KING ARTHUR: THE LEGEND OF THE SWORD

When I was a boy in the 1940s and '50s, it seemed like a movie about the mythical King Arthur and his sword Excalibur and The Knights of The Round Table was coming out every week. There were probably only a handful, but references to one of the above seemed to be in many movies then.

So I joined a friend who will go see anything with Charlie Hunnam to catch this latest version, mostly to find out what Guy Ritchie would bring to the legend. In the opening scenes I wasn't too impressed, too much special effects that seemed amazing in LORD OF THE RINGS, but have grown stale by now, and too much Eric Bana, whose acting and screen presence often leave me baffled as to how he became a star when so many others with more movie charisma and impact have not.

But Bana is gone pretty soon and the real story begins, and is less about monstrous destructive CGI and more about old style movie characters and leading man (Hunnam) learning the skills necessary to defeat the evildoers (led by the always good Jude Law) with the help of a woman with magical powers played stunningly by Astrid Berges-Frisbey, a discovery. She was, for me, the heart and spirit of the movie and the reason to watch it, along with Hunnam's star turn, as usual a delight.

Lots of good actors, like Djimon Housou (who I met in my Hollywood days and was as gracious and elegant as you would expect every time I was around him), and Aiden Gillen (adding to the GAME OF THRONES aspect of everything about this film), and new to me Kingsley Ben-Adir, and more.

If you like that Guy Ritchie tension-creating pace with scenes transposed for flashbacks and flash forwards, and a driving musical score and those martial arts sped-up and slowed-down dances-of-violence scenes, you'll like KING ARTHUR: THE LEGEND OF THE SWORD.

MID-DAY MINI-RANT

It's bad enough Republican politicians use the term "the American people...." followed by "demand" or "want" or "believe" or "support" or whatever, but even Democratic politicians do it, as if they aren't aware of the divisions in our populace that are so stridently polarized a con artist like his atrociousness can get appointed president...

Enough with the wishful-thinking-or-deliberately-misleading-or-just-plain-ignorant appellation "the American people" as the subject or object of any sentence from now on...I wish...

POINTING THE FINGER

I notice in a lot of photos, many of them not scanned yet, I'm pointing a finger at the photographer or someone in the photo or just at the general atmosphere, like here in the arms of my mother, with my father and five living siblings (one brother between me and my closest sister passed as an infant) during World War Two...here's some more over the years:

me in the little matching shorts and shirt outfit with my father and two of my brothers and mother top left next to a cousin her mother her brother and sister and father and kneeling next to me my oldest sister, a cousin, my youngest sister and a friend of my sisters' c. 1950

my grandson, oldest and youbesgt son and me c. 2002

dancing at a niece's wedding with another niece and her husband behind me c. 2006

me reading at The Bowery Poetry Club c. 2008

me and friends at my 70th birthday party 2012

me reading c. 2014

my oldest son and me, not a flattering shot (Miles' eyes half open and my cutting my own hair doesn't help) at The Gotham Comedy Club NYC 2016 or '17

MICHAEL PARKS R.I.P.

I never worked with him, unfortunately, but I think I may have met him. I admired his work from the first time I saw him on screen. I thought of him back then as "the poor man's James Dean."  That was an old expression often used for B movie stars when I was a kid, like Randolph Scott was "the poor man's Gary Cooper" and Lisbeth Scott (no relation) "the poor man's Lauren Bacall."

But Parks lived past his youthful resemblance to Dean and grew into one of the great character actors in movies and on TV. He was also a very interesting man according to friends who knew him. Look him up, his is a truly unique story. He will be missed.

NEW HERO: SALLY YATES

TAKE A CLOSER LOOK

Here is the latest from my grandson...after you watch it you have to go to where it says "SHOW MORE" under the publishing info and read his statement so you can get his intent, which I'm very proud of...

A QUIET PASSION

There's a lot of good acting in this flick, much of it from Cynthia Nixon as the older Emily Dickinson. If this were Oscar season I'd take any bet that she would get a nomination for Best Actress, though by the Fall the impact may have faded. If you want to watch a compelling and committed performance, even if sometimes erratic, definitely go see A QUIET PASSION.

It's difficult to make a movie about a writer, especially a poet (though it has been done well before). And for my taste director/writer Terence Davies falls into some of the pitfalls in the genre. He tries to hit what seems like every interpretation or theory for what ailed Dickinson, as well as what her daily passions and challenges and relationships were like. And then use specific poems to illustrate each of his insights, or takes, on these, almost like a graphic novel.

In a few instances that works, in most though it detracts from the depth of thought in the poems and the ways they transcend the mere details of a life, the poet's or anyone else's. And between each of these dramatic scenes, there's seemingly endless lingering shots to evoke, I assume, the tedious insularity and uneventfulness of much of Emily's life as a recluse.

A noble attempt to capture the significance and genius of the Eve of American Poetry, but uneven in its artistry for my taste. I commend Davies for getting a movie like this financed and made, but I would love to see what a good, thoughtful woman director, like say Maggie Greenwald for one, would do with a Dickinson biopic.