According to Ben Brantley‘s 2.20 N.Y. Times review, Ivo Van Hove‘s radical re-think of West Side Story — a stage revival currently playing at the Broadway theatre — is “attention–splintering.”

Titled “Sharks vs. Jets vs. Video,” the subhead states that the non-period-specific production boats “new choreography, a ravishing orchestra and smothering visual effects.”

The “s” word refers to huge video screens that complement and/or challenge the live-action, human-scaled activity.

“I fail to detect a natural rhyme or reason for the way video is used here,” Brantley states. “There are a lot of split screens and a lot of frankly clichéd, commercial-style images of characters running and brooding. I don’t think van Hove is commenting on our fragmented 21st-century attention spans, [but] the fact that our focus is repeatedly splintered obviates much chance for emotional concentration and, consequently, the possibilities for being truly moved.”

Another complaint is that it’s hard to tell the previously pale-faced Jets from the Puerto Rican Sharks. Now, says Brantley, “both gangs appear to be multiracial melting pots. Could this be van Hove’s point, that prejudice exists only in the mind’s eye? Maybe, but once these boys and girls start to rumble, you’ll wish they were wearing team uniforms.”

Oh, and “I Feel Pretty” has been deep-sixed.

Maybe Brantley has a point or two; maybe his opinions are outliers. But at the very least this new show appears to be reflective of the here-and-now — rougher, punchier, franker, more jagged-edged. A reinterpretation with fresh blood in its veins.

And it leads me to wonder how Steven Spielberg’s period-specific film (mid ’50s) will impress today’s audiences. I somehow doubt that Spielberg’s version will be anywhere near as nervy and provocative as Van Hove’s show.

I’m sorry but I keep sensing that Spielberg’s film will somehow underwhelm, especially if it features dp Janusz Kamiński‘s default desaturated color scheme with milky shafts of intense light piercing through, etc.

What would the U.S. of A. feel like on a day-to-day basis if our Democratic system had been effectively dismantled and we were living under a tyrannical despot spouting lies and disinformation on a daily basis? I’ll tell you what it would feel like. It would feel like right here, right now.

“The outcome of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial was precisely that he is above the law, that whatever he says is the law, that we should wait to see what he says and then adapt the law to that….that is precisely what tyrants over the centuries and authoritarians over the last century have always said. Our founding document, the Constitution, is basically a design about how to prevent someone from becoming a tyrant…[the idea] of three parts of the government balancing each other out. But what happened in the impeachment trial was exactly the opposite. The Congress gave way, and then Justice Roberts also gave way [by waving away notions of evidence and testimony]. So basically what we saw was a trial that wasn’t a trial.” — Timothy Snyder, author of “The Road to Unfreedom.”

Team Trump is naturally delighted and relieved that Bernie Sanders will be the nominee. As recently reported by intelligence sources Putin, who wants the gullible, useful-idiot Trump to have another term, is happy about this also. Down-ballot Republicans are also reportedly elated about Bernie.

God help us but it’s all falling into place for the right. Trump is naturally biding his time and keeping silent about Bernie’s ascendancy. But when he gives the order after Democratic voters have locked Bernie in solid, it’ll be a massacre..

Nate Silver has reminded that Sanders has never been “punched” by the rightwing fear and hate machine. Just wait.

I can’t believe this is happening. Well, I can but this feeling of gathering horror and the numbing of the community spirit is horrible. We’re still in February and we’re already fucked. The Bataan death march begins today in Nevada.

I meant to tweet “dooming us all to 2nd Trump term.”

How progressive. https://t.co/jmoALtx6Ra

— Kim Masters (@kimmasters) February 22, 2020

In a chat with The Wall Street Journal‘s Tunku Varadarajan, Clint Eastwood has distanced himself from Donald Trump and allied himself with Michael Bloomberg.

Excerpt: “’The politics [have] gotten so ornery,’ Eastwood says. He approves of ‘certain things that Trump’s done’ but wishes the president would act ‘in a more genteel way, without tweeting and calling people names. I would personally like for him to not bring himself to that level.’ As he drives me back to my hotel, he expresses an affinity for another former mayor: ‘The best thing we could do is just get Mike Bloomberg in there.'”

Will Team Bloomberg make a political ad about this endorsement? Probably within 24 hours. Less?

Earlier today in Times Square, Rei Ami and her Bear & Owl management team (including Jett Wells) celebrated the launching of a huge digital billboard. Top Row: Gavin Pomerantz (Bear & Owl Mgmt), REI AMI (artist), Theo Feldman (Bear & Owl Mgmt.) Bottom Row: Sky McElroy (Bear & Owl Mgmt), Ryan Schwabe (mastering engineer for the song), Tom Michel (a.k.a. “Hazey Eyes”, Bear & Owl client), Jett (Bear & Owl mgmt.)

Three years ago my “U-turn the Titanic and head back to the iceberg” idea was dismissed by DimitriL:

“It likely wouldn’t have been feasible to get back to the iceberg,” he wrote. “Reports state that Titanic was going fast enough after it sideswiped the iceberg that it took a few miles to come to a complete halt. Even if they could’ve turned around (with a half-mile turn radius), they would have had to slowly backtrack in the dark with no radar. Doubtful.”

But my other suggestion still holds water. “If the crew had thrown the large banquet tables from the first-class dining room into the sea they could have been used as rafts for those who couldn’t fit into the lifeboats,” I pointed out. “The Titanic’s first-class area was full of wooden furniture that would’ve floated. Tables, bedframes, armoires, bureaus, etc.

Original post: “If the Titanic had turned around and sailed back to the fatal iceberg before stopping engines, a couple of hundred passengers could have been ferried from the sinking ship to the iceberg to wait it out until the Carpathia arrived. Yes, it would have been cold sitting on the iceberg but they would’ve survived.”

There’s nothing raw or natural or bracing about Call of the Wild, trust me. It’s a synthetic heartwarmer from top to bottom. Mostly “set” in the Alaskan wilderness described long ago by Jack London, it’s a cloying, patronizing, family-friendly CG-dog movie shot on Los Angeles-area sound stages.

If there was ever a film destined to receive a 20%-or-lower rating from Rotten Tomatoes, this was it. And yet, believe it or not, it currently has a 65% on Rotten Tomatoes — technically a failing grade but at the same time too kind.

Out of 110 RT critics, roughly 70 gave it a pass. In some cases because they sensed that families and their kids will flock to Call of the Wild this weekend, and they don’t want to sound like grouchy grumps. Many of these wave-it-on-through types are whores and cowards — no balls, no honesty, not much of a soul.

In the lead-up to the 1972 Democratic convention a loose coalition of moderates against the front-runner George McGovern emerged — they were dubbed “Anybody But McGovern.” In order to prevent a catastrophic Trump victory next November, left-moderate activists need to come together under a new banner — “Anybody But Bernie.”

Does anyone remember the smear slogan that Republican ratfuckers used against McGovern in the general campaign — “Acid, Amnesty and Abortion“? That will seem like chickenfeed compared to what the Trump machine will use in a few months against harumphy Bernie. They will slice and dice his ass into sashimi.

The Washington Post‘s Shane Harris, Ellen Nakashima, Michael Scherer and Sean Sullivan, posted at 1:16 pm: “U.S. officials have told Sen. Bernie Sanders that Russia is attempting to help his presidential campaign as part of an effort to interfere with the Democratic contest, according to people familiar with the matter.”

Presuming this information is valid, why would Vladmir Putin want to help Sanders? Let’s see, hold on, don’t rush me…uhm, could it be that Putin wants useful idiot Trump to win another term, and has calculated that Sanders is the easiest guy to beat from Trump’s perspective? I don’t want to go out on a limb but…

Clarifying: Putin doesn’t want Sanders to be elected President — he just wants Sanders to win the Democratic nomination.

Remember that earlier this week “a senior U.S. intelligence official said that Russia had ‘developed a preference’ for Trump in the 2020 campaign,” according to the Post. This assessment hugely pissed off Trump, resulting in him “lambast[ing] his acting intelligence director, Joseph Maguire, and DNI staff for sharing that information with lawmakers, believing that Democrats would use it to hurt Trump in the election,” the Post has reported.

As I began watching last night’s debate, I was nursing an idea that Michael Bloomberg, imperfect and brusquely billionaire-ish as he is, might begin to save the Democrats from nominating Bernie Sanders next summer and thereby going down to another terrible defeat. And now, surprisingly, I’m thinking Elizabeth Warren could possibly save us from that.

I know her levels of support aren’t anywhere near where they need to be among bumblefucks and that some felt she was too aggressive in her attacks on Bloomberg, but anyone would be better than Bernie…please. As much as I’m down with Bernie’s general approach and his overall character and decency, I can’t shake my primal fear about what will happen when he goes up against Trump. He’s somewhere between George McGovern and Jeremy Corbyn. God help us all.

HE to Parasite-Dissing Trump: “You’ve made me look bad by speaking ill of Parasite‘s Best Picture win…thanks. I don’t want to be on your side of any issue. It’s a terrible look. Besides you haven’t even seen it, for God’s sake — you just resent the idea of a South Korean film winning the top prize because it strikes you as un-American. But I guess I should be grateful you were speaking from ignorance. If you had seen it and complained that it was nonsensical for the drunken family of con artists to let the fired maid into the home during that rainstorm…if you’d said that I’d be in real trouble right now.”

HE to Trump About Gone With The Wind: “I’d also be in trouble if you said you really like Green Book. Thank you for not saying that and praising Gone With The Wind instead. Is it possible you never read Lou Lumenick’s seminal 6.24.15 piece that more or less equated Gone With The Wind with D.W. Griffith‘s Birth of a Nation? Or are you praising Gone With The Wind with the cynical knowledge that its romanticized view of the Old South is regarded as a hurtful relic of a dark era for African Americans? And that your followers…well, are more or less okay with that old-school, misty-eyed David O. Selznick memory?”