The current abortion divide between the states “makes me think about the Civil War…pre-Civil War. Because we seem to be going toward this place in America where we’re gonna be two countries. One where you’re a free woman, and another in which it’s a Dred Scott situation.
“When you look at some of the things that are being proposed in some of these [red] states. I mean, Louisiana says flat-out that [abortion] is homicide. When you drive from L.A. to Nevada…on one side fo the border you’re a free person and on the other side you’re a criminal. You can fly across the country and gain and lose your reproductive rights 20 times.”
As HE regulars know, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone is a standout contributor to Voir, the David Fincher-produced Netflix special about movie worship.
Sasha authored and narrated “Summer of the Shark,” a short film about her movie-impressed childhood in the mid ’70s. I shared my enthusiasm five months ago.
Anyway, Netflix is pushing Sasha’s work in two Emmy categories — Outstanding Narrator and Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program.
These Portland State University students who are former PSU professor hassling Peter Boghossian because he’s playing a “game” that might rattle the delicate sensibilities of trans people or which doesn’t necessarily involve kowtowing to the wokester party line…these students are bad news.
YouTube guy: “These are spoiled children and adult enablers who have never learned anything and want a special status given to them because they demand it. If you disagree it’s ‘harmful’ and if you question it, it’s ‘violence’ against them.”
Anyone who infers that free and open speech might “hurt” or cause “harm” or “trauma” to a non-binary person who uses “they” and”them” pronouns…no offense but if we were living under a third-century Roman dictatorship and I was the dictator, I might have these PSU students thrown to the lions…who knows? It would depend on my mood.
Boghossian: “Following the unexpected cancellation of our Reverse Q&A at Brown University, we created an ad hoc event on the streets of Portland. Here, we are exploring the reasoning behind agreement or disagreement with the claim: ‘There are only two genders.’ We were approached by a group of students and here’s what happened.”
Boghossian’s crew filmed this video on May 11, 2022 outside a Portland State University building that houses the department of social work.
Somewhere between 40 and 50 years ago Andy Warhol said (or took credit for) a legendary perception — “In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”
Nowadays everyone has the potential to become famous for somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds, on a rotating, love-is-here-and-now-you’re-gone, surfing-the-cycles social media basis.
Most many of us would like to be permanently well known, I’m guessing, but you have to do something exceptional or at least noteworthy to get into that club. It’s entirely realistic, though, to become famous on a moving-train, fast-fart basis.
What Warhol originally meant, I think, was that the fame sphere was shrinking as the media-distraction machine was spinning faster and faster, and that the process of becoming “famous” was becoming more and more egalitarian.
Today the Warhol vision has reached its apogee. There is no one out there with a smart phone who can’t be at least briefly celebrated or momentarily trending or whatever — perhaps once or twice in a single day, or over a two- or three-day period, or perhaps repeatedly…anyone can strike it rich. But you have to sell it.
Is there anyone on social media (TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) who isn’t trying to present themselves as a major celebrity of some kind? Not movie-star-famous or even famous in their profession, perhaps, but certainly exceptional and living a fairly proud and wonderful life…domestic joy, endless intrigue, happy pets and occasional creative triumphs.
There is almost no one with a social media profile who is living a quiet, moderate, for the most part unexceptional, no-big-deal, steady-as-she-goes life — everyone out there is a hero, a star, beloved by family, a super achiever, a gleaming presence.
Am I the only branded person on social media whose basic message is “okay, I lead an interesting life in some respects, granted, but in other ways what I try to do each day is hard and often a struggle, sometimes (it seems) even in a Sisyphusian sense.
“Am I a celebrity in my mind? Do I radiate luminosity, glory and glamour? No and fuck no. Because I believe in modesty and noses to the grindstone and submitting to the task. HE is not about the wonderfulness of me but about what I, the adventure-seeking craftsman, try to bring to the column (consisting or five or six or more stories) each and every day.”
Thrillers about psychotic ex-boyfriends stalking and terrorizing ex-girlfriends are enjoying extra relevance today, largely due to the prevailing #MeToo persuasion that 85% of white cisgender males are essentially toxic and in many cases bad-news oppressors.
The crazy former boyfriend is sometimes portrayed in horror-flick terms, or certainly by Act Three — unhinged, murderous.
Andrew Semans‘ Resurrection seems to have gone this route with Tim Roth as the fiendish ex and Rebecca Hall (who always over-acts) as the former girlfriend. (Speaking of wackjobs from the past, does anyone remember The Gift, in which Hall costarred?)
The first noteworthy psycho-ex-boyfriend movie was Joseph Ruben‘s Sleeping With The Enemy (’91). Mpustachioed Patrick Bergin actually played Julia Roberts‘ lunatic ex-husband. Roberts had to shoot him three times to make sure he was dead.
If you ask me the most realistic and believable woman-protagonist drama that dealt with a must-to-avoid ex-husband was Molly Smith Metzler‘s Maid, the Netflix miniseries that premiered last October.
Crazy ex-girlfriend flicks are, I suspect, not currently permitted. If Adrien Lyne‘s Fatal Attraction (’87) had never been produced 35 years ago, you sure as shit could never make it today. The only way it could get past the woke commissars would be if Glenn Close‘s Alex was the somewhat sympathetic protagonist and Michael Douglas was the bad guy.
I’m very, very sorry that another season of Westworld is about to unfurl. I won’t be watching, of course, but the mere fact of its existence is enough to bum me out.
Respect and salutations for the great Fred Ward, who passed last Sunday (5.8) at 79, but whose death wasn’t announced until today.
Ward’s last performance was as “Eddie Velcoro” in True Detective in 2015, when he was 72. I don’t know why Ward didn’t work over the last few years, but I always loved what he brought.
Ward tried to become a movie star in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (’85), but the public wouldn’t bite. He gave a cagey, flavorful performance as the bald-headed Henry Miller in Phil Kaufman‘s Henry & June (’90), but — be honest — nobody wanted to see Ward generate any sexual energy.
Ward just didn’t have that X-factor movie-star schwing — he was more of a quirky, amiable, laid-back oddball type.
My all-time favorite Ward performance was as the yokelish Earl Bassett, the best friend of Kevin Bacon‘s Val McKee, in Tremors (’90).
My second favorite was Sergeant Hoke Moseley in Miami Blues (which Ward also executive produced).
He was also a memorable Gus Grissom in Kaufman’s The Right Stuff, and I loved his cameo-sized performance in Silkwood (’82 — see below video).
Ward lived in Venice (not Italy) for the most part. I ran into him at Gold’s Gym once when he was training for Remo Williams….”yo!”
4.21.22 HE review excerpt: “Technically and compositionally first-rate, at times amusingly ultra-violent, The Northman delivers the kind of suffocating, soul-draining ordeal that only a major artist could have provided.
“I loved Eggers’ The Witch and The Lighthouse but I pretty much felt nothing this time around.
“Excessive isn’t the word — startling, repetitious, numbing, eye-filling, confounding and yet all of a single harmonious compositional piece. Obviously the work of a serious artist. Handsome, exquisitely composed and about as bereft of humanity as a film in this vein could possibly be.”
I can order a Region2Bluray of the fully restored 124-minute version of Andrej Zulawski’s Possession (‘81), which premiered last fall. I’m not, however, seeing a U.S.-friendly Bluray. (Metrograph offers a streaming option.) Which is my fault, of course. I have mixed feelings about re-watching this creepy, West Berlin-set marital breakup flick, but I won’t wimp out. Isabelle Adjani’s demonic femme fatale performance won a Best Actress trophy at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival.
