Amanda’s Mild Takes: Ls for the Week (and it’s only Tuesday)

 

It’s time for the Ls of the Week, and it’s only Tuesday. Amanda’s Mild Takes does the honors. Just remember, Everything is Going According the Plan!™

https://open.substack.com/.../first-ls-video-without-a...

"The Third Man" in 35mm at The Film Forum

 

The Third Man puts the “N” in noir, to the point that the shadows of post-war Vienna at night should get a co-starring credit. The ginned-up love between Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) and Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) isn’t altogether convincing, serving mostly as a diversion from the real theme: friendship, and what it takes to end it. 

Having said that, it is an odd kind of friendship. When British officer Calloway (Trevor Howard) asks Martins about his “best friend” Harry Lime (Orson Welles) when they are having a drink after meeting at Lime’s “funeral” in the film's opening 15 minutes, he can only come up with a few things he remembers about Lime. He hasn’t seen him in 10 years and only a few other times since they were at school together. It seems a shaky basis to say “no one knew him better than I did” and call Lime “the best friend I ever had,” yet Martins decides to clear Lime’s name after Calloway calls him “the worst racketeer who ever made a dirty living in this city” and so we have a movie.

It’s news to no one that The Third Man is a classic, and deservedly so. The plot is involving, as a mystery should be; the acting is uniformly first rate; the cinematography is extraordinary, and the climax is iconic. The 35mm print “photochemically printed from original film elements” that played at Film Forum in New York is beautiful, with no scratches anywhere, and a gorgeous palette of grays and deep, deep blacks. If a couple of reel changes could have been smoothed out they’re only momentarily distracting. It’s well worth your time to give the film a second, or third, viewing.

 

"In the Hand of Dante" is a lukewarm mess

In the Hand of Dante might be a hot mess if it weren’t so pretentious. There’s nothing wrong with a heist movie—it’s a perfectly respectable genre. Why attach a biopic of Italian poet Dante Alighieri that stops the action dead in its tracks every 10 minutes and adds at least one hour to the 2½ hour running time? Because the object of the heist is the manuscript of Dante’s Divine Comedy, which doesn’t exist, even in the Vatican Library? Surely Julian Schnabel doesn’t have to prove that he’s an intellectual heavyweight. And if the source novel by Nick Tosches follows that structure, then Schnabel should have gotten rid of it. 

But he didn’t, and the film suffers for it. Also worth mentioning is the steady string of murders that begins in the first 10 minutes and continues relentlessly until the next-to-last scene. There are at least 10 and most are gratuitous. Again, faithfulness to the novel doesn’t win points. It slows the movie down. Not content with having half the characters and a dog get shot, Schnabel threw in a leisurely torture scene, which after all the shootings was a change of pace. Not to worry, there are one or two more to conclude the plot.

Schnabel assembled a notable cast, led by Oscar Isaac as Nick/Dante. He also snagged a cameo from Al Pacino and a supporting actor appearance by Martin Scorsese in an Old Testament beard and wig, spouting metaphysical nonsense. John Malkovich is the heist’s ringleader and Jason Momoa is the man with a claim to the manuscript.

Seen at the 2026 Tribeca Festival. Rated ½⭐️ for Martin Scorsese’s beard.

Call for comments on the Arch

URGENT – Public Comments Needed by June 15 about the Triumphal Arch in Washington, D.C. 

With little fanfare, a critical federal level review was initiated on Friday, June 5 for the 250-foot-tall Triumphal Arch that would be built between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery; and, remarkably, the public comment period closes on Monday, June 15. So, please submit comments right away—at the end of this article is a hot link to where comments should be submitted.

The review under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act is designed to identify how the project could cause negative impacts (or as the feds call it, adverse effects) and how to “avoid, minimize, and mitigate” those negative impacts. The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s (TCLF) recent article Why is the National Park Service Helping the Administration Evade the Law? reveals how the National Park Service (NPS) is twisting, contorting, and manipulating the Section 106 process to fast-track projects such as painting the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.

Now, NPS has hit the gas pedal on the reviews for the Triumphal Arch by compressing the public comment timeframe to a mere ten days. All of the documents concerning the proposed Arch can be found here.

In addition, as noted in TCLF’s article, organizations and individuals that are subject area experts and normally participants in the review process are currently being excluded; this includes TCLF, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, D.C. Preservation League, and others. According to the draft Programmatic Agreement (essentially a final contract): The [Arch’s construction] will be consistent with … the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes …” and other regulations.  Since TCLF’s Founding President & CEO, Charles A. Birnbaum, authored the Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes during his fifteen-year tenure (1992-2007) at NPS, it seems odd that TCLF’s request to be a “consulting party” to the review process has not been approved.

In recent comments submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission, an agency reviewing the Arch project, TCLF stated: “The proposed arch interrupts and severs key visual and spatial relationships that are integral to the Monumental Core’s design intent and its inherent symbolism.”

According to the National Park Service the present Memorial Bridge was “Symbolically … designed to show the strength of a united nation by joining a memorial on the north side of the Potomac River (the Lincoln Memorial) with one on the south (Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial). The architect [of Memorial Bridge] envisioned an elaborate sculptural program … including seated figures of the first four American presidents on the D.C. side and reclining statues of oceans and river gods on Columbia Island. The bridge itself was to have forty allegorical statues.” That entire sculptural program was eliminated by the U.S. Commission of Fine Art, another regulatory agency, as some statuary and pylons were seen as too tall in relation to the memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial is a hinge point (on a bent axis) visually connecting the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool to the east, and Arlington House. The Historic American Engineering Record report of 1988 about Arlington Memorial Bridge by historian Elizabeth Nolin noted: “As the final link in the chain of monuments which start at the Capitol building, the Arlington Memorial Bridge connects the Mall in Washington, D.C. with Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Designed to connect, both physically and symbolically, the North and the South, this bridge, as designed in the Neoclassical style, complements the other monumental buildings in Washington such as the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial.”

The Triumphal Arch would radically alter the visual and spatial relationships of a landscape listed in the National Register of Historic Places and insert a huge barrier between Arlington House and Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.

The deadline for submitting comments is Monday, June 15—do not wait. Send in your comments now.

To submit comments, NPS requires using this online form. 

 

Wednesday afternoon’s movie at the 2026 Tribeca Festival was The Leader, written and directed by Michael J. Gallagher. Due to the sensitive nature of the subject, I won’t include the poster.

The Leader is a harrowing account of the Heaven’s Gate cult, focused on its leaders, Bonnie Lu Nettles a/k/a Do (Vera Farmiga) and Marshall Hepplewhite a/k/a Ti (Tim Blake Nelson). Of the 38 followers who died at Hepplewhite’s behest in 1997, three are featured: Warren (Jim Parsons), Michelle (Grace Caroline Currey), and David (Simon Rex), all of whom stray from the cult’s teachings and suffer as a result.

Not much is said about the other cult members and why they stayed with Ti and Do to the end—Warren did not. Apparently suicide was a dealbreaker for him alone. The need for certainty is as good an explanation as any, then and now. As for the leaders, it seemed to be equal parts believing what they preached, as absurd as it was, and simple grift. Someone has to pay the rent, even when heaven is your destination and ascension is imminent.

No cars exploded in flames, to Gallagher’s credit. What you do get is buckets of fake blood (don’t ask and whatever you do, don’t look) and a completely gratuitous closeup of an operation. The audience reacted to both with disbelief and thoroughly appropriate disgust.

(one star subtracted for the blood and the footage of the operation)

There are bound to be a few stumbles on the Road to AI Utopia

From the humans at magica.ai.
 

The sound you hear

The sound you hear is the future arriving from every direction. Think of it as "Everything Everywhere All At Once" in real life. Humans at magica.ai report the news, you decide how freaked out to be.

 

Amanda Nelson's Congress update for June 1st, 2026

We’re back with this week’s whiteboard! Congress was on recess last week (you’re shocked, I know you’re shocked) but we have lots to catch up on, including:

• NDAA funding for 2027, which includes a section tying our military supply chain, research, and AI development to Israel’s

• The status of the “Protect” kids/don’t say trans bill

• Catching up on the status of the ballroom funding and the DOJ slush fund of $1.776 billion

 The first two are the things to call your reps about!

https://open.substack.com/pub/amandasmildtakes/p/congress-wants-to-tie-our-military?r=1opwqh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

AI On The March

From humans @ magica.com

AI will replace your job as soon as it learns to spell and other news from the front

In the AI universe, no one can figure out what The Plan™ is, let alone what it's going to be.

 

 

 

Source: AI Snacks newsletter from magica.com. 

Surprise, surprise! Hate speech is bustin' out all over Substack

 

What I thought was a relatively innocent comment, "Show us the proof," to the assertion that "Paul Krugman has an extremely poor track record with predictions" turned into a demand that I disclose that I am "a jew." Not satisfied to leave it there, another commenter joined in to call me a "faggot boi" based on my Substack posts.

This is the relevant section of the content guidelines: 

Hate 

Substack cannot be used to publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes. Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition.

Clearly, Substack has a serious harassment/hate speech problem. Report an issue and they promise not to let you know how it was decided. Seriously. They will not share what if any action was taken when you report a content violation. 

So, what's a content creator to do? I can tell you that this one will move all of his posts off Substack and delete his account before it turns into Twittter with subscriptions. 

ETA: I flagged the comments, Tyler from Substack replied, and I responded to his e-mail.

On Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 12:43:05 PM EDT, Substack Support <support@substack.zendesk.com> wrote:#- Please type your reply above this line -##

Hi there,
 
Tyler from Substack Standards and Enforcement here. Thanks for reaching out about this. 
 
We take all reports of violations to our Content Guidelines seriously and thoroughly evaluate them. Though we're unable to disclose specific details about actions taken with publishers on the platform, we'll be taking any steps necessary to ensure publishers adhere to Substack's Terms of Use. Thank you. 
 
Best wishes,

Tyler @ Substack

Hello there, Tyler. Thanks for getting back to me with a vague promise of action that may or not have been taken since you can't tell me what happened.

So publishers have to adhere to the Content Guidelines but comments can contain hate speech and slurs. Got it.

Frankly, I don't see why I should have to tolerate someone calling me a "faggot boi" and Substack not doing anything about it.

 

"Departures": Caught up in a bad romance

 

 

Departures is Pillion without the humor.

The theme song is “Bad Romance,” over and over. I would have walked out if I hadn’t paid for the ticket.

It’s as if your friend with self-esteem issues (Benji, Lloyd Eyre-Morgan) tells you in excruciating detail about the dead-end relationship that just ended. As he tells the story, you can spot every red flag that he ignored but he was so besotted that he just plowed right ahead. As relationships go, it wasn’t much of one, made up of eight marijuana-laced and boozed-up weekends in Amsterdam with an enigmatic 40-something hunk (Jake, David Tag), one a month. From the start, when your friend couldn’t tell if the guy was even gay and he brought a hooker to the apartment soon after they unpacked, it was clear that there was no way it could go on.To no one’s surprise it didn’t, and to your great relief it looked he found a way to get over it. In Greek drama that’s known as a deus ex machina, and here he’s named Kieran.

The usual disclaimer about the characters in the movie not resembling anyone living or dead ends the movie. Since Lloyd Eyre-Morgan is the screenwriter, co-director, and lead I have my doubts.

Finally, I have a bone to pick with New York Times film critic Chris Azzopardi. U.K. distributor Peccadillo Pictures touted Departures as a New York Times Critic’s Pick in a recent email and that made me think I needed to see the movie before it left the IFC Center. Azzopardi wrote, “A voice to watch, Eyre-Morgan wrote Departures and directed it with Neil Ely. The film balances a mordantly funny deconstruction of romance with the harsher realities of gay life: internalized homophobia, body dysmorphia, alcoholism, sexual abuse, parental expectations to be a “happy gay.” It’s a lot, maybe too much for some. Even the camerawork feels confrontational, with tight close-ups and high angles that subjugate Benji. Departures is still tender and winsome, with graphic-novel-style animation lightening the load, but is ultimately punishing in tone. It lives by a truth that might ring familiar for gay men particularly: Humor that cuts deep is a form of survival.”

First of all, there’s nothing funny, let alone “mordantly funny.” And it’s neither tender nor winsome, though it is definitely punishing. I felt undeservedly punished at many points of its 82 minutes that felt more like 102. “Humor that cuts deep is a form of survival”? Puh-leeze, Chris. If you can show me the humor, then we can discuss how it’s a form of survival.

After that review, Chris Azzopardi joins The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody as a critic to ignore. Read the full review here (gift link): ‘Departures’ Review: Finding Levity Amid the Pain.

Richard Brody, the misguided film critic

It's as useful to find a critic with whom you disagree as to find one you agree with, and I've found a very useful critic: The New Yorker's film critic, Richard Brody. Here's what he said about Marty Supreme and Rear Window in his review of Wuthering Heights.

Marty Supreme is driven by romance, and the thinness of its central couple’s relationship—the one that begins and ends the movie—is compensated for by its thematic implication of a bond of ineffable absoluteness, a passion beyond words. In this regard, Marty Supreme, set in 1952, reminds me of one of that era’s great movies, Rear Window, in which Alfred Hitchcock offers, in a monologue spoken by the superb character actress Thelma Ritter, a definitive credo of transcendentally carnal love. But, Marty Supreme, true to its title and its eponymous character, isn’t a women’s picture; the romance, sharply conceived though it is, is ultimately little more than a series of obstacles on the protagonist’s athletically existential journey.

First, if you've seen Marty Supreme you know it's not a romance, it's not driven by romance, there's no ineffable passion, and what he calls "the central couple" is nothing of the kind. Marty has no feelings for Rachel when they meet in the shoe store, he has nothing to do with her for eight or nine months, and the tears he sheds in the final shot are more likely to be for his lost career as a ping pong champion than newfound love for his son. And second, the "monologue" from Rear Window is not a monologue; it's part of a conversation between Stella (Thelma Ritter) and Jeff (James Stewart) in which she tells him to marry Lisa (Grace Kelly) because she's clearly in love with him. "Carnal love" is an unbearably high-falutin' description of what she's saying. (I've posted the dialogue from a version of the script in the comments.)

Brody said that Wuthering Heights represents a welcome return to romantic movies, though it's news to me that they ever left. He's constructed a thesis about the rebirth of romance, done his damnedest to maneuver Wuthering Heights into it, and it doesn't fit.

 

Whoever doesn't love Thelma Ritter better leave now. You're dead to me. This is the dialogue from Rear Window that Brody called a monologue.

STELLA: Look, Mr. Jefferies. I'm not educated. I'm not even sophisticated. But I can tell you this — when a man and a woman see each other, and like each other -- they should come together — wham! like two taxis on Broadway. Not sit around studying each other like specimens in a bottle.

JEFF: There's an intelligent approach to marriage.

STELLA: Intelligence! Nothing has caused the human race more trouble. Modern marriage!

JEFF: We've progressed emotionally in —

STELLA: Baloney! Once, it was see somebody, get excited, get married — Now, it's read books, fence with four-syllable words, psychoanalyze each other until you can't tell a petting party from a civil service exam.

JEFF: People have different emotional levels that —

STELLA: Ask for trouble and you'll get it. Why, there's a good boy in my neighborhood who went with a nice girl from across the street for three years. Then he refused to marry her. Why? Because she only scored 61 on a Look magazine marriage quiz! When I married Myles we were both maladjusted misfits. We still are. And we've loved every minute of it. 

JEFF: That's fine, Stella. Now would you make me a sandwich?

STELLA: Okay — but I'm going to spread some common sense on the bread. Lisa Fremont's loaded to her fingertips with love for you. I'll give you two words of advice. Marry her.

JEFF: She pay you much?

 

 

‘Hamnet,’ starring Jessie Buckley, directed by Chloé Zhao

 ‘Best picture’ Oscar contender saves the best for last

 

Hamnet, though its title may suggest otherwise, is very much Agnes Shakespeare’s (Jessie Buckley) movie, supported by Paul Mescal as Will and the astonishingly precocious Jacobi Jupe as the titular Hamnet. As for what it’s about, think “Scenes from a 17th-century Marriage” meets “Front Row at Hamlet“ and “Front Row at Hamlet“ takes the prize. The “Scenes...” scenes are far less involving, despite the trials and sorrows of the Shakespeares’ marriage.

This may be a minority opinion, but it seemed to me that the pacing of the opening two-thirds was off. Director Chloé Zhao is too methodical in setting up how Will and Agnes meet cute, marry and start a family. Too much of the film’s two-hour-plus running time is devoted to undramatic domestic interaction. Then boom! Out of nowhere Agnes is fighting the plague with herbs and cold compresses. Take away the period setting and it could be about a businessman who spends too much time at the office while his wife is raising the family in the suburbs. Instead, you have William Shakespeare living in London while he establishes himself as a playwright.

After the Elizabethan equivalent of a kitchen-sink play, the action moves from Stratford-on-Avon to London and the dramatic and emotional high point of the film. Agnes learns that Will’s company will premiere a play named after their son, and sets out for the first performance of Hamlet at the Globe, accompanied by her brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn). There, amidst the groundlings, she sees for apparently the first time what her husband is capable of. And possibly for the first time we see how Shakespeare has taken his grief and put it into the play, a play we thought we knew and understood.

A great part of the emotional impact of the final section comes from Noah Jupe’s understated performance of the excerpts from Hamlet that end the movie. Another standout is Joe Alwyn as Bartholomew. He was always welcome for the gravity and empathy he brought to the scenes he was in. They add ½⭐️ to the Letterboxd star score.

Hamnet is nominated for Academy Awards in the following categories: Motion Picture of the Year, Achievement in Directing, Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Production Design, Costume Design, and Casting. It won Golden Globes for Motion Picture - Drama and Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama for Jessie Buckley.

 

"What could possibly go wrong?"

 Aside from "everything," of course

I rarely disagree with Heather Cox Richardson but I’d say blunders are guaranteed. From what we’ve seen so far from the regime, I’m quite comfortable saying that “Blunders ‘R’ Us” describes their M.O.

Source: Heather Cox Richardson, “Notes from an American,” 1/3/2026

https://open.substack.com/.../heather.../p/january-3-2026...

 

The regime is inspired by Hollywood

 Nothing whatever to do with the Epstein Files     

I knew we’d seen this movie before. By the way, in case you might think so for some odd reason, it has nothing to do with the Epstein Files. You couldn't be more wrong.