Dear @MSNBC, @CNN, and especially the @nytimes.

Watch every second of this — and reconsider your reporting of the Trump shooting.#TrumpIsNotFitToBePresident pic.twitter.com/C1OdZgQzyW

— JΛKΣ (@USMCLiberal) July 14, 2024

I tried re-watching Spike Lee‘s BlacKkKlansman the other night…couldn’t last. What was I thinking when I reviewed it six years ago in Cannes? I’m sorry. I was taken in by the bravura Trump-trashing ending,

“You can feel the fire and rage in Lee’s veins in more than a few scenes, and especially during the last five minutes when Lee recalls the venality of 2017’s “Unite the Right” really in Charlottesville, which ended with the death of protestor Heather Meyer, and reminds that Donald Trump showed who and what he is with his non-judgmental assessment of the KKK-minded demonstrators.

“Lee paints Trump with the racist brush that he completely deserves, and it makes for a seriously pumped-up finale.

But that doesn’t change the fact that BlacKkKlansman is basically a police undercover caper film, based on Ron Stallworth’s 2014 novel (“Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime”).

Nor the fact that tonally it sometimes feels like Starsky and Hutch or even to some extent like John Badham‘s Stakeout, especially as it involves the main cop protagonist falling in love with a girl (in this case an Afro’ed black activist played by Laura Harrier) who shouldn’t know what he’s up to, but whom he eventually confesses to. In this sense John David Washington‘s Stallworth is Richard Dreyfuss in the Badham film, and Adam Driver (as partner Flip Zimmerman) is Emilio Estevez.

At times the film also reminds you of some Clarence Williams III scenes from The Mod Squad.

Set in 1972, pic isn’t literally about Stallworth joining the Ku Klux Klan but a stealthy undercover investigation of the Klan, initiated when he was the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department.

After initial correspondence with the Klan, Stallworth received a call in which he was asked if he wants to “join our cause.” Stallworth answered affirmatively, and in so doing launched an audacious, fraught-with-peril inquiry.

SPOILER-ISH BUT NOT REALLY: Right away you’re telling yourself, “Yes, I know this actually happened and that Lee is using the facts in Stallworth’s book, but it made no sense for Fallworth to be heavily involved in this operation.” And it just feels crazy as you’re watching one crazy incident after another.

Problem #1 is that throughout the film Stallworth talks to KKK members on the phone (including wizard David Duke, played by Topher Grace) and so Zimmerman, pretending to be the Real McCoy, has to sound like Stallworth as much as possible. Except this is a dicey game that’s unlikely to fool anyone. Early on a local KKK leader tells Stallworth that his voice sounds different, as it obviously is.

If I was Stallworth’s supervisor I would tell him he’ll make a mistake sooner or later and that he’s too much of red flag, and that the smart move is for Zimmerman to carry the ball alone.

Problem #2 comes when a KKK member spots “a black guy” (i.e., Stallworth) behind the wheel of a car that’s following as he drives with Zimmerman. Brilliant tactical maneuvering, Stallworth!

Problem #3 happens when Zimmerman is told by a suspicious klan member to submit to a lie-detector test, and so Stallworth, knowing that Zimmerman’s in a tough spot, runs up to the KKK member’s house and throws a rock through a window…it just seems nuts for Stallworth to have done that, given the likelihood that the klan might wonder why a black guy happened to be nearby.

Problem #4 occurs when the same looney-tunes KKK member looks up Stallworth’s address in the phone book and pays him a visit. Stallworth answers the door and for a couple of minutes he and the KKK member eyeball each other.

Problem #5 happens when a Colorado Springs police supervisor insanely orders Stallworth to provide security for David Duke during a visit to their city. Before you know it Stallworth is in the same room as the same KKK member who knocked on his door, his identity protected only by a pair of shades. And then he takes them off before posing for a Polaroid photo. It’s just crazy — no undercover cop would behave this way.

All this aside, BlacKkKlansman is edgy and involving as far as it goes, and occasionally quite funny from time to time. It’s a reasonably good film, and I love that Lee shoots Trump between the eyes at the end, but people calling it “great” need to calm down.

Posted on 2.4.23 — 17 months ago:

For the first time since he was branded as a sexual cannibal-animal and wham-banished from the film business, Armie Hammer has presented his side of the story.

Ignore the Variety summary by Elizabeth Wagmeister because the Air Mail piece is about a lot more than just about the usual contrition and spin (i.e., “I was bad, and now forgive me”). What Hammer contends and what he offers in terms of compelling evidence is highly persuasive.

I’m not going to summarize the main points of James Kirchick’s 2.4 Air Mail article as anyone can read it (it’s not paywalled), but there’s no question that anyone with an open mind will emerge with their previous impressions strongly challenged.

I read the article this morning, and many of the accusations against Hammer look kinda flimsy now, I can tell you that.

At the very least readers will conclude that Kirchik’s piece has downgraded Armie’s status from that of an alleged monster and ruthless rapist-carnivore to the much less odious label of admitted former asshole (an asshole in recovery, I mean) who knows where the BDSM attraction came from (i.e., sexual abuse as a powerless youth).

The article claims that Hammer’s primary sin was using his power as a rich, famous actor in his 30s (“power imbalance” being a major #MeToo felony these days) to sexually overwhelm various younger women and then (this is what really got him in trouble) ghosting them when he decided to abruptly or whimsically end the affairs like that.

Which is similar to what what Ansel Elgort was lynched for also — ghosting the of-legal-aged “Gabby” after being intimate with her a couple of times.

Message to everyone: “Ghosting” a lover really hurts and often leads to revenge moves. If you want to move on, save yourself a lot of trouble by conveying this in some kind of half-considerate way.

We all agree that ignoring a safe word is an awful thing to do, and this charge hasn’t been specifically addressed in the article (or maybe I read it too fast) but the sexual behavior of Armie and the various women who participated, so to speak, is addressed and explained. Hammer raped no one, he says — it was all a consensual game with rules and a particular script laid out in advance.

Hammer seems to be mainly guilty of behaving like a sexual obsessive. He certainly didn’t chew on anyone’s rib or cut off a woman’s toe and put it in his pocket….none of that crazy stuff.

Excerpt #1: “The Hammer case raises questions about the media. Virtually without exception, the press has treated the accusations from Hammer’s professed victims, no matter how fantastical, with utter credulity. As recently as last October, for instance, a story in New York magazine claimed that Hammer stands accused of ‘possible cannibalism.'”

Excerpt #2: “One prominent Hollywood figure has decided to speak out unreservedly in Hammer’s defense. ‘I found him to be so polite and so well mannered and so nice and so funny and so real,” says Howard Rosenman, the veteran producer of Call Me by Your Name. ‘And don’t forget, I spent time with him a lot, both in Crema and on the road, when we were on the Oscar trail. So all of [the allegations are] just pure bullshit, and yes, he deserves a second chance.’

“Rosenman, who is gay and has been involved in some of Hollywood’s most important gay-themed films (The Celluloid Closet, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, Milk), sympathizes with Hammer as someone whose sexuality was once considered taboo. ‘It’s been puritanical,” Rosenman says of the media’s prurient coverage. ‘The kink-shaming is just awful. I, as a gay man who had sex for many, many years with many different kinds of people, understand this better than anyone.”

“In a recent podcast interview, Luca Guadagnino said that he ‘cannot wait to work with Armie as soon as I have a great role for [him].'”

Excerpt #3: “When I ask [Hammer] if he takes inspiration from his mentor Robert Downey Jr., who was arrested multiple times in the late 1990s on drug charges and spent several spells in jail, his answer turns toward the mythological: ‘What I would say is this: There’s examples of people who went through really difficult times and experienced what [the author] Joseph Campbell would call ‘the hero’s death.’ And the hero must die so the hero can be reborn again.’

And it tears my heart apart to admit this, but that image of a defiant, fist-pumping Trump with blood streaked across his face means…please, God, no…that he’s going to win the election.

Doddering, drooling, hoarse-voiced, cognitive-decline Joe vs. the Bloody Defiant Fist-Pumper…courage under fire.

That image is like Boris Yeltsin climbing on top of the tank during the Russian coup attempt of ‘91. It’s the precise opposite of Martin Sheen’s Greg Stillson cowering before a would-be assassin’s bullets.

Obviously a theatrical gesture. Trump realized it was a huge historic moment and he instinctually “performed”. Shameless but effective.

The post-shooting hubbub will all calm down by tomorrow. Before you know it, the “oh my God!” will fade away. But that fucking photo will live on.

The only chance Democrats have in being at least competitive between now and Election Day…even competitive, mind…is to jettison stumbling Biden immediately and nominate someone substantial and especially younger. Otherwise it’s over.

I strongly suspect that Trump’s favorability rating will shoot up now, just as Ronald Reagan’s favorability numbers went up after John Hinckley tried to assassinate him. Abraham Lincoln James Garfield William McKinley Teddy Roosevelt JFK Malcolm X Martin Luther King RFK Gerald Ford Ronald Reagan  Assassinations and assassination atttempts are as American as apple pie.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots

The Trump shooter was a 20 year-old Zoomer — Thomas Matthew Crooks.

He looks dweeby, dorky — like the Sandy Hook guy. Ten to one he had no girlfriend.

BBC: “The FBI has named the man who shot at Donald Trump during a campaign rally as Thomas Matthew Crooks.

“Crooks is alleged to have opened fire while the former US president was addressing a crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania, leaving one audience member dead and two others badly hurt.

“The 20-year-old was shot dead at the scene by a Secret Service sniper, officials said.

“He had not been carrying ID, so investigators used DNA to identify him, the FBI said.

“He was from Bethel Park in Pennsylvania, about 43 miles from Butler, the site of the attempted assassination. He appears to have graduated in 2022 from Bethel Park High School, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper.

“State voter records show that Crooks was a registered Republican, according to US media. He is also reported to have donated $15 to liberal campaign group ActBlue in 2021.”

@commonlycensored BREAKING NEWS! Footage of Trump shooter. Thomas Matthew Crooks can be seen here collecting his high school award in 2022. #fyp #trump #thomascrooks ♬ original sound – Commonly Censored

“And now MAGA nutters will go for revenge.” — HE friendo.

Tomorrow’s N.Y. Post headline: “YOU’RE FIRED UPON!”

Things were looking bad for Biden-Harris, but now they’re really in Fuck City.

Deplorable as it is, the Trump cause has just been super-energized.

In a nod to the late John McCain, I prefer presidential candidates who don’t get shot at.

Trump’s defiant gangsta fist pump is the stuff of an Oliver Stone ’90s film…extreme Hollywood melodrama…theatrical lightning. “Popping noises.” Is that not blood next to his ear and across his right cheek?

Photo by N.Y. Times Doug Mills:

SHOTS FIRED AT THE TRUMP RALLY!

FVCK THESE COMMIE LIBS!!! pic.twitter.com/m11kA7x7r5

— Sara Rose (@saras76) July 13, 2024

(More…)

Biden is finished because of the decisive leads Trump is now enjoying the battleground states…that’s it, that’s the whole game.

Bob Costas starts to talk around the 5:00 mark:

Costas: “Biden’s cognitie decline has been so overwhelmingly obvious for so long. You don’t need a degree in public policy from Harvard to see it and to say it — if you’re willing to say it — any more than you need a degree from MIT to say two plus two is four. And it makes you wonder whether we’ve been gaslit by the Democrats.’

“This had to have been obvious to people surrounding the president, people who observed the president…wouldn’t it have been an act of patriotism, if that’s not too overblown a word in this case, to lay that out?”

Other than “I’m very sorry but we’re all gonna get there,” I can’t think of anything to say about these two except that they clearly lived large…worked their butts off, seemingly enjoyed life, had twinkles in their eyes and almost certainly never had sex with anyone, ever.

In the old days the star of a film was sometimes introduced by stealth. The camera would show a portion of his/her anatomy — a behind-the-head shot or an insert of his/her hands or a shot of walking shoes, say — but the face wouldn’t be revealed until 10 or 20 or even 30 seconds had elapsed.

This told the audience, of course, that the person being concealed was at the very least a major costar, and most likely a romantic figure. And they wanted to know more.



Sean Connery was introduced this way at the beginning of Dr. No, his first 007 film. Ditto Farley Granger and Robert Walker in the opening seconds of Strangers On A Train. Vivien Leigh’s face was partially obscured for four or five seconds during her first scene as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind.


But no one ever kept a star’s face from being shown as long as Alfred Hitchcock did during an early scene in Notorious. For a full 93 seconds he showed audiences only the back of Cary Grant‘s head. To prolong the who-is-this? effect he had costar Ingrid Bergman speak three lines to Grant, who was shown sitting down and drinking at a small party at Bergman’s home, and with Grant saying nothing in return, and not even gesturing in some way.

It’s still fascinating today.

Bergman pours him a drink, sizes him up and asks if she knows him. Nothing. Then she says, “That’s okay, I like party-crashers.” And a woman dancing nearby says, “He’s not a crasher — I brought him.” And you’re thinking, “Okay, but who is he?” You’re also wondering why doesn’t he at least offer some mild little pleasantry when Bergman says, “You know something? I like you.” Does he smile or wink? No telling. All we see is the stillness and the shiny black hair.

And yet it’s obvious he’s Mr. Cool. Finally the dangle ends after a minute and 33 seconds, and in the next scene the camera finally introduces that familiar cleft chin and the cow eyes and all the rest. 


The back-of-the-head shot lasts from 3:06 to 4:39.


Over the decades I’ve experienced many dozens (hundreds?) of perfect moments that were so rich and serene and soul-settling — moments in which I said to myself “Jesus, this is perfect in every way.”

The dusky light and settled atmospheres, I mean…soothing meditations and moods of unusual quiet …solace and contentment…pause moments.

I’m thinking of the faint scent of sea water and the sound of crying gulls at 5 am in Cannes…the taste of a special moment after a super-heavy rainfall in Paris or during a hike in the Palm Desert outback below cloudy skies or a cappuccino detour in Venice’s Campo Santa Margherita in the late afternoon or standing on the deck of a tourist ferry as it approaches Napoli harbor just before dawn…

Here’s such a moment…13 years and one month ago (late May 2011) on a calm and sunny day in Venice, Italy…placid, a gentle breeze, the faint sound of water lapping at pilings…sitting at an outdoor table at…wait for it…Trattoria San Basilio, a fairly small (you could even call it tiny) restaurant, waterside in southern Dorsoduru…no tourists, no madding crowd…Calle del Vento, 1516, 30123 Venezia VE, Italy.

Right now I feel as strongly about this moment as Mr. Bernstein felt about the girl in the white dress on the Staten Island ferry.

Video shot on a Canon camera….the quality of iPhone videos wasn’t good enough back then…good God, I was still filing on Movable Type!

HE commenter Michael Degregorio: “It’s pathetic that Fly Me To The Moon is another ORIGINAL film, not a franchise or a sequel or a superhero flick, and people can’t stay away from it fast enough.

“People who keep saying that there needs to be more original films made…these people need to put it where the moon don’t shine.

“Every time an original film is released in theaters, people stay home and watch it on streaming, and if it went STRAIGHT to streaming they would bitch that it should have gone to a theater, but they wouldn’t have seen it there anyway.

“It’s like when the pageant question is ‘what would you like to see?’ And the answer is always ‘world peace’ because that’s expected.

“Same idea here — wish there were original films made! Sure you do, but you’ll only watch the franchise shit with your own money.”

HE commenter brenkilco: “Yeah, nobody can really open a movie anymore. The package or franchise or genre is what’s sold. Cruise can open an MI movie, but you probably couldn’t give him away in a drama. Leo and Margot and Emma, et al. — they’re never going to open anything.

“And the fact that Channing Tatum and Glen Powell are being slotted into the charming leading man niche shows how thin the bench is.”

HE commenter Regular Joe: “Cruise does open movies worldwide, but I think even that appears to be coming to an end for him.”

Definitely Hyannisport: