Yesterday afternoon I hate-watched Zach Braff and Florence Pugh‘s A Good Person (MGM, 3.24). It’s basically a Lifetime movie about (a) slow grief recovery, (b) Oxycontin addiction and (c) the patient counsel of Morgan Freeman.

After 15 or 20 minutes I wanted to pop an Oxy myself, and maybe another half for good measure.

It’s arduous to sit through — instructive, over-acted, schmaltzy, precious, on the nose, emotionally insistent, socially curious and fortified with phony writing.

I hate addiction, AA and grief-recovery movies, and I really hated the acting in this film in particular. Bored shitless, I mean.

Pugh will always be a grounded, real-deal actress, but the screenplay’s flat treatment of Oxy addiction is “okay, okay, I’ve had enough, what else can you show me?” Freeman has always been excellent in whatever role, but you can tell he’s struggling or, you know, doing the best he can under duress. His vibe feels saggy, weary. Plus Freeman is around 85 now and seems too old to be the dad of Chinaza Uchi, who plays Pugh’s 30ish ex-fiance. He’s more like a grandfather type.

The only reason A Good Person managed a 55% Rotten Tomatoes and a 50% Metacitic grade is because a good portion of the ensemble cast is Black. If the cast had been all-Anglo, it would have fared much worse.

There’s a scene in which Freeman, the father of Pugh’s ex-fiance, shows Pugh an elaborate train set within a model of a miniature town in his basement, and I was saying to myself “this is half-working, this scene…they’ve finally found a groove.” And then Pugh’s character starts singing “Last Train to Clarksville” and Freeman joins in…the fucking Monkees!

I’m sorry but I have to say this: What extended family or close-knit social circle (i.e., people who routinely get together for holidays and birthdays) is composed of 55% POCs and 45% Anglos? Or vice versa? Even in super-artsy or super-wealthy X-factor circles, this kind of social bonding is…well, I’m not aware that it’s common. A Good Person is set in northern New Jersey near West Orange (i.e., Jett and Cait’s neighborhood) and I know how things look and feel in that neck of the woods. Good people and middle-class vibes, but not as woke as Braff and Pugh (who co-produced and collaborated on the script) are imagining.

I hated Mauro Fiore‘s muted, blue-ish cinematography.

Obviously the 11.22.23 theatrical debut of Ridley Scott‘s Napoleon (Apple/Sony) and the 11.22.63 assassination of John F. Kennedy haven’t the slightest echo element, and yet 11.22.23 will mark that 60th anniversary. No biggie, just saying.

Presumably a sizable portion of the HE community caught those ticket-buyer sneaks of Ben Affleck‘s Air last…what was it, Friday?

The non-pro consensus seems to be that (a) early-bird critics have over-sold it (but not me — I gave it a solid 8.5 grade while adding “just don’t go expecting the world”), (b) it was a bit of an odd strategy for Michael Jordan to technically be “present” for the third-act presentation scene at Nike’s Beaverton headquarters without actually being seen or heard and letting Viola Davis do all the talking, (c) the decision not to try and inflate or amplify the story into something bigger than it is was a wise one.

So what did everyone think? Is it modestly excellent or what? Is it basically a “dad” film or will Millennials and Zoomers be able to roll with it?

Posted from Metro North train after seeing Air, 3.22, 10:30 pm:

Ben Affleck’s Air is a solid 8.5 or even a 9 —- just don’t go expecting the world. It’s a modest, well-crafted film about vision and risk and soul and salesmanship, and the best aspect, I feel, is that it doesn’t swing for the fences.

It’s an unpretentious, steady-as-she-goes sports saga that frets about stress and failure and at the same time insists over and over that “if you don’t take a risk you can’t make a gain,” which is precisely what Walter Huston’s chuckling, goat-like prospector said in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

In a way Air is just as much of a pikers-strike-it-rich story as John Huston’s 1948 classic was and is, and the stakes are just as life-and-death when you consider what might’ve happened if Nike hadn’t signed Michael Jordan and if Matt Damon’s Sonny Vaccaro and Affleck’s Phil Knight had taken a gut punch instead.

Their down-to-business story is about marketing and branding that wound up on a super-scale, but told with a modest brush. Nothing goofy or slick or wild-ass. It starts out ordinarily or even ho-hummishly, but then it picks up a little steam and then a little more, and then little dabs of feeling are sprinkled into the second act and then spoonfuls of the stuff into the third as it gets better and better and better.

And then the big payoff moment comes, which isn’t as emotional as Jerry Maguire but then how could it be? Air isn’t about wives or girlfriends or kids or dogs…it’s strictly about business and that’s a good enough thing, trust me.

Here’s the thing: Damon’s Vaccaro is a beefalo bordering on a lardbucket, and I was bothered by this at first. But guess what? I stopped thinking about the paunch around the 30-minute mark. By the one-hour mark I’d forgotten about it entirely. This in itself says a lot.

7:55 am update: It’s being said that Viola Davis’s grounded performance as Michael Jordan’s tough negotiating mom, Deloris, is the keeper. She’ll probably be Oscar-nominated, but Damon’s Vaccaro shoulders the weight. He’s playing the poet and the singer and the believer of the piece, and it’s his best performance since…what, the second Bourne film? Or The Informant? And I love how he’s never cowed by Affleck’s Knight, calmly standing his ground, and in fact plays him at the very end. It’s brilliant. And I love Chris Messina’s tough-shithead agent who reps the Jordans and is content to eat alone.

“It’s funny to hear these [mewing little kittens] treating the John Wick flicks like they’re major narrative-driven movies capable of being ‘spoiled.’ I like the new Wick, but neither Wells nor the spoiler whiners seem to understand that a plot doesn’t matter to these movies at all, and [that] notions of death matter even less.” — HE commenter “Chuck.”

“Isn’t the ending of John Wick 4 all over the internet? I haven’t seen the film, haven’t read a single review, have no interest in the Wick films. But I know that Wick dies or probably ‘dies’ at the end of this one. Seems to be an open secret on the web, so calling spoiler in this case sounds a bit like complaining about people talking about Jesus being crucified at the end of a new Jesus movie.” — HE commenter “Renaissance.”

“I wouid have never mentioned the Darth Vader-Luke Skywalker blood relationship two weekends after opening day. That film is sacred and holy, and it would’ve been criminal to spoil it.

“The difference is clear. JW4 is flotsam — a rank and cynical pornoviolent ‘musical’ that pollutes the environment and lowers the spiritual property values in each and every realm with its gross and cynical disregard for life. I spit on this movie.

“I respected the rights of unpolluted viewers for TWO FULL WEEKENDS. What was I supposed to do, wait six months or something? Besides, like I said, it was really Stahelski’s fault.” — Jeffrey Wells, posted this morning [4.3] in response to spoiler whiner kvetching.

One of my all-time favorite guitar solos is from Robby Krieger on “You’re Lost, Little Girl,” and so what…right? I love the simplicity of it. Clean tones, nothing flashy, nice finish. 1:42 to 1:56. The shorter, the better.

A couple of days ago I was a bit startled by a Variety headline for a Chris Willman interview with Marcus Mumford. It was about the recently-premiered PBS Joni Mitchell tribute concert (Gershwin Prize) that happened in February, and more particularly Mumford’s belief that Mitchell is “singing better than ever in 2023.”

It’s great that Mitchell is singing and playing guitar and sounding pretty good, particularly in the wake of having suffered a brain aneurysm in late March of 2015. She was in fairly bad shape after that tragedy, but she’s recovered (or at least is recovering) to a significant degree, and praise be to God for this.

In a 2013 interview with the National Post‘s Jian Ghomeshi Mitchell said that her soprano singing voice was pretty much kaput, and that she’s now an alto.

The key question to me is “is Joni still smoking?” Because that’s almost certainly what helped to bring about her aneurysm. She initially lost her ability to speak and walk, and still needs a little help getting around as we speak.

I was so concerned about Mitchell’s well-being in the wake of the aneurysm that I once hand-delivered an admonishing fan letter to her Spanish home in Bel Air. I insisted I was one of her biggest fans and begged her to think about vaping instead of sticking with tobacco.

Mitchell may have decided that life isn’t worth living without the pleasure of unfiltered cigarettes, but maybe not. She once said in an interview that she began smoking at age 9 or 10 or something. At a certain point the body just can’t take the nicotine and the toxins and complications will manifest.

It’s wonderful, in any event, that Mitchell has regained (or is in the process of regaining) her singing and guitar-playing abilities. She’ll turn 80 on 11.7.23.

Posted on 3.31.15: I attended a short, smallish concert that Mitchell gave at Studio 54 in October ’82 to promote “Wild Things Run Fast.” The crowd was not huge, maybe 150 or so, and I was standing fairly close and pretty much dead center. No female artist has ever touched me like Mitchell**, and I was quite excited about being this close to her.

I was beaming, starry-eyed and staring at her like the most self-abasing suck-up fan you could imagine, and during the first song her eyes locked onto mine and I swear to God we began to kind of half-stare at each other. (Some performers do this, deciding to sing for this or that special person in the crowd.) Her eyes danced around from time to time but she kept coming back to me, and I remember thinking, “Okay, she senses that I love her and she probably likes my looks so I guess I’m her special fanboy or something for the next few minutes.”

Mitchell was dressed in a white pants suit and some kind of colorful scarf, and she sang and played really well, and I remember she had a little bit of a sexy tummy thing going on. Sorry but that had a portion of my attention along with the songs and “being there” and a feeling that I’d remember this moment for decades to come.

** My beloved Patti Smith ranks a close second.