Or The White Album with all the weak tracks removed, and in this order:

(Side One) “Back in the U.S.S.R”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Yer Blues,” “Cry Baby Cry,” “Mother Nature’s Son,” “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide (‘Cept For Me and My Monkey)” “Blackbird.” (7)

(Side Two) “Martha, My Dear,” “Birthday,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” “I Will,” “Savoy Truffle,” “Long, Long, Long.” (7)

I’ve just finished watching Morgan Neville‘s Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (Focus Features, 7.16), and I have to say something plain and clear and straight.

One, the first 80 to 90 minutes are just okay. At times they almost feel a bit boring. But two, during the final 30 or 40 minutes the film dives into the “what happened during the final few weeks of Bourdain’s life, and why did he fucking hang himself?” section, and by the end the viewer has been left with a clear impression that Bourdain’s relationship with the notoriously edgy and prickly Asia Argento was a giddy, obsessive thing that intensified Bourdain’s hot plate and jarred his sense of emotional equilibrium.

I’m not saying the film convinced me that Argento “killed” him in some way — Bourdain sadly did that all to himself — but she definitely shook him up and rattled his composure and brought him to the edge of a cliff.

Bourdain was a moody, free-associating, nakedly honest fellow with a tendency to occasionally fall into caves of depression, and he swan-dove into the Argento relationship without the slightest sense of measured, step-by-step gradualism. Frank Sinatra once sang “let’s take it nice and easy…it’s gonna be so easy.” Bourdain definitely didn’t do that with Argento.

There’s a stocky guy from Bourdain’s camera crew who tells Neville that Anthony was “a lifelong addictive personality, addicted to another person [i.e., Argento]. He didn’t understand he would drive someone away if he didn’t stop talking about [how great she was]…you could see her pulling back and he just wouldn’t stop.”

So in a way Bourdain was kind of smothering Argento, and so just before his death she performed that public affair in Rome with Hugo Clement (which is definitely mentioned in the film) in order to say to Bourdain “back off, don’t smother me, let me be free” but in so doing SHE LED HIM RIGHT TO THE EDGE OF THE FUCKING CLIFF and then left him there. She didn’t push him — Bourdain jumped of his own accord. But had it not been for his relationship with her, Bourdain might well be alive today. This is definitely what the film leaves you with.

The thing I wanted to make clear when I began this piece is that Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn and Collider‘s Matt Goldberg were dead fucking wrong to write that there’s something unseemly about Neville trying to solve the riddle of why Bourdain killed himself during the last 30 to 40 minutes.

It’s the only portion of Roadrunner that really holds you. The rest of it is just mildly okay….it glides along, bobs and weaves, laughs and basks, covers this, covers that, blah blah.

But the section that asks “what went wrong and why is this cool, fascinating guy dead?” is grave and powerful.

Kohn wrote with a straight face that “by all indications, Argento brought Bourdain to a new plane of happiness in his final months, when he hired her to direct an episode [of Parts Unknown] in Hong Kong shortly before his death…it also gave him a renewed sense of purpose as he became a public voice in the #MeToo scandal with Argento’s revelations about being raped by Harvey Weinstein.”

That is partly true but mostly horseshit — that is NOT what the film claims. There are rumblings that Argento didn’t handle the directing of that Hong Kong episode like a pro, and we learn that when Zach Zamboni, Bourdain’s longtime cameraman, criticized Argento’s choices or work ethic or whatever that Bourdain fired him on the spot. It’s clear, yes, that while Bourdain was a solid partner and supporter of Argento, his feelings for her were obsessive…he was head over heels in love to the point that he seemed to lose sight of his traditional sense of cool.

Goldberg wrote that “a suicide is not a crime to be solved” — except a documentary about a man’s life demands that all questions be asked and all dark corners probed. If he killed himself you obviously have to go there, and not in some brief, glancing, chickenshit way. Goldberg says that such an inquiry “cannot comfort, and it cannot illuminate” — wrong. Roadrunner does illuminate to a certain degree, and what it says is perfectly clear — the allegedly oddball Argento was a negative trigger influence in the final weeks of Bourdain’s life, and if anyone has reason to feel at least somewhat guilty about his suicide, it’s her. You’d better fucking believe it.

Now that Rita Moreno: Just A Girl Who Decided To Go For It (Roadside, 6.18) is finally about to open, here’s a re-post of my 2.1.21 review (i.e., “Moreno’s Life Was No Bed of Roses“):

The life and career of the dynamic Rita Moreno is given a proud upward spin in Mariem Pérez Riera‘s Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It.

The tone of it is very “go, Rita… we love and cherish you”, etc. Which is great — it’s what every positive-minded doc about a long-haul, never-say-die actress should be like.

But it also says “poor Rita, poor girl…the sexist, male-dominated entertainment world of the ’50s treated you like an exotic piece of meat…it failed to foresee the advent of Women’s Liberation of the late ’60s and the #MeToo movement of 2017 and beyond…it refused to see beyond the borders of the ’50s and failed to honor you for the spunky, spiritual being that you are now and always have been, and so it failed you. And we’re sorry for that but at least you’re still kicking it at age 89. And we love you for that.”

I’m basically saying that as buoyant and impassioned as Riera’s doc is, it plays the victim card over and over. It ignores the way things were when Moreno was coming up in the ’50s, and it tips in the direction of instructional 21st Century progressive feminism. It’s totally infused with “presentism” — judging the past by present-day standards.

It’s not about how Moreno’s life unfolded on a moment-to-moment basis when she was coming up and making her name and building her career, but about how badly she was treated and what assholes the various men were. Which they WERE, of course, but the ’50s were not a time of enlightenment as far as recognizing the full value of women in any realm was concerned. Moreno had a tough time because of that, but she came through anyway and look at her today…feisty, still plugging.

Yes, the film industry was sexist, exploitive, insensitive…unable or unwilling to see Moreno as a unique Latina with her own identity amd contours. Yes, it was a bad place in many respects, but then again she was close to the top of the industry in the ‘50s. How many dozens or hundreds of other Latina actress dancers were hungry to be cast in the roles that she landed? How many others were as talented? Or making as much money? (There was a reason that she got the Anita role in West Side Story rather than Chita Rivera, who played the spitfire character on Broadway). How many Puerto Rican-born actresses were hanging out with Marlon Brando in the ’50s and early ’60s and running in that heavy company? Or attending the 1963 Civil Rights March? And having a side affair with Elvis Presley and rubbing shoulders with almost everyone who mattered back them?

Yes, she really got going as a stage and character actress in the ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond. Yes, she was on The Electric Company and Sesame Street and Oz. Yes, she’s costarring in the Norman Lear reboot of One Day At A Time, etc.

It’s a bit curious, by the way, that Riera decided to ignore Moreno’s big scene with Jack Nicholson at the end of Mike Nichols‘ Carnal Knowledge (’71). It’s one of her hallmark moments of that era, and yet Riera dismisses it because…you tell me. She also ignores Moreno’s Elvis Presley affair, which was basically about making Brando jealous. (And she succeeded in doing that.)

The narrative is only about how cruel and insensitive and oppressive the industry was to Moreno. Which it WAS, of course. But it also afforded her fame, fortune, access, opportunity….all kinds of drama and excitement and intrigues. Obviously hard and demeaning and ungracious, but also door-opening. The doc only tells you how oppressive things were and what pigs the men were. Or what control freaks they were. Which they WERE, of course, but when wasn’t life hard or challenging for saucy actresses, especially in the bad old days? What people haven’t been disappointing in this or that way?

Posted on 2.4.16, or 5 and 1/3 years ago: Last weekend The Daily Beast‘s Jen Yamato actually tried to hold Joel and Ethan Coen‘s feet to the fire over the lack of diversity in the casting of Hail, Caesar!

Apparently Yamato was not doing a put-on interview; she apparently meant every word. Kudos to the Coens for shutting her down and calling her question “idiotic.” The exchange was posted in a 2.3 Daily Beast piece:

The “overwhelming whiteness” of the casting in Hail, Casear! “could conceivably be explained away by pointing to the milieu of Tinseltown circa the 1950s, when the industry’s racial demographic was far less diverse than it is today,” Yamato writes. [Wells interjection: Hollywood was “less diverse” in the early 1950s than it is today? In the waning days of the Truman administration there were no minorities cast in mainstream films except in a spotty, token, peripheral fashion — cooks, maids, butlers, field hands, coat-check girls.]

Back to Yamato: “I asked the Coens to respond to criticisms that there aren’t more minority characters in the film. In other words, why is #HailCaesarSoWhite?”

“’Why would there be [more minority characters]?’ countered Joel Coen. ‘I don’t understand the question. No…I understand that you’re asking the question, [but] I don’t understand where the question comes from. Not why people want more diversity, [but] why they would single out a particular movie and say, ‘Why aren’t there black or Chinese or Martians in this movie? What’s going on?’ That’s the question I don’t understand. The person who asks that question has to come in the room and explain it to me.”

Yamato asked, “As filmmakers, is it important or not important to consciously factor in concerns like diversity?”

“’Not in the least!’ Ethan answered. ‘It’s important to tell the story you’re telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity…or it might not.’

Lin-Manuel Miranda to Trevor Noah about Afro-Latinos complaining that they weren’t represented in In The Heights (9:03 mark): “I am listening, and I do want to do better with each project, and I want to keep having at-bats.”

Miranda’s response was obviously polite, respectful and soft-spoken, but “I’m listening” completely sidesteps the reason[s] why he and director Jon Chu didn’t include dark-skinned Afro-Latinos in their film of In The Heights.

LMM presumably didn’t create any Afro-Latino characters in either the stage version or the film because…are you sitting down?…because they hadn’t been part of his experience while growing up in Inwood (north of Washington Heights) and so members of this ethnic group simply weren’t included in the musical…it was his choice, his decision, his way of looking at life and community.

Another way of putting it is “gee, I’m sorry I didn’t populate my musical with one or two Afro-Latino characters. I didn’t fail to do so out of malice or indifference, I assure you. Afro-Latinos just weren’t part of my growing-up-in-Inwood world…no offense but we all write about what we know, what we’ve been through, what we’ve seen and felt and tasted.

“But I have an idea…wanna hear it? My idea is this: write your own stage musical about the Afro-Latino community in Washington Heights.”

In a 6.15 Los Angeles Times article by Randee Dawn, Fran Lebowitz has shared a comment with Pretend It’s A City collaborator Martin Scorsese about Taxi Driver.

Lebowitz: “[Marty] said to me numerous times: ‘You know what ruins Taxi Driver? The color red. The studio wouldn’t give me enough money to correct the color red, and that’s why it’s horrible.’ To which I say, ‘You know what’s wrong with Taxi Driver, Marty? Nothing.’”

HE to Scorsese, Leibowitz: Wrong — the brownish sepia tint during Taxi Driver‘s East Village shoot-out sequence is fucking terrible. It’s always been terrible, and it always will be terrible. And now, after 46 years of saying the sepia brown color is fine and this is how the film was released and so on, Scorsese is suddenly admitting that it looks awful. Which of course is an accurate statement.

On 3.11.11 I ran a piece called “Taxi Driver‘s Brown Blood“. It was about (a) Grover Crisp and Martin Scorsese‘s Bluray restoration of Taxi Driver (it popped on 4.5.11). and more particularly (b) a technical question asked of Crisp by The Digital Bits‘ Bill Hunt.

Hunt asked about the brownish, sepia-tone tinting of the climactic shoot-out scene, which had been imposed upon Scorsese by the MPAA ratings board. Scorsese had naturally always intended this scene to be presented with a more-or-less natural color scheme, in harmony with the rest of the film.

Hunt to Crisp: “Why didn’t you and Scorsese restore the originally shot, more colorful shoot-out scene?”

“There are a couple of answers to this,” Crisp replied. “One, which we discussed, was the goal of presenting the film as it was released, which is the version everyone basically knows. This comes up every now and then, but the director feels it best to leave the film as it is. That decision is fine with me.”

HE response: “There can be no legitimate claim of Taxi Driver having been restored without the original natural color (or at least a simulation of same) put back in. The film was shot with more or less natural colors, was intended to be shown this way, and — with the exception of the shoot-out scene — has been shown this way since it first opened in ’75.

The good stuff starts at 2:48 pm…

Jon Stewart: “I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to science. Science has, in many ways, helped ease the suffering of this pandemic, which was more than likely caused by science.”

Stephen Colbert: “Do you mean perhaps there’s a chance that this was created in a lab? There’s an investigation.”

Stewart: “A chance? Oh my god, there’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China, what do we do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab. The disease is the same name as the lab. That’s just a little too weird, don’t you think? And then they asked those scientists…they’re like ‘how did this…so wait a minute, you work at the Wuhan respiratory coronavirus lab. How did this happen?’ and they’re like ‘mmmm, a pangolin kissed a turtle?‘ and you’re like ‘no…the name of your lab! If you look at the name! Can I…let me see your business card. Show me your business card. Oh, I work at the coronavirus lab in Wuhan. Oh, cause there’s a coronavirus loose in Wuhan. How did that happen?‘” (Thanks to World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy.)

HE apologizes to AwakenwithJP for ignoring this incredibly helpful essay for nearly a full year, and offers added apologies to inspirational woke behaviorists Chris Bumbray and Glenn Kenny for not acknowledging their invaluable example.

Special HE shout-out to L.A. Times film writer Jen Yamato — obviously not a “white person” although she seems to understand the AwakenWithJP message and posture so completely that it doesn’t seem fair to acknowledge inspirational figures without at least mentioning her Twitter sentiments.

In January 2020 I pointed out that any film in which a character emphatically says to another “you have no idea” (as in “you have no idea what you’re dealing with”) is automatically a bad film.

The 2021 equivalent of “you have no idea” is “than you can possibly imagine” — any film that contains these five words is automatically, irrevocably bad.

At 1:21 in this new trailer for Chris McKay‘s The Tomorrow War (Amazon, 7.2) , a woman says “our enemy is smarter, faster and stronger than you can possibly imagine.” That’s it…game over!

I hated Sam Raimi‘s The Quick and the Dead when I saw it 26 and 1/3 years ago. I put it out of my mind and never gave it a second thought. And yet it’s astonishing how young and slender Russell Crowe seems, certainly compared to the Brumus he grew into over the last decade or so. He was 30 when the film was shot, but he looks like he’s 22 or 23. Lean and mean, babe in the woods, etc.

Gene Hackman played the same kind of dirty ruthless scoundrel that he played in Unforgiven. The difference is that the bloody finale in Clint Eastwood’s 1992 classic feels like gripping realism and not cynical, make-believe, vomit-bag movie bullshit, which is what Raimi’s film (based on a script by Simon Moore) is basically about.

For the sin of sounding like a compassionate, kind-hearted liberal in the matter of historical racial hatred and the ugly legacy of Tulsa, Tom Hanks should be cancelled admonished and, if you will, physically disciplined.

It is Hollywood Elsewhere’s opinion that Hanks should be lashed and banished and sent out into the desert like Moses. He should be denied bread and water within a range of 500 miles of Los Angeles in all directions.

Why? Because Hanks wrote a 6.4 N.Y. Times op-ed piece that failed to embrace Robin DiAngelo-styled anti-racism. He therefore isn’t woke enough.

So said NPR’s Eric Deggans on 6.13. Degans’ essay was titled “Tom Hanks Is A Non-Racist — It’s Time For Him To Be Anti-Racist.”

And he’s right, dammit. But first, Hanks must be made an example of. Deggans and his wokester brethren need to nip this liberal humanitarian shit in the bud. Hanks and people who think like him need to fucking learn.