What a drag it was last night to catch a 10 pm screening of John Wick, Chapter 2 at the Fiesta plex.  Me and roughly 25 or 30 wage-earning lowlifes. Baggy pants, hoodies, etc. “What a way to live and think!”, I muttered as I sank into my seat. With all the wonder and excitement of life outside, we few have chosen to watch a shitty Keanu Reeves action flick in a crummy megaplex on a rainy Friday night…welcome to the dungeon!

I was half-okay with the original John Wick but this thing…God. There’s a cool, efficient way to assemble programmers of this sort, but the evidence suggests that director Chad Stahelski, a former stunt man, and screenwriter Derek Kolstad just don’t have the skill or the smarts to improve upon the 2014 start-up. There’s a vapor cloud of stupidity hanging over the film at every turn. The fairly applied adjectives include “dull, poorly written, lazily acted, predictably plotted,” etc.

Reeves brings nothing spry or special to his performance — his line readings make Clint Eastwood‘s Dirty Harry inflections seem almost on the level of Alec Guinness performance in Smiley’s People, and his eyes are dark and dead. Even the minimally talented Jason Statham is better at this sort of thing.

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The big villain in Anthony and Joe Russo‘s Avengers: Infinity War (Marvel/Disney, 5.4.18) is an enraged purple-hued ayehole named Thanos (Josh Brolin). Marvel honcho Kevin Feige has described Thanos as “the biggest, the best, and the baddest villain we ever had, and the most frightening villain the Avengers have ever faced.” That is just horseshit — every snarly superpowered villain in every superhero movie ever made has been designed to be the most vicious and terrible ever, and at the end of the day there are only so many feet in a roll of rope. Nobody gives a shit — it’s the same old dance, the same old scheme and we’ve got so many dues to pay. Infinity War is being touted as the culmination of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, which began with the original Iron Man (’08). In a pig’s eye — one way or another Feige will dream up something bigger, grander, more awesome and holy-shitty (at least in his own eyes).

The anti-Trump Resistance is the new Tea Party, only from the left…right? But to hear it from Piers Morgan, the wisest way for progressive lefties to play their cards is to calm down, accept Trump policies (revival of Jim Crow racism, pro-fossil fuel, homophobia, anti-immigrant instincts, hooray for Putin), somberly acknowledge the fact that Donald Trump managed an electoral (if not a nationwide vote-count) majority and speak only when called upon after raising their hands. That’s Australian comedian Jim Jefferies ripping into Morgan and flipping the bird.

Tupac Shakur, who lived to the ripe old age of 25, has finally biopic-ed, and it seems as if fate and/or circumstance caused the filmmakers to wait until Tupac dead-ringer Demetrius Shipp Jr. came along. Directed by music video maestro Benny Boom, this could be the next Straight Outta Compton….maybe. Pic will be released on Friday, 6.16 — Tupac’s birthday.

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CNN reported today that US investigators have corroborated some of the communications detailed in Christopher Steele’s 35-page dossier on Donald Trump. No, not the hooker pee-pee stuff, but “intercepted conversations” have proven that “some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier, according to the officials [who spoke to CNN].” As portions of Steele’s information have been confirmed as rock solid, this suggests that where there’s smoke, there might be hooker pee-pee.

Two or three hours ago Michelle Johnson, who peaked 33 years ago with her bodacious tata performance in Stanley Donen‘s Blame It On Rio, lamented on Facebook that she’s been unfriended for being an apparent Trump supporter. As well she should be, in my humble view.

“Let me be clear [that] I have one support in my heart, and that is [for] God!,” Johnson explained. “Now if you are against God then okay, you will not know my heart, but I will still love you…for someone to actually say to me ‘we can’t be friends because you support Trump’ is ludicrous to me! We live on the same planet. Let’s find a way to make this work with love in our hearts…I say that without mush…xoxoxo.”

In other words, as Johnson didn’t refute suspicions that she’s a Trump girl, she’s become a kind of political Satan-worshipper, or at the very least an apparent devotee of the closest thing we’ve ever had in American political life to an Antichrist figure — fuming toddler, orange tyrant, destroyer of worlds.

Wells reply to Johnson: “Christian beliefs = likely rightwing ideology = probable Trump supporter. That’s the usual nine-times-out-of-ten equation. I despise rightwing Christians to begin with, and so would Yeshua of Nazareth if he were to return. Donald Trump is the closest thing we’ve had to an Antichrist and you, a woman who touched my heart and, yes, stirred my loins in Blame It On Rio, have evolved into an arch-conservative Bible thumper and Trump wink-winker? Seriously?”

Johnson replied with two statements: (a) “I agree” and (b) “I am…. we can ALL say that!” To which I responded, “You agree about what? ‘We can all say that’….meaning what?” Johnson didn’t reply. A voice is telling me this is probably mostly due to an insufficient brain cell count.

No more Santa Barbara Film Festival tributes — last night’s Jeff Bridges celebration was the last. Today and tomorrow are for screenings, walk-arounds, bike rides, naps, a dinner or two and the usual daily column filings. I’ll be driving back to Los Angeles late Sunday morning, but with no particular haste or aggression.

The legendary Jeff Bridges, honored last night by SBIFF, with Hell or High Water costar Gil Birmingham during tribute finale.

SBIFF exec director Roger Durling and dedicated volunteer Helen Cornell, who began donating her time to the festival 32 years ago (i.e., ’85).

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Some may not immediately recognize that Walter Sobchak is doing the admonishing here — just saying. I’d have posted the name of the artist but I just happened to see this last night on Twitter sans credit — please advise.

Let me explain something to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg, who moderated last night’s Santa Barbara Film Festival tribute to Hell or High Water‘s Jeff Bridges, as well as the person who edited the Bridges film-clip montage that started the evening off. Feinberg knows film history better than most and can rattle off statistics like a machine, but surely he’s modest enough to appreciate that he doesn’t know everything and that lessons and reminders are good things to absorb.

Bridges’ most robust career phase was a 13-year stretch between Peter Bogdanovich‘s The Last Picture Show (’71) and Hal Ashby‘s 8 Million Ways To Die (’84). These were the super-quality years — the rest of his career enjoyed an occasional highlight (’98’s The Big Lewbowski, ’09’s Crazy Heart, etc.) but yard by yard and dollars to donuts, the ’70s and early ’80s delivered the most bountiful hey-hey.

The Bogdanovich and Ashby aside, the best of Bridges’ 13-year run included John Huston‘s Fat City (’72), Lamont Johnson‘s The Last American Hero (’73), John Frankenheimer‘s The Iceman Cometh (’73), Frank Perry‘s Rancho Deluxe (’75), Bob Rafelson‘s Stay Hungry (’76), Ivan Passer‘s Cutter’s Way (’81) and Taylor Hackford‘s Against All Odds (’84).

If you ask me Hero and Hungry are the most exciting and infectious, and that means you don’t omit them from any Bridges career montage or from any Bridges interview. I don’t care how many fans would rather hear about fucking King Kong or the eternally leaden and indulgent Heaven’s Gate — you DON’T blow off The Last American Hero (which Bridges himself mentioned but which Feinberg apparently hasn’t seen), Rancho Deluxe (ditto) or Stay Hungry.

To the doghouse with both of them (i.e., Feinberg and the editor)! A 24-hour diet of dog biscuits and tap water.

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Thanks again to Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil for asking me to participate in an Oscar Prediction Throwdown taping two days ago (i.e., this one), but I just couldn’t see driving all the way down from Santa Barbara and then back just to do this one thing. The round trip would have taken at least four hours plus pit stops and whatever unforeseen traffic obstructions and slowdowns. I don’t need to add I would have grumped and grouched my way all through the discussion. I’m not much for home-stretch predictions anyway — I’m more of an early fall-to-late December “this or that it what ought to be nominated” kind of guy. Congrats to O’Neil, Yahoo Movies senior editor Kevin Polowy and Access Hollywood‘s Scott Mantz for keeping the ball in the air without my brilliant backhands and slam shots.

If you visit Rodney’s Grill inside the Fess Parker Doubletree, you’ll notice that during the evening hours they’re constantly projecting episodes from the Davy Crockett saga on the wall above the bar. Parker, a hotshot actor during the era of Dwight D. Eisenhower, starred as Crockett on the Disney hour in 1955 and ’56, and for a while was almost as big as the Beatles or Elvis. But every damn night must get old if you’re a Rodney’s regular. If I was running the show I would also screen clips from some of Parker’s other films including The Great Locomotive Chase (my personal favorite in which Parker played a Union spy and saboteur), Hell Is For Heroes, Battle Cry, Old Yeller and Them!