In a July 7 manifesto titled “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate” and signed by over 100 journalists, authors and academics, Harper’s is warning the world about the dangers of woke fanaticism and Robespierre cancel culture.

“Whatever the arguments around each particular [twitter-shaming or cancelling], the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal,” the essay notes. “We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

“This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.”

I’m naturally interested in Charlie Kaufman‘s just-published Antkind. What blogaroo wouldn’t be? I’ve only read the opening chapter, but it appears to be a withering satire of a highly self-regarding film devotee slash journalist-author type. The title, which could be interpreted to mean “kind of like an ant”, seems to indicate Kaufman’s attitude about his middle-aged (late 40s?) protagonist.

He sounds like a cross between Humbert Humbert and a Jewish Gerald McBoingBoing. (It’s actually Rosenberg something-or-other.) He’s bald and proudly wears a big, Herman Melville-ish, Brillo-paddy Richard Brody beard as a badge of honor and exceptionalism. He wears “owlish wire-rim glasses” and has a “hawkish nose and sunken blackbird eyes.” And he has a fetching, significantly younger African American girlfriend with whom he has great sex…bullshit.

To go by the Amazon excerpt, the tone of the book is a kind of deep-burrowing insect absurdism. Or, you know, a kind of surrealist extremism that keeps the reader at arm’s length. Nothing is real, and nothing to get weirded out about because it’s Charlie Kaufman wandering through a hermit-termite world…a low-rentish, film-dweeb nether realm, half cave and half steel cage.

Descriptive excerpt: “Trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language…while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of ‘likes’ and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bête noire and his raison d’être.”

HE commenter Jimmy Porter said this morning that Kaufman “gets effete film bloggers down to a tee.” The toenail-fungus kind, he means. We’ve only just met, but Rosenberg McBoingBoing has never owned a pair of suede Bruno Magli lace-ups, trust me. And he’s certainly no urban rumblehogger.

In the opening chapter Humbert Rosenberg McBoingBoing is driving through pitch-black darkness in rural Florida, heading toward St. Augustine. Every so often he notices a roadside fast-food joint with the lights on but zero customers. One of these operations is called Slammy’s. Any rural fast-food joint with an eccentric, clearly non-corporate name like Slammy’s is something to be savored if not cherished. If I saw an open-for-business Slammy’s in some out-of-the-way hamlet I would pull over without hesitation. I would order and sit on one of the outdoor benches and phone-surf. I would breathe it all in and smell the air and gaze at the stars.

Charlie’s protagonist pulls in, but only to get some paper towels and a cup of water to clean his windshield with. That’s a significant difference right there.

New Yorker film editor/columnist Richard Brody, speaking in a video dated 2.1.14: “The act of writing, itself, is almost sexual. The act of writing, itself, is almost transcendent. Nobody should ever be proud of their writing. Because no one should ever take credit for writing. It happens to you.”

Correction: Good writing happens to you. You’re sniffing and digging and poking around, and then, if God or fate or luck wills it, you’ll strike oil in the same way that James Dean‘s Jett Rink noticed oil seeping through the mud. If you stay with it (and if you’ve any kind of knack or talent) you’re suddenly in the groove and maybe even riding a perfect wave.

The best way to find oil is to not care if what you’re tapping out is any good. If you’re reviewing yourself as you write, if you’re overly concerned with how people might react as you’re attempting to say or explain something, you’ll never take flight. Otherwise writing…typing, I should say, is drudgery. Typing without hope of oil is worse than digging ditches.

And being stuck on a dry, oil-less plateau with an IBM Selectric while sitting inside a West Fourth Street studio back in the early ’80s…it was so godawful I can’t revisit.

Phillip Noyce‘s Above Suspicion, a brilliant Kentucky redneck crime drama that I first saw and wrote about three years ago, is still unreleased. It was going to open last March but you know what happened. The last I heard the U.S. debut would be in early ’21. The 7.5 appearance of an “international” trailer suggests an Australian opening. The whole COVID thing has thrown everything out of whack.

“The Girl From Lonesome Holler,” posted on 7.24.17: “Above Suspicion, which is based on Joe Sharkey’s 1993 true-life novel, is a triple-A, tightly-wound, character-driven genre flick (i.e., rednecks, drug deals, criminals, lawmen, murder, car chases, bank robberies) of the highest and smartest order.

“Most people would define ‘redneck film’ as escapist trash in the Burt Reynolds mode, but there have been a small handful that have portrayed rural boondock types and their tough situations in ways that are top-tier and real-deal. My favorites in this realm are John Boorman‘s Deliverance, Billy Bob Thornton‘s Sling Blade, and Lamont Johnson‘s The Last American Hero. Noyce’s film is the absolute, dollars-to-donuts equal of these films, or at least a close relation with a similar straight-cards, no-bullshit attitude.

“Noyce always delivers with clarity and discipline but this is arguably the most arresting forward-thrust action flick he’s done since Clear and Present Danger. Plus it boasts a smart, fat-free, pared-down script by Mississippi Burning‘s Chris Gerolmo, some haunting blue-tinted cinematography by Eliot Davis (Out of Sight, Twilight) and some wonderfully concise editing by Martin Nicholson.

“Above Suspicion damn sure feels like an early ’70s film. I mean that in the most complimentary way you could possibly imagine. It’s about real people, tough decisions, yokel culture, corruption, Percocets, hot car sex and lemme outta here. There’s no sense of 21st Century corporate wankery. Adults who believe in real movies made this thing, and they did so with an eye for tension and inevitable plot turns and fates dictated by character and anxiety and, this being rural Kentucky, bad karma and bad luck.”

Ennio Morricone was a talented, gainfully employed composer who knew from catchy hooks and whistling melodies, but to a significant degree he was a a genre guy. Because when you boil it right down his whole career rests upon his scores for Sergio Leone‘s spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, Once Upon A Time in the West) and, more recently, his score for Quentin Tarantino‘s The Hateful Eight. Plus the scores for Gillo Pontecorvo‘s The Battle of Algiers, Bernardo Bertolucci‘s 1900 and Terrence Malick‘s Days of Heaven (along with Leo Kottke).

In the Italian realm Morricone’s music wasn’t as deep or ravishing as Nino Rota‘s, and he certainly wasn’t in the same league as Hollywood powerhouse composers like Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Elmer Bernstein, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, David Raksin, Dimitri Tiomkin, Miklos Rozsa, Maurice Jarre, Alex North and Hugo Freidhofer. Not in my book, he wasn’t.

Seven years ago Bruce Dern shared an interesting observation about the difference between his generation of actors (i.e., Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Harrison Ford, Lee Marvin, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro) and the classic big-studio stars of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s (Clark Gable, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, James Cagney, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Alan Ladd, Errol Flynn, Kirk Douglas).

“The difference between my generation of actors and their generation is that they were bigger than life,” Dern said. “My generation got a chance to work with the legends, but we are not bigger than life. Not today. Too many people want to know what you do after work. You can’t be a mystery anymore.”

I came upon this photo early this morning. I’m guessing it was taken sometime in the mid ’70s (maybe ’77 or ’78, judging by Beatty’s elephant collar). My first thought was that in their day, these guys were just as “bigger than life” as the big-studio guys. They certainly seem to have a certain something or other, an extra-dimensional glow or current that out-pulsates Timothee Chalamet, Ansel Elgort, LaKeith Stanfield, Liam Hemsworth, Nicholas Hoult, John David Washington, RBatz, John Boyega, et. al. No?

This morning Variety‘s Marc Malkin reminded the industry that “recorded stage productions are not eligible for consideration.” That’s straight out of the AMPAS rulebook, and so you can forget Hamilton as a Best Picture contender.

The fact that the Disney Plus filmed version was watched by nearly everyone over the Independence Day holiday weekend will have to do. That and the fact that it’s won 11 Tonys, a Pulitzer and a Grammy.

Hollywood Elsewhere watched the Disney Plus Hamilton a couple of nights ago, and my basic reaction was to agree that 18th Century hip-hop is indeed a thing to submit to, revel in and cheer as far as it goes.

Hamilton is five years old now, but it was the first high-impact show to afford POCs strength and dominance in a reimagined historical narrative. Many films, plays and streamers followed in its conceptual wake. A brilliant gimmick slash concept, and certainly vigorously staged, inventive, dynamically conceived, excitingly choreographed. So yes, it’s quite the capturing of the late Obama zeitgeist.

But thank God for the subtitle option. I caught a phrase here and there, but I’m glad I saw it with subtitles because at least I understood every line and phrase. If I’d paid $400 or $500 to see it on stage at Manhattan’s Richard Rodgers theatre, I would have followed the general drift but missed 60% or 70% of the particulars.

From Benjamin Wallace‘s 7.6 Vulture piece, “Is Anyone Watching Quibi?”

“Quibi, which rhymes with Libby, is short for ‘quick bites.'” Wait…all this time I’ve been mispronouncing? I thought it was Kwee-bee.

“People have wondered why Quibi honcho Jeff Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman, in their late and early 60s, respectively, and not very active on social media, would believe they have uniquely penetrating insight into the unacknowledged desires of young people.

“When I ask Whitman what TV shows she watches, she responds, ‘I’m not sure I’d classify myself as an entertainment enthusiast.’ But any particular shows she likes? “Grant,” she offered. “On the History Channel. It’s about President Grant.”

“Katzenberg is on his phone all the time, but he is also among the moguls of his generation who have their emails printed out (and vertically folded, for some reason) by an assistant.

“In enthusing about what a show could mean for Quibi, Katzenberg would repeatedly invoke the same handful of musty touchstones — America’s Funniest Home Videos, Siskel and Ebert, and Jane Fonda’s exercise tapes. When Gal Gadot came to the offices and delivered an impassioned speech about wanting to elevate the voices of girls and women, Katzenberg wondered aloud whether she might become the new Jane Fonda and do a workout series for Quibi. (“’Apparently, her face fell,’ says a person briefed on the meeting.)

“Most subscribers have signed on with a 90-day free trial. This month, as that period expires, Quibi will learn how many of those people will stick around once they’re asked to pay. If they don’t, Quibi will be left to reckon with how it miscalculated so badly, and for Katzenberg and Whitman, it could be a deflating capstone to two storied careers.”

We all know how a “death of someone famous” story is expected to read. Family, friends and colleagues describe the deceased as God’s gift to humanity who left a glorious legacy, and was a vessel of pure love, industriousness and boundless energy. And at the moment of departure the entire family was at bedside. No family members were in the bathroom or in the downstairs cafeteria or taking a shower back at the homestead…the family is always there en masse and without exception, standing or praying in a perfect half-circle.

And we all know what we’re expected to say when we read about the death of a noteworthy person. Second verse, same as the first.

I’ve taken some heat three or four times for posting overly candid obituaries. The truth is that I posted only one that could be fairly accused of being a tad insensitive. I’m referring, of course, to the Bob Clark piece that appeared on 4.4.07. The consensus seemed to be that it wasn’t so much what I said (“Very few directors have offended me as much as he did over the years”) as not waiting a week or two before posting. Clark had only died 12 hours earlier.

This morning I came upon a highly unusual post-mortem assessment of Peter Sellers, who died of a heart attack in 1980 at age 54. The speaker was his old friend and Goon Show colleague Spike Milligan, quoted in Ed Sikov‘s “Mr. Strangelove“: “It’s hard to say this, but [Peter] died at the right time.”

That’s the kind of searing observation that only a fellow artist could share or even think. A variation of this sentiment could be that the deceased didn’t die soon enough.

Nine years ago Scott Feinberg‘s posted a 7.25.11 piece about the death of Amy Winehouse (“The Art of Dying Young“). The idea was that it’s not such a terrible thing to check out early if your legend is going downhill anyway. Biological shutdowns will always be traumatic to friends, fans and loved ones, but it may be worse, Feinberg said, to hang on past your peak point.

But how do you know when you’ve peaked? Answer: Nobody ever does. Everyone goes through life saying, “I’ll find a way to turn things around…after all, tomorrow is another day.”

“Most [performing survivors] overstay their welcome,” says Feinberg, “and simply begin to evaporate from the public’s consciousness, either because they find themselves (a) unable to maintain the performance-level that first garnered them fame, (b) are creatively limited by the public’s limited perception of them, (c) are distracted and/or deterred by fame and its trappings, (d) no longer able or willing to compete with ‘fresher’ faces.”

Joe Rogan and James Lindsay combined: “That’s one of the things going on now. People getting retroactively cancelled for things they did [in the relatively distant past]. We can talk about the psychological side of it…the moral purity thing that’s going bonkers. You’ve gotta think of woke as kinda like a church. ‘Everybody’s a racist‘ is the vibe of the new thing. So you’ve got the woke academics…the woke people who are teaching it to kids, as critical race theory. They’re making the nonsense, and you get this feeling they’re wrestling with their inner demons?

“There’s this book, Robin DiAngelo‘s ‘White Fragility‘…the one Matt Taibbi destroyed…and if you read the book there are all these weird vignettes, [and you can sense that basically the woke nutters] are wrestling with the racism within themselves. Rigid ideologies, can’t be challenged, you cannot in any way veer from the course…this is cult shit, straight-up cult indoctrination stuff.”

HE conclusion: When the woke insanity thing finally subsides and goes away, sensible people everywhere will come for the Khmer Rouge fanatics, and it will be beautiful. Wokesters will have to hide in the shadows like Jean-Louis Trintignant did at the end of The Conformist. Today’s retroactive cancellers will themselves be retroactively cancelled, and then they’ll be forced to eat their own poison. I for one cannot wait for that to happen. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

I feel a little funny about re-posting a piece from the satirical Babylon Bee, a kind of rightwing Onion. I hate the idea of chuckling at any kind of conservative humor, but the Khmer Rouge has become so toxic, so deranged, so over-the-waterfall that, in the words of Richard Gere’s “Mayonnaise” in An Officer and a Gentleman, “I got nowhere else to go.”