I still haven’t seen Spider-Man: Brand New Day so I’m hardly in a position to approve or disapprove of Matt Walsh’s 26-minute review, but I love what he says regardless. It made me feel so happy, so soothed. Walsh hates the Spider-Man fanboys like I do.
Joe Apparently On Last Legs
As much as I despise former president Joe Biden for deciding to run for re-election in ’22 and thereby ushering in a second Donald Trump term, I’m genuinely sorry that his cancer affliction is getting worse.
“The cancer has spread, metastasized into his bones and further,” Hunter Biden recently told BBC’s Newsnight. “It’s very painful and it’s very debilitating in many respects.”
15 or 16 months ago Biden revealed that he had been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer, adding that it had spread to his bones. If I were going through this I would quickly become a heroin addict. Very tough deal….condolences.
Reagan-Era Hearing Aid
I’ve never seriously looked at buying a good hearing aid because (a) I can hear well enough (I only have trouble when I’m talking to chronic mumblers, especially during loud parties), (b) I resent having to pay out of pocket — why can’t my insurance (Medicare + United Health) cover the purchase?, (c) the ones I’ve tried make everything sound metallic and unnatural, (d) I’m lazy, and (e) I hate the appearance of the flesh-colored kind — I want only tiny black ones that wrap around your ear but without the tinny distortion — I want their amplification to sound really great.
It hit me the other day that mini-cassette recorders of the ’80s delivered great sound via headphones. You’d put the headphones on, plug them into the player and hit record — everything would sound much more pronounced and super-specific, way above the level of your natural hearing. So why don’t they sell devices today than can do the same (i.e., absorb and transform natural sound into something that’s much more treble-y and bassy)?
Magical Surrealism in Norway
In Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord (Neon, 10.9), the ending offers a glimpse of magical realism. I’m not going to spoil it but the film, which is about a politically persecuted religious family of five headed by Sebastian Stan‘s Mihai Gheorghiu (dad) and Renate Reinsve‘s Lisbet (wife/mom), ends with a shot of a young Norwegian girl (Henrikke Lund-Olsen) doing something extraordinary.
I noticed this during my viewing of Mungiu’s film in Cannes last May. I described it in my review later that day. But not a single fellow Cannes viewer has even mentioned it. No explanations or reactions or anything — either you spot it or you don’t.
It vaguely reminded me of a striking levitation scene in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema (’68). A pious housemaid named Emilia (Laura Betti) leaves the wealthy bourgeois household where she has worked, and, having been touched by Terrence Stamp‘s transformational saint, achieves some kind of mystical transcendence upon returning to her hometown. She is seen floating above a home, prompting locals to revere her as a saint.
I also thought of the famous final scene in Lars von Trier‘s Breaking the Waves in which large visible church bells ring out from the sky above the sea following the death of Bess (Emily Watson). This magical occurence serves as a kind of spiritual benediction for poor, self-sacrificing Bess, who has recently died.
Here’s Hoping
Earlier today Jordan Ruimy posted about a special Venice Film Festival screening of a “yet to be announced” film that will apparently screen on Thursday, 9.10. A source has told Ruimy that the title was held back from the original Venice slate announcement due to “security reasons”.
Word around the campfire is that the film might be Michel Franco‘s Circles, reportedly a 90-minute, Hebrew-language, black-and-white drama about the early stirrings of the state of Israel (i.e., early to mid ’50s) and particularly the exploits of IDF commando Meir Har Zion and his sister Shoshana.
Meir Har-Zion went on to become “a legendary and controversial figure…in the eyes of many, the greatest IDF fighter but to others, a man whose problematic moral outlook raised troubling questions.”
Paul Newman‘s Ari Ben-Canaan, the leading Israeli character in Otto Preminger‘s Exodus (’60), is generally believed to have been based on Har-Zion.
Circles, reportedly shot within a 1.66:1 aspect ratio, is Franco’s tenth feature film.
Moshe Dayan once described Har Zion as “the finest of our commando soldiers, the best soldier ever to emerge in the IDF…the elite of the elite.” His three-year military career (1954–56) was cut short by battle injuries, but he re-upped during the 1967 and 1973 wars.
AI sez: “In December 1954, Shoshana and a companion named Oded Wegmeister hiked into the Judean Desert (then Jordanian territory) and were ambushed and murdered by Bedouin members of the Arab al-Rashayda tribe. Distraught by her death, Meir Har-Zion and a small group of Unit 101 comrades crossed into Jordan in March 1955 to carry out an unsanctioned reprisal killing.”
Did Don Draper Ever Drop Acid?
Roger Sterling did, of course, but he never seemed to derive any benefit, the poor schlub. Certainly not in a mystical Captain Trips sense.
Will NYFF Snoots Attempt To Save Face Over “Fjord” Snub?
HE isn’t foreseeing any NYFF Spotlight insertion of Cristian Mungiu‘s Fjord. But I could be wrong. Yes, the controversial Palme d’Or winner could be announced as a Spotlight feature. The NYFF typically announces Spotlight selections throughout August, and always before Labor Day.
Fjord’s absence among the NYFF’s main program nonetheless marks the first time since 2015 that the NYFF hasn’t selected the previous May’s Palme d’Or winner for the main program.
On top of which Mingiu’s films have routinely been selected by the NYFF since his explosive debut effort, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, surfaced in 2007. Fjord is his first shut-out.
It seems fairly obvious that it was snubbed over perjorative woke politics — i.e., because of the alleged “MAGA film” factor.
Even if Fjord emerges as a Spotlight selection, it’s still a huge snub for (again) a Palme d’Or winner from a major Romanian auteur whose films have been making the cut for nearly 20 years now.
The NYFF Main Slate selection committee is chaired by NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim, and includes Florence Almozini, Justin Chang and Rachel Rosen.
Metaphor
“Men tend to define themselves according to their proximity to power; women according to their independence from it.” N.Y. Times columnist Bret Stephens, “Does Anybiody Want To Win This Thing?“, 8.6.26.
@evaelenavandoorn Girl therapy. 🩷🩷🩷 #girl #gopro #boatday ♬ oryginalny dźwięk – chlopakizlasu – chlopakizlasu
No Country For Old Pickpockets
“In The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, director-writer Noah Segan yearns for a bygone Big Apple. The film, set in modern times, is a jazzy, sentimental ode to the New York City of yesteryear; it’s sappy and starry-eyed, but also tenderly humorous in bursts. At other times, the story becomes a sad glimpse into the lost art of pickpocketing — not that the production advocates for thievery, but Segan uses a slick aging swindler to reminisce about an American hub that’s been digitized by tech magnates and overrun with nepotism babies.
“John Turturro is magnificent as Harry, an old-school pickpocket who’s keeping the outdated art form alive. He has to; it’s the only way he can caretake for his non-responsive, invalid wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave). One night, he swipes a wallet and gym bag from an especially prickish dudebro using only a penny; what he finds is a gun, wads of cash, and a doohickey that plugs into a computer. Harry trashes the gun and sells the credit-card-looking object with a USB plug, which turns out to be very, very important. Soon enough, thugs come looking for the revealed crypto key. Either Harry retrieves the stolen item, or he’s facing harsh consequences.
“Plain and simple, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York features veteran performers chewing up concrete scenery and strutting through a thrilling and wholesome caper. It’s a “one last hurrah” type of flick with a niche appeal that lets the ensemble shine. The faux confidence, the spoiled gangsters, the tired seniors who pray that newbies can learn an ounce of respect along the way — it’s all so memorably old-fashioned. Even with all that, Harry’s arc still latches onto your soul in a pure and special way. That’s the power of Turturro, but kudos also go to Segan’s rich idiosyncrasies that draw us into Harry’s gravitational pull.” — IGN Movies’ Matt Donato at Sundance ’26..
Sony Pictures Classics is opening TOLPINY in Los Angeles and NYC on 10.16.26, followed by a nationwide expansion soon after.
What I’d Learned As Of 2015
Posted in the summer of 2015…things that I was dead certain of then, and am still pretty much down with now….
1. People never tell the truth about themselves at parties.
2. Friends will not save you. Girlfriends and wives will not save you. Your mother and/or your father will not save you. You have to save you. I’ve known an awful lot of guys (myself included) who’ve spent their 20s looking for some form of salvation from some combination of the above.
3. But life without a few supportive friends (i.e., those who’ve decided to embrace and accept you, asshole-ish tendencies and all, and have never changed their minds) and quality-level girlfriends or wives isn’t much of a life. Dogs and cats also tend to round things out.
4. Women always let you know within seconds if you’re “in” — i.e., if they like you enough to do the hunka-chunka. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. At all. There are 117 different things you can do or say that will change their mind, and if you can think of 75 of these things in advance you’re a genius. But women always flash that initial green light within seconds of meeting you. Not minutes. Seconds.
5. When all the right things are aligned (talent, tune, purpose, spirit), there are few things in life more transporting than electric guitars, bass and drums. Forget the vocals.
6. People have an unmistakable gleam in their eye when they’re 18 or 19 and about to start college. A gleam that says, “Holy shit, I can’t wait…all this stuff to savor, all these things to learn, all these places to see.” By the time most people have hit 43, that gleam has been diminished if not snuffed out. That’s what I saw at my 25th high-school reunion. No more adventures, thank you. I’ve got my deal more or less worked out and I love my wife and my kids and my weekend routine, and we go to Mexico or the Caribbean once a year. But about 5% of the people at that reunion still had that gleam.
7. People spend way too much time sitting around with friends and blah-blahing about next to nothing in bars and restaurants. It feels good to do this — I get that — but the less time you spend shooting spurious shit with fair-weather friends, the better.
8. Life is nothing without travel to exotic places that other Americans don’t go to because the hotels aren’t swanky enough.
9. It’s a good thing to own a baseball mitt, and every so often to have a catch with someone on a big green lawn. Preferably when the late-afternoon light is just starting to mellow down. And it’s okay to groan like John McEnroe when you throw the ball.
10. Never, ever wear gray cross-training shoes, and think about disassociating yourself from people who own a pair. Especially guys who have milky hairless legs.
11. The more free food and drink you consume, the better you’re doing in life. Free movies, free trips, goodie bags, etc. Paying for things always feels bad.
12. You’ve got to start giving your kids a little more space when they hit 13 or 14. That’s when it’s time for them to start living the chaotic life of a teenager, and sooner or later that means taking flight and leaving the nest and telling their parents that they’ll be okay on their own, and that they want to experience stuff on their own and sometimes trip and stumble on their own. Because a kid needs to find his/her footing. At a certain point you’re doing them no favors by holding their hand and wrapping them in their comfort blankie.
13. If you want to know about aridity and pointlessness and dark fates, just sit in an outdoor cafe on Beverly Drive and watch all the nouveau-riche Middle-Eastern mamas with way too much eye makeup and sparkly glitter sewn into their jeans walk by with their three-year-old daughters, who are already wearing their own Beverly Hills bling. It just gives you the worst feeling to see this.
Jolting Venice Melodrama?
I’m getting an idea that Lance Oppenheim‘s Primetime (A24, 9.25), a presumably fact-based drama about Chris Hansen and his “To Catch A Predator” series, which was a fairly popular thing between 2004 and 2008…I’m getting an idea that Hansen will not be portrayed all that admiringly or sympathetically.
Pic will debut at the Venice Film Festival sometime in early September.
Robert Pattinson plays Hansen, and you can tell from the broadness of his performance in the trailer that Primetime might be a bit of a hit job. Pattinson also co-produced the film along with Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Fred Berger, William Iannaccone, Brighton McCloskey, Lars Knudsen and Ari Aster.
The film will presumably dramatize how To Catch A Predator blew up in 2008 when a latent or would-be predator, a Texas district attorney named Bill Conradt, committed suicide after a police raid on his home. Hansen had triggered the raid, which was about indications that Conradt had been speaking with whom he assumed was a 13 year-old by, but was in fact an actor pretending to be the boy as part of a sting operation.
Pic costars Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, Bokeem Woodbine, Anna Faris (as Mary Joan Hansen, Chris’ wife), Jonathan Lipnicki, Sean Bridgers and Tony Revolori.
Fundamentally Wacko
I was a bit surprised to read yesterday that One Night Only costar Monica Barbaro, who’s only just broken through over the last two years (her A Complete Unknown performance as Joan Baez was the springboard), is a bit more seasoned than I’d thought.
I’d been assuming that Barbaro, who looks quite foxy and buoyant in her current abysmal film, was in her late 20s or possibly as old as 30 or 31. In fact she’s 36. Which was Anne Bancroft age when she played Mrs. Robinson. 36 is an uh-oh milestone. It means that the bounce and glow of Babaro’s seeming youth will begin to fade within three or four years.
Barbaro is an adult survivor and a seasoned pro, and she can easily shift into more Anne Bancroft-type roles down the road, but it seems unfair on some level that the industry didn’t invite her into the hallowed circle sooner.
weATT
The basic once-a-year premise means, of course, that very few marrieds are having great sex because (ask any husband) sex with the wife tends to flatten out. In 2005 Billy Bob Thornton, recalling his brief marriage to Anjelina Jolie, said that sex with a model, an actress or the sexiest person in the world “can literally be like effing the couch.” Was it Clint Eastwood who said “show me a beautiful woman and I’ll show you a man who’s tired of doing her”? Who knows but it sure sounds like Clint.
How does the government keep tabs on everyone? All 18-and-overs have been given a suoer-sensor tattoo that tracks all sexual encounters, and transmits the violator’s location to the fuzz if the wrong kind of activity is going on. Masturbation is okay, however, and it’s implied that gay guys are excluded from the oppressive rules. We’re told that anti-mandate sentiment is coursing through the populace, but most seem to accept the situation. George Orwell‘s “Nineteen-eighty-four” and George Lucas‘s THX-1138, this is not.
