The vulnerable-golden-hero mythology in The Natural is like maple syrup, so thick and gloopy it damn nears smothers everything. And I’m saying this as a devoted admirer of Field of Dreams. I want to see the hero prevail as much as the next guy, but not in fantasyland — his/her struggle has to happen in a shifty, scrappy, serious adult world. And I hate it when when grossly sentimental films of this sort push every button they can think of.

When Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) broke his Wonderboy bat, when the chubby bat boy gave him a newbie, when the camera saw that his abdomen was bleeding, I said to myself “this is bullshit.” When Roy slams the game-winning homer into the ballpark lights and triggers a fireworks show with lightning bolts crackling in the night sky and that triumphant bullshit Randy Newman music filling the soundtrack, I was disgusted. I was saying to myself “my God, I thought Barry Levinson was the Diner guy, but he’s made a whorish, shameless, audience-pandering piece of crap.”

I was astonished by the reactions when I first saw The Natural 39 years ago. I said to friends “you bought into this shit? The modest, all-American innocent good guy…a masculine angel from the heartland…plus the film is a total perversion of the 1952 Bernard Malamud novel.” Ten years later Forrest Gump came along and touched the hearts of this same hokey crowd.

I appreciated The Natural, but the old Paul Douglas baseball comedy, Angels in the Outfield, touched me in a more genuine place.

Keep in mind that while The Natural was popular, it wasn’t a massive hit. It cost $28 million to shoot, and earned a relatively modest $48 million.

The original theatrical version ran 138 minutes. I never saw Levinson’s 144-minute “Director’s Cut.” Did anyone? Was it significantly better?

We’ve all read about director-screenwriter Paul Haggis (Crash, In The Valley of Elah) having been detained by Italian authorities pending an investigation into sexual assault.

Haggis has a sexual history that I won’t get into, but according to a posting by Variety‘s Naman Ramachandran and K.J. Yossman, the accuser’s story is looking a bit dicey. The initial accusation and house-arrest got the headlines, but this refuting or questioning of the accuser’s account isn’t going to going to attract as much attention.

Haggis’ lawyer Michele Laforgia to The Associated Press: Haggis “remains in Italy while prosecutors decide whether to pursue their investigation into claims that he allegedly had sex with a woman” — British, 28 years old — “without her consent over two days.”

I’ve known a few lower-level drug dealers in my time, and apart from the idiots who got high on their own supply, my general impression was that most of them just wanted to do business with a minimum of drama. They were careful and at times a bit paranoid, but only because they feared dealing with immature fools who might rat them out to narcs.

I’m no expert on the drug-dealing world, but I’ve never once heard of anyone on the verge of a big buy trying to rip off the buyer, like this pool-room scene in Carlito’s Way or the famous chainsaw motel scene in Scarface.

The bottom line (and we all know this) is that director Brian DePalma always cared more about delivering his big, carefully choreographed set pieces with knockout camera moves than he did about capturing realistic situations and characters that you can recognize and believe in. But that’s the DePalma tradeoff. You’ll never buy a lot of the stuff that happens in his films, partly because they all seem to happen inside some kind of odd, unreal membrane, but when the big set pieces happen you’ll be wowed.

Between 15 and 20 years ago (or possibly even in the Reel.com or Mr. Showbiz era of the late ’90s and very early aughts), I distinctly recall suggesting that a drinking talk show — one in which the host and guests would sip whatever and get faintly bombed as the show progressed — would be a lot of fun, and that someone should do it.

This, to me, is what defines Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcasts — Maher and his guests getting slightly ripped or “happy” and therefore talking with less restraint or inhibition than on a straight talk show.

I’m presuming that are other such podcasts; I just don’t know any off the top of my head.

What I was talking about a couple of decades ago, actually, was a movie discussion talk show with mixed drinks. That, I swear, would be something to follow.

The problem, of course, is that the vast majority of your Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic members wouldn’t have the courage or the character to do this. They’re too cautious, too guarded, too damp-finger-to-the-wind to risk any kind of public inebriation. They know that many if not most Average Joes despise them and that they generally tend to defer to a woke Planet Uranus way of processing not just movies but cultural values, and are afraid of showing their true colors.

I couldn’t do it myself because I don’t drink or get high.

From Scott Mendelson’s 7.5 Forbes review of Taika Watiti‘s Thor: Love and Thunder: “[Pic] tells a tale of a title character who has lost his drive, his purpose and his mojo. Frankly, it shares those core problems and becomes a metaphor for Marvel’s entire ‘Well, what now?’ Phase Four.

“It has the feel of a party that no one wants to be at, or a film that only exists because Marvel needed a safe sequel amid franchise starters, with the head DJ furiously shouting at the guests to dance, laugh and act like they are having a fun time.

“Like X-Men: The Last Stand, Thor 4 attempts to adapt two fan-favorite comic arcs into a single too-short (110 minutes plus credits) feature and gives both short shrift. It mistakes abstract concepts for deep-dive storytelling. It is fatally hobbled by a super heroic lead who has become cringe-inducingly incompetent since his last adventures.

“Thor: Love and Thunder is an unnecessary sequel, existing only because its predecessor was unusually well-received even by those who weren’t all-in MCU fans. Like too many of the most recent MCU projects, it only exists because Disney can’t afford to stop this train. Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson and Guns and Roses tunes aside, this fourth Thor is a real chore.”

From Promising Young Woman to Rebecca Hall‘s Passing to Resurrection, a forthcoming thriller in which a mother (Hall again) tries to protect herself and her daughter from an abusive ex-boyfriend (Tim Roth), movies today are leaning heavily on a dependable villain trope — the quietly seething, morally indifferent white guy, otherwise known as the gift that keeps on giving.

White guys who are racist, misogynist, entitled and/or corrupt…Anglo Saxons have it covered.

And who can blame filmmakers for repeatedly drawing water from this fair-skinned well? Angry, older and especially rural white guys represent the most socially incendiary douchebag element in society today — Trump supporters, reportedly ready for armed insurrection, sociopathic D.C. legislators (Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, “Gym” Jordan).

In the ’80s and ’90s the bad guys were arrogant white teens, greedy Wall Street traders, conniving yuppie scumbags (James Spader in Wolf, Paul Reiser‘s “Burke” in Aliens, Jay Mohr‘s “Bob Sugar” in Jerry Maguire).

But post-#MeToo all-purpose white-guy shitheads have taken the lead. And they don’t even have to be a bumblefucks as long as they’re palefaced. Cold-eyed whiteys of any profession or position or motivation will do….#whiteguysblowchunks.

One of the first impactful social dramas featuring ignorant white guy baddies was Mervyn LeRoy‘s They Won’t Forget (Warner Bros., 7.14.37).

But the table was mainly set between the late ’40s and the mid ’50s by three award-calibre dramas about racism, and two of these, both produced by Dore Schary, about racially-motivated killings. They were seminal films — the original racially woke trio.

First came Schary and director Edward Dmytryk‘s Crossfire (’47), about an anti-semitic murder. In Richard Brooks‘ 1945 source novel, “The Brick Foxhole“, the victim wasn’t Jewish but gay. The Crossfire killer was played by Robert Ryan; the good guy was played by Robert Young.

Next was Mark Robson and Carl Foreman‘s Home of the Brave (’49), about black-white racism among American troops in the South Pacific during World War II.

The third and arguably the most penetrating was Bad Day at Black Rock (’55), produced by Schary, directed by John Sturges and starring Spencer Tracy. The subject was a covered-up murder of a Japanese-American by a group of angry, resentful white guys, the leader of whom was played by Ryan.

Suspected Highland Park mass murderer “Bobby” Crimo, a nutbag Trump supporter and aspiring rapper (“Awake”) who “left a long trail of tributes to mass shootings on social media platforms,” is being described as an unemployed loner who, before his arrest, lived in a basement unit.

Of course he did! And of course he was “quiet! Everything about the guy (especially his videos) screamed “ticking time-bomb dweeb living on his own secluded planet and probably up to no good.” Any bets on Crimo being an incel? And of course his family “noticed nothing amiss.” Of course!

Plus he looks like…well, not exactly “a wrong one” (a term used by “California Charlie” in Psycho) but certainly an oddball. My first association was Lon Chaney’s “Mr. Wu.” I was also reminded of Ethan Darbone’s “Lonnie” in Red Rocket. Trust me — if I had run into Crimo in a Highland Park 7/11 I would have definitely taken a step or two backwards and muttered “whoa.”

No one will argue that films were generally better 17 years ago. They obviously were. Herewith a reminder, posted or or about 12.15.05:

Creme de la Creme: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, The Constant Gardener, A History of Violence, Hustle & Flow, In Her Shoes, Match Point, The Family Stone, Cinderella Man, The Beautiful Country, Last Days, Grizzly Man, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (13).

70% Masterful…Merging of Lovers From Different Cultures in the Midst of a Splendorous Natural Symphony…But Goes off The Rails, Drop-Kicks the Mood and Leaves You Stranded at the 110-Minute Mark: The New World (1)
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Overly Schematic But Clearly Delineated (hasn’t aged well): Crash.

Pretty Damn Good to Reasonably Good: Good Night and Good Luck, The Wedding Crashers, Syriana, Munich, The Aristocrats, Batman Begins, Broken Flowers, Bob Dylan: No Direction Home, Cache (Hidden), The Interpreter (for the bomb-on-the-bus scene alone), Nine Lives (for Robin Wright Penn alone), Cronicas, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach has an assured place at the table), The Upside of Anger (for Kevin Costner’s performance), The Thing About My Folks (for Peter Falk’s performance), Mrs. Henderson Presents, Kung Fu Hustle, Kingdom of Heaven, Rent, Broken Flowers, Brothers (for Connie Nielsen’s performance and the austere and upfront tone of Suzanne Bier’s direction), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, War of the Worlds, Casanova, My Date With Drew (a good-humored rendering of a metaphor about youthful pluck and persistence and team spirit), My Summer of Love, Paradise Now. (27)

Not Half Bad: The Producers, The Dying Gaul, The World’s Fastest Indian, Four Brothers, Layer Cake, The Great Raid, Reel Paradise, Green Street Hooligans, Everything is Illuminated, Proof, Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist (13)

Gets Worse The More I Look Back Upon it: King Kong (1).

Unquestionable Failure That Nonetheless Half-Saves Itself as It Comes to a Close: Elizabethtown (1)

Biggest Bummer (and splattered milkshakes don’t matter): The Weather Man (1)

Solid First Stab by Talented Director: Scott Caan’s Dallas 362. (1)

Grudging Approval (i.e., respect for an obviously first-rate film that I didn’t particularly enjoy watching all that much): Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 (1)

Blaaah: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, North Country, Shopgirl, Jarhead, The Libertine (5)

Tediously Acceptable: The 40 Year-Old Virgin (Catherine Keener’s fine performance helped); March of the Penguins. (2)

Crap Marginally Redeemed By…: Sin City (heavenly Nevada silver-mine black- and-white photography); House of Wax (Paris Hilton’s death and some fairly inventive pizazz shown by director Jaume Collet-Serra). (2)

Cavalcade of Crap…Moneyed, Honeyed, Sullied…an Affront to The Once Semi-Respectable Tradition of Mainstream Hollywood Filmmaking: The Dukes of Hazzard, The Island, Bewitched, Rumor Has it, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Must Love Dogs, Memoirs of a Geisha, Domino, The Legend of Zorro, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Constantine, Aeon Flux, Fantastic Four, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. (15).

Final Enduring Proof of George Lucas’s Mediocre Soul: Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith (1)
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Best Docs (after Grizzly Man and Bob Dylan: No Direction Home): Why We Fight, Gunner Palace, Mondovino, Favela Rising, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Mad Hot Ballroom, Tell Them Who You Are, One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern (for the tribute factor alone…McGovern is such a respectable man), Rize, The Last Mogul, Murderball, Occupation: Dreamland (12).

You might say that the standout element in the below image, snapped at Las Vegas McCarran airport six or seven years ago, is the blonde in the chair. Naturally. But in my view the blonde is secondary because the photo is mainly about the feelings generated by (a) the white pants, (b) the Italian brown suede lace-ups and (c) the blackness outside.

Don’t misunderstand — the woman is a key element in the overall composition. Without her the photo would amount to a lot less. But the message of the photo isn’t “wow, look at the blonde” — the message is “airport lounges are mostly about avoidance and meditation…feelings of postponement, waiting, pausing and studying phone screens as a way of not contemplating your life…hundreds of people chilling and texting and trying not to ask themselves ‘what is my life? how did I get here? what does it all amount to?”

Similarly, the focus of the Kate Hudson photo (which she herself posted) isn’t her toplessness, her carefully draped blonde hair or the big white coffee cup. Or at least, not for me. The focus of the photo are the peaked rooftops, and trying to guess which European city Hudson was in when she snapped this. The rooftops don’t look Parisian, Cote d’Azur, Costa del Sol, Italian, British or Czech…not quite. My best guess is somewhere in Sweden, Norway, Poland, Germany or Austria.