We're all familiar with David O. Russell's reputation for being high-strung and occasionally abusive on film sets, and I wish it were otherwise. And I can't for the life of me understand how or why the 2011 feel-up incident with his transgender niece Nicole Peloquin occured, or why it resulted in Peloquin filing a police report. (A fair-minded person would at least consider Russell's statement to the police that Peloquin was "acting very provocative toward him" and invited him to feel her breasts.)
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Louis C.K.‘s Fourth of July is my kind of “comedy”, if you want to call it that. Sharply and confidently co-written by LCK and Joe List, who plays the depressive, glum-faced lead, it’s a “recovering alcoholic confronts abusive dysfunctional family of boozers” thing. Maybe it got me because I’m currently angry about a certain family matter and I was thinking about family battles and whatnot, but either way it turned the lock.
FOJ was criticized yesterday by THR‘s Frank Sheck as “bland” and somewhat tired…”[generating] a familiar feeling further exacerbated by its lack of incisive dialogue and well-drawn characterizations.” I’m sorry but Sheck’s observation struck me as complete bullshit. The flat, cleverly deflated, take-it-or-leave-it dialogue is not only incisive but completely believable because this is how downish people think and talk and behave. I know because I’m one of them. Okay, I’m not as gloomy as List’s jazz-pianist character, Jeff, but I know the territory so don’t tell me.
You can accuse Fourth of July of not being similar enough to, say, The Family Stone (which I loved) or failing at being Ron Howard‘s Parenthood or failing to engage like some giggly, goofy, bouncy-ass comedy and therefore unsatisfying to those who expect and require broadly played humor, and that’s fine. But you can’t say it doesn’t feel glummishly real, and in that sense engagingly fresh (most comedies avoid the dark mood pocket material).
Fourth of July never once tries to “sell” the funny, if you want to call it that. It’s a movie that says “if you find these people funny, knock yourself out…but it’s up to you.” I didn’t laugh out loud once, but I was LQTM-ing all through it. That said, a lot of people at the Beacon were laughing pretty hard at times.
Remember that scene in Sideways when Thomas Haden Church half-pep talks and half-admonishes Paul Giamatti with “don’t go to the dark side”? Well, Fourth of July is the fucking dark side, and by my standards it’s not only unpretentiously funny but “wow, this movie couldn’t give two shits if people think it’s funny or not.” It’s amusing in a conceptual sense, I feel, as well as knowing and, okay, occasionally schticky in a plain-spoken, unpretentious, underwhelming sort of way, but it’s mainly about behavior and attitudes that don’t know from amusing.
In short it’s my idea of atypical and semi-original as far as comedies about fucked-up families go, but it’s certainly not Steve Martin in the ’80s funny or Martin Short funny or Bill Hader or Charles Grodin funny, but it’s close at times to being Jonah Hill funny if Hill was playing a moody guy on Klonopin.
In short, it’s not so much the plot or the scheme but the fuck-all mindset of the characters that gets you.
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman described it yesterday as something in the vein of “a Millennial indie trifle about a whimsically neurotic New York dude trying to come to terms with his problematic family”, but in my head it’s more concise than trifling.
OG also said that the movie feels like Louis C.K. saying, in essence, ‘Forget what I got tagged with in 2017…look, I can do this!’ Well, I didn’t think for one single second about LCK whipping it out….not once. That shit will never go away reputation-wise, but that was five years ago and a lot of people, I think, are trying very hard (and making progress in some ways) to live in the present. What he did was creepy and pervy, but it wasn’t….well, I just think it’s probably better to move on in an Al Franken or Jeffrey Toobin sense of that term.
Structure-wise, Fourth of July is (a) a half-hour’s worth of character set-up (i.e., Manhattan-residing Jeff venting to his wife Beth (Sarah Tollemache) and his therapist (LCK) about his insensitive, boorish family and especially his mom), and (b) maybe a half-hour’s worth of woozy, battle-fatigued Jeff enduring the bruising, boozy behavior of said parents and cousins in and around a lakeside vacation home in Maine. Then around the 60-minute mark or maybe a bit before, wham…it all ignites. Jeff lets go with a torrent of fuck you’s (as in “fuck you, fuck you and fuck you“) and the whole crew goes into shock. And then the last 30 or 35 minutes are about clean-up and catharsis.
Is it realistic and believable that a generally callous and dysfunctional family, one that occasionally aspires to the realm of Eugene O’Neill‘s Tyrone clan…is it believable that they could come to any kind of catharsis in 35 minutes? No, but you have to cut movies like this a little slack. FOJ only runs 94 minutes, and the rules of drama require certain disciplines from the final third.
HE recommends Fourth of July. It feels self-aware and thought-through, and for my money it knows what it’s doing. And I found it “funny” and real.
————————————–
Here’s a re-post of my 11.9.17 review of I Love You, Daddy, titled “A Tough, Interesting Film Goes Over The Side With Louis C.K.“:
I caught my second viewing of I Love You, Daddy (The Orchard, 11.17) the other night. You’ve probably read it’s about a hot-shot TV writer-producer (played by producer-director-writer-editor-star Louis C.K.) who’s increasingly disturbed by his 17-year-old daughter China (Chloe Grace Moretz) falling into a relationship with a famous 68 year-old libertine (John Malkovich), and about his weak, barely noticable parenting skills.
After my first viewing I was saying to myself that while I don’t exactly “like” I Love You, Daddy I respect what it’s saying, which is that wealthy showbiz types and their liberal, laissez-faire approach to morality, relationships and especially parenting is a fairly vacant proposition.
After my 2nd viewing I believe this all the more. The film is basically an indictment of “whatever, brah” liberal lifestyles and relative morality.
It is almost assured of getting a rave review from the National Review‘s Kyle Smith as well as other conservative critics and commentators. Which is all the more noteworthy because it was made by a successful stand-up guy known for his mostly liberal views.
I Love You, Daddy doesn’t play fast and loose with the notions of showbiz relationships and May-December romances. It’s not endorsing or winking at inappropriate older guy-younger girl relationships. It’s actually a sly capturing of a problem sometimes found within the entertainment industry and super-wealthy lah-lah circles. Louis C.K. doesn’t try to erotically or amusing entertain as much as push those “oh, shit” or “ahh, yes” buttons. It’s obviously a doleful Woody Allen-esque comedy of sorts, but it’s also a kind of familial tragedy.
And Malkovich is quietly brilliant as the libertine, Leslie Goodwin. Maybe I was tired or in the wrong kind of mood when I saw ILYD two or three weeks ago, but I somehow didn’t quite realize how mesmerizing his performance is until last night.
But that’s all out the window now because of a just-published N.Y. Times report about Louis C.K. having masturbated in front of (or asking to masturbate in front of) four female comics — Dana Min Goodman, Julia Wolov, Abby Schachner and Rebecca Corry — and a fifth woman who experienced something similar but asked The Times for anonymity.
What Louis C.K. is accused of having done is obviously appalling and reprehensible and serious as a heart attack, but at the same time it’s a shame that an unusually interesting and even subversive film like I Love You, Daddy will now most likely be shunned and tossed into the waste basket.
But those are the rules. Once you’ve been outed or accused of sexual harassment or assualt by reputable journalists who’ve spoken with named and verified sources, your work is discredited, your friends and colleagues don’t want to know you, and your career is most likely over, at least for the foreseeable future.
The Orchard, the distributor of I Love You, Daddy, is apparently thinking of washing its hands. The New York premiere of I Love You, Daddy has been canceled. The comedian’s planned appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert has also been deep-sixed.
Update: I'll say this much -- the coolest hombre in Dune is Jason Momoa's "Duncan Idaho, the swordmaster of House." Moma is beardless here, and so he looks a bit heavyish -- as if Joe Don Baker had succumbed to a cheeseburgers and beer and pasta diet after the success of Walking Tall. But Duncan has that macho mojo Han Solo thing going on. They should have ignored the Herbert narrative and kept him alive. Born in '79, Momoa is no spring chicken but he's got what audiences want.
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Herewith are four reviews of four Terrence Malick films that opened between 2012 and 2019 -- To The Wonder, Knight of Cups, Song to Song and A Hidden Life. Plus a July 2012 essay about how Malick's enablers have done him no favors. It's quite a saga.
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In the wake of Amazon, Netflix, Time’s Up and others dismissing the foot-dragging, retrograde mindsets among members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association regarding issues of racial concern, Scarlett Johansson has become the latest voice to throw the besieged organization under the bus.
ScarJo has urged the industry to “step back” from the HFPA (i.e., think about refusing to attend the annual Golden Globe awards) until it does more than offer humanistic homilies and cosmetic changes.
No one would dispute that the HFPA is way too out of the swim of things by Hollywood standards, and that certain members, as Johansson mentioned in a statement to Variety earlier today, have asked “sexist questions” at press conferences “that bordered on sexual harassment.” The HFPA is a myopic outfit. The members live in their own world.
But I have to say that I’d become accustomed to Johansson being more of a headstrong thinker who’s occasionally swum against the tide (the 2018 Rub & Tug transgender thing, stating the following year that she “believes” Woody Allen). A voice is telling me that Johansson was probably urged by her team to speak out against the HFPA in order to shore up her woke credentials.
Last night I marathoned through all four episodes of Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering‘s Allen v. Farrow (HBO Max, 2.21.). Speaking as a longtime Woody Allen admirer and defender, I found it unsettling, more than a little disturbing and, I regret to say, a half–persuasive hit job. I was impressed with the chops, the craft and the sculpting, but I took notes as I watched and here’s a sampling:
“This is a hit job, probing but selectively so…a one-sided presentation, a stacked deck…Mia’s tale is so sanitized, so chaste…beware the perverted monster…I have to admit that it feels creepy…’smothering energy, suffocating closeness‘….Woody was clearly too invested in an emotionally intense, overly touchy relationship with Dylan…directions on how to suck his thumb?…this is so FOUL…give me a break!…so the Yale-New Haven investigators were determined to exonerate Woody?…why would they go to such lengths to distort?…why would they destroy their notes?…Paul Williams was muzzled?…what about the three kids who died under Mia’s care, two of them by suicide?…this is very bad for Woody but at the same time it’s not an open book, warts–and–all approach…the doc is totally in the tank for the Mia narrative.”
All through the first three hours (the fourth is mostly wrap-up) I was…be honest…quietly horrified. A pit of my stomach feeling that began to spread into my spleen. A terrible sensation. As in “oh, no…”
For 29 years I never realized (and nobody ever told me) that Soon-Yi is pronounced Soon-EEE, not Soon-YEE. Five words: “Jeff, the ‘Y’ is silent.”
Allen v. Farrow is a hit job, all right, but at the same time I was persuaded that what was being presented was honest as far as it went. The doc DOES lie by omission quite a lot, but I was also persuaded that the overly intense affection that Woody exhibited for Dylan was wrong. I could feel it. Diseased. Not right.
Then again Showbiz411‘s Roger Friedman might have had a point when he wrote that someone needs to give Mia a special Oscar for the performance of her life.
I just can’t understand Moses Farrow and his 5.23.18 “A Son Speaks Out” essay. What he wrote doesn’t square AT ALL with the Mia, Kirby & Amy narrative that sank into my system last night. So who’s lying? Mia is obviously lying by omission, but so, it seems (what else am I to think?), is Moses apparently, and I feel so angry about the possibility that he might’ve led me down the garden path.
What kind of diseased dysfunction would goad Moses into blowing that much smoke? How could he write what he wrote and not mean it? I’m almost beside myself with fury.
Moses’ essay, after all, has been the cornerstone of my belief in Woody’s presumed innocence for three years now.
And really…how is it that in all of his 85 years Woody never ONCE violated or over-stepped with anyone else? It’s so baffling. One single five-minute horror episode that happened on 8.4.92 when he was 57 years old, and the rest of his life is essentially spotless. My understanding of human behavior argues with what I saw last night. At the same time there was that awful feeling…
How in God’s name did those nannies let Woody take Dylan away like that? They had been put on HIGH ALERT, for God’s sake. “Don’t let him be alone with her,” they were told. He clearly had what seemed like pervy or at the very least inappropriate inclinations, etc. What kind of sociopath nanny would let Dylan go off with him? They looked for Woody and Dylan for 20 minutes and couldn’t find them? Frog Hollow isn’t that big.
When Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering‘s four-part Woody Allen hatchet-job doc, Allen vs. Farrow, begins airing on HBO on Sunday, 2.21, and particularly when they show the then-seven-year-old Dylan Farrow‘s taped recitation of what “daddy did”, keep in mind a 9.2.93 Los Angeles Times article by John J. Goldman.
The article is titled “Nanny Casts Doubt on Farrow Charges” with a subhead that read “She tells Allen’s lawyers the actress pressured her to support molestation accusations against him. She says others have reservations.”
“Lawyers for Woody Allen said Monday that a former nanny who worked for Mia Farrow has testified she was pressured by the actress to support charges that the filmmaker molested their 7-year-old adopted daughter,” the article reads.
“The nanny, Monica Thompson, resigned from the Farrow household on Jan. 25 after being subpoenaed in the bitter custody battle between the actress and Allen. She told Allen’s lawyers in depositions that another baby sitter and one of the couple’s other adopted children told her they had serious doubts about the molestation accusation.
“Authorities in Connecticut are viewing a videotape made by Farrow as part of their investigation, which has included interviews with Allen and Farrow as well as the daughter, named Dylan.
“Farrow’s attorney, Eleanor Alter, issued a statement Monday saying, “It is my understanding…that Ms. Thompson has totally recanted” the statements attributed to her. She noted that Thompson’s salary, upwards of $40,000 a year, was paid by Allen. Thompson could not be reached for comment.
“Thompson said in a deposition that it took the actress two or three days to videotape Dylan making the accusations. At times the youngster appeared not to be interested in the process, the nanny said in sworn affidavits taken by Allen’s attorneys.
“’I know that the tape was made over the course of at least two and perhaps three days,’ Thompson said. ‘I was present when Ms. Farrow made a portion of that tape outdoors. I recall Ms. Farrow saying to Dylan at that time, ‘Dylan, what did daddy do…and what did he do next?’
I’m reposting something that’s less than four months old, but it has to be re-injected and re-contemplated. The spiritual message herein is like oxygen, like honeysuckle, like the moisture of clouds in Switzerland.
Three and a half months ago a journo pally became alarmed by my anti-Khmer Rouge postings. He wanted to help me adjust and accept. “If you were a driver heading into the wrong lane of the Malibu Canyon tunnel, I’d stop you,” he wrote, sounding like a combination of O’Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Bing Crosby in Going My Way. “If you were a neighbor whose house was on fire, I’d hand you the water hose. If you reported to me at [a publication], I’d steer you toward writing about film and television…writing that called upon your vast reservoir of knowledge, your passion, intellect, savvy — and away from your darker impulses.”
“There’s a way to have fun, serve your readers and steer a sober, responsible business course,” O’Brien went on. “There are ways for you to embrace the changes of our times, to highlight the incredible talents in every creative category of filmmaking, celebrate filmmakers from around the world and in every corner of our country. That’s a much better use of your time and a much better business strategy than [following your present course].
“You wrote a column a while back about reflecting on your life, your feelings, about turning over a new leaf. Do that. Lay down your weary tune. Turn on your love light. Get in touch with your inner Pig Pen. Submit, surrender, get with the program.”
HE to Journo Pally: Wow, thanks. I agree with the positive thrust of the message, but — don’t take this the wrong way — you also sound a bit like Dr. Kauffman trying to persuade Kevin McCarthy‘s Miles to relax and let the seed pods take over.
Dr. Kauffman: Less than a month ago, West Hollywood was like any other town. People with nothing but problems. Then out of the progressive community came a solution. Seeds drifting through space for years took root in a farmer’s field. From the seeds came pods which had the power to reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life.
Miles: So that’s how it began…out of the sky.
Dr. Kauffman: Your new bodies are growing in there. They’re taking you over cell for cell, atom for atom. There is no pain. Suddenly, while you’re asleep, they’ll absorb your minds, your memories and you’ll be reborn into a simpler, purer world.
Miles: Where everyone’s a wokester?
Dr. Kauffman: Exactly. If you give in, tomorrow you’ll be one of us, and you can become the new Perri Nemiroff. You’ll be happier. You’ll smile all the time.
Miles: I love films by Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. Will I feel the same tomorrow?
Dr. Kauffman: [shakes his head] There will be no more need for Allen or Polanski or any other artist who hasn’t accepted the new reality.
Miles: No more watching J’Accuse or Rosemary’s Baby or The Pianist? No more Manhattan or Crimes and Misdemeanors?
Dr. Kauffman: You say it as if it were terrible. Believe me, it isn’t. We’ve all seen their films. They never last. They never do. Sardonic wit. Love and desire. Intrigue. Betrayal and facing evil. Without their films, life will be so much simpler, believe me.
Miles: You’re basically saying I need to stop fighting the idea that if I wasn’t a huge fan of Little Women, I’m a sexist who doesn’t get it.
Dr. Kauffman: Miles, if you didn’t like Little Women you are a sexist who doesn’t get it. Don’t you understand that?
Miles: I don’t want any part of it.
Dr. Kauffman: You’re forgetting something, Miles.
Miles: What’s that?
Dr. Kauffman: You have no choice.
According to host Lawrence Krauss, this almost two-hour Origins podcast with Woody Allen was recorded “earlier this year, before the pandemic.” It was done to promote Allen’s “Apropos of Nothing,” which published on 3.23.20. The pandemic became a widespread thing earlier that month, so they presumably spoke on or about 3.1.20 or perhaps in late February.
And yet the Allen chat didn’t appear until yesterday — Friday, 1.1.21.
“Final ‘Apropos’ Conclusion,” posted on 3.29.20: Most of us understood from the get-go that Woody Allen‘s “Apropos of Nothing” would be regarded through #MeToo-tinted glasses. Some in that camp are saying “I don’t think I can read this thing” (an actual Dana Harris tweet) and that’s fine. They’re excused. Nobody expected them to be attentive or fair.
Certain resentful, pissy-minded book reviewers are coughing up the usual bile. USA Today‘s Barbara VanDenburgh: “As if coping with the ravages of a global pandemic hasn’t made life unpleasant enough, now we’ve all got to talk about Woody Allen. Again.”
People aren’t calling his autobiography totally banal or shallow or both, but they’re saying large chunks of it are. Some have written that when he gets into the Mia-and-Dylan accusation thing that it feels like too much of an obsessive, woe-is-me pity party. Some have faulted Allen for not aping the meditative prose of Rainer Maria Rilke or William Styron.
Their beefs boil down to “how dare Woody write in his own unaffected voice? How dare he process life in the same way he’s been doing since he began writing jokes for Manhattan newspaper columnists in the early ’50s?”
Woody Allen is who he is. His voice is his voice. If you can read “Apropos of Nothing” with that in mind, you’ll have a better-than-decent time with it. And by that I mean diverting, chuckly, passable, fascinating, occasionally hilarious, nutritional as far as it goes.
10:55 pm [posted by a smart guy named Mike Vatis]: “Just a reminder for people losing their minds right now. Biden was not really expected to win, and does not need to win, Texas, Florida, Georgia or North Carolina. A landslide win by Biden that included some of those states would have been wonderful, a clear renunciation of Trumpism. But the greater likelihood has always been that the race would come down to Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — again.
“Plus we’ve known for a long time now that the early vote counts (i.e., the ones you’re seeing now) in Michigan and Pennsylvania would comprise election-day votes, which would favor Trump, as many Democrats voted by mail or voted early, and those votes are tallied later. And we’ve also known that, because of the way different votes are counted in these key states, Trump’s strategy has been to (a) declare victory tonight or tomorrow morning based on the early vote counts, and (b) use the courts (and public disturbances) to stop the counting of any mail-in votes after tonight.
“DON’T PLAY INTO HIS STRATEGY BY WETTING YOUR PANTS, PEOPLE!
“All the votes must be counted, period. We won’t know the results for several days. That has always been the likely scenario, and that is what everyone should have been preparing for. Don’t let dashed hopes of a resounding early victory for Biden now drive you into Trump’s trap of believing that Trump somehow won.
“Also: Biden has an alternative path — if he does not win Pennsyltucky, but takes Wisco and Michigan, he can still get to 270 if he takes Arizona and the single electoral vote accorded to the Omaha congressional district. That alternative path is still very much alive, too. So there may still be some very good news tonight out of Arizona and Omaha. And there may be some very good news out of Wisconsin early tomorrow morning (once Milwaukee county votes are tallied). But Michigan and, especially, Pennsylvania, will take more time. So be patient, and don’t do Trump’s work for him.”
10:45 pm: A recent 538 poll (posted on 11.2) had Demicratic challenger Sarah Gideon leading Republican incumbent Susan Collins in the Maine Senatorial race. The latest AP tally of today’s Maine vote has Gideon well behind Collins. In short, the 538 poll bore very little relation to what was in the minds of Maine voters.
9:55 pm: Anyone who claims he/she knew that the Biden vs. Trump vote would come down to a cliffhanger is lying. Two or three (including Joe Biden) predicted it would be closer than expected, but almost everyone believed that a decisive Biden victory was in the cards. Some were predicting a possible landslide.
What’s unfolding may well turn into a variation of Bush vs. Gore. Who knows? But what a mess, what a shocker. And there’s definitely something wrong with the polling industry. It’s infuriating that they got it so wrong.
Hey. So how’s everyone doing? pic.twitter.com/8I0XwuqM7F
— Marc Bernardin (@marcbernardin) November 4, 2020
:
9:10 pm: James Carville to MSNBC viewers — “Come down off the ledge, put away the razor blades and the Ambien….hang in there, we’re gonna be fine. The [final] count is gonna be good for Biden. I don’t mind putting the champagne on ice. I’ve waited four years for this…I don’t mind waiting another four days.”
As of right now (9:20 pm) Biden has 213 electoral votes vs. 136 for Trump. It’s all going to come down to the final tallies in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona — a good portion of the remaining votes being mail-ins.
7:50 pm: The tight numbers are horrifying. I’m going through an out-of-body experience. I feel like my brain is melting. I’m blaming the pandemic for his horrible evening, because we’re mainly talking about “live” voting and that means mostly Republican votes since righties don’t get Covid.
So yes, mail-in ballots could save Biden-Harris, but their stunning under-performance is mainly due to purported associations between Biden-Harris and hardcore p.c. lefty messaging….wokesters, cancel culture, looters, p.c. fanatics, Critical Race Theory, p.c. hatred of cisgender white guys, “Defund The Police” instead of “Re–Think The Police“, Robin DiAngelo‘s “White Fragility”, the Portland and Seattle marauders, the BLM ers and the Rosanna Arquette metaphor.
Yes, I know — there’s no rational reason to believe there’s strong linkage between the agendas of Joe Biden and odious wokesters, but how else to explain what’s happening?
You can’t tell me anyone gives a damn about Hunter Biden‘s laptop. Are older white cisgender male voters (including Cuban-Americans) afraid of Kamala Harris being President, considering Biden’s advanced age? I believe it has to be the wokester factor. Two years ago an Atlantic article reported that a vast majority of Americans hate cancel culture. Tonight they registered their displeasure, or so I strongly suspect.
Yes, Virginia…the woke left may (I say “may”) have pulled off the seemingly impossible — i.e., getting a compulsively lying, incompetent, sociopathic brute re-elected President of the United States. Maybe. Rank evil may actually triumph again. Trump supporters are voting for a form of social suicide and climate destruction They actually voted to support recklessness, incompetency and stinking-to-high-heaven corruption.
If I was a pollster I would be thinking about ways to obscure or camoflauge my appearance…fake noses, fake beards, fat suits, Woody Allen-styled fishing hats. Mobs with clubs and ax handles will be out looking for them on Wednesday morning, and I wouldn’t altogether blame them.
All along the argument against Trump has been irrefutable, but somehow the radical left has managed to weaken or dilute the argument for Biden, which is ridiculous given that he’s never been and never will be in any kind of wokester pocket. He’s a sensible, practical old-school center-lefty.
I can’t believe this is happening. I’m almost having trouble breathing. This could still come down to mail-in ballots…right? Plus all the predictions about Democrats ending up flipping the Senate in their favor…even that isn’t happening. Lindsay Graham and Susan Collins have been re-elected! Good effing God!
6:55 pm: I don’t like all these close races. Same day voting is favoring Trumo; mail-ins will mostly help Biden. There are nonetheless millions of voters out there who are flat-out loose-screw nihilists…they want to give an incompetent, lying criminal another four years, if only to spite the wokesters.
North Carolina numbers are driving me crazy. Trump has taken the lead in Ohio. Once the Pennsylvania mail-in ballots are counted (probably by Friday), it’ll be okay. I’m nonetheless nervous, anxious, biting my nails. And I’m feeling really angry at the pollsters. I want to literally punch them out.
Friendo: “The polls are off like they were in 2016. There should be a total overhaul of the polling formula. I hope to God this doesn’t extend for weeks and weeks. There’d better not be recounts.” Journo pally: “I’m feeling some 2016 deja vu.”
5:25 pm: A mere Biden victory will not be emotionally satisfying. I want Biden to beat Trump badly, or at least fairly badly. Right now…who knows? And what’s with those Trump-supporting Latino males?
5 pm: Red and blue states are voting accordingly. Biden has 85 electoral votes vs. Trump’s 55. Many millions want the beast to stay in the White House, and many other millions not only disagree but are slapping their foreheads in disbelief.
4:30 pm: This is like Oscar night only much, much better, so I guess I’ll start timestamping with running commentary starting around…uh, now. Biden has taken Virginia and Vermont, and will probably win North Carolina. Oh, and Trump has won Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina and…uhm, Indiana. In the cards. Florida will probably go for Trump. (Panhandle rubes + an apparently sizable percentage of Miami-Dade Latino males.) And also Georgia, it seems.
Trump: “Losing is never easy” pic.twitter.com/KzLJCwDvzS
— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) November 3, 2020
HE to Journo Pally: You know what’s going on out there. You know how p.c. knee-jerk spitballing is baked into the default mindset of at least some Gold Derby handicappers. That or they’ve been terrorized into thinking that way. I talk about possibly gathering together an alternative attitude fraternity that might not fall into line with quite the same willingness and p.c. obsequiousness, and you put me down for that?
Journo Pally to HE: If you were a driver heading into the wrong lane of the Malibu Canyon tunnel, I’d stop you. If you were a neighbor whose house was on fire, I’d hand you the water hose. If you reported to me at [a publication], I’d steer you toward writing about film and television…writing that called upon your vast reservoir of knowledge, your passion, intellect, savvy — and away from your darker impulses.
There’s a way to have fun, serve your readers and steer a sober, responsible business course. There are ways for you to embrace the changes of our times, to highlight the incredible talents in every creative category of filmmaking, celebrate filmmakers from around the world and in every corner of our country. That’s a much better use of your time and a much better business strategy than [your] Straight Shooters idea.
You wrote a column a while back about reflecting on your life, your feelings, about turning over a new leaf. Do that. Lay down your weary tune. Turn on your love light. Get with the program.
HE to Journo Pally: Wow, thanks. I agree with the positive thrust of the message, but — don’t take this the wrong way — you also sound a bit like Dr. Kauffman trying to persuade Kevin McCarthy‘s “Miles” to relax and let the seed pods take over.
Dr. Kauffman: Less than a month ago, West Hollywood was like any other town. People with nothing but problems. Then out of the progressive community came a solution. Seeds drifting through space for years took root in a farmer’s field. From the seeds came pods which had the power to reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life.
Miles: So that’s how it began…out of the sky.
Dr. Kauffman: Your new bodies are growing in there. They’re taking you over cell for cell, atom for atom. There is no pain. Suddenly, while you’re asleep, they’ll absorb your minds, your memories and you’ll be reborn into a simpler, purer world.
Miles: Where everyone’s a wokester?
Dr. Kauffman: Exactly. If you give in, tomorrow you’ll be one of us, and you can become the new Perri Nemiroff. You’ll be happier. You’ll smile all the time.
Miles: I love films by Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. Will I feel the same tomorrow?
Dr. Kauffman: [shakes his head] There will be no more need for Allen or Polanski or any other artist who hasn’t accepted the new reality.
Miles: No more watching J’Accuse or Rosemary’s Baby or The Pianist? No more Manhattan or Crimes and Misdemeanors?
Dr. Kauffman: You say it as if it were terrible. Believe me, it isn’t. We’ve all seen their films. They never last. They never do. Sardonic wit. Love and desire. Intrigue. Betrayal and facing evil. Without their films, life will be so much simpler, believe me.
Miles: You’re basically saying I need to stop fighting the idea that if I wasn’t a huge fan of Little Women, I’m a sexist who doesn’t get it.
Dr. Kauffman: Miles, if you didn’t like Little Women you are a sexist who doesn’t get it. Don’t you understand that?
Miles: I don’t want any part of it.
Dr. Kauffman: You’re forgetting something, Miles.
Miles: What’s that?
Dr. Kauffman: You have no choice.
This morning Deadline‘s Mike Fleming reported that Barry Levinson will direct Francis And The Godfather, with Oscar Isaac starring as Francis Coppola and Jake Gyllenhaal as Robert Evans. Pic will be a how-it-all-went-down drama about the making of The Godfather. It’s based a Black List script by Andrew Farotte that was redeveloped by Levinson.
I read a draft of Farotte’s script about five years ago, and I have to say that Terry Clyne‘s I Believe in America, another script about the making of the 1972 Best Picture Oscar winner, read better. Here’s what I posted on 12.25.15. The piece was called “American Demimonde”.
“I Believe in America is an authentic-sounding, tightly written, 117-page saga of the making of The Godfather. It’s told mostly from the perspective of then-Paramount chief Robert Evans and secondarily the POVs of director Francis Coppola, senior Paramount production executive Peter Bart, Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Ali McGraw, Mario Puzo, Gulf & Western’s Charles Bluhdorn, Diane Keaton, Sidney Korshak and just about everyone else who had anything significant to do with this landmark 1972 film.
“I began reading it on my iPhone when I was in Manhattan last night, and then I got on a Brooklyn-bound C train somewhere around page 35. I had finished it by the time I hit Nostrand Ave. I flew right through it. I was hooked from the get-go.
Clyne’s script (Darrell Easton is a pen name) is quite the demimonde of neurotic, obsessive Hollywood power players, and I’m telling you it feels as realistic and trustworthy in giving voice to these characters as The Godfather felt like a Real McCoy portrayal of an Italian-American crime family. We’ve all read accounts about the making of this American classic but it’s very satisfying to find them told so smoothly and believably in such a well-honed, fat-free screenplay.
“I know Robert Evans personally (or used to know him back in the ’90s and early aughts) and Cline has totally nailed his manner, speaking style, way of thinking. Coppola sounds like Coppola, Pacino sounds like Pacino…everyone and everything sounds genuine and solid, and the story moves along in a way that feels throughly disciplined and engrossing.
“And it begins brilliantly. It begins, believe it or not, with Woody Allen, in a production meeting with Evans about the making of Play It Again, Sam, and discussing the character of American organized crime. And Allen is shot in the same slow-backwards-zoom way in which Coppola introduced Bonasera the undertaker in the opening moments of The Godfather.
“‘I’ll tell you who believes in America,’ Allen says. ‘The mob. The mafia. I mean, where else but in America could organized crime take in over forty billion dollars a year and spend so little on office supplies?’ And then the kicker: ‘And you know what the real joke about organized crime is? The mob is like a regular company. I mean a business, a firm, like American Steel.’ And a fuse is lit within Evans and we’re off to the races.
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