Great achievement in almost any field is always about the forsaking of easy, casual pleasures, and is always the result of fire in the belly, serious devotion, relentless discipline, hardcore thinking, early to bed and early to rise, etc. And if you don’t have those rigors in your own mind and system, you damn well need someone who (a) cares, (b) believes in you and (c) will crack the whip.

King Richard (Warner Bros., 11.19) is the fact-based story of how Richard Williams pushed and shaped his daughters, Venus and Serena Williams, into becoming tennis superstars. The trailer for suggests straight, focused naturalism, which is what everyone wants anyway.

You know Smith will be Best Actor nominated — locked.

The director is Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men, Joe Bell). The script is by Zach Baylin.

Yes, Adam Driver‘s Burberry Hero ad (runs on beach, swims with a horse, becomes centaur) is “out there”, but it somehow works. Partly because it’s beautifully shot, cut and scored, but also because Driver’s features were described in certain corners (not in this space!) as horse-like before this ad came to be. It makes you wonder if the ad happened because of this association. In which case it’s a fairly bold statement.

Driver could be saying that “some people (mean people) have said I have a face like a horse. Well, here I am selling Burberry cologne in an ad in which I become a human steed.”

Driver and the people who threw this ad together have my respect.

Again: I’ve never slagged Driver or even mentioned the term “horseface” in the same breath. All I’m doing here is reacting to what “they” have said.

Adam Driver for Burberry Hero, featuring “Two Weeks” by FKA twigs. pic.twitter.com/j938KYEtMF

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) July 27, 2021

…was really bothering me. But no longer. Thank God it’s settled once and for all.

From a 7.14.21 heyuguys review of Valdimar Jóhannsson‘s supernatural Lamb, by Joan Titmarsh:

“A childless couple living on a sheep farm, Maria (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Himir Snær Guðnason), deliver a lamb that they decide to take into their home and raise as their own child.

“When Maria performs a terrible act in order to protect her ersatz motherhood, it is clear that she has stirred up the wrath of something ancient, and in her taking the lamb from its mother there is something from the natural == or supernatural — world that will come to seek retribution. Rather than the humans signalling this, it is the animals, most notably the trusty sheepdog, who pick up on the looming danger.

“This is an intelligent and hugely entertaining film that quietly creates a bucolic horror and has much of the ancient fairy tale about it. It deals with important questions such as motherhood, family and happiness, as well as the lengths people will go to when they see any of those things slipping from their grasp. It is a film about grief, but it is full of fun. It joins Rams in that hallowed pantheon of Icelandic films about sheep, a genre that is rapidly turning out to be one of my favorites.”

HE confession: I didn’t care for Rams at all. I felt stuck on that damp farm with those bearded brothers and all that wool, and the smell of it.

Example: Terminator: Dark Fate. A dreaded Mandy McFly in a gender-swapped Back to the Future…”do not ruin Back to the Future!” A male version of Heathers or Mean Girls, Jennifer’s Body, etc.

“If Hollywood just leaned a little bit more into originality…a little bit more.” — Film Threat‘s Chris Gore.

“Some have constructed a counter-narrative to discredit this process on the grounds that we didn’t launch a similar investigation into the urban riots and looting that occured last summer [following the death of George Floyd]. I was called on to serve during the summer riots as an air national guardsman. I condemn the riots and destruction of property that resulted. But not once [during those disturbances] did I ever feel that the future of self-governance was threatened like I did on January 6th. There is a difference between breaking the law and rejecting the rule of law.” — Rep. Adam Kinzinger, speaking this morning during committee hearings on the 1.6 Capitol assault.

Comment #1: Kinzinger is a decent, thoughtful, principled human being who has no future in the sociopathic bumblefuck cult that calls itself the Republican party.

Comment #2: There were some suppressed tears this morning during testimony from the security guys. Kinzinger also let go with a few. There’s no question in my mind that vivid recollections of the pain and trauma of January 6th fueled this morning’s emotion, but the sniffles are one more reason why Kinzinger has no future as a Republican. Rightwing males don’t relate to politial PDE**. Just saying.

Comment #3: Having observed rioting, looting and the burning of a building during one of the Floyd disturbances in West Hollywood, I can testify first-hand that a lot of people helped themselves to free footwear that day.

“…and then something happens.”

My first impression is that Paul Schrader‘s The Card Counter (Focus Features, 9.10) is almost certainly going to prove a better (punchier, more interesting) poker movie than The Cincinnati Kid. How it stands up to Rounders…we’ll see. Obviously the return of a familiar Schrader archetype — God’s lonely man. “Hello, old friend…it’s really good to see you once again.”

Tattoo: “I trust my life to providence…I trust my soul to grace.”

Forwarded last night by Stuart Cohen, this slightly enhanced color snap of Michael Rennie during the filming of The Day The Earth Stood Still (‘51) is, according to Cohen, from a LIFE magazine shoot. The shamrock-green outfit (notice the slight sparkle effect) seems intense, but color flash photography had that effect. Plus the car Rennie was standing next to and the parking lot in which this and other cars were parked and the warm dusk-hour lighting (the area appears remote and undeveloped) seem natural enough.

There’s something odd about this kid. That strangely mature-seeming face. He looks like a 27 year-old shrunk down to the size of an eight-year-old. I’m not “odd”-shaming him — he grew into a sane and sensible performer who went on to fame and fortune — but you have to admit he had a peculiar tyke vibe.

Danny Trejo‘s “My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood” became an immediate best-seller when it was published on 7.6. It’s currently 11th or 12th on the N.Y. Times list, and was at #3 for a short while. I gave some thought myself to buying the Kindle edition. I’ve always liked Trejo, and I still maintain that his best performance is in Michael Mann‘s Heat (’95)l

I’m presuming that the people who’ve bought the book are mainly Trejo fans…proles who personally relate to his hard-knocks saga and are sold on him as a real-deal sort of guy who’s led a rugged, dangerous life (especially during his tweener and teen years) but managed to save himself and gradually grew into a better person.

A week or so ago I read Lewis Beale‘s Daily Beast profile of Trejo and the book (“Is Danny Trejo the Most Lovably Terrifying Actor Ever?“).

We all understand that most many actors aren’t necessarily gifted at writing, and that whenever they “author” a book it’s usually been tweaked and edited by a professional. In this case the co-author is actor Donal Logue, a longtime friend of Trejo’s.

In a chat with Beale, Logue reveals that Trejo didn’t sit down and try to write anything — not even a half-assed rough draft. He just spoke with Logue extensively, and then Logue did the heavy lifting…hah!

Beale: “The book itself actually got rolling thanks to Logue, whose literary agent suggested Trejo do a work about his life. So Logue wrote a proposal, and then spent two years interviewing his buddy and whipping the project into shape.

“‘He’s the most articulate guy I ever met,’ says Logue, ‘and he pretty much laid out the structure of the story. He has no problem speaking or being quoted, but packaging it, putting some structure to it, fell on my lap.'”

Logue and Trejo first met 22 years ago (i.e., 1999) at an AA meeting. At the time both were acting in Reindeer Games, the Ben Affleck-Charlize Theron film.

Having read the book, Beale offers a criticism about Trejo’s over-reliance on “recovery speak” — the presence of lines like “the magic of forgiveness is so profound, and it starts with us forgiving ourselves.”

Utterances of this sort “are scattered throughout the book,” Beale notes. “You can imagine thoughts like this being articulated at every AA meeting, but their greeting card sincerity can be a bit off-putting.”