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"Marty Supreme" Is A Ripping (and Touching) Yarn

If there's an organizing or governing principle that connects Josh’s taste and my taste, it's a desire to try to write something that feels like it's being written while it's unspooling in the projector, right? And to try to always have

Frank Gehry's Venice Idyll Would Be A Dream Deferred

It started as a rumor, hardly louder than the rustle of palm fronds from the octet of 90-foot trees that sway above the southern end of one green, quiet block. Frank Gehry, for most people’s money the most famous architect in the world, had bought the large vacant lot

Finding the heart of "Hamnet": "This great act of magic"

The mission of this post is uncomplicated; the hope is to invite cinemagoers to one of the year’s most worthwhile film events--the heartbreak machine  (and immediate awards contender) “Hamnet”.  For those who may feel challenged by the many warnings of its deeply sorrowful moments (as well as carps from

"Blue Lights": Still A "Dirty Old Town"

"I heard a siren from the docks Saw a train set the night on fire I smelled the spring on the smoky wind Dirty old town, dirty old town..." The plaintive folk tune that spills out over the opening moments of every episode of “Blue Lights” sounds like

Cameron Crowe's "The Uncool" Is An "Ask Me Anything" Meal

“I skipped adolescence,” writes Cameron Crowe in his memoir “The Uncool," which became an immediate bestseller this week, “I’d traded it for a backstage pass.”  As a longtime Crowe stan and friend, I’ll confess he had me at hello, but anyone who still reads books could happily

Freddie Freeman's Saving Grace--May It Show Out Tonight!

Let's start with the fundamentals.  Tonight on Fox at 5 p.m. Pacific time, comes Game 5 of the Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series, all knotted up at 2-2 in the seven-game series.   With the Dodgers a bit bleary from traveling East (with more flight time to come this

A Spouse of Dynamite in "The Diplomat"

The American people “want some pomp and circumstance,”  says one wised-up character in Season 3, Episode 3 of “The Diplomat,”  the current Netlfix hit most popular among the streaming  culturati. The rest of that thought reverberates more relevantly than perhaps any utterance  in the entire enterprise. It's a

Ride or Die with "Slow Horses" and a Twisty Season 5

If Gary Oldman ever held doubts about the legitimacy of small-screen work for an actor who won an Oscar playing Winston Churchill  (“Darkest Hour,” 2017), said doubts have been thoroughly washed away by the popular and critical success of “Slow Horses,”  which airs the fourth  of six episodes tomorrow on

"One Battle After Another" Guns for Glory

"Gun is American poem!” shouts the deranged Russian poet in a certain madcap `70s comedy whose title eludes me, and that’s one angle from which to regard Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling action/comedy/satire epic, “One Battle After Another”. You too may be sprawling in your seat

Big Bad Beautiful Bitch Body; DJT

What’s all this rumpus about Trump and the Death of Democracy?  He seems nice.  A natural leader.  Clearly a very stable genius.  So much to like.  He’s giving those media types what for, baby. Like Jonathan Karl, who over decades became one of the most respected figures in

"Thank You for Being in That Job"

"To anyone who’s going on shift tonight or coming off shift tonight, thank you for being in that job,” said Noah Wyle in collecting his award as Outstanding Lead Actor in A Television series,  “This is for you.” Noah Wyle is such an embraceable—if sporadically edgy—onscreen

"This Person Is Too Powerful": Jeff Buckley Doc Slaps and Soars with a Legend

It takes nothing away from what director Amy Berg has accomplished with her (now-streaming)  Jeff Buckley documentary to note how strikingly watchable her key subject is in every frame he occupies. There’s a character he steadfastly refuses to play—the budding rock star with a big record deal and

The Bolton Raid and D.C. Streets Putsch Are Signposts on Trump's Speedway to Autocracy

---- This post was prepared before the heartbreaking news from the Minneapolis school shooting. Given the murkiness of the motive and of the sourcing of the weaponry, for now this blog will maintain respectful silence on that event. ---- This was the week Donald J. Trump asserted "The right

The Billy Joel Papers: All I Want is Someone to Believe

In this current recasting of career and personal Billy Joel highlights occasioned by the deserved popularity of the “And So It Goes” doc on HBO,  I’m bringing some  dramatis personae forward here on the blog. Along with excerpts from the biography I wrote with cooperation from Billy, I'