I was tracking various videos the other day, and this caught my eye. It’s an episode of a series that was, I think, on Amazon Prime sponsored by Coca-Cola, called “The Santa Stories.” The show is made up of short films that deal in some way with…well, Santa Claus. This caught my eye because it’s directed by someone who I think has a great future as a director, even though she is flying a bit under the radar, and has a strong career as an actress. Bryce Dallas Howard. She’s directed four episodes in the “Star Wars” canon on Disney+, and directed the documentary “Dads,” as well as several nicely-done short films. This, too, as I said, is a short film, only 10 minutes. It features two wonderful actors – Colm Meaney is the star, and Fionnula Flannagan provides the narration. To give full credit, it’s written by Kevin Jakubowski. I find it thoughtful, whimsical, wistful, overloaded with charm, touches of whimsy and an eye for detail. It’s called, “The Note.”
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This is 22-minute collection of highlights from the BAFTA Awards on Sunday. It has a bunch of fun moments, topped by the opening five-minute sketch with host David Tennant and others (of whom I'll reserve mention for the fun of discovery). As well as a lovely, emotional surprise in the presentation of Best Picture. There's also a three-minute song which is a bit of a production number, though easy to scroll past if that's more to one's taste. On Friday, extreme-right, off-the-ledge commentator Candace Owens made some statements on her video podcast that were truly lunatic in every full sense of the word. "Delusional" gets used a lot these days when describing the MAGOP base, but it fits here in its literal meaning. By the way, I don't know exactly how Ms. Owens actually got known, but she did work for the Charlie Kirk's off-the-ledge extreme-right advocacy group Turning Point USA as its communications director. And she's founded some groups and done stuff and has a podcast where she lovingly spreads conspiracy theories. Also, Kanye West -- who has praised Hitler and said he hated Jews -- once tweeted, "I love the way Candace Owens thinks," which pretty much summarizes her. And no, I'm not exaggerating. Here's a screenshot from a tweet that got posted with her video. Yes, she really said that. "I am a big believer that Hollywood was created by the CIA. I believe that." This explains a lot about Candace Owens. A lot. A whole lot. I mean, my god, just because you "believe" something doesn't make it true! But that's today's extreme right. But reality is not a belief system. Climate Change exists. Vaccines save lives. Joe Biden won the 2020 election. When did MAGOPs give up on accepting reality? It seems to have come in -- or least took hold most strongly -- with Trump. Supported by Kellyanne Conway suggesting a world for them where "alternative facts" have a place of comfort. It's hard to express how utterly ignorant this is from Candace Owens. And for actual reality reasons not open to subjective opinion or debate. The first Hollywood movie was 1908. The CIA was created in 1947. Imagine how many thousands of Hollywood movies were made in-between that period that, according to the Delusional World of Candace Owens, never existed. And the thing is, her whole statement is even much more insane than this one quote. I'm sorry to do this to you, dear readers, but it pretty much has to be seen to be believed. Don't worry, it's short, less than a minute. And every second is spectacularly lunatic. She talks about her proof for CIA creating Hollywood as being "satanic" content -- something you'd think would be more proof of the Salem Witch Trials than Mickey Mouse, Charlie Chaplin and Gone with the Wind. The thing is, this evil content, which no doubt comes out of concern from her personal sense of morality about sex and violence and bad language and oh, God knows what else in recent film only, rather than the "creation of Hollywood," is actually proof of how crazy she is. That's because it completely ignores the reality of the Hays Code which came into being in 1934 specifically to require morality in Hollywood movies! A morality code for movies which even was active for a full two decades more after the CIA was created in 1947, until the late 1960s! And she further rants about Hollywood ignoring Russell Brand, who (from what she says) I can only assume has found God in recent years, following his wildly ego-centric, full-snarky, drug-addicted years. Well...Hollywood "ignores Russell Brand," not even remotely because he "found God," but because he had his chance and starred in several very big movies in Hollywood's attempt to make him a big star -- and they all flopped! Massively. Get Him to the Greek, the remake of Arthur, and Rock of Ages. So, like Hollywood does with all people who make a series of huge flops: they dropped him. And tried others instead. (Fun fact: Russell Brand still makes movies in Hollywood. Eleven of them and appearances in four series in the past decade. He's just not the star any more, but smaller supporting roles. Because audiences showed that they don't tend to like him as the lead character.) So, it turns out that -- not shockingly -- Candance Owens is totally wrong about that, too. Yes, I know MAGOPs don't accept reality. Or as political analyst Rick Wilson put it, in response to Owens' podcast video when it was posted -- "That’s because she’s a total chucklefuck. JFC." When I saw the video of Ms. Owens going far off the deep end about what she believed, really believed to be true despite reality, at first I thought that, aha!, this is what Kellyanne Conway meant, and Candace Owens just lives in her comfortable world of "Alternative Facts." A world that her listeners and the GOP base lives in and believes. But then I realized how freeing it is to believe in reality. So, I figured I might give it a go and see how believing in things that are maniacally untrue goes -- I'm a big believer Candace Owens is not a real human and instead was created by AI. (I mean literally, artificial intelligence.) I believe Trump eats Christian babies. I really believe it. I believe every MAGOP who says they hate Taylor Swift is actually hiding from admitting to other MAGOPs that they really love her and have all her albums. I really believe that Sean Hannity is a Chinese Communist who has been embedded on Fox through a psyops jointly run by the North Korea and Newsmax. I believe that the CIA was created by the Ford Motor Company as a way to distract from the debacle of the Edsel. I believe Rush Limbaugh is actually "Q" and runs QAnon from the grave, from where he continues to make up stories as a joke because he couldn't sell them to The Onion. I believe Aaron Rodgers is really 85 years old, but sold his soul to the devil, just like Joe Hardy did in the musical Damn Yankees. I believe that the musical Damn Yankees is a true story and is based on the life of a real baseball player named Larry "Skeets" Bondurant whose name has been erased from the record books in a conspiracy with the Ford Motor Company who got the CIA involved. I am a big believer, I really believe Trump, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And I believe...actually, no, I am absolutely certain that this is much easier and more fun than I expected. A couple days I saw a long, half-hour video of a reunion of sorts of many cast members from the 1993 movie “Groundhog Day.” It was because the City of Chicago named Feb. 2 to be "now, forever more, in perpetuity, over and over again, “Harold Ramis Day” and had a big event about it. (In the late 1990s, Ramis moved back to Chicago, where he was born. In fact, he specifically moved to Glencoe -- not where he born, where I grew up…) The celebration started in the city at 6 AM, when participating radio stations all played “You Got Me, Babe.” The main event too place on Navy Pier, where a bunch of restaurants there played the movie. Bill Murray was there and many others from the cast, including his brother Brian Doyle Murray (who played 'the Mayor'), Marita Gerighty ('Nancy'), Robin Duke (who was the waitress) and others, as well as videos sent in by some cast who were unable to make it, like Chris Elliot and Stephen Tobolowsky, who played the annoying insurance man 'Ned Ryerson.' U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois spoke, as did Harold Ramis's widow Erica, as well, who made a very nice, short speech. And Alderman Brendan Reilly makes the city's official proclamation. The event concluded with "Mayor" Brian Doyle Murray calling out the groundhog to find out if it saw its shadow. One thing I found notable is that when the emcee introduced Brian, he was stopped by Bill who said he wanted to go before him. The sense I got from his subsequent comments was that he wanted to be the one to introduce his brother, which he does simply, but with very loving words. If you're interested, here is 30 minutes from the event. It's filled with overflowing affection. But I'm going to do this is two videos, because the main one leaves out the very opening, which is worth seeing. I did find a much shorter video though that has it, so after about 30 seconds, when the host says, "Thank you Richard Henzel. You probably recognize Richard, he's one of the original D.J. voices you heard over and over and over and over again in 'Groundhog Day'" -- you can then stop and click over to the main video. And here's the main event -- This is largely a repeat from something I wrote only two weeks ago. But there's a reason for it. And rather than just provide a link to that article, I thought it deserved a new piece all its own. Back on January 15, I wrote about seeing a wonderful Danish film, The Promised Land, that was hoping to get an Oscar nomination for Best International Film. It didn't get the nomination, but it's still wonderful. I noted that before the film, they showed a terrific Danish short, Knight of Fortune. Initially, as I wrote, I was annoyed at having to sit through a short, and just wanted to get to the main feature – not because I didn’t want to see a short (I actually like them. For years, when he lived in Los Angeles, my Academy friend would bring me to the days when the Academy would show the nominated short films, short documentaries and animated shorts), but for another reason entirely because of a scheduling conflict I had. But in the end, I’m glad they had the short, since I very much enjoyed it. In fact, how much did I like it? So much that I added, "It's eligible to be nominated as Best Feature Short, so we'll see what happens there. Having sat through all the screenings of others that have been nominated, I think it's good enough to be considered." I brought that up at the time because it turned out that the short is from the “New Yorker Screening Room,” and they have it posted on YouTube. So, I embedded it on the site. I mention this again because, as it happens, although the Danish feature-length movie, The Promised Land, did not get an Oscar nomination...that Danish short film, Knight of Fortune -- did! It was nominated for Best Live-Action Short Film. The short is only 24 minutes and very good. I don’t want to give away too much, but will just say that it takes several unexpected and offbeat turns. And as I like to say here, hey, I tries not to steers ya wrong. Tomorrow (Friday), the Turner Classic Movies channel is devoting the evening to Elaine May. It starts at 5 PM (Los Angeles time -- 8 PM in the East) with an hour-long documentary on her comedy career with Mike Nichols. It's titled, Nichols & May: Take Two. If they didn't show any other of her films, this alone would be enough for me to look forward to. The movies they're showing are A New Leaf (which she starred in with Walter Matthau), Nickey and Mikey (with Peter Falk and John Cassavetes) and Ishtar (with Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty). I haven't seen A New Leaf in many, many decades, but remembering liking it and finding it pretty funny. I didn’t see Mikey and Nicky until about 2-3 years ago. And was stunned by how good it was -- both the writing and directing -- most especially for being SO different from all her other films. It's not at all a comedy, though there are touches of humor, but a pretty dark, gritty independent-style film about two low-level gangsters. In fact, it looks sort of like something Cassavetes might have made. If someone showed me the movie , and I knew nothing about it, and they asked who I thought wrote it and also who directed it, I never would have guessed Elaine May for either. Never. Ever. It's not for everyone, but it's extremely good. I saw her famous, huge flop Ishtar in a theater. (Not during its initial run, but soon after, I think at the WGA, but I wouldn’t swear to it.) I enjoyed it -- much better than its massive flop status, though (for me) not as great as many of its defenders now say. My recollection is that I thought it was a fun “Hope and Crosby road picture,” though somewhat too big. But I wasn’t remotely offended by it being big and expensive (which was its criticism at the time, and unfairly so), just that (if I remember correctly), making it so big detracted a touch from the charm. However, I might like it more with the passage of time, distanced from everything swirling around it. So, I'm at least recording it, just in case I decide to watch it again. Here's the trailer for Mikey & Nicky. As you can see, it is most definitely not a comedy. An interesting side note: the woman in the trailer, playing Cassavetes ex-girlfriend, is Joyce Van Patten. And she not only appeared in two episodes of Columbo, one of them a small, very funny scene as a nun at a soup kitchen who mistakes Columbo as a homeless man, but in the other she played the murderer -- and it was made the same year as Mikey & Nicky (1976). Furthermore, that episode, "Old Fashioned Murder," features a supporting role by Jeannie Berlin, who is Elaine May's daughter. (Most recently, she had a recurring role in Succession.) For what it's worth, Falk's good friend Cassavetes played a murderer in Columbo, as well, a very good episode, "Etude in Black." |
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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