#harry waxman

[justinspoliticalcorner]

NYT: Harris Campaign’s Legal Team Takes Shape as Election Battles Heat Up

Nick Corasantini at NYT:

Amid threats of certification battles and mass voter challenges, Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has assembled an expansive senior legal team that will oversee hundreds of lawyers and thousands of volunteers in a sprawling operation designed to be a bulwark against what Democrats expect to be an aggressive Republican effort to challenge voters, rules and, possibly, the results of the 2024 election.

The legal apparatus within the Harris campaign will oversee multiple aspects of the election program, including voter protection, recounts and general election litigation, and it is adding Marc Elias, one of the party’s top election lawyers, to focus on potential recounts. The legal group is headed by Bob Bauer, who served as personal counsel to President Biden for years, and Dana Remus, the general counsel to the 2020 Biden campaign, and also includes Maury Riggan, the general counsel for the Harris campaign. Josh Hsu, formerly from the vice president’s office, will join the team, and Vanita Gupta, a former director of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and a top Biden Justice Department official, is an informal adviser. The campaign will also lean on the top lawyers at three prominent law firms — Seth Waxman, Donald Verrilli and John Devaney — to handle litigation, and deploy local counsel to eight battleground states and four other states of interest.

Mr. Elias, who has had tensions with Mr. Bauer and other Democratic lawyers in the past, will also bring lawyers from his growing firm, Elias Law Group. He has also previously worked for Ms. Harris, serving as general counsel for her primary campaign in 2020. Ms. Remus said in a statement that the legal team had been working “uninterrupted over the last four years, building strategic plans in key states, adding more talent and capacity, and preparing for all possible scenarios.” “This year, like in 2020, we have the nation’s finest lawyers at the table, ready to work together tirelessly to ensure our election will be free, fair and secure — and to ensure that all eligible voters will be able to cast their ballots, knowing their votes will be counted,” Ms. Remus said.

The origins of the effort date back to July 2020, when Walter Dellinger, a former acting solicitor general, called top officials on Mr. Biden’s legal team saying they needed to create “something we’ve never created before,” because the Trump campaign and its allies were beginning to bring cases and lay the groundwork for litigation. With the lessons of 2020 still fresh in Democrats’ minds, Harris advisers claim that the legal team is about 10 times the size of the 2020 operation. The expansive new Democratic legal team, and the opposing group at the Republican National Committee, is a reflection of the legal arms race that is the new reality of American elections since Mr. Trump’s election victory in 2016. The battle over whose votes count — not just how many votes are counted — has become central to modern presidential campaigns.

[...] Democrats have been highlighting recent wins in many of the court battles as part of their effort to get ahead of voting issues. In Nevada, a judge dismissed a lawsuit in July filed by Republicans challenging a state law that allows ballots arriving up to four days after Election Day to be counted. In Mississippi, a judge rejected a similar challenge from Republicans that ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive five days later should not be counted. And in June, a federal judge rejected an argument from Republicans that voter rolls in Nevada had significant inconsistencies, finding that the R.N.C. and the voter who filed the lawsuit did not have legal standing. Core to the Democratic legal effort is the party’s voter protection program, which operates as both a traditional assistance program to voters as well as the eyes and ears of the legal team to help counter any false claims of fraud or malfeasance.

Helmed by Meredith Horton, the program is focused on eight battleground states (Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and New Hampshire) as well as four states of interest (Florida, Virginia, Minnesota and Maine). The program has more than 100 staff members across those 12 states, they said, buttressed by hundreds more volunteers and thousands of poll monitors recruited by the party. “This program is one that we are building to meet this moment,” Ms. Horton said in an interview, calling it the largest of its kind in Democratic presidential campaign history.

The New York Times reports that the Kamala Harris campaign’s legal team has begun to form in anticipation for post-Election Day battles akin to 2020.

[fdmlovesfashion]

Catching up: Hamptons Happenings and Step Up Fundraising event

Catching up: The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation (SWCRF) hosted the Annual Hamptons Happenings and Step Up To Turn Off Cancer fundraising event last week. The special kick off celebration of the two upcoming summer events to raise awareness and help fund cancer research. This year’s Hamptons Happenings will be held on Saturday July 6th in Bridgehampton. Attendees will enjoy a night of…

[randomrichards]

HEAVY METAL:

Evil glowing orb

Tells its tales of destruction

Fan service movie

[boreal-sea]

This is a really succinct article on the differences between Harris and Trump, in case you are still unsure which candidate will be better for Palestine.

"From the start, Harris has worked to tie Israel's hand behind its back, demanding an immediate cease-fire, always demanding cease-fire," Trump said, adding it "would only give Hamas time to regroup and launch a new Oct. 7 style attack."

In 2020, Trump released a plan that would have limited a Palestinian state’s sovereign powers and allowed Israel to control security over the Palestinian state, which would be demilitarized. Israel would also have sovereignty over certain parts of the occupied West Bank.  In June, Waxman told PolitiFact that a Biden-Harris plan would likely differ from Trump’s by including more of the West Bank as part of a Palestinian state, for example. 

In an April interview with Time magazine, Trump said a peaceful two-state solution seemed unlikely after Hamas attacked  Israel on Oct. 7.  "There was a time when I thought two-state could work," Trump said. "Now I think two-state is going to be very, very tough."

On this final point, this doesn't mean Trump thinks a one-state Palestine is the ultimate solution - he wants a one-state Israel.

[maidenvault]

DESCENT INTO MYSTERY: A FILM SCORE MIX OF GOTHIC VIBES

vol. I

abel korzeniowski penny dreadful: the unquiet grave / memento mori danny elfman batman: descent into mystery alejandro amenabar the others: wakey wakey howard shore ed wood: main title coil hellraiser: box theme danny elfman the wolfman: wolf suite pt. 1 javier navarrete pan's labyrinth: long, long time ago / the fairy and the labyrinth franz waxman the bride of frankenstein: main title hans zimmer hannibal: the burning heart danny elfman beetlejuice: main title goblin suspiria theme john williams harry potter & the prisoner of azkaban: secrets of the castle / the portrait gallery wojciech kilar dracula: vampire hunters dario marianelli jane eyre: yes! wojciech kilar the ninth gate: corso and the girl javier navarrete pan's labyrinth: lullaby

vol. II

wojciech kilar the ninth gate: opening titles graeme revell the crow: city of angels: city of angels james newton howard the village: the bad color shirley walker batman: mask of the phantasm: main title fernando velázquez crimson peak: edith's theme wojciech kilar dracula: mina's photo franz waxman rebecca: foreword & opening daniel licht dexter: blood theme gene moore carnival of souls: the carnival of souls abel korzeniowski penny dreadful: transgression danny elfman sleepy hollow: main title george fenton the company of wolves: main theme / the wolfgirl james newton howard the village: the gravel road danny elfman batman: up the cathedral hans zimmer hannibal: dear clarice danny elfman army of darkness: march of the dead

[download] [incomplete playlist on yt]

[byneddiedingo]

Edward Judd in The Day the Earth Caught Fire (Val Guest, 1961)

Cast: Edward Judd, Janet Munro, Leo McKern, Michael Goodliffe, Bernard Braden, Reginald Beckwith, Gene Anderson, Renée Asherson, Arthur Christiansen. Screenplay: Wolf Mankowitz, Val Guest. Cinematography: Harry Waxman. Art direction: Anthony Masters. Film editing: Bill Lenny. Music: Stanley Black. 

Screenwriters Wolf Mankowitz and Val Guest (who also directed) find a way to send a message about nuclear disarmament and government secrecy in The Day the Earth Caught Fire. They let the newspapers (remember them?) do it. Much of the movie was actually filmed in the old Daily Express building on Fleet Street in London, and the real editor of the Express, Arthur Christiansen, played the fictional editor in the film. The result is that a lot of the exposition is carried by the actors playing the reporters for the newspaper as they try to figure out what the hell is going on with the planet. It seems it was knocked off its axis by two simultaneous nuclear test explosions at the poles, one by the United States, the other by the Soviet Union. The immediate result is disastrous climate change, but the greater threat comes when scientists realize that the Earth's orbit has changed so that the planet is reeling closer to a fiery death by crashing into the sun. The protagonist, Peter Stenning (Edward Judd), is a hard-drinking newspaper columnist who uses some unethical methods to disclose the coverup. There's a romantic subplot, of course, involving Stenning's liaison with Jeannie Craig (Janet Munro), a pretty clerk in one of the government offices. And much of the swift, quippy dialogue is between Stenning and his editor, Bill Maguire (Leo McKern). These players make the most of their stereotypical characters, keeping the film lively as the tension builds over whether the world is really catching fire, and whether the proposed fix for the crisis -- a tremendous blast of nukes in Siberia to right the planet on its axis -- is going to work. The movie feels less dated than it once did, because the scenes of climate disaster evoke our current concerns about the Earth and the fear that governments are too secretive and inept to save us. It's a well-made movie whose budgetary inadequacies show but are mostly overcome by the use of camera tricks and stock news footage. The ending is ambiguous, though tilted in the direction of hope by the sound of church bells, which are said to have been introduced by the American distributor, Universal, which wanted a less somber ending. 

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 12.24

Beer Birthdays

Henry Rahr (1834)

Howard Hughes; zillionaire businessman (1905)

Aron Deorsey (1974)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Michael Curtiz; film director (1898)

Anthony Fauci; physician (1940)

Fritz Leiber; writer (1910)

Benjamin Rush; father of psychiatry, 1st to recognize alcoholism as a disease, signer of the Declaration of Independence (1745)

I.F. Stone; writer (1907)

Famous Birthdays

Matthew Arnold; English writer (1822)

Jill Bennett; actor (1931)

Jonathan Borofsky; artist (1942)

Ray Bryant; pianist, composer (1931)

Charles Wakefield Cadman; composer (1881)

Kit Carson; frontiersman (1809)

Lee Daniels; director (1959)

Baby Dodds; jazz drummer (1898)

Lee Dorsey; singer-songwriter (1924)

Paul Foot; English comedian (1973)

Mary Higgins Clark; writer (1927)

Howard Hughes; businessman, pilot (1905)

Scott Fischer; mountaineer (1955)

Ava Gardner; actress (1922)

Ignatius of Loyola; Jesuit founder (1491)

Robert Joffrey; choreographer, dancer (1930)

Libby Larsen; composer (1950)

Emanuel Lasker; German chess player (1868)

Glenn McQueen; Canadian-American animator (1960)

Adam Mickiewicz; Polish poet and playwright (1798)

Mark Millar; Scottish author (1969)

Émile Nelligan; Canadian poet (1879)

James Prescott Joule; physicist (1818)

Lemmy Kilmister; rock bassist (1945)

Ricky Martin; pop singer (1971)

Nicholas Meyer; film director (1945)

Mark Millar; comic book writer (1969)

Jean-Louis Pons; French astronomer (1761)

Michael Ray; jazz musician (1952)

Ryan Seacrest; tv entertainer (1974)

Kate Spade; fashion designer (1962)

Noel Streatfeild; English author (1895)

J.D. Walsh; actor (1974)

Harry Warren; songwriter (1893)

Franz Waxman; composer (1906)

Marguerite Williams; geologist (1895)

Wade Williams; actor (1961)

Philip Ziegler; English historian (1929)

[mdclivearts]

SOURCE_MIKE TYUS_LAM_RECOLOR_4_720 from LIVE ARTS MIAMI on Vimeo.

Directed by: Mike Tyus Produced by: Live Arts Miami Choreography by: Mike Tyus & Luca Renzi

Cinematography by: Joy Isabella Brown & Luca Renzi Edited by: Joy Isabella Brown

Original Score by: Taylor Bense

Filmed in Pulse Topology by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at Superblue Miami in August 2023 Featuring Mike Tyus & Co Dancers: Camila Arana, Shoshana Sklar, Maya Billig, Clinton Harris, Devin Waxman, Alex Arce, Nicole Pedraza, Rafael Ruiz del Vizo, Armando Gomez, Beatriz Garcia, Enrique Villacreses, Camilo Toro, Daniela Cepero

[jxrm]

book log - 2020

the circle by stephen j. galgon

let them eat pancakes by craig carlson

trophy life by lea gellar

the little cafe in copenhagen by julie caplin

serial killers volume 1 by ryan becker

time out by emma murray

love in the capitol by b. ivy woods

the fear hunter by elise sax

please like me by mindy kaling

i'm fine and neither are you by camille pagan

a secondhand life by pamela crane

the move by whitney dineen

dog day wedding by rich amooi

friends list by rob watson

sticky fingers by j.t. lawrence

the lonely heath attack club by j.c. williams

when she returned by lucinda berry

no judgements by meg cabot

big sexy love by kristy greenwood

the friday night date dress by talena winters

zenith man by jenniger haigh

woman last seen in her thirties by camille pagan

everything my mother taught me by alice hoffman

kiss me not by emma hart

the end of temperance dare by wendy webb

all this i will give to you by dolores redondo

the broken girls by simone st. james

kiss me tonight by emma hart

her by britney king

the wedding date by zara stoneley

felix ever after by kaceen callender

kiss me again by emma hart

the perfect wife by blake pierce

as kismet would have it by sandhya menon

next year in havana by chanel cleeton

love in the time of contracts by jethro collins

hot mess by emma hart

the survivor's guide to family happiness by maddie dawson

open book by jessica simpson

beach read by emily henry

the prettiest one by james hankins

big summer by jennifer weiner

digging in by loretta nyhan

the other family by loretta nyhan

palm beach bedlam by tom turner

untouchable by sibel hodge

the virgin romance novelist by meghan quinn

hogwarts: an incomplete and unreliable guide by j.k. rowling

the rumour by lesley kara

jackie four by phil chard

such a fun age by kiley reid

the family next door by sally hepworth

kissing games of the world by sandi kahn shelton

every single secret by emily carpenter

the poet x by elizabeth acevedo

harry potter: a journey through charms and defense against the dark arts by pottermore publishing

the birthday mystery by joyce cato

the wedding war by liz talley

kulti by mariana zapata

black friday by michael hodges

the other daughter by alex dahl

meet cute by helena hunting

the female of the species by mindy mcginnis

the devil's storybooks by natalie babbitt

you owe me a murder by eileen cook

my favorite half-night stand by christine lauren

tidelands by philippa gregory

gracefully you by jenna dewan

the void by christine bernard

tweet cute by emma lord

dear girls by ali wong

the woman inside by e.g. scott

risking it all by nina darnton

lying next to me by gregg olsen

the lost by natasha preston

roomies by christina lauren

i am not your perfect mexican daughter by erika l. sanchez

twice in a blue moon by christina lauren

the right swipe by alisha rai

i found you by lisa jewell

the secrets of married women by carol mason

a piece of normal by maddie dawson

my lovely wife by samantha downing

the bookish life of nina hill by abbi waxman

when we believed in mermaids by barbara o'neal

the nurse by amy cross

i'll never tell by catherine mckenzie

the weight of lies by emily carpenter

the bromance book club by lyssa kay adams

the wives by tarryn fisher

the marriage lie by kimberley belle

best friends & other liars by heather balog

get a life, chloe brown by talia hibbert

the child next door by shalini boland

the queen and the cure by amy harrison

the overdue life of amy byler by kelly harms

short stories from hogwarts of heroism, hardship, and dangerous hobbies by j.k. rowling

a friend in need by hannah ellis

the starter wife by nina lauren

the girl before by j.p. delaney

men without women by haruki murakami

the unhoneymooners by christina lauren

the other mrs. miller by allison m. dickson

the sun down motel by simone st. james

short stories from hogwarts of power, politics, and pesky poltergeists by j.k. rowling

the woman in our house by andrew hart

[msclaritea]

Takeaways From CinemaCon 2024: Not Enough Movies, Too Much Testosterone

Story by Sharon Waxman

 • 1d • 5 min read

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - APRIL 11: Dwayne Johnson speaks onstage at the Walt Disney Studios Presentation during CinemaCon 2024 at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on April 11, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.© TheWrap

There's some good work coming up: Universal's "Wicked" at Christmas will be incredible. Disney's "Kingdom of Planet of the Apes," coming next month, looks otherworldly. Bong Joon-ho's "Mickey 17," in which Robert Pattinson keeps dying and getting cloned, from Warners, looks insane in the best possible way. 

But the strike took its toll. The studios don't have the full complement of movies and there's no way around it: 2024 is going to be painful at the box office. The hope in the room (and there was some) is really about 2025 and 2026. 

A week in Las Vegas at the annual CinemaCon gathering of movie exhibitors with midday cocktail parties at Nobu (thanks Lionsgate) didn't mask the fact that the coming eight months of movies will be scraped together after a brutal year.

"It will be painful for moviegoers who want something other than angry shoot-em-ups, ear-shattering sound tracks and constant horror. The slates of Warner Bros., Paramount and Lionsgate particularly screamed of unrelenting testosterone and a stream of fear, anger and retribution." 

Chris Aronson, Paramount Domestic Distribution chief, at CinemaCon (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for CinemaCon)© Provided by TheWrap

"I've said it before: Is there no joy, no tenderness, no intimacy permitted as part of the moviegoing experience? Do we audiences ever get to dream? To feel awe and empathy in between the white-knuckle moments? Are Hollywood executives who greenlight the movies unfamiliar with ... y'know, kindness? Think about it please."

(Me: YES!)

Here are my CinemaCon takeaways. 

1. Disney might have had the fewest movies, but it has the biggest winners, and had the best presentation. Several years ago, Disney -- at the top of its game and in the height of arrogance -- showed up to CinemaCon and presented a giant screen with a calendar of its upcoming releases. And that was it. This year, the studio tried a lot harder, presenting delightful chunks of footage from their slate -- including a stunning glimpse of "Apes" -- and onstage patter, with everyone from Marvel's Kevin Feige to the dapper distribution chief Tony Chambers dropping the F-bomb. It was liberating, honestly. Disney's strength lies in its array of brands that cater to audiences and taste across the board, and in a year like this one it showed: movies for kids with "Inside Out 2" and "Moana 2," the latter of which was presented by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson; a sensory, four-quadrant experience like "Apes"; and a fully hilarious foray into R-rated superhero fare with "Deadpool & Wolverine." Actually, it was refreshing to not be bombarded with classic Marvel superhero fare. The studio was smart to let the movies do the talking, and the exhibitors responded with cheers of appreciation. 

2. New Line lives? The Warner Bros. slate presented by Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdy (maybe not professional moderators, but at least real humans) felt like nothing so much as New Line Cinema circa the 1990s, where DeLuca spent a decade of his career. The movies were heavy on genre -- violent action, horror and crime. So sure, "Furiosa" by George Miller with Anya Taylor-Joy, is a feast for all the senses. But by the time you got through "The Watchers" (horror), "Traps" (thriller), "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" (fantasy-horror) and Todd Phillips' follow-up to "Joker" -- "Folie a Deux" (I don't know what to call this thing, but it's mad creepy) -- the audience was begging for a reason to laugh or cry — anything but cower in fear. The movie on the Warner slate that got the strongest response from the CinemaCon audience was not made by Warner. It was the Sundance documentary "Super/Man," acquired by the studio. The trailer they showed about the courage of Christopher Reeve, the love of his wife and his devotion to his children, made everybody cry. Yeah, Hollywood, that's a thing. 

3. "Where are the women?" That's what I scrawled in my notebook after the third consecutive studio presentation and the umpteenth cast with a half-dozen men and one single woman. (Actually, it was after Paramount's animated "Transformers One" and the studio's decades-later sequel of "Gladiator 2.") Not only weren't there movies to appeal specifically to a female audience, even the so-called "broad" appeal movies have overwhelmingly male casts and a token woman. "Gladiator II" has Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington ... and Connie Nielsen. "Transformers One" has Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry and a bunch more guys ... and Scarlett Johansson🙄. This absurd imbalance was supposed to have been addressed after the awakening of #MeToo, no? Women are half the population, and we like movies, too. But you'd never know it from these slates. Lionsgate was especially egregious in trotting out a full slate of movies that were a litany of violent combat, breaking bones, machetes and knives. Guy Ritchie and Eli Roth were in the mix, of course. Keanu Reaves was in four of the movies. One guy got stabbed in the eye. "Ballerina" stars a woman (Ana de Armas) but it's no less violent for that. I don't know what they're eating over there, but it feels like a diet of nails and rawhide.

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, the stars of "Wicked," at CinemaCon in Las Vegas (Credit: David Becker/WireImage)© Provided by TheWrap

4. Universal is riding high after its Best Picture win with "Oppenheimer" and a box office performance that defied expectations in 2023.

(Oppenheimer, THE FLOP, had to stay in theaters for FIVE MONTHS, to make its bank back! Dear God!)

 And while the studio, blessedly, had a variety of films on its slate that suggested something other than just horror and violence (although they're going hard on the Blumhouse canon with sequels to "Five Nights at Freddy's" and "M3ghan"), that slate is undeniably thin. It's going to be a long wait until December, when the studio can unveil what appears to be a spectacular experience in "Wicked," starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in the first of two films. Director Jon M. Chu said the production planted 8 million tulip bulbs to create the practical effect of fields of blooms in the movie. Universal cleverly gave every attendee at their presentation a tulip that lit up in the dark and created a magical, glowing effect in the auditorium.

5. Nepo-baby alert. I would have thought that Warner Bros. would be embarrassed to bring not one but TWO M. Night Shyamalan progeny out on stage to tease their new movies. There was 22-year-old Ishana with a twist on her dad's horror in the woods genre; and 27-year-old Saleka who sang live, which was probably not a great decision for "Trap," written and directed by M. Night. But then again, the studio is merely being paid a distribution fee for movies Shyamalan has financed himself.

Good luck to the box office, and see you next year, CinemaCon!

[darrowfire15]

Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, Rizzo, Pepe, Robin, Uncle Deadly, Flash, Beard, Drummer Girl, Clifford, Digit, Wayne, Wanda, Animal, Janice, Floyd, Zoot, Dr. Teeth, Lips, Trumpet Girl, Bunsen, Beaker, the Frackles, the Whatnots, Lew Zealand, Crazy Harry, Bobo, Andy, Randy, Phil, Gil, Howard, Link Hogthrob, Dr. Julius Strangepork, Spamela, Carl the Big Mean, Beautiful Day Monster, Gene, Tina Teeth, Gerald Teeth, Mean Mama, Sweetums, Doglion, Thog, Rowlf the dog, Baskerville, Afghan Hound, Mildred Huxtteter, George the Janitor, Beauregard, Scooter, Skeeter, Sam Eagle, Summer the Penguin, Yorick, Sam (Sam and Friends), Mahna Mahna, the Snowths, Vicki, Zondra, Ubu, Chip, Darci, Bill the bubble guy, Black dog, Blind Pew, Calico, Clueless Morgan, Polly Lobster, Seymour the Elephant, Dr. Phil Van Neuter, Composta, Mulch, Silver Beak, Sal Minella, Johnny Fiama, the Penguins, the Rats, Yolanda, Bubba the rat, Joe from Legal, Mama Bear, Animal's mom, cacti, living food, Swedish Chef, Scooter's mom, JP (Scooter's Uncle), Jim puppet, Jerry puppet, Frank puppet, Nigel (conductor), Nigel (Muppets Tonight), Tammy (fangiven name), the Zucchini Brothers, Penny Waxman, Walter, Statler, Waldorf, Camilla the Chicken, Jimmy Shoe, Spamela, Denise, Frank Hasseloff, Leon, Bean Bunny, Waldo C. Graphic

Total: 110

Apparently most people I know can't even name 10 muppets so.

And please please put in the tag as many muppets you can name!

(Seseme street, the labyrinth, fraggle rock, the dark crystal, ect, anything made by the Jim Henson company that could be classed as a muppet counts!)

[fdmlovesfashion]

CATCHING UP: HAMPTONS Happening 2023

Catching up: It’s mid summer ya’ll! and the Hamptons summer season is in full swing with outdoor events and fundraisers so far. One of our memorable social events this season was the The Annual Hamptons Happening 2023. 300+ guests came to support the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation’s 19th Annual Hamptons Happening. The fundraising event held at the Bridgehampton estate of hosts Kenneth…

[smithlibrary]

Read More 2023 Family Tree

Fiction Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Science Fiction and Fantasy Little, Big by John Crowley The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon Dune by Frank Herbert Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien

Romance The Duke and I by Julia Quinn The Royal We by Heather Cocks

Classics One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Young Adult Legendborn by Tracy Deonn We Were Liars by E. Lockhart And I Darken by Kiersten White The Cousins by Karen M. McManus Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling

[filmy420]

[byneddiedingo]

Richard Widmark in Night and the City (Jules Dassin, 1950)

Cast: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlowe, Francis L. Sullivan, Herbert Lom, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Mike Mazurki, Charles Farrell, Ada Reeve, Ken Richmond. Screenplay: Jo Eisenger, based on a novel by Gerald Kersh. Cinematography: Mutz Greenbaum. Art direction: C.P. Norman. Film editing: Nick DeMaggio, Sidney Stone. Music: Franz Waxman. 

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called Jules Dassin's Night and the City "a pointless, trashy yarn," "a turgid pictorial grotesque," "a melange of maggoty episodes," and a "cruel, repulsive picture of human brutishness." It makes you want to run right out and see it, doesn't it? Crowther today is generally regarded as an old foof, but Night and the City is just a little too dark to be credible, and some elements of it -- such as Richard Widmark's over-the-top performance and the expressionistic camera angles of cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum (billed as Max Greene) -- verge on film noir self-parody. Still, the great energy in Night and the City often reminds me of Dickens's forays into the underworld -- the titular city is London -- especially when it comes to character names. The chief villain (Francis L. Sullivan, imitating Sydney Greenstreet) is a Mr. Nosseross -- you almost want his given name to be Rye, but it's Philip -- and there's a minor character with the über-Dickensian name of Fergus Chilk. Widmark plays Harry Fabian, whose life is a continuous hustle, trying to gather enough money to finance his various get-rich-quick schemes. His long-suffering girlfriend, Mary Bristol (Gene Tierney, in a smaller role than her billing suggests), is a singer in a clip joint run by the Nosserosses -- Philip and his wife, Helen (Googie Withers). Eventually, Harry overreaches by trying to loosen the hold on the pro wrestling exhibition racket in London held by Kristo (Herbert Lom), whose star wrestler is known as the Strangler (Mike Mazurki). Harry cons an honest old Greek wrestler named Gregorius (Stanislaus Zbyszko) into staging a bout between Gregorius's protégé, Nikolas of Athens (Ken Richmond) and the Strangler, but everything goes to hell when Nosseross withdraws his promised financial support. There is a great wrestling scene in which Gregorius himself takes on the Strangler, who has broken Nikolas's wrist. Gregorius wins, but dies of a heart attack afterward, one of the many deaths the movie accumulates. The film makes great atmospheric use of its London setting, which was necessitated because Dassin was about to be blacklisted in Hollywood -- it's to the credit of 20th Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck that he warned Dassin of this and, when Dassin decided he would seek work in Europe, allowed him to make the film in London.

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 12.24

Beer Birthdays

Henry Rahr (1834)

Howard Hughes; zillionaire businessman (1905)

Aron Deorsey (1974)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Michael Curtiz; film director (1898)

Anthony Fauci; physician (1940)

Fritz Leiber; writer (1910)

Benjamin Rush; father of psychiatry, 1st to recognize alcoholism as a disease, signer of the Declaration of Independence (1745)

I.F. Stone; writer (1907)

Famous Birthdays

Matthew Arnold; English writer (1822)

Jill Bennett; actor (1931)

Jonathan Borofsky; artist (1942)

Ray Bryant; pianist, composer (1931)

Charles Wakefield Cadman; composer (1881)

Kit Carson; frontiersman (1809)

Lee Daniels; director (1959)

Baby Dodds; jazz drummer (1898)

Lee Dorsey; singer-songwriter (1924)

Paul Foot; English comedian (1973)

Mary Higgins Clark; writer (1927)

Howard Hughes; businessman, pilot (1905)

Scott Fischer; mountaineer (1955)

Ava Gardner; actress (1922)

Ignatius of Loyola; Jesuit founder (1491)

Robert Joffrey; choreographer, dancer (1930)

Libby Larsen; composer (1950)

Emanuel Lasker; German chess player (1868)

Glenn McQueen; Canadian-American animator (1960)

Adam Mickiewicz; Polish poet and playwright (1798)

Mark Millar; Scottish author (1969)

Émile Nelligan; Canadian poet (1879)

James Prescott Joule; physicist (1818)

Lemmy Kilmister; rock bassist (1945)

Ricky Martin; pop singer (1971)

Nicholas Meyer; film director (1945)

Mark Millar; comic book writer (1969)

Jean-Louis Pons; French astronomer (1761)

Michael Ray; jazz musician (1952)

Ryan Seacrest; tv entertainer (1974)

Kate Spade; fashion designer (1962)

Noel Streatfeild; English author (1895)

J.D. Walsh; actor (1974)

Harry Warren; songwriter (1893)

Franz Waxman; composer (1906)

Marguerite Williams; geologist (1895)

Wade Williams; actor (1961)

Philip Ziegler; English historian (1929)