It's a good day to do nothing

chevrolet chevelle ss - road atlanta formula drift layout - assetto corsa

itd be so funny if tucker carlson got boomed coming out the studio after his last episode

last night's movie was The Long Goodbye (1973)! and boy, i've been waiting for this one. a comedic film noir satire? by Robert Altman? the only other previous experience i've had with Phillip Marlowe is the incredible and byzantine The Big Sleep so i thought it was going to be that basically but with jokes? nope! turns out i was in for an incredible deconstruction and analysis of film noir itself with all of it's elements splayed out for a detached and nihilistic New Hollywood of the 1970's to have a ton of fun with it. on top of this, The Long Goodbye is also a fantastic film noir in and of itself! Elliot Gould's portrayal of the famous gumshoe is just incredible. Gould plays him as just a total schlub, yet one with a moral core who despite looking like he dosen't shower and constantly smoking, never takes his eye off of what matters. he's also just unbelievably funny. seriously, the humor in this movie approaches Naked Gun levels at times though it's often more subdued then just goofy sight gags. the opening with Marlowe trying to feed his VERY HUNGRY cat who only wants the expensive cat food is unbelievably good. the entire film also movies the story from the imagery and morality of 50's Hayes Code LA to a hazy, dream-like version of LA that feels less like a city and more like a form of decadent purgatory with everything feeling hot and out of focus. nothing quite makes sense in the LA of The Long Goodbye and while it's played for laughs intentionally, there's a quiet discomfort in everything visually that i really enjoyed. before writing this, i looked up production notes and one of the ways they really messed with things for the better is how they wrote Marlowe as if he had been asleep for the past twenty years and called him Rip van Marlowe, which they 100% nailed. it's not like full blown surrealism, but there are enough strange characters like the hippie commune that Marlowe lives next to that things just feel Off enough that characters like the strange Dr. Verringer (Henry Gibson) simultaneously feel like they fit in while also giving off a feeling of "no, wait, what the fuck?". i also adore the way the movie uses music, especially with the title song becoming a leitmotif that is composed in so many different ways and styles yet never stops feeling forlorn and strange. as previously stated, i've never really read any of Raymond Chandler's novels but i did see that the movie differs drastically from the book in ways that really pissed people off at the time (to say nothing of how iconoclastic Gould's Marlowe was!) but the setup is that Marlowe is wakened from his sleep by his very loud cat, requiring him to go to the supermarket to get the only cat food the cat likes. Marlowe can't find the food and after trying to trick the cat to eat the other cat food by putting it into the tin of the food he likes, the cat leaves. while this is happening, his old friend Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton) shows up wearing gloves and with deep scratches on his face and with a request to Marlowe to take him to Tijuana, no questions asked. Marlowe does what he is asked and is rewarded by two detectives interrogating him in the morning, asking him about his whereabouts last night. Marlowe, of course, decides to mess with them and gets hauled in as a result before being told that Terry brutally killed his wife Sylvia. this breaks Marlowe's defenses and his antics cease as he tries to process this before being told after a few days in prison that the case is officially closed as there are no more leads since Terry was found dead in Mexico. Marlowe, however, cannot accept these facts as reality and begins his own investigation. gumshoe hijinks follow. i adored this movie. this is one of those classics of 70's cinema that really feels laser-focused in its vision and dedicated to expanding the art form after decades of living under the stifling Hayes Code. it's a crime that the movie wasen't liked in its time, as now it's a bonafide classic. and hey, Arnold Schwarzenegger shows up as an extra in the final act!