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The differences between the internals (political allegiances, character, guiding philosophy, ethics) of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and ’50s-era Senate Majority Leader (and then Vice-President and U.S. President) Lyndon B. Johnson are stark.

During his mid ’50s to mid ’60s heyday Johnson was a tough and wily politician who pushed through progressive legislation.

Since he became Majority Leader in early ’15 McConnell has done nothing of significance except (a) block Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, (b) block pretty much all legislation that doesn’t serve corporate interests and (c) serve the agenda of an Oval Office sociopath.

For most of his Congressional political career Johnson hid his liberal-moderate colors while being fairly unscrupulous in his pursuit of naked power.

McConnell, on the other hand, has shown himself to be an absolute reptile — a hollow, soulless operator without beliefs, as Jane Mayer’s 4.12 New Yorker profile (“How Mitch McConnell Became Trump’s Enabler-in-Chief“) points out in elaborate detail.

Every day McConnell coughs up hairballs of cynicism and serves the agenda of the most dangerous president in the history of this nation.

But I have to say (and it gives me no pleasure to do so) that while reading Mayer’s piece I was reminded of descriptions of Johnson in Dave Grubin‘s American Experience doc “LBJ” — descriptions offered by former aides and friends during Johnson’s Senate Majority days.

Howard Schuman, U.S. Senate Aide: “Well, one doesn’t know whether he was a liberal or a reactionary. Probably he was neither. He probably was just an extraordinarily skillful parliamentarian who was an opportunist and who sensed the wind and then went in that direction.”

Ronnie Dugger, LBJ Biographer: “…the absolutely unqualified opportunism of a successful politician of this particular mold.”

John Connally, LBJ Campaign Aide, LBJ Advisor: “He had no interests, really, except politics. That was his whole life. He was totally committed to it. He never read anything except politics. He didn’t care about any sports. He didn’t read any books. I don’t know of one book he read in all the years I’ve known him.”

Joseph Rauh, Jr., Americans for Democratic Action: “My opinion was that he was destroying the Democratic Party and not doing his job. His job was the opposition to the Eisenhower Administration and he didn’t do it. They were just playing hanky-panky with each other and there was really no Democratic opposition.”

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With nothing much to say, a couple of shots from earlier today plus 17 or 18 images of life as it was not long ago…pre-masks, pre-surgical gloves, pre-incessant hand washings, etc.

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I was reminded this morning by the occasionally irritating “Bruce Taking A Nap” that I’d never posted a review of Michael Winterbottom‘s Greed (Sony Pictures Classics, 2.28).

Reply: Good heavens! I saw Winterbottom’s reasonably well-made, generally respectable one-percent satire around 2.20. I didn’t just “forget” to review it. I wasn’t that deeply stirred, you see, and somehow it slid to the side. I’m nonetheless sorry for dropping the ball. Not cool, profound apologies to Michael and Tom, won’t happen again.

Steve Coogan plays Sir Richard McCreadie, a super-rich, Philip Green-resembling garment industry titan who ruthlessly exploits the Indian labor market by insisting on paying less than $4 or even $3 per day for sewing-machine sweatshop workers (location unspecified but think Myanmar or Bangladesh).

I found it hard to get it up because I had determined that Greed was a decent but somewhat minor effort — emphasis on the “somewhat” as it hits what it’s aiming at. The Rotten Tomato rating was nonetheless 48%.; Metacritic was 52%.

I was partly influenced by the fact that Greed had screened at the Toronto and Santa Barbara Film Festivals without generating what I would call significant heat. The promotional lead-up to the U.S. opening was accompanied by a certain lack of hoopla, and I somehow allowed my attention to wander and wither.

I wasn’t shocked to learn once again that certain garment industry titans (like Zara’s Amancio Ortega and H&M’s Stefan Persson) have become multi-billionaires off the backs of hand-to-mouth Indian workers. I was a wee bit underwhelmed, I suppose, when I realized early on that the basic thrust of Greed was to say this over and over again — i.e., that McCreadle (who has huge, show-white teeth) is an insanely greedy prick. Yes, agreed, he is that…and that’s it? Yes, the basic idea.

Greed isn’t a drama or a comedy as much as an instructional one-note satire.

I suppose I didn’t feel that repeatedly making this point was enough. But within this parameter, Greed is a reasonably good film in a Michael Winterbottom sort of way. Seriously. I know what this review sounds like, but I’m not putting it down. Not really, I mean.

Posted on 6.29.15: The other day a friend mentioned a pending high-school reunion. Okay, fine, I wanted to say, but if you were fundamentally unhappy and occasionally miserable in high school (as many of us were, and as I definitely was), you’ll need to stash that history in your locker and keep it there until the reunion is over.

Reunions tend to remind a lot of us what a regimented environment and cultural concentration camp high school was. Most of us only realize this after we’ve found our footing as adults. I was lost but now I’m free, or certainly a lot freer.

My high-school years didn’t feel “miserable” in an unmistakable, lemme-outta-here sense; the unhappiness I lived with seeped into my system in a hundred subtle ways. I was so down it looked like up to me. All of it. I didn’t expect any semblance of “happiness,” but I was hoping all the time that life might eventually become less grueling.

I wasn’t anti-social but I didn’t party and run around all that much until my senior year, and once that phase kicked in I became a madman. The truth is that on a certain level I was a kind of functioning alcoholic (no serious behavioral problems but a few serpents under the surface) from my late teens until I quit the hard stuff in the mid ’90s. The real healing didn’t begin until I went sober in March 2012, or so I tell myself.

Before I socially flowered I watched a shitload of TV and listened to a lot of music and basically lived in my head. I was a secret genius who could potentially be persuaded to join the crowd, but no one ever asked. I know that my father’s alcoholism felt and smelled like mustard gas in our home, especially during dinner hour, and that my self-esteem was in the basement. I mostly felt apart, diminished and unworthy when it came to women. In school I didn’t do sports or join clubs or do anything extra-curricular except for detention.

My life didn’t really kick into gear until my mid 20s when the journalism started, and even that was agony until I became a half-decent writer and had learned the ropes and had gotten to know people, etc. Things didn’t actually kick into a good place (confidence, comfort, fair reward) until the online column era started, in late ’98.

Back to reunions: Everyone has a look of excitement and anticipation in their eye after they’ve graduated high school and are about to start college. The great adventure! When I attended my 25th celebration most of my ex-classmates had either surrendered that gleam or put it into a bureau drawer somewhere. To me they looked sedate, staid, settled. All except for a small fraternity, which I estimated to be maybe 5% of the crowd. X-factor types with a semblance of life in their veins. Looking for action, adventure, the next discovery.

Sinclair Lewis said the following to his high-school class at a reunion in the ’20s: “When we were young most of you didn’t give a shit about me, and now that we’re older I don’t give a shit about you.”

That’s obviously an ungracious thing to say in any social circumstance, and especially to ex-classmates. I would never go there, but I have to admit that I understand the urge.

The legendary Brooklyn-born caricaturist Mort Drucker has passed at age 91. Lower all flags to half mast. A seminal 20th Century figure is no more.

If you grew up on MAD magazine (or came to admire if after the heyday of the ’50s, 60s and ’70s) you certainly worshipped Drucker, who was arguably the greatest illustrator in MAD‘s history (he worked for the publication for 55 years) as well as one of the most distinctive pen-and-ink maestros of the mid to late 20th Century.

Either you understood how good Drucker was or you didn’t. There’s no amount of copy that could change anyone’s perception of the man.

Speaking of copy, the admiration I’ve always had for Drucker’s MAD material never extended to the dialogue boxes. For the satirical copy was never that hip. More often than not the tone of the written material was actually kind of harumphy, lamenting, conservative. Which was noteworthy for the ’60s and ’70s when upheaval was the rule. Boiled down, the copy always said “look how this or that movie or TV show is somehow degrading or diminishing the social fabric…look how good moral values are waning or evaporating.”

Drucker’s explanation of his approach: “I’ve always considered a caricature to be the complete person, not just a likeness. Hands, in particular, have always been a prime focus for me as they can be as expressive of character as the exaggerations and distortions a caricaturist searches for. I try to capture the essence of the person, not just facial features.

“I’ve discovered through years of working at capturing a humorous likeness that it’s not about the features themselves as much as the space between the features. We all have two eyes, a nose, a mouth, hair, and jaw lines, but yet we all look different. What makes that so is the space between them.”

Wiki excerpt: “When MAD magazine’s parody of The Empire Strikes Back was published in 1980, drawn by Drucker, the magazine received a cease and desist letter from George Lucas‘ lawyers demanding that the issue be pulled from sale, and that MAD destroy the printing plates, surrender the original art, and turn over all profits from the issue.

“Unbeknownst to them, Lucas had just sent MAD an effusive letter praising the parody, and declaring, ‘Special Oscars should be awarded to Drucker and DeBartolo, the George Bernard Shaw and Leonardo da Vinci of comic satire.”

“Publisher Gaines mailed a copy of the letter to Lucas’ lawyers with a handwritten message across the top: ‘That’s funny, George liked it!’ There was no further communication on the matter.”

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I don’t know who started this “which Best Picture Oscar winners would you like to be imprisoned with for the rest of the pandemic?” torture game (was it Sasha Stone?) but almost all nine groups have at least one stinker or killjoy. On top of which there’s no better way to learn how to despise good films than to watch them under these ghastly circumstances (forced confinement, lethargy, isolation, slow-boiling rage).  The ixnays are as follows:

House 1:  Re-watching The Artist is out of the question for the rest of my life as well as the lives of my two sons.

House 2: No way will I watch Forrest Gump again.  Ditto Chicago.

House 3:  15 years since I’ve seen Crash…I dunno.  I could watch Midnight Cowboy and The Godfather, Part II over and over.

House 4:  The killers are Chariots of Fire and, to a lesser extent, The English Patient.

House 5:  I’ve watched Parasite twice, thanks.  I can’t sit through that rainstorm sequence again.  The one in which they let the former maid into the home while they’re drunk and off-balance.

House 6:  Around The World in 80 Days, obviously.

House 7:  Driving Miss Daisy is a no-go.

House 8:  It might be interesting to watch Gigi again, but Return of the King is out.

House 9:  The top four are great, but Slumdog Millionaire is refused because of that awful game-show host — it makes my skin crawl just to think of that guy.

Home video-wise, Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma will never look better than it does on Netflix — HD, grain-free, super-detailed. I therefore had no interest in the recently released Criterion Bluray version. But last night I watched a 72-minute making of doc called “Road To Roma“, which was featured on the Criterion disc and is now streaming on Netflix. Lo and behold, my dream of seeing a color version of Cuaron’s masterpiece was finally realized, or at least partially.

Road to Roma is about Cuaron recalling how he pieced together thousands of bits of memory from his early childhood in order to make Roma come alive. The Oscar-winning helmer was incredibly specific and dogged in recreating the 1970 and ’71 world of Mexico City, and this aspect in itself is fascinating.

But after watching and adoring the black-and-white version four or five times in 2018, I began to long for a color version. A voice was telling me that an extra dimensional realism — a certain au natural textural factor — could be savored if it could somehow be seen without the silver monochrome application, which struck everyone as quite beautiful but also (at least in my case) a tiny bit affected — a visual scheme that proclaimed “arthouse!”

Road to Roma allowed me to taste the alternate color version — that’s all I’m saying. And it was very nice.

Yes, I still maintain that the TV screen image tweeted by Monica Castillo looked like a color facsimile. No, not the reflection of amber Christmas lights, but the somber blue-gray tones, which obviously contrasted with the black-and-white version.

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Four and 1/2 years ago I posted a Vimeo embed of Adrien Dezalay, Emmanuel Delabaere and Simon Philippe‘s “The Red Drum Getaway.”

For some obscure but logical reason it began attracting fresh eyeballs sometime yesterday. “Wow! This is fabulous,” “Great job, sir!,” “Trippy,” etc. The always alert Sasha Stone, never one to surf behind the eight ball, sent me a link this morning.

Yes, of course — at the very end that’s the lifeless body of Scotty Ferguson lying in front of the apes.

And yet now that I’ve watched it yet again, the only thing I would change is to end it at 2:37.

Blackfilm‘s Wilson Morales called yesterday to see how I’m doing, etc. Hanging in there, glad to be healthy and doing my best, I said. That includes doing my best to not feel morose, I qualified. Wilson said I need to stop writing so much about the virus. I’m trying like hell to write about anything movie-ish that pops into my head, I said, but I don’t see how I can avoid the spiritual equivalent of the 1930s Dust Bowl right outside my door. It’s like the Martians have landed.

Write about Quibi, he said. The short-form video platform launches tomorrow (4.6) and PMK is sending out loads of screeners, etc. “Good idea,” I said, although inwardly I was tailspinning into depression. I mean, I didn’t get into racket to write about ten-minute shorts.

Wilson also had some strategic marketing advice, which was to work the big streamers (Quibi included) for ads until award season kicks in. They all have to do something to excite the locked-down viewer base in this bizarre time-out period, and are probably open to focusing on conversation-starter sites like HE. Particularly in the realm of prestigious miniseries like FX’s Mrs. America, which I plan on watching tomorrow or Tuesday.

The conversation strayed to Oscar season and which early fall festivals might happen during what we all hope and pray will be the tail-end of the pandemic. We acknowledged that even if the virus begins to ebb sometime in June or July nobody is going to want to fraternize in close proximity in northern Italy, the #1 death camp locale before the United States and particularly the New York City area took over in that regard.

Bottom line: forget the Venice Film Festival right now.

What about Toronto? Also doubtful, it seems. Ditto the New York Film Festival (late September to mid October), but who knows? After practicing social distancing for a half year with masks and gloves who in their right mind would want to parachute into a dense urban environment with mobs of film lovers, tightly packed theatres and nightly social gatherings?

The smaller, eternally cooler Telluride Film Festival might work out, at least theoretically. Especially if Tom Luddy and Julie Huntsinger are extra careful about not allowing each and every seat to be occupied and are perhaps even open to staging the festival a week or two later than usual, especially if the coronavirus fade doesn’t begin until July or, God forbid, early August.

The Hamptons Film Festival could also happen for the same reason — smaller, less threatening in terms of crowds, presumably more flexible. Ditto the London Film Festival (early to mid October)

Will Oscar season happen? If the pandemic lifts when it probably will, yes. Certainly! But with some big summer films getting bumped into the fall as we speak (including Top Gun: Maverick, No Time To Die and Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch with Chris Nolan‘s Tenet sure to follow) it’s going to be a hell of a jam-packed season.

In a piece titled “Oscar Contenders in 2020 Must Face a Complex and Uncertain Path to Success“, Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson says the following:

“Festivals play an enormous and vital role in establishing and vetting award-season contenders. How will foreign films become viable awards candidates without them? When will films open in their countries and build some kind of following?

“Of course, we do not know where the world will be in late August (Venice) or Labor Day (will sleepy Telluride, Colo. welcome intruders from the coasts?) or September (will industryites be willing to fly to Toronto or New York?) or October (the Hamptons, London?).

“It’s easier to imagine local festivals playing to their home audiences than pulling in buyers and sellers from around the world, although that’s an urgent necessity for the global film market, especially without Cannes.”

An attorney friend called me this afternoon. I asked what he was up to, and he said, “I’m just doing my drive…it makes me feel free.” I think you’ve just coined a term, I said. Pandemic freedom driving! Or just plain freedom driving, I guess.

Obviously not an option for most New Yorkers, Chicagoans and Bostonians, but certainly for Los Angelenos.

I’ve been in this town 37 years, and I’ve never once jumped into the car or hopped on the rumblehog with the intention of just cruising with no game plan, and before the mob pounces I want it understood that I haven’t done this yet.

But if my attorney pal is doing this I’m figuring a thousand or ten thousand others are following suit.

HE to “Virusbro” scolds: Is there something wrong or irresponsible about roaming the streets and freeways of Los Angeles with no destination in mind and with no intention of going or stopping anywhere (except maybe a gas station)…to hop in and drive around town like Randy Newman in ’83, but wearing an N95 mask and surgical gloves?

I’m sure there’s something shitty and deplorable about this. C’mon…lay it on me.

This scene is what sold me on Leonardo DiCaprio‘s potential. Not This Boy’s Life or What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, both of which I respected but didn’t especially like, much less want to see a second time. His performance as Arnie was fascinating but at the same time over-delivered, and I couldn’t stand the sight of his (and Johnny Depp‘s) massively obese mom. The Quick and the Dead struck me as posturing flash-bang. Then came The Basketball Diaries, in which Leo played poet-writer Jim Carroll (who died in 2009) and his desperate, smack-addicted life. After this scene I said to myself, “Okay, sooner or later Leo’s gonna hit big.”

HE to Journo Pally: I’m starting to feel like the alcoholic guy sitting on a barstool inside the Bodega Bay cafe in The Birds. I’ve also become, in a manner of speaking, a born-again Christian. As in “please God, make this thing go away by the mid to late summer, or certainly by Labor Day.”