I was not a huge fan of most of the big grossers of 1976 — Rocky, A Star Is Born, King Kong, Silver Streak, The Omen, The Bad News Bears. I wasn’t even that much of a big believer in Hal Ashby‘s Bound for Glory (although I respected it). For me there were only five films that mattered that year — Network, All The President’s Men, Taxi Driver, Assault on Precinct 13 and Marathon Man. I still feel that way.
This photo ran in the Wilton Bulletin in early August ’76. It accompanied a story about a then-upcoming Save The Whales concert, which then-girlfriend Sophie Black (on my left) and I co-produced, and which was held on a hilly 52-acre farm owned by Sophie’s parents, David and Linda Cabot Black. The focus of the story was that a portion of the proceeds would be donated by Camp PIP, a non-profit that offered recreational facilities help to lower-income kids.
I must say that I was looking pretty good for a three-year-old. I turned four on 11.12.76.
For as long as he lives, Kyle Rittenhouse will be thought of as a kind of rightwing militia girlyman. If only he’d studied Point Blank and learned how to do the Lee Marvin thing…
Then again what happened doesn’t appear to have been motivated by anything more than raw, idiot-level nihilism. Brooks is reportedly a common criminal. True, Waukesha is an overwhelminglywhitebedroomcommunity, but there doesn’t seem to be any linkage between that fact and the recent Kyle Rittenhouse trial, which happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
In Robert Wise’s 1961 West Side Story as well as innumerable stage versions performed over the decades, the dance scenes are never acknowledged by passersby, much less performed for them. In fact, passersby barely exist.
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A Dallas Morning News spitball poll about the forthcoming Texas gubernatorial race (posted on Real Clear on Sunday, Nov. 11) indicates that the unaffiliated, un-woke Matthew McConaughey has an eight-point lead over Gov. Gregg Abbott (R.) — MM 43, Abbott 35. By contrast, Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke is currently six points behind Abbott — 45 to 39.
This is a totally wrong year for any progressive-left wokester candidate to run for anything. Except in the really blue areas.
Earlier today Sutton Frances Wells, born on 11.17.21, had her very first experience with the great outdoors.
Her parents, Jett and Cait, drove her to Verona Park in Verona, New Jersey, which is just north of West Orange. Dressed in a pink winter coat, knit gloves and winter hat and lying under a blanket in a BMW-grade stroller, Sutton was rolled around and given her very first opportunity to breathe in those vibrant New Jersey aromas.
HE to Jett: “Hey, she’s sleeping! Her first time breathing that nippy New Jersey air and she’s catching 40 winks.”
HE to Sutton: “C’mon, man. Breathe in a few lungfuls of outdoor air, marvel at the big blue sky, smell the grass and trees and savor the sounds of other people talking and barking dogs and whatnot. Once you’ve done that, then you can take a nap.”
Sutton to HE: “Hey, give me a break. I’m only four days old. I sleep a lot. Deal with it. Verona Park will presumably still be there when I’m older and a bit more rambunctious.”
There were two slightly awkward things about Jonathan Larson‘s romantic life in the years before his untimely death in January 1996.
One was that he was straight, and nobody likes the sound of that. The second was the apparent fact that Larson’s two most conspicuous girlfriends, cinematographer Victoria Leacock and a woman named Susan (nobody seems to know her last name), were descended from …uhm, European tribes. This doesn’t square with 2021 sensibilities, of course. But Tick, Tick…Boom director Lin Manuel Miranda remedied the situation by casting Alexandra Ship as “woke” Susan, and now everything’s cool.
In sum, it wasn’t Larson’s “fault” for failing to become emotionally entwined with a woman of color back in the ’80s and early ’90s. He simply didn’t know any better at the time. No need to beat a dead horse, water under the bridge, etc.
I gradually came to respect Lin Manuel Miranda‘s Tick Tick…Boom (Netflix, now streaming). I was even emotionally affected by it in the second half, but man, what a struggle. Mine, I mean.
Based on Larson’s 1990 stage musical of the same name, it’s about Larson himself (Andrew Garfield) struggling and feeling desperate and anxious and needing so hard to get his material produced and seen…to get up and over…he constantly sweats and strains and feels awful about not being a success at age 30, and the movie puts you right into the misery pit with the poor guy, and it’s no picnic, let me tell you.
Tick, Tick…Boom is a “musical based on a musical about writing a musical”, and I’m telling you that the first 20 or 25 minutes of this film, directed by Lin Manuel Miranda, will make you go “oh, no…please, no.” I was in agony. Garfield is pushing so hard, turning on the “charm” and emphatic personality, singing with a not-great singing voice, so much “sell” in his performance…buh-bo-buh-bo-bo!
Art isn’t easy, but watching a poor, exhausted, stressed-out guy trying to make good art isn’t easy either.
But after 30 or 40 minutes of torture I began to settle into the story and I began to feel and even identify with Larson’s pain. I’ve been there. In ’78 and ’79 I was poor as a churchmouse and living in a Soho cockroach flat and trying to get rolling as a movie critic and interviewer, and my theme song was Gerry Rafferty‘s “Baker Street.” (“And you’re cryin’, you’re cryin’ now”) I know all about that agony and fear and desperation so don’t tell me.
Incidentally “Baker Street” is a much catchier and more arresting tune than anything in Larson’s Tick Tick score. Sorry.
Friendo to HE: “I hate all of the people in this thing. People don’t talk like this in real life. It’s very 2021. They’re all talking in woke-speak. It’s the modern left’s idea of the perfect sensitive person movie, Except nobody will give a single shit about it.”
HE to Friendo: “I groaned when Susan, his LatinX-woman of color girlfriend (Alexandra Shipp), left him because he’s too consumed in his work. Earth to Susan: All creatively-driven types are consumed by their work. It goes with the territory. The real loves of Larson’s life were, of course, his music and Stephen Sondheim.
Friendo to HE: “I felt badly for his plight but this script is just terrible.”
HE to Friendo: “And for all of it, we don’t get the grand payoff that is Larson’s Rent….Rent is years away when the film ends. I took Jett with me to see Rent at the Nederlander when he was eight or thereabouts, and he wasn’t a fan.”
…for director Sean Baker, especially with too-hip-for-the-room critics like Bob Strauss, Tomris Laffly and TimGrierson singing praise for the morally revolting RedRocket…everything was coming up roses for the guy when all of a sudden and out of the fucking blue, Baker “liked” a Tulsi Gabbard tweet about how the Rittenhouse Jury “got it right” by finding the 18-year-old shooter not guilty on all counts.
In the blink of an eye Baker had put himself into social jeopardy, or so it seemed. By implying he was something of a rightie or was certainly no “seig heil” Democrat, he was theoretically on the outs with your devotional film industry wokesters….”Eeeeeeee!!! Sean’s on the side of a gun-toting, demonstrator-killing, Proud Boy-fraternizing racist!!” The squealing could be heard all over town.
Houston, we have a problem with Criterion’s new Citizen Kane package, which includes a 4K UHD version as well as an alternate Bluray version.
The problem is not with the 4K disc, which reportedly looks quite fine and delightful. The problem is with the Bluray version, which looks fine until the 30-minute mark, at which point the image turns all gray and milky with the black levels and sharpness totally out the window.
This bizarre Criterion screw-up was first reported two or three days ago by DVD Beaver‘s Gary W. Tooze. Tooze’s screen captures were pointed out this morning by HE friendo Mark Smith. The problem was subsequently confirmed an hour or two later by a totally trusted technical authority on Bluray and 4K discs.
So this is real — not a rumor. Criterion has totally dropped the pitcher of milk and now it’s all over the floor. The 4K is cool, as noted, but the Bluray is a cock-up of epic proportions — perhaps the worst in Criterion’s history. And so Criterion will have to recall the package and fix the problem and send the corrected version out sometime in December or whenever.
Okay, I’m being presumptuous. It’s theoretically possible that Criterion might not recall the Kane package. They might just say to their customers “you guys don’t really care about the Bluray disc…right? This package is all about the lustrous 4K version so let’s just push the Bluray problem aside and forget about it. You don’t care, we don’t care…right? We fuck up every now and then and you’ve been cool with that. The DePalma thing…remember that one? You let us slide on those ridiculous teal-tinted Blurays of Midnight Cowboy and Bull Durham and Teorema. So why not just turn the other cheek on this thing as well?”
Tooze: “The 1080p looks quite strong, superior to Warner’s 2011 Blu-ray in varying degrees, often darker, showing more grain and richer contrast layering. It’s a dual-layered rendering with a max’ed out bitrate with nothing else sharing that first Blu-ray disc.
“Until we get almost exactly 30 minutes into the film — just prior to the scene in Bernstein’s office (with the contentious visibility of the rain on the windows) — [when] the Criterion Bluray alters and shows a very softer, paler, contrast [and] the brightness is diminished.
“I don’t have any explanation for this [grayish milky transition] on the Bluray…[but it is certainly] different from the first 1/2 hour of the film.”
The problem is made obvious in many of Tooze’s screen captures — here’s a sampling provided by Smith:
