Otherwise it’s the same grim, shadowy, rain-soaked, Gotham City noir shit…the same bowl of foreboding, the same Batman ghoulash…re-heated and re-served and re-garnished for brawny, strapping, grown-up Zoomers and clinging-to-youth Millennials, who are gradually panicking about approaching middle age and desperate to hang on to classic mythologies.
Q: “Who are you under there?” A “I’m vengeance.” Yeah, we figured that out over 30 years ago, back in the good old dawning days of 1989. And now it’s 32 years later and we’re wading through the same marsh.
Absolute respect and admiration for Matt Reeves, whose films HE has admired going back to Let Me In (’10). I just don’t get this one. I don’t see the need. I dont think anyone does. I think it’s just a cash grab. And I say that with full props for Reeves. He went for the money, and there’s nothing “wrong” with that.
Daily Wire‘s Ben Shapiro to sensible but vaguely bothersome rightist comic Adam Carolla: “I think it’s really fascinating how, for the left, the constant proclamation is that that they’re victimized by society, and that people in comedy have to be silenced. But the power centers in society are all on the side of the supposedly victimized.
“The people who are losing their careers and being shuffled off the comedy coil…all those people are people who have crossed the supposed victims…people in charge of the institutions are cramming this down [our throats] and saying what comedy is good and what comedy is bad.
“When I was growing up, the typical story was that the right was humorless…they’re all John Lithgow in Footloose, trying to stop the kids from dancing, and now it’s the left that has completely lost the thread when it comes to comedy.”
Two weeks shy of Halloween and it’s beach weather — 85 degrees in West Hollywood. People in easy moods, shuffling around in T-shirts and flip-flops, basking in the warmth and no loud, coarse workmen singing their hearts out to ranchero music. And the cloudless sky is a pure bright blue.
Why am I seemingly the only person in WeHo wearing a high-thread-count T-shirt, faded slim jeans and Beatle boots? I can’t answer that, but I can state without hesitancy that it’s 68 degrees in Manhattan, 49 degrees in Paris and 67 degrees in Hanoi. Life is good if you turn your mind off and float downstream and forget about people like LexG and Glenn Kenny.
“The truth is, I still don’t fully understand why there’s a problem with making a joke that gets a laugh from an audience, even if it is mildly offensive. Why cater to the minority who are outraged when most people still seem to have a desire to laugh?
“Is there a way to determine what exact number of America’s population is killing joy for everyone? Is it 1 percent or 10; 3.3 million Americans or 33 million? Since I can’t seem to find one, let’s go with Phillips’ estimation of “30 million people on Twitter,” which computes to roughly 9 percent of America’s population.”
HEinterjection: The anti-Chappelle, anti-TheCloser twitter mob is probably a smaller core community than Zucker speculates. In 2016 a UCLA Williams Institutesurvey found that the total trans population was 1.4million, or roughly 1/3 of 1%. The overall LGBTQ community is believed to be in the vicinity of 4.5% of_the_United_States, give or take.
Zucker: “What I often wonder is, why do studio executives feel as if they have to cater to these 9-Percenters? In all fairness, 9-Percenters are not a new segment of society. Historically, they’ve always lived among us. The difference between now and then, however, is that social media amplifies the voices of even the smallest subgroups while the anonymity of the Internet removes all consequences. This means that today’s 9-Percenters can hide behind screens and social-media handles as they attack any person on the Internet whose jokes offend them.
“The 9-Percenters of 40 years ago had to think twice about what they were sharing publicly, because at the end of the day, they had to sign their names to their reactions. Without this type of accountability, it’s all too easy for today’s 9-Percenters to attack and shame comedy writers into giving up on the genre.
“COMEDY cannot thrive in a state of fear. For me, as for many comedians, the need to get laughs is greater than the risk of getting hurt. This doesn’t mean that funny people have a higher tolerance for pain or that they aren’t affected by what others say about them. On the contrary, people in comedy spend much of their time beating themselves up over the jokes that didn’t land or were taken seriously.
“What most 9-Percenters don’t realize is that comedians often don’t need to be shamed into feeling insecure and worthless. In a profession where feeling exposed and vulnerable is part of the job, insecurity is an occupational hazard—like arthritis for guitar players or adultery for politicians.”
Smiling faces and two-faced enemies. Or, in Marlon Brando terminology, one-eyed jacks. Some actual friends or “friendos,” of course (and thank God for those few) but mostly fair-weather types, transactional allies, etc. Like any other big-city racket. Grow up.
Ridley Scott‘s The Last Duel (20th Century, 10.15) is a good, sturdy feminist film, and there’s one person who carries it — not Matt “mullet” Damon, not Adam “horseface” Driver and not Ben “Blondie” Affleck. The carrier is Jodie Comer, and I’m telling you that she’s Grace Kelly in her prime…skill, class, poise, passion, refinement.
The guys are fine but Comer (26 or 27 when the film was shot) is the keeper. Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress…whatever works. She’s got it within, and she looks great besides.
Repeating: We all understand that Duel is a medieval #MeTooyarn about conflicting recollections of a brutal rape.
Two depictions are shown, one from the perspective of the victim, Comer’s Marguerite de Carrouges, and a second from the perspective of the rogue perpetrator, Driver’s Jacques Le Gris. A third account from Marguerite’s husband, Damon’s Jean de Carrouges, is passed along but not visualized as he wasn’t there.
But there’s another sexual assualt scene that really throttles you, and it’s between a mare and a stallion. A white mare “in season” is in a corral, bnd suddenly a black stallion races into the paddock and mounts her like that, and Scott offers a fast glimpse of his 20-inch black baseball bat…God! Now that‘s a savage rape scene, I told myself. The neighing steeds have it all over the heavy breathing humans in this respect.
I was disturbed by Damon’s mullet hair all through the film — in every Damon scene it was a problem. Why did Scott insist on his lead actor wearing a rural Pennsylvania, Trump-supporting mullet in this thing?
And I didn’t care for the muted blue-gray color scheme — it bothered me start to finish.
It’s 2:45 pm and I have to leave for two or three hours. I’ll pick up later on…
There’s a Latino apartment renovation crew working in the building next door, three or four guys, and they’re being (what else?) obnoxious — shouting to the extent that their voices sound like sonic booms, playing loud sombrero ballads and singing along and occasionally going “whooo-whooo!” And it’s awful to listen to. It’s hell.
I asked myself if I should walk over to the worksite and ask these guys to consider the fact that this is West Hollywood and not East L.A. and would they mind giving the neighborhood a break with their awful Tijuana border crossing music, etc. But that wouldn’t accomplish much.
I’ve been all around the block with coarse Latinos so don’t tell me. My battles with the Hispanic Party Elephant in North Bergen. The “Loud Latinos” piece that I posted from Brooklyn in June 2010, and got in trouble over.
Getting older is not a felony but this OK! cover shot of Tom Cruise threw me. An occasional bad photo is par for the course, but I froze in my tracks when I saw this last night in a WeHo Pavillions checkout line. What am I seeing? Facial filler? Cruise has sturdy features — he’s a handsome dude and the “worn and weathered” thing (the Jerry Maguire look + 25) is the way to go. And he should grow his hair out a bit. “Barry Nerd” short hair can work against you, depending on the particulars.
