Per NYC’s Joan Wall: “On the 405 near Los Angeles airport, my car broke down. A flat. I pull over to the shoulder, put on the emergency blinkers, hang a white hanky out of the driver’s side, and I call AAA.
“A car stops behind me. Out steps someone who knows from automobiles. You can’t believe this. It’s ‘Fast and Furious’ classic American car collector Vin Diesel! I open the trunk. He pulls out the jack and spare. Changes the flat tire. I thank him, give him a hug and some Handi Wipes. He jumps back in his car and off he went.”
Whether he was piloting a souped-up Chevy Camaro or some 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona that, in films, has jumped over buildings, this she did not mention.
Not long for this world
We’ve got riots, killings, stabbings, unemployment, poverty, hunger, homelessness, aloneness, subway miseries, lawsuits, political fights, so just what we need is a nice happy feel-good film. Comes now truth-based “Our Friend.” Casey Affleck plays journalist Matt Teague. Dakota Johnson’s the wife, ill with cancer, in a countdown till death.
Jason Segel plays their friend: “To make it through, humor’s needed in a story like this.”
Dakota: “Scary to lose somebody. People respond in many ways.”
Casey: “Every character should seem as real as the actor playing the part. To seem, even if completely fictional, like flesh and blood with history and feelings as real as anyone watching.”
OK? We all clear on that? Friendly “Our Friend” drops on us January.
Dream come true
Over 10 years Debbie Allen Dance Academy’s staged “The Nutcracker” with an all-black cast. After Debbie’s own daughter faced racism at another dance academy, Mom opened her own place. Comes now her documentary. Exec producer Shonda Rhimes says, “I used to take my kid to her dance school.”
Debbie: “In my heart, I’ll always be that child in Houston who couldn’t go to ballet school because I was black and couldn’t see ‘The Nutcracker’ because everything was segregated.”
“Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker” is now jeté-ing on Netflix.
Resemblance call
A call’s out for Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves, Jason Statham, Hugh Jackman, Peter Dinklage, Justin Timberlake, John Krasinski, magician David Blaine look-alikes. It’s some “fake celebrity alcohol commercial” double thing. Which alcohol, who knows? Maybe it’s nail polish remover.
Bias hurting us
OK, we maybe got Biden and don’t got Trump. But: How about Washington Post, NY Times, mainstream media destroying Donald while ignoring Hunter Biden? How about Mueller finding nothing? False statements. Low-level loyalists facing obstruction. Democrats crying impeachment. Supporting institutions that attack our way of life. How about 70 million liked this president’s judicial appointments and that no chief of state before actually spoke to pro-life groups, cut taxes, tried to control our borders, supported oil fields so we’re energy self-sufficient. And before COVID — prospered. Can uncontrolled criminal street gangs terrorizing our population milk a cow, plant a field, dress an animal? Work farms, fields, mines, mills, natural gas, farming, ranching, paper, lumber, car factories? So America’s future is to be from those unattached to our historic values who can’t even handle the criminal street gangs? That’s our future?
“OK, we’re grateful those politicians will stop locking up religion and we can now get to a church service. But the real problem to pray for Sunday morning is finding a place to park the car.”
Said only in New York, kids, only in New York.