Daily

John McClane Dealt A Rotten Hand

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HE’s heart goes out to poor Bruce Willis, 67, who’s been forced to retire from acting due to aphasia, a degenerative brain ailment that results in a growing inability to remember lines.

We all understand that getting older and coping with the failure of this or that vital organ can be a heartless process, but this is sadistic. In a perfect world Willis would be able to keep making “Bruce Willis movies” at least another dozen years, and then he could shift into odd character parts in his late 70s and 80s.

Now we understand why Willis made so many shitty direct-to-video movies (between 20 and 25) over the last five years. I’m very, very sorry for this extraordinary stroke of bad luck.

“The Mystique Has Vanished”

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Not only well said, but the rapid-fire montage editing (Critical Drinker‘s own hand or someone else’s?) is ace-level.

“In a world in which normal, everyday people can have their ideas go viral overnight with a single, well-written tweet, and where being a big deal in Hollywood doesn’t make you a big deal to the average person any more…the work is what should matter…[these people] are fundamentally entertainers, not pundits.”

“Day For Night” But Not Quite

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18 months ago a 4K UHD streaming version of Alfred Hitchcock‘s To Catch A Thief became available. In terms of sharpness and detail and density of information it looks magnificent — superior to the 2012 Bluray version. But the nighttime or deep-dusk scenes in the 4K version are way too bright — not even a faint attempt to simulate nighttime. The 2012 Bluray fails in this regard also, but not as egregiously as the 4K.

Here are two versions of the nocturnal French chateau murder sequence (4K UHD on top, 2012 Bluray below), and the green rooftop shot from the final sequence (ditto).

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Talk about Succinct and Declarative

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I’m aware that Zero Fucks Given was the title of a Kevin Hart/Netflix concert film, but it’s still a great title for a French narrative drama about an airline stewardess (Adele Exarchopoulos) living an arid, moment-to-moment, divorced-from-deep-feeling life. The French title is Rien à foutre. I’ll be watching it this evening. Co-directed and partially co-written by Julie Lecoustre and Emmanuel Marre; Mariette Desert shares the co-wriing credit.

Here’s a 7.13.21 Hollywood Reporter review by Jordan Mintzer.

Maher: Chris Rock Showed Jackie Kennedy-Like Grace

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Bill Maher’s TMZ interview about the Will Smith-Chris Rock thing is worth it for the Jackie Kennedy analogy. 48 hours after her husband’s head exploded during a Dallas motorcade, the former First Lady showed class and grace during the funeral observances. 1.5 seconds after he was slapped upside the head by Will Smith, Chris Rock showed class and grace by keeping his cool and basically saying “okay, that happened, amazing television, let’s move on.”

Gay Teacher Wants Students In The Loop

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For what it’s worth, I never had a grade-school teacher who shared anything about his or her personal life (sexual orientation, who they were married to or were living with, where they went camping the previous weekend)…nothing. It seems to me that this Florida teacher wants his students to know that he’s gay and has a partner in order to (a) bring them into his world and thereby (b) normalize gay lifestyles and coupledom so as to discourage any homophobic thoughts that might arise down the road.

HE to Florida teacher: Try sticking to the cirriculum and keeping your private life in a private box. If a student asks what a “partner” is, say a close friend and let it go at that. Or say “ask your parents.”

Jim Carrey: “We’re Not The Cool Club Any More”

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HE to readership: In his remarks this morning to CBS Mornings‘ Gayle King, Jim Carrey said that Chris Rock should sue Will Smith for $200 million because “that insult is going to last forever…it’s going to be ubiquitous.”

If you were Rock, would you sue? You know he’d have an excellent case in civil court. He’d definitely be able to hurt Smith in a nine-figure way, or at least an eight-figure one.

Carrey: “[The slapping incident] cast a pall over everybody’s shining moment last night. A lot of people worked very hard to get to that place, and to have their moment in the sun…it is no mean fear with all the stuff you have to go through when you’re nominated for an Oscar…it’s a gauntlet of devotion that you have to do…and [what happened] was just a selfish moment that cast a pall over the whole thing.”

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