💎MY FAVOURITE THINGS💎 || Stranger Than Kindness

I accepted a last minute request to escort Desmond Descombes to a doctor’s appointment last month. A happy-go-lucky war veteran with full mobility and a startlingly good memory, he was also the first person I’d ever met to reach 100 years of age. Spending a couple hours in Desmond’s company was not only uplifting but allowed me a glimpse into a time gone by. He told stories of being sunk by Nazi dive bombers while stationed in the merchant marines before sharing a grainy image of his teenage self aboard the ship from his wallet. It’s easy to forget how we got here. To take the liberties we enjoy for granted. Spending time with Desmond helped to remind me that such freedoms didn’t come easy. They were earned through great pain and collective sacrifice. Lest we forget.

I Got A Story To Tell 📹

There is something uniquely special about a good biopic documentary and its ability to peel back the curtains on personalities that loom large in the collective imagination. In the case of The Notorious B.I.G., I was surprised to discover that Christopher Wallace was nothing like his intimidating persona. Much like his Jamaican single mother Voletta Wallace, a deeply kind and considerate soul lay just under the surface of his icy-cool exterior. The documentary’s director, Emmett Malloy, goes above and beyond in showing how close Wallace came to abandoning his debut album in order to put food on the table for his new family. It’s given me a whole new appreciation for Ready To Die, his bone-chilling debut and resounding clap-back to Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. Wallace was so much more than a blistering rapper. He was a truly unique voice extinguished far too early. I’m looking forward to renting City of Lies, the recent Johnny Depp drama exploring Wallace’s open-ended murder case.

Will The Real Warren Beatty Please Shut Up? 🗞

I don’t even know how I stumbled over Rex Reed’s phenomenal long-form Esquire article on the one and only Warren Beatty. Written and published in 1967, the piece has a life of its own, an irreverent stream-of-consciousness that smacks of Hunter S. Thompson’s Gonzo journalism. I remember finding sanctuary in Peter Biskind’s Star while stationed in Bucharest during the making of my feature film and soaking up the extravagant stories of Beatty’s career and never-ending love life. Reed’s piece is far less rose-coloured and pulls no punches on the Virginian native, prophesying that the star’s affectations would ultimately be his undoing. That Beatty was able to survive and thrive in the face of his prima-donna status and (wicked) good looks for the next fifty years is further proof in William Goldman’s beloved aphorism that ‘nobody knows anything’.

The Laundry Man 📚

Oliver Bullough’s Moneyland turned me onto this rather curious tell-all on the Miami drug trade of the nineteen-eighties. Ken Rijock was no ordinary gangbanger or drug dealer. He was their lawyer. A clean-cut suit and tie john that found novel ways to launder and legitimize any given kingpin. The former lawyer’s autobiography reads like a white-collar version of Ted Demme’s Blow and unveils an unlikely cast of characters living in the fast lane. Yet it’s more than the fast cars and fast women that kept my attention. It’s the level of detail and intricacy that Rijock applied to his illicit activities. To think that his deceptive practices, creating shell companies and laundering millions through third-world tax havens in the Caribbeans, have become standard fare for the one-percent the world over is an unsettling thought.

Without Remorse 🎥

To think that I can only count the number of A-list African-American action-heroes on one hand is a sad reality. All the same the rise of Michael B. Jordan from naive pre-teen drug runner in David Simon’s The Wire to a A-list superstar with a prize-fighting rig to boot is something to behold. Seeing Jordan inhabit the shoes of this take-no-prisoners thriller brought a smile to my dial. Not only is he a most deserving poster boy for black excellence but his endurance, and stellar performance, leaves most of his white predecessors in the dirt. Stefano Sollima (Sicario II and ZeroZeroZero) continues to move from strength to strength and has reached a new zenith in Without Remorse with its stunning set pieces, incredible choreography and eye-popping in-camera effects. The Tom Clancy adaptation has Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Wind River) to thank for crafting such a tight hero’s journey on the page. A filmmaker’s wet dream come true.

Mare of Easttown 📺

There’s a whole lotta reasons to tune into Kate Winslet’s debut TV series. It’s not just that the Reading native is a true beacon of her generation or that she signed on to play a grieving single-grandmother detective that vapes and sinks Rolling Rock’s like there’s no tomorrow (yes, you read that right!). It’s the fact that she single-handedly executes one of the most unique accents I’ve ever heard. There is something to be said about small town murder mysteries, where everyone knows just about everything about each other. And while the show seems to throw every single zeitgeist issue into the pot, Brad Ingelsby — the writer and sole creator — manages to do so with love and understanding. In fact the cast of characters that make up this blue-collar community feel so very real and reflective of the modern world. If only every TV show were this binge-worthy.

Oscar 2021 Playlist 🎙

It was only fitting that last month’s Oscars, maligned by many industry insiders, celebrated a year that will go down as one of Hollywood’s lowest. While I felt the lead acting category wins were justly deserved — Anthony Hopkins and Frances McDormand were exceptional in The Father and Nomadland respectively — the choice proved the obvious with the Academy’s aging demographic. And while Best Picture and Best Director justly went to Chloé Zhao, the second woman to win since Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, the ceremony’s revised schedule offered little breathing space to celebrate this momentous occasion. All the same Questlove’s extensive playlist from the Awards ceremony may just be the show’s most redeeming feature. A curious blend of underground hits paired alongside chart-topping crowd-pleasers makes this the perfect accompaniment for a celebratory sundowner.

Carnal Knowledge 🎥

I can’t seem to get enough of Mark Harris’ new biography on Mike Nichols. The German emigré rubbed shoulders with so many greats and personally jump-started the careers of many of my favourite actors. Carnal Knowledge was Nichols’ fourth film and one that had eluded me until a few weeks ago. Not only did its director take a chance on a young upstart against the advice of studio big-whigs but prophesied that Jack Nicholson would soon become the beacon of his generation. While the film certainly plays through the eyes of the male gaze, Nichols intuitively deflates the masculine bubble and showcases the empty promise of a man as an island. That this controversial narrative would never have been green-lit even five years earlier reminded me of Louis Menand’s recent piece on John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy and the power of the New Hollywood’s trailblazing films.

The Runaway General 🗞

Michael Hastings’ celebrated 2010 article on General Stanley McChrystal is jam packed with ripping yarns. Not only is the piece much livelier than David Michôd’s stillbirth adaptation War Machine but it helped me to better understand a war that has consumed my entire adult life. McChrystal was the poster-child for the feckless Counter-Insurgency efforts — investing trillions of dollars into a country that despised the USA even more than the terrorist scourge. The long-form piece got me to reflecting on Kevin MacDonald’s The Mauritanian which follows the real life story of a man wrongly imprisoned and tortured for over a decade at Guantanamo Bay. The deeply unsettling narrative left me emotionally bereft and underscores Biden’s recent promise to withdraw from Afghanistan by the twentieth anniversary of 9/11.

Romancing The Stone 🎥

Robert Zemeckis brings the house down in this ingenious romantic comedy. Re-watching the 1984 classic not only had me howling but left me thankful for its very existence. The film was the brainchild of Diane Thomas, a gifted writer toiling in obscurity as a waitress. When she was lucky enough to pitch one of her customers, Michael Douglas saw genuine promise in the fledging storyteller. Douglas, whose producing talents had been legitimized in the wake of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest assembled the perfect cast for this exotic thrill-ride. Kathleen Turner and Douglas shine together while Danny DeVito keeps the laughs afloat with his physical comedy. Thomas would quickly become a darling of Hollywood, penning Steven Spielberg’s Always before a tragic car accident took her life before the release of the film’s sequel Jewel Of The Nile.

Horseman, Pass By📚

Some folks are born storytellers. Endowed with that rare ability to compress the complexities of life into a sense of collective understanding. Larry McMurty’s debut novel (which inspired the 1963 film adaptation Hud) harnesses that rare gift, evoking a sense of emotional presence within every page. Much like this 1988 interview with the late author, McMurtry’s raison d’être is firmly established within this 1961 publication. His revisionist examination of cowboy culture in the twentieth century went a long way to dismantling Hollywood lore. To McMurtry, the cowboy was no longer the symbol of unbridled freedom but a relic of a bygone time. Ultimately this story, which reads like an autobiographical portrait of the artist as a young man, is about the impermanence of life. One minute we’re here and the next we’re nothing but a memory.

Anita Lane 👤

I’ve only met a handful of bright lights. Souls who move through the world much the way a shooting star soars across the night sky. Whose underlying nature could inspire and terrify in the same breath. As Nick Cave’s tender hearted post on this week’s The Red Hand Files made plain, Lane was radiance personified, a creative powerhouse who believed the best kind of art was that which never saw the light of day. She was a key collaborator with The Bad Seeds during the nineteen-eighties, a symbolic muse whose very nature contributed to so many of their most beloved singles. Impetuous and known to change direction on a whim, she nevertheless went on to record solo albums that capture both the heavenly light and frenetic darkness of her soul.

D’Angelo - Voodoo 🎙

I signed up to a digital subscription of Rolling Stone to gain access to their archived profiles on some my favourite musicians. On a whim I tucked into an incredible write up on the making of D’Angelo’s sophomore album. Produced in close collaboration with The Roots’ Questlove it stands as a landmark achievement of musical ingenuity. What struck me most about Michael Eugene Archer was his divine reverence for the pioneers of yesteryear. During every studio session, the Virginian native and his band would indulge in bootleg James Brown tapes or live recordings of Prince strutting his stuff. These educational interludes were instrumental in conceiving the sultry swampy sounds that make this album one for the history books.

MY FAVOURITE THINGS | Stranger Than Kindness

“We can’t change the world unless we change ourselves.”