From a 7.12.09 piece called “The Art of Paycheck Acting”: “The Towering Inferno was entertaining crap when it opened [in 1974], but Paul Newman and Steve McQueen are honorable and oak-solid in their starring roles. This is impressive given that neither actor has a real part to play — they were just paid to show up and go through the Irwin Allen paces. They knew it then and we know it now, but they deliver the goods anyway. That’s professionalism and star power.

“There are four ways that brand-name actors deliver straight-paycheck performances in mediocre big-studio films.

“One, they do it straight and plain and cruise by on chops and charisma, like McQueen and Newman. Two, they do it straight and plain and don’t cruise by on chops and charisma — they sink into the movie like quicksand and then suffocate. Three, they behave in an extremely mannered and actorish way as a way of telegraphing to the audience that they’re totally aware that they’re in a crap film. And four, they go beyond mannered and waaay over the top (like Jon Voight in Anaconda) and turn their performances into inspired farce.”

From a Pauline Kael New Yorker review, issue dated 12.30.74:

“In the new disaster blockbuster The Towering Inferno, each scene of a person horribly in flames is presented as a feat for our delectation. The picture practically stops for us to say, ‘Yummy, that’s a good one!’ These incendiary deaths, plus the falls from high up in the hundred-and-thirty-eight-floor tallest skyscraper in the world, are, in fact, the film’s only feats, the plot and characters being retreads from the producer Irwin Allen’s earlier Poseidon Adventure. What was left out this time was the hokey fun.

“When a picture has any kind of entertainment in it, viewers don’t much care about credibility, but when it isn’t entertaining we do. And when a turkey bores us and insults our intelligence for close to three hours, it shouldn’t preen itself on its own morality.  Inferno knocks off some two hundred people as realistically as it possibly can and then tells us that we must plan future buildings more carefully, with the fire chief (embodied here by Steve McQueen) working in collaboration with the architect (in this case, Paul Newman, who appears to be also the only engineer — in fact, the only person involved in the building’s construction or operation above the level of janitor).

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I always enjoy and often agree with N.Y. Times center-right columnist Bret Stephens, but I felt a little pissed off by what struck me as a Trump-friendly column (1.11.24), titled “The Case for Trump …by Someone Who Wants Him to Lose“.

I’m not going to re-hash the essay chapter and verse, but it’s fair to say that Bret’s opinions about wokesters (i.e., “the progressive left”) are mostly on-target.

True: “Academia, mostly liberal, became increasingly illiberal, inhospitable not just to conservatives but to anyone pushing back even modestly against progressive orthodoxy.”

True: “Trump and his supporters called this out, [and] for this they were called idiots, liars and bigots by people who think of themselves as enlightened and empathetic and hold the commanding heights in the national culture. The scorn only served to harden the sense among millions of Americans that liberal elites are self-infatuated, imperious, hysterical, and hopelessly out of touch.”

I also agree with Bret’s statement that Trump “shared the law-and-order instincts of normal Americans, including respect for the police, something the left seemed to care about on Jan. 6 but was notably less concerned about during the months of rioting, violence and semi-anarchy that followed George Floyd’s murder.”

Except it wasn’t months — the Floyd riots lasted four or five weeks, something like that.

But I really hate the way Bret has minimized, looked the other way at and otherwise normalized Trump’s sociopathic nature and his brutish, anti-democratic, flat-out criminal behavior.

Others feel this way or the Times wouldn’t have posted a follow-up dialogue between Stephens and Patrick Healy called “Three Questions for Bret Stephens About His Trump Column.”

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Hugs and condolences for the family and friends of ’70s actress Tisa Farrow, who has passed at the age of 72. I knew her only from her brief performances in Woody Allen‘s Manhattan and James Toback‘s Fingers. Her line in Manhattan — “I finally had an orgasm, and my doctor told me it was the wrong kind” — is not the sort of line that you forget. It’s kind of legendary in fact.

Ten nominees have been announced for the PGA’s Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures — American Fiction (Scott Feinberg and Clayton Davis breathe sighs of relief!), Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon (indigenous struggle), Maestro, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Poor Things and The Zone of Interest.

Ten is too many — not exclusive enough. If the list was a more proper five, it would/should be Oppenheimer, The Holdovers, Poor Things, Maestro and Barbie.

…but where and whom you’re seeing it with.

…will suddenly happen out of nowhere. In a twinkling of a batted eyelash, they just seem right and natural and immutably decreed.

…considering that it’s AI–generated and all. It’s hollow and inorganic but decent.

…this is how you respond. You don’t duck or push back. You don’t whine. You don’t call the cops and say “waaahh, my wife or my girlfriend is hitting me.” You just Lee Marvin it….simple.

Posted today (1.11.24) by World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy.

Children of Men premiered 17 years ago (technically 12.25.06), which is at least a generation ago. Most Zoomers probably couldn’t be bothered to stream it, but if they did they’d probably presume that most of this driving scene is digitally painted or augmented, when in fact it’s all real (pure physical stuff) except for the one bit where Clive Owen opens the door and the guys on the bike go flying. Otherwise it’s totally organic.

33 year-old Kristen Stewart has been out for quite a few years now. She officially announced on SNL in September ’17, but I recall getting slapped around by the HE commentariat a year or two earlier for saying that I found one of her girlfriends too butch and that if I were Stewart (rich, famous, pick of the litter) I would go for someone foxier.

Anyway, Variety‘s Adam B. Vary has posted a 1.11.24 piece called “How Kristen Stewart Became A Queer Trailblazer“, and I’m like “we’re doing this again?” How many times can Stewart be celebrated for being out and proud? Are we going to be reading a similar cover story in 2030, when Stewart is 39?

As you read the article you can feel Vary’s emotional investment in Stewart’s bold-as-brass queerness. It turns him on, lights him up, gets him off.

Vary adopted this “yay, team!” approach because Stewart is promoting Love Lies Bleeding, a Sundance ’24 attraction about a hot lesbian love affair.

About 20 days ago I wrote that I don’t find Love Lies Bleeding especially appealing as neither Stewart (whose character looks plain and butchy and wears bad mullet hair) nor costar Katy O’Brian seem especially attractive, at least in this instance. The commentariat bitches beat me up for saying that also.

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Posted on 9.7.21: Written by Mike Rutherford and Christopher Neil, “All I Need Is A Miracle” is about a guy who’s been indifferent and even abusive to his ex-girlfriend, but now he realizes what an asshole he was and desperately wants her back. If she decides to forgive him and return, it’ll be because God has smiled and lent a hand.

If you believe that a certain someone agreeing to be your boyfriend or girlfriend constitutes a “miracle”, you’ve got the wrong attitude, man. You might even be a loser afflicted with low-self-esteem. If you’re a good person with character and inner value and whatnot, you shouldn’t need a miracle to make things right in terms of a desired relationship. Some guy saying “left to my own devices my would-be boyfriend or girlfriend might blow me off or find someone better, but if a ‘miracle’ happens I’ll be saved!”…c’mon, man.

I had the same attitude back in my hormonal heyday. If I was the object of some woman’s intense desire and if she believed that if I reciprocated her feelings that a “miracle” would be at hand, my response would be “hold on a minute…there’s nothing miraculous about me or being with me…I have my good and not-so-good qualities but if you think that our falling in love or moving in together or whatever…if you think that would be some kind of miracle, then you’re dreaming.

Nobody is a miracle, nobody’s a perfect catch…it could be a good or better-than-good relationship or not, but come down to earth….we’re all flawed, all struggling…nobody’s a gleaming prize.

Clint Eastwood: “Show me a drop-dead beautiful woman with an elegant education and great business acumen, and I’ll show you a guy who’s tired of fucking her.”