American Gigolo

There was a time when I was a newspaper editor that I forgot I wasn’t part of the inner circle. I was a “hanger on,” as Richard Gere’s character is described in “American Gigolo” (1980). That’s probably a gentle way of describing Gere’s whore and a rough way of describing me, or maybe not. Fact is, we were highly skilled at what we did, but disposable. Thankfully, I was never framed for murder. (Unfortunately, I never scored with Lauren Hutton.) It’s not what you know. It’s not who you know. It’s what you know about who you know that matters.

Mother’s Day

Garry Marshall died a few months after the release of “Mother’s Day” (2016) and I can assure you, he took no sitcom-style plot conventions with him to the grave. They’re all here: the younger and sexier second wife, the wacky parents, the sassy black friend, the wedding scene, the hospital scene, the graveyard scene. He did everything but have Fonzie jump a shark again. But that was Marshall’s gift. He could take boilerplate romantic comedy material and pan fry it in enough schmaltz to clog an artery, yet it would always come out satisfying (not great, satisfying). It’s cinematic comfort food.