And due respect to Cameron Douglas, grandson of Kirk and son of Michael Douglas. But if I’d been advising during the recording of this AFI Movie Club announcement, I would have gently reminded Cameron that the last syllable of Spartacus rhymes with “cuss” (i.e., as in “to curse”) or the first name of former Communist Party USA chairman Gus Hall. I’m sorry but at the :53 mark Cameron pronounces it Spartakiss, as in “kiss my ass” or Gene Simmons.
For The First Time In My Life
…I’m waking up without any particular excitement about what day it is, about what’s going to happen or what I need to prepare for or anything along those lines. It’s all flatline these days. Because in this hellish, suspended-animation nothingness it’s hard to believe that anything matters. A Sunday morning is a Thursday or Tuesday morning, ad infinitum.
I do the same thing every day no matter what (and I love it!), but before the pandemic there was always stuff to explore, things to attend, places to go, a bar or a restaurant to visit, a plane or a train to catch, etc.
A KL Studio Classics Bluray of A Thousand Clowns pops tomorrow, and for one brief shining moment I was reminded how much I once love the late Herb Gardner‘s dialogue.
Don’t forget that Martin Balsam won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Arnold Burns, the sober, boringly responsible brother of Jason Robard‘s Murray.
His Own Words
In a 5.4 Variety piece titled “Gladiator at 20: Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott Look Back on the Groundbreaking Historical Epic,” Crowe is quoted as follows:
“I’d read the script and I thought it wasn’t a movie. But then [Walter] Parkes said, ‘It’s 184 A.D., you’re a Roman general, and you’re going to be directed by Ridley Scott.’ And that was enough for me to want to talk to Ridley. I was just coming off the shoot of The Insider. I was gigantic. I had no hair because I had been wearing a wig on that movie, so I had shaved my head to make it more comfortable and the wigs go on quicker. I didn’t look like any Roman general.”
(l.) Russell Crowe in 1999’s The Insider; (r.) during a 2019 appearance on Howard Stern’s SIRIUS show.
HE to Star Wars Fans: It’s Over, Dead, Finished
With each new failed attempt to recapture the lustre of the first two Stars Wars films, the flickering flame becomes smaller, weaker, sadder. The prequels injected poison, and the sequels…well, yes, no and maybe. Is the fanbase even capable of understanding that it’s fucking over…can they get that simple fact through their thick heads? The only sensible response to the news about Taika Waititi being officially locked to direct and co-write a new Star Wars flick is “oh, Jesus God…another one?” The added blast about 1917 co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns co-penning the script with Waititi means nothing….less than nothing.
Beware of Anyone Who Says “Wow”
…while beginning to answer a complex question. On the other hand, the “addiction to growth” mentality is a profoundly serious problem. Michael Moore: “The word ‘enough’ is the dirtiest word in capitalism, because there’s not supposed to be any such thing as ‘enough’…it’s always more, more, more.”
No Sale
If you think I’m going to adjust my recollections of the George W. Bush presidency and perhaps even offer an historical upgrade because (a) Bush has just released a thoughtful and compassionate video about the pandemic, (b) he’s now being profiled by a new PBS “American Experience” documentary, and (c) he was a somewhat more responsible and conventional-minded president than Donald Trump has shown himself to be…if you think I’m about a give this second-rate man a pass, you’ve got another think coming.
You Want It Straight?
In yesterday’s comment thread under “Says Wrong Thing, Works Anyway” post, Grandpappy Amos wrote that Woody Allen‘s Crimes and Misdemeanors (’89) qualifies as an ethically flawed artistic success because it “shows that evil seems to get actually rewarded.”
This morning I replied as follows: “Incorrect. Crimes and Misdemeanors is about negotiating an arrangement with ‘the eyes of God.’ It’s about the ability of a wealthy and respected man (Martin Landau‘s “Judah Rosenthal”) to lapse into panic and rage and finally evil in order to protect his status and income. It’s also about how guilt can drive a person half-crazy until, like a fog lifting, it all seems to lessen and then more or less evaporate. So evil isn’t ‘rewarded’ but afforded a certain accommodation.”
Wiki slice: The universe is a dark and indifferent place which human beings fill with love, in the hope that it will give meaning to the cavernous void.
Great Depression 2
The latest anti-Trump ad by the Lincoln Project good guys (George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, Rick Wilson).
Joseph Losey’s “Accident In His Pants”
From “Full Disclosure: An Interview with standup comedian and former Celebrity Apprentice talent handler Noel Casler,” by PREVAILS’s Gregg Olear (posted on 5.1):
If I Was Biden, I’d Pick…
Joe Biden‘s vice-president can’t shouldn’t be chosen for cosmetic or charismatic reasons. The right vp would have to be ready to step into the Oval Office on a moment’s notice, and with Uncle Joe you have to consider what could happen in a year or two or three, given his age and whatnot.
For me the ideal partner would be Elizabeth Warren, but at the same time I’m not sure she’s the best choice from an electoral perspective, as her Democratic primary campaign never really connected and she never polled well in battleground states.
Kamala Harris is my second choice, and Susan Rice my third. Stacey Abrams is brilliant and extra-articulate and forceful — you tell me if she’d be a knockout campaigner or major ticket enhancer. Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer seems a bit wet behind the ears but maybe not.
Says Wrong Thing, Works Anyway
It takes a certain amount of character and maturity to simultaneously walk and chew gum about a certain film — to be able to disagree with the content (or some aspect of it) but at the same time admire the chops or the expertise with which it casts a certain emotional spell.
If wokesters disagree with what a film is saying, they’ll write it off without a second thought. Serious cineastes take a broader view. They may not respect or even despise where a film is coming from but the reputable ones can’t reject it entirely if it hits the emotional mark, or if it’s superbly made.
The oldest example is Leni Reifenstahl‘s Triumph of the Will — reprehensible content, mesmerizing technique.
A recent example is Peter Farrelly‘s Green Book, which a chorus of cranky Shallow Hals derided for daring to operate within the realm of 1962 and thereby not in synch with 21st Century wokester values. I knew all that, but there was no denying that Farrelly’s film was emotionally affecting — that the connection between Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali‘s characters carried a kindly, comforting current.
Jean Luc Godard was probably the first serious film demon to acknowledge this dichotomy, In a Cahiers du Cinema piece Godard admitted to being seized with affection for John Wayne‘s Ethan Edwards at the end of The Searchers when he picks up Natalie Wood and says, “Let’s go home, Debbie.” This is a “dishonest” moment from a 20th Century perspective as Ethan is a racist sonuvabitch, and there’s no way he’s going to renounce his gut feelings at the very last minute. But for Godard, the moment was transcendent.
I revisited this idea yesterday when I re-posted a Gunga Din riff from 12.24.17: “Otis Ferguson‘s review of this 1939 adventure flick called it a racist and arrogant celebration of British colonial rule. And yet I’ve been emotionally touched and roused by this film all my life. The last half-hour of Gunga Din is perfect, but it ends with Sam Jaffe‘s Indian ‘bhisti’ basking in post-mortem nirvana over having been accepted as a British soldier.” An appalling idea when you think about it, but it works.
I’ve always hated the shallow fantasy notion of superheroes and the corporate, FX-dependent theology of Marvel and D.C. films, but from time to time I’ve been surprised to find myself buying into the bullshit, Avengers: Endgame being the most recent example.
A couple of times I’ve mentioned how Billy Wilder‘s The Spirit of St. Louis says the wrong things by (a) ignoring the dark underside of Charles Lindbergh — “a nativist anti-Semite who admired the fascist state and urged the United States to stay out of the war because Nazi victory was certain,” as an HE commenter once put it — and (b) shamelessly embracing the idea of heavenly assistance just before the exhausted Lindbergh (James Stewart) is about to land his plane at Le Bourget field in Paris. He starts to lose it — freaking and whimpering over a sudden inability to focus on the basics of landing a plane. Then he thinks back to a “flying prayer” that a priest had passed on, and he blurts out, “Oh, God, help me.” And of course he lands safely. It’s a cheap Sunday-school trick, but Stewart’s acting and Franz Waxman‘s music sells it.
“Suburban Facebook Empathy Moms”
Despite my gender, I believe that I’m a kind of West Hollywood version of a Suburban Facebook Empathy Mom. I grew up in suburbia (New Jersey, Connecticut) so I get that whole thing. I poke around Facebook on a daily basis so that’s covered. I know what it is to empathize with anyone going through a difficult time, as no one feels the pain and sorrow of existence in a cold and barren universe more deeply than myself. And I know what it’s like to be a “mom” in a certain sense because I loved my dear and departed mother (Nancy Wells), I’m a father of two lads (Jett and Dylan), I’m currently a kind of mother to two cats and I’ve been called a motherfucker from time to time.
