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Last night I came upon an old NYC address book, circa 1980 and ’81. It was a replacement of an even better address book that I left in a phone booth just outside El Coyote. Four or five hundred names, street addresses, phone numbers, occasional commentary…all quaintly written with a pen. (I’m figuring the four-decades-old info couldn’t possibly apply in 2020…right?) And I was leafing through and feeling the vigor of those days. Yes, I was a shameless, never-say-die hound. But mostly I was terrified about money and worried about whether my meager writing skills would cut the mustard from a commercial standpoint, and what kind of life I might have in five, ten or twenty years. So I was poor and insecure and hugely intimidated, but somehow I had to keep going, keep pushing. Hence the necessary moxie of youth.

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We’ve now witnessed two recent episodes in which New and Old Guard journalists have been sharply at odds. Believers in wokester activist journalism, a Millennial and Zoomer thing that’s about exposing racism, pollution, corruption and all the other social ills and in some cases indicting and/or cancelling old-schoolers (and particularly Trump-aligned righties), have clashed with defenders of traditional liberal journalism — basically a generational rift.

Episode #1 was about wokester N.Y. Times staffers condemning the opinion section’s decision to publish a somewhat rash opinion essay by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton (“Send In The Military“) that basically said the military should be brought in to stop looters.

Wokester staffers tweeted that running the Cotton piece “puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger”…really? Most Americans believe that the looting has been horrible if not ruinous, and that it should be stopped one way or another.

N.Y. Times columnist Bari Weiss explains the clash as follows: “The civil war inside The New York Times between the (mostly young) wokes and the (mostly 40-plus) liberals is the same one raging inside other publications and companies across the country. The dynamic is always the same. The New York Times motto is ‘all the news that’s fit to print.’ One group” — the 40-plussers — “emphasizes the word ‘all.’ The other, the word ‘fit.'”

“The New Guard has a different worldview,” Weiss went on. “They call it ‘safetyism,’ in which the right of people to feel emotionally and psychologically safe trumps what were previously considered core liberal values, like free speech.”

Episode #2, which happened last night in Los Angeles, was about safetyism.

Variety editor Claudia Eller was forced to take a two-month administrative leave after a Twitter dispute with freelancer Piya Sinha-Roy about insufficient newsroom diversity. The flashpoint moment was when Sinha-Roy complained that “POC voices are constantly dismissed“, in response to which Eller took umbrage because she felt she and other Variety editors had conveyed an understanding of this complaint and a pledge to improve. “When someone cops to something why would you try and criticize them?,” she said to Sinha-Roy. “You sound really bitter.”

Eller surely understands that you can’t get into a Twitter dispute with any younger POC and hope to win the argument. Or at least, she surely understands that now.

American voters are starting to figure some things out also. Scratch an under-40 wokester-progressive and you may find an ideological Stalinist who’s convinced that change can’t happen without slapping a few people around or even deep-sixing them. A day or two ago I equated this crowd with Tom Courtenay‘s “Strelnikov” character in Dr. Zhivago. I’ve said 50 times that we’re living through a period that’s not unlike the French terror, at least within wokester circles.

We’re also living through a certain strain of liberal hypocrisy in which progressives had insisted for nearly three months that strict social distancing had to be observed for God knows how long. This was followed by the partial collapse of social distancing (certainly among protestors) when it came time to march against systemic racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

Drive though any major city now and you’ll see a whole lot of storefronts covered with plywood, plywood, plywood. Caused by looters but also by the George Floyd protestors who’ve given them cover. What kind of impact is this going to have on Average Joe voters? The vast majority is appalled by racially-driven police brutality and support the demonstrations, but at the same time they don’t like the way plywood has totally taken over.

What would be the right proportional makeup of a properly diverse newsroom, by the way? Should the racial makeup of a newsroom reflect last year’s U.S. census figures, which stated that whites comprise 60.4% of the population with other tribes close to 40% (African Americans 13.4%, Hispanic-Latino 18.3% and Asians 5.9%, etc.). Or is journalism a different kettle of fish? How should it work exactly?

In my view, Weiss is one of the few serious truth-tellers within the N.Y. Times community when it comes to wokesters vs. traditionalists.

I recently fell in love with an HE-thread comment about “lily-white anarchist cosplay riotbros**,” but now I can’t find the source. Either way this two-day-old CBS News story about a white Chicago guy, Timothy O’Donnell, having been popped for setting fire to a Chicago Police SUV in the Loop district last weekend fits the profile perfectly.

Because O’Donnell was wearing a Joker mask while igniting the vehicle, and was photographed in the act. A telltale neck tattoo (“PRETTY”) led to his arrest.

It would appear, in short, that O’Donnell was inspired as much by Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix as the murder of George Floyd and the nationwide protests that followed, if not more so. The basic anarchist impulse was fueled, of course, by nearly three months of quarantined isolation. Without covid would street insurrections still be happening as we speak? Doubtful.

Poor Chicago…just starting to reemerge from quarantine a couple of weeks ago, only to be trashed and plywood-shuttered by the protests and especially by the looters. Same goes for Los Angeles, New York…all over, right?

Timothy O’Donnell in Joker mask.

Apparently lighting police van last Saturday.

** “Riotbros” being from the same temperamental family previously identified as “virusbros” and “Berniebros.”

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A June 3rd Guardian photo essay is celebrating the re-opening of Paris cafes.

Copy: “In Paris, contented customers sit outside cafes and sip their morning espressos for the first time in 11 weeks. There are, however, strict rules: bars and restaurants have permission to sprawl across pavements but tables must be one meter apart. In the rest of France, customers can now be served inside while observing the same distance.”

The Guardian‘s photographer is identified as “Martin” of AFP/Getty Images.

These photos literally melted me down. From ’07 to ’19 I was able to downshift and decompress in Paris (or Rome, Prague. Munich or Belgrade) following the Cannes Film Festival, and 2020 was the first time since the late George W. Bush administration that I was unable to do that.

These pics remind me that sipping cappuccino on a Paris sidewalk adjacent to a busy cafe or brasserie (early morning, late afternoon, evening) is one of the most gloriously alive activities available to human beings on the planet earth.

I’m not disputing the presence of a gay erotic current in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. But I worked as a freelance publicist for this film in the summer and fall of ’85, and I don’t remember the slightest remark at the time by any New Line staffers about Mark Patton (who was 25 or 26 at the time) being any kind of scream queen. Nobody said zilch about this, and the people I worked with in New Line publicity and marketing were very sharp and super-opinionated about everything.

From “Brief Shining Moment of Freddiemania,” posted on 1.17.15: “I’d like to take a brief bow for my efforts as a freelance public relations guy for New Line Cinema in ’85 and ’86, and particularly my promotion of Jack Sholder‘s A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, and even more particularly the semi-phenomenon known as ‘Freddiemania,’ which originated with spottings of movie fans dressed as Freddy Krueger a la Rocky Horror for midnight showings of Wes Craven‘s A Nightmare on Elm Street (’84).

“There weren’t that many Freddy freaks to be found, to be perfectly honest, but it was an interesting and amusing enough story to persuade Entertainment Tonight and the N.Y. Times and other big outlets to run pieces on it and to speak with Sholder (who later directed The Hidden, one of the finest New Line films ever made) as well as Freddy himself, Robert Englund, with whom I became friendly and hung out with a bit. (Producer Mike DeLuca was a 20 year-old New Line assistant at the time.) One of my big Freddy promotional stunts was persuading Englund to march in New York’s Village Halloween Parade on 10.31.85 from Houston Street up to 14th or 23rd or something like that.”

I also wrote about this period in “New Line Memories,” posted on 3.3.08.

Directed by Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen, Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street is currently streaming on Amazon. It’ll also be released on SHUDDER, the horror streaming service, on 6.4, or two days hence.

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Best protest moment since the tragic death of George Floyd? Certainly one of them.

Cheers rose up from the crowd as these dudes rolled up. Clip-clip-clip-clop. pic.twitter.com/x1h8UpmyQy

— Mike Hixenbaugh (@Mike_Hixenbaugh) June 2, 2020

The trailer for Derek Wayne Johnson‘s 40 Years of Rocky: The Birth of a Classic, which is narrated by Sylvester Stallone, seems to be mostly about the making of the original Rocky. That 1976 Oscar winner was the only “pure” entry in the long-running franchise — the only one that got everything right and a film which everyone still loves or at least likes.

The doc’s title, however, suggests that the long-running Rocky franchise (eight films including the original) will be explored. Which would be a shame. There’s nothing glorious or heart-warming about several attempts to make more money off a popular brand.

There have been seven cash-in sequels since John Avildsen‘s Rocky, written by and starring Stallone, opened on 11.21.76. The sequels are Rocky II (’79), Rocky III (’82), Rocky IV (’85), Rocky V (’90), Rocky Balboa (’06), Creed (’15 — a franchise redefiner that was almost as good as the original), and Creed II (’18).

Stallone played Rocky Balboa (a name inspired by the real-life Rocky Graziano and inspired by Robert Wise‘s Somebody Up There Likes Me) in all eight films. He wrote seven of the eight and directed four of them.

40 Years of Rocky: The Birth of a Classic will be available on-demand as of Tuesday, 6.9.

The doc features heretofore unseen pre-production and principal photography footage shot by Avildsen and others.

Charles Laughton’s Sir Wilfrid Robarts on yesterday’s bible photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church: “My Lord, I would also remind my learned friend that President Trump has lived such an arrogant and deplorable life, told so many lies and violated so many solemn oaths that I am surprised the Testament did not leap from his hands when he posed with it before the cameras.”

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Last night I was browsing through some HBO Max films, and was startled to discover that the boxy (1.37:1) version of Stanley Kubrick‘s Full Metal Jacket (’87) is being HD streamed. Which is certainly cause for celebration.

One, I hadn’t watched this version of FMJ since the early aughts, or soon after the release of the 2001 “Kubrick Collection” DVD version, which was mastered in 1.37:1. Two, until last night I’d never seen the boxy version in 1080p HD, as the ’01 DVD was naturally presented in 480p. And three, Kubrick preferred the boxy version to the cleavered 1.85, which is how 99.5% of the home viewing public has seen this Vietnam War classic.

Full Metal Jacket as it currently appears on HBO Max, with a 1.37:1 aspect ratio.

Same scene within the standard 1.85 a.r., which is how almost everyone has seen Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 Vietnam War classic over the last 15 or 20 years, give or take.

HE is advising all HBO Max subscribers to stream the boxy FMJ as soon as possible before it disappears. Because the sworn enemies of “boxy is beautiful” will be doing everything they can to erase this version, despite the fact that Kubrick personally preferred it.

Seriously, hurry. If I know Bob Furmanek and the 1.85 fascist cabal they’ll soon be hounding HBO Max to swap out the boxy with the 1.85. These guys are fanatics. They hate boxy and will stop at nothing.

Perhaps someone on the HB0 Max tech team made a “mistake” in uploading the boxy version, but it’s a good mistake, trust me.

Consider the following 2008 DVD Talk interview with longtime Kubrick employee and collaborator Leon Vitali, in which he explains Kubrick’s visual aesthetic:

DVD Talk: “One of the areas of greatest debate in the DVD community is about aspect ratios. The two films that people talk about the most in terms of aspect ratio are Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut, maybe because those are the ones that have been seen theatrical by the DVD buying audience. But people will go through [these films] frame by frame and say ‘in the trailer of Eyes Wide Shut, you can see a sign on the street that you can’t see on the full frame video. You can see an extra character.’ So how do you address the differences between the theatrical releases of Eyes Wide Shut and of Full Metal Jacket in the DVD releases?”

Vitali: The original video release of Full Metal Jacket was in the supervised hands and owned by Stanley. The thing about Stanley, he was a photographer. That’s how he started. He had a still photographer’s eye. So when he composed a picture through the camera, he was setting up for what he saw through the camera — the full picture. That was very important to him. It really was. It was an instinct that never ever left him.

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The chaos, looting and anarchy that I saw first-hand on Melrose Ave. an hour ago (including a small fire just east of Fairfax that was being put out) had nothing, repeat, nothing to do with the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last Monday. It was a “get all you can” free-for-all.

Mostly I saw Average Joes with vaguely alarmed expressions standing around and eyeballing the destruction, but here and there I saw teenaged and 20something POCs in masks and hoodies grabbing all they could. Madhouse looting, small stores.

Way to go, guys! — raise high the flag of freedom. Donald Trump says “thanks!”

If poor George Floyd is watching from above, it’s a safe bet he’s feeling a mixture of shame and disgust. (Thanks to the fearless Tatiana Antropova for taking most of these stills and videos.)

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Last night I got suckered into sampling HBO Max on a trial basis (no billing until June 5). The fairly immense library melted me down. Five minutes after signing up I decided to watch David Lean‘s Summertime (’55), which I’d never seen in HD before.

A concise story of a 40ish unmarried woman from Ohio (Katharine Hepburn) enjoying her first visit to Venice, Italy, and then falling in love with a covertly married native (Rossano Brazzi), Summertime is a swoony, Technicolor dreamboat dive into the charms (architectural, aromatic, spiritual) of this fabled city.

The cinematography by Jack Hildyard (The Bridge on the River Kwai) is perfectly framed and lighted, and the fleet cutting by Peter Taylor ensures that each shot is perfectly matched or blended with the next.

A cleavered 1.85 image of Summertime vs. the 1.37 version.

But I was especially pleased by the 1.37:1 aspect ratio and all the extra glorious headroom that comes with that. It goes without saying that I was also delighted by the fact that a few years ago 1.85 fascist Bob Furmanek had expressed profound irritation with Summertime‘s boxiness. I’ve read that Lean preferred the 1.37 version over the cleavered 1.85 version, which is what Furmanek and his fascist allies reflexively wanted to see.

Furious, fuming Furmanek = ecstatic HE.

Seven years ago David Brayton explained the whys and wherefores on alternateending.com:

“David Lean professed a preference for the 1.37:1 open matte version, giving it the fairly inarguable aura of authorial intent. Looking at the film, I think it’s pretty obvious why he felt this way. Simply put, the 1.85:1 version of the movie is about people while the 1.37:1 version is about Venice. As a direct result of shooting this movie, Lean fell in love with Venice for the rest of his life. [It seems apparent that] he preferred the version that showed off the city to greater effect for that reason.”

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I just hope that all of the building fires and shattered windows and tear gas pellets that rocked so many cities on Friday night don’t wind up scaring the weak of heart and seekers of order into voting for The Beast a few months hence.

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