In my humble opinion the most accurate term is neither “unhoused” or “homeless.” The correct term, boiled down, is almost certainly (and I truly regret the statistics on this) “hopeless” and more precisely “bums.”

Posted on 3.14.12: What would David Huddleston‘s Jeffrey Lebowski say about this? “Get a job, sir!”

But it’s a job that lowers my dignity, Mr. Lebowski. I may be homeless for the time being but I have a soul and I have rights and I have a dream that one day I’ll be back on my feet, earning my way with a steady gig, paying taxes, driving my own car and living in a nice apartment.

“And how do you think you’re going to get back on your feet?,” Lebowski would reply. “By complaining about your dignity to news reporters? Show some of the enterprising spirit that made this country great by doing whatever you can short of breaking the law to earn whatever you can, and by saving as much as you can until you can afford to start living in a decent place. Life isn’t easy, son. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure, and that’s that the bums will always lose! Condolences!”

In January 1976, Esquire magazine ran a photo-spread piece called “Bums.” They went down to the Lower East Side and found a few winos, and brought them uptown and fed them and cleaned them up and dressed them in the best elegant-smoothie clothes that money could buy, and took their picture in a studio. Some of the bums looked pretty good and pretty happy (at least while they were being photographed). They were definitely being exploited, these guys, but would they have been better off if Esquire hadn’t offer them money to take part in this little charade?

How come you never see any Asian homeless people?

Read more

The release dates of Sydney Pollack‘s Three Days of the Condor and Bobby Deerfield were exactly two years apart — 9.25.75 and 9.29.77, respectively. But oh, what a difference.

Condor is a fully satisfying paranoid classic that I’ve seen at least ten or twelve times over the years, plus it made impressive dough upon initial release ($7.8 million to produce, earned $41.5 million).

Deerfield wasn’t just a modest financial failure — it was deeply loathed by those who saw it on opening weekend (I caught it in Westport, once) and avoided like the plague by almost everyone else.

One reason: An emotionally gutted or neutured race car driver (Al Pacino) is gradually restored to spiritual health by a pretty woman dying of cancer (Marthe Keller). Potential viewers immediately smelled the cloying calculation and howled “no fucking way!” And despite being filmed in France and Italy by the respected Henri Decae, it somehow didn’t “feel” European, and thus felt curiously artificial on top of the cancer contrivance.

I will never, ever sit through Bobby Deerfield again.

And I don’t mean the second one.

If you don’t have a pet, get one. No birds or reptiles, of course. The usual small or smallish four-legged furry kind. A nice little kitten or two. Or a puppy. Preferably a golden retriever.

Right now your mom is all memories and floating spirit. But once you bring the pet home, she’ll begin to re-manifest.

How to handle her absence longterm? Very simple:  Write an e-book about her journey. She will know you’re doing this, meditating as she is upon her heavenly, mystical cloud mattress, and this effort will warm her heart.  And yours.

Maybe a short book. Maybe a 20-page article at first, chapter by chapter but not necessarily in the usual biographical sequence.  Include as many photos, videos, audio recordings as you can get your hands on.  Make it as long or as short as you deem fit, but chisel it down to the nub. Keep the sentiment but remove all the hot air.

Keep working on it until a little whisper tells you “okay, you’ve done it, or mostly at least…you’ve captured the best stuff and perhaps even the essence.”  Number the pages and print them out on some kind of upscale, above-average paper stock. Or make it into a perfect-bound hardcover book. Whatever seems right. 

Writing it all out, trust me, will make the grief dissipate and weaken and gradually float into the ether. Plus you’ll always have the book to have and to hold.

I feel hugely deflated by the impending engulfment of Warner Bros. by the streaming oxygen killer and cultural suffocation device known as Netflix. I also feel lucky to have not only lived through but truly experienced movie theatre rapture as only a kid and a younger go-getter careerist could…I was not only gifted but levitated as a 20th Century movie hound …I knew and savored the blessings of that world …I was fortunate enough to have revelled in the golden age of monoculture Hollywood…huge Times Square theatres, glorious sparkling marquees, block-long billboard art, big drive-ins…reserved seats, 70mm presentations, a feeling of excitement and aliveness and specialness…a vibe that will never, ever return. It’s gone, man, and of all the bad-vibe, killjoy forces out there, Netflix has probably done the most to kill it.

Did they not get the memo? Are they under an impression that it’s still 2021? Vampire schlock is vampire schlock. Praising mediocrity is a sin…seriously. Bad for the soul.

I saw it again tonight, and holy moley…it was shot in 1.66:1. A result of the European sensibility of dp Lucasz Zal (Ida, Cold War, The Zone of Interest). Chloe Zhao agreed, I’m guessing, because 1.66 is an older a.r. (European “flat”, common in France and England in the mid 20th Century) and this seemed to vaguely augment the Elizabethan vibe.

I’ll be very surprised if a single film critic or puff-piece profiler has mentioned this. One reason is that 98% of your mainstream media kiss-assers don’t even know what a 1.66 aspect ratio is.