HE to A24 rep, send yesterday: “I’m very, VERY keen on seeing Olivia Wilde’s The Invite in Cannes. I’m dead certain there will at least a couple of market screenings. It’s too hot to keep away from European distributors, not to mention champing-at-the-bit European critics. All I want to do is see it there. I’ll be happy to wait for the commercial release to review it. Could you please assist? Thanks.”

Under the old-school aegis of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise (turning 64 in July) will be costarring with Glen Powell in Top Gun 3 — another totally square, flash-bang, hot-shit, sirloin steak, right down the middle, stiff-saluting, high-velocity, bull’s-eye popcorn pleasure machine…only this time, I’m hearing, with a focus on advanced aerial combat vs. AI and drones.

You know that Cruise or Powell will prove at the end that AI jets are finally no match against live hot-dog pilots.

Only this time, Maverick must die at the end. Preferably William Holden-in-The Bridges of Toko Ri-style…shot by the enemy while trying to defend himself in a muddy ditch. Mud and blood. Cruise and Powell should actually buy the farm together. It could be one of the saddest, greatest death scenes in Hollywood history.

Top Gun: Maverick didn’t have the balls to end this way, but now Cruise has a chance to rectify himself and go out with a big surge of emotional ’80s nostalgia. Respect the heroic potential and stop whoring yourself out for the money, Tom. Pull the plug and go down with the ship.

What are some of the other great all-time death scenes? Gee, I think I sorta kinda explored this topic on 11.29.23….no?

The top five are (a) James Caan getting machine-gunned to death at the toll booth in The Godfather, (b) Warren Oates’ death scream in The Wild Bunch, (c) Brad Pitt’s strangulation death in The Counselor…horrifying but great, (d) Joe Pesci‘s lineoleum-tile head-splat death in Goodfellas and (e) Marlon Brando‘s hacking cough death in Act Three of The Godfather.

Tens of millions of serious movie fans swear by No Country For Old Men (’07), and I’ll bet there are less than 25 humans in the entire cinematic universe who approve of Joel and Ethan Coen’s non-depiction of the death of Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin).

Yes, this is how Moss’s shooting death was handled in Cormac McCarthy’s novel — the Coen’s were simply being loyal to McCarthy’s dramatic choice. The difference, of course, was that McCarthy could easily convey what happened to the reader but in the film it isn’t clear that it’s Brolin lying on that motel-carpet rug. No matter how you slice it, it’s a huge cheat….a WTF! for the ages.

“Uhm, Mr. Deakins? You really are a god among cinematographers, but I gotta tell ya, that pivotal shot in No Country coulda been composed a little better, no offense or anything.”

1. Christopher Walken shooting himself in the head in The Deer Hunter (’78) was full-stop moronic. I hated Michael Cimino‘s idiotic Russian roulette gimmick from the get-go, and have always refused to read anything into it. No lead character in a serious film has ever died for a dumber reason than Walken did in The Deer Hunter. Which I haven’t seen, by the way, since ’78 or thereabouts.”

2. John Hurt chest-burst death in Alien (’79). Except people weren’t reacting to Hurt’s death as much as the realistic physical effects that made the chest-fever scene seem so vivid and traumatic.

3. Rutger Hauer‘s wings-of-a-dove death scene in Blade Runner (’82). One of the saddest, gentlest and most beautiful death scenes in movie history.

4. James Cagney‘s blown-to-kingdom-come death in Raoul Walsh‘s White Heat (’49). HE comment: “Better to go out with a big glorious bang than whimpering and anesthetized inside some padded cell.”

5. A lovesick, house-sized ape plummets 86 stories to his death in King Kong (’33). HE comment: “20 or 30 seconds before he lets go and falls there’s an expression on Kong’s face as he looks up at the planes. The look says “you fucking assholes…I’m in love and all you want to do is kill me…you’re such pricks, all of you…why didn’t you just leave me alone with Faye Wray back on the island? I would’ve taken care of her.”

6. Each and every electric-chair death in The Green Mile elicits HE contempt. As God is my witness I’ll never see that godawful film again.

7. William Holden‘s pointless and easily avoidable death in Sunset Boulevard. Joe Gillis knows that Norma Desmond tends to react over-dramatically about everything, and he knows that she’s obsessively in love with him, and that the odds of her doing something rash if he announces he’s leaving her are high. If Gillis was smart he’d play it cool, leave her a sensible note, take the nice wardrobe and escape while she’s sleeping. And then go to the cops and say, “There’s an eccentric wealthy woman who may do something violent.”

8. Cagney’s dead-drop-flop at the end of William Wellman‘s Public Enemy (’31). HE comment: No comment required.

9. “Son of Brando Death Bubbles” was posted on 5.23.18.

Many years ago I posted a video capture of Marlon Brando‘s air-bubble death scene in Edward Dmytryk‘s The Young Lions. For over a decade I’ve been calling this the most ingenious use of water and oxygen to convey the dying of the light, bar none. No other screen actor had gone there before or has gone there since, at least to my knowledge.

The sane and reasonable Barack Obama was president during the initial posting. At the time only a small community of rightwing loons were taking the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump as a half-serious proposition. Why am I mentioning this? Because Trump announced his candidacy on the same day that I posted “Bluray Brando Bubbles.”

“Brando’s Christian Diestl is in a forest not far from a recently liberated concentration camp, sick of war and madly bashing his rifle against a tree. Then he runs down a hillside and right into the path of Dean Martin‘s Michael Whiteacre and Montgomery Clift‘s Noah Ackerman. Ignoring the fact that Diestl is unarmed, Whiteacre fires several bullets and Diestl tumbles down the hill. He lands near a shallow stream and then splashes into it, face down.

“The camera goes in tight, showing that Brando’s mouth and nose are submerged. A series of rapidly-popping air bubbles begin hitting the surface — pup-pup-pup-pup-pup-pup-pup — and then slower, slower and slower still. And then — this is the mad genius of Brando — two or three seconds after they’ve stopped altogether, a final tiny bubble pops through. There’s something about this that devastates all to hell.”

Official Wiki definition: “The Overton Window is the range of policies or ideas acceptable to the mainstream public at a given time, determining what politicians can support without risking their electoral chances. It shifts over time through social movements and media, moving from unthinkable to mainstream, impacting policy by dictating the boundaries of political feasibility.”

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There was some grousing that Jordan Ruimy‘s 4.23 summary of a recent “private” screening of Luca Guagnino‘s Artificial (Amazon MGM), generally understood to be “The Social Network geared to the AI era,” may have mischaracterized this or that aspect. But not too much, as I understand things.

I’m certainly jazzed about Artificial being ultra-zietgeisty…one of those timely topic flicks emerging as just the right moment.

It’s pretty much guaranteed to debut at the Venice Film Festival four months hence, and will probably open commercially in October or November.

Ruimy: “Pic’s first half mainly follows Ilya Sutskever (Anora‘s Yura Borisov), portrayed as idealistic, slightly naive brain of the operation — the one who truly believes in the bigger picture, much like Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network. However, as the film progresses, the spotlight gradually shifts to Sam Altman (Andrew Garfield, who of course played Saverin in David Fincher‘s 2010 classic).

Garfield’s performance apparently starts out grounded, but becomes larger as the film moves on.

Jason Schwartzman and Cooper Hoffman “seem to be the quiet MVPs of the ensemble, Hoffman playing a co-developer in the film’s second act with Schwartzman playing a disgruntled tech innovator who delivers a monologue to Borisov’s character about the far greater risks of allowing AI to spiral out of control.

As one might expect, Artificial “is kind of two things at once…partly a love letter to Silicon Valley (especially San Francisco) focusing on the power players, and partly a warning about where all of this could be heading.”

Consider a hypothetical and answer honestly: If, God forbid, some kind of violent death was to befall President Donald J. Trump, how would you respond? Outside of deploring any act of murder that takes out any elected official or prominent person, what would be your gut reaction after the dust settles? Deep down, I mean.

We all understand, I think, that a sizable percentage of adults would not be emotionally devastated by Trump being iced. The general reaction would certainly not be like the nationwide response to JFK’s murder.

If you ask me, the sudden death of The Beast would trigger such a great heaving sense of relief and a general “ding-dong, the witch is dead” happiness, even if his death is caused by purposeful violence.

I’m not advocating a sudden terrible finish for the guy, mind. Certainly not on paper.

Bill Maher said last night that if you’re one of those who would rejoice and weep grateful tears at Trump’s out-of-the-blue demise, then you’re not a good person. Okay, guilty — I’m not a good person, and I really, really couldn’t be more at peace with that. I would be at one with the infinite serenity of Siddhartha.

This said, Trump, left to this own devisings, is one of those malevolent German-gene fucks who will live a longish, sprawling life. This is something I know about as I too am a lucky recipient of strong German genes.

Because I wasn’t hip or attuned enough, Devo‘s “Mongoloid” and “Jocko Homo” never quite registered. For me their cover of “Satisfaction” (’77 or ’78) was everything. I never followed them like a fan, but they’ve been happening ever since.

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I liked The Devil Wears Prada 2 well enough. I wasn’t blown away but felt moderately pleased…intrigued, placated. The last third brings it home. Great final shot.

Meryl Streep was 56 when she played Miranda Priestly the first time (2006), and while she looks quite good in the newbie…well, she looks fine. Her eyes are certainly more heavily mascara’ed than they were in ’06, and I think her perfectly styled white hair should have been worn a bit longer. I hate how aging people always seem to wear their hair shorter.

B.J. Novak‘s Vengeance (’22), which he wrote, directed and starred in, is one of the best films released this decade. And I loved his Harry J. Sonneborn character in John Lee Hancock‘s The Founder (’16). His Prada 2 character is Jay Ravitz, the smart-enough son of Runway publisher Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), but I’d rather see him direct and write something ambitious again.

43 year-old Emily Blunt once again plays Emily Charlton, the sniffly, suffering Miranda assistant in the 2006 original, now a big Dior hotshot. Charlton was a somewhat marginal figure 20 years ago — in Prada 2 she’s still a supporting sidelight with a few zingers, but humming with unpleasant anxiety, tension and suspicion.

What’s happened to poor Justin Theroux, who plays Emily’s boyfriend, Benji Barnes? At age 55 his once-slender face has become heavier and his jet-black hair and beard have turned reddish brown, and his eyes seem decidedly smaller than they were 10 or 15 years ago. (Remember his hippy earthman character in 2011’s Wanderlust?)

I didn’t care for Patrick Brammall‘s Peter, a condo builder whom Anne Hathaway‘s Andy likes (i.e., wants to be with). He’s just not hot enough for her, and if I was a woman or a gay guy I wouldn’t even flirt with the idea of doing him. Brammall might have gotten away with this if he had lean, chiselled features, but his face is doughy and almost jowly, not to mention unshaven…nope. Seems like a nice-enough guy deep down, but that’s not enough.

Kenneth Branagh plays Stuart, Miranda’s agreeable husband…meh.

Lady Gaga‘s cameo performance is high voltage…a keeper. The second most noteworthy cameo is owned by Kara Swisher, who has a couple of chit-chat lines. Poor Tina Brown is barely glimpsed before the camera cuts away.

The Milan section contains three adoring drone shots of the Duomo at night, one noteworthy passage showing Streep standing inside the Duomo-adjacent Galeria Vittorio Emanuel II, and one overhead shot of Milan’s Sforza Castle.

Last night I finally saw David Frankel and Aline Brosh McKenna‘s The Devil Wears Prada 2 (7:25 pm show), and I’ll tell you right now it’s a sizable hit — 85% of the seats were sold, and that’s highly unusual for a non-weekend night at the AMC Westport.

Lo and behold, Prada 2 isn’t half bad. It’s mildly approvable. Mainly because it sinks in emotionally during the second half or the Milan section, which begins around the 70- or 75-minute mark. The first hour or so (the Manhattan section) feels thin and caustic and stuck in formulaic cynicism (i.e., everyone’s snappy, brittle, dismissive, highly competitive).

But it picks up, finds a groove. There were two mouthy ayeholes to my left who were loudly yapping during the first hour (read: flirting with boredom, less than fully engaged), but they finally stopped when the Runway gang flies to Milan.

We know going in, of course, that Meryl Streep‘s Miranda Priestly, queen of the now-weakened and downswirling Runway, will be dispensing her haughty, imperious dialogue…chilly, bitchy, withering put-downs.

Right away I was muttering to myself “I don’t want to sit through two hours of this…Miranda needs to dig into something else.”

We’re naturally drawn to the less guarded, more openly human characters — principally Anne Hathaway’s 40ish Andy Sachs, a respected journalist who returns to Runway after being shitcanned for no good reason. Equally humane is Stanley Tucci’s Nigel Kipling, but Tooch isn’t allowed to do much except provide the usual pithy commentary.

The plot is mostly about the shaky terms of survival for big-time journalism in the 2020s.

What is Prada 2 really about? The soul-nurturing high of having a great big-city job and the supreme satisfaction of doing it well. The last shot of the film, an outdoor drone shot that gazes through Runway’s office windows at night before pulling back to take in the entirety of midtown Manhattan, says it all.

I can’t finish this in time. I have at least seven or eight paragraphs in my head…later.

On HBO’s Togetherness (the debut was eleven years ago) Amanda Peet‘s Tina fell into an awkward, in-and-out relationship with Alex, played by the bright but pudgy and obviously-inappropriate-by-classic-standards Steve Zissis.

Now, in Matthew Shear‘s Fantasy Life (Greenwich, 3.27.26), she settles into a relationship with another chubby Jewish intellectual type (played by Shear).

The older but still radiantly attractive Peet is now boxed in — she’ll almost certainly never be cast as a partner, wife or significant other of a slender, good-looking guy ever again.

I’ve written about this lopsided dynamic before, and more than once.