Movies that you have to watch twice to understand.

That's a title for a list I wanted and, googling, I found 5 things. Let's see if any fit my needs. I have come to believe that the best movie-watching experience is the second (or subsequent) watch, so that first watches feel like a test to see whether this is a movie worth watching at all. These days, if I watch a movie once and think it's good, I watch it again, within a day or two. That way, I have the greatest opportunity to see the most in this thing I've discovered is worth watching. Sometimes on second watch, I feel humbled by how much I missed the first time around. I'm practically laughing at myself for thinking I had seen the movie.

So let's look at what my search turned up.

"I mean, Season 2 should be the easiest and best of anything..."

"... because usually when you write something, you do the best job and you cast it, and you try and find the people that are right for it. But then with Season 2, you know who you’re writing for, you bring in their physicality, you know what their strengths are, you know [who's] good at ad-libbing and who isn’t. You hit the ground running. That was the case with this but it didn’t apply so much, because I asked people it before I wrote it. I’ve been around for a while, so I was casting all the people I knew that were right for it. It’s always an easy shoot with my stuff because I’ve already lived with it for a year. I use the same crew. I use the same ensemble of actors or I find someone new that fit in. If someone handed me Mission: Impossible 8 and said we’re filming this next week, I’d panic, but with this show, it’s like with boxers: the hard bit is the training, the rest is easy."

Said Ricky Gervais, in an interview at Deadline, as the third season of his show "After Life" begins on Netflix. 

1. I wrote "[who's]" instead of "whose [sic]" because it's an interview. He was talking. It's no fun snarking at the transcriber.

2. "It’s like with boxers: the hard bit is the training, the rest is easy" — I have no idea if he's talking about the dogs or the humans with gloves, the men in shorts.

3. We watched the first episode of Season 3 last night. It's only about 25 minutes, but there's lots of detail, even though you can also get the sense that nothing happens and nothing can change, this is a random collection of bumbling, sad people. Obviously, that's why you shouldn't binge watch, shouldn't take the bait when Netflix starts its little timer down in the lower right corner, ready to fling you into the next episode. 

4. Resisting, we switched over to the 2010 Coen brothers movie "True Grit," which we'd paused halfway through the other day. We stuck with that to the end. I've never watched the John Wayne "True Grit," so I had no basis for comparison with the old film, whether Wayne shambled and mumbled better than Jeff Bridges. Nor can I compare the young actresses selected from obscurity to play the 14-year-old girl who somehow begins with true grit and teaches each man she encounters something about it. I wondered what happened to this actress in the next dozen years, and I was dismayed to run smack into "EXCLUSIVE: Pink-haired Hailee Steinfeld goes braless in a chainmail mini while posing in the shower before rocking a red wig and flashing her abs in latex in sizzling new shoot" (Daily Mail).

 

5. RICKY: "I’m fascinated with ego and narcissism and vanity and fame. The last 10 years we’ve seen the rise of the narcissism; I think all the bad things in the world are about narcissists, usually men, wanting to rule the world. Now we’ve got Instagram where it’s people standing next to a boat with their shirt off. It’s not even their boat, sometimes it’s not their abs. You see it mostly in entertainment, acting and modeling and so on. But what is the worst job to be a narcissist? When you should be listening to someone else. I thought I’d make [the therapist character] a narcissist, mixed in with toxic masculinity. I remember telling Paul Kaye about all the lines and I said, 'Do it like a football hooligan who works in the city.'"

6. If you read that whole interview, you'll see something that might make you think that sounds like something Althouse said about aging the day after her birthday — here. So you should know that I was influenced by re-listening to an old Ricky Gervais podcast where he made that point — that as you age each day is a larger percentage of the number of days you have left to live. He's repeating himself in this interview, but I offered an observation without saying I heard something like that in his podcast somewhere, that has no transcript to search. I do prefer to link!

What is that guy-reading-a-newspaper painting in that photo of Melania Trump and Brigitte Macron at the National Gallery of Art?

Thank you @NGADC for the beautiful tour among your many galleries. The paintings are a testament to the influence art has among all cultures. I was glad to be able to view the exquisite works with Mrs. Macron. pic.twitter.com/4bpw7BBhPL

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) April 24, 2018

It's "The Artist's Father, Reading 'L'Événement'" (1866) by Paul Paul Cézanne:

In The Artist's Father Cézanne explored his emotionally charged relationship with his banker father. Tension is particularly evident in the energetic, expressive paint handling, an exaggeration of Courbet's palette knife technique. The unyielding figure of Louis-Auguste Cézanne, the newspaper he is reading, his chair, and the room are described with obtrusively thick slabs of pigment. The Artist's Father can be interpreted as an assertion of Cézanne's independence. 

Ah! Just like Melania asserting her independence from the unyielding figure of Donald J. Trump!



Looks a little like Trump, too, don't you think? Trump or Marlon Brando.

By the way, and a propos of the first post of the day, did you know that Marlon Brando was the Coen brothers' first choice to play the big Lebowski (that is, the rich old guy) in "The Big Lebowski"? (Others on their list: Robert Duvall, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Norman Mailer, George C. Scott, Jerry Falwell, Gore Vidal, Andy Griffith, William F. Buckley, and Ernest Borgnine. In the end, David Huddleston got the role.)

"Though the movie was not a huge box-office success, it has since spawned a pseudo-religion, Dudeism, with more than 450,000 'ordained priests'..."

"... annual festivals around the country where thousands of costume-clad fans gather to celebrate the film and all its obscure moments; books and academic treatments; White Russian competitions, and legions of fans so fervent that they inspired a film of their own, the documentary, 'The Achievers.'"

From "'The Big Lebowski' is 20. We reached out to the critics who panned it to see what they think now" (WaPo).

It's fun reading the old bad reviews — "In Lebowski, we lose track not only of plot devices but of whole characters, who come and go without finding a reason to be. (John) Turturro is wasted as a bowler named Jesus, a convicted pedophile in Spandex. He is an amazing creation, but he has no function"... "What’s the point of scoring off morons who think they are cool? Jeff Bridges has so much dedication as an actor that he sacrifices himself to the Coen brothers’ self-defeating conception"... "‘The Big Lebowski’ lacks what even the most unhinged comedies must have in order to work: the recognition that out there, beyond the pratfalls and the wisecracks, lurks the darkness. … The Coens can’t be bothered — or perhaps they don’t know how — to make a connection between what’s inside their smart-aleck heads and the plodding, sometimes painful world in which the rest of us live when we’re not at the movies"... "'The Big Lebowski’ is ultimately too clever for its own good...."

"To read Trump correctly, it’s probably best to dig up old French deconstructionists like Jean Baudrillard..."

"... who treated words not as things that have meanings in themselves but as displays in an oppositional power struggle. Trump is not a national leader; he is a national show. If this is all true, it could be that the governing Trump will be a White House holograph. When it comes to the substance of actual governance, it could be that President Trump is the man who isn’t there."

David Brooks is back from vacation and ready to cogitate for your delectation.

Deconstruction! Holographs!

The Coen Brothers made a movie "The Man Who Wasn't There":



I haven't seen the movie but that trailer begins with a close-up of barbering and a voice-over naming various hairstyles, ending with "the executive contour" (at 0:13). That brought back a dream I had last night. I was advising Donald Trump to restyle his hair. It shouldn't come forward over his face. I saw him with the new hairstyle. It was — it seems now — The Executive Contour.

But "The Man Who Wasn't There" is more familiar as an old poem, "Antigonish" (from 1899 by William Hughes Mearns):

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...

Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away...

That poem was cited by Justice David Souter in the Supreme Court case about voter I.D. laws:

The State responds to the want of evidence [of the kind of fraud that the law would remedy] with the assertion that in-person voter impersonation fraud is hard to detect. But this is like saying the “man who wasn’t there” is hard to spot....

The Man Who Wasn't There should not be confused with The Man Who Never Was, an invented persona assigned to a real human corpse and used to trick the Nazis in WWII — otherwise known as Operation Mincement:

To reinforce the impression of Martin being a real person, Montagu and Cholmondeley provided collaborative details to be carried on his person – known in espionage circles as wallet or pocket litter. This included a photograph from an invented fiancée named Pam; the image was of an MI5 clerk, Jean Leslie. Two love letters from Pam were included in the pocket litter, as was a receipt for a diamond engagement ring costing £53, 10s 6d from a Bond Street jewellery shop. Additional personal correspondence was included, consisting of a letter from fictitious Martin's father – described by Macintyre as "pompous and pedantic as only an Edwardian father could be" – which included a note from the family solicitor, and a message from Lloyds Bank, demanding payment of an overdraft of £79 19s 2d.

Here's the delightful "Pam":

"But no act of musical theft is quite as infamous as the one concerning Dave Van Ronk’s arrangement of 'House of the Rising Sun.'"

"Van Ronk, the inspiration behind the forthcoming Coen Brothers film, Inside Llewen Davis, took the grim and foreboding old weeper—about a young woman afraid she’ll spend the rest of her life in a whorehouse in New Orleans—and brilliantly made it his own."

Van Ronk recalled that after Bob Dylan had learned Dave’s version of “House of the Rising Sun,” Dylan approached him and asked if he could record it for his first album. Van Ronk replied, “I’d rather you not, I’m planning on recording it soon myself.” Dylan said “uh oh.” Van Ronk had to stop performing it because everyone accused him of getting it from Dylan. However, Dylan himself had to stop playing it when the Animals made a top hit out of it, and people accused him of getting it from them.

You can listen to Van Ronk's "House of the Rising Sun" at the link, and here's the big "Down In Washington Square" collection of Van Ronk's music that's coming out in conjunction with the movie.

Here's Dylan's version. And everyone knows the great Animals one.

"The film is reportedly loosely based on folk singer Dave Van Ronk's memoir 'The Mayor of MacDougal Street,' although it appears to be a mostly fictionalized tale, and Dylan is alluded to..."

"... not just visually and narratively, but by his song 'Farewell," which is played throughout the trailer."

"Her womb was a barren desert in which my seed could find no purchase."

April finally comes up with the quote that my quote from Larry Tribe reminded her of. I was riffing on "Neither Steve Breyer nor Ruth Ginsberg has much of a purchase on Tony Kennedy's mind." The quote that had found purchase in April's brain was from from "Raising Arizona."

What if the odd and arch use of the word "purchase" gained purchase in Larry Tribe's brain because he'd watched "Raising Arizona." Suddenly "the idea of the image Tribe had of Kennedy's brain" is funny in a whole new way. "Justice Kennedy's brain/womb was a barren desert in which Breyer/Ginsburg's seed could find no purchase." Tribe thought Elena Kagan would be much better at.... what?

But it's not such an odd image. We speak of fertilizing minds and seminal ideas and gestating thoughts and mindfucks.

They're about to announce the Oscar nominations!

Let's watch together.

ADDED: Very interesting having 10 Best Picture nominees. I cheered when they said "A Serious Man." I loved that one. "The Blind Side" is considered a surprise nomination for picture. (The Best Actress nomination for Sandra Bullock was expected.) Here's the trailer. And here's the "Serious Man" trailer.

Since there are only 5 nominees in the director category, it makes it kind of obvious what the 5 Best Picture nominees would be if there were only 5. The upstarts are conspicuous. By the way, there are 2 "up" movies in the Picture category: "Up" and "Up in the Air." "Up" is the upstart. It's also nominated in the separate best animated movie category. "Up" needs to get down and stop being such a category hog.

"The right-wing reaction was predictable. Blogger Ann Althouse called it a 'dick move' and suggested a boycott of Minnesota."

MediaMatters makes a no-sense-of-humor move.

Boycott Minnesota? I'd never boycott Minnesota! I'd have to give up Bob Dylan. That won't happen. I wouldn't even boycott Prince... or the Coen Brothers. Really, politics just aren't that important to me. MediaMatters needs to get a life.

Anachronistic suck-up movie trailer.

Last night at the movies — we were seeing the fabulous movie "A Serious Man" — they showed a trailer for "Pirate Radio," which was seemingly tailor-made for 60s freaks like me. See if you notice what is crashingly anachronistic:



ADDED: If you watch this featurette about the movie, with some of the same material from the trailer, the difference should pop out.

AND: "A Serious Man" also has a big anachronism problem:

Although the film is plainly set in the summertime, the only reference to the year in which the film is set is a scene in which a calendar can be seen -- it shows the months of June and July 1967. One of the sub-plots in the film involves a representative from the Columbia Record Club calling Gopnik at his office regarding non-payment for record albums that were sent to him. The record club representative attempts to explain to Gopnik how the club works and goes on to mention that the club's current monthly selections are Santana's Abraxas and Cosmo's Factory by Creedence Clearwater Revival. These albums were released, respectively, in September and July 1970.

Link to Wikipedia, which you shouldn't read if you haven't seen the movie. It's full of spoilers.

"A Serious Man."

After finally getting around to watching "Burn After Reading" — the Coen Brothers movie that my sister and I stumbled onto the set of back when I was living in Brooklyn Heights — and having loved it, we decided to take in this year's Coen Brothers movie, "A Serious Man," and we loved that too. Hyperreal closeups of disturbing faces, inane advice intoned as if it were profound, struggles with God and pop culture, the year 1967, Jews, Jews, Jews.... I loved everything about it.

Don't you want some movie to love?

When the movie was over, we went across the street to the sleek new Café Porta Alba, where they cook pizza in 90 seconds in a 900 degree oven. Fun! Earlier in the day, also fun, was a walk in the woods and where we savored the subtle colors of late fall....

"It was the olfactory equivalent of a Coen Brothers' film."

"It was a flop, perhaps (but not necessarily) because it was essentially unwearable, with hints of burning rubber, smoking tar, the pitch in fresh asphalt and charred guiac wood."

Chandler Burr writes perfume reviews. I admire that capacity. To perceive odors and to put it in writing. Impressive! The quote above is about M7. Here's what Burr says about Déclaration:

I smelled it again recently and was shocked by the degree to which it is, in fact, a hard-core French masculine. It’s a tiny bit X-rated (the sensual, unwashed-armpit thing; this is simply a serious dose of cumin, which smells like sweat) and elegant in the way that Frenchmen can be elegant: rather strong come-on, slightly overpowering, narcissistic, but alluring if you’re into that sort of thing.

Suddenly, I am!

There's George Clooney's double.

"I think maybe George Clooney is going to come down those stairs soon, because his double just came out. That's his double over there."

"Yeah, I thought it looked like George Clooney, but couldn't be George Clooney because the crowd didn't get excited. Plus, he's not fat."

"George Clooney isn't fat. He's got bulk."

"He's fat. A little fat. Actually, technically, he's obese."



"You know, you can wait here all day if you like, but that light is set up to shine on that window for an interior shot."

The scene on Hicks Street, yesterday, where they're filming the new Coen brothers movie, "Burn After Reading."

Things noticed and possibly having to do with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

We walked up Hicks Street early on Saturday, with plans to hike over the Brooklyn Bridge, over to the Seaport to buy half-price tickets to a Broadway show, etc. etc., but we stopped to talk to these guys:



They were guarding this movie equipment, so what movie was it? They're kind of horsing around, but they mention Brad Pitt, and then a woman comes along and was all "George Clooney was standing right here yesterday." So, yeah, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. That sounds too made up, like you're just pulling movie star names out of a hat.

But, no, they're really filming "Burn After Reading." It's the Coen Brothers new movie -- not set in Brooklyn Heights, but Brooklyn Heights is supposed to look like Georgetown.

I would have walked right by and not even noticed that was movie equipment, but my sister noticed and stopped and engaged the guys and the passerby in conversation.

Really, I had more conversations with strangers this weekend. I'm normally in aloof mode when I'm on the street. I don't want anyone harassing me.

She's noticing more things as well. She was the one who noticed that "Anatomy of Love" was propping up the air conditioner...

Speaking of propping... maybe the book was a prop for the movie. Burn After Reading. It makes too much sense. You burn with love, you burn a book, "Anatomy of Love" is a book that you might want to read if you burned with love and needed some air conditioning (and maybe it deserves burning), and if you burned with love and read "Anatomy of Love" and made love in the air conditioning, then later, your love might go cold and the book would only be useful for propping up the air conditioner.

My sister also noticed, right nearby, that someone had put an origami animal on the window sill to keep company with the animals lined up inside the window.



It seems too sweet and clever not to be part of the movie too.

And now it seems that the world is full of so many connected and interesting people and things. Pay attention!