"I was promised Kermit the Gangster Frog, and didn’t get a photo of such a poster."

Said Gus, the top-rated commenter at the NYT article "Kermit the Gangster Frog? Only in These Vintage Ghanaian Movie Posters/In the 1980s, video clubs in Ghana used hand-painted posters to draw African audiences to Hollywood movies. Now they’re attracting American film buffs."

Lot's of great photos of posters at the NYT article, and here's the one they didn't think was worth a photograph but that proved so enticing as click bait. It got me. Sure, Kermit the Gangster Frog. I'm clicking. 

"The incentives of the streaming era mean many documentaries are now preordained affairs: true-crime narratives populated by talking heads..."

"... and pitched when the outcome is already known, or cozy, authorized docs about celebrities. [Lance] Oppenheim, like [Nathan] Fielder and John Wilson, is after something more heightened and less predictable; unlike them, he doesn’t have a writers’ room or make himself a character in the proceedings. He borrows from the tradition of nonfiction filmmakers like Frederick Wiseman, seeking out stories that can unfold in real time. Often, the process involves a lengthy 'fishing expedition,' leaving him with hundreds of hours of footage to sift through in the edit. Then there are the surreal flourishes that bring the work into the realm of what Oppenheim calls 'docufantasia.'..."

From "Lance Oppenheim Is Going Places How the 30-year-old director cold-emailed his way into making two of the best films of the year" (NY Magazine).

The "2 of the best films of the year" are "You Can See Everything," that film about Elizabeth Holmes, and "Primetime, " the one about the "To Catch a Predator" guy, Chris Hansen.

By the way "How To With John Wilson" is my all-time favorite TV show.

And I like this quote from Oppenheim's wife: "It’s almost like he was an alien beamed down to Earth and the only piece of software that was downloaded was like, ‘You are going to make movies.'"

Tourists salvaging what they can of their Paris trip? Or are these locals? I'm guessing locals. They're smoking!

A striking contrast on the streets of Paris: A couple sits sipping drinks at an outdoor café as flames burn just steps away. The moment was captured Saturday near the Arc de Triomphe, on the outskirts of rioting that erupted during demonstrations over rising prices, inequality and public spending. Video shows the pair continuing their conversation as a burning trash bin lights up the background.

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 19, 2026

ADDED: For me, a longtime connoisseur of travel critique, this video shows us a stark version of what is nearly always the case. I'm guessing these are, in fact, local residents, because they're smoking, but if they are tourists, they are doing what I think tourists more or less always do. They have a fantasy of a place and they believe they can go to that fantasy and they perform the mental labor of believing they have entered into the place they imagined. They screen out or rationalize the contradictory material and they determinedly live out their dream. 

Reminds me of that old Charlie Kaufman movie, "Synecdoche, New York," where a woman takes a real-estate tour of what is her dream house. The house is on fire, and she buys it and lives in in... dies in it:

ADDED: Protesters pop the bubble of tourist's fantasy of communing with the Mona Lisa:

"By a certain light, this is the first time that the British director’s vision will be seen properly."

"The restoration contains censored moments once thought lost, like frenzied, naked nuns writhing sexually on a giant crucifix or a Mother Superior (Vanessa Redgrave) making love to a phallic bone fragment.... The uproar makes sense in context. 'When people saw the film, because Ken’s imagery is so visceral, they were shocked by it,'  said the critic Mark Kermode, who befriended Russell in the 1990s and was instrumental in finding the lost footage and reintegrating it into the director’s cut.... Yet Russell, who died in 2011 at 84, was adapting a respected 1952 nonfiction book, 'The Devils of Loudun' by Aldous Huxley, and a stage version by John Whiting that followed in 1961. The plot centers on a Roman Catholic priest, Urbain Grandier (Reed), who unabashedly pursues sexual relationships with women, but also presides over the walled city of Loudun as a sort of secular stronghold where Catholics and Protestants live together peaceably."

From "In 1971, This Film Was a Scandal. In 2026, It’s a Respected Period Piece. 'Ken Russell’s The Devils' was deemed shocking for scenes with orgiastic nuns and a debauched priest. But its serious aims are clear in a new restoration" (NYT).

I can't remember how I was ever able to see this film, but I did see it, I believe in the 70s, and for many years I'd always include it on my very short list of favorite films — along with "Aguirre the Wrath of God" and "My Dinner With Andre." Clearly, I had a taste for a certain sort of male character! I have no idea how this film would strike me today. But I think it would resonate with present-day themes: a strong political man ruined over his sexual acting out and women who lose their rationality when overexcited by sex and politics.

As Kermode puts it: "It is really a brilliantly serious, heartfelt story about brainwashing, about the politicization of religion, about the use of hysteria."

Speaking of naked writhing and early 70s films the critics panned, I got through "Zabriskie Point" the other day. Not good. Seems to say if only you can be young, beautiful, and naked — and kick up a big cloud of white dust while having intercourse in a barren landscape — you can save the world. I was worried about the dust — borax?!— and the damage to the landscape — Death Valley  and I couldn't even believe those 2 crazy lovers could enjoy their gritty play. We're supposed to think they do because the camera pulls back and shows the landscape full of naked couples simulating sex. Who are they? Where did they come from? Answer: This is art. They're an idea.

"The woman later told her rescuers that she had jumped off the ship because she 'wanted to disembark'...."

I'm reading "20 Hours After Falling Overboard, Cruise Passenger Is Rescued Near Greece" (NYT).

A cargo vessel found the woman conscious and holding onto a life preserver just before 3 a.m. on Saturday.... Royal Caribbean did not respond to... why rescue officials were not alerted until three hours after the incident. According to the company’s website, the Odyssey of the Seas is over 1,100 feet long and can hold nearly 4,200 guests.

1,100 feet long... 4,200 guests... I, too, would feel the urge to disembark. But floating — albeit with life preserver — for 20 hours, that's a lot of time to contemplate the solitude you thought you wanted in place of that cruise-ship crowd. I saw a movie once where a man and a woman were floating in a life preserver. What do you do? Wonder if help will arrive before you die of thirst... or sharks attack? Or do you slip out of the life preserver and become a life non-preserver?

"Clad in a little white suit and cowboy boots, his hair a nimbus of blond curls that his mother had bleached and permed, he gestured and lunged, delivering his lines in a piping voice from a pint-size pulpit..."

"... and rolling his R’s as his mother had taught him: 'Hell is a place of extrrreme suffering.' 'I’m herrre to give the devil two black eyes.' 'I thank God for my good Chrrristian mother.' Marge sewed special pockets into his suits so that when he went through the congregation collecting offerings — $20 would get you a kiss from 'Little Marjoe' — there was ample room for the money.... He was good at his job, and he enjoyed being onstage, but he never believed in God. And he certainly didn’t believe in hell.By the time he was 14, the novelty of preaching had worn off, for him and his congregants. His voice was changing, and his father had abandoned the family and absconded with Marjoe’s earnings — some $3 million, he later estimated...."

I'm reading the obituary for Marjoe Gortner, "As a Child Evangelist, He Roused the Faithful. Later He Exposed the Con. An ordained minister at 4, Marjoe Gortner went on to star in a documentary that revealed the flimflammery of his former profession: 'You go into it like a business'" (NYT).

You can watch the whole documentary on Tubi, here.

Alexithymia.

I'm reading "My Fiancé Won’t Touch Me. Should I Still Marry Him? Our Ask the Therapist columnist, Lori Gottlieb, advises a 65-year-old reader who loves her partner but is physically and emotionally unsatisfied" (NYT).

From the letter writer:

Our therapist and I suspect undiagnosed alexithymia (or difficulty in experiencing and describing emotions), while he defensively attributes it to mere “emotional reserve.” After a year of failed couples counseling, we are living in a completely platonic relationship.

"An early clip of the film... features the toddler character bending down to pick up a snail, before gently touching it, her face breaking into a smile."

"Such a performance would probably be beyond a child actor of the equivalent age, raising the question of whether it is easier for filmmakers to work with AI toddlers than human ones. Minkoff said that working with young children on 2002’s Stuart Little 2 'in some respects was horrible' because they would be crying while the film’s stars tried to console them. 'Geena Davis would be holding the baby, Hugh Laurie would be holding the baby, trying to calm the baby,' he said. Minkoff added that using an AI toddler was 'much more humane.'"

I'm reading "Lion King director: Why I’m embracing AI/Rob Minkoff touches on a source of tension in Hollywood as he tells The Times about Storm Dogs, his forthcoming film made with AI" (London Times).

Working with adults is also in some respects horrible. They're always crying and demanding consolation. It's not easy getting them to gently touch snails or whatever damned thing you'd like to tell them to do. And the problem isn't limited to moviemaking. In all fields of endeavor, human beings are difficult crybabies and A.I. will just get the job done. 

I like this quote from the director: "Obviously it’s not my goal or interest to put people out of work." Oh, the things you can do with an excuse like that! I wasn't my goal to hurt you. I was just achieving my goal and you were in the way. 

Gloriously bad movie I'm watching because it's on The Criterion Channel.

From the Wikipedia plot summary: "In a room at a university campus, white and black students argue about an impending student strike. Mark leaves the meeting after saying he is 'willing to die, but not of boredom' for the cause...."

Also: "The film was listed in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time and has been described as 'the worst film ever made by a director of genius' but it "is still absolutely watchable because of the magic of Antonioni's eye.'"

The whole movie is up on YouTube in several places you can easily find. Watch from 2:00 to 8:25 to see that revolutionary student meeting. It resonates with today very nicely.

"What has happened to colour in movies? Was there a meeting in which it was decided that the visual medium of film should now be as visually depressing as possible?"

"That instead of rich greens, cheering pinks and passionate reds, today’s cinema palette should be muted pastels and smudgy browns, as if a horrid grey film now covered all camera lenses? What movie could possibly have prompted this torrent of rhetorical questions?"

From "I’m so sorry, this new Sense and Sensibility is simply dull/Daisy Edgar-Jones is lovely as Elinor Dashwood, but why mute the joyful comedy of Jane Austen’s funniest book?" (London Times).

Compare the color in the 1995 version of "Sense and Sensibility":

"When I first came up with the title, I looked on the internet to see if it already existed, and found one book on Amazon called 'The History of Concrete'..."

"... which turned out to be just an empty book that was a place to store your valuables. I thought that was really funny—not even the most determined thief would have the courage to open a book with a title that boring...."

Says John Wilson, interviewed in "John Wilson’s Poetry of the Mundane/The director of 'The History of Concrete' discusses the value of comedy, nimbys, and making films out of both found moments and the rules that govern the Hallmark Channel" (The New Yorker).

Wilson, the genius behind my favorite TV show, "How To with John Wilson," explains his method: "I start the day by going out and filming potholes. I know that there’s a pothole somewhere about to give any day now, so I’ll go and do that. But then I’ll probably get bored, so I’ll go into a store nearby and see what’s going on there. And then I’ll tell them what I’m doing and see if they have anything to add. A lot of the time, the farther away you get from the subject matter, and the more you have someone from outside of that universe talk about it, the more interesting it gets, and the more illuminated the metaphor becomes."

And by the way, that's how I stumbled into the "Girl in Gold Boots" trailer, blogged in the previous post — "Just stumbled into the greatest movie trailer I have ever seen." I was looking for a DVD set of the HBO show "How To with John Wilson" so I could point non-HBO people to it. Didn't find it, found something else, which is nicely Wilsonesque. 

"History of Concrete" might be a bit hard to find in theaters, but it is playing at Cinematheque here at UW on October 1st. 

Just stumbled into the greatest movie trailer I have ever seen.

From 1968, one of my favorite years, comes "the exciting story of vibrant unpredictable youth searching for the answers that torment their generation":

If it's answers that torment you, stick with the questions.

"In 1983 she was mugged when she was out with her friend Larry David. She smiles. 'This is the curse of Larry David...'"

"'... it was terrifying but it was also hilarious. We both co-operated because there were two young guys and one of them had a shotgun, but Larry, I guess through stress, slipped into sounding like [the confident sports journalist] Howard Cosell. Going, "All right, take the money, everybody just stay calm." And I was looking at him, like, who are you?'"

From "I wrote Thelma & Louise — nothing has changed for women since then
Callie Khouri is turning her film into a musical. She talks about discovering a young Brad Pitt, getting mugged with Larry David and why she would love to return to Nashville" (London Times).

Also: "... Khouri says, looking resigned, that she doesn’t think much has changed for women since that day when, fired up, she wrote a fantasy about striking back against everything she had to put up with. 'In the US it’s got worse,' she states.

"[T]his relationship is pathological, and a source of great irritation among other courtiers. It is Trump distilled to his essence..."

"... cult leader and his most rabid follower, narcissist and his most flattering mirror. The daughter of a devoutly Christian real estate broker who died by suicide during the pandemic, [Natalie] Harp idolizes Trump with a rare fervor.... ... Trump told his staff that Harp was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and kids did. 'She’ll never leave me,' he would tell other staffers.... It’s a perfect (taxpayer-funded) relationship. She thinks he’s amazing. And he agrees."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Natalie’s Magnificent Obsession" (NYT gift link).

"Obsession" is the title of a current movie that is, as Dowd tells us, "about a man who wishes for more adoration from a young woman, who falls under his spell and maniacally provides it." 

I haven't seen it. And I haven't seen "Magnificent Obsession," but I know it's a 1954 movie starring Ronald Reagan's first wife:

ADDED: After reading Dowd's column, I scribbled this at Grok, writing quickly, without the intention of sharing it, but I'm sharing it:

I'm interested in they way many women in the workplace are competitive with other women in a way that's actually sexist — judging that other women are getting more than they deserve because of their looks and/or imagining that sexual things are going on. They're actually impeding the progress of women... or are they trying to help some subset of women by pulling particular women down? (I'm thinking about the reaction to Natalie Harp.)

And then I connected the Natalie Harp foofaraw to this passage from "President Kennedy: Profile of Power" (commission earned) that my son Chris — reader of presidential biographies — had just texted to me last night. We join the Cuban Missile Crisis in progress.

"The other book I’ve been reading, Michael Glover Smith’s 'Bob Dylan as Filmmaker: No Time to Think,' takes up Dylan’s... forays into the world of cinema."

"I got to witness one of them a few weeks ago, when I attended a rare public screening of the provocative and polarizing 2003 flick 'Masked and Anonymous,' co-written by Dylan and Larry Charles. I hadn’t seen it before, but I immediately entered the cult of admirers who believe it was unfairly maligned when it was first released. (Roger Ebert called it 'a vanity production beyond all reason.' I hope Dylan chose to take that as a compliment.) I have also had the 'Masked and Anonymous' soundtrack on repeat — especially its eclectic assortment of Dylan covers by a global panorama of artists like the Sertab Erener, Francesco de Gregori and the Magokoro Brothers. You’ve never truly heard 'My Back Pages' until you’ve heard it in Japanese."

Writes Lindsay Zoladz, in "My Summer of Bob Dylan/Hear tracks inspired by his Long Hot Summer Tour, including 'My Back Pages' and 'Mississippi'" (NYT gift link, where you will find a playlist that includes "My Back Pages" in Japanese).

Here's "Bob Dylan as Filmmaker: No Time to Think." And for a second book Zoladz writes about, "After the Flood/Inside Bob Dylan's Memory Palace." Both of those links work to send a commission to me.

As for "Masked and Anonymous," I couldn't find it streaming anywhere. Meade, who's seen it twice, seems to think it's on YouTube, but here's a link to buy the DVD, if you still have a DVD player. It's only $9.48. Here's the trailer:

"An early affection for tossing pots on the wheel led her to graduate school... where she studied both ceramics and sculpture with Peter Voulkos... who believed in subjecting clay to Abstract Expressionist theatrics."

"As Ms. Heilmann later recalled, Mr. Voulkos liked to walk across the classroom holding a homemade pot, then trip (or rather, as she said, 'fake trip'), with the pot smashing on the floor. He would collect the broken shards and assemble them into a surprisingly interesting sculpture. Ms. Heilmann’s own early sculptures, which consisted of ragged-looking objects constructed from inexpensive craft-shop materials like plastic clay, tin foil, cotton balls, bamboo and glitter, similarly sought to foreground the process of their making."

From "Mary Heilmann, Painter of Vividly Wobbly Abstractions, Dies at 86/An emblem of the obstacles faced by women artists of her generation, she was 67 when her first museum retrospective opened to rave reviews in 2007" (NYT gift link).

ADDED: Something about the attitude in the comments here made me remember a line from the movie "Blue Moon":

She’s a college student. Sophomore. Yale. Not the general school; that’s for the guys. This is the School of Fine Arts! Bohemian goddesses in gray smocks mixing paint in morning light. She’s all of twenty years old.

I bought the screenplay so I could quote that. (I highly recommend that movie, by the way. It's the most like "My Dinner with Andre" that I've ever run across: An unusual man talks about theater for a long time. Catch it on Netflix.)

I do appreciate the commenters focusing on the phrase "An emblem of the obstacles."

I hadn't used my "deeply" tag since last May.

It's a deeply bloggy tag, so it makes me want to do a post collecting recent iterations of "deeply." The first time I used it — in "Deeply... it's such a poser word" — I had a 12-point list. That was back in 2014. Let's see what "deeply" has been doing lately.

1. "The Once-Shameless President Is Deeply Embarrassed/As Donald Trump faces one humiliation after another, he is attacking those he blames" by Jonathan Lemire in The Atlantic, published today. Gift link. "But how Trump will respond next to this ongoing embarrassment remains unknown. He’s made the war deeply personal. Will he now bail on the stalled war entirely, leaving Iran more empowered in the region? Will he follow through on his threats to dramatically escalate the conflict, perhaps even to strike civilian infrastructure and energy sites? Or will he channel his rage against Americans who point out his mistakes?"

2. "UN rips ‘deeply troubling’ Iran for executing at least 56 people since start of war: ‘Has no place in our world'" — published today in The New York Post. "Several people were executed in the last two weeks alone, including a 19-year-old charged with 'enmity against god' for allegedly partaking in January’s protests. Two others arrested during the protests were also executed. And in July, two people were executed out of a group of 12 convicted of 'corruption on Earth' and 'enmity against God' over connections to four police killed in January."

3. "Ken Jennings Says He Cares 'More Deeply' About Trans Rights Than Any Other Issue" (Them, August 3, 2026). "Ken Jennings... recently got into a relatively minor back-and-forth on Bluesky with people who claimed his subscriptions to the New York Times were supporting an anti-transgender media organization.... Would I subscribe to the New York Times? No. Would I unfriend someone who did? Not necessarily.... Do I do the crossword puzzle? Yes, because nothing else quiets the anxiety I feel about living in our current reality quite like trying to find a five-letter word for boredom. Ah, 'ennui,' my old friend."

4. "The Woody Guthrie story you’ve probably never heard is deeply Jewish/A documentary recasts the folk singer’s legacy through the influence of his mother-in-law, Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt" (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 3, 2026). "The film ['Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie'] makes the case that Guthrie’s extended Jewish family was not incidental but integral in his artistic and personal evolution. It is a story that stretches from Oklahoma to Coney Island to the Yiddish literary world, and from the folk revival’s Jewish impresarios to one remarkable immigrant woman whose influence has largely gone unrecognized."

5. "Neil Shubin on Trusted Science in a ‘Deeply Partisan Age’/An eminent fossil hunter takes the reins at the National Academy of Sciences in a turbulent moment for American researchers" (NYT, June 2026). "As an institution, we are — by charter and design and history — nonpartisan. But we are in a deeply partisan age. Just by doing our work, we will be viewed in a partisan light no matter what. So our job is to double down on the science. We need to be a trusted source of data."

6. "'I Deeply Believe Dogs Have Superpowers and Secrets’/Prompted by a fierce attachment to his own pet, Paul Yoon wrote a harrowing yet hopeful novel, set during wartime, told from a canine perspective" (NYT, August 2, 2026). "Like his finest literary forebears who have written from a dog’s perspective — Virginia Woolf ('Flush'), John Berger ('King: A Street Story'), Jack London ('Call of the Wild') — Yoon pulls it off without being treacly or condescending.... It helps that Etna can understand everything that’s said by people around him. This was partly a practical choice, as Yoon explains: 'I wanted to create a bridge for the reader to experience this world and this journey.' But, he added, 'I deeply believe dogs have superpowers and secrets.'"

7. "The Deeply Human, Complexly Queer Animated Animals of 'Bouchra'" (autostraddle, August 3, 2026). "In Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki’s bold film Bouchra, an NYC‑based lesbian filmmaker... tries to process her relationship with her Moroccan mother through a semi‑autobiographical meta‑fictional drama stemming from a coming‑out letter she sent nine years prior.... It’s told via anthropomorphic animals in a hyperrealized backdrop.... [E]ntirely animated in Blender, Bouchra’s experimental animal‑filled approach takes some getting used to."

"It’s crazy to spend $100-plus on a babysitter just to go to the movies."

Said a woman, quoted nonanonymously, who brought her 7-week-old daughter to a screening of the hit movie "The Odyssey."

I'm reading "Baby’s First R-Rated Blockbuster/'The Odyssey' is selling out in all formats at all times of day. Even at morning screenings, which are packed with newborns and parents desperate to feel 'normal'" (NYT gift link).

But this isn't a woman who's oblivious to the interests of babyless moviegoers. She goes to a "baby-friendly matinee." The tickets clearly say the show is for "Adults With Infants." Fine, then. I just hope the babies have ear protection. It does say they turn the sound down "a tad." A tad's not enough.

And, of course, it doesn't matter that the movie is R-rated. The baby understands nothing of what makes it R-rated. Though it is possible that the turmoil and anxiety come across in some way we adults cannot understand.

"The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible."

Writes Emily Wilson, quoted in "'I would be ashamed to have written any part of this’: Odyssey translator Emily Wilson attacks Nolan blockbuster/Wilson, whose work on Homer’s epic was praised by Nolan, said his film was grandiose and superficial with ‘nothing convincing to say'" (The Guardian).

People always say the movie lacks the depth and character development of the book, but complaining about food is funny.

As for the lack of sex... Maureen Dowd wrote about that in "Nolan’s Zero-Eros 'Odyssey'" (NYT gift link): "In keeping with Gen Z’s waning interest in sex, the poem’s famous sex scenes have been excised, sapping erotic power from the female characters.... Nolan did not want his Odysseus betraying Penelope and enjoying his sojourns with other women. The director completely cut out the young princess Nausicaa, whom Homer’s Odysseus has a flirtation with, and neuters the text’s sexual encounters with Circe and Calypso...."

ADDED: Here's the whole Wilson essay: "An Uncomplicated Man" (London Review of Books).

"Many of the writers, directors, producers or actors I’ve worked with wouldn’t even recognize or know how to make this stuff."

"Apparently, people will watch anything BUT the expensively produced content I write — unless it is in the form of unlicensed 15- to 30-second clips."

Writes Karl Taro Greenfeld, "a scriptwriter for television and a novelist," in "Short Videos Are Killing Hollywood. A Merger Won’t Save It" (NYT).

Why would a composer of symphonies know how to write a 2-minute pop song? People love the visual equivalent of a pop song and, as with pop songs, they'll listen to a lot of them in a row. It's not as though they don't want to spend the time with the material they like. They just like snazzy little works of art that begin and end quickly.

But Greenfeld takes the position that the "attention span is shattered," even if people are spending hours looking at short video.