“We Will Get Through This”…if you say so. Imagine you’re the guy writing this out above West Hollywood. Five words, 20 letters…it can’t be easy to write anything legibly. Not to mention calculating the right height and letter styling and so on. (How big are those letters? A hundred feet tall?) It must take years to hone the skills to a tee. But if I were doing it, I’d write “We’ll Get Through This.” More colloquial. (Posted four days ago on TMZ.)

Home video-wise, Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma will never look better than it does on Netflix — HD, grain-free, super-detailed. I therefore had no interest in the recently released Criterion Bluray version. But last night I watched a 72-minute making of doc called “Road To Roma“, which was featured on the Criterion disc and is now streaming on Netflix. Lo and behold, my dream of seeing a color version of Cuaron’s masterpiece was finally realized, or at least partially.

Road to Roma is about Cuaron recalling how he pieced together thousands of bits of memory from his early childhood in order to make Roma come alive. The Oscar-winning helmer was incredibly specific and dogged in recreating the 1970 and ’71 world of Mexico City, and this aspect in itself is fascinating.

But after watching and adoring the black-and-white version four or five times in 2018, I began to long for a color version. A voice was telling me that an extra dimensional realism — a certain au natural textural factor — could be savored if it could somehow be seen without the silver monochrome application, which struck everyone as quite beautiful but also (at least in my case) a tiny bit affected — a visual scheme that proclaimed “arthouse!”

Road to Roma allowed me to taste the alternate color version — that’s all I’m saying. And it was very nice.

Yes, I still maintain that the TV screen image tweeted by Monica Castillo looked like a color facsimile. No, not the reflection of amber Christmas lights, but the somber blue-gray tones, which obviously contrasted with the black-and-white version.

Am I allowed to say that Charles Laughton‘s expressionistic The Night of the Hunter (’55) was never all that terrific? It was directed with exceptional feeling and visual command, of course, and it still delivers a perverse, fable-like satire of tyrannical rightwing misogyny — in this instance Robert Mitchum‘s asexual freelance preacher. But it’s not my idea of a great film — it’s more of an atmospheric oddballer.

The most noteworthy aspects are the LOVE and HATE tattoos on Mitchum’s fingers — an image that has, in a sense, outlasted the film itself. That and Mitchum’s smooth baritone as he sings the gospel spiritual “Leaning.”

The Night of the Hunter was an admirable effort by Laughton, for sure, but I’ve never wanted to watch it a second time. Joe and Jane Popcorn can usually smell trouble from ads and trailers, and they avoided this puppy like the plague. So will 2021 audiences, if I know anything about them.

So why remake it? Because the greatness of The Night of the Hunter has been taught in film schools for decades, and to this day there’s no questioning this article of faith. (To this day the same people who worship Laughton’s film also swear by the genius of Douglas Sirk.) It is therefore inconceivable to screenwriter Matt Orton (Operation Finale) and producers Amy Pascal and Peter Gethers that audiences won’t flock to their contemporary remake. Mitchum’s character will of course be transformed into a Trump-worshipping evangelical, etc.

News bulletin: The Night of the Hunter was essentially remade 33 years ago as The Stepfather (’87). Directed by Joseph Ruben with a screenplay by Donald E. Westlake, it was a satiric suspense thriller about a serial killer slash conservative dad in the Ronald Reagan mold (Terry O’Quinn). He marries a widow (Shelley Hack) with a teenage daughter (Jill Schoelen) and all kinds of fierce repression and holy hell break loose.

Set in the 1930s, Laughton’s film is about Mitchum’s Reverend Harry Powell marrying a naive widow (Shelley Winters). His motive is mainly to uncover $10,000 that her late bank-robber husband hid from authorities. Winters’ young children (Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce) can smell a rat from the get-go, and are therefore determined not to tell Powell where the cash has been stashed.

Sic semper Trump-appointed assholes:

CNN (breaking): “Acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly, whose fiery insults of a naval officer who raised alarm about the service’s handling of a coronavirus outbreak prompted widespread condemnation, has resigned. The decision comes after a building political crisis in which Modly traveled from Washington to Guam on Monday and assailed the character of Navy Capt. Brett Crozier, who was removed by Modly as the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt last week.

“Speaking to the ship’s crew over a loudspeaker, Modly accused Crozier of either leaking a letter about his concerns to the media or of being “too naive or too stupid to be the commanding officer of a ship like this.”

“The remarks, leaked to the media in written and audio form, prompted condemnation from family members of the crew, which has more than 170 coronavirus cases, and several Democratic lawmakers. By Monday night, Modly had released a statement apologizing for insulting Crozier, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, but still insisting that Crozier had written a letter with the intention of creating a stir.”

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (’69) is such a rakishly charming, beautifully composed film (one of Conrad Hall‘s finest), but I’ve seen it too many times. There comes a point with certain classics when they turn into amber, and there’s no getting past the fact that you know each and every line, shot, action sequence, musical cue, etc.

That said, I’ll always love the opening poker game sequence (shot in sepia-tone b&w) and the final shoot-out scene with the federales. I love the way the surrounded Redford drills so many soldiers, picking them off like wooden ducks…dead center.

Why did this five-man collaboration (George Roy Hill, William Goldman, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Hall) connect as well as it did? Because it tapped into the anti-authoritarian spirit of the late ’60s in a kind of jovial, laid-back way, and because it lulled viewers into thinking that living outside the law could somehow feel warm and soothing (and at the same time tragic) as long as they had Redford and Newman’s company.

One of the greatest romantic screen pairings of all time, and a totally hetero current from start to finish.

I wonder how it would’ve played without the Burt Bacharach intrusions? I was never much of a “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” kinda guy.

During a press briefing earlier today Trump was asked about Chinese aid by a reporter for Hong Kong Phoenix TV. He seemed skeptical of her question, and vaguely suggested that the correspondent was some kind of shill for the Chinese government.

Phoenix TV’s CEO and founder, Liu Changle, reportedly has strong ties with the Chinese government, in somewhat the sane vein as the relationship between Rupert Murdoch and Trump.

Trump tends to challenge female reporters when they ask what he regards as inappropriate or challenging questions, and he definitely went there today..

Phoenix Reporter: “Are you cooperating with China?”
Trump: “Who are you working for, China? Who owns that, China? Is it owned by China? Is it owned by the state?”
Phoenix Reporter: “I work for Hong Kong Phoenix TV. It’s privately owned.”

No one wans to remember Joe Johnston‘s The Wolfman. How could a movie this tiresome have been written by the guys who penned Se7en and Road to Perdition (i.e., Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self) respectively?

Domestically released on 2.12.10 by Universal, The Wolfman was panned by critics (34% Rotten Tomatoes) and Joe Popcorn alike. It wound up grossing $139 million worldwide against a $150 million production budget.

The one bright spot was The Wolfman‘s Rick Baker and make-up effects supervisor Dave Elsey winning the Academy Award for Best Makeup at the 83rd Academy Awards.

Posted on 2.12.10: The Wolfman makes you feel like you’re stuck inside a deep stone pit with Universal werewolves prowling back and forth and worrying about the grosses. Rowwrrlll! — make it shorter! Rowf! — let’s throw in another beheading! Owwooooohhll! — we need to at least get those research scores into the 70s! Let’s bring in Walter Murch…snarrrrrll!

You can’t say it doesn’t look great — every scene is expertly smothered in fog and smoke and ominous shadows, or lit by candles. Cheers to cinematographer Shelly Johnson and production designer Rick Heinrichs. But it makes you feel trapped, shackled.

I saw it with an Eloi crowd (i.e., radio promotional) at the Grove last night, and after 20 or 30 minutes the room had no pulse. The crowd watched, waited and seemed to be saying, “This is it? This? Well, we paid to see it so we might as well stick it out but this just isn’t happening, man. Where’s the juice? This thing is just…what is it?”

Benicio del Toro, who plays the doomed Larry Talbot, looks miserable in every scene. He does the job, hits the marks, mouths the dialogue, etc., but his eyes say, “Good God, get me outta here! I’ve been very well paid, yes, but I’m stuck in a piece of shit and my soul is writhing in pain.” Plus he’s been given an awful pudding-bowl haircut.

Four and 1/2 years ago I posted a Vimeo embed of Adrien Dezalay, Emmanuel Delabaere and Simon Philippe‘s “The Red Drum Getaway.”

For some obscure but logical reason it began attracting fresh eyeballs sometime yesterday. “Wow! This is fabulous,” “Great job, sir!,” “Trippy,” etc. The always alert Sasha Stone, never one to surf behind the eight ball, sent me a link this morning.

Yes, of course — at the very end that’s the lifeless body of Scotty Ferguson lying in front of the apes.

And yet now that I’ve watched it yet again, the only thing I would change is to end it at 2:37.

“Height is to men what breasts are to women,” an HE commenter said three years ago. To some extent yes, but not necessarily. Or not entirely. Tall or tallish guys enjoy an obvious pecking-order advantage, but towering fellows (6’5″ and up) can seem gangly and galumphy. Or even a tad freakish.

The bottom line is that broad shoulders are the real bodacious tat-tas in the XY realm. I came into broad shoulders when I turned 13 or 14, and believe me I know about the benefits. Ask anyone who’s been lucky by way of genetic inheritance. If you have broad-ass shoulders, you’re halfway home in terms of general estimates, job interviews, receptive women, etc.

By the same token narrow, rounded shoulders are generally not a good look. There’s never been a rounded, narrow-shouldered guy in the history of the planet who’s ever said “man, I am so lucky that I don’t have broad shoulders!” I see a fellow with narrow shoulders and I think “well, okay, I’m sorry…he’s obviously had his share of struggles.”

From “Physical Dominance vs. Psychological Security,” posted on 6.19.19: “I was in love with Alan Ladd and I went to a party at Romanoff’s. I’m 5’7” but in heels I’m 5’9” or 5’10”. They said, ‘Shirley, your favorite actor is here…come and meet him.’ I turned around. He was there and I went, ‘Oh hi, Mr. Ladd.’ He was about 4’9” and all my admiration disappeared literally in the dust.” — attributed to Shirley MacLaine but who knows?

Ladd was notoriously insecure about his height, which (to go by most accounts) was somewhere between 5’5″ and 5’6″. For his entire professional life this psychological albatross was draped around the poor guy’s neck. On the other hand James Cagney was roughly the same size (5’6″ or thereabouts) and he never squawked about it. He spent his whole adult life playing tough urban guys who slapped, punched or psychologically dominated other fellows, and nobody ever said “Jeez, he’s kinda short.” They said, “Shit, here comes Cagney…watch out.”

In short (pun), a good part of life is about owning the right kind of psychology — about feeling secure and confident about who you are and what you look like. It’s about planting your feet, looking the other guy in the eye and saying “take or or leave it but this is me…got a problem with that? Because I don’t.”

On the other hand I understand the Shirley MacLaine mindset. I’ve been a tall, slender, broad-shouldered guy with fairly good hair (augmented by Prague-installed follicles when I got older) all my life. I’ve been that guy since I was 11 or 12, and by the time I hit my early 20s I was feeling pretty cool about it. I know my looks helped in my hound-dog days in the ’70s and early ’80s.

But I’ve always had this unfair or prejudiced attitude about short guys, and I mean going back to when I was nine or ten. I’ve always had this belief that guys need to be 5’8″ or taller, and if they’re not…well, not a problem for me personally but they will have a certain gauntlet to contend with on a daily basis. Life is unfair and often cruel.

There’s a reason why I tend to tug down on the face mask so it sits just below my nostrils while driving. Repeating: While driving inside a sealed, air-tight space. Because the warmish air being expelled from my lungs collects under the mask and mostly escapes through the upper portion. This in turn fogs up my glasses.

Two choices: (a) constantly wiping the moisture from the lenses so I can see clearly in order to drive safely or (b) tugging down on the mask. Option (b) is obviously preferable, but admonishments from “virusbros” and friends alike have been unceasing.

Just for the record, virusbros is one of two COVID-19 terms that HE has recently coined and which are now entering the lexicon. The other (announced yesterday) is freedom drivers.

What other newly coined (or new re-defined) terms have been making the rounds? Ask anyone if they know what the acronym PPE means. I guarantee nine out of ten won’t have a clue.

Last weekend the Venice Film Festival‘s artistic director Alberto Barbera said the festival will happen in the usual physical, real-world way, and that he’s “currently not weighing digital options” a la the Toronto Film Festival.

The 77th Venice International Film Festival is slated to unfold between Wednesday, 9.2.00 and Saturday, 9.12.20.

The pesky coronavirus could interfere with Barbera’s plans, of course. He’s saying right now what he feels he needs to say. He has to project a resolute front.

“The Venice Film Festival cannot be replaced by an online event,” a Venice spokesman told Variety‘s Nick Vivarelli earlier today. He added that “there is obviously the possibility that we use technology for some initiatives,” but “it’s too early for this to be decided.”