I can’t quite decide who I hate more — Donald Trump or Joe Biden. It’s just that I’ve despised Trump for so many years. My Biden hate, on the other hand, is fresh and vivid and visceral.

Author of “Battle For The Soul“, Edward-Isaac Dovere is a senior reporter for CNN, covering politics and the Biden administration:

“Part of the dynamic here ie that the Obama-Biden relationship is much more complicated than people often understand it to be. They are friendly [but] they are are not friends.

“One person close to the situation said to me a couple of years ago, ‘Neither one of these [men] really has friends, and they’re really not friends with each other.’ They have not been in contact over the last couple of years as people might think. They’ve talked a couple of times.

“Barack Obama has forever been skeptical about Joe Biden‘s chances as a presidential candidate. [Biden has written in his book that] Obama was not encouraging. Obama is not prone to getting involved here. And every time people have reached out to him and said ‘save us, Barack Obama,’ his response has basically been ‘I’m going to stay right here…I’m not saying anything.'”

Not trying to personally persuade Biden to drop out is one thing, but Obama staying silent while pally George Clooney says, with Obama’s consent, what Obama believes to be true is another.

The looming existential threat of Donald Trump‘s likely victory hasn’t gone away. Every sensible person on the planet realizes that Joe’s cognitive diminishment, which is in and out depending on the moment, has only one way to go and that’s downhill.

Every American voter knows this also, and yet Obama would rather let Trump win than stand up and plead for a more hopeful outcome. That’s cowardly. That’s smug. That’s shameful.

I don’t understand the sudden, mystifying enthusiasm for Jean Negulesco’s Daddy Long Legs, a 1955 Fred Astaire–Leslie Caron musical. I’ve always respected and half-admired this romantic fantasy flick…oh, wait.

It is my unfortunate duty to report that the horror factor in Oz Perkins Longlegs is highly effective for the first…oh, 50 or 55 minutes. Very chilling stuff, in no small part due to Maika Monroe’s riveting performance as a psychic, Clarice Starling-like FBI agent.

But once a certain satanic Marc Bolan fan is arrested and the “trance-inducing doll meets crazy mama” plotting kicks in, it all falls apart. The fucking thing doesn’t add up, makes no sense, isn’t crazy enough, and has nothing going on underneath.

I saw Longlegs with a large crowd at the AMC Lincoln Square, and when the lights came up after the closing credits you could feel the flat vibes. The crowd seemed disgruntled, murmuring “huh?” and “the fuck was that?”

Screen Anarchy ‘s J. Hurtado, Bloody Disgusting’s Meagan Navarro and /Film’s Bill Bria are all apparently delusional or at the very least dishonest.

Edward Douglas:

Jeff Sneider:

Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley’s Sing Sing is an honest, explorational, open-hearted acting exercise film.

It’s intimate and earnest and straight-dealing and “affecting” if you’re inclined to go there, but for me it felt very, very boring. After an hour’s worth, I mean. I sat there and waited and waited and waited…

Because it’s just about a prison situation. Sing Sing’s Rehabilitation Through The Arts program, which is absolutely a good idea and a good thing, Lord knows. But there’s no story, no story tension, nothing to hold you, nothing that pulls you in. It’s just about watching guys act or try to act. Very good, straight-from-the-heart acting and hats off to Colman Domingo, but all you can do is sit there and be patient as you watch it and go “uh-huh.”

I made it to the end, and all I can say is “thank God I’m not doing time in Sing Sing prison.” Because this film certainly makes you feel as if you’re locked up, I can tell you. Thank God I have a certain amount of discipline and energy and a willingness to work hard and not give in to the usual vices and pitfalls, or else I might have become a criminal of some kind…who knows?

This is a very respectable MINOR FILM. I felt respect and a certain limited affection for the incarcerated characters, but thank God it ended when it did because I was starting to moan and groan a little bit.

The word around the campfire is that Lee Isaac Chung‘s Twisters (which I haven’t seen) is CG jizz whizz, and certainly isn’t as good as Jan De Bont Twister (’96).

All these years I’ve had moderately positive recollections of De Bont’s 28-year-old film but they’ve faded somewhat, so I re-watched it last night. Bing-bang, bop-bop-a-loo-bop….bonnng!!…I clapped, I laughed, I chuckled, I whoo-whoo’ed, I hoo-hahed…yes!

Twister is just a goofball popcorn thrill ride, sure, but it’s much, much better than I’d come to recall. Excellent cinematography (tracking shots!), clever-ass dialogue (Michael Crichton and Anne–Marie Martin wrote it), primitive but thrilling CGI, first-rate performances (HeLen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jamie Gertz, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Cary Elwes), etc.

I’m sorry but on its own shameless, fuck-all terms Twister really works. Escapist movies were so much better in the ’90s than they are today. Watching it made me feel like a pig in shit. It made me go “maaaahhhh!”

I’m very sorry that Shelley Duvall has left us at age 75.

Duvall’s performances were always fascinating, always unique, always space-casey, always something else.

But her peak period boiled down to just three films — 3 Women (’77), The Shining (’80) and Popeye (ditto). Which meant that the impetus behind her career peak boiled down to her partnerships with two brilliant fellows — Robert Altman (Thieves Like Us, Nashville, 3 Women, Popeye) and Stanley Kubrick (The Shining).

I think her Shining baseball bat scene with Jack Nicholson was her best.

Friend-of-a-friend who’s seen Sing Sing: “A small movie with a big heart.”

This Free Press article about Oakland is horrifying. It’s all about far-left Democrats having totally bought into the George Floyd myth that too much police power is a pox on society and that POCs need to be kid-gloved.

In a nutshell: Wokester insanity chickens coming home to roost.

From “The Fall of Oakland,” a 7.10 Free Press article by Leighton Woodhouse:

I’ve said this over and over: depending on the condition of the print, 70mm showings can look great but only if the film was shot in large format (65mm, VistaVision, Todd AO, Super Panavision 70, Ultra Panavision 70, Camera 65, Dimension 150).

35mm upgraded to 70mm (i.e., The Wild Bunch) is fine as far as it goes but nothing to necessarily shout and scream about.

The bottom line today is that digital projection tends to look just as good as 70mm, and in some cases better (i.e., no print degradation). 70mm can look great, yes, but it’s mostly a marketing brand that film cognoscenti have bought into — a way to “sell” classic movies.

In and of themselves, 70mm showings are no longer the coin of the realm.

A month from now (August 9th) Rialto Pictures will release into theatres a 50th anniversary restored version of Francis Coppola‘s The Conversation (’74).

A press release say “the original negative was accessed for the first time and scanned in 4K”…fine. And that the restoration has been “fully approved” by Coppola.

I’ve seen The Conversation four or five times over the last half century, and at least twice in HD over the last decade or so. I wasn’t aware it needed a restoration. The intrigue is in the sound design, of course. Visually it’s always looked fine — an assured, pro-level, run-of-the-mill 35mm film. Mostly urban (San Francisco) interiors, nothing exceptional. The highlight (hand in hand with the sound design) is the Union Square long-lens surveillance footage, etc.

I can’t imagine what kind of visual boinnngg! this restoration could possibly achieve. The film world certainly hasn’t been crying out for a visual upgrade. Okay, this new version might look slightly better…maybe. If it manages this, fine. All to the good.

“When the red red robin comes bob bob bobbin’ along…along!”