Deadline‘s Peter Bart reported today that Roman Polanski, 87, is “resolutely pursuing [an] appeal” about the Motion Picture Academy’s 2018 decision to expel him from Academy membership.

Polanski feels he was denied due process, but of course “due process” had nothing to do with it — he was ousted because wokesters and #MeToo-ers have blacklisted him, plain and simple. Not just over the 43 year-old Samantha Geimer case but other reports about sexual misconduct, also dating back to the ’70s and ’80s.

The Academy appeal is headed for Los Angeles Superior Court tomorrow (Tuesday, 8.25).

HE response: I have seen Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy (aka J’Accuse) twice online. It’s an immaculate period piece and an indisputably brilliant film in pretty much every respect, not to mention a highly persuasive argument against mob-driven injustice and ant-Semitism — easily the finest film I’ve seen so far this year. A mature way of processing this dichotomy would be to say there are two entities to consider — Polanski the flawed human being (and who isn’t?) vs. Polanski the artist. A mature conclusion would be that it is rash and unwise to throw the artist baby out with the flawed-human bathwater.

On 4.2.20 I posted an essay called “Open Letter to Polanski Haters.”

Consider also a 6.21.12 N.Y. Times article called “Good Art, Bad People“, written by Charles McGrath.

Rep. Steven Lynch (D-Massachusetts): “Will you put the [sorting] machines back?”
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy: “No, I will not.”

Too many thousands of Los Angelenos hitting the beaches on the same Sunday afternoon. Even the bluffy, cliffy areas beyond Trancas — El Matador and La Piedra state beaches — were besieged. Not to our liking, but what to do but grumble and accept it? What makes us so special?

…and turned up loud, Keith Richards and Ron Wood‘s guitar work in this 1980 Rolling Stones song is pure raunchy pleasure.

“A simple power-chord rocker telling a clueless lover to get lost. But what ‘Let Me Go’ lacks in depth, it makes up for in punk-rock attitude. Richards slashes away and Wood provides Creedence-y licks, while Jagger contemplates hanging out at gay bars and tells his soon-to-be ex-lover, ‘Can’t you get it through your thick head this affair is dead as a doornail?'” — from Rolling Stone‘s “100 Greatest Rolling Stones Songs.”

Last evening around 6:30 pm Tatiana and I embarked on another steep uphill hike. Yes, despite the heat. It was primarily for exercise, but our goal was the gates of Bella Vista, John Barrymore‘s sprawling, perfectly landscaped, Spanish colonial hilltop home at 1500 Seabright Place.

We began at the corner of Lexington Ave. and North Crescent. Due west, right on Hartford, up Benedict Canyon, right on Tower Road and then up, up, up to Tower Grove Drive and beyond. Panting, perspiring, wheezing, groaning.

The visit was more or less inspired by Drew Barrymore having confirmed a couple of days ago that following her grandfather’s alcohol-related death in 1942, his body was indeed stolen from a morgue by W.C. Fields, Errol Flynn and Sadakichi Hartmann “so that they could prop him up against a poker table and throw one last party with the guy”, according to an interview transcript.

Nothing makes my blood boil more than some irksome junket journalist asking a director or actor “how much pressure did you feel?” before attempting this or shooting that. Is there any real difference between accepting that a certain activity is necessary or at the very least a good idea (like brushing your teeth, taking out the garbage, finishing your homework or showering daily) and feeling “pressure” to do same? There’s almost always an element of pressure attached to almost any vital or worthwhile activity. Junket journalist to HE: “How much pressure did you feel about brushing your teeth this morning?” HE to junket journalist: “Probably the same amount of pressure that babies feel just before taking their first breath after being born.”

Eternal HE law: Any journalist who uses the word “pressure” in the presence of an interview subject is a very bad person.

If there’s a Bluray or an HD-streaming version of Mikhail Kalatozov and Sergey Urusevsky‘s Soy Cuba (’64), I can’t find it. A Russian-funded documentary intended to be pro-Cuban propaganda, Soy Cuba emerged as a sensual celebration of cinema (the long shots are brilliant) in the vein of Sergei Eisenstein‘s Que Viva Mexico!. An ambivalent exploration of Cuban culture, Soy Cuba half-revelled in hotel luxury, swimming pools and bikini-clad hotties — not what the Soviets were looking for.

An HD restoration happened in 2019, but it’s not currently streamable via Criterion or Amazon or any of the others. (Or so it appears.) It used to be accessible via Prime Video but has been withdrawn. Oscilloscope used to have a DVD version (who wants 480p?) but this has also been withdrawn.

Friendo: “Isn’t it weird looking at Maya Hawke and Levon Hawke? It’s like you see shades of Uma and Ethan but neither really look like one or the other completely.”

HE: “Isn’t that par for the course? I was standing around at the Hotel du Cap in ‘02 or ‘03, and I saw Ethan Hawke taking Maya for a walk. She would’ve been four or five. Maya is now 22 and Levon is 18. Having famous parents mean they both have it easy, and at the same time kinda hard.”

Mid ‘70s baseball superstar Willie Hammer vs. Manhattan mad men Foley and Lane. Lunch at The Palm. Fast talk, undercurrents of agitation, lotsa racket. From a perfectly written Tom Wolfe short story, “The Commercial”:

From a Washington Post story by Michael Kranish, posted at 5:06 pm Pacific: