One, presuming that Bob Wilson and his wife Julia (William Shatner, Christine White) are flying coach, it’s amazing how much breathing and leg room average folks had on flights in the early ’60s. Two, the windows have sliding plaid curtains…luxury! Three, a stewardess asks the distressed Shatner if he needs a blanket — it’s been years since I’ve seen blankets in coach (even those shitty synthetic ones). Four, before today I never realized that the gremlin was played by Nick Cravat, who was Burt Lancaster‘s lifelong friend and acrobat partner. And five, Richard Donner directed mostly big-budget features but “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” was a more effective ride than almost everything he did for the big screen (except for Lethal Weapon, his peak effort).

Unable to recall or even investigate where this remote horse ranch in the Belizean jungle was located, or the name of the couple who ran it. The guy was from Texas — I remember that much. And the howler monkeys in the high trees. And the fact that we went swimming in a lake, and under a waterfall. Fall of ’90, 30 and 1/2 years ago.

In yesterday’s riff about the trailer for Tom McCarthy‘s Stillwater (Focus Features, 7.30), I shared reservations about Matt Damon‘s “yokelish Midwesterner who probably loves Donald Trump and resembles those generic beastly types who stormed the Capitol.

“I’m sorry but I don’t care for heavy-set fellows who swallow their words…vaguely surly, low-key clock punchers who drawl ‘yes sir’ and ‘yes ma’am’ and still insist the election was stolen…I love hanging with super-smart reporters who work for the Boston Globe, but not Jesse Plemons gutty-wuts like this.”

To which Correcting Jeff wrote, “At least Wells owns being an ass.”

HE to Correcting Jeff: “In what way exactly is it asinine to say what I said above?

“Audiences like certain characters and they dislike others. It’s a common, natural process. Basic human appeal, intelligence, decency, spunk, charisma, relatability, compelling energy…these things and more go into determining whether you want to hang with a certain character for the length of a feature film or not.

“I was persuaded by the Stillwater trailer that I don’t especially want to hang with Damon’s burly hinterland character. Based on the lack of above-mentioned qualities. How exactly does this make me an ass?

“If McCarthy and Damon had simply agreed before shooting that Damon’s overly performed bumblefuck character would be too much of an obstacle for people like me, and that the wiser course would be to have Damon drop 15 or 20 pounds and play the guy as if he’s Matt Damon, the movie star, only from Oklahoma — a guy with an intelligent appreciation of the life’s ins and outs, no blue-collar baseball hat, no swallowing of consonants, no cornbelt accent — if they’d done this the movie would be A LOT more appealing.

“I don’t want to spend two hours with a schlubby guy whose friends, one imagines, could have easily stormed the U.S. Capitol on 1.6.21.”

My Warner Archive Bluray of They Won’t Believe Me (’47) arrived yesterday; I watched it last night. Produced by Joan Harrison, written by Jonathan Latimer and directed by Irving Pichel, this RKO release has acquired a reputation in some circles as a tasty, extra-dark potboiler — required viewing if you’re any kind of film-noir fanatic.

It’s dark, all right, and I’m not sorry I saw it, but it’s a completely unbelievable, ridiculously over-plotted piece about a doomed nogoodnik — Robert Young‘s slimey, squishy, wholly unsympathetic Larry Ballentine**. The plot is mainly about how Ballentine hoodwinks, strings along and betrays three women — a gold-digger (Susan Hayward), a journalist (Jane Greer) and his rich, endlessly forgiving wife (Rita Johnson).

It makes no sense that Hayward, Greer and Johnson are each in love with Young — he’s obviously a waste of skin. If “they won’t believe me” is Ballentine’s lament, the obvious reply is “why the hell should they?”

The only aspect that really works (in a WTF, blunt-trauma way) is the bizarre ending when Ballentine, on trial for killing his wife Greta, tries to commit suicide by leaping out of a courtroom window on the fifth or sixth floor, just before the verdict is announced. A trigger-happy marshall shoots and kills Ballentine as he reaches the window ledge. And then they read the verdict.

I’ve honestly never disliked a lead character as much as this, and Young’s performance is no help. He’s playing an absolute cipher and a cad — a Shallow Hal with no smarts, no passion, no cunning, no wit, no sense of irony about himself, no style. Robert Mitchum‘s sardonic private detective in Out of the Past is shady but likable — Young is detestable. Within minutes you’re rooting for his demise. It’s no surprise that They Won’t Believe Me flopped.

If your idea of an A-level noir is Out of the Past, Double Indemnity or The Big Sleep, rest assured that They Won’t Believe Me is at best a C.

The 4K transfer has been nicely finessed — the 74 year-old film looks as good as it ever will. A nice silvery sheen, excellent black levels, finely detailed.

I was so bored I began thinking about Young’s actual life, and how he was plagued by alcoholism and depression despite a career that enjoyed a fair amount of comfort from playing the title roles in two popular, long-running TV shows, Father Knows Best (’54 to ’60) and Marcus Welby (’69 to ’76). The poor guy tried to commit suicide when he was 84. (Who does that?) He passed in ’98 at age 91.

Roughly five weeks ago I caught a trailer for Taylor Sheridan‘s Those Who Wish Me Dead (Warner Bros./HBO Max, 5.14), and it sure seemed like a no-go and a no-sale.

“An aggressively produced, go-for-broke action exploitation flick,” I noted, “shot and edited in a slam-bang, visually searing, Bruce Willis-in-the-’90s way…loaded with jet fuel and cranked WAY TOO HIGH (black-attired bad guy sadists firing automatic weapons at a woman and a kid in the middle of firestorm?). And if you believe, by the way, that a beautiful, super-rich, fashion-magazine icon slash Brad Pitt-ballbuster with her own personal pedicurist can be (or ever could be) a Montana firefighter…well, that’s up to you.”

This just-posted footage tease implies more of the same,

If you read between the lines of David Rooney‘s review of the film itself, posted this morning in The Hollywood Reporter, it’s obvious he has concerns.

Excerpt #1: “If you can get past the miraculously dewy complexion and on-point smoky-eye look of Angelina Jolie as a toughened Montana Forest Service firefighter…”

Excerpt #2: “[Then again] her role provides scope for gnawing demons, maternal warmth and kick-ass survival skills — including some cool retribution with an ax.”

Excerpt #3: “[Pic] doesn’t match the finely etched characterizations and contemplative writing of his original screenplay for Hell or High Water, but even if the genre quilting isn’t entirely seamless, it’s a ruggedly entertaining throwback to studio movies of the ’90s about real people navigating hairy life-or-death situations.”

Excerpt #4: “Production designer Neil Spisak [has created] an artificial forest set with a creek running through it, as well as watchtowers.”

The great actor, producer and director Norman Lloyd passed earlier today at age 106.

I was so taken by his performance as a blind but very skilled English professor in Curtis Hanson‘s In Her Shoes that I asked to chat with him. Two encounters happened, both in September ’05. We did a phoner, and then I was invited to take snaps at his Mandeville Canyon home. We talked for another hour or so.

Here’s the piece:

Norman Lloyd, 90, is in only three scenes in In Her Shoes and is on screen maybe seven or eight minutes, but his performance is one of the most poignant notes in a film that has more than a few of them.

It’s not one of those burn-through-the-screen performances (along the lines of, say, Beatrice Straight‘s fight-with-Bill-Holden scene in Network). It’s more like a coaxer. You can sense Lloyd’s intellectual energy and zest for life despite his character’s withered state, and you can feel and admire the tenderness he shows to Maggie …tenderness mixed in with a little classroom discipline.

He plays a sightless retired college professor who prods Diaz’s Maggie character, who is dyslexic and can’t read a billboard slogan without stumbling, into reading poetry to him — specifically a poem about loss and emotional guardedness by Elizabeth Bishop.

At first Maggie is reluctant, then she agrees to read to him…slowly, almost painfully…I have a dyslexic friend and she doesn’t read this slowly…but she gradually improves.

Then Lloyd prods her into explaining what she thinks of the poem. She tries to duck this, but Lloyd — relying on skills from a lifetime of teaching — won’t let her.

This isn’t just the heart of the scene — it’s a pivotal scene in the film. It’s the moment when Maggie turns the corner and starts taking steps to be someone a little better…because she starts believing in her ability to see through to the core of things, and in the first-time-ever notion that she has a lot more to develop and uncover within herself.

I know how cliched it sounds to say a character “turns a corner” and so on, but sometimes these moments happen in life. You just have to be able to hear the little voice in the back of your head that says, “You’ve taken a small step…you’ve just moved along.”

18 months ago on Quora, British poet-artist Rod Summers attempted to answer the eternal question, “Should we learn to separate the art from the artist?” Here’s what he said:

“You love the art work, it speaks to you, it fascinates you, it stimulates your desire to appreciate the finer, less debased things in human creativity. Then you discover that the creator of the art was less than perfect, just like the rest of humanity. So then you decide you don’t or shouldn’t like the art any more.

“Art is part of the artist, as a child is part of his/her parents. You can separate them geographically, but they will always be connected. The mistake you’re making is judging the art by how the artist lives, or has lived. Morality has nothing to do with it. Morality is just you putting your value template over someone else and dismissing if he/she doesn’t fit in the slots. Artists rarely fit in the slots, and those who do probably aren’t very original or very good either.”

Lucy McKinney, posted on Quora on 10.31.19: “I cannot support an artist once I know that person is horrible. The problem is that art can be technically excellent but still, unfortunately, reflect only their own horrible worldview. A goal of art is to evoke the emotions of the viewer, some universal theme or abstract concept or even visualization that transcends words, independent of the horrible person who created it. Supporting the work of a horrible person is just another way of letting the person bully you emotionally. Passive-aggressive + hostile = TOXIC.”

HE to McKinney: “In the case of Roman Polanski, what you’ve written is exactly, precisely and absolutely dead wrong. The worldview contained in Polanski’s Chinatown, The Pianist and J’Accuse, to name but three, is sane, frank, sensible, compassionate, at times delicate, sometimes open-hearted, wise, unblinking, on the side of the angels.”

“Open Letter to Polanski Haters,” posted 4.2.20: “Anyone can watch Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, but no one in the U.S. and England can watch J’Accuse in a theatre, on a Bluray or even via streaming.

“Because of a certain percentage of #MeToo progressives. Because they believe that Polanski’s rep must be permanently tarred and feathered and therefore J’Accuse, too, must be buried or otherwise scrubbed from existence. Because of reputedly credible accusations of Polanski having behaved badly and perhaps even criminally with certain younger women several decades ago. And so the distribution community is terrified of what #MeToo-ers might say and do if anyone even considers offering an English-subtitled J’Accuse for U.S. or British viewers.

“Here’s the thing — Polanski the man is not the same thing as Polanski the artist. His depiction of awful or ghastly things in his films (he’s never explored Pollyanic fantasy and escapism) has never conveyed a corrosion or poisoning of his own spirit. He understands what goes, how it all works, who the good guys are. This is quite evident in The Pianist and J’Accuse. But the latter is nonetheless going to be buried for a long time to come, or so I’m told. This is not a good look for #MeToo.

I’m not saying I would cross the street if I saw a guy wearing a pair of Bruno Magli mandals approaching, but the thought would certainly cross my mind. Man feet are inescapable on Belizean beaches and in Brooklyn bars frequented by Millennials and Zoomers during the warm months, but that doesn’t change a basic fact: they’re often horrible to glance at. Bordering on grotesque.

And to think they weren’t even a factor after the collapse of the Roman Empire. They only returned in the mid to late ’40s when beatniks began wearing them in San Francisco and the West Village, and now, God help us, you can’t escape them between early May and late September.

Try to imagine John Wayne or Walter Brennan strolling around the set of Rio Bravo wearing mandals…Howard Hawks would take one look and deliver a withering expression. The thing that first turned me against Michael Fassbender was when he wore mandals during his first scene in Prometheus — that was the moment when I said to myself, “Wow, this guy could be a problem.” Never forget that Moneyball director Bennett Miller signalled his vague disapproval of Spike Jonze‘s husband-of-Robin Wright character by having him wear mandals. If I were to run into a name-brand film critic wearing mandals at the Cannes Film Festival…I don’t want to think about it.

If I had my druthers I would live in a zero-mandals world, forever and ever.

On or about 11.18.21 Jett Wells and Caitlin Bennett, who were married on 9.22.17, will be bringing a daughter into the world. The burden will be on Cait, of course, with Jett offering the usual spousal backup. Jett was born on 6.4.88 at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys. Possible names: Maeve, Ripley, Parker. Cheers all around.

In a N.Y. Times op-ed titled “Could Matthew McConaughey Be All Right, All Right, All Right for Texas?” (5.9.21), Texas Monthly executive editor Mimi Swartz asks “would Mr. McConaughey run [for governor] as a Democrat or a Republican? That’s as much a mystery as the meaning of his soliloquy at the end of True Detective.”

The basic impression is that McConaughey is a kind of “philosopher king” type, which may or may not add up tactically if he runs for Texas governor. The best way to get a line on MM’s thinking, apparently, is to read his self-penned “Greenlights,” a book of practical thoughts and philosophical guidance which published last November.

Key McConaughey quote: “Knowin the truth, seein the truth and tellin the truth are all different experiences.” No apostrophes?

Swartz ends the piece with “may the best man win, man.” Translation: McConaughey is too vague and flaky-sounding to cut the political mustard.

I began by dismissing Mare of Eastwood on the mere basis of atmospheric gloom and wretched characters with all kinds of downmarket maladies and addictions. But episode #2 put the hook in and I’ve been on board ever since.

As mentioned earlier I’ve managed to put aside my issues with Kate Winslet (cravenly apologizing for working with Roman Polanski and Woody Allen in order to curry favor with #MeToo Academy types and possibly land a Best Actress nomination for Ammonite) and have even become accustomed to the Easttown demimonde and their endless summonings of moods and vibes most of us would rather not absorb.

Winslet’s “Mare” is a good generational match for Guy Pearce‘s Richard Ryan, who’s been romantically appealing from the start, but it makes no sense at all for Evan Peter‘s Detective Zabel, her investigating partner, to have a competing interest — at 34 he’s way too young for the 45-year-old Winslet, and he seems like a fool to be saying stuff like “I’m only interested if you’re interested” and “Mare, all my cards are on the table.” Dude, you can do better.

James McCardle has a face I’d love to punch repeatedly, and his Deacon Mark Burton is obviously a dangerous sicko. I decided last night that I won’t be happy until a mob gangs up on his ass and maybe throws him off a bridge.

I’m told that episode #5 (“Illusions,” 5.16) is the best yet.

I’ve lately been feeling this strange yen to own a Mickey Mouse watch. They were kind of a trendy thing back in the ’90s. (Or was it the ’80s?) I’ll bet there are very few out there who own four-fingered Disney gloves. It takes a certain kind of brazen, fearless psychology to even think about it. What are the odds that someone like, say, Guy Lodge ever considered such a purchase? Just saying.