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If you’re a fan of Sidney Lumet‘s Prince of the City (and what Lumet admirer isn’t?) and you haven’t seen Find Me Guilty (’06), which many have ignored or dismissed as a commercial failure, you need to buckle down and rent it.

I know that Find Me Guilty never seems to come up much in discussions of Lumet’s career, and yet it’s absolutely one of Lumet’s finest and is certainly one of the greatest films ever made by a director who’s over 80. (Lumet’s Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, released in ’07, also belongs on that list.)

I haven’t re-watched Guilty since it opened 16 years ago, but I’ll be revisiting tonight.

Guilty is a marvel of old-fashioned (i.e., ’80s-style) craftsmanship — Lumet’s superb direction, T.J. Mancini and Robert McCrea’s’s finely structured screenplay and skillfully pared-down dialogue, and Vin Diesel’s inescapably charming, sincerely felt performance that briefly put him back on the road map. It was the last first-rate performance he ever gave.

In my book Find Me Guilty was Lumet’s best film since Q & A (1990), and before that Prince of the City (1981). It’s a tight, no-nonsense court drama that’s not about legal maneuvers or discovering evidence or doing right by the system and justice being served, but mob family values.

It’s not without its amusements and gag lines from time to time, but Guilty is a fairly serious, rooted-in-reality court procedural about wise-guy morality, or the urban mythology about same..

There’s more time spent in a courtoom in this thing than in Lumet’s The Verdict, and for good reason: Find Me Guilty is about the longest-lasting federal criminal prosecution in history. From March ’87 to August ’88, 20 members of the New Jersey-based Lucchese crime family, each represented by his own lawyer, were brought to trial in Newark, New Jersey, on some 76 charges (dope smuggling, gambling, squeezing small businesses…the usual mob stuff).

The mob family values can be summed up by the words “don’t rat,” “don’t roll” and “family is everything.”

I’m talking about the values of a group of bad guys (i.e., men who live outside the law and occasionally enforce their ethical standards by whacking each other) who ostensibly care for and someitmes “take care of” each other, and about one particular bad guy — Diesel’s Jackie DiNorscio — who stood up for certain things over the course of this trial…loyalty, friendship, togetherness…even if the reality of Italian crime ethics, going by everything I’ve heard, is that everyone rats out everyone else sooner or later and a lot of these guys are just full-out sociopaths, or are viewed this way by the majority. And yet Guilty isn’t an invented story.

What’s really striking is that Find Me Guilty delivers pretty much the precise opposite moral message of Prince of the City, which is about the emotional torment that a corrupt cop puts himself through when he decides to tell the absolute truth and rat out his equally corrupt cop friends, and ends up despised and lonely and broken.

Guilty is about a wise guy who refuses to rat out his wise-guy friends, even when most of them shun him and treat him like a leper because of his court behavior, but who nonetheless holds to his own moral ethical course.

Has there ever been a major-league filmmaker besides Lumet who has made two films about the same culture — the New York-area criminal underworld — with both (a) based on a completely true story about courts and prosecutors and defendants, (b) both grappling with almost the exact same moral-ethical issue, and yet (c) coming to almost the exact opposite conclusions about ratting out your friends?

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Jesse Cipollone, owner of a popular Wilton hot-dog eatery called Dog Daze cafe. has told Wilton Patch that he’s not much of a social media hound, having just celebrated his fourth decade and all.

Actual Cipollone quote:

The man was born in ‘82 (the year of E.T., Gandhi, The Thing and The Verdict) and he’s already in love with being a past-his-prime, “internet who?” Gabby Hayes guy?

Let history record that Cipollone was the first Millennial (1981 to 1997) to self-identify this way. All my life I’ve thought of Millennials as internet whiz kids. I’ve never met one who isn’t.

Google has Dog Daze (713 Danbury Road, Wilton, CT) in 62nd place on its list of the 100 best hot-dog joints in the U.S.

The seller of Google’s #1-rated hot dog cuisine in the entire country is Billy’s hot–dog cart, a Manhattan business which operates on Central Park West between the upper 80s and 90s.

I’m not finding the actual Google list, but the top 15 are all (or mostly) located in the New York area. What about Pink’s?

The tastiest hot dogs I’ve ever had are the spicy ones sold in Toronto. The dogs are sliced up to allow for fuller flavor.

If A24 was smart, they would screen Ari Aster‘s four-hour version of Disappointment Blvd. at Venice and Telluride two months hence, and then release two versions a few weeks later — i.e., the shorter version that A24 management allegedly prefers plus the four-hour cut. They could release the shorter version theatrically while releasing the longer version via streaming. Or vice versa or any which way. It would become a huge thing to see both and debate the differences.

Today Cassidy Hutchinson became the new John Dean, and in so doing carved her name and testimony into the marble stone of history.

Today’s testimony from 26-year-old Hutchinson, who is either a young Millennial or an elderly Zoomer, is obviously fatal to Donald Trump. Cassidy has testified that Trump knew there was a clear potential for violence at the Capitol on January 6th, meaning that Trump knew that several in the crowd were planning to go armed to the Capitol. And that Trump lost it when he was told by the Secret Service he couldn’t go to the Capitol…grabbed the steering wheel, “I’m the fucking President!”, etc.

Who hasn’t known for years that Trump — pre-, during- and post-Presidency — has always been a deranged, intemperate, sociopathic ass-clown?

🚨🚨Wow. Trump knew his supporters had weapons and demanded metal detectors be removed.

“I don’t f-ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the fucking mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.”

Trump orchestrated the riot. https://t.co/zdvjcWvYs7

— Bill Pascrell, Jr. 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@BillPascrell) June 28, 2022

“I’m the f’n president. Take me up to the Capitol now” — Hutchinson testifies that Trump GRABBED AT THE STEERING WHEEL of a car to try to force the secret service to take him to the Capitol pic.twitter.com/k84BMa4cnN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 28, 2022

One of the most familiar and widely commented upon John Wayne photos to ever hit the internet. I don’t why I’m posting this, and I don’t even know what the above headline means. But it came to me a couple of minutes ago and it sounded good so I went with it.

If I was living in the left-side home, I probably wouldn’t have a BLM sign in my front yard as that would indicate that I’m living in the recent past (early summer of ’20).

I would instead post a political sign that points forward — forward to a sensible, fair-minded, left-center government, headed by a moderately charismatic, quick-witted, not-too-old President who isn’t owned by the wokesters and knows how to talk straight and plain to the hinterlanders.

That’s a dream, of course.

I’d like to think that the overturning of Roe v. Wade will energize voters and lead to a surge of support for at least some Democratic candidates, and that the left in general might not be heading for a general all-around slaughter in November. I’d love to see Beto O’Rourke win in Texas, for example. And Val Demmings in Florida.

Alas, Democrats are probably stuck with Biden running in ’24, and that means an almost certain loss. With Trump being discredited left and right that means Ron DeSantis might actually be elected President. Yes, bizarre as that sounds.

Bret Stephens in 6.27.22 “Conversation” column, “The Supreme Court’s Fighting Words“:

World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy reports that he’s been “assured” that Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon will “indeed” be a 2022 release. Good to hear, but will it open in November or December? We all understand that an Oscar contender has to be screened no later than Thanksgiving and preferably earlier.

We all assume that Marty and Thelma Schoonmaker are working their fingers to the bone. They’ve been editing since the fall of ’21, then came the extra shooting, and now they’re back at it. How could they announce in good conscience “we can’t finish until ’23”? Where would be the honor in that?

Some may find it odd that handicappers are calling Lightyear (Disney, 6.17) dead meat despite earnings of $152 million worldwide and $88.7 million domestic. But you have to look at the details, and detail #1 is that Lightyear dropped 65% last weekend, earning a lousy $17.5 million after pulling down $50.5 million on opening weekend.

The Ankler‘s Sean McNulty is calling this the “worst-ever drop for a PIXAR film (not counting Covid-impacted Onward)….with Minions arriving on Friday, [Lightyear] was just a misfire. And cue the ‘PIXAR isn’t the same without Lasseter’ pieces in 3, 2…   Just remember to include the reasons why Lasseter was ousted.”

Two days ago N.Y. Post columnist Kyle Smith speculated that Lightyear was hurt by general audiences being fed up with films that secrete woke instruction. Not the brief lesbian kiss but a suggestion that Lightyear might have a hidden lecture or two up its sleeve.

“Hollywood was founded by, and for generations run by, pure showmen who were fanatically devoted to giving the audience what it wanted,” Smith wrote. “Today Hollywood’s message is, ‘Let us entertain you! But first, a brief lecture on what’s wrong with you, the audience…’

“One reason Top Gun: Maverick is such a huge success — the biggest movie of Tom Cruise’s career and probably the biggest movie of this year — is that it simply ignores all quarrelsome real-world issues. Maverick seeks merely to entertain, not to persuade you that the people who made it are virtuous.”

Remember those “Dirty Disney” trend stories from the mid ’90s? (I wrote one for the Sunday entertainment section of the N.Y. Daily News.) I’m not saying that “Dirty Disney” applies today, but between Lightyear‘s chaste, no-big-deal lesbian kiss scene and Disney fighting Gov. Ron DeSantis’s law that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, The Mouse has clearly associated itself with the LGBTQIA agenda of the moment.

The legend continues to scream from the Hollywood hills…”go woke, go broke.”

Remember hang-ups? In the ’60s accusing a person of being hung up was a fairly serious put-down. Hang-ups were a key definer of middle-class neurotics — people who were into guilt and maintaining appearances, who embraced shallow concerns and inhibitions — people who believed in scrubbing kitchen floors and mowing their lawns on Saturdays, who did’t get high or drop acid or listen to Bob Dylan or attend the Newport Folk Festival.

I’m not saying that people who did get high and wear buckskin fringe jackets and listened to Dylan and so on weren’t hung-up, but the cliche prevailed — strictly embraced middle-class values and lifestyles and prohibitions were seen as a kind of prison.

I’m asking because I haven’t heard anyone accuse anyone else of being hung-up for decades. Excluding Republicans and conservative psychos like Lauren Boebert, are people hung-up about anything these days?

I think they are, yeah.

The first Urban Dictionary definition of “hung-up” reads as follows: “When all you think about is one person, and you can’t stop thinking about them.” The fourth definition: “Stereotyped, repetitive and seemingly purposeless movements. Compulsive fascination with and performance of repetitive, mechanical tasks, such as assembling and disassembling, collecting, or sorting household objects.”

Here’s another definition: “When you’re locked into processing the world according to (I’m sorry to mention this but it just came to me) woke doctrine….when all you can think about is whether this or that person or activity or political position is on the right side (i.e., yours)…when delivering or creating social justice for oppressed or less fortunate people and/or punishing their oppressors is pretty much everything.”

As it happens two of 2022’s finest films so far, Chloe Okuno‘s Watcher and Audrey Diwan‘s Happening, begin streaming tomorrow — Tuesday, 6.21. Both directed by women, of course, and both, coincidentally or not, are IFC releases. These films are X factor — they stick to your ribs. Plus Watcher is a ’60s or ’70s Roman Polanski film.

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I can’t fully convey…I can’t even half-convey what a pleasure it’s been to watch Lightyear (a) piss off traditional fans (Chris Evans…what happened to Tim Allen?), (b) inspire a Toronto theatre manager to post a warning, (b) trigger homophobes with a harmless lesbian kiss and then (d) open to a lousy $51 million domestic — a good $25 if not $30 million short of what handicappers had projected. And I never even saw the damn thing…that’s the best part!

Washington Post film critic and scholar Ann Hornaday has written a fascinating, exactingly researched, justifiably lengthy piece about the making of All The President’s Men. It includes three video summaries (pasted below).

The article is not very kind to the efforts of ATPM‘s late screenwriter William Goldman, but Hornaday did a ton of research (including in-depth discussions with producer-star Robert Redford and Bob Woodward, co-author of the same-titled book that the film was based upon), and this is how the chips fell.

The title is “How All the President’s Men Went From Buddy Flick to Masterpiece.”

The invisible subtitle is “How Everyone Involved In This 1976 Film Except William Goldman Saved It From Goldman’s Initial Drafts, Which Were On The Glossy and Rapscallion Side and Less Than Genuine.”

This despite Hornaday acknowledging that Goldman’s earliest drafts of All the President’s Men “included most of the key beats that defined the early stages of the Watergate investigation.”

Goldman, whom I came to know moderately well over a few lunches at Cafe Boloud in the early to mid Obama years, reported in his Adventures in the Screen Trade account that he had done much if not most of the heavy lifting.

During a meeting with Bob Woodward, Goldman “had asked him to list ‘the crucial events — not the most dramatic but the essentials — that enabled the story eventually to be told,” Hornaday summarizes.

“When Woodward named them — the break-in, the arraignment, his combative collaboration with Bernstein, his late-night meetings with confidential source Deep Throat in an Arlington parking garage, his and Bernstein’s interviews with such key figures as Hugh Sloan, and their work together on an article about a $25,000 check written to CREEP Midwest finance chairman Kenneth Dahlberg — Goldman, according to his account, looked at what he’d written and saw that he’d included every one.”

A key passage in Hornaday’s piece: “The journey of All the President’s Men from mediocrity to triumph tells an alternately sobering and inspiring truth about movies: The great ones are a function of the countless mistakes that didn’t get made — the myriad bad calls, lapses in taste and bouts of bad luck that encase every production like a block of heavy, unyielding stone.”

As noted, the piece presents a case that many if not most of the “mistakes” were Goldman’s. If Goldman is reading this piece in heaven, he’s most likely howling and shaking his fist and punching his refrigerator door.

Hornaday: “This is the story of how producer-star Robert Redford and director Alan Pakula, and the cast and crew they assembled, bullied Goldman’s flawed but structurally brilliant script into art. It’s the story of a perfect movie and imperfect history, a cautionary tale whose lessons — about impunity, abuse of power and intimidation of the press — have taken on new urgency nearly 50 years after its release.

“It’s the story of how what was intended as a small-bore black-and-white character study featuring unknown actors became one of the finest films of the 20th century, one that marked the end of a cinematic era, changed journalism forever and — for better or worse — became the fractal through which we’ve come to understand the dizzyingly complicated saga known as Watergate.”

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