But as this photo was Facebook-posted yesterday (The Far Side) and then commented on by over 400 persons, my honest response is as follows:

I’m down with immodest beach garb as a rule, but there comes a time when nature doesn’t encourage modesty — it demands it. Not only should this headstrong, free-spirited woman not wear a bikini on a beach, but she shouldn’t even glance in the bathroom mirror when she’s toweling off from a shower.

Sorry, no offense.

Posted last night (Saturday, 11.23) in response to the famous Terry Valentine / Peter Fonda / Lem Dobbs line from The Limey…a revelatory line that said the proverbial ‘60s thing was “‘66 and early ‘67…that’s all it was.”

HE response, tapped out early this morning…

The most radiant or abundant part of any social-spiritual-musical movement is right before it catches on en masse with the avant garde bourgeois (i.e., plugged-in middle class)…when the spirit electrons and protons have built and buzzed and reached mass combustion levels just before the big explosion.

The ‘60s wave curled and crested and white-foam exploded all over the country with the Summer of Love, which was principally heralded by the June ‘67 release of “Sgt. Pepper” and particularly by that mad marijuana-mescaline glissando rush…that building, crashing, over-lapping orchestra rumble + crescendo in “A Day in the Life” (both of them) along with “Are You Experienced?” (May ‘67) and “Surrealistic Pillow” (released in February ‘67 but fed by ‘66 currents) and “For What It’s Worth” (released in December ‘66) and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow–Up (fed by late ‘65 and ‘66 percolations and released in December ‘66) and Country Joe’s “Electric Music For The Mind and Body” (released in May ‘67) and the ‘67 Monterey Pop Festival (June 16, 17 and 18) plus all the amazing activities and inward ruminations and explosions described by Tom Wolfe in “The Electric Kool–Aid Acid Test” (published in August ‘68 but informed by the Ken Kesey–Neal Casady–Merry Pranksters adventures of ‘64, ‘65, ‘66 and early ‘67)…

Way too much to get into here but what Terry Valentine / Lem Dobbs meant is that the huge quaking social orgasm that was felt across the culture in the summer of ‘67 was cooler and more exciting for those who were “there” and had their ears to the railroad tracks in ‘66 and early ‘67 …it felt so much vibe-ier when the spiritual foreplay was happening and building and starting to ignite and come into being and amassing a certain subliminal power — that was when the most exciting and tingly stuff was being felt…”do you feel it? do you sense it? There’s something happening here,” etc.

Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, posted in the Guardian on 5.17.18:

“In My Tribe”’s Arnold Kling, posted on 8.16.21:

I’d forgotten that Fresh Cream was recorded in August ’66, and released four months later (December). If you accept Terry Valentine‘s definition of the ’60s (“It was just ’66 and early’67…that’s all it was”), Fresh Cream was right in the sweet spot. If you ask me N.S.U., Dreaming and Toad are as good as that group ever got. I realize this is a minority opinion, hut there it is.

One, the middle section of Anora never, ever drags…not once, not even briefly. It doesn’t really take off, in fact, until roughly the 50- or 55-minute mark. The first act is all set-up. It pays off in Act Two — farcically, comically — and then it goes to Vegas (“Your son hates you so much that he married me, and by the way he’s a fucking pussy”) and returns to Brooklyn, and then reaches inside at the very end and transcends itself.

Two, the fact that “it doesn’t really seem to have anything larger to say about the world today,” as Scott Feinberg has put it, is precisely, profoundly and deliciously why it’s such a standout. It’s not preaching or messaging or offering any “this is how life sometimes is”, food-for-thought material. It’s just Brighton Beach, man. It’s not La Strada, although it does deliver a certain catharsis if you let it in. Anora is specific rather than general or universal. Either you get that or you don’t.

…or not? My basic opinion was that it steamrolls with such eye-filling verve and intensity that it’s hard not to at least give the film credit for selling the shit out of itself.

If you happen to pass by these murals in NYC or LA, take some photos and tag us. We can’t wait to see them! #ACompleteUnknown pic.twitter.com/9IT9zgGbam

— A Complete Unknown News (@acufilmnews) November 23, 2024

Joseph Kosinski‘s F1, the Brad Pitt Formula One thrill drama, will open seven months hence (6.27.25).

Three thoughts occured as I contemplated F1‘s arrival. Thought #1 was that it’ll almost certainly be good. Thought #2 was that if anyone dies, it won’t be the second-billed Damson Idris because black dudes aren’t allowed to die these days. Thought #3 was that I need to re-watch John Frankenheimer‘s Grand Prix (’66) and Steve McQueen‘s Le Mans (’71) as preparation.

Guess what? Grand Prix, which I hadn’t seen in ages, is dramatically better than decent and technically excellent…make that wonderful. I had such a great time that I streamed it twice. Magnificent, super-sharp 70mm cinematography, at times multi-panelled, beautifully cut, always breathtaking. A nearly three-hour film with an intermission and a delicate, genuinely affecting Maurice Jarre score.

All in all a classy, well engineered, nicely honed immersion…a flush European vibe to die for.

You can sense right off the top that Frankenheimer is, like, ten times more invested in the race cars than in the romantic-sexual intrigues (the mid 40ish Yves Montand and Eva Marie Saint occupy center stage in this regard) and yes, the emotional renderings in Robert Alan Aurthur‘s script are on the subdued, subtle side. But the couplings and uncouplings feel believable, at least, and certainly don’t get in the way.

Grand Prix won three tech Oscars — Best Sound Effects (Gordon Daniel), Best Film Editing (Fredric Steinkamp, Henry Berman, Stewart Linder, Frank Santilloa) Best Sound (Franklin Milton). Frankenheimer (whom I got to know a little bit in the late ’80s) was nominated for a DGA directing award.

Grand Prix made $20.8 million in the U.S. and Canada (serious money back then) and returned almost $10 million to MGM.

Every action frame of Grand Prix feels genuine and unsimulated. The tragic ending is foretold and foreshadowed.

.

Friendo sez: “Apple’s Reckoning Day is at hand after an avalanche of free spending (Napoleon, Blitz, Wolfs, Fly Me to the Moon, Killers of the Flower Moon, Argylle) and not much to show for it. Tim Cook has told his dumbo execs to lower budgets and actually make hits….duhhh.

Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg were the new Golan Globus but with unlimited funds — soft-touch bros, the art of over-spending. Now their purse strings have been pulled tight.

“Apple’s strategy was basically to buy into big names…Scorsese, DiCaprio, Scott, Clooney, Pitt, etc. Clooney dismissed reports that he and Pitt were way overpaid for Wolfs, but I heard they were, in fact, overpaid by a tonload. Does anyone care that Wolfs 2 has been tossed?”

Apple’s strange decision to keep Steve McQueen‘s Blitz out of the major early-fall festivals is still a head-scratcher. I fell for Blitz after finally catching it a couple of weeks ago, and it just didn’t add up to show disrespect for McQueen’s expertise and vision.

After Blitz, the best Apple film by far IMHO is Doug Liman‘s The Instigators — here’s what I wrote about it on 8.18.24:

Was the late character actor Tim McIntire the secret son of Orson Welles?

Actress Jeanette Nolan, who married John McIntire in 1935, was Tim’s mom. Producer James B. Harris (still with us!) made the paternity claim in a Film Comment interview with Nick Pinkerton.

Excerpt:

HARRIS: “The only trouble with Tim was that he was mostly high in the afternoons, which eventually killed him. He just abused himself to death.”

PINKERTON: “I wasn’t really familiar with McIntire outside of Fast Walking. He has a sort of young Orson Welles thing about him.”

HARRIS: “You know why? Because he’s the illegitimate son of Orson Welles! I don’t know if you can verify it, but everybody says it, and the proof is in the pudding. His voice is exactly like Welles, his nose is exactly like Welles, he’s subject to the overweight thing, just like Welles. Welles made a picture with his mother, I forget her name —Jeannette Nolan. So everything leads to his being Welles’ illegitimate son. And… he is. I spent so much time with him and I felt like I was talking to Orson Welles most of the time.”

HE TO FRIENDO: Jeanette Nolan may have cheated on husband John McIntire, Harris says in the interview, by getting pregnant by Welles in 1943 or ‘44….right? But feature-wise she and Welles didn’t work together until his 1948 Macbeth. Plus Harris says the Welles paternity thing is mentioned in Tim McIntire’s Wikipedia page…except it isn’t.

So all it boils down to Harris claiming that “everybody” says the Welles paternity thing is genuine.

FRIENDO: “You’re right, it’s not on the Wikipedia page. However, there ARE several mentions/discussions about it elsewhere around the net (I went looking a few hours ago).

“And don’t forget: Jeanette Nolan did several RADIO shows with Welles in the early 1940s. Like Welles, she was a staple of radio from that era.

“There is just no question this guy is Orson’s kid. Even his fucking VOICE is close to Orson’s.”

“So an actress prone to infidelity does several radio shows with Orson Welles in the early 1940s — develops a close relationship with Welles — gives birth to a son in 1944 — and the kid ends up looking like this:

I;m not saying the Welles-Mcintire connection is valid. I’m just mentioning it.

I asked a couple of Welles scholars and it was a split decision — one always suspected that the story might be true but could never verify it, and the other said “nope.” When I asked the latter for any evidence or details supporting his negative belief, he didn’t reply.

From Owen Gleiberman‘s Variety review of That’s The Way God Planned It:

“It wasn’t until The Concert for Bangla Desh, George Harrison’s trend-setting rock-concert movie from 1972, that I registered who Billy Preston really was. For most of that Madison Square Garden benefit concert, Preston was in the background, tickling those plugged-in ivories. But then, introduced by Harrison, he performed the single he’d recorded in 1969 for Apple Records, ‘That’s the Way God Planned It.’ It stood out from the rest of the show as dramatically — and magnificently — as Sly Stone’s performance of ‘Wanna Take You Higher’ did from Woodstock.

“The sound of a holy organ rang out, and the camera zoomed in on a stylish-looking man in a big wool cap and a Billy Dee Williams mustache, with a handsome gap-toothed grin and a gleam of reverence. He began to sing (‘Why can’t we be humble, like the good lord said…’), and it sounded like a hymn, which is just what it was. The lyrics lifted you up, and Preston caressed each cadence as if he were leading a gospel choir.

“As he launched into the chorus, with its delicate descending chords, its bass line following in tandem, at least until the climax, when that bass began to walk around like it had a mind of its own, you could feel the song start to…ascend. Preston, rocking back and forth, tilting his head with rapture, the notes pouring out of him like sun-dappled honey, was the only black performer on that stage, and he was offering what amounted, in the rock world, to a radical message: that God was here.

“As the song picked up speed in the gospel tradition, Preston, moved by the spirit he was conjuring, got up from his keyboard and began to dance, jangling his arms, his legs just about levitating. It was an ecstatic dance, one that seemed to erupt right out of him, as if he couldn’t stop himself.

“Paris Barclay’s eye-opening documentary Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It opens with that sequence, and it’s cathartic to see it again.”

The word has been out for a couple of weeks — Ridley Scott‘s Gladiator II (Paramount, 11.22) is a well-produced mediocrity, an expensive underwhelmer, a Gladiator reboot that nobody needs or has ever asked for.

I didn’t find it especially painful, but it did put me into a don’t-give-a-damn mood.

Aside from deriving great pleasure from Denzel Washington‘s performance as the smoothly villainous Macrinus, I mean. Nominate this man for Best Supporting Actor! One of the most enjoyable bad guys in many a moon. Cruel and ruthless, of course, but I really enjoyed his company. I liked Denzel much, much more than Paul Mescal‘s Lucius. Hell, more than anyone else in the film. Smooth criminal, my bruh, etc.

HE to Scott: Denzel is much more charismatic than Donald Trump…please.

I’ve been dumping on poor Mescal for months. I despised his performance in All Of Us Strangers (and I’m saying this as a rapt admirer or Luca Guadagnino‘s Queer) along with his jutting jaw and arched nose, and I hated his weepy moments in Aftersun. But after all the contrary commentary that came Mescal’s way ten days ago (“shaky at best,” “struggles to enliven the gig”, “a forlorn pussycat turned rager”), I only felt sympathy for the poor guy during yesterday’s viewing. He tries, works it, does his best. He’s already suffered a decisive beat-down. Leave him alone.

I also admired and respected Pedro Pascal‘s Marcus Acacius — both the character and the actor exude manly integrity.

I felt nothing but disgust for Joseph Quinn‘s Emperor Get and Fred Hechinger‘s Emperor Caracalla, of course, but that’s obviously an intended thing.

My first Gladiator II drop-out moment came with the appearance of those ridiculous big-fanged baboon dogs. Why did Scott go for cartoonish CG overstatement? The instant I saw the baboon dogs I said “okay, fuck this movie…Scott obviously doesn’t care about serious, ancient Rome world-building.”

I hated the CG sharks swimming around during the Colisseum naval battle…stupid.

I hate that Scott reimagined Rome as a city on a great plateau (although the Palatine area was hilly, of course) and the Colisseum as Rome’s dominant and defining structure, viewable from miles off. The Colisseum itself looks great, of course.

All through the film I was thinking “poor Connie Nielsen…taking the paycheck but stuck in a second-tier sequel…same age as Pam Bondi,” etc.