Last night at the Writers Guild Theatre, I saw this film about the famous meeting between President Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley, who wanted to be made an undercover Special Federal Agent at Large (really) in order to help fight drugs and those trying to tear down America. It’s lots of fun. And handled very respectfully, when it could have just been an over-the-top shredding. It's very funny, though not the flat-out comedy satire you get the sense of from the marketing. The film largely is told through the perspective of Elvis, played quite well by Michael Shannon, in a generally low-key performance, keeping the inherent flamboyance to a minimum. Nixon is really more of the supporting part here, But good as Shannon is, it's near impossible not to be riveted by Kevin Spacey who was (not surprisingly) tremendous. He's probably the best “Nixon” I’ve seen. Human, but not to the degree of making him “likable.” Very awkward in a believable way. He’s got the voice and body movements down pat. It's not a caricature, but a rich performance. Rather than show the trailer (which tries to emphasis how ludicrous it all is), I think the featurette gives a much better sense of the film and has some very good commentary, including by the real Jerry Schilling, the longtime friend of Elvis who accompanies him on the trip (and later went on to briefly manage a young Billy Joel and the Beach Boys).
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It's been a quiet week. Pastor Liz checks in on the town's Norwegian bachelor farmers, the Lutheran Church council approves a new budget, the high school begins their production of 'Fiddler on the Roof,' and Lena Bunsen plans to remarry at the age of 75.
I've mentioned here on occasion in the past that, back during my wayward days as a film publicist, I worked in 1988 on the movie Pet Sematary, which based on Stephen King's novel. We filmed in Maine, based in the town of Ellsworth, and did most of our filming on Hancock Point, where the central Creed House existed. On my days off, I drove around the state, which I quite liked, and wrote the story here of heading over to Campobello Island, which is now an International Park where Franklin Roosevelt lived, and was the basis of the classic play and movie, Sunrise at Campobello. My time on the film also gave rise to one of my favorite stories. I told it once here in a different context, but it bears repeating. My brother John just hated anything popular. Avoided it whenever he could. And it's that basic reality which is who lead to the story. Actually, to be more accurate, it lead to probably my favorite story. Of any story I’ve ever told. His wife loved reading books by Stephen King. She’d ask John to read them, but no way in the world would he read a novel by Stephen King. Even if he had the time in the middle of his medical practice, Stephen King wasn’t just a popular novelist – he was probably THE most popular current novelist in the world. Stephen King would not be read. But she didn’t let up. And finally, John – the good husband – gave in. Okay, one Stephen King book. He readFirestarter. And he loved it so much that he finished the book in two days. Probably hating every moment that he liked it so much. Well, as fate would have it, not long after that, in the days when I was doing publicity on movies, I was hired to work on the film, Pet Sematary, based on the novel by…Stephen King. The movie was filmed in the state of Maine, very close to where Stephen King lived. So, needless-to-say, he would visit the movie set. We would talk on occasion, about baseball, the movie, writing. And then, one day, I said I had a funny story for him, that I thought he would appreciate. I told him about my brother. I said he hated anything popular. I explained how my sister-in-law couldn’t get my brother to read his books, specifically because they were popular. I went into great detail about who John was, and why the last thing on earth he wanted to do was read a popular Stephen King novel. And then I explained that John finally broke down, read Firestarter, and finished it in two days. Because he absolutely loved it. Now, you must understand, this is the Best Possible Reaction that any writer can ever have. It’s one thing to be praised by fans – but it’s something else entirely to have someone who is so deeply predisposed to hate your books that he’s fought off reading them for years finally read one and love it so much that it’s devoured. Stephen thought for a moment after being told all this, trying to figure what to say. It was clear he felt wonderful by John’s reaction – which is pretty impressive, considering all the acclaim that Stephen King has had in his renowned career. And then he leaned over, looked at me and said – “Tell your brother, I apologize. I don’t set out to write popular books. It’s just that people buy them.” Not long after, I was back home visiting. And I told John this story. His face lit up. One of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen him make. “Stephen King said that about me???!” he asked. Yes – Stephen King said that about you. He laughed out loud, and said, with much pleasure, and an acknowledgement of his own inexplicable reaction to popularity – “You know, he’s probably right.” And he kept smiling. So, that's what I mostly think about when it comes to the filming of Pet Sematary, though I think about more, since it was such a good time. That, Campobello Island, driving down to Old Orchard Beach to watch minor league baseball, visiting Kennebunkport before I knew that Bushes lived there, engorging on the state's prized wild blueberry's, hiking through Acadia National Park and Baxter State Park (which I knew about through L.L. Bean's Baxter State Parka Parka), spending so much time in the distant and magical town of Freeport virtually made up of factory outlet stores, almost camping out in L.L. Bean's mothership main headquarters, the Disneyland of camping stores that's open 24 hours, 365 days a year, and much more. A few years ago -- I don't remember how long, maybe five? -- I got an email from a young man John Campopiano who had an odd request. In his spare time, he and his producing partner Justin White wanted to pursue a labor of love about their favorite movie. As born-and-bred Mainers, they wanted to do a documentary in their spare time about the making of Pet Sematary. He knew from the credits that I'd been the unit publicist and wondered if there was any advise or help I could offer. It struck me as an unlikely project. To start with, they weren't filmmakers. Then there was the challenge that the movie had been made 20 years ago. And while it did okay at the box-office it wasn't a particularly big hit. Though the sci-fi market and fandom is intensely loyal. But John struck me as a very nice young man, so I offered whatever small assistance I could. He wrote back from time to time, with other questions, and with bits of material that they'd assembled. I periodically told him some stories, passed along copies of a few photos I'd taken, gave some suggestions on who to track down people connected with the film and how best to approach them, offered some access to filmmaker friends for advice, and things like that. During this period of several years, he and Justin kept diligently pursuing their pipe dream, yet little-by-little kept making tiny steps of progress. Well, to cut out all the interim steps, we'll get to the end. They actually completed the movie, found a distributor and it's now been released. So, huge hats off to them, for relentlessly following up on what they so passionately wanted to do. And accomplishing it. It's an impressive achievement, against significant odds and hurdles. For any other fans of Pet Semary, if you're interested in seeing their documentary, you get get it here, for $39.99. I have a friend who keeps telling me the path for John Kasich to get the GOP nomination for president. I usually listen for a while and then finally interrupt and say, "John Kasich is not getting the GOP nomination. You do understand that, don't you? The Republican Party is not going to hand over the nomination to a guy who's only won one primary and only has about 15% support. You know that, right?" He usually reluctantly says, "Uh...okay, yes. But I'm just saying it's his one path." This reminds me of the great Peter Cook sketch where he plays E.L. Wisty, a crusty, whimsical coot who sits on a park bench and waxes philosophically about all manner of subjects. My favorite is when he says that "It's a remarkable thought to realize that if 8,437,351 people died tomorrow...I would be King of England." So, John Kasich is not going to be the GOP nominee for president, whatever the one path is. But he's still out there campaigning and raising money. Which brought this to mind. The other day, when on his campaign trail in New York, I saw footage of John Kasich in the middle of the devout Jewish district in Brooklyn, talking with a group of ultra-Orthodox Hassidic Jews, and explaining to them how fascinating the importance of Passover was. "The great link between the blood that was put above the lamp posts,” he said. "The blood of the lamb, because Jesus Christ is known as the lamb of God. It's His blood, we believe." Forgetting for a moment that, no, the blood was not put on "lamp posts," but the home doors, something it's probably good to be accurate about when lecturing Hassdic Jews in their own neighborhood, and while we're at it, forget too for the sake of argument that Passover occurred 1,300 years before the birth of Christ, so there's a pretty good chance it's not "His" blood, but more to the point was that it's probably even a far worse idea to start comparing Passover to Jesus Christ when talking to Hassidic Jews -- or any Jew -- at any time, but most especially right before a major religious holiday. The thing is, I thought that was the end of the mind-numbing story of John Kassic Meets the Jews. But no, it turns out that there's a lot more footage of his Big Day. And on his radio show, The Majority Report, host Sam Seder does a hilarious 13-minute takedown of it, interspersing his commentary with footage of Kasich trying to teach Talmudic scholars (I don't mean that metaphorically, but literal Talmudic scholars) about the lessons of the Bible -- and then stopping the video to put what you just heard in proper perspective, before continuing on to the next moment at Kasich Bible College. Seder's utter disbelief at the arrogant stupidity of this is a joy to behold. As he puts it, these are men Kasich is lecturing about the Bible who do nothing but study the commentary of the commentary of the commentary of the commentary of the Talmud for 8-10 hours a day, every single day...for their entire lives. And no, Jews don't refer to it as the "Old Bible" (as Kasich here does), but rather...the Bible. Anyway, given that tonight is the seder, for the first night of Passover, I thought it was as good a time as any to have a bit of Seder. He doesn't gets into the footage until about four minutes it, but it's all a joy.
The other day, I was trading emails with my pal Chris Dunn about the ESPN broadcast of a baseball game. I had mentioned that I was a little surprised that he was back doing commentary during games, after being dropped from their Sunday Night Baseball coverage following a string of ghoulish beyond-the-pale Tweets on a variety of subjects, and I noted the mixed feelings about it. I wrote that Curt Schilling is such an absolutely terrific analyst that it’s a shame he has so many social and political views that are beyond odious and reach to the heights of reprehensible. I think it's deserved that he was taken off Sunday Night Baseball, but I guess ESPN has "rehabilitated” him with periodic seasonal games.
(For those who've forgotten the details of the story, I wrote about it here., which included screen grabs from many of his Tweets. The short summary is that the problem wasn't that he couldn't have opinions or even express them, but if you're in a public position as the face of your company, then anything you choose to say that puts the company in a negative light not of its own making risks consequences.) And then only a couple days later after mentioning this to Chris, it turned out that Mr. Schilling hadn't learned much from his suspension -- and that his apology about understanding responsibility better from now on didn't hold -- because he was back in the news with the same thing. And I wrote back to Chris that thanks to Mr. Schilling being himself, I may not have my dilemma to worry about, It turns out that Mr. Schilling went on an over-the-top Tweet Rant about the transgender community which included material from himself and a re-tweet from another person. And it was so crass that the Huffington Post article wouldn’t quote it, but provided a link to it elsewhere. ESPN issued a statement that it was “taking this matter very seriously and we are in the process of reviewing it.” To be clear, the issue with Curt Schilling isn’t him voicing his opinions, it’s how cruelly and intolerantly he voices them -- and not understanding the public position he's in as the face and voice of a TV network which is what pushes his employer to act. At the time I initially wrote my email, I hadn't yet read the latest rant, though I came across it later. If you have interest in seeing it, you can read the initial story about it all here, which includes a link to the original screed.) And then yesterday, there was a terrific commentary in Salon about all this and about Curt Schilling's response. The title says it all -- "Call it Curt Schilling Syndrome: Overly sensitive man mortally offended by criticism of his own offensive comments." You can read the article here, and I recommend it. The author Mary Elizabeth Williams begins with "You know what never gets old? Middle-aged white guys telling the rest of us how we shouldn’t be offended by their offensiveness. Curt Schilling, show us how it’s done." And she ends the piece all the more pointedly -- " I don’t know about you, but I just love it when Curt Schilling gives a lecture on what our social progress priorities should be." By the way, if Curt Schilling doesn't think there's anything wrong with what he writes about in his Tweets and Facebook postings, and thinks it's the fault of others for being offended (as he says), then why does he keep deleting so many of these rants? It would seem that if he believes that they're all fine and just a problem for others, then he should be perfectly happy leaving his words up for all to see. Yet...for some odd reason he doesn't do that. Click, oops, they're gone. And who knows, at one point, so too will be Curt Schilling. And in one way, it would be a shame, since he really is such a terrific baseball analyst. One of the best I've heard. And in other areas of his life, I've read some very nice stories about him. It's just that in one large, very public part of his life, there is this gallingly nasty streak that is tone-deaf, as well as clueless to his responsibility to his employer. And nothing evidences that more than the time not long after the initial controversy broke about his rants on Facebook, but before he was taken off Sunday Night Baseball. The announcers in the broadcast booth were talking about a then-current story of a ballplayer who had a meltdown that resulted in taking out his frustration on a poor, defenseless Gatorade cooler, and all the really funny responses it got on Twitter. At which point Curt Schilling chimed in -- about as cluelessly as one could imagine -- something like, “That’s the thing about Twitter, it really reveals who you are, and there are some really funny people.” You could only sit there and stare at the TV. Whether intentional or otherwise, he phrased it so…cluelessly. “It really reveals who you are.” As I wrote at the time, "Seriously guy?? From the person who used Facebook to basically call Hillary Clinton a murderer, compare Islamic extremists to Nazis, and defend the Confederate flag as representing Christ's fight for liberty? Really??" Yes, I guess. Really. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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