In the same way that Mitch McConnell will never step down despite his freezing episodes, doddering Joe Biden will never throw in the towel until he’s forced to. He could be drooling and wearing diapers in a wheelchair, and he still wouldn’t quit.

Anyone who’s spent family time with an elderly grandfather or great-grandfather knows he’s too old to be President, and that it’s at least theoretically possible that he could become Woodrow Wilson during the last couple years of his second term, if not sooner…God forbid.

So given the impossibility of Trump winning against Biden, we’re all stuck with a muttering, slurring, wispy-voiced, physically healthy but obviously-less-than-mentally-alert President between now and 1.20.29, when Joe will be 86. (He’s now 80 — his 86th birthday will be on 11.20.28.)

Joe is holding things together and making some good moves (his strong support of the ongoing Ukraine defense effort is commendable) but there’s no question that he’s too old for the job. And I am literally terrified of Kamala Harris becoming president.

Every time I listen to Joe give a speech I sink into depression. God, how I miss the oratorical snap and cadence of Barack Obama or, for that natter, JFK.

If there was an activist God trying to make things better for American citizens from time to time, He/She/It would convince Joe to admit reality and throw in the towel and thereby allow the two most appealing gubernatorial heir apparents — Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer — to compete for the 2024 Democratic nomination. And then one or the other could run against Nikki Haley, and then things would feel right again.

Haley is a conservative, but she’s not a crazy sociopath — she’s sane and practical in the Glenn Youngkin mode.

Woody Allen‘s Celebrity (’98) was indifferently reviewed and proved a commercial bust ($12 million budget, $5.1 million in ticket sales). But at least it provided the last glimpses of the young (24) and slender and floppy-maned Leo, two years after Romeo + Juliet and immediately post-Titanic, and the 22- or 23-year-old Charlize Theron, post-Devil’s Advocate, pre-Mighty Joe Young (’98) and five years before her Oscar-winning turn in Monster (’03).

As HE reader “Mark” said a few years ago, “Leo’s last foray at being young, beautiful and still knowable, and Charlize fully in control of all her powers for the first time.”

Posted on 10.21.20: I admired several things about Celebrity. Sven Nykivst‘s beautiful black-and-white cinematography, of course. I occasionally felt amused and invigorated by Leonardo DiCaprio‘s manic superstar behavior (partly his character as written, partly drawing from his own post-Titanic popularity). Donald Trump‘s droll little cameo about tearing down St. Patrick’s Cathedral offers a decent chuckle. A lot of stuff works. Woody keeps trying and trying.

I was never bored and was somewhat taken with the flavor of Allen’s screenplay (i.e, forlorn acidity), and everyone loved the last shot. But otherwise Celebrity is less than masterful.

If only Woody had taken Kenneth Branagh aside before shooting and said, “You’ve obviously developed a half-decent imitation of my way of speaking — I respect that, it’s pretty good — but play this role as yourself. Use your own British accent. Playing me is too on the nose, critics won’t like it for that, and I wouldn’t blame them.”

This in itself would’ve improved things considerably.

The other problem is the deflating drift of the thing…the downswirl feeling, the repetitive moralizing, etc. Branagh’s Lee Simon could be wry and sharp and self-aware in a fleeting, in-and-out way, but it was clear within the first 20 or 30 minutes that he was also overly anxious, obsequious and stricken with a lack of self-awareness.

After a while you knew the film had no intention of doing anything more than making sure that Lee Simon wasn’t going to experience an epiphany of any kind…a breakthrough wasn’t in the cards

Todd McCarthy called the film “a once-over-lightly rehash of mostly stale Allen themes and motifs,” and noted that “the spectacle of Branagh and Judy Davis doing over-the-top Woody impersonations creates a neurotic energy meltdown…Branagh is simply embarrassing as he flails, stammers and gesticulates in a manner that suggests a direct imitation of Allen himself…Celebrity has a hastily conceived, patchwork feel that is occasionally leavened by some lively supporting turns and the presence of so many attractive people onscreen.”

By the way: The second syllable in Peter Biskind‘s last name is not, of course, pronounced like the second syllable in David Susskind‘s name.

I’ve been wondering about the curious absence of Black Flies (Open Road, 11.30) since its 5.18.23 debut in Cannes.

It may not be a great, game-changing film or what any fair-minded viewer might call piercing or compassionate or startlingly original, but I for one decided right away that it’s a more absorbing dive into the lives of living-on-the-ragged-edge paramedics than Martin Scorsese‘s Bringing Out The Dead (’99).

Like it or not, this is my opinion and I’ve no intention of modifying or watering it down.

Based on a drawn-from-hard-experience 2008 novel of the same name by Shannon Burke, adapted by Ryan King and Ben Mac Brown and directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, Black Flies didn’t deserve a 47% Rotten Tomatoes rating.

It stars Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan, Katherine Waterston, Michael Pitt, Mike Tyson and Raquel Nave.

In a 5.25 assessment of the Cannes Film Festival (“At a Particularly Strong Cannes Film Festival, Women’s Desires Pull Focus“), N.Y. Times critic and gender celebrationist Manohla Dargis not only dismissed Black Flies but called it “ridiculous.” That means it made her angry.

Dargis wasn’t alone. A significant percentage of Cannes critics ganged up on Black Flies due to what they saw as an overly unsympathetic view of Brooklyn’s primitive, ragged-edge underclass.

Film Verdict‘s Jay Weissberg accused it of being “tone-deaf” and hampered by a “problematic treatment of immigrant communities and women.”

Translation: Some critics detected a certain callousness flecked with racism and sexism. I found that view simplistic and ridiculous.

HE verdict, posted on 5.19: “It beats the shit out of you, this film, but in a way that you can’t help but admire. It’s a tough sit but a very high-quality one. The traumatized soul of lower-depths Brooklyn and the sad, ferociously angry residents who’ve been badly damaged in ways I’d rather not describe has never felt more in-your-face.

“In terms of assaultive realism and gritty authenticity Black Flies matches any classic ’70s or ’80s New York City film you could mention…The French Connection, Serpico, Prince of the City, Q & A, Good Time, Across 110th Street.

“And what an acting triumph for Sean Penn, who plays the caring but worn-down and throughly haunted Gene Rutkovsky, a veteran paramedic who bonds with and brings along Tye Sheridan‘s Ollie Cross, a shaken-up Colorado native who lives in a shitty Chinatown studio and is trying to get into medical school.

“Rutkovsky is a great hardboiled character, and Penn has certainly taken the bull by the horns and delivered his finest performance since his Oscar-winning turns in Mystic River (’03) and Milk (’08).

“And Sheridan is also damn good in this, his best film ever. His character eats more trauma and anxiety and suffers more spiritual discomfort than any rookie paramedic deserves, and you can absolutely feel everything that’s churning around inside the poor guy.

“At first I thought this 120-minute film would be Bringing Out The Dead, Part 2, but Black Flies, which moves like an express A train and feels more like 90 minutes, struck me as harder and punchier than that 1999 Martin Scorsese film, which I didn’t like all that much after catching it 23 and 1/2 years ago and which I’ve never rewatched.

Here are HE’s finest films of the first eight and 1/3 months of ’23 — post-Telluride and Venice, less than four months to go.

As before, a special demerit system applies in the case of otherwise commendable, first-rate films that delivered (a) manosphere pissnado or (b) caused my soul and knees to ache due to slow pacing and density of dialogue.

1. Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers (a ’70s character-driven thing, yes, but an absolutely first-rate resuscitation of this type of film)
2. Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot-au-Feu (aka Tbe Taste of Things)
3. Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Poor Things (rousing nutter filmmaking…bawdy, nervy, wildly imaginative and yet a tad over-praised at Venice and Telluride due to the hothouse atmosphere of those two gatherings)
4. Guy Ritchie‘s The Covenant
5. Christian Mungiu‘s RMN
6. Eric Gravel‘s Full Time
7. Chris Nolan‘s Oppenheimer — first-rate film but I groaned at the one-hour mark, knowing there were two full hours to go…my soul softly wept.
8. Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie [manosphere pissnado demerit]
9. Cruise & McQuarrie‘s Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One
10. Errol Morris‘s The Pigeon Tunnel (richly visual, beautifully scored doc about John le Carre…enveloping and rather dazzling)

11. Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon
12. Matt Johnson‘s Blackberry
13. Ari Aster‘s Beau Is Afraid
14. Jonathan Glazer‘s The Zone of Interest
15 Ilker Çatak’s The Teacher’s Lounge (official German submission for Best Int’l feature).
16. Ben Affleck‘s Air
17. Aki Kaurismäki‘s Fallen Leaves (Chaplinesque, slightly glum relationship comedy-drama..quietly touching performances from costars Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen)
17. Celine Song‘s Past Lives
18. Jean-Stephen Sauvaire’s Black Flies.
19. Steven Soderbergh‘s Magic Mike’s Last Dance
20. Nicole Holofcener‘s You Hurt My Feelings