An advantage of aging

Late middle age is great.

I had to go buy some chocolate. My own purchase was unrelated to Valentine's Day, but there was a long, long line of people waiting to get into the place.

Some big ape without a mask and his girlfriend got in line behind me. They were standing way too close. I told them to back away. The guy smirked and wasn't moving so I used what police call their "command voice" and told them to get back six feet.

He asked if I was going to stand six feet back from the people ahead of me.

"GET BACK AND I WILL," I said.

They backed up.

"We're all gonna die, we're all gonna die," he said. I didn't respond so he said, "I'll bet he voted for Biden, too."

I still didn't respond so they shut up.

I don't think I'd have done that thirty years ago.

Of course, there was no pandemic thirty years ago, but you know what I mean.

The Story of Children and Film (Mark Cousins 2013)

Documentary about children in world cinema. Discuses the similar ways childhood is portrayed.

Starts with home video footage of Cousins' niece and nephew playing with an elaborate British marble-rolling toy. 

Clips from movies from around the globe including, unfortunately, E.T. Being from wherever it is he's from, Cousins might consider it exotic, but I've been forced to sit through it so many times. I haven't seen it in twenty years but I still can't take it.

Cousins didn't mention it, but I was amazed at how many children did their own stunts.

Available on the Criterion Channel.

Larry Flynt, dead at 78

He was horrible, but he attacked Jerry Falwell and offered a cash reward for information on the sex lives of Republicans during the Clinton impeachment and he became weirdly respectable among a segment of the population. It doesn't take much.

 

Trial and Error aka Dock Brief (Peter Sellers, 1962)

It was nice for a change to see a comedy about a wife who was cheerful and happy and had more right to live than the dour, inadequate husband who murdered her.

Based on a play by John Mortimore (Rumpole of the Bailey). Peter Sellers as a failed attorney assigned the task of defending wife-killer Richard Attenborough.

Attenborough had taken in a male lodger hoping his wife would run away with him and, in flashback, this doesn't seem unreasonable.

The case is pretty open and shut and the lawyer has no real experience. They have no realistic defense and the unrealistic ones aren't funny. You have to remember that the British freely executed people back then. Even if you didn't want the guy walking around free, you didn't necessarily want him hanged.

Something you don't think that much about watching Perry Mason is how many people he no doubt sent to their deaths in prison. It's nice that he got his clients off, but how many people did he kill to do it?

Available on Pub-D-Hub.

Armie Hammer: Commercially expendable?

I read this on Forbes.com about allegations against Armie Hammer from the POV of movie producers rather than audiences.

From the article:

If Hammer were a viable “butts in the seats” movie star, someone who could either open a movie or offer added value to an already viable franchise play would be one thing. But Hammer, onscreen talent and presumed off-screen decency notwithstanding, is just one of many handsome white male actors who have been anointed the next-big-thing and have stuck around for ages despite never really delivering on that alleged promise. He is a prime example of being dubbed a movie star without ever starring in a successful mainstream movie.

...

That leaves Hammer with is the notion that he adds prestige. For example, Kevin Spacey vanished from Hollywood following accusations of sexual misconduct partially because he had long stopped being a box office draw and was only worthwhile as a prestige hire. Absent that, there was no reason to cast Spacey in your mainstream movie or awards-season vehicle. Absent that respectability, Hammer becomes just another “next Tom Cruise” who wasn’t. That doesn’t make Hammer a bad person or a bad actor. However, he was always commercially expendable.

I apparently saw Hammer in a 2005 episode of Arrested Development but I don't remember him. I don't think I want to see The Lone Ranger. I'd watch the one with Timothee Chalamet if it were free.

Maybe he could become a horror star after this. 

Kinetta (Greece, 2005)

Filmed in Greece. No dialog. I looked it up on Wikipedia which sort of explained it---three people do some things that don't make sense and they re-enact violent crimes.

All filmed with a shaky hand-held camera even though, for the most part, the camera operator was just a human tripod, standing still, panning a little but incapable of holding the camera steady.

Someone in the movie had an old Canon XL1, once on the cutting edge of prosumer technology. But the movie was shot in 35 mm, and it did look good.

From the director of Lobster and Dogtooth.

I dozed off at one point, so it's possible I slept through the part that explained everything. That's a disadvantage of streaming video.

Available on the Criterion Channel.

Tourist Trap, 1979, Chuck Conners, Tanya Roberts

Rated PG. With Chuck Conners and Tanya Roberts who died last month.

My brother and his friend went to it when they were ten. I went in to get them to take them home and they weren't even in their seats. They were cowering in the aisle. They were terrified. They thought it should be rated R, and I can see how it had that effect.

The big difference between an R and a PG rating is often just nudity and obscene language and this had neither. I was disillusioned when I saw my first R-rated movies in the early days of Home Box Office. I assumed that you'd need to have at least a high school education before you could fully appreciate them, but adults were just as dumb as the rest of us.

I watched the Rifftrax version this morning. Chuck Conners operates a sinister roadside attraction.