Signed, sealed, delivered — the African American community has decided that Typewriter Joe will be the Democratic presidential candidate. They’re basically saying to X-factor white liberals like myself, “The Iowa caucus isn’t until February 3rd, followed by New Hampshire, South Carolina and then Super Tuesday on March 3rd, but it’s over…it’s settled. You’re going to take Joe Biden and like him.”

I’m a Pete Buttigieg guy, but if we’re taking 60something candidates Tom Steyer would be far preferable to Biden, and if we’re talking 70-plus I’d much rather see Michael Bloomberg become the Democratic candidate. I like and admire Bernie Sanders, but I don’t believe this country is ready to put a tax-and-spend Jewish Democratic Socialist who wants the U.S. of A. to become Finland, as much as I would personally be down with that.

Either way AA voters have decided that it’s Droolin’ Joe, period. And that’s the name of that tune.

“What this new Washington Post-Ipsos poll of African Americans voters has done is confirm that my Aunt Gloria has her finger on the pulse of black America.

“At the family barbecue, I asked why she thought Biden was the person to take on Trump. Her answer left me slack-jawed and remains the best explanation for Biden’s continued strength. ‘The way the system is set up now, there is so much racism that it’s going to have to be an old white person to go after an old white person,’ Aunt Gloria said. ‘Old-school against old-school.'” — from 1.11 Jonathan Capehart column, “Joe Biden leads among black voters for a reason.”

I somehow missed this. Fairly blatant. I’m not necessarily presuming this is why Taron Egerton took the Golden Globe for Best Actor, Comedy/Musical instead of Eddie Murphy, but c’mon…

Respect and regrets over the death of director Ivan Passer, whom I always admired but was never a huge fan of.

To be perfectly honest, the only Passer film that I felt a genuinely vital current from was Born To Win (’71), the George Segal junkie movie that was set mostly in the Times Square area. It was Passer’s second directing effort — the first in this country. The costars were Karen Black, Paula Prentiss, Hector Elizondo, Jay Fletcher and Robert De Niro.

Note: This is the entire film, and better yet presented in 1.37:1.

Which means, obviously, that I didn’t care for Silver Bears (’77), Cutter’s Way (’81), Creator (’85) and Haunted Summer (’88). (I wrote the Haunted Summer press kit during my time as a Cannon publicity staffer.) I never saw Stalin (’92), the Robert Duvall TV movie.

Passer also co-wrote Loves of a Blonde and The Fireman’s Ball, the Milos Forman-directed Czech films of the late ’60s.

Passer, Buck Henry, Edd “Kookie” Byrnes…showbiz types always seem to die in threes. After the third demise the standard expression is “they’re dropping like flies.”

From producer Victoria Wisdom: “Manhattan, late ’80s. I was waiting for a meeting with infamous agent Sam Cohn, who still had Meryl Streep, Woody Allen and Mike Nichols as clients then. And everyone was afraid of him.

“Nearby was a shelf full of scripts. One caught my eye. Written by Michelangelo Antonioni and, yes, Buck Henry.

When Sam walked in, I asked if I could read it and he said “take it”, mumbling something like “why would you want to read that?”

I asked Sam how in the world Buck Henry (The Graduate, Catch–22) had come to collaborate with Michelangelo Antonioni (L’Avventura, Blow–Up). He pretended not to hear the question.

A decade later I was at a film-premiere reception in Los Angeles. And there across the room was Buck Henry. I asked him the question I’d been wanting to ask for years: Please tell me how you came to write a script with Antonioni??

Buck’s response: “It was August in New York. Hot and humid. I was sitting in my apartment and I was broke. Even my air conditioning wasn’t working. The phone rang. My agent was calling. Sam never called. Sam was brief. ‘How would you like to go to Italy for a month? First class. Michelangelo Antonioni needs someone to polish the dialogue of his new screenplay. (His English isn’t so hot.) And you’ll be staying at his estate. It pays….”

Buck said, “When do I leave? “

The next morning Buck was on a plane to Rome. A chauffeur-driven limo picked him up at the airport and drove him to the hills outside of Rome where Antonioni lived. He saw the palazzo high in the hills long before they got there. Like a Renaissance palace. The driveway was long and winding and lined with cypress trees.

“Uniformed servants met him at the door, grabbed his bags, showed him to his room, which was at the top of a turret with a 360 view of the rolling countryside. Buck was thinking ‘Hallelujah!’

An assistant knocked at the door, holding the screenplay. “Signore Antonioni would like Mr. Henry to read the script tonight to be prepared for a breakfast meeting tomorrow morning,” etc.

The next day Buck was escorted into a stunning al fresco garden dining room. A translator was already there. Buck was seated before Signore Antonioni entered the room.

Antonioni explained through the translator that he wanted the script, which had been translated into English, to have a more natural and accessible feel for the spoken language. Buck agreed. Antonioni stood up. The translator followed. Meeting over.

Buck went back to his room and began to type. At the end of the day, the assistant knocked at the door and requested the finished pages as Signore Antonioni wished to read them overnight. Buck handed them over.

Each day Buck wrote and the assistant took the completed pages away. Buck asked the assistant if Signore Antonioni had any comments for him? And the assistant said he had only been ordered to collect the pages.

A week went by. One day the assistant knocked at the door and said the chauffeur was waiting to take Buck to the airport.

Buck asked “Is Signore Antonioni unhappy? Can I speak with him? “ The assistant said, “I’ve only been asked to let you know that the chauffeur is here.”

So Buck packed his bags. And the limo drove him back down the long driveway to the airport.

When he got back to Manhattan, he called Sam. “How did it go?”, asked Sam. Buck replied, “I’ve no idea.” [HE interjection: Bullshit.] And Sam said, “Well, anyway, they paid for the full month.” And Buck said, “Well, at least now I can buy a new air conditioner.”

The screenplay, which I’d read so many years before, was a story about a young man who falls madly in love with a woman about to enter a convent. It became part of an anthology of four shorts compiled into a film.

It was Antonioni’s last feature.

HE has frequently condemned people who throw their heads back and laugh loudly in restaurants and bars. I’ve also frowned upon the conversational use of the words “genius”, “oh my God” and, most recently, “amazing.” Today’s prohibition is about the expression “you have no idea.”

People who say “you have no idea” are sloppy communicators, or at the very least given to inexactitude. When people say “you have no idea” about this or that, they actually mean you don’t have enough of a grasp of a certain topic or situation or your knowledge in this realm or field is limited. In other words, they don’t actually mean “you have no idea.”

People who say what they don’t actually mean are utterly worthless. On top of which Samuel L. Jackson has said “you have no idea” in too many films. So from here on and forevermore, nobody can say this four-letter phrase ever again. Well, they can but…

I’ve seen Bombshell three times — two screenings, one home viewing — and therefore had to watch this Megyn Kelly-moderated panel discussion among former Fox News talent and producers along with Kelly’s husband Douglas Brunt.

The survivors are Juliet Huddy, Rudi Bakhtiar and Julie Zann.

In the film Fox News honcho Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) asks prospective on-air female talent (like Margot Robbie‘s Kayla Popisil) to “twirl” — i.e., show me your ass. This happened in actuality, of course.

The most surprising moment comes at 16:20 when Kelly is asked if she ever submitted. “So I was asked to do the spin,” she says, “and God help me, I did it.”

Kelly explains: “I remember feeling like ‘I put myself through school, I was offered a partnership at Jones Day, one of the best law firms in the world, I argued before federal courts of appeal all over the nation, I came here uncovering the United States Supreme Court, I graduated with honors from all of my programs, and now he wants me to twirl.’ And I did it. (Emotional pause.) If you don’t get how demeaning that is, I can’t help you. In retrospect, I’d give anything if I had said no.”

But it’s good. Beat and rhythm. Nearly five years old. There’s so much out there. Just happened on it this morning.

…and I mean the ’90s or even the aughts, an off-center biopic subject like Phyllis Schlafly might have warranted a medium- to lower-budget theatrical feature.

The last film along these lines, or one that focused on a famous influential conversative woman of the 20th Century, was The Iron Lady. It starred Meryl Streep, grossed $115 million worldwide and opened on 12.26.11.

Now comes Mrs. America, a six-part FX/Hulu miniseries with Cate Blanchett starring as Schlafly. In today’s realm a two-hour version wouldn’t have a prayer as a theatrical release. Not a fucking prayer.

It begins airing or streaming on 4.15.20. The first two episodes were directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.

Written and created by Mad Men writer-producer Dahvi Waller, and costarring John Slattery, Elizabeth Banks, Tracey Ullman, Uzo Aduba, Rose Byrne (as Gloria Steinem!), Kayli Carter, Ari Graynor, Melanie Lynskey, James Marsden, Margo Martindale, Sarah Paulson, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Niecy Nash.

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60 years after hitting his career peak as “Kookie,” the car-park attendant on 77 Sunset Strip, Edd Byrnes is gone. Hugs and condolences to the crew. Byrnes was 87 years old, if that doesn’t freak you out too much. Death came a callin’ in his Santa Monica home, and that was all she wrote.

On 77 Sunset Strip, Kookie’s full name was Gerald Lloyd Kookson III.

Byrnes had a distinctive supporting role in Grease (’78), playing an amiable Dick Clark-like host of National Bandstand. I spoke to him a bit during the New York Grease press junket. For what it’s worth he seemed like a nice guy with a sharp mind.

Post-Grease Byrnes was basically Rick Dalton, performing guest shot roles in CHiPs, B.J. and the Bear, House Calls, Charlie’s Angels, Vega$, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Quincy M.E., The Master, Simon & Simon and Crazy Like a Fox.

Wiki excerpt: “As a tribute to his enduring celebrity and his iconic ‘Kookie’ character, Byrnes has ranked #5 in TV Guide‘s list of ‘TV’s 25 Greatest Teen Idols’. In 1996 Byrnes wrote an autobiography titled “Kookie No More.”

“Glorified in song and fable…you’ll meet the highbrow and the hipster, the starlet and the phony tipster…you’ll find most every kind of gal and guy, including a private eye.”

There will be a hue and cry if the Oscar telecast producers don’t include Byrnes in the death reel. Presumably it won’t be an issue.

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