Any “100 best films of the ‘70s” list that doesn’t include Terrence Malick’s Badlands, John Flynn’s The Outfit, Mike Hodges’ Get Carter, Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, Michael Ritchie’s Downhill Racer and The Candidate, John Boorman’s Deliverance, Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, Hal Ashby’s Being There and Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye…any such list that ignores these 12 films invites my disrespect.

Plus there’s no way Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman ranks higher than the two Godfather films…get outta town! The IndieWire list was clearly assembled with a diversity mindset…too many diversity picks elbowing aside way too many first-rate’70s films.

(Thanks to Joe Dante for doing most of the heavy lifting.)

HE is okay with Anya Taylor Joy playing the young Joni Mitchell in Cameron Crowe‘s forthcoming biopic (per Jeff Sneider’s scoop), but Amanda Seyfried would have been a much better choice. Obviously.

This morning I stumbled upon a free, relatively recent AI software that converts photos into line drawings. The idea is to hand prints of these drawings to Sutton for coloring. This weekend, I mean. Go ahead, lay it on me…tell me that free photo-to-line drawing conversion software has been around for years.

I’ve also just happened upon a YouTube file of Lou Reed‘s “What’s Good”, my favorite song from his 33-year-old “death album” (Magic and Loss).

Read more

“All of it…not just some of it, but all of it.”

The frozen-face, suppressed-anger look that Ann Coulter gives Konstantin Kisin is chilling.

I’m rushed and running, but I’ll post my Terence Stamp obit later today or tonight. I’ll include my list of his greatest performances, topped by those in The Limey (‘99), The Hit (‘85) and Billy Budd (‘62), of course.

Actually Stamp’s greatest came down to only these three, truth be told.

Was Stamp’s “Willie Parker”, the doomed but spiritually teeming ex-gangster who commented about, coached and consoled John Hurt, Tim Roth and Laura del Sol during a road journey across Spain in what may have been Stephen Frears’ finest…was Willie his all-time best? I wouldn’t argue against this.

Yes, he’s fascinating and certainly a memorable object of spiritual desire in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema (‘68), but Stamp’s performance as a Christ-like seducer and redeemer (he fucks a wealthy Milanese family of four —- dad, mom, a teenage son and daughter) is mostly opaque.

I’ve never been much of a General Zod fan nor of Stamp’s cross-dressing turn in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert…sorry.

I have a curious soft spot for Stamp’s brief performance as a snooty ape professor (simiantologist?) in Richard Franklin’s Link (‘85).

As recently as 15 years ago, most of us shared a common understanding and acceptance of basic human truth. What we really believed deep down. Faith in fair-minded democratic ideals. The way life actually looks, smells, tastes and feels. Judging people by the content of their character.

Alas, most of this began to be discarded by the wokeys around eight years ago, largely in reaction to Trump and the MAGA whackos.

Now there are three kinds of truth, and the concept of their respective adherents accepting or respecting or even tolerating opposing views is mostly out the window.

The basic tenets of wokey truth are that (a) 85% of white guys are toxic dicks and need to be shunned on dating apps and certainly as potential marriage partners, (b) POCs are blessed angels who need shelter and protection as a make-up for four centuries of racist oppression, (c) children need the help of enlightened teachers and parents in order to change their gender in order to live their own authentic lives, (d) obesity is beautiful, (e) Netanyahu’s Israel is evil, (f) men are free to be women if they want this, and that includes the freedom to compete in women’s sports.

Wokeism peaked in mid-2024 and is certainly on the way down…the culture has shifted! But there are still millions of wokeys (mostly urban Millennials and Zoomers) who want Kamala Harris to run again in’28, and if not Kamala then AOC or Zohran Mamdani or Jasmine Crockett or somebody in that vein.

As long as wokeys are exerting major influence, the Democratic party will remain a minority party.

The basic tenets of moderate, sensible truth are basically those embraced by Bill Maher, Paul Schrader, Rahm Emmanuel, Barack Obama, Joe Rogan, Hollywood Elsewhere and all the other former liberals who were driven out by radical left insanity during the summer of George Floyd and beyond. (Gavin Newsom is almost part of this fraternity, but he has to abandon his support of minors having bottom surgeries.)

The one, basic, fundamental tenet of MAGA truth is that wokeys are insane and have to be stopped and suppressed at any cost.

If Howard Beale had his own podcast today, he would be praising the idea of unfiltered, raw, and honest human experience, much of which has been redefined and otherwise manipulated by the radical left’s domestic version of Mao’s Great Cultural Revolution.

For five years (2020 to 2024) Average Joes and Janes were persecuted by the racist, identity-driven, anti-white wokeys.

Beale would be saying that that too many people have become disconnected from their true selves, living under the once-terrible yoke of wokey criteria, demands and concepts. Beale would be saying “break free from these nutjobs and embrace genuine human emotion and experience.”

TikTok clip for thought:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT6Q9StqD/

Strange as it may sound to some (Stalinist wokeys in particular), but in the old days actresses were not only given opportunity but valued and rewarded not just for their talent but also their looks. Audiences have always loved the company of dishy-looking performers. Or at least they used to.

The below sequence from John Huston s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (‘48) arrives near the end of Act Three. The banditos have murdered Humphrey Bogart‘s Fred C. Dobbs, and are now trying to sell his burros. Entirely spoken in Spanish, obviously, but shot and performed in such a way that dialogue is all but superfluous. A five-year-old could easily discern what’s happening.

Question: Was this the first time that a critical scene in an American big-studio film was performed entirely in a foreign tongue without subtitles or any form of English translation or explanation?

I bought and began reading Nat Segaloff’s “Bogart and Huston” book last night. Smart history, easy velvety prose, comprehensively researched, first-rate. The Beat The Devil chapter is a hoot.