The reason that critics love Michael Sarnoski‘s Pig (Neon, 7.16) is because it’s saying something about the undercurrent of civilized American life in the year 2021. It’s saying two things actually. Thing #1 is “something fundamental and spiritual is missing in our lives.” Thing #2 is “the reason that fundamental thing is missing is because we’ve exiled it…we’ve shown it the door and shouted ‘get out of our house!…you’re not stylish enough!'”

Pig stars the burly, bearded, bruised and overweight Nicolas Cage, and costars Alex Wolff and Adam Arkin. It’s about a former bigtime Portland chef (Cage’s Rob Feld) who’s quit the restaurant business to become a reclusive-hermit truffle forager in the forest. The plot is about Feld’s pet pig being kidnapped and Feld trying to get it back.

It has soul, Pig does. It conveys a reverence for the unseen. (Remember my recent riff about how the most interesting films focus on invisible things? This is one of those films.) Pig is slow and obstinate in some ways, but it believes in the holiness of earth and nature and fine food and wine, and it’s saying that the urban sophisticated realm that most of us live in is…lacking. “Not real” in certain important ways. Lacking in a holy mystical current, lacking in the solemn fundamentals.

But just because Pig is snail-paced and under-written and filmed in shadows and subdued blue-ish light doesn’t mean it’s a great film. I think it’s definitely an interesting and in some ways a valuable film with the eternal things on its mind, etc. But I didn’t “love” it. I was down with it, but the funereal pace bothered me after the 55 or 60-minute mark. I actually decided to take a break at the one-hour mark because I knew it would maintain this same shuffling gait to the end.

I also got tired of looking at Cage’s bloody, beat-up, swollen face. Okay, his performance has a certain ruined integrity. Beaten up by intruders and left with dried sticky blood on his face and forehead throughout 85% of the film. Long gray ratty hair. No hot water, no shower, no change of socks…a sad forest hermit roaming around Portland as he tries to get to the bottom of things.

But Feld is no dummy, and we’re asked to believe that this 50ish truffle whisperer, who spends most of the film speaking to this and that person involved in the Portland restaurant business, wouldn’t clean himself up before making the rounds. He’s clearly not an idiot, and yet Feld is so caught up in the purity thing that he doesn’t clean the fucking dried blood off his face? You know what that is? That’s filmmaker hubris. Sarnoski is saying “Feld is too much of a truffle samurai to even think of cleaning himself up…he’s too angry, too enraged, too possessed to bother about appearances.” That’s movie bullshit.

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Hands down, the most transporting version of Harry Warren and Al Dubin‘s “I Only Have Eyes For You” was recorded in late 1958 by The Flamingos. What makes it work is the reverb plus the background singers doing the old two-part-harmony “sha-bop sha-bop“. But for years and years I thought they were singing “kah-LUCK-kah-luck.”

The reason I was a kah-LUCK-kah-lucker for so long is a brief scene in Billy Wilder‘s The Apartment (’60). Consolidated Life of New York executive Al Kirkeby (David Lewis) is ushering his office girlfriend Sylvia (Joan Shawlee) into the Upper West Side apartment building of C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) for an assignation, and as she climbs the stairs of Baxter’s brownstone Sheila is singing “kah-LUCK-kah-luck.” Sheila’s improv stuck in my mind.

The Apartment was shot in the fall of ’59 — “I Only Have Eyes For You” was released in April ’59, and was pretty much the definitive romantic song of the moment.

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HE: I’ve been telling myself that I have to see David Lowery‘s The Green Knight this weekend, but something in me is rebelling against the idea of seeing it in a theatre. The memory of Pete’s Dragon won’t leave me alone. Did you see it?

Stormy Monday: I was bored to tears.

HE: Thank God!!! I knew that 54% Rotten Tomatoes audience score had to be grounded in something or other. When 54% of the ticket buyers give it a thumbs-down, you know something’s wrong.

Stormy: I didn’t expect it to be near-plotless. It’s just a reason for Lowery to indulge in these dreamy visuals but the substance is pretty thin.

HE: So what’s everyone going nuts about?

Stormy: About basically how weird, seductive and visually sumptuous the whole thing is. Plus it’s pretty woke.

HE: What’s the woke aspect exactly?

Stormy: Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think there ever was an Indian knight before in a major studio picture

HE: Of course not, but that’s standard Hollywood “presentism” a la David Copperfield. Presentism is accepted as a given these days. Because even in a historical framework, filmmakers have to make it clear that all tribes are equally good to go in a historical context, and that racism is, was and always will be intolerable.

Stormy: Yah, revisionist history. But I couldn’t care less about that if the movie was actually absorbing, involving, etc.

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Flag Day “is suffused with what you might call the Penn Darkness Factor. It tells the story of the richly troubled, twisted, and touching relationship between a father, John Vogel, played by Sean Penn as one of the most scurrilous dads in the history of movies, and his daughter, Jennifer, played by Penn’s own daughter, Dylan Penn, who gives a fantastic performance. Yet this scoundrel father, who she has systematically learned not to trust, is the only father she has.

“That’s the story Flag Day tells, and it’s the reason the movie hits such a universal nerve. The wrenching pain of it is that he’s a counterfeit father who’s also the real deal.” — from Owen Gleiberman’s 7.10.21 Variety review.

Last week Jeff Bezos and three others rocketed to the edge of space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard space capsule, which was named for Alan B. Shepard (11.18.23 — 7.21.98).

An honored naval pilot and NASA astronaut, Shepard is famous for four things: (1) Being the first American to soar into space, albeit for only 15 minutes, — it happened aboard a Mercury spacecraft on 5.5.61, and inside a small capsule called the Freedom 7; (2) Having acquired the reputation of a cocktail-lounge hound during the Mercury training period in and around Cocoa Beach, at least according to Tom Wolfe‘s “The Right Stuff“; (3) Being forced to take a leak inside his suit prior to the 5.15.61 flight, because of a five-hour flight delay and not being able to hold it any longer; and (4) Becoming the fifth man to walk on the moon (it happened in ’71, during the Apollo 14 mission), and hitting two golf balls on the lunar surface.

Sidenote #1: Shepard sliced or shanked both shots — excusable because he was forced to whack the balls one-handed due to his bulky Apollo space suit. Despite the enormous gravitational advantages, Shepard’s golf balls travelled only about 40 yards. Sidenote #2: Soon after the flight Norman Mailer complained on the Dick Cavett Show that Shepard’s golf stunt reflected an attitude of American arrogance.

The ’61 Shepard flight was nerve-wracking for tens of millions of TV viewers because who knew what might happen? The booster could blow up, something technical could go wrong, etc. It was the very first time an American had ascended on a flaming rocket, and to the edge of space yet — “What a beautiful view,” Shepard said.

When JFK mentioned certain NASA stalwarts who oversaw and engineered the Freedom 7 flight, he added that “most of these names are unfamiliar…if this flight had not been an overwhelming success these names would be very familiar to everyone.” [1:51 mark.)=]

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True Topanga Canyon story: It was around ’84, maybe ’85. I was platonically chummy with Kathryn, a whipsmart production executive, a woman with a good heart who suffered no fools. She was sharing a sizable home in Topanga Canyon with a couple of others, and every so often would invite friends over on a Saturday or Sunday. I attended a couple of these schmoozers. Filmmakers, publicists, producers, writers, production veterans…late 20s to late 30s.

A day after one of the get-togethers Kathryn called to say that a female friend of hers liked me, and that I should give her a ring. Let’s call her Laura. I wasn’t sure who she was, and Kathryn was reluctant to offer any specifics other than the fact that Laura and I had briefly spoken at some point.

I finally persuaded Kathryn to offer a vague physical description, and it came to light that Laura was a nice but less-than-dynamically attractive 20something who was on the pudgy side. The weight issue was what jarred my memory.

As I respected and trusted Kathryn, I figured I could level with her as our chat would go no further. So I told her Laura wasn’t my type and that I wasn’t exactly into plus-sized women — no offense.

Kathryn felt free to be candid also, and so a split second after I said “plus-sized” she said, “You bastard!” As in “how dare you refuse this intelligent, good-hearted, high-quality woman just because she’s not rail-thin?”

I thought I was being a good guy for two reasons. One, I was being honest with a friend and two, I wasn’t interested in having sex just because it was more or less being offered to me. I wanted intimacy only with women I was genuinely aroused or intrigued by, and preferably both.

That wasn’t how Kathryn saw it. She knew and cared for Laura, and apparently over the previous couple of years the poor woman had experienced some hurtful, frustrating or otherwise unsatisfying relationships, and here I was doing nothing to alleviate her distress or otherwise brighten her day.

I said I was sorry but what did Kathryn want me to do, lie or pretend?

Imagine if the situation had been reversed. Imagine if I’d found Laura attractive and a male friend of mine who knew her had called and said that I’m smitten and would like to go out with her, etc. Imagine if Laura had told my friend “well, I’m very flattered but Jeff isn’t my type…no offense but I’m just not interested, much less aroused.”

How would it have been if my friend had replied, “You bitch! His feelings will really be hurt by this!” Different rules, different standards.

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“The Woke Olympics,” 2:05: “[The Tokyo Olympic firings are] what’s called a purge. It’s a mentality that belongs in Stalin’s Russia. How bad does this atmosphere we are living in have to get before the people who say ‘cancel culture is overblown’…how bad does it have to get before they admit this is an insanity that is swallowing up the world? [No applause, just a smattering.] Where did we get this crowd? I’m back, not the audience. [Back to script] And that is not a conservative position, my friends. My politics have not changed — I am reacting to politics that have. This is yet another example how [wokesters] invert the very thing that used to make liberals, liberals. Snitches and bitches? That’s not being liberal.”

SPOILERS: Even if you’ve just read a couple of Stillwater reviews, you know that Abigail Breslin‘s “Allison Baker” character is doing time in a Marseilles jail for the murder of her girlfriend. You also know the movie is about Matt Damon‘s “Bill Baker”, her bumblefuck dad, trying to uncover evidence that might pin the blame on a fair-haired white guy named Akim (Idir Azougli).

Here are the spoiler parts: (a) By the end of the film I’m not 100% sure if the movie has clarified the matter of Allison’s guilt or innocence, and (b) there’s a third-act moment in which a stressed and frenzied Akim explains something about the climactic moment in which Allison’s girlfriend died (i.e., something to do with a necklace?). Except I couldn’t understand what Akim was saying.

Friendo: Do you think the movie is saying that the daughter was guilty? I didn’t necessarily get that.

HE: It seemed to be saying that she probably was. Those middle-aged French guys sitting around a poker table and discussing Allison’s case…”she killed her, that’s love.”

Friendo: But some were saying that she wasn’t guilty. I thought the point (it was fuzzy so I’m not at all clear on it) is that [Akim] killed her, but she was there.

HE: Then why does she endure four years in that Marseilles jail before asking her dad to reach out to an attorney to pursue a lead about Akim’s possible culpability?

Friendo: And when Akim blurts out what he knows, obviously something important…I couldn’t understand him.

HE: His thick French accent plus the shrieking tone and stress in his voice….the combination was insurmountable.

Friendo: And it was the key plot point in the film!

HE to Commentariat: Can anyone clear this up? Allison, Akim and the whole damn shmear?

No offense, but the practical-minded realists in this country who’ve been double vaxxed are sick and tired of your submental vaccine-avoiding bullshit. The combination of the Delta variant and your ridiculous obstinacy now threatens to put this country right back into the pandemic hole that we’ve only recently began to climb out of.

So guess what? We’ve decided to follow the French and President Emmanuel Macron in particular. As of September 1, 2021, unvaccinated Americans will become untouchable and unserviceable. Anyone without a vaccine card will be prohibited from entering cinemas or restaurants, flying on planes, taking trains or using public bathroooms. Just like in France, baby!

You did this to yourselves, fellas. I’m sorry but we were almost out of the woods a couple of months ago and you guys — you! — messed it up for everyone. And dammit, we’re not standing for this crap any longer. So it’s your call — grow up and join the sane, sensible majority or suffer the consequences. You’ve got a little more than a month — get the stab or else.

Don’t like the new rules? Tough. Planning to vote against me in ‘24? Go for it. But public access-wise, transportation-wise, going out for dinner and a movie-wise and even using the bathroom at the mall-wise, your stupid unvaccinated asses will be grass as of 9.1.21. Like it or lump it.

Regards, President Joe Biden

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