One, the first 25 to 30 seconds of this morning’s Blue Origin takeoff delivered first-rate, Ron Howard-level cinematography.

Two, that Blue Origin mission control narrator (a woman) sounded like a breathless cheerleader, the manager of the glee club…we’ve been accustomed to decades of listening to those low-key, just-the-facts NASA narrations from those conservative-sounding guys with Midwestern accents, and then this morning’s realization that Blue Origin isn’t about “facts” but the sell…the enthusiasm! Which was unattractive.

Three, the Blue Origin booster’s return to terra firma and a sound, safe landing is very impressive…for decades and decades NASA boosters have been falling back to earth and crashing into the ocean, but now they’re intact and re-usuable. Way to do it.

And four, it was over too quickly — 10 minutes and 10 seconds.

Presumably we’ll soon be seeing footage of Bezos and the other passengers — Mark Bezos (brother), Oliver Daemen and Mary Wallace Funk — weightlessly floating around the capsule for roughly four minutes.

Just a demo, an advertisement, a thrill ride. Fun and games for the wealthy. Most of us feel that billionaires are obliged to do altruistic things with their wealth. This morning’s flight was on the other end of that spectrum.

“Used to worry ’bout the starving children of India / You know what I say now about the starving children of India? / I say,’ohh mama.'”

I’ve been to invitational screenings of Nicolas Cage movies for many decades. My first freebie was a viewing of Valley Girl in the spring of ’83. But I’m hazy on whether or not I’ve actually paid to see a Cage film. I find the idea jarring on a certain level.

I may have shelled out to see Vampire’s Kiss sometime in June ’89. It was definitely the first Cage film that I laughed out loud at )or more precisely with), but it wasn’t a momentous enough viewing event to singe itself into my brain.

I’m mentioning this because I’ll probably pay to see Pig tomorrow afternoon at the AMC Century City plex. I recognize that the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic cabals have given Michael Sarnoski‘s film high marks, but I don’t trust most critics. I smell a curio. Plus there are some films that seem born to stream and this is certainly one of them. Alas, there are no streaming options as we speak.

Plus I have to get up extra early tomorrow to watch the Jeff Bezos Blue Origin flight, which launches at 7 am Mountain time.

Around 3 pm I was talking to my local mechanic at his service station (NE corner Fairfax and Melrose), and then suddenly he had to take care of something so I was just standing near one of the pump stations, and these kids pulled up in a fairly small and dirty car, slightly bigger than a Fiat but only by a bit. Fairfax High School kids, I figured. Five or six got out and the driver/owner, some geeky-ass Latin kid with bad skin and a mullet, turned up the volume.

It was a hip-hop track that seemed to really matter to these guys ’cause they were all half-ass dancing and slinking around — two girls, three or four guys, a performance. Except it was the worst hip-hop track anyone’s ever heard in their life and certainly the most irksome I’ve ever suffered through, and it was turned up so loud that the sound was fuzzy and distorted and punishing.

The older service-station customers were sneaking looks at the kids and rolling their eyes and presumably muttering “okay, now I have to listen to this ugly-ass shit on that crap-level radio or whatever…feral anti-social whatevers.”

I was just standing there and checking it all out but at the same time careful not to stare at anyone…no provoking, no eye contact. So I mostly just looked at the car and stared as the asphalt, but in their general direction. Inwardly I was muttering “you guys are untamed…plus your taste in music is shit and nobody wants to listen to whatever you’re dancing to” but one of the kids, a string bean with big eyes and grown-out hair, sensed or smelled something, and so just as they were getting into the car he stopped and looked (not glared but looked) as if to say, “Uh-huh…you thinkin’ somethin’…it’s in your eyes, man…I can see you won’t be startin’ nothin but I’m looking right back so you know that I know.”

So he knew and I knew but I decided “fuck this guy…no challenge or aggression but I’m not turnin’ away either…in fact I’m gonna eyeball him without getting too thorny about it.” He knew and I knew…go on, man…have a good day…the moment’s over.

New Yorker cartoon by Jason Adam Katzenstein:

In actuality the percentage of Trump supporters who identify with or support the idea of Capitol stormers, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and general bumblefuckery is only a small sliver of the “base”, and the percentage of the progressive left who identify as BLM, small-business-trashing, statue-toppling woke shitheads is also fairly microscopic.

If it was my call, Capitol rioter Paul Allard Hodgkins would serve a minimum of two years behind bars, and I mean two years of breaking rocks with sledge hammers in the hot sun and getting sent to the hole if he starts any trouble. Or working on a Southern chain gang in the sweltering heat, next to Paul Newman and George Kennedy. And no parole.

Instead US District Judge Randolph Moss gave Hodgkins eight lousy months — a wrist-slap sentence.

Before sentencing, the Tampa-residing Hodgkins said he got carried away by the January 6th hysteria. “If I had any idea that the protest would escalate (the way) it did, I would never have ventured farther than the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue,” Hodgkins told Moss.

Bullshit — that’s what his defense attorney told him to say! Prosecutors had asked for an 18-month sentence…also too light!

Moss: “The court has to consider both what I think are the extremely damaging events that occurred that day but also who Mr. Hodgkins is as an individual. And as I think is reflected by the sentencing I imposed, I tried to strike that balance.”

At Sundance ’13 (8 1/2 years ago) I became a David Lowery devotee after catching Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (descendant of Robert Altman‘s Thieves Like Us, young love, guns, outlaws, rural flavor).

Three years later I got off the Lowery bus after totally hating Pete’s Dragon — a bone-headed, nonsensical, friendly dragon film, from Lowery and Disney and costarring Robert Redford.

During Sundance ’17 I hated The Yellow Birds, which Lowery co-wrote the screenplay for, but fell head over heels for Lowery’s minimalist Ghost Story (silent, watchful ghost under a plain bedsheet).

In ’18 came Lowery’s decent, modestly approvable Old Man & The Gun (Redford as gentleman bank robber).

Lowery is clearly a grade-A director, but he has two modes — intriguing, lower-budgeted art-house guy and big-budget fantasy popcorn guy.

And now we have Lowery’s The Green Knight (A24, 7.30), a medieval fantasy flick based on an Arthurian legend, which has been praised by the sensible and respected Globe and Mail critic Barry Hertz (“Dev Patel can cut off my head any time he likes”) and N.Y. Times columnist Kyle Buchanan (“A great movie where a roster of A24 all-stars all get to kiss Dev Patel on the cheek”). King Arthur’s obstinate nephew Sir Gawain (Patel) on a quest to confront a formidable CG tree creature.

Lowery’s next film is Disney’s Peter Pan & Wendy…another one!

I’m extremely suspicious of The Green Knight raves. Who wouldn’t be? I want to hear from a couple of sensible sourpuss critics.

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Because I’m the damn horse. The instant I read this I whispered “good God!” to myself. I was this exact same horse when I was 19, 28, 37 and at one or two other junctures. Amazing.