HE finally gets to see Don’t Worry Darling this evening at 7 pm…huzzah.

“There’s actually something quite old-fashioned about [Harry] Styles. With his popping eyes, floppy shock of hair and saturnine suaveness, he recalls the young Frank Sinatra as an actor.” — from Owen Gleiberman‘s 9.5.22 review.

Sinatra was 29 when he made Anchors Aweigh (’45); Styles is 28 as we speak.

Yesterday an HE reader named Michael2021, who strikes me as a possible antagonist, suspiciously asked “X-factor (white) guy“…what exactly is this supposed to mean?”

HE reply: I’m white because of my ancestral heritage. As much as I’d like to do something about that (as it would win me points with the fanatics), I can’t. But the X-factor thing…

X-factor people are leftie (or, in the current atmosphere of woke political terror and dread, formerly leftie) iconoclasts who tend to sidestep the usual usual in terms of attitudes and behaviors. Semi-original, in some cases quirky or vaguely oddball types (but not too oddball…think Bill Murray-type weirdos) or against-the-grain thinkers, and in many cases serious creatives.

No age requirements, although there seem to be more over-40 X-factors than under-40s. (Go figure.) X-factor fellows never wear flip-flops and generally despise man-toes as a rule. Luca Guadagnino, Cate Blanchett, Phillip Noyce, Tilda Swinton and Willem Dafoe are X-factor; conspicuously wealthy types like Lizzo, Reese Witherspoon, Kanye, Jennifer Aniston, Will Smith and Kim Kardashian are almost certainly not.

We’re otherwise talking folks who prefer Hotel Paisano in Marfa over Houston’s DoubleTree. Or, if you will, Point Pleasant over Atlantic City, Villas Altas Mismaloya or the Thompson Zihuatanejo over Puerto Vallarta or Acapulco, Prague over Geneva, Caye Caulker over Ambergris Caye. Or a narrow, old-school hotel in Old Town Hanoi over a tourist-friendly Sofitel. And Lauterbrunnen any time of the year.

People who usually prefer to drive classic mid-century Mustangs rather than big fat SUVs with built-in wifi. Or who prefer to wear Italian suede lace-ups or even saddle shoes rather than Gucci loafers or white Converse or Nike footwear. Or who wear cowboy hats instead of Kangol berets and head warmers in the winter. Those who generally march to the beat of a subdued and slightly different drummer. Or (one more travel analogy!) those who tend to avoid the San Marco district when visiting Venice, and tend to stick to Dorsoduro.

I apologize for not having been up on Andrew Schulz, but I am now. Stand-up comedian, 38, actor, TV producer and podcaster. Known for MTV2’s Guy Code, the Flagrant podcast with Akaash Singh, and The Brilliant Idiots podcast.

Second to last paragraph in Sasha Stone’s Awards Daily piece (9.20.22) about Hollywood’s devotion to to radiant Academy values (virtue, goodness, inclusion, equity, Millennialism): “It isn’t just that people are no longer watching the Oscars; it’s that people are tuning out the whole community.”

Excerpt #2:

Posted by The New Yorker’s Richard Brody on 9.20.22:

Posted by HE on 9.17.22:

All ten episodes of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan‘s Netflix series about Jeffrey Dahmer, the infamous serial killer of 17 men and boys during the ’80s, begin streaming on Wednesday, 9.21. Evan Peters plays Dahmer; the costars include Richard Jenkins and Penelope Ann Miller (as his parents) and Molly Ringwald (as his sister).

The question for me (and, I suspect, for millions of others) is why isn’t the title simply Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story? Why did the producers decide they had to include his last name twice in the same title? Why, in other words, are they calling it Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story? That’s what’s known as a committee title.

The limited series began filming in late winter of 2021, or a year and a half ago. Tatiana landed a non-speaking part as a Dahmer attorney. Sporting conservative attorney hair and straight-laced business attire, she spent two or three days shooting a courtroom scene, sitting the whole time next to Peters. I’ve seen sitting on this casting news for a long time, and can now finally reveal it.

On a 2001 Charlie Rose Show about Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Christiane Kubrick was asked to define a certain personality trait or mental attitude that genius-level filmmakers seem to share in common. She said this is unknowable and therein lies the fascination.

HE says “holdupski.” HE defines that mindset as an educated “fuck it” thing…mindful and respectful of artistic history and precedent, but not especially intimidated by same…an attitude that says “okay, these other filmmakers did it this or that way and that’s fine, but I’m here now and this is my film so fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

In a phrase, a genius artist is often possessed of a certain kind of reverent irreverence.

Every major-league director I’ve spoken with in person over the decades (and we’re talking quite a few) shares this trait.

While watching this I was also struck by how radiantly young the 59 year-old Martin Scorsese looked during this taping, certainly compared to now. Guys in their 50s and even their early 60s can look really great if they’ve watched their diets and haven’t done too many drugs in their youth. And it’s believed that Scorsese, remember, was a total cokehead in the mid ’70s so he came out of that dungeon without too many bruises.

Posted on 8.7.19: “Speaking as an X-factor white guy from a middle-class New Jersey and Connecticut upbringing, I don’t feel repelled or disgusted by my Anglo-Saxon heritage and family history.

“I deeply regret the cruelty visited upon immigrants and various cultures of color by whites, naturally, but the fact that racist or tribal attitudes were common throughout most of the 20th, 19th and 18th Centuries in this country and for centuries earlier in Europe, the Middle East and even Africa doesn’t mean that white people (more particularly my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, reaching back to the mid 1800s) were inherently evil.

“By current standards my ancestors may seem insufficiently evolved, agreed, but they were born into a certain culture and were dealt certain cards, and most carried the weight as best they could. They weren’t born with hooves, tails and horns on their heads.

“Nor do I feel that elemental decency is absent among the majority of white people today. Okay, among middle to upper-middle-class coastals.

I feel profoundly repelled by the attitudes of your backwater Trump supporters, of course, but they are not me or my own. I come from a family of “good”, well-educated, imperfect people who had their occasional issues (including alcoholism) but believed in hard work, discipline, spring cleaning, ironing their own shirts and trimming the hedges and mowing the lawn on Saturday afternoons, and who exuded decency and compassion for the most part.”

Updated: I am not the devil’s spawn, and neither are my two sons and certainly not my granddaughter. I’ve witnessed and dealt with ignorant behavior all my life, but I’ve never bought into the idea of Anglo-Saxon culture being inherently evil. Please.

Frank Thring’s Pontius Pilate by way of Gore Vidal: “Where there is great striving, great government or power, even great feeling or compassion, error also is great. We progress and mature by fault. Perfect freedom has no existence. The grown man knows the world he lives in.”