via GIPHY

Posted on 3.23 but identified as part of The New Yorker‘s 4.1.19 issue:

“The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui,” posted on 11.28.16: “What’s the difference between Donald Trump and President Mark Hollenbach in Fletcher Knebel‘s “Night of Camp David,” a 1965 thriller about a first-term Senator, Jim MacVeagh, who comes to believe that Hollenbach has mentally gone around the bend and needs to somehow be relieved of his duties? They seem similar to me.

Six months ago The New Yorker‘s Adam Gopnik wrote that “the American Republic stands threatened by the first overtly anti-democratic leader of a large party in its modern history — an authoritarian with no grasp of history, no impulse control, and no apparent barriers on his will to power.”

“And he’s not wrong,” I wrote on 5.31. “And the bubbas don’t care. They feel they’ve been fucked so badly that all bets are off. They’re determined to shoot the place up before dying.”

Surely a good portion of the HE community has seen Craig Zahler‘s Dragged Across Concrete by now, especially with the low-cost, easy-streaming options. Stand up to the p.c. pearl-clutchers!

A non-pro wrote the following on Friday night: “FIRST MASTERPIECE OF 2019!! COP FILM ON THE LEVEL OF HEAT!!! where do I start?! WHY WASN’T THIS FILM RELEASED WIDE IN THEATERS?!! PERFECT SCREENPLAY. HIGHLY ENGAGED THE WHOLE FILM. EVERY SCENE AMAZING! I WAS SWEATING THE LAST HOUR OF THE FILM FROM SUSPENSE! WATCH THIS FILM ASAP! WORTH EVERY PENNY, TRUE CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE! I AM NOW OBSESSED WITH THIS WRITER/DIRECTOR!”

Two and a half hours of sitting-up “sleep” on Saturday morning’s LAX-to-JFK flight, which left around midnight and arrived just after 8 am. Everyone had to walk a mile and a half to get to the baggage carousels. Alas, my suitcase was missing. The Delta guys knew it was somewhere in the terminal but alas, they knew not where. I filled out the forms and took the Air Train to Howard Beach, and then waited over 20 minutes for the miserable Manhattan-bound A train to arrive. The NYC subway system is pathetic — the worst anywhere.

I didn’t get to Grand Central until 11:15 am. I was so whipped from the flight that I slumped over and crashed on the NYC-to-Westport train. Good friend Jody scooped me up, drove to the Southport automotive garage where the Yamaha Majesty and the Nissan Maxima beater have been sitting all winter. In 38-degree weather I drove the Yamaha back to Wilton — delightful icy wind cutting into my cheekbones.

I crashed on Jody’s living room couch, and did so, mind, while sitting up with a remote in my hand. Jody drove me back to Southport to pick up the Nissan. Movers are arriving Monday morning to take stuff back to Los Angeles (Yamaha, big TV, Blurays, clothing, shoes, framed art) so I drove to a local mall to buy cardboard shipping boxes, bubble wrap and packing tape. Again I crashed on the couch. Woke up, had some dinner, watched some TV.

The missing suitcase was finally delivered to Jody’s home by a Delta subcontractor at 12:10 am. I had filed a couple of stories this evening but I need to wake up early tomorrow. Face facts — today was a wash.

I’ve always felt that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (’89) is the most satisfying of the four Indys. Because it’s the funniest and most serial-like (a series of amusing, thrilling, well-choreographed skits that deliver on their own terms and don’t rely on any kind of feature-length narrative cohesion). It’s also the most nimble and assured effort within the realm. Director Steven Spielberg seems more relaxed with the comedic-romp aspects here than he was with the other three (Raiders, Temple of Doom, Crystal Skull).

Crusade is the only one of the four that I own on Bluray. That means something.

From “In Praise of Jason Clarke, Hollywood’s Go-to Cuckold,” posted by Vulture‘s Nate Jones on 3.21.19: “Every decade gets the Ralph Bellamy it deserves. In the ’90s, snarky Greg Kinnear habitually lost the girl to Hanksian nice guys. In the aughts, clean-cut James Marsden found himself overshadowed by sensitive brooders like Ryan Gosling and Wolverine.

“Recently, a new face of romantic failure has emerged: Australian actor Jason Clarke, who’s managed to carve out a healthy sideline playing some of the most disappointing husbands in contemporary cinema. Clarke’s presence is almost a walking spoiler alert at this point: If our heroine is married to him in the first act, by the end of the third you can almost guarantee that she’ll wind up having sex with another man.”

From “Stop Casting Clarke As Glum and Dismissable Types“, posted on 11.27.18: “I’ve met Jason Clarke socially two or three times, and there’s no correlation between his dinner table persona — loose, casual, funny, kind-hearted — and the glum, dismissable guys he’s always being hired to play in films.

“Clarke has had four interesting roles over the last decade — John ‘Red’ Hamilton in Public Enemies, the CIA torturer guy in Zero Dark Thirty, Ted Kennedy in Chappaquiddick and “Malcom” in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Otherwise he’s always getting cast as cuckolds (in Mudbound, The Great Gatsby, All I See Is You, The Aftermath) or guys who end up dead (First Man, Everest) or as villains.

“The real-life Clarke is bathed in charm and alpha vibes, but put him before a movie camera and he turns into a downhearted gloomhead who’s always coping with the shitty end of the stick. Not right, unfair, reboot required.”

Until this evening and after a lifetime of movie worship, I’d somehow overlooked the fact that Bellamy’s performance as “Oklahoma” Dan Leeson in The Awful Truth (’37) resulted in a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Three years later Bellamy played almost the exact same character in His Girl Friday. And both times opposite Cary Grant.

After this one-two punch Bellamy was typecast for years as a slow-witted bumpkin and amiable dolt. He finally overcame this when he played FDR in Sunrise at Campobello (on stage in ’58, and in the ’60 film version).

I’m sitting in a peon-class seat (42C, way in the back) on a Delta red-eye. Midnight departure, arriving at JFK a little after 8 am. If you buy a Delta cheap seat you have to be down with being politely humiliated with a smile. It’s like riding on a chicken bus from Belize City to Playa del Carmen. You just have to adopt a Zen attitude and accept the bargain-basement reality of what you’ve paid for and who you are in the eyes of Delta employees. I don’t expect to “enjoy” the flight — I just want to get through it. In the words of Sterling Hayden‘s psychotic Air Force general In Dr. Strangelove, “I think I can.”

Once in a blue moon Hollywood Elsewhere will post a portion of an Armond White review, most often because I agree with the opinion. White is a big fan of Craig Zahler‘s Dragged Across Concrete (Summit, 3.22). Here’s a portion of his National Review assessment:

“At last, we have an American filmmaker who has experienced Tarantino and got past it. Zahler’s surprisingly felt art is not predicated on movie violence, even though genre violence is his métier. Despite Zahler’s heightened form of crime fantasy, Dragged Across Concrete presents a strangely naturalistic worldview. Instead of imagining how heartless — or ‘cool’ — mankind can be, Zahler looks for hidden virtues in each situation, no matter how bizarre.

“Most Hollywood movies — post-Tarantino — distract us from viewing American life as a unique experience. Zahler gravitates toward the violent and the outré as comic aspects of American greed and lust.

“But he doesn’t stop there, as Tarantino does. Zahler’s characters are full of yearning (uncorrupted desire and love). That explains the plot digression about an anxious new mother (Jennifer Carpenter) reentering the workforce. Her fate triggers the heroic rescue action that will determine each man’s familial resolve.”

There’s a reason why Dragged Across Concrete has a 76% Rotten Tomatoes rating. The reason is too many p.c. pearl-clutcher critics, all of them complaining that it’s too much of a rightwing fantasy or that it’s too insensitive or too brutal, that it doesn’t move fast enough. Basically reviewing where it seems to be coming from politically above other aspects.

The naysayers include N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis, L.A. Times‘ critic Justin Chang, TheWrap‘s Todd Gilchrist, The Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern and The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody.

I’m flying to JFK late tonight and Metro Northing up to Wilton tomorrow morning. I have to sell a Nissan Maxima that I bought last fall and send stuff (the beloved Yamaha Majesty, my 65″ 4K HDR TV, Roku player + 4K Bluray player, Blurays, sub-woofer, oriental rug, wooden shoe rack, clothing, framed photos) back to Los Angeles via Arrow Movers, who are picking up on Monday or Tuesday. It’s a pain in the ass but I have to do it. I’ll also be catching a couple of screenings in Manhattan and probably hang with friends a bit. Returning to Los Angeles next Friday, 3.29. I’ve gotten used to the warmish (recently almost summery) Los Angeles weather so I’m not looking forward to those frigid Connecticut climes.

Selling this 19 year-old rig for a cool $1500 sometime this weekend.

After almost two years of meticulous closed-door inquiries, special counsel Robert S. Mueller has finally delivered a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election to Attorney General William P. Barr.

The jowly, bespectacled AG told congressional leaders late today that “he may brief them within days on the special counsel’s findings,” according to a N.Y. Times report. “I may be in a position to advise you of the special counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend,” Barr wrote in a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.

There is, however, a question of how much of the report Barr will want to share with Congress and the public. In other words he might conceivably censor or suppress portions of Mueller’s findings in order to…what, protect Trump from political difficulty and/or eventual prosecution?

After the Comey firing and the endless indications of Russian meddling, after all the indictments and plea deals and strong whiffs of criminality by various Trump associates and appointees, after all this apparent stink-from-the-head corruption and sociopathic behavior from Cheeto himself, where does Barr find the balls to even flirt with the idea of not releasing portions of the final report?

After all the struggle, bubble, toil and trouble, how can Barr even think along these lines?

Originally posted on 3.6, but more SPOILERY this time: “At the very end a hefty portion of the ill-gotten loot is donated to daughter of Ben Affleck, who doesn’t quite make it to the end. I have a problem with this.

“More than anyone else, Affleck goaded the team to carry off a lot more money than they had originally planned to find, etc. Everyone went along with this, but Affleck was leading the charge, urging them on.

“Taking more money makes no sense as there are clear weight limits on the amount of cash the helicopter can carry over the Andes. The pilot (Pedro Pascal) voices concerns about this, but they’re all so money-crazy they decide to risk it anyway.

“So after Affleck dies and the others make it back safely, they bequeath their shares to Affleck’s chubby daughter, a typically sullen teen who refuses to face life without ear buds.

“I would make sure the daughter gets a full one-fifth share of the loot, naturally, but why does she get all of it? I really don’t get this at all. Affleck inspired the team to think and act in greed mode. He was the father of it. How does that translate into the fat daughter pocketing every last dime?”

Tweeted this morning by Dave the Tentacle: “I recently heard a playwright say that you always want to end your play (or movie) at a point that leaves the audience saying ‘Is THAT the ending?’ so they’ll have something to think about and discuss afterward, and not immediately forget your work.”

HE response: No — the best endings are those that the entire audience (a) can see coming, (b) are fully understanding and conversing with as they unfold and (c) are fully satisfied by as they’re leaving the theatre and heading for the parking lot. Good endings are never about puzzlement or uncertainty — they’re about resolution and finality and passing along fundamental truths. Any ending that throws an audience for a loop is dogshit.