From The Onion

 https://www.theonion.com/u-s-condemns-russian-bombing-of-hospital-as-horrific-a-1848636409

U.S. Condemns Russian Bombing Of Hospital As Horrific Act That Any World Power Could Theoretically Commit

WASHINGTON—Speaking out Thursday against an atrocity that officials noted is a hypothetical outcome whenever an airstrike is conducted, the United States condemned the Russian bombing of a Ukrainian hospital as a horrific act that any world power could theoretically commit. “The shelling of a medical facility is a heinous, unacceptable action that, if you think about it, is always a possibility when a really powerful country attacks a far less powerful one,” said President Joe Biden, explaining that the Russian attack on innocent civilians in the city of Mariupol was a flagrant breach of international law and definitely one of the potential results anytime a significant military force engages in a wide-ranging, open-ended conflict with an enemy. “Just know that these abhorrent deeds, which, for the sake of argument, any nation might carry out when it ranks in the top five globally in terms of defense spending, will not go unpunished. It is barbaric to slaughter blameless women and children, and while you can absolutely see how such a thing might happen from time to time, it is completely unacceptable.” Biden went on to state that Russia’s gruesome crime against ordinary citizens was a tragedy that would go down in history, unlike some others, he added, that hopefully won’t. 

Aferim! (Romania, 2015)

Wide screen black & white. IMDb says it's an "Adventure/Drama/Comedy". The Guardian says it's "loaded with laughs". I didn't see anything funny.  

The last I heard, Gypsies (Roma) are around 10% of the Romanian population. Gypsies were enslaved there until the 1840's or 1850's.

The movie is set in 1835. An aging constable and his teenage son are traveling through the countryside on horseback searching for an escaped slave.

People compared the movie to a western. It would have been an interesting setting for one, but it wasn't an action film beyond these two horrible people abusing Gypsies and threatening everyone else.

When I saw Kurosawa's They Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail I was surprised that Buddhist monks would own a slave . In this movie, a Christian monastery has a number of slaves working for them.

A priest says the same things white American Southern degenerate Christians said to justify slavery, that Gypsies were descendants of Ham and so on. He also states that Jews used to be giant but they evolved over to time to normal height.

Had one scene with sort of a stunt. The constable's son walks back and forth on a log in the forest several feet off the ground practicing with his sword. He keeps slashing with it.

"Stab like a man!" his father says.

Available on the Criterion Channel. See if you think it's funny.

Something about the E.T. special edition

What they should have done is made Elliott stop pedaling.

I'm not sure how many times I've seen E.T. I had a friend who wanted me to see it, so we went. Then I was hanging around with him and his girlfriend wanted to see it again so I went with them again. Later, he bought a VHS copy of it so I had to sit through it a couple more times. 

I made the mistake of telling my sister that I didn't care for the movie. It turned out that watching E.T. was the most deeply moving experience of her life, so she spent a couple of hours ragging on me. She thought that I must have found the movie so profoundly emotional that I was trying to conceal my true feelings.  I know she was sincere because, later, my brother was in town and she insisted we all watch E.T. But before she put it on, I saw panic in her eyes. Would the movie be TOO emotional? Would watching it together become socially awkward?

Yeah, I know I wrote about this before at some point. But I came across this on Cracked.com:

https://www.cracked.com/article_32919_how-spielbergs-et-special-edition-pissed-off-the-screenwriter.html

 

The Way West (1967)

It was a big covered wagon movie with Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and Richard Widmark. Sally Field's first movie, with Paul Wexler in an uncredited role as a barber. I never met him but Wexler used to own the little house right across the street from me.

Part of the movie was filmed near here. I had never heard if it. Seems to have been forgotten because it wasn't very good. The violent deaths of at least two children (one played by Stefan Arngrim from TV's Land of the Giants) didn't do it any favors. 

But now it's showing up on streaming video.

North by Northwest

I don't have anything interesting or coherent to say about it. Just that Cary Grant was in pretty good shape. He was fifty-five years old and has a scene where he runs at full speed. This is Tom Cruise's thing---he runs in every movie. He compared himself to an Olympic athlete, but Cary Grant did the same thing without making a big deal out of it.

I recently mentioned Ralph Reed who played a 14-year-old in High Noon. There he was again in North by Northwest as the bellhop who says he's not allowed to send a telegram for Cary Grant. "I'm not permitted to do that, sir," he says. It's hard to believe his bosses told him, "And another thing---NO TELEGRAMS!"

That bellhop caused Cary Grant's whole ordeal. How many people died because of his sloth?

It was Martin Landau's first movie. He decided to play his character as gay. He thought he was subtle enough that most people wouldn't notice, but he was warned that people might think he was gay in real life. Could this be why he was in so many things with his wife, Barbara Bain? I doubt it. But he appeared with her in Mission Impossible, Space 1999, and The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island, as if to say, "See? I'm not gay!"

Landau's career really blossomed once they divorced. Poor Barbara Bain was like Sonny Bono watching Cher's career take off.

The Goldbergs sans Jeff Garlin

From Showbiz411 about how The Goldbergs has been faring since Jeff Garlin's dismissal:

For weeks, “The Goldbergs” have been pretending Murray is still around. They use stand ins, make oblique references, but Garlin’s face is long gone.

Last night, fans were howling on social media that Murray’s daughter got married and there was no sign of him. His whole family was present. At one point, the narrator referred to “my parents” and there was a shot of a stand in pretending to be Murray from behind, dancing with his wife.

That doesn't sound so bad. But would a replacement need to be plausible or not obvious? Like the new Darrin on Bewitched, someone who sort of looks like the old Darrin and shares his opinions and general outlook but is a toned-down, blander version of the original.

It's like when you watch the pilot for The Waltons. Patricia Neal played the mother and Edgar Bergin played Grandpa. It takes a minute or two but you get used to it.

They should try it. If it doesn't work, they can go back to what they're doing.

Pasolini's Canterbury Tales (1972)

There used to be an art theater in town. At some point, they decided to supplement their art film revenue by showing porno films late at night. But when they started doing this, they showed only non-pornographic X-rated foreign films. Pasolini's Canterbury Tales was one of them.

I don't know what they thought it was, but my older brother and some of his friends were going to go to it. He asked me if I wanted to go. I said, well, okay. I was eighteen but I didn't drive and had no proof of age, so I didn't go. Proof of age wouldn't have been an issue. Even when they started showing actual pornography they didn't care.

I saw The Canterbury Tales a few years later on videotape and those guys had to have been disappointed. Shot without sound, dubbed in Italian and subtitled in English. I really didn't like it the first time I saw it. But I clicked on it on The Criterion Channel and it was much better than I remembered. 

Had things that were peculiar to Pasolini, like actors smiling at odd times. Like if you lie to someone in his movies, they smile to show that they fell for it.