A life-shattering question has come up this week. Do I need to now hate one of my favorite movies – The Big Easy – or suddenly not find The Parent Trap irresistible because Dennis Quaid is a MAGA tool?
Nope. That’s the answer. And it’s not even hard.
I will still laugh out loud while watching What Women Want despite Mel Gibson being … I don’t even know how to characterize the guy’s personal life anymore. All I know is he was perfect in that lead role and it’s damned entertaining.
Of course this brings me to Robert DeNiro and the fallout from his appearance this week in front of a New York City courtroom where a former president is awaiting a verdict. For me it was a big shrug. I like DeNiro, love his work, and he was exercising a little thing we call free speech.
But no, not for the MAGA crowd and right-wing media. Suddenly his acting sucks, he’s washed up (he was nominated for an Oscar in 2023), and they’re trotting out Chachi and Dean Cain and arguing over whose celebrities are bigger and more famous. This is like the crowd size obsession. Good god, they’ve become Trump, a man whose emotional growth was stunted somewhere around age 10.
I can’t handle all this ‘who can pee higher up the wall?’ nonsense.
What is this childish need to pretend DeNiro isn’t a master at his craft? Or that he didn’t contribute mightily to the spirit and recovery of Lower Manhattan with the Tribeca Film Festival? Your disagreement on Trump doesn’t erase facts.
Get a grip, people. Your allegiance to one man has either pulled you down to his level or amplified your existing immaturity and inability to discern provable, knowable things. You’ve lost your way.
And to Dennis Quaid – he’s YOUR asshole? Hard to see those words come off your lips. Lord have mercy. Where’s Remy McSwain when we need him?
[Editorial Note: This is my seventh installment in a series I began in order to give my writing some flow after being in a healing phase from knee surgeries for a year (2023-24).]
[This post was originally published on Facebook on May 30, 2024.]
