Costner Doesn’t Eff Around

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My first thought about Thomas Bezucha‘s Let Him Go (Focus Features, 11.6), which is a kind of period western, set 50 or 60 years ago, about family, horses, children, continuity, guns, axes and fingers…my first reaction was “wow, this is really well directed…so nicely composed, exacting, unafraid of silences, confidently paced, grounded.”

So right away I relaxed and settled in. This’ll be good, I told myself. Quite obviously. So well acted all around, so commanding, so nicely honed. And Guy Godfree‘s cinematography and Michael Giacchino‘s score are perfect. I was purring. I love films like this! I felt so good about it that I put some popcorn into the microwave. You know what I mean. If a film is really bringing it, popcorn completes the mood.

And then something happened around the 80-minute mark, and I went “what the hell?”

That’s all I’m going to say. I’m not going to elaborate except to say that the film, which is about a pair of grandparents (Kevin Costner, Diane Lane) who’ve lost their adult son in a fatal horse-riding accident, and months later are looking to see about the welfare of their three-year-old grandson after their son’s widow (Kayli Carter) has married a primitive bumblefuck who lives with a family of ornery polecat varmints a la Animal Kingdom and is headed by a cigarette-smoking Ma Barker sociopath (Lesley Manville)…I’ll only say that things turn rather violent around the 80-minute mark and hoo boy.

After it ended an excerpt from Barry Hertz‘s Globe and Mail review kinda pissed me off. It called Let Him Go a “skillfully executed thriller that is narrowly aimed at one demographic — audiences over 50 who like a little violence with their late-life dramas — but succeeds at entertaining just about anyone who comes across its dusty, blood-soaked path.”

So if a movie is smoothly assembled and takes its time building characters and moves at its own steady pace, it’s strictly an over-50 thing? Because…what, 45-and-under audiences require something noisier and punchier and faster-paced or they won’t sit still? My God, what’s happened to western civilization by way of movie culture? Because the cinematic value system that Hertz has described is, like, really fucked up.

Hats off to Bezucha, who directed, produced and wrote the screenplay adaptation of Larry Watson‘s same-titled 2013 novel. Bezucha knows what he’s doing. Let Him Go feels like it might have been directed by David Fincher or Fred Zinneman or William Wyler.

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Vitti Celebration

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Monica Vitti, currently living in Rome, was born exactly 89 years ago today. I recognize that “Monica who?” was immediately whispered worldwide after this post appeared. She “lives” today because of her five-year collaboration with Michelangelo Antonioni. I only became a fan after restored versions of L’Avventura, La Notte, L’Eclisse and Red Desert began appearing on DVD and then Bluray. We all come to things in our own way, and in our own time.

Incidentally: Should this African dance scene from L’Eclisse prompt present-day concern and perhaps even an official shunning? Should L’Eclisse be removed from public access a la Song of the South? Should Antonioni be posthumously cancelled? Should Vitti be disciplined? Wokesters are feverishly debating this as we speak.

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Just Wondering

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The allegedly weakened ability of the USPS to handle all the pandemic mail-in ballots has been a concern for several months. All sorts of inquiries and legal challenges. Why did it take until today for a federal judge to order U.S. Postal Service inspectors to sweep postal facilities in six battleground states? The order couldn’t have come a week or two ago?

AP MCCLATCHY, 10:57 am Pacific: “The last-minute order on Tuesday by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington, D.C., directs the law enforcement arm of the Postal Service to inspect facilities in central Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Houston, south Florida, Arizona and a few other locations between 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Eastern time.

“The order is part of one of several lawsuits against the Postal Service over [Louis DeJoy‘s] cost-cutting measures that slowed mail delivery this year and raised concerns that mail-in ballots would not be delivered on time. Recent data has shown that on-time mail delivery in some parts of the country has dropped to levels lower than in July, when millions of Americans went days, even weeks, without mail.

“The order focuses on postal districts that have struggled to deliver ballots on time in recent days. It also centers on states that will not count ballots received after election day.”

Judgment Day

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November 3 is election day. Mail-in balloting has been widespread because of the pandemic, but the time to vote for the President of the United States is nigh.

Almost without exception, opinion polls show that Joe Biden is well ahead of his rival. But I think Donald Trump will win, and not because I like him. There is absolutely another reason for my personal forecast. We will soon see. If Biden wins, he’ll become the 46th U.S. president.

You can tell that Los Angeles business owners are expecting a worst-case scenario just by walking the streets. Fifteen minutes, I assure you, is quite enough.

I live in West Hollywood, less than a mile from Beverly Hills, and I can feel the restlessness. Still fresh in my mind are the looting and destruction of shops on Melrose Avenue late last May and June, after the George Floyd murder.

Click here for remainder of essay at tatiana-pravda.com.

Two Blows To Kill Tarantula…

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And the other three for good measure. Exclamation, affirmation and primal triumph. Those final three bludgeonings, each accentuated by Monty Norman‘s score, are therefore wonderful. To the best of my recollection James Bond never again killed a poisonous (or otherwise lethal) predator. Or have I forgotten?

True story: During a Tailor of Panama round-table interview with Pierce Brosnan, I suggested a 007 concept that I’d recently read online — Bond vs. aliens. Without missing a beat, the half-amused Brosnan looked at me like I’d had one too many and said “aliens?”

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Rosanna Arquette Condemns You

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Partial transcript of 11.2 Sam Harris “Making Sense” podcast, about why so many people support the beast:

“How is it possible that [roughly 40%] of America admires or at least supports Donald Trump? He’s been described as a master persuader, but I’ve found Trump to be among the least persuasive people I’ve ever come across. I see on obvious con man, an ignoramus…his efforts to appear credible often make him look ridiculous and even deranged. And yet [nearly half] the country views him very differently. And [I’ve begun to] understand how he is supported because of his flaws, rather than in spite of them.

“He’s a paragon of greed and narcissism and pettiness and malice. Real malice. A man who wears his hatred on his sleeve. And for a man who demands loyalty from those around him, he is an amazingly disloyal person. All of this is right on the surface. And so his appeal has been a total mystery to me. But I believe I have now solved that mystery.

“The essence of Trump’s appeal is best understood in comparison with the messaging of his opponent on the left.

“One thing that Trump never communicates is a sense of his moral superiority. The man is totally without sanctimony. He never communicates that he is better than you. Because he’s not, and everyone knows it. The man is just a bundle of sin and gore, and never pretends or even aspires to be anything more. And because of this, because he’s never really judging you, he offers a truly safe base for human frailty. And hypocrisy. And self doubt.

“Trump offers what no priest can offer. A total expiation of shame. His personal shamelessness is a kind of spiritual balm. Trump is Fat Jesus. “Grab ’em by the pussy” Jesus. An “I’ll eat nothing but cheeseburgers if I want to” Jesus. “I wanna punch them in the face” Jesus. “Go back to your shithole countries” Jesus. A no-apologies Jesus.

“What are we getting from the [wokester] left? Exactly the opposite message. Pure sanctimony. Pure judgment. You are not good enough. You’re guilty not only for your own sins, but for the sins of your fathers. The crimes of slavery and colonialism are on your head. And if you’re a cis white heterosexual male, which we know is the absolute core of Trump’s support, you’re a racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic sexist barbarian. Tear down those statues and bend the fucking knee.”

In other words, Harris is saying, the wokesters are almost as much of a cancer and a pestilence as Trump.

Indecisive

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If you’re going to mount plywood over your display windows for fear of an election riot, do it with style and flair.

Marlon Brando and friends sometime around ’71. Same appearance and hair length as he displayed in The Nightcomers and Last Tango in Paris. The woman is Jill Banner (The President’s Analyst), whom Brando met during the filming of Christian Marquand‘s godawful Candy (’68). Banner died in a Ventura Freeway auto accident in August ’82.

A pair of clear plastic masks arrived today. Much better than common masks. You can breathe more easily, for one thing.

Larry Karaszewski’s “A Handful of Worms” was a decent album for a first-time effort. Alas as we all know, Larru abandoned music and, to our general benefit, turned to screenwriting.

Most appallingly dressed generation in American history, and perhaps in the history of the world.

Father and Son

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“He was my father…not in life but in Indy 3. You don’t know pleasure until someone pays you to take Sean Connery for a ride in the side car of a Russian motorcycle bouncing along a bumpy, twisty mountain trail and getting to watch him squirm. God, we had fun. If he’s in heaven, I hope they have golf courses. Rest in peace, dear friend.” — Harrison Ford to Variety‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister.

I love “if he’s in heaven”…very few tributes step out of the usual realm.

In hindsight, Ford would probably agree that the motorcycle chase sequence is lively but somewhat routine, but the revolving fireplace barrier bit is a classic. Like almost everything in this 1989 film, it was perfectly choreographed and filmed, and cut just so. Tip of the hat to dp Douglas Slocombe and editor Michael Kahn.

My So-Called Life

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Bob Newhart’s “Retirement Party” routine is about a 65 year-old guy who’s hated his job for decades, was able to stand it only by medicating himself with martini lunches, feels nothing but disgust and bitterness about what he’s made of his life, despises his co-workers and is more or less living in a pit of despair. A reflection, in short, of American middle-class life in the late ’50s under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The American Dream.

“What Country Do We Live In?”

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Friendo: How are you feeling about tomorrow?
HE: The Biden victory starts tomorrow night, concludes Thursday or Friday. Anyone who thinks that Tuesday’s returns will be an either-or, could-go-either-way, “who knows?” thing is living in a nether realm.
Friendo: It’ll come down to four states: Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
HE: Not North Carolina? Not Arizona?
Friendo: I think Trump has NC and maybe AZ, but this is based purely on advanced voting. My prediction is Trump has a slight lead over Biden before we find out the results of WI, PA, MI and MB and MN. This is going to the courts, bruh.
HE: A slight electoral lead over Biden until those four states come in?
Friendo: Three of those four states have installed rules to continue counting ballots until Friday
HE: Right.
Friendo: It’ll be too tight to declare a winner tomorrow, in my opinion. Trump won three of those four states in 2016 so Biden needs to flip them but he is leading in polling in each.
HE: A cliffhanger situation until Thursday or Friday? Naaahh. Tuesday tallies won’t be conclusive, but they’ll be pretty encouraging. If, God forbid, it somehow goes the wrong way regardless, everyone will be blaming wokesters and cancel culture.

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Deep Blue Sea

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Everyone who attended Kendall Jenner‘s birthday party last Saturday night (Halloween) had to first be insta-tested and given a clean bill of health before going upstairs. It isn’t cool to throw a big party these days, of course, but if you’re gonna say “fuck it, I don’t care, life is short, let’s do it anyway”, Kendall chose the right methodology.

The party happened at Harriet’s Rooftop atop WeHo’s 1 Hotel.

Roughly 100 coolios attended, including Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, Jaden Smith, Hailey Baldwin, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, Scott Disick, Kylie Jenner, Travis Scott, Paris Hilton, Justine Skye, Quavo, Winnie Harlow, Swaeetie and Doja Cat. I trust they had a good time and that the testing was efficient and everyone’s fine, etc . We’re all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that includes the above. No one’s better than anyone else.

But I have a question. Imagine for the sake of imagining that Kendall’s guests were on a Los Angeles-to-Seoul flight aboard a privately-charted jumbo jet, and an hour or two past Hawaii the jet was shot down by terrorists and sank into the Pacific. Apart from the loss of life suffered by the crew, how exactly would the world be a lesser place as a result of this tragedy?

Imagine that a gathering of old-time Hollywood hotshots were all on a Pan American Clipper flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu in early 1939…Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Joel McCrea, Olivia De Havilland, Joan Fontaine, Don Ameche, Jean Arthur, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Victor Fleming, Alfred Hitchcock, Viven Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Ann Sheridan, Ray Milland, Rosalind Russell. And an hour or two west of Los Angeles the plane was shot down by Axis agents and sank into the Pacific. Would the world have been a lesser place?

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Don’t Sweat It

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“Oh, yeah, he’s definitely going to leave. The secret about people like [Trump} is, a lot of bluster and a lot of overcompensation, but most boys are actually cowards. And I can tell you the President does not like personal confrontation. He’ll tweet at you, but then if he sees in you in person, like was with Chris Wallace last summer, he tries to act lovey-dovey.

“It’s very typical, that middle-school bullying behavior…he’ll leave. The Secret Service and the Marines have already talked about the idea of him not leaving and who’s going to escort him out of the White House. There’s no chance that’s gonna happen. The defeat, the electoral defeat…he’ll be the third U.S. President in the last 120 years to only serve one term. That’ll be humiliating enough. I don’t think he wants to be physically escorted out of the White House by the U.S. Secret Service.

“His personality is bluster and saying things, but he really isn’t a doer that way. I think he will blow out. He’s a showman, but he actually hates the fucking job. Barack Obama has him read perfectly. [“He’s a bullshitter.”] He doesn’t like the arduous nature of the job. He doesn’t like the pain in the ass [stuff].” — former White House Communications Director, all-around New York financial hotshot and gregarious media gadfly Anthony Scaramucci, speaking with The Sun‘s Henry Holloway.