And I don’t mean the Department of Housing and Urban Development. There’s a phrase below that should read “in the ‘80s and ‘90s.”

I’m sorry but it’s time once again to hit the Baja Oral Center. Tatiana and I are currently in the waiting room. All masked and gloved up, Elton John softly playing, antiseptic to the max. Post-procedure we’re heading 50 minutes south to Hotel Poco Cielo, which has moderately fast wifi,

Carl Foreman‘s The Victors (’63) is apparently unobtainable in any home format — no streaming, no DVD or Bluray, nothing. There was only a British DVD in the wrong aspect ratio and wrong running time (146 minutes as opposed to the original 175) that is no longer available.

I never saw it, but the general thematic idea was that “war darkens and destroys and reduces everything to cinders and everyone to despair.” Or something in that realm. The big signature moment was the execution for cowardice scene [below]. Sexuality (vaguely envelope-pushing for ’63) was used as a selling point.

Costarring George Hamilton, Vincent Edwards, Albert Finney, Melina Mercouri, Jeanne Moreau, Eli Wallach, Romy Schneider, Elke Sommer and Michael Callan.

It was a financial bust but a “serious” film. I wouldn’t mind seeing it.

This passage from Terence Blanchard‘s score for Da 5 Bloods is mainstream orchestral. Solemn, going for gut sadness, nothing ironic or twitchy, etc. For African American veterans, the Vietnam War teemed with conflict and trauma and all kinds of random hell. Time to open that box again.

…because Twitter management, in the wake of Trump’s bullshit claims about fraudulent mail-voting plus his imaginary Joe Scarborough murder allegation, actually grew a backbone.

I’ve never been one of those “Walker died in Alcatraz and so Point Blank is just a last dying fever dream of revenge” type of guys. I insist that Walker, despite two or three gunshot wounds, was strong enough to swim from Alcatraz Island to the Embarcadero, and that he somehow found his way to a good hospital without the cops getting wind. And then three or four months later and fully healed, he bought himself a spiffy new wardrobe to go with his new silver hair color (which was definitely darker before he was plugged), and then arranged to meet Keenan Wynn on that Alcatraz tourist boat. And then he flew to Los Angeles. Walker lives!

In mid January ’42, go-getter reporter Gene Sherman, 26, covered the Carole Lombard plane-crash tragedy for the Los Angeles Times.

Sherman reported that formidable MGM fixer Eddie (i.e., “Edgar J.”) Mannix had identified Lombard’s “charred and burned” body, relying on his familiarity with her blonde hair “as well as the general contours of her face.” Mannix was memorably portrayed by Josh Brolin in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Hail Ceasar!.

Like any driven big-city reporter, Sherman knew most of the angles and could write a mean paragraph. In 1960 the 45 year-old Sherman won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In a bid to strengthen the L.A. Times‘ influence on the world stage, Sherman opened the paper’s London bureau in ’64. The “hard-working, fast-living” Sherman died in 1969, at age 54.

L.A. Times reporter Gene Sherman

There’s no connective tissue between the presidencies of Donald J. Trump and Abraham Lincoln, save for the odd fact that both [have] resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And yet somehow this short, succinct video, created by the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, brings the point home.

The point is this: Abraham Lincoln may have been the finest U.S. President ever, and Donald Trump is without question the absolute worst — a sociopath, liar and incontinent con man whose Covid negligence resulted in the needless deaths of tens of thousands of Americans over the last three months.

Lincoln Project to Trump supporters: Have you no shame?

During the filming of Chris Nolan‘s Tenet, neither John David Washington nor Rob “RBatz” Pattinson could make heads or tails of the plot.

And if they couldn’t figure it out over a shooting period of several weeks, what chance will Joe and Jane Popcorn have in the space of…how long is it supposed to be?

“Every day I had questions for [Nolan],” Washington says in a 5.25 Digital Spy piece. “But [Nolan] was very gracious, and he answered them very calmly and patiently. It was important that the actors could track the story correctly, so we could tell it the best way we could, and he was very patient with us. I say that very politely.”

Possible translation: “I didn’t know what the fuck this film was about, and if you ask me neither did Nolan. Not really. But he’s a good bullshitter and always polite.”

Pattinson recently told GQ‘s Zack Baron that months after shooting he still doesn’t understand Tenet.

Nolan’s response: “We’re looking at first and foremost giving the audience an incredible ride in the spy movie genre, but using the audience’s facility with following the conventions of that genre to push it into some interesting and unexpected territory.”

Then again there was the Cary Grant situation when it came to deciphering the plot of North by Northwest (’59). Grant was reportedly distressed with the way the plot seemed to be faking itself out. At one point he told Hitchcock that “I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

If I had composed this fanciful front page of the N.Y. Times, I would have reported that Trump was forcibly removed from the White House after refusing to vacate. I would have also reported about armed bumblefuck demonstrations amid charges of “fraudulent” pro-Biden balloting by mail.