During a chat with JLo for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Robert Pattinson (aka “Rbatz”) said that the Twilight series (a) has always struck him as a profoundly “weird story” and (b) that “it’s strange how people responded a lot to it.” Jesus…after all these years and he still doesn’t understand the primal appeal of this franchise?

“I guess the books are very romantic, but at the same time, it’s not like The Notebook romantic,” Rbatz said. “The Notebook is very sweet and heartbreaking, but ‘Twilight’ is about this guy, and he finds the one girl he wants to be with, and he also wants to eat her. I mean, not eat her, but drink her blood or whatever.”

No, no, no…it’s not about Edward Cullen wanting to drink Bella Swan‘s blood and turning her into a fellow vampire (although the story does eventually go there). It’s about the undying love and steadfast loyalty of a hunky young guy whose feelings aren’t driven by sexual hunger but an everlasting, otherworldly urge to shelter and protect.

The Twilight series goes off the rails in Breaking Dawn, Part 1 when Edward and Bella have sex and she gets pregnant. Being dead, Edward can’t achieve a stiffie, much less produce sperm, so the whole sexual angle is fucking ridiculous.

Originally posted on 5.27.14: I’ve never been a fan of that “plink plink plink plink plink pink plink plink” Twilight Zone theme, which replaced Bernard Herrmann‘s music after the first ’59-to-’60 season.

Herrmann’s original score is wonderfully solemn and vaguely creepy, and much more affecting in a moody-undercurrent way than anything that followed. The fact that Marius Constant‘s plunk-plink-bongos score is one of the most universally-recognizable music cues of the past century doesn’t mean jack-squat. There’s nothing lower than being a widely recognized music cue. Herrmann’s score is for the connoisseurs club — no chumps allowed.

Whatever the time frame, sexual assault is without question hateful, criminal and tragic. Who isn’t repelled by the import of various allegations that Roman Polanski behaved abominably with certain younger women? True, Polanski has denied the recent rape allegation shared by Valentine Monnier, and he is apparently considering suing Le Parisien for publishing her allegation. But there have been other similar assertions, as we all know.

There’s no way to argue that the women who protested against last night’s Paris opening of Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy (aka J’accuse) are emotionally in the wrong. But at the same time it is wrong to try and censor or suppress art.

We’re talking about two separate realms here — that of Polanski the artist vs. the flawed and conflicted Polanski who’s allegedly brought trauma and harm to certain women. History tells us that many noteworthy artists have been, more often than not, intemperate and unruly in their emotional relationships.. Hurt people hurt people, and I wish it were otherwise. But great or formidable cinema should never be fucked with…ever.

The voice of top Ukraine diplomat William B. Taylor, who this morning provided compelling testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on the opening day of impeachment hearings, has great snap and timbre. He speaks with crisp diction and an excellent phrasing instinct. One is concurrently left with an impression that Taylor is a man of character and conviction, and is therefore trustworthy.

But I don’t get the Walter Cronkite analogy. Okay, their voices are vaguely similar. What people are really saying, I suspect, is that Taylor sounded as polished and well-spoken and generally convincing as Cronkite did for decades on the CBS Evening News.

CNN’s Chris Cillizza: “William B. Taylor, the top US official in Ukraine, delivered a tour-de-force opening statement — packed with details about the formation of an “irregular” channel (led by personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani) with Ukraine that often ran directly counter to his own regular channel and longstanding US policy in the region.

“Taylor also laid out an excruciatingly specific timeline of his interactions with, among others, National Security Adviser John Bolton, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and top Ukrainian officials. In that timeline, he repeatedly made clear that there was a not-very-quiet understanding that military aid from the US to Ukraine was being withheld unless and until the country announced an investigation into Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company where Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son, sat on the board.

“Most stunningly, Taylor recounted an episode that he was told about only after his September 22 closed-door testimony involving Sondland. According to Taylor, Sondland met with a top aide to Zelensky on July 26 — one day after the fateful call between Trump and Zelensky. Sondland then called Trump and informed him of the nature of the meeting and an aide to Taylor heard Trump ask of “the investigations.” Following that call, the Taylor aide asked Sondland what Trump’s thoughts were on Ukraine. Sondland replied that Trump cares more about the Biden investigation than anything else.”

The view of Jordan Searles’ N.Y. Times op-ed piece about Marriage Story (11.12) is that Robert Benton‘s Kramer vs. Kramer, to which Noah Baumbach‘s film has been compared, presents a more progressive view of how a responsibility-accepting husband-father (i.e, Dustin Hoffman‘s Ted Kramer) should behave.

Her opinion is basically that Baumbach favors Adam Driver‘s less-apologetic Charlie Barber character over Scarlett Johansson‘s Nicole Barber.

Excerpt: “Baumbach casts Laura Dern‘s point of view in a harsh light, with her feminist speeches framed like villain monologues. In the last act of the film, Nora announces that she cut a deal with Charlie’s lawyers that gives Nicole custody 55 percent of the time whenever Charlie is visiting Los Angeles. ‘I didn’t want him to be able to say he got 50-50,’ she says, gloating.

“Even though Marriage Story is ostensibly on Nicole’s side, she isn’t given the same sympathy-churning emotional beats afforded to her ex-husband. Charlie never apologizes for his behavior, though he does perform ‘Being Alive,’ from the Stephen Sondheim musical Company. In the show, the song finds the lead character at first rejecting commitment, but soon realizing that everything that makes a relationship challenging can also be fulfilling. Mr. Driver’s performance of the song is stirring, but its context feels unearned.”

HE to critic pally: “Are you sensing a shifting of the winds on Marriage Story?” Critic pally to HE: “Totally. It’s being taken down by the wokesters, and by the fact that it’s gone into the Netflix Bermuda Triangle.”

I ran a “Marriage v. Kramer” piece on 9.3.19.

Hollywood Elsewhere sincerely apologizes for missing last night’s all-media screening of Elizabeth Banks‘ Charlie’s Angels. It’s not that I didn’t want to see it…okay, maybe it is that. Maybe I subconsciously “forgot” for this reason.

Rotten Tomatoes 61% + Metacritic 56% = forget it.

“The movie is relentless, pulpy and exciting, unabashedly derivative, and — at an hour and 58 minutes — a little too much of a rousingly of-the-moment feministic but still rather standard-issue thing.

“The new Charlie’s Angels is a heavier chunk of escape than any previous Angels incarnation — if the early–2000s films were pop, this one is metal.” — from Owen Gleiberman’s apparently gently phrased review.

Heroic Hollywood: “While speaking to SBIFF Cinema Society, Joker director Todd Phillips explained that there were a few scenes that he had to cut, the most notable of which was a scene had Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck doing something bizarre while inside a bathtub.

“Phillips didn’t explain what this was exactly, but it seems as though the scene in question was meant to be highly disturbing.

“Usually, when a hard-R movie has to have a scene cut from the theatrical release in order to get MPAA approval, it’s because the scene in question is deemed pornographic. However, Phillips suggested that the scene that was removed is not sexually explicit in nature, but is simply too bizarre for a standard R-rated movie to handle.”

Why not just spill it?

John Sebastian + the MonaLisa Twins bonded a little more than two years ago. It only took me 7 and 1/2 months to catch up with this “Make Up Your Mind” video. Apart from the fact that Sebastian is 50 years older than he was at the time of the ’69 Woodstock Festival, what’s the main takeaway? The fact that his voice has dropped a few octaves, and he can no longer sing this 1966 tune in G major.

For the first time in the 2019 campaign, Mayor Pete is ahead of the other Democratic contenders (Typewriter Joe, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders) in a poll about the forthcoming, all-important Iowa caucus. A Monmouth University Poll shows Buttigieg leading with 22%, followed by Joe Biden at 19%, Sen. Warren at 18%, and Sen. Sanders with 13%….it’s over, Bernie! This is the first time that the South Bend mayor has come in first in any poll. Biden and Warren’s numbers are within the margin of error, but Buttigieg has nonetheless risen 14 points since Monmouth’s August poll.

I can’t shake this awful premonition (which is backed up by polling data) that hinterland bumblefucks will mostly lean against Elizabeth Warren and go with the devil they know, and out of this Donald Trump may once again pull off an electoral college victory despite losing the popular vote. Bernie Sanders has his devotional following, but no path to the Democratic nomination.

The only candidates who could save us from a Warren loss are (a) Typewriter Joe, who’s been slipping in the polls and excites no one outside of retirement-age whites and mainstream African Americans, and (b) Pete Buttigieg, the only formidable Democratic contender who’s below retirement age and radiates a combination of intelligent practicality and X-factor excitement (but who faces a stiff uphill situation with African-American homophobes).

So Typewriter Joe is the only thing standing between the urban and suburban, reasonably well-educated, non-bumblefuck electorate and four more horrific years of The Beast. Joe is polling way ahead of Trump, which is obviously a comfort. But he’s a holdover, a withered brand, past his prime and so not the guy to run things in the 2020s. Better than Trump, of course, but if you set aside the decency factor and the practical-liberal approach to governing you’re left with a guy who’s repeatedly signalled that biology is tapping on his shoulder and who’ll be 82 when his first term ends.

Which is why I wrote yesterday that “I feel as if we’re all in the middle of this vaguely depressing, increasingly terrifying, extremely slow-motion political nightmare.”

There’s no sensible reason to dislike or dismiss Joe Biden with any intensity. If he somehow snags the Democratic Presidential nomination (which probably won’t happen — it’s basically a Warren-vs.-Buttigieg race now), I’ll vote for him without question. But I won’t like the situation much.

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