The party’s over in England. Tectonic plates are shifting.

I’m so sick of The Last of Us, which is to say the draining, dispiriting genre of disease, rot and decay…dystopian finality ain’t what it used to be, you see.

I’m more or less okay with Pedro Pascal‘s Joel Miller, I suppose, but I really, really don’t care for the company of 21-year-old Bella Ramsey, who plays the brittle, glaring, strange-looking Ellie (really weird icy eyes).

Ellie is certainly “a lot.” And not just because she’s something of a Jackson Hole rock star in this godawful end-of-everything realm because she’s immune to the Cordyceps infection.

Early on Ellie and Dina (Isabella Merced) go after some growling zombies inside a warehouse of some kind, but instead of relying on firearms for protection Ellie decides upon wrestling and knifing them to death. Absolute 100% lunacy.

Ellie and Dina are sexually aroused by each other (of course! what else?) and gradually decide to make out on a dance floor during a community celebration. This prompts a local homophobe to bark and complain and call them “dykes.” And then right away Joel steps in and decks the guy, which naturally angers Ellie…such a snarly-face.

I’m not saying Ramsey is an unskilled actress or anything; I’m saying I don’t like her frosty, edgelord vibe. And I really do dislike the branding of actors who refer to themselves as “they/them” (i.e., sexually fluid or ambivalent) while wearing breast-binders and oddly identifying as Christian and autistic / neurodivergent, not to mention being a former pescatarian as well as a onetime victim of anorexia nervosa, and being sorta kinda “vegan-ish.”

Bella is so bold, so brave. If only Cary Grant or Kate Hepburn had mustered the courage to be fully and unapologetically non-binary…if only Kate had broken out of confinement and worn her hair in a tight bun along with some chest-binders while playing Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story. Did Grant hide his autism? How long and hard did he struggle with his they/them-ness?

They, they, they, they, they, they….

Ellie’s youth and immunity mean viewers are unfortunately stuck with her unless the producers read the writing on the wall. But of course they won’t / can’t because Bella Ramsey is such a heavily branded Zoomer — an autistic they/them lesbian who’s worn breast-flatteners, etc.

Some actors have eyes that radiate and reach in and establish an immediate emotional rapport. You want their characters to win through or at least not be crushed by tumbling tides. I for one would be delighted if Bella were to vanish like that…poof! Her eyes are hard and frosty and oddly feral on some level. She’s almost like a new hybrid species. She’d actually be effective as some kind of fang-toothed daughter of Dracula.

Earlier this month I experienced a mixed reaction to Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne‘s Adolescence (Netflix). My reaction was basically “okay, an absorbing, blistering British social drama about a family dealing with their 13-year-old son being accused of a knifing murder of a teenage girl, an incident that seemingly stems from a virulent culture of incel-shaming and toxic masculinity (i.e., the influence of Andrew Tate) among teenage boys.

And yet I had heard that statistically-speaking, the Andrew Tate white-kid incel/manopshere factor in England wasn’t as much of a pervasive social malignancy as Adolescence had contended. I had heard, in fact, that immigrant kids from broken families were a much greater problem in terms of teenage stabbings.

I dismissed this allegation because I hadn’t seen any stats that backed this up, but more fundamentally I knew that if I were to post reliable stats that supported this view, I would immediately be slandered as a racist scumbag by the HE commentariat.

Yesterday I came upon a London.gov.uk press release from 2.10.22 — 38 months ago. It stated that as far as the city of London was concerned, the following was statistically true at the time: “Despite making up only 13% of London’s total population, black Londoners account for 45% of London’s knife murder victims, 61% of knife murder perpetrators and 53% of knife crime perpetrators.”

Granted, Adolescence was inspired by the 2024 Southport stabbings as well as other 2023 and ’24 teenage stabbings in the U.K. Two, the statement doesn’t offer specific stats about teenaged perpetrators in the British equivalent of junior and senior high schools. And three, it doesn’t speifically argue with an allegation that a certain percentage of teenaged perpetrators are white, possibly Andrew Tate-influenced manosphere incels from normal mom-and-dad families.

We know, of course, why Thorne and Graham’s Netflix miniseries didn’t come within 50 miles of the london.gov.uk statistic in question. I don’t think I need to explain why.

I realize that the usual HE haters are going to say that only a racist at heart would allude to the London.gov statistic, and that the smarter thing would be to simply blow it off and go on my merry way. But Adolesence has stirred a lot of concerned-citizen discussion (“what should parents do about this ghastly problem?”) in recent weeks, and nobody has alluded to the possibility that teenage stabbings might have been caused or provoked by anything other than the angry incel-Andrew Tate factor. Have I missed something?

…who was born exactly 100 years and one day ago.

I know which Steiger performances I’m expected to praise, of course. On The Waterfront’s Charlie, the original lonely butcher in Delbert Mann’s televised Marty, Sergio Leone’s Duck, You Sucker, Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker, the cultured serial killer in No Way To Treat A Lady (my second favorite), and, of course, the Dr. Pepper-sipping bohunk sheriff in Norman Jewison’s In The Heat of the Night.

And yet the Steiger performance that always comes to mind first and foremost is the cynical, perverse, sophisticated and ruthless Victor Kamarovsky in David Lean’s Dr. Zhivago.

I chatted with Steiger during a press schmooze at the ‘97 Montreal Film Festival (late August). A man of vague sorrow, unassuming, meditative, dressed in black. The death of Princess Diana (8.31.97) so upset Steiger that he got up and delivered an impromptu scolding that night about the motorbike paparazzi who had chased her and Dodi Fayed. Hey, man, don’t look at me…I’m Otis Ferguson with a touch of Neal Casady.

Here’s a Joe Leydon tribute, just posted.

The devastating news about Nicky Katt’s suicide broke earlier today. Katt’s last professional gig was in 2018. Terribly sad.

Posted in late ‘22: Remember the bad old mask days? The mask nightmare lasted, roughly, for two awful years — March ’20 to March/April ’22. As recently as seven or eight months ago you could get into trouble for not observing mask protocols aboard commercial flights. It seems so long ago, but it wasn’t.

Mask mandates began to lift in February ’22, but the emotional trauma will linger for years. Particularly the aggressive behavior of mask Nazis.

On 12.12.21 I flew from New York to Los Angeles aboard United #517. I was happy to sit in the first row of coach, left front, next to the main exit door…acres of leg room. But this also meant I was constantly in view of flight attendants, and so I was reprimanded three times for allowing my mask to slip beneath the tip of my nose. If I hadn’t been sitting in row #1 nobody would’ve said boo, trust me.

Passengers were allowed to take masks off during meals, of course, and I was eating some kind of snack during one of these infractions. I didn’t argue with anyone, of course, and I apologized each time I was reprimanded. It’s not like I refused to wear my mask — I just wore it in a respectful but casual, no-big-deal way.

United Airlines Passenger Incident Review Committee (PIRC) to HE, sent on 12.12.21: “Based on the nature of the reported incident that occurred on flight 517 on December 12, 2021, this shall serve as a notice that you are not permitted to fly on United Airlines or any regional carrier operating as United Express until a review of this incident by United’s Passenger Incident Review Committee (PIRC) has occurred.

“The PIRC would like to consider your version of what occurred in this incident in making its determination. In order to ensure this information is considered a written report must be submitted within 96 hours of receiving this notice.”

HE to United PIRC, 12.13.21: “I duly apologize for letting my mask slip below the tip of my nose three times. It won’t happen again. After 21 months of wearing masks I’ve never once been scolded or reprimanded, much less been met at the gate by a United security rep. Not once. Plus I’ve been vaccinated three times. I always follow protocol when it comes to masks. Please accept my apology.”

United PIRC to HE, 12.20.21: “Based on your refusal to comply with our policy, we believe that your presence onboard future United flights creates a threat to the health and safety of our employees and passengers. Consequently, we are banning you from travel on United and United Express flights while our face covering policy is in effect. During this period, we hope that you will not attempt to fly with United. If you attempt to fly with us while our policy is in place, you will be refused transport. We do not take this regrettable action lightly.”

HE to United PITRC, 12.22: “Dear United PIRC — No offense but your decision strikes me as needlessly harsh. As I explained twice, I never refused to wear my mask, and I pledged twice in written replies to never again incur the wrath of United attendants. I also apologized twice for allowing the mask to slip beneath the tip of my nose. This was a complete non–incident. You were obviously committed to a punitive response from the get-go, regardless of the basic facts or my explanation. You, not I, have a serious attitude problem.”

So the Blue Origin girly-girls had less than two minutes in weightless space, if that. And they spent half or two-thirds of that time high-fiving and whoo-whooing each other and taking selfies…right? And maybe 10 or 15 seconds, if that, gazing upon our blue planet in respectful, semi-religious silence a la William Shatner?

“Wake the fuck up.” — gpatj8

@gpatj8 I woke up in a good mood this morning. #narutoshippuden #greenscreen #hermesthecynic ♬ original sound – gpatj

The all-female crew aboard Monday’s Blue Origin flight (10 or 11 minutes, launch to touchdown) include Lauren Sanchez, Katy Perry, Gayle King and film producer Kerianne Flynn. These guys don’t seem deep or expressive enough. An all-woman Blue Origin crew should ideally include an older world-class actress or two — Tilda Swinton, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett. Suggestions?

Not astronauts…no skills, no agency, no training…strictly passengers…a ride shorter than the average Disneyland jaunt.

For those who don’t like Rahm Emanuel, Gavin Newsom or Pete Buttigeig, I mean.

I haven’t been able to find an embeddable video clip of Deadline‘s Pete Hammond‘s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it press conference line in the season 4 opener of Hacks, which premiered Friday night. I just caught it this evening. I’ve known Pete since the mid ’80s, and hey, it’s not nothing…credit where due. Pete wanted to be an actor way back when.

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