…if a movie about a struggling family dealing with a life-is-no-picnic situation…wouldn’t it be amazing if such a film wasn’t named after or didn’t focus on a character with special needs or a special affliction? Or who wasn’t strugglng with his or her sexuality and wasn’t an immigrant or a person of color or an aspiring 10-year-old drag queen or a kid dealing with his queer parents’ unhappy marriage due to one of them being in transition and the other committed to his/her natural biological cards…?

Wouldn’t it be amazing, in short, if an occasional family- or community-related movie came along that wasn’t about any of this SJW-minded, attention-demanding, vaguely woke-driven bullshit and was just about…you know, an average kid dealing with normal difficult shit…difficult because nothing is easy for kids in their early to late teens and yet the problems are more or less par for the course?

Example: What if a family movie was about an average non-homophobic straight teenaged male whose parents are reasonably stable and decent types…and who (fasten your seat belts!) likes girls but whose grades aren’t very good and who lives a life of random distractions and daydreams but at the same time is a bit of a lady-killer, a bit of an Alfie…God in heaven!! Call out the Strelnikovs!!

I wasn’t going to say anything about Sasha Stone’s Manhattan mishap, which happened two days ago (Thursday, 5.30) in the early morning while walking on those mean, pushy, move-it-or-lose-it concrete streets with her two dogs, who travel with her everywhere.

But now that she’s announced her misfortune on Instagram, it’s olly olly in come free.

Sasha and her daughter Emma, bunked in a NYC rental somewhere in the mid 30s, had agreed to meet me and Jody Jasser and a mutual friend for dinner at Novita (102 E. 22nd Street) at 7 pm that evening. We’d arranged things a week or so earlier, when I was still in Cannes.

Sasha had in fact asked if Jody could join us, as they’d never met and this was a rare opportunity, etc. Plus she would feel socially safer with a non-pro at the table. Sasha is a “just folks” kinda gal — she gets nervous if there any too many wise guys and hot shots (i.e., people like me) in the room.

But sometime around breakfast hour and while basking in the glow of midtown sunlight, Sasha was presumably walking her mutts and then suddenly, to borrow a colorful expression from Daniel Day Lewis’s “Bill the Butcher” in Gangs of New York…whoopsy daisy!…she tripped over a curb or the dogs lurched and caused her to somehow lose her balance or whatever…Sasha “face-planted” (her term) on the sidewalk, and in so doing busted her right arm.

She texted the bad news from an emergency room, including a photo of her somewhat swollen features with a bloody upper lip. I responded with “holy shit!” surprise and friendo concern. Traumatized or at least shook up with an achey-breaky limb, Sasha didn’t formally withdraw from the Novita dinner, which of course was unnecessary. I’ve been there.

I advised recuperation and caution. I told Sasha she was risking possible trouble by driving her rental car back to Ohio to drop Emma off and then pushing on to Los Angeles, and doing it all with one arm and one hand (her left).

She’s doing it anyway as we speak. I admire her bravery. She’s a good driver. I just hope nothing dicey happens, forcing Sasha to react quickly and decisively without both hands on the wheel.

Everyone needs to wish her well and urge her to drive extra-carefully.

In general terms, Richard Linklater‘s Hit Man (Netflix, 6.7) is about Gary (Glenn Powell), a 30something guy who works for a big-city police department (New Orleans) in an undercover capacity.

The story kicks in when Gary falls in love with Maddy (Adria Arjona), a beautiful Latina woman who’s been involved with a not-so-nice guy named Ray (Evan Holtzman) and is also kind of a target of the police, except Gary can’t tell Maddy for procedural and security reasons that he’s with the fuzz.

The story tension is about when and how Gary will come clean with Maddy, and how her troubled relationship with Ray will be resolved (i.e., come to an end) so that she and Gary will have some kind of chance together.

Without divulging what I felt about Hit Man, I need to mention how much it reminded me, in certain ways, of John Badham‘s Stakeout (’87), which was a kind of cop sitcom thriller with a strong emotional pull.

The lead character was Chris (Richard Dreyfuss), a 30something detective who works for a big city police department (Seattle). He and partner Bill (Emilio Estevez) are assigned to spy on Maria (Madeleine Stowe), a beautiful Latina woman who’s been involved with a not-so-nice guy named Stick (Aidan Quinn). Stick has recently escaped from prison and, cops suspect, may be visiting Maria soon.

The story kicks in when Chris falls in love with Maria, but can’t tell her for procedural and security reasons that he’s with the cops. Plus he’s doubly deceived her by pretending to be a phone company technician so he can plant a bug in her phone.

The story tension is about when and how Chris will come clean with Maria, and how her troubled relationship with Stick will be resolved (i.e., come to an end) so that she and Chris will have some kind of chance together.

The storylines of Hit Man and Stakeout don’t line up precisely and diverge in significant ways, but the above described similarities are legit.

Again without tipping my hand about Hit Man, which I caught yesterday afternoon, I have to say that I liked Stakeout a lot more when I saw it…Jesus, 37 years ago? Yeah, it was. Reagan times, Iran-Contra, etc.

When I was young I didn’t like the way elderly types smelled. I was tutored by a 70something retired guy when I was 11 or 12 or thereabouts (my grades when it came to math and science were always poor as I cared only for English and history) and I recall sitting in his study and wondering “what’s up with this guy?” He smelled like something spicy and withered and mildewy. Like rotting bread. Plus he had bony, crinkly, liver-spotted hands.

On top of which I didn’t like him personally — he was snappy and brittle-mannered. I only lasted three or four sessions with the guy, partly because he was soon letting me know that he found me slow on the pickup and therefore irritating. Except the main reason I wasn’t paying close attention is that I couldn’t stop thinking how funny he smelled and how much I wanted to get out of there. Eff you, gramps.

Ever since Sutton came along in mid-November of ’21, the aroma thing has been my greatest fear. I’m terrified that she’ll think of me the way I thought about that bent-over, white-haired scold who smelled like an attic. I’m therefore always careful to wash scrupulously when I’m visiting her, and to always wear white musk cologne or Aqua Velva after-shave in her presence.

Hence my feeling of enormous relief and elation last weekend when I was carrying Sutton in a recreational park and she said, “Poppa, I like your hair.” The color or the texture, I presumed she meant, but perhaps also the scent. It was one of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten in my life…wow!

One of my earliest girlfriends (the summer after graduating from high school) told me she loved my eyes, and a certain Manhattan girlfriend told me back in ’79 or thereabouts that she liked my washboard abs and to never let my mid-section get flabby. But until last weekend nobody had ever complimented my hair. I’ll never forget this.

Posted on 11.27.23: “One thing that’s always bothered me about Virginia Wolff is that George and Martha’s young guests — George Segal‘s Nick and Sandy Dennis‘s Honey — arrive around 2:30 am. The four of them have already been to a previous faculty party which presumably started at 8 or 9 pm, and now it’s five or six hours later and they’re about to start drinking and chit-chatting all over again?

“Even at the height of my most rambunctious youth I never showed up anywhere — a friend’s home or a bar or anything — at 2:30 am. During my drinking days I might’ve crashed at 2:30 or 3 am, but I never partied until dawn killed the moon…never. And I was a wild man, relatively speaking.”

Matt Taibbi is urinating all over the Guilty Trump euphoria, and I won’t have it…shut up!

HE to friendo: “I want to enjoy this moment. I want to revel in it! So no sneering or pooh-pooling from the likes of Taibbi or anyone else in his fucking smart-ass realm.”

Friendo to HE:

HE and Jody Jasser are training into Manhattan late this morning. The first order of business is a 1:15 screening of Richard Linklater‘s Hit Man, at the Paris theatre on 58th, comped tickets courtesy of Netflix friendos. (Thanks, guys!) Then two or three hours of strolling around, and then a 7 pm dinner with friends at Novitá, 102 E. 22nd St., at the corner of Park Ave.