“Nearly all powerful politicians are isolated, in the extreme, from reality. Cuomo had spent so much time in that rarified air, he forgot what regular people do.” — Alec Baldwin on soon-to-be-ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

But after the #MeToo movement blew up in late ’17, it had to be obvious to each and every handsy, massage-y, touchy-feely 50-and-older politician out there that icky, sexually aggressive behavior was totally over and done with. The culture was shouting over and over “don’t do this, don’t go there, things have changed” and Cuomo still ignored the signals?

Every now and then I’ll come upon a Sopranos YouTube clip that I’ve never seen before. To me, the “Carmela in Paris” clips are brand new,. The Pont Alexandre III moment shared by the titular tragic figure (Edie Falco) and Rosalie Aprile (Sharon Angela) touched me — I’ve experienced a few such moments myself. It’s from “Cold Stones,” which aired on 5.21.06 — the 11th episode of season #6. The ancient Roman bathhouse ruins (Les Thermes de Cluny or Les Thermes du Nord) are located near the southeast corner of Blvd. St. Germain and Blvd. St. Michel.

Todd Field‘s masterful In The Bedroom is almost exactly 20 years old — the anniversary is on 11.23.21. Just about every scene is perfect, but there’s one that’s slightly off because of Marisa Tomei‘s over-acting. It’s a court testimony scene in which her character, the bereaved Natalie Strout, recounts the day when her estranged abusive husband (William Mapother‘s Richard Strout) killed her boyfriend (Nick Stahl‘s Frank Fowler) with a pistol.

Delivering this kind of testimony would be painful for anyone, but most people would do what they can to grim up and keep it together in front a filled courtroom. Tomei’s slow testimony plus the constant weeping and sniffling is too actorish. You’re sitting there and going “Jesus, stop selling the emotion and get on with your testimony already…give it a rest.”

But the following scene in which Tomei awkwardly attempts to apologize to Fowler’s mother (Sissy Spacek) and is decisively, violently rebuffed, is perfect.

“There are things of which I may not speak / There are dreams that cannot die / There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak / And bring a pallor into the cheek, and a mist before the eye / And the words of that fatal song / Come over me like a chill / A boy’s will is the wind’s will / And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” — “My Lost Youth,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“How do you solve a problem like Annette? On one hand a glorious, bold, fascinating orgy of cinematic bravado; on the other a pretentious, silly faux-opera with unbearable music and an awkwardly leaden lead performance from Adam Driver. As usual, Marion Cotillard is heavenly and compelling, but the whole enterprise is such a unique kind of mess, I don’t know wether to admire what it’s trying to achieve or be embarrassed for its failure. Half of the audience walked out; easy to calculate since there were only 8 of us at the screening. It’s remarkably unpleasant.” — Vernon Scott, Facebook 8.7.21.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s long-expected decision to resign may have been delayed due to uncertainty about where he would bunk as a civilian. He has no residence outside of the Albany governor’s mansion on Eagle Street. An 8.7 N.Y. Post story suggests the most likely scenario has the soon-to-be ex-governor crashing at the Hampton’s home of his younger brother Chris Cuomo, the CNN star.

The trailer for Worth (Netflix 9.3) indicates quality — a thoughtful, low-key drama about the experience of Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton), an attorney who was appointed to administrate the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. His task was to decide which amounts certain families of 9/11 victims would be paid as compensation.

Feinberg followed a certain impartial formula (including, I’ve read, a refusal to evaluate individual suffering), some families received less than others, and there was some resentment about this.

The film is based upon a book Feinberg wrote a book about this experience, titled “What Is Life Worth?: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11.”

Keaton and Tucci costarred in Spotlight (although they didn’t share any scenes), and one of the Worth producers, Michael Sugar, had a producing credit on Spotlight.

Alas, after debuting at Sundance 2020 Worth received a 65% and 68% rating from Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively. That was nearly 20 months ago.

On top of which the film’s screenwriter-producer, Max Borenstein, is best known for writing Godzilla (’14) and Kong: Skull Island (’17), and contributing to the story of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (’19) and Godzilla vs. Kong (’21). How do all these monsters square with compensating the families of 9.11 victims?

Besides Keaton, the cast includes Stanley Tucci, Amy Ryan, Tate Donovan, Laura Benanti, Talia Balsam, Marc Maron, Chris Tardio and Victor Slezak.

…or will we wait a little bit?

I’m done with my condemnations of Leos Carax‘s Annette (Amazon, 8.6 limited). But I’m wondering if anyone caught it in a theatre last weekend, and what the reactions might have been. I recognize that most will probably wait for the 8.20 streaming date (i.e., a week from this coming Friday).

HE commenter Kristi Coulter (2 days ago): “Did I like it? I don’t know that it’s a like/dislike kind of movie. I’m not at all sorry I saw it; I’ll probably watch it again at some point. But I felt very emotionally distanced from it, and it’s at least twenty minutes too long.

“The NYT review describes Driver’s character as a man who can’t quite see other people as real, not even his own wife and child, but I’m not sure Carax sees her as real, either. She’s basically there to represent an idea of feminine goodness and warmth and there’s only so much Cotillard can do with that. And is it asking for too much realism to wish the movie had convinced me these two characters would ever have a first date, let alone get married?

“As for the ‘morally repellent’ question: well, Driver’s character certainly is morally repellent — and highly unpleasant to watch, too –but I didn’t find the movie itself morally repellent. Honestly, I think it would have to be more committed to a set of values beyond its own style for me to get worked up one way or the other over questions of morality.”

Just under a month ago I bought a Kindle copy of Michael Wolff‘s “Landslide.” And in the pre-opening chapter (“Introduction”) I was struck by four well-honed paragraphs that seemed to sum up Trump’s mystique with unusual clarity — one of the most concise descriptions of that blustery, bullshitty thing that he’s done all along.

Three days ago, the N.Y. Times posted a story by Nicole Hong titled “Inside One Company’s Struggle to Get All Its Employees Vaccinated.” The subhead reads, “At an optical business in New York City, it took months of coaxing, a cash bonus and a weekly testing mandate to persuade 90 percent of the staff to get a coronavirus vaccine.”

Every third or fourth paragraph is infuriating. Here’s a taste:

“John Bonizio, 63, the owner of Metro Optics, was ecstatic when he learned in January that optometrists and their staff members would be among the first groups eligible for the vaccine. During the chaotic early days of the rollout, Mr. Bonizio found a hospital with plenty of vaccine appointments available and offered to schedule them for every employee.

“About half of the staff members rushed to get a shot. But because his employees interact with dozens of patients and customers each day, he wanted everyone to be vaccinated. When he called the employees to ask why they were hesitant, their answers foreshadowed the resistance that would unfold in the coming months around the country.

“Some people said they did not trust the government, citing false conspiracy theories that the vaccines contained tracking microchips planted by the authorities. Others noted that the vaccines had not yet been formally approved by the Food and Drug Administration and worried that getting vaccinated would interfere with their ability to have children. (Scientists have said there is no evidence that the vaccines affect fertility or pregnancy.)

“One employee said she was concerned because she thought a vaccine had caused the characters in the film I Am Legend to turn into zombies. People opposed to vaccines have circulated that claim about the movie’s plot widely on social media. But the plague that turned people into zombies in the movie was caused by a genetically reprogrammed virus, not by a vaccine.

“Talking to employees about the misinformation they saw spreading on social media was like walking on eggshells, said Brett Schumacher, 38, the company’s general manager. Trying to persuade a skeptical co-worker to trust the government and health officials in the middle of the workday can be awkward.

“’We do have one person who is just anti-vax, period,’ Mr. Schumacher said. ‘I didn’t get into the full reasons behind it because that kind of stuff just makes my blood boil.'”

Hong spoke to a Metro Optics employee named Tiara Felix, who said she’ll leave her job if faced with a vaccine mandate. “There’s no choice,” Felix told Hong. “I’ll have to quit.”

In short, Tiara Felix is rather stupid. There’s no other term for it, and there’s no known cure.