BURT REYNOLDS R.I.P.

I only have one Burt Reynolds story. I was in Amsterdam in 2001 working on a film I had helped write for director Ate de Jong. My first time in that city, and I fell in love with its beauty and manageability. It's like a college campus with canals.

One day I was waiting in the hallway outside the sound stage where the film was being shot, when what appeared to me to be an older man came out of the door on the sound stage across the hall. The hallway was all white, as I remember it, and bright, and the entire length of it was empty except for the man and me.

We nodded to each other, acknowledging each other's presence, and as we did so I realized it was Burt Reynolds. I don't remember if we talked, though I feel like we did and he cracked a joke, maybe at the expense of the movie he was making, maybe asked about the one I was involved with. I just remember thinking how amazing it was to be in the presence of this icon.

I always liked him, from his early days on TV in RIVERBOAT, and later playing the "half-breed" blacksmith on GUNSMOKE, to his performance in DELIVERANCE, and AT LONG LAST LOVE (one of the only people I know who loved that film when it came out), and STARTING OVER. And I loved his self-deprecating, but also self-loving, attitude that made him seem like he fell out of bed and into one of the most successful movie and TV acting careers in the history of the entertainment business. He didn't.

He obviously worked very hard for it, but made that work seem easy. Not an easy thing to do, though those who can do it are often underrated. It's not surprising that the only other movie star in history who, like Burt, had a five-consecutive-year run as top box office star, was Bing Crosby, who perfected the same veneer of seeming to be not working at all as he conquered radio, TV, movies, and records.

May Burt rest in eternally well-deserved plaudits.

BACK IN THE DAY

me (in my hang-my-jacket-on-one-shoulder and unique-glasses-frames phase), with artist friend Paul Harryn and my oldest son, Miles (in his growing dreads phase), in Santa Monica c. late 1980s?

BILLIONAIRE BOYS CLUB

I usually turn to movies for relief from the mundane or at times burdensome demands of every day life. And usually it works. Every now and then it doesn't. BILLIONAIRE BOYS CLUB (a remake of a late 1980s film version of a mid-1980s true story) caught my interest because of Ansel Elgort, who was so promising in BABY DRIVER.

Though the story could be compelling and the script the basis of an engaging film, director James Cox and his editor seem to go out of their way to impede that outcome. Right from the start my reaction was huh? The scenes are shot and directed as though they are disconnected, and elongated so that the audience is so far ahead of the unfolding plot the only recourse the editor seemed to see was throwing in a dissonant scene fragment that made no logical or storyline sense.

The cast consists of mostly talented actors. Not surprisingly, Kevin Spacey plays a sleazy scumbag character as well as he always does (which some would say comes naturally), and a cameo turn by Judd Nelson (who was in the original BILLIONAIRE BOYS CLUB movie) is beautifully understated, but otherwise everyone else is so over the top you feel like you're being slammed around between pieces of the most melodramatic soap opera ever and long stretches of self indulgence from a beginner film student so enamored with his shots and scenes they draw them out to the point of creative paralysis.

Oh, and there seemed to be no attempt to reproduce the styles of the 1980s to add even an element of veracity.  So: not recommended.

NEVER FORGET

QUOTE OF THE DAY (FROM A GRAND NEPHEW)

"On this Labor Day remember that none of you are paid what we are worth. For as long as we allow the lowest of us to be paid wages in which they cant afford basic human necessities after working a standard workweek then we all subject ourselves to being ok with less. The power will always be in a unified working class." —Timmy Lally

BETTE DAVIS AIN'T FOR SISSIES

Two weeks ago a friend took me to see Jessica Sherr perform her one-woman show: BETTE DAVIS AIN'T FOR SISSIES (the title riffs on Davis's famous quote late in life: "Getting old ain't for sissies"). It was at "the church around the corner" on East 29th Street in Manhattan—otherwise known as "the actors' church"—in a small library converted into a small theater.

I give credit to anyone who does a one-person show live onstage, just for the courage and commitment it takes to stand up there all alone and try to retain an audience's attention and interest for usually at least an hour, and often more, even when it doesn't work. But this show and performance works. From her first words and movements on the small set meant to be Davis's Beverly Hills home the night of the 1939 Oscar ceremony (in February of1940), Sherr owned the stage and both entertained and enlightened the audience.

There were moments when Sherr evoked so perfectly Davis's voice and mannerisms, she became her. Though for most of the show, she was not so much mimicking Davis's physicality and unique accent, but rather channeling her personality and spirit and intelligence. I knew most of the details of Davis's career and personal life (Sherr brings both Davis's past and future to life in the course of this one Oscar night) but still felt pleasantly surprised and informed.

This is an evolving show Sherr has been working on and performing for years, and the night we saw it was the first time a new expanded version was performed for an audience. By their reaction (and mine) it was a hit. If you like live theater, especially in an intimate setting (those in the front row can almost touch the performer) and appreciate the hard work a one-person show demands, go see BETTE DAVIS AIN'T FOR SISSIES next time Sherr performs it.

NEW FAVORITE MEME (DON'T KNOW WHO SAID IT BUT IT'S TRUE)