I’ve been sitting on a San Francisco-bound flight for the last four hours. Seat 28C, aisle. I feel like I’m in American-International’s adaptation of The Premature Burial, which starred Ray Milland. Can’t relax, stretch or sleep. Gogoinflight internet used to charge $29 and then $39 for full-flight service. Now these greedy pricks are charging $49, and for shitty wifi at that. Thumbs up!

What…this again? Liam Neeson apologizing again for that late ’70s racial-rage episode that he confessed to and apologized for after his remarks blew up on social media around seven weeks ago?

He’s probably been running into some serious casting shunnings over the last few weeks, hence his new re-apology.

On 2.5 I wrote that “public candor about private failings is not a wise policy in our current situation. You can’t say ‘I once succumbed to an urge to practice witchcraft back in the ’70s.’ To the Cotton Mather crowd that’s like saying you might put a hex on someone tomorrow.”

Neeson’s unfortunate recollection was part of an Independent interview that posted on 2.4.19.

Neeson said that he’d briefly succumbed to a surge of racially-focused rage after learning that a friend has been raped by a black dude. Neeson was in his mid to late 20s at the time. He maintained that his furious reaction was more generically tribal than anti-black — that he would have felt the same gut-level animosity “if she had said an Irish or a Scot or a Brit or a Lithuanian [had raped her]…[it] would have had the same effect.”

That explanation apparently didn’t cut it with the International League of Retroactive Racial-Attitude Correction, Fault-Finding and Stern Admonishment. And so Neeson is back on the p.c. carpet, kneeling and begging and weeping….”please, please, please.”

“Over the last several weeks, I have reflected on and spoken to a variety of people who were hurt by my impulsive recounting of a brutal rape of a dear female friend nearly 40 years ago and my unacceptable thoughts and actions at that time in response to this crime,” he said in a statement.

“The horror of what happened to my friend ignited irrational thoughts that do not represent the person I am. In trying to explain those feelings today, I missed the point and hurt many people at a time when language is so often weaponized and an entire community of innocent people are targeted in acts of rage.

“What I failed to realize is that this is not about justifying my anger all those years ago, it is also about the impact my words have today. I was wrong to do what I did. I recognize that, although the comments I made do not reflect, in any way, my true feelings nor me, they were hurtful and divisive. I profoundly apologize.”

I am so sick to death of hearing mature people of consequence apologize to the Cotton Mathers and Robespierre Committees for having done something wrong (i.e., behaved in a cruel manner or wrote something appalling or hair-trigger that doesn’t pass muster by current p.c. standards) when they were in their teens or 20s.

Almost everyone has one or two things in their immature past that they wish they hadn’t done. So here’s a one-size-fits-all apology that the next celebrity or politician can repeat when they get into trouble.

“Dear P.C. Commissars: I am truly sorry for having retroactively transgressed against or otherwise offended current p.c. values when I was in my teens or 20s. If I could return to that offense-giving moment via time machine, I would certainly not make the same error. I wish that my teenaged or 20something self could have summoned the wisdom and maturity that I now possess, but unfortunately it rarely works that way. Young hormonal types often do, say or write stupid things. I wish it were otherwise.

“But I also wish to say that as embarassed and mortified as I am by this decades-old error or shortcoming, the sum total of my regret and shame can’t begin to compare to the loathing and contempt that I hold for you and yours — the admonishing, politically correct, shrieking banshees of our time.

“In my humble judgment the group-think, finger-wagging, potentially-career-ruining admonishments and oppressions that you and and your fellow accusers occasionally issue about decades-old missteps are just as regrettable and perhaps even worse than the bad things that I was guilty of when young.

“I’m truly sorry for and ashamed of my youthful failings, but you guys, no offense, are hooded ogres, and if I could tie your hands and dunk you in a lake I would. Peace.”

Beto O’Rourke is hereby strongly advised to never again apologize for something bad he did in his youth. Explanations and regrets are obviously necessary and appropriate, but begging on your knees really doesn’t make it…”oh, please forgive me, I’m so very sorry, I was such a terrible flawed person before,” etc. Because people like me are SICK OF HEARING THIS SHIT.

I’ve just bought the very last Amazon copy of a DVD containing a 1.33:1 aspect ratio version of The Sting. Which I’ve never seen in my life. Every time I’ve watched this 1973 George Roy Hill classic it’s always been cropped to 1.85. As the film takes place in 1934 or thereabouts, a boxy aspect ratio (standard Academy ratio back then) is a perfect complement. Acres and acres of extra visual information (tops and bottoms)…I’ve already got the chills. The DVD in question was released in 2010.

Young Frankenstein, which also apes the mood and ambience of the early to mid ’30s, would have been another perfect boxy, especially in high-def. I’m not expecting to see any overhead boom mikes dropping into the frame — that’s a phony disinformation meme circulated by 1.85 fascists.

Note: Comparison shots stolen from DVD Beaver.

I don’t understand how Chicago cops could have announced last February that they had conclusive evidence against Jussie Smollett arranging to stage a racially-motivated attack with the help of two Nigerian brothers, and then a few weeks later prosecutors drop the whole thing and say “never mind”…the fuck?

I’m sorry but this feels like a fix, like some kind of back-room deal, like Chicago authorities just caved in the interest of…what, noblesse oblige?

All charges against Smollett were dropped this morning, but why? Are you telling me the evidence against him has been found to be bogus? Okay, maybe, but why were authorities convinced otherwise until this morning?

“After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his [$10K] bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case,” the state’s attorney’s office said in a statement this morning.

What the hell could community service and agreeing to forfeit $10K possibly have to do with anything?

If the evidence against Smollett is conclusive, then the prosecutors should proceed with the case. Right? If the Nigerian brothers lied and the whole case was bullshit, then folding their hand would be appropriate. But the facts had been vetted. It seemed as if Smollett was guilty. The cops were persuaded.

Ancient Chinese proverb: “Fish stinks from the head.”

How many have seen Walt Disney‘s original 1941 Dumbo? I did when I was seven or eight, something like that. That endearing scene in which tearful little Dumbo longs for his mom’s embrace after she’s been locked up for being a “mad” elephant…right? Then came my second immersion when I saw Steven Spielberg‘s 1941, which opened (good God) almost 40 years ago. That scene, I mean, when Robert Stack’s General Stillwell weeps while watching the locked-up-mom scene in a Hollywood Blvd. theatre.

Disney’s almost 80-year-old animation may seem a little crude by present-day standards, and the film only runs 64 minutes, but the original Dumbo (overseen by Walt and “supervising director” Ben Sharpsteen) emotionally works.

Dumbo‘s basic theme (first articulated in Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl‘s Dumbo, the Flying Elephant, a 1938 children’s book) is that young oddballs — anyone or anything perceived as “different” — are doomed to suffer at the hands of selfish, short-sighted humans. But if the little fella has some kind of inner gift or aptitude (like flying, say) and can somehow express it, the ugliness can be stilled to some extent. Or he can at least snuggle up with mom.

Tim Burton‘s big, over-produced, annoyingly simple-minded remake sticks to the same basic idea — i.e., oddballs can find light at the end of the tunnel if they can show a little moxie.

Burton takes a small, mostly sad little story — a big-eared baby elephant that can fly is separated from his mom, and has to learn to fend for himself — and basically throws money at it while adding nearly 50 minutes to the running time — 112 minutes vs. the original’s 64.

Okay, money and a really nice compositional eye, at least during the first half. The first 55 or 60 minutes of Dumbo are largely about old-worldish production design (by Rick Heinrichs, who worked with Burton on Sleepy Hollow) and Ben Davis‘s cinematography, which is really quite handsome. Within the first hour every shot is an exquisite, carefully lighted painting.

We’re talking about a small-scaled, old-fashioned, Toby Tyler-ish realm, owned and operated by the hucksterish but good-hearted Max Medici (Danny DeVito). A big canvas circus tent, wooden bleachers, peanuts and popcorn, lions and lion tamers, strong men and fat ladies…the kind of operation celebrated in Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Greatest Show on Earth (’52) and in Samuel Bronston‘s Circus World (’64).

But the second half — or when poor Dumbo’s life is darkened by Michael Keaton‘s V. A. Vandevere, a P.T. Barnum-meets-Beetlejuice figure who represents all kinds of venality, corporate greed and the seven circles of hell — the second half is just awful. The scale of Keaton’s super-circus (a Dante-esque amusement park called Dreamland) is oppressive. Watching this portion is a combination of (a) “villainy! vulgarity! greed!”, (b) “turn off the stupid spigots,” (b) “who wrote this godawful dialogue?” (answer: Ehren Kruger) and (d) “please burn it all down.”

The other day I riffed on the trailer for Noah Hawley‘s Lucy in the Sky (Fox Searchlight). It stars Natalie Portman as an astronaut who suffers some kind of emotional-spiritual crisis following a longish space voyage.

The emotional breakdown drama is “loosely” based on some real-life unhinged behavior (stalking and threatening a perceived romantic rival) by astronaut Lisa Nowak in early ’07.

The episode was prompted by the breakup of Nowak’s sexual relationship with fellow astronaut William Oefelein and more particularly by her discovery that Oelefein had become involved with another, somewhat younger woman named Colleen Shipman.

Oefelein and Shipman have been married since 2010. They live in Anchorage with a young son.

William Oefelein (middle), Colleen Shipman (right).

Nowak was initially arrested for an attempted murder of Shipman, but later pled guilty to a reduced charge of burglary and misdemeanor battery.

Three years ago Shipman spoke to People‘s Jeff Truesdell in an attempt to explain what had actually happened and to defend her husband from impressions that he had behaved like a rake.

Shipman tells Truesdell that her first meeting with Oefelein happened at a party in November ’06, at which time Oefelein, whose romantic relationship with Nowak had begun sometime in ’98 or thereabouts, had disengaged and was more or less free to cat around.

Truesdell reports that Oefelein and Shipman “exchanged phone numbers” as the party drew to a close, and that “the next night they went on a double-date for pizza and darts.”

Curious as this may sound, the reason I’ve written about this turbulent romantic triangle is the phrase “pizza and darts.”

Until I read the term in Truesdell’s article I’d never once heard it, much less gone on a “pizza and darts” date of my own.” I’m trying to imagine what kind of person would characterize a romantic date as being about eating pizza and playing fucking darts. I haven’t played darts in a bar in eons. Who regards the throwing of darts as an activity worthy of even an anecdote? And by the way, wouldn’t a more accurate description be pizza, darts and suds (i.e., beer)? Or pizza, darts and wine? Don’t you have to be half-bombed to even want to play darts in the first place?

I’m sorry but the whole thing has just blown my mind. Hollywood Elsewhere has never gone out for pizza and darts…not once, not ever. And I never will. But there are people out there who have.

Did Scott and Zelda, Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman, Jack and Jackie, Tomcat or Brangelina ever go out for pizza and darts? Has anyone of any consequence ever engaged in this activity as an object in or of itself? Is there anyone in the HE community who’s ever invited a would-be romantic partner for p & d? Has anyone ever heard the term before reading this article? I’m serious. I really want to know.

I’m disappointed. Make that damn disappointed. What semi-intelligent, fair-minded person wouldn’t be?

It seems to me that in observing the precise letter of the law and drilling only into possible proof of an actual, real-deal conspiracy to undermine the 2016 election by colluding with Russian operatives, Robert Mueller has seemingly sidestepped the basic overall, which is that President Trump is a malignant narcissist, an amoral sociopath and the head of a New York crime family, and that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything other than his own empowerment and/or his mushroom dick being sucked. And that before and after 1.20.17 he’s acted this way to the detriment of the country and that portion of the population (i.e., a two-thirds majority) that respects the law and various concepts of human decency.

Michael, a N.Y. Times commenter, posted a few minutes ago: “I’m not surprised absent a written directive from Trump, a recorded phone call, or someone close to the president willing to tell the truth under oath, that Mueller could not prove obstruction of justice or criminal conspiracy inside the campaign.

“However, as Barr and Mueller state, this does not exonerate him. There is too much circumstantial and incriminating evidence surrounding the president’s firing of Comey, the many meetings between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, to say ‘no collusion, no obstruction.’

“It was a huge mistake not to interview Trump under oath. I believe after the full report is issued, Congress needs to continue its oversight role that has only just barely begun. Important facts are waiting to be uncovered.

“This isn’t about optics — it’s about determining the integrity and/or duplicity of the man holding the highest office in the land.”

Laura, another Times commenter: “I’m just shocked. There’s no other word for it. As an avid follower of this whole sprawling Russia story over the last 2 years, I just don’t see how this is possible.

“There is just so much wrongdoing is plain sight — how can this be the outcome?

What about the Trump Tower meeting? And Kushner wanting to establish a back channel to Russia so US intelligence couldn’t listen to their conversations? And Trump trying to fire Sessions for not recusing himself? And the dozens of other examples of things just as corrupt, suspicious, and possibly illegal??

“Is Barr covering up for Trump? I don’t really think that, but it’s sort of the best idea I can come up with at the moment of why this is happening.

Hollywood Elsewhere offers sorrow and condolences to the friends, fans and colleagues of the great Larry Cohen, who died last night at age 77.

I first heard that Larry’s health was declining about three years ago, maybe four. I felt badly but when your number’s up, that’s it. All hail one of the nerviest screenwriters and greatest indie lowball exploitation filmmakers of the late 20th Century.

All aspiring Cohen-heads who haven’t yet seen Steve Mitchell‘s King Cohen need to do so right away.

I’m one of many critics and journalists who had a kind of chummy party-schmooze friend-o thing going with Cohen all through the ’80s, ’90s, aughts and teens…call it 35 years. Larry was on the screening-and-after-party circuit, and every time I ran into him it was always Larry and Laurene Landon, whom he’d had cast and directed in Full Moon High, I, the Jury and The Stuff. Larry and Laurene, Larry and Laurene, Larry and Laurene…years on end.

I called Laurene a couple of hours ago, looking to offer condolences. Her message box was at capacity.

I first met Cohen back in ’81, when I did a Film Journal article about how he’d been fired as director of I, The Jury, which starred Armand Assante. Written by Cohen, pic was a Manhattan-based adaptation of the famous Mickey Spillane novel. The story went that Cohen had openly questioned whether the producers (including Robert Solo) had the dough to finish the film; they apparently canned him out of anger and revenge.

A few weeks later Cohen was back at work on Q: The Winged Serpent, which turned out to be one of his loosest and most amusing…what, genre satires?

I became an arms-length admirer of Cohen in the mid ’70s. I didn’t get him at first. My first impression was that he was making low-budget exploitation schlock, It’s Alive (’74) and God Told Me To (’76) being my first two samplings. Clever stuff but not what anyone would call “serious.”

I finally got him after seeing Q, The Winged Serpent. It suddenly hit me that Cohen might be making dry exploitation film satires — that he might be playing it straight for the sake of his investors but was also “in on the joke.” Or something like that. Michael Moriarty descending into fits of giddy giggling as the serpent eats one of the bad guys….”Eat ‘um, eat’ um, eat ‘um!”.

Like many others I’ve been thinking about a seismic event happening tomorrow, which is basically the end of 20th Century Fox as we’ve known it for so many decades. It’s officially being absorbed (i.e., swallowed whole if being strategically maintained as a separate unit) by Disney on 3.20.19. By any measure a sad end of an era.

But of course, the 20th Century Fox brand had been eroding and diminishing for a long time. Which regime presided over the most bountiful or influential Fox heyday? The Daryl F. Zanuck era (20 years from the mid ’30s to mid ’50s)? The Alan Ladd, Jr. era of the early to late ‘70s? Or Bill Mechanic‘s reign (’94 to ’00)? The standard answer is to point to Zanuck’s as the greatest, but I have a special respect and affection for the Mechanic reign, perhaps because I personally lived through it as a covering journalist.

Mechanic-wise, most people would point to the following highlights: Titanic, Bulworth, Fight Club, Independence Day, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Mrs. Doubtfire, Speed, True Lies, Braveheart (co-production with Paramount), Cast Away, Boys Don’t Cry, There’s Something About Mary, Ice Age, X-Men, The Full Monty, Boys Don’t Cry and Moulin Rouge. Most of these were high concept, yes, but many were masterfully written, high-craft efforts about actual people and real-life capturings, which happened from time to time in those balmy days before the superhero plague.

Laddie highlights include Star Wars (’77) , The Empire Strikes Back (’80), Alien (’79), Julia (’77), The Towering Inferno (’74), The Omen (’76), Young Frankenstein (’74), Breaking Away (’79), Norma Rae, The Boys from Brazil (’78), The Turning Point (’77), An Unmarried Woman (’78), All That Jazz (’79), Silver Streak (’76), The Rose (’79), 9 to 5 (’80) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (’75).

The Zanuck films were primarily regarded as serious, socially reflective takes on the states of American being. Sone of the highlights included The Grapes of Wrath (’40), Song Of Bernadette (’43), The Ox-Bow Incident (’43), Laura (’44), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (’45), Gentleman’s Agreement (’47), A Letter to Three Wives (’49), Twelve O’Clock High (’49), Pinky (’49), All About Eve (’50), Twelve O’Clock High (’49), Viva Zapata (’52), The Robe (’53), Demetrius and the Gladiators (’54). Which others?

The TCM Classic Film Festival is hosting a special tribute to Fox’s fabled history on Saturday, 4.13. The copy doesn’t even allude to the fact that Fox has been eaten by Disney.

Mechanic remarks: “As with any studio, there were peaks and valleys. The Zanuck films were obviously distinctive within their realm. I thought Laddy left behind a good legacy, and felt that we restored some of the luster.

Not sure I have much more to say than what I already have. [Rupert] Murdoch never liked movies, and never cared to build the studio into anything other than a supply line for TV/cable (much like the streamers are doing), and thus dumped all the history unceremoniously and without a tinge of regret.”

The below frame capture is from a new trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Warner Bros., 5.3). I’ve posted two or three times previously about the fat Godzilla factor (the last one, “Reptilian Sumo Wrestler“, appeared on 12.10.18) but this is the first time I’ve seen a profile shot of the titular character in which you can literally spot a huge beer gut on the guy.

In the long history of monster movies, reaching all the way back to Harry Hoyt and Willis O’Brien‘s The Lost World, there’s never been a monster with a massive pot belly…never.

So I have to spell it out? On some level Godzilla: King of the Monsters is self-portraiture. Somebody on the team is projecting about contemporary American culture and how a significant portion of Millennials have become huge over the last 10, 15 years. Look at the original 1954 Godzilla — a monster who ate right and worked out.