Movies that have focused on the decidedly dodgy practice of voyeurism (Alfred Hitchcock‘s Rear Window being the best known, most highly-rated example) or which have observed or considered characters who indulge in peeping or listening in (Blow-Up, Peeping Tom, The Conversation, Hi Mom!, Dressed to Kill, Body Double, One-Hour Photo, American Beauty, The Lives of Others) own their own little guilty corner.

But there’s one moderately interesting, not-great-but-certainly-not-awful voyeurism film that’s been pretty much destroyed — you can’t rent or stream it, and nobody has even spoken about it over the last half-century, despite an intelligent, half-decent script written by the once hugely successful Michael Crichton (Westworld, The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, Jurassic Park) and directed by Jeannot Swzarc (Somewhere in Time).

Released in 1973, this somewhat pervy, low-budget indie was called Extreme Close-up, and it’s been all but erased from general consciousness, even within fringe film-buff circles. You can’t find clips or trailers or one-sheets…nothing. Crichton reportedly wasn’t a fan, but why has this admittedly-flawed-but-oddly-intriguing erotic exercise been totally squelched and all but ground into mulch?

it was basically about a TV news reporter (TV actor Jim McMullan, best known for playing “Creech” in Michael Ritchie‘s Downhill Racer) who rents some surveillance equipment in order to construct a piece about what he suspects may be a growing voyeurism phenomenon. He gradually gets sucked into high-tech peeping on his own volition, of course. It becomes a growing fetish for the guy, and it gradually swallows him up.

This little HE riff is probably the last time Extreme Close-Up will ever be mentioned, much less reflected upon by anyone, ever. There might be a few VHS copies lying around, but forget discs or streaming. Extreme Close-Up bombed financially during the last full year of the Nixon administration, and was re-titled Sex Through A Window when it played the sub-run circuit.

I’m thinking of an old Jack Klugman anecdote from a ’70s talk show. While sitting in his brightly-lit living room one evening the Odd Couple star was watching his wife try on several different evening dresses…taking one off, putting another on, over and over. She wanted Klugman’s opinion about which was the most alluring, but his main thought, he confessed on the talk show, was that he wished he was a stranger looking at her from across the street.

It hit me a couple of days ago that Kent Jones‘ Late Fame (Magnolia, 8.7), which I raved about nine months ago during the 2025 Venice Film Festival, is finally opening theatrically after months and months of kicking around the festival circuit.

It’s much, much better film, trust me, than Fame‘s delayed, limp-wristed release date implies.

I don’t carev how many exceptional films open between now and 12.31.26 — Late Fame is now and forever among the ten best of the year. I know this.

Posted on 8.30.25: “Late Fame Is Sparely Rendered, Just Right — A Short Story Perfectly Translated Into a Tight Film.”

I’d been told not to expect too much from Kent Jones’ Late Fame, that it was on the minor side. This turned out to be hooey.

Based on a 1914 Arthur Schnitzler novella with the same title, Jones’ film is a fine, true-to-itself, cut-to-the-chase rendering that has a fine short-story economy.

Willem Dafoe‘s performance as the late-60ish Ed Saxberger, a onetime celebrated poet who peaked 45 years ago (sometime between ‘79 and the very early ‘80s) only to abandon poetry for a humdrum job at the post office, is one of his all-time greatest.

And Greta Lee is wonderful as Gloria, an arresting, electrically flirtatious, life-of-the-party type who sings and acts in small clubs and regional productions. Soon after Saxberger is embraced and celebrated by a small group of rich-kid fans who want him to start writing again, Gloria and Ed take to each other immediately, and the prime current and intrigue of Late Fame is whether or not this attraction will lead to something or just be a passing, flash-in-the-pan fancy…this is what holds you.

It’s clear early on that the latter scenario is the most likely, and so the viewer is seized with concern about whether or not Saxberger will make a fool of himself. Don’t go there, bruh! Step back and hold yourself in check.

Sharply sculpted by screenwriter Samy Burch, Late Fame wins you over early on with a well-honed tone of no-bullshit clarity, and within 96 minutes it hits the melancholy mark with admirable bull’s-eye precision.

It’s easily one of HE’s best films of the year (and surely of the festival) because it holds a tight and true focus from start to finish. Congrats to Jones, Dafoe, Lee and also costar Edmond Donovan as one of Saxberger’s rich-kid admirers, and a tip of the hat to everyone else on the relatively small production team. Excellent, character-driven filmmaking of this sort is all too rare.

I’m suddenly seized by this urgent idea…an idea that that attending Wednesday afternoon’s (6.10) screening of Ash Koosha‘s Dreams of Violets, a 75-minute docudrama that was totally AI-created for $2K, is a necessary thing.

It’s very important to attend this Tribeca Film Festival screening, I’m thinking, because it’s the first all-AI film to play a major festival, and because it’ll be the first tangible taste of the death of Hollywood, at least as most of us have known it over the last several decades.

Alas, I’m uncredentialed and therefore will just be a sweating rush-line peon if I give it a shot. The odds of getting in are overwhelmingly negative. Maybe I should blow it off? I’m assuming it’ll be an underwhelmer. But it’s the start of something that may one day (two or three years hence?) lead to formidable cinema.

AI boilerplate: Dreams of Violets is a 75-minute docudrama directed and produced by Ash and Pooya Koosha. It’s the first feature film entirely generated by artificial intelligence.

Produced entirely by Ash Koosha from within his London flat, utilizing tools like Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and Kling AI.

The entire project cost approximately $2,000 and took around two and a half months to complete.

Set in Tehran and Inspired by recent civilian resistance there, the film follows five strangers hiding from a violent soldier. Pic was produced as a memorial to victims of state violence. Using AI allowed the exiled Iranian directors to visualize real events while protecting the identities of those involved

All at once it becomes clear why Universal and Steven Spielberg declined an opportunity to debut this alien-driven, alien-themed film in Cannes. An “obsessively playful mid-80s Amblin adventure film”? How do you say that in alien squeak talk?

The Disclosure Day embargo lifts at high noon. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls — it tolls for thee.

The general critical consensus is “pretty good, not half bad, well acted (especially by Emily Blunt), but Close Encounters was a much bigger wow.”

Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman:

The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney:

Charles Durning, drafted at age 20, was 21 on D-Day (6.6.44). Durning’s Lieutenant Snyder in The Sting (’73) and his Jack Amsterdam in True Confessions (’82) were gutsy, snappy performances but this recollection is as real as real got for Durning…his own horrific story.

.. goes to his wife and says “oh, mommy, a scary prostitute offered to give me a blowjob inside a parked car at the Norwalk Walmart, but I resisted…I kept my honor”?

What kind of a man would even think of running to his wife and going “waaahhh, I was almost sexually compromised”? You babygirl. You pathetic little mouse.

This apparently actually happened today.

Someone who lacks courage, resolution, determination…an implication of cowardice, faintheartedness, or being overly timid when faced with a challenge.

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Nithya Raman, a 44-year old woke chairholder within the Los Angeles City Council and a Kamala Harris lookalike and sound-alike, has nudged Spencer Pratt in the Los Angeles mayoral primary.

Raman, who has a weak speaking voice, will face the current mayor, 72 year-old Karen Bass, in the general election. Bass will most likely lose because of having been in Africa when the Palisades fire started….period.

Some righties (Trump included) have claimed that vote-count fraud has influenced this election…I don’t believe that.

Spencer Pratt on what he’ll do if Karen Bass or Nithya Raman wins the mayoral election pic.twitter.com/VCUuTZwMXG

— The Adam Carolla Show (@AdamCarollaShow) May 16, 2026

…to behave this rebelliously in a dry, cool, fuck-it, smart-ass way in many, many years…Hollywood doesn’t even allow them to be moderately approvable cyphers. They have to be selfish, malignant takers and abusers…full stop.

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…you fat egoistic fuck. If the Knicks lose it’ll be totally your fault…period. Mess with the juju at your own peril.

Marshall Fine: “At some point in the game, they’ll show Trump on the Jumbotron and the crowd will boo him lustily. The finals are on ABC, which has been having FCC troubles because of Kimmel and The View.  Will ABC have the courage to broadcast the boos? Or, like NBC w/the US Tennis Open last fall, will they mute the sound so the boos don’t go out over the airwaves, to protect the sensitivities of Fearless Leader and his followers?”

A night or two ago I happened to watch about 20 minutes’ worth of From Russia With Love via HD Criterion streaming. It looked a tiny bit soft, and even flirted with fuzzy here and there. Criterion is doing it no favors.

Tonight I re-watched this 1963 Terence Young film via Bluray, and it was almost astonishing how much sharper, razor specific, bountifully colored and more richly textured it was. I’m not saying anything new here, but there’s just no comparing Bluray and streaming. Physical media forever.

From Russia With Love was the last film JFK saw at the White House (the evening of 11.20.63…a Wednesday).