"But if you’ve ever wondered... if Americans are in fact totally cool with a group of unelected officials pulling strings behind the scenes..."

"... while the man known as POTUS watches Dick Van Dyke reruns and drools contentedly into a bowl of creamed corn—may I direct your attention to one of my favorite movies, the 1993 Kevin Kline comedy 'Dave,' in which some devious Washington insiders attempt to do exactly this? The premise of 'Dave' is... the president has a stroke and ends up comatose, his chief of staff... secretly hires a body double—that’s Dave—to impersonate the president full time...."

Writes Kat Rosenfield, in "'Dave' Predicted the Biden Debacle/In the Nineties film, the president ends up comatose, and his chief of staff secretly hires a body double. These days, the plot feels eerily familiar" (Free Press).

"On April 14 of this year, I was fired by Netflix for what they determined to be unacceptable behavior on set...."

"I was playing the leading role of Roderick Usher in Edgar Allan Poe’s classic The Fall of the House of Usher, modernized as an eight-episode series for Netflix. It is a glorious role, and I had come to regard it as, most likely, my last hurrah...  On March 25 of this year, I was performing a love scene with the actress playing my young wife. Both of us were fully clothed. I was sitting on a couch, she was standing in front of me. The director called 'cut.' 'He touched my leg,' said the actress. 'That was not in the blocking.' She then turned and walked off the set, followed by the director and the intimacy coordinator.... [Someone from Human Resources contacted him a week later and said] 'Before the love scene began on March 25... our intimacy coordinator suggested where you both should put your hands. It has been brought to our attention that you said, "This is absurd!"' 'Yes,' I said, 'I did. And I still think so.' It was a love scene on camera. Legislating the placement of hands, to my mind, is ludicrous. It undermines instinct and spontaneity. Toward the end of our conversation, she suggested that I not contact the young lady, the intimacy coordinator, or anyone else in the company. 'We don’t want to risk retaliation... Intention is not our concern. Netflix deals only with impact.'"

Writes Frank Langella in "Fired By Netflix, Frank Langella Refutes Allegations Of 'Unacceptable Behavior'" (Deadline). Langella is 84 years old.

Unhappy marriages, circa 1970.

1. "Crossroads" by Jonathan Franzen. This is a 2021 novel — 600 pages — that I just finished. It takes place mostly around Christmas 1971 and Easter 1972. The parents have an early-70s-style struggle with marriage, and one of their offspring — the troubled genius son — is named Perry. 

2. "Diary of a Mad Housewife" is a movie that came out in 1970. I watched it because I was reading "Crossroads," and I got the idea that it might have influenced Franzen and that the name Perry was intended as a clue. The director of the movie was Frank Perry, and the screenplay was by his wife Eleanor Perry. I'd never seen this movie before, even though I saw tons of movies in 1970. I think I avoided it because I didn't want to get bogged down in the problems of a subordinated housewife.

Anyway, I enjoyed both works of art, even though I didn't identify with either married couple. "Crossroads" had a younger generation that got caught up in events and ideas that affected me when I was young, and "Diary of a Mad Housewife" had little to do with the 1970s that I lived through. It was about awful people of a sort that I avoided. But what a spiffy work of art. 

I especially liked the 2 male actors — the husband played by Richard Benjamin and the lover played by Frank Langella. Benjamin was comically repellent and his odd looks intensified the effect. I said he looked like Pete Buttigieg, and Meade said take Pete Buttigieg and add Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson):

"What kind of a crazy person celebrates Noam Chomsky's birthday like it's some kind of official holiday?"

Just one of the many great scenes in "Captain Fantastic," which Meade and I watched on streaming video last night. I give it the Althouse seal of approval. You can stream it here. And let's talk about it!

I enjoyed listening to Tom & Lorenzo talk about that movie in this podcast. Tom was outraged at the Viggo Mortenson character, calling his treatment of his children "child abuse" and said that because the man was inculcating left-wing politics in his children, viewers were not going to be able to detect the badness of his fathering.

That resonates with something I said to Meade immediately after watching the movie (and before listening to Tom & Lorenzo): This movie would be experienced very differently by someone with left-wing politics, someone who actually thought Noam Chomsky was great. Things we found hilarious — and also painful — would read entirely differently. I think this was Tom's problem, but it forced Tom to see that there's something abusive about inculcating children with politics (he just thought the common people needed clearer instruction, which would have been there if the father's politics were right-wing or Christian fundamentalist).

The movie is complicated, hilarious and dramatic. A father is sort of leading his band of 6 children against the world. He's both good and bad. And the grandfather who disapproves — played by Frank Langella — is also good and bad, even though he's in the position that would normally be The Villain. (He's trying to take the children away.) There's a great dinner-table scene where the 6 children try to relate to their cousins, and it's complex to think about. There's some of the feeling Meade and I remember from many movies circa 1970 where the people who reject American society are morally and intellectually better, but that's also challenged as one of the boys yells at his father for making them into "freaks."

And I just want to say: Viggo Mortenson is 58 years old. He looks great. And we got a comprehensive look at him at one point.

John Edwards, barred from entering Trinity Episcopal Church for the funeral of the woman who'd been forced at the age of 101 to testify at his trial.

The woman was Bunny Mellon, who had given $700,000, that was used in part to support Edwards's secret lover (Rielle Hunter). Do you remember what happened at that trial? I didn't.

A federal jury acquitted Edwards of one charge, and the judge declared a mistrial on the remaining five charges. The Justice Department dropped the case.

Because he'd suffered enough? Because the government's premise for the prosecution was bad? Why was it a mistrial? How did Bunny Mellon get away with giving $700,000 to a presidential candidate? We've all forgotten. We only remember that Johnny Edwards is an outcast, and now they block him from entering the church, the Episcopal church of the very rich dead lady, who can scarcely be held responsible for the federal crimes she committed along with him — I think — but no one was punished — it's all mistrials and dropped charges — so what difference at this point does it make?

But Edwards took a place in the overflow room, whence he witnessed "a moving eulogy by actor Frank Langella, and a poignant rendition of 'The Rose' by Bette Midler." Thereafter, as the NY Post's Richard Johnson puts it: "the thick-skinned Edwards — seemingly oblivious to the family’s wishes — followed the funeral procession to the cemetery."

“He was working the crowd near the graveside after the service,” [NY Social Diary blogger David Patrick Columbia said].

Working the crowd near the graveside? What does that mean? Talking to people?

By the way, did you know that when she was a schoolgirl, Bette Midler was teased mercilessly? The epithet that was hurled at her: "Haole Crab."

[Gayle] King: "Haole Crab?"

Midler: "Haole Crab," which is something that--

King: I don't know what that means.

Midler: Hawaii. Haole is the word for white.

King: Oh, okay.

How long can you work in media, work with Oprah, with all the racial issues examined on Oprah's show, including, presumably, all the tales of Barack Obama growing up in Hawaii, and never learn the word "haole"?

Midler: Or foreigner.

King: You're in Hawaii. You're poor and you're white.

Midler: Uh-huh.

King: And you're unpopular in school. That must've been really tough for you growing up.

But Bette grew up and unlike John Edwards — who also grew up poor and white — she got into the funeral of the Bunny Mellon — who grew up rich and white —  and Bette got to sing, and she sang poignantly:

Some say love, it is a hunger,
An endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
And you its only seed.

Or did John Edwards grow up poor? Was he, like Bette, bullied?

Growing up in a roughneck mill town where bullies didn't just tease you, they made you eat dirt, Johnny Reid Edwards... internalized the lessons of his father -- and of that "rough little town where you either fought or you got the crap beat out of you," as he put it. Later, that childhood message would fuel a gnawing ambition.

A gnawing ambition and an endless aching need... love, it is a flower, and Johnny Edwards spread its seed.

I've been resolutely avoiding "Frost/Nixon."

For reasons I state here: But The Bit Maelstrom makes exactly the argument needed to change my mind:

I've heard some criticisms of Frank Langella's Nixon, but I think those views come from people who remember the guy.... Problem is, he doesn't come across as evil at all. In fact, there are so many points in the movie where he's validated--as a powerhouse diplomat, as a strong leader, even his defense of Vietnam is better than his enemies' attack--that when the moment finally comes where he admits to abuse of power, it seems sort of trivial. Downright petty even. And his own confession of guilt and clear feelings of disappointment and shame, well, 30 years out, I began to feel like we weren't really worthy of him--and that I wouldn't mind having him in charge today. TIP: If you want to demonize someone, you probably shouldn't put a great stage actor up there to play him. And it's possible, I suppose, they weren't trying to. In any event, the whole movie ends up having an almost Amadeus-like surreality to it. Like we're watching a clash of Titans. Or a titan being brought down by ankle-biters....

Much more at the link. Read it!