“Bugsy would not have been the densely detailed and complexly imagined film that it is without the pooled-together contributions of producer-star Warren Beatty, screenwriter James Toback and director Barry Levinson.

“But one wonders what might have resulted had the authorial strands been pulled apart and had Mr. Beatty been able to make another of his studies of an American naïf (following Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde, George the hairstylist of Shampoo and John Reed, the radical journalist of Reds) blundering as best he can through the social upheavals of an era; or had Mr. Toback, with his fascination with sex, power and the romantic fatalism of the gambler; or had Mr. Levinson fully indulged his nostalgia for a lost era of sartorial elegance and tastefully lighted interiors.

“Levinson was the dominant force on the set, and the film duly reflects his fundamentally comic sensibility (even when the material dips into darkness) and affection for attention-grabbing period detail.” — from Dave Kehr’s 12.12.06 review of the Bugsy extended-cut DVD.

Two more observations about Francis Coppola‘s Megalopolis, which was seen last Thursday morning by an elite crowd of 300 or so at Universal City IMAX:

Observer #1: “Megalopoplis is about as non-Joe Popcorn a movie as one can imagine. But it is so startling, so original and sometimes downright confounding that there is a certain strata of moviegoer who will see it out of raw curiosity…especially if critics get behind it and if there is a major PR campaign.

“I don’t know if the print we saw [last Thursday] is finished or not. I hope Francis clarifies the story so audiences have something to hang onto. The first approximately 50 to 60 per cent of the film is much better than the last part because you lose track of the story and become bored.

“It is nonetheless a bold and utterly original film, and for that Francis will get tons of credit from some quarters.”

Observer #2: “There will be many and varied responses to this film. Those who love it for its boldness will be right. and those who dismiss it for the same reason will, if you insist, also be correct. And perhaps the film’s natural, eventual home will be in art museums.

“Megalopolis will require careful and loving handling, which may turn out to be an impossible task in today’s market. But here’s hoping otherwise.”

I haven’t written anything by hand in literally decades. Maybe an occasional sentence or two but I haven’t hand-penned so much as a paragraph, much less a personal letter, since the mid ‘70s. Professionally-speaking from the Jimmy Carter era onward it was all typewriting until word processing (Wordstar) began in the mid ‘80s.

Yesterday I bought a note pad and a couple of pens. It’ll take a while but I’m going to force myself into the practice of occasional hand jottings. The idea, I suppose, is that writing by hand is somehow more pure or direct or something. I only know that I want to re-learn or recreate the skill of what used to be called half-assed cursive.

Maybe I’ll branch out into occasional drawing — I used to draw faces and figures lot in my tween years. I took a drawing class at Silvermine when I was 16 or 17.

During last night’s SNL monologue, comedian-actor-writer Ramy Youssef, 33, said he’s not happy about voting for Biden or Trump, and would prefer a woman candidate (HE feels the same as long as the woman candidate isn’t Kamala Harris) or even a trans-woman.

Youssef is half-playing around and half-serious, and so am I. If there was a formidable biomale trans candidate as smart and practical-minded as Pete Buttigieg (i.e., not a woke lunatic), HE would vote for her. But of course, the odds of a formidable biomale trans candidate even getting through the primary process are negligible so what are we even talking about?

…for encouraging social standards that frown upon traditional male energy and identities in favor of politically cautious, laid-back girlyman attitudes, hence the phenomenon of depressed, drifting, girlfriend-less young men, hence “wokefish.”

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…in a more profound and heartfelt way than most present-day “Christians” understand this all-but-superfluous holiday, and I’m bending over backwards in saying this.

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Another indication that woke terror ain’t what it used to be (i.e., back in ’19, ’20 and ’21) is that genius comic Anthony Jeselnik, whose material uses “ironic misdirection, non sequiturs, biting insults, low-key arrogance along with amoral or psychopathic stances,” is alive and well and un–cancelled.

Nobody pulls off the “icy but casual sociopath with a chuckle” thing better than Jeselnik.

His career started to really happen in his early 30s, or around the beginning of the Obama era. He had a nearly four-year relationship with Amy Schumer. I know the #MeToo brigade hates him, and that at the peak of their “cancelling careers and destroying lives” power in the late teens and early ’20s they would have loved to terminate Jeselnik with extreme prejudice, but somehow he’s still thriving.

I know nothing and yes, this is two days old but…

Puck‘s Dylan Byers (3.29.24): “In the aftermath of the Ronna McDaniel hiring-and-firing scandal, the NBC News Group blame game has begun to point back toward chairman Cesar Conde, his hands-off leadership style, and his very transparent ambitions.”

“Ronna McDaniel fiasco reveals chaos in upper ranks at NBC: ‘A head needs to roll’“, by Alexandra Steigrad (3.29.24)

“Media executives and industry experts close to NBC said the Ronna McDaniel fiasco exposed the chaos in the upper ranks at the Peacock network — with one top honcho telling The Post that ‘a head needs to roll.’

“The hiring and abrupt firing of the former chair of the Republican National Committee under intense pressure from NBC and MSNBC talent, led by Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow, revealed the power vacuum at the network, multiple sources told The Post on Thursday.

“’Someone needs to pay for the clear lack of leadership on this issue,’ said one media bigwig, who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity. ‘A head needs to roll.’

“NBC brass reversed their position on hiring Ronna McDaniel earlier this week, after pushback from talent. But the stunning reversal has exposed gaps in leadership at the network, sources said.

“’There are some serious conversations happening in Philadelphia,’ the source added, referring to the headquarters of NBC-parent Comcast. ‘If I’m [Comcast president] Mike Cavanagh, I’d be like what the fuck!’

“A possible fall guy could be NBC News Group Chairman Cesar Conde, who took ‘full responsibility’ for signing off on the reported two-year, $600,000 deal that landed McDaniel as an on-air contributor at NBC and MSNBC last Friday.

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I recently invited a friend to a NYC screening of Alex Garland’s Civil War (A24, 4.12).

“Thanks but I don’t think I’m’interested,” he replied. “I’m just not in the mood for a Very Important Movie (read: explicitly political) right now.”

I was going to explain that the narrative backdrop, according to the reviews, isn’t explicitly political, at least in terms of reflecting the red-vs.-blue, Trump MAGA vs. woke libtard dynamic. But that’s okay…

Posted on 3.14 after the SXSW debut:

Posted four years ago: Speaking as a life-long cat lover, I can say with authority that some cats are on the locoweed side. Inexplicable behavior. One out of several hundred, I mean.

If none-too-bright cats are unhappy or freaked about some kind of confining situation, for example, they’ll sometimes do anything they can to escape, even at their own peril. Or they’ll take revenge upon the person they think is responsible.

(1) A woman I knew was driving with an anguished male cat on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The weather was cold, a mild snowstorm was blowing, and her car was surrounded by a fair amount of traffic. She was going the usual highway speed. For some reason she leaned over and rolled down the driver-side window, and the cat immediately leapt out.

(2) My ex-wife Maggie and I had a calico cat who was accustomed to outdoor access, and who became extremely upset when we moved into an 8th floor high-rise apartment. The first night we moved in the cat climbed onto a waist-high balcony wall that overlooked the eight-story drop. I put him inside the apartment as this obviously seemed risky. Later that night he got out and jumped. We’d loved him, petted him, fed him, etc. Go figure.

(3) In the late ‘90s I was driving down Franklin Avenue with a cat who couldn’t handle being in moving cars. Jett and Dylan were with me. The cat was howling and freaking, and at one point jumped onto my shoulder and took a serious milkshake dump all over my neck and onto my blue workshirt. I remember the smell filling the car and the kids screaming with laughter.

(4) My sister and I knew that our excitable cat hated water, so we decided to take him with us on a short rowboat trip to the middle of a pond. As a training exercise. We waited until we were 30 or 40 feet out and then let him go. He looked around, assessed the situation, jumped into the pond and swam ashore.

(5) A girlfriend and I were sharing an apartment on Boston’s Park Drive. Her male cat, Tom, was bunking with us. I love cats but Tom was extremely hostile to me — the only cat I’ve run into who was this negative. One night we came back from a restaurant and found that Tom had peed on my sleeping pillow on our conjugal bed. That was it. Over the next day or two we found someone who was willing to take him.