Monday, September 28, 2020

adult children who should neither be seen nor heard


Any first graders out there who know the difference between "then" and "than"? If you do, then you're one step ahead of Donald Trump Jr. 

Do you also know that there's only one president of the United States? I'm not sure Trump II: The Revenge does—his mention of "a president of the United States" makes me worry about his comprehension of basic facts. (Which means he's a chip off the old block, of course.)

And do you know that DJT2: SOB has accused his father's competition for (the) president, former Vice President Joe Biden, of being a pedophile? Yet here he is on Twitter, casually mentioning that he knows first graders.

As children tend to say, he who smelt it dealt it.

(One of Trump Jr.'s daughters is currently in first grade, I believe. If she's running for class president, I guess it's sweet that daddy dearest is offering her free campaign advice, but did she ever think to ask if Karl Rove is available?)

Monday, March 9, 2020

the gentleman assassin (R.I.P. Max von Sydow, 1929-2020)

One of my favorite movie moments arrives in the first act of Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor, when Max von Sydow's assassin, Joubert, is leading the massacre of Joe Turner's (Robert Redford) CIA colleagues. The last one still standing, Janice (Tina Chen), is asked, gently, by Joubert to move away from the windows.

"I won't scream," she says.

"I know," he replies, and von Sydow delivers the line in an almost paternal way. Nothing personal—just business.

Joubert is one of the most memorable "bad guys" in any movie I've seen, and although Pollack's go-to script doctor, David Rayfiel, gives him some great dialogue, von Sydow is the reason why Joubert becomes the most three-dimensional character in the film. He steals Three Days of the Condor from his top-billed costars in the most gentlemanly fashion possible.