Is there anyone out there who doesn’t feel Charles-and-Diana’ed out? Season #4 of The Crown (which I found rather good) has taken us through the whole, drawn-out decline of their relationship saga, chapter and verse. And now we have to endure Jackie, Part 2 — a feature-length study of Too-Short Diana’s emotional and psychological strain during a royal weekend in the country in which the decision to divorce is finalized. I don’t feel the fascination.

Jimmy Fallon‘s “Dennis Hope” in Cameron Crowe‘s Almost Famous: “If you think Mick Jagger will still be out there trying to be a rock star at age fifty, then you are sadly, sadly mistaken.”

MOJO editor John Mulvey: “One of the things I’ve been thinking about this evening is how the Rolling Stones have in some ways redefined what it means to grow older, for maybe 50 years now.

“And as they’ve been at the forefront of how we understand what older people can or should do, they’ve often appeared disdainful of the process of ageing; contemptuous even. Charlie less obviously so than Jagger, of course, but he was still a critical part of that process.

“Not that they appeared improbably youthful, but that they reconfigured a young person’s game as a lifelong pursuit, and made an infinite career seem plausible. Their defiant indestructibility could sometimes seem a bit ridiculous, but was always utterly inspiring.

“That’s gone now, with [Charlie’s death]. I’m wary of pronouncing ends of eras, or similar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Stones kept going anyway. But this does feel like a line tentatively being drawn. Very sad, in lots of ways.”

46 and 1/3 years ago, a hurried (some would say panicky) evacuation of Saigon, called Operation Frequent Wind, was underway. During the last days of the Vietnam War, OFW was the final phase in the evacuation of American civilians and at-risk Vietnamese before the takeover of the city by the North Vietnamese People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN).

OFW was carried out on the 29th and 30th of April 1975. More than 7,000 people were evacuated by helicopter from various points in Saigon.

Since the fall of Kabul on 8.15.21, more than 70,700 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan as of Tuesday evening. Nearly 6,000 American troops are protecting the international airport in Kabul, the capital. And additional U.S. flights are leaving every 45 minutes.

7000 in ’75; 10 times that amount evacuated out of Kabul.

From an 8.24.21 N.Y. Times report, filed by Laura Jakes: “The Biden administration has provided a stream of updates about its airlift of Americans, Afghans and others since Aug. 14, when the Taliban closed in on Kabul. Yet U.S. officials are reluctant to offer an estimate of the one number that matters most: How many people ultimately need to be rescued.

“U.S. officials believe that thousands of Americans remain in Afghanistan, including some far beyond Kabul, without a safe or fast way to get to the airport. Tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government over the last 20 years, and are eligible for special visas, are desperate to leave.

“Refugee and resettlement experts estimate that at least 300,000 Afghans are in imminent danger of being targeted by the Taliban for associating with Americans and U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.”

After George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr‘s Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, the best doc about the making of a Hollywood film that became a huge headache for all concerned is Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau. My recent exposure to Val led me back to David Gregory’s 2014 film. All you can think of while watching it is the inexplicably horrible movie-star behavior of Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. I did a search for my review, and realized I never posted one…odd. I want to watch it again.

Being an ex-drummer myself**, I’ve always had a special reverence for the snappy, driving beat of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts. For several reasons but mainly because he was always so metronomically spot-on…because every time his drumstick made contact he always hit dead center, and I mean exactly at the right millisecond.

In the wake of the news about Watts’ cancer-related death at age 80, I’ve been asking myself “on which Stones song have I always derived a special pleasure from Watts’ drumming?” After ten minutes of thinking it through I’ve decided that “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)” is tops in this regard, and it’s not that flashy. Update: I’ve been reminded that Kenney Jones was the drummer on that track. He did an excellent job of pretending to be Watts.

From Gavin Edwards‘ N.Y. Times obit: “While some rock drummers chased after volume and bombast, Mr. Watts defined his playing with subtlety, swing and a solid groove.”

“As the Stones guitarist Keith Richards said in his 2010 autobiography Life, ‘Charlie Watts has always been the bed that I lie on musically.'”

I’ve heard talk about Benedict Cumberbatch possibly being Best Actor-nominated for what I understand is some sort of histrionic, Daniel Day Lewis-resembling performance in Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog (Netflix, 11.17).

Back in the old days (a decade or more ago) you could theorize that costarring in a presumably overwrought, animal-friendly popcorn flick a month after your hotshot, Oscar-baity prestige film has opened…you could at least speculate if the latter might somehow mitigate the former.

But nobody cares any more. The degradation effect is everywhere, everyone has their hand out, nothing matters.

The best humor is either the silliest or the cruelest, but let’s focus on the former for now. There are two dumbshit lines that have made me chortle or at least smile for years. (Every so often a guffaw will break through.) No matter how many times they’ve flown in and out of my head, the reaction is the same.

And I’m not mentioning them because I think they’ll “get” anyone else. My point is that we’re all susceptible to dopey chuckle pellets.

Pellet #1 happens every time I visit the default representation site, www.whorepresents.com, and say to myself “yup, whore presents.” The site has been apparently been healthy and solvent for 21 years now.

Pellet #2 is a bit from Woody Allen‘s horribly racist and deeply nauseating What’s Up, Tiger Lily (’66). I’m overdoing the adjectives, of course — I love this dopey film. At the same time you know that if the right kind of Millennial or Zoomer fanatics were to happen upon it, they’d emerge all the more convinced that Allen needs to be triple-shunned, scalded with molten lead and dropped into the hottest cavern of hell.

I’m speaking of an exchange inside an ornate golden palace or temple of some kind. The players are Tatsuya Mihashi‘s “Phil Moskowitz” (amiable zany, lovable rogue) and Tetsu Nakamura‘s “Grand Exalted High Macha of Rashpur.” The subject is ruthless Tokyo gangster and egg-salad recipe thief Shepherd Wong (Tadao Nakamaru).

At one point the GEHMR reaches into a breast pocket and, for Moskowitz’s edification, unfolds a hand-drawn map of a residence. High Macha to Moskowitz: “This is Shepherd Wong’s home.” Moskowitz reply: “He lives in that little piece of paper?”

They dragged me into a theatre and strapped me down with a formidable leather harness. The idea was to force me to watch Shang-Chi: Legend Of The Ten Fiddles…er, Peacock Feathers…Rings, I mean. Just as the lights were dimming, a bulky, snarly guy came over, pulled out a loaded Glock and said “if you close your eyes even once or start humming so you can’t hear the dialogue, I will fire a hot slug into the back of your head, asshole…I’m not kidding.” Me: “Don’t bother with the threats — just shoot me now…just do it, asswipe.”