Finally, Film Babble Blog’s Favorite Films Of 2023!

As s it’s almost February, and the Oscar noms have been announced (and I finally got around to watching PLEASE DON’T DESTROY: THE TREASURE OF FOGGY MOUNTAIN), I’m finally posting my 10 Top movies (and some spillover) from 2023.

This has been a much better year for film than any of the last several, since before the Pandemic actually, so it was an easier time making these picks. Like a number of my choices, the first one was a movie that surprised me with how much I liked it. 

 

1. DREAM SCENARIO (Dir. Kristoffer Borgli) Nicholas Cage’s 11,875th film is one of his best, featuring an timely, inventive premise in which Cage’s schlubby college professor starts showing up in many people’s dreams, giving a new layer to going viral. It’s a profoundly cringy experience that I bet will stay with me longer than most of the other movies on this list. Read my review: When Nicholas Cage Dreams Become Nicholas Cage Nightmares (11/30/23).

2 KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Dir. Martin Scorsese) 

Master movie-maker Marty made a corker of a three and a half-hour thriller about the Osage Reign of Terror in early 1920’s Oklahoma set to the late, great Robbie Robertson’s superbly subtle, bluesy score, which should get him a posthumous Oscar (I'm not going to predict anything yet though). And the powerful film features a career best Leonardo DiCaprio, and a more invested than he has been lately, Robert De Niro together again, for the very first time (they worked together before in A BOY’S LIFE, but this is their first film under Scorsese’s direction together (DiCaprio has been in six Scorsese films; De Niro’s tally is 10). Read the Film Blog Review (10/19/23).

 

3. OPPENHEIMER (Dir. David Nolan)

Nolan’s epic biopic of nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, wowed the world in the wake of the crazy BARBENHEIMER movement by being a three-hour biopic about a scientist that grossed $955 million. Robert Downey Jr. is a lock for his portrayal of a political rival of our rail thin lead is a lock for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, but with 13 noms, this film has a good chance of sweeping. Read my review: Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER Is Kind Of A Big Deal (7/19/23)

 

4. THE HOLDOVERS (Dir. Alexander Payne)

Payne rebounds from the disappointing DOWNSIZING, with this charming, and very amusing early ‘70s-set dramedy with Paul Giamatti (for his second collaboration with Paybe after the superb SIDEWAYS) as a classics professor at a New England boarding school that has to baby-sit a few students (mostly the talented newcomer Dominic Sessa) who are stuck on campus during the holidays. Da’vine Joy Randolph definitely deserves her Supporting Actress nom for work here as school’s head cook, who’s grieving over son who just died in Vietnam, and the other four noms are worthy too, so this is one I hope more people seek out.

 

5. ANATOMY OF A FALL (Dir. Justine Triet)

The DVD screener of the first film I watched on New Year's Day, 2024

Oscar Best Acrtress nominee Sandra Hüller did double duty this last year in two majorly recognized films as she’s in this French courtroom drama, and Jonathan Glazer’s excellent THE ZONE OF INTEREST. Here she nails her role as a stressed writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband’s death, and the screenplay by Triet, and Arthur Harari keeps us guessing as it goes through gripping court proceedings. Like #4, this also got five Oscar noms, and shouldn’t be missed.

 

6. GODZILLA MINUS ONE (Dir. Takashi Yamazaki)

Now this was a complete surprise as another Godzilla movie was not the most enticing prospect, but the 37th entry in the series that started 70 years ago, is an amazing, gripping action adventure motion picture that won me over early on with its engaging drama about Japan recovering from World War II, and having to band together to fight this nuclear-radiation created reptilian monster that is more convincingly depicted (thanks to state-of-the-art CGI) than ever before. I certainly agree with Keven Smith that it’s the best Godzilla movie ever. 

7. MAY DECEMBER (Dir. Todd Haynes)

This immaculately-made duel of a drama between Julianne Moore, as a woman who did time for the second-degree rape of a 13-year old, but 20 years later is married to the man who was that boy; and Natalie Portman as an actress who is visiting the couple at their lavish Savannah, Georgia home, for research for a film where she’ll play Moore’s character. The compelling narrative, with its tasty twists and all, helps it stand with Haynes finest work including VELVERT GOLDMINE, I’M NOT THERE, and CAROL.

8. PAST LIVES (Dir. Celine Song)

Another surprise here as a Oscar Best Picture contender, and as a movie that I liked enough to make the list, as this a small movie about a relationship between two childhood friends from South Korean who contain their spark, mostly online as they live far away from each other into adulthood. It’s a of unrequited love with naturalistic performances by Greta Lee, and Teo Yoo, with John Magaro putting in a nicely sensitive side character to the couple as Lee’s understanding husband. However, I doubt this will win anything Oscar-wise other than many viewers hearts.

 

9. BEAU IS AFRAID (Dir. Ari Aster) 

My placing of this weird ass A24 surrealist tragicomedy horror film (that’s what Wikipedia’s calling it so let’s go with that) shouldn’t be read as a recommendation or a warning or well, anything but that I couldn’t deny its hold on my troubled soul. It’s a grotesque, stressful, and just plain f-ed up story about Joaquinn Phoenix of a man living a hellish existence, who is going on a trip to his mother’s, but chaotic circumstances make his journey a nightmare. If you’re only going to see one Joaquin Phoenix 2023 movie, make sure it’s this and not NAPOLEON.

 

10. ALBERT BROOKS: DEFENDING MY LIFE (Dir. Rob Reiner) 

The life, and career of one of my all-time comedians, Albert Brooks, is explored over lunch with his best friend, Rob Reiner in this HBO biodoc that is so packed with great footage of Brooks’ legendary variety, and talk show appearances from the late ‘60s-‘70s that it should be mandatory viewing for aspiring comics. Brook’s classic comedies (like REAL LIFE, MODERN ROMANCE, and LOST IN AMERICA) are insightfully given discussion, with one of its best segments being about the film that inspired this film’s title, DEFENDING YOUR LIFE . A stand out moment, is when Brook's wife since 1997, Kimberly, says of her first wanting to meet him because of that movie, “This man, wrote, directed, and starred in this? That’s the kid of guy I want to marry. I swear to God I said that.” Touching stuff indeed.

Spillover:

THE ZONE OF INTEREST (Dir. Jonathan Glaser)

AMERICAN FICTION (Dir. Cord Jefferson)

TALK TO ME (Dirs. Danny and Michael Philippou)

Some franchise films I thought were better than okay:

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (Dirs. Joaquim Dos Santos,Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson)

JOHN WICK 4 (Dir. Chad Stahelski) 

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART ONE (Dir. Christopher McQuarrie) This film's title really needs a colon.

And finally, yes, it’s far from a great movie, but it’s still one of the most notable, and memorable films of 2023:

BARBIE (Dir. Greta Gerwig)

Okay, I’m done. 

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Todd Haynes’ VU Doc Begins To See The Light, Even If It Doesn’t Quite Get It Right

Now streaming on AppleTV +, this may be the artsiest rockumentary I’ve ever seen. This is despite the fact that it’s largely in black and white, filmmaker Todd Haynes has assembled a smorgasbord of split screen imagery that places pop art legend Andy Warhol’s screen tests of the legendary avant-garde group, The Velvet Underground alongside archival footage, and newly show interview clips to unconventionally tell the tale of one of the most unconventional bands ever.

This aesthetic is obviously an attempt to recreate the Velvet Undreground’s multimedia presentations, which were curated by Warhol, and for the most part the effect takes harmonious hold.

Now if you don’t know the Velvet Underground, also known as the Velvets and VU, it’s likely that you’ve never formed a band before. The New York based outfit was founded, under Warhol’s tutelage, by bassist-viola player, John Cale, and guitarist/singer Lou Reed who met at a NYC party. The additions of multi-instrumentalist Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker soon followed.

Reed remarked that his literary influences epitomized by Allan Ginsburg’s Howl, William s. Burrough’s Naked Lunch, and Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn were “what I want to do except with a drum and a guitar.” This led to the VU constructing music that was just as influential in such seminal releases as The Velvet Underground & Nico, and White Light/White Heat.

The first of these albums, their Warhol-produced debut that emerged from the Factory secenescene, featured German chanteuse Nico on four songs, but demos included in this doc give us a taste of what tracks like “Here She Comes Again” could’ve sounded like.

Unfortunately, when we get to Cale and Reed’s bandmates, Morrison, and Tucker they are treated in an afterthought a la “and the Professor and Mary Ann.” But at least Tucker gets to chime in about the West Coast vibe: “This love, peace crap, we hated that. Get real.”

The second half of the film, is dominated by simulations of such events of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which had the Velvets backed by Warhol’s flaky films, and audiences who would haphazardly take over the lighting duties. Flickering effects, fuzzy sped-up footages, and, yes, more split-screen visuals, display that the doc is more about the interactive performance art, than it is about the music, man!

That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty of the band’s twisted tunage on hand, but it seems secondary to their artsy stage antics. There is some offstage juiciest dealing with Reed firing Warhol, and, more surprisingly Cale. Sadly, not much insight is given to these shake-ups. It’s hard to explain exactly why these firings went down, with the Cale situation is mainly used to introduce Doug Yule as his replacement.

Interview bits with such subjects as Reed’s sister Merrill Reed Weiner, mega fan Jonathan Richman, actress Mary Woronov, Jonas Mekas (who passed right after shooting his contribution), as well as beyond the grave sound bites by Reed, and Morrison, attempt to flesh out the story, yet only skirt the surface of the narrative. Perhaps this would’ve been better as a doc mini-series.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, which was made by a true music geek, is recommended more to folks already acquainted with VU, as I don’t think it’s a thorough intro to their oeuvre. This is an in-the-know portrait that aims to celebrate the band’s position in the landscape of the oh so hip ‘60s freak out happenings. This makes for a very watchable curio, but those who have lived and breathed the often strange stylings of Reed and Company, know that this band is so much more than what the flashy footage onscreen struggles to convey.

For those who want more music, the soundtrack, VELVET UNDERGROUND: Music From The Motion Picture Soundtrack, is available now. It contains 16 tracks including such rarities as “The Ostrich” by The Primitives, an early novelty track by Reed before VU; “The Wind” by The Diablos, and The Theatre of Eternal Music's “17 XII 63 NYC The Fire Is A Mirror (excerpt).” So, much like the doc, this soundtrack is anything but a hits collection.

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Todd Haynes’ CAROL: Cate Blanchett & Rooney Mara Find Forbidden Love

Now playing at an indie art house, and maybe a multiplex or two, near you:

CAROL (Dir. Todd Haynes, 2015)

Todd Haynes sixth film, CAROL, his follow-up to his masterful 2007 Dylan deconstruction I’M NOT THERE, has been drawing comparisons to John Crowley’s BROOKLYN, which was released earlier in the prestige picture/Oscar bait season of fall 2015.

Both are New York City-set period pieces concerning young women who work in Macy’s-style department stores, both illustrate the coming-of-age experiences of these women in the restrictive society of the early 1950s, and both are based on bestselling, award-winning novels.

And there’s the fact that BROOKLYN director Crowley was once even attached to direct CAROL.

But while BROOKLYN is a well made, and very good looking drama, Haynes’ CAROL is something else entirely – a much more sophisticated, complicated, and immaculately artful work, which is stunningly gorgeous while BROOKLYN is merely pretty.

An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 book “The Price of Salt” (later re-named “Carol”), the film is told through the eyes of Rooney Mara as 20-something aged shopgirl Therese Belivet, who becomes intrigued by Cate Blanchett as the much older (40-something) Carol Aird, a wealthy New Jersey housewife, when they meet over a counter at Frankenberg's department store.

Carol is Christmas shopping and asks for Therese’s help looking for a doll for her daughter. The two converse pleasantly, then Carol forgets her gloves on the counter when she leaves. Therese arranges for the gloves to be sent to Carol’s home. Carol calls Therese at work to thank her for sending the gloves, and invites her out to lunch where they hit it off further.

In the meantime, we learn that Carol is going through what could become a messy divorce from her angry husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), while Therese, who dreams of being a photographer, has a boyfriend, Richard (Jake Lacy), who wants to marry her, and live together in France. We also meet Sarah Paulson as Carol’s bestfriend/former lover, who’s relationship is a source of Harge’s chargrin.

Carol invites Therese over for dinner, but the night, and their budding romance, is interrupted by Harge, who demands that his wife go with him and their daughter Rindy (Kk Heim) to Florida for Christmas, but she refuses.

Later, Harge’s lawyer cites a “morality clause” against Carol that would grant him sole custody of Rindy.

Despite this situation, or because of it, Carol and Therese embark on a road trip out west, before which Therese breaks up with the increasingly frustrated Richard.

On the road, the pair gets closer but things go askew when they find out that a P.I. (Cory Michael Smith) that Harge hired to get incriminating evidence on Carol, has been recording their lovemaking (tastefully shot, of course) through their hotel wall.

To fight for custody of Rindy, Carol departs back to New York, leaving Therese behind and their relationship up in the air.

Of all of Haynes’ fine films, CAROL most resembles his 2002 Douglas Sirkian-inspired drama FAR FROM HEAVEN, which also dealt with the taboo of homosexuality in the McCarthy era. But while HEAVEN had a high gloss to its look, CAROL, shot by the same cinematographer, Edward Lachman, has more of a subtle, darker grain. Many shots echo Life Magazine photography in their muted yet still vivid colors.

The always reliable composer (and long-time Coen brothers collaborator) Carter Burwell’s score is a beautiful embellishment to the proceedings. It swoons and swells effectively throughout, never calling too much attention to itself. Mixed into the soundtrack are a well picked batch of ‘40s and ‘50s songs, mostly Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks tracks).

But it’s the performances by Blanchett (yes, there will be an Oscar nomination) and Mara (maybe) that stand out the strongest. Both women bring to nervous life the dialogue in the sharp screenplay by Phyllis Nagy (another nomination, I bet), with Mara’s story arc of a woman blooming finding confidence after years of shadowy confliction, nicely blending with Blanchett’s worried perseverance.

CAROL is another late year addition to my top 10 of 2015 (coming soon!). From the absorbing aura of its near perfect period design and visuals, to its tense yet tender handling of its love story, along, of course, with the terrific turns by Blanchett and Mara – it all made a very poignant impression on me.

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Dylan Mythology Dissected Magnificently

"It has chaos, clocks, watermelons...you know what I'm sayin'...it's everything." - Jude (CATE BLANCHETT) I'M NOT THERE (Dir. Todd Haynes, 2007) It's funny that the upcoming WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY (the Judd Apatow written and produced comic mock epic with John C. Reilly as the lead) proposes to set fire to the tried and true clichés of modern music bio-pics because after the exciting experimental experience that is I'M NOT THERE those worn methods are already ashes. As most reading this know well by now Bob Dylan is portrayed by 6 different actors (Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Marcus Carl Franklin, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw) who embody the man in different distinct eras and incarnations. Each has a different name, a different attitude, and of course, a different aesthetic. It may seem weird or even a bit pretentious in concept to cast a young black kid as a box-car hopping tall-tale telling pre-fame Dylan or an Australian Academy Award winning woman to play his Bobness at the height of his amphetamine-fueled rock star glory but the way it's played out here is mindboggling in its magnificence. The finger-pointing protesting period provides the always up to the task Christian Bale with the Bob with most conscience through separate eras one - political and one intensely religious. Gere's Billy The Kid hiding from society persona seems to be the Dylan who is the most free - or at least pretending to be. Seemingly drawn from a tapestry woven from words spoken in every Dylan interview, every song in Dylan's catalogue being official or bootleg, and every single photograph or footage of the real man, some of the most affecting moments are the quietest. When Gere's Billy-variation-on-Bob surveys the vast unpopulated wilderness beneath him from a high mountain trail a notion of what Greil Marcus called the "Invisible Republic" can be sensed. That however is the musing of a Dylanologist like myself - someone who can't quote Bob chapter and verse may find that and other sequences slow and hard to decipher. Man, I pity those people. Cate Blanchet as Jude has the most amusing and electric (yep, I went there) material and her presence in the black and white as-if-filmed-by-Fellini mid-60's montages never falters. As many have remarked she may look and act the most like Dylan - at that particular time that is. She has obviously studied DON'T LOOK BACK so she has every mannerism perfected -right down to the handling of a cigarette and the frantic on-stage flailing of arms. Blanchett's Jude is the most hostile and cornered of all the Dylans. If you've seen NO DIRECTION HOME or have at least heard the leering lyrical equivalent to acid being thrown into a former lover's face ditty "Positively 4th Street" - you may have an inkling why.Ben Whishaw as Arthur is the Bob with the least impact and screen-time. He simply recites carefully chosen media-taunting cryptic one liners from the public record. While the quotes are good - he's my vote for the weakest link here. Ledger's section (or sections as the structure gets broken up quite frequently) in which he plays an actor playing Bob (or actually Jack - Christian Bale's character) has a lot of merit with its discomforting domestic bliss breakdown and break-up intertwined with a Vietnam war time-frame but it's not as well visualized and vital as Blanchett's or even Gere's portions. Marcus Carl Franklin's bits are achingly sweet and for the youngest player here - his assured poise transcends any thought of gimmick casting. Other than the Dylans, the supporting cast is splendid - David Cross as Allen Ginsberg, Julianne Moore wonderfully mimics Joan Baez, and Bruce Greenword beautifully personifies the over-educated but still clueless interviewer / interrogator Mr. Jones from Dylan's classic "Ballad Of A Thin Man". Filled with mostly Bob originals and a number of great sharp covers, the soundtrack * is spectacular but that's far from surprising. What is surprising is how this perverse take on the bio-pic formula works so damn well and how hypnotic its effect is. One shouldn't go see it to make sense of the myths or to put into any concrete cinematic context the life of Bob Dylan (director/writer Todd Haynes knew going in that that's impossible) but if one views it like a piece of modern art - where you have to squint to make certain parts focus and you have to open your eyes wide to see how distorted the details really are - they are certain to get more than just mere glimpses at greatness. * As I suspected the bulk of the covers that make up the 2 disc so-called soundtrack (previously reviewed - Film Babble Blog 11/10/07 I'M NOT THERE Soundtrack Is Where It's At) are not featured in the movie. The amount of original Dylan recordings used could make up a nice alternate/actually accurate soundtrack - hey, now there's an idea for a great CDR comp! More later...

I'M NOT THERE Soundtrack Is Where It's At

"There was a movie I seen one time, I think I sat through it twice.
I don't remember who I was or where I was bound."
- Bob Dylan (from "Brownsville Girl" - Knock Out Loaded, 1986)

So with less 2 weeks to go til one of the most anticipated movies of year (at least by me), I'M NOT THERE comes to my area (it's released here Nov. 21st) I thought I'd post a review of the spectacular soundtrack to this film which is largely known by the masses as the film in which Cate Blanchett plays Bob Dylan (see above pic). It seemingly has a lot more to offer than just that - from this soundtrack alone it appears to have something for everybody. So hey ho - let's go:

I'm Not There (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack produced by Randall Poster, Jim Dunbarm and Todd Haynes) Dylan covers (and collections of such) have been commonplace ever since the era when he first became a household name. Some are the product of a an artist or a band showing off their hipster literary chops (Judy Collins, Bryan Ferry, The Byrds, The Hollies, Odetta, etc.), some are of various artists under a genre categorization (Is It Rolling Bob?: – A Reggae Tribute, Tangled Up In Bluegrass: A Tribute To Dylan, and Dylan Country), and some are artists not content just to cover a single song – they cover full albums like Mary Lee’s Corvette’s version of Blood On The Tracks or they cover entire concerts – like Robyn Hitchcock’s faithful re-recreation of the incredible 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert. So what’s so special about the new soundtrack from I’M NOT THERE? Well, it has great new renditions of Bob classics from modern as well as old timey acts that form a narrative over the 2 disc collection seemingly inspired by the film, it has Bob’s approval, and most importantly it has Bob himself on the 40 year-old never before released title track. But more about that song later.

This new batch of Dylan interpretations features a veritable who’s-who of the recent respected rock scene - Eddie Vedder, Sonic Youth, Calexico, Cat Power, Iron & Wine, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Sufjan Stevens, the Black Keys, and so on. From the old guard – Roger McGuinn, Richie Havens, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and Willie Nelson show their hands on the table admirably and perform alongside their younger counter-parts fluidly (Nelson and McGuinn are backed by Calexico). John Doe from the legendary L.A. punk band X has one of the collection's most show-stopping numbers – “Pressing On”. One of Dylan’s most overlooked Gospel era songs is presented with such soulful gruff conviction that it is sure to elevate the scene in which Christian Bale lip-syncs it (I’ve seen the clip and it does).

Film babble favorites Yo La Tengo put in a rowdy blazing take on “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and a plantive pretty “Fourth Time Around” as well. Stephen Malkmus of Pavement has 3 songs (including the subtlety-on-fire “Ballad Of A Thin Man”) with the soundtrack house band ( The Million Dollar Bashers *) - all of which sound more relaxed and rocking than he has in years. Mason Jennings, a young folk singer from Bob’s home state of Minnesota, does 2 Bob songs, one of which has been covered to death – “The Times They Are A Changing” but it doesn’t seem so when he sings it. Just about everyone else (including Los Lobos, Mark Lanegen, Charlotte Gainesbourg, and The Hold Steady) clock in with nice Bob tributes. Only one or two miss the mark like Eddie Vedder’s “All Along The Watchtower” (talk about overdone !) which has him repeating the last lines over and over in such an unnecessary fashion - to be fair Neil Young and Chrissie Hynde have done the same thing in their covers of the song but it's just more obnoxious when Vedder does it!

* The Million Dollar Bashers feature Steve Shelley, Tony Ganier (long-time Dylan bassist), John Medeski, Tom Verlaine, Lee Ranaldo, Smokey Hormel, and Nels Cline.

What makes this disc worth buying alone is the original 1967 title track originally named “I’m Not There (1956)”. It has been available only to the connoisseurs of bootleg Dylan – it came from The Basement Tapes – the informal demos Bob made with the Band in Saugerties, NY while he was supposedly recovering from his alleged motorcycle accident. To be honest the sound quality on this first official release of the song is not that much better than the bootlegs I’ve heard over the years - seems like some of those hardcore Bob fanatics know a little about re-mastering. This is despite that this new mix comes from the master - long hoarded by Neil Young on his ranch since the time of tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming. It’s ballsy for Todd Haynes to title his unconventional biopic after an unreleased song only known to mostly hardcore Dylan fans - even ballsier to name it after such an unfinished unreleased song. That’s right – there are lines in which Bob hums or inserts what he later called “dummy lyrics” – line fillers until the real line was worked out but as history tells us - that never happened. It doesn’t matter though – the song, even unfinished, is as mystic and enveloping as any in his catalogue. A series of murky declarations set against a hazy bar-room organ background it seems at first listen to be impenetrable; every further listen renders it sublime.

It’s funny - Sonic Youth usually deconstruct musical norms, but here in their cover of the title track “I’m Not There” (yes, it appears twice here - in Dylan’s original and in this cover) they reconstruct an unfinished song as best as they can and like Malkmus’s tracks it’s one of their most recent likable efforts. As the booklet for the seminal Scorsese doc NO DIRECTION HOME said “this is not a soundtrack in the traditional sense” - this is an amazing amalgam of many diverse styles to form one big picture and that bodes very well for this reportedly grand but off kilter biopic. One of the only true to the soundtrack sense-of-being renderings is Marcus Carl Franklin’s (known among the 7 actors playing Dylan as the little black kid) magnificent “When The Ship Comes In.” Since by all reports the film is full of Bob originals this soundtrack appears to be more of a ‘inspired by’ compilation but I can’t vouch for that until I actually see it. When I do – you’ll be the first to know.

This post is dedicated to Norman Mailer (January 31, 1923-November 10, 2007). Yesterday on Wikipedia it said that among the literary highlights of his illustrious career he had co-written episodes of the 70's buddy cop show Starsky And Hutch. This is unconfirmed by IMDb and yeah, I know the changing nature of the Wiki-reliability. Turns out it was somebody's joke as that tidbit is gone today. Whew! That's a relief - the thought that the author of The Naked And The Dead wrote dialogue for Huggy Bear would take a lot to process.

Another funny thing recently removed from Wikipedia (on the grounds that it was too trivial) - "In the film SLEEPER Woody Allen is shown a picture of Mailer, Allen confirms his identity and states that Mailer donated his ego to the Harvard Medical School."

R.I.P. Mr. Mailer.

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