53 Comments

I'm going to find it and watch it, Then come back and finish reading. ;)

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OMG you really did? Awesome!

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Your recommendations are highly respected in this house!

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I have been ready for my close-up for 50 years! As a child model whose career peaked at 17, I am still searching for the next role! Ha... I absolutely adore that movie! And your analogy is just perfect!!

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Oh, wow, how fascinating! Thank you.

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I just wanna say, Greg, I think you’re an incredibly talented writer. Truly.

I’ve never seen the movie, but I simply adore old black n whites, so def putting this one in my watch list now. Thank you for the inspiration!

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Oh, it's terrific. So many good lines. I love it. And: thanks!

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Terrific analogy! Thanks, Greg!

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At 50 she was beautiful, Anyway thanks for the movie, Greg. That music score was so fun! And a perfect comparison. I'm just so relieved that things are quieter, fun stories come out of the White House again. And all the chatter is how hard everyone is working. More than anything though, I can't wait to see Justice. We deserve Justice. Every single one of us has been Fucked over for 4 years, tortured, and traumatized for 4 god damn years. And I worry that Justice isn't going to swift nor harsh enough.

SO anyway, thanks for the movie, her wardrobe was lovely. Need to watch older black and whites again. I always loved the drama of Hitchcock. And the scary old Vincent Price Movies.

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It's so good. THere's so much fun metatext, like the scene with the old movie stars playing bridge...and the movie they watch, featured a young Norma, is really a young Gloria Swanson, in an unreleased film directed by...Erich von Stroheim!

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Yep

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Well, since we're doing plot spoilers: Joe Gillis is already dead when the film begins, with an unforgettable angle on his floating corpse. But that doesn't stop him from talking. Anybody we know?

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Excellent observation, Nina! WOOOHOOOOO !

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Ha! Interestingly, he doesn't actually say it's him in the pool, and from that famous angle it's hard to tell. My son forgot all about it, as I suspect most audience members would, until he flips on the light to the pool right at the end.

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Okay ~ so what is this feeling that you get while watching trump, and watching this movie, and watching a train wreck... because it's been stirring in my gut for the past 5 years, and thank god for Biden, because... Relief.

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This is the first morning in four and a half years that I woke up and felt ok. I think the Biden reality is finally setting in.

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It's amazing that the constant sense of dread: bad news on top of bad news, Friday firings, family shenanigans, gaslighting, nothing being done about Covid, badmouthing EVERYone, the lies spewing from the white house.... it's all Over! (at least for the next 4 years). ❤️❤️❤️

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We are all suffering from post trump trauma syndrome disorder. PTTSD.

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No lie!

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I found I’m sleeping A LOT. Way, way more than I should, tbh. I suspect what I’m going thru is a kind of psychological “detox.” It’ll get better in time.

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Same here. And I wake up wondering "what's wrong today" and then have this AMAZING light feeling remembering he's GONE!! Soon that first morning thought will fade away... ❤️

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Yes, absolutely... but the virus, and it’s spawn, still hold the trump card.... no pun intended.

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P.S. I don’t want to sound like Debbie Downer, aren’t you a bit more concerned about the virus than you were a week ago ?!

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I'm constantly worried about the virus... I'm the person who only goes out to walk my dog & has everything else delivered. (and I have been double masking for months now in my building's elevator, and the only person who has touched me in 8 months was my mammogram technician). ;)

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I know just how you feel! I am constantly being told to have faith as per Dr. Fauci’s advice. And I am trying... but the news changes every day, and the mutations are terrifying! Take care, there’s no such thing as being too careful!

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Utterly brilliant, Greg, and SO much fun, Thank you. I would happily cash my (miniscule) pension cheque for months if it would enticed someone to force #MangoWanker the Turdking to testify in person in front of the Senate. OMFG. So many happy dreams, yet to come, too!

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If we pay-per-view this, we'd pay off the deficit.

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Hahahaaaaha! I'm in!

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Brilliant comparison. Sunset Boulevard is one of my favorite movies too. Donald Trump as Norma Desmond. Perfect.

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Both wear girdles and lifts and ladies' watches and too much makeup. ; )

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Even more perfect!

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Expect him to be a favorite with the gay burlesque stars as soon as everyone starts breathing regularly and stretching creative wings again. Rudy too. You heard it here first.

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A perfect ending for Trump. Yep, he'll shoot the Republican party dead. They're already in hospice. Hawley and Cruz are on ventilators. And good luck Miss Lindsey and Mitchie. They are all de classé now. We have a good president now - one who cares about other humans. Maybe now we can begin to recuperate from the four years of this decadent, degraded arse of a human being trying to destroy everything good about this country. I'm starting to recover from the persistent PTSD I felt from the moment I heard of Hillary's defeat. Greg Olear, you have been one key person who has kept me afloat. Thank you, endlessly. You and LB and Zev Shalev.

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Thanks for saying so. It's been a crazy ride, that's for sure.

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PTSD America. 😥

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I saw this brilliant cartoon, and changed the Trump quote to be a bit more relevant to today

https://dsc.cloud/ff8db1/1612716739.jpg

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Great one, William; now in my memes archive. So on-target (pun intended...).

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I became obsessed with William Holden in my early 40's after seeing "Sabrina" and watched as many of his movies as I could. (He aged a lot between "Sunset Boulevard" & "The World of Suzie Wong.") "Sunset Boulevard" was my favorite - - riveting!

I knew that an old silent film of Gloria Swanson's was used in it, but didn't know the butler in the film was the real life director of that Swanson silent movie. Many layers of coolness!

As usual, Greg, you hit the nail on the head with your analogy. Our miserable former "Pretendent" is saying that he's not showing up for the hearings next week but I expect he'll change his mind back n' forth a few times just because that's the kind of high-maintenance bitch he is. I kept telling myself during his toxic reign (4 years that felt like 50) that an enjoyable part of "Mr. Fraud's Wild Ride" would come when he lost reelection & the SDNY would come for him. But I don't view this 2nd impeachment with the same glee. Glad the Democrats did it; it was absolutely necessary considering the circumstances and Brian Sicknick's life cut short thanks to IQ45 egging his deplorable army of stand-bys into murderous action. William's cartoon above is so on-point and interestingly germane to the current sea shanty fad. (Note the peg-leg, lmfao...)

Thanks for a great read.

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Totally off topic but I love William Holden also. Did you see Network? I thought it was a masterful performance in one of the most prescient, brilliant films ever.

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It's been a while since I watched NETWORK. Seems like I should watch it again. Faye Dunaway FTW!

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Network and Face In The Crowd brilliantly explain the dynamics of the media and its relationships with power. These films should be required viewing for journalism majors. (How quaint! I know. I crack myself up sometimes)

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Kathleen as a sometime journalism major myself (UMass Amherst '79-'82), I couldn't agree more re: required viewing. My #1 gripe w/ fox "news" is the way they take one sliver of actual news, spin it in their opinion machine, then present the entire thing as "news." Those fukkkers ruined my father's mind.

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I'm so sorry to hear that about your father. While my father was still a Democrat when he died, I sometimes wonder if he would have fallen under the spell of Fox had he lived longer.

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We seem to have been able to get through to my 89 yr old Mom, but my Dad (almost 88) still feeds her tukkkerisms & hannity-insanity when he emerges from his gramps-cave.

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Do you think the movement to get cable companies to drop FOX will get any traction?

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I hope it does. It's a huge problem in this country, Cynthia. I truly believe if fox "news" hadn't existed, IQ45 would never have gotten into high office. Plus, with Sinclair Broadcasting buying up so many local stations & pumping out the fox horsecrap to the masses, truth and objective journalism is in real peril. Those who watch fox & its affiliates think they're watching actual news, but much of the time, they're watching opinion posing as truth.

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Thank you. Holden is also really good in River Kwai. That was before CGI, so when they blew up the bridge, they REALLY blew up the bridge...

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Delicious. Just delicious!! Enjoyed it as much as I do watching Tom Brady. Bravo Mr. Olear!

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thanks.

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We just finished watching ‘Sunset Blvd.’

Thank you so much for planting the seed! It was striking how the parallels to the man at Mar-a-Lago! It was so good that we decided to watch it again at the end of the week! Compare endings!

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I didn't even think about Mar-a-Lago, but yes, it is...ostentatious, and pictures of him everywhere. I'm so glad you liked it!

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