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Director-star and series co-creator Bill Hader is directing all eight episodes of Barry‘s final season, and the calibre of understated black comedy is fairly astonishing. Hader’s directing instincts are easily the equal of Steven Soderbergh‘s — he tones it down in every scene, and makes it work just so. The witness protection conference hit scene is hilarious and mesmerizing.

During last night’s Barry episode (“you’re charming“) we all saw Guillermo del Toro play “El Toro”, some kind of dandified, cane-toting, soft-spoken bad guy who visits Hank (Anthony Carrigan) and Cristobal (Michael Irby) to discuss Barry’s forthcoming murder. Toro has arranged for a queasy-looking character (Fred Armisen) to perform the hit during a witness protection meeting between Barry and various law officials.

It was just a cameo role, but it was very cool to see GDT delivering lines from a place of quiet confidence and with a dry understated manner. “Holy shit…there he is!” I said to Jett and Cait. I immediately wrote GDT a congratulatory note. And yet…

Guillermo was playing an allegedly fearsome criminal, the kind of sociopath who wouldn’t blink an eye at hiring a hitman. The emphasis, of course, was on dry humor with GDT talking about the difference between a podcast and TikTok exposure, but honestly? The undercurrent of menace wasn’t there. Because Guillermo couldn’t bury his humanity. He’s one of the gentlest and most compassionate people in the film industry, and simply couldn’t manage to “become” a sociopath. But at least he gave it a shot. File this under “hoot-level cameo.”

In yesterday’s “Strange Architecture” piece” I criticized the odd decision of Ben-Hur‘s production designer to build a large, visually obstructive island in the middle of the Jerusalem chariot-race stadium. The result was that a significant portion of the crowd was only able to see half the racetrack and therefore half the action.

This triggered a bizarre response from “Brenkilco,” who claimed that “they only built half the track with stands on one side,” and that “a lot of fancy editing was employed but the chariots were always racing down the same straightaway.” This “illusion,” he said, “concealed the fact that there was nothing on the other side.”

Poppycock, I replied, but I couldn’t find any smoking gun photos that proved that the racetrack was completely whole with two sides. And then “SlashMC” came to the rescue with two such photos. It makes you wonder which HE commenters besides “Brenkilco” are just talking out of their ass half the time. Thanks ever much to SlashMC.

As you’re approaching Stockholm Arlanda airport you’ll notice that it’s waaay out in the country. No sprawling suburbs or congested business strips nearby — just mile upon square mile of birch and pine trees, like you’re flying into Savannah.

Arlanda is 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Stockholm — most major city airports are 5 or 10 miles from downtown.

Arlanda is an unusually attractive environment. Not oversized, mellow vibe, nice place to hang.

Plus (and I wouldn’t want this to be taken the wrong way) it’s also somewhat pleasant to be around all those attractive Swedish people with their Nordic features, blonde hair (although black hair is equally plentiful) and relatively trim physiques.

If you’ve done any travelling over the last 10 or 15 years you know that mordibly obese people are fairly ubiquitious in U.S. airports, but there are almost none here. So it’s like another world in more ways than one. Fascinated and intrigued, I started roaming around the airport in search of Jabbas, and I’m telling you honestly that I may have spotted one or two at most. No judgment, just saying.

My original Arlanda post appeared four years ago — 5.12.19. I’m reposting because I love the top airport photo with the dark Cecil B. DeMille clouds.

We are living in the age of the male blanc dangereux, or, if you will, the homme fatale.

If there’s one thing the mainstream media and entertainment industry agree upon without hesitation, it’s that 40-plus white guys have enjoyed too much power for too long and need to be brought down.

The view is that too many of these ayeholes are anti-woke or not woke enough and therefore bad news, and that they need to ride in the back of the bus for a while and learn how it felt for marginalized people for too many decades.

Aside from your basic wokequake and #MeToo factors, I wonder if this viewpoint was in some way triggered by (or is perhaps a delayed reaction to) the ’90s femme fatale wave. All of those films about scheming, black-hearted women with ravenous sexual appetites, blah blah. What intelligent woman wasn’t quietly furious about (or at least hugely irritated by) these films, one after another after another?

The first crop of femme fatales, of course, arose with the film noirs of the late ’40s to mid ’50s. Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, Jane Greer in Out of the Past, Ava Gardner in The Killers, Lizabeth Scott in Dead Reckoning, etc.

The second manifestation happened 25 years later with Lawrence Kasdan‘s Body Heat (’80) and particularly Kathleen Turner‘s greedy and conniving Matty Walker. This wasn’t exactly followed up upon by Stephen Frears‘ Dangerous Liasons (’88) and Harold Becker‘s Sea of Love (’89) but the notion of selfish, cunning and possibly dangerous women was certainly underlined by these films.

The ’90s wave, sparked by the perverse imaginings of screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, pretty much began with the one-two punch of Curtis Hanson‘s The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (’92) and Paul Verhoeven‘s Basic Instinct (’92). It more or less ended with Roger Kumble‘s Cruel Intentions (’99).

Call it a vogue that lasted seven years or a bit less.

The headliners were (1) Basic Instinct, (2) Barbet Schroeder‘s Single White Female (’92), (3) Katt Shea‘s Poison Ivy, (4) Philip Noyce, Ezsterhas and Ira Levin‘s Sliver (’93), (5) Nic Kazan‘s Dream Lover (’93 — earned a grand total of somewhere between $256,264 and $316,809, (6) Alan Shapiro‘s The Crush (’93), (7) Uli Edel‘s Body of Evidence (’93), (8) William Friedkin‘s Jade (’95), (9) Gus Van Sant‘s To Die For (’95) and Cruel Intentions — an even 10.

What am I missing? Basic Instinct 2 (’06) doesn’t count — it arrived way past the end of the cycle.

On or about 11.5.19 I chatted with Leonardo Dicaprio at a San Vicente Bungalows party. He was particularly excited about Killers of The Flower Moon, describing it as a kind of “birth of the modern FBI” story. The basic line, he said, focused on former Texas Ranger Tom White (whom Leo was intending to play at the time) being ordered by top G-man J. Edgar Hoover to take over the Osage murders case and make sure the bad guys pay the price.

Eventually DiCaprio decided to play one of the killers, Ernest Burkhart, with Jesse Plemons stepping into the White role.

Given Leo’s summary, one could have been forgiven for presuming that Martin Scorsese‘s film, which didn’t begin shooting until April ’21, would be a “white FBI guys bring justice to Oklahoma” movie, or something in that general vein. Certainly not as fictitious or fantastical as Alan Parker‘s Mississippi Burning, as Eric Roth‘s screenplay has always been closely based upon David Grann’s scrupulously researched 2017 book. But perhaps with a certain good guys-vs-bad-guys attitude.

But between Scorsese, Grann and Roth, how could Flower Moon possibly have been made with the idea of delivering an Oklahoma version of Parker’s 1988 thriller, which ignored many facts about the 1964 murder of three Civil Rights workers and reduced the African-American characters to people who grieved, cowered and sung hymns?

But then, three months ago, along came Flower Moon costar Lily Gladstone, who, in a Variety interview with Zack Sharf, seemed to suggest that Scorsese had, up to a point, made a film that hadn’t, in fact, sufficiently considered the Osage native point of view of the killings and the investigation of same.

Gladstone said that Scorsese “worked closely with the real-life Osage Nation to ensure his movie would properly represent the community. The result was that “the Osage Nation ended up positively changing Flower Moon from what Scorsese [had] originally planned.”

Which was what? Missisippi Burning 2 or some facsimile thereof, as Eddie Ginley joked yesterday in a thread?

“The work is better when you let the world inform the work,” Gladstone explained to Sharf. “That was very refreshing how involved the production got with the [Osage Nation] community. As the community warmed up to our presence, the more the community got involved with the film.

“It’s a different movie than the one [Scorsese] walked in to make, almost entirely because of what the community had to say about how it was being made and what was being portrayed.”

Glenn Kenny: “That’s Gladstone’s perspective, shaped through that of Sharf, and in any event has nothing to do with reshoots. Scorsese and company were getting Osage input from well before the cameras started rolling.

“Look, man, I know how precious the ‘Native Americans strong-armed Scorsese into going woke’ narrative is to you, and I know you’re gonna stick with it through thick and thin, but just don’t pretend too much insider knowledge here.”

HE response: “So Gladstone misstated Scorsese’s creative strategy (i.e., before the alleged Osage Nation re-think) in order to celebrate the Osage Nation’s strength as a culture and to emphasize that their perspective on the 1920s murders was, thank God, crucially included at the 11th hour.

“You’re saying, in other words, that Scorsese had understood the entire Killers equation from the get-go, as had original author David Grann, and that neither of them needed woke tutoring as far as the Osage perspective was concerned.

“Gladstone, in short, was spinning her own impressions last January, and Sharf, a go-along wokester parrot, played along?

“Maybe so.”

Here, by the way, is a snap of the actual Ernest Burkhart and Mollie Burkhart (played by DiCaprio and Gladstone in the film)

I said earlier I’ve no particular problem with Dylan Mulvaney endorsing Bud Light. But the decoration on this Bud Light can gobsmacked me. I thought inclusion was the new idea — not just beer bruhs chugging Bud Light during football games but all sizes, shapes and persuasions. But the decoration plainly says “gays and trans people only.” Sober for 11 years, I haven’t been up to speed on beer cans for quite some time.** Sorry.

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Stanley Kramer and William Rose‘s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was arguably already dated when it opened on 12.12.67. It wouldn’t have been dated if it had opened, say, in ’62, ’63 or even ’64. But ’67 was too activist, too strident, too Stokely Carmichael‘ed, too rioted, too Black Power-ed, too Vietnam War-ed, too Sgt. Pepper-ed and too psychedelicized. It just didn’t fit.

I’ve never seen Kramer’s film, by the way. I avoided it like the plague when it came out, and I’ve never felt sufficiently motivated to watch it at home. But Spencer Tracy‘s soliloquy in this climactic scene, which I only just watched a few minutes ago, is fairly terrific.

Tracy dropped dead in his kitchen on 6.10.67, 17 days after Kramer’s film was completed. He was only 67, but he looked at least 80 by today’s standards.

As noted, GWCTD opened six months later (12.12.67). Four months later Martin Luther King was murdered.

CNN This Morning‘s Don Lemon has never played the role of a straight-arrow, buttoned-down news anchor type. As an out gay man, he’s occasionally flirted with a somewhat nervy and even flamboyant demeanor at times, closer in spirit to Andy Cohen than Anderson Cooper.

CNN has tended to cut him a fair amount of slack, of course. Even when he seemed to take seriously a wild theory that the missing Malaysian jet that disappeared in 2014 might been Bermuda Triangle-d. Even when he got bombed in New Orleans during New year’s Eve coverage on 12.31.16.

But then he stepped into real shit on 2.16.23 when he declared that 51 year-old Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime. Women, he meant, are in their prime in their 20s, 30s and early 40s —- an obvious reference to their sexual peak, which is demeaning as hell when you’re talking about a Presidential candidate or any woman serving in any professional capacity.

And now, as of yesterday morning (4.5), Lemon has Variety‘s Tatiana Siegel all over his ass.

Business Insider is reporting that Lemon is considering a possible lawsuit over Siegel’s takedown piece, which alleges that he has a history of demeaning and occasionally threatening and female colleagues including Soledad O’Brien, Kyra Phillips and Nancy Grace.

“[CNN has] known for years,” a media source has told the New York Post. “But Lemon is not going to sue because then they’d have to depose people and more stuff could come out.”

One thing in Siegel’s story is worded evasively. She reports that in 2014, Lemon “drew widespread condemnation when he told a Bill Cosby rape accuser that she could have stopped an attack by biting the comedian’s penis.” That implies that Cosby may have been trying to physically overpower or manhandle the victim. In fact the victim had told Lemon that Cosby was somehow forcing her to give him a blowjob. Lemon suggested that the victim could have stopped that activity right quick with her teeth.

It was a very Don Lemon-y comment, for sure. I can’t imagine any TV news anchor coming within 100 feet of this line of questioning. But Lemon has always been Lemon.

Last night I caught my second viewing of Air, and it seemed to gain somewhat. It certainly didn’t diminish. My third viewing will be with subtitles, and then it’ll really gain.

I especially loved how Matt Damon‘s eloquent emotional pitch to the Jordan family near the end is off-the-cuff, and in so doing echoes the second half of Martin Luther King‘s “I have a dream” speech, which was also largely improvised, and is discussed early in the film. This is called “refrain” — one of the most solid and dependable tricks in the book.

But one minor thing has stuck in my craw.

Director Ben Affleck‘s decision not to show Michael Jordan is an understandable one. “”He exists above and around the story, but if you ever concretize him, if you ever say, ‘Yes, that’s Michael Jordan,’ they’ll know it’s not, really..it’s fake,” Affleck explained in a People interview. I thought if they bring everything they thought and remembered about [Michael] and what he meant to them to the movie and projected it onto the movie, it [would work] better.”

And so Jordan stand-in Damian Delano in only seen from the rear, and Jordan’s voice is only heard once on a phone line (“hello”). The physical Jordan/Delano presence only happens toward the conclusion (i.e., during the afore-mentioned Nike pitch meeting plus one or two others). But here’s the thing — the camera’s avoidance of Jordan’s face and Affleck not even allowing us to hear a few words from the guy also feels “fake.” The dodge feels too conspicuous. It intrudes upon the reality of that climactic moment and the overall third-act flow.

I don’t know what the solution could have been or if one was possible, but if I’d been directing I would have persuaded the present-tense Jordan, 60, to record a few lines of dialogue. Maybe a few quips, maybe a pungent observation of some kind,. Hearing the Real McCoy certainly would’ve helped.

On the other hand would it have been that hard to find a young Michael Jordan look-alike? We all know that movies are fake from start to finish — what matters is conviction and bringing your best game to the table.

It could have been argued by the producers of The Longest Day (’62) that Dwight D. Eisenhower was too big of a historical figure and that people would instantly know that Henry Grace, the set decorator who played the nation’s 34th president in an early scene, was just some joker pretending to be Ike.

Of course audiences knew that, but the second that Grace’s face appeared on the big screen, it worked. Audiences appreciated the effort and approved for the most part. Grace’s voice was dubbed by voice actor Allen Swift.

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A couple of days ago I was a bit startled by a Variety headline for a Chris Willman interview with Marcus Mumford. It was about the recently-premiered PBS Joni Mitchell tribute concert (Gershwin Prize) that happened in February, and more particularly Mumford’s belief that Mitchell is “singing better than ever in 2023.”

It’s great that Mitchell is singing and playing guitar and sounding pretty good, particularly in the wake of having suffered a brain aneurysm in late March of 2015. She was in fairly bad shape after that tragedy, but she’s recovered (or at least is recovering) to a significant degree, and praise be to God for this.

In a 2013 interview with the National Post‘s Jian Ghomeshi Mitchell said that her soprano singing voice was pretty much kaput, and that she’s now an alto.

The key question to me is “is Joni still smoking?” Because that’s almost certainly what helped to bring about her aneurysm. She initially lost her ability to speak and walk, and still needs a little help getting around as we speak.

I was so concerned about Mitchell’s well-being in the wake of the aneurysm that I once hand-delivered an admonishing fan letter to her Spanish home in Bel Air. I insisted I was one of her biggest fans and begged her to think about vaping instead of sticking with tobacco.

Mitchell may have decided that life isn’t worth living without the pleasure of unfiltered cigarettes, but maybe not. She once said in an interview that she began smoking at age 9 or 10 or something. At a certain point the body just can’t take the nicotine and the toxins and complications will manifest.

It’s wonderful, in any event, that Mitchell has regained (or is in the process of regaining) her singing and guitar-playing abilities. She’ll turn 80 on 11.7.23.

Posted on 3.31.15: I attended a short, smallish concert that Mitchell gave at Studio 54 in October ’82 to promote “Wild Things Run Fast.” The crowd was not huge, maybe 150 or so, and I was standing fairly close and pretty much dead center. No female artist has ever touched me like Mitchell**, and I was quite excited about being this close to her.

I was beaming, starry-eyed and staring at her like the most self-abasing suck-up fan you could imagine, and during the first song her eyes locked onto mine and I swear to God we began to kind of half-stare at each other. (Some performers do this, deciding to sing for this or that special person in the crowd.) Her eyes danced around from time to time but she kept coming back to me, and I remember thinking, “Okay, she senses that I love her and she probably likes my looks so I guess I’m her special fanboy or something for the next few minutes.”

Mitchell was dressed in a white pants suit and some kind of colorful scarf, and she sang and played really well, and I remember she had a little bit of a sexy tummy thing going on. Sorry but that had a portion of my attention along with the songs and “being there” and a feeling that I’d remember this moment for decades to come.

** My beloved Patti Smith ranks a close second.

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