The still-unnamed granddaughter (I’ve been urging Hadlee or Wave) is expected to emerge four days hence (Thursday, 11.18). HE will fly to NYC on 11.26 and pay a visit a few days later. I’ll be in the NYC, New Jersey and Connecticut region for 16 days.

All my life I’ve been an existential mystical jazz cat samurai poet warrior Bhagavad Gita mescaline X-factor rumble-hogging be-bop Dharma Bum in a leather motorcycle jacket, slim jeans, Italian brown suede lace-ups and a black cowboy hat. In just a few days all of that will take a back seat to “don’t drop the baby, grandpa” and “you remember how to change diapers, right?”

Ridley Scott speaking to Deadline’s Michael Fleming about a portion of a chat with Clint Eastwood:

Variety’s Clayton Davis is shaking his woke turkey feathers at Javier Bardem’s Desi Arnaz portrayal in Being The Ricardos. Bardem’s big shortcoming, Davis feels, is his Spanish ancestry, which is an OUTRAGE because Arnaz was Cuban. Joe and Jane Popcorn (not to mention your average Academy and SAG member) don’t and won’t give a shit, but Clayton has a solemn duty to raise high the woke, ethnic-identity, social-casting-justice flag. (Thanks to Jordan Ruimy for the nudge.)

Today, I mean. Via Showtime app. In addition to (sigh, exhale) Rebecca Hall’s Passing.

But in the meantime, consider this verdict from Smart Critic Friendo: “Most overpraised movie of the millennium. For all the obvious reasons.”

Photos, I mean. Out of thousands. Chiesa di San Rocco. Taken in early June of ‘14. The tallest person in the group of six is my son Dylan.

Friendo to HE: “C’mon C’mon was so mediocre. I can’t get over critics digging this Mike Mills film.”

HE to Friendo: “I’ve never been much of a Mills fan. That Santa Barbara movie with Greta Gerwig was kind of a drag. 20th Century Friendos….Women, I mean. 20th Century Women.”

Friendo to HE: “I’m no fan either.”

HE to Friendo: “Smooth and mellow Joaquin doesn’t wash. I don’t want to hang with a nice, sensitive, caring father figure played by that fucking guy. To me Joaquin is a twitchy, flakey, cigarette–smoking weirdo. I can’t accept him as a kind, gentle, soft-caressing fellow.”

Friendo to HE: “I wrote this: ‘As much as I’ve championed Phoenix as one of the great living actors, it pains me to say that he’s miscast here. The actor tries to, for once, embody a ‘normal’ character but it just doesn’t work. He’s best at playing unstable eccentrics rather than any kind of subdued, big-city schlub a la Mark Ruffalo.”

Amazon previously offered Otto Preminger‘s Advise and Consent (’62) as an HD streamer, but no longer. Which means that someone (Kino Lorber?) is preparing a Bluray release.

Don Murray‘s closeted gay character, Sen. Brig Anderson of Utah, winds up killing himself over a gay blackmail attempt, which tells you how plugged-up the original 1959 Allen Drury book was.

“This was the first commercial film to include a scene in a gay bar, and I have to admit that even today the vibe is a bit much. (It reminds me of a Palm Springs gay bar I accidentally walked into once, and the smell of strong cologne was almost suffocating.) The first gay film that I really enjoyed and relaxed with was William Friedkin‘s The Boys In The Band (’70), but I’ve mentioned that once or twice.

Steve Hayes (“Tired Old Queen at the Movies”) delivers a savvy assessment:

Read more