Yearly Archives: 2025

In re: LANDMAN

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It’s TV mogul Taylor Sheridan‘s latest project — he of YELLOWSTONE, of course, but also a few pretty good films. This time, instead of a grizzled and wise middle-aged dude played by Kevin Costner, our central character is a grizzled and wise middle-aged-dude played by Billy Bob Thornton.

Trouble is, I like Thornton. So I watched all 10 episodes on business travel this week.

It was absolutely a hatewatch.

First, it’s chock full of Taylor Sheridan’s standard validation of reactionary politics by only rebutting basic or simplistic arguments to the contrary. In YELLOWSTONE, it was about conservation efforts other than whatever John Dutton wanted. Here, it’s anything suggesting oil isn’t Right and Just. It’s not that Sheridan is dumb; I’m sure he knows better. It’s craven pandering to an audience that eats this stuff up as validation for their OWN points of view.

Second, it’s grotesquely misogynistic, which is again a Sheridan tradition. There are no fully realized female characters in anything he writes, even in stories notionally centered on women like his films WIND RIVER and SICARIO. His on-and-off-again ex-wife Angela and their daughter Ainsley (a carbon copy of her hypersexual mother) are awful, awful people. Rebecca Falcone, a lawyer brought in after an accident, is a thin Big City Person who must be taught how Things Really Are by the Wise Landman Who Knows Things.

Third, it’s absurdly full of middled-aged-man wish fulfillment. A broken down landman stands up to the cartel! His daughter actually listens to his Sage Advice! He’s rewarded with a promotion for helping to cover up how mismanaged the company’s wells and infrastructure are. He acts like an asshole to everyone around him, but suffers no interpersonal or professional consequences for it. Even the fucking CARTEL boss (and I’m still mad about how wasted Andy Garcia was here) is like “our bad, respect.”

BUT

Goddamn if Thornton isn’t fun to watch. I mean, he’s been fun to watch since SLING BLADE, but he was born to play Tommy.

Ali Larter — whom GenX folks will recall first came to fame as the fictional “it girl” Allegra Coleman in a satiric front-page celeb faux-profile in Esquire back in 1996 — makes an absolute meal of a thin, unbelievable character in ex-wife Angela. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone do so well with so little.

Jon Hamm, I think we probably all agree, seems unable to do wrong, and he’s not wrong here as the billionaire owner of the oil company in question. Having Demi Moore as his wife was genius, and while she’s not given much to do she does well doing it.

The supporting roles are generally great, too. I’d single out first Colm Feore as Nate, especially reacting to Ainsley’s antics and also just generally being the guy who gets to react like an actual person in most scenes.

Multi-project Sheridan company member James Jordan is having a HOOT as petroleum engineer Dale. We’ve seen him before as the main bad guy in WIND RIVER, and then again in MAYOR OF KINGSTOWN, and again in 1883, and again as Hendon on YELLOWSTONE, and again in LIONESS as Two Cups, and again in THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD as Ben. (He, like Sheridan, had a small part on VERONICA MARS, so I reckon that was their initial connection.)

Jacob Lofland as Tommy’s son Cooper doesn’t have much to do early on, but really comes into his own in quiet scenes with Ariana, and in what comes after. However, the writing hurts him — we don’t really see anything at all that suggests he and Ainsley are related, even when they have brief scenes together. It seems obvious he’ll have a bigger role in S2.

Which is where I admit that yeah, I’ll probably hatewatch S2, too.

A couple notes that didn’t fit elsewhere

  • Luring us in with Michael Pena as a seemingly central character that is immediately killed off is some dirty pool.
  • Sheridan is weirdly obsessed with breastfeeding.

The best movie I’ve seen this year

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Granted, it’s March, but it also seems unlikely anything else I see in 2025 will top Hundreds of Beavers.

The argument is this: a wastrel applejack maker has a reversal of fortune and must survive the Wisconsin woods in winter. It is, above all, a cartoon — but a live action one. It’s not silent, but it has no dialog — eidetic sounds abound; characters grunt or otherwise erupt in exclamatory noises. The visual language is rich and consistent. The film’s look is a perfect hybrid of real and unreal, and the filmmakers achieved this miracle for about $150,000. Thus far, it’s made more than 10x that number.

Our hero must eat to survive, obviously, so his initial challenge is to trap a rabbit. The rabbits and all other animals in the story are represented by people in animal costumes; the viewer accepts this immediately.

There’s a tremendous amount of Warner Brothers vibe here, but also Buster Keaton and the Three Stooges. It’s wry and hilarious and smart, but it achieves this without spoken language. There’s a love interest, a protective father, a video-game worthy progression towards a goal, and deeply hilarious revelations about the state of the beaver scientific knowledge.

Absolutely four stars. My god, what a treat.

An interview with the director is here, and worth your time, but maybe watch it first. The film is apparently available at Amazon, Apple, and Tubi. However, we got to see it on the big screen last night over at the River Oaks Theater, a Houston gem we’ll definitely miss once we’re gone.

Dept. of Iconic GenX Motorcycles, Minneapolis Edition

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I found myself wondering what bike Prince rode in Purple Rain, and because it’s 2025 and the Internet exists, it’s easy to find out. The answer was kinda surprising, and kinda not.

What’s not surprising: It was Japanese. In 1985, Harley wasn’t really something most people would’ve noticed or wanted. The investor group led by Willie Davidson had only closed on the purchase from AMF a few years prior, so their recovery was really still a work in progress. The idea of Harley being “back” didn’t really come up until ’90. So: Japan still pretty much owned motorcycling in the US at that time.

What is surprising: What the actual bike was. In the film it’s a bike with a pretty big purple fairing, which gives it the IMPRESSION of being a large machine. Except we all NOW understand that Prince Rogers Nelson was a tiny, tiny man — about 5′ 2″.

Now, in 1984 we didn’t know this. I mean, he obviously wasn’t six foot four or whatever, but exactly how far to the left of the bell curve he fell was definitely not widely understood until much later.

Crucial to maintaining the illusion that one could not steal Prince by stuffing him into a moderate sized dufflebag was avoiding situations where it would be obvious the dude was crazy short, so clearly the producers were not going to put him on, say, a giant Kawasaki like the guys from CHIPS were riding. Having our hero and romantic lead not be able to flat-foot his moto would’ve been a really dumb idea.

So turns out: it’s a heavily customized but very small 1981 Honda CM400A. The big purple fairing was likely made by Honda customization shop Vetter, who were responsible for the original Gold Wing fairings (which were initially only an aftermarket product).

As the name suggests, it’s a 400cc bike. The parallel twin engine made about 27hp, and Honda insists it was technically capable of 85MPH. Even with a tiny, iconic musician driving, that seems optimistic. OTOH, it was 1985, and the 55MPH limit was still the law nationwide. I know from experience that 20HP will handle a double-nickel without complaint, and in the movie Prince uses the bike around town, not for a road trip to Sturgis. “The Kid” in the film is also not rich; a bike like this would’ve been easy to afford, and got excellent mileage to boot.

MORE interesting, though, is that it was equipped with a Hondamatic transmission, not a traditional motorcycle transmission. The rider didn’t have to clutch to shift at all, which is weird as hell. Predictably, the Hondamatic didn’t last long — they were gone by ’83. Interestingly, though, many modern Honda models are available with a true automatic transmission called the DCT. These bikes don’t even HAVE a clutch lever, which is important because it makes it easier for the rest of us to make fun of them. :)

In case you needed reminding how morally bankrupt the Catholic church is…

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The Archdiocese of New Orleans has dismissed multiple board members and longtime CEO Natalie Jayroe from Second Harvest Food Bank of South Louisiana after the nonprofit refused to allocate funds toward the church’s sexual abuse bankruptcy claims.

According to former board chair Bert Wilson, the food bank’s legal and financial agreements prohibit the use of funds for anything outside its mission of feeding the hungry.

“We have stressed the indisputable fact that our agreements with grant-giving organizations and other partners prohibit any expenditures that are non-secular or do not directly align with our sole mission of feeding the hungry,” Wilson said in a statement on Thursday, calling the decision “shocking and short-sighted.”

The organization cited its contract with Feeding America, which strictly limits how funds can be spent.

Wilson says failing to uphold such guidelines could shutter Second Harvest’s operations, leaving more than 400,000 south Louisiana residents at risk of food insecurity.

Predictably, the Archdiocese has released a statement denying this context, but nobody with a clerical collar and answerable to Rome has any credibility with me. Second Harvest responded to the message thusly:

The Archdiocese video statement, released earlier today and its message to donors of late last week, are remarkable for both they convey says and what they don’t.

Regarding the so-called tolling agreement, Archdiocese representatives were fully aware that Second Harvest was reviewing the proposed agreement and that it was only awaiting full executive committee approval. In direct contradiction to the Archbishop’s unfortunate comment is the fact that an existing agreement covering all parties was already in place until May 1, 2025. Clearly, there was no need for a headlong rush to execute a new agreement. That the Archdiocese jumped the gun by terminating three longtime board members and the non-profit’s CEO speaks volumes regarding their motivations.

More tellingly is the church’s cynical pronouncement of late last week that no Second Harvest donations have “been used for the bankruptcy”. That statement is only true because of the resolve of the now terminated CEO and three board members who were steadfast in their opposition to paying for abuse claims that were none of Second Harvest’s doing.

What’s missing of course, from the Archdiocese statements is any commitment to not ever use Second Harvest funds to help settle bankruptcy claims. Concerned donors and others would be well advised to contact the Archdiocese, their local church Deacons, priests and lay leaders to confirm the church’s real intentions in this regard. Getting such an assurance would go a long way toward resolving this unfortunate dispute and healing the many wounds the Archdiocese actions have caused.

All in All.

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It’s easy to feel like everything is terrible right now, but some things aren’t.

This isn’t. This is the 3 surviving members of Nirvana — Grohl, Novoselic, and Smear — reuniting for Fire Aid LA last night, with a rotating slate of vocalists. St Vincent joins them for “Breed;” early Nirvana patron and music god Kim Gordon steps in for “School.” Icon Joan Jett has the mic for “Territorial Pissings.”

And Dave’s daughter Violet sings on “All Apologies,” backed by her father (and also during which Gordon is back on stage on bass, as Novoselic shifted to accordion).

A fun thing to note here is that when famously-giant Novoselic (listed online at slightly over 2m, or about 6′ 7″) kneels in tribute to Jett at the end of her song, he’s still nearly as tall as she is. (And she’s not especially short, apparently; the Internet says 5’5″.)

Moonrise Kingdom, again

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My love for Anderson’s 2012 film Moonrise Kingdom is very well documented. Somehow, though, I missed that, in the run-up to the release of Asteroid City, there had been some additional “Andersonia” floating around.

Included was this short interview with Jared Gilman and Kara Wayward, who played Moonrise’s romantic leads. The catch is that now they’re adults. The whole thing is very charming and delightful. Enjoy.

What makes you happy?

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Reviewing an old thread on Facebook, wherein I was being grouchy about something, I find that someone asked “what makes you happy?” by way of contrast.

I replied with this, slightly edited. These are dark days. Don’t forget there is still joy in the world.

Erin. Bacon. Our cats. My nieces and nephew. My brother. Cool tech. Beautiful music. That feeling of being safe and warm at home with your people and pets when it’s cold and wet outside. Getting stronger on my bike. Our impending vacation. Erin’s ongoing experiments with the new slow cooker. My friends, and their beautiful children, even the ones we don’t see all that often. Houston in general. Houston’s arts community in particular. Mechanical watches. Fountain pens. Good wine. Great whiskey. Hubcap burgers. Alabama football, most of the time. The fact that more people can get health insurance today than a year ago. The migas at Guadalupana. Sherlock and Doctor Who. The impending release of the new Robert Ellis record. The fact that we have a great record store in Houston. My Kindle. Macintoshes. The prospect for a good year, businesswise. Photography.

Dept. of reaping what was sown

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According to a well-sourced (US Bureau of Labor Statistics) post on Reddit, Texas has lost about 50% of its OBGYN practitioners since 2019; in that same time period, the number of OBs in California (similar in size and GDP) has increased dramatically.

Dept. of Lost Causes

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Comes now this alert, via my sister, about the upcoming holiday in our home state:

Ms goddamn

Sometimes, when it comes out in conversation that I’m from Mississippi, people ask what that was like.

This is a great example. The whole state is STILL mired in Lost Cause bullshit to the point that ROBERT E. LEE’S BIRTHDAY is celebrated ALONG SIDE Martin Luther King’s. Over there, committing treason in defense of slavery is apparently just as laudable as fighting for civil rights. This combination is not accidental — like most of the Civil War monuments, it came later, as a thumb in the eye of those who’d seek to diminish the myth of the Lost Cause. Coerced by the rest of the country to enshrine Rev King’s birthday as a holiday, they chose to combine it with Lee’s.

What assholes.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: in high school, we were taught — and had to parrot it back, on tests — that the Civil War was more about states’ rights than anything else, and that slavery was a footnote. This was only a viable pedagogical position because the curriculum went out of its way to NEVER EVEN MENTION that the seceding states literally wrote and circulated documents detailing in no uncertain terms why they were prepared to go to war over leaving the union.

Had those documents been mentioned AT ALL, teaching this states-rights lie would’ve been utterly impossible. Mississippi’s document for example, starts like this:

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Disingenuous people ask silly questions like “what even IS institutional racism?” This right here is a great fucking example: going out of your way to limit exposure to the historical record in order to suppor the teaching of an outright lie.

Obviously, everyone there isn’t terrible, but it’s safe to say the majority of (white) population mostly doesn’t mind this sort of thing. Why do I paint with such a broad brush? Well, it’s numbers.

See, it’s absolutely true that (for example) about 38% of voters there voted for Harris in November. That’s not nothing, right? I mean, as states go that’s a big margin, but it’s still a lot of votes.

However, if we go look at the demographics of the state, we see a very similar split; make of this what you will.

Screenshot 2025 01 09 at 5 48 50 PM

There’s a final note I’ll make. Mississippi is reaping what it’s sown. People with options don’t choose to live there. It’s a smaller state now, relative to the rest of the country, than it was when I was growing up. I was surprised, a little, to discover it’s down to 4 House seats now; in my youth there, it had 5. More shocking is the fact that, at one point in the earlier 20th century, it had 8.

You can measure that another way, too. When I was in high school, I was one of 8 National Merit scholars; a 9th young man qualified for the National Achievement program, so let’s work with that as a number. Of those folks, only one chose to make his life there. 1, out of 9.

Because we had options.

(Not for nothing, but it’s both tragic and heartwarming that today I saw a message from one of the others on Facebook announcing he’d lost his house in the Palisades fire, which was almost immediately replied by by another of our group who lives on the other side of the country. Nerdy kids stay friends, yo.)