…stems from the fertile mind and affable personality of Steverino…seasoned perspectives and candid confessions by an exceptionally intelligent fellow who’d been around the block and then some…it’s pure music to me. I could listen to him all day and into the night.

Allen’s subject is mostly about how wealthy, career-obsessed patents (like himself) tended to screw their kids up, but also about how and why boomers (i.e., easily the greediest, most selfish and most generally destructive generation in American history) turned out the way they did.

Sometime around ’92 or ’93 I had a brief chat with Allen, whom I’d long worshipped for his ’50s and ’60s hot streak as the original Tonight Show host (’54 to ’56 — three years), the Sunday night Steve Allen Show on NBC, and the Hollywood-based, Westinghouse-produced Steve Allen Show.

Not to mention his having written more than 50 books plus his prowess as a composer-songwriter (over 8000 tunes). Easily the brightest guy of that generation (i.e., my dad’s) I’d ever spoken to.

My face-time session happened at the House of Blues. We only spoke for 15 minutes or so, but it was electric. (For me at least.). As I was thanking him and saying farewell I cried “schmock! schmock!” Allen laughed, patted me on the shoulder. [Originally posted on 6.23.19.]

“May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan.” — Don DeLillo passage from “White Noise,” published on 1.21.85.

The ’80s-set White Noise appears to be another brainy, quirky Noah Baumbach family flick a la Squid and the Whale. Whipsmart parents, precocious kids, a shattering event of some kind…”I want to know how scared I should be.”

I’m half scared and half fascinated by Greta Gerwig‘s’80s hair….that much I do know. Adam Driver‘s older-guy look (heavier, graying hair, pot belly) is also something to talk about.

Part of me wishes my days could be aimless, that the seasons could just drift by with little consequence and that I could live my days according to no particular plan. Another part of me doesn’t trust lazybone living, which only wealthy people can afford to even speculate about in the first place.

White Noise is debuting in Venice (cool) and will open the ’22 NY Film Festival (ditto). But Telluride passed. I’mw wondering why.

I’ve always been more of a fan of DeLillo’s “Libra” (’88) than “White Noise.” No offense, but I wish that a Libra adaptation by some Michael Haneke-like director was the film about to open.

…about the natural cover or camoflauging of ear issues provided by longer hair.

…couples were more chaste about this kind of thing. The tendency was to refrain during day games, or even restrict such activity to homes, hotel/motel rooms, cars or beaches after sunset. Imagine the baffled responses from Mel Allen or Phil Rizzuto (“holy cow!”) or Vin Scully. Find me one film clip or anecdotal news item about such a display at Ebetts Field in the ‘50s. I’m talking about cultural contrasts.

Until today I’d never once heard the term “funeral screenings,” but now that I have I love it…thank you, God or fate or happenstance, for brightening my worldview.

…of how deprived we are today…of what a shallow sea this industry has mostly become…how much I miss moments that deliver this kind of undercurrent.

(1) “Tar is Kubrickian…very controlled, highly immersive filmmaking. It’ll be celebrated out of Venice and Telluride, but it will also not be for everyone.**

(2) “Best Actress-wise, Cate Blanchett will become the clear front-runner. The buzz will be immediate following its Venice Film Festival debut.”

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I wouldn’t mind seeing Avatar again…3D or flat IMAX, big sound, whatever feels right. Has there ever been a sequel to a hit theatrical film that came out 13 years after the initial debut? That’s how long it’s damn near been — 12 years and eight months.

Honest admission: I bought my Avatar Bluray in the summer of ’10, and I’ve never watched it once.

Posted on 12.18.09: Avatar was composed with an unusual four-act structure, and it all brilliantly pays off during the final half-hour.

The four acts can be summarized (spoiler whiners are advised to READ NO FURTHER) as (a) Jake Sully’s introduction to the deal and the Na’vi reality — i.e., the opportunity to serve as a military spy through his transformation into a Na’vi body and immersion into the Na’vi culture, and his first adventures going into this process; (b) love and exploration as Jake passes through the rites and passages of becoming a Na’vi, and the blooming of his feelings for Neytiri, his native guide and friend, ending with the line “Jake, what the hell are you doing?”; (c) disappointment, betrayal and downturn as Jake enrages his military boss, Colonel Miles Quaritch, by switching his allegiance to the Na’vi, and then admits to the Na’vi his military mission, which infuriates them as well, followed by brutal military attacks upon the Na’vi that send them scurrying; and (d) Jake’s resolve, forces gathered, Na’vi retaliation, serious payback, love fulfilled and final transformation.

Imagine if Ray Winstone‘s Gal Dove had played his cards a different way. A much simpler way. Instead of sweating bricks when told that crazy Don Logan was on his way down to his Spanish hillside villa to convince Gal to “do the job,” what if Gal had simply said “okay, fine, I’ll do it, but this is it, Don.

“I mean I quit the life and I moved to sunny Spain for a reason, right…I’ll do this for old times’ sake or to get you off my bloody fuckin’ back or whatever, but this is not the start of something…right, Don? One more time and that’s all. Give me your word and I’m in.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Three_Days_of_the_Condor&action=history
And then Gal would fly to London, put on his Speedo and do the job with the rest of those fat old blokes, and when it was over he’d take his cut and head back to Spain and that would be that. No blood, no trauma, no paranoia, no dead Don Logan, no Teddy Bass giving him death-ray looks…everything would’ve been fine. Why didn’t Gal just do the job?’
‘

Civilized adults, fashion mavens, Leslie Manville fans, people like myself, older women, older gay guys, Paris lovers, etc. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

In an interview with Variety‘s Elizbaeth Wagmeister, Don’t Worry Darling director and costar Olivia Wilde has shot down a report that boyfriend & costar Harry Styles was paid more than three times Florence Pugh‘s fee.

Wilde denied the claim but in a curious way. In an emailed response, she lamented “a nonexistent pay disparity between our lead and supporting actors…[it] really upset me. I’m a woman who has been in this business for over 20 years, and it’s something that I’ve fought for myself and others, especially being a director. There is absolutely no validity to those claims.”

HE to Wilde #1: I thought Pugh and Styles were playing married-to-each-other leads in the film. You’ve described one as a lead and another as supporting. Given the “secretive evil men meets moralistic truth-seeking woman” scheme, Pugh has to be the lead, I gather. So Harry is the semi- marginal sideline character. Check.

HE to Wilde #2: You said there’s “no validity to these claims,” but you didn’t say that Styles and Pugh were paid the same amount. Were they? Or perhaps your denial strictly addresses the “Harry was paid three times more than Florence” rumor? Perhaps he was paid twice as much? Or slightly more? Or was given more back-end points?

Pugh, by the way, declined to be interviewed by Wagmeister. The reason for being unavailable, her publicist said, was that she was filming Dune: Part Two in Budapest. That’s total bullshit, of course. If Pugh wanted to talk to Wagmeister, all she had to do was pick up the phone between takes, or after shooting had wrapped at the end of a given day.

HE question to readership: If you were the Warner Bros. honcho or the producer in charge, would you calculate that Styles and Pugh should be paid the same fee? Or would you reason that Styles is much more famous and has a much bigger fan base than Pugh, and therefore deserves to be paid more?