...is a dead man 'round these parts. Tossed off the bridge about five minutes ago. C'est la guerre.
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Originally posted on 3.21.11, updated on 9.17.16:
One of the healthiest things you can say about anything that’s over and done with is “okay, that happened.” Unless, of course, you’re talking about a stretch in a World War II concentration camp or something equally ghastly. Otherwise you have to be accepting, past it. Especially when it comes to ex-girlfriends. We went there, it happened, nobody was right or wrong, that was then and we’re here now…let’s get a coffee and catch up.
All my life I’ve been friends with exes, or have at least been open to same. And they’ve been open to ease and friendship with me. Except for one.
She was (and most likely still is) a whipsmart blonde with a great ass, a toothy smile and a kind of young Katharine Hepburn vibe. She’d been raised in Brooklyn but always reminded me of a Fairfield County gal.
She’s married now and living in Pasadena; her husband — a slightly stocky, gray-haired guy of some means — doesn’t resemble me or her first husband (a doobie-toking small-business owner who owned a Harley) at all. Whatever attributes or nice qualities he’s brought to the table, he’s clearly a swing away from the past.
I gave up trying to be in touch with her 11 years ago, or towards the end of Barack Obama’s first term. She really wants to erase that part of her life — the first marriage (which began in the summer of ’96) and the affair with me that began in early ’98 and lasted two and two-thirds years, ending in late September 2000.
We last spoke in ’12. The most emotionally significant thing that happened before that was her friending me on Facebook, but what is that?
Our thing began at the ’98 Sundance Film Festival and finally ran out of gas in late ’00 when her husband found out.
I took the hurt and the lumps. I was dropped six or seven times. It was easily the most painful and frustrating relationship of my life. Whether things were good or bad between us was entirely about her shifting moods. Her father had been a philanderer when she was fairly young and this had caused a lot of family pain, so she felt badly about following in his footsteps. But she kept coming back and oh, the splendor.
The bottom line, obviously, is that she’s not at ease with having been a beloved infidel in the waning days of the Clinton administration. Easing up and looking back by way of occasional contact or e-mails just isn’t a comfortable thing for her.
I could write a Russian novel about what happened during our fractured romance. I once flew to NYC just to hang with her for a couple of days without the nearby presence of her husband. Toward the end we had a blissful rendezvous in Las Vegas.
But when all is said and done I’m basically a Woody Allen type of guy — the heart wants what it wants and all’s fair. Even if nothing hurts quite as badly as being the on-and-off boyfriend of a not-very-married woman.
But I’m past it. I’m not sorry it happened. And I’ve always liked her besides. She’s smarter than me. And a good judge of character, more practical, more planted, etc. But I’m deeper, stronger in terms of handling rough seas, and a better writer.
…is not Bugsy Malone (‘76), for heaven’s sake. It’s Evita (‘96)…c’mon! I agree, however, that Albert Brooks’ greatest film is Lost in America (‘85).
A year ago Robert Eggers and HE agreed (almost) on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (’48):
Answer: Nobody.
170 formerly anonymous associates of the late Jeffrey Epstein will be mildly embarrassed when names are made public tomorrow in a “doc dump” connected to a Virginia Giuffre court maneuver of some kind.
The bottom line is that the nation’s 42nd President is “not expected to be implicated in any illegal activity,” according to an ABC News report.
The media shorthand equation is that if a person had even a slight social relationship with Epstein, they are automatically evil ogres who deserve to be shunned or cancelled. It’s certainly unwelcome to be associated with a notoriously perverse figure, but does this necessarily add up to deplorable behavior?
Obviously my love for Bradley Cooper’s Maestro has become a minority viewpoint. Obviously the tide of public opinion has turned against it. I was completely swept up by Cooper’s stylistic audacity and particularly by Carey Mulligan’s performance as Felicia Montealegre, but you can’t fight City Hall or at least you can’t instruct or badger people into broadening their aesthetic horizons. All I can say is that I’m very sorry.
Partly because it sounds like woke gobbledygook, I suppose. Because it suggests that the simple bedrock concept of gender (as in primarily two, as in male/female) has been imposed by a foreign power to establish political control over a native culture. Which is bullshit, of course.
Thank you, God, for sparing me from the burden of such terminology throughout most of my life. Thank you for that blessing.
At the same time I felt curiously charmed by the “Little Horse” character in Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man (‘70), and I loved Chief Dan George’s “Old Lodge Skins” character (a performance that was Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor) and his “live and let live” approach to life.
Eric Clapton first performed “My Father’s Eyes” on the 1992 “Unplugged” album. Written by Clapton and produced by Clapton and Simon Climie, it was released as a single in 1998. This might be my favorite easy-listening white guy soul song of all time.
The Ringer‘s Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins are making trouble for Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers.
On Fennessey’s list of Best Films of 2023, The Holdovers is #25…well below The Iron Claw, Showing Up and May December.
Friendo: “You gotta be on the front foot about this because these people are attempting to diminish The Holdovers in every way they can, and they do have influence among cinephiles. These arguments are not going away so you should tackle them head on.”
HE to friendo: “There’s no tackling a generational dislike of The Holdovers. Either you get what Payne and Giamatti are doing…either you appreciate the way films used to be made in the ’70s…either you’ve seen The Last Detail and thereby appreciate the care and the craft and roll with it, or you don’t. The fact that dumping on one of the finest films of the year makes you sound like a Millennial shithead…that doesn’t matter to people like Sean and Amanda, and why should it?”
Sean: “A movie that older audiences are feeling warmly towards.”
Amanda: “This is a lovely, well-made film…a set of characters who are thrown together for two weeks and they’re gonna talk through some feelings and go through some things and we’re going to keep moving. I didn’t connect to it and I don’t know why.”
Sean: “There are some people who think it’s a masterpiece of filmmaking but that wasn’t my takeaway. There are younger folks who are pretty much where you are. Thought it was really well made, lots to admire but there’s more here. We can be more audacious in our filmmaking.”
Amanda: “This movie lands but is maybe not that ambitious. Safe is unfair, but The Holdovers feels a little smaller.”
Sean: “What I can’t find in The Holdovers is what is the big idea? I don’t know what it represents more broadly.”
Amanda: “I wonder what my block is here. You know, I like it a lot. I do wonder if I am just responding to some of the larger enthusiasm, particularly awards enthusiasm. The word CODA kept popping into my brain. It’s like, can I, I was going to say something mean? It’s like Pottery Barn. And I say that as someone who owns a lot of Pottery Barn but you can feel the ageing on it is aged as opposed to it being, you can feel the reference and the difference.”
Sean: “Are you evoking Paper Moon? Is this for me or is this for you?”
Amanda: “There’s no Tracy Flick for me to latch onto.”
Sean: “I saw someone greviously or egregiously declare this [to be] this year’s Green Book, which makes me want to gouge my eyes out. But I know what they meant by that.”
What a miserable and meaningless thing it is to “celebrate” the loss of a spent year and welcome the dawn of a new one. Okay, it’s a harmless ritual…fine.
Either way here we are, shouting “whoop-dee-doo!” and smashing a large magnum of champagne as we begin 2024, a year in which the U.S, of A. will either re-elect Muttering Joe or…I can’t say it or think it. Putting The Beast With Body Odor issues back into the White House is a prospect far too terrible to contemplate. But it could happen. (Note: The preceding sentiment is solely owned by by Mr. Wells.)
Sasha Stone and Jeffrey Wells (sitting in a Starbucks cafe) covered several topics earlier today. It went pretty well, despite an antsy woman giving Jeff the side-eye as he spoke in a subdued manner. She seemed to be saying “why are you talking to someone while we’re sitting here quietly with our cappucinos?” Jeff felt it wiser not to respond, but if he had he would’ve said, “Uhm…I wasn’t aware this was a library. I’ve sat next to talking people in a Starbucks before, and I’m certainly not talking loudly. Why don’t you just suck it up and stop glaring at me? Live and lt live.”
Here’s the link to our first ’24 discussion.
Again, the link.
HE agrees with World of Reel’s Jordan Ruimy. If Antoine Fuqua is producing, Paul Schrader’s Three Guns at Dawn (great title!), Schrader should just direct it already. Stop pussyfooting around by worrying about cultural appropriation. Fuck ‘em if they don’t like it. Balls up.
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