For her You Must Remember This podcast, Karina Longworth has created a ten-episode tribute to legendary producer, production designer and Pretty Baby screenwriter Polly Platt. It’s called “Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman.” I haven’t had a chance yet. I’m thinking of catching the first two episodes on the drive back to Los Angeles later today.

“Dearest Polly Platt,” an HE tribute posted on 7.27.11:

The tide has turned against Wokester McCarthy-ites, or at least those who are paying attention. Jig’s up, time to trim sails, hand overplayed, etc.

Please consider a day-old, profoundly comforting, nearly perfectly phrased Bulwark article by fiction writer Greg Hurwitz.

Excerpt: “All women are not to be believed any more than all men are. To suggest that females are magical truth-telling creatures isn’t just insulting; it’s objectifying.

“And of course the leaders of #MeToo knew that.

“But the biosphere of social and mainstream media no longer responds to — or has any interest in — nuanced positions. So ‘Women will no longer be silenced just because they lack relative power in certain circumstances, an injustice that now demands we give equal weight to those who’ve been victimized’ became ‘Believe all women.’

“Which then, by its very lack of nuance, set off a firestorm of cancel culture, circumventing due process and harming people of both genders. And when members of the left said nothing or responded with glee to the one-size-fits-all mob sentencing guidelines, they ended up condoning the same sort of overzealous nonsense that the right does when pretending that cancel culture rules the day.”

Acknowledgment: I dearly wish that The Bulwark could be a centrist, common-sense website as opposed to an American conservative news and opinion website founded by conservative commentators Charlie Sykes and Bill Kristol. I regard myself as a sensible leftie, but I completely agree with Hurwitz except for the “believe all women” slogan, which some #MeToo-ers have claimed was a rightwing mis-labelling of a view that more correctly could have been understood as “take accusations by women seriously.”

Excerpt from Alaric Dearment article on abovethelaw.com, posted on 5.27: “In their zeal to boost Reade’s accusation and lend credence to her claims, people like podcaster Katie Halper, Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson and many others effectively presumed Biden’s guilt. But mounting evidence has raised serious doubts about the veracity of Reade’s allegation and her own credibility — mounting evidence uncovered, I should add, by professionally trained journalists who actually knew what they were doing.

“To be sure, no concrete proof –- in the form of damning or exonerating documentary or photographic evidence –- has surfaced of whether Biden is guilty or innocent, or of whether Reade’s allegation is true or false. Because of that, only a fair and impartial examination can determine whether the totality of evidence at hand favors or disfavors her allegation or remains inconclusive. But this isn’t really about Reade, Biden, or sexual assault — it’s about how activist journalism is ill-equipped to provide such an examination, and how its poor handling of the Reade story is a shining example of that.

Meanwhile, N.Y. Times columnists Michelle Goldberg, Frank Bruni and Ross Douthat have assessed the all-but-total collapse of Tara Reade‘s accusation of sexual assault against Joe Biden. Here’s an alternate link.

Despite Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey calling for now-fired Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin to be charged with having murdered George Floyd…Chauvin having clearly ended Floyd’s life by keeping his knee on Floyd’s neck until asphyxiation occured…

Despite the obvious, authorities haven’t charged Chauvin because, I’m assuming, certain elements within the Minneapolis police department and judicial system have resisted because they’re persuaded it would be rash or bad for police morale or some such hooey.

No one believes that the other three officers involved in the incident — Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng — should be charged, but Chauvin definitely needs to pay the piper.

“I’ve wrestled with, more than anything else over the last 36 hours, one fundamental question: Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” Frey said in a news briefing. “If you had done it, or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now. And I cannot come up with a good answer to that.”

“But the film closest to my heart…the one that really rings my deep emotional bell after all these years…well, there’re two, really. Jaws 4: The Revenge and, of course, The Swarm.”

Our Tijuana dental work completed by 3 pm, we arrived at Poco Cielo Hotel (south of Puerto Nuevo, even further south of Rosarito) at 4:10 pm. We were walking on the beach by 5:30 pm.

This isn’t a good thing to admit, but we melted when we realized that Dimitry’s original La Fonda restaurant, which is right next door, was allowing customers to sit inside and order. It was the first time we’d been to an eatery since late February.

We’re bad people for having done so, we realize, but the place was nearly vacant and the waiters were so grateful we’d arrived. Plus we could sense that God wasn’t frowning at us.

We sat on the outdoor patio at dusk, overlooking the crashing surf and almost weeping about how wonderful it felt to be ourselves again. We apologize to all of the Virusbros out there who are no doubt seething with rage as they read these words.

And forget The Disney Channel…not this horse.

And I don’t mean the Department of Housing and Urban Development. There’s a phrase below that should read “in the ‘80s and ‘90s.”

I’m sorry but it’s time once again to hit the Baja Oral Center. Tatiana and I are currently in the waiting room. All masked and gloved up, Elton John softly playing, antiseptic to the max. Post-procedure we’re heading 50 minutes south to Hotel Poco Cielo, which has moderately fast wifi,

Carl Foreman‘s The Victors (’63) is apparently unobtainable in any home format — no streaming, no DVD or Bluray, nothing. There was only a British DVD in the wrong aspect ratio and wrong running time (146 minutes as opposed to the original 175) that is no longer available.

I never saw it, but the general thematic idea was that “war darkens and destroys and reduces everything to cinders and everyone to despair.” Or something in that realm. The big signature moment was the execution for cowardice scene [below]. Sexuality (vaguely envelope-pushing for ’63) was used as a selling point.

Costarring George Hamilton, Vincent Edwards, Albert Finney, Melina Mercouri, Jeanne Moreau, Eli Wallach, Romy Schneider, Elke Sommer and Michael Callan.

It was a financial bust but a “serious” film. I wouldn’t mind seeing it.