In that recently posted Club Random chat between Bill Maher and Maureen Dowd, Maher shared an unusual anecdote about visiting Ireland. Unusual for Maher, I mean, as he’s not the emotional-sharing type.

Maher’s jet was approaching Irish soil (presumably Dublin airport), he recalled, and just as as it touched down on the tarmac he melted…something took over and he began to cry. Some atmospheric whatever got to him, something that his body or spirit recognized…a homeland vibe.

My ancestral roots are British and not Irish, but I felt almost the same thing when I visited Dublin in the fall of ’88. Maggie and I and five-month-old Jett flew to Dublin from London, and right away I felt something. One of my first thoughts as we left the Dublin region and drove into the countryside was “I could die here.”

Related: A similar thing happened in London in 1980. For the first time in my life I heard my last name pronounced correctly, or at least in a richer, more tonally satisfying way than I myself had ever pronounced it.

It’s an English name, of course, so no surprise that I experienced my “woke” moment when a British Airways attendant said “Mr. Wells?” He said it with a zesty, just-right emphasis on the “ell” sound. (I tend to use an “euhll” sound.) The British Airways guy had it down…made me feel proud of my heritage.

I haven’t spelled it out in so many words, but the Big Memory-Lane Question is this: try to recall a moment on foreign soil when you immediately and perhaps inexplicably felt at home…at peace…welcomed…relieved.

Because of some sudden wash-over feeling…maybe a person or persons you ran into on a bus or subway or an Uber into town…maybe the way the early-morning air or a curbside food stand smelled…some hard-to-pin-down scent or vibe that seeped into your pores and took you back to a place of ease and familiarity or even serenity.

I’m not talking about hotel-brand comfort (“feels just like checking into a Comfort Inn in Pensacola!”)…some travelers take pleasure in familiarity, I realize, but that’s not what this is…I’m speaking of a feeling that snuck up on you, an air-sniff or a Bill Maher-like (or Bill Murray-ish) nudge of surprise…an out-of-the-blue thing in Guatemala or Scotland or Wagga Wagga (west of Canberra) or the southeastern coast of Spain.

Bill Burr to red-carpet journalist who was asking about Luigi Mangione and Elon Musk, prior to Conan O’Brien Mark Train tribute at Kennedy Center (several days ago):

“I don’t think you should be asking a comedian [about this stuff]. You’re a journalist. No, no, that’s weak. That’s you guys passing the buck. You guys need to have balls again. Which you don’t. You guys always say, ‘Should we be thinking this?’ You guys present stuff like that. You need to get your balls back.”

Last night I slammed my way through all four episodes of Adolesence, Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham‘s British miniseries that’s been streaming on Netflix since 3.13.25.

It’s basically about a mood of anti-female malevolence and hostility among young teenage males, and about how it’s all hidden or simmering under the surface, and as such doesn’t feel especially real or recognizable, or at least not to me and my understanding of things.

Yes, teenage knifings have become a thing in England over the last two or three years but the Andrew Tate manosphere — toxic masculinity, bullying, incel inferences — carries a very weird vibe, and I didn’t know what to do with it. What’s wrong with these fucking kids? What’s gotten into their blood? What’s the disease?

All four episodes are “oners” — real time, no cuts. The first thing I asked myself was “how would these episodes play if they’d been shot in the usual way?”, and the answer, I told myself, was that they’d feel more tightly focused and concise and perhaps more dramatically affecting. That’s not to say I found the “oner” approach unworthy or frustrating, but there is a general feeling of cinematic technique exerting more control than the serving of dramatic basics.

The strongest episode by far is part 3, which focuses entirely on a gentle interrogation of Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper), a 13 year old accused murderer, by forensic psychologist Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty).

There’s a fair amount of dodging and denial on Jamie’s part, as the cops have video of him knifing the deceased victim, Katie, so his evasions and whatnot feel decidedly strange as well as futile. The atmosphere intensifies when Briony asks about Jamie’s sex life, which seems odd in itself as he’s slight and kid-like and tweener-ish. One gradually detects currents of suppressed hostility that are rooted in rejection and whatnot. Jamie’s mood fluctuates between amiable and resentful, wich leads to a sudden, standing-up outburst. The session ends with Briony telling Jamie this will be their final meeting, which triggers anxiety and pleading and then another outburst.

Who is this kid? What’s with the lying and denial? Where has all the “red pill” anger, insecurity and rage come from?

What does “nonce” mean again? Something to do with sex offender?

Last weekend Kevin Dougherty‘s Drew Friedman: Verneer of the Borscht Belt screened at the Aero, followed by a q & a with Friedman, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski + various rogues and scalawags.

I’m not understanding the why or how of the Aero screening as the the doc initially surfaced six years ago. But Friedman did me a solid 32 years ago when he inked a Last Action Hero fallout cartoon, which was published in Spy…hence my loyalty and affection.

Nothing much has happened, and nothing much will happen, during Sunday’s (4.6) finale. Okay, the fact that it’s 90 minutes offer a glimmer of hope. But it’s mainly been inching along and pissing people off.

I despise Jason Isaacs‘ Tim Ratliff so much….nothing he can do on Sunday, even killing himself, will satisfy me as he’s done nothing for the last seven episodes…waste of skin.

Natasha Rothwell‘s Belinda Lindsey is mind-blowingly stupid for turning down a $100,000 gift when she doesn’t really know what Jon Gries‘ Gary / Greg is actually guilty of, death-of-his-wife-wise…she’s just guessing. (And stupid.) Her son gets it: “If you don’t take the money, he’ll come after you.” Duhhh.

Season #3 has been a shortfaller on so many fronts that it can’t possibly make things right with one episode to go. It’s pretty much been an outright failure. Mike White has dropped the clay pitcher, and the milk is all over the floor.

Remember that scene in which Al Pacino‘s Vincent Hanna and the cops, hiding inside a parked ten-wheeler, are spying on Robert DeNiro‘s Neil McCauley, Val Kilmer‘s Chris Shiherlis and two others as they begin to rob some nondescript joint (possibly a precious metal depot) in downtown Los Angeles?

After a careless uniformed cop makes a noise inside the truck, McCauley, suspecting the worst, aborts the heist…”we walk!” The crew leaves the building carrying nothing, but they’re being taped, of course, and so Hanna and the cops know their faces, obviously including Shiherlis.

There’s a scene directly following in which McCauley tells Chris and Tom Sizemore‘s Michael Cheritto that they’ve almost certainly been identified…”assume it all.”

After the big downtown L.A. bank robbery, Hanna’s team, led by Mykelti Williamson‘s Sergeant Bobby Drucker, has Chris’s wife, Charlene (Ashley Judd), in a Venice apartment. They’re somehow anticipating that Chris will try to rendezvous with Charlene at the Venice pad (how exactly?), and within a couple of minutes a car slowly approaches from a small side street, and Drucker has an idea it might be Chris.

The car pulls up and the driver gets out, and we see that Chris has sheared off his long blonde hair and is now sporting a Chris Walken flattop. Charlene, standing on an outdoor balcony, signals Chris with that wonderfully subtle hand gesture that things are not cool. Chris gets back in and drives off. Drucker radios a black-and-white to stop Chris and check his ID. Except he has clean ID, identifying him as someone else, and they let him go.

We’re expected to believe that Drucker can’t recognize Chris because his hair is shorter? He and Hanna know his facial features — why can’t they make him despite the length of his hair? They haven’t passed around photos of Chris to everyone concerned?

I’ve been avoiding Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne‘s Adolescence (Netflix) because of an instinct. But I guess I’ll start watching tonight.

Violent stabbings in the UK. Young lad attackers, young girl victims. Teenage blade rage. An indictment of cruelty and bullying and how the manosphere has affected young teens. Andrew Tate and the “red pill” community. Four episodes, all “oners” (i.e., no cuts, shot in real time). Originally conceived by Stephen Graham “as a response to a sudden increase in violent knife crime in the UK”, including the 2023 murder of Elianne Andam and 2021 stabbing of Ava White.

Is there any kind of racial or immigrant community factor here? There’d better not be or consequences will ensue. Don’t mention the 2024 Southport stabbings…none of that. Trash the manosphere all you want, but keep it there.

No poet-songwriter worth his or her salt will explain what their song lyrics mean. The absolute king and ruler of this attitude is Bob Dylan, of course…he’s been rebuffing such questions since he first appeared 65 years ago.

On at least one mid ’60s occasion, however, Dylan not only relaxed his standards but eagerly offered specific analysis of each and every track on Bringing It All Back Home, released in April ’65.

Why the lyrics tutorial? Because Dylan wanted to put the high hard one to Marianne Faithfull, who was quite the erotic object of desire back then.

N.Y. Times correspondent Lindsay Zoladz reports that in “Faithfull: An Autobiography“, published 25 years ago, Faithfull wrote that Dylan “tried to seduce her by playing his latest album, Bringing It All Back Home, and explaining in detail what each track meant.”

Alas, no nookie for Bobby. “I just found him so…daunting,” Faithfull wrote. “As if some god had come down from Olympus and started to come onto me.”

The legend is that post-shutdown Dylan exacted a form of revenge by ripping up a poem he’d written about Faithfull. They nonetheless enjoyed a decades-long friendship.

Faihfull got fat when she aged into her late 60s or thereabouts, but that happens. She passed two months ago — 1.30.25 — at age 78.

“I see myself as a sensitive, intelligent human being, but with the soul of a clown.”

Val Kilmer, aged 65, took off sometime yesterday in Los Angeles. And I’m sorry…of course I am. But the announcement shocked no one. Kilmer’s bout with throat cancer that began in the mid teens, his jarring Will Sampson-like appearance starting around 2020, the vibe of diminishment he gave off in Top Gun: Maverick…we all understood he was on a gradual downswirl. There but for the grace of God.

A lot of people will be streaming Val, that better than-decent 2021 portrait doc, on Amazon tonight. Or Oliver Stone‘s The Doors (in which Kilmer did his own singing) or Top Gun or Tombstone (Kilmer’s grayish pallor and wheezy cough) or Batman Forever (that Batsuit ass shot) or Phillip Noyce‘s under-remembered but smartly engaging The Saint.

But for me the ultimate Val Kilmer film — the one I immediately default to when I think of this fine, conflicted, relentlessly passionate fellow, whom I knew very slightly and chatted with once or twice — is not one of his starring vehicles (for he was never really a superstar as much as a high-energy, high-commitment character actor) but Michael Mann‘s Heat (’95), an ensemble crime film for the ages.

Kilmer played Chris Shiherlis, a rugged, well-disciplined, first-rate thief with a gambling problem…a loyal soldier who absolutely ruled during that explosive shoot-out scene in downtown Los Angeles.

After watching Heat with one of my sons for the third or fourth time in the early aughts, I remember saying in a tone of hushed reverence, “If I was reckless and self-destructive enough to be a bank robber, which would never happen but still…if I ever got into a ferocious shoot-out with cats who wanted to take me down, I would want a hardcore guy like Kilmer defending my flank and covering my six.”

Not that shooting at street cops is any kind of decent or civilized thing, but when and if the chips are down and the bullet casings are flying…

True stuff: I went to a party at Kilmer’s Hollywood Hills home sometime in early ’03 or ’04. (Bill Maher was there also.) I never regarded Kilmer as anything more than just a name-brand actor I’d said hello to once or twice, but he was a friendly host that night. Cool to shoot the shit with in the kitchen. We talked about The Saint. There was a huge blowup photo of Angelina Jolie, his recent Alexander costar, on the living room wall.

Seven years earlier I did a fair amount of reporting on an Entertainment Weekly hit piece about the tumultuous shooting of The Island of Dr. Moreau. At one time or another the piece was called “Psycho Kilmer, Qu’est ca c’est?“. Did Kilmer know I’d helped out on this damning article? I only know that he didn’t mention it during our kitchen chat.

In 2011 I was interviewing Judy Greer at a West Hollywood La Pain Quotidien about her award-calibre supporting performance in Alexander Payne‘s The Descendants. Kilmer was there also, and we exchanged curt smiles and waves without speaking. We waved at each other again as he left 15 or 20 minutes later. When it came time to pay the bill for Judy and myself, I was told by the waitress that Kilmer had paid it.

Despite all the bumps and potholes, Kilmer was a good soul…for my money he exuded decency and seemed to be seeking transcendence at every turn.

Marc Antony in Julius Caesar: “This was a man!”

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Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood ended with a nice late ’60s Hollywood fantasy — Sharon Tate and friends spared from terrible death, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) dispatching Manson Family wackos Tex Watson (Austin Butler) and Susan Atkins (Mikey Madison), the possibility of Rick’s career re-igniting, etc.

So what new adventure or intrigue could Booth and Dalton encounter that would top their big Cielo Drive finale?

Suggestion: Whatver the plot, please bring back Julia Butters.

Apparently I have to write the words “yes, I know what day it is”, so now I’ve done that.

Jeff “Insneider” Sneider is all over this…

25 years have passed since my one and only viewing of Robert Zemeckis‘ What Lies Beneath (7.21.00). I was thinking last night about giving it another watch, but then I dredged up some memories and went “naaah.”

Besides not liking it much, I was also kind of distraught over Harrison Ford having made one of the biggest mistakes of his career by blowing off the role of Robert Wakefield in Steven Soderbergh and Stephen Gaghan‘s Traffic, which was shot around the same time as the Zemeckis and opened six months later (12.27.00).

Michael Douglas played the Wakefield role…skillfully, effectively. I couldn’t understand why Ford would reject this kind of acting opportunity in order to play a deranged husband in a piece of shit like What Lies Beneath. Douglas was totally fine in Traffic, but Ford might’ve been even better…we’ll never know,