As all banks are closed on Sunday, nobody cares if you park in their lots on this gentle day of rest. I can’t remember how many times I’ve left my car in suburban bank parking lots** on Sundays over the last few decades, but it’s happened a lot. Because nobody gives a shit.

Except for the flaming asshole psychopath who booted my car after I parked in a Chase lot this morning at 9:15 am. I was there to share breakfast with Jett, Cait and Sutton at Libelula (5 North Fullerton, Montclair).

Did I read the sign? Physiologically, yes, but psychologically my mind immediately rejected the idea of anyone giving me a ticket on a holy Sunday, much less booting me, for parking in an all-but-vacant Chase bank lot.

I glanced at the “enforced: Mon-Sun” but my mind somehow processed it as “enforced: Mon-Sat” because the indecency factor was so far beyond the pale.

This is the kind of reprehensible thing that Vincent Mad Dog Coll would’ve tried if he was in the parking lot business.

It would have been outrageous enough if they’d demanded, say, $75 or $100 to remove the boot, but $250?? If these monsters had done this to Tony Soprano 20 years ago, their lives would be in serious jeopardy, and deservedly so.

After listening to my profane tirade for five minutes or so, the criminal behind this venal racket let me slide to the tune of $50. May he develop pancreatic cancer within the next couple of years.

** I’m actually including bank lots in West Hollywood, WeHo, Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, Burbank. I recognize that you can’t park anywhere in Manhattan without paying — Manhattan is its own environment.

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Three days ago World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy spitballed several titles for the 2025 Venice Film Festival…some semi-assured, some likely-ish, some up in the air.

Here’s my take on 37 hopeful or potential inclusions: HE LEGEND: ++ = extra-positive HE expectations. + = mostly positive expectations. X = meh or negative. XX = dread.

1. After the Hunt (d: Luca Guadagnino) Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny. / ++
2. One Battle After Another (Warner Bros.). (d: Paul Thomas Anderson) Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Sean Penn, Alana Haim, Teyana Taylor, Wood Harris, Benicio del Toro. / Neutral
3. A House of Dynamite (d: Kathryn Bigelow) / ++
4. Jay Kelly (d: Noah Baumbach) George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Billy Crudup, Laura Dern, Grace Edwards, Stacy Keach, Riley Keough. Emily Mortimer. / ++
5. The Way of the Wind (d: Terrence Malick) / X
6. Bugonia (d: Yorgos Lanthimos) / Neutral
9. The Smashing Machine (d: Benny Safdie) / +
10. No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook) XX / XX

11. Orphan (d: Laszlo Nemes) / ++
12. The Wizard of the Kremlin (d: Olivier Assayas) / ++
13. Father Mother Brother Sister (d: Jim Jarmusch) / Neutral
14. The Ballad of a Small Player (d:Edward Berger) Synopsis: When his past and debts start to catch up, a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau encounters a kindred spirit who might hold the key to his salvation.” Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton, Fala Chen. / ++
15. Couture (d: Alice Winocour) +. Angelina Jolie, Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf, Garance Marillier, Anyier Anei, Finnegan Oldfield. / Neutral.

16. The Cry of the Guards (d: Claire Denis)
17. Chocobar (d: Lucrecia Martel)
18. Sacrifice (d: Romain Gavras)
19. In the Hands of Dante (d: Julian Schnabel) Synopsis of Nick Tosches‘ same-titled 2002 book: “An interweaving of two separate stories, one set in the 14th century in Italy and Sicily and featuring Dante Alighieri, and another set in the autumn of 2001 and featuring a fictionalized version of Tosches as the protagonist. The historical and modern stories alternate as Dante tries to finish writing his magnum opus and goes on a journey for mystical knowledge in Sicily.” Oscar Isaac as Nick Tosches / Dante Alighieri, w/ Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, Gal Gadot, Sabrina Impacciatore, Franco Nero, Martin Scorsese. ++
20. Ann Lee (d: Mona Fastvold). Amanda Seyfried, Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Christopher Abbott, Tim Blake Nelson, Stacy Martin. / +

21. Bucking Fastard (d: Werner Herzog)
22. La Grazia (d: Paolo Sorrentino)
23. An Affair (d: Arnaud Desplechin)
24. Franz (d: Agnieszka Holland)
25. Below the Clouds (d: Gianfranco Rosi)
26. Duse (d: Pietro Marcello)
27. Frankenstein (d: Guillermo del Toro) / X

To the preceding I would add “what’s wrong with the following?” and “why not?”

28. Scott Cooper‘s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (20th Century, sometime in the fall). Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in another boomer nostalgia pic, focusing on the recording of Nebraska (’82). Costarring Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Paul Walter Hauser, Gaby Hoffmann, Johnny Cannizzaro, Harrison Gilbertson, Marc Maron.

29. Edward Berger‘s The Ballad of a Small Player (Netflix). Synopsis: When his past and debts start to catch up, a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau encounters a kindred spirit who might hold the key to his salvation,” blah blah. Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton, Fala Chen

30. Josh Safdie‘s Marty Supreme (A24, 12.25). Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler the Creator, Odessa A’zion, Penn Jillette, Kevin O’Leary, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard.

31. Jonah Hill‘s Outcome (Apple TV+). Black comic satire about social-media harpooning of big movie star (Keanu Reeves). Costarring Jonah Hill, Cameron Diaz, Matt Bomer, Susan Lucci, David Spade, Laverne Cox.

32. Roofman (do: Derek Cianfrance).

33. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sony) appears to be a serving of guaranteed agony. The words “American romantic fantasy” are death to me. Directed by Kogonada from a screenplay by Seth Reiss. Starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, w/ Lily Rabe, Jodie Turner-Smith, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon.

34. Paul Greengrass‘s The Lost Bus (Apple TV+). “A bus driver has to navigate a bus carrying children and their teacher to safety through the 2018 Camp Fire, which became the deadliest fire in California history,” etc. Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez, Ashlie Atkinson, Spencer Watson, Danny McCarthy.

35. Chloe Zhao‘s Hamnet (Focus Features, no date) — Fictional tale about Mr. and Mrs. William Shakespeare coping with the death of their son. Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal (!), Joe Alwyn, Emily Watson.

36. Switzerland (d: Anton Corbijn)

37. Fuze (d: David Mackenzie)

As all semi-intelligent people know, the natural, all-encompassing current of unity and cosmic splendor known in some quarters as “God” doesn’t project or deal in earthly, garden-variety emotions. It is of zero consequence whether you love or fear or feign indifference to “the force”. It’s been the primary thing since forever and will continue to rock out a billion years hence so…whatever.

I don’t know how wise or decisive today’s bombing of Iranian nuclear sites will prove to be when all is said and done, but no one can accuse Trump of chickening out — I’ll give him that much. The TACO thing has been diminished. Who knows where this will be going? What kind of anti-U.S. retaliation is in the offing? Stay tuned.

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I’m paying attention, in part, to the obvious fact that, Jared Leto‘s rancid behavior aside, this early 20something lass is very quietly beautiful. I know I’m supposed to follow the story about Leto icking or creeping her out but she’s distracting…sorry.

HE jackals: How dare you respond to anything other than her plain-spoken account of Leto’s odious attentions?

She’s obviously model-level attractive, and she’s not unaware of this. I was thinking “Yes, Leto was a slime, but — sorry but I have this astonishing ability to juggle two thoughts in my head at the same time — she won’t be an actress because she doesn’t speak up (a notch or two louder than a whisper but that’s all) and is therefore too passive or recessive in manner. But she’s got it.

I’m disturbed but not shocked that someone like Leto made a move. I don’t mean to alarm the HE commentariat but has anyone ever heard stories about (sorry, is everyone sitting down?) teenage groupies and the dog-like behavior of rock stars in the ’70s? Has anyone ever read about the “Riot House” on Sunset back in the day? Has anyone ever heard of the nocturnal adventures of Led Zeppelin or seen Almost Famous? Sorry but I don’t have smelling salts handy.

@user539627 ♬ original sound – user539627

Anthony Fallon (Richard Harris) began his bomb-defusing career under the tutelage of Sid Buckland (Freddie Jones) during the London blitz of the early 1940s. Defusing one German bomb after another was an extremely difficult task, and I would imagine that dealing with possible sudden death over and over would result in a profound bond between Buckland and Fallon.

And yet when they conferred at the very end of Juggernaut and Fallon’s life depended on his snipping the right wire (red or blue), Buckland tells Fallon to cut the blue wire, which would blow him to pieces?

I’ve never believed that. Buckland is a bitter, enraged fellow who hates the bloodless Whitehall bureaucracy, yes, and yet after he and Fallon were nearly killed in ’40 or ’41 when a bomb they were working on ignited in their vicinity, Buckland dragged the wounded Fallon out of the rubble. Because he was a human being, and presumably still is.

Which is why the climax of this 1974 Richard Lester film, though obviously suspenseful, doesn’t quite work.

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15, 16 years ago, man…time rushes along.

At best I was mixed on Slumdog Millionaire during the 2009/’10 Oscar season. I was 40% admiring and 60% annoyed, but I knew it wouldn’t do to make a fuss. So I had to sit there and take it for six damn months. In that sense it was a long Oscar season. Haven’t watched it since, will never watch it again.

Posted on 11.30.08: “How can anyone watch Slumdog and not be down with Jamal’s enormous dignity, strength of spirit and intelligence? And I understand (or think that I do) that Jamal’s life story is primarily a device that allows Boyle to dramatize the evolution of Mumbai chaos-culture over the past 15 or 20 years.

“But I just can’t believe that a kid who’s been subjected to such relentless cruelty and brutality his entire life — slapped, beaten, exploited, betrayed, booted, whipped, shat upon and made to suffer like a homeless dog day after day, year after year — would end up with this much patience and resolve and focus. Treat an actual dog like this and he’ll be incapable of showing anything but his teeth.

“Nor did I believe that the beautiful Freida Pinto‘s Latika wouldn’t be soiled and corrupted by her upbringing also, or that she’d stay emotionally loyal to and in love with Jamal through thick and thin. Things change, people grow up and move on, life is hard, get what you can, and nobody will save you but yourself. I know, I know…surrender to it, believe in love.

“But the cruelty in this film is relentless. Ugly behavior reigns during the first two acts. Except for the cop (Irfan Khan) who interrogates Jamal throughout the film, nearly every male character in Slumdog Millionaire is a cutthroat Fagin or Artful Dodger.

“And all through Slumdog I was muttering to myself how much I hate the Mumbai overload — the poverty, the crowding, the noise, the garbage landscapes, the public outhouses, the ugly high rises…the whole squalid cornucopia. I’ve never been especially interested in visiting urban India, but Slumdog settled things once and for all. If someone slips me a first-class Air India ticket from JFK to Mumbai, I’m trading it in for passage to Vietnam or China or Kampuchea or Katmandu.”

Fuck the identity police. Ambitious, high-end directors can and should make any movie they want — any subject, any viewpoint — regardless of their identity or the identity of the characters.

It is HE’s opinion that 28 Years Later director Danny Boyle is a little pussy for having said otherwise. Just like Tom Hanks was a pussy for saying in ’22 that straight guys shouldn’t play gay

Am I saying therefore that it would’ve been okay if Norman Jewison had directed a Malcom X biopic 30-plus years ago instead of Spike Lee? No — that would’ve been too much of a stretch. But that was back in the early ’90s. Identity is a much bigger, more oppressive deal now.

“Vise Grip of Authentic Identity Casting,” posted on 7.10.22: 25 days ago the world-famous Tom Hanks, an industry A-lister for 35 years and a 65 year-old boomer looking to project an acceptance of the present, was quoted saying the following to the New York Times:

“Let’s address ‘could a straight man do what I did in Philadelphia now?’ No, and rightly so. The whole point of Philadelphia was don’t be afraid. One of the reasons people weren’t afraid of that movie is that I was playing a gay man. We’re beyond that now, and I don’t think people would accept the inauthenticity of a straight guy playing a gay guy. It’s not a crime, it’s not boohoo, that someone would say we are going to demand more of a movie in the modern realm of authenticity.”

Hanks’ Philadelphia character, Andy Beckett, a hotshot attorney working for a powerful Philly law firm, was professionally closeted but otherwise “out” as far as his family, nocturnal lifestyle and loft-sharing boyfriend (Antonio Banderas) were concerned. And if Jonathan Demme’s 1993 film were to be remade today, Andy would have to be played by a gay actor, Hanks seems to believe — no ifs, ands or buts. (He’d also have to be totally out, most likely.)

But what about Bradley Cooper playing Leonard Bernstein in the currently filming Maestro?

Bernstein was a gay man, and living a life not unlike Andy Beckett’s — publicly and professionally closeted, and accomodating himself to a “beard” marriage to Felicia Montealegre (whom he genuinely loved and with whom he had three kids) to further his career. But first, foremost and finally, in the words of Arthur Laurents, Bernstein was “a gay man who got married…he wasn’t conflicted about his sexual orientation at all…he was just gay.”

So if Andy Beckett was basically Leonard Bernstein and vice versa, will the authentic identity casting fascists be complaining next year that the apparently straight Cooper shouldn’t be playing the esteemed composer of West Side Story? Hanks has called this a settled issue — no more high-profile straight actors playing gay guys because “we’ve beyond that now” and the public is entitled to “demand more of a movie in the modern realm of authenticity.”

It is HE’s view, of course, that the “authentic identity casting fascists” are insane, and that gifted actors should be allowed to play anyone they want as long as they can pull it off, and that includes Hanks as Beckett, Hugh Grant as Maurice, Hillary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry, William Hurt as the gay inmate in Kiss of the Spider Woman, Heath Ledger as Ennis del Mar and even Laurence Olivier as “the Mahdi” in Khartoum and Orson Welles as Othello. But that’s me.

…I’d rather not die this way. Flame-broiled as my fellow hot-air-balloon adventurers and I fall faster and faster towards slam-shriek-doom. Almost as bad as jumping from the World Trade Center. And yet only eight people were killed while 13 survived. It happened in a tourist region of southern Brazil — Praia Grande, a municipality in the state of Santa Catarina — when a hot-air balloon caught fire and crashed to the ground.

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“Everyone makes fun of Florida. Florida has a bad reputation. But think about it. There are 23 million people in Florida, but is it fair to judge 23 million people because of the behavior of 21 million people?” — Dave Barry during last night’s Real Time Overtime segment.

I laughed right away even though I didn’t get the joke. Can someone please explain it? Most Floridians are dismissive rightwing scumbags…don’t say gay…something like that?

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Is Barbie the supreme post-#MeToo architect of white-guy-despising or white-guy-pitying cinema? Which isn’t to say, of course, that white-male behaviors haven’t generally warranted enormous enmity and condemnation over the centuries. Too many men are dogs, animals, wolves, brutes. We all know this.

Then again when, you could also note or at least ask, have older white guys not played proverbial villains? But over the last decade or so leftist Hollywood ideology has steadily and persistently maintained that older white guys are the main bringers of toxicity, venality, ignorance, arrogance and immaturity. Call them a basic proverbial problem afflicting everyone and everything — a “theme” that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

And yet the persistence and dependability factors alone naturally reduce dramatic engagement — how could they not?

There are two major films opening later his year in which — in script form, at least — a deceptive, two-faced white guy is revealed to have behaved like a sexual scumbag, and is in fact a ground-zero shithead. You’ll know them when they open. How many have there been since ’15 or thereabouts?

A bit less than three months ago (3.26) I sent $2K and change to Tommaso, my Dorsoduro-residing Airbnb host. That was the tab for 13 days in his spacious one-bedroom apartment (8.25 thru 9.7) during the Venice Film Festival.

It was all locked in — no worries, not too pricey, friendly messages from Tommaso and his dad, Valentino, etc. And a really nice neighborhood.

Yesterday (6.19) I asked Tommaso about the two beds, and he replied as follows around midnight:

Roughly nine hours ago Airbnb told me Tommaso had cancelled the booking. My Citibank app said Airbnb had sent a full refund — the money will be liquid and usable on Tuesday, 6.24. The fuck?

Nearly three months of soothing Tomasso vibes, and suddenly I was Joe Pesci in his final Goodfellas scene…pop and flop.

Tommaso may have blown me off because somebody offered him more dough for the place. If so, that was unethical, shitty, inconsiderate, dishonorable…all of that stuff.

I immediately reserved another place on VRBO, a little smaller but close to the San Zaccaria vaporetto stop and oh, yeah..,about $900 more expensive than Tommasso’s rental.

You fucked me in the ass, Tommaso. Left me high and dry. Uncool, dude…you cost me and it hurts.

HE to vast int’l readership: Beware of Tommaso!

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