Early this afternoon I referred to Marvel’s latest (opening on Friday, 5.2) as Thunderballs. I guess I was thinking of Sean Connery‘s Thunderball plus Mel Brooks‘ Spaceballs. In all sincerity, Thunderballs is a better title — catchier, more amusing — than Thunderbolts….really.

As I understand it, many people have developed an idea about Blake Lively, famous for trying to murder the career of Justin Baldoni, being a toxic bitch whom no one wants to know, much less work with. Right? Paul Feig‘s Another Simple Favor is dodging theatrical, opening May 1st (this weekend) on Amazon Prime.

A likely 2025 Venice Film Festival entry, Benny Safdie‘s The Smashing Machine won’t open for another six and one-third months — 10.5.25.

Dwayne Johnson has been a movie star for roughly 15 years, and with that status has been able to pick and choose his projects. With the slight exception of Pain and Gain (’13), Johnson has starred in almost nothing but glossy escapist popcorn junk. Now, for an odd reason that only Johnson understands, he’s begun making movies that aspire to quality. Safdie’s flick is first out of the gate, and then comes Martin Scorsese‘s Hawaiian crime boss drama, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Emily Blunt costarring.

Johnson’s black-hair wig (James Mason in Julius Caesar) looks funny. There’s something simian about it.

Imagine you’re working on a N.Y Times report about the causes of last January’s collision between an Army helicopter and a commuter jet in the vicinity of Reagan National Airport, and you’ve concluded that five factors were to blame.

One of these factors (duhhh) is the inescapable fact that the pilot of the downed helicopter, Cpt. Rebecca Lobach, flat-out caused the collision by not only flying 100 feet too high but ignoring an urgent, last-minute plea from evaluating co-pilot Andrew Eaves for her to turn left to avoid colliding with the jet.

The other four factors (including the air traffic controller having failed to scream “LEFT, for fuck’s sake!….bank fucking left now!”) certainly contributed to the accident, but how do you decide that Lobach ignoring the altitude and not turning left at that crucial moment…how in the world do you figure that’s not the principal cause?

But as Loach was apparently gay and because her family went to some trouble to scrub her social media history in order to shelter her personal life from public scrutiny, you’ve decided it would be safer and less problematic to mention Lobach’s error last, in fifth place. This wouldn’t bury her responsibility for the tragedy but it would certainly minimize it. That way the Times could never be accused of regarding Lobach askew.

…much less say it?

It is absolutely accepted doctrine the whole world over that The Empire Strikes Back (’80…45 years old next month!) is far and away the best Star Wars film ever made…the best that ever will be made.

Partly because it plays like a fly-by-night episodic…no real “beginning” (it just drops onto the ice planet of Hoth and kickstarts itself) and certainly without a satisfying “ending”…it leaves you hanging with the young, immature, pint-sized hero in a robe, pajamas and slippers while recovering from a recent hand amputation plus the dominant macho-muscular hero encased in carbon freeze…it just slams on the brakes.

The best thing Empire has to say at the end is “well, at least the heroes aren’t dead!”

And partly because it delivers the best third-act plot twist in the history of genre cinema….

But mostly (and I’ve said this four or five times) because it’s the only escapist, teen-friendly space action fantasy that behaves like a film noir…the only Star Wars film in which the good guys are constantly losing at every turn…running for cover, barely escaping, the bad guys in hot pursuit and pretty much maintaining an upper hand start to finish.

Name another action classic in which the heroes constantly get their asses kicked, and don’t even manage a small win at the end.

[Originally posted on 12.9.21] There’s a famous bit in The Empire Strikes Back (’80) when the Millennium Falcon won’t turn over and so Han Solo twice slams a console with his fist and wham…it’s working again.

There’s a scene in The Bridge on the River Kwai (’57) when William Holden angrily kicks a non-functioning two-way radio, and suddenly it’s working again.

There’s a scene in The Hot Rock (’72) in which a police precinct captain (William Redfield) is told by a subordinate that a phone isn’t working, and he asks “well, did you jiggle it? Did you…you know, fiddle around with it?”

There’s a scene in The Longest Day (’62) where Capt. Colin Maud (Kenneth More) walks up to a stalled vehicle during the D-Day invasion and says, “My old grandmother used to say, ‘Anything mechanical, give it a good bash.'” He hits the vehicle and it starts right up.

And don’t forget that moment in Armageddon (’98) when Peter Stormare said “this is how we fix things in Russia!” and then whacked an engine with a wrench.

In 2010 my last and final Windows laptop (I had more or less become a Mac person two years earlier) stopped working in some fashion — it was acting all gummy and sluggish — and so I decided to bitch-slap it a couple of times. Instead of suddenly springing to life, the laptop more or less died. Violence, I realized with a start, was not the answer. Times and technology had changed.

I resolved at that moment to never try and William Holden or Harrison Ford or Peter Stormare or Kenneth More or William Redfield my way out of a technical problem again.

…is almost as good as that early, half-approving Waterworld opinion that popped through before critics had a chance to see it — “It doesn’t suck”

The most eloquent pan by far:

Pay no attention to the whores…

Saying the wrong thing, ignoring woke mantras = must be punished if not squished like a bug.

@robsmithonline “Sinners” Is Black Victimhood PROPAGANDA! #sinnersmovie #michaelbjordan #sinners #blacktiktok #blackmen ♬ original sound – Rob Smith

Louisville-based cartoonist Marc Murphy drew this six years ago, he says. “Rejected” for being “unfair and alarmist,” he explains. Sometimes unfair and alarmist cartoons are great.

Because The Accountant 2 made me happy, I’ve decided to throw all my reservations out the window and become an unmitigated Ben Affleck fan….again.

I’ve never listened to Affleck’s Armageddon commentary track on the Criterion Bluray. Now I want to.

“American culture is black American culture…it just gets filtered out and watered down and whitewashed until they can give credit to a white guy. Jazz, country, rock ‘n’ roll, rap…all black American creations.” — posted on TikTok by “Royal Pomegranate“, a Beverly Center nail beautician. (And don’t put her down because she works in a vanity-driven industry!)

HE to Royal Pomegranate: Black American culture has always comprised a vital if painful slice of the American pie. The heart and soul stuff mixed with the social shit end of the stick…centuries of this. But thank the Lord for all the TikTok Zoomer ayeholes who’ve done so much to set things right!

Five years ago I was challenged to explain my views about the 1619 Project. The date was 7.30.20, and here’s part of what I wrote:

“Over the last 400-plus years many factors have fed into or contributed to the vast patchwork of American culture. Factors that drove the expansion and gradual strengthening and shaping of this country, I mean, and particularly the spirit and character of it.

“And they would be immigration, the industrial revolution and the cruel exploitations and excesses of the wealthy elites, the delusion of religion, Native Americans vs. anti-Native American racism and genocide, breadbasket farming, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick C. Douglas, the vast networks of railroads, selfishness & self-interest, factories, construction, the two world wars of the 20th Century, scientific innovation, native musical forms including jazz, blues (obviously African-American art forms) and rock, American literature, theatre and Hollywood movies, sweat shops, 20th Century urban architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, major-league baseball, Babe Ruth & Lou Gehrig…

“Not to mention family-based communities and the Protestant work ethic, fashion, gardening, native cuisine and the influences of European, Mexican, Asian and African cultures, hot dogs, the shipping industry, hard work and innovation, the garment industry, John Steinbeck, George Gershwin, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, JFK, MLK, Stanley Kubrick, Chet Baker, John Coltrane, Marilyn Monroe, Amelia Earhart, Malcom X, Taylor Swift, Charlie Parker, Elizabeth Warren, Katharine Hepburn, Aretha Franklin, Jean Arthur, Eleanor Roosevelt, Carol Lombard, Shirley Chisholm, Marlon Brando, Woody Allen, barber shops and manual lawnmowers, the auto industry, prohibition & gangsters, the Great Depression and the anti-Communism and anti-Socialism that eventually sprang from that…

“Not to mention status-quo-challenging comedians like Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce and Steve Allen (“schmock schmock!”), popular music (Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and the Beatles), TV, great American universities, great historians, great journalism (including National Lampoon and Spy magazine), beat poetry, hippies, the anti-Vietnam War movement, pot and psychedelia, cocaine, quaaludes and Studio 54, 20th & 21st Century tech innovations, gay culture, comic books, stage musicals, Steve Jobs, etc.

“Don’t tell me that slavery and racism is and always has been this country’s central definer. The 1619 Project’s revisionist zealotry rubs me the wrong way in more ways than I’d care to elaborate upon.”

@royalpomegranatePolitical thoughts never leave me alone. Unless I’m doing nails so someone book with me♬ original sound – Royal Pomegranate

More Sinners lunacy…

@meggymcthicc If you don’t like Sinners you’re wrong #sinners #filmtok #movies #moviereview #ryancoogler #michaelbjordan #ytpeople #haileesteinfeld ♬ original sound – meggymcthicc

I’ll be catching Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning in Cannes on Wednesday, 5.14…16 days hence**. I’ve just watched the M:I meets IMAX short featurette, but I’m from Missouri. As with Fallout, I’m presuming that MI:8 only detours into IMAX for two or three segments…right?

I would love it if THE WHOLE THING could be shown in proper IMAX (huge boxy screen, 1.43:1), but I’m guessing it won’t be.

I’ve asked a good source how many scenes were shot in IMAX, and whether or not they’ll be projected in 1.43:1 or at least something with much more height than the aspect ratio typically provided by 1.85 or 2.39. I’ve also asked what percentage of the total film was shot in the usual digital whatever?

Cruise latest squeeze is Ana de Armas, 36. They’ve allegedly been happening since last February.

The Los Angeles and NYC all-media screenings of M:I-8 are happening two days before the Cannes screening — Monday, 5.12 at 7pm. All SOCIAL MEDIA REACTIONS are embargoed until MONDAY, MAY 12TH at 10:00 PM Pacific / TUESDAY, MAY 13TH at 1:00 AM Eastern.