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There have been three Children of the Damned films — Wolf Rilla’s 1960 British-produced feature, a 1964 sequel called Children of the Damned and John Carpenter‘s 1995 remake of Rilla’s original, which was based upon John Wyndham‘s “The Midwich Cuckoos,” a 1957 novel.

The Rilla isn’t anyone’s idea of a knockout, but it’s still the best, I think. Those glowing eyes and white-blonde hairdos, and those wonderfully crisp, steady-as-she-goes black-and-white compositions from dp Geoffrey Faithfull. The film serves as a metaphor, of course, for how older establishment types sometimes regard younger generations with disdain and repulsion, and sometimes even fear or panic. These aren’t our children — they look and behave like aliens.

Socrates and others of his generation felt this way about teenagers, of course, and this is definitely how the WWII generation saw stoned, shaggy-haired ’60s counterculture types in the late ’60s and early ’70s. I don’t see Millennials or GenZ-ers as especially odd or alarming because I’m an enlightened X-factor fellow with a background in authority-defying and psychedelic mysticism, but I do regard the brah culture uniform with absolute horror.

A respected Village of the Damned Bluray popped a week ago, and is available to stream.

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Gunshot squibs are little micro-explosive devices that leak or spray dark-red glop to indicate that a character has been shot. They’re been used by filmmakers for the last half-century or so. The first time I noticed them was during the machine-gun slaughter scene at the end of Bonnie and Clyde. Since the early ’80s I’ve been on dozens of film sets and talked to two or three guys who knew all about squibbing, but I never once heard about squibs being activated by crew guys pulling on fly-fishing lines. These were apparently used in the gangland massacre of Sonny Corleone scene in The Godfather. It seems kind of silly to yank on two or three fishing lines in order to make a bullet hole or two appear. With the sound of rattling gunfire and the screaming and abundant bleeding and the fast cutting who’s going to notice if a little black hole or two suddenly appears on James Caan‘s face? Nobody.

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Supporting HE excerpt #1: “Here is reason #1 why hinterland bubbas are squarely behind Donald Trump. Here are reason #2 and reason #3. They’re behind this megalomaniac because he’s leading the last-gasp charge in defense of a white heirarchy that ran the show as recently as 15 or 20 years ago. That era is over and the flannel-shirters who don’t have the right kind of skills for the 21st Century economy know it, but they’re nonetheless determined to go down swinging like Bill Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates at the end of The Wild Bunch.” — from “Bubba’s Hurtin’ Too Much To Care,” posted on 5.31.16.

Supporting HE excerpt #2: “Ever since the fall of 2016, when Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell privately turned down an Obama-administration proposal for a bipartisan warning to Russia not to interfere in the election, the underlying dynamic has been set: Most Republicans would rather win an election with Putin’s help than lose one without it.” — from Jonathan Chait’s 7.8.18 New York article, “Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart Or His Handler?”

Supporting HE excerpt #3: “Roy Moore: “The hand of God…providence…put Trump into the White House.” [Few seconds later] “You could say that America is the focus of evil in the world.’ Guardian: “For example?” Moore: “Same-sex marriage.” Guardian: “That’s what Putin would say.” Moore: “Maybe Putin is right.” — from “Alabama Recalcitrance,” posted on 12.10.17.

There was a lot of passionate talk on Facebook yesterday about Elia Kazan. It was partly inspired by a 35 year-old Jonathan Rosenbaum piece about Kazan that he re-posted a day or two ago. So much feeling, so many different currents and moods and conflicts…it was as if Kazan were still alive and kicking.

It all gradually led to a rewinding and a re-visiting of the most emotional journey into Kazan and his films that I’ve ever known — Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones‘ A Letter To Elia (’10).

“A Letter to Elia is a delicate and beautiful little poem,” I wrote that year. “It’s a personal tribute to a director who made four films — On The Waterfront, East of Eden, Wild River and America America — that went right into Scorsese’s young bloodstream and swirled around inside for decades after. Scorcese came to regard Kazan as a father figure, he says in the doc. And after watching you understand why.

“Letter is a deeply touching film because it’s so close to the emotional bone. The sections that take you through the extra-affecting portions of Waterfront and Eden got me and held me like a great sermon. It’s like a church service, this film. It’s pure religion.

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For years I’ve been hoping to see Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey projected in genuine IMAX. It was announced today that serious large-format presentations will finally happen on 8.24, or just over three weeks hence. The Hollywood Reporter‘s Pamela McLintock reports that four IMAX theatres (in Burbank, Manhattan, San Francisco and Toronto) will project the 1968 classic on what I presume will be titanic IMAX-sized screens.

The downside is that Chris Nolan‘s teal and yellow-tinted version, by any fundamental visual standard a vandalizing of Kubrick’s original 70mm presentation of the film (as this comparison reel makes clear), is the version that will be shown. McLintock reports that a “4K restoration” (i.e., Nolan’s version converted for an upcoming 4K Bluray) will be screened at “350 other IMAX locations,” many if not most of which will be fake IMAX screens.

You want irony? A video posted at the bottom of McLintock’s THR story, titled “2001: A Space Odyssey Anniversary / A Look Back”, shows scenes from the film that haven’t been Nolan-ized (i.e., aren’t tinted teal or piss-yellow).

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Remember the good old days (i.e., five years ago) when Tom Hardy‘s middle name wasn’t “paycheck” and he’d just blown everyone away with his quiet, less-is-more, totally-solo performance as a building contractor in Locke? Remember his performances in Warrior, The Revenant, Dunkirk, Legend, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Drop? Those were the days. Beware of director Ruben Fleischer, whom I loved after Zombieland (’09) but regretfully walked away from after Gangster Squad. Venom pops on 10.5.

I’m recalling a David Poland tweet from two or three days ago, one that predicted that the CBS board of directors wouldn’t oust chairman, president and CEO Les Moonves over the sexual harassment complaints contained in a recently published article by The New Yorker‘s Ronan Farrow. Or suggest a leave of absence or anything.

The thinking was that the alleged incidents (Ileana Douglas, et. al.) all happened in the ’90s and ’80s. Not to mention that Moonves, married since 2004 to Julie Chen, has been contrite, apologetic and diplomatic. There is irony in the fact that Moonves is a founding member of the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, formed in late 2017 to “tackle the broad culture of abuse and power disparity” but whatever.

The feeling among the board of directors, apparently, is that what happened in the ’80s and ’90s is distant water under the bridge.

11 days after Disney fired James Gunn off the third Guardians of the Galaxy installment for having posted vulgar tweets a decade ago, the cast — Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Sean Gunn, Pom Klementiff, Michael Rooker and Karen Gillan — has issued a statement that basically says they have Gunn’s back.

As I understand it, the cast is telling Disney they might not be willing to appear in Guardians of the Galaxy 3 unless Disney reconsiders and hires Gunn back. They’re not saying this in so many words, of course, but what’s the point of standing by Gunn unless they’re prepared to back this up with deeds?

“We fully support James Gunn,” the statement says. “We were all shocked by his abrupt firing last week and have intentionally waited these ten days to respond in order to think, pray, listen, and discuss. In that time, we’ve been encouraged by the outpouring of support from fans and members of the media who wish to see James reinstated as director of Volume 3 as well as discouraged by those so easily duped into believing the many outlandish conspiracy theories surrounding him.”

“His story isn’t over, not by a long shot,” the statement declares. If I’d had a hand in the writing of the statement, I would have said “not by a damn sight.” That sounds more Ving Rhames.

Five and one-third years ago Woody Allen saved George Stevens‘ Shane from an aspect-ratio slicing that would have rocked the classic cinema universe and resulted in a great hue and cry from the Movie Godz. When all is said and done and the Chalamets of the world have all been put to bed, this is one of the events that will burnish and solidify Allen’s legacy.

On 3.16.13 I revealed that George Stevens, Jr. and Warner Home Entertaiment restoration guy Ned Price were intending to release a Bluray of the classic 1953 western using a 1.66:1 aspect ratio, which would have cleavered the tops and bottoms of the original 1.37 photography by dp Loyal Griggs. I howled and screamed in my usual way, but nothing seemed to change until Allen, the only top-dog, world-class director to step into this fray, shared his opinion on 4.4.13.

On 3.29 I appealed for help from Martin Scorsese in an open letter. On 4.4 I posted the Allen letter. 13 days later Joseph McBride’s letter to Stevens, Jr., deploring WHE’s intention to present the film within a 1.66 a.r., was posted. Later that day Price threw in the towel and announced that WHE’s Shane Bluray would be released in the original 1.37 aspect ratio. I’ve long believed that Allen’s opinion was the crucial factor in rectifying this situation.

Three versions of Shane were included in a 2015 Masters of Cinema Bluray (Griggs’ original 1.37:1 capturing on disc one + 1.66:1 theatrical presentation + an alternate 1.66:1 framing optimized for this ratio, supervised by George Stevens, Jr., on disc two).

Below is Shane‘s bar fight scene in the original 1.37 a.r.; further below is the same scene sliced down to 1.66.

A friend and I wandered around downtown Ridgefield, Connecticut yesterday afternoon. It’s a little more culturally complex than it used to be, but it’s still a whitebread town for the most part. Victorian homes, huge front and side lawns, super-tall trees that have been here since the Revolutionary War. Ridgefield hasn’t become an outdoor mall like Westport; it still has a certain leafy, affluent, quirky-liberal personality.

Not that I’ve ever given a damn, but Bonomo Turkish Taffy peaked in the ’50s and ’60s, was discontinued in 1989 and returned to the market in 2010.

Benedict Andrews‘ Against All Enemies, a political thriller about the FBI’s harassment of Jean Seberg (Kristen Stewart) over her support of the Black Panthers and sexual involvement with black power activist Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie), has been shooting since late June. The screenplay is by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse; the dp is Rachel Morrison (Black Panther, Mudbound). Pic costars Jack O’Connell, Margaret Qualley, Colm Meaney, Zazie Beetz, Vince Vaughn and Yvan Attal as Romain Gary, whom Seberg was more or less married to at the time of her death in Paris on 8.30.79, at age 40. An all-but-guaranteed presence a year from now at Venice, Telluride or Toronto, one would think.