Legend has it that Sly Stone was totally absorbed in drug abuse when he appeared on Late Night with David Letterman (2.21.83). Impulsive behavior, arriving late to gigs or not even showing up, walking off. He never fixed the problem. But he was good-looking and lucid and performing pretty well that night so who knew?
I also loved Sly’s trumpet player, Cynthia Robinson (1955-2015), who really kicked it out on-stage. I really adored these two.
When federal tanks and troops are suppressing on the streets, a nation is clearly in decline…
Chris Cuomo: “[Troops against crazy lefties] is not a need….it’s a want on Trump’s part. This is a great look for him….the left is giving Trump what he wants.”
Skip past the blah-blah bullshit during the first five minutes,
C’mon, really…turn the other cheek and give it a shot when it opens in mid-July.
The just-popped Eddington trailer is above average, I’d say. It’s certainly effective as far as selling this strange, mildly interesting film is concerned. Ari Aster‘s latest is a horrific pandemic atmosphere downer dive, if you ask me. Dull horror sinkhole laced with political satire.
Don’t believe anyone who tells you it’s a dark comedy. It’s kind of a nihilist soporific…a glum attitude thing. Because if Joaquin Phoenix is starring in a film, it’s glum….trust me. But it’s quirky, at least. “Dull horror” refers to the milieu, not the execution.
[Posted on 5.25.25] All through Ari Aster‘s Eddington (A24, 7.18) I was saying to myself, “This is a smart and aggressive political satire of sorts…a crazy relationship-driven thing…a pronounced antagonism film but this small-town ‘western’ set in May 2020 is basically just a narrative version of the same X-treme left vs. X-treme right insanity that we’ve all been living with since the start of the pandemic, if not 2018 or ’19…
I appreciate the vigor and the pacing and the increasingly lunatic tone, but it’s a miss, I’m afraid…it’s just not happening…I’m not hating it or looking at my watch, but I’m not caught up in it either. I felt detached and distanced…I was in my seat and Eddington was up on the screen….different realms.
Until, that is, Eddington abandons all sense of restraint and it becomes The Wild Bunch on steroids.
Friendo to HE during the Cannes Film Festival (5.1625): “How was Eddington?”
HE: “It’s a very smart, increasingly intense, ultimately surreal reflection of the stark raving madness of the COVID years. If you remove the over-the-top violence of the last 45 or so, it’s basically a movie about the same polarizing rhetorical shit we’ve all been living with since 2020 (or, in my head at least, since 2018). JUST YOUR BASIC AMERICAN POLARIZED MADNESS. Take away the bullets and the brain matter and it reminded me of the comment threads from Hollywood Elsewhere over the last five or six years.”
One reason I didn’t fall for it or kind of resisted the vibe is that Joaquin Phoenix‘s performance as Joe Cross, the rightwing-ish, initally not-too-crazy, anti-mask sheriff of Eddington, New Mexico…Joaquin’s performance is fairly weak…it’s almost like he’s playing Napoleon again…I understood and had no argument with the arc of Cross’s journey and all, but I simply didn’t like hanging with the guy. There’s something flaccid and fumbling and inwardly uncertain about him. He’s not ‘entertaining’.
Pedro Pascal‘s performance as Ted Garcia, the sensibly-liberal mayor of Eddington, is much more grounded and appealing. Emma Stone is pretty much wasted.
Another reason I didn’t feel all that charmed or aroused is that Eddington doesn’t have any big keeper scenes or any dialogue that I would call signature-level in the manner of Scarface (“You fucked up too, Mel…The only thing in this world that gives orders is balls”) or Heat (“Because she’s got a….great ass!”) or Tony Gilroy‘s Devil’s Advocate (“He’s an absentee landlord!”)…
I’m not calling it a “bad” or ineffective film or anything, but it’s basically unexciting and kind of drab and sloppy and not much fun, really. And the chaos is…well, certainly predictable. It has some bizarre surreal humor at times, but mostly it’s a fastball thrown wide of the batter’s box.
The thing Eddington was selling never plugged in, never spoke to me beyond the obvious. It’s all about X-treme left bonker types vs. gun-toting, righty-right over-reactions. Okay, I felt taken when it became a bloody bullet ballet during the third act.
For five and a half years U.S. distributors have been terrified of the mere thought of releasing (even on a streaming-only basis) Roman Polanski’s utterly brilliant An Officer and a Spy (aka J’Accuse), his Grand Prix-winning Belle Epoque drama about the heinous Alfred Dreyfus case.
Distribs feared running afoul of #MeToo activists who might have made a lot of noise about Polanski’s sullied reputation due to two or three allegations of sexual assault in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
On 4.2.20, a rep from Playtime, the film’s French distributor and rights holder, explained the Officer and a Spy situation as follows (his English being a bit lumpy):
Well, somehow or in some way a brave soldier or two has managed to arrange a two–week booking of this 2019 masterpiece at Manhattan’s Film Forum, starting on August 8th.
Although I’ve seen An Officer and a Spy three times (I own an English-subtitled Russian Bluray version), I will nonetheless proudly and excitedly attend one of the Film Forum showings, and perhaps even a second. This is a very big deal for me.
And what about select smarthouse bookings in other major cities? And a down-the-road streaming release? And a Bluray?
An Officer and a Spy is gloriously assembled and altogether glowing with genius — a perfectly realized, sharply written capturing of institutional, anti-Semitic Belle Epoque mobthink, not to mention an exquisitely composed timepiece revisiting of a bygone era, and a film that wholly respects the intelligence of (some) viewers. It is easily among the finest films of the 21st Century.
And the subtly shaded, steady-at-the-helm lead performance by Jean Dujardin is masterful — perhaps his all-time finest.
People of some experience with a semblance of wisdom understand that artists (yes, Polanski was apparently or at least to some minor extent a selfish sexual beast in the ‘70s and ‘80s) and the art they produce belong in two separate boxes. In the realm of cinema you can’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Great cinematic art is too rare of a commodity to be treated politically, carelessly or callously.
All hail the late Sly Stone (aka Sylvester Stewart), whose racially integrated, mixed-gender, brass-drums-and-guitar band was one of the greatest things to happen in pop music ever, certainly between the mid ’60s to early ’70s (the band enjoyed a seven- or eight-year peak) but throughout the span of the 20th Century.
I’m feeling it all over right now…”Dance to the Music” (’68), “Everyday People” (’68), “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” (’69), “Wanna Take You Higher” (’69) “Family Affair” (’71), “Stand”, “If You Want Me to Stay” (‘3), “There’s a Riot Goin’ On (’71).
Alas, sometime in the mid ’70s it all started to drift away. “Sly never grew out of drugs,” his ex-wife Kathy Silva was quoted as saying. “He lost his backbone and destroyed his future.” It was reported five years ago that Stone was living out of a van.
I’ve been mulling over the ongoing anti-ICE, immigrant-rights street protests in Los Angeles (now in their fourth day) and last night’s San Francisco solidarity demonstration, and I’m starting to suspect that anti-ICE sentiments are just the nominal motivators.
The underlying emotional fuel, I believe, is coming from pools of serious rage that many (not just progressive lefties but sensible liberals and perhaps even a smattering of centrists) are feeling about Trump’s bully-boy authoritarian regime. Trump’s troops are about manufactured televized theatre…basically about conveying brutality…a message being sent not just to malcontent scruffs but everyone.
Do I personally believe it’s a bad thing to round up alleged illegals and send them down to Guantanamo or otherwise deport their asses? Not entirely. Do I suspect that a sizable percentage of the targets are bad guys? I wouldn’t know but some of them probably qualify. (It would surely be naive to assume they’re all pure as the driven snow.) Is Trump exploiting this unrest for his own ends? Obviously. Was it really necessary to send in the National Guard? Of course not. These disturbances should be handled by California authorities, not the feds.
Do I admire Governor Gavin Newsom for standing up to Trump and ICE chief Tom Homan, and daring them to arrest him? Yeah, kinda. Given that Trump is Benito Mussolini in the 1930s, it’s better overall for people to shout and shriek and stomp around than to sit indoors and cower and play video games. At the end of the day activism (even the car-burning kind) is better than passivity.
Newsom: “Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out. Come and get me, tough guy. I don’t give a damn.”
Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out.
Come and get me, tough guy.
I don't give a damn.
It won’t stop me from standing up for California.pic.twitter.com/DvVQljAgir
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 9, 2025
I’m sorry but for the last few months I’ve been under a distinct impression that everyone hates the obnoxiously aggressive Blake Lively for trying to destroy the life and career of poor Justin Baldoni.
So what’s going on here? “Accusations of sexual harassment” are “legally protected”? But trying to destroy a man’s career with questionable claims and agitated #MeToo hyperbole is cool?
Will someone please explain this dismissal to me in “regular guy standing on a sidewalk and eating a hot dog” terminology? Like I’m a six year old? King Henry II to Thomas Becket: “I’m an idiot then! Talk to me like I’m an idiot!”
Being a mostly rational adult, I understand and accept the rationale behind Lorelei Lee-styled money–whoring. Way of the world since time began, the nice things in life, girls just wanna, etc.
But in my heart of hearts and as unrealistic as that Picnic finale may be (i.e., Kim Novak deciding to take a flying leap with penniless William Holden), I want to believe in the unreliable, idealistic, non-transactional coupling of hearts and dreams. Teresa Wright and Dana Andrews at the finale of The Best Years of Our Lives…that kind of thing.
Money-whoring is to be expected, yes, but it’s bad for the soul.
I do, however, trust Variety’s Owen Gleiberman:
My understanding is that the first motion-picture camera sound blimps (i.e., foam-filled housing attached to a camera which reduces shutter sounds, designed with holes for the lens and viewfinder) began to be used with noisy three-strip Technicolor cameras back in the late ’30s.
Imagine having to work with a blimp of this bulk…it’s nearly the size of a Fiat station wagon.
Notice the date on the clapper next to Peter Ustinov in the below Spartacus snap — 4.15.59 or tax day.
One quick question: Why is CNN refusing to allow viewers to stream a recorded version of last night’s live broadcast of Good Night and Good Luck? Millions no doubt missed it and even some who saw it, I’m guessing, might want to catch it again. You can’t even find scene excerpts on Youtube. What’s the problem exactly?
Those ugly Disqus ads and links adjacent to the comments will be removed as soon as I can find the link to the Disqus billing info. Team Disqus can’t be bothered to make changing your payment info an easy process.
I’ve been saying from the get-go that Joseph Quinn‘s performance as George Harrison in Sam Mendes‘ quartet of Beatles films…I’ve said right from the start that Quinn is the Wrong Guy…a terrible fit in a physical-biological way, starting with his pale freckly complexion and reddish-auburn hair.
Ginger or copper-haired actresses have never had the slightest problem in Hollywood, of course, and a select few have become major stars — Cate Blanchett, Amy Adams, Emma Stone, Jessica Chastain, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Bryce Dallas Howard, Isla Fisher, Lindsay Lohan, Christina Hendricks plus yesteryear’s Katharine Hepburn, Deborah Kerr, Myrna Loy, Tina Louise, Greer Garson, Rita Hayworth, Lucille Ball, Maureen O’Hara, Carol Burnett, Susan Hayward.
But ginger-haired guys have almost never made it to the penthouse level. Because there’s something about them that Americans just can’t quite settle in with or bow down to…not really.
Michael Fassbender, Lucas Hedges, Paul Bettany, Jesse Plemons, David Caruso, Ed Sheeran, Damian Lewis, Rupert Grint, Alan Tudyk, Brendan Gleeson, Danny Bonaduce, Eric Stoltz, Carrot Top Thompson, David Lewis, Domhnall Gleeson, Rupert Grint, Simon Pegg, Toby Stephens, the great Philip Seymour Hoffman, Chuck Norris, Jason Flemyng, Seth Green, David Wenham…none of them ever made it into the elite winner’s circle, not really. Because people glommed onto that red hair and went “okay, fine, good actor but nope.”
The only copper-ginger guys who became gold-bullion movie stars were James Cagney and Robert Redford.
Quinn will never manage it, period. Harrison is currently fretting and frowning in heaven, pacing back and forth, knowing what’s to come and yet unable to wield any influence on planet earth. Mendes’ quartet will also blow chunks with good old hawknose pointy-chin playing Paul McCartney.
There’s a 4K UHD disc of High Society arriving on 6.24. Forget it. Too schmaltzy. Not worth the candle.
I streamed an HD version of High Society three or four years ago, and despite my knowing the source material (Philip Barry and Donald Ogden‘s The Philadelpha Story) backwards and forwards, I began losing interest very quickly. I wanted to savor Paul C. Vogel‘s scrumptious VistaVision visuals, of course, but the tone and attitude of this 1956 film is flaccid…smug and bland and about as un-peppy as an ostensibly clever society comedy like this could be.
The director…wait, who directed it again? Charles Walters, primarily known for light, glossy musicals (Lili, Easter Parade, Summer Stock) and being a respected choreographer.
The Philadelpha Story (’40), directed by George Cukor, has the non-musical pep! It captures the flush, jaded, fleet-of-mind cynicism that…uhm, I’ve long presumed goes hand in hand with having been born into old wealth.
Katharine Hepburn starred in Barry’s original, tune-free 1939 play as well as the film. Joseph Cotten played the Cary Grant / Bing Crosby role of C. K. Dexter Haven, and Van Heflin played reporter Macauley Connor, conveyed by James Stewart in ’40 and Frank Sinatra in ’56.
Honestly? I turned off the High Society streamer before it ended. Plus Crosby, 53 at the time, was way too old for Grace Kelly, who was 24 or 25 during filming. And Kelly couldn’t hold a candle to Hepburn…sorry.
Has Scarlett Johansson or any hyphenate with her kind of power and popularity ever explored the possibility of producing or directing a feature (or maybe an six-episode miniseries) about influential TV journalist and former actress Lisa Howard? Somebody should look into this.
Howard (aka Dorothy Jean Guggenheim, 4.24.26 to 7.4.65) “was an American journalist, writer, and television news anchor who previously had a career as an off-Broadway and soap opera actress. In the early 1960s, she became ABC News’s first woman reporter, and was the first woman to have her own national network television news show.”
Howard developed a relationship, possibly of a sexual nature, with Cuba’s Fidel Castro, whom she interviewed on camera. The scuttlebutt says she may have also done the slip-and-slide with…let’s not go there.
Howard’s network career went south when she became closely involved in Kenneth Keating‘s U.S. Senate election in 1964 New York. (He lost to Bobby Kennedy.) The following year she killed herself (fact) with an overdose of pain killers, possibly prompted by and then having suffered a miscarriage and depression but who knows?
I know that Julia Ormond portrayed Howard in Part 1 of Steven Soderbergh‘s Che (’08), but I don’t even remember seeing her in that two-part film. Not a word or a shot. And I’ve watched Che three times, once in Cannes 17 years ago and twice with the Criterion Bluray.
In a seven-year-old Politico article, Peter Kornbluh reports that Howard “set up a meeting between UN diplomat William Attwood and Cuba’s UN representative Carlos Lechuga on 9.23.63, at her Upper East Side New York apartment, under the cover of a cocktail party. With Howard’s support, “the Kennedy White House was organizing a secret meeting with an emissary of Fidel Castro in November 1963 at the United Nations — a plan that was aborted when Kennedy died on 11.22.63.”
Oh, I get it — progressive industry women don’t to make a Howard film because a pillow-talk espionage saga is seen in some quarters as demeaning, and committing suicide in ’65 makes for a glum, defeatist ending.
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