…that whatBill MaherwastalkingaboutlastFridaynight is happening in schools? That it’s real? And that shaping the soft-clay minds of young kids on trans issues has become a mainstream public-school thing…stamped, signed and endorsed by the Democratic Party?
He really thinks all is well, and that my seconding whatMahersaidthenightbeforelast is…what, some kind of obsessive, fear-driven thing on my part?
I’m sorry but Hitchcock’s continuity person on NorthbyNorthwest should have been canned.
Terminationerror #1: Roger Thornhill’s scrawled message on the inside cover of his R.O.T. matchbook was composed within three lines, but when Eve Kendall reads it on the couch downstairs it has four lines.
Termination error #2: Severalmatches are missing when the message is initially written, but when Eve reads it the match supply is restored to full capacity.
Remember that Sylvester Stallone didn’t insult any TulsaKing background people totheirface. Nor did he share his reportedlyunkindcomments with various people on the Atlanta-based set.
According to Variety’s Kate Aurthur, Stallone shared said opinions only with director Craig Zisk, privately. The unspecified remarks made their way to Facebook via a second-hand eavesdropping — an overheard conversation that was passed along.
Is Stallone an elderly Republican tough guy who doesn’t adhere to woke social standards? Yes. Did he share views about allegedly unattractive extras that certain parties found offensive? Apparently. Should Stallone henceforth strive to share less ruthless opinions about the appearance of this or that coworker? Yeah, he should.
Friendo: “So Civil War is woke-infused propaganda masquerading as neutral drama. And the only ones calling it ‘even handed’ are likely woke as fuck. Correct?”
HE: Mostly correct, yes, although it’s not really “woke-infused propaganda,” although it could be so argued in certain respects.
My first major thought upon leaving the theatre last night was that the lying–by–omissiononthepartofmany if not most of theSouthbySouthwestcritics is fairly shocking. Some of those bastards flat–out lied through their teeth.
What the final third of Civil War boils down to is an anti-Trump and anti-MAGA jeremiad. The finale of AlexGarland’s dystopian war film really hates with a capital H, and you can’t help but admire it for not softening the tone or diluting the rage. Call it morally ironic if you want…I don’t care.
The ending is so arousing that I almost experienced a boner.
Apart from a curious, less-than-involving focus upon the two leading photo-journalist characters (Kirsten Dunst’s hard-bitten veteran and CaileeSpaeny’s young and emotionally-driven pup), the first two-thirds seem to be mostly even-handed and matter-of-fact in a BattleofAlgiers way.
But when the already notorious Jesse Plemonsscene (around the 60 or 65-minute mark) arrives, and especially when the big finale happens, it totally becomes a “hooray and goo-rah for the lefty rebels!” thing, and that’s all there is to it.
Okay, you can argue “but it’s full of tragedy and irony and horrible devastation so how can you call it a ‘hooray for the lefties!’ thing?” Yes, it is rife with somber, morally ambiguous irony, but Civil War certainly reveals its true colors at the end.
It also shows a certain significant character to be a weeping, whimpering coward, and I for one think it’s truly wonderful for this.
“Yes, there’s still a long way to go, and [there’ll be almost certainly] more horrendous shit to endure over the coming few years. But I genuinely believe we’ve seen the worst of it. In fact, I would say the scale of change has been quite abrupt.
“Something like Disney’s Strange World, released just over a year ago, would probably not be greenlit, produced or released today….”
Last night I watched episodes #6 and #7 of Steven Zallian’s Ripley, and what a soothing, transporting dream trip this series is…a silky and serene monochromesoulbath…a reminder of how much better life was and still is over there in certain pockets, and (this is me talking and comparing, having visited Italy six or seven times) what an ugly and soul-less corporate shopping-mall so much of the U.S. has become this century…the contrasts are devastating.
Ripley is an eight-episode reminder that there really is (or was during the mid-20th Century) a satorikindoflife to be found in parts of Italy and Sicily, better by way of simplicity and contemplation and quiet street cafes, better via centuries of tradition, pastoral beauty and sublime Italian architecture…grand romantic capturings of Napoli, Atrani (the same historic Amalfi Coast city where significant portions of Antoine Fuqua’s TheEqualizer3 were shot), Palermo, Venezia and Roma.
Life doesn’t have to be dreary and banal and soul-stifling, Zallian is telling us in part…you can find happiness standing downstream, as thegreat Jimi Hendrix once wrote, especially if you’re an elusive sociopath living on a dead guy’s trust-fund income and therefore not obliged to toil away at some sweaty, shitty-ass job to survive.
This Chanel Iconic Handbag spot is a tribute to Claude Lelouch‘s A Man and a Woman (’66). The dreamy mood, the black-and-white cinematography (although the original was shot in monochrome, sepia and color), Francis Lai‘s famous musical theme.
The stars of that 58-year-old romantic classic, Jean Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimee, were in their early-to-mid 30s when it was shot in ’65. Today’s Chanel costars, Brad Pitt and Penelope Cruz, are significantly older (60 and 49 respectively) and so the directors, Inez and Vinoodh, have digitally de-aged them.
I get the idea, of course, but Pitt doesn’t look like a 30something — he looks like a late 50something whose face has been almost totally erased, certainly of character. I like the slightly weathered, crinkly-eyed guy he played in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood better.
The author is Jessica Crispin, who runs a Substack blog called “The Culture We Deserve.”
It reminded me of a 2012 Toronto Film Festival screening of Joe Wright‘s Anna Karenina. I was sitting in the seventh or eighth row, and during the third act some uncouth animals began chuckling at an emotional scene that wasn’t in the least bit funny. I distinctly recall whipping my head around and glaring at them.
I generally hate groups of people who laugh loudly in any context outside of watching comedies. I can tolerate laughter but only in short bursts, and that means no shrieking. I can be walking down a Manhattan street and if a group of younger people start to shriek-laugh at something, I’ll immediately flinch and snarl to myself “those fucking assholes…why don’t they shut the hell up?”
The second-to-last paragraph in Crispin’s piece mentions that during a presumably recent screening of Blow-Up, people in the audience were cackling “at the mimed game of tennis, a group of people playing with an imaginary ball. It doesn’t get past me that [this is a] representation of atomization and isolation, the absolute inability to connect. The whoop of laughter is a signal to say ‘not me.’ And it’s pathetic because it suggests exactly the opposite.”
If I’d been at that Blow-Up screening I would’ve…okay, I wouldn’t have gotten up and thrown the remainder of my soft drink into the laps or faces of the chucklers — way too aggressive — but I definitely would’ve followed the chucklers into the lobby after it ended and politely asked, “Sorry to bother but if you don’t mind answering, what did you guys find funny about the silent tennis ball scene? I’m just curious because I’ve never heard a group of people laughing at it and I’ve seen Blow-Up several times. I mean, are you guys a new breed of some kind?”
I pretty much worshipped Louis Gossett, Jr. all my life, and I really wish I could have somehow seen him play “George Murchison” in the 1959 Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun,” when he was 23.
Gossett was arguably one of the handsomest actors to ever punch through to the big time, and definitely the best-looking and glowing-est actor of color within the frame of the 20th Century. And man, I sat up and took notice when I saw him in The Landlord, Skin Game (costarring with James Garner), The Laughing Policeman, The White Dawn and Sadat, the 1983 four-hour miniseries. Not to mention “Fiddler”in Roots.
And I really felt badly for the poor guy when he put on that lizard-skin makeup and costarred with Dennis Quaid in Wolfgang Petersen‘sEnemy Mine. which many were making jokes about as they left the Los Angeles all-media screening in late ’85. I remember exiting through the crowded middle aisle and doing my imitation of Gossett’s reptilian, gurgly-ass speaking voice.
But let’s cut to the chase. Gossett’s career-defining role was Marine Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in Taylor Hackford‘s An Officer and a Gentleman (’82), which landed him a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Peter Fonda‘s most famous line was “we blew it.” Clark Gable‘s was “frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Gossett’s was “I want your D.O.R….D.O.R.!” Foley is, was and always will be the greatest-of-all-time movie drill sergeant, and yes, that means he was better than Lee Ermey. Gossett was 45 or thereabouts when he gave that performance.
Gossett passed earlier today in Santa Monica at age 87.