar. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I read this morning it was actually shot in 7A, a NYC East Village bar (109 Avenue A) that closed in 2014. Update / correction: The Verdict bar location is 7B (aka Horseshoe Bar) at the corner of 7th Street and Ave. B. Still open for business.

7B: A History in Motion Pictures from Flight Crash Companion on Vimeo.

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