No family-friendly media outlet will speculate about how and when Brian Laundrie died. What’s the most likely scenario? A few weeks ago I speculated that Laundrie might wade into a river with the hope of being eaten by a crocodile, but that’s way too gruesome. Then again his remains were allegedly submerged in water for some time.

In the space of a few short weeks Laundrie, who apparently strangled his fiance Gabby Petito somewhere in Wyoming last August, became one of the most despised killers in U.S. history. But give him this. He was apparently so consumed with guilt that he took his life, or allowed a crocodile to take it for him.

This at least indicates that he wasn’t a total sociopath, that he understood morality and knew that he’d done a terrible thing.

The apparent fact that Laundrie killed himself, in short, means that he was capable, in the final analysis, of thinking and acting morally.

Posted on 9.27.21:

Friendo: “We’re not going to get an honest take on Eternals, are we?”

HE to Friendo: “Not until a straight shooter sees it…someone who isn’t a member of the Marvel choir or the ‘Chloe Zhao can do no wrong’ kiss-ass diversity club…someone like myself, I mean.”

Until it is reported there was an element of anger or aggression in yesterday’s accidental killing of Halyana Hutchins on the set of Rust, reporters and twitter wolves need to get stop trying to heartlessly link this tragedy to Alec Baldwin‘s reputation as Mr. Temperamental.

The poor guy is totally destroyed about this, but to the best of my knowledge what happened yesterday afternoon was purely a technical accident. It’s on the non-IATSE propmaster or armorer, whose name has not been released.

Jordan Ruimy: “Apparently the armorer [i.e., the gun person, different that the propmaster] went off set between takes and shot live rounds out of the Colt .45. The armorer apparently forgot to clear the weapon, so there was still a live round chambered. This is absolutely fucking unacceptable. The armorer is the one who should be held accountable.”

The Daily Mail is reporting that the armorer may be female, by the way.

I am now the proud owner of my very own R*O*T matchbook. Sent from England, arrived yesterday.

I intend to carry the matchbook in a show of solidarity against the anti-North by Northwest exhibit at “woke house” — i.e., the Academy museum. If you’re a late ‘50s Manhattan advertising man, announcing that “rot” is your personal trademark conveys a certain ironic cool. Only someone who’s supremely confident and at peace with himself could admit to having a putrid, decaying, shriveled-up essence.

Jeff Sneider is much more into proletariat popcorn movies than myself. Many times I’ve rolled my eyes at films he’s enjoyed. Sneider was the guy sitting right behind me during a Fox lot Jojo Rabbit screening and laughing his ass off — it was all I could do to not turn around and hiss “what the fuck, Jeff?” So his dismissal of Dune means more than my own.

DUNE: Another beautiful blockbuster bore. A totally dissatisfying 2.5-hr STAR WARS movie sans lightsabers. Cast did nothing for me aside from Oscar Isaac. Someone has GOT to convince Villeneuve to return to Prisoners-Sicario territory. And people want a PART 2 to this snoozefest? pic.twitter.com/p0WQ4EBXOl

— Jeff Sneider (@TheInSneider) October 22, 2021

Here’s a portion of yesterday’s paywalled riff about Pedro Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers:

One of the things I adore about this Sony Pictures Classics release (12.24.21) is that it respects a basic biological fact, a fact that Hollywood has only occasionally acknowledged — the bedrock genetic reality of family resemblance.

By the same token George Clooney ‘s The Tender Bar (Amazon, 12.17) has a problem with this, at least as far as the casting of young Daniel Ranieri is concerned. Clooney would have us believe that Ranieri, who seems to be descended from a (take your best guess) Sicilian or Lebanese or Egyptian heritage, is going to grow up to be Tye Sheridan — obviously a non-starter.

Clooney could be saying to his audience, “I know the kid doesn’t look like Lily Rabe or Max Martini but there’s this whole woke and diversity thing going on now, and we have to play ball with that.”

Pedro’s film sits on the opposite side of the canyon — it not only respects family resemblance, but uses it as a plot point.

Without giving away too much of the story, Penélope Cruz is Janis, a Madrid-residing photographer who becomes pregnant by Arturo (Israel Elejalde), a kind of biologist-anthropologist who’s doing forensic studies of the skeletons of victims who were disappeared by the Franco regime.

Their affair has been on the sly as Arturo is married to a woman who’s struggling with cancer. Anyway, the baby (a daughter) arrives and one day Arturo drops by. The instant he lays eyes on her you can tell he’s a bit taken aback. Arturo senses that something might be wrong as he sees nothing of himself in the child’s features.

We can see this also — it’s obvious.

This struck me as a revelation. Parallel Mothers is a movie that actually acknowledges that kids look like their parents (or occasionally like their grandparents)…imagine! Only rarely will U.S.-made films allow for this, and certainly not in present-tense Clooneyville.

I finally caught Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch during Telluride ’21, and there’s no question that it’s brilliant and (I mean this respectfully) oddly hateful in a chilly sort of way.

It’s a visual knockout on a shot-by-shot basis. but except for a scene or two featuring Jeffrey Wright it refuses to provide any sort of narrative tissue or emotional connection with the characters. It’s all arch attitude, snide-ironic voice-overs and deadpan expressions, and after a while it makes you intensely angry. That or your spirit wilts or you become weak in the knees.

The French Dispatch is a bullwhip immersion in hardcore, doubled-down Wes. It’s not that there’s no way “in” as much as there isn’t the slightest interest in offering any kind of common humanity element.

So much so that I began to wonder if Wes might be going through a phase vaguely similar to Jean-Luc Godard’s Marxist-Maoist revolutionary period (‘68 to ‘79). I ask because it’s a pure head-trip objet d’art — there’s no sense whatsoever that Dispatch is looking to engage on any kind of semi-accessible level, even to the extent of reaching people like me.

It’s so mannered and wry and rapid-fire ironic that it sucks the oxygen right out of your lungs.

That said, I loved the boxy (1.37:1) cinematography. I was also kind of wondering why Wes didn’t use 1.66:1 more often. (I’m actually not sure he used it at all.). It seemed to be about 85% boxy and 15% widescreen scope (2.4:1).

For me the most humanly relatable moment doesn’t involve Wright’s character. It happens, rather, during the 1968 sequence that costars Frances McDormand as a Dispatch staffer writing about the fevered climate of French student revolt. Asked if writing is a lonely, isolating profession, McDormand answers “sometimes.”

There’s no chance that anyone this fall will even flirt with the concept of Dispatch being worthy of above-the-line Oscar noms — at best it could land some for production design, costumes, makeup, editing.

8:05 pm update: With Alec Baldwin now confirmed as the accidental prop-gun shooter in the death of Rust dp Halyna Hutchins, people need to calm down and take a couple of steps back. Baldwin’s reputation as an occasional hothead shouldn’t lead to speculation that what happened was anything other than a tragic accident.

The guilty party, if you will, is the person responsible for loading the prop weapon. Who the hell loads a prop pistol with the potential to shoot any sort of projectile? Talk about a totally crazy magic-bullet situation. One shot apparently went into Rust director-writer Joel Souza, 48, and then exited and hit poor Hutchins, who died soon after. Or vice versa. Just don’t start speculating that this horrible accident had anything to do with anyone’s temperament.

Earlier: It’s been reported that a 42 year-old female director of photography, Halyna Hutchins, has died as a result of an accidental shooting on the Santa Fe set of Rust, an Alec Baldwin western.

The New York Post‘s Kenneth Garger is reporting that Baldwin, the film’s star and producer, was the accidental shooter in the incident. Variety is reporting the same. Everyone is.

Quote: “Alec Baldwin fatally shot a woman and injured a man when a prop gun misfired at the New Mexico movie set of the film Rust, authorities said.”

Condolences to Hutchins’ family, friends, professional colleagues. Such a terrible tragedy. Nobody knows anything, but it certainly sounds like a case of cavalier or reckless disregard of safety measures.

Pic is a period western costarring Baldwin, Frances Fisher and Brady Noon under director-writer Joel Souza.

TMZ: “We’re told Alec was filming the scene when someone pulled the prop gun’s trigger. It’s unclear if the person who loaded the gun mistakenly placed bullets inside, or if something was lodged in the barrel that hit the director as well as the director of photography.

Souza, TMZ reports, was “hit in the clavicle.” No specifics on Hutchins’ wound, except that it was fatal.

A live bullet or a harmful projectile of some kind was lodged in the barrel of a prop gun? How could that possibly happen? Somebody fucked up hugely.

Filed from Telluride on 9.3.21:

I’m SO excited for you to watch the new trailer for #KingRichard starring Will Smith and featuring the song “Be Alive” by @Beyonce. It’s in theaters and streaming exclusively on @HBOMax November 19. pic.twitter.com/pILYvbJsbw

— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) October 21, 2021